The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

EDITORIALS

Cow Bill rolls back
Consultations should have come earlier

The government added one more item to its long rollback list when it shelved plans for introduction of a Bill for banning cow slaughter in the country. It was quite a climbdown so soon after the victory in the no-confidence motion. Ironically, the most strident opposition to the Bill came from the NDA partners and supporters themselves. Almost all the crucial allies like the TDP, the DMK, the JD(U) and the PMK went against the BJP on the cow slaughter ban issue because, one, it was not part of the NDA agenda and, two, they were not consulted before the introduction of the Bill. And to cap it all, it happened to be a state subject. Only now has the government decided to convene an all-party meeting with a view to evolving a consensus. It is really odd that the government went ahead with the Bill despite knowing full well that it did not have the support of the allies and many states were always opposed to it. Even the Meghalaya unit of the BJP had pleaded that the state should be exempted from the ban.

So what prompted the government to bring forth the Prevention of Cruelty to Cows Bill, 2003? Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj gave the game away when she said that “we did not expect allies to question the Bill at the introductory stage; all knew that the Bill would get sent to the standing committee where different parties’ objections could be voiced”. That shows that the Bill was intended only to appease the Sangh Parivar and to woo BJP voters in the four northern states going to the polls later this year. Now the BJP can conveniently say that it is very much serious about banning cow slaughter but the other parties are blocking the move.

The BJP has particularly cornered the Congress which will now be forced to take a clear stand. There are differences in the party over the issue. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh favours it, whereas Kerala Chief Minister A.K. Antony holds an opposite view. Party spokesman Jaipal Reddy has been forced to ride two boats. But the cow-slaughter issue is too serious to be used for settling political scores. There is an economic angle also. Northeastern states and some other states have a large section of population with different eating habits. Forcing them to change these will be imprudent. The matter should best be left to individual states, especially since it happens to be a state subject in the first place.

The cola controversy deepens
JPC has work to do

THE cola controversy needs to be understood in a cool manner without raising emotions and the level of rhetoric. The consumer need not get carried away by noises emanating from Parliament and confusing research and media reports. In simple terms, the issue boils down to this: there are pesticide residues in most soft drink brands, more than the permissible level, if we judge them by the European Union standards. But if the existing Indian norms are applied, most of them meet these standards. The Centre for Science and Environment, whose report led to the present controversy, has judged the soft drinks on the basis of the European Union standards. Interestingly, last month the government prescribed the European norms for pesticide residues in packaged drinking water.

The government has mishandled the issue. There is not much disagreement between the tests conducted by the two government laboratories and the one by the Centre for Science and Environment. Although expressing concern at the government statement and asking for a detailed report, Ms Sunita Narain, Director of the CSE, claims the CSE report stands vindicated by a part of Health Minister Sushma Swaraj’s statement in the Lok Sabha on Thursday that the tests conducted by two government laboratories had found that nine of the 12 soft drink brands contained pesticide residues above the European Union norms. Coca-Cola and PepsiCo officials also hail the government statement that all the 12 soft drink brands were found to meet the existing Indian norms.

Many MPs are not convinced by the ministerial statement and have demanded an inquiry by a joint parliamentary committee. There are MPs who are ideologically against MNCs operating in the country. There are others who would like the European standards to be applied in India. A JPC report will only delay a solution to the problem and keep the consumer and the two multinationals in suspense. All that Parliament needs to discuss and decide is whether to raise the Indian norms on pesticide residues to the European levels. There is need for a reliable regulator to keep check on the quality of what Indians eat and drink — something like a Food and Drug Administrator. There is also the wider issue that this controversy has brought to the spotlight: how to save the underground water and food sources from an indiscriminate use of pesticides and fertilisers. The simple test for decision should be the health of the citizen.

The great Taj scandal
More needs to be known

WHEN the media began asking uncomfortable questions about the Taj corridor project a few months ago there was only circumstantial evidence about the project being a money-making racket and an example of abuse of authority. The stated objective of improving the global rating of the Taj Mahal as a tourist destination by creating a corridor consisting of a multi-storied shopping plaza was hogwash. After the Supreme Court's latest directive to the CBI the corruption angle is no longer a matter of speculation. The interim report that the CBI submitted to the apex court evidently contained enough evidence of wrong-doing for the court to order a thorough questioning of individual officers associated with what can now be officially called the Taj Heritage Corridor scam. The officials who were involved in the decision-making process and those who allegedly ordered the release of Rs 17 crore have been given the status of suspects by the highest court of the land.

Whether the second round of inquiry of the role and personal assets of individual officers will lead the CBI to their political masters is not clear. Wise politicians rarely get caught. The several storms that the Chief Minister has weathered after manipulating the BJP into letting her lead a coalition government suggests that she is nobody's fool. She must have got wind of the contents of the interim report that the CBI presented to the apex court. Mr R. K. Sharma, who was the Environment Secretary when the National Projects Construction Corporation started work on the controversial project, was made the sacrificial lamb by Ms Mayawati even before the interim report was presented to the Supreme Court. The CBI has now been asked to go after the big fish and report the outcome to the court by September 11. Ms Mayawati's urgent confabulations with senior officers in the administration following the Supreme Court's directive provided a glimpse of the state of nervousness at various levels in the corridors of power in Lucknow! Her present tenure as Chief Minister will, perhaps, be remembered if for nothing else than the great Taj scandal that became her government's lasting contribution to national memory.

Thought for the day

The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

— W.B. Yeats

EDITOR'S COLUMN

Consensus, not confrontation
Keep some issues above petty politics
by H. K. Dua

NUMBERS did not matter in the debate on the no-confidence motion in the Lok Sabha earlier in the week. It was an election-year exercise full of noise, acrimony and some theatre. What stood out in the debate was the contrasting pictures the Prime Minister and his challenger, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, presented.

Given his long experience, parliamentary skill and a sense of humour, he did not have to make much effort to defend his government from the opposition attack. He spoke from the high pedestal, almost avuncular in tone, and skirted many questions he had carefully left to his juniors to answer.

Mrs Sonia Gandhi, on the other hand, was shrill and unusually strident. This was her first no-confidence motion against the NDA government. Her manner of speaking, the language she employed, the finger-pointing she liberally indulged in, were all aimed at making the point that she could not be taken lightly. Apparently, her advisers had worked out that an aggressive approach was necessary to make it clear that she could no longer be treated as a neophyte. A confrontationist posture had obviously been designed for projecting Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s persona with an eye on the next year’s parliamentary election.

Mr Vajpayee on his part adopted a sober posture, defended Mr George Fernandes and made it plain that he did not like the charge that his government had mortgaged nation’s foreign policy to the strategic interests of other powers.

Mr Vajpayee was clearly of the view that whatever the differences on domestic issues, there should always be a consensus on the nation’s foreign policy. He maintained that he had not bowed to the United States and had not sent troops to Iraq. The stand on troops for Iraq had been evolved after discussions with the opposition parties. He suggested, however, that the government of the day should have the freedom to make use of whatever openings that become available in a changing world situation. There could, however, be no question of India’s interests being pawned to another’s, meaning the United States. While the government ought to follow the national consensus on foreign policy, the Opposition should not scuttle it by attributing motives to it.

Mr Vajpayee spent time on the consensus theme, although he underscored its usefulness only in the foreign policy arena. Mr Vajpayee could have equally stressed the importance of consensus in the domestic sphere.

Essentially, Mr Vajpayee is a consensus man and on many an occasion in the past, he has pleaded for a consensus on issues, national and foreign.

Even when a broad consensus prevails, there can be differences on vital issues in a democratic country. Dissent is natural for democracy, which is always interesting, while authoritarian regimes are keen to enforce conformity, which by its nature is dull. Political parties adopt different positions on important issues, but consensus on some basic issues is necessary for smooth running of the democratic system.

The Supreme Court has ordained that the basic structure of the Constitution cannot be altered by Parliament. It has deliberately avoided defining what exactly is the basic structure of the Constitution, hoping that the concepts underlining it will become too sacred for an irresponsible executive or Parliament to play with.

Like the basic structure of the Constitution, which cannot be altered, there has to be an unwritten understanding among the political parties on some basic issues and it ought not be disturbed by them irrespective of who is in the government and who is sitting in the opposition.

The nation has generally succeeded in the past in working out a consensus, almost unity, at a time of a national crisis—the Chinese aggression in 1962, the wars with Pakistan in 1965 and 1971 and on many other occasions. The Congress also sent Mr Vajpayee—the leader of the opposition—to the UN Human Rights Commission to represent India in Geneva.

Actually, it is easier to evolve a national consensus on foreign policy than on issues at home. It is more so when the country is vast and its diversities at times forbidding.

A serious lack of consensus, which was exploited by the British Raj, led to Partition of the country. Religion and caste have divided every village. A glut of languages which— rightly considered—are an asset, but not long after Independence turned out to be fairly divisive in the fifties. The leadership showed enough maturity and states were organised on the basis of language, much to the satisfaction of the people. The nation has survived mainly because of its resilient character and the consensual bent of mind it is inherently endowed with.

Also, it is the unwritten and unspoken consensus that has kept the country on the democratic path it chose after Independence. Actually, a consensual approach and democracy go hand in hand. Snapping the relationship between the two can lead to both instability and authoritarianism.

India has since Independence gone through risky experiments that tore the national consensus apart. These could have been avoided, but for the short-sightedness of the politicians caught in power games. Indira Gandhi’s imposition of her Emergency Raj in the summer of 1975 was one such decision. The other was the decision of the Sangh Parivar to lead the Rath Yatra which ultimately led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December, 1992.

Both were traumatic experiences for the country which ought to have remained focussed on the nation-building tasks. Both these decisions brought about a rupture in the prevailing consensus that was sustaining the survival of democracy and hope.

The blows on the prevailing consensus were serious. Indira Gandhi’s emergency is still rankling those who were thrown into the jails or the citizen who saw how a wilful and insecure ruler could throw all democratic norms to the winds just to satisfy her and her family’s craving for enjoying absolute power. When the nation had hardly recovered from the Emergency came the destruction of the Babri Masjid—a wanton act that defied all that was best in the Indian tradition. The wounds it inflicted on an already divided society are still to be healed.

Not all is lost yet. The situation can still be retrieved. This nation has often in the past pulled back from confrontation and carried on with its leisurely way. Although time is running out, efforts to resolve the Babri Masjid-Temple dispute must not be given up.

Mr Vajpayee is known to be keen on resolving the Ayodhya issue. He has made behind-the-scene attempts to find an amicable solution to the dispute. His problem is not with the opposition parties, but members of his own Sangh Parivar like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal. These elements believe in confrontation and not in consensus; in strife not in stability in the country.

Mr Vajpayee’s challenge, in effect, is to first evolve a consensus within his own Parivar and bring round the hawks who, because of their obsessions, are out to scuttle much that needs to be preserved and nourished.

A national consensus has always come under strain in an election year, which sees political temperatures rise. The test of Mr Vajpayee’s leadership will be not merely to win elections for the BJP or the NDA and get a mandate for another term, but how to evolve an area of national consensus free from the vagaries of election campaigns and petty politicking. An initiative for a national consensus must come from him and other parties should respond without serious reservations.

MIDDLE

Children’s mores
by Priyanka Singh

IT was a particularly muggy afternoon that I took my three-year-old daughter to a toy store situated a long distance away from our place of residence to keep a promise that was long overdue. Since the huge basement store was devoid of airconditioners and the slow-running fans were not making things any easier, I hurriedly wanted to get things over with.

I gently prodded my daughter to have her pick of toys. I watched her as she delightfully moved across the store, taking in all that it had to offer, her eyes lingering on colourful objects and toys that drew her fancy.

My patience began to dwindle as she moved aimlessly and seemed to take forever to select a toy. With a sense of purpose I walked up to her and firmly took her by the arm to where I thought decision-making would not be such an onerous task for her.

There were huge stacks of neatly arranged modern-day gizmos with sensors and robots. If she was enthusiastic, it did not show. Weary, I picked up an any-kid-would-howl-for sturdy jeep with a remote control and told her she should have it. She shook her head, unimpressed. Not the one to give up easily, I asked the sales guy to operate it for her. All that she said after seeing the zooming, somersaulting jeep was, “it is not nice.”

Exasperated, I let her wander off again. My disappointment grew as she walked past the soft toy corner, the dolls’ corner and also the artillery and “action man” corner. Suddenly, I missed my husband who was sensible enough not to accompany us. Something was not quite right, I thought. Little children don’t behave that way. They rave and rant and point randomly at all the toys they want. They just don’t remain unaffected by all the goodies surrounding them.

Her excitement and my relief knew no bounds when she finally spotted what she wanted — an ordinary set of sketchpens and a jigsaw puzzle!

A little irritated, I told her there were plenty of those lying in every nook of the house. She clung to them and I gave up but not before asking her if she was sure she didn’t want anything else. She refused.

Driving back home, I was still not convinced. I wanted to justify the visit to the store and asked her for the nth time if that was all she wanted. With unmatched innocence, she smiled and said enthusiastically, “I have so many colour pens!” I stroked her head for the lesson she taught me. Your needs are only as great as you make them to be. If you are open to life there are many lessons to be learnt at every step — I am learning mine.

IN FOCUS

State of universities — 5
The virus of casteism causes HAU’s deterioration
The restructuring committee’s recommendations remain unimplemented
by P.P.S. Gill

A view of Fletcher Bhavan: HAU owes much of its present infrastructure to its founder Vice-Chancellor, Mr A L Fletcher.

DESPITE the pre-fix “Chaudhary Charan Singh”, it is still referred to as HAU—Haryana Agricultural University.

Prior to the establishment of HAU in February 1970, there existed only the College of Veterinary Sciences, as the Hisar campus of Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana. After partition, this college, established at Lahore in 1882, was shifted straight here, unlike the Lyallpur-based College of Agriculture that was moved to Amritsar before it finally found a permanent home at PAU in 1962.

Today HAU has on its sprawling, unkempt campus six colleges — Agriculture, Agricultural Engineering and Technology, Veterinary Sciences, Animal Sciences, Basic Sciences and Humanities and Home Science. There is also a College of Agriculture at Kaul in Kaithal district. HAU owes much of its present infrastructure and facilities to its founder Vice-Chancellor, Mr A L Fletcher.

It may be difficult to determine when, but there is a consensus that deterioration has set in. What is responsible for HAU’s deterioration is the virus of casteism, the Jat vs non-Jat syndrome. Bitterness, bordering on hatred against non-Haryanvis, has continued to persist since 1966; such is the mindset of people here. Add to this the financial crunch.

These deeply ingrained viruses have provided a culture for politics to grow and multiply. Today, primarily the ‘’caste virus’’ has become endemic, infecting both the academic and administrative systems of the university. One can almost smell the putrid odour and sense the feeling of suffocation that pervades the campus.

Talking in hushed tones and in confidence, faculty members admit that even the elections to the HAU Teachers’ Association are contested on caste lines. Also, the percentage of the faculty earnestly engaged in pursuing the university mandate in teaching or research or extension is barely 10. And this 10 per cent faculty is ‘’dedicated’’ either due to an individual’s work temperament or career consciousness or to gain recognition. The politicisation of the university has led to nepotism and favouritism, where merit has been given a decent burial.

The ‘’committed promotions’’ and ‘’rotation of headship’’ were the other two factors responsible for not only precipitating the situation but also introducing the culture of ad hoc functioning. The young scientists and research workers have no motivation or commitment. There is no accountability of the non-workers.

It is widely believed that due to ‘’rightsizing’’ — when teachers retire, their posts are abolished — the university would face a severe vacuum at the top by 2005-06.

Political pressure

So supple have been the successive HAU Vice-Chancellors that they easily succumbed to political pressures on recruitment, appointments, promotions or whenever students held out any threats. In fact, the students virtually started dictating to the teachers when to postpone or conduct an examination. Absenteeism among students became a rule rather than an exception. And the powers-that-be invariably condoned the shortage of attendance, much to the chagrin of teachers. The cumulative effect of this has been a complete erosion of discipline over the years.

Today as if internal troubles were not enough, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has suspended all grants, amounting to Rs 18 crore a year, to the university. This has not only adversely affected research projects but also scholarships to about 25 students studying here from outside the state. The suspension follows certain ‘’irregularities’’ committed by the university when it decided to implement the “career advancement scheme’’ initiated by the ICAR, which had put the rider that it was subject to guidelines of the University Grants Commission.

What happened at HAU was that the scheme was hurriedly got approved from the university’s Board of Directors and implemented from January 1, 1996. Whereas, as per the UGC guidelines, the scheme was to be effective from July 27, 1998. This haste, insiders reveal, was shown by the previous Vice-Chancellor, as his son was one of the beneficiaries. He ‘’influenced’’ HUTA to raise this demand. The ICAR did not take kindly to this hasty step and thus suspended all grants, till the money paid was recovered from the 91 faculty members.

Even as this crisis remains unresolved, the Veterinary Council of India has thrown a spanner. It has asked the university to ensure that the College of Veterinary Sciences has all 17 ‘’mandatory’’ departments in its fold. This is not so at present as some departments are in the next-door College of Animal Sciences. Unless some key departments are shifted from there, the Veterinary College may be de-recognised by the council. There is lot of commotion in the faculty of the two colleges. So interesting is the situation that the undergraduate veterinary students now go to the College of Animal Sciences for certain courses!

Likewise, the College of Home Science is facing a problem of intake of students at the undergraduate level. In Haryana, parents are still conservative when it comes to educating the girl child. Also, job opportunities after doing B.Sc. are not many. Though the university has an entrance test for admission and an external examination system, several admission-related problems persist. To overcome the admission blues, the College of Home Science even offers Diploma and Certificate courses to attract students.

On the contrary, there is heavy rush for Veterinary College undergraduate courses. The most popular course is not B.V.Sc, but Diploma in Veterinary Livestock Development for which the minimum qualification is matriculation with 70 per cent marks. Against just 50 seats in this diploma course, the applicants this year were over 2,400.

Keeping in view the in-house academic and administrative problems that beset HAU, a Restructuring Committee was constituted to suggest ways to ‘’slim’’ the university, as over the past three decades its hierarchical ratio of the teaching and non-teaching staff had changed to the determent of the university’s functional efficiency with almost 85 per cent of its budget going into the salaries.

Due to lopsided policies, its own and of the state government, HAU faces a crisis of leadership as well as of ‘’quality’’, says the report. It is past one year, but none of its recommendations have been implemented so far. These included assimilation and elimination of courses, classes, departments and merger of colleges, setting up of Schools of Teaching and Research or Centres of Excellence, reassessment of teachers’ load, restructuring the externally funded and the state’s plan and non-plan research schemes, making the schemes time-bound, need-based, site-specific and farmer-centric, keeping in view the state and national interests in view in terms of farmers’ incomes, economies, food security and food nutrition.

The committee had observed that with more than 80 per cent of the research schemes located on the Hisar campus, full justification was not being done to the needs and problems of the identified state agro-climatic zones.

As in the case of Colleges of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, the committee had also suggested merger of the departments in Colleges of Agriculture and Basic Sciences and Humanities and also that the postgraduate courses in the College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology be closed.

If it had favoured abolishing the offices of Dean, Post-Graduate Studies and the Controller of Examinations, it also suggested merger of the Directorates of Students’ Welfare and Students’ Counselling and Placement. It suggested that the Directorate of Farms be trifurcated into research, fodder production and seed production farms. Several suggestions in respect of landscaping, information and publicity, publications, financial management too have been made to economise on the meagre budget. It desired that teaching staff strength be brought down to 850 from the sanctioned strength of 1,328.

Likewise, reduction in the non-teaching staff strength to 450 against the present 1,000, through automation and computerisation of management systems, which would need Rs 50 crore, as one-time sanction. And against 3,500-odd sanctioned Class III and IV posts, there should be only 1,500-odd posts.

HAU’s field stations include Regional Research Stations and 18 Krishi Viyan Kendras, which have a team of specialists depending on the needs of a district. All these centres have adequate land, besides the additional 4,000 acres that HAU has got from the state for its Ram Dhan Seed Farm. The committee has recommended that land attached to Gurgaon, Rohtak and Ambala be re-examined.

Winds of change

Time, it seems, has come for winds of change to blow. One can feel the straws of change in the wind with the appointment of Mr M K Miglani, as the 14th Vice-Chancellor. He took over on July 1, after a distinguished career of 35 years as an IAS officer. But his academic qualifications also catapulted him to this coveted position. He is B.Sc in Agriculture from PAU where he topped the 1962 batch and M.Sc in Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry from IARI, New Delhi, where again he topped in 1964.

Mr Miglani is all set to realign the academics and administrative systems at HAU. Since he is neither an outsider nor an insider, which goes to his advantage, he may, however, find it difficult to rig into the casteist crust of HAU, which is his immediate concern. Mr Miglani told me that his priority was to make teaching, research and extension ‘’farmer-centric, weed out duplicity or multiplicity in research, integrate agricultural university with agricultural administration (ICAR and political executive in Chandigarh) and farmers, and introduce cost-effective technologies for the benefit of small and medium farmers’’.

His agenda also includes, ‘’making each faculty member, irrespective of his or her discipline, familiar with the problems of farmers, farming systems and cropping patterns, personally attend seminars by postgraduate students and ensure their research thesis synopsis were in tune with the changing times. All work at HAU has to be focused and research projects made time-bound and not kept open-ended’’.

Mr Miglani has started Monday reviews of the work being done by sitting with all Deans and Directors, where time-bound assignments are discussed and remedies to problems, if any, discussed ensuring net-working.

This open-house monitoring and evaluation system adopted by him has put all heads on their toes. His firm stand not to succumb to students’ pressure on the holding of examinations at their sweet will and not to condone their shortage in attendance has already sent a clear signal across the colleges, as also his instructions on punctuality.

HAU, notwithstanding its ailments, has had the distinction of producing as many as 17 Vice-Chancellors, besides several other scientists, who have held important positions at the national level. It is the recipient of the ICAR ‘’Best Institution Award—1996’’ and over 80 faculty members have bagged national awards and honours.

HAU scientists are engaged in 321 diverse projects. So far nearly 200 high yielding crop varieties have been released, besides introducing new technologies. Its Agricultural Technology Information Centre with toll-free telephone help-line is unique, so is its Academy of Agricultural Research and Education Management.