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ON RECORD Netas hijack Tohra’s Bhog ceremony |
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PROFILE COMMENTS UNKEMPT DIVERSITIES—DELHI
LETTER
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ON RECORD
Today, in Punjab, the lack of political and administrative cohesiveness has caused "repulsion" in the people against the government. Thus, elections are used to indulge in competitive politics or corner credit for even mundane things like pavement of a city or village street or sinking of a tubewell for drinking water. One wonders what else are political governments supposed to do? In fact, people only desire basic amenities, transparent and honest governance and a hassle-free life while dealing with the administration. Against this background, Leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Assembly and President of the Shiromani Akali Dal Parkash Singh Badal, in an exclusive interview to The Tribune, went on record on what needed to be done to restore a semblance of governance, rebuild people’s confidence in the government, resuscitate the economy and on the possibility of networking between the Congress and Akalis on a common minimum agenda. The interview was held in Bariwala, a ramshackle village in Muktsar district, close to Sarai Nangal village, home of former Chief Minister Harcharan Singh Brar, whose daughter-in-law, Karan, is contesting against Badal’s son, Sukhbir. Excerpts: Q: How is the ensuing election different from that of 1999? A: There is repulsion against the state government in all sections of society. When ongoing schemes like Shagun or pensions are withdrawn, farmers are denied payment of their dues for sugarcane or promised bonus on paddy, roads remain unrepaired, exorbitant user charges are levied, what do you expect people to do? Capt. Amarinder Singh has pushed the state into anarchy with his agenda of vindictive politics. Q: As the Leader of the Opposition, what role can you play to checkmate this plunge into anarchy? A: If you remember, I had stated on the floor of the Vidhan Sabha that we will extend full cooperation and that there had to be political networking in the state’s interests. Punjab needs political conciliation, not confrontation. Q: How relevant are the election manifestoes? Would your party sit across with the Congress and draw up a roadmap for holistic economic development of Punjab or agree on a common minimum agenda, whoever comes to power? A: Election manifestoes are just rituals. There can be a common minimum agenda or action programme. But the Chief Minister is unwilling to even listen to any sane advise. He has only one agenda — political vendetta against politicians. Q: Despite vitiated political atmosphere, will your party still do something about Punjab? A: Yes, the SAD is a partner in the NDA Government, which, in turn, has done so much for Punjab in the past five years that no Congress government at the Centre has ever done. In fact, the Congress government always gave stepmotherly treatment to the state in all spheres, political, economic, social, religious etc. The Congress was responsible for the Operation Bluestar at the Golden Temple and anti-Sikh riots in 1984. It was reticent in giving financial help for hydro-power projects like the Thein Dam or a special economic package. Betrayal of Punjab on river water and territorial issues is yet another example of the Congress treatment to Punjab. On the other hand, even projects like the Bathinda oil refinery are being scuttled by Capt. Amarinder Singh. In our own way, we have always done our bit for the state and the people. Q: The Chief Minister blames your government for the bankruptcy in Punjab? A: Can any government leave the treasury empty, as is being repeatedly made out? It is absolutely wrong to say that in the last financial year we had followed the scorched earth policy. The fact is, this government has failed to manage the state finances. Secondly, the present financial situation is the cumulative effect of decade of terrorism. Congress ministers seldom took the trouble to visit Delhi and meet their counterparts or involve Punjab officers posted there or study how the money available under various schemes could be brought for development. Blaming us comes naturally to the Chief Minister, who has failed the state in just two years. Q: How do you view the presence of BSP candidates in Lok Sabha constituencies? A: Division of votes will benefit SAD-BJP candidates. Q: Will the death of Gurcharan Singh Tohra be a factor in these elections? A: Yes. It is unfortunate that I have lost a friend. But his spirit, his ideology, his mission will remain forever. Definitely, his absence will be felt and as a tribute to him people will vote for SAD-BJP candidates. Tohra sahib was always anti-Congress and voters know this well. Q: What factor would motivate the voter and for whom? A: National issues have their own place besides local issues. In this election, when national prestige is looking up in the comity of nations and the Congress has been thoroughly exposed, people will vote for Atal Bihari Vajpayee, not Sonia Gandhi. People know of the BJP-led NDA government’s performance in the past five years. It had been more meaningful than 50 years of the Congress rule. Opening up of the border with Pakistan itself is a big factor in Punjab that is well understood by the voters, who will stand to benefit. Q: Is corruption still a poll issue? A:
Yes, very much. I am also for rooting out corruption, which is a
burning issue today. But its eradication must be fair, equitable,
judicious and applicable to all, not one that smacks of vengeance and
malice. We will expose the wheeling-dealing in the auction of liquor
shops to the tune of Rs 200 crore, recruitment of DSPs in the police,
the Intranet "hawala" connections of the Chief Minister and
his son etc. Corruption is rampart in this government. Ordinary people
have lost faith in the Congress. In Punjab, there is neither
government nor governance nor rule of law nor order. There is even no
clear demarcation between electoral politics and governance. |
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Netas hijack Tohra’s
Bhog ceremony THE speeches have been made. The leaders have long departed. And another Panth Rattan has been duly installed in the Sikh and Akali history. Speakers who swore that they would be unable to live without Tohra sahib quickly left the venue for their next appointment. The normal business should not be affected. It’s election time. Tohra’s Bhog ceremony brings into sharp focus the need for propriety and minimum decorum that we should observe as enlightened citizens. Having witnessed the proceedings at Tohra’s village, the moments of quiet sobriety and crass opportunism all mixed into one, we Sikhs and other Punjabis did a bit of straight talking. The organisers, Manjit Singh Calcutta, Sukhdev Singh Bhaur and Mahesh Inder Singh Grewal, deserve bouquets for having taken care of over a lakh of people with a benign covering over their heads and glasses of cool water. The meticulous spaces for parking vehicles, the urinals and the toilets on one side, duly marked, and the dozens of langars dotting the freshly cut wheatfields, made the sun-weary crowds pretty comfortable and at ease. The Sikhs are learning how to run their massive conclaves in an orderly and sane manner. The Takht Chiefs all on one religious stage, the honouring of Tohra’s life companion, the total lack of all frills and clutter of any kind with gate-crashers trying to get their one inch of space, all so ably managed by Bhaur, the Stage Secretary, showed that the Sikhs were not mixing religion with politics. A big bouquet should also go to Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, who with his entourage of Ministers came and sat on the same stage where Parkash Singh Badal, the Shiromani Akali Dal President sat, showing that political battle should take a backseat in the cause of propriety and gentlemanly conduct. It goes to Badal’s credit that he struck a high moral note by thanking the Punjab government for the understanding and assistance. The sea of blue-turbaned and starched white kurta-pyjama elders, many of them on wheelchairs and carrying walking sticks, and the TV screens and live telecast of the ceremony, courtesy ETC channel, was a high watermark in the management and style of the function. The loudspeakers and the other equipment worked without any hitch and the Punjab Police, though present in large numbers, was friendly and non-obtrusive. Let’s now highlight the case of common people like us who were seated on the ground. This was a stage for the leaders of various political parties, the high and the mighty. Most made full use of the occasion for furthering their own interests. Simranjit Singh Mann went all over the place as is his wont and ended up saying that the only party that should be number one is his Akali Dal Amritsar. The indomitable Captain Kanwaljit Singh put the full mantle of Tohra on himself and booked him for his exclusive use at the hustings since Tohra sahib had treated him as his own “beta”. Mann went on and on and Capt Kanwaljit also nearly beat him in this race. The leaders were given time to speak about Tohra, the human being and the man. But what happened to the Sarpanch of Tohra village under whose aegis this whole show had been put up? I recollect that at my father’s Bhog at Alladinpur village some years back, a close kin and a former Chief Election Commissioner, requested only the lady Sarpanch of our village to say a few words and then it was langar time. The others were requested to remember Col. Gill, if they had liked him when he was alive. In Tohra, the netas seemed to have hijacked all the proceedings and the villagers were left out in the cold. Why could we not have had the experiences of some of Tohra’s humble colleagues like his driver and the one who tilled his field? Many others too spoke. Some about the funds that they were giving, some about the trusts that they were setting up. Everyone had an anecdote to tell about his acquaintance with the great man. One person had a few words of wisdom where he talked about two categories of people — one lot who came to earn money and the other who came to leave behind a name as in the case of Tohra. The audience heard them all in a disciplined manner. Union Minister Arun Shourie brought in the Prime Minister’s message and contributed little thereafter. One wonders why Dhindsa, who was also there, could not have done the same honours in better Punjabi. Chandumajra and a few others, who had been pretty close to Tohra, were not given time to speak. Writers and journalists would have brought Tohra live with their actual experiences. Of course, no time could be given to those who are not “officially” important. Tohra is no more to blend the religious, political and social mileau of the Sikhs. Thus, three things should be taken care of within the Sikh fold. First, as the very old leadership is fast fading away, we must change the bylaws of our institutions wherever necessary and infuse younger and even more educated blood into the institutions. Secondly, we will have to resolve the problem of the Amritdhari and the Sehajdhari Sikhs (within the SGPC elections and even otherwise) once and for all, lest our numbers dwindle beyond recognition. And finally, while paying a literary tribute to Tohra sahib in the form of a book, as Amarinder Singh had suggested, a good job should be done by inducting more editorial and literary talents from various fields, unless this book is to be brought out only in Punjabi. n The writer is Member, English Language Advisory Board of the Central Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, and Chairman of Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi |
PROFILE Significantly, his election campaign is absolutely non-political as he reaches out particularly to the youth and professional classes and tells them that the “future of India lay not in religion but technology”. An associate of Rajiv Gandhi, who created waves as the head of the late Prime Minister’s Technology Mission, Pitroda tells the voters that seeds of some of the achievements tom-tommed by the BJP as Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s attainments were actually sown by Rajiv Gandhi, be they in telecom, IT, infrastructure or agriculture sector. Pitroda has no plan to associate himself with any government that may occupy office after the Lok Sabha elections. He has only undertaken to campaign for the Congress because he wanted to pay his owe of debt to Rajiv Gandhi who gave him the “most rewarding experience” (as the Chief Technology Adviser in the eighties). He also feels that India cannot afford to have old generation leaders of 70 and 80 years of age when half of the population, who are below 25 years and constitute 35 million of the population, will cast their votes for the first time in the ensuing elections. Sam Pitroda has been a crusader for long. As a young man, he battled stiff opposition from the “roti, kapda, makan” lobby, which was against the concept of a “connected” India. But this young man stood his ground making the case that telecommunication along with substantial food, clean water and adequate shelter was a fundamental component in the process of modernisation. The smattering of bright yellow STD and PCO boxes today, is a manifestation of his efforts. Go to any remote place and you will come across bright yellow boxes. Put through a call anywhere you like; within seconds you will be speaking to the desired destination or person. In small towns almost every street has an STD/ISD booth. You can walk into the nearest PCO, flash your 32-KB chip and complete your banking transaction. Doubtless, if there is one man who built the foundation of telecom revolution in wo decades of 20th century, it is Sam Pitroda. His vision and his technology helped connect the people of India in its far-flung regions and remotest corners. When the developed world saw a resource-starved country heading towards a billion people separated by large distances, it saw a tele-density gap nearly impossible to bridge. Looking at the same problem, Pitroda saw access, not tele-density, as the solution. Sam Pitroda was virtually hounded out of India by the ungrateful regime which succeeded Rajiv Gandhi. His exit was marked by sharp differences with an overambitious Communication Minister of that time. Years later, Sam was reported as saying that the telecommunication business was plagued by rampant corruption. A man of his vision and commitment, evidently, could not have co-existed with depraved political masters and a degenerated bureaucracy. When someone asked his views about the working of the Telecommunication Ministry, his two-word reply was: “Scrap it”. A disappointed Sam returned to his adopted home — the shores of the great lakes in the United States. Later, he became the Chairman and CEO of WorldTel. Born in Titilagarh in Orissa, Pitroda did his Masters in Physics from Baroda. Brought up in a large family of seven brothers and sisters, his father had studied till just grade four but allowed his children to do what they liked. The liberal attitude of his father helped Pitroda to have his way. Sam’s original name is Satyam Pitroda. Americans had difficulty in pronouncing the Sanskrit name, so they started calling him “Sam”; Satyam became Sam. Pitroda’s greatest asset is his large circle of friends which is spread across different countries. Ironically, this father of Indian telecom revolution first used a telephone only after moving to the US to study electrical engineering. Since the fascination of that first call, his dream had been to set up small rural exchanges and connect his country. Pitroda, who is now 62, says if he does not have a big enough role in his scheme of things in new India, “I do not want to give up my time for any other project. I, probably, have 10 years of life left and I don’t want to fritter it away on small things. If I can’t bring about a generational change, I am not interested in spending three of those 10 years on any committee. I am not being arrogant, but practical”. n |
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COMMENTS
UNKEMPT
LIKE me many others the world over must have been glued to watch the evidence given by Condoleezza Rice to the US Commission investigating the 9/11 strike. It took three and a half hours and the Commissioners and their staff had done their homework exceedingly well, but the overall experience was frightening. An arrogant super power “riding the waves of the world”, as Rice said, was prepared to squelch the discomfitures of the rest of the world. After all the US had something to teach not only the first world like Britain and France but also India and Pakistan to imitate the US federal government’s spending as much on war as on education, public health, housing, employment, pensions, food aid and welfare put together. Some 3,000 people died in the Twin Towers calamity, the first terrorist strike on the mainland of the United States. But at the very time when Rice was giving evidence Central Africa was observing the 10th anniversary of the Rwanda Genocide where 800,000 people were slaughtered before an uncaring world but the Commissioners had no time to mention it even once, nor did Rice. Those sitting round the Cabinet Room in the White House could glibly discuss the “taking out” of undesirable people, of crushingly responding from thousands of miles away with bombers and Cruise missiles but not a word was mentioned about the incursions of Israel’s helicopter gunships, shooting up of civilian homes and families of the Palestinians, targeted assassinations and land-grabbing, or about sending off an army to Afghanistan to flatten the Taliban or the Al-Qaeda or the reprisals against those who had the temerity to kill four American civilians in Fallujah and, terrible indeed, mutilate the dead bodies. Against this, the rising of the insurgents, was not set the rough daily behaviour of coalition (mainly American) troops with the Iraqis they had come to “liberate”. There were sheltered bodies all over the screen and Iraqi doctors said the death toll had passed 600, more in two or three days than all American casualties since the war began. Frightening indeed. Even the members of the Iraqi Governing Council — handpicked by the Americans — said that the heavy-handedness of the Americans was “unacceptable”. Meanwhile, America’s handrag, Britain, was going ahead; its MI5 and MI6 were doing some espionage-teaching, bugging Kofi Annan’s office and home and Hans Blix’s as well. The sentence of Condoleezza Rice which will remain in my memory was when she said that when the Fathers of the American Constitution wrote “We the People.....” They did not mean her and people of her colour. On the other hand, the daily humiliation of Arab or Asian-looking people at American airports, the Patriot Act, the eavesdropping and surveillance of millions of people, the clamping down on the civil rights of a so-called “open society” did not seem to disturb the anagram-describing institutions like DIA, INS, JCS, FBI and innumerable others who were plotting “tactical and strategic” responses to possible attacks on the United States. In fact, one of two of the Commissioners did get irritated by the very loquacious and repetitive answers of Rice though one must give her credit for the great details she was able to muster and master. Only one Commissioner talked about the two billion Muslims and the “Christian Army” in Iraq. One has to wonder what was going through the Commissioners’ minds as she went on with her statements which often seemed like reporting on the doings of a private club where everyone was on abbreviated first name terms. If not Andy (Short), George (Tenet) but Dick (Clark with his hair on fire) could talk of young American bodies lying on the streets but couldn’t shake George Bush that terrorism was not the greatest problem, Iraq was. After all the Iraq war had been pitted for a year. To stay on the theme of being scary, one could not resist the daily reporting and counter-reporting of the intelligence and military services and the eternal and jealous sniping away between the CIA and the FBI. Even with all this Rice could not answer the repeated question “Did you tell your boss about there being Al-Qaeda field office in the United States and of a big operation with hijacking about to happen?” What we heard of the evidence — and this was public evidence, apart from the long private sessions with the Commissioners, gave a most instructive portrait of the working of the American government, and not always a very pleasant one. Still and all the meshings of innumerable cogs, the mastery of facts of Senators, Congressmen, and retired public servants was remarkable. Surely, the proceedings of parallel Commissions in India could not be so instructive. There is something ugly about the Brigadier General briefing the media about “the enemy” though some in authority did describe them as ‘insurgents’. Outside the White House some Americans demonstrated against the “colonial” behaviour of the Americans in Iraq reminding ex-colonials like us of the Vietnamese who took heavy casualties but won in the end. In the 21st century Rice spoke several times of America being ‘at war’. That, too, sent shivers down the spine. All over our earth it is a time of peace not war and the Americans seen bent on upsetting stability, with hundreds of military encampments, and monumental expenditure on experimental and real expenditure on missiles, stealth bombers and such like weaponry. As in Palestine, high-grade weaponry only encourages retaliatory steps by the poor of suicide bombers which, too, are frightening. Countries like India should serve international peace by sending medical missions, negotiating about hostages and seeing that ceasefires hold and things like “ethnic cleansing” and religious conflicts are resolved by men and women of God. But our leadership seems without initiative and stature. Not for us the outlawing of landmines; in fact our President and Prime Minister didn’t have time to meet the lady who got the Nobel Prize for her work in outlawing landmines.
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DIVERSITIES—DELHI LETTER
Interestingly, though Lebanon-born Gibran had made America his home, he had this to say about the Americans: “The Americans are a mighty people who never give up or get tired or sleep or dream. If these people hate someone, they will kill him by negligence and if they like or love a person, they will shower him with affection”. Correct me if I’m wrong, but in Gibran’s lifetime, America had yet to develop its strong contingent of 6,144 warheads which can now easily displace the very word “negligence”! Republic of hunger Moving on, last week-end left me feeling strange. In the sense it brought into focus two absolutely varying aspects. Early evening was Utsa Patnaik’s lecture on the “Republic of Hunger” which as the very title suggests focussed on how in the “course of the last five years (1998 to 2003) the population of the Indian republic has been sliding down towards sharply lower levels of per capita foodgrains absorption level so low in particular years that they have not been seen for the last half century...” Patnaik, who is Professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, spoke for over an hour describing the dismal food situation in the country. Depressed after hearing those details, my next stop was at the IIC to interview one of the Urdu-speaking Arab poets — Omar Salim Mohdar Alaidroos — who’d come from Saudi Arabia for last week’s Jashne Bahar mushiara. My own grasp of Urdu being almost nil, I asked him less about his poetry and more about what provokes him to write and that began in a verbal clash of sorts. He kept muttering: “Ask me about my verse and not why I write and about what”. Why not, for no poet can write without provocation or the absolute need to express. And together with that I added the footnote whether he could write reactionary verse to the worsening state of affairs in Iraq or the fact that Saudi Arabia had given base to America. Absolutely taken aback, he looked at me with sheer disgust and said words along the strain: “Koi pagal hoga who'd write against the government etc...” My meeting with this poet set me into an introspective mood. How fortunate we Indians are to live in freedom, in this great Republic. It’s okay to live on a roti a day, but the basic freedom and democratic rights we enjoy is actually what’s of such great significance. After a while food and frills don't really matter; it’s that soaring spirit that holds sway and it comes along only ith freedom.
The cynical joke The cynical joke doing the rounds is that Ram Jethmalani, who has decided not to contest against Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee from the Lucknow Lok Sabha constituency, after announcing his decision to contest with much bravado, is the wisest of the lot. He is moving far away from the hot scene ... to London. Jethmalani’s explanation for the sudden “westward ho” get-away has been that his son has been ailing and getting treated in a UK hospital, but news that’s doing the rounds is that Lucknow’s saree tragedy was akin to Draupadi’s sari, wrapping and unwrapping several political men. |
The nights that pass will never return. They bear no fruit for him who does not abide by Dharma. — Lord Mahavira He who will bow before Shri Ramakrishna will be converted into purest gold that very moment. Go with this message from door to door, if you can, and all your disquietude will be at an end. — Swami Vivekananda He who believes in God’s name, succeeds, as no other deed is of any account in His court. — Guru Nanak Integral Yoga aims at the plenary perfection of the embodied soul in its triple term of existence — individuality, universality and transcendence. — Sri Aurobindo A foe to God was never a true friend to man. — Young |
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IN
the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections, electoral politics and
governance are at the crossroads in Punjab. Should elections not be an
occasion to introspect on what the representatives had promised last
time and what had been they achieved? Should these not initiate
discussion on future needs of the state —infrastructure,
socio-economic services, education, health, agriculture, industry etc?
All one hears these days are repetitive promises and speeches full of
rhetoric.
IN a campaign dominated by Bollywood stars and actresses throwing their charm around, a well-known figure, sporting his familiar goatee, has been trying to woo the voter in an entirely different manner. Technology Guru Sam Pitroda, known as the architect of India’s telecom revolution in the eighties, has formally joined the Congress and drafted as a key campaigner.
FIRST things first. I have in my hand and close to my chest three books of Kahlil Gibran — “The Prophet”, “A Self-Portrait” and “The Wisdom”. Though I have been reading him for years, what’s special
about this latest lot is the very pricing. Published by UBSPD, each isn't more than Rs 35. Its great news for people like me who hand over a Gibran on any occasion — be it death of wants or parting of ways or to drive home a particular point.