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ON RECORD Dalits are increasingly asserting in Punjab, Haryana and UP |
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PROFILE REFLECTIONS DIVERSITIES — DELHI
LETTER KASHMIR DIARY
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ON RECORD Q: You have initiated the “Clean Yamuna” campaign. Why do your political opponents dub it a political stunt? A:
It is not a political stunt. It’s a complete plan and a show case for Delhi. My opponents are playing vote bank politics. I have got full support from the Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court and the scheme is progressing well. The Congress is playing vote bank politics because it is their vote bank which is affected. All the slums have been created by the Congress but I am for a typically planned city. I have suggested the extension of Rajpath to the Yamuna front by reconstructing the National Stadium around the Nehru Stadium complex so that there could be a vast green vista from Rashtrapati Bhawan to the river front. Two under passes would be constructed to take care of the north-south traffic. The new vista, though in line with the Rajpath, would have an elevation towards the river front. Gandhiji’s statue would be erected on a green mound at a level higher than Rashtrapati Bhawan. The proposed vista would meet the river front almost at a right angle skirting the side of Purana Quila. In the proposed green belt, suitable spaces would also be earmarked for other social and cultural reformers. The Yamuna
Pushta, the worst slum of India, would be converted into the longest green walk-way of the country. This would, besides creating national cultural and tourism hub, would synthesise our ancient, medieval and modern heritage. Q: What are the three things that Delhi lacks and needs
desperately? A: Delhi lacks the vision for a planned city, the lack of commitment and will to execute the plans and, of course, clean politics. Instead of resorting to clean, law respecting politics, parties here take up illegal activities to win elections. I stand for vision, implementation and absolutely clean politics. Q: Your opponent, Ajay Maken, is a relatively young. He has a clean image and is seen as the CNG man. How confident are you of defeating him? A: I am confident of the work that I have done in my constituency over the years. I am seen as a person who has commitment and even the Opposition leaders have complimented me for the work that I have been carrying on. My opponent has been using all kinds of means to lure the voters whereas I am carrying on my campaigning in a very clean and low cost manner. I have in fact written to the Election Commission to investigate into the election expenses of Mr Maken specially, as he has taken up all the hoardings in this constituency which would cost a lot of money. Besides, he has been distributing goodies to the voters. He has been misrepresenting my age and playing dirty politics. He is not the CNG Man as he is claiming as it was the local Congress government under Sheila Dixit which had been opposing the court orders and saying that they were ready to face jail terms for contempt of court. He is not a clean man. Q: What does Delhi need? Youth or experience? A: Delhi needs physically and mentally fit persons with creative and constructive ideas and those who can implement them. My campaign is based on my performance. Look at the revolutionary change in Delhi on tourism and culture. That is because of the fertile mind which has produced those ideas and have implemented them with vigour and speed. I have travelled to every nook and corner of the country to implement programmes. If you are a young man, you have no commitment...you just sit in the coffee house and sip coffee. I am known for my governance capacity. Even the Prime Minister says that only I can make impossible things possible. Q: You are also known to be a tough and honest task master and one who dares to take on the political establishment for betterment of the common people. How difficult is it to perform and deliver against the political mood of the day? A: It is very difficult, but if you have commitment you can sail through. I have a frame of mind where I never compromise on issues and principles. If you are stern and committed, you will achieve your goal. Q: You have seen several ministries in the Vajpayee government. It is said that because of some decisions taken by you as the Urban Development Minister, the BJP lost the Delhi Assembly polls. How far is it true? A:
I have been the Minister for Communications and Urban Development. And now Culture. One thing common to all these ministries is that you should be doing honest and straight-forward work. You should commit yourself with an honest frame of mind. You should face the situations honestly and bravely. I don’t know how much my change from one ministry to the other would influence the election results but this has helped me carry out a lot of work. Q: There are indications that the BJP might not repeat a sweep of all the seven Lok Sabha seats here. What is the reason? A: I never indulge in speculation or guess work. I only believe in doing honest work without bothering about the consequences. Whether you win or lose, you should do your best and forget the rest. The Bhagavad Gita says, do your best and forget the rest. Q: How is the tourism policy, interlinked with infrastructure, considered the key to growth? A: The new initiative was taken at the end of 2002 when I became the minister. Under the new initiative, a number of centres of excellence have been undertaken. These include in tourism and culture elements of clean civic life and healthy environment. These centres have become a source of great attraction and are enhancing the cultural image of India. We have achieved a record number of tourists coming to India. In one year, in March, our growth was as much as 39 per cent. |
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Dalits are increasingly asserting in Punjab, Haryana and UP PUNJAB has the largest population of Dalits in the country — 31 per cent of the total population as against 19.75 per cent in Haryana. How is it that the Bahujan Samaj Party is the shaper of the political destiny in Uttar Pradesh while in Punjab and Haryana it acts, at the most, as a spoiler? The intensity of the Dalit assertion in a particular state can be largely ascribed to two causes — the depth of the caste oppression and the reformative process among Dalits propelling them to break the caste shackles. The Green Revolution aggravated social inequality in rural Punjab. This affected Dalits most adversely as most of them are landless. The problem was further compounded with the influx of agricultural workers from Bihar and eastern UP, unleashing the “push out” effect on Dalits. Alongside, the fillip lent to the process of identity formation among Dalits with the onset of Ad-dharm movement in Punjab, migration of Dalits to foreign lands, especially in Doaba, and their entry into government services through reservation — all this has thrown up a mobile segment among Dalits. This had made Dalits aware of the possibility of better life. Rising aspirations pit Dalits against Jats in rural Punjab. The Talhan episode in Jalandhar district has to be seen in this light. The situation is not qualitatively different in Haryana. The Brahminical ideology never exercised rigorous hold over the Haryana peasantry. The priest has been an object of ridicule in the rural Haryana. The widow marriage has been prevalent in Haryana peasantry through the practice of “karewa”. This liberal ethos of Haryana peasantry made the entry of the Arya Samaj movement in the state easy and this reform movement made a scathing attack on casteism, priestly rituals and superstitions. However, the growing social inequality in the wake of Green Revolution, the spread of education and the benefit of affirmative action through the policy of reservation in government jobs have caused a churning, though of diffused and subduced nature, among Dalits in the state. There is little of assertion and less of organised resistance. The Dulina and Harsola episodes are often wrongly characterised as acts of Dalit assertion. In fact, they denote Dalit oppression. At Dulina, five Dalits were lynched on the roadside while in Harsola, about 100 Dalit families were forced to migrate and are yet to be rehabilitated. The situation in UP has been quite different. The caste relations there have been much more regressive and dehumanising, impelling some elements among Dalits to think of the uplift of their brethren in the colonial era. This was manifested in the shape of libraries, Ravidas temples, schools and hostels for the depressed castes. This helped an entire generation to gain education and improve its socio-economic condition. Several socio-cultural organisations like Jatav Mahasabha, All India Nishad Sabha, Jatav Swayam Sewak Mandal etc were founded to give expression to the aspirations of Dalits. The state produced doyens of Bhakti movement like Kabir and Ravidas who attacked caste in no uncertain terms. Adi-Hindu movement depicted Aryans as invaders and Dalits as India’s original inhabitants. It is the legacy of the colonial era that helped shape the larger Dalit movement in UP. It provided the fertile ground for the seed of BSP to sprout and blossom. However, the Dalit movement under the present leadership of BSP seems to have gone astray, posing a serious threat to it in the country. These days there is a lot of talk about Dalit assertion. Assertion as a societal phenomenon concerning a social group that has remained oppressed for long must have two components —ideology and the concept of institutional change if the particular group happens to acquire a share in the power structure. Assertion, in the absence of ideological thrust, is impotent and episodic and the lack of attempt at institutional change to the benefit of the oppressed makes assertion a pawn in the power game. There is di-ideolisation of polity in India these days. In the political discourse, ideology has been relegated to the background. There is political promiscuity bordering upon obscenity, making it easy for one to jump from one political bandwagon to another without any qualms of conscience. However, there is an ideology in case of the mainstream political parties. There has been three epoch-making ideological assaults on caste system in Indian history — Buddhism in ancient times, Bhakti movement in medieval India and the crusade of Dalit ideologues in modern times. Dr B.R. Ambedkar is the most towering figure of the Dalit movement. His war cry for power has become a mantra, a nostrum at the hands of the BSP, the most powerful Dalit political outfit at the moment, bypassing ideological warfare and the necessity of institutional change while in power. Mayawati’s stints at ruling in UP are a testimony to this. Mayawati’s rule in UP has been marked by four things: power at any cost and through any kinds of political alliances, tokenism, ascendence of Dalit officers and no attempt at institutional change. Tokenism has symbolic value; it is necessary but not enough and one must transcend it for larger things. However, it became the hallmark of the BSP rule in UP. Dalit officers replaced their high caste counterparts in lucrative positions. No attempt was made to implement land reforms wherever possible. No strategy was devised to provide alternative employment to Dalits when traditional trades like shoe making etc became virtually extinct Various state-sponsored programmes to help Dalits did not go very far in the absence of institutional change. The condition of Dalits along with other poor sections worsened during the 1990s. The state’s position in terms of Human Development Index came down to 31 out of 32 states in 2001 from 29 in 1981. More important, the rigour of the ideological struggle has been given a go-bye by the BSP. Yesterday’s manuwadis become today’s allies and vice versa in the opportunistic alliances in search of power as an end in itself. Ambedkar’s well-known slogan “educate, organise and agitate”, has been replaced by “organise, agitate and capture power”, forgetting the ideological content altogether. This is a dangerous portent and puts the Dalit movement at
crossroads. |
PROFILE Though his frame is bent with age, relying on a walking stick, he shows no sign of fatigue and has a razor sharp mind. He has been going round various states and visiting party offices in the fond hope of cobbling up an alternative to the BJP-led NDA. Though Surjeet had acted as king maker in the past, he was never driven by lust for power. When a group of young Marxist leaders committed “the historic blunder” by denying Jyoti Basu the Prime Minister’s post in 1996, he had to do a lot of tight rope walking. Initially, he had tried to persuade the youngsters to allow Basu to become PM but when the party did not endorse his proposal, he went for H.D. Deve Gowda. In April 1997, when the late Congress President Sitaram Kesri withdrew support to the Deve Gowda Government, Surjeet was on a visit to interior areas of Tamil Nadu. He told Gowda not to resign but hold on for a day. Travelling the whole night, he caught an early morning flight to Delhi and through a series of hard negotiations managed to install a non-controversial I.K. Gujral as Prime Minister. Some call him a power broker. His critics say, he is a leader with “fingers in many pies and legs in many camps”. Surjeet and the BJP leaders despise each other; both consider each other as enemy number one. Soon after taking over as the CPM General Secretary for the fourth term, he asserted that his first task would be to prevent the BJP from gaining strength. His another task would be to build and consolidate the People's Front. The BJP leaders, on their part, call him “a passionate protagonist of destructive politics” whose party subscribes to an ideology which has shown scant concern for India’s sovereignty and culture. Soon the country will see his manipulative skill again. Surjeet once wanted to become a poet and took to writing under the pen name “Surjeet”. His pen name remained but he could not become a poet. Instead, he took to poetry and full-time politicking. Born in Bandala in Jullundur district, he could not continue his education beyond matriculation. He was still in school when he began association with the national movement. In 1930, he joined the “Naujawan Bharat Sabha” which was founded by young revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh and Bhagwati Charan. After the execution of Bhagat Singh and his friends Rajguru and Sukhdev, young Harkishan participated in the Civil Disobedience Movement. During India’s freedom struggle, Surjeet tore Union Jack from the Deputy Commissioner's office in Punjab and unfurled the tri-colour. It was a rash act indeed as he was shot at twice but managed to avoid the bullet. When arrested for the seditious act and produced before a court, the judge asked him: “What is your name ?” “My name is London Tood Singh” (London destroyer Singh), pat came the reply. Even though in his teens, the young “Sardarji” had to face gallows. Since then he was imprisoned many times. Surjeet, subsequently, joined the CPI. In 1936, he became a co-founder of the Kisan Sabha in Punjab. He not only fought for India’s independence but also carried on with equal zeal the social and economic reform programmes, starting a journal, “Dukhi Duniya” from Jullundur. The British regime had kept a close eye on his activities. To escape the oppression, he shifted to Saharanpur where he brought out the paper, “Chingari”. Come the Second World War, Communist leaders including Surjeet were rounded up and detained in Rajasthan. After India attained Independence, he plunged headlong in political activities. Surjeet was among the last of the team that founded the CPM in
1964. |
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REFLECTIONS AFTER a speaking engagement at the University of Maryland, my personal assistant (from India who came with me) and I were driving back to New York. And we got talking of what probably was crossing our minds. I casually asked her, “Nanda (her name, age 25) what are the differences you see between Manhattan and Delhi, for she has been here, now with me for almost a year. And what she shared was very interesting. For it all depends on what one is looking at! Not surprisingly, Nanda started with the dogs. She said she sees them all over, on the leash, of all breeds, sizes, colours and shapes. They are residents of our apartment complex: in the elevators: and walking with their masters. And in winters with all kinds of lovely coats even with hoods. During rains some even with colorful raincoats. And no one bites or barks: All clean and disciplined. They ‘stay’ when told to. They do not shit on the roads. And if one gets to, then the owner picks up the dirt right away. For the owners were seen to be carrying a carry bag to put it away. Some were seen to have even a glove. We both laughed heartily at the comparison back home in Delhi. Less said or written, the better, I thought. I asked her, “what more?” She said, of lonely people, very senior in age, she sees them all time. All walking on their own! Sometimes with the help of walkers and picking up groceries by themselves: Never asking for any help. Well groomed and gracefully dressed. They are so strictly private. They are like, “Do Not Disturb”. And so are the neighbours. I myself do not, really know who is my next door neighbour? We compared that with our own homes, in cities or villages and Nanda missed the sense of security, which it provided. We both of course, were ignoring the irritating intrusiveness, for now. Or the noise which sometimes overwhelms and there is nothing one can do. Remember the Jagratas? Try one here I asked her? We both once again had a loud laugh (with no disturbance to our neighbour). I asked Nanda what more? She said no ‘white’ beggar and never a woman begging, with a child in her arms or a bandaged arm feigning injury. But very many more fat people, men, women and children. She talked of huge stores. In one shot she picks up all her groceries. And the stores take back from her if she wants anything exchanged and even return. Prodded more, she said: Free water. All 24 hours! And buses which have space!? And no eve teasing? But as we drove every few miles there was a toll tax, of about 8 or 10 Dollars. Why is this? She asked me. I said is this the reason why there are no beggars? All the services are paid for. And the rich have to pay and the money so collected, goes back to the Government and not elsewhere. Every thing is getting logged and monitored into the computer. The collectors cannot pocket this money. It will go back for road maintenance or civic services. Well for me no city is dearer than my own city Delhi. I wondered if, we all could perform our responsibilities with a sense of patriotism and character.. As citizens, administrators, politicians, parents, elders and students. We will not then come to the stage of leaving WILLS in the name of our dogs and cats even if they are very loving, obedient, disciplined and non-barking
companions! |
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DIVERSITIES — DELHI LETTER “Who was Bhagat Puran Singh? It pains me whenever I have to answer this question, especially when the questioner is Punjabi. It has become characteristic of us to forget our heritage. Bhagat Puran Singh is the legacy of secular Punjab, a one-time phenomenon in any nation’s life. He embodied a culture in himself. He infused life into the roots of a state which had always suffered from a self-inflicted identity crisis. He gifted to Punjab a tiny self-sufficient niche in the form of the Pingalwara where socially, emotionally and physically ostracised humans are taken care of, irrespective of their religion, caste, class or gender.” Khushwant Singh has this to write about him: “Bhagat Puran Singh had become a household name before I saw him. Sometime in 1980, I happened to be addressing a convocation of the Khalsa College in Amritsar. I noticed an old man with a scraggy long beard, an untidy white turban wrapped around his head, dressed in a khadi kurta pyjama, engrossed in taking notes on what I was saying. I could not take my eyes off him. He disappeared as soon as the convocation was over. On a subsequent visit to Amritsar, I noticed small, black tin boxes with the word “Pingalwara” written in white on them, in different parts of the city. These had a slit on top, through which people could put in money. I also learnt that Bhagat Puran Singh was often seen on the steps of the Golden Temple holding out the hem of his kurta for people to drop in it alms for his home for destitutes. Neither the Punjab government, nor the municipality gave him any financial assistance; it was only the people who gave him just enough to feed, clothe and render medical assistance to over eight hundred sick men, women and children abandoned by their families. I was determined to meet him”. If you readers are determined to know about the life of Bhagat Puran Singh and the turns and twists in it, get hold of a copy of this book.
Iraqi prisoners Last week I got talking to Dr Waiel Awwad, who is the president of the Foreign Correspondents Club of South Asia and the New Delhi-based South Asia bureau chief of Alarabiya, about the treatment meted out to the Iraqi prisoners by the US authorities. Awwad recounted some horrifying facts, adding that whatever the media has spilled about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners is just the “tip of the ice berg. They are being abused even sexually.” Not to overlook is the fact that Dr Awwad is one of the Arab journalists who was captured (to be released later) in Iraq last year, whilst he was reporting on the US aggression into that country and he has a first person account of the situation in that area.
With a difference This time two very different candidates stand out from the capital in the election fray. One is Javed Abidi, an independent candidate from New Delhi constituency. Paralysed from waist downwards, he has been on the wheelchair from the age of 15 years. In spite of battling with a worsening backbone condition, Abidi graduated from Wright State University. He is the convener of the Disabled Rights Group, taking on the policymakers. The other contestant who stands out is writer-social activist Shiv Khera, who is standing from South Delhi constituency. It is rare for writers to jump and battle it out in the ongoing political tussle but Khera has decided to do
so. |
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KASHMIR DIARY THE most significant events during the second phase of polling in Kashmir are the criminal charges filed against high profile leaders of both the leading political parties in Srinagar
city. First the police locked up Ali Mohammed Sagar, the National Conference candidate’s chief electoral agent, and charged him with mobilising bogus voters. Then the media highlighted People’s Democratic Party President Mehbooba Mufti’s high-handed behaviour with a woman she thought was not a legitimate voter, and the Election Commission ordered that a criminal case be registered against her too. I cannot imagine it happening during the 1996 elections and, of course, it does not bear comparison with the sort of ham-handed rigging that took place in 1987. Ruling party goons beat up not only election agents and workers that year but even Opposition candidates, while the police and other security forces either stood by or joined in. And after that had occurred on polling day, results totally at variance with the ballots were announced at some of the counting centres. What is significant is not just the change since then in the way in which elections are conducted in Kashmir, even more important is the intensity with which people watch and try and protect the process. There was almost a riot at a polling booth in Wathora the day that second round of polling took place after a woman complained that a polling official pointed her to the National Conference symbol. She had asked him only to show her how to operate the electronic voting machine. Large crowds milled outside the polling station after she narrated what had happened and senior officials rushed there to calm them. Some of the young men in that crowd told me they did not intend to vote but they seemed nonetheless incensed at that official’s attempt at manipulation. What a long way Kashmir has come since 1967, when the new Assembly was cynically dubbed “Khaliq-made Assembly”. The Returning Officer for Anantnag district had rejected so many nominations that most members were elected unopposed. In 1951, when hardly any votes were cast, the Sheikh Abdullah regime made sure that almost all his candidates were elected unopposed. It was the strident pressure of the Kashmiri media that forced authorities to register a case against Mehbooba. Most believe that Mehbooba was convinced the woman in question was not a legitimate voter. It was enough, however, that Mehbooba had transgressed the limits of her authority. She ought to have left the matter to the election officials instead of grappling with the voter herself. What is evident here is a growing confidence in — nay, insistence upon — the rule of law. Older politicians might sigh wistfully about the good old days when those who controlled power did more or less what they pleased, particularly at election time. The establishment in New Delhi was too obsessively spooked by the terrible calamities that might befall what was presumed to be the national interest if they tried to check such trampling of the rule of law. Indeed, Indira Gandhi had packed off within a minute-and-a-half the majority of the members of the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly, who had gone to her to seek a change of the Chief Minister. They belonged to her Congress party and wanted to demonstrate physically to her that the majority in the house no longer supported the Chief Minister. She ticked them off and sent them packing with a terse instruction that the Chief Minister would change when she decided. That was the level to which Kashmir’s civic rights fell in political terms. In physical terms, torture and disappearances have been commonplace, not only under the special laws now in force but for decades. Anwar Ashai describes how he disappeared without trace in the Sixties after a policeman asked Ashai to accompany him while he was parking his motorcycle in Lal Chowk. Ashai was then the general secretary of the Jammu and Kashmir Students’ and Youth League. He remained untraceable, held without record in various jails, for seven months. It is in the context of the sort of civic reality that Kashmir has confronted for these long decades that the significance of the criminal cases lodged against some of the senior-most mainstream politicians must be measured. |
The four fruits or the four Purusharthas or goals of human life are: Dharma, righteous deeds; Artha, material riches gained by honest means; Kama, fulfilment
of desires in accordance with Dharma; and Moksha, release from the bondage of wordly existence. — Sri Hanuman There can be no salvation without dwelling upon the name of God. — Guru Nanak Such is your greatness, bounteous Lord! Within you are endless forms. Millions are in your million. Or you are a billion in yourself. — The Vedas Just as even people possessing eyes cannot see things clearly in the night, but they can see their steps well when a light is brought, so also
in those having devotion towards Me, the self becomes self-effulgent. — Sri Rama Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. — Jesus Christ |
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UNION Minister for Tourism and Culture Jagmohan insists that the new tourism policy is already beginning to pay dividends coupled with enhancing the cultural life of this country. Mr Jagmohan, who is contesting the New Delhi Lok Sabha seat and is in the thick of campaigning, says that the Clean Yamuna plan is not a political stunt and could become a show case for Delhi. In an exclusive interview to The Tribune, the minister who has also held the portfolios of urban development and poverty alleviation and communications, regrets that New Delhi lacks the vision of a planned city.
Excerpts:
CPM leader Harkishan Singh Surjeet’s amazing capacity to unite a badly divided Opposition may be put to test again as the Lok Sabha election enters the final phase, portending a hung house. Spotlight has already turned to him who had set a record by helping to form two coalition governments in the past. The goal of Surjeet, who will soon turn 90, is to ensure that a non-BJP leader becomes the Prime Minister. 
REEMA Anand’s book on Bhagat Puran Singh, entitled “His Sacred Burden” (Penguin) was released here this weekend at the India Habitat Centre. It is best to quote Reema: