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Purveyor of democracy Powerless in Punjab |
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Cloning glory
Editor’s Column
Teachers now and then
Bush declares war for freedom Mega-cities face mega disasters
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Purveyor of democracy THE extravaganza of George W. Bush's swearing in as the 43rd President of the US was unprecedented and unrelated to the ground reality. Thousands of US soldiers are fighting a pointless war in Iraq. There is a huge budget deficit and a weak dollar. But one person is still driven by his misguided zeal. That is the President himself. He spoke at length mentioning the word "freedom" as many as 27 times. And for effect, he also threw in the word "liberty". As he waxed eloquent on supporting "the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every country with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world", the hearts of many in Teheran and Damascus would have missed a beat. They would have seen it as his intention not to turn back from his doctrine of pre-emptive action. After all there was no trace of regret over his misadventure in Iraq where the people are worse off under US-style democracy than was the case when Saddam Hussain was in command. Even in Afghanistan which is touted as a great success story insofar as export of democracy is concerned, the situation in the interiors of the land-locked country remains as bad as ever. So, few are likely to be enamoured of his promise: "The US will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you". Who does not know that he is selective in advancing democracy when he would go to any extent to provide security to some of the least democratic regimes in the Middle East as Saudi Arabia, for instance? Small wonder that a majority of the people in 21 countries — who took part in a poll on how they viewed Mr Bush's second presidency — said it would have a negative impact on peace and security. His victory was viewed positively in only three countries. Not surprisingly, India was one of them. This is because most Indians can empathise with him when he speaks about his determination to wage a war against terrorism as they have been experiencing the rigours of it for a much longer period. The only complaint they can have is that the US woke up to the threat of terrorism only when violence crossed, in Bush's own words, "the most defended borders and raised a mortal threat". |
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Powerless in Punjab FROM usually power surplus in winter, Punjab now faces a shortage of 200 lakh units daily. What will happen in summer is not hard to guess. The state's total requirement in winter is 800 lakh units, against the availability of 600 lakh units. Last year the state received 95 lakh units from the Bhakra Beas Management Board. This year the supply is down to 55 lakh units. This is because the water level at the Bhakra reservoir has declined and so has the power generation. The untimely shutdown of two units of the Bathinda thermal plant and two of the Ropar plant has also contributed to the demand-supply gap. The state government in general and the Punjab State Electricity Board in particular cannot escape responsibility for the dark scenario. When the demand estimate is known, there should be no delay in the purchase of additional power. A fund crunch is no longer a valid excuse for a government notorious for profligacy. It is plain inefficiency and mismanagement of the board. It is not bothered about the industrial and agricultural losses caused by the irregular supply of power. The board is terribly over-staffed, but the management lacks guts to trim the staff strength to a reasonable level. Its transmission and distribution losses remain unchecked. Institutional consumers do not pay their bills in time and the board authorities appear helpless. The employees are frequently on the road, protesting against privatisation but they face no action. It is now almost three years since the Amarinder Singh government began talking about power reforms. But no concrete action has so far been taken. Statements are issued only to pacify the employees who fear retrenchment. No effort has gone into arranging additional generation of power. Buying power during a crisis is no remedy. It rather derails the board's finances. It is amusing to see former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal argue for regular power. By giving unmetred, free power to farmers and not compensating the PSEB for his political generosity, his government had ruined the electricity board. The only solution the board can think of getting out of the mess is to raise the power tariffs — charge the consumer more and supply less power in return! |
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Cloning glory ONE man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. True. So, why bring in Osama bin Laden, by way of his look-alike, Maulana Meraj Khalid Noor as Mr Ram Vilas Paswan has done, into the Bihar election campaign? Bihar, being a part of free India, has already fought and won freedom. That makes bin Laden redundant as a freedom fighter. There is no dearth of terrorists either in the country. In fact, they come in such a variety of hues that it is surprising that none of these finds a place in the "united colours of Benetton". So, we don’t need bin Laden as a terrorist either. Why then has Mr Paswan hunted out this man who looks like the one President George Bush wants to "take out"? Mr Paswan would have us believe that it is not to terrorise any section of voters, but actually to comfort the minorities that it is he, and not Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav, who is the greater champion of Muslims. It is doubtful if Muslims would be reassured at being represented by an imitation bin Laden. It may well turn out to be a disservice to the community. The only other reason for bringing in this clone of bin Laden could be the increasing Americanisation of our country. Therefore, what the US had yesterday, we must have today. Now, we cannot ask the Americans to come and campaign in our elections, least of all in the ‘Republic of Bihar’, although we like them to certify our democratic credentials now and then. The only non-American who got to have a big say in the US elections was bin Laden. Therefore, with good reason, he ought to have a place in our political theatre too. One only hopes, bin Laden does not take too unkindly to the Paswan play. After all, we are not Uncle Sam, though we may be good at sham shows. |
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Let us not envy others’ knowledge but strive to learn from them. — The Upanishads |
Editor’s Column
Often there are surprises in India-Pakistan relations. Until a couple of years ago absence of firing along the Line of Control (LoC) made news. Last week, India, however, was taken by surprise when the news flashed that mortar shelling had taken place from across the LoC in the Jammu sector. Not that the shelling caused killings of jawans and civilians in the area, but the mere firing of mortars from across the LoC, and its timing and motives became the subject of hectic consultations in South Block. In other times mortar firing would have led to loud protests by New Delhi or, what is called, a fitting reply by the Indian Army. New Delhi chose not to be provoked this time. It was certainly concerned that over 14 months' of an agreed ceasefire had been suddenly disturbed by the shelling, but it simply chose to make a late-night statement as well as inquiries on the hotline. Pakistan reacted fast — first, by a habitual denial and later by promising to inquire how the shelling had taken place at all. In a way, the episode has served a purpose. It has shown that both India and Pakistan have found that impatience and exchange of rhetoric were no longer of help and that exercising restraint can be mutually beneficial. That the two countries have begun understanding the value of restraint also holds a promise of another kind. It indicates that neither India, nor Pakistan, is keen to do anything that may upset the bilateral dialogue that has just begun to bring about durable peace on the subcontinent. The peace process has just begun and it requires a lot of nurturing by both the countries. They are in a way realising that minor incidents should not be blown out of proportion and allowed to derail the dialogue. The two Foreign Secretaries have recently met. Mr Natwar Singh is already preparing for his next month's talks with Mr Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri, Pakistan's Foreign Minister, who is said to be a sober element in the Pakistan government. From Pakistan, President Pervez Musharraf's National Security Adviser, Mr Tariq Aziz, came to Delhi a few days ago. He certainly felt like calling on Mrs J.N. Dixit to express condolences on her husband's demise, but he used his mission to find out how serious the Indian leadership was about the dialogue and at what speed it wanted to proceed to resolve various issues, particularly Kashmir. During his meetings in Delhi — he met Dr Manmohan Singh and Mr Natwar Singh — he is understood to have discussed the Srinagar-Muzzaffarabad bus service which still has serious starting trouble. It will not be surprising if Mr Natwar Singh and Mr Kasuri succeed in getting this issue out of the way at their talks in Islamabad in mid-February. Mr Tariq Aziz is believed to have brought the proposal for the opening of the Jammu-Sialkot route also. New Delhi is considering this proposal and unless skeptics come to prevail it should have no objection in accepting another road link, besides the one existing at the Attari-Wagah border. India is, however, keen that Pakistan should lay the rail track on its side early to resume railway services between Khokrapar and Munnabao in the Rajasthan-Sind sector. It should not take long for Pakistan to convert the metre-gauge line into a broad-gauge line on its side of the border, if necessary, with the help of Indian expertise. Bus and rail travel from various points are important issues and sorting them out at the earliest will certainly give a push to the people-to-people dialogue, as also to the peace process. Much more, however, needs to be done to sustain it. Both nations must accept the fact that the peace process is still in a nascent stage and it needs tender care. Pushing it at a speed it simply cannot acquire can result in a mishap. Slow, but steady, progress will keep it on track and possibly achieve more assured results. The best way is to go on smoothening creases, tackling minor problems and removing what may be essentially irritants. More serious problems like Kashmir would require more time and a patient approach. There is merit in the Indian view that a solution of Kashmir will take time and as such hurry cannot produce a solution. New Delhi continues to believe that once mutual confidence permeates the relations between the two countries, the Kashmir dispute will become less difficult to resolve. A solution of the Kashmir question demands either acceptance of the prevailing reality or a give-and-take approach. Neither India, nor Pakistan, is prepared to accept either of the two approaches. India is not accepting the validity of a continuing proxy war Pakistan has been waging for acquiring the Valley, and also the existence of militants' training camps across the border. On the other hand, Pakistan is not reconciled to the situation where the LoC is increasingly acquiring the attributes of an international border. Actually, a give-and-take approach for resolving Kashmir is not convenient for either government. For India it would involve a division of Kashmir and letting Pakistan have the Valley or a slice of it — a solution India cannot accept. Dr Manmohan Singh has already made it clear that India would not consider a solution that might envisage a division of Kashmir or redrawing of the boundaries. Placed as he is in his country, President Musharraf also cannot go in for a give-and-take solution. Both Dr Manmohan Singh and President Musharraf cannot afford to appear as if they are seeking peace by making territorial concessions. A land-for-peace approach has not clicked in West Asia; it cannot succeed in the Indian subcontinent either. A gift of a slice of Kashmir to Pakistan will not be accepted by most in the Congress party, and also by the BJP, which, incidentally, was opposed to Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee travelling the extra mile for improving relations with Pakistan. President Musharraf's difficulties are no less serious. Anything that may look like a concession to India would be challenged by the fundamentalists and some elements from within the Pakistan Army. It could cost him his job. A measured search for a solution of the Kashmir question perhaps remains the best option for both countries. One question remains unanswered in Delhi. There could be people in influential positions in Islamabad who are keen on an early solution of the Kashmir problem in Pakistan's favour. Will they force President Musharraf to step up sending infiltrators after the snows begin melting in March? The training camps are still functioning in the PoK. Surely, they have not been converted to schools for children or homes for the aged. When Mr Natwar Singh visits Islamabad, he may have to impress upon President Musharraf that India cannot understand why the training camps should continue to function at all when the dialogue for peace has
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Teachers now and then
Quite a good few of our educational establishments, especially those run by the government, used to regard the Oxbridge colleges as the role model worthy of being followed to as great an extent as possible. There was a sprinkling of British professors on their staff and the Indian members, barring of course teachers of the Indian languages, had many of them, considerable personal experience of the British universities. As a result, the lectures delivered by them to their classes never lacked references to what they had come across there and was likely to be of interest to the students. Of course, some of those recollections carried in them lessons of first importance only if one paid heed to them. One of our Indian professors used to talk of the completely different lines followed here in contrast to those by the British universities in fixing the datesheet of the examinations. Here in the MA examination the question papers had to be answered one every two days, while in England two papers had to be answered on each successive day without a break until the entire quota of the papers was completed. This meant that there was very little scope for last-minute revision of the subject there and so the student had to rely on regular study during the entire year instead of on a spurt of frenzied work at the last stage. The emphasis thus was on real learning and purposeful study rather than on hastily memorised pieces of information which would not stay with one too long. The professor went on to illustrate this point in a very telling manner. It was not at all uncommon for an Oxbridge college tutor, he said, to say to a student at the end of the year, “I think you have done enough work by now. You should go and have a brief holiday for a week or so and then return in time for your examination”. Sounds incredible to our ears but is true nevertheless. Our own teachers of those days were also cast in a special mould and placed teaching as a profession on a high pedestal. Today many teachers, one hears, choose to remain concerned solely with money-making. Rather than teach a class seriously they prefer to get those very students to come to them for private tuition because that is more lucrative. They can also work part time in coaching institutes (teaching shops) which have sprung up almost at every street corner and are a very paying business for the staff and even more so for the men running them. In early times the teachers, though by no means affluent, somehow did not hanker after money and seemed content to have the community’s respect. Here is an instance I can quote from personal experience. I had finished college and was considering the subjects I should choose out of the optional ones for the competitive examination. I thought I could include Persian in the list as I had developed interest in that language while at school. In order to raise it to the required level I contacted my college Persian professor and enquired if he could help me. He agreed readily and so I asked him what charge he would like to make for the tuition. “When I joined service”, he said, “I took a vow, as many others did, never to charge money for teaching anyone. The question therefore of my getting money from you just does not arise”. And for some months he happily spared time every day for working with me. For people who know about the general attitude towards money today this will seem like a fairy story, but it is from real life. Tailpiece: In British Universities good sportsmen are a pampered lot and the authorities go out of their way to help them. A student outstanding at games, but with less than minimal interest in studies, failed his examination as he had left his answer book quite blank. His tutor called him and said, “We all want to help you but what can we do unless you write at least something in your answer paper?” The next year he failed again and complained to the tutor that that had happened in spite of his having followed the tutor’s advice to write something. (The “something” he had chosen to write was the expletive commonly used for consigning a person to hell). “Ah! Yes”, said the tutor, “I saw you did write one word. But you spelt it wrong”. (Apparently “Dam” instead of “Damn)”.
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Bush declares war for freedom
Even those who dislike President George Bush have to admit that his second inaugural speech is one of the finest delivered on similar occasions. It is a declaration of war on those who oppose democracy and freedom. Till now the conventional wisdom has been while it is perfectly right for nations to proclaim their commitment to freedom and democracy, they cannot intervene in the internal affairs of other nations to bring about democracy and promote freedom. The UN charter did not support it. That was at a time when the United States itself did not permit full freedom to its Afro-American citizens and denied them democracy. Condoleezza Rice, as a young girl marched in protest in Birmingham to demand such rights. That was only 40 years ago. In his speech President Bush edited the American history to some extent when he asserted “From the day of our founding we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights and dignity and matchless value because they bear the image of the Maker of heaven and earth”. The man who proclaimed such sentiments — Thomas Jefferson — did not free his mistress, Sally, who bore him several children from slavery. There has always been some gap between American words and deeds. As we see today, that gap still continues though President Bush has declared that” America’s vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one”. One wishes it were so. But a reality check reveals that it is far from the case. Today those who deny freedom and democracy find the best strategy to perpetuate their tyranny is to pretend to become a firm ally of the United States in its war against terror. Just as the white Americans talked of freedom and democracy for 200 years and managed to deny them to Afro-Americans, some of the countries certified as allies by the United States have successfully managed to be allies in the war on terror even while managing to prolong that war. The United States espouses high ideals of democracy and freedom but pursues a strategy of real politik in attempting to promote those ideals. That strategy by itself cannot be faulted. The problem usually arises in the prioritasation of the enemies of freedom and democracy and in the choice of allies who will help in advancement of freedom and democracy. The cleverer among the opponents of freedom and democracy have a stake in diverting the US attention away from themselves and surreptitiously enabling other opponents of the US to prolong the war against it. Those who have done the maximum to proliferate nuclear weapons offer to help the US in eliminating the nuclear capabilities they helped to nurture. Those who say they are allied to the United States in the war on terrorism have managed to provide a safe haven to the Al Qaeda leadership over the last three years and continue to finance various Jehadi groups. One would normally expect that those who pride themselves on their real politik strategic skills to understand the enormous stakes the enemies of democracy and freedom have in involving the US in wars with less dangerous adversaries even while they secure for themselves longer time to protect their capabilities to sustain the reign of terror and hatred. President Bush has proclaimed “All the allies of the United States can know: we honour your friendship! We rely on your counsel and we depend on your help.” His nominee as the Secretary of State for the next term had to admit before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that a number of mistakes had been committed in the last four years. One presumes that there will be understanding in the second Bush administration that the gravest among those mistakes was ignoring the counsel of long-standing allies which led to very gravely flawed assessments on prioritising the enemies and formulating the right strategy in the war on terror. The Unite States entered World War II to defend four freedoms. The allies of the United States, the imperial powers, though pretending to cherish the four freedoms, misled the US to
hand back to them their empires. That started a series of anti-colonial wars and trapped the US in the futile Vietnam War. Similarly, there are risks of the US being entrapped in wrong wars by the so-called allies who proliferate nuclear weapons and nurture terrorism and yet claim to be fervent allies of the US in the war on terrorism. It was the wrong strategy of neglecting the spread of freedom and democracy in West Asia on the ground of needing dictators as allies during the cold war that has led to the present situation when the US has to face a threat to its own home lands. The US is entitled to pursue its own national interests and true democrats all over the world would rejoice if the US concludes that its deepest beliefs in favour of freedom and democracy and its perception of national interests have now converged. But the problem usually arises both for the US and the rest of the world when the US makes mistakes in its own assessments on what is its true national
interest. Very often in that exercise the arrogance of power, as Senator Fulbright termed it, plays a role. The world will be watching whether President Bush is any more successful in practising what he preaches than the great Thomas Jefferson was. |
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Mega-cities face mega disasters
Earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters could kill millions in the world’s teeming “mega-cities” and time is running out to prevent such a catastrophe, a UN expert on emergency relief has warned. In Kobe, a city which is still nursing wounds from the earthquake that struck a decade ago, the UN director of emergency relief, Jan Egeland, painted an apocalyptic picture of imminent natural disasters in the world’s mega-cities, predicting they could be “one hundred times worse” than the Boxing Day tsunami. “Perhaps the most frightening prospect would be to have a truly mega-disaster in a mega-city,” Mr Egeland told the World Disaster Prevention Conference. “Then we could have not only a tsunami-style casualty rate as we have seen late last year but we could see 100 times that in a worst case,” said Mr Egeland, who warned that “time is running out” to prevent such a catastrophe. Mega-cities have a population of 10 million or more and a dense concentration of people, many of them in slums. “Time is running short for some of those mega-cities in Asia, in Africa and in Latin America,” Mr Egeland said. With a population of more than 35 million people, the greater Tokyo area tops the list of the world’s mega-cities, followed by Mexico City with 19 million, greater New York at 18.5 million, Bombay at 18.3 million and Sao Paulo at 18.3 million. Delhi is expected to join by 2015. “Some of the mega-cities are earthquake prone, others are prone to flooding. We have to have city planning, we have to have development, we have to have investment in the poor areas, because the poor people now are the most vulnerable,” Mr Egeland said. “There is still time to prevent that, and we hope that some attention could be given to the mega-cities and not just to the countryside, which we normally associate with tsunamis and with flooding and with drought.” As the world’s population continues to grow, so will the size of mega-cities across the globe, stretching resources and the ability to cope with disasters. The chaotic growth of slum-ridden urban centres in Asia, Africa and Latin America weighs heavily on the minds of disaster planners such as Mr Egeland, but it is Tokyo that causes most nightmares in boardrooms and governments across the world. Squatting on one of the world’s most unstable geographical foundations, Tokyo is shaken by dozens of earthquakes a year and lives in fear of a repeat of the massive 1923 earthquake and tsunami that levelled the city and took 140,000 lives. Plans to move the capital have been shuffled back and forth between bureaucrats for years but the city has continued to expand. — By arrangement with The Independent, London
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Woeful is the mother who sees her sons fighting on different sides for a cause. Though she believes in the cause, she cannot bear to sacrifice one of her sons. Even though the son may be away from her, she still loves him true. — The Mahabharata I see neither bravery nor sacrifice in destroying life or property, for offence or defense. — Mahatma Gandhi  |
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