The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

PERSPECTIVE

Builders swallowing Mumbai’s land
by Shiv Kumar

Condemned by history to be shunted around as dowry to every ruler lording over India, Mumbai (or Bombay, if you please) suffers from the misfortune of being perpetually coveted, but seldom enjoyed. Mumbai’s present inheritors mining Mumbai’s mill-lands for lucre are simply following a hoary tradition. The British filled up large parts of the sea to connect Mumbai’s original seven islands to facilitate trade.

Buccaneers in the early part of the last century sought to expand into the sea by ‘reclaiming’ Backbay in South Mumbai from the sea. The Indians who came later dreamt up Nariman Point and New Cuffe Parade.

With the sea refusing to throw up further real estate, the powers that be are now looking to recycle existing land. Up for grabs are 600 acres of land in prime Central Mumbai. The state-owned National Textile Corporation alone offloaded 18 acres of land belonging to five of its mills for a whopping Rs 2000 crore. Owners of private mills are making much more though many of the transactions are suspected to be under the table to evade taxes.

But all this pales before the moolah that the politicians will rake in when the new owners, the developers, move in to build on the mill-lands. Elected representatives will determine land use on these properties and hence the mad race by different political parties to control the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. The ruling Congress-Nationalist Congress Party coalition government in Maharashtra is keen to push out the Shiv Sena-BJP from the BMC in the 2007 civic polls.

With several thousands of crores rupees worth of deals in the reckoning, the post of Maharashtra’s Chief Minister may yet become the most powerful office in the country. The control of the Urban Development Department, the Slum Redevelopment Authority and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority traditionally vest with the highest executive in the state.

It took former Shiv Sena Chief Minister-turned Congressman Narayan Rane (now the Revenue Minister) to illustrate how lucrative this office can be. Angered at being sidelined by his old party, Rane reminded his old bosses about the huge funds he poured into its coffers during his six-month reign as the Chief Minister five years ago.

It is an open secret in the corridors of power in Maharashtra that aspirants for the post of Chief Minister from the Congress party traditionally promise bulkier weekly payments to the ‘high command’ as proof of loyalty if elevated to power.

For every Abdul Rehman Antulay who was caught soliciting funds in the name of Indira Gandhi in the 1970s, there were others who escaped public glare. Manohar Joshi of the Shiv Sena beat them all by reinventing himself as a construction tycoon bidding Rs 421crore for a 4.8-acre plot of mill-land in partnership with Raj Thackeray.

Not surprisingly, the builder-politician-bureaucrat nexus has wrecked the city. A post-mortem of last fortnight’s monsoon disaster only indicates how ruthlessly the construction mafia brushed aside environmental concerns. Environmentalists who questioned the wisdom of constructing the Bandra-Kurla commercial complex were sacked from the committee that planned its construction. The complex, touted as an alternative to Nariman Point, was built on the overflow channels of the Mithi River flowing through North Mumbai. Where local residents undertook boating trips stood a stinking gutter. And when record rains hit the city, Mother Nature simply returned to claim her own. The angry Mithi swelled and found a course through the Mumbai airport a few kilometres away.

As the furious river swept up the detritus of a mismanaged city on to its runway, the airport was closed for most of two days. The Bandra-Kurla complex itself turned into a lake 15 feet deep claiming many lives. Now with several blue-chip houses planning to shift out, real estate prices may take a beating.

Unperturbed, Maharashtra’s politicians have decided to press ahead with further ecological blunders. The multi-crore Bandra-Worli sea link to divert traffic from the suburbs over the Arabian Sea to South Mumbai is accused of encroaching on the mouth of the Mithi River which threatens to overflow into the residential high-rises nearby. Work on the project is, however, continuing.

Slumlords with politicians’ blessings have destroyed more than 1500 acres of the 5000 acres of mangroves along the city’s coast. More than 300 acres of mangroves were cleared to build the Esselworld amusement park at Borivili and a golf course at Andheri in North Mumbai. Rather than restore the mangrove forests in some of these places, the authorities have come up with expensive solutions like constructing marine outfalls to drain rainwater into the sea.

Influenced by the construction lobby, politicians are still lobbying with the Centre to bring the city’s salt pans out of the restrictions imposed by the Coastal Regulation Zones. The salt pan lands spread across the city are being touted as the solution to resettle Mumbai’s slum dwellers. Sprawling over 5,400 acres, these low-lying lands traditionally used to make salt are lying waste. Environmentalists’ warnings of such low lying land being vulnerable to sudden high tide and tsunamis have been brusquely brushed aside.

It remains to be seen if Mumbai’s civil society is able to take control of the city’s development agenda from the politicians. Environmentalists, civic activists and non-government organisations have been moved by last fortnight’s disaster to approach the courts for a workable blueprint to save the country’s financial capital. The government is also being pushed to consider bringing together all of Mumbai’s agencies under one umbrella for effective coordination.

The first step would be to mount pressure on the government and the judiciary to ensure allocation of more public spaces in the mill-lands when their development plans are made. The authorities also need to be nudged into providing adequate civic infrastructure for the developments yet to come up on these properties.

Perhaps, civil society may still prevent Mumbai and Mumbai-ites from being press ganged into the political fortune-hunters’ baggage.

The writer is The Tribune’s Special Correspondent in Mumbai

On Record
We want the Centre to act and not wait, says Tarlochan
by Prashant Sood

Tarlochan Singh

NATIONAL Commission for Minorities Chairman Tarlochan Singh has taken steps to promote goodwill among various religious communities in the country and remove grounds for misunderstanding. A member of the Rajya Sabha, he has pleaded the cause of victims of the 1984 anti-Sikh violence both inside and outside the Parliament. Having a chequered career spanning public relations, tourism and sports, Mr Tarlochan Singh, 72, was elected as an Independent member of the Rajya Sabha in August 2004. Before his elevation as the NCM Chairman in February 2003, he was its Vice-Chairman. He was Press Secretary to President Giani Zail Singh. Born in a village in Jhelum district, now in Pakistan, he is a post-graduate in Economics. He says riots can be prevented if police does not connive with the troublemakers.

Excerpts:

Q: How do you view the Nanavati Commission report?

A: It is much below expectations. Along with eight earlier reports, it will go to the archives. Justice G.T. Nanavati had a lurking fear in his mind to mention what was true. He goes nearby and then diverts.

Q: How do you see the Centre’s Action Taken Report?

A: It is a report to completely whitewash whatever little came out of the Nanavati Commission report. Taken together, the result is zero.

Q: How do you look at the Centre’s indications to modify it?

A: The government is trying to fool the public. Our demand is not a Commission of Inquiry. The law of the land did not prevail as those who murdered 3,000 people were not hauled up. We want the government to act and not wait. It should not take shelter behind the Commission’s reports.

We feel that evidence was destroyed and defective FIRs prepared so that there is no conviction. We feel that delayed action by the government will not help us now in any way. There was a deliberate delay in filing cases. Human rights were grossly violated. The administration did not want to take action. Well-known leaders were shielded by the government. The available evidence was not used.

It was known to trouble-makers that police will not act. Who gave such orders? Under whose control does the Delhi Police work? The Sikhs were used for other purposes. They were shown as terrorists to get votes. The motive was to win elections. The Sikh psyche was hurt. The government should own responsibility and come out with an apology in Parliament. At least that will give some satisfaction.

After he took over as the President of South Africa, Mr Nelson Mandela set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for people who had committed crimes to own up their guilt. People know who are guilty for the barbaric 1984 riots. There was a coterie. Let those people apologise.

Q: How do you view the apology tendered by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on behalf of his government and people of the country?

A: We appreciate his sentiments. We welcome what he said but more is required. We want the government to apologise through a resolution in the Parliament. It should accept negligence. The real truth should come out and the culprits should be named.

Q: With two of the Congress leaders indicted by the Nanavati Commission having quit their posts, what more should be done?

A: It is a drop in the ocean. It was the Congress which gave them the posts. When they were given these posts, the Sikhs had opposed this.

Q: What should be done to prevent riots?

A: Riots take place due to the negligence and connivance of the police. Politicians of the day should be fully conscious of this fact. There is need for police reforms. Police and administrative officers in the districts should be held responsible and made accountable in case of riots. There is need for strict government control.

Q: How do you see the Supreme Court judgement about communities like the Jains and Sikhs not being national minorities?

A: We will move the Supreme Court with a review petition.

Q: How does the NCM view demands for reservation on the basis of religion?

A: The NCM is against religion-based reservation. All minorities should be treated equally with no discrimination. The country has suffered in the past because of religion-based reservation. We have written to the states that propose to give religion-based reservation not to go ahead with such measures.

Q: What is the record of minority welfare since Independence?

A: Half-hearted steps have been taken for their welfare. There is need to uplift the minorities economically and educationally at places where they have large population. Not much has been done beyond sloganeering by political parties.

Train cops on crowd control
by Monika Saroha and Aditi Datta

THE brutal assault of innocent workers in Gurgaon is a reflection of the Haryana Police’s inability to tackle protests and demonstrations. Was the indiscriminate use of lathi the only alternative with the police? Did they not have any inkling of the brewing resentment that led to the violent outburst?

The Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India was in the midst of a big labour unrest. The labour union had submitted at least four memoranda to the management but in vain. A lockout was declared on June 27. Things soon went from bad to worse. Police deployment at the factory did not help ease the situation.

Armed with data, the police, with adequate force, should have taken steps to preserve peace. This could have deterred the crowd from turning violent and prevented the police excesses on the mob. This measure was reiterated in a study conducted by the Bureau of Police Research and Development (1971).

Obviously, this was not done in Gurgaon as the police strength initially sent to quell the protest was no match to thousands of agitated workers. This ultimately led to the indiscriminate use of force by the policemen present. All state police manuals and international legal documents provide for the principle of graduated and minimum use of force — the principle which regulates the action of the law enforcement authorities on such occasions.

This principle envisages that the use of force should follow a predetermined scale of priorities, according to which progressively stringent action should be taken. Lathi charge can be used only when other methods like the use of tear- gas and water cannons fail to control the situation. Obviously, the police ignored this principle in Gurgaon because no tear gas or water cannons were used.

Secondly, irrespective of the means employed, the quantum of force used must be the minimum required to control the situation. These principles find place in the model rules framed by the Sub-Committee appointed by the Conference of the Inspectors-General of Police (1964).

A part of the problem concerning crowd control is the fact that 80 per cent of the police force has little knowledge about the rules on crowd control, leave alone the necessary skills and training for this. Moreover, the riot control officials are provided with no modern or effective defensive equipment to minimise injuries to them, as in the West. According to Crime In India (National Crime Records Bureau, 1990-2000), 1,743 people were killed and 6,886 were injured by the police while controlling crowds. These figures prove that the police have not learnt from the past mistakes.

Whatever the compulsions, the Gurgaon incident is totally reprehensible. The judicial inquiry should complete its probe within the stipulated timeframe. More important, the police should adhere to the manuals and perform their duty with a humane face.

OPED

Profile
Swaminathan: Father of Green Revolution
by Harihar Swarup

M.S. Swaminathan is one of India's and, for that matter, Asia's outstanding scientist. He relieved millions of people of hunger in this country and in the continent. His team of dedicated scientists developed high-yield, cross-breed wheat seed to usher in Green Revolution in India and South East Asia. He has been decorated for the achievement with the world's most prestigious awards. These include the Ramon Magsaysay Award, the Albert Einstein World Science Award and the first World Food Prize, regarded equivalent to a Nobel Prize in Agriculture.

The Time magazine acclaimed him as one of the most influential Asians of the 20th century and one of the only three from India, the other two being Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore.

The occasion was solemn early this month, though the award not so big, when Swaminathan was honoured with Hiroshima Peace Award. August 6, the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in which more than 300,000 people perished, was a somber moment.

Prof Swaminathan's contribution to world peace based on his noble commitment to humanism was recognised that day. He travelled to Nagasaki to receive the award instituted by Chugoku Soka Gakkai, a Buddhist sect.

The citation reads thus: "In recognition of his lofty endeavours, dedicated to the values of human survival, coexistence, and peace, which greatly contributed to the creation of the culture of peace much sought after by all humanity, the award is presented to him".

Go back four decades in time. Asia's populations were growing at a fast pace unchecked. None of the larger and overpopulated countries was self-sufficient in food. China, which has now made rapid strides in the sphere of development, lost as many as 30 million people to famine from 1958 to 1962.

In the years after Independence, India lived a "ship-to-mouth" existence, surviving on food grains imported from the US. There were so many hungry mouths to feed and the population was alarmingly increasing. Then almost a miracle happened. Dr Swaminathan came on the scene and the Green Revolution was born.

In his laboratories in Delhi, Dr Swaminathan brought into India seeds developed in Mexico by noted American agriculturist Norman Borlaug. After cross-breeding them with local species, he created a wheat plant that yielded much more grain than traditional types.

A few years after, the same miracle happened at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines which he headed. Scientists at this Institute developed high-yielding variety of rice. The looming tragedy in India and, later in Asia, was averted and the coming years turned into an era of hope and then self-sufficiency in food.

Consolidating the Green Revolution was not an easy task. Farmers in India, had immense faith in the traditional ways of farming. They had to be convinced to grow the new variety of wheat. In 1966, Swaminathan set up 2,000 model farms in villages outside Delhi to show farmers what his seed could do. He needed the government to help, specifically, to import 18,000 tonnes of the Mexican seed.

The country at that time was facing financial crunch. He met the then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and stressed the need for importing Mexican seeds to tide over the shortage of foodgrains. The Prime Minister gave his approval, thinking that the risk was worth taking as the famine appeared imminent.

Then something happened which the political leadership never visualised - the first harvest with new seeds was three times greater than the previous year's.

But then, the revolution was only half way through. Only Punjab had the right irrigation for the new technologies. The Food Corporation of India (FCI) was in a mess. Same was the case with the distribution networks. Consequently, new fertilisers and pesticides were needed, along with credit facilities to small farmers.

Soon Indira Gandhi became the Prime Minister. She wanted an independent foreign policy and did not like the way the Western powers twisted India's arms on the issue of ensuring the supply of foodgrains. Nationalisation of banks helped farmers get easy loans. She asked Swaminathan how soon India could be free of imports and having heard him gave him a free hand to go ahead with task of raising the food production.

The revolution reached the final stage and India had no longer to depend on the US for food. Now India grows some 70 million tonnes of wheat a year as compared to 12 million tones in early sixties.

The new message of Dr Swaminathan is that the farmers must adopt more eco-friendly methods. His answer to India's still growing population is: "Greater harvests are possible. All that is needed is inspiration, perspiration and luck".

Reflections
Salute to three brave women
by Kiran Bedi

LAST fortnight I met with three national rainbows, read outstanding women of our country: Two in Kutch (Gujarat) and one in Pune (Maharashtra). All three women are self made, born of strong visionary mothers and fathers (except for Lila Poonawala who lost her father when she was only two), are industrious, strongly generous, sensitive and visionary. I saw them as representative of countless invisible women who are as brave and dedicated. This piece of writing is a salute to them, on this Independence Day. I call these three women our 'National Rainbows'.

Right now I am writing about only one of the three, Lila Poonawala. I cannot compress their contributions collectively. I will write about the other two in my next two columns.

First, about Ms Lila Poonawala.

I was invited by Lila, 10 years ago for the inaugural merit scholarship award, based on her own hard earned wealth. The very first one to receive the scholarship, out of a batch of 10 girls, was 20-year-old Neetu Bhatia. She went on to do India proud by not only being a student of Franco Modigliani, Nobel laureate in economic sciences but assisting him in his work and research papers. She works at Harris Nesbitt (USA). Investment banking arm of the Bank of Montreal. Her title is Vice President, Media, Communications and Technology Investment Banking.

I had told Lila that I would return for the decade celebration if it happens! We kept the date.

This time, 10 years after, I saw the impact of her visionary spirit. Lila had reached out to more than 300 girls, with nearly 70 of them in prestigious universities in India and around the world. Except for a few like Neetu, majority of the recipients were/are from absolutely marginalised sections of society. The fellowships were/are for as varied subjects as could be: Computational Geonomics, Radar and Landsat thematic Mapper images, Research in environmental factors for Alzheimer disease, breast cancer, and NASA related technologies, mentioning a select few. These girls are called 'Lila Fellows'.

This time I was curious and needed to know Lila better. And I learnt about her as follows:

The Indo-Pak Partition rendered Lila's family homeless and they had to flee to India from Sindh. Bundled up as a two-year-old, with her mother and siblings, the young toddler found herself in a refugee camp and months later to a modest house in central Pune.

Lila started schooling in a municipal school and later moved to Mount Carmel School. She developed an interest in Mathematics and Physics, not to mention interest in extra-curricular activities like NCC, Scouts, Hockey, Cricket, Badminton and even gliding!

It was her mother who emphasised to Lila, the importance of Independence. Her interest in science translated into passion for technology. In 1967, Lila became the first woman mechanical engineer in Pune. She joined Ruston & Hornsby as a trainee. On the first day of work, she met her husband to be, Firoz, the strength behind Lila. Ten months later, she moved to Vulcan Laval (a multinational). It was here on the shop floor of this engineering company that her professional journey began in earnest. Times were changing and this was very apparent during the sixties. While working women could be seen in many areas it was still uncommon for a woman to be part of a hardcore engineering company. But nothing dampened Lila's enthusiasm.

She was appointed Exports Manager in 1978. Those days were termed the "License Raj Era" and industries needed licenses to import. The government would give certain cash incentives on exports. Vulcan Laval needed both, the licenses and the cash incentives. Export procedures were long, cumbersome and required extensive documentation. It would take months to get approvals from the bureaucracy. Though frustrating at times, Lila never gave up. She applied her tremendous ability to deal with people and drive a hard bargain, winning customers and taking the modest exports of Vulcan Laval to unprecedented heights. A deal for Rs 280 million with the USSR and the success of the project brought her to the forefront. Here, she got the opportunity to show her managerial skills. This brought her to the notice of the management and she was promoted as GM (exports and marketing). Along the way she did various courses from the Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad), Harvard and Stanford University in the US.

In 1986, she was appointed the Executive Vice-President. This was also the year when she appeared on the cover of the International Business Magazine "Svensk Export". It was the first time a woman from the corporate world in India was featured in an international business magazine of repute.

With an excellent track record to back her, she was appointed the Managing Director of Vulcan Laval in 1987. With this appointment, she became the first Indian woman to be appointed MD of a multinational company. She also became the first woman in the Alfa Laval group to reach that position. She remained the only woman managing director in the entire group until her retirement.

Under her leadership, the company moved from strength to strength.

Lila envisaged the potential and the growth of business in the food sector. Emphasis on research and development was made and in 1993, King Carl Gustaf XVI of Sweden inaugurated a state-of-the-art Alfa Laval Technology Center in Pune, providing essential R&D facilities. It was her vision to set up world-class research facilities in India and make India an exporter of world-class products.

Lila became a Padmashri in 1989. Another first for a woman from the corporate sector. The King of Sweden conferred the Royal Order of the Polar Star on her in 2003.

It was Lila's earnest desire all along to do something substantial for the girl child. Her dream got an impetus on September 16, 1994, on her 50th birthday. Her Company wanted to reward her for her outstanding performance with an expensive gift. She suggested them to give her cash instead. The Company gifted her with a birthday present of 100,000 Swiss Francs. It is with this and her own savings that she launched her dream project - Lila Poonawalla Foundation.

Today Lila has over 300 worthy and brightest daughters of India spreading all over the world, as 'Lila fellows'. They all adore their mother-mentor. Never mind if Lila and Feroz do not have biological children, of their own.

A salute to the Lila's of India. Jai Hind.

Diversities — Delhi Letter
Recollecting the horror of anti-Sikh riots
by Humra Quraishi

THE Nanavati Commission report dominated the scene in the Capital this entire week. Together with it, the Prime Minister's speech in Parliament of assuring justice to the victims of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. The very first indication to the effect came with the resignation of Jagdish Tytler from the Union Council of Ministers.

Apparently, the process of accountability has finally begun and it should continue. For those riots were so fierce that it's not just the Sikhs which were left affected but every Indian. During an interview with activist Safdar Hashmi's mother Qamar Azad, when I asked her what had brought this theatre man towards playing an activist role, she said, "The anti-Sikh riots had affected Safdar. Though we were staying in a government colony, violence had spread. Until then, he had just heard about riots but never really witnessed them from such close quarters, that too right in the Capital city."

Yes, those of us who saw even glimpses of that fury and violence, were left shaken by not just the violence but the apathy shown by the state. Soon after those riots, at a dinner I overheard a Sikh bureaucrat's wife recounting how her two sons were somehow saved from mob fury. And though this particular bureaucrat was posted as Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, and lived in one of the government bungalows very close to the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, the family had felt utterly helpless. It was their servants who helped save the boys.

During the dinner, the bureaucrat's wife had cornered the then Delhi Police Commissioner recounting the hell the family went through. The tragedy is that few civil servants or their spouses talk in such a forthright manner. A few years back, her husband died and the family shifted to Chandigarh. But the incident is still fresh in memory.

Shocking study on education

This brings me to write about the Tara Ali Baig Memorial Lecture delivered on August 8 at the India International Centre by the well known writer Gurcharan Das. Tara Ali Baig needs no introduction for she was the one who had established the SOS children's villages in the country. She was thus responsible for saving hundreds of young lives.

This memorial lecture was so profound and set you into a retrospective mood, especially in the context of what's happening all around us. Gurcharan starts off by this quote of Yudhishthira in the Mahabharata — “I do not act for the fruits of Dharma. I act because I must. Whether it bears fruit or not, I do my duty like any householder. I obey Dharma not for its rewards but by its nature my mind is beholden to Dharma”.

He webs in the stark reality of today's realities, contemporary failures in the system and machinery. Das brought into focus the recent shocking data from a national study conducted by Harvard University and World Bank. It shows that one out of four teachers in our government primary schools is absent and one out of two teachers present does not teach. Thus, roughly two out of three teachers are not doing their job.

He said that he had suspected this rotten state of affairs when the probe team surveyed North Indian states 10 years ago, but thought it was a problem limited to the Bimaru states. Then, a Pratichi Trust study in 2002 confirmed this unhappy situation in West Bengal. Now this larger study proves that it is a national problem. Jharkhand (42 per cent), Bihar (38 per cent), and Punjab (34 per cent) have the worst teacher absentee rates.

Age no hurdle for them

Age is no hurdle for three personalities. This week the well known choreographer and dancer Uttara Asha Coorlawala spoke here of the Indian dance. An Indian Parsi, she is one of those dancers who got trained under Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham. Though teaching at the Long Island University (US), she spoke of dance not as an academic, but as a woman who is passionately in love with dance.

Another personality is the well known sculptor Amar Nath Sehgal who held his latest exhibition of sketches and drawings at the IIC. Union I&B Minister S. Jaipal Reddy, who inaugurated it, didn’t talk like a typical politician. He spoke with much warmth that evening.

And our grand old man of literature, Khushwant Singh completes 91 years on August 15. Far from retiring or even taking a break, he is writing in the most undeterred fashion. Besides the two weekly columns, these past few months he has been translating the verse of some of the leading Urdu poets from Urdu to English. That would be the latest book from him.

Happy birthday Khushwant and many more to come — both birthdays and books from you.