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Legacy of Bansi Lal Sonia in Rae Bareli Aiming high |
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State funding of elections
Mohanlal Munshi of Kasauli
Man who gave electricity to villages ‘Three million’ march against French law Health
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Legacy of Bansi Lal THE political career of Mr Bansi Lal, who died on Tuesday, aged 78, can be summed up in three phases. During the initial terms of his Chief Ministership, he committed himself to development of his state, providing electricity to every village and creating a network of roads. He was among the first to realise the importance of infrastructure in growth. No wonder, Haryana today is second only to Goa in per capita income. Of course, its proximity to Delhi also helped. Regardless of the political fallout, the four times Chief Minister of Haryana did not hesitate to take unpleasant decisions if he thought these were in the interest of his state. The second phase of his political career saw him play a role at the Centre. His strong-arm methods to achieve political goals endeared him first to Indira Gandhi and then to Sanjay Gandhi. There is not much to write home about his role as a Minister at the Centre where he was seen as a loyalist, always ready to carry out errands — right or wrong — for Indira Gandhi and her son. He and Sanjay Gandhi will always be associated with much that was done during the Emergency Raj. Later he returned to state politics, after he fell foul with Rajiv Gandhi. During his last term as Chief Minister, Mr Bansi Lal incurred public wrath by imposing prohibition on Haryana in 1996. He paid the price and lost the next, and his last, election leaving a record of service to the development of Haryana his successors could not match. Out of power and getting old, the grand old man of Haryana devoted himself to shaping the political fortunes of his family members. Realising that none of his offspring would be able to run the Haryana Vikas Party, he merged it with the Congress in October, 2004, for a better political future. The sudden death of his son, Surendra Singh, in an helicopter crash last year caused a setback in his health and his political calculations. His faults apart, Mr Bansi Lal will go down in national history as Haryana’s “Vikas Purush” who never shirked from taking bold decisions.
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Sonia in Rae Bareli MRS Sonia Gandhi’s Rae Bareli speech on Tuesday must have provided the much-needed encouragement to the Congress rank and file in UP to prepare themselves for the next year’s assembly elections in the state. She used the “renunciation” card not only to put across her viewpoint to the electorate in her constituency on the issue of office of profit, but also to make the people think beyond caste and communal considerations —- the factors mainly responsible for the present predicament of the Congress in UP. She must have come to know by now that any story of “tyag” can easily move the people in India, particularly those in the Hindi heartland. But is the Congress ready to take advantage of the emotional chord she has been able to strike with the people? Converting the people’s sympathies into votes is a major task ahead for her and the Congress which could win hardly 16 seats in the 404-member Assembly in the 2002 elections in the state. The Congress performance was too pitiable compared particularly to that of the ruling Samajwadi Party and the BSP. A party which once prided on its base in the state that sends the maximum number of people’s representatives to Parliament (80), has become virtually non-existent in most districts of UP. The problem is as much of the leadership of the Congress and low morale of the Congressman as of caste politics of Uttar Pradesh. There is another problem with the Congress: no major party in UP can afford to have an alliance with it. The Congress has been trying hard to have an arrangement with Ms Mayawati’s BSP, but in vain. Any pre-election tie-up with the Congress does not suit the BSP or the SP because the latter two parties are afraid of erosion of their support base, which once constituted the vote banks of the Congress. Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s party has to do a lot of thinking to be in a position to exploit the disenchantment of people with Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav’s government, particularly because of its failure to provide efficient governance and ensure law and order for the citizens. Otherwise, the advantages may go to the BSP. The BJP can be a gainer only if Mr L.K. Advani’s yatra gimmick succeeds, which seems unlikely under the circumstances.
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Aiming high IT has been several years now since the officer and other personnel shortages faced by the armed forces have been highlighted, and some efforts made towards alleviating the problem. The results have been a mixed bag. Recruitment rallies and advertisement campaigns like the Army’s “Do you have it in you” have elicited a positive response, but the shortage of personnel continues. With a booming economy, and hefty annual increases in the salaries of employees of the corporate world, this situation is unlikely to ease. The Western Air Command Chief of the Indian Air Force, Air Marshal A.K. Singh, has talked about inducing officers to target educational institutions to motivate youth to join the forces. If taken up in a sustained manner, such efforts can bear fruit. There are many amongst our youth for whom a life of chasing high incomes in the private sector does not hold any automatic attraction. The adventure, the challenges, the idea of putting oneself in the frontline defending the nation, not to mention the very way of life of the armed forces, has an intrinsic appeal. The onus is on the IAF to create a package of educative and attractive material which can be used in schools and colleges for motivating the youth. A changing technology scenario is a key factor. In the hunt for a lean and mean force, people-intensive forces are giving way to a technology and network intensive structure. Modern weapons platforms, particularly those in the air, operate with cutting-edge systems that are pushing at the very frontiers of what is currently possible. Real time data links between sensor, shooter and commander, with long-range capability, precision fire-power, is changing the way wars will be fought. The challenges are not just physical but mental. If you are game, join. The nation needs you.
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To enlarge or illustrate this power and effect of love is to set a candle in the sun. — Robert Burton
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State funding of elections IT is a relief that the all-party meeting convened by the Election Commission (EC) on February 15 to discuss a proposal of the Government of India asking the EC to consider the issue of State funding of elections did not come to a consensus. On principle, since elections are meant for public offices, it is logical that the role of private money in the political and electoral arenas is reduced to the minimum possible. But in the present political climate in the country, giving public money to completely unaccountable political parties will only make a bad situation worse. There should, therefore, be no question of state funding till substantial reforms in the functioning of political parties are firmly in place. It has become customary for the last few years to invoke the Indrajit Gupta Committee report whenever any group wishes to suggest that the state should bear all expenditure incurred by candidates on elections. However, it needs to be remembered that in addition to the Indrajit Gupta Committee, there were the Dinesh Goswami Bill of 1990; a 1971 parliamentary committee known as Jagannadha Rao Committee, of which Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Mr L.K. Advani and the current Speaker of the Lok Sabha were members; and the Inter-Parliamentary Council held in May 1994, at which all parliamentarians were represented. All of these recommended the idea of state funding of elections in one form or another. What the current votaries of State funding seem to forget is that there has been a sea-change in the political environment in the country since the time of these well-intentioned reports. The country has come a long way from the time when the first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who was also the Leader of the ruling party in Parliament, recommended the expulsion of an MP of his own party for allegedly canvassing support for the Bombay Bullion Association in Parliament in return for some financial and business advantages in 1951. Now, it seems to be not uncommon for members of Parliament to take money for raising questions in the House and to recommend expenditure from their MPLADS funds in return for commissions. There have also been proposals for allowing MPs and MLAs to use their Local Area Development funds for meeting expenditure on elections. The realities of the current political environment are more accurately reflected in the 170th report of the Law Commission on Electoral Reforms submitted in May 1999, and report of the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution submitted to the President in March 2002. The Law Commission report is by far the most comprehensive document on electoral reforms available in the country today. The 15th Law Commission undertook a thorough review of the Representation of People Act, 1951, and associated legislation with the underlying objective “to make the electoral process more fair, transparent and equitable. The effort was to reduce the several distortions and evils that had crept into the Indian electoral system”. The Law Commission prepared a working paper which contained several proposals and their justifications. This working paper was communicated to all the recognised political parties both at the national and state levels, the two Houses of Parliament, the state legislatures, the High Courts, the Bar Associations, the Election Commission, prominent media personalities, associations and organisations interested in electoral reforms, and many other persons for their comments, observations and suggestions. A massive response was received. Subsequently, the Law Commission held four seminars, the first and the fourth in Delhi, and one each at Thiruvananthapuram and Bangalore. After thoroughly analysing the views obtained from various quarters, the commission prepared its 170th report containing recommendations which, in its opinion, were “essential to make our electoral system more representative, fair and transparent, to strengthen our democracy, to arrest and reverse the process of proliferation and splitting of political parties and to introduce stability in our governance”. This procedure testifies to the thoroughness of the work that the Law Commission has done. The commission comes to the conclusion that “the proposals relating to state funding contained in the Indrajit Gupta Committee report should be implemented only after or simultaneously with the implementation of the provisions contained in this report relating to political parties viz., deletion of Explanation 1 to Section 77, maintenance of accounts and their submission, etc, and the provisions governing the functioning of political parties contained in Chapters I and II of Part IV and Chapter I of Part III. The State funding, even if partial, should never be resorted to unless the other provisions mentioned aforesaid are implemented lest the very idea may prove counter-productive and may defeat the every object underlying the idea of State funding of elections”. Chapters I and II of Part IV of the Law Commission’s report refer to the creation of a statuary obligation for all political parties to maintain clear and correct accounts, have them audited and to publish the same for the information of all concerned, including the public at large. The commission further recommends that such accounts should contain detailed information about the sources from which amounts are received and the items upon which expenditure has been incurred. It is further stated that it is “absolutely essential” that there should be a law about this and that this law is effectively implemented. Chapter I of Part III deals with the “Necessity for providing law relating to internal democracy within political parties.” It says: “... it must be said that if democracy and accountability constitute the core of our constitutional system, the same concepts must also apply to and bind the political parties which are integral to parliamentary democracy. It is the political parties that form the government, man Parliament and run the governance of the country. It is, therefore, necessary to introduce internal democracy, financial transparency and accountability in the working of the political parties. A political party which does not respect democratic principles in its internal working cannot be expected to respect those principles in the governance of the country. It cannot be dictatorship internally and democratic in its functioning outside.” The National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRWC), headed by Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah, was appointed by the President in February 2000, and submitted its report in March 2002. In the two years of its existence, the NCRWC deliberated on all aspects of the functioning of the Constitution of India and reviewed the experience of the last 50 years of the Republic. It then made comprehensive recommendations covering all aspects of the working of the Constitution. It said: “Any system of State funding of elections bears a close nexus to the regulation of working of political parties by law and to the creation of a foolproof mechanism under law with a view to implementing the financial limits strictly. Therefore, the proposal for State funding should be deferred till these regulatory mechanisms are firmly in position.” It is based on these two most recent reports of non-partisan groups appointed by governments headed by different political formations which have reviewed the electoral scenario comprehensively and made exhaustive recommendations, keeping the current political and social realities in mind, and its own experience of working closely with the political and electoral systems in India over the last few years. While the State funding of elections is a good idea in philosophical terms, it is beyond doubt that public funds being provided to political parties for elections in any form in the current situation will be throwing good money after bad and cannot even be considered till the functioning and finances of political parties are not made transparent and amenable to public
scrutiny. The writer is a professor at the IIM, Ahmedabad, and a founding member of the Association for Democratic
Rights.
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Mohanlal Munshi of Kasauli THE man is no more. Or so they say. Mohanlal Munshi... businessman, poet of fine timbre, collector-seller of abandoned antique furniture has travelled on for a rendezvous — body, soul, spirit — with his Maker of mixed gender. Munshi, long-time, old-time Kasauli man, symbolised this cantonment hill station even more than old perennial Khushwant Singh. The man taught pre-Independence British units Urdu and Hindustani. He enabled the Goras, uniformed and in civies, to arrange
exciting Sunday-to-Sunday encounters in Paltan bazaars that cropped up wherever the Army decided to dig roots, sow its wild oats with a gentle flourish to boot. I first shadowed Mohanlal up and down Kasauli’s countryish jungles, slopes and paths in the forties and fifties of the last century. One forenoon we found ourselves atop the highly strategic (in an eco-logical way) Tapp’s Nose or Monkey Point. We wished one another Hail Indra! and proceeded to play, gambol and pray at the Rock Temple that Monkey Point once was. The other day I was atop Monkey Point once again, loaded with the camera of my gerontocratic brain, and, lo and behold, there before my lens was an IAF general, helicopter on standby, paying obeisance to a look-alike Air Marshal Hanuman dressed in Tata-Birla iron, steel, cement and papyrus robes a la a Ballarpuri karam chandithapar theth
Punj-aabi. The man, Mohanlal Munshi, they say, is no more. But the social worker in him has left behind the sights and sounds of many fortunate denizens in the dales and hills of this wonderous bounty of earth in its incarnation of the Goddess of Mercy. For he, Munshi and other fellow devotees of Karuna, for years organised shivirs to treat cataract and the more common contemporary virus of the Evil Eye. MLM was a friend of all of us at Red Combe, and all in Red Combe his friends. He gave us advice, shared his poetry, appreciated and inspired us to publish our occasional nocturnal
Kasauli Kee Aawaaz. The man walked and talked Kasauli until his last hours down the milestones of these hallowed hills.... hills friable, fragile, still untamed, still wild with jhaar and game. And we too shared with him our own ancestral legacy of wine, woman, kirtan, prayer, song and dance. Legacy down the line from Lady and Sir Teja Singh Malik, Deep, Krishan, Kaval and
Shubhchintan. My last memorial encounter with him was on an occasion here at Red Combe to seek mutual forgiveness (though, not to forget) the sins we have all wrought on one another in recent times via Woodrose, Bluestar, murder most brutal of Indira, genocide and rape most cruel of all long-haired ‘n’ bearded humans in the haunted avenues and lanes of a now hapless, once wild and Jharkhandee Old and New Delhi. Mohanlal Munshi joined us advasis last autumn to partake of haria, mahua, bhang, prasad — dance infinitum. We salute you, Sir, because we simply have to learn to have faith in one another. Should we do that or sound the Last Post instead of a salivary first, not the Last
Toast!
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Man who gave electricity to villages WITH the passing away of Mr Bansi Lal, an era of Haryana politics has come to an end. He so much dominated the Haryana political scene that he was never out, however down he might be. Many a time his political career seemed to be over, but he always rose like a phoenix to come to the centrestage. When he became the youngest Chief Minister of the infant state at 41 on May 31, 1968, no one, not even his mentors, had imagined that he would rise to become one of the most powerful politicians of the country. For nine years, he continued to rule the state. His writ ran large through proxy even when he was inducted into the Indira Gandhi Cabinet as the Defence Minister from December 21, 1975, to March 24, 1977. No wonder, he had to take the blame for the Emergency excesses in Haryana and the proxy Chief Minister, Mr Banarasi Dass Gupta, escaped unscatched. He was arrested by the Devi Lal Government after the Emergency. It was Mr Bansi Lal’s leadership which made Haryana, once considered to be the backyard of the joint Punjab, as the happening state. A visionary to the core, Mr Bansi Lal thought of providing electricity to all villages, besides linking them with metalled roads. His programme of the seventies have been included in the Central Government’s agenda now. The state moved rapidly on the path of industrialisation. It saw a network of roads and irrigation channels, which could be the envy of the neighbouring states of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. Woefully lacking natural resources, the state made a name in highway tourism, which was a new concept for the country in those days. It was he who persuaded Mr Sanjay Gandhi to start his dream project, Maruti, in Gurgaon. Now the Maruti project is one of the biggest projects of its kind in Haryana. Of course, some would doubt Mr Bansi Lal’s motives behind supporting Sanjay’s project. But the state did benefit. No wonder, Mr Bansi Lal is known as the architect of modern Haryana. He was a man of strong likes and dislikes. If he liked someone, he trusted him blindly. But it was very difficult to remain in his good books for long. And once one fell down from grace, it would be for good. However, Mr Bansi Lal, at least in his third and fourth tenure as Chief Minister, never crossed legal limits while dealing with his political opponents. Often projected as a rough Haryanvi politician, Mr Bansi Lal firmly believed in observing democratic niceties. As Chief Minister, he would regularly call upon the Governor and keep him abreast of state manners. In the Vidhan Sabha, he would never stand, if the Speaker was on his seat, however agitated he might be on an issue. Similarly, before taking or leaving his seat, he would always bow before the chair. Though he always gave the impression of hating the media, he never slept before minutely going through the press clippings sent to him by his public relations people. He would often tell friendly newsmen to write on a particular issue so that he could take action against the wrong-doers. He could also read between the lines of newspapers unlike some of his successors, who had to depend upon their PR men for briefing. Mr Bansi Lal’s hobby was reading, particularly biographies. He was a fan of Sardar Patel. Perhaps, he was inspired by the Iron Man of India to acquire a similar image for himself in Haryana. He was also a collector of fountain pens. Whenever, he would be happy with someone, he would present him or her a pen. It was his habit of reading perhaps, which made him go through government files cover to cover. Before taking the final decision on the files placed before him, he would read the notings made by even the juniormost functionary. This kept his advisers on their toes. They knew that they could not take him for a ride on facts of a case. He would also keep the Deputy Commissioners awake late in the night because he would not sleep till he had talked to each officer about the district he was heading. Mr Bansi Lal was a night bird. He preferred to start his day late. Often described as an obstinate person, he laid such administrative traditions in the state as are followed even today. These traditions earned praise for Haryana’s bureaucracy from MLAs of the neighbouring Punjab. Despite having an image of a ruthless administrator, Mr Bansi Lal was a clean man. No one would dare him approach for a favour and offer quid pro quo. Not even his family members could persuade him to change his opinion, once he had said no. Prohibition was perhaps the only decision which he had to reverse after a drubbing in the 1998 Lok Sabha elections. In Mr Bansi Lal’s death, Haryana has lost the second member of its famous trio of “Lals”.
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‘Three million’ march against French law IN the biggest anti-government protests for at least a decade, more than 200,000 people marched through the streets of Paris to protest against controversial new employment contracts for the young. Union leaders claimed that Tuesday’s demonstrations throughout France attracted more than three million people, which would make them the largest protests for almost half a century. Scattered violence erupted on the edges of the Paris march. There were also running battles at the end in the Place de la République between police and multi-racial gangs of teenagers from deprived suburbs. But police and union security teams — and heavy downpours of rain — prevented the kind of widespread robberies, beatings and pitched battles seen at the end of a march last Thursday. A nationwide day of strike action called by the five main trades union federations to protest against the contrat prèmiere embauche or “first job contract” was less successful. Many schools closed. One in three internal flights was cancelled. Only half of regional trains were running. The Eiffel Tower and the Paris Opera were forced to shut down. But the unions failed to achieve the kind of widespread disruption that they were hoping for. On the Paris Metro, two in three trains ran normally. High-speed and international trains were hardly affected. Private industry was barely touched. Judging by the huge and high-spirited turn-out for the march through eastern Paris, the month-old dispute has now mobilised the young and the many and varied tribes of the French left. However, the relatively poor turn-out for the strikes suggests that the battle has yet to interest the great majority of the French working and salaried classes. Despite the huge turn-out for the street marches — police estimated the national total to be 1,500,000, and unions double that — the Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, may take some comfort from yesterday’s events. M Villepin’s “first jobs contract” is meant to reduce the 23 per cent youth unemployment in France. Under the new law, companies can hire people under the age of 26 for a two-year trial period. During that time, they can be fired without explanation (but with compensation). On Tuesday, M Villepin once again offered to negotiate on some of the more controversial terms of the new law, but refused to withdraw it altogether. The number two in the government, the Interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, distanced himself from M Villepin on Monday night, calling for the law to be “placed in abeyance” during negotiations with unions and students. Student unions say that the law treats the young as a “disposable” commodity. Unions complain that it drives a wedge in to decades of accumulated legal protections of employment. The law has also become a symbol of what many on the French left see — or like to see — as wicked, anti-social, “ultra-capitalist” influences from the US and Britain.
— The Independent
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Health PENNSYLVANIA patients who contracted an infection during a hospital stay in 2004 rang up charges that were seven times higher than patients who did not develop an infection, complications that cost insurers and individuals an extra $614 million, according to a state analysis released on Wednesday. Patients with hospital-acquired infections spent many more days in the hospital, underwent more extensive procedures and were seven times more likely to die, deaths that many experts say were largely preventable. Though the findings were from a single state, industry analysts said the problem of hospital-acquired infections is universal. “When people check into the hospital, they hope and expect to leave better off than when they arrive,” said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joseph Barton, R-Texas. “But some of the millions of Americans who pick up infections each year are lucky to check out, and a few never do.” Doctors, nurses and patients’ relatives have long known the risks of contracting an infection while in a hospital. But there has been little quantifiable data available on the cost of those infections, from a financial or a medical perspective. The average hospital payment for a Pennsylvania patient who did not have an infection was $8,078, compared to $60,678 for patients who did, according to the report by the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council. Pennsylvania is the first state to require hospital reporting of infections; five other states have similar laws but have not yet collected or published results. Barton said he will press for more public accountability. “We don’t know which hospitals are safe and successful any more than we know how much they charge,” he said. “Consumers should have the right to find out just how well their hospitals perform.” In Pennsylvania, for instance, the 180 hospitals that reported infection data billed for an additional $2.3 billion. They actually collected $614 million for those cases because most insurance companies have negotiated discounts. Hospital representatives, stressing that they are dedicated to reducing medical errors such as preventable infections, said the council’s analysis fails to account for the fact that some patients arrive older, sicker or possibly with a pre-existing infection. The council’s report “is not a comparison of like patients,” said Paula Bussard, a senior vice president at the Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania. But some physicians said the medical profession for too long has accepted a certain number of infections as inevitable. When chief of medicine Richard Shannon discovered that more than half of the patients in Allegheny General Hospital’s intensive care unit who developed a bloodstream infection from an intravenous tube died, he said, he set a goal of zero infections. By standardizing procedures and investigating every single infection within 24 hours, Allegheny cut the annual number of infections from 49 to 3 and reduced related deaths from 19 to 1. Shannon had similar success in slashing infections related to ventilators from 45 to 8.
— LA Times-Washington Post
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From the pages of “Reject reforms but accept office”
In a recent issue we published the text of a manifesto issued by a number of prominent Congressmen who are opposed to the acceptance of ministerial offices by Congressmen under the new Constitution. The main line of argument adopted by the signatories to the manifesto is identical with what has repeatedly found expression in these columns. To them, as to us, the slogan “Reject the Reforms but accept office” is a futile, meaningless and wholly illogical cry. The rejection of the new Constitution to which the Congress is irrevocably committed, they say, is utterly incompatible with the acceptance of offices under that Constitution. “The two things are wholly contradictory. Acceptance of ministries can only mean one thing — working the reforms.” Again, “in our opinion the acceptance of office by Congressmen would prove disastrous for the Congress. It would mean that the Congress has departed from its task of fighting the Government.” It is quite true, as the signatories point out, that Congressmen do not themselves think that by doing so they would be working the reforms.
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Attachment like a tempting woman bewitches even the wise man... if driven away, she hits back again and again. No police or military in the world can protect people who are
cowards.
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