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It’s official Price incentive for
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SC on fatwa No place for parallel system of justice All right-thinking citizens would wholeheartedly welcome the Supreme Court order that quashed a fatwa that forced a couple to separate on the ground that the husband had uttered talaq thrice to his wife in an inebriated state. As important as the relief for the couple is the court’s observation that there is no place for a parallel system of justice.
Value of people’s
power
Dust to dust, ashes
to diamonds
Elusive peace in
Sri Lanka Warring against
science Chatterati Artist, singer
and cook Poll beauties Balle balle
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Price incentive for wheat The
much-sought-after bonus in the minimum support price (MSP) of wheat has now happened. The Rs 50 incentive per quintal will take the MSP of wheat from Rs 650 per quintal to Rs 700, and will provide much relief to farmers, while also helping the Centre to meet buffer stock norms. Many farmers’ unions have of course been demanding a hike as high as Rs 300 per quintal. While that may have been more of a bargaining position than anything else, input costs have clearly risen and farmers are under pressure. Managing wheat prices and ensuring adequate stocks have become quite a challenge of late. The demand for wheat has been high, and traders and private companies, including some MNCs, have been offering farmers prices far above the MSP. Private buying accounts only for a small percentage of the total wheat procured, but the amounts have been large, making the Centre nervous about its buffer stocks. Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has now indicated that the Centre will import a startling three million tonnes of wheat, the biggest in recent years. This is twice the figure of 1.5 million tonnes floated earlier, and comes on the 0.5 million tonnes imported from Australia in February, to meet the burgeoning demand from the southern states. Farmers are up in arms against the imports, but the buffer stocks in the FCI godowns stand at around two million tonnes, against the April 1 norm of four million tonnes. The rabi estimate is down to 73.06 million tonnes from 75. With the MSP hike, the Centre can hope to find more sellers to shore up its stocks, but meeting the July 1 norm of 17 million tonnes without some imports would be impossible. The MSP is arguably low, given the Centre’s interest in creating an incentive to diversify away from wheat. Adequate buffers will help keep the prices down for the consumer, so finding the right MSP, and better stock management, means a win-win situation for both the farmer and the consumer. |
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SC on fatwa All
right-thinking citizens would wholeheartedly welcome the Supreme Court order that quashed a fatwa that forced a couple to separate on the ground that the husband had uttered talaq thrice to his wife in an inebriated state. As important as the relief for the couple is the court’s observation that there is no place for a parallel system of justice. It has directed the Orissa government to give them and their four children proper protection for leading a normal life. Significantly, the Bench headed by Justice Ruma Pal ruled that fatwas have no locus standi in a secular nation and that every citizen will have to follow the law as laid down in the Constitution. Clearly, fatwas are anachronistic and have no place in a democratic and secular society. A fatwa has no legal basis for the simple reason that its acceptance, direct or indirect, would mean according sanction to a parallel system of justice which is unconstitutional. The fatwa in question issued by a mufti, and later endorsed by a section of the community, amounts to unwarranted intrusion in the personal lives of a family. It is also a transgression of the individual rights of citizens guaranteed by the Constitution. What is shocking in this context is the refusal of some sections to see reason and accept the husband’s contention that he had uttered talaq in an inebriated condition, and that he was willing to lead a normal life with his wife. In the circumstances, no citizen can be forced to accept such a separation. The Orissa government’s role in the episode is deplorable. The police did not intervene, maintaining that it was a “religious matter”. This was nothing but abdication of their duty to rescue and protect the couple. When the Orissa High Court did not provide them relief, the couple had to knock on the doors of the Supreme Court to seek protection for themselves and their children. It is heartening to note that the apex court has in upholding the constitutional principle come to the rescue of the couple in distress. |
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The wind of change is blowing through this
continent. — Harold Macmillan |
Value of people’s power
Nepal
has witnessed an unprecedented and historic upsurge of people’s power. The democratic struggle against a despotic monarch has gone beyond the parameters laid by its initiators, the mainstream Seven-Party Alliance (SPA) as well as the Maoists. It has engulfed not only civil society but also ordinary Nepalese—women, children, workers and peasants. Even the wives of Royal Nepal Army soldiers came out on the streets with black bands to tell their husbands and the King that they too have their “duty” to the country. All these Nepalese have seen the ugliest face of their erstwhile revered monarchy and they seem determined to throw it away lock, stock and barrel. For this they are enduring severe hardships for the past more than three years, particularly for three weeks, under the SPA’s call for a general strike beginning on April 6. Imagine the fate of the families that live on daily wages. In the context of this rise of the people’s power, the SPA could not have accepted the King’s proclamation of April 21, promising to “return the executive power to the people”. This proclamation, while ignoring the basic issues raised by the movement, was short on substance and couched in crafty formulations to nurse the royalist ego. It said nothing about the repression unleashed on the people, nor a word of sympathy for those killed and wounded. It described King Gyanendra’s power grab of February 1, 2005, as “safe keeping” of power and a “compulsion” in the “tradition” of the Shah dynasty’s commitment for democracy. There was nothing new in the King’s call to SPA to recommend a name for the post of “Prime Minister”, because this is what the King has been saying after the October 2002 dissolution of Parliament. His intention has been to divide the political parties rather than to transfer power to its representatives. He appointed Mr Sher Bahadur Deuba and Mr Surya Bahadur Thapa under the 1990 constitutional provision of Article 35, without changing the real grab of power in his own hands. To ridicule the office of a representative Prime Minister, he even invited applications for the position as if it was a bureaucratic recruitment. To trap the Indian support for his proclamation, he clubbed the constitutional monarchy with multi-party democracy, the so-called two pillars of India’s Nepal policy. On the top of it, he hailed the Army’s loyalty, the principal instrument of his repression against unarmed agitating people. It was indeed unfortunate that India worked for and hastily welcomed this proclamation. Such a proclamation made a sense only if it was issued after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s first one-on-one talk with the King in Jakarta more than 10 months earlier. At that time, neither the SPA-Maoist understanding had materialised nor the people’s power had manifested itself on the streets of Kathmandu and the rest of Nepal. India welcoming the King’s intent to hand over power, without lending support to some of the basic demands of the people like the Constituent Assembly, amounted to being partisan and manipulative. Even if Indian policy is bent upon saving the monarchy, it should follow the route of the Constituent Assembly or at least the revival of the dissolved House of Parliament. Foreign Secretary Shyam Sharan’s statement two days after the King’s proclamation expressing India’s commitment to people’s aspirations can be seen as a much-needed exercise in damage control. As such, this statement is also an indirect acknowledgement of the flawed initial response of welcome. But this comes with the reiteration of the twin-pillar policy by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. How can India doggedly stick to its basic approach of the twin-pillars of the constitutional monarchy and multi-party democracy when both are at daggers drawn and the King, driven by his own ambitions and arrogance, has completely shattered the “constitutional” dimension of the monarchy. India’s policy in bailing out the King is driven by considerations that are irrational and not in India’s enlightened long-term interests in Nepal. India’s myopic and ill-informed view of the Nepal Maoists, the Indian Army’s parochial emotions for the Royal Nepal Army, the influences of feudal and Hindutva lobbies and the considerations of strategic partnership with the US are misleading India’s Nepal policy. India seems to be lacking in self-confidence to deal with a republican Nepal. In its fear of uncertainty and disorder in Nepal, Indian policy has become less than sensitive to the aspirations of tomorrow’s Nepal and its rising people’s power. If stability is the primary concern of India in Nepal, its policy-makers must realise that King Gyanendra no longer remains a stabilising force. He is a part of the problem, nay, the basic problem itself. If history has to be analysed objectively and carefully, the Nepalese monarchy will be seen as an institution which has never been responsive to the security and developmental interests of either India or the Nepalese people. Why is a democratic and republican India alienating itself from the people’s power in Nepal for the sake of such a discredited and unfriendly feudal institution? The people’s power in Nepal is indeed creating history. Very soon the SPA will have to constitute a parallel government because the persisting anger of the people on the street can grow into a monstrous destructive power. The SPA must move fast to harness this power into a constructive force. This can be done by setting up a parallel government that will enable the SPA to engage the Maoists in a purposive dialogue within the framework of their November 2005 and March 2006 mutual understandings and prepare for holding the elections to the Constituent Assembly. Nepal cannot go back to the Constitution of 1990 as King Gyanendra has already raised it to the ground. If India wants to regain its lost ground in Nepal, it must prepare itself to recognise a parallel government of the SPA and endorse its road-map for the restoration of peace, order and democracy. No such road-map can succeed without getting the Maoists on board. Indian diplomacy should also prevail over the King to impress upon him that if there is even a slim chance of saving the monarchy as a ceremonial institution left by now, it lies through the road-map of the SPA mainstreaming the Maoists through a Constituent Assembly. Indian diplomacy has to work on the US and rest of the international community to accept the SPA’s road-map. That may not pose a major challenge as all the key members of this community have been inclined to follow the Indian lead in Nepal. The new constitution, to be framed by this representative body, will have to be an inclusive democracy. India will have to remain constructively engaged with the constitution-making process, not to save the monarchy but to support the SPA in its efforts to ensure that democracy in Nepal never gets derailed in the
future.
The writer is a noted commentator on South Asian affairs.
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Dust to dust, ashes to diamonds THERE is an old saying which, naturally enough, appeals a great deal to scientists — “Give science half a chance and it is likely to come up trumps”. And it doubtless has in regard to disposal of dead bodies. The subject is a morbid one but it is a fact of — so to say — life which cannot be wished away: the serious difficulties which are being experienced as a result of scarcity of land for graves call for urgent attention. One solution proposed very recently is truly breathtaking. In fact, it turns the problem inside out: cremations instead of being expensive affairs become money spinners. The plan is to turn cremation ashes into — believe it or not — genuine diamonds! Some eight ounces of ashes yield one diamond, the total being about 20, and the balance is still enough to be displayed on the mantel piece. The process is to use superhot ovens to transform the ashes to graphite, and then the graphite is turned under very high pressure into blue and yellow diamonds, which after all are basically just another form of carbon. The retail price of the product is about $20,000. Apart from that wealth there is another advantage. If the dear departed one was thought to be an absolute gem when he was alive, he can when he has passed away, be worn next to your heart in the form of a necklace or a pendant. Another plan which is rather outlandish — outlandish in the literal sense of the term — also does not require the use of any ground at all for the burial. It envisages, on the other hand, the use of a space shuttle to make the ashes go into orbit round the earth and remain there for some 200 years. The bill, of course, will run into millions of pounds and the scheme will have to be marked: “Only billionaires need apply”. As that species is somewhat limited in number, the queue of eager applicants is not likely to be too long. The mayor of a town in Brazil seems intent on adding a new chapter to conventional jurisprudence. His revolutionary concept is to have a law passed that for a person to die before his time — as, presumably, determined by the authorities — will be illegal and constitute an offence! That is on the part of his relations who will, because of it, become liable to punishment by way of a fine or a term in jail. The reason of course is that the town’s only cemetery is quite full and there is no way it can be expanded or a new one built. And it is hoped that the new law, if it survives judicial scrutiny, will result in the citizens being looked after by their relations with greater concern and care. In any case, the ploy seems to be succeeding in another way too: it is said that the people themselves also are visiting gyms and seeing their doctors more frequently than
before. |
Elusive peace in Sri Lanka The
peace talks between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE have not made any headway. This is because both sides are paralysed by distrust. In order to understand why both sides are reluctant to talk of a political settlement, we have to comprehend the majority/minority complexes of post-independence Sri Lanka. Most scholars have explained Sri Lanka’s bloody struggle as a product of a religious divide between Tamil Hindus (18% of the population in 1981) and Sinhalese Buddhists (74%); colonial divide and rule that privileged the Tamil minority; shortsightedness of political elites on the need to accommodate minorities; and linguistic nationalism. The 1956 Official Language Act making Sinhalese the sole official language institutionalised economic and educational discrimination against Tamils. The Sinhalese-Tamil ethnic relationship correspondingly followed the sequence of ethnic cohabitation (1948-56), autonomy (1956-72), soft separatism (1972-83), and ethnic conflict (1983-present). The LTTE, allegedly assisted by India’s RAW, emerged as the most powerful guerilla force by the mid-1980s. The 1987 Indo-Lanka accord came closest to resolving the grievances of Tamils by introducing Indian style decentralization. However, the measures were not fully implemented because of subsequent events including the withdrawal of Indian peace keeping forces on the request of President Premadasa, and the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi and later Premadasa by LTTE suicide bombers. Conflict resolution experts point out that any resolution to a civil war requires three steps: the willingness of the two parties to enter into negotiations, an agreement that incorporates credible guarantees underwritten preferably by a strong third party, and the implementation of the agreement. The Sri Lankan state has to shift from a unitary to a federal and more decentralized model capable of accommodating Tamil minority aspirations of self rule. The LTTE too has to transform from a militarized guerilla force into a political party. For such a fundamental transformation to occur, either the two parties have to trust each other, or a third party like India has to guarantee the implementation. Neither aspect is present at the moment. Recent actions of the government and the LTTE confirm the continuing primacy given to a military rather than a political solution. The Sri Lankan armed forces chief Lt. General Sarath Fonseka told the president that he could have the military in shape in three months. Successive governments have used a ‘war for peace’ approach, and even when they engaged in peace talks, it was only until the military option could be readied by politicians. Both sides feel that war is necessary and more importantly, winnable. Neither is in a hurry. As one paramilitary commander said, Sri Lankan politicians have not yet realized that only economic development will win over the Tamils. Until then, the LTTE will continue to get the reluctant support of the north-east Tamils caught in the crossfire. On the LTTE side, interviews with Tamil politicians suggest that the LTTE itself has two views: a dominant strand that emphasizes the goal of seizing a separate state, if necessary, by force; and a subsidiary strand that portrays Prabhakaran as a pragmatist who realizes that the international community, particularly India and the USA, will not countenance a division of Sri Lanka. The subsidiary view realizes that 9/11 closed the door for violent non-state actors, so the best option is to wrest the maximum amount of devolution from the Sri Lankan government. Both views stress the need to develop military power as an essential tool to influence the Sri Lankan government’s negotiating behaviour. At present, the LTTE strategy is low intensity conflict through periodic strikes on navy boats and army camps without taking responsibility for these actions, while simultaneously stabilizing military parity through the CFA agreement, and state building. Prabhakaran has established the rudiments of a state, with Kilinochchi as the capital, which includes tax collection of Rs 10 million per day, police, judiciary, army and navy (sea tigers). Some analysts report that diaspora Tamils have begun to return and set up businesses in the north. As political scientist Jayadeva Uyangoda points out, a full scale war would shove the LTTE back into a guerilla mode thus decreasing any prospects of international recognition while simultaneously increasing condemnation of its actions. For the Sri Lankan government, the economic consequences of a full scale war would be unacceptable and could impact adversely on the current president’s re-election. So what is the solution? As one political observer said, the only solution is one imposed by India or through a regional agreement. India’s current position is to wait and watch while engaging in ‘track two’ diplomacy with both parties. However, track 2 diplomacy alone will not work because neither the LTTE nor the Sri Lankan government is willing to compromise. As S.D. Muni observed in a previous article in this paper, India’s national priorities tend to get subverted by its federal imperatives. Officials have often used the excuse that the Tamils in Tamil Nadu would get upset if India was seen as siding with the Sinhalese led government. Moreover, the proscribed nature of the LTTE in India makes it legally impossible for the country to participate in the talks. Also, as Dharmaratnam Sivaram points out in “Negotiating Peace in Sri Lanka,” India may have already achieved its strategic objective of ensuring that no other power could establish a base in Sri Lanka by including a clause to that effect in the 1987 Indo-Sri Lanka Accord. But the treaty would be null and void if Sri Lanka is partitioned. A viable peace therefore needs a guarantor, and India has to pro-actively step up to the plate. Otherwise, given the disinterest on the part of the warring parties, and the open admission that they are at peace talks only because of international pressure, a dismembered Sri Lanka is a very possible outcome. The writer is a research fellow at the Centre for Policy Research. |
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Warring against science Once, it actually worked. About 30 years ago, science pointed its solvent-stained finger at something that humans were doing wrong, something that would kill us if we kept it up. And the politicians listened and said: Whoa — let’s stop doing that. It’s 1973. A pair of University of California, Irvine, scientists discovers that the chemicals that were putting the spritz in deodorants and hairsprays and the chill into air conditioning and refrigerators were eating away at the ozone layer that protects the planet from radiation. A year later they publish their findings and the war against chlorofluorocarbons began. The slowest group to act turned out to be the Nobel Prize committee, which took 20 years to summon F. Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina (and another ozone scientist, Paul Crutzen) to Stockholm for the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry. Their work, the committee noted, may have “saved the world from catastrophe.” It’s 2006. Rowland is still a research professor at UC Irvine, working out of a building that now bears his name. And science is regarded in some quarters not as a white-coat, white-hat savior but as just another whining special interest to be appeased or squelched. On a few blogs and blowhard broadcasts, science gets abused as “opinion” We’ve strayed disastrously from the Pat Moynihan reality rule: “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” The young Rowland studied at the University of Chicago under the man who discovered carbon-14 dating, another scientific technique now getting hammered. For Rowland, a tall, lanky fellow who has an inch on Abe Lincoln, being the messenger of man-made apocalypse in the 1970s only meant an attack from a trade mag called Aerosol Age and, puzzlingly, getting picketed in Stockholm by Lyndon Larouchies. “I wouldn’t say there wasn’t organized opposition, but it was more from industries than political parties,” Rowland said. Today, there’s the example of James Hansen, another veteran atmospheric scientist, at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, who was warned of “dire consequences” if he kept talking about the dire consequences of global warming. A 24-year-old college dropout with a public relations job at NASA tried to keep reporters away from Hansen and changed the science content on the NASA Web site. The flunky finally quit – not because he censored scientists but for the lame reason of lying on his resume. When politics trumps science like that, “you know something’s out of hand,” Rowland said. Rowland was the Cassandra whom people believed. The day he went home with his findings, his wife threw out every spray can in the house. “The work is going well,” he had told her, “but it looks like it might be the end of the world.” Of course, finding substitutes for CFCs has been a lot easier than replacing fossil fuel in the world’s gas tanks. And there’s a far bigger constituency for keeping your house warm than for keeping your hair styled perfectly. “The planet is in for a rough century,” Rowland said, “as we try to put together substitutes for the energy that we need in order to prevent very substantial climate change coming from rapidly rising
temperatures.” By arrangement with LA-Times–Washington Post |
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Chatterati Delhiites
saw two interesting book releases last week. One was of M.J. Akbar’s Blood Brothers. The who’s who of town was there. MJ’s book is fiction but the discussion it generated was more fundamental, pertaining to the issue of Indo Pak relations. Fiction was allowed to show the path forward to fact. Attended by a variety of people from across the political spectrum, Akbar attracted those from the extreme right and also those like Farooq Abdullah from the extreme North! Akbar has been a great fan of Khushwant Singh and so Khushwant was there in full form, admiring MJ’s writing abilities. Artist, singer and cook The other book release was of artist Manjit Bawa which was launched by Montek Singh Ahluwalia. Manjit’s muse and biographer Ena Puri and the book reading by Kishan Khanna was an attempt to keep the voice of Manjit resonating as the artist still lies in a coma which has lasted for several months now. The book is indeed a very evocative and well-researched book, which offers deep insights into Manjit’s multi-faceted personality. After all, Manjit Bawa essayed myriad creative roles effortlessly —artist, poet, singer, musician and cook. I myself remember religiously going to the Habitat Center on Lohri every year, just to hear Manjit’s singing and sample the cooking he undertook for his dear friends. The book tells us how he cycled across the country with a charcoal stick in hand to sketch bearded Sufi singers and mountains in ruins. His love for the mountains is there for all to see. Poll beauties As the elections are on in several states, politicians are hitting the dust track. Sonia Gandhi, Jayalalithaa or Karunanidhi may be crorepathis but film stars get all the attention. So the public relations managers of many politicians have asked them to go through various beauty therapies for image makeovers, like botox fillers, detoxification and derma-abrasion treatments. Prolonged exposure to the sun in open air vehicles damage skin and hair. Having facials and aromatic massages with pedicures and manicures is a must. In fact, Mayor MK Stalin in Chennai has permed his hair to connect with the masses. Another step candidates have taken is to discard jazzy T-shirts and choose classic colours and traditional dresses. Balle balle Punjabi mundas and kudis, bhangra and chicken tikkas somehow always go hand in hand and what better occasion than Baisakhi for our paajis and behenjis. Delhi’s Baisakhi blast featured guests like Jaspal Bhati, Rajesh Khanna and Bhishan Singh Bedi. Phew! It was a sight with our bhabijis and behanjis in modern outfits dancing away. The admirable thing here was the confidence of the women — munching on their paneer and chicken tikkas with a look of ecstasy or the young with svelte figures sitting aloof, with a look of arrogance and boredom on their face. Various artists from Pakistan delighted the audiences.
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From the pages of Gandhi and the Viceroy
The most conspicuous feature of the correspondence that recently passed between Mahatma Gandhi and the Viceroy was the recrimination in which the two eminent personages allowed themselves to indulge. The Mahatma, who started the correspondence, naturally set the ball rolling. In his own words, his first letter to the Viceroy was a growl against His Excellency. “I had thought,” he said, “we were friends, and should still love to think so. However what has happened since the 9th August last makes me wonder whether you still regard me as a friend. Your arrest of me, the communiqué you issued thereafter, your reply to Rajaji and the reasons given, Mr Amery’s attack on me and much else I can catalogue show that at some stage or other you must have suspected my bona fides. In our opinion the Mahatma would have been on firmer and more unassailable ground if he had said that by arresting the leaders the Government had removed the greatest restraining influence in political India. |
Do all your duties, but keep your mind on God... Treat them (your family) as if they were very dear to you, but know in your heart of hearts that they do not belong to you. — Ramakrishna The path of self-knowledge and the path of selfless service both lead to the supreme goal. But, of the two, the path of self-knowledge, because it is easier to practice. — The Bhagvad Gita |
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