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“Aaj ka MLA” Cracks in male bastion |
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Killings in Sri Lanka
The Iraqi mess
In “Delhiwood”
For a stable border Japan wins whale vote, greens worried Delhi Durbar
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“Aaj ka MLA” Politicians are rightly called the government’s sons-in-law. They are fed, pampered and spoiled at state expense. The public gives money to the state exchequer; they empty it. It has now come to light that in Punjab the public has not only been paying through its nose for the pay and perks of its MLAs, but has also been paying income tax on their salaries. So, the more salary and facilities they sanction for themselves, the more income tax the common man has to pay. Such largesse is granted to these so-called public servants very silently. While the provision for paying the income tax of ministers was made in Chief Minister Pratap Singh Kairon’s time, the present government extended the facility to MLAs as well. Since all MLAs — irrespective of party affiliations — stood to benefit, there was hardly a squeak in the Assembly about the affair when the provision was made two years ago. This is really a strange situation in that while even judges pay their taxes, Chief Minister, ministers, even parliamentary secretaries and MLAs don’t. An economics professor would suggest that either this practice should be scrapped or the government should also pay the income tax of government employees. Before a cornered legislature sets about to buy the silence of the employees by making them a partner in this open loot, let it be added that the suggestion has been made only to shame them into withdrawing this facility. Neither the MLAs nor the government employees are a breed apart to be thus favoured. The problem is that the legislators are not the only ones to feed on the government’s resources. There is a nexus between the legislature and the executive on such issues. Only recently, the Delhi Chief Minister ingratiated herself with IAS officers by deciding to pay electricity bills of their homes. Since the money comes from the pocket of the poor public, she and others of her ilk can afford to be magnanimous.
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Cracks in male bastion
A reported 400 plus suicides in the Army in just four years is a startling figure. That means lady officer Lt. Sushmita Chakraverty and Captain Sumit Kholi are only the latest victims of a malaise that has been claiming more than a 100 lives every year, from all ranks, including officers. Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee has now offered to strengthen the counselling system that addresses the stresses that strains the soldiers face. This should not be done in a piecemeal or superficial manner, merely as a reaction to these much publicised suicides. A genuine and comprehensive effort must be undertaken, following a review of the entire situation, and necessary steps taken so that the armed forces’ morale remains high. Apart from demanding counter-insurgency and border security duties, the Army is grappling with an officer shortage. Indeed, given the broad spectrum of duties it has taken on, there is a genuine danger that it is being stretched thin. The laudable quest for a lean and mean army can be successful only with adequate technological support. But with modernisation moving only in fits and starts, procurement is not keeping pace with need. This has only resulted in more people- intensive deployment patterns. More troops are spending more time away from family stations. Vice-Chief Lt-Gen K. Pattabhiraman’s generalised remarks about women officers were uncalled for. Even if there was some misquoting, talk about comfort levels being low with women officers will not encourage more women to join the forces. Women have proven themselves in all areas where men have excelled. The Armed Force Medical College has also recently recommended the inclusion of women in combat duties. Be that as it may, it is incumbent upon the Army to actively motivate women to join and do its best to cater to any special needs they may have. Much of this will be in the psychological realm, and an overhaul of the counselling framework should take gender needs on board as well. Men in uniform must also remember that bravery and courage are not their exclusive preserve. Women can do equally well.
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Killings in Sri Lanka SRI Lanka appears to be heading for a fresh crisis with an alarming increase in violence for the past few days. Despite the 2002 ceasefire accord remaining in force, government troops and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fought land and sea battles on Saturday in the country’s northwest, leading to the death of 42 persons, 30 of them Tamil rebels. This was followed by the killing of 64 bus passengers last Thursday in an explosion suspected to be the handiwork of the LTTE. The terrorist outfit, however, denied it, as has been its wont. At the same time, its cadres have admitted to preparing for fresh clashes with government forces. The ceasefire has never been as much strained as it is today. The much-publicised Oslo talks between the Sri Lanka government and the LTTE have failed to produce the desired results with the two sides accusing each other of violating the ceasefire. This has resulted in Norway threatening to stop playing the mediator unless the two sides decide to shun violence. The European Union has also appealed to the regime in Colombo and the LTTE to “return to the negotiation table” to strengthen the ceasefire and help find a peaceful and political solution to the ethnic conflict. But the humanitarian organizations doing their job in the trouble-torn country are not optimistic about saner counsel to prevail in Sri Lanka, at least at this stage. However, war, as some people fear, does not suit either side. The government, which has earned the goodwill of most political formations in Sri Lanka after organizing recently an All-Party Conference to meet the separatist challenge, may not go in for an all-out war. The LTTE also cannot afford to indulge in the kind of battles it has fought in the past after having been declared a terrorist outfit by the EU from where it has been getting the maximum financial support. But anything can happen in a situation like the one in Sri Lanka. It is, therefore, time for the world to redouble its efforts to prevent any untoward development that may destroy the gains made so far.
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Fascism is not in itself a new order of society. It is the future refusing to be born. — Aneurin Bevan
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The Iraqi mess
US Senator Patrick Moynihan once described the United Nations as the theatre of the absurd. Today, this description would be more appropriate to the Bush administration’s attempt to paint Iraq in bright colours. The problem is as simple as it is stark: how to camouflage the Iraq mess to try to calm American nerves and prevent the nation’s pessimistic mood affecting the approaching congressional elections. The vaunted Al-Qaeda leader Al-Zarqawi is killed and President George Bush hops over to Baghdad to make a public display of his support to new Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Maliki, who knew only five minutes earlier that his distinguished visitor was in town. The theme of the dramatic act was simple: with the Prime Minister having filled important slots in his Cabinet and Zarqawi dead, Iraq had turned a corner. There have been so many turnings and so many corners that Iraqis have forgotten to count them. Because the message President Bush had to convey to Iraq was that American troops would stay as long as they were needed. He was talking at cross-purposes because Iraqis are pining for security and basic necessities such as electricity and jobs. As the mundane tragic routine of killings goes on, the US administration’s attention is turning to calming fears at home. Despite efforts to shield the public by banning photos of returning coffins (the score has crossed 2,500 US troops killed), the tragic nature of the Iraq invasion is sinking into American consciousness. Nor is the mood lifted by the relentless beat of the “war on terror”, which has been declared as an open-ended affair. The theatrical exercises of the Bush administration can no longer hide the emerging contours of the problem in Iraq and at home. It is clear that President Bush is leaving the real decisions on Iraq to his successor because he cannot contemplate a situation in which he would want to cut and run. The best Washington can hope for, in the short term, is that the internecine warfare that is raging does not degenerate into a full-scale civil war. The truth is that Iraq has turned into a holding operation for President Bush and the hope in Washington is that no cataclysmic event happens there to fix the people’s attention on the rationale of the Iraq invasion. As recent congressional debates have revealed, the Republicans’ attempt to paint Iraq in Stars and Stripes is not quite succeeding. The argument that any criticism of American moves in Iraq is tantamount to being less than patriotic is wearing thin. As the Vietnam War demonstrated, the war in Iraq will be lost in the sitting rooms of American homes and although the dangers of independent reporting are real and the institution of the embedded reporter gives a worm’s view of the war, enough news is getting through to enable the layman to determine what is going on. Despite official assertions, the US is not winning the war. Events in Iraq have developed a momentum and logic of their own. A struggle is on among Shia factions for supremacy and any attempt at curbing or disciplining their paramilitary forces will meet with resistance. In hierarchical terms, the Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani is supreme but there cannot be truce among his co-religionists until paramilitaries determine the pecking order by making their presence felt. The southern town of Basra, for instance, is a new field of intense rivalry, with the young firebrand Al-Sadr seeking a larger slice of the cake. The impact of Zarqawi’s death has still to be determined but no one is expecting the Sunni insurgency to go away. Although Iraq became a happy hunting ground for foreign militants after the American invasion, the mainstay of the insurgency remains in Iraqi hands — those who are disaffected as also Baath Party loyalists. Unless a new dispensation can inspire confidence of fair play among Sunnis, there would be little incentive for them to give up arms. There is little doubt that one of the aims of the insurgents is to stoke the incipient civil war. And the discovery of bodies of bound and tortured men of either faith bear testimony to the revenge killings that have been carried out. Recent efforts to flood Baghdad with Iraqi and American troops to stop killings have not yielded encouraging results. There are simply too many insurgents and too many cells to control effectively. For a time, the US was toying with the idea of getting Iranian assistance to influence the majority Shia in Iraq. But with the nuclear issue queering the pitch and new Western proposals on offer, Tehran has little incentive to come to American aid. Initial American hopes of using the Iraq invasion to deal with Iran on the basis of strength have become a nightmare because the US is mired in Iraq and the situation there is to Iranian advantage. Officially, the US says it will stay the course but its stance can be interpreted in various ways, depending upon America’s domestic compulsions. What is distressing the American authorities is that, given the level of violence, they cannot make a substantial withdrawal of troops before the November congressional elections to try to convince their people that the end of the misadventure is in sight. Indeed, the bloodletting in Iraq proceeds at such a pace that the effect of Zarqawi’s death has already blown over. Perhaps it is the compulsion to demonise the enemy that leads the US authorities to fix on individuals. The manner in which Zarqawi and now the insurgent leader’s presumed successor has been presented foreshadows Washington’s attempt to create a new demon to fight. Al-Qaeda, in Iraq and elsewhere, is far removed from a central directorate. There are individual cells loosely aligned, ideologically and otherwise, doing their own thing subsumed by the hatred of the occupier, a feeling shared by people at large. If President Bush had believed that his dramatic dash to Baghdad would put a gloss on the situation in Iraq, he would have been disappointed. There are simply too many chinks in the armour to convince people that there can be a happy end to what was once described as “mission
accomplished”.
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In “Delhiwood”
MANY years ago, during an informal chat, I mockingly chided film actor Pran for “cheating” his diehard fans like me by giving up on villainous roles and playing a good man instead in many films. In an equally light tone, he said it was not his fault. There was no choice before him because the heroes had started playing the villains. The trend of heroes being all-in-one has been discarded in Bollywood to make space for multiple heroes, but has been adopted enthusiastically in “Delhiwood”, a term which can describe the daily happenings in the corridors of power of the national Capital. If this tendency continues, I won’t be surprised if one of these days, the Prime Minister is himself seen demonstrating against oil price hike, nuclear deal with the USA and the Office of Profit Bill. Let me explain. If you are not too very young, you will certainly recall the time when it was the responsibility of the Opposition to oppose almost everything that the government did. That role has now been appropriated by parties that support the government from outside. Quite some support, this. Sometimes one has to pinch oneself hard to recall that it is the BJP which is the main Opposition and not the Left. But the spare wheel is not the only one rocking the car. The main wheels themselves have been acting funny and going in different directions. We are not talking about the coalition partners alone. They had been behaving like spoilsports during the NDA regime as well. The junior partners would as a matter of habit criticise the government and immediately get enough Central grants for their respective states. George Fernandes was the perennial troubleshooter in such matters. Now the contagion has spread to the main ruling party itself. Just look at the way the Congress protested vociferously against the increase in prices of petroleum products, as if the sacrilege had been committed by some other party. And if you think the habit is confined to party workers alone, you have another think coming. Ministers themselves have been picking holes in various government policies, the principle of collective responsibility be damned. Mrs Sonia Gandhi too has not been averse to let her displeasure known on various issues, as if the Prime Minister ever does anything without her consent. So, who is left now? Dr Manmohan Singh in person. But he happens to be the Prime Minister, you will say. So what? He can propose a policy in his official capacity and oppose it in his personal, or perhaps, his professional capacity. He is a Congressman first, isn’t he? “I am the State, and the Opposition,” he can thunder, raising his right fist to say “Government zindabad” and the left one (pun unintended) to say “Government murdabad” in the same breath. Far-fetched? Stranger things have already happened in politics, my
friend.
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For a stable border THE Tenth Round of talks at the official level on the Siachen issue, held at New Delhi on 23 and 24 May 2006, have predictability ended in no agreement. It is obvious that no side wants to climb down from their stated positions. It is good that our side has not done so, as was rumoured hotly in the run up to the talks. There is no reason for India to shift from its position of ‘no-demarcation no-withdrawal’. Consequently, the ball is in Pakistan’s court; they should either accept this or if they feel that this is not possible, then the two sides should drop this issue from their agendas. This issue was included as one of the ten items in the Composite Dialogue, as its resolution was considered to be a key confidence building measure (CBM) in the on-going peace process between the two countries. However, in hind sight, it would appear that this issue too is as intractable as the others. So far, the only CBM’s which are working are those where there is reciprocity and where there is an absence of earlier-held positions. These include a cease fire along the Line of Control (LoC) and the Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL); opening of roads at selected points between Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK); resumption of sports activities, especially cricket; people to people contacts at various levels and so on. We should therefore look at other options for enhancing confidence, instead of flogging the same horse. The biggest military CBM would be an LoC, which does not need eyeball to eyeball confrontation on a continuous basis. For those who may not be fully aware of the status and the prevailing culture of the LoC, let me elucidate. The present LoC is the second avatar of the erstwhile Cease Fire Line (CFL), which had come into being after a ceasefire was agreed to between India and Pakistan on 01 January 1949, when hostilities between Indian and Pakistani forces had ended. The actual demarcation was carried out after long negotiations. It was the line where the troops of the two sides were when hostilities ended and a ceasefire came into force. During the 1965 Indo-Pak war, although our troops had captured large areas across the CFL, including the strategically important Haji Pir Bulge, we had to give them up after the Tashkent Agreement. This was a political decision, taken against military advice. After the 1971 war with Pakistan, it was fortunately decided not to hand back areas captured across the CFL, but to demarcate a fresh line, where the troops of the two sides were when the ceasefire came into force on 17 December 1971. Thus, the LoC came into being. This continues to be the line which separates the two armies. The LoC, which is 740 km long, runs from a point close to Akhnoor, near Jammu, and terminates at Point NJ 9842 in Ladakh. It is not demarcated north of this point, but the Agreement does state that thereafter the line would run ‘north to the glaciers’. After the Indian Army secured the Saltoro Ridge in 1984, in the Siachen Glacier area, the AGPL came into being, commencing at Point NJ 9842, where the LoC had ended. The 110 km long AGPL is thus the natural extension of the LoC, although Pakistan continues to contest this ground reality. Despite the formal demarcation, the Pakistani Army did not honour the sanctity of the CFL, from its very inception. They commenced encroaching and nibbling on our side of the CFL, hoping to either gain tactically advantageous positions or merely to incorporate additional real estate. This was naturally resisted by our troops. Thereafter, eyeball to eyeball deployment became the norm and it was considered fair game to seize any opportunity and occupy areas across the CFL, by both sides. The result was that the CFL became an active border, where firing at each other became a daily affair. This state of affairs continued even after the CFL became the LoC. After 1990, when Pakistan started infiltrating terrorists across the LoC and assisted such infiltration by opening heavy fire on our troops, many actions were taken to reduce and cover gaps between own posts. In this process, many small detachments were deployed forward of our traditional posts, not necessarily in tactically viable positions, in an endeavour to reduce gaps through which infiltration was taking place. These invited similar actions from the other side, thus further escalating tension and resort to increased firing, as well as attempts at capturing these outposts. Over the years, the accumulated result of a highly active LoC and jockeying for tactically important positions is that each side is in adverse possession of small areas across the LoC. These are referred to as encroachments. At a rough estimate, there must be a dozen areas on either side which are in adverse possession of the two armies. Such adverse possession results in increased tension and attempts to dislodge the other side from such areas, which in turn, adds to the already charged atmosphere on the LoC and vitiates attempts to de-escalate violence and bring in a modicum of stability. Instead of trying to resolve issues where the opposing stances have congealed and solidified, India and Pakistan should look for areas of convergence, where an agreement may be feasible. Removing the irritants, irrational stances and the tit for tat attitude which prevails on the LoC will go a long way in building confidence and trust between the two armies and the two countries. I feel this would perhaps be the biggest military CBM of all. It will also reduce the number of troops the two sides have deployed on the LoC, purely to ensure that its sanctity, as enshrined in the Agreements of 1949 and 1972, is maintained. There are many facets pertaining to the LoC which will need to be discussed and resolved. A start can be made by identifying the so-called encroachments each side has made over the years, and negotiating pull-backs to their own side of the LoC. Since the LoC has been demarcated both on maps and on the ground and the detailed documents have been signed and authenticated by both sides, it should not be a difficult task. The writer is a former Vice Chief of Army Staff, and is currently Director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi.
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Japan wins whale vote, greens worried THE International Whaling Commission narrowly voted on Sunday that a 20-year ban on commercial whale hunting no longer was necessary because marine mammals have recovered from near extinction. The 33-32 vote gave Japan a symbolic victory in its campaign to resume whaling and signaled a power shift within the commission, but did not jeopardize the ban, which can be overturned only by a 75 percent vote from among the 70 member nations. Environmentalists and other observers called such a scenario unlikely. Glenn Inwood, spokesman for the Japanese delegation, however, said of the ban: “It’s only a matter of time before it is gone completely.” The so-called St. Kitts and Nevis Declaration also expressed the deeply divided group’s “commitment to normalising the functions of the IWC,” a reference to Japan’s desire to return to IWC’s original role as a whalers’ club with only modest responsibility to manage whale populations. Sunday’s vote demonstrated that Japan and its pro-whaling allies Norway and Iceland have finally acquired control of the IWC by enticing small Caribbean, Pacific and African countries, some of them landlocked and most of them with no interest in whaling, with lavish aid and assistance in developing fisheries. Denmark unexpectedly voted in support of the declaration after previously siding with the conservation advocates. The European nation appeared to be swayed by the pro-whaling sentiments of its constituents in Greenland and the Faeroe Islands, despite a generally environmentalist attitude among Danes. The resolution cast the 1986 whaling ban as a temporary measure aimed at allowing stocks to recover and deemed it “no longer necessary.” It also contended that commercial whaling should resume because the commission’s research has shown that “whales consume huge quantities of fish, making the issue a matter of food security for coastal nations.” Japan, Norway and Iceland have continued to kill more than 2,000 whales annually despite the moratorium by exploiting a loophole that allows “scientific” whaling. The host country’s initiative passed after impassioned statements by Caribbean delegates that the whaling ban was a form of “new colonialism” by wealthy states that seek to impose “emotional” arguments that are detrimental to the small islands’ economic development and natural resource exploitation. Japan’s success in luring a simple majority of IWC’s members to its side provoked anger and predictions of doom for the global whale population among conservation and protection advocates. Only about 1,000 blue whales are believed to survive out of a population believed to have been about 250,000 before large-scale commercial whaling. “Greenpeace is disgusted that any member of the IWC would seek to promote whaling based upon the false notion that whales consume so much fish that they are a threat to food security,” spokesman Mike Townsley said minutes after the vote, who called the notion “a dangerous lie.” Noting that over-fishing by humans has endangered fish stocks, Townsley said “blaming whales for collapsing fisheries is like blaming woodpeckers for
deforestation.”
— By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post
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Delhi Durbar EVEN though Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi’s son M K Stalin is a minister in Chennai, the Gen-next leader in the DMK appears to be Union Communications and IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran. The intense opposition to Stalin as the heir apparent in the DMK is well known. Interestingly, it was Maran who was constantly with Karunanidhi during his recent visit to the Capital. During Karunanidhi’s meetings in the Planning Commission and other ministries, Maran did most of the talking, with senior officials of the state government chipping in. For most of the time, Karunanidhi concurred with Maran’s presentation seeking a larger central allocation for the southern state. This is being interpreted by the DMK ministers and MPs that Maran might well be Karunanidhi’s successor in the Dravidian party. UGC
Vice-Chairman Hectic parleys have begun in the precincts of the HRD ministry to finalise the name for the post of Vice-Chairman of the University Grants Commission. As in the case of the exercise that was conducted to select the Chairman, the ministry is in no hurry to come up with the name. Sources say all permutations and combinations are being worked out to find a “suitable candidate”, who could either be from the minorities or the reserved category. In the fray are a former Vice Chancellor of Kashmir University, the current Secretary of the UGC and a Vice Chancellor of a University in Tamil Nadu. Open memorandum The Congress central leadership has disapproved of the way a memorandum seeking a leadership change in Punjab was distributed to mediapersons and others before it reached Congress President Sonia Gandhi. Supporters of PCC leader Jagmeet Singh had distributed the memorandum, which was critical of Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh. AICC leaders had pulled up some Punjab Congress leaders over their public spat following the Reliance land transfer controversy. The central leadership is keen to enforce discipline in the state unit lest the opposition gets a handle to beat the party with. Brar’s supporters, some of whom are under suspension, may have some promises to make to the central leadership before they are taken back in the PCC. To each his own The battle for securing the upper hand in Madhya Pradesh politics between former Chief Minister Uma Bharti and current Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan continues to rage, not only in Bhopal but even in the national capital. The other day Chouhan was asked by a mediaperson about Bharti camping in Bhopal for the last three days while he has been out of the state capital. The suggestion was that he was seeking an escape route from the firebrand Sanyasin. The scribe continued saying that Bharti has also promised to pull down his government in the next few months. Chouhan replied that “she is doing what she does best and I am doing what I do best. I am running the government focusing on development work”. Even before Chouhan could elaborate on what “Uma does best”, a scribe commented “Uma demolishes parties and
structures”. Contributed by Satish Misra, Prashant Sood,
Smriti Kak Ramachandran and Manoj Kumar |
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From the pages of Punjab-Pepsu Merger
November 1, 1956, will go down in the history of PEPSU people as a day of complete deliverance from the hangover of feudal order. Although the mighty bastions of autocracy in the Punjab States were pulled down by the iron man of India on July 15, 1948, by integrating the eight princely states to form PEPSU, the impact of the dying order continued to hold sway over the lives of the people and they had to continue the desperate manoeuvres of the counter-revolutionaries. The merger of PEPSU with Punjab marks the ultimate triumph of the State people’s heroic struggle. To-day they can look back with pride at the shining pinnacles of their sacrifices rising over the ruins of autocracy and feudalism which had spared no weapon in its armoury to suppress the people’s movement.
— by Brish Bhan
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The thirst of a thoughtless man grows like a creeper. For him who conquers the thirst sufferings fall off like water from the water from the lotus leaf. This is the thirst of desires, of wanting more and more. — The Buddha He who is engrossed in duality, throws dust on his own head. — Guru Nanak Deluded by doubt, mortals become mad. — Guru Nanak There is only one who you may call own and that is God. — Ramakrishna A man has sinned again and again in the past. But once the truth is revealed to him, his soul is washed clean. All his sins are pulverised. But he has to strive long and dedicatedly to arrive at this place in life. — The Bhagavadgita
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