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Tale of
Telgi Munda in trouble |
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Retire at 60
Supersessions in civil services
The Queen’s English in India
Human Rights
Diary US debates stance towards Musharraf Delhi Durbar
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Tale of Telgi THERE can be differences of opinion on the admissibility as evidence of the result of the narco-analysis done on Abdul Karim Telgi, the kingpin of the multi-billion stamp paper scam. But it has brought to public focus a scam which has been dormant for some time. Both Union Minister Sharad Pawar and Maharashtra Minister Chagan Bhujbal, who are accused of having received illegal gratification from Telgi, have rubbished his statement as the blabbering of a criminal. But this does not detract from the seriousness of the charge, at least in public perception. After all, the scam is believed to be worth several thousands of crores of rupees. Compared to it, the Bofors payoff scam, which involved only Rs 62 crore, is peanuts. It is impossible to believe that Telgi, who is also accused of engineering the murder of his driver, could have been presiding over a vast enterprise of printing fake stamp papers, supplying them to the vendors all over the country and raking in huge profits without the connivance of those in power. The Tribune had some time ago reported how the National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre, during whose tenure Telgi was arrested, tried to slow down the investigation by the CBI as it feared that details of the case would adversely affect the electoral fortunes of the ruling alliance. The United Progressive Alliance, which succeeded the NDA, too, did not take the case seriously. On paper, the CBI has completed its investigation of the case. Telgi and his associates have also been convicted by a special court for his role in a 1995 case of selling fake stamp papers worth Rs 17 lakh and sentenced to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment. But many gaping holes still remain in the case. Could a dozen or so people have carried on such a business on their own without the help of those manning the security press where stamp papers are printed and political leaders, particularly when the names of some bigwigs in Karnataka and Maharashtra figured in the scam? It’s for the government to come out with a white paper on the whole scam so that speculations are nipped in the bud and the country is assured that no guilty person, however mighty he or she may be, has escaped punishment.
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Munda in trouble THE resignation of four ministers from the Arjun Munda government in Jharkhand reducing it to a minority was not a sudden development. After Mr Shibu Soren’s misadventure last time, courtesy an obliging Governor, Mr Munda scraped through the vote of confidence as mandated by the Supreme Court. He cobbled together a majority with the help of three independents, all of whom were made ministers. Ironically, it is the same three ministers who have raised a banner of revolt against him now. Another minister has quit on the ground that he was prevented by the state police from joining the trio. It would be difficult for Mr Munda to blame the deplorable conduct of his disloyal ministers. For, he himself used patently immoral methods to win the vote of confidence last time. It may be recalled that NDA members were airlifted to Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, ruled by the BJP, to keep the flock together. In sharp contrast to his controversial role last time, Governor Syed Sibtey Razi seems to be following the rulebook carefully this time. He has rightly given a week to Mr Munda to prove his majority on the floor of the State Assembly. It remains to be seen whether Mr Munda would win the trust vote on September 14. However, neither the beleaguered NDA nor the breakaway group headed by Independent Madhu Koda would be able to form a government without horse-trading. Equally significant will be the role of the pro-active Speaker. Unfortunately, horse-trading is eating into the vitals of Indian polity. There is no end to the greed of the legislators for power and pelf. The loaves and fishes of office are so attractive and irresistible that they are prepared to switch sides and compromise their integrity. Moreover, the anti-defection law applies only to MPs and MLAs who belong to political parties and not to Independents. As a result, political stability which is so crucial for a state that is affected by Maoist violence has become a casualty.
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Retire at 60 THE Punjab Cabinet on Wednesday appointed a committee of ministers to look into the employees’ demand for enhancing their retirement age from 58 to 60. Indications are that the demand will be accepted. The retirement age of IAS and other officers is 60 and the employees felt discriminated against. Besides, the Amarinder Singh government, faced with the Assembly elections early next year, is keen to win over the employees who have largely been hostile to it. A few days ago the government had appointed a new pay commission. That it will deplete the state finances is another matter. Winning the election is a priority. It is not that easy to mollify the Punjab employees, who are among the most pampered and best paid in the country. Their demand for assured promotions on the completion of four, nine and 14 years of service has split the Cabinet as it would entail a heavy financial outgo. Promotions should not come as a right. These have to be earned. Only the deserving and competent should move up. The Punjab government has become top heavy over the years due to unwarranted promotions as the successive chief ministers have been promoting their favourite civil and police officers along with those senior to them. Raising the age of retirement to 60 can be justified on the ground that the average life expectancy in India has increased. The government can benefit more from the expertise and experience of its employees. But the committee of ministers will have to assess the political impact of the decision as it is likely to cause heart-burning among the unemployed. What is important is the employees should be made to deliver and be accountable. Red tape and corruption are rampant in the administration. The bonanza of new pay scales and a higher retirement age should be accompanied by a crackdown on inefficiency.
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Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be. — Robert Browning
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Supersessions in civil services
IN the reaction to the Manmohan Singh government’s decision to appoint Mr Shivshankar Menon the next Foreign Secretary, two contrasting strands stand out. The first is the remarkably widespread welcome to the choice. This is no surprise in view of his well-known professional competence and personal qualities. It is given to few Foreign Service officers to serve — before reaching the top rung of the ladder — as head of mission in such an array of important countries as Israel, Sri Lanka, China and Pakistan. Secondly, there is a conspicuous tinge of regret, even among those who have applauded him that Mr. Menon should have “superceded” more than a baker’s dozen of his colleagues. The underlying contradiction — which has become an integral part of this country’s politico-bureaucratic culture — is a major problem that is not easy to solve but will have to be grappled with, if modernisation of the country and the requisite administrative reforms are to have any meaning. In all fairness, it must be acknowledged that, to an extent, respect for seniority in age and position has been a part of the Indian ethos from times immemorial. Even so, a lot had changed by the 1930’s when the bureaucratic “steel-frame” of the British Raj had been sufficiently “Indianised”. For instance, in the twelfth year of his service, Sir Girja Shankar Bajpai had become one of the six Secretaries to the Government of India; this evoked no protest from any of his seniors, Britons or Indians. Even after Independence, L.P. Singh — later Union Home Secretary, Ambassador and Governor — had become Bihar’s Chief Secretary at a very young age. Meritocracy seemed to be the aim, if not the name of the game. But things began to change for the worse fast enough. Interestingly, it was a series of promotions and postings in the higher echelons of the armed forces that started the clamour for the sanctity of seniority, not anything that happened in the civil services. Krishna Menon, the brilliant but waspish and controversial defence minister in the late fifties, did play favourites. All hell broke loose. Parliament was in uproar. General Thimayya, arguably the most popular Army Chief the country has had, resigned though, on Jawaharlal Nehru’s persuasion he withdrew the resignation, regretting this decision later. In the national Capital, the civil services remained unaffected by the controversy. But political interference, often crass, in bureaucratic appointments, promotions and other service matters in various states had already begun on a disturbing scale. Sadly, there was no dearth of civil servants willing, indeed anxious to bend over backwards to please their political bosses, and the dismal trend has steadily escalated. However, it was only a matter of time for the virus of politicisation to travel from state capitals like Patna, Lucknow and Chandigarh to New Delhi where the situation was to reach the nadir during the Emergency and the Janata backlash to it. The sordid situation has since been aggravated by the mounting polarisation between the votaries of “Hindutva” and the upholders of “secularism”. Strangely, those who were crying hoarse until the other day that OBC reservations were bound to “hound out merit” are wailing now that merit, rather than sheer seniority, has prevailed in the selection of the new Foreign Secretary! Having said this, one must hasten to make two pertinent points. First, seniority is important and cannot be dismissed as either irrelevant or immaterial. But to make it the be-all and end-all of whatever happens within the vast bureaucratic labyrinth is not right. There ought to be a proper and judicious balance between merit and seniority, with just a little weightage in favour of the former. And this is precisely what leads one to the second vital point. If seniority has acquired the stranglehold it has, and merit takes a back seat, the overriding reason is the almost complete loss of faith in the fairness of the “merit-based selections”. When nepotism, favourtism, caste affiliations, partisan politics, and profitable personal linkages are the order of the day, seniority becomes a shield. For, it cannot be subjectively manipulated. Yet, supercessions have taken place several times, such as when Mr Krishnaswamy Raosaheb, Mr P.K. Kaul and Mr T.N. Seshan were appointed cabinet secretaries or the office of foreign secretary went to Mr M.K. Rasgotra, Mr A.P. Venkateswaran and the late J.N. Dixit. But these were exceptions to the general rule. A healthy balance between merit and seniority must be established in order to restore the lost faith in the fairness of the selection process. This is, of course, easier said than done. In New Delhi the task would be Herculean, in a number of states well nigh impossible. Against this backdrop it is to Dr Manmohan Singh’s credit that he is trying to introduce some sanity in the present insane system. His decision to get a comprehensive civil service law enacted is greatly to be welcomed. Precise judgment on it must wait until its presentation to Parliament but some of the contemplated steps are in the right direction. Transfers at the drop of a hat are the most effective method of imperious politicians in power to deal with “inconvenient” officers. In several states the average tenure of a district magistrate (also called collector or deputy commissioner) in any district is rarely more than a few months. In Delhi the ascent to the office of Secretary has become rather like a ride on an escalator. Since seniority must be respected and every member of a batch wants to have a crack at the top job, most secretaries have miserably short tenures. The Prime Minister —whose own shining reputation for integrity and impartiality is a big advantage — has done a lot to give fixed two-year terms to holders of crucial posts not only at the Centre but also in states, especially at the level of the district magistrate. Moreover, the proposed civil service law aims at setting up committees of peers, enjoying credibility, to make recommendations for senior appointments — secretaries and heads of para-military forces and intelligence agencies at the Centre and chief secretaries and directors-general of the police in the states. Another commendable step taken by the Prime Minister is that while empanelling officers for higher jobs, two batches are be considered together, rather than take up only batch at a time, as has been the practice so far. Maybe, it would be better to make “deep selections” from three batches considered
jointly.
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The Queen’s English in India
I
read a hilarious book, “Eats, Shoots and Leaves”, which deals with the corruption of the Queen’s English due to negligence in the use of punctuation. But the corruption in Newspaper English in India stems largely from a transference of usage from the mother tongue into English. The most glaring example of this is in the use of articles. Indian languages do not have the concept of the article. In Hindi, for instance, we say: “Main kamare me aaya. Kamare mein ek khidki thi. Khidki Khuli thi.” Translated literally into English this would read: “I came into room. In room there was one window. Window was open”. Naturally, unless paid particular attention to, this results in all kinds of difficulties: an interchange of definite and indefinite articles, absence of articles when articles are needed, use of articles when articles are not needed, a classical example of this is: “The old song took him down the memory lane.” There is now an increasing tendency to take the easy way out and not use articles at all! Another transference is in the use of the possessive “his” and “her”. In Hindi we will say: “Ram apni kursi pe baitha” or “Sita apni kursi pe baithi”. In both cases the possessive remains “apni” because it carries the gender of the chair, which is feminine. While in English we will say “Ram sat on his chair” or “Sita sat on her chair” because the possessive takes the gender of the possessor. But one finds increasingly, a carelessness in the use of “his” and “her”. A recent example of this is: “Rakesh of Kaimla village tried to rape her neighbour.” Problems arise with choice of vocabulary items from words with similar sounds. Yesterday I saw a newspaper report headlined “Pramod paddles to victory” and expected to read about a boating event — but the photograph on top was of a group of youngsters on bicycles pedalling away to glory. A more disturbing carelessness occurs when we have two or more equivalent words for a Hindi word and the writer is careless in choosing the right word. This is a mild irritant when the writer is dealing with words like — “roof” and “ceiling” as equivalents for the Hindi “chhat”. At the most he will say: “There is a display of huge crystal chandeliers which hang from the roof to the floor” or “The accident was caused by too many people crowding on the ceiling to get a bird’s eyeview of the procession.” But real difficulty arises when the writer has to choose in cases like “rear” and “back”. One newspaper report read: “The department has floated a project to encourage schools to establish herbal gardens. Efforts are also being made to motivate house owners to grow herbs in their backsides.” The English in Indian newspapers may still claim to be “Queen’s English” but I am sure Queen Elizabeth will vehemently deny all ownership rights to this special
language.
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Human Rights
Diary MONEY, more aptly, the mafia, with the help of corrupt public servants, is destroying our national heritage in the shape of forests and fields. This is supposed to be modernisation. I have nothing against it, except that what is being built looks hideous. My real complaint is that as the land in cities becomes scarce, a forest, a park or, for that matter, any green patch, is being blotted out to make room for concrete contraptions. Where does the environment figure? Dazzled by skyscrapers in Europe and America we have come to prefer bricks to plants, opulence to simplicity, buildings to nature. And when I travel through India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal, I find tall buildings devouring open spaces which are the lungs of our habitations. Most of us are indifferent to what is going on, but we will regret the loss of greenery some day. India is the worst example. The green cover has already come down to 6.5 per cent from 15 per cent in the last 50 years. The mania for 8 per cent annual growth is not only bulldozing the dissent on the type of development, but doing worse. The government is itself a party to changing the complexion of India through steel and cement. Unfortunately, it is thoughtless, inept and crass development. One example at Delhi will amplify what I mean. There is a ridge, older than the Himalayas. It has been cut and re-cut many a time to accommodate colonies. The worst was when the government wanted to build 11 hotels at the bit of forest left at Vasant Kunj. I petitioned the Supreme Court and got a stay order. The worst followed when the Supreme Court itself released a part of the forest land. I wrote a letter to Delhi chief minister Shiela Dixit six years ago to request her to notify the ridge under the Environmental Act and stop the “construction and felling of trees.” There was not even an acknowledgement. I was then a Member of Parliament. Subsequently – by then I had retired from the Rajya Sabha – I wrote a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to draw his attention to the havoc played with the environment in the ridge area. There was no reply from him either. That probably has encouraged the grasping builders and corrupt authorities to start raising plazas, destroying even the source that recharges water. Although obliged to get permission from the Ministry of Environment, the builders disdainfully ignored it. A few days ago an international workshop at Delhi passed a resolution to say: “If construction is not reversed in this area (the Vasant Vihar-Mahipalpur ridge) it will amount to giving licence to builders to build anywhere – be it Lodi Gardens or Corbett Park.” But this is bound to happen sooner than later. Much will depend on the Prime Minister who has been sent a copy of the resolution. India has another racket in the name of progress. This is the SEZ (special economic zone). The government acquires a large chunk of agriculture land at cheap prices and passes it on to big business houses to set up industry. The zone is a free enclave and considered “foreign territory for the purpose of trade preparations,” where duties, tariffs, etc. are exempt. One specific instance is that of the Haryana government allotting to an industrial house 25,000 acres of cultivable land. An internal assessment of the Finance Ministry is that the central government will lose Rs 90,000 crore in direct and indirect taxes over the next four years. Punjab and UP are in the midst of concluding similar ventures with known industrial houses. Some 140 SEZs will come up throughout the country. Is this what development is all about? I have heard of robbing Peter to pay Paul. But I have never known Peter robbing Paul and that too with the help of the government. The 70 per cent people living in the countryside – the mainstay of our democratic structure – are the milching cows. They are being ousted from their homes and lands to enlarge industry and business, the signposts of progress. Whether they are the oustees of mines in Orissa, the Narmada Dam in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, or of SEZs in Haryana, Punjab and UP, they tell the same story: the government has decided to eliminate the poor, not poverty. The Prime Minister has been prompt in convening a meeting of the states where the “Naxalite menace” has been on the increase. I wish he had called the meeting for discussing the deteriorating plight of farmers and others in the countryside. The lower half is getting lower and lower. He and his advisers should have seen at Delhi the exhibition where the children of destroyed jhuggi-jhopris have expressed the agony and helplessness through the clay huts and the bribe-taking officials. This may be the beginning of “political” art, but it tells a story of marginalised sections of society. The Prime Minister promised development with human face. But it has turned out to be an ingenious way to further exploit the exploited. Development will be judged by the journey the lowest have made on the road to progress, not by the malls and plazas. Jawaharlal Nehru said once that India might have tall buildings, big factories and modern laboratories but they would be of no consequence if the country had lost its spiritual heritage in the process. What shocks me is the connivance of the Left. I think that they are enjoying the vicarious satisfaction of being in power. This was their best opportunity to expose the government, but they have become part of it.
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US debates stance towards Musharraf Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf is supposedly a key US ally in the “war on terror.” But now the administration is debating whether Musharraf has become too dependent on Islamic extremist political parties in Pakistan to further US interests, and whether he should be pressured to permit the return of two exiled former prime ministers, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, who have formed an electoral alliance for the presidential elections next year. There is mounting evidence that, as an ally, Musharraf has been an opportunist from the start who has continued to help the Taliban and who has gone after al-Qaida cells in Pakistan only to the extent necessary to fend off US and British pressure. On September 19, 2001, Musharraf made a revealing TV address in Urdu in which he reassured Pakistanis who sympathised with al-Qaida and the Taliban that his decision to line up with the US was a temporary expedient. To Taliban sympathisers, Musharraf directed an explicit message, saying: “We are trying our best to come out of this critical situation without any damage to Afghanistan and the Taliban.” Taliban forces continue to have unrestricted access to Pakistani border towns as staging areas and sanctuaries. Pakistani soldiers look the other way when Taliban units cross the mountains at Bormoi. With US and NATO forces in Afghanistan suffering heavy casualties in the face of a Taliban offensive this summer, their officers no longer mince words about Pakistan’s role. Musharraf sees the Taliban as a pro-Pakistan counterweight to Indian influence in Afghanistan and wants to keep it strong in case Afghan President Hamid Karzai is overthrown and Afghanistan collapses into chaos. As a sop to Washington and London, he ordered raids on two small Taliban encampments in July, and he occasionally rounds up key al-Qaida figures — but in many cases only after the FBI and CIA have confronted Pakistani police with communications intercepts pinpointing their hide-outs. Even if Musharraf wanted to remove Taliban and al-Qaida forces from Pakistan, his ability to do so is limited by the political pact that he made with a five-party Islamic alliance in 2004 to win state elections in the two key border provinces. As a result, al-Qaida and Taliban activity is openly supported by local officials there, and Pakistani groups allied with al-Qaida are thriving, notably Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba. This prevents Musharraf from carrying out his pledge to crack down on madrasas (religious schools) linked to terrorist groups. The Islamic parties are flourishing under the protective umbrella of the Pakistani armed forces. Under Musharraf, the army has seized more power than past military regimes. As a Pakistani editor commented, “Most countries have an army, but in Pakistan, the army has a country.” The U.S. should use its aid leverage to promote three goals: Bhutto and Sharif should be permitted to return and organise freely. If Musharraf wants to run for president again, he should step down as army chief of staff and run as a civilian. Finally, he should turn over power to a neutral caretaker government that would conduct the elections. The writer is a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, is a former South Asia bureau chief for The Washington Post. By arrangement with
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Delhi Durbar Senior
BJP leader Sushma Swaraj and one of the youngest partymen, Varun Gandhi, are reportedly in the race for the Vidisha Lok Sabha Constituency in Madhya Pradesh. This was recently vacated by Chief Minister Shivraj Chauhan. The seat has to be filled before the middle of November. While Varun has been lobbying very hard for a party ticket to contest the byelection for the past several months, Sushma, who is at present the Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, is keen on entering the Lok Sabha. There is mixed reaction within the party on the candidature of these two leaders. Some favour Varun saying his victory in Vidisha, which is quite possible with the BJP in power in the state, could help the party pit him against Rahul Gandhi of the Congress in the Lok Sabha. Others favour the candidature of Sushma on the grounds that she is a good speaker and an effective leader, and her experience would help the party during debates on various important issues in the Lok Sabha. With the expelled BJP leader and firebrand sanyasin Uma Bharti also contemplating a go at Vidisha, it will be interesting to see who takes on the challenge.
Left dilemma The Left parties are in a dilemma regarding the Samajwadi Party in the forthcoming Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. While the CPI has been supporting the Jan Morcha of former Prime Minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh and cine-star Raj Babbar, big brother CPI-M has been sending signals that it would not abandon Mulayam Singh Yadav at this juncture, as it would be giving an opportunity to the BJP to return to power in the land of Ayodhya. While the Left parties have been talking in terms of a joint strategy for the Assembly polls in Punjab, Manipur, Uttaranchal and Uttar Pradesh, there is little unanimity in their views on the issue of aligning with the Samajwadi Party. What is proving to be more worrisome to the CPI-M is the division among the Left brethren which will weaken their bargaining power if they are not able to help Mulayam Singh Yadav return to power in Lucknow. The comrades have been nurturing the hope that they would be able to put pressure on the Congress-led UPA to accept their candidate for the high office of President at the completion of A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s tenure in Rashtrapati Bhawan in June next year. Needless to say, the votes of UP in the electoral college will be crucial. Will the Communists be successful in having one of their nominees as the President remains to be seen.
Kalam, the teacher Referring to his own teachers and their contribution to his success in life, President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam urged the winners of the national awards for teachers to ensure that none of their students remain non-performers. Pointing out that he is a teacher himself, the First Citizen virtually transformed the venue into a classroom when he administered a ten-point oath to the teachers and urged them to join in the singing of the National Anthem. The President, who is known for his uncomplicated approach, asked in jest whether the teachers had skipped their breakfast, thus prompting the teachers to be louder while repeating the oath after him. Later, while giving away the awards, Kalam was again at his affable best — even posing for a snapshot with a teacher who was sporting a big moustache. Contributed by Smriti Kak Ramachandran,
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From the pages of Bold and firm decision IN ordering dissolution of the Lok Sabha the President has acted boldly and with a firmness which appears uncommon in today’s conditions. It cannot be said that he acted on impulse. The decision in favour of a mid-term poll followed a long series of discussions with senior political leaders and a few others who could rightly claim knowledge of the Constitution. As late as midday yesterday the trend of Mr Sanjiva Reddy’s discussions with representatives of the principal political parties did not rule out the possibility of an invitation to the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Jagjivan Ram, to form a new government. Apparently Mr Reddy came to the conclusion that the quantum of such support was inadequate to ensure a stable government. Mr Reddy appears to have been more concerned with the need for a clear verdict through an election than with the technical issue of whether or not Mr Jagjivan Ram’s claim to succession on a trial basis was justified.
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A dying man is like the crop. Like the crop he is born again. — The Upanishadas Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves? — Friedrich Nietzsche We see Him in Parvati, Lakshmi and Saraswati. — Guru Nanak
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