The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

EDITORIALS

Anything goes
Cops can close their eyes even to RDX

That policemen are not exactly paragons of honesty is not such a big secret. Everyone knows they enforce law selectively and can ignore many transgressions for a consideration. Pay them a few greenbacks and they can become facilitators in place of watchdogs. That is how most of the smuggling takes place. Since they have the support of the state machinery, it is very difficult to catch them with their hands in the till. But at times, their side business goes too far, as it happened in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case. They facilitated transportation of arms and explosives from Raigad to Mumbai by taking a bribe of Rs 7 lakh. Thirteen years after the horrifying crime, five of the eight accused policemen stand convicted. One of them is an inspector. The seriousness of their crime cannot be overstressed. It even made the TADA Judge trying the case to observe: “You were the main persons who allowed the explosive into the country. If you hadn’t, the blasts could have been averted”. Had they done their duty, more than 250 persons who perished in the 13 blasts on that fateful day of March 12 might have been still alive.

The innocence plea of the inspector was interesting. He claimed that he thought that the truck he was allowing to pass was only carrying silver bricks. Weapons, if any, were not visible. According to the CBI, the sacked inspector had negotiated the deal for the transportation of weapons by seeking a bribe of Rs 7 lakh and kept a silver brick in his possession for a day as the accused did not have the money to pay at that time. He returned the silver brick only the next day after the bribe was paid.

There is a lesson there for every corrupt policeman. Arms and ammunition could be hidden in any of the countless consignments they allow to pass for a few rupees (even if the amount runs into lakhs). Such selling of their souls to the devil is bad enough. Becoming tools of terrorist-devils — whether deliberately or otherwise — makes it worse. The blood of many innocent citizens will be on their conscience if they do not mend their ways.

Sack over head
Karnataka’s no to English is absurd

The Karnataka government’s move to derecognise 1420 schools for imparting instruction in the English language at the primary level is extraordinary in its short-sightedness, political cynicism and blatant parochialism. The government has taken recourse to a 1994 law that allowed English as the medium of instruction only from Standard V onwards. All schools set up after 1994 were to follow the rule but thousands of schools flouted it, under pressure from parents, mostly redoubtable Kannadigas, who wanted their wards to benefit from knowing the English language well. In the last few years, Bangalore and Karnataka were put on the world Information Technology map by those who not only had an innate number-crunching ability but also an easy familiarity with English.

And who will lose most from such a move? Certainly not those who can send their children to long-established schools where students speak English better than their mother-tongues. Or, for that matter, the motley crew of politicians who make such decisions as their children are safely ensconced in the best schools. It is the low-income groups who will suffer. Without doubt, languages like Kannada, with its rich literature and traditions, need nurture and promotion. English’s exclusive status as a language of not only power, success and accomplishment but also of social advancement can be challenged but not its usefulness. Even the Chinese have come around.

Indeed, it can be argued that one of the reasons why languages like Punjabi, Tamil and Kannada are not thriving the way they should, a common lament of litterateurs, is that we are yet to discover an optimal way to relate to languages. While various kinds of parochialism and chauvinism, regional, national, religious, have been discredited, linguistic chauvinism is somehow seen as politically acceptable. Bangalore, after all, has a statue of Tamil poet saint Thiruvalluvar, with a sack of rags over its head. Kannada groups will not allow its unveiling. With a sack over your head, it is difficult to see.

Getting competitive
There’s news to cheer, India is ahead of China

In a ranking of competitiveness, India is ahead of China. Judged on nine parameters, India ranks 43rd in a World Economic Forum survey covering 125 countries. China is way behind at the 54th position. Even Brazil at 66th and Russia at 62nd lag behind. This should particularly bolster corporate India’s morale. The country has been praised for excelling in innovation, business sophistication, market efficiency and the quality of its institutions like the judicial system. Only a few weeks ago a survey by the International Finance Corporation had ranked India at the dismal 134th slot out of 175 countries in terms of ease in doing business.

Significantly, the World Economic Forum report has questioned the widely held perception that China should be a growth model for India. It points out that the health of China’s enterprises has been declining since the late 1990s while India has created a better base for future growth than China. “By focussing on improving governance and fostering private sector development”, says the report, India has taken a lead over China’s investment-driven approach. On parameters like the quality of financial system and corporate governance, India is better placed than China.

However, what the Indian government needs to ponder is the country’s less-than-satisfactory performance in the spheres of health, education and infrastructure. While the Centre is making efforts to overcome deficiencies in health and education through programmes like the Health Mission and Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan, the states, barring a few, are yet to come up with effective action plans. States like Punjab make small allocations in their budgets for education and health. The high cost of education and user-charges in hospitals have limited the reach of these services, which are the basics of a progressive society. Infrastructure building is slowly acquiring the priority it deserves, but, again, mostly at the Central level.

ARTICLE

Punjab reeks of corruption
Farmers are the victims
by Kuldip Nayar

The latest World Bank Report places India almost at the bottom of corruption-free countries. It has the distinction of being 124th. If a similar study were to be undertaken in India, Punjab, I am sure, will rank at the end of the list. The entire state is reeking of corruption and, practically, none in the government is above suspicion.

In fact, as the Assembly election is approaching — scheduled for the next February — the scandals are increasing in number and gravity. No criticism is making any difference. The furor over the report by the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India rapping the Punjab government for misappropriating rural development cess had not lowered when the Ludhiana City Centre scam hit the headlines.

In the first case, a sum of Rs 935 crore was reportedly misappropriated. Where it was used and how was not known. But the cess was not utilised even for drought relief activities. The expenditure amounted to Rs 340.57 crore for the kharif season. The Centre bore the burden. The Comptroller and Auditor-General used strong words: “Audit found no evidence to indicate that the amount collected as rural development cess was utilised for the specified purpose”.

In the second case, the bungling runs into crores of rupees. The Ludhiana City Centre is spread over 20.55 acres in the heart of the city and is meant to provide 200 shops, corporate offices, art galleries and a five-star hotel. The manner in which allotment has been sought to be made has raised suspicion. According to one estimate, the loss to the state will amount to Rs 500 crore.

The rules, it seems, have been blatantly changed to accommodate those who apparently have paid money in black. The space has been sold by taking 70 per cent of the payment in bulk, depriving the government of its legitimate share.

The state government has ordered an inquiry. But when the state itself is in the dock and when one minister is being named, the CBI should look into the case. This demand has been rejected for obvious reasons. The state’s own investigating agencies do not evoke the confidence which the inquiry of this type should do.

Another example of underhand dealings is the land given to Reliance. It is worth crores of rupees. The state has violated all procedures in allotting it. The State-owned Punjab Small Industries and Export Corporation (PSIEC) has been “forced” to sell the land at a very cheap rate. An English daily from Chandigarh has claimed that it has the proceedings of the Punjab Cabinet meeting of June 25 where the proposal of giving 325.57 acres was approved. The land has been given at the industrial reserve price despite the fact that industrial activity is nowhere visible.

The question is not only about the violation of rules on the allotment of land to a particular party but also that of the government’s involvement. Cabinet meeting proceedings make it clear. It is strange that the Congress high command, which is aware of it, has kept mum. The state Congress is not happy over the attitude of the High Command but does not dare to open its mouth.

The several instances of the state government’s role make one wonder if New Delhi is really interested in stalling scandals or pursuing them to make sure that such things do not recur. A former Congress chief minister made me wiser the other day when he said that the state Chief Ministers had to send money to the Congress organisation at the Centre for running the party in the country. If this is correct, the state is only doing what it is supposed to do.

Probably, Punjab is overdoing it. Without transparency — it holds good for all political parties — corruption cannot be stopped. And there is no hope that any political party, including the Congress, will ever agree to such money transactions which are open.

The widespread corruption is, however, affecting Punjab considerably. Very little money is available for the state’s development, particularly in the field of agriculture. Yields are falling because of various factors and the biggest one is that the money allocated for the purpose is generally not reaching the field. Farmers are the victims. There is hardly any farmer who is without debt.

The CPM organised a protest early this week and stopped some trains. The party’s demand is to have a law to waive farmers’ loans which total Rs 25,000 crore, the highest in the country. I do not know why the party is not pressing the Manmohan Singh government which is in power because of the CPM support.

Farmers in Punjab are really in a bad shape. The survey made on the “suicide of farmers” has shown that 2000 cases were in Punjab alone. The slogan to have agriculture as the priority at the recent Congress Chief Ministers’ conclave is alright as far as it goes. But words do not produce foodgrains. What is required is concerted hard work which the feuding state government cannot organise.

Whenever I return from travel through Punjab, I feel pessimist because people are losing hope in the government. They wonder if it can retrieve them from the miserable situation in which they are caught. Mere rhetoric is not enough; they want results.

I wonder that if the Punjabis outside Punjab can do well in every field, why they are lagging behind within the state. The Punjabis outside Punjab should also think seriously about how to help the people in Punjab. They cannot let their own state, Punjab, wallow in poverty and debt.

Checking with some well-to-do Punjabis in Delhi, I find that their worry is the ever-increasing corruption in the state. Maybe, the inhabitants of Punjab should set up vigilance groups at the district level to ensure that public funds do not find their way to personal pockets which are deep.

Punjab has spent a long night in the midst of militancy. Wounds are far from healed. Corruption at high places may again put people in the throes of desperation. Seventy per cent of youth, particularly in the countryside, are drug addicts.

And their eyes are fixed on some place outside India because they feel there is no other way out of the difficulties they face. Corruption at the ministerial level has made them feel still forlorn and lonely. They need the governance to be clean and transparent. This is not much to ask for.

MIDDLE

Ex-MP’s ordeal
by S. Raghunath

Mr Era Anbarasu, a former Member of Parliament from Tamil Nadu, has been put through the wringer by monkeys. He had recently gone to South Block in New Delhi to meet the Union Finance Minister Mr P. Chidambaram and as he was coming out, he was surrounded and attacked by a horde of unruly monkeys and one of them bit him in the ankle and he had to rush to a private nursing home for an emergency anti-tetanus injection.

A deeply distraught Mr Anbarasu has written a long and passionate letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh narrating in pitiless detail his ordeal at the hands of monkeys and urging him to immediately deploy para-military forces and Black Cat commandos to clear the secretariat complex of all monkeys. “Terrorists, militants and separatists are a threat to the unity and integrity of the country,” he has written in his letter. “But, monkeys are a constant threat to officials working in the government secretariat.”

Akhila Bharatiya Monkey Sangharsh Samiti (ABMSS) has taken strong exception to the tone and tenor of Mr Anbarasu’s letter calling it in “poor taste”, “lacking in objectivity” and “biased and motivated”.

Talking to newsmen, a spokesmonkey said: “Mr Anbarasu’s prejudice against monkeys is well known and needs no repetition here and we’re not at all surprised by his outburst, but it has hurt us deeply that he has levelled baseless allegations against us in his intemperate letter to the Prime Minister. We hope that Dr Manmohan Singh will ignore Mr Anbarasu’s letter and treat it with the contempt it deserves”.

The spokesmonkey continued: “We monkeys have a tested grievance machinery in place and if Mr Anbarasu had any complaint against us, he could have approached us for speedy redressal of his grievance.” Monkeys, it said, are keeping their doors open for a meaningful dialogue with Mr Anbarasu.

“It’s a fact that many monkeys were loitering in the corridor outside the Finance Minister’s office, but they had an appointment to see Mr Chidambaram and we’re surprised no end that Mr Anbarasu should have taken exception to our presence.”

“We monkeys don’t want to hanker after government jobs and we want to be independent and self-reliant by setting up our own small businesses dealing in fried groundnuts and bengalgram and fruits and we had approached the Finance Minister for loans under the Prime Minister’s new 20-point programme for the urban poor. An adult rhesus monkey had respectfully approached Mr Anbarasu to present a petition to intercede with the Finance Minister on its behalf and recommend its case for a loan, but Mr Anbarasu had contemptuously shooed it away and in the ensuing melee he suffered a minor tooth mark on his ankles.”

The spokesmonkey said that Mr Anbarasu had over-reacted in rushing to the hospital for an emergency anti-tetanus shot saying: “Amputation of the leg below the knee would have been enough.”

The spokemonkey regretted that Mr Anbarasu had equated monkeys with terrorists and separatists saying, “Insinuations like these will only alienate monkeys from the national mainstream.”

The spokesmonkey categorically denied that monkeys were a threat to government officials working in the secretariat saying “They’re one of us.”

OPED

Bhagat Singh birth centenary
Revolutionary reader
by M.M. Juneja

Among the revolutionaries of India, Bhagat Singh is probably the most popular. On his martyrdom, he was praised even by Mahatma Gandhi, stating: “The grave blunder committed by the Government has increased our power of winning the freedom for which Bhagat Singh and his comrades - Sukhdev and Rajguru - have died.”

Bhagat Singh was different from other revolutionaries who had attained martyrdom earlier. He was not only a martyr, but a thinker too. He was not just a man, but a movement. Though he was an average student at school and college, he had a passion for reading since his early days. We are yet to come across a book-lover of Bhagat Singh’s repute in the history of the modern world. His friends often asserted that had he not become a revolutionary, he would have become a university professor. Endorsing this fact, a few examples may be cited here.

l One of his intimate comrades, Shiv Verma, states: “Bhagat Singh always moved with a small portable library. I don’t remember even a single occasion when Bhagat Singh was not carrying some books. I have seen him ill-clad and almost in rags, but even then he carried some book in his pocket.

l Bhagat Singh was arrested on 8 April 1929, sentenced to death on 7 October 1930 and he kissed the gallows on 23 March 1931. He was thus in jail for 715 days, out of which 166 days were as a prisoner sentenced to death. During his imprisonment, according to one estimate, he read nearly 300 books. The secret supply by the Dwarkadass Library (Lahore) could not keep pace with his speed of reading. He requisitioned books so frequently that it was a problem for the jail authorities to scrutinise them.

l Let us now cite the most touching example of his passion for books. Pran Nath Mehta, Bhagat Singh’s lawyer, was allowed to meet him a few hours before the hanging. Bhagat Singh was then pacing up and down in the cell like a lion in a cage. He welcomed Mr Mehta with a broad smile and asked him whether he had brought his book, The Revolutionary Lenin.

When Mr Mehta gave the book, he was very happy and began reading it as if he was conscious that he did not have much time left. Soon after Mr Mehta’s departure, the jail authorities told Bhagat Singh that the time of hanging had been advanced by eleven hours. By then, Bhagat Singh had hardly finished a few pages of the book. Manmathnath Gupta, a close associate of Bhagat Singh, writes:

“When called upon to mount the scaffold, Bhagat Singh was reading a book by Lenin or on Lenin. He continued his reading and said, “Wait a while. A revolutionary is talking to another revolutionary.” There was something in his voice which made the executioners pause. Bhagat Singh continued to read. After a few moments, he flung the book towards the ceiling and said, “Let us go”.

Apart from being a unique book-lover, Bhagat Singh was exceedingly bold and brave.

l In one of his hearings in the court, the handcuffed Bhagat Singh, while chatting with one of his comrades, started laughing loudly. The duty magistrate took objection and asked Bhagat Singh: Why are you laughing? Thereupon Bhagat Singh stood ringing his handcuffs, and said “Dear Magistrate, if you can’t tolerate my laughing at this moment, what will happen to you when I will laugh even on the scaffold?”

l Ultimately, the judgment of death sentence was conveyed to Bhagat Singh on 7 October 1930. He then recited the following couplet of Saint Kabir: “Jis marne te jag dare, mere man anand, Marne te hi paiye puran parmanand!”

l On reaching the scaffold on the fateful evening of 23 March 1931, Bhagat Singh told the British Magistrate proudly: “You are really fortunate that you are witnessing how Indian revolutionaries march to their death!”

l At the young age of just 23 years, 5 months and 25 days, Bhagat Singh was hanged to death (he was born on 28 September 1907). The whole country was clamouring to save Bhagat Singh, but he himself wanted to be sacrificed on the altar of freedom. Generally speaking, people cling to life, but here was a young man in his early 20s, full of youth and vigour, who wanted to ring down the curtain of his life to have a rendezvous with death for the good of his beloved country.

Bhagat Singh was not only a martyr of the first rate, but a great ideologue of the day too. Having gone through the pages of the literature of the East and the West alike, he had developed his own views on different problems of the world, especially India. He was perhaps the only example in the history of the world who critically studied the works of the great thinkers and philosophers till the moment of hanging.

By doing so, Bhagat Singh wanted to give a foolproof model to his beloved country, rather to the whole world, so that it could be free from the exploitation of man by man and nation by nation. Endorsing this fact, his niece Ms. Virendra Sindhu befittingly writes: “Phansi par jhoolne se pahale, Bhagat Singh samaj ko ek nayee samaj-vyavastha ka pura chitra pradhaan karna chahte the.”

“Was Bhagat Singh satisfied with his sacrifice?” Not at all! It is obvious from the following letter which he wrote to his intimate comrade B.K. Dutt a few days before his martyrdom:

“ I do not want to live with my freedom curbed. If I die wreathed with smiles, Indian mothers would wish their children to emulate Bhagat Singh, and thus the number of formidable freedom fighters would increase so much that it would be impossible for the satanic forces of imperialism to stop and stem the march of revolution. Of course, there lingers a hidden hankering in my heart that I have not accomplished even a thousandth part of what I proposed to do. Could I live, may be I could get the opportunity to fulfil the tasks and thus be happy.”

Bhagat Singh kissed the gallows heroically, but died dissatisfied. Thus, we can ask ourselves, “Can we fulfil the unaccomplished task left by Bhagat Singh? It is true that our nation is now free from British Imperialism, but we still need the courage and commitment of men like Bhagat Singh in the process of protecting our freedom from the enemies who are widening the gulf between the haves and have nots and disturbing our communal harmony.

Musings of an Anglicised Punjabi
by Mulk Raj Anand

I was just a child of ten when, one day, I boasted to my silversmith uncle Chacha Piaru that I had obtained ten-out-of-ten marks for reciting an Urdu poem from my textbook. He reacted to my boast with an uncanny and direct retort—“Son, I may not know Angrezi. And Urdu is not as heart-warming as Punjabi. To speak in one (English), you have to keep your mouth half shut; and to speak the other (that being Urdu), you have to speak with a bit of Nakharaa (contrived mannerism). Punjabi, is an honest man’s language: We open our mouths wide and speak warmly from our hearts!”

I suddenly found myself on the defensive-. “But Chacha Ji, The Angrezi Sarkar despises Punjabi and the Punjabis. Our Urdu Master tells us that”

“Urdu comes from Iran, son. Punjabi is our own tongue. The saints sang in it long before the Pathan Sant Baba Farid came on the scene. And even he chose to learn Punjabi before singing his praises of the Lord.

It dawned upon me in later years that the Angrezi Sarkaar did not actually despise Punjabis; they were frightened of Punjabi assertiveness, amounting to arrogance sometimes. They were in fact worried about Punjabis ever raising their heads and demanding a voice in the decision- making process in the running of the country. After all, even in late- twenties, out of an Indian army of 187,000 soldiers, 86,000 were taken from Punjab and the government of the Raj depended on their continued loyalty. Therefore, Punjabi and Punjabiyat were being suppressed, and a carrot of “privileged good life”, in the form of elite status through the propogation of English language and education, was being dangled in front of this beast of burden.

That day, in that course of a longish conversation, Chacha Piaru impressed me with his command of a vast vocabulary of “my native tongue”, a tongue which I was not too proud of. But from that day on I became very alert to the Punjabi words being spoken around me by my friends and family members. I even started paying attention to the regular readings of the Holy Granth in our Gurdwara.

On festival days, I would go to listen to Bahi Faiz, the musician at the Darbar Sahib, reciting Guru Nanak’s Baarahmaasaa (the song of twelve months).

But I really fell in love with my native tongue when I heard my first ever recitation of the epic love poem Heer Raanjhaa of Syed Waaris Shah. That even inspired me to write some half-baked love poems addressed to my baby-love Yasmin, the sister-in-law of my classmate, Noor Mohammad.

Later on, when I went to London to study philosophy, I felt very home-sick and often attempted to put down my thoughts down in Punjabi free verse, just to console myself as well as to preserve the privacy of my thoughts of loneliness.

*****

Lokayata: Mulk Raj Anand Centre, New Delhi, is organising a four day exhibition as a tribute to the late writer on the occasion of his anniversary on Friday. The above is a signed piece discovered by the Centre.

Legal notes
Ordinance to make illegal institutions legal
by S.S. Negi

One more episode has been added to the series of executive actions “overreaching” judicial orders in recent times. The National Council for Teacher Education (Amendment and Validation) Ordinance has been quietly promulgated by the Centre.

The September 11 ordinance amended the National Council for Teacher Education Act, 1993. It was allegedly promulgated under pressure from the powerful left allies, in the wake of the Calcutta High Court order derecognising training diplomas of thousands of teachers, awarded by hundreds of illegal institutions running in West Bengal for years.

The High Court had held that any diploma obtained by teachers from the institutions not having mandatory recognition from the National Council for Teachers Education were illegal because such institutions themselves were not legal. The left front government in the state, realising its mistake of allowing the illegality go on for years, preferred not to approach the Supreme Court in appeal but tried to find an easy way out by putting pressure on the Centre to amend the law itself.

The UPA Government had no other option but to oblige its ally and promulgated the ordinance quietly without giving any information to the media. The provision has been made for retrospective recognition of all illegal institutions in West Bengal, and, for that matter, in the entire country. The High Court had found that only 16 out of 131 teacher-training institutions in West Bengal were valid under the law.

No double benefit on promotion

The Supreme Court has ruled that primary school teachers in Haryana, acquiring higher educational qualifications during their service, more than that of the mandatory JBT diploma, and who have already been given the higher grade of ‘social study masters’ by the government, would not be entitled to a higher pay scale on promotion. A higher pay scale in such circumstances would amount to a double benefit, the court said.

The judicial fiat cannot create an anomalous position against statute, the apex court said, allowing the appeal of the Haryana Government against the Punjab and Haryana High Court order allowing the benefit of additional increment to such teachers.

The apex court said that when the teachers with higher qualification were already getting financial pay of masters, while working as JBT teachers, and now being promoted in the pay scale of masters, cannot get another fixation of pay as a double benefit. It set aside the High Court order.

Legislative action not reviewable, says Banerjee

During the ongoing marathon arguments on Parliament’s power to expel its members for misconduct before a Supreme Court Constitution Bench, Attorney General Milon Banerjee, in his independent opinion as sought by the apex court, has asserted that there was little scope of judicial review of the action of legislature in this regard.

Even if it was not expressly made in the Constitution, the validity of the judicial action could be tested with reference to norms which found place in Part-III of the Constitution. “The judicial review must be impliedly excluded… as Parliament is not a body inferior to courts”, Mr Banerjee said.

He was of the view that once privileges of members as well as the House existed in the Constitution, the manner in which the same were to be exercised must be left to Parliament without any interference.

The proceedings of the House were entitled to protection under Article 105 (2), which deals with the privileges. If a member is offered immunity for his speech and action inside the House the same immunity is available to Parliament as an entity to protect its dignity from being eroded by misconduct of any of its members, the AG contended.