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“I am the law” Politics of power |
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Shorter sessions
Nandigram needs healing touch
Standard-bearer
Talking to the Taliban Globalism’s shocks strike the vulnerable Delhi Durbar
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“I am the law” AS if all the powers that Gen Pervez Musharraf grabbed as President and Chief of Army Staff were not enough to protect his absolute rule in Pakistan, he has come out with an ordinance to ensure that his emergency proclamation, the so-called Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) that replaced the country’s constitution and all the other decrees or orders he issued since November 3 and may do so in future cannot be challenged in a court of law. All that he has done to consolidate his emergency rule will now be deemed to have been done under the constitution, so the General has decreed. The January 8 elections, too, will be treated as being held in accordance with the constitutional provisions. The constitution remains in abeyance, but it will be treated as being in operation for the decisions taken by Pakistan’s supreme law-giver, the General himself. The latest act of the General shows that he trusts nobody, not even the Supreme Court judges who took the oath under the PCO when defiant Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and many other judges refused to do so and later declared the emergency itself as unconstitutional. The apex court judges, who will now be considered as having taken the oath under the constitution, have been given an extra power: they can withdraw and dispose of any case pending before a high court for a long time. This is strange. It is nothing but making a mincemeat of the constitution, propriety and public morality --- the concepts unknown to the worst of the dictators. General Musharraf imposed the emergency as the Chief of Army Staff, not as the President of Pakistan. But his would-be successor (possibly), Gen Ashfaque Kiyani, will have no such power. This extraordinary power will now be with President Pervez Musharraf even when he gives up his uniform. Obviously, the General is fortifying the position he will hold as a civilian so that the future army chief, though his confidante, cannot dare to pose a threat to his rule. But Pakistan’s history provides proof that the ultimate power there lies with the Army. It may not be possible for General Musharraf to change this reality despite applying all the tricks he can think of. The fact is that the constitution, provisional or permanent, will be treated by the generals for expediency and convenience. Not a happy situation for a nation of over 160 million people.
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Politics of power INDICATIONS are that the Punjab government may not be able to meet the December 9 deadline for splitting the Punjab State Electricity Board into separate companies and may seek more time to carry out the power reforms which are mandatory under the Electricity Act, 2003. A section of the board employees went on strike on Wednesday to oppose the proposed unbundling. Government representatives have met various sections of the stakeholders to garner support for the proposal, which, they claim, has 80 per cent acceptance. If the government makes clear its firm resolve to implement the Electricity Act, the misguided employees, too, will fall in line. The power reforms are in the interests of the employees as well. The deserving ones will have better job and promotion prospects as the sector grows with private sector participation. The board is terribly over-staffed: 80,000 employees take care of 50 lakh consumers here against 40,000 employees looking after 85 lakh consumers in Gujarat. Some staff retrenchment or redeployment may become necessary, however. Professionalism and competition would ensure better services and regular power supply to the consumer. Because of lack of funds, neither the board nor the state government has been able to enhance generation capacity. Those opposing the reforms say the power board made profits in 2005-06, but slipped into the red the next year, incurring a loss of Rs 1,624 crore, because of the government’s populist measures like giving free power to farmers and sections of the poor and not compensating the board for the loss. That is right. Political interference has financially wrecked the board and the thrust of the reforms is to take the power entities out of the government control. An independent regulatory commission has been set up to fix power tariffs, but still tariff hikes are postponed or subsidised due to political compulsions. By not levying the user-charges for power and water, the state has lost Central grants.
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Shorter sessions REPORTS that there has been a steady reduction in the number of sittings of Parliament in the last few years are disturbing. Owing to shorter sessions, Parliament is unable to do adequate business. Though it is the chief repository of people’s will, MPs are unable to make the best use of this forum. Between January and November this year, the Lok Sabha had only 49 sittings. This is in sharp contrast to the practice that prevailed in the eighties. According to a report, the Lok Sabha had 109 sittings in 1985. Subsequently, this figure fell to 83 in 1989, 77 in 1994, 51 in 1999 and 53 in 2004. Parliament’s monsoon session was adjourned sine die this year almost a week before its due date. This was unprecedented. The Lok Sabha had lost 42 hours of business due to interruptions over various issues, including the Indo-US nuclear deal. During the monsoon session, only 16 sittings spread over 64 hours could be held. Shorter sessions have led to a gradual weakening of Parliament’s role as an effective check on the executive. The winter session started on November 15. Of the allotted 17 sittings, covering 23 days, Parliament has lost five days because of holidays. It could not transact business on November 19 and 20 because of the BJP’s disruption of the proceedings on Nandigram. The current session will not be able to do justice because the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs has shortened it due to the ensuing Assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. There is a need to increase the duration of Parliament sessions. True, Parliament works through its standing and consultative committees also. But the sittings have their own value and these should not be curtailed. The common people get their problems heard and redressed through Parliament. The government should try for better floor coordination with the Opposition. Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee’s latest circular to the members not to go abroad without his permission is welcome because it will facilitate their participation in the proceedings.
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A university should be a place of light, of liberty, and of learning. — Benjamin Disraeli
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Nandigram needs healing touch
Buddhadeb
Bhattacharjee sees his Singur-Nandigram policy as a parallel to Lenin's New Economic Policy (NEP). West Bengal's Chief Minister treats the fierce controversy he has provoked as a kind of inheritance from the leader of Russia's communist revolution. He reminded his critics that Lenin, too, had to contend with opposition when he made the Soviet State go back a few steps to prepare well enough for an advance towards socialism some day in future. True, but with a difference. After the seizure of power Lenin appeared at a Congress of Soviets, then in session in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg), and opened his speech with the words, "We will now build socialism." After a phase of what came to be called "war communism", Lenin ruefully admitted: "We are not civilized enough for socialism." He needed more time and made concessions for the interim to a sullen peasantry. Socialism is nowhere on West Bengal’s horizon for which the CPM blames the basic structure and objectives of the Indian federation. Buddhadeb Babu may more appropriately claim to have been inspired by Deng Xiaoping's earthy teaching: "Whether a cat is black or white makes no difference; as long as it catches mice it is a good cat." Deng laid the foundation of what may be called communo-capitalism or an oxymoronic-sounding hybrid capitalist system under a leadership calling itself communist. This is Beijing's euphemistically advertised "Socialism with Chinese characteristics". Irrespective of whether Lenin or Deng is more relevant to Singur-Nandigram today, a crucial fact Bhattacharjee and his party seem to have forgotten is that the Bolsheviks in Russia gave themselves a monopoly of state power about the time the NEP was promulgated and China is still, but for some barely noticeable window dressing, a one-party state. Three decades of uninterrupted power through more or less free and fair five-yearly elections lulled the CPM into a complacency which shows itself now in arrogance and a contempt for the constitutional opposition. Ms Mamata Banerjee's impulsive and unpredictable persona may not be good for her as a politician in the long term but she has put to skilful use this time in Nandigram the peasantry's attachment to land, reflected so poignantly in Bengali poetry, short stories and novels. The CPM government may have offered a reasonable package of compensation to the holders of the lands required for the planned chemical hub of an Indonesian investor but failed to add the necessary psychological inducement to make it fully acceptable. Ms Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress, spying constantly for chinks in the CPM's armour, lost no time in exploiting the wrench the Nandigram peasants felt at the thought of leaving their ancestral land - no matter what they might be getting in return. A conflict erupted which the CPM kept on underestimating until its men were put to flight and some of their offices and homes burnt. Instead of relying on the government machinery to arrest and punish the arsonists and intimidators under the Penal Code, the Chief Minister, who is also directly in charge of law and order, left the matter to be dealt with by his party's armed squads or gangs of lumpens supported by the police. The immediate result: at least 14 men and women shot down on March 14. In the days when Moscow was committed to the cause of world revolution, communist parties everywhere were encouraged by the Communist International to create clandestine cells to take charge of the violent part of expected revolutions. In India, too, Marxist parties, operating under various names, organized "armed squads" or "secret detachments". By a socially inevitable process such formations turned into magnets drawing what Marx and Engels condemned as the lumpen proletariat. This was the new Marxist name for rogues in the proletariat. The shocking events in Nandigram proved that the CPM, now only a parliamentary party, still has use for lumpen gangs. The party's leadership refused to see that the shocking trigger-happiness of unidentified gunmen in police uniform and giveaway rubber chappals on March 14 had started a process of the CPM's socio-political alienation. The repeat performance by the lumpen gangs in Nandigram on November 10 brought the crisis of the CPM's credibility to boiling point. Indian villagers do not have firearms at home. They neither can afford guns nor see any need for such weapons. Where did the guns come from in Nandigram and who fired them? CPM leaders like Ms Brinda Karat have been stridently blaming "Maoists" for acting as armed reinforcers of Mamata and her Trinamool agitators. The Maoists must then be very poor fighters. Otherwise the CPM would not have been able to celebrate its "recapture" of Nandigram by turning the area into a huge forest of party flags on November 12. The Chief Minister and state CPM chief Biman Bose have managed to alienate everybody except their lumpen brigade. Governor Gopal Gandhi has condemned their Nandigram operation unlawful and unacceptable. Home Secretary Prasad Roy is resentful that Mr Biman Bose questioned his statement to the media that Nandigram had turned into a war zone with firing starting from Khejuri, a CPM-held area. For the first time in 30 years there is a crack in the ruling Left Front with the other three of its constituents — the RSP, the Forward Bloc and the CPI — formally adopting a resolution pointing to the CPM as solely responsible for the tragedy of Nandigram. The ruling party has no other political ally to lean on. The media will be in no hurry to forget that for them the CPM's lumpen gangs made Nandigram a no-go area for days together. The unfailing friend of the rural exploited, Ms Medha Patkar, was even assaulted by the lumpen. Worst perhaps in the long term is the angry denunciation of the CPM by writers, artists, film directors and actors. Left-leaning intellectuals have traditionally played the role of Bengal's collective conscience-keeper. They were not allowed to enter Nandigram and see things for themselves. And that was followed by a lathi charge on them outside Kolkata's Nandan complex where the Chief Minister was inaugurating an international film festival and his staff allegedly worrying about the threat to the festival's foreign delegates from the poets and painters who had boycotted the festival and were peacefully stressing the point that giving a healing touch to Nandigram was a more urgent duty. Kolkata's Buddha proved himself unexpectedly and highly enlightenment-resistant.
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Standard-bearer
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FEW days after I was interviewed for a job in The Tribune, the late Justice R.S. Pathak called me to his house on Sardar Patel Marg in New Delhi. “The interview was too restricted an interaction to know you more”, he said. There was a pile of files on his table and he was poring over them under a table lamp when I was ushered in. I could not help expressing surprise at the kind of work he did. “I do not practise but I do some arbitration work”, he explained. When I told him, on a query, that the four of us in our family lived “separately”, he had a hearty laugh and said, “You are like us. It is at international airports that we and our children meet”. Justice Pathak thanked me for the confidentiality I had maintained about my appointment. “Too much of secrecy is also not good. The staff and readers should not be exposed to rumours and speculations”, he said as he showed me the draft of an announcement to be published on the front page the next day. I made one or two minor suggestions, which he readily incorporated in the announcement before faxing it to the Chandigarh office. “Verbosity is often considered a virtue for a lawyer but for a journalist, brevity is of the essence”, he made a fine distinction between the two professions. Suddenly he asked me whether I knew the meaning of the word ‘Tribune’. “Is it derived from the word ‘tribunal?” I asked to avoid giving a straight “No, I do not know, Sir” answer. Ashamed of my etymological inadequacy, I listened carefully as he told me that the ‘Tribune’ was a powerful official among the ancient Romans. During the revolt of the Plebs 2500 years ago, they appointed two tribunes as protectors against the Patricians’ oppression. They were personally inviolable and could veto government measures and proceedings. He had a purpose in telling me about the origin of the word as he wanted me to ensure that The Tribune lived up to the exacting standards of the office the Romans had set up to solve the grievances of the common people. “The Tribune should try to excel in all that it does. It should become a standard-bearer for the rest of the media - a regional newspaper read and respected all over the country”, he waxed eloquent on his vision for the paper. “Don’t worry, I will personally come and introduce you to the staff at Chandigarh”, he assured me. As I took leave of him, he clutched my hand and said, “May God bless you”. I met him last when he visited Chandigarh on his way to Shimla. He had become frailer. I made bold to ask him why he had accepted the assignment of inquiring into the Volcker report that added to his workload. “When the Prime Minister makes a request, how can I refuse it?” he answered. Then he referred to a photograph I had taken that appeared in the paper that day. It reminded me of my visit to Tirupati where a retired protocol official of the famous temple had proudly showed me a collage of pictures. At the middle of the collage was a photograph of Justice Pathak, who was then Chief Justice of India, being received by the official and led to the sanctum sanctorum. I had clicked it. On return to my cabin, I took a printout of the photograph in A-4 size and sent it to him. Within minutes, the phone rang. Justice Pathak was on the line: “Thank you, Mr Philip. May God bless
you!”
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Talking to the Taliban Recently, President Hamid Karzai publicly called upon Mullah Omar and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to consider the prospects of peace talks with the Afghan government. In fact, the President went to the extent of requesting a personal audience with the rebel leaders. Will this strategy work? Can there be an understanding with the Taliban culminating in perpetual peace? Some aid organisations and analysts suggest that peace talks with the outlawed Taliban may provide the Afghan government an opportunity to explore new avenues for tackling the insurgency beyond the military option. Many warn the international community should not miss the boat again by failing to bring the Taliban, or at the very least the moderate Taliban, to the negotiating table. This strategy, however, is unlikely to work. Hoping peace talks will help put an end to an intensifying insurgency and subsequently accommodate the Taliban within the framework of a Western-style democratic government is misguided There are plenty of reasons why peace talks with the Taliban are futile and dangerous, and should not be encouraged in any fashion. First, peace talks with the Taliban will undermine the NATO efforts and progress, however contentious, of the past six years. Peace talks could also risk a split between President Karzai and his Western allies, destabilising the Afghan state further. Sincere negotiations can only be considered, let alone held, when a ceasefire exists on the ground. This brings to the fore a fundamental paradox in Karzai’s appeals for peace talks. How can frank and meaningful talks be held when the coalition forces are engaged in combating Taliban/al Qaida insurgents? A ceasefire in the foreseeable future is hence extremely remote. Given the nature of the Taliban-al Qaida nexus, the United States will not stand for it. Across the divide, the burden of responsibility is on the Taliban to make their vision compatible with that of the Afghan government and the international community. From the Taliban’s perspective, however, peace talks held on the pre-condition that they renounce violence and accept NATO occupation are simply unacceptable. Additionally, the Taliban’s relationship with al Qaida is extremely intricate and deep-seated with financial, drug and weapon transactions between them sustaining much of the insurgency’s verve. The possibility of peace talks helping drive an ideological or strategic wedge between these groups is negligible, certainly not while Afghanistan maintains a significant foreign presence on its soil. Consequently, attempting to lure the Taliban into acquiescing to calls for reconciliation with promises of ministerial-level seats/official posts will not bear fruit. Moving on, President Karzai has repeatedly highlighted the ongoing reconciliation process taking place in the country, and efforts to bring into the fold the “moderate” Taliban who are not part of al Qaida or other terrorist networks. To begin with, identifying moderates is tricky amidst the mess and confusion. Many officials and scholars dismiss the notion of the “moderate” Taliban as a myth. Nonetheless, accommodating the moderates in mainstream politics is definitely a viable option. There is, however, no Taliban left to co-opt. Most of the so-called moderates have already been co-opted into the state machinery. The hardliners have no incentive to relinquish control over their fiefdoms to a unified, democratic national government. But what of the mid-level Taliban and foot soldiers? Can they be swayed? Knee-jerk reactions by the states involved in military operations in Afghanistan — including skewed drug-control policies, indiscriminate use of air power resulting in civilian casualties — threaten to further alienate an increasingly disenchanted populace. Such alienation may well lead the deprived and disillusioned into the arms of Taliban recruiters. However, the majority of rank-and-file Taliban soldiers, it must be understood, are not those who are bent with a radical anti-state ideology, but ordinary poverty-stricken individuals desperately seeking ways to feed their deprived families. A significant number of these fighters do not rule out laying down their weapons in exchange for being included in potential peace talks, thereby being able to return to the comforts of family life. The government’s (and international community’s) strategy should, therefore, be a concerted effort aimed at providing basic services and income-generating opportunities to the needy populace; the rudimentary idea being to thwart the Taliban’s recruiting appeal by alleviating the sufferings of the locals. Winning the “hearts and minds” of the local populace is the foremost manifestation of such a strategy. In addition, the coalition forces must be sensitive towards the cultural specificities of the local populace. For instance, alleged burnings of copies of the Quran and searching women are anathema to the Afghans. Unfortunately, both the state and the international community have failed to successfully implement this strategy, obliging Karzai to appeal for peace talks. Finally, the Afghan government and the international community must heed the psychological and emotional qualms of the non-Pashtun Afghan populace. The repression and sufferings of the ethnic minorities — among them the Hazaras, Uzbeks and Tajiks — at the hands of the Taliban regime are well-documented. A power-sharing deal with the Taliban is most resented by the minorities who do not want the clock to be scaled back to the pre-invasion days, no matter what the political and economic situation on the ground. In addition, 42 per cent of the Afghans recently interviewed (by the Asia Foundation) feel that the foreign troop presence is beneficial to them and their country. Despite the many shortfalls of the coalition effort, Afghans today are acutely aware of the relative personal security and social freedoms they enjoy than was the case under Taliban rule. The Taliban’s affiliation with al Qaida terrorists, the former’s refusal to renounce violence, the possibility of a reconciled Taliban partaking in a renewed campaign of minority abuse, all render the prospect of peace talks precarious. Most significantly, peace talks may be detrimental to the international community’s efforts to bring peace and stability to the country. Even if a meaningful process of reconciliation does begin, the future of Afghanistan will be fought over for years to come. The writer is a Research Officer with the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi
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Globalism’s shocks strike the vulnerable THE world saw a video last week of Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers using a Taser against a Polish man in the Vancouver International Airport in October. The man, Robert Dziekanski, died soon after the attack. In recent days, more details have come out about him. It turns out that the 40-year-old didn't just die after being shocked – his life was marked by
shock as well. Dziekanski was a young adult in 1989, when Poland began a grand experiment called "shock therapy" for the nation. The promise was that if the communist country accepted a series of brutal economic measures, the reward would be a "normal European country" like France or Germany. The pain would be short, the reward great. So Poland's government eliminated price controls overnight, slashed subsidies, privatized industries. But for young workers such as Dziekanski, "normal" never arrived. Today, roughly 40 percent of young Polish workers are unemployed. Dziekanski was among them. He had worked as a typesetter and a miner, but for the past few years he had been unemployed and had had run-ins
with the law. Like so many Poles of his generation, Dziekanski went looking for work in one of those "normal" countries that Poland was supposed to become but never did. Two million Poles have joined this mass exodus during the past three years alone. Dziekanski's cohorts have gone to work as bartenders in London, doormen in Dublin, plumbers in France. Last month, he chose to follow his mother to British Columbia, which is in a pre-Olympics construction boom. "After seven years of waiting, (Dziekanski) arrived to his utopia, Vancouver," said the Polish consul general, Maciej Krych. "Ten hours later, he was dead." Much of the outrage sparked by the video, which was made by another passenger at the airport, has focused on the controversial use of Tasers, already implicated in 17 deaths in Canada and many more in the United States. But what happened in Vancouver was about more than a weapon. It also was about an increasingly brutal side of the global economy – about the reality that many victims of various forms of economic "shock therapy" face at
our borders. Rapid economic transformations like Poland's have created enormous wealth – in new investment opportunities; currency trading; in leaner, meaner companies able to comb the globe for the cheapest location to manufacture. But from Mexico to China to Poland, they also have created tens of millions of discarded people, the people who lose their jobs when factories close or lose their land when export zones open. Understandably, many of these people often choose to move: from countryside to city, from country to country. As Dziekanski appeared to be doing, they go in search of that elusive "normal." But there isn't enough normal to go around, or so we are told. And so, as migrants move, they often are met with other shocks. A treacherous electrified fence on Spain's southern border, or a Taser gun on the U.S.-Mexican border. Canada, which used to be known around the world for its openness to refugees, is militarizing its borders, with the line between immigrant and terrorist blurring fast. Dziekanski's inhuman treatment at the hands of the Canadian police must be seen in this context. The police were called when Dziekanski, lost and disoriented, began shouting in Polish, at one point throwing a chair. Faced with a foreigner such as Dziekanski, who spoke no English, why talk when you can shock? It strikes me that the same brutal, short-cut logic guided Poland's economic transition to capitalism: Why take the gradual route, which would require debate and consent, when "shock therapy" promised an instant,
if painful, cure ? I realize that I am talking about very different kinds of shocks here, but they do interconnect in a cycle I call "the shock doctrine." First comes the shock of a national crisis, making countries desperate for any cure and willing to sacrifice democracy in the process. In Poland in 1989, that first shock was the sudden end of communism and the economic meltdown. Then comes the economic shock therapy, the undemocratic process pushed through in the window of crisis that jolts an economy into growth but blasts so many people out of the picture. Then, in far too many cases, there is the third shock, the one that disciplines and deals with the discarded people: the desperate, the migrants, those driven mad by the system. Each shock has the potential to kill, some more suddenly than others. By arrangement with
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Delhi Durbar Human
Resources Development Minister Arjun Singh created a stir during his speech at the recent AICC session with his remark that people with different capacities had been working in the Congress and the party had never discriminated against its workers. He referred to Rahul Gandhi’s campaign in Uttar Pradesh and the party's dismal performance, saying that all Congressmen had to take responsibility to see that it did not happen anywhere else in the country. Arjun Singh’s words apparently pointed to the organisational weakness in UP that negated the positive impact of Rahul’s campaign. Coming after Rahul had spoken about building a meritocratic organisation, Arjun Singh's remarks were different from the normal grain of speeches made during the day.
Media coverage Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha K. Rahman Khan, speaking at a reception for the media hosted by the Vice President and Chairman of the House of Elders, Mr Hamid Ansari, pointed out that the media covering the Rajya Sabha concentrated on the morning session and the afternoon session was not so well covered. While media persons pointed out that not much of importance came up during the second half, the Chairman wondered if the question hour could be shifted to 3 pm to ensure the media presence then.
Women scribes Four women journalists have been elected in this year's Press Club elections held on Saturday. One of the two posts of Vice-President has been notched by a freelance journalist. Three women journalists, including two from Doordarshan and All-India Radio have made it to the 16-member Executive Committee. Both Rahul Jalali and Pushpendra Kulshrestha were re-elected as President and Secretary General respectively. Kulshrestha improved his victory margin from 70 to 308 votes. He got 548 votes, an unheard of score in the 50-year history of the club. Kulshrestha has grand plans for the club, the most important being its relocation from Raisina Road to the new address on Rajendra Prasad Road. He also wants to bring out a directory of the Press Club members and a souvenir on the 50th anniversary of the club which falls on March 13, 2008.
A new party? Former Haryana Chief Minister Bhajan Lal is planning a rally in the Jat belt of Rohtak, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s stronghold, in the first week of next month and might well announce his plans of floating a new party. He and his son Kuldeep Bishnoi, who has been suspended by the party, are expecting to have more than 100,000 people for the rally from various parts of the country. It appears he has the backing of INLD chief Om Prakash Chautala and is having parleys with other regional satraps. Contributed by Prashant Sood, Girja Shankar Kaura, Tripti Nath and S.
Satyanarayanan.
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