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Terror stalks Manipur Profile |
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The grand old man of Delhi Time for writers to stop acting On Record
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Terror stalks Manipur THE murder of over 14 poor people in Manipur by armed thugs has triggered not just outrage but also bitter soul-searching among many Manipuris. In addition, it has emptied the state of its migrant labour, largely from Bihar and other Hindi-speaking areas, with thousands fearfully leaving for the safety of their homes. The people who were killed were not terrorists; their murderers were. The victims were not members of a gang; their murderers were. They were not agents of the Indian State; but who knows who the killers worked for. Their only crime was that they were people from outside the state who had come to work and earn a livelihood, largely as daily wage earners, and were the easiest targets for the gun-wielding killers who have arrogated to themselves the right to dispense death and life any way they wish. Manipur has been spiralling out of control for decades; the recent murders are only a sharper manifestation of the collapse of the instruments of the State and the mindless violence to which armed combatants are prepared to descend. The real terrorists must be hunted down and brought to trial, without allowing them to slip through the loopholes of law. We may recall that the United Liberation Front of Asom, another armed group which now believes in setting off bombs at public places in Assam, conducted such an ethnic cleansing effort in January 2007: not less than 70 Hindi speakers died in that mayhem in poor hamlets, far from the highways and safety of police protection. Ulfa was telling the governments of India and Assam that it did not care about the massive deployment of security forces because this could not provide security to the most vulnerable. The State has no interest in protecting the poor, only using them, for it protects the powerful. Since when does the slaughter of the innocent and poor become a great act of courage against the State? It is a stigma on any group that claims to fight for freedom to turn on the helpless like predatory wolves, just like the Shining Path Maoists of Peru. It shows the hollowness of their ideology and their reliance on the fear factor. Yet, there is another impact of such actions which the armed groups or their acolytes may not have considered. They have played completely into the hands of the Indian State and strengthened those who support a military crackdown and an armed solution to political problems. They have ensured the retention of the draconian, anti-people laws like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act or the Nagaland Security Regulations because their use will be justified by those favouring “tough action against terrorists.” The killings of the poor represent direct and definite opposition against those who believe that such laws must be repealed and have no part in a democracy, including heroic figures like the hunger striker Irom Sharmila, whose courage and perseverance is internationally respected. Angomcha Bimol Akoijam, a prominent Manipuri scholar has written in anguish, and I quote: “Violence in its unbridled form … has come to entirely usurp politics in Manipur today … Even politics as power has been simultaneously trivialized and vulgarized in terms of solely practicing tangible violence.”
*** The killings in Manipur have overshadowed the elections in Nagaland, Tripura and Meghalaya. Anti-incumbency was not much of a factor here barring Meghalaya, where the astute Purno Sangma stitched together a coalition after the elections that cashed in on anger against the Congress Party’s DD Lapang and his coterie. The Congress’ desperation to form a government was only matched by its desperation when it quit on the eve of the elections to the Speaker’s post. Of course, it hasn’t given up plans to topple the Meghalaya Progressive Alliance which is led by Donkupar Roy. Sangma has left national politics and now is concentrating in Meghalaya where he has also brought his two sons successfully into the State Assembly (one family now has five percent of the entire strength of the state legislature!) and where he definitely wants to leave his imprint. Basic services here are yet to reach villagers and basic needs, including food security and health apart from primary education, are still to be met. The Congress at the national level here and in the other states should learn a basic lesson in letting things be, instead of always playing dirty games with bags of money to bring non-Congress government down. The Congress Party performance in Nagaland and Meghalaya, not to speak of Tripura, Manipur and elsewhere, reminds one of a Harry Belafonte calypso songs where a man complains about his children who talk back to him. When the mother admonishes them, the children shout “Oh no, my daddy can’t be ugly so.” In Nagaland, the Congress doubly goofed; one by trying to toppling Neiphiu Rio’s government before elections were due and then forcing President’s Rule on the state. It forgot that apart from distaste for Congress and its Machiavellian ways, the Naga public actually had benefited from some of Rio’s development programs. This surely means that, despite impersonation, rigged ballots and interminable peace talks, governance does pay political dividends. The Naga peace talks with India are regarded as distant from resolution as ever. The National Socialist Council of Nagalim’s leaders have become “localised,” involved in local politics as much as statecraft and peace processes. After a decade of unending talks, the “Naga issue” now appears to have assumed the shape of an internal problem of India, losing the momentum and rhetoric of earlier days. In Tripura, Manik Sarkar’s CPI-M and its allies delivered a double whammy to the Congress Party and its ally, the Indigenous Front of Tripura. The latter claimed to hold sway among the tribals, who are one-third of the population, but just won one seat (earlier it held nine). The Congress was crushed. Again, Tripura has shown that governance – whether good or not so good — pays, especially with large numbers of the rural poor rising above the poverty trap. The Congress needs not just to improve its ugly parent image but also to understand why people have turned against it so decisively – and why its allies in Delhi, turned rivals locally, have trumped it. This is likely to be the pattern of things in others states here as well. The Chinese advice of introspection to the Dalai Lama is far more relevant to the Congress Party and its functionaries in the NER as well as their managers in
Delhi. The writer is editor, author, activist and specialist on the North East, is also Managing Trustee, Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research in the NER
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Profile It is indeed sad to watch him arrested and released on bail on charges of misappropriation of a hefty amount. According to Mumbai Police’s Economic Offences Wing “the EOW recently completed its investigation into Dalmia’s role in the case and has found him guilty of misappropriation of BCCI funds”. The law will now take its own course. One hopes that he comes out as clean as he clean as he claims to be. Dalmia’s woes, in fact, started in 2005. He tasted his first defeat when Sharad Pawar group defeated his proxy candidate in the BCCI election. The new regime slapped charges and cases of fund misappropriation against him. Earlier, the board had alleged misappropriation of the 1996 World cup funds by him and filed a complaint against him at a Mumbai police station. The present controversy notwithstanding, track record of Sixty-eight-year-old Dalmia has been impressive indeed. As a young man he started his career as a wicket keeper and playing for cricket clubs he once scored a double century. He joined his father’s firm M L Dalmiya and Co and made it into one of India’s top construction firms. His firm constructed Calcutta’s M P Birla Planetarium in 1963. Having joined the BCCI in 1979, Dalmia became its treasurer in 1983. Call it a coincidence or good luck, the same year India won the Cricket World Cup. He, along with I S Bindra can claim the credit for gaining the right to stage the World Cup in India 1987, which brought big money into the sub-continent. It is said that they also led to the commercialisation of the game in early 1990s, making the BCCI the richest cricket board. In words of Australian cricketer Ian Chappell: “Dalmia has a vision for the game’s progress that I haven’t heard enunciated by any other so-called leader among cricket official”. The year 1996 was another landmark in his long career. Though initially rejected by many cricket playing nations, despite his winning the ICC Presidential elections by a 25-13 margin in 1996, he was unanimously elected as the chairman of the International Cricket Council (ICC). During his three-year tenure, his work greatly helped to enhance the fortune of ICC. In 2005, he was awarded the International Journal of the History of Sports Achievement award for administrative excellence in global sports. Dalmia has also been instrumental in making cricket a popular game in many virgin places of the world. In the later years of his long association with the BCCI, made Dalmia somewhat arrogant. He was often accused by the media of taking the cricket players and spectators for granted, thereby, not giving much care to the development of the game’s infra structure in India. He suffered a setback in 2005 BCCI board elections when he was ousted by Union Minister, Sharad Pawar as the head cricket official of India. Late in the following year, he was expelled from the board for alleged misappropriation of funds. Dalmia’s eventful career is again at the cross roads. The nation awaits for the final
verdict.
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Asif Ali
Zardari, Co-chairman, Pakistan People’s Party The Left parties are expectedly not condemning the Chinese acts (in Tibet). The Communist Party is always more bothered about China’s interest than India’s. Vijay Kumar Malhotra, BJP Leader How does it feel to be at number two, Mr Shah Rukh Khan? Aamir Khan, Actor Mukesh Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Industries You (the MPs) are working overtime to finish democracy. With great sorrow, sadness and resentment, I am forced to adjourn the House again and again.” Somnath Chatterjee, Lok Sabha Speaker H.D. Deve Gowda, JD(S) patriarch Can foul money merchandise India’s batsmen and bowlers? Today cricketers, tomorrow ministers, MPs and others in learned professions will be auctioned. V. R. Krishna
Iyer, Former Supreme Court Judge I anticipated trouble after Netaji Subash Chandra Bose and Mangal Pandey. But I didn’t anticipate that people would say there is no Jodha. That came like to googly to me. Ashutosh Gowariker, Filmmaker L.K. Advani, Leader of the Opposition Salman Khan, Actor
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The grand old man of Delhi His journalism of the past half century can be read today, long after the subject matter is of little consequence, for its brevity, wit & re-created relevance. His writings are singularly devoid of jargon. He calls a spade a spade. He is still highly productive churning out a widely read weekly column for the Hindustan Times; he is more alert than most men half his age. The man is Sardar Khushwant Singh. A renaissance man; an iconoclast, an agnostic, a free thinker, he shocks you, makes you laugh (he has published joke books) titillates you and can also bring tears to your eyes. He is irreverent, unsparing and takes sex out of the bourgeois shadows. He has widened the mental horizons of generations of Indians (and also Pakistanis). He lashes out against meanness, snobbery and religious fanaticism. The truth is often hard to swallow but he makes one accept it not by bursting eyes but by opening them. His oeuvre is staggering; it ranges from a Classic ‘History of the Sikhs’ in two volumes and the translations of Hymns of the Sikh Gurus (though an agnostic he has great respect for all religions). Now in his tenth decade he has absorbed himself in translating Urdu poetry into English and in the process has delved deep into the Urdu language. He is a great admirer of Iqbal, who he considers as the greatest poet after Ghalib. He can quote profusely from Ghalib, Iqbal, Zauq, Faiz et al. as well as Shakespeare, Milton and other great English poets. He is also an avid naturalist and can identify every bird, tree, shrub, butterfly and wild animal not only of his beloved Punjab but beyond. His newspaper obituaries are famous. He will not spare the dead out of a bourgeois sentimentality; but, he will balance the bad with the good. His one liners reverberate in India: for example on L.K. Advani, “he neither smokes, drinks nor womanises. Such men are dangerous.” During the anti-Sikh riots after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, he protected himself with personal guards but never cowed under death threats from extremist Sikhs and Hindus. He remains for ever high on the hate list of Hindutva extremists. He detests them with a passion. His ‘The End of India’ is a magisterial denouncement of Hindu fanaticism, which he considers will undo India. He is openly pro-Muslim, as he swims against the current on most populist issues. Says he, “the bullet is the last argument of a person who knows he has lost the debate… I will prove that the pen is mightier than a Kalashnikov or a self loading rifle.” The Sardar was born in Hadali (district Khushab). He comes from a distinguished lineage. His father Sir Sobha Singh was one of the builders of Imperial New Delhi. Khushwant was married to the beautiful Kaval and one the prominent guests at his marriage in 1939 was Mr. M.A. Jinnah, who lived nearby. He is a Lahori at heart, perhaps, the last representative of that golden flowering of Lahore of the late 1930s and early 1940s, which produced some of the greatest writers, artists and poets of the sub-continent. Faiz Ahmad Faiz was his senior by two years at Government College, Lahore. Khushwant’s detractors have accused him of promoting or abetting sexual license. Many of his stories narrate the sexual adventures of his protagonists in real life and fiction. Traditional Indo-Pak culture denies the role of sex as something improper, vulgar or non-existent. He exposes this sanctimonious denial which of course leads to other hydra-headed forms of hypocrisy. If truth is the bed rock of belief nothing human is alien. Khushwant makes us laugh at our foibles, absurdities, and fecklessness in our grey kill-joy culture. His greatest friend whom he cherishes as a role model is the late Manzur Qadir and I take the liberty of quoting Khushwant on Manzur Qadir: “... He did not give a tinker’s cuss about money. It was commonly said, ‘God may lie, but not Manzur Qadir’. Though godless he had more goodness in him than a clutch of saints... We came to judge the right or wrong of our actions by how Manzur Qadir would react. He was the human touchstone of our moral pretensions... ” Admirers from all over the world throng to meet him. But true to his style, he sternly guards his privacy. A notice by the nondescript door of his modest apartment reads: “Do not ring the bell unless you are expected.” This diwan-e-khas is only open for an hour at 7 pm; by eight the shutters are down. But if you are expected, you will be greeted warmly by this Tolstoyan sage, and if you happen to be from Pakistan he will want to know the latest of his beloved Lahore. Sir, from my dear old home you come And all its glories you can name; Oh, tell me – has the winter plum Yet blossomed o’ever the window frame? (Lament of an unknown Chinese poet) The writer is a former Member of Parliament, Pakistan
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Time for writers to stop acting ARE some writers becoming more of actors and are a few in the latter category aspiring to be noted as men of letters, is a nagging thought that keeps coming to my mind. Take the case of Taslima Nasreen of Bangladesh, a writer of no exceptional merit and who in any case has written little worthy of note in recent times, pecking away for an Indian Visa, but very persistent in returning to Kolkata where few want her and totally averse to leaving the centre stage of publicity and Page3 imprint, much like actors who would give anything to stay in the news all the time. On another plane we have actors like Aamir Khan attending literary festivals like the one recently held at Jaipur, mind you not in the capacity of a visitor but as that of a delegate, while possessing no credentials in literary scholarship as befits a full fledged writer who is in tune with the muses and the pen all the time. Where has the role model in both cases taken a beating? The names of some great writers and some not so great, come to mind very vividly. I remember my early years of writing with the Shankar’s Weekly and meeting up with that great artist and thinker Shankar Pillai whenever I happened to be passing through New Delhi. Climbing up the pan-splattered stairway in the Odeon Cinema complex in Connaught Place where the Weekly office was then housed, I would enter a large room where sat Shankar in his banyan and lungi, engrossed in cartoon-making or often lending a helping hand to the other cartoonists who sat around him in a huddle plying their trade. It was a large friendly family there and he was a kind father figure for us newcomers. To the best of my knowledge Shankar never got himself photographed, never attended any conventions or seminars, and spent all his time in publishing his pet Weekly which was India’s counterpart of Punch. He once said to us that when a writer or cartoonist becomes a publicist, there is little hope left for that individual. In recent times the Bengali novelist Sunil Gangopadhyay, our colleague in the Sahitya Akademi in New Delhi, has spent most of his time just writing, and even horses could not drag him away to organise literary festivals like the one in Jaipur staged by William Dalrymple and his friends. The question is that should writers whose main business is just to write get involved in event managing media-hyper literary festivals and writer get togethers, where Bollywood actors advertently or inadvertently mount their own media blitz at the cost of the writer whose festival it is supposed to be. There is another brand of writers that have emerged in recent times, who have taken it upon themselves, as if by self-invitation, to rectify all the ills of the societal order and even like to lay down as to what height some dams are to be taken up to, and who make it a point that they are noticed and reported upon by the print and electronic media whenever they are so crusading. When do they ever get the time to write, and would they be espousing these causes if there was no press around? Another category is the one that turns down annual national literary awards as Arunadhati Roy did a few years back when the Sahitya Akademi selected her work in English, and she is understood to have felt that the National Academy of Letters was after all but just a sarkari outfit. Do some of our writers only look up to awards instituted by foreign institutions? And as far as Taslima Nasreen is concerned should she really stretch the hospitality of the host country, and at the same time keep giving interviews at periodic intervals to any news channel or paper that can spare its news correspondent. Is it not time that writers stopped acting and got down to some serious writing, and actors stopped pretending (or behaving) as if they were writers like our good old Aamir
Khan.
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On Record
AS the prices of oil touch new high in the international markets there are concerns felt in India about what havoc will it play in economy that is dependent on oil imports. There are concerns also about when the oil prices start dipping will and when they climb down where they will settle. Energy economists like Dr AF Alhajji, Associate Professor at Ohio Northern University, are say demand for oil outside the US will grow if the dollar continues to decline. Excerpts from the interview: Q. What will be effect of prices on India’s economy at $110-120 per barrel, considering the domestic prices at the gas station as kept under control? A. The continuous increase in oil prices in recent years has not affected India’s economy because of the unprecedented expansionary monetary and fiscal policies, while India’s exports continued to go up. Even the most recent oil price increases should have minimal impact on the economy if the trends in fiscal and monetary policies continue. Price controls might shield certain sectors of the economy, but they do not shield the whole economy. Some one has to pay the difference. Q. What effect would this difference have on the foreign exchange reserves that stand pretty at $300 bn at the moment? A.
As long as the government carries the burden of the difference between the world oil price and the regulated domestic price, the difference will be paid by foreign reserves. Without any increase in reserves, higher oil prices will decreases them. Q. What will be the effect on refineries in India which have mushroomed in the last decade? Will that model work in face of depreciating dollar? A.
Short answer: it does not matter if the costs and revenues are all in dollars. However, the main problem is that the local currency is depreciating, which means parts of the costs, especially wages, are going up. Generally speaking, demand for refined products is increasing world wide. Refinery capacity expansion, especially in the US is not keeping up with demand. This will create a steady market for Indian refineries. Q. What is the solution to the problem for countries like India? A. Solution to the problem for countries like India is that their fiscal and monetary polices should be integrated into energy policy. High oil prices will have a limited impact on India’s economy, if the current macro trends persist. Demand for oil outside the US will continue to grow if the US dollar continues to slide. Q. What does your study indicate on the rise in income and the rise in oil prices in India? A. My study for India which is based on a period of 1980-81 to 2005-06 shows that the real per capita income during this period has increased by 131 per cent , whereas the real oil prices have decreased by 25 per cent in the same period. During this period the Central Government expenditures have increased by a whopping 2000 per cent. Q. Why hasn’t China’s demand for oil continued to grow at the same rate as in 2004, even though economic growth continued at about the same pace? A. The surge in oil prices has meant that private oil-fired electricity generation has become very costly relative to the cost of electricity provided by the government. The drop in private electric generation reduced the demand for oil. Further, while China has continued to generate additional electricity from coal and nuclear, the number of foreign factories that have moved to China since 2005 declined relative to the previous period. Q. What is the vision of Middle East for the future as the oil resources get depleted? A. Despite abundant oil and gas reserves, the Middle East has already started to suffer from power shortages. Oil and gas supplies cannot keep up with domestic demand without jeopardizing exports and export revenues. Revenues, as well as sufficient and stable electricity supplies, are critical for political stability. Middle Eastern countries must find alternative domestic energy supplies that keep the lights on, keep the peace and create jobs. No other alternative can do as much as nuclear energy does, at least for the present time. Thanks to Iran, several Arab countries are looking at nuclear seriously. Egypt has taken the first step; it announced last month that it is going
nuclear.
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J
I do have a college degree, got it much before I was married. I think it is a B.Ed. degree. Though, I haven’t really looked at it. This is not an issue.
There was much hype over the list of billionaires in India. But it is like a maya (illusion) of our philosophy, that veils your vision and we should beware of this titillating
illusion.
If I were a fox in public life, I would have survived a full term of five years as prime minister. I do not have good relations with the media, which projects me in a poor light.
Four years ago, if FICCI hadn’t misled us into saying that India is shining, we could have probably said India is rising, not India
shining.
We are originally migrants. If I am asked to go back to my roots, I will have to go to Afghanistan, the place from where my grandfather came. My mother will have to stay back in Maharashtra. My other mother, Helen, will have to go back to Burma.
HE is 94 years old. He is perhaps India’s most widely known English language columnist, novelist and translator of Urdu poetry. His remarks are polemical, arrow straight and honest. His pen as a newspaper columnist can make the mighty shiver in their boots. His short stories can compare with the best of Maupassant and the very best of Manto. His longer novel, written half a century ago – Train to Pakistan – is a classic: it probably ranks in the top 10 in its genre of sub-continental writings in English; in the anguish of this novel he tries to come to terms with the tragedy and bloodshed of Partition. 