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Gorkha tradition Prachanda’s unwelcome twist THE Gorkha regiments of the Indian Army will become endangered entities if Nepal’s Maoist chief Prachanda has his way. He does not want Nepali Gorkhas to join the Indian armed forces any more, in spite of the fact that the Gorkhas have a glorious history of service with the Army.
In their own service
Bureaucratic rectitude
Lanka’s troubled minority Post-op drugs that can kill Inside Pakistan
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Free for all MOVE over Bihar, Punjab is here to stake claim for the state where the most violent and undemocratic scenes are enacted during elections. What happened during the zila parishad and panchayat samiti elections on Monday must be one of the most shameful chapters of democratic history. The violence was widespread. There was no law and order worth the name anywhere during the polls. The irony is that the Punjab State Election Commission has claimed that the elections were conducted in a “free, fair and smooth manner”. It has ordered repoll in only 17 booths, as if all others had a clean run. The Akali Dal and its marauding supporters not only shattered the authenticity of the elections to smithereens but also came into direct conflict with their long-time partners, the BJP. Firearms and sharp-edged weapons were freely used. The alliance may not break but it has been greatly weakened thanks to the way Akali workers attacked even senior BJP leaders. The bad blood that the violent incidents have generated may not be easily wiped out, although Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal is now engaged in a damage-control exercise. What is even more shameful is the brazen misuse of official machinery. The police was made to look the other way, instead of enforcing law and order. Even that was a small mercy, because at some places it became totally partisan in favour of the Akalis and openly terrorised the ranks of the Opposition parties. In the process, the local bodies elections have lost much of their sanctity. If no action is taken despite such irregularities, the public will lose all faith in the elected institutions. Shell-shocked and disgusted onlookers who bore the brunt have already been saying that instead of enacting such a farce, it would have been better if members were simply nominated to various zila parishads and panchayat samitis. That will avoid so much of expenditure, and bloodshed. The Election Commission of India should take note of the situation and make arrangements for holding the by-election in Amritsar later this month in a free and fair manner.
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Setback for democracy PAKISTAN is faced with political instability once again with the failure of the PPP and PML (N) leaders to end their differences on the restoration of the judges deposed on November 3 last. Mr Asif Ali Zardari of the PPP and Mr Nawaz Sharif of the PML (N) with their aides held two rounds of discussions, in Dubai and London, but they were in vain. The result is the withdrawal of the PML (N) from the coalition ministry with Mr Nawaz Sharif’s party deciding to extend issue-based support to the Yousuf Raza Geelani government. Thus, the government, formed abount six weeks ago with high expectations, will be struggling for survival with President Pervez Musharraf drawing comfort from the inability of the coalition partners to pull along together. The disquieting development is a serious threat to the efforts to revive democracy in Pakistan. This is certainly not what the people expected to be their fate when they overwhelmingly voted for the PPP and the PML (N). They wanted the new rulers to concentrate on providing relief to the people from the back-breaking price rise, power shortage, growing unemployment, etc, instead of wasting their time on an issue which was almost settled with the signing of the Murree Declaration by Mr Zardari and Mr Sharif. Mr Zardari has never been forthcoming on the question of restoration of the pre-November 3 status of the judiciary. After all, he is a beneficiary of the National Reconciliation Order issued by President Musharraf and approved of by the Pakistan Supreme Court judges appointed after the deposition of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and many other judges in the wake of the promulgation of the Emergency. Mr Zardari agreed to reinstate the deposed judges when Mr Nawaz Sharif gave his nod to the PPP leader’s idea of retaining the PCO judges — as the new Supreme Court judges are described derisively — on an ad hoc basis. There were, however, serious differences on how to go about it, and this led to the present state of affairs. Democracy in Pakistan is the loser. |
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Gorkha tradition THE Gorkha regiments of the Indian Army will become endangered entities if Nepal’s Maoist chief Prachanda has his way. He does not want Nepali Gorkhas to join the Indian armed forces any more, in spite of the fact that the Gorkhas have a glorious history of service with the Army. The “Crossed Khukris” insignia of the Gorkha regiments are justly famous, and the thundering war cry of “Ayo Gorkhali” has reverberated across many a battlefield. The Gorkhas have been part of almost every war that India has fought, have picked up numerous battle honours, and their bravery and valour is considered second to none.There are an estimated 40,000 Nepali Gorkhas in service with the Army. Prachanda’s views are not surprising — this is the man, after all, who once used to talk about the inevitability of the Maoists fighting with the Indian Army at some point. This was during his underground days. Now that the Maoists are in a position to actually rule the country, he evidently wants to keep their best fighting men for themselves. But the armies of the two countries share a close relationship, and there is no point in tossing out a couple of hundred years of history. It was the British, in their obsession with so-called martial races, who first harnessed the Gorkha’s loyalty and bravery. The first battalion was raised near Shimla, and was soon in the thick of battle at Bharatpur. At the time of Independence, there were 10 regiments in the Indian Army, each with two battalions. Under an Indo-British-Nepali agreement in 1947, four were transferred to the British Army, while the others remained here. Even today, Gorkhas serve the British Army with great distinction. They have been deployed in Afghanistan, and Prince William was under their care when he was posted there on duty recently. Nepal has every right to decide whether its citizens should serve in the armed forces of other countries. But, given the long tradition, and the close ties between India and Nepal, this is an issue better left to the Constituent Assembly, than be decided on ideological grounds or prejudices. |
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A woman dictates before marriage in order that she may have an appetite for submission afterwards. — George Eliot
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In their own service OUR Staff Correspondent forced me to accept the District Magistrate’s invitation for lunch at his bungalow. During the post-lunch tête-à-tête on the well-manicured, sprawling lawns, he dropped a bombshell: “The moment the clock strikes five, I close my pen. The government does not expect me to work beyond office time”. The incongruity of the situation — entertaining a visiting journalist for no special reason other than to satisfy his own ego — during office time did not register on him. He told me a bit proudly how as a student he used to pass by the same bungalow and wondered how life was lived inside. For the District Magistrate, an opportunity to live in the same house was the high-watermark of his service career. Suddenly I remembered the model interviews in career and competition magazines where a young man “in a blue trouser, white shirt and matching tie with cropped hair” or a young girl “in a sober sari, matching blouse and neatly combed hair” answering the interviewer’s question about why he/she wanted to join the IAS: “The Indian Administrative Service provides an opportunity to serve the common man whose hopes and aspirations can be fulfilled only by a responsive government”. But how many of them really want to serve the people? At one time, the best and the brightest wanted to join the Foreign Service, represent the country in foreign lands and become ambassadors. Since there is no big money in the IFS — there is no demand for the used “phoren” cars they can import — few want to join the service. The IAS is now their favourite destination. The more calculating among them even opt for the revenue service which has greater potential for illegal gratification. As a young journalist, it was a pastime for me to read district gazetteers. Over a period of time, I accumulated a small collection of gazetteers, particularly of the tribal districts of Bihar, now part of Jharkhand. They were all written by people who served in the districts as collectors. The one on Singhbhum district is particularly memorable. It details the characteristics of every tribe like its marriage customs, religious practices, dances and festivals. One could only marvel at the depth of the writers’ knowledge, particularly when they had a language problem to begin with. Philip Mason in his The Men Who Ruled India says about one of them, Sir Richard Temple: He “went everywhere and saw everything … municipalities, dispensaries, primary schools, district boards, dripped from his pen; he created, built, endowed, set up and vivified”. After the 1853 charter abolished the system of recruitment to the “covenanted” civil services through political patronage and influence, merit alone counted in the selection of candidates. The evangelicals played a role in the evolution of the civil service and admission of Indians into the coveted cadre as a result of which by the time Gandhiji asked the British to quit in 1942, the Indian Civil Service had 632 Indians and 573 British personnel. One of them, Sir James Stephen, who formulated the modern concept of civil servants as anonymous purveyors of impartial and expert advice to ministers, told the Royal Commission on the Civil Services in 1854: “You stand not in need of statesmen in disguise, but of intelligent, steady, methodical men of business”. Post-Independence, gazetteer-writing has become as extinct as the tiger in Sariska. Yet, while recommending higher pay-scales for the IAS, the Sixth Pay Commission has argued that IAS officers “hold important field-level posts at the district level and at the cutting edge at the start of their careers with critical decision-making and crisis management responsibilities.” No such large-heartedness was shown to the IPS officers who also have their district postings at the start of their career, not to mention the BSF, CRPF, ITBP and the Indian Army whose officers and jawans have their postings in inhospitable areas like Kargil in Jammu and Kashmir, Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh and Cherrapunji in Meghalaya, to name a few Facts as documented by Praveen Swami of The Hindu suggest that the IAS officers manage to remain away from terrorism-hit J&K and Naxalite-affected Chhattisgarh. During the days when militancy was at its peak in Punjab, the administration was run, by and large, by the “promotees” while the heaven-born remained in comfort in safe zones within or without the state. The committee reviewing the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations has such a large presence of the IAS that it is safe to conclude that it will protect its turf. Myths abound about the administrative acumen of the IAS. One such is the myth about the marketability of its officers. They grudge corporate salaries, little realising that few among them have any employment potential outside of the government. Those who have been chosen by the corporates did not choose them for their brilliance but because they can use their contacts in the government for their own good. For precisely the same reason, an IAS officer was appointed head of a television company, only to be sent packing once his utility was over. For many the status and power that come with the three letters are all that matter. Take the case of the one who had put two stand-alone heavenward-looking swishing aerials on both sides of the boot of his gleaming white Ambassador when he found that the red beacon light had become passé. Under such circumstances, it is puerile to expect them to visit villages, study their problems and do something to ameliorate their condition? An N Balabhaskar in Haryana or a RCVP Norohna of A Tale Told By An Idiot fame, who even as Chief Secretary would come to office on a moped, is an exception while a vast majority try to adopt politically correct manners, indulge in good PR and cultivate the image of a Mahatma for surefire career advancement. They manage to remain in the State capital so that their children can study in the best schools and their spouses can have a career of their own. And when they get bored in service, they manage to go on sabbaticals to institutions like Harvard. The more resourceful among them manage to get UN postings that ensure a fat pension after putting in a certain period of service. Of course, everybody’s ultimate ambition is a post-retirement job. Those who have all their service lives marked every file as ‘secret’ suddenly become Information Commissioners whose job is to let people have access to those very files they had marked secret. They have the most secure jobs in the country but they kowtow to the rulers so much so, that I saw one of them serving snacks and liquor at a party hosted by a chief minister. S. Mohanty writes in his Babudom: Catacombs of Indian Bureaucracy, “I was singulary fortunate to once espy a file that suggested in the month of March to grant a whopping sum to a state government to sow paddy saplings in the monsoon gone past so that the budgetary outlay is utilised in the fiscal ending! Yet another proposal went through without a hiccup with the authorities sanctioning a hundred thousand more than that asked for by the proponent. No reason for a higher sum was given, nor was it required. You can make a guess. The proponent was a beautifully endowed/preserved wife of another senior bureaucrat still on prowl with a high visibility”. Attempts like that of the Central Vigilance Commission to purge the system of corrupt elements have failed even as Transparency International continues to rate India as one of the most corrupt. Little can be done when amorality rules like a potentate and officers close their pens at 5 p.m. The only silver lining on the dark horizon is the Right to Information Act that can, fortunately, keep the heaven-born on the leash.
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Bureaucratic rectitude
NOT so long ago, viewers of TV saw coverage of a gleeful Chief Minister Mayawati being fed pieces of her birthday cake by the senior IAS officers of the UP administration. Admit-tedly, there are times when political masters and administrators do strike up a happy mutual respect where felicitating each other on personal matters in private may be acceptable. But a public display of such unabashed adulation is abhorent, to say the least. Now on May 7 NDTV opened its 9 PM news with the footage of Chief Minister Narender Modi rewarding a district with an additional one crore of public funds for exceptional results achieved in rural development. The young District Collector (IAS), comes forward to accept the cheque and the next moment bends to touch the Chief Minister’s feet! And all this in full public gaze under open skies. This brought to my mind two incidents from the life of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, demonstrating corrrect demeanour both by bureaucrats and their political masters. Nehru narrates in his autobiography his arrest in the princely state Nabha (now in Patiala district) for defying a ban on addressing a political rally. The District Magistrate awaited till he stood up to speak and then signed and issued the warrant for arrest and lodgement of Pandit Nehru in the Nabha jail. Subsequently he was awarded imprisonment of one month to run concurrent from the date of arrest. Nehru was not a criminal but a dignified political dissenter. So the District Magistrate had no compunction in meeting the detainee in the jail and enquire whether he had been shown the State Jails Manual with regard to his legal and personal entitlements! I think implicit in this episode is the perfect bureaucratic rectitude. And now for keeping the bureaucrats outside the loop of politiking and from subserviance to politicians, again the best example comes from Prime Minister Nehru’s conduct. In 1961, he was to address the delegates at the zonal conference of the Indian National Congress which was in session at Gurgaon. The Deputy Commis-sioner, Gurgaon, received a telephone call from the Personal Secretary of the PM, the evening prior to the event. The message conveyed was to the effect that (a) Mr Nehru was coming to the Deputy Commissioner’s district headquarters town essentially in his capacity as the President of the Indian National Congress and (b) that the established protocol of the “Blue Book” was, therefore, not expected to be invoked. Presumably, the message must have also been conveyed to the conference organisers. The astute Deputy Commissioners nevertheless turned up, at the venue. He was received by an usher and shown a seat in the front row, directly facing the speaker’s podium. Nehru arrived dot on time and made his speech in the allotted time. When departing, he walked up to the Deputy Commissioner (the only one in non-Congress garb), shook hands and thanked the Deputy Commissioner for showing courtesy to him by his
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Lanka’s troubled minority IN June 2007, the Sri Lankan police evicted 400 Tamils from low budget boarding houses in Colombo and sent them to the northern and eastern regions of the country. The police argued that Tamil separatists had been using boarding houses to plan and launch suicide attacks. Human rights activists said that the evictions were a “collective punishment” for the Tamil minority for the attacks conducted by Tamil separatists on the state. The Liberation Front for Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has been fighting a violent battle for a separate homeland in the north and east of Sri Lanka since the early 1980s. The Sri Lankan Supreme Court agreed with the Ceylon Workers Congress, a trade union and political party representing Tamils, and the Centre for Policy Alternatives, which had filed the petition that it was an infringement of the Tamil citizen’s fundamental rights. Chief Justice Sarath De Silva said that the evictions were illegal and should be conducted only through proper legal channels. The implications of the judgement are positive for minority rights, particularly Tamils, who comprised 18 per cent of the population in 1981. Like in India, housing is not a fundamental right since it is part of the directive principles of the constitution. Article 27 C says that the state must ensure the realisation of housing (among others) by citizens but does not make it justiciable in a court. The petitioner Tamils used the argument that despite the non-fundamental rights nature of the right to housing, the evictions violated their fundamental rights, particularly Article 12 (right to equality). The court’s agreement with the petitioners opens the door to more such petitions using fundamental rights infringements to argue for civil, political and socio-economic rights, i.e. bring them in through the back door. This move is akin to the Indian case where the right to life (Article 21) was used to argue for a right to health, education, healthy environment, food, shelter etc. While the Sri Lankan judiciary has been much more circumspect than its Indian counterpart, the recent judgement shows that they have developed a spine against the executive in some human rights cases. An earlier judgement on January 7 of this year said that the police could not search houses, particularly at night, without reasonable grounds. The judgement upholds the rights of Tamil citizens who have been caught in the cross fire between the government and the LTTE. The LTTE’s actions in constructing a de-facto state in the northern part of the island, and its frequent suicide attacks on citizens and key government installations pose a severe threat to the security of the country. More than 70,000 have died in the conflict. The government said that the evictions countered the LTTE’s modus operandi which involved using guesthouses in Colombo to house its suicide bombers before the attacks. However, as one commentator (IANS) points out, the Tamils affected by the government’s anti-terrorist drive are primarily from the tea and rubber plantations of central and south Sri Lanka who have little to do with the Tamils of the war torn north and east of the country. The government, however, has not stopped to make these distinctions. For instance, after a bomb blast in a Colombo suburb, Tamils living in lodges were arrested and sent to a maximum security prison – 82 are still in that prison. The judgement is all the more commendable because the Sri Lankan judges are hamstrung by many factors. First, parliamentary sovereignty and the constitutional power of the executive over judicial appointments make the court less able to challenge the parliament. This means that the Sri Lankan constitution can be changed completely by the legislature, thus limiting the extent to which courts in Sri Lanka can champion fundamental rights. The current constitution enacted in 1978 replaces earlier ones enacted in 1972 and 1947 Soulbury constitution. This is unlike the Indian constitution where the Supreme Court has come up with a basic structure doctrine that bars the parliament from legislating laws that contravene some basic elements of the constitution that are discernible only to the court. Even when minority rights are guaranteed, there is no guarantee that judicial interpretations will favour such rights. The first constitution provided for minority protection (Section 29(2)) forbidding discrimination on the ground of race or religion and legislation infringing on religious freedom. Immediately after independence, the failure of legal challenges to three discriminatory pieces of legislation – the Citizenship Act of 1948 and the Franchise Legislation of 1949 depriving Tamil plantation workers of Indian descent of franchise, and the Official Language Act of 1956 making Sinhalese the only official language – eroded the faith of the minorities in the courts. Unfortunately, as several scholars point out, the underlying ethos of the 1972 and current 1978 constitutions supports Sinhalese nationalism at the expense of minority aspirations. Previous rulings of the court have upheld a more nationalist position: in 2006, the apex court struck down the merger of the north and east provinces negotiated under the 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan accord as unconstitutional. The successful petitioners were members of the Sinhalese nationalist parties In another judgement in September 2006, a five judge bench of the apex court headed by the Chief Justice ruled that the accession of the government to the Optional Protocol of the International Covenant on Civil and Political rights was inconsistent with the constitution. That is why the recent judgement is positive development for minority rights. The court, however, remained within the bounds set by the executive because it said that without due legal process, evictions could not occur. The Chief Justice asked the police to formulate rules on the investigation, detention and arrest of Tamils who are suspected of being agents of the LTTE. The writer is Fellow, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi |
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Post-op drugs that can kill AT least 800,000 deaths may have been caused worldwide in the past decade by preventive drugs which are routinely given to patients undergoing surgery to reduce the risk of heart attacks, according to researchers. The huge death toll was compared to that “from a world war” by the leader of the international study, carried out in 23 countries, who said it had been caused by “well-meaning physicians” handing out the drugs without considering the side-effects. The result was that they had cost more lives than they saved. The drugs, called beta blockers, are recommended for patients undergoing surgery, to reduce the risk of heart attacks after operations. Guidelines published in 1996 by the American College of Cardiology and adopted worldwide, recommend they be used in all non-cardiac surgery – all operations except those on the heart. But a randomised trial involving 8,350 patients who had surgery in 190 hospitals across the world has found that those given beta blockers doubled their risk of a stroke (from 0.5 per cent to 1 per cent) and increased their overall risk of death by a third (from 2.3 per cent to 3.1 per cent) compared with a placebo, in the 30 days after their operation. The drugs did lower the incidence of heart attacks by more than a quarter (from 5.7 per cent to 4.2 per cent), but the benefit was outweighed by the “side effects” of increased stroke and death, the researchers said. There are an estimated 100 million non-cardiac operations a year globally, so although the absolute numbers affected were low, the cumulative impact is large. Dr Philip Devereaux, a cardiologist and epidemiologist at McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada, who led the study published in The Lancet, said: “Even if only 10 per cent of doctors followed the guidelines, and that is a conservative estimate, 100 million patients would have been given beta- blockers during surgery in the past decade. On the basis of our findings, that means 800,000 would have died prematurely and 500,000 would have suffered a stroke. If our findings are true, that is death on the scale of a world war.” Dr Devereaux said there was evidence that up to 40 per cent of doctors were routinely using beta blockers in surgery in some parts of the world, which would quadruple the death toll in those areas. “The doctors who gave these drugs were caring and knowledgeable physicians. But, every so often, we discover that what we were trying to prevent, we were making worse. Although beta blockers have benefits, they end up causing death and strokes because they lower blood pressure. They end up doing more good than harm.” The body can go into a state of shock after surgery in which the blood pressure falls, and that effect may be amplified by the beta blocker, Dr Devereaux said. A commentary in The Lancet said those already taking beta blockers for a heart condition should continue through surgery, and for those without heart conditions it suggests a lower dose, started a week before surgery, may still help. Dr Devereaux criticised the commentary for suggesting a lower dose on the basis of a small trial of just over 100 patients compared with his own trial of more than 8,000 patients. By arrangement with
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Inside Pakistan The judges issue has exposed the weaknesses of both the principal partners in the coalition government in Islamabad. Both have their different agendas to implement and hence the failure of the talks between PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari and PML (N) leader Nawaz Sharif in Dubai and London on the restoration of the pre-November 3, 2007, status of the judiciary. With the PML (N) decision to withdraw from the Yousuf Raza Geelani ministry, it may be difficult for the coalition to remain intact. Most Pakistani newspapers feel that the two old political rivals may be baying for each other’s blood again if last-ditch efforts to save the coalition fail to fructify. If the situation leads to fresh elections, as some commentators believe, the PPP may be the biggest loser, as it appears to be moving towards the Musharraf camp, hated by the people in general. Mr Nawaz Sharif’s party may be the real gainer because of his undiluted support for the judicial cause. As Dawn commented, “We believe the people would not be far wrong if they detected a demeaning duplicity on the PPP’s part throughout the negotiations. The Bhurban Declaration, signed on March 9, three weeks after the Feb 18 polls, was a blunder on the part of Mr Zardari and his party. Why did the party leadership agree to a 30-day deadline to restore the judges through a (parliamentary) resolution when it had no intention of honouring it?..” Most other respected newspapers also took Mr Zardari to task for his unwillingness to reinstate the deposed judges. The cause of judicial independence led to an anti-Musharraf wave helping the PPP and the PML (N) to sweep the elections. As The News said, “The breakdown on the judges issue could possibly reignite both the lawyers and sections of civil society who have both been taking to the streets in the not-too-distant past demanding their (deposed judges’) immediate reinstatement. Here, it should be remembered that the PML (N) was an active catalyst and facilitator of these protests and it may well, covertly or otherwise, resume this role…” With a view to preventing the situation from taking a turn for the worse, the PPP, according to The News, will have “to remove the growing perception that everything it is doing is at the behest of and in support to President Musharraf as part of its commitments made before and after the general elections. This perception of the PPP becoming a 'B' team or, according to some cynics, an 'A' team, of President Musharraf, would be politically disastrous.” In the view of Daily Times, “The PMLN’s decision to quit the government is going to channel some of the disaffection of the people in the direction of the PPP since all the problems faced by the country in the political (FATA & Balochistan) and economic (food & energy) sectors do not lend themselves to solutions in the short run. If the old judges are not restored – or if they are restored and the new ones are not fired – there will be agitation in the country. Other elements, apart from the lawyers, will join in, including the APDM and the warlords of the Tribal Areas, to make it tough for the PPP to hold on to power. That is when talk and pressure to dissolve the assembly and hold fresh elections will gather momentum.” However, Mr Nawaz Sharif knows well enough that there is also the possibility of his being sidelined to the advantage of the Musharraf camp if the situation does not lead to fresh elections. The survival of his party’s government in Punjab will be almost impossible then. That is why the PML (N) has left the Cabinet but not the coalition, so that there is always the possibility to patch up with the PPP at a later stage. As The Nation pointed out, “The two mainstream parties cannot afford to part ways at a time when the country faces economic and social issues of great magnitude, including unprecedented fuel and food prices, water and power shortages, (a grim) law and order situation and the need to return to genuine democracy with the elected government enjoying full powers. “A PPP administration depending on discredited elements of the previous PML (Q)-led coalition will lack the credibility and moral authority to resolve these issues. Similarly, the PML (N) should be ready to adopt a flexible attitude lest it is accused of rigidity at the cost of democracy.” |
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