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Times of terror
March of democracy |
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Middle path
Assam’s explosive tale
The recipe
Obama’s victory
Unhappy people watch more TV
Delhi Durbar
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Times of terror
EVERY time a terrorist attack takes place in the country, the response is always sickeningly familiar. A “red alert” is sounded, the Home Minister mouths homilies about the cowardice of the killers and identity sketches of the suspects are issued. While this show of activity is on, the terrorists strike at other places. Under the circumstances, the government had no other option but to set up a task force to initiate a time-bound plan, which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has finally announced. To be chaired by the National Security Adviser, the task force would come up within 100 days with a road map regarding the detailed steps to be taken to ensure a properly networked security architecture to tackle terrorist threats. So far, the security agencies were only reacting to the events. Naturally, the killers had a distinct advantage. If the plan is sincerely implemented, it can help the security agencies to gather intelligence in a pro-active manner and act on it. The task is not going to be easy. The laid-back style of the average policeman is just not conducive to such initiative. Secondly, the common man is so scared or disgusted with the police that he is unwilling to be its eyes and ears. Only if the police sheds its unprofessional image would it evoke respect and get cooperation from the people. It is not the police manual alone which is in need of a change. The policemen have to change their attitude towards the citizens also, which is still steeped in the pre-Independence mindset. At the same time, the security agencies have to ensure that their investigation is not seen as targeting any religion or community. When even serving army officers are found to be involved in acts of terror, the confidence of the minorities is bound to be shaken. This will have to be restored step by step. That is a tall order indeed, but not an impossible one. All that is needed is a strict adherence to professionalism. As the Prime Minister warned senior police officers, the challenge from terrorists is only going to get more pernicious in the days to come. The security agencies will have to measure up accordingly.
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March of democracy
THE Kashmiri people have once again proved their abiding faith in democracy. In a slap to the separatists, who have been urging them to boycott the elections, they came out in large numbers to exercise their franchise in Phase II of the polls on Sunday. The six constituencies that went to the polls on that day were in the Valley and where the writ of the militants once ran. But this time the situation was totally different. Almost every polling booth witnessed long queues of voters, both women and men, who seemed to vote with a vengeance. They were not scared of the militants or the separatists, who tried their best to disrupt the polls by engineering violence. However, the voters paid scant regard to their sinister campaign against elections because they knew that the separatists were not democrats in the first place. What mattered for the voters was to have a government which will address their problems of bread and butter, jobs and development and education and human welfare. They knew that the separatists would be nowhere when they wanted their local problems sorted out by the administration. Unlike them, the MLAs would not be able to run away from their responsibilities. The voters would be able to punish them if they were found to be wanting in doing their job. That is the beauty of democracy that the people of Jammu and Kashmir have been enjoying ever since adult franchise was introduced in the state. Small wonder that there was an improvement in the voting percentage this time as compared to the 2002 elections. Images of the Kashmiri people voting peacefully that were beamed into the drawing rooms of millions of people the world over is a reminder that democracy has taken deep roots in the state and they are their own masters. This is a strong rebuttal of the Pakistani propaganda that democracy is stage-managed in Kashmir. One reason why there is greater enthusiasm for elections this time is that the voters have experienced that an elected government is better than Governor’s rule, however benevolent it may be. In other words, they realised the folly of creating the situation that resulted in the popular government having to quit before its term came to an end. It does not matter who wins or loses in these elections so long as the will of the people finds expression and a popular government is in place.
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Middle path
THE six-day Dharamsala conclave of Tibetans has brought to the fore the truth that the 73-year-old Dalai Lama will continue to guide the Tibetans. He has given hints that he has no plan to retire in the near future. This should end the speculation on this score. The Tibetans have made it clear that they are united under the leadership of the Dalai Lama. But there are doubts about the continuance of the institution of Dalai Lama after the Tibetans’ present spiritual head dies. That is why the Dalai Lama was non-committal on who could be his successor while addressing the media on Sunday. Interestingly, the special meeting, attended by 580 Tibetan leaders from different countries and belonging to various walks of life, approved of the middle-path approach of the Dalai Lama to realise the Tibetan cause. This happened despite his having admitted that his “approach has failed” to bear fruit, and the fact that the Tibetan youth overwhelmingly favour “complete independence” from China. Most of them have never seen Tibet, having been born and brought up in India. However, they have great faith in the Dalai Lama, though they are at times impatient. The Dalai Lama appears to be realistic in his demand for greater autonomy for Tibet under the Chinese constitution. Independence is unthinkable, particularly in view of the growing clout of China on the world stage. The Dalai Lama has been a positive thinker and leader. He has provided fresh proof of this quality in him by saying that better India-China relations may help in the realisation of the Tibetan cause of greater autonomy. He finds India “too cautious” in its approach towards the Tibetan issue but, at the same time, he appreciates the support New Delhi has been extending for the cause of his people. He is the best bet for the Tibetans and he should provide them leadership as long as he can. That is the fervent prayers of all those who sympathise with the Tibetans.
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Though we cannot out-vote them, we will out-argue them. — Samuel Johnson
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Corrections and clarifications
Despite our earnest endeavour to keep The Tribune error-free, some errors do creep in at times. We are always eager to correct them. We request our readers to write or e-mail to us whenever they find any error. We will carry corrections and clarifications, wherever necessary, every Tuesday. Readers in such cases can write to Mr Amar Chandel, Deputy Editor, The Tribune, Chandigarh, with the word “Corrections” on the envelope. His e-mail ID is amarchandel@tribunemail.com. H.K. Dua
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Assam’s explosive tale
IT has now been agreed by the security establishment and the intelligence community that the incident of nine coordinated RDX-based blasts that rocked Assam on October 30 was the worst terror attack that India had seen in the past decade. The severity of the attack is explained by the fact that 84 people lost their lives and more than 800 others were injured, 260 of them admitted to various hospitals. Three of the explosions took place in Guwahati, one of them less than a kilometre from the seat of power, the Assam secretariat. The timing of the attack is significant because it has come when the region’s frontline separatist group, the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), has been at the receiving end, jolted by severe reverses, particularly after the June ceasefire by the outfit’s most potent strike force, the “28th battalion”. Two of the three companies of the battalion, fancifully called the Kashmir Camp, entered into a truce with the authorities, defying the group’s elusive leadership, saying that they would resolve their problem through dialogue with New Delhi. Besides, there were reports that both the state and the pro-peace ULFA faction were in touch with the only active ULFA unit, the “709th battalion”, based in western Assam. It was suggested that the “709th battalion” was likely to soon join the pro-peace comrades in the “28th battalion”. That would have meant the virtual end of ULFA’s military prowess. It is plain common sense to have expected some retaliation by ULFA to demonstrate that it was alive and kicking, and that it was not waiting to be smoked out by the counter-insurgency apparatus comprising the Army, the police and the paramilitary forces. Was ULFA, therefore, behind the bomb attacks? If yes, ULFA, that calls itself a “nationalist organisation of Assam,” has indulged in cold-blooded acts of terror against the very people from whom it has been drawing its strength. Again, is the militarily weakened ULFA in a position to have carried out such a well-coordinated attack, including the three devastating car bomb explosions in Guwahati? The general refrain is that it was unlikely that ULFA did it on its own. Therefore, the question arises as to who could have done it, or who could have collaborated with ULFA. For the record, though, ULFA has denied its hand in the blasts. Central intelligence agencies have narrowed down the suspects. They say that ULFA collaborated with the Bangladesh-based Harkatul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) in carrying out the attacks. If that is so, the blasts in Assam may have been part of the pattern of similar terror attacks elsewhere in the country. What is puzzling is this question: can a supposedly secular insurgent outfit like ULFA team up with a radical Islamist group like HuJI? If the ULFA-HuJI collaboration in the latest Assam attacks turns out to be a reality, it would mean that the rebel group from India’s Northeast, whose leaders are known to be operating from Bangladesh, may have agreed to a tie-up, perhaps as a quid pro quo for being allowed to work out of that country or in return for the possible logistic support provided by the Islamist forces. Things are fluid and investigators are nowhere near solving the jigsaw puzzle. The detention of six people belonging to the Bodo ethnic group, a week after the blasts, lent a new dimension to the case. They were picked up after the police traced the cars used in the bombings in Guwahati. Who are these people? The only Bodo militant group that exists now is the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB). The NDFB, fighting since 1986 for an independent Bodo homeland, has been observing a ceasefire with the government since March 2005 although its cadres have been indulging in violent activities in violation of the ceasefire ground rules. Was it an ULFA-Bodo militant operation, or was it an ULFA-HuJI-Bodo militant job? Anything is possible. How should one then see the claim made by the unheard of Islamic Security Force (Indian Mujahideen) that it had carried out the attacks? Well, that claim is generally seen as a red herring used by the perpetrators of the attacks to deflect attention. The very suspicion that radical Islamist groups could have joined hands with a local militant outfit to carry out one of the worst terror attacks in the nation’s history have led to undercurrents of tension across the state, immune to polarisations on religious lines so far despite provocations by usual political suspects. But Assam is actually sitting on a communal cauldron because the issue of citizenship of a large number of people who trace their origins to erstwhile East Bengal, East Pakistan, and now Bangladesh, has not been resolved yet. Migration of people to Assam is a reality. What is not a reality is that all those who had migrated to this northeastern state are illegal migrants. The All- Assam Students’ Union (AASU) led independent India’s biggest ever mass uprising between 1979 and 1985. The agitation was against illegal Bangladeshi migration to the state, fuelled by the fear that indigenous people were going to be outnumbered by the aliens in their own land. The agitation ended with the signing of the Assam Accord between AASU and the Centre in 1985 that fixed March 25, 1971, as the cut-off date for detection and expulsion of illegal migrants. Simply speaking, all those migrants who arrived in Assam before March 25, 1971, are to be regarded as Indian citizens. It is because of the murky politics of citizenship that Assam has been witness to, particularly since 1985, that a distinction is not sought to be made among the migrants. Vote bank politics has led to such polarisation in Assam’s otherwise cohesive society that even indigenous Assamese Muslims, who arrived in the region in the 13th century, are not put in a different bracket by certain parties and groups. The unresolved citizenship issue of a large number of migrant Muslim settlers has led to the following result: development programmes have hardly reached these people, leaving them poor and uneducated. This is actually a big national security issue because migrant settlers are vulnerable and are waiting to be exploited by anti-India forces in the neighbourhood. Statistics on the Muslim population in Assam has also contributed to politics over the issue. According to the 2001 Census, Muslim population in Assam is 30.9 per cent out of a total of 26.6 million. The census figures show that six of Assam’s 27 districts have a majority Muslim population. They are Barpeta, Dhubri, Goalpara, Nagaon, Karimganj and Hailakandi. The issue of Muslim population growth in Assam has a disturbing resonance because of the migration issue and the fact that the state shares a 262-km-long border with Bangladesh. The particular significance of the 2001 Census data lies in the fact that the rates of growth of Muslim population are the highest in the districts that share a border, or are close to the border, with Bangladesh — particularly Dhubri, Bar-peta, Karimganj and Hailakandi. this gives credence to the widely held belief that illegal migration from Bangladesh has been the source of these demographic trends. What Assam is witness to is a heady cocktail of insurgent politics, demographic jitters, a geography that makes cross-border human traffic, that includes insurgents, all that more easy, and poor governance. The result is there for everyone to see — unrest and more unrest. The people in Assam have been living with these, but with insurgency degenerating into pure terror, things have become all the more
unpredictable. The writer is Director, Centre for Development and Peace Studies,
Guwahati.
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The recipe AS the days succeed into tomorrows and I sit on the journey towards ripeness, a few people generate a feeling of awe and wonder as their fineness of feelings, love affection never faltered or ceased. This group of people helps me to fight and overcome the coming hurdles and assist me in my pursuit of the solutions to various intricate and unfulfilled projects at this age. There is always a lump in the throat when others, who were showered with immense love, affection and benefits, refuse to recognise. My mind is thus tormented with pain and agony. However, I soon realise that pain is a protector of life and joy is its promoter. This flicker of light relieves me of the tormentations and wicked thoughts but I fail to get any satisfactory answers to various left out plans in my pilgrims across life. I had been experimenting with various options. Music and poetry, which possess greater potential is elevating the level of one’s thoughts and feelings, did help to dispel the ill feelings but for short duration only. My elder brother used to tell me that act of living lies in being able to swim gracefully along the flow of events thereby covering a larger and more varied field than would be possible against the current. I have tried to follow this as well. Books and newspapers have, however, continued to be my constant companion and so is my worship of the divinity but in privacy and quietness as I believe it that way. My quest continued. One fine morning I came across a magnificent formula to cure my apprehensions, mistrusts and doubts. A writer had recommended that one should lie down on the floor of the room quietly, close the eyes and consider himself dead. After a minute or two he had to imagine who would be the first person to come rushing to his bedside abandoning all his assignments on hearing the tragic news. And then all those who too will join him — friends, relatives, well wishers etc. Now just remember the “Three Important Things” which you wanted to accomplish when you were alive but could not complete because of the sudden death. Make a note of these. Now slowly and slowly come back to life and get up. Immediately rush to your study table, write down the three important things you wanted to do and hasten to complete these. Also make a list of all those who had come rushing on hearing the sad and sudden news since these are the real well wishers who matter. This magnificent recipe relieved me of my stress, strains and nervousness. I have also accomplished my three important and unattended
“assignments”.
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Obama’s victory Barack Obama
has described his victory in the American presidential elections as the triumph of the ideals of America’s founding fathers. His success has established that those ideals can be translated into reality. The dreams of India’s founding fathers, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, were not very different from those of America’s. The principles of upholding the dignity and ensuring legal equality of all citizens underpin Indian democracy and imply that individuals should be judged on their merits. With blacks being a mere 13 per cent of America’s population Obama could not have won without substantial support from the white majority. The eclecticism of many American whites and their belief that the best candidate should win, was essential for his electoral success. An analogous eclecticism among India’s Hindu majority and its myriad minorities has never been missing in India. It is a major reason why India became a secular democracy after Independence with a constitution promising all its citizens equality before the law and equality of opportunity. It is to the credit of India’s Hindu majority that a communal Hindu party has never won a majority of votes at the Centre. Hindus comprise 80 per cent of India’s population, but Hindu communalists have never won 25 per cent of the vote in a national election and have only been able to govern at the Centre by coalescing with a mix of regional parties. There is the unfortunate fact that communal feeling has gained ground and that the incidence of communal violence has increased since Independence. The 1947 partition was attended by Hindu-Muslim, and to a lesser extent, Hindu-Sikh violence. So the prevalence of Hindu-Muslim ill-feeling, 61 years later, could at least be explained historically, though not justified or condoned. But how or why did Hindu-Sikh animosity emerge in the early 1980s, culminating in the anti-Sikh violence of 1984? Why are Christian minorities in parts of India being massacred by Hindu fanatics? Why has there been violence against North — or South — Indians in Maharashtra, especially if India is one country? India’s politicians deserve much of the blame for this sad state of affairs. It is easy to understand the challenges posed by communal or regional politicians to the cosmopolitan idea of the Indian nation. One doesn’t expect communal parties to uphold the secular Indian ideal — indeed that has always been challenged by communalists of every hue, before and after independence. The problem is that even the post-Nehru Indian National Congress has played the communal, regional and caste cards because of its myopic belief that it can make a quick buck by exploiting India’s religious and social divisions — or by doing nothing to counter the challenge of communalism. The most cynical expediency has replaced the idealism of the Nehru years. Indians — once upon a time — did expect the Congress to uphold the composite idea of Indian nationalism. It was the spread of this idea that enabled Nehru to lay the foundations of India’s democracy. Which Hindu — or Congress — politician today will say, as Nehru did, that generosity to minorities is not just good morals but also good politics? The fact that India’s current Vice-President, Prime Minister and Congress president all belong to minority communities is a partial reflection of its secularism. But communal or “sons-of-the-soil” violence shows how easily secular and democratic ideals can be threatened. Obama’s strength came from his ability to bridge the racial divide and to appeal to the political majority of Americans. For analogous reasons Nehru’s Congress appealed to the political majority of Indians, in ways that the present Congress does not. The first lesson emerging from Nehru’s Congress as well as from Obama’s Democratic Party is that the support of a tolerant majority is vital for the broad appeal and success of an eclectic nationalism which embraces all communities and classes. Secondly, the vitality of a national political party depends on strong grassroots organisation and accountable inner-party democracy. How many Indians under the age of say 40, or even 50 know that membership of the Congress party of Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi could be gained by paying the princely sum of four annas? Yet that ‘four-anna Congress party’ won freedom for India from the mighty British Raj. And internal democracy and grassroots support probably made Nehru’s post-1947 Congress the world’s most magnificent political machine. Could anyone describe the Congress of Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh the world’s most magnificent political machine, or as a vibrant democratic organisation? Indian secularism is still alive, but it is not in the best of health. The politics practised by Mayawati, LK Advani, Sonia Gandhi or Manmohan Singh has failed to transcend India’s many divisions — indeed they have widened and deepened some of them. The cynicism of many Indians today unfortunately suggests that they doubt the quality of India’s democracy — indeed one sometimes wonders how much the ideals of the founding fathers inspire Indians now. What a contrast to the upholding of the ideals of America’s founders by Obama and his compatriots! That is why Obama’s victory has already raised America’s worldwide prestige, despite George Bush’s many foreign policy failures and the ongoing economic crisis. In the long run India’s international standing will hinge not just on its economic progress but on whether its political parties and leaders — especially the Congress of Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh — are able simultaneously to build up their own grassroots organisation and deepen internal democracy. Only then will there be certainty about the strength of India’s composite nationalism, its secularism and democracy. The writer is a professor at the Centre
for Peace and Conflict Resolution in New Delhi
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Unhappy people watch more TV HAPPY people spend more free hours socialising, reading and participating in religious activities, while unhappy people watch 30 percent more television, according to new research. In a study that is among the first to compare daily free-time activities with perceptions of personal contentment, researchers found that television hours were elevated for people who described themselves as “not too happy.” On average, the down-and-out reported an extra 5.6 hours of tube time a week, compared with their happiest counterparts. The research does not mean that television causes unhappiness, its authors said, but rather that there is a link that is not yet understood. “It could be that watching television makes you unhappy, but there is also the question of whether people who are unhappy turn to television as a way to ward off their unhappiness,” said University of Maryland sociologist John P. Robinson, the study’s lead author. The study, published in the December issue of the journal Social Indicators Research, is based on the General Social Survey, with public opinion data from nearly 40,000 Americans aged 18 to 64 as well as time-use diaries that detail how people spend their days. Robinson and his co-author, sociologist Steven Martin, concluded that people enjoyed what they watched the previous evening but that those who watched television the longest did not feel as happy about their lives. “We were getting two different signals: In the short term, people could be happy doing it, but in the long term, that could lead to something more negative,” Robinson said. This made sense to Michelle Griggs, 33, of Woodbridge, Va., who watches “House” and “The Mentalist” with her husband, Aaron, but she sees the limits of television, too. “If you spend all of your time watching TV and not living your life, you’re not going to be too happy,” she said. “You’re watching other people’s lives.” In all, however, the study found a happy majority. “Not too happy” people accounted for 11 percent of the total. Fifty-five percent were “somewhat happy,” and 33 percent were “very happy.” Whether this upbeat outlook will hold steady during the economic meltdown is unclear. Television viewing goes up when work hours go down. Whether this produces additional unhappiness “is the $64 question,” Robinson said. For Juliette Wafo, 30, television has offered a diversion from difficulty. She is newly arrived in the United States, in a tough life transition. “If you watch a good sitcom,” she said, “it can increase happiness. It can make you escape from the real world. You can laugh.” Researchers found that with other free-time activities — socializing with relatives and friends, religious services, and sex, for example — happy people put in more hours. Television stood out because unhappy people gave it more time. Researchers say television hours have long amounted to “the 800-pound gorilla” when it comes to free time. On average, people have 35 to 40 hours a week of discretionary time and spend about 21 hours near the tube. The study found that the happiest people estimated they tuned in to television 18.9 hours a week. For the least happy, it was nearly 25 hours a week. The study controlled for differences in education, income, age, race, sex and marital status. Apart from its findings on television, the study showed that when people who completed time-use diaries were asked to rate activities from the previous day, sex came out on top. It was followed by playing sports, and playing and reading with children. The list continued with religious activities, sleep, meals out and socializing. Television was rated 12th — although well ahead of grocery shopping, work, child care and housework. Happiness has been studied in different ways before. A recent Pew Research Center study found that Republicans are happier than Democrats. That study was released before the November election left the GOP without control of the White House or Congress. With that unhappy result still in mind, late-night talker Jay Leno weighed in. “According to a new study from the University of Maryland, unhappy people watch more TV,” Leno began. “So (I’ll) begin by saying, `Hello, Clippers fans, Detroit Lions fans, Republicans, how are you? Welcome to the show.”
— By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post
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Delhi Durbar THE other day Congress spokesman Shakeel Ahmed got caught in a situation of his own making when at a media briefing he said the BJP would experience the anti-incumbency factor in all the states involved in the assembly elections. In his attempt to downsize the Opposition party, little did he realise that his own party could also face the anti-incumbency factor in Delhi, where it has been in power for the last 10 years. He immediately made amends when asked whether people in Delhi were happy with the Sheila Dixit government like they were with the Narendra Modi government in Gujarat, which was voted back to power, Ahmed’s response was: “People in Delhi are happy with the work done by the government and would definitely vote the Congress back to power for the third time”.
Comrades can’t smoke With the Parliament session set to resume after about a fortnight, the battlelines between the UPA and Speaker Somnath Chatterjee on the one side and his erstwhile Left colleagues on the other seem to have been drawn. Union Health Minister Ambumani Ramadoss has banned smoking in Parliament for a long time. But comrades, who outnumber politicians from all other parties as far as smoking goes, were happily smoking unmindful of Ramadoss’s whip since their man was sitting in the Speaker’s chair. Even after smoking was banned in the Central Hall, a small anteroom for smokers was available.
Now that the comrades have discarded Somnath, Ramadoss has had his way and banned smoking even in that anteroom leading to the thinning of Leftist attendance in the Central Hall. And who knows, poor Somnath may have to earn the ire of his former colleagues even for this!
Pakistani stalls draw crowds The India International Trade Fair (IITF) began on November 14 but the Pakistan stalls were almost empty for about a week. Many thought it had something to do with the economic meltdown. However, it later turned out that containers coming from Pakistan were stranded at the Wagah border as the organisers of the trade fair had failed to inform the Indian authorities at the border to permit the containers to enter India. The Pakistan High Commission took up the matter with the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). It was only after the PMO intervened in the matter that the containers were allowed to transport the Pakistani goods for the exhibition in Delhi. And now the Pakistani pavilion is drawing maximum crowds at the trade fair. Contributed by Vibha Sharma, Faraz Ahmad and Ashok Tuteja
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