The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Scam taint
Army chief must take resolute action

Army chief General Deepak Kapoor has admitted, belatedly though, that the Sukna land scam in West Bengal has hurt the image of his fighting force. The only way to redeem the image is by taking resolute action against all those found to be involved in the transfer of 70 acres of prime land to a dubious developer. Four generals have been indicted in the case by an army court of inquiry. General Kapoor has ordered disciplinary action against Lieut-Gen P.K. Rath and served show-cause notices on two other generals, but Army Headquarters is considered to be going soft on Lieut-Gen Avadhesh Prakash, who is a close aide of the Army chief as the Military Secretary, and faces only ‘administrative action’ instead of the harsher court-martial. No wonder, during the chief’s customary annual press conference ahead of Army Day on January 15, most of the questions were related to this raging controversy.

General Kapoor’s promise that justice will be done is reassuring, but it would be worthwhile only if actual action is taken against everyone blamed for a string of lapses in the case. This has become all the more necessary since the Eastern Army Commander, Lieut-Gen V. K. Singh, who is tipped to be the army chief when General Kapoor retires on March 31 this year, had recommended that Lieut-Gen Avadhesh Prakash be sacked. Yet, he was only served a show-cause notice for administrative action.

In fact, General Kapoor has added another entirely avoidable sub-text to the whole controversy. When asked whether there was a rift between him and Lieut-Gen V K Singh, he commented that “in armed forces, there can’t be a rift between a senior (himself) and a junior officer (General Singh) … This is the ethos and the hierarchy they follow”. Such fault lines in the top brass are hardly good for the 1.13-million strong Indian Army.

Infiltration on the rise
Need for greater vigil and deterrent punishment

The nabbing of a teenaged Pakistani ‘suicide bomber’ from the Indian side of the Indo-Pak border while he was on a mission to study patrolling patterns of BSF jawans so as to identify a time and place where seven associates of his could slip into India reflects the seriousness of the infiltration problem in Kashmir. That this young man was at the age of 18 already a recruit of the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Tehrik-e-Taliban and in the team for which he was preparing the ground there were three women shows that the terror outfits of Pakistan are looking for newer ways to catch the Indian security agencies off guard. The terrorist-infiltrator Namun Arshad was not only trained in handling pistols and revolvers but also taught to wear and blast a suicide jacket, a clear indication that he was a potential fidayeen. Namun’s confession to the media that he did not like the jehadi ideology but was forced to obey the terror outfits’ orders under the threat that he and his family would be eliminated if they did not comply confirms suspicions that impressionable young men are being blackmailed into submission.

Clearly, as both Defence Minister Antony and Home Minister Chidambaram have claimed from different platforms recently, infiltration attempts from Pakistan which showed a decline last year are on the rise this year. Evidently, the Pakistanis are alarmed at the pace at which Jammu and Kashmir is approaching normalcy. By fomenting fresh trouble, the enemy wants to keep the pot boiling.

All this underlines the need for the Indian security forces to step up vigil both on the border and in terror-prone areas. At the same time, it is important that exemplary punishment be meted out to those who are nabbed for working for terror outfits to create an effective deterrent. Much as Pakistan may deny before the international community, terror outfits in that country are alive and kicking and terrorism is being fuelled with the complicity of ‘state actors.’ Consequently, India’s diplomatic offensive must continue without let-up.

Thought for the Day

Wealth is the burden of bigness. Welfare the fullness of being. — Rabindranath Tagore

ARTICLE

Focus on good governance
North-East doesn’t need more states
by Ash Narain Roy

There are no million mutinies in India. But there are billion aspirations some of which find outlets in the form of a plethora of statehood demands. The North-East, the microcosm of India, best typifies this phenomenon.

Demands for separate statehood in the region are like the Russian babushka dolls. Like these dolls, also known as Matryoshka dolls, in which a set of dolls of decreasing sizes is placed one inside the other, the more India has created new states in the North-East, the more such demands have gathered momentum.

No other state in the country has seen the kind of vivisection as Assam has. And yet, Assam faces the prospects of further fragmentation. Demands for Bodoland, Karbiland, Dimaraji and Kamtapur have acquired stridency over the years. Some movements are even seeking homelands outside the Indian Union.

New states, created in the North-East as part of federal reorganisation of India, had the intended objective of primarily pacifying the secessionist and autonomist demands of various groups. Nagaland became a state in 1963 followed by Meghalaya and Manipur in 1972 and Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh in 1987.

The state formation in the North-East was not linked with economic viability; it was guided primarily by security considerations. It was also intended to snap the existing and potential linkages among various insurgent/militant groups fighting the Indian state. The Naga, Mizo and Bodo movements began as “freedom” movements, but ended up accepting statehood or cohabitation with others. Willy-nilly, they accepted integration within the Indian Union.

When some ethno-linguistic groups raised the banner of independence and others made demands bordering on secessionism, the Indian state offered a mix of carrots and sticks. The statehood made the diverse people of the region important stakeholders in the polity. Indian federalism, which in its initial years was heavily centralised, devised, over the years, a formula to combine self-rule with shared rule.

Today, when we look back, statehood proved to be an antidote to insurgency and militancy. Layered sovereignty may not have worked wonders, but it has greatly doused the fire of insurgent violence in the North-East. No doubt, insurgency in the North-East is still thriving. But it has become a cottage industry, in some cases, the only growth industry. It has lost the fire and the bite.

Youth and student leaders as also others use militancy to build their political career. Extortion is rampant. Having attained power, leaders who once swore by independence, sovereignty, right to self-determination, are content with Central grants. The Centre’s attempt to persuade, cajole, inveigle or trick such leaders has weakened such movements.

The militants in the North-East were never strong on ideology. Today, when wars of ideology at the global level have been replaced by wars of identity or what Leslie Gelb calls “wars of national debilitation”, they are even less ideological. The various militant groups and others demanding statehood may still mouth revolutionary slogans and clichés to stir up popular sentiments to the gullible people, but they are hardly fired by apocalyptic visions. And yet, since they draw on some reservoir of public support and sympathy, they have shown more staying power.

A sense of pan-Indian identity is missing in the North-East for historical reasons. Some areas were never part of pre-colonial India. They remained for centuries outside large centralised empires like the Maurya, Gupta and Moghul during the ancient and medieval periods of Indian history. Various ethnic groups like Nagas, Mizos, Meiteis, Garos, Khasis, Ahoms and others lived either in splendid isolation or under some kingdoms.

The British incorporation of the region also came about much later than the Indian sub-continent (Assam in 1826, Khasi and Jaintia Hills in the 1830s, Naga Hills between 1966 and 1904 and the Lushais (Mizo Hills) in 1971-79).

The “inner line” system introduced by the British kept the populace isolated. The colonial government used the region’s dualistic composition (tribals, non-tribals, hill people, plains people) and its cultural diversities as a convenient line of division to rule the region.

Integration of the North-East with the rest of India was by no means easy. It is still at best tenuous. The peace accords signed by the Indian government with various groups had many loopholes and yet they did institutionalise some form of self-governance. Statehood not only put a check on Indian federalism’s over-centralising tendencies, it made the North-East stakeholders in the Indian polity. It gave the people a sense of identity and also a sense of sub-nationhood.

Various ethnic groups claim they have their own narratives on statehood with some wanting to build “nation from below”. Ethnic cauldron and the spatial isolation as also economic marginalisation of some ethnic groups have been at the root of the proliferating statehood demands. To a large extent, the ever-growing demands are a result of accumulated grievances and anxieties in respect of identity, ethnicity, conflict and development. But such demands can also be explained as a result of the demonstration effect of the success of other such demands in the region or elsewhere in the country.

This is where the Telangana mess created by the Centre seems to have stirred up hornets’ nest in the North-East. In the immediate aftermath of the Telangana crisis, various Dimasa organisations, Karbi bodies, Bodos and Koch Rajbongshis have intensified their agitations.

In the last couple of weeks, Assam witnessed bandhs in various parts of the state, called by the All Dimasa Students’ Union, Dimasa People’s Council, the Autonomous State Demand Committee, the Karbi Students’ Association and nine Koch Rajbongshi organisations in support of their respective statehood demands.

The outlawed National Democratic Front of Bodoland is seeking a separate Bodoland. Several other rag-tag groups are raising similar demands. In the neighbouring Meghalaya, a separate Garoland for the Garos and Hmar in Mizoram may also gain some momentum.

Close on the heels of the Telangana announcement, Bodoland People’s Front MLAs raised the demand for a separate Bodoland state in the State Assembly. No one knows when certain ethnic groups like Ahoms, Chutias, Morans, Motoks who are currently asking for the Scheduled Tribe status may raise a pitch for statehood.

Despite some of the smaller states in the region not necessarily providing good governance, the ethno-linguistic principle for state creation has worked well as most of these communities are territorially-rooted. But this principle has been stretched to its limits. Hence, new states in the North-East may not be viable in the near future.

Post-globalisation, post-reform statehood demands pose new challenges to the Indian state. What worked in the past may not work now. Must development be contingent on separate statehood? Effective democratic decentralisation and good governance will go a long way in addressing some of the concerns of smaller groups.

The Panchayati raj, if implemented in letter and spirit, has the potential to make the polity more wholesome, accountable and less venal. It can thus blunt the edge of statehood demands. The new state reorganisation commission, whenever it comes up will have a tough job on hand. There is no magic formula to address all these demands. People will have to learn to live peacefully with a difference. Diversity can be an asset. Diversity can be unity.

The author is Associate Director, Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi

MIDDLE

The funeral orator
by Harish Dhillon

It began about 15 years ago. One of my favourite teachers passed away and I felt compelled to pen a tribute to him, which The Tribune was kind enough to publish. Over the years I found that whenever I was traumatised by the death of someone very dear to me, this was one definite way of achieving a catharsis of my emotions.

Some years ago my predecessor at YPS Patiala, the legendary Mr HN Kashyap, passed away and a board member asked me to write a piece on him. As always, The Tribune published the piece. That same evening, Mr Kashyap’s son visited me and asked me to speak at the prayer ceremony. I felt awkward, but reluctantly agreed – it was, perhaps, in the fitness of things that I should speak.

Then one of my former students, who had, in spite of the difference in age, always been a true and loyal friend, passed away. I wrote about her. Her family, having read my piece, asked me to speak at the prayer ceremony. I was still awkward and this time even more hesitant to say yes: I was, afraid that I would make a fool of myself by breaking down. I overcame my reluctance and spoke and, I am glad to report, I did not break down.

Recently my friend Iqbal lost his grandfather. He had, from all accounts, been a remarkable man. I had met him but I did not really know him. At the prayer ceremony Iqbal came over to me, thrust a slip of paper into my hands and whispered: “You will be asked to speak”. Before I could even register his words he had sped away.

I glanced down at the paper — there were a few details about the deceased. I felt a wave of panic. There was only one way out, I must make a hurried exit. But when I got to my feet I saw Iqbal looking anxiously at me: no – I couldn’t abandon him. Though I say it myself, I came out of the ordeal rather well.

How surprisingly well was confirmed a few months later, when I received a telephone call from someone called Jatinder. “We met at Iqbal’s daughter’s birthday. Do you remember?”

I didn’t, but like most other people under similar circumstances I could not admit it.

“Yes. Yes, of course,” I said with forced cheerfulness.

“My grandfather passed away and I would like you to speak at the prayer ceremony. It’s on the twenty seventh.”

“But, but ..”I wanted to protest at the ridiculousness of the situation but I couldn’t find the words.

He misunderstood my silence. “Of course, we will be more than willing to pay you your usual fees.”

For once I was at a total loss for words and for once I did what, I had never done before – I hung up on my caller. But now, having got over the initial shock, I feel I may have found another viable option for a post- retirement career.

OPED

It’s time to have Admiral of the Fleet
by Premvir Das

In a piece published in a national daily recently, Lt Gen SK Sinha (retd), a former Governor of Assam and Jammu and Kashmir, has written of how on January 1, 1973, Gen SHFK (Sam) Manekshaw was promoted to the rank of Field Marshal.

It is now known that this proposal, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s very own, came to fruition in the face of heavy opposition from a united civil bureaucracy which could not stall the PM’s decision but did everything in its power to oppose almost every measure that would give dignity to the rank, even putting the FM below the Cabinet Secretary in protocol, all acts petty beyond compare.

It took many decades and a visit from the President of India, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, to a terminally ill 90-year-old Manekshaw at his house in the Nilgiris for the Field Marshal to get even his arrears of pay, not a meager amount at Rs 1.3 crore.

Nearly three decades later, Air Chief Marshal Arjan Singh of the Air Force was made Marshal of the Air Force, a position on a par with Field Marshal. If Sam was the hero of the 1971 war which led to victory over Pakistan and creation of Bangladesh, Arjan Singh had led the IAF with great distinction in the Indo-Pak war of 1965 and was widely respected.

Clearly, both elevations were very well deserved and, in a tangible way, were in recognition of the roles that their respective Services had played in making the country stand tall.

For some reason the government has not considered it necessary until now to honour the Navy in the same way. This cannot be because its exploits in war have not been extraordinary.

While, the hostilities in 1965 did not see the Navy coming into play in any significant way, the conflict in 1971 saw its exploits receiving admiration in military circles around the world, not just in India.

The two raids on Karachi, the citadel of the adversary, one on December 4 followed by another on 8th, resulting in the sinking of several ships and destruction of oil fuel storage facilities there, wreaked havoc and traumatised the people to an extent that few other military actions until or since then have done.

In the East, the Indian Navy played a significant role in sealing all escape routes for the beleaguered adversary, which was crucial to obtaining the surrender of nearly 90,000 officers and men of the Pakistan Army/Navy/Air Force. Surely, these achievements called for some recognition by the government.

The architect of the naval raids and actions in the war of the 1971 was the then Navy Chief, Admiral SM Nanda. It was his brilliant approach and decisive leadership – recall that his own Commander-in-Chief was shying away from the offensives against Karachi fearing the possibility of severe losses – that led to the successes described earlier.

By any reasoning, he merited elevation to the rank of Admiral of the Fleet, if not immediately after the war then at least along with Marshal of the Air Force Arjan Singh.

This did not happen. It is, of course, well known that by this time Admiral Nanda was reeling under a spate of innuendoes as an “arms dealer” because a company formed by him after his retirement, and later taken over by his son, was engaged in the supply of spare parts and maintenance support, partly to the Navy but largely to the Coast Guard.

Allegations of malfeasance against the Admiral have never been proved but the defamation stuck. No charges were ever preferred in any court of law.

In this background, the government, probably to avoid controversy, chose to let the ‘old man’ wither away, which he did. When he died at the ripe old age of 94, he continued to stand erect, disdainful of the efforts to sully his name.

Thus, recognition of his service through the creation of the rank of Admiral of the Fleet was held back, not so much an affront to him than to the Navy that he loved and had commanded with such great skill and leadership and which, in every way, had performed on a par with the other two.

Yet let bygones be bygones. “Charles” Nanda, as he was fondly called by all those who knew him, has made his tryst with the Almighty. But the Navy remains, the nation’s guardian at sea and one of the guarantors of our territorial integrity. To treat the Navy as a sort of step child considering that the other two Services have on their Army and Air Force Lists a Field Marshal and a Marshal of the Air Force, respectively, is patently unfair, even unkind.

This scenario is not only demoralising to those who serve their country at sea but also speaks poorly of a government that is not sufficiently grateful.

Clearly, it needs to move because as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said more than once, there are things whose time has come. Creating an Admiral of the Fleet is one such.

Who is this person to be is the question. Obviously, he should have headed the Navy at some time in the rank of Admiral. He should have a reputation which would make his elevation welcomed and be free from any controversy. Even in retired life he should be widely admired and respected by the serving community.

In short, he should be a true leader, not only in times when he wore uniform but equally in times that he does not. Is there such a person, is the next question that can be asked.

This is where the Prime Minister comes in. No Departmental Promotion Committee recommended the upgradation of Sam Manekshaw to Field Marshal. The decision was that of the Prime Minister.

Presumably, the same route was followed in the case of Marshal of the Air Force Arjan Singh. So, there are precedents.

Let Dr Manmohan Singh first reassure himself that the country’s Navy must have an Admiral of the Fleet in the Navy List and then decide who would be the most suitable for wearing the braids of that rank. The task should not be too difficult.

As the Navy prepares to meet the complex challenges that will confront it in the years ahead, it should know that it stands right up front in the peoples’ consciousness. As the repository of their confidence, the government needs to do things to show that we care.

The writer is a former Commander-in-Chief of the Eastern Naval Command

No resting place for Haiti victims
by Staff Reporters

The bodies kept coming. By yesterday afternoon, the Port-au-Prince morgue was full, but still the corpses arrived. They came stacked high in pick-up trucks, they came in piles in police vehicles, and when the mortuary at the hospital could take no more, police and their helpers simply began piling them up outside. Guy Laroche, the hospital director, said he had no idea how many more would come, but he had already received about 1,500.

They were thrown together like commodities with nothing like a shroud or a covering garment, as the Haitian Red Cross had run out of body bags. The Red Cross International Committee said 3,000 more were on the way, but it will take a far bigger number than that to accommodate Port-au-Prince's dead – 40,000? 50,000? – with countless more corpses, stiff and starting to decompose, still visible or half-visible yesterday under the rubble of the wrecked city, or piled into vehicles, or lying scattered by the side of the road.

They ranged from tiny children next to schools, to women in rubble-strewn streets with stunned expressions frozen on their faces. Some were covered by a white cloth or a tarpaulin. Some were covered by nothing, in the sweltering tropical heat. "Things are usually not as bad as the news says. Sincerely, this is worse," a Port-au-Prince resident posted on Twitter. "Dead bodies everywhere. City starting to smell like rotting flesh."

Dust-covered bodies were being dragged along the roads by people trying at least to find somewhere they might decently leave them, while the question of burial – or the lack of burial – was adding to the anguish. "I just want my wife's corpse," said Lionnel Dervil, 38, a money-changer and father of four children who was trying to get in to the Medecins Sans Frontieres compound to examine a pile of bodies, and was being ignored as doctors frantically tended to those still living who had streamed in. "I just want my wife's corpse," he repeated. "I know they are busy tending to the survivors, but there is a room full of bodies that I cannot get to."

Some survivors were attempting to carry dead family members to nearby hills for impromptu burials, prompting Brazil's military, the biggest contingent among UN peacekeepers, to warn the practice could lead to an epidemic. That was the scale of Port-au-Prince's distress last night: it needed not just emergency shelter, food, water, electricity and medical supplies, it needed emergency cemetery capacity.

Many of the living were faring scarcely better, as the first signs of the massive international relief operation began to dribble in to Haiti's capital – infinitely slowly, it seemed to the beleaguered citizens.

There were still no signs of organised rescue operations, and 48 hours after the earthquake had struck, Haitians themselves, desperate fathers, neighbours, volunteers, were still clawing at chunks of concrete with bare hands and battering it with sledgehammers, trying to free those buried alive.

What most of the surviving able-bodied citizens of Port-au-Prince seemed to be doing yesterday was wandering, wandering shellshocked through the shattered town, looking for food, water or medical supplies. "The streets are crowded," said another Twitter post. "Hundreds of thousands of people without homes. People walking everywhere."

And then a few minutes later: "Many people praying as they walk." The citizens were fearful of going near quake-damaged buildings so stayed in the middle of the road and their very act of doing so was slowing the transport of food and other aid, worsening what the UN was already calling "a logistical nightmare".

Yet from the point of view of people with broken arms and legs and fractured skulls and crushed bodies, it was a continuing medical nightmare yesterday. Severe damage to at least eight Port-au-Prince hospitals made it nearly impossible to treat the thousands of injured, or prevent outbreaks of disease, and at Port-au-Prince's Hotel Villa Creole, furniture was used as stretchers and hotel guests with no medical training worked as paramedics.

— By arrangement with The Independent

Inside Pakistan
Growing economic woes
by Syed Nooruzzaman

Life is becoming more and more miserable in Pakistan as the necessaries of life are either scarcely available or going beyond the reach of the common man. According to The Nation, the IMF has raised its projection of inflation for 2009-2010 from 9 per cent to 11 per cent. The scenario looks more frightening with barely 3 per cent GDP growth and the same percentage of increase in the country’s population.

The government cannot be expected to reverse the situation in the near future as it has a very poor performance record.

The vast majority of people have to struggle for survival with atta prices having gone up to Rs 567 for a 20 kg bag. The story of sugar is getting bitter with every passing day. Sugar, selling at Rs 60 or more for a kg, continues to remain in short supply. Electricity and gas charges are already too high. Even the egg prices are ruling around Rs120 per dozen. There is no respite in sight. The taxes, too, are likely to be raised further as the government is faced with considerable revenue shortfalls.

Sugar getting bitter

In every household budgets are increasingly strained. Sugar is an essential item that few can do without”, as The News commented on January 14.

The government has decided to allow duty-free import of sugar to contain the price rise. Efforts are on to import 500,000 tonnes of sugar through the Trading Corporation of Pakistan by March 31. Another 500,000 tonnes of white sugar will be imported later this year. The private sector is expected to import 700,000 tonnes of sugar. Yet it is doubtful if the situation will improve.

According to a report in The Nation, the private sector is not very enthusiastic about importing sugar because of two basic reasons. One, sugar prices are ruling high in the international market owing to the increased demand from various countries like the Philippines and Indonesia. Two, millers believe that the imported sugar cannot be made available to consumers at less than Rs 70 a kg. The government’s intervention to help the consumers will go against the traders’ interest. The situation is, therefore, quite complicated.

Ethnic crisis in Karachi again?

Ten persons lost their lives last Thursday in a gang war in Lyari and the surrounding areas in Karachi. Among those killed were Mohajirs and Baloch nationalists. There is the fear of the ethnic crisis witnessed in the past re-erupting again. It is not without reason that Daily Times says that the “attempts to give the conflict an ethnic colour should be strongly resisted.”

“Over the last few decades, the city has been subjected to criminal neglect by the ruling elite, both civilian and military, with the result that violence of all sorts, caused by different motivations, continues to erupt and disturb its peace, sometimes leading to violent protests, shutter-down or wheel-jam strikes that abruptly bring to a halt the metropolis’ social and economic activity.” This is how Business Recorder reacted to the emerging situation in Karachi.

Only recently, during the observance of Moharram, 43 people were killed in a terrorist attack, which followed large-scale looting and arson.

The Liyari incident occurred following the recovery of a headless body of a man claimed by the MQM as its activist. According to the Recorder, “This revived the nightmarish memories of an era when the discovery of bodies in gunny bags had become almost a daily routine. The PPP had claimed that six of the 10 persons subsequently killed by gunmen were its workers or sympathisers. Unless things are urgently brought under control, the fire ignited in and around Lyari could engulf the entire city. Any worsening of the situation would have an economic fallout.”

Interestingly, Sindh has a coalition government run by the PPP, the MQM and the ANP representing all the major segments of Karachi’s population. After the government formation in 2008 it was expected that Karachi would promote a culture of tolerance, but in vain. Business Recorder has given figures showing that in 2008 as many as 76 political workers lost their lives in target killings. The figure was 100 for the first six months of 2009. The maximum number of casualties belonged to the two factions of the MQM. Almost all the political groups have been involved in target murders. Karachi may be back to the days when media carried reports of ethnic killings almost everyday if no concrete measures are taken soon.