The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Grappling with terror
India needs peace to grow fast

In her address to the nation on the eve of the 60th Republic Day President Pratibha Patil has focussed on terrorism, which is quite natural as the epicentre of terrorism continues to be in our neighbourhood. Last year the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai found their echo in the President’s speech as she was forthright in rejecting Pakistan’s contention that it was the handiwork of non-state actors. This year she has reiterated that India will continue to “work with the international community to combat this menace”. The Naxalite and Maoist threat is also growing. The government has strengthened its internal security setup. A non-performing Home Minister has been replaced. Now Mr P. Chidambaram is putting in place a new security architecture, downsizing the National Security Adviser in the process.

Another important issue President Pratibha Patil has highlighted is the need for inclusive growth. Empowerment of the disadvantaged is a recurrent theme in the speeches of the President and the Prime Minister. But what has the government done in this regard? As a Finance Minister in the PV Narasimha Rao government, Dr Manmohan Singh had suggested a social safety net for the poor. This still remains an unrealised dream. Large amounts are disbursed as subsidies at the Central and state levels in the name of the poor but how far these reach the needy is anybody’s guess. The delivery system is notorious for leakages.

India cannot achieve a double-digit growth rate in the absence of peace. Apart from favourable policies a congenial environment is crucial for moving up the economic ladder. In addition to causing the loss of precious lives and damage to property, terror attacks dent India’s image as a business-friendly country and scare away foreign investment. Therefore, the President’s advice should not be taken lightly as a Republic Day ritual. Policy makers should incorporate her ideas in workable plans.

Unwanted, uncared for
Bias against girl child must end

India celebrated National Girl Child Day on January 24. Still, the girl child remains as uncherished as ever, more so in Punjab which has one of the worst sex ratios in the country. Discrimination against the girl child is so widespread in the state that even her health is not a priority. According to the information gathered under the RTI Act, the number of girl children taken for treatment to hospitals in Punjab is at least 25 per cent lower than boys. In some districts the situation is more dismal, revealing deep-rooted bias against daughters. It is shocking that even in the 21st century girls are not treated on a par with boys and denied basic needs such as proper healthcare.

The government and society have been trying to fight gender bias through various schemes and campaigns. In Punjab, initiatives like the SGPC’s Nanhi Chhaon and government schemes like Balri Rakshak Yojna, a welfare scheme for the cause of the girl child, may have made some headway in denting prejudices. Still, by and large, the obsession for the male child shows little signs of abating. While the abominable practice of female foeticide is still rampant, bias against the female child persists in many other ways and has affected the nutritional status of the girl child.

It is imperative that policies lay greater emphasis on the girl child’s healthcare. Indeed, there is need to go beyond tokenism. Observing National Girl Child Day may seem significant but will not be able to transform patriarchal mindsets that continue to value sons over daughters. What is needed is a movement against female foeticide. While society has to wake up to the menace of female foeticide and redress the gender imbalance, parents too must learn to cherish and value their daughters as much as sons. Daughters must not only be given the right to live but also must have equal rights, including the right to a healthy life. Punjab, where nearly 65 per cent women are anaemic, cannot take chances with the health of its girls who are the key to its future.

Thought for the Day

Who would have thought my shrivelled heart/Could have recovered greenness? — George Herbert

ARTICLE

Modi doesn’t deserve support
Save India’s plural ethos
by Kuldip Nayar

It is hard to understand why actor Amitabh Bachchan and top industrialists are bent upon giving credibility to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi when the Supreme Court is doing its best to expose his misdeeds. He is said to have planned and executed the killing of more than 2000 Muslims in his state in 2002.

Only a few days back the Supreme Court ordered reopening of the case of false encounter in which Sohrabuddin and his wife were killed. The apex court has been so horrified over the intentional closure of riot cases by the state machinery that it has constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the cases of ethnic cleansing which Mr Modi’s plotters had covered up.

When Mr Modi knows that the state’s involvement is an open secret, why does he not cooperate with the SIT and give the information sought? The SIT had to seek the Supreme Court’s intervention to get even a copy of his speech made soon after the carnage. His lawyer’s plea that the speech is not relevant to the investigation is a hindrance to the process of probe. The text of the speech is required because Mrs Zakia Jafri has complained that her husband Ahsan Jafri, a former Congress MP, was killed by a mob in the Gulbarg Society complex. Her allegation is that the communal riot was allowed to go on in the state with the Chief Minister, Cabinet ministers, the police and the bureaucracy abdicating their constitutional duty to protect the lives of citizens irrespective of their caste and religion.

That Mr Modi is doing everything possible to block the probe or to prove that the business is as usual is understandable, but why those who enjoy clean reputation should associate themselves with him? One is at a loss to understand why Amitabh Bachchan undertook the journey to Ahmedabad to call on Mr Modi. The apparent reason of the actor’s visit was to screen his movie, Paa, for the Chief Minister. There must be something more than what meets the eye.

Amitabh’s visit gave credibility to a person whose hands are stained with blood. Mr Modi is shunned by the liberals and human right activists because he wears communalism on his sleeves. Amitabh is not so naïve that he does not know the crimes committed by Mr Modi and the furore his doings have created not only in India but also around the world. Amitabh’s own credentials on secularism are not in doubt. But when he meets Mr Modi for the sake of a film, if that is all, the actor spoils his good name and he will have to live down with that image for the rest of his life. He has tried to condone the murders committed by the Gujarat state led by Mr Modi, and Amitabh should realise it.

It must be admitted that Amitabh’s visit came at a time when people like me had not regained their composure after the concerted support given by the captains of industry, including Ratan Tata and Sunil Bharti Mittal. They specially gathered at Ahmedabad to pronounce their judgment that he should be India’s Prime Minister. With their vision limited to making money, they have no idea of the country’s ethos. Pluralism is not a matter of policy but of faith with us. We would not be able to develop ourselves as a powerful nation if we do not ensure that the minorities in the country have the same status and the opportunities that the majority enjoys. The constitution has consecrated the ideas and the industrialists should have faith in secularism. Incidentally, Wipro chief Azim Premji, a Muslim, correctly stayed away from the gathering.

The industry captains argue that Mr Modi’s state was the best administered. One fails to understand how Gujarat comes under that category when Muslims do not feel safe. The government has not yet rehabilitated thousands of Muslims who were looted and uprooted during the riots. When the minorities do not feel protected and when there is no law and order for them, how can the state be classified as a well-administrated state?

In fact, the industrialists’ support for Mr Modi makes them ungrateful since the billions they have made is due to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s economic reforms. His policy of globalisation has benefited them, although he has conveniently forgotten the word “socialist” included in the preamble to our Constitution. The industrialists never had so good, and despite Dr Manmohan Singh’s repeated assurance of an inclusive economy, the development by and large is exclusive. And it goes without saying that the industrialists who gathered at Ahmedabad that day were conscious of the credibility which they were giving to Mr Modi. Their unthinking act has not only sullied their image but has also given justification to Mr Modi’s pogrom.

One wishes one had faith in the Nanawati Commission looking into the Gujarat riots. Whatever it has said on the killings so far has not touched the core problem of Mr Modi’s involvement. Justice Nanawati was evasive in his report even on the 1984 Sikh riots and felt shy of naming the person who inspired the riots. However, Justice Nanawati admitted that the Sikh riots were planned and executed with the help of the state machinery.

The only hope is the Supreme Court, which has reopened many cases. Its observations are an eye-opener. In a recent case, it has said: “We cannot shut our eyes and allow the state police to continue with the case.” The court further said that Gujarat police probe “was not impartial.” This is the severest indictment of any government. It appears as if many more skeletons will tumble out of Mr Modi’s closet.

No doubt, he wants to establish that the state is normal. In a way, it is. But normalcy does not mean that the minorities should live in fear. For that, the government of India is responsible. It has not lifted even a finger to arraign Mr Modi for his complicity in the Gujarat riots. The inaction by the BJP government was understandable, but not that of the Congress. Politics of vote banks has disfigured the country’s ethos of pluralism.

MIDDLE

Silent sentinel
by Tejinder Singh Sodhi

Silent stands the historic Ghanta Ghar (clock tower) of the famous Lal Chowk area of the Srinagar city, witness to various important events of the history that unfolded at this commercial hub of the Kashmir valley.

This clock tower has seen leaders like first Prime Minister of free India Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi making historic speeches.

Since the eruption of the armed conflict in the valley 20 years ago, Ghanta Ghar stands witness to large-scale bloodshed, violent protests, bomb blasts and what not.

At times the place gets converted into a battlefield where everyone wants to gain domination. On every Republic and Independence Day the entire area is sealed off and the security force unfurls the Tricolour on the tower, but there is also clandestine unfurling of the Pakistani flag on various occasions.

These days nobody looks towards the clock tower to see the time, but it has become a symbol of the very identity of not only Lal chowk but the entire Srinagar city.

When the entire world was still in a festive mood to welcome New Year, the clock tower saw another bloody battle between security forces and the armed militants to gain supremacy in the area.

The area has always remained a target of the militants and this tower has seen many bomb blasts in which many innocent lives were lost. It seems to have become immune to these attacks as it has seen life returning to normal after every militant attack.

It stood helplessly during the exodus of the Kashmiri Pandit community and it waits silently with its arms wide open for the day when it would welcome the community back.

The clock tower was also witness to large-scale security deployment in the past when separatists appealed to the people to march towards it.

Many times the place has remained out of bound for common people and ahead of Republic day, there is again large-scale security bandobast to foil any militant attack.

Amidst all this bloodshed and violence, the clock tower waits patiently for the day when normalcy would return to the Kashmir valley and when people would again look towards it only to know the time.

OPED

Internal security scenario may deteriorate
by Gurmeet Kanwal

Though the year 2009 witnessed a marginal improvement in India’s external security environment, internal security continued to deteriorate in view of the heightened activities of the Maoist-Naxalite terrorists. The unstable regional security environment, unresolved territorial and boundary disputes with China and Pakistan and continuing internal security challenges pose serious national security threats to India.

Future conventional conflicts on the Indian subcontinent will flow out of unresolved territorial and boundary disputes in Jammu and Kashmir and along the unsettled border with China and will be predominantly land battles supported extensively by the air force.

While the probability of a conflict with China is low, patrol face-offs in no-man’s land are common and these could result in armed clashes, leading to another border conflict. Such a conflict is likely to be limited in area and the application of force levels.

Though the conflict is likely to be predominantly a land battle, air power will need to be employed extensively, including attack helicopters and armed helicopters.

An extensive use will be made of artillery firepower from 155mm Howitzers and long-range rocket launchers. The Chinese may resort to the employment of conventionally armed SRBMs against the Indian forces, communication centres, logistics installations and choke points such as bridges.

Though a conflict at sea is highly unlikely in the 2020-25 time frame, the PLA Navy may be expected to begin operating in the northern Indian Ocean region by about 2015, ostensibly to safeguard China’s sea lanes for oil, gas and trade.

Consequently, Indian Navy ships are likely to be shadowed by PLA submarines and occasionally even by surface ships, particularly during naval exercises.

It is now emerging clearly that the Pakistan army is unlikely to allow the new civilian dispensation to govern unfettered. Hence, hostility towards India will remain a key objective of Pakistan’s security policies.

The present ceasefire along the LoC will hold only as long as it suits the Pakistan army’s interests. The Pakistan army and the ISI will continue to encourage, aid and abet infiltration across the LoC.

The most likely conflict scenario is that of retaliatory Indian air and ground strikes across the LoC if there is credible intelligence of the involvement of any organ of the Pakistani state in a future Mumbai-type terror attack anywhere in India.

While India will calibrate its response carefully to control escalation, a short-sharp conflict cannot be ruled out and it may be necessary to mobilise the armed forces again.

Another possibility is that of a Kargil-type misadventure. This time it may be executed by the Pakistan army with help from LeT, JeM and Hizbul Mujahideen sleeper cells by occupying terrain features in remote areas like Hill Kaka and the Shamsabari range north of Bandipur in Kashmir Valley. They may declare these as liberated zones.

India may choose to strike across the LoC at carefully selected targets with its Air Force. In this scenario large-scale conflict is unlikely as India will once again exercise restraint. Artillery firepower will be extensively employed on military targets on and across the LoC.

Fighting on the LoC is likely to be limited in scope. Rear area security will be a major issue and will require the deployment of large numbers of para-military personnel as terrorists will disrupt the move of army convoys and supplies.

The probability of the conflict spilling over to the plains sector is extremely limited. In the maritime domain, the Pakistan navy will adopt a defensive posture.

However, the Pakistan navy will lose no opportunity to encourage and even abet terrorist strikes on Indian assets such as oil and gas rigs and shipping. The Pakistan navy is likely to operate with a greater degree of confidence once Chinese PLA navy ships begin to use the Gwadar port as a naval base.

A low-grade insurgency will continue to fester in J&K despite serious government efforts at reconciliation. However, the situation in the North-eastern states will gradually improve due to socio-economic growth and political maturity.

The worst internal security challenge will come from the rising tide of Left wing extremism or Maoist/Naxalite terrorism as the state and central governments continue to waver in their approach.

The Maoists will challenge the state by bringing small towns in the tribal belt under their political and security control.

At this stage, the Army will be called in to stem the rot even though it neither has the numbers nor the wherewithal to intervene effectively over thousands of square kilometres of jungle-covered terrain. Countries inimical to India will exploit the situation by providing arms, ammunition, equipment and financial support to the Maoists.

Home-grown Indian jihadis are increasingly joining the pan-Islamic ‘movement’. Groups like the Indian Mujahideen will become more sophisticated in their attacks. They will be more difficult to apprehend as they will form cellular structures in which no terrorist will know more than two other people.

Terrorists with software expertise may launch cyber attacks on computer-controlled communications, transportation, power and commercial networks to cripple the Indian economy. Maritime and chemical and biological terrorism will increase considerably.

While the probability of nuclear terrorism is low, radiological dispersal devices (RDDs) may be used to spread panic and create hysteria. India will also need to enhance its vigil over its island territories as South-East Asian terrorist organisations will use these as secure bases.

All of these emerging threats will require far greater intelligence effort than has been the case so far and comprehensive inter-ministerial, inter-departmental, inter-agency and inter-security forces coordination to defeat successfully.n

The writer is the Director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi.

The cloak of darkness
by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

It is gratifying that so many white liberals have come out to defend shrouded Muslim women. Their generosity of spirit and messianic belief in liberty makes them recoil from a state ban on the burka.

France under Sarkozy is set to take this step to be followed swiftly, I am sure, by some other EU countries. In Egypt too, top theologian, Sheikh Tantawi, of al-Azhar university is pushing for an anti-burka injunction, and Turkey remains ferociously divided over the militant secularism instated by its founding fathers.

Here, we are reassured, such a ban would be impossible. OK, the bonkers UKIP lot and rabid BNP bang on about it; noisy nuisances, easily ignored. Liberals say it just isn’t British to prohibit and limit the personal choices of freeborn citizens.

Really? The British never accept any curtailment of individual preferences? So how has it come to pass that in this green and free land, we have more state surveillance and imposed restrictions and regulations than any other EU country ?

Why, we can’t even take snaps in the streets without a hand of authority falling on the shoulder. Could it be that authoritarianism is not resisted because the British are naturally obedient, following social rules and legal sanctions?

From queuing, to drink-drive laws, most of us do what is expected. We surrender personal autonomy, sometimes for reasons that are clearly for the greater good – the anti-smoking laws – and sometimes because our rulers, like all rulers, wish to grab more power.

Naturists would love, I’m sure, to wander down Oxford Street, just window-shopping of course. They can’t, because for most people that would be too much out there. Women in the full burka are the other side of that same coin. They give too little out there and, using passive violence, disconnect from the humanity around them.

Then the creed of liberalism, that passion for freedom and choice which sustains and vitalises Western civilisations. Ever more precious and fragile in today’s world, I can see why it must be honoured and sheltered from the armies of repression.

However does liberalism have any duty to those who use liberal values as weapons to promote illiberalism? Is it obliged to become a suicide bomber, to self-destruct to prove itself?

We Muslims worldwide are engaged in ideological struggles against the Saudi Wahabis who have the cash and cunning to lure disenchanted middle-class and impoverished, powerless Muslims into their caves, where light itself fears to enter.

Yet some liberal Westerners take dilettante positions on freedom because their own lives are unaffected. Instead of standing with modernists, the staunchest defenders of freedom, they defect to the enemy. The retrogressive Muslim Council of Britain is now back in bed with the Government.

You people who support the “freedom” to wear the burka, do you think anorexics and drug addicts have the right to choose what they do? This covering makes women invisible, invalidates their participatory rights and confirms them as evil temptresses. Does it stop men from raping them? Does it mean they have more respect in the home and enclaves? Like hell it does. I feel the same fury when I see Orthodox Jewish women in wigs, with their many children, living tightly proscribed lives.

Progressive Muslims come out daily against the burka, and against mothers who bind and swaddle their young girls in preparation for their eventual incarceration which they will accept without a cry – both un-Islamic customs. Yes, the burka will be used by racists against us. But while fighting racism we cannot allow ourselves to become apologists for another, abhorrent injustice.

I also understand that as society becomes less restrained, fear makes Muslims opt for separation. Used as a political protest, veils have potency – but the price is too high. Farzana Hassan of the Muslim Canadian Congress wants the burka banned because gender equality is non-negotiable.

British Muslims for Secular Democracy (of which I am chair) are against a ban but do support restrictions in key public spaces, and point out that during the Haj pilgrimage no woman covers her face, that the burka makes women more, not less, conspicuous, and that communication is unequal because one party hides all expression.

Last Thursday a woman in the cloak of darkness got off the Tube train and stepped on some toes as she rushed. The looks that followed, pure hatred, and then the mutters, some from other Asians: “Stupid women, giving us all a bad name. They should send them back.” Others joined in. It was awful. I felt for her and against her for living in darkness, and for her effect on the easily destabilised social environment and on the faith I hold dear.

— By arrangement with The Independent

Delhi Durbar
Politicians and their games

Several eye brows were raised in the BJP the other day when Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan attacked the politician-cricket nexus. BJP insiders were left wondering who he was targeting. The BJP has the maximum number of politicians managing games. There is Arun Jaitley heading the DDCA.

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has also muscled his way into the cricket association of his state. Anurag Thakur, son of Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, is the other cricketing politician from the BJP. On the other side, there are Kirti Azad and Navjot Singh Sidhu, from the cricket world to become politicos.

Chauhan also pronounced his preference for hockey to cricket by offering Rs 1 crore to the Indian Hockey Federation. He does not let go an opportunity to contrast his personality and activity with Modi, giving a sneaking suspicion that he is shaping up as the more acceptable successor to Gadkari/Advani for the 2014 general election.

IPL snub

Talking of cricket, it took two days for both the Congress and the BJP to react to the tirade from Pakistan against the IPL’s snub to the Pakistani cricketers. Then they spoke almost simultaneously and apparently in one voice. Enough has been said about the merits of the action as also of the angry outbursts by the Pakistanis over the shabby treatment meted out to the Pakistani cricketers before the two parties woke up to react.

Now it is common knowledge that despite his association with the BCCI, Arun Jaitley has actively supported Lalit Modi’s IPL. When Home Minister P. Chidambaram withheld security and, implicitly, permission to Modi to hold his cricket jamboree in India during the last general election, Jaitley was livid with Chidambaram.

Since the Pakistani outburst was not exactly against the Government of India or even the Indian people, there seemed to be an initial reluctance on the part of two main political parties to react to the Pakistani indignation.

SC’s dilemma

A hot debate is on in legal circles on the recent remark of Chief Justice of India KG Balakrishnan that a decision on appealing against the Delhi High Court ruling on the Right to Information (RTI) Act will be taken in consultation with all the apex court judges.

The High Court opined that the CJI office fell within the purview of the RTI Act and as such citizens could seek information from the SC under the Act.

Attorney General of India GE Vahanvati has gone on record stating that it is for the apex court to decide whether it should appeal to itself challenging the HC verdict. Personally, he felt there was nothing wrong in it as the issue involved several constitutional aspects on which the apex court was the ultimate authority.

Several apex court lawyers, however, would not agree with him. They feel that once all the SC judges decide in favour of challenging the HC verdict, they lose the moral authority to hear the case, having pre-judged the case. Well, the SC seems to be in a catch-22 situation.

Contribtued by Faraz Ahmad and R. Sedhuraman

Corrections and clarifications

The blurb of the article “Zip Code” (Page 3, January 25, Lifestyle) says “The winter chills is getting you down”. Instead, it should have been “The winter chill is getting you down”.

The headline “Illegal hoardings razed” (Page 3, January 24) should have used the word “removed” instead of “razed”.

The headline “Register moneylenders to farm sector” (Page 5, January 24), is inappropriate. It should have been “Panel to examine role of moneylenders”.

In the headline “NRI brides from region face max desertions” (Page 2, January 22), use of “max” for “maximum” is improper. An appropriate headline could have been “Punjab has highest rate of desertions by NRI grooms”.

Despite our earnest endeavour to keep The Tribune error-free, some errors do creep in at times. We are always eager to correct them.

This column appears twice a week — every Tuesday and Friday. We request our readers to write or e-mail to us whenever they find any error.

Readers in such cases can write to Mr Kamlendra Kanwar, Senior Associate Editor, The Tribune, Chandigarh, with the word “Corrections” on the envelope. His e-mail ID is kanwar@tribunemail.com.

H.K. Dua
Editor-in-Chief