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The IPL mess
Who killed Benazir? |
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Flip-flop on SMS
Probing Benazir’s killing
Poetry, protest and hosiery
The Maoist menace
Khap panchayats: Duties first
Chatterati
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The IPL mess
Indian
Premier League commissioner Lalit Modi would have never imagined that the IPL would turn into such a mega money-making machine in so short a time. Nor would he have imagined that his giving out details of Rendezvous Sports consortium, the franchisees of the Kochi team, on Twitter would start a fire which would engulf him too. His spat with Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor has turned so ugly that Modi is as much in trouble as the minister. In a way, it is good that the controversy has turned the spotlight on the functioning and funding of the IPL and all the 10 teams – eight existing ones and the two news ones, Kochi and Pune, for whom auctions were held on March 21 this year. It appears that there are skeletons galore in the cupboards. The Enforcement Directorate suspects large-scale money laundering in purchase of some of the franchises. Some of the franchisees are corporate entities and it would not be difficult to trace their funding. The real messy area is where the teams have been bought by multiple owners. The authorities will have to look carefully whether some of the well-known people who picked up these teams were only a front for the real investors. It is really amazing that the Kochi and Pune teams went for a staggering Rs 3,200 crore. Was someone trying to park unaccounted money? Some stakeholders are alleged to have routed their money through tax-haven countries. Just as the role of Mr Shashi Tharoor and his friend Sunanda Pushkar calls for scrutiny, it is necessary to go with a fine toothcomb over the dealings of Mr Lalit Modi. There are allegations that his kin hold big stakes in Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab. The affairs of a high-value venture like the IPL, which is expected to generate an income of around $1.6 billion over five or 10 years, must be absolutely transparent.
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Who killed Benazir?
The
UN Commission of Enquiry that probed the assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has held responsible for her killing not only the then Musharraf regime but also the provincial government of Punjab and the Rawalpindi police. There is little new in this. That their role was questionable is a well-known fact. The charismatic woman leader died in a suicide bomb attack along with many others after she had addressed a massive rally in Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007. That she could have been saved had the government provided her adequate security, as the report highlights, is what her party, the PPP, has been saying ever since her killing. She was not given the level of security as was her due as a former Prime Minister. Why? Benazir, who had been living in self-imposed exile for many years, was allowed to come back to Pakistan to contest the February 18, 2008, elections after a deal with the Musharraf regime. The ruling General was initially reluctant to enter into any kind of deal with her, but ultimately agreed to under US pressure. He suspected her, but could do little as Uncle Sam had his own scheme of things for Pakistan, the so-called key ally of the US in the war on terror. Since she had been expressing strong views against terrorists, the US wanted her to be allowed to share power with General Musharraf, who had by then fallen from grace with Washington DC. She, too, had indicated that anything could happen to her. She was assassinated by men of Baitullah Mehsud, the late chief of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, as the official claim goes, but there is strong suspicion of the ISI’s role in her killing. It is not without reason that the UN probe team faced non-cooperation at various levels from government functionaries despite Benazir’s widower, Mr Asif Zardari, being President. The UN commission has expressed the belief that “the failure of the police to investigate effectively Ms Bhutto’s assassination was deliberate”. The police could not play its role properly owing to pressure from various quarters, including the Pakistan Army-controlled ISI. The PPP government says it is satisfied with the UN probe report, but the whole truth is still not known. And there is little chance of the whole truth coming out as it will be embarrassing for the all-powerful Pakistan Army.
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Flip-flop on SMS
It
would have been comic but for the implications. The strange case of first imposing a blanket ban on mobile Short Messaging Services ( SMS) used by post-paid subscribers in Jammu & Kashmir, and withdrawing it within three hours of notification on Friday last week, shows the Central authorities in poor light. It is inconceivable that a decision of such importance, involving a sensitive state like Jammu & Kashmir, could have been taken in isolation by the Department of Telecommunication. Consultations should have taken place at the highest levels, the pros and the cons discussed and the stakeholders taken into confidence before the notification was finally issued, making the ban effective from midnight. That is the way the government and the bureaucracy normally function. But the sequence of events leads one to the conclusion that rules of executive business were not duly followed in this case. Even a plain reading of the notification, issued ostensibly in ‘national interest’ and due to ‘security considerations’, makes it look absurd. Had the ban been imposed on pre-paid subscribers, it would still have made some sense because of the ease with which people secure pre-paid SIM cards by furnishing incomplete or incorrect addresses and other details. But post-paid subscribers, who do not just receive bills at homes and offices but also make payments through banks, have presumably better credentials and can be tracked more easily and faster. And yet the notification allowed the SMS service to be used by the pre-paid subscribers, although restricted to 10 messages per day, while denying the facility entirely to the post-paid subscribers. It certainly defied logic. Carelessness in the bureaucracy is common enough. But in this case a misunderstanding has been suggested as a plausible explanation for the embarrassing faux pas. It seems a ban had been sought on bulk text messaging services in the state so as to restrain agencies from sending out information of dubious quality to thousands of recipients. The bureaucrats in the DoT apparently failed to differentiate between SMS and ‘bulk’ SMS. But even if such charitable explanation is accepted at face value, it would still indicate a dangerous degree of indifference, incompetence or lack of communication skills among the babus. It remains to be seen if some accountability is fixed and the sequence explained to Parliament, which is in session.
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Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality. — Oscar Wilde
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Probing Benazir’s killing The
best-known victim of terrorism in Pakistan was former Prime Minister and PPP leader Benazir Bhutto. The elected Pakistan Government approached the United Nations to appoint an enquiry panel to go into the circumstances of her assassination. The UN appointed a panel with Ambassador Haraldo Munoz of Chile as chairman, and former Attorney-General of Indonesia Marzuki Darusman and Irish police officer Peter Fitzgerald as members. While President Zardari and General Musharraf, among others, appeared before the panel and made their depositions, it has been refused access to Army officers and those belonging to the ISI. In spite of this, the UN panel has concluded its task and delivered the report. It is a devastating indictment of the Musharraf administration and the intelligence services. The panel had a very limited reference to investigate the circumstances of the assassination and not to fix responsibility. The panel has concluded: Ms Bhutto faced threats from a number of sources. These included Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, local jihadi groups and potentially from elements in the Pakistani establishment. But the Pakistani investigation after the assassination focused on pursuing “lower-level operatives,” not those further up the hierarchy. Pakistan’s powerful ISI conducted parallel investigations, gathering evidence which was only selectively shared with the police. The failure of the police to investigate effectively Ms Bhutto’s assassination was deliberate. “These officials, in part fearing intelligence agencies’ involvement, were unsure of how vigorously they ought to pursue actions, which they knew, as professionals, they should have taken.” The commission urges the Pakistani authorities to carry out a “serious, credible” criminal investigation that “determines who conceived, ordered and executed this heinous crime of historic proportions, and bring those responsible to justice.” “Doing so would constitute a major step toward ending impunity for political crimes in this country,” the report said. To address the broader issue of impunity for political crimes, the commission called for Pakistan to consider establishing a “fully independent Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate political killings, disappearances and terrorism in recent years” and provide victims with “material and moral reparations… the autonomy, pervasive reach and clandestine role of intelligence agencies in Pakistani life underlie many of the problems, omissions and commissions set out in this report.” The commission urged the government to conduct a thorough review of intelligence agencies “based on international best practices” and reform the police to ensure “democratic policing” and protection of individual human rights. There can be no greater exposure of the Pakistan Government’s hypocrisy in fighting terrorism and the total helplessness of the civilian government before the Army and its intelligence services. The UN commission itself, though set up at the plea of the present government run by the party which Benazir headed at the time of her assassination and whose widower heads it now, was powerless to order the Army and the intelligence sevices to give evidence before the panel. When civilian politicians and civil society of Pakistan are that spineless it is unrealistic to expect them to have the guts to prosecute Hafiz Saeed and Ilyas Kashmiri, the protéges of the Army and the ISI. The Pakistan Army and the ISI did not hesitate to assert their authority over the civilian government in spite of the provisions of the Kerry-Lugar legislation which require the US Secretary of State to certify to the Congress civilian control over the Army. There are reports that in pursuance of the recommendation of the UN commission the Pakistani Government will appoint another investigative body to probe the case. At this stage, with the Pakistani Army fighting the Pakistani Taliban, it may be easier to put the blame on Baitullah Mehsud, then leader of the Pakistani Taliban, killed in a US drone strike, while whitewashing that at the time of the assassination the Pakistani Taliban was a protégé of the ISI. The Pakistan Army permitting the government to set up a “Truth and Reconciliation and Commission”, as recommended by the UN panel, does not seem to be possible! The UN report could not have come at a more inappropriate time for Pakistan. On April 28-29 the SAARC summit is to be held in Thimphu and the question will arise whether a meeting on the sidelines of the summit between Dr Manmohan Singh and Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani will be purposeful. This UN panel report makes it clear that the Pakistani civilian government cowers before the Army when the ISI covers up the assassination of its own tallest leader. The UN report hints that the motivation for Benazir’s assassination could be her expressed desire to settle the Kashmir dispute and pursue better relations with India. It is also to be taken note of that as General Musharraf made some progress on the Kashmir issue through the back channel talks, he lost the support of his corps commanders and was forced out of office. General Kayani in his February media briefing has cited Kashmir and water (which very much involves Kashmir) The General appears to be under the impression that the US, determined to exit from Afghanistan in 2011, has to depend on him and, therefore, they have to give in to him on his mollycoddling the terror outfits. This is a different situation from the one that existed during the Bush administration. Prime Minister Gilani and Foreign Minister Qureshi have disowned the Musharraf era understandings so far reached during the back-channel dialogue. The persistence of the present Army-subordinated civilian government on the resumption of the composite dialogue may well be to denounce the Musharraf regime’s back-channel understanding on the Kashmir issue. Till now the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the investigation into it were domestic matters for Pakistan. Since a UN panel has submitted its report, it is no longer a domestic issue. The Rafiq Harriri assassination in Beirut was not treated as a domestic issue after it had been investigated by a UN panel. It is reported that President Karzai of Afghanisyan visited Benazir personally and warned her of the impending plot to assassinate her and offered the services of his intelligence service to protect her. She is reported to have declined the offer. The US administration was keen on the return of Benazir to mainstream politics of Pakistan. Its plans for her were totally wrecked by the assassination. Therefore, this needs to be taken by Delhi as a regional one with the US and Afghanistan. The behaviour pattern of Pakistani intelligence under the patronage of the Army in this case, where the US planned a major regime change in Pakistan and was successfully foiled by the ISI, is surely a road-marker for what the Pakistani Army can do to the US scheme of things for the AfPak region in the days to
come.
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Poetry, protest and hosiery Poetry, protest and hosiery do make for an uncanny threesome. But then opposites have a magnetic way of reaching out to one another. So it is with India’s own Manchester. Yes, the reference here is to apna Ludhiana which as an industrial city is known for its bicycles, motor cycles and more. This city has surprisingly nurtured a large number of poets. Many would know of Urdu poet Sahir Ludhianvi, who brought a lot of glory to his city whose name he carried with him as he rose to great fame writing lyrics for Bollywood films. But Sahir was not the lone poet of Ludhiana which is at times also referred in slang as Lousiana. Recently, the town was once again the focus of the literati with the coveted Birla Foundation Saraswati Award, with a generous combination of Lakshmi too, going to the contemporary bard of Punjab: Surjit Patar of course. Patar is indeed the homegrown poet laureate whose talent blossomed in the hosiery city. Once again Ludhiana has been done proud and one is musing about the versifiers of this city. Interestingly, the poets here have shown their merit in Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi. Before the Land of Five Rivers was split into two rivers and a half each: Urdu was the literary language and among the contemporaries of Sahir was another celebrated poet called Ibn-e-Insha, who went to same Government College as Sahir. Insha later migrated to Pakistan but was implicated by the martial law regime in the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case with senior poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz. Insha then chose self-exile in England and continued with his poetry and his protest for a just and social order. Sahir’s poetry was also one of protest and although he was expelled from the college during British rule but the college chose to honour him at its Golden Jubilee function in 1970. Another contemporary of Sahir and perhaps some years older to him was a people’s poet called Painter Bawri. A signboard painter by profession he filled the city with banners mourning Sahir when the latter passed away in October,1980. Two other friends of Sahir who wrote and lived poetry in this town were Krishan Adeeb, writing in Urdu, and Ajaib Chitrakar in Punjabi. Trade union leader Madan Lal Didi who wrote revolutionary songs in Urdu was yet another Ludhianvi as was professor Satyapal Anand, who wrote in Urdu and English. Well, the Ludiana roll of poetic honours would not be quite complete without the mention of famous Punjabi poet Mohan Singh who spent the last years of his life there as Professor Emeritus in Punjab Agricultural University and, of course, Kumar Vikal, the well-loved Hindi poet who grew up in Ludhiana but moved to Chandigarh later. So one salutes the poetry and protest within of this hosiery town and hopes that this tradition always remains. A happy note as one ends is that women too are now joining the ranks among poets of the Ludhianvi
breed.
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The Maoist menace
Since
the massacre of 76 CRPF personnel by the Maoists at Dantewada, on April 6, 2010 heated debates have been taking place in the media about how to tackle the menace. In these debates spokespersons of major political parties, retired military and police officers always end up holding the commanders of the para-military forces and the Central and state governments responsible for the strategic loopholes in the planning, training and equipment of these forces for such disasters. They also put the responsibility of these killings squarely on the Naxalites/Maoists, sometimes touching upon the lack of development in the tribal areas also as being responsible. These speakers are also vocal in denouncing killings by Maoists and almost always shun discussing incidents of killing, rape, torture and burning the houses of tribals by the para-military forces. This turns the whole discussion one sided, as a result of which the only solution which appears in sight to end the menace seems better equipment and facilities to the personnel and a greater political will on the part of the government to decimate the Maoists through brutal armed force. Members of the civil society who get loud applause from informed gatherings in various hall meetings end up making fools of themselves before the studio audience even when they are invited to these discussions. In fact, they are called there to be befooled by proving their arguments lame in comparison with those clamouring for a more powerful offensive against the Maoists by the security forces. But the question is who is to blame for this? How do these intellectuals and academics fail to seem convincing? Or, are all of them supporters of the Maoists as is alleged on the floor of the studio? Yes, if the impression gathered at these studio discussions is any yardstick. And they themselves are to blame for this situation because they do not denounce Maoist violence in unequivocal terms, however brutal it might be, while criticising violence perpetrated by the para-military forces. There should be no difficulty for the so-called Gandhians, and other votaries of democratic values, in criticising Maoist violence in clear terms because it cannot be denied that even amongst the Maoists there are sections, which are engaged in abductions, extortions and killing of those whom they perceive as police informers, and such people are also poor tribals. There is no denying the fact that many of them, or maybe most of them, have been pushed to the wall and forced into taking up arms against the state due to gross state negligence resulting in deprivation, hunger and starvation, police brutality and injustice, rape, burning of their houses for eviction of their land to be handed over to multinational corporations etc., (though there might as well be hard core Naxals fighting in favour of their political ideology). Otherwise, the ranks of the Maoists would not have swelled menacingly only within the last few years since when government-sponsored land-grabbing exercise for the benefit of MNCs has started or intensified, not for the development of these tribals but for the profit of the MNCs. Otherwise what can explain the displacement of 3.5 lakh people from 700 villages of Dantewada district alone which have been burnt by the security forces and the volunteers of Salva Judum, a self-styled army of goondas against which even the Supreme Court has made critical remarks. And, of course, the political bosses have a clear stake in all this as was exemplified by the discovery of more than Rs 4,000 crore of unaccounted for money discovered from Madhu Koda, the former Chief Minister of Jharkhand, which is known for its mineral wealth, and everybody standing in the way of its loot by these political bosses, whether tribal or Maoist, is their sworn enemy and their governments, though harping on the cord of development which has remained only on paper all these years, would use any amount of force to displace and decimate him/her branding him/her as anti-national and Maoist because just by hanging that tag around anybody’s neck, like the albatross, the security forces assume the right to torture and kill innocent people with impunity. The arrest and incarceration of Binayak Sen for more than one year on purely concocted charges of being a Maoist sympathiser is a point in question. Those intellectuals, if there are any, who harbour the imaginary notion that some day the Naxalites/Maoists will throw out the modern state with the force of arms and will establish a truly democratic state should understand that it is not possible to overthrow a state defended by a modern and well-equipped army. Secondly, and even more important, that the government established after such an overthrow is bound to be a dictatorial government led by a group of dictators, not a democratic state with equal rights to every person because no dictator can afford to give the right to dissent to any citizen. Even an imaginary situation like that can be detrimental to whatever democratic space exists today even in this sham democracy of ours. A philosophical and social movement against the forces of exploitation can be launched for educating the masses about protecting their rights within the framework of our Constitution. Let us not underrate the understanding and power of these people to throw out governments by pressing just one fingertip, not at the trigger of the gun but at the electronic voting machine. So the intellectual class should have no hesitation in condemning violence, whether indulged into by the Naxalites/Maoists or by the state. And if the government is really serious about ending this menace, first it should announce on the floor of the Lok Sabha an end to the policy of forcible acquisition of land. Then it should undertake a comprehensive programme of implementing the provisions of Part IV of our Constitution entitled “Directive Principles” of the State Policy” in right earnest, particularly in these tribal areas so that these people can live an honourable life at the place which belongs to them. The Maoists then will get no sympathisers. It is only after that that the government will be justified in launching an operation like Green Hunt if anybody lifts arms against the state. Till then the butchery indulged into by the state as well as the Maoists must stop because every bullet, whether fired by the security forces or the Maoists, brings down a poor man who could otherwise contribute to the development of the country with his hard work. The writer is the National Secretary of the People’s Union for Civil
Liberties
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Khap panchayats: Duties first One
probable meaning of “khap” is “application of mind”. It is often used popularly as a verb, as in “sir khapana”, to indicate a tiresome exercise of the mind. It might have been expected, therefore, that the meeting of the Khap “Mahapanchayat” in Kurukshetra on the Jallianwala Bagh Day would have had a semblance of a cerebral outcome. In fact, the upshot has been disappointing and suggests that the khap leaders have still not come to terms with the real issues involved. That rural communities in and adjoining Haryana have been lagging behind modern India’s social jurisprudence is well known. The demand at the Khap Mahapanchayat that the Hindu Marriage Act be amended to bar marriages within a gotra is noteworthy for a reason not quite foreseen by the khap leaders. A few spokesmen of the khap panchayats have sought to suggest that there is an evolution of opinion within the Haryana region which now needs to be taken into account by amending the marriage laws so as to incorporate such opinion. In fact, khap pretensions of one kind or another have been heard throughout the twentieth century and have been rejected by India’s leading thinkers from Gandhi, through all committees established to reform Hindu law up to Ambedkar and HV Pataskar. When in the 1920s, British state institutions were boycotted as part of the non-co-operation movement, attempts were made by some local people to confer civil and criminal powers upon village elders. The concept was scotched by none other than Mahatma Gandhi. This was even though he otherwise favoured panchayats and spoke of village republics. Some panchayats resorted to social ostracism of opponents as part of the non-co-operation movement. This led Gandhi to warn: “Ostracism of a violent character such as the denial of the use of public wells is a species of barbarism, which I hope will never be practised by anybody of men having the desire for national self-respect and national uplift” (Young India. December 8, 1920). If any panchayats were formed in the course of the movement, what should be the sanction for the enforcement of any order passed by such a panchayat? To this question Gandhi gave a creative and subtle answer. He proceeded first to lay down stringent guidelines for and duties to be performed by panchayats and the answer to the powers and sanction of the panchayat emerged from these guidelines and duties themselves. Gandhi specified the duties to be performed by such panchayats. These were : (a) The education of boys and girls in its village; (b) Its sanitation; (c) Its medical needs; (d) The upkeep and cleanliness of village wells or ponds; and (e) The uplift of and the daily wants of the so-called untouchables. A panchayat which fails without just cause to attend to these duties, may, according to Gandhi, “ be disbanded and another elected in its place”. And the sanction behinds its orders and judgements? Gandhi now delivered the coup de grace: “Where a panchayat is really popular and increases its popularity by the constructive work of the kind suggested in clause 9, it will find its judgements and authority respected by reason of its moral prestige. And that surely is the greatest sanction any one can possess and of which one cannot be deprived”. (Young India, May 28, 1931). He was raising what political scientists would call the question of legitimacy. In other words, there is no power without responsibility and performance of duty. Where such duty is duly performed, the panchayat would require no other authority to enforce any reasonable directions that it may give.
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Chatterati Politics
is often deep, dark and dirty. Cricket is also very often a cesspool. When the two meet, the result is naturally toxic. It is into this mess that Shashi Tharoor decided to step in. As a mentor to the Kochi team he may well claim that he was after all only acting in his role as a member of Parliament.
But in comes companion Sunanda, (from Kashmir to Dubai via Canada) along with OSD Jacob from Dubai. This gang from Dubai has made Tharoor the main talking point of Delhi as no other junior minister has been in the last several years. The talking on a rude first strike by Lalit Modi has now opened up a can of worms that Tharoor with his UN experience could simply not have been prepared for. It didn’t help matters that Sunanda’s past too came under scrutiny. Sunanda was earlier seen in Delhi circles accompanying the Minister of State from gallery openings to smaller intimate gatherings. Congress in disarray
The Prime Minister’s long foreign trips often throw up local fracas. His no-comment approach often douses flames before they flare up. Digvijay’s comments from America, while on a personal visit, about Chidambaram’s anti-Maoist policy was one such. It showed the Congress ranks in disarray even during Parliament’s discussion on the Dantewada massacre. Because the two leaders are senior, Delhi’s political pundits began to make multiple interpretations. As if that is not enough, we also have a whole clutch of Union ministers who have run out their Rajya Sabha terms. Since all of them were also too nervous to attempt a Lok Sabha outing, they are now dependent on the Congress high command. So “mantris” keep one hand on their “kursis” while signing files with the other. Some are even doing cross-country official trips to woo states which may have spare Rajya Sabha capacities but whose Chief Ministers are nervous about accommodating outsiders. All of this surely makes for a government that is nervous. Politics and celebrations
Amita Modi Singh’s party last week had guests from all walks of life. It was a little late to celebrate her husband, Sanjay Singh’s victory in Uttar Pradesh. Nevertheless, the party was full of people from different spheres — from Shiela Dikshit to Kapil Dev. One thing one gets to see in Delhi’s political parties is that MPs, cutting across party lines, are there at their colleagues’ functions. Sanjay Singh’s youngest daughter, Akansha, played a gracious hostess with her mother. Bollywood stars are often visible in Delhi’s parties. Jackie Shroff was a little uncomfortable wearing a suit in this heat. Nafisa Ali, Sangeeta Bijlani, Rudy Pratap Singh and Raj Babbar all had a great time, being their boisterous selves. |
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