The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

One more board
Fighting drugs is a serious job

Punjab will have a drug prevention board – not because experts have suggested it but because Punjab Youth Congress president Ravneet Singh Bittu has gone on fast to demand it. Punjab already has 62 boards and corporations doing limited relevant work but providing employment to activists of the ruling party. Most are a drain on the exchequer. The Punjab Chief Minister sees no harm in forming another board if Bittu wants it.

Even though Bittu’s fast is well-meaning and has drawn attention to the serious problem of drug addiction among Punjabi youth, controlling drug trade is a major challenge that requires a multi-pronged approach and expertise. A board having MLAs, among others, as its members may be ill-equipped to do the job, especially when it is widely recognised that the drug mafia in the state enjoys political patronage. Drugs are distributed freely during elections. Health Minister Laxmi Kanta Chawla faced political trouble when she took on some drug retailers. Concerned politicians like Bittu should first nail those in their fraternity profiteering from the illegal trade that has destroyed many families.

According to the UN, there is a flourishing $65 billion global drug trade which gets most of its supplies from the Taliban-held areas in Afghanistan, where 90 per cent of the world’s opum is produced and is used to make heroin and other banned substances. India is a transit centre as well as a large market. Narcotics are also smuggled through the country’s courier and postal services. Being a border state, Punjab has suffered the brunt. The worst-hit are the border districts. Drug trade can be contained if punishment given is stringent such as the death penalty, the laws are enforced, the international borders are sealed, the nexus of the politician-police-drug peddler is smashed, drug addicts are rehabilitated and awareness about the deadly trade is created. This can happen if the Central and state governments get serious about drug trafficking, especially because drug money funds terrorism.

Ramdev’s fast one
Going one-up on Hazare

Whatever Anna Hazare can do, Baba Ramdev can do better, or so the latter believes. The former had gone on a fast in support of the Lok Pal Bill. The yoga guru has decided to emulate him from June 4 in New Delhi to force the Central Government to bring black money stashed away in Swiss banks. He must be hoping that the large number of people who rose in support of Hazare would back him also with the same vim and vigour. If he could throw in yoga lessons also, perhaps he can prove to be an even bigger crowd puller. However, no invitation has been extended to Anna Hazare, or to Shanti Bhushan and Prashant Bhushan. “I joined his fast without any invitation from Hazare. He too can join me without an invitation,” he has said. That is perhaps the ancient way of saying “I scratched your back and now you scratch mine”.

The methods suggested by Ramdev for eradicating corruption and black money are far more radical than those of Anna Hazare. He not only wants the Lok Pal to have the powers to award the death penalty to corrupt people but also to enforce a ban on currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination. What the ban will do to those who have kept their petty savings in these notes has not been touched upon. One thing is certain. The crores that Baba Ramdev made through his yoga camps and medicine sales are not kept in these two denominations.

He has never hidden his political ambitions. Some politicians are bound to jump on to his bandwagon. The most interesting would be the reaction of Brinda Karat. Her allegations that the TV baba mixes human bones in the sundry churans that he makes had not really held ground. Her reaction to the satyagraha announcement would be quite a verbal treat – with a dash of cyanide perhaps.

Thought for the Day

The sweetest of all sounds is praise. — Xenophon

ARTICLE

Dimensions of 2-G scam
Spectrum allotments should be cancelled
by T.V. Rajeswar

The CBI has already filed two charge sheets before the Supreme Court on issues connected with the 2-G scam. Yet another charge sheet is expected to be filed before the Supreme Court by the CBI in the coming weeks. Former Telecom Minister A. Raja, the prime accused, has been in jail for over four months. The heads of a number of telecom companies who maneuvered themselves irregular 2-G licences and spectrum allocations are also in jail, their application for bail having been rejected by courts.

The DMK Rajya Sabha MP, Kanimozhi, daughter of Chief Minister Karunanidhi of Tamil Nadu, has been cited as one of the accused. More and more ugly details are tumbling out and it is a matter of time before they are all made to account for their scams.

It is to the credit of the Supreme Court that the unravelling of one of the biggest scams in the post-Independence era is being thoroughly examined and exposed by the efforts of the CBI and the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament presided over by the BJP veteran, Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi, had had some traumatic sittings and had to wind up prematurely due to the accusations and counter-accusations of the members constituting the PAC. The Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) will commence its task presumably when Parliament assembles for the monsoon session.

The proceedings of the JPC will be extremely important and interesting as these will largely deal with the 2-G scam. The PAC, presided over by Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi, mentioned in the initial draft report that the loss to the exchequer by the 2-G scam was Rs. 1.90 lakh crore while granting 122 licences in 2008, dual technology licences and extra spectrum.

However, the CAG of India had put the presumptive loss in the range of Rs. 57,000 crore to Rs. 1.76 lakh crore. On the other hand, the CBI which took up the case, estimated the loss at more than Rs 30,000 crore which they mentioned in the charge sheet. The PAC draft report had made a reference to the calculation made by Dr. Subramaniam Swamy, President of the Janata Party, that the net loss in the 2-G scam was Rs 97,410.74 crore.

Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal had, however, questioned the calculation of the CAG in respect of the presumptive loss of 2-G allocations and he characterised the calculation method of the CAG as without a basis. These figures are bewildering and tend to confuse the main issue, which is that there was a tremendous loss to the national exchequer which had never been seen before in the post-Independence years.

It is, therefore, all the more imperative that the exact figure and dimensions of the 2-G scam should be arrived at by an expert body. The CAG is a constitutional authority whose calculation in its report should be acceptable. The CBI, which took up the investigation of the 2-G scam on the directive of the Supreme Court, had made its own calculation and arrived at a much smaller figure and now comes the calculation made by the PAC and mentioned in its draft report released to the press on April 28. The figure arrived by the PAC is much more than what was calculated by the CAG, the CBI and by Dr. Subramaniam Swamy.

Therefore, it is hoped that the Supreme Court in its wisdom would constitute a committee consisting of the CAG, the Director of the CBI, the Chairman of Telecom Authority and possibly a renowned chartered accountant and give it the task of working out the most approximate quantum of loss to the national exchequer in the entire 2-G scam.

Simultaneously, the Supreme Court may also consider, in consultation with the high-powered committee, ways and means of making good the colossal loss to the maximum extent possible.

The spectrum allotments should be cancelled or forfeited and given afresh by way of auction or other means. The wrongful beneficiaries may also have to be asked to make good the loss failing which their properties should be attached. It will be a multi-dimensional task for the Supreme Court appointed high-powered committee. It is hoped that this may come about sooner or later.

Apart from exploring and establishing a fairly correct estimate of the loss to the national exchequer in terms of revenue, all those responsible for the scam should also be identified and brought to justice. It is not enough to punish only Raja and his associates in the Department of Telecom who are now in jail along with him. All those persons who were responsible for the scam by acts of omission and commission should also be brought to justice sooner or later.

MIDDLE

If Osama was holed up here!
by Amar Chandel

Ever since American Navy Seals killed Osama bin Laden in an operation inside Pakistan, idle talk has been going on here as to why India does not carry out similar daring missions. Banish the thought, friends. We would not even dream of such “unprecedented, unconstitutional and illegal” activity that militates against the principles of “ahimsa”.

Leave alone Pakistan, even if he were hiding here, we would have handled things strictly according to established democratic procedures. In all probability, the situation would have unfolded in the following fashion:

Policemen would have visited his house and after the customary grant of "kharcha-pani", would have issued him a character certificate that he was a bona fide Indian citizen named Osama Kumar with a yellow BPL (below poverty line) ration card.

He would have also armed himself with a stay order against any kind of forcible eviction. He would have also approached several minority organisations for support.

Some parties would have sent him feelers that if he joins their organisation, all his purported crimes would be forgiven and forgotten. Not only that, he would also be made head of the foreign cell of the party. Everybody is innocent till his guilt is proved in a court of law.

There may have also been a ban on causing any kind of damage to his house, it having been declared a protected monument.

The government would have taken at least 20 years to decide what impact a raid would have on Muslim votes. There would have been many seminars suggesting that instead of acting against him, the government should invite him to the negotiating table.

If at all action became unavoidable, there would have been a heated discussion to decide in which police station’s jurisdiction his house fell.

The satellite pictures of the locality where he was holed up would have been leaked out, not for what was found within his compound, but for the accidentally recorded salacious activities of couples living in the neighbourhood. These would have been a rage on the MMS circuit.

Even if the government gathered the political courage to send a raiding party, Mayawati would have objected vehemently to the composition of the commando team if it did not have enough Dalit representation.

The moment the raiding helicopters became airborne, the news would have reached the dharna types, who would have started a relay fast and candlelight vigil atop his house protesting against such state-sponsored terrorism against an ailing, hapless person on flimsy grounds. Human rights organisations would have formed a human chain.

There would have been 50 OB vans of TV channels outside the house beaming minute-by-minute progress of the commando operation "exclusively".

The more enterprising ones would be even airing interviews of his family members, relatives, friends, neighbours and admirers shedding copious tears that he was totally innocent. The visuals of his philanthropic work would have been telecast repeatedly.

No question of his being shot. He would have been arrested – without being handcuffed, of course -- and would have gone to jail amidst lusty slogans such as "Osamaji aap sangharsh karo hum tumhare saath hain". Top lawyers would have come forward to defend him. Even if he were sentenced, he would have either been released in exchange for kidnapped relatives of some minister or would have been let off within a year or two due to good conduct in jail. He would have definitely won an election with a record margin and become a minister.

Publishing houses would have offered him billions for his autobiography. Bollywood too would have paid him astronomical sums to star in a multilingual film tentatively titled "Victim of Circumstances".

Oh Osama, if only you knew what a tactical blunder you made by going to Pakistan!

OPED THE ARTS

In the post-9/11 era, the notion of a 'Muslim' stigma became increasingly significant, in literature and in films. The act of 'shock and awe' aroused inescapable questions, sharpening Muslim writers' narratives and altering the 'name value' of the author.
Finding a voice- post 9/11
Vandana Shukla

Poetic license allows freedom to ask uncomfortable questions. Ironically, Al -Qaeda's attacks on New York's twin towers offered this license to scores of writers across the globe, who were feeling stifled under a renewed Talibisation of Islam. Gone were the days of a solitary Sulman Rushdie, scuttled around the globe at anonymous addresses for the protection of his life. Writers came out of their creative slumber in droves to jolt the world, demanding a fresh look at their identity- of a Muslim, caught between the worlds of aspired modernity and forced religious regression. Iran based professor of English literature, who later migrated to the US, Azar Nafisi's 'Reading Lolita in Tehran' is the best example of this conflict wherein she probes the crisis of identity at several layers, using the decoy of teaching literature ( Lolita, Gatsby, James and Austen) to young Iranian students.

But, unlike Rushdie, these writers tread the safer path. Although the incident allows them to probe truth at a deeper level, the search is often restricted to social responses, cultural identities and at best, political issues, like questioning Khomeini's dictat in Azar Nafisi's novel. Almost no one touches tenets of religion, barring the firebrand Somalian writer, Ayyan Hirsi Ali.

Voices of anger

The Muslim migrant community, particularly, experienced a fresh branding of identity post 9/11; of suspicion, mistrust and cultural exclusion from the Western world, which resulted in a spurt to creative expression among the Muslim diaspora across the globe. Mohsin Hamid, Pakistan born author of 'Moth Smoke' and 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist', shared during an interview at Jaipur Literature Festival that when he wrote 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist' in 2000, his agent dissuaded him saying , no one will be interested in a well- off Pakistani working as investment banker. But, after 9/11things changed and the very agent came enquiring about how the book was progressing. The book sold like hot cakes because of a deceptive title, is a separate story. 'Home Boy', for which H M Naqvi won the first ever DSC South Asian Literature Award, too is partially autobiographical. Shahzad, the protagonist in the novel bore the brunt of being a Muslim in New York, drove taxi to survive, lived in penury and mulled over terrorism as an option to survive. More daring, Omair Ahmad's brilliant novella 'Jimmy The Terrorist' offers the vicarious pleasure of dredging the mind of a terrorist. It's a tempting trip more than a few writers have attempted, who remain on the periphery of the subject. The 18- year- old's tale in a fictional town of Moazzamabad, with a knife, and what he does with it becomes of far lesser significance than the story of what drives him to pick it up. All these writers have initiated a debate to erupt in the public sphere about Islam, and its associated misgivings by turning Muslim names into a sort of familiar resonance.

The names of Arabic origin

A stern Ayatollah, a blind and improbable philosopher king, had decided to impose his dream on a country and a people and to re-create us in his own myopic vision. So he had formulated an ideal of me as a Muslim woman, a Muslim woman teacher, and wanted me to look, act and in short live according to that ideal. Laleh and I, in refusing to accept that ideal, were taking not a political stance but an existential one.

— Azar Nafisi,
Reading Lolita In Tehran, 2004:165

The Muslim names became less 'foreign' after 9/11 and interested more readers. Moreover, a generation of Western-educated Muslim immigrants' children were coming of age and, regardless of the 'Muslim' issue, they were choosing literature as a medium through which to express their artistic creativity. As a result of all these factors, the amount of Muslim-related fiction soared after 9/11 both by non Muslims and by writers with a Muslim ancestry. Who would have thought of a name like Khaled Hosseini, a doctor from Afghanistan based in the US, to appear in the best sellers list for 'The Kite Runner' and 'A Thousand Splendid Suns.' The narratives for both the books take place in obscure places of Afghanistan, at Peshawar and parts of Swat region. Even though 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' did not have much to offer in terms of freshness of the narrative, it rode on the success of 'The Kite Runner', as the publishers could capitalise on the reader's interest in these newly discovered geographical regions of interest for their political affiliations with Islam.

Shrieks from dark spaces

Women found legitimacy in the opened up spaces for debate over Islam, post 9/11, to give vent to their stored anger of living through years of oppression. There has been a profusion of novels by Muslim women authors who are beginning to listen to their own lost voices. Book shelves are flooded with such obscure titles like 'The Caged Virgin' to 'I am Najood, Age 10 and Divorced' by Nujood Ali, reflecting a kind of voyeuristic interest of the world in the dark, oppressed world of women from different cultures. Most of these voices are struggling to find poise, much required for literary merit. From writing about oppressive feudal husbands to the fundamentalist mullahs, one finds a kind of commonality in the characters of the women novelists and the motifs used. Women writers from Pakistan and Bangladesh, representatives of traditional victims of all kinds of socio- political oppression, braving a fresh threat that comes with growing Talibisation of their societies too had a opportunity to give vent to their angst post 9/11. Zaheda Hina, Shaneen Akhtar, from Bangladesh, and Kamila Shamsie from Pakistan are some of the important voices who are addressing the cultural crisis of Muslim women in a global milieu. In the much talked about 'Brick Lane' by Monica Ali, the Bangladeshi author allows her protagonist, a god fearing, husband abiding woman, Nazneen, who lives in a suburb of London a life of drudgery and boredom with a much older and fat husband to seek happiness in a relationship with a London- born, younger lover. The simpleton learns not to be apologetic about this affair in a new cultural milieu. Although, when the lover turns to fundamentalists for re- affirmation of his Muslim identity in the post 9/11 world, Nazneen dumps him. This new genre of literature is throwing up role models, which is unsettling for the conformist Islamic societies.

There is just one Ayyan HirSi Ali

Most daring and most hated of these voices by the radical Muslims, is that of Ayyan Hirsi Ali, Somali born Dutch member of parliament, who faced death threats after collaborating on a film about domestic violence against Muslim women with controversial director Theo Van Gogh( who was assassinated) . Her attacks on Islamic culture in her best sellers 'Infidel' and 'Nomad' which describe the Muslim world as " brutal, bigoted, and fixated on controlling women" had generated much controversy. She gives a candid account of her life and her internal struggle with her Muslim faith in 'Infidel', wherein she shows how these views were shaped by her experiences amid the political chaos of Somalia and other African nations, where she was subjected to genital mutilation and later forced into an unwanted marriage. Written in descriptive, clear prose, the autobiographical narrative with its radical feminist criticism of Islam offers a disturbing view of the modern world, which explains why Ayyan arouses strong passions among the radicals.

Fahrenheit 9/11 and thereafter

In the genre of films, there were fewer tear-jerkers woven around the tragedy of 9/11. The emphasis was more on analytical probe. No wonder, the highest grossing documentaries were produced post 9/11 and were watched with great interest across the globe:

Fahrenheit 9/11: Michael Moore, the forever controversial journalist's view on what happened to the United States after September 11; and how the Bush Administration allegedly used the tragic event to push forward its agenda for unjust wars in Afghanistan and Iraq turned Fahrenheit 9/11a trendsetter for films dealing with the event. It created its own benchmark to make it the highest-grossing documentary of all times.

ZERO: Another investigation into 9/11, by Italian production company Telemaco had one central thesis - that the official version of the events surrounding the attacks on 9/11 can not be true. This documentary explores the latest scientific evidence and reveals dramatic new witness testimony, which directly conflicts with the US Government's account.

911: Press for Truth: Following the attacks of September 11, the grieving families waged a tenacious battle against those who sought to bury the truth about the attack, including the Bush administration. In "9/11 Press For Truth," three of the Jersey Girls, most affected by the tragedy tell the story of how they took on the powers in Washington and won. They forced an investigation, only to subsequently watch the 9/11 Commission fail to even ask their most urgent questions.

World Trade Centre: Oliver Stone's feature film glorifies the valour of Port Authority Police, featuring Nicholas Cage. After the twin towers collapsed over the rescue team from the Port Authority Police Department, Will Jimeno and his sergeant John McLoughlin are found alive trapped under the wreckage while the rescue teams fight to save them. The film sends a message of keeping the hope alive and refusing to bow down to terrorism. The film is based on the true story of the last survivors extracted from Ground Zero.

Bin Laden- the muse: Indian and Pakistani film makers too were inspired by the event. Khuda Ke Liye became perhaps the best film produced in Pakistan in decades. In India films like Kabul Express, My Name is Khan, New York and Kurbaan attempted to unravel Muslim identity crisis, but the best humorous take on it came from a small budget film Tere Bin Laden, in 2010. The comedy is about a journalist Ali Hassan , who, in his desperation to migrate to the U S, makes a fake Osama Bin Laden video using a look-alike, and sells it to TV channels.