The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Media under a cloud
British scandal bares its ugly side

There clearly are lessons to be learnt from the dignified manner in which the British Parliament conducted itself on the phone-hacking scandal that has rocked the country and brought not only the government but also the media into doubt and disrepute.

Barring the ugly incident of a dish of white foam being thrown at the world’s biggest media baron Rupert Murdoch while he was appearing before the House of Commons media committee to answer questions on misdoings by his now-defunct tabloid News of the World, the proceedings were business-like and the quality of arguments weighty.

But that such a thing as a phone-hacking scandal occurred is testimony to the rot that has set in, encompassing even the media. With the tabloid’s former editor Andrew Coulson, who is also a former top aide to Prime Minister Cameron, being arrested, the scandal reached right at the British government’s doorstep. Yet, it deserves to be noted that the Opposition did not go berserk.

Amid a wave of allegations involving the hacking of celebrities, royals and politicians and targeting even victims of violent crimes and the July 2005 terrorist bombings, the sense of public outrage that led to the abrupt announcement by James Murdoch (son of Rupert and heir to the legacy) of the closure of the 130- year-old hot-selling tabloid, the Murdochs were forced to appear before Parliament lest they be arrested. What was unfortunate about their testimony was its self-serving nature, portraying them as innocent victims of their own journalists and executives. Rupert Murdoch’s explanation for why he lost sight of what was happening at the News of the World was that it was “just 1 per cent” of his global business. Another former Editor of the paper Rebekah Brooks defended hiring private detectives to dig up stories and payments to the police by saying that this was “common practice in Fleet Street.”

The scandal in Britain must provoke thinking on where the media is heading in a rat race in which the means to an end are typically disregarded and ethical standards compromised. Before the public at large begins to tar all media with the same brush of insensitivity, the responsible media, be it in Britain or India or any other country, must introspect and reform itself.

Conflict of interest
Bureaucrats do self-service

Globally, the corporate sector is known to woo bureaucrats and politicians with cash, gifts, paid holidays and post-retirement jobs to influence policy. In Japan 2,000 bureaucrats secured cushy post-retirement posts between 2007 and 2009. In the US retired ambassadors are offered jobs by firms from countries they have served at.

India’s 2G spectrum has exposed the politician-bureaucrat-businessman nexus. Waking up to the danger, the government is considering tougher ways to rein in bureaucrats. There is a proposal to increase the cooling-off period from one to three years, which means a bureaucrat will have to wait longer before accepting a post-retirement job.

Manipulation of policy is becoming common and is done in various subtle and not-so-subtle ways by even respected business houses as the Niira Radia tapes have revealed. Retired civil servants are hired by companies largely because of their contacts in the centres of power, their knowledge of complex government rules, procedures and loopholes, and experience of handling politicians. Besides, it is easy for them to get favours from ex-colleagues. Since there is still a huge gap between corporate and government salaries, some even take premature retirement to work in firms which they may or may not have patronised. It is imperative to find out whether their decisions have benefited firms they join. A former Telecom Secretary is in jail with A. Raja for favouring firms.

The situation is worse in states. In addition to corporate temptations, political links weigh on decisions. Those who do the bidding of politicians are rewarded and defiance is punished. It is not uncommon in Punjab for out-of-power politicians to threaten reprisal on coming to power. Bureaucrats, policemen and politicians work together to promote and protect one another’s interests. Political contacts help IAS officers get plum posts during and after service. The non-aligned are tossed around or moved out of the state. The Centre and states should consider ways to insulate bureaucrats from unhealthy and undesirable political and corporate influence.

Thought for the Day

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. — Winston Churchill

ARTICLE

A grim tragedy and a farce
Mumbai blasts, Delhi’s damp squib
by Inder Malhotra

COMPARED with the recent triple blasts in Mumbai, the worst since 26/11 and fifth since 1993, the non-event in Delhi, otherwise called Cabinet reshuffle, seems irrelevant. However, it raises some questions as disturbing as does the outrage at the western metropolis. So, both subjects have to be discussed, though the brazen act of terrorism must have precedence.

The most important lesson of the latest carnage in Mumbai is that we have learnt precious little from the far more savage outrage on November 26 three years ago. There is something pathetic, and frightening, about Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan’s admission that his state is “not yet equipped” to fight terrorism. Such upgrading of technology that must have taken place since 2008 did not prevent a complete communications blackout on 13/7. For 15 minutes the Chief Minister was unable to speak to any of those responsible for coping with the catastrophe. A spokesman of the Mumbai police has now assured the citizens that the communications system would “soon be made fail-safe”. But, given the fate of the grand announcements following 26/11, can Mumbaikars be sure that this would actually happen?

One reason for the gnawing doubt was evident from Mr Chavan’s own statement. He accepted that the three-year-old decision to buy and install 5,000 more closed circuit televisions (CCTVs) in the sprawling city was still a work in progress because of the delay in placing orders for equipment on such a scale. In all fairness, one must have some sympathy for his explanation that “everyone” involved in the process of decision-making on the purchase is being “over-cautious”. However, the only beneficiaries of the government’s functioning in slow motion would be the terrorists that have made no secret of their determination to strike again. When, oh when, would India cease to be a “soft state”?

Mr RD Pradhan, formerly Chief Secretary of Maharashtra, Union Home Secretary and Governor of Arunachal Pradesh, had presided over the committee the state government had appointed to inquire into the horrific 26/11. Typically, the committee’s report remains classified, making any intelligent discussion on it impossible. In a TV interview Mr Pradhan has emphasised that the bane of the Mumbai Police is the shortage of manpower so gross as to defeat all attempts to reform or improve it. A member of the Pradhan Committee, Mr V Balachandarn, a former special secretary at India’s foreign intelligence agency, RAW, has provided staggering details. Of the nearly 40,000-strong force, it seems about 16,000 are always busy ensuring the security of VIPs living in, or visiting, the “Maximum City”. Since the remaining strength must work in two shifts, no more than 12,000 personnel (of whom roughly 2,000 are on leave, or sick or having a day off) are available at any given time. They have to discharge a whole gamut of responsibilities, including traffic management, prosecution of under-trial prisoners, investigating complaints of crimes committed, coping with processions and agitations and so on.

Consequently, the beat constable, with his ear to the ground and, therefore, the primary source of intelligence, has become dispensable, in the words of another super-cop, Mr Julio Ribiero. He adds that while technology upgrading is welcome, human intelligence is more important to deal with terrorism. More such details are likely to be exposed to the light of day.

It is time the country came to grips with the root of all problems: the lack of political will and skill at all levels and shocking governance deficit, together with rampant corruption. But the entire political class is not bothered. On the one hand, senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh goes on communalising terrorism by insinuating that the RSS might be responsible for the dastardly attack on Mumbai. On the other, BJP leaders scream that the Congress is “soft on jihadi terrorism” for the sake of Muslim vote, especially because the UP assembly poll is neigh. How does the country combat terrorism of any hue — green, saffron or red — under these circumstances?

In addition, there is something equally dangerous and sinister within Maharashtra. The spat between the state Chief Minister and his allies of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) over the performance of the latter’s nominee as Home Minister reveals how spurious the ruling alliance is. Instead of working together, the two “allies” are undermining each other.

Moreover, the United States — a federation for a century and a half before the adoption of the Indian Constitution — was able to form the Department of Home Security immediately after 9/11. By contrast, the lack of synergy between the Union and state governments here is appalling. As an astute observer of the scene remarked, the Indian federation is showing signs of “turning into a confederation”.

Now a brief word about the Cabinet’s non-reshuffle: In January, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had promised a “more expansive” reshuffle. But nothing of the sort happened, presumably because such a venture was deemed much too expensive. Or else the mountain in labour would not have produced a measly little mouse. Unsurprisingly, most people are wondering what Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Dr Singh were discussing at four one-to-one meetings between them before the swearing-in ceremony that was followed by some swearing-at. Their known differences over Mr Montek Singh Ahluwalia’s proposed inclusion in the Cabinet as well as the suggestion for transferring Minister of State Ashwini Kumar to the PMO could have been sorted out in 15 minutes flat.

The most charitable explanation of all this can be that in the contest between the Congress party’s great and growing problems and the nation’s pressing needs, the interest of the party seems to have triumphed over that of the country. For instance, there can be no explanation for the retention of Mr S.M. Krishna as Minister for External Affairs after he had demonstrated his unsuitability for the job, except his political clout in Karnataka where the Congress is in a bad shape already.

The case of Mr Vilasrao Deshmukh, a Maratha considered indispensable in Maharashtra, is scandalous. He should have been sacked on the spot after the Supreme Court’s indictment of him for “obstructing” criminal justice. He survived then and has survived now, even if he has been “shunted” to an inconsequential ministry. This does not bother him. For, he has created more absorbing work for himself at the Maharashtra Cricket Association.n

MIDDLE

Travails of the Lokpal to be
by P. Lal

It was the first meeting of his staff called by the newly appointed Lokpal. He had now the mandate to act, hammer and tongs, against the mighty and the powerful, including the Prime Minister.He brought the meeting to order and invited suggestions from the participants.

A DIG spoke first: “Sir, my counterpart in the state moves in a Honda City with a flag, a red beacon and a star-plate. I travel in my own car. This is infra dig.”

The Lp thundered: “Soon, you, too, would get a Ford Icon. As regards other appendages, they are the vestiges of the colonial past”.

The DIGs exchanged disparaging glances; Ford Icon was no match to Honda City.

An inspector raised his hand: “Sir, my monthly take-home is Rs 18,000. It is insufficient to pay even for my children’s tuitions and my wife’s cosmetics and beauty parlour bills. At least, bring my salary at par with what an inspector got in 1947.”

The Lp shot back: “An inspector got only Rs 200 at that time! Stop cribbing.”

The officer persisted: “Sir, the prices of real estate have gone up 6000 times since then and those of daily necessities, a thousand times. Our carry-home after taxes ought to be at least Rs 2,00,000, if you want us to be strictly honest.”

The Lp was flabbergasted.

Another inspector spoke: “Sir, the local MP, against whom I had been gathering information, threatened me the other day of dire consequences.”

“You should have told him that we are free of political and executive control.”

“I did, Sir,” the officer said, “but the MP quipped that officers of the district where my relatives lived and where we had our property were very much under political control.”

The law officer interjected: “Sir, to get over the problem, we need to have complete separation of power between the legislature, the executive and the judiciary.”

“What?” the Lp felt exasperated, “you want more power for the executive?”

“No, Sir,” the LO explained, “I am talking of a constitutional principle. Politics involves big money. Legal limits on poll expenses are Rs 40 lakh for a parliamentary constituency and Rs 16 lakh for an assembly constituency, whereas actual expenses are about Rs 15 crore and Rs 5 crore, respectively. Politicians make good the money by exploiting their control over the executive.”

The Lp pontificated and declared: “Bringing about the change would require constitutional amendments which may even be against the ‘basic structure doctrine’ propounded by the Supreme Court. In any case, let the civil society fight for such a reform. Meanwhile, I feel I can’t discharge my responsibilities as a Lokpal in the given circumstances. I, therefore, hereby quit.”

OPED YOUTH

Scaling new walls
Unlike Egypt, Iraq and Afghanistan, where circumstances forced the youth to come out of their cocoon, middle- class youth in India and other democracies are facing a different kind of challenge. They are trying to negotiate the limits of a world of privilege, comfort and security.
Samina Mishra

Poor children can't understand the colour purple, we are informed by teachers of a prestigious Delhi school via a recent article in the Wall Street Journal. Not having access to blackcurrant ice- cream and potassium permanganate to clean fruits and vegetables at home can be a serious shortfall in socialisation—a gap so huge that it can bring trained teachers of one of Delhi's supposedly best schools to tears.

It's hard to explain a colour, I suppose. I mean you can't just pick up an object and point to its colour, can you? It's the sort of thing that one has to imbibe. Like social hierarchies and the place of those who sweep the floors.

Perhaps, that's what another prestigious school, that generously donates bake sale proceeds to a charitable institution, was trying to do when its officious administrative staff tried to keep a domestic help away from the seated parent body at the school's annual function. I suppose what they were trying to communicate was that these lines have to be taken seriously and children must imbibe that. So, yes, we must tell them to protect the environment, to donate to charities and to learn that our Constitution guarantees equality. But alongside that, we must teach them to safeguard the privileges they were born with, to preserve their turf as simply theirs, not to be encroached upon by those flung on the margins. This is the new world order and certainly, schools are not immune to it.

Pedagogy of exclusivity

In her significant book, Coining For Capital, Jyotsna Kapur writes about the construction of the idea of childhood and how that was "the final frontier, the final niche market to be captured by capital's incessant drive to turn every aspect of our lives into a source of profit." One can see how today's new progressive schools fit into this scheme. By selling the idea of creativity and imaginative pedagogy, these schools have turned the parent-child combination into consumers and so, if you can pay for it, you can have access to imagination, to creativity, to clean, wholesome education. But if you can't, well then, yours is not to reason why. Yours is just to stay in the corner. So, when the Indian state — that has failed to deliver quality public education for over six decades — steps in with the Right to Education bill and pressurises these schools to allot a certain number of seats to poor children, the consumer-service provider relationship kicks in. Naturally, the service-provider, in this case the school, assumes the role of wanting the best for the paying customer. And so we have the stories of teachers breaking down and saying that the presence of these poor children with insufficient learning in their home environments is impacting the learning of the other children. Parents' feathers get ruffled and they close in protectively, demanding that they get what they are paying for. Spelt out in bald terms: Keep the poor kids separate.

Parenting is, by and large, an act that induces conservatism. To provide for and protect our children, we often fall into patterns that are about maintaining hierarchies, pushing privileges, seeking favours. We want the best for our children, we want their lives to be less difficult than ours, we want them to be happy and free. Paying the rent and putting food regularly on the table can turn even a rebel into a paper-pusher. And the political economy of a world- order that seeks to produce a workforce that will unquestioningly do as it is bid and measures success only by visible wealth is a huge structural pressure for many to buckle under. Our children are part of this process and so many will grow up unable even to recognise the buckling-under. So, ranting apart, is there anything we can do to counter this?

Coining a new word

I believe, I have to believe, that there is. For starters, we can listen to some wise children out there who are struggling and refusing to buckle under. Young kids, some as young as 13, are engaging with a powerful world order and shouting to be heard.

There is Asma Mahfouz in Egypt who recorded a video and helped start a revolution. "I'm making this video to give you one simple message," she said, "We want to go down to Tahrir Square on January 25. If we still have honour and we want to live in dignity on this land, we have to go down on January 25… Whoever says it's not worth it because there will only be a handful of people, I want to tell him you are the reason behind this, and you are a traitor just like the president or any security cop who beats us in the streets. Your presence with us will make a difference, a big difference! "

There is 13-year-old Charlotte Aldebron, an American girl, who spoke at an anti-war rally and said, "When people think about bombing Iraq, they see a picture in their heads of Saddam Hussein in a military uniform or maybe soldiers with big, black moustaches carrying guns …But guess what? More than half of Iraq's 24 million people are children under the age of 15. That's 12 million kids. Kids like me…So, take a look at me - a good long look. Because I am what you should see in your head when you think about bombing Iraq. I am what you are going to destroy."

And then there is 15-year-old Barnaby Raine who was part of the protests against the hike in university tuition fees that the police tried to stop with force. He later spoke at the Coalition of Resistance in London: "This was supposed to be the first post-ideological generation, right? "This was meant to be the generation that never thought of anything bigger than our Facebook profiles and TV screens. I think now that claim is quite ridiculous. I think now that claim is quite preposterous. I think now we've shown that we're as ideological as ever before. Now we've shown that solidarity and comradeship and all those things that used to be associated with students are as relevant now as they've ever been….When I tried to get out and I was told it was a sterile area by police officers standing and not letting anyone out, I thought well, that's why we need a university education. If we don't get one, we end up in police uniforms… They can't stop us demonstrating, they can't stop us fighting back, and however much they try to imprison us in the streets of London, those are our streets. We will always be there to demonstrate, we will always be there to fight... We are no longer that generation that doesn't care, we are no longer that generation that's prepared to sit back and take whatever they give us. We are now the generation at the heart of the fight back."

Out of comfort zone

Were we, Barnaby's parents' generation, the generation that gave in, that did not fight? So eager to embrace the freedom of choice that globalisation and liberalisation seemed to open up, didn't we easily blind ourselves to the walls that were being erected in our everyday lives. The apartment buildings with gate passes, the malls, the CCTV cameras. Things that were supposed to provide security and comfort but that also ended up shortening our vision and narrowing our world.

Change brings with it myriad stories and there are certainly stories of progress and of old walls being scaled, but there are also stories of exclusion. So, what makes it acceptable to even say that rich kids and poor kids cannot learn together? While the modalities of how the learning should take place certainly need discussion and careful consideration, to assume as first principles that this is an untenable proposition is a horrific acceptance of class differences as an immutable reality.

Juxtaposing the different

Missionary schools in India have for years been teaching mixed groups of children and even non- missionary private schools in our country used to have a fairly mixed student body. So, the argument that socialising with kids from richer families can raise expectations in poorer kids is frankly a dubious one. There have and there will always be children who have more interacting with children who have less. Even among the middle class and the rich. So, if one child goes to London for the summer holidays and another goes to Simla, are we then going to say that this is awkward for the parents and to avoid this, let's segregate the children some more? Is parenting not about teaching children to negotiate this complicated world that we live in? We need to teach our children that it is possible to forge alliances with people who live differently. We need to teach our children that it is possible to share a dream even if you speak in another language. We need to teach our children not just to make sense of difference, but also to celebrate it.

Is it not time to take inspiration from Barnaby Raine's speech and to seek the best not just for our own children but for children everywhere. As one more batch of 18 year olds with dreams in their eyes throngs entrance examination halls and college cut-offs threaten to veer towards the almost hundred percents, what we need is for the voices of Asma, Charlotte and Barnaby to ring in their heads, to make sure that education is about more than the cut-off and the colour of blackcurrant ice-cream.

Samina Mishra is a documentary filmmaker and writer based in New Delhi.