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Dealing with Maoists |
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Neglected Tawi
The Annan plan
Decline of mainstream parties
Missing you O' Miss
The bane of the French ban
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Dealing with Maoists
The
landmine explosion killing 15 more CRPF jawans this week, and the preceding abduction of two Italians and a tribal MLA in Odisha, have served a timely warning that the Maoist menace remains as potent as ever. The authorities appear clueless about how to handle the rebels and the utter helplessness of the government was once again evident when the Odisha government conceded the Maoists’ demand and brought all police operations in Maoist strongholds to a halt. The state government also withdrew criminal cases against more than 80 Maoist sympathisers to partly meet the demands made by the rebels even as the Maoists released an Italian tourist as a ‘goodwill gesture’. Not much headway, however, has been made to secure the release of the hostages despite the invitation of the Odisha CM for ‘talks’. The rebels also named two mediators of their choice and refused to have any dialogue with the bureaucrats named by the Chief Minister as mediators. The state’s capitulation has been stark and complete. An alarming study, quoted by the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, had claimed that out of 70 million illegal small arms in the world, as many as 40 million are believed to be in central India. Maoists are known to have gelatine sticks, detonators, rocket launchers, Improvised Explosive Devices as well as an impressive arsenal of firearms and ammunition. Maoist groups had met in 2007 and resolved to create a ‘Compact Revolutionary Zone’ to facilitate the movement of its cadres and leaders. While the security forces have claimed some success in eliminating some of the top Maoist leaders, the rebels have apparently become stronger. Neither carrot nor stick seems to have worked so far. Surrender and Rehabilitation policies rolled out by different state governments, including cash, subsidies, land and loans, houses and free medical treatment also do not seem to have made much of a dent in the rebel ranks. There is, therefore, need to revisit the strategy to counter the Maoists. There are reasons to believe that Maoists enjoy considerable support among the tribals, because they are victims of both development and injustice. While leakages in the delivery systems for the poor need to be plugged, it is equally necessary to stop treating all tribals as potential rebels and Maoist
sympathisers.
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Neglected Tawi
The
Tawi, the river that gives Jammu its identity, is today a channel to dispose of human waste, and little else. The amount of organic matter in the river is around 12 times the level that may be possible to treat and use for drinking. What is shocking is that nearly all of this muck is poured into the river within Jammu City alone, a stretch not more than 5 km. The process of massive expansion of the city and its population load started way back in the early Nineties. Yet, none of the planners thought it fit to have a plan to treat and manage the sewage and garbage that would be produced. At present, there are two sewage treatment plants (STPs) under construction, while one is nearing completion. Work on the latter was also started around 15 years ago! If that is the pace at which government business has to move, planning has to be rather in advance. In view of that, priorities and timeframes for future need to be reworked. Besides initiating more STPs, the authorities must immediately stop dumping solid waste near the river, and that does not require much investment. The amount of water flowing in the river is also down to a third of its earlier glory. Deforestation in its catchment areas is blamed for that. And that has happened more due to corruption than human need. Jammu, however, cannot be singled out for treating its life-sustaining river like that. Most Indian cities, including Ludhiana on the banks of the Sutlej, have shown complete disregard for wisdom that man has possessed since time immemorial — that rivers are the source of life, and, therefore, civilisation. Given today’s technology and the resources India has — the massive road network we are building is proof — there is no reason we should not be able to protect our rivers. It is only a matter of priorities, in which environment, somehow, seems to rank fairly low despite all the evidence to show how a polluted world acts as a poison that is not very slow.
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The Annan plan
With
Syria accepting the Kofi Annan peace plan, which has the backing of the UN and the Arab League, calculations are being made if the year-long bloodshed will really come to an end soon in the troubled West Asian country. Getting President Bashar Al-Assad’s approval for the six-point framework for ending the hostilities in Syria is an important first step, as Mr Annan, a former UN Secretary-General, has admitted. Now it all depends on Mr Assad’s sincerity to implement it and how far the world community is able to press him to see reason and act in accordance with the meaningful suggestions made by Mr Annan. Mr Assad has been reluctant to take seriously any idea that has the stamp of the Arab League because of the strong backing the latter has been giving to the anti-government and pro-democracy forces in Syria. That is why he rejected on Wednesday any initiative from the Baghdad meeting of the League. But he cannot afford to behave in the same manner when there is any suggestion from the UN or the Security Council. The Annan plan stands for withdrawal of heavy weapons and troops from civilian areas, humanitarian assistance to be allowed to reach the needy and freedom of movement for journalists to do their job freely and independently. The world, particularly the West, appears to be watching cautiously the next move of President Assad. His sincerity remains suspect, if one goes by the reaction of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She has stated that the US will “judge Assad’s sincerity and seriousness by what he does.” Ms Clinton is justified in her conditional reaction. President Assad has been defying for nearly a year the world opinion to halt targeting civilians, and negotiate with pro-democracy opposition leaders for a peaceful transition to a democratically elected government in Syria. He has been refusing to accept the reality that the days of dictatorship are over in the Arab world. No one can save his regime, not even Syria’s best friend Iran and the countries like Russia and China which have been ambivalent in their stand on Syria. It is in President Assad’s own interest and the long-term interest of his country to pave the way for a peaceful change of regime in Damascus.
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It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see. — Winston Churchill
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Decline of mainstream parties by Inder Malhotra SINCE the Rajiv Gandhi government's defeat in the 1989 general election — the Congress tally in the Lok Sabha had plummeted from 410 to 200 — no political party has had a simple majority on its own. In the 1991 elections, during which Rajiv was assassinated, the Congress mustered 220 seats, and P. V. Narasimha Rao managed to run a minority government for full five years. However, his methods were so unspeakably crass that he became the first and so far only former Prime Minister to be hauled before a court of law on criminal charges. After its re-election in 2009 with a stronger mandate and with 206 Lok Sabha seats, the Congress had taken it for granted that in 2014 it would be back with a clear majority of its own. That expectation has now been shattered, as underscored by the Congress's rout in the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and virtual decimation in seven byelections in Andhra, the state that had sent the largest contingent of 33 Congress MPs to the current Lok Sabha. Surely, it is arguable that things can change, and change radically, in two years' time that is equal to eternity in politics. The Samajwadi Party of the father-and-son duo, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh, has made a bad beginning in Lucknow, and might do worse over time. In West Bengal mercurial Mamata Banerjee might overreach herself sooner than later, and so on. The Congress can then hope to fill the vacuum. But the trouble is that the Congress itself is nervous that the ruling United Progressive Alliance it heads might not last long. Indeed, but for the votes cast in its favour by Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav's party and the abstention of Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party, the government could have fallen over the amendments to the motion of thanks to the President. But, then, having bailed out the UPA, Mr Yadav is forecasting an early mid-term poll. Meanwhile, instead of trying to restore some cohesion, discipline or even decorum to the ruling combination, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, evidently not without the consent of Congress President Sonia Gandhi, has abjectly surrendered to the diktats of junior partners — to Ms. Banerjee over the messy rollback of the hike in rail fares, and to the Dravid Munnetra Kazhagam over the anti-Sri Lanka resolution at the UN Human Rights Commission that has cast a shadow on relations with a friendly neighbour. Moreover, so important an ally as Sharad Pawar is complaining of gratuitous offence caused to him. In short, the virtually paralysed government is mired in a much worse mess today than before the debacle in UP and Punjab. And, to make matters worse, the Congress organisation that functions at the beck and call of Mrs Sonia Gandhi and her son, Rahul, is showing no sign of doing any soul-searching about the huge setback. No echelon of the organisation, the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) or even the Congress Working Committee, has met to discuss what caused the disaster. Without such an analysis how can measures for brining the party back to life be even contemplated, leave alone put into operation? Perhaps, it is unrealistic to expect a wide, open and candid discussion in a party in which everything is decided by the “high command” or by the Congress Core Committee that is even smaller than the standing committee of the politburo of the Chinese Communist Party! Against this bleak backdrop, the one solace the Congress can draw is that the plight of its archrival and principal Opposition party, the BJP, is far worse and less remediable than that of the Congress. The saffron party may have more seats in the UP Assembly than does the Congress, but its performance was worse. It lost both seats and share in vote; the Congress added to both. Even in Punjab, the BJP's showing was dismal. It lost several seats, and is back in power there only because of the spectacular performance of its senior coalition partner, the Akali Dal. There is a lot more to be said about the other factors that have made the BJP, which once used to boast of being a "party with a difference", an object of scorn. But before going into these, it is necessary to outline some broader parameters within which the mainstream parties have to function. The first is that while the Congress had a clear majority in Parliament, often more than two-thirds, for the first 30 years after Independence and for 10 years through the 1980s, the BJP has never had even a bare majority although the National Democratic Alliance, headed by it and led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, did rule the country for six years. Secondly, the sailing for the party when in power was not always smooth. Mr. Vajpayee's first government in 1996 was a 13-day wonder. The second, formed in 1998, collapsed a few days after celebrating its first anniversary. The third stabilised itself after the 1999 elections that was held in the wake of the Kargil War. Thirdly, and most importantly, it needed a leader of Mr. Vajpayee's stature and skill to run the government and manage troublesome allies that included, in his case also, the self-same Mamata-di and the DMK. Today no one even remotely comparable to him is to be found in the BJP's dissension-ridden front ranks. Nor is anyone in sight. Of B. S. Yeddiurappa's challenge to the Central leadership in Karnataka, the state that could have been the BJP's bridgehead to South India, the less said the better. But it is impossible to ignore the gargantuan corruption that flourished under him in the iron ore mines owned by the state's powerful BJP ministers. The Pokhriyal regime in Uttarakhand was equally culpable. The BJP's anger against graft and loot seems confined to its rhetoric against the scam-smothered, Congress-led UPA. To corruption in its own domain, it is blind. Finally, nothing could have disgraced this party more than the Anshmun Mishra affair in Jharkhand. Denied entry into the Rajya Sabha, the NRI businessman has turned into a Frankenstein's monster. Those who haven't learnt that vipers nurtured close to one's breast are bound to bite one would never learn
anything.
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Missing you O' Miss If
a recent movie, ‘Tell Me O Kkhuda’, was a fictional tale of a girl in search of her biological parents, there are many similar real ones too which keep appearing in newspapers, magazines, missing columns, etc. Everyone seems to be in a perpetual search — of someone, or something. On a philosophical note, for some it is a search for identity, or an exploration of their selves, seeking to find roots and recognition, maybe, for very personal reasons. Whereas in the physical world, parents should lament their lost children; and children should be trying to find out their parents if there were no links leading to them. Lately the virtual online world has also come to facilitate most sought after vantage point to look out for missing people. Net users are taking to social networking sites vehemently in their effort to find their old but long lost friends and acquaintances. I have heard stories of friends who were lucky enough to locate their school friends, classmates, teachers, and old colleagues. I too am trying to hit at a 'Miss' — Miss Manocha, our teacher in my college. She had a charismatic personality. Draped in colourful chiffon sari, shielding herself from sun with a matching-colourful-floral-umbrella, when she reached the college in a rickshaw, none could afford to miss the sight of her. Within the first year of college, we were so mesmerised with her persona that we sometimes bunked classes to have a glimpse of her. For four years we kept admiring her quietly from a distance, looking forward to attending her lectures some day. Finally, she took our class in the final year of the graduation degree. And believe you me, ask any of the students of those times about the course he/she liked the most and it was invariably what Miss Manocha taught. More than what she taught we made the best of the long awaited opportunity to be in her class and get a chance to observe her being closest to her. She had a very soft voice, but a peculiar style of speaking. Her expressions were very rhythmic. While busy noticing and copying her style and gestures, what I had missed was that being the class topper all those four years, it was not easy to remain unnoticed, and the worst part was that teachers expect answer for every question from you in the class. And this made me too her favourite student. My association with her grew stronger when she took our class on an educational trip to visit a hospital, in Shahdara, Delhi, and made me the group-in-charge. I admired her to the extent that I imitated her style when asked to mimic my favourite teacher at the farewell party. Soon after I passed out of the college, Miss Manocha got transferred, being promoted as Principal. I too got busy pursuing my masters. And I completely lost all connections with my beau-model. I miss my Miss. And am fondly in love with her despite her whereabouts not being known to me. A real miss for
me!
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The bane of the French ban
On
March 15, 2004, French President Jacques Chirac signed into law an amendment to the French Code of Education that banned wearing clothing or symbols in state schools that “exhibit conspicuously a religious affiliation.” This French ban, creating a ‘seemingly’ neutral and generally applicable law, prohibited all items like “a large cross, a veil, or skullcap.” The conspicuous exception for the wearing of a cross, as long as it was not large, is at best a smokescreen: firstly, most Christians do not see the wearing of a cross as an inextricable part of their daily practice, and secondly, those who regard the cross as an article of faith that should not be removed in any case, wear a discreet cross around their neck as part of general practice. Even on its face, therefore, the French ban, as drafted, deliberately discriminates against specific communities: it had an immediate and disparate impact on Muslim hijabs (headscarves), Sikh dastaars (turbans) and Jewish yarmulkes (skullcaps). Certain students were forced to choose between maintaining their religious identity or receiving a public school education.
Religious intolerance
In France, non-religiosity and intolerance for non-Christian faiths is now the state religion. All other religions — like in Saudi Arabia —must be practiced “discreetly” (a euphemism with the proponents of these draconian regulations). The country of liberté, égalité, fraternité illustrated that its tripartite national motto has fallen hapless victim to bigotry. And French intelligentsia, otherwise eloquent and outspoken when it comes to violation of human rights elsewhere, has remained deafeningly silent, if not shamefully apologetic, and thus complicit in this blatant discrimination. Now, India, a country with the world’s largest Sikh population and the world’s second largest Muslim population, is making one of its largest ever international arms deals with France. Earlier this month, the government announced it will be signing a contract with Dassault, French airplane manufacturers. News reports confirmed that India is spending at least Rs 90,000 crore ($18 billion) for 126 planes. Even keeping aside the issue of affirming bigoted behavior against turbans, headscarves, and yarmulkes, India should be putting more thought into such exorbitant deals, when it houses the largest population of the world’s poor — greater than 26 of sub-Saharan Africa’s poorest countries combined. The government’s decision is all the more maddening considering the 2011 census: over half of all households do not have a toilet. Expectedly, a ‘top-secret national security’ reason would be cited as justification for the deal, which then simply begs the question of India’s decision to purchase from a country that does not respect the appearance of India’s own Prime Minister and millions more of his countrywomen and men. In addition to the Indian government, the citizens of France, the European Court of Human Rights, and the international community have all pretty much allowed France to get away with denying young children the simple right to go to public schools, thus abandoning rationality and fairness, in favor of strict ‘secularism’ (elitism), assimilation (intolerance), and bigotry (suppression of identity). Them too, j’accuse!
Past history
That glorious legacy of La France is unraveling at a rapid pace. A French artillery officer of Jewish descent was arrested in 1894 for treason, and summarily convicted and sentenced to penal servitude for life in a secret court-martial by an openly anti-semitic jury. Anti-Semitism was rampant in Europe then. (As, unfortunately, it is again now, only now it is focused more towards Semites professing Islam, and often extends even to those who happen to look like them.) However, France did have some brave intellectuals then, and a handful rose, at grave personal risk, to defend this persecuted Jew. Above all, novelist Emile Zola, who wrote a scathing article “J’accuse!” openly accusing the then French President of anti-Semitism, and for jailing Dreyfus simply out of religious vendetta. For speaking the bitter truth, Zola was promptly found guilty of libel and was forced to flee to England for a year. Even with all the evidence brought to the fore by Zola and others, the obdurate state kept insisting that Dreyfus was guilty, but after a very prolonged and fierce national debate Dreyfus was exonerated by a military commission in 1906, and returned to serve in the army with promotions and honor. Despite this illustrious example of landing on the right side of history during the peak of religious hatred in Europe, the French today are once again forerunners of racial, cultural, and religious bigotry. Emile Zola is long gone and there doesn’t seem to any intellectual who can replace him. Today, France is not singling an adult army official, but rather minor, schoolchildren. And the world fails to oppose this persecution because it is titled ‘secular’.
Lack of accountability
The French government obviously does not engage on any of these questions. And the complete lack of accountability does not end with the government. The overwhelming majority in France, and elsewhere in Europe, is convinced—with the kind of certitude that brooks no argumentation—that these discriminatory rules are necessary. The French are today as fanatical about irreligiosity or their Christian version of “secularism” as the Taliban, say, is about their religiosity. In the country of Voltaire, no less, the most illogical conclusions have been drawn, based on external appearances alone. Take, for example, Barack Obama and Manmohan Singh — both highly educated and equally skillful in their chosen field — politics. Neither known to make a great song or dance about their respective faiths, Christianity and Sikhism. Yet, both have talked movingly about deep attachment to their faiths. Obama dresses the way he does because that is the accepted form into which the male garb of the Christian culture has evolved. Likewise Manmohan Singh vis-à-vis Sikh male garb. In particular, the turban is the accepted headgear around the top-knot into which he ties his long hair — the kesh prescribed by the Sikh faith — every morning. Were he to put around it one day a ‘discreet hairnet’ — as a minister of French culture once suggested that Sikh children attending public schools should start doing, so as not to offend mainstream sensibilities — not only would Manmohan Singh lose face before his peers, he’d lose face in his own eyes, and may be his job too in the process. And, something analogous and equally sudden would befall Obama, were he to do something equally indiscreet one day on Capitol Hill. This French illogic, spurned by fanaticism, has recently been challenged under international law. In September 2011, the UN Human Rights Commission found France in violation of Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which guarantees “the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion” as well as to “manifest one’s religion or beliefs.” A Sikh resident of France, 76-year-old Ranjit Singh, had gone to the UN to protest another wrong-headed French policy that requires the removal of turbans for passport and ID card photographs. The commission noted that “the State party has not explained why the wearing of a Sikh turban covering the top of the head and a portion of the forehead but leaving the rest of the face clearly visible would make it more difficult to identify the author than if he were to appear bareheaded.” France has been asked to respond to the UN sometime this month. Nonetheless, legality is a weak argument in the face of state-sponsored bigotry. In the name of curbing religious extremism, the French are, in fact, engaged in cultural assimilation of minorities. While the Chinese policies of cultural assimilation in Tibet are said to have prompted India to provide shelter to the government-in-exile of the Dalai Lama, the Indian elite remains a mute spectator to France’s twenty-first century assimilation project. Many communities’ cultural mores — not just the religions around which these communities evolved — are today under attack in France. While insisting on assimilation, France is preventing its minorities from being complete and productive citizens. And it has already witnessed the dangerous angst of young men whose communities have been segregated. The 2005 riots in France were ignited by the deaths of two Muslim teenagers in a working class locality with high unemployment and police harassment. The ensuing wide-spread, prolonged and racially-charged violence was marked by an extensive loss of property. Instead of giving minorities a chance to build a proper self-image and show true allegiance to the flag, the French majority is insisting that they start by saying ‘flag before faith’. And India, which has not been able to provide private toilet facilities for over half a billion of its citizens, stands proudly poised to hand over its crucial crores to the French for military hardware, even as the faith and cultural traditions of those who comprise a large part of India’s population are punished in France; even as the French model of forced assimilation is seeping throughout Europe; and turbans of Sikhs flying India’s airliners are removed in the airport of nearby Milan.
Upholding basic fairness
When sanctimonious governments fail to uphold basic fairness, the task falls to the citizens of the world. It is not enough for only the non-French Sikhs, Muslims and Jews to boycott the Alliance Française, refusing to do business or take vacations in France, and practicing divestment from French companies. This is not about the religious versus the irreligious. This is about a nation’s dangerous project of marginalising certain cultures and skin colors that conveniently fall into non-majority religious groups — even when such projects have had disastrous results, including the World War II, just over 70 years ago. It is important for those interested in rule of law, particularly in International Law and Security, in Cultural Preservation, in Freedom of Religion, in Anti-Colonialism and Anti-Racism, to begin asking for accountability. It is important for the world’s students, for parents, for individuals who believe in basic fairness to make their voices heard against France’s new national religion: forced assimilation. The writer is a lawyer who focuses
on gender and minority issues in the United States and South Asia.
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Many reasons to oppose the ban
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