The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Minor’s rape, abduction
It raises questions about juvenile justice

THE verdict given by the Faridkot District and Sessions Jugde in the Nishan Sigh case cleared many misgivings about the abduction and rape of the minor girl from Faridkot, spread by the state police. A lot of credit for this delivery of justice should go to the girl's courageous parents and their neighbours and friends who stood by the family in their struggle to seek justice against the mighty and the strong in the state. Once the whole picture became clear about the 15-year-old girl’s abduction and rape, it was apparent that had Nishan Singh been punished for his criminal acts in juvenile courts, for about 18 cases filed against him, he may not have become such a hardened criminal. Secondly, his political affiliations emboldened him to get away with the abduction of the girl in broad daylight against physical resistance by her parents and neighbours.

It reminded one of the Gundaraj of Hindi cinema. The incongruity in handling the minor's abduction by the police became apparent right in the beginning when they disclosed the minor's name to the media. They did not stop there. Stories appeared in the media about the willingness of the girl to marry her abductor Nishan Singh, their happy wedding pictures and the alleged love letters written by the minor to her two- time abductor she fell in love with, the typical Hindi film style. All these narratives were woven against the resolute will of the girl's parents who stood their ground to get their daughter back from the clutches of a criminal.

All law-abiding denizens, who would like to repose trust in the democratic institutions, have felt appalled by the manner in which the police handled this case; weaving lies after lies to save its own skin. The police showed lack of conscience in siding with a criminal for his political affiliations which brought shame to this institution. At the same time, by showing no leniency in giving double life imprisonment to Nishan, the court has delivered a strong message to all such aspirants to crime, who would like to hide behind a political clout.

Road to Rohtang
Balancing ecology and tourism

THE Government of Himachal Pradesh has taken a number of steps to preserve the ecology of the popular Rohtang Pass that provides a motorable way to connect the Kullu valley with the Lahaul and Spiti valleys. The pass has important strategic value, and it is only open for some months in the summer. Since it provides a vital link, it is maintained by the Border Roads Organisation and the security forces get priority in using it.

The summer tourist season brings in a large number of civilians, and to cater to them, a number of eating places spring up on the road, especially the stretch from Marhi to Rohtang. Cars and other vehicles slowly snaking up the highway and crawling back is a common site on the days when the pass is open to public. The many dhabas and vehicles have added to the ecological woes of the region. The district administration has taken some steps to combat the haphazard proliferation of dhabas, even going to the extent of specifying the number of eating places in Marhi and Rohtang.

While the existing dhaba owners are well within their rights to seek a judicial review, it remains to be seen how much their arguments will cut ice in the courts. Local taxi drivers, on the other hand, will welcome the decision because of which they will be able to go up the pass on alternate Tuesdays. However, this will cut into the time that the BRO had been allocated for maintenance, since traditionally the pass was closed every Tuesday to take care of the road. Then there is the impact of the vehicles, both noise and atmospheric pollution that comes with them. The need of the hour is to balance the requirements of the local population and the tourists, without negatively impacting the eco-system of a pass that is known for its unpredictable weather and whose name translates into 'mountain of bones’.

Thought for the Day

A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on. — John F. Kennedy

ARTICLE

Chinese assertiveness
It's time for introspection
by Rakesh Datta

Describing India's relations with China is no less than a "Eureka moment", said one senior Admiral. Despite the fact that the two trace their relations to ancient times, India's knowledge, assessment, experience and understanding of Chinese political and military mind is not what it ought to have been.

They confronted each other openly in 1962 when India's military capability was not found up to the mark. Things have not changed much during these more than five decades. It may not be prudent to say that we have been watching idly China adding to its military muscle, and Indian politico-military thinking towards strategic decision-making on China remaining frightful.

It was more or less in public domain when former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee asked General Padmanabhan, the then Army Chief, the required marching time for undertaking Operation Parakram. The reply was "twenty days". General Manekshaw during the 1971 war insisted for six months. While Kargil was no different, the recent standoff too was underplayed as merely of tactical value by the present Army Chief.

It may be pointed out that the tactical action proposed at Rakhi Nala during the latest dispensation was actually no different from what Mr B.N. Mullick, then IB chief, predicted --- that Chinese would not interfere with Indian posts once those had been established. It was acted upon as late as July 10, 1962, when Chinese surrounded the Galwan post. They withdrew when threatened with the use of force. Logistically, the Army was unable to supply its men with suitable equipment and provisions for the Himalayan conditions.

On September 8, 1962, Chinese forces crossed the McMahon line in the Kemang division of NEFA. The Government of India (GOI) confirming the report officially on September 13 underplayed the attack, saying that Chinese forces had appeared in the vicinity of one of the posts.

Unfortunately, the GOI always had the strong conviction that the border problem would be solved amicably. In fact, all border incidents during that time — at Barahuti, Damzan, Nilang, Kurik, Walong, Khurnak posts, etc — were between the Chinese army on one hand and Indian police personnel on the other. It was only in April 1960 that the responsibility of the northern frontier was handed over to the Indian Army. Interestingly, now it was the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) which was managing the frontiers at selected places with not much coordination with the local army commanders. Things are only routed through New Delhi.

The Chinese leadership in its relations with India continued to maintain an attitude of being gullible. While at Durban on March 25 this year the new Chinese President, Xi Jing Ping, met the Indian Prime Minister with all the cordiality expected, but during the next fortnight the Chinese dream of strategic thinking and protecting national sovereignty and security was realised by crossing the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh. The incursion could only have been to empower the new Chinese leadership in their dealings with India from a position of strength.

Increasing trade with China and the growing business ties with a target of reaching $100 billion bilateral trade level in the next two years is a prudent strategy, keeping in view the new geo-economic realities. But will it help circumventing Chinese military designs on India in the long run? One has to read Chinese history to understand its expansionist policy spread over four dynasties --- the Hans, Tangs, Mongols and Manchus -- taking Chinese arms to the four corners of central and eastern Asia. During the Hans dynasty, the traditional expansionist policy was known as "t' san shih", which means to eat gradually. In Beijing's view, all boundary questions are the legacies of the past as a result of unequal treaties and need a satisfactory settlement.

In a wider perspective, China also considers all disputed areas belonging to it, which also points to its blatant contempt for any agreement signed with its neighbours for resolving disputes through negotiations. A major constituent of the Chinese foreign policy has been territorial and military expansion at the cost of its weak neighbours with a view to ensuring security and gaining power to challenge them. In Chinese understanding of international politics, there are no friends but only enemies and vessel states.

There is nothing to feel empowered or emboldened on the Chinese act of silent withdrawal in Ladakh though seen under Indian pressure. It could have been dictated by Sino-centrism. After all, could the Chinese have tolerated Indian diplomatic success to override their dictum that "to be heard afar, bang your going on a hill top."

The Chinese have passed through their bidding time as acclaimed by Deng Xiaoping. That is the reason for their aggressiveness even on their eastern shore where India is again seen as an irritant. POK and SCS are China's latest weapons for gaining territorial assets, fetching them vast riches of oil and natural gas, besides strategic waterways.

India must adopt a strong innate posture. Pending the border dispute, we must not allow POK to be impregnated by the Chinese. India has openly declared that the South China Sea must remain navigationally free and has sought to resolve all sovereignty issues in consistent with the international law. After all, close to Chinese traditionalism, India too thinks of its contours that existed during British India. We are the largest country in South Asia. Our military budget is the third largest in the world with equally strong armed forces. We are a nuclear weapon country and it is difficult to understand what stops us from protecting our national honour and prestige.

We must not underplay the Chinese act of intrusion or aggression. It will only justify to the Chinese society and the world that the Chinese do not indulge in wrong-doings. The Chinese have built their military and logistic requirements on their side of the borders while our dithering posture of not doing anything with the assumption that it may annoy our neighbours lacks credibility. Chinese came and went back to the earlier position in Ladakh, but what next? Do we have a plan to check any more such intrusions in future?

Let's be truthful: if the government has given an assurance to the Chinese for not building any defences on our side of the LAC, then it actually means yielding to their dictates or, as Sun Tzu had said, "influencing adversaries mind". But it surely compels us to introspect. After all, we have been reiterating all through these years that we have moved beyond 1962.

The writer, Professor and Head, Department of Defence and National Security Studies, Panjab University, was a member of the National Security Advisory Board, Government of India.

MIDDLE

Life has many gifts to offer, but…
by Rana Nayar

As we get to the last phase of our working life, we all tend to look back and evaluate our work. It is a way of reassuring ourselves that our life has really been worth it. I suppose we all need that consolation before we slide imperceptibly into old age.

In some professions, you don't really have to take the trouble of assessing your life's work, as it is generally left to people who know better. In the government job, for instance, it's always your boss who writes your CR, regardless of whether or not he has the competence to do so.

And if an IAS officer wants to know how successful he has been, all he has to do is to look at a long, unending queue of people, always waiting to bow and scrape at his feet. But that happens only so long as you are in job. Once you retire, the long queues shrivel up and get dry.

In some professions, you don't even have to browse through a thick file of your CRs. Especially, if you are either a lawyer or a doctor. Just glance at their bank balance, and you would know how much they have contributed to life.

If you happen to be a management professional, you won't have to go far. Annual appraisals would have piled up into a neat heap. One glance at a heap, and you would know their importance. Sometimes, the rising career and salary graph may also serve as a gentle reminder.

Of course, the case of teachers is materially different. No feedback, no CRs, no appraisals and, certainly, no serpentine queues of people waiting to pay obeisance at their door. You teach thousands of students, and not many of them come back to tell you how good or bad you were.

The students either curse you under their breath or silently send up a prayer of gratitude. You never quite know whether or not you have made any difference to their lives. Once they get into the business of living, the teacher ceases to be anything more than a tiny speck on their mental horizon.

The teacher's greatest gift is the gift of the gab, that is, if at all she/he has it. She/he casts words into air the way a child casts pebbles into water. They only create ever-widening ripples into students' consciousness before they sink to the bottom, unnoticed.

Not all teachers are as lucky as some to be able to wield the pen. Even among those who do, not all succeed in leaving behind a magnum opus worthy of a Nobel Prize. We all do what we can. We all live according to the plan either we have or He has.

So, when one colleague trashes the work of another or just sneers at someone else's life's work — saying, "Oh, what has he done?" — you wonder if she/he understands this simple truism that "life is art of the possible." And no one ever rises above the level of one's incompetence.

Life has many gifts to offer, but being judged harshly by one's peers is certainly not one of them.

OPED-THE ARTS

A village is transformed — the modern art way
Can modern art be made useful to village folks? A few artists who assembled from different parts of the globe in a remote village of Kangra district have proved art not only exists, but it can also thrive outside urban gallery space without any institutional support
Vandana Shukla

Gunehar: The village, where ShopArt/ArtShop project was undertaken, has only two internet connections, yet it received 1,69,000 hits on its Facebook link in the last four weeks, opening new possibilities for art in public life. Photos: Pooja Gupta

If you thought large -scale events like Kochi Muziris Biennale, with budget running into crores of rupees, alone have the potential to transform a town through art, you could be wrong. For a week, beginning May 14th, a unique art project, the ShopArt/ArtShop, opened up a remote mountain village, Gunehar, in Kangra district to art lovers and travellers alike. The village is so nondescript— for lack of political and economic relevance, it does not even feature on Google map. A resident of this village, Frank Schlichtmann, invited about 13 national and international conceptual artists to set up art shop in the empty shop spaces of the village and work towards an exhibition that would integrate modern art with local materials and traditions.

Frank asked the artists to stay put in the village for a month and give an 'alternative meaning' to the empty shops scattered around Gunehar. For some curious reason, people in the area build shops whenever they have extra money- as an investment, hoping the shops would generate extra income. But often, the shutters remain down with a 'To Let' board. In Gunher, where the major economic activity is agriculture, there is no dearth of such shops.

The valley as gallery

Modern art is created for the gallery audience, which rests on a presumption of a certain degree of boundaries drawn towards the concept and exploration of art. Also, the artist creates in his/her privacy before the work of art is 'presented' to an audience, which ensures the raw process of creation remains private, exposed only to the eyes of the artist. The challenges before the artists for the project were manifold; they had no gallery, no initiated audience and they had to create their art in the open, in the closed down shops of the market area, preferably, with the involvement of the local people.

Since the 21st of April, the artists lived in the village and explored multiple points of entry to the project. Gunehar neither has a hotel nor a guest house, this ensured that the artists would integrate with the local population easily. The selection of artists by Frank also ensured that no genre of art remained unexplored. Three young conceptual artists drove all the way from Karnataka, all graduates of the prestigious Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, Banglore. Others flew in from as far off places as Hong Kong, South Africa, and Mexico etc. And KM Lo came with his unique technique of making micro- budget cinema to help the village young explore their myths and narratives with the aid of new affordable technology. The uninviting chauk, the central square of the village was painted afresh by Edgar and Frank with graffiti, arousing curiosity of the villagers.

Art and utility

All the invited artists remained courageously out of the fixed tag given to their art and explored new concepts to blend utility with art. "I did not wish to begin with mountains, simply because it's a village nestled in the hills, i used to sit in the shop and look at the feet and the footwear- they seemed so different and they related to the class- the Rajput shoes, children's shoes, gaddi shoes, they seemed to say much about the life and journey of the wearer," says Spriha Chokhani, who runs a studio in Kolkata, where she creates sturdy furniture with papier mache. She helped Anil Kumar, a shop owner, infuse new life in his tea- shop with the help of recycled waste paper, turned into utility objects and art, both.

Tanja Wessels, who beautified the mundane baskets

The legs of the stools made of paper pulp donned different types of shoes, to engage the visitor with. Anil has created beautiful curtains with paper to cover the empty shelves and has carved Noughts and Crosses game with paper pulp, that he encourages his visitors to play, this increases the time spent by a visitor in the shop. One could also observe Britannia Raagi and Oats biscuits and Tropicana juices in his shop to attract the tourist who would pass by an ordinary tea-shop, on route to Billing. Dunichand, the village Pradhan observes, "About 40 to 50 percent more people have begun to come to Gunher, this has made a difference."

For Tanja Wessels, a British- South African conceptual artist, on her first ever visit to India, in the first ever brush with village life, the challenge was, how to create a concept that would touch the local's life. She observed people walk past the empty shop, while she cleaned and painted it. What attracted her attention was the ubiquitous kurdi (the long cone shaped basket used by women), she bought the fluorescent nylon ropes sold in local shops to create brightly decorated kurdis. The local women too learnt the art, but wondered, where would they use such beautiful baskets?" Perhaps, in weddings, to serve sweets" Anupama had an answer. And how much would they sell it for? "Not less than two thousand?" quips one of the girls. Kurdi- an object related to drudgery is transformed into a possession of pride and identity for the village women, with little intervention of art.

Tracing cultural routes

"Awaaz ki dukaan" attracts attention for its unusual merchandise- the sound. For Sindhu Thiramalaisamy, a young graduate from Srishti, who made a name for herself by her outstanding project on the sounds of a Bengalore hospital, was given a shop that used to sell music cassettes. Amid many unsold Bollywood music cassettes, she found a cassette of pahadi songs sung by a woman named Nilli, the sound was hazy. From this hazy song Sindhu chalked out a journey of discovery, the song became her entry point to know the people and their artistic expressions. She would play the song to local people, asking them if they knew the lyrics. Some said the song was Kulluvi, some said it was Dogri or gaddi and so on. Some would recollect shades of familiarity to decipher the lyrics, they gathered the meaning of the song, which expressed the search of a lonely woman in a forest for her mulk, her homeland, in a dark night. What began as curiosity engaged the community to piece together the lost song. They completed the lyrics, and towards the end decided to give wings to the woman, so that she could fly back to her mulk, her homeland. The song and its journey of rediscovery was recorded and people bought CDs of their own song, lost to time in Awaaz ki Dukan.

For Bianca Ballantyne, from Goa, who worked with the local children, the challenge was to break the mould of school art teaching. "I was shocked the first few days when i asked them to draw, they all drew similar drawings- a tree and a mountain and a river stream. I wanted them to understand art can integrate into their day- to- day life, if only they used materials easily available to them." Thus began the search for collecting pebbles, rocks, wood and leaves and turning them into objects of art. Bianca began with helping them make collages, to introduce an element of design and geometrical patterns in art. "They know how colours change with seasons, they understand time is not linear, it is cyclical, this knowledge is introduced in their work now."

The obvious question lurking in everybody's mind was, the project has been a success, but, what happens beyond this? "It will be a pity if nothing is built on it, we are putting the video documentation on the web. It's a collective responsibility to keep good things alive, and good is not such a difficult thing to define," concludes Frank.

A Skyscraper and flower shop

You walk the steep uphill climb from the market to reach the two schools the village has-junior and senior. For installation artist Vivek Chokalingam, who had come with the idea of creating an installation with junk and scrap, the real challenge was to find the right location. The village panchayat members, who were initially sceptical about "the monitory interest the artists had" eventually understood his concept and gave him the space, in between the two schools, where, on the outer wall of the junior school is inscribed, "Come to learn, go to serve." Vivek began building his "mountain skyscraper" with junk that he found on the hills, colourful chips and Kurkure wrappers were turned into birds, kurdis, the conical baskets and used-up old gears and farming tools became his building material. Initially, it gave him a feeling of unease, to work in the presence of curious children and elders. Soon, they began to participate. "Doing something in a valley in a quiet way is better and more rewarding. The village people offered me food and help, they worked with me, the entire process became educative and the experience- priceless," says Vivek, who will leave behind the installation for the village, as a gift. All the artists who worked for Art Shop/ShopArt project did not charge professional fee, their stay and tickets were paid by the curator, Frank.

The week long exhibition began with a music concert by Arjun Sen, the well known musician who gave score to films like "Khamosh Paani" and "Honey Hunters of the Blue Mountains." About 400 people attended the concert of contemporary music on electric guitar. On the concluding night of May 21, about 1500 people swayed to the local pahadi songs of Narender Thakur, known in the region as the King of Nati. Was it a village mela or an art project? The lines were blurred.

We may not share the same language but, all women understand beauty, they walk up to me to say, it's beautiful

— Elena Pereira, Dutch artist who created Phoolon ki dukan( the flower shop)

Tuk Tuk Cinema

KM Lo, the renowned film maker who popularised micro-budget feature films created One Rupee Movie Theatre, that screened films made by the local kids, after a 21-day zombie/animation/sci-fi filmmaking workshop. The film made on 10 lazy brothers who rescued the princess, was screened on the last evening and the audience was not shy of exploding in raptures.

The advantage of doing something like this in a place away from galleries and media is, it is not hindered by a culture where artist grows bigger than art — Frank Schlichtmann, curator project Shop Art/Art Shop