The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Price of security
Damage control by US agencies

Terrorist plots were thwarted by data gathered by the US National Security Agency. Thus spake the NSA and its supporters recently while defending the massive vacuuming of data that goes through various electronic portals controlled or accessed by the US. What was long assumed has come to light in the wake of Edward Snowden’s disclosures which have shaken not only the US, but also the world, more so since there is now information about the widespread collection of data captured through electronic interception from various nations which have friendly relations with the US. India has the dubious honour of being the fifth most spied-upon country, according to one of the slides that has been revealed.

Damage control by US intelligence agencies has laid emphasis on the need for such programmes to identify and tackle terrorist plots. News reports point to how enormous the operation is, around 14 lakh people “top secret” clearance, among them, ironically, was the whistle blower Snowden. The intrusive nature of the programme is also to be gauged from the new facility that the NSA is building near Salt Lake City in Utah, USA. The huge building is expected to have a storage capacity of five trillion gigabits of data, and its cost is estimated at $ 1.2 billion.

There is no simple way of finding out the efficacy of such investments. By its very nature intelligence gathering is cloak and dagger stuff, kept far from the eyes of the ordinary public. The US has a demonstrated ability to vacuum huge amounts of electronic data. This is nothing new. After the latest revelations, the US authorities moved quickly to reassure its citizens that the privacy of ordinary Americans is intact. The elephant in the room is the foreign citizens and foreign nations. Information about intercepting diplomatic communications has turned up now, and there is no doubt that the US has lost much moral ground ever since the latest revelations have reverberated around the world. Even as it concentrates on securing its citizens, it also needs to evaluate the cost of such invasive intelligence gathering on its allies and those nations that it would like to have as allies.

Blood donation
Criminal negligence of safety norms

Hospitalisation due to critical health conditions and accidents routinely require safe blood transfusion. Despite clearly laid-down guidelines for blood donation, getting HIV infection through blood transfusion remains one of the worst nightmares for most patients. Such a nightmare turned into a reality in Mangaldoi Civil Hospital in Assam. A patient, hospitalised there, found himself to be HIV positive on discharge. In response to an RTI, he discovered the donor whose blood he received was HIV positive. The same person had donated blood for several other patients, and while the enquiry is on, four more receivers of this donor’s blood have braved stigma to declare their HIV positive status. Such a lapse in a government hospital has sent shock-waves to the receivers of blood transfusion across the country who trust the safety norms laid down by the government and hope they are implemented by the word.

The WHO (World Health Organisation) recommends that 1 to 3 per cent of a country’s population should give blood to meet the blood transfusion requirement. Voluntary blood donation is being promoted as a key strategy all over the world for meeting this requirement. Blood received by voluntary donors is less likely to be infected. Therefore, national blood transfusion services have joined hands with national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, community-based organisations, schools and colleges to increase the number of voluntary, regular blood donors. Yet, safe blood remains out of reach of millions who require it.

The provision of three-tier safety procedure to be followed to detect HIV positive donors is overlooked at times. This results in such criminal negligence by the hospital staff, who let the professional donor give infected blood to several patients. The Chief Minister of Assam has ordered the police to register a criminal case against the hospital staff and has demanded scrutiny of all the blood banks in the state. The blood banks across the country should use this incident as an opportunity to re-check their blood safety norms to avoid such tragedies.

Thought for the Day

If the skies fall, one may hope to catch larks. — Francois Rabelais

ARTICLE

A moderate at the helm in Iran
But he may not touch the N-programme
by S. Nihal Singh

The election of Mr Hassan Rowhani as the next President of Iran after eight years of Mr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is an event of considerable importance domestically and for the world. He was slotted as a moderate (a relative term in the Iranian lexicon) and won the endorsement of two former reformist Presidents (Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani) and belatedly fired the imagination of the youth, who had earlier decided to boycott an election notable for a preponderance of hardliners. And Mr Rowhani’s watchword in his campaign was moderation, an edict the West is hoping signifies a change of rhetoric, if not policy, towards the outside world.

An Iranian election is a highly regimented affair, with the President answerable and subordinate to the unelected Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. Besides, the candidates must be vetted and approved by a Guardian Council, which turned down the majority of aspirants, including Mr Rafsanjani. The other power centre is the institution of Revolutionary Guards. In 2009, when a vast majority of people felt that the election had been stolen to give Mr Ahmadinejad a second term, the authorities’ answer was suppression and the house arrest of the dissidents’ leader Hossein Mousavi.

That Mr Khamenei was quick to congratulate Mr Rowhani to signify his assent is a good omen. The difficulty is in determining whether it is a tactic or a change of direction. Iran is living under severe economic stress, with savage Western sanctions drastically cutting oil exports, plunging the Iranian currency to new lows and other edicts making the country’s international trade difficult to conduct. Among the riddles that remain to be solved is whether this is indeed a signal to the West that Tehran is now ready to talk meaningfully.

Significantly, Mr Rowhani, who is proficient in several European languages, apart from English, was his country’s nuclear negotiator during the time of President Khatami, whose rule was seen as an era of hope, a hope that remains unfulfilled. It was during Mr Rowhani’s charge that Iran consented to stop its uranium producing programme. But neither the President-elect nor anyone else in the Iranian leadership will give up nuclear processing, with the West’s efforts now directed at capping it below the 20 per cent limit Tehran says it is processing for its medical requirements.

There are several ways this problem can be approached, provided the new President, with the backing of the Supreme Leader, is able to build a measure of trust, which has been missing for a considerable time. There are, of course, a host of other issues, including the military supplies and, it is alleged, some fighters Iran sends to the Assad regime in Syria, a fellow Shia-dominated government. But the nuclear question will remain centre stage because the United States will insist on a mechanism that ensures that Tehran will not take the military option of nuclear weapons.

Perhaps the domestic aspects of the crisis in Iran are uppermost in the minds of Iranian leaders. In a sense, Iran was not affected by the Arab Spring that spread from Tunisia, to Egypt, to Yemen, to Libya and elsewhere like wildfire. After its own revolution, which toppled the Shah, there was an electoral mechanism weighted as it became in favour of the clergy and the revolution’s storm troopers, the Revolutionary Guards. And it seemed for a time that the Khatami presidency brought the dawn of a new, less constricted era in social freedoms as in politics. But those hopes were dashed as the clerical establishment, presided over by Mr Khomenei and supported by the Revolutionary Guards, exercised their veto.

The United States, Satan in Iranian folklore, has reacted with caution but some optimism. But before the West and Iran sit down for talks again, the two sides will need to put in place a set of policies that hold some promise. The task for Tehran is infinitely more difficult because it will have to convince the hardliners symbolised by Mr Khamenei that the country must take a new approach to get out the cul-de-sac it has largely created for itself. The country’s Parliament unsurprisingly is dominated by conservatives.

The irony is that given the nature of the election and the vetting process and the powers of the Supreme Leader, Parliament has the power of vetoing Cabinet ministers and often seems to take a perverse pleasure in hauling ministers it dislikes over the coals. At the same time, we saw the phenomenon of jubilant young men and women coming out on the streets to express their joy, with reformist newspapers hailing the victory of the “Sheikh of hope”.

In Iran’s opaque system of power relationships, it is difficult to divine how far Mr Khamenei is willing to go in order to take Iran out of the country’s serious problems of sky-high inflation, unacceptable levels of unemployment and a falling currency stemming from sanctions that prohibit most banking transactions and export of its main commodity, oil. That he has allowed Mr Rowhani to win the first round without tinkering with ballot boxes is one hopeful indication. But a host of sequential steps must follow if the promise of the new President is fulfilled in however small a measure.

The Arab Spring is one reminder of the consequences for leaders who refuse to bend in the face of overwhelming popular feelings. Despite the traditional practices of the Revolutionary Guards to suppress dissent, the youth have spoken yet again, forgetting the brutality of how the agitation over the 2009 election was blunted. Many Iranians, including the young, will be hoping that the pendulum will not revert to the year 2009, that the leaders, by conviction or expediency, will see the writing on the wall. It says there is only one way to go, and that is to reach out to the world and bring a measure of freedom and happiness to its long suffering people.

There are many contradictions in Iran, a country with a great civilisation and refinement in the arts and literature and a highly intelligent people being imprisoned in a system that not only kills joy but also their future.

MIDDLE

Father, Son and Holy Ghost
by Rajbir Deswal

I saw him sitting in the open when it was a very hot weather. But he appeared relaxed. The moment I entered my office, I sent for him. He was ushered in as if an umbrella was above him saving him from rain. But this was his posture and he was half-bent while he walked. He wore suspenders, more appropriately called gallous, to hold his trousers. He also wore a tie. He grabbed the glass of water offered to him with trembling hands. He kept it on the table after sipping a little bit from it, signalling to the attendant not to take it away since he might need more to drink from.

I asked him to wait till I disposed of some important papers. “Please take your time. Sitting here, I have no problem. Outside it is intolerable though.” He said and began turning his papers and the news reports he was carrying — yes, with trembling hands.

“Yes please, what can I do for you?” I asked him when he began his tirade, kept bottled as if in a cylinder till then. “Look, I am 82 years old. I can’t do that much running around as your people want me to. If they don't care for senior citizens, old and infirm, what is the use of all that civility? I have been running from pillar to post. No respite. All in the family work, and none can pursue the issue but only me staying at home, alone.” He continued stammering and at times sucking back saliva trickling involuntarily at times. His agitation seemed never to end.

Having a look at his petition I said, “Wow! You can still write such straight lines!” And this clinched the issue in my favour. “Do you know the way I wrote on the board being a professor in Punjab Engineering College? And do you know that I had rusticated a very senior police officer’s son for two weeks? And told him even if his dad brought Jawaharlal Nehru's pressure to bear upon me, I would not relent. Although I made up for his attendance marking him present thrice for one time, being a benevolent teacher, you see! Thank you, son. I will always remember you as mine own!” he said and walked out more confidently than when he had entered.

The one who entered after he had left also fumed. I saw his eyes turning red not with heat but with rage. Luckily for me he had sent in his visiting card which proclaimed that he was a certain nawab. When I reverentially addressed “Nawab Sahab” to “please be seated”, he melted and slouched in the chair. He became meek as a lamb. When he left, he asked me for permission if he could touch my feet! “Am not that old!” I pleaded but he wouldn’t budge and say, “I got my father today!” Oh my God! How child-like a man can become at times.

The third one for me to encounter was a train driver. He had a paraplegic son who he carried on his back, his wife having died due to protracted illness with none to take care of the son. His grief was etched on his face with deep furrows. The only way I could help him was to save him from his kith and kin who eyed his house with greed. He feared for the life of his son more than his own. As he said, “Despite all this, I drive all those hundreds of travellers safely. Like I hold my son on my back! Not letting him fall!”

No, he didn't break down — like he never did! Even while driving with a sense of responsibility in adverse circumstances.

The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost appeared right in front of me — Jesus!

Oped Culture

Monumental neglect
About 35 structures of great architectural relevance have vanished from their sites, from under the safety net of the Archaeological Survey of India. And, it has not ruffled feathers in the department — celebrating its 150th anniversary
Jasvinder Kaur

Faded frescos on the walls of Sheesh Mahal, Patiala

The frightening revelations would have remained buried in some official file, had it not been for a question raised in Parliament during Question Hour on March 12. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), the agency responsible for preserving India's ancient monuments and structures, admitted that 35 of its structures had gone missing. These structures had simply disappeared from under the ASI’s safety net.

It had no clue as to what had happened to these structures that included a prehistoric structure in Mysore, a 12th century temple in Rajasthan, guns used by Sher Shah Suri etc. In Delhi alone, 12 out of 174 monuments are untraceable. The vanishing pieces of history include—Moti Gate, Phool Chadar, Barakhamba cemetery, Alipur cemetery, Joga Bai Mound, Shamshi Tallab in Mehrauli, Nicolson Statue, Inchla Wali Gumti in Kotla Mubarakpur and others. The baffling question that remains unanswered is how can a monument become untraceable? Has it been removed brick by brick or dismantled for some other structure without notifying the ASI?

While the Agency says the reason for their disappearance is encroachment and development, it is in fact due to sheer neglect on the part of the authorities and a callous approach towards preservation of our heritage that stems perhaps from the fact that the premier agency responsible for conservation of monuments is severely understaffed and under funded.

Last year, the ASI was only able to clear 24 encroachments out of a reported 249, at monuments and heritage sites. The institution has the expertise and capability, as it has shown in carrying out major restoration work on the Angkor Wat temples at Siem Reap in Cambodia under UNESCO (The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization) guidance. Why it has not been able to use the same expertise to maintain and upkeep its own monuments in India, is not such a mystery. It can deliver provided the government treats conservation of monuments a priority to come up with a well drafted policy on it.

The long yarn of Punjab history

Archaeological sites of Punjab have unfolded several different cultures, which thrived from the Stone Age onwards. Hoshiarpur has 16 such Stone age sites where tools from this age have been unearthed. Some of the sites are Atbarapur, Rehmanpur and Takhni. Atbararpur has yielded 80 tools consisting of 9 hand-axes, 19 cleavers, 17 pebble tools etc. The tools are made of medium grained quartzite. Evidence of Indus Valley civilization was discovered at Hoshiarpur, Rupnagar and Sanghol. Archaeological Museum at Sanghol in Fatehgarh district houses antiquities from the Indus Valley Civilization (2000 BC) to later day Kushan and Gupta periods. The discovery of 117 Kushan sculptures at Sanghol was important, as it was for the first time that Kushan (1st - 2nd century AD) statues belonging to Mathura school were discovered outside the Mathura region. In spite of having such important historical sites, the Punjab government has failed to generate public interest and awareness to develop them as major tourist attractions.

Religious places form a very important part of our heritage and some of these are looked after by religious bodies. It is a different matter that the concept of looking after is different from how a 'conservator' would like it to be done. The challenge lies in keeping the original form and materials.

Punjab has a rich tradition of wall paintings, which are not well known beyond the local area as these have neither been advertised nor well preserved. Many of the frescoes have faded over the years. There are about ninety structures, which have beautifully painted walls. Among these are the Haveli of the Sandhanwalia Sardars (Raja Sansi), Shri Raghunath Temple (Amritsar), Gurdwara Baba Bir Singh (Naurangabad near Tarn Taran), Samadh of Bibi Bani( Kartarpur), Thakurdwara of Lala Chuhar Mal (Nakodar), Quila Mubarak (Patiala), Sheesh Mahal (Faridkot fort). A reality check would bring to light as to how many frescoes are still intact. At Sheesh Mahal (Malerkotla) the mirrors are most exquisitely painted with flowers and laid in beautiful arches. The ownership of this palace is under dispute and a legal battle is on between the Waqf board and some private entity. While courts take a long time to decide the case, the hall with the painted mirrors will be destroyed forever by the time the case is settled. There is lack of legal provision in such cases, which can offer an interim arrangement to facilitate conservation of such buildings.

While some structures are in a state of virtual collapse, the Punjab government has demolished some others. The 109-year-old building of Patiala Jail has already been razed and a hundred year old building at Sangrur is also in danger. There are other structures that the government has demolished with no concern for the importance the old structures hold for our heritage. Another report says that the building of the Government school for boys situated at Sangrur is to be razed. This building was commissioned by Raja Ranbir Singh of Jind in 1913.

Heritage- people’s responsibility

While governments can be blamed for a great many things, it is the responsibility of individuals to keep our culture alive. People deface monuments and often etch their names on the walls, buildings etc. It is important to pass the living and oral traditions and skills to the next generation. This living heritage gives us a sense of identity and continuity.

Many rich traditions of Punjab are extinct or are in the process of dying. Crafts like tinsel printing, indigo and madder dyeing have now disappeared from the map of Punjab. Even Kimkha'b fabric (a type of brocade) was woven at Nabha and Malerkotla but is virtually non-existent now. Early twentieth century had 300 factories manufacturing shawls where both Amli (embroidered) and Kani (woven or so called jamavar) shawls were made. Amritsar was known for its excellent indigo dyed shawls with gold or tilla embroidery. At one point there were as many as 6,493 weavers in Amritsar alone. In the catalogue of Indian Art at Delhi 1903, Sir George Watt lists different types of products which were exhibited at this big event and which came from the Punjab region.

Gold printing industry existed in Punjab, but there is none today. Tinsel (gold or silver) printing was done with gold or silver leaf. Cloth was first printed with a thin paste of kharia mitti (mud), suresh (fixer) and gond (glue) using water. To the design made with the paste, a leaf of gold or silver foil was applied. This type of work was known as nik-ka-kam. Natural dyes like madder and indigo were widely used in Punjab.

One may argue, in the era of machine made mass production of textiles, what is the relevance of keeping these traditions alive. It is important to keep our traditions for they provide us the knowledge of where do we come from, how have we travelled to the present state, and how different cultural streams at different times and geographical regions shaped our present cultural fabric. In 1950 Japan was the first country to introduce Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties and introduced legislation to preserve and promote intangible as well as tangible culture. UNESCO at its 32nd session in 2003 set out a framework for identifying forms of intangible culture. The convention became a milestone in the evolution of international policies for promoting cultural diversity. The main goal of this convention was for safeguarding the practices, expressions, knowledge and skills that communities recognize as part of their culture.

The fourth pillar of development

The cultural resource management is a vocation by which not only the cultural heritage is protected but is also managed. The scarce elements of cultural heritage are given consideration in the modern world. The resources are limited which are not used productively. The forts, archaeological sites etc. do not exist in a vacuum but are in an environment where people live and work. The sites are encroached upon and the forts are dilapidated. Under these circumstances decisions must be made to strike a balance between the various interests with an eye towards protection of cultural heritage balancing it with the needs of development.

2013 will be an important turning point for the way culture is treated by the governments. In July, a ministerial group of ECOSOC (United Nations Economic and Social Council) will meet at Geneva to assess the role of culture for sustainable development. Contrary to the view that culture is decorative or secondary to development, mainstreaming and integrating it is crucial for development. Culture is about creativity, heritage, knowledge and diversity. These values are recognized as the 'cultural dimension’ (or the fourth pillar) of sustainable development. The myth regarding relationship between culture and development has been that an emphasis on cultural differences and continuity of traditions would lead to social and political conflicts, perpetuate inefficient government and thus hamper development. In fact there is no evidence that cultural diversity leads to fragmentation and conflict. Development rooted in culture and sensitive to local context is in fact the only one, which is likely to be sustainable. As Nobel Prize winner Amaratya Sen explains, “cultural matters are integral parts of the lives we lead. If development can be seen as enhancement of our living standards, then efforts geared to development can hardly ignore the world of culture”. It is for the first time that cultural issues are specifically integrated as one of the themes of the ECOSOC debate.

What Punjab needs is a vision to frame a culture policy. It is the responsibility of the government to safeguard the cultural heritage and develop the resources in such a way that it adds to the economy of the state. Tourism is one of the areas that Punjab needs to look into. It has potential in development of religious, historical and archaeological tourism. States like Rajasthan and Gujarat are giving a lot of importance to tourism. Many countries have been able to develop the economy by developing tourism like Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, etc. In Cambodia the town of Siem Reap has grown just to cater to the influx of the tourists who come to see the largest Hindu temple in the world at Angkor Wat. Businesses centred around tourism have flourished due to the boom in tourist flow. It is the responsibility of the government to take positive steps so that we leave a rich cultural heritage and a sound economy for the future generations.

The vanishing act

The historic monuments, missing from different states include Arunachal Pradesh-1, Assam-1, Karnataka-1, Gujarat-2, Haryana-2, Rajasthan-2, Jammu & Kashmir-3, Uttarakhand-3, Uttar Pradesh-8 and on top of the list is Delhi with 12. They all add up to 35 missing structures.

Some of the missing protected monuments are - Guns of Emperor Sher Shah in Assam, Two Kos Minars in Haryana, Rock Carving in J&K

Victims of encroachment are Prithvi Raj Chauhan Fort at Hissar, Buddist stupa at Champaran, Prehistoric rock shelter at Raison, ancient burial cave at Trissur, rock cut caves at Bongaigaon, Jama Masjid at Agra, Ellora caves, and Golkonda fort.

Other conservators

3,675 centrally protected monuments in India

Apart from ASI, other players who have conserved many more building in India are

Monuments and Sites( India)

INTACH(Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural heritage)

WMW(World Monument Watch)

UNESCO (The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization)

The writer is a textile researcher who has worked at the National Museum, New Delhi and Muse’es d’at et histoire, Geneva