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Strong and single
Bonded entry
Literacy among women |
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Efforts to win over the Taliban
A friend, colleague and ideal
Back to traditional crops
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Strong and single
Post-elevation, Narendra Modi has held his first pre-election rally at Pathankot, where he has criticised the UPA for having two centres of power. There is no dearth of issues to find fault with when it comes to UPA governance. But it does not behove a BJP leader to talk of two power centres in the Congress regime when the main Opposition party itself is run through a remote control from Nagpur as recent developments have indicated. If the Gujarat Chief Minister claims he would be the sole power centre in case the BJP returned to power, he is deluding himself apart from reflecting his individualistic - some call it autocratic — style of leadership. Indecisiveness or policy paralysis has been a major drawback of UPA rule. By positioning himself as a strong leader, Modi is reaching out to a section of urban India that is impatient with the slow pace of reforms and governance. But in this era of coalition governments it is difficult for a prime minister or the dominant ruling party to disregard the views of other coalition partners. Otherwise, coalitions split. Both the UPA and the NDA have experienced this. In fact, a major deterrent to Modi realising his dream of becoming Prime Minister is his lack of acceptability within his own party as well as other like-minded political parties. In the UPA at least Dr Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi have forged a fine balance even if their views differ on reforms and welfare, fiscal consolidation and populism. The BJP's intra-party differences are well known. Even if one leaves the RSS aside, there is apparently no unanimity in the party on the leadership issue. L.K. Advani is still not reconciled to the rise of Modi. Modi talks of development, while a strong section in the BJP is devoted to Hinduttva. For Modi to play the role of a decisive leader at the national level, he will have to either get a clear majority for his party, which seems unlikely, or learn to carry other leaders along through humility and tact.
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Bonded entry
Indians
who want to visit the UK may have to deposit a £3,000 cash bond which they will forfeit in case they overstay when the new immigration rules are implemented in the UK. British Home Secretary Theresa May is pressing ahead with her plan, which has already attracted critical attention in the UK. Indeed, the pilot for the project is slated for November in which selected new arrivals would have to pay the bond before entering Britain. Other nations singled out for this dubious honour include Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nigeria and Ghana. Citizens of these nations would have a reason to be resentful for being singled out in this manner. The UK Home Office may have decided on the basis of statistics that these are “high-risk” countries, but surely those who overstay form a tiny minority of the law-abiding citizens who visit the UK and leave it on time. They would certainly feel aggrieved. The issue of people overstaying their welcome in various developed economies is a tricky one. While on the one hand, various governments want to stem the flow of illegal immigration and even curb legal immigration, on the other they have to be sensitive to the feelings of genuine visitors. Australia and New Zealand have bonds, whereas Canada dropped the plan after it was criticised as discriminatory. In the UK, Prime Minister David Cameron's government is under pressure from the populist United Kingdom Independence Party and it wants to show that it is serious about cutting immigration and abuses of the system. The Conservatives have successfully cut down immigration through a series of tough and controversial measures. However, the latest one may well backfire. Visitors to the UK have to pay rather high visa fees. An additional Rs 2.7 lakh deposit may be the reason for a change of plan for many of them. Indeed, it is not the additional money alone, but the fact that it may also be seen as discriminatory, which is truly where the pinch is.
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Literacy among women IN a democracy that ensures equal rights for all, irrespective of caste, community or gender, the benefits accorded to women always turn out to be far less compared to the privileges enjoyed by men. Gender disparity prevalent across cultures is responsible for a wide gap in the literacy rate too. In 2011 census 82.14 per cent men and only 65.46 per cent women were found to be literate in India. Women with low literacy suffer disproportionately more than men, encountering more difficulties in finding a well-paying job and being twice as likely to end up in the group of lowest wage earners. This is apart from the much talked about dramatically negative impact it bears on family planning and population stabilisation programmes. Surprisingly, after Kerala, two hill states — Mizoram and Himachal Pradesh — showed remarkable improvement in their literacy programmes, especially for females. Their unprecedented success was attributed to the lack of social stratification in the hill states. Against this background, the literacy rate of women in J & K, another hill state, is alarmingly low. Against the average state literacy rate for women at 56.43 per cent, in some districts it is as low as 38 per cent. Surprisingly, Leh and Ladakh, with their difficult geographical terrain, have shown better results — 77 per cent — as far as female literacy is concerned. To meet these challenges, the Central government had implemented programmes like the National Literacy Mission and the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan. It pinpointed four major causes, including “gender-based inequality”, for the failure of the literacy mission. Women’s literacy is very vital for increasing their participation in decision-making processes and the success of democracy. In HP, the government identified illiterates and organised an administrative structure that engaged officials and community leaders responsible for teaching five illiterates each. Mizoram established 360 continuing education centres to handle school dropouts for continued education. The government of J &K can take a cue from these states to educate its girls.
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You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. — Jack London
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Efforts to win over the Taliban Positive
stirrings bring hope of new beginnings. A brief visit to Kabul suggests that Afghanistan may be at a turning point. There was a suicide attack on Kabul airport the day we were to fly there and another bombing in a provincial city. The Afghan security forces (SF), police and military, dealt with these effectively. Some 13 militants were killed for no loss to the SF, indicating a level of training and ability to confront terror that is reassuring as the US/ISAF forces wind down and largely pull out of combat operations by 2014. This impression stands despite the suicide attack the very next day on the staff leaving the Supreme Court at the end of day, killing 14 and injuring over 38. The local reaction was one of disgust and scorn at the mindless killing of innocents, not fear. A security alert over the city was lifted within hours and traffic was soon moving and the streets bustling. Security is extremely tight, especially around government buildings, the diplomatic quarter and hotels, all of which offer high-value targets. The Indian Embassy and Chancery are like fortresses; but the officials and security staff are in fine fettle. The nation's Upper Chamber was in session in our hotel on the second day (while India constructs a new Parliament building) and the trend of discussion favoured strengthening the process of reconciliation with the Taliban, even while combating cross-border espionage and intrusion from Pakistan. The previous day, President Karzai, close on his visit to India, had spoken at the tenth US-Islamic summit in Doha where he detailed the progress being made by his country. But at the heart of his address was a call to the US and the West to introspect on whether an unintended consequence of the war on terror had not, in fact, been to increase Islamic radicalism in the name of fighting it. Terror sanctuaries had been left untouched — a scarcely-veiled reference to Pakistan — and America's double standards on Palestine had alienated Muslim opinion worldwide. And now comes the Taliban announcement of its willingness to seek peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan and to open talks with the Afghan High Peace Council (HPC) set up by President Karzai in 2010. Tragically, the Council's head, Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani, a respected religious scholar, former President and a minority Tadjik leader, well suited to bridge the Afghan ethnic divide, was assassinated last September. Though Rabbani's loss was a major setback, the latest turnaround restores the salience of the HPC which is due to meet the Taliban in Qatar and will thereafter repatriate the peace process to Afghanistan. Three significant points need to be noted. The Taliban initiative follows a firm announcement of the US/ISAF military withdrawal. Since the Taliban's declared objective was a nationalist determination to fight the foreign invader — first the Soviets and now the US-led coalition — a major cause of action is in the process of being ended. To this extent, it was always the case that the US was as much part of the problem in Afghanistan as of the intended solution. The Taliban's call for talks was accompanied by the statement that its political and military goals are strictly limited to Afghanistan and it wishes no harm to other countries (such as the US). This sharply differentiates the nationalist Taliban from the ideologically motivated al-Qaida, which has a crusading radical-Islamic agenda. Unfortunately, the Taliban overreached itself by designating its new contact office in Doha as the "Political Office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan", replete with the Taliban flag. It was also enraged by the US opening talks with the Taliban in Qatar, protesting that the peace process must be led by the Afghan government. Karzai has angrily called off talks with both the US and the Taliban. Hopefully, the spat will be defused and negotiations will move forward. Winning over the Taliban could prove a decisive factor in shaping unfolding events and would give peace and reconciliation a real chance within a purely Afghan framework. For this to work, certain other things are necessary. The US and the West should not seek to make Afghanistan an "ally" or strategic asset with bases from which to seek to influence events in Iran and Central Asia. Afghanistan's future lies in being neutral and becoming a hub for trade and commerce while fostering its own opening up and industrialisation by inviting global investments based on its iron ore, copper and other mineral wealth (in which India and China are already involved) and by returning to its historic role as a crossroads of Asia, criss-crossed by highways, pipelines and power transmission lines. TAPI, or a Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, has long been mooted, with extensions further afield at both ends. Perhaps, even more importantly, Pakistan should abjure its search for "strategic depth" in Afghanistan to combat India, which it has obsessively portrayed as a vicious and permanent enemy to its own grief. The Haqqani network, with legs in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, may be willing to join the peace process, and Rawalpindi should encourage it to do so. The new Pakistan Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, wants to build a new relationship with India based on trust and cooperation to which Dr Manmohan Singh has warmly responded. Back channel talks have resumed and modalities are under discussion for Indian oil/gas and power supplies to relieve Pakistan's immediate energy crisis. In this situation, a budgetary grant to the Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD), spawned by the LeT when it was labelled a terrorist organisation by the UN, and headed by Hafez Saeed, who masterminded the 26/11 attack on Mumbai, was an avoidable irritant. The government maintains that this is to maintain the JuD's medical and other social services that are now supervised by it. Meanwhile, India has agreed to receive a second Pakistani judicial commission to examine 26/11 witnesses in Mumbai in pursuance of its own trial proceedings against Zakiur Rahman Lakhvi and six other 26/11 Pakistanis accused in the Mumbai attack. Bringing the Pakistani masterminds and handlers to book would be a powerful confidence-building measure, if combined with implementation of Nawaz Sharif's renewed assurances that Pakistani soil will not be allowed to be used for cross-border terror against India. At home, the JD(U)-BJP rift has split the NDA and shown up the BJP's internal divides. Fresh political alignments may be expected. The UPA Cabinet reshuffle and Congress party organisational changes signify little. More pertinent would be bold implementation of proposed policy and systemic reforms that could be the Congress path to salvation. Meanwhile, the devastating floods caused by an unprecedented cloudburst in the upper Bhagirathi valley, that sent down 450 mm of rain in a few days against a 70 mm norm, together with a debris-dam lake outburst, holds out lessons. No eco-zoning would have averted this natural disaster. Urbanisation and flood management certainly call for better design and operation of flood, drainage and warning systems, given aberrant climate change impacts, and this cannot be left to multiple authorities bereft of nodal control. The calamity in turn, with tens of thousands of pilgrims endangered and stranded, surely suggests that a curb on pilgrim numbers is desirable, as at Amarnath, while banning storages in so-called sacred upper catchments is both unwise and unproductive. Beware of emotional
irrationality.
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A friend, colleague and ideal
I
met him first in December 1941, at the Patna AISF (All-India Students Federation) conference — he a delegate from Punjab and I from the then state of Madhya Pradesh. There was something attractive about his fair, handsome, lean but wiry demeanour, with a very mobile, intelligent look which drew attention towards him. War had broken out — a war between two imperialist camps. But before we convened at Patna fascist Germany had perfidiously attacked the socialist Soviet Union. The thousand delegates that had converged on Patna from all over the country had many things to discuss. Student activists in those days took to politics as smoothly as ducks to water. The freedom struggle drew us powerfully. Events and happenings in the world abroad deeply interested and fascinated us. We all delegates plunged neck-deep in heated political debates. Had the character of the war changed following the attack on the Soviet Union? We resolved that it did. It was now an anti-fascist war of liberation. Satpal Dang emerged as a powerful debater. After the conference we all went back to our respective states and continued to work in the student movement. There was a Bengal famine which occupied all our energies in 1943. The Punjab contingent of AISF volunteers who organised relief work during the Bengal famine and its aftermath included a bright girl, Vimla Bakaya, who later became the wife of Satpal. In 1945 Satpal Dang was elected the general secretary of the AISF. I was its joint secretary along with such other comrades as Harish Tiwary. This period saw the dawn of freedom in our country, but with the price that we paid in the form of partition. The days preceding freedom were tumultuous in the extreme. The AISF under the leadership of Satpal Dang frequently brought out students into the streets, for the release of INA prisoners and an end to the farcical trial of INA officers. This was followed by the widespread strikes of students and all sections of the people in solidarity with the RIN Revolt. Dang was our leader and commander in all these student actions. In fact, we can be proud and claim that through all this we were like a stream that flowed into the mighty current of the liberation movement that finally led to freedom. Satpal Dang had made Chheharta in Amritsar the centre of his activities. People elected him as the president of the Chheharta municipality for a number of years. He showed how to work at the grossroots level. Later in 1967 he was elected to the Punjab State Assembly. In the United Front Government that came into existence in Punjab he was made the Food Minister. It was he who first introduced the rationing system in the state, ensuring food security to all, first and foremost to the poorer sections of the people. He was again elected to the Assembly where his performance remained a model for others. After he stopped contesting. Vimla Dang was elected from the same constituency. Unfortunately in 1980 the Khalistan movement broke out in Punjab. Normal democratic life and activity became difficult. The then state secretary of the party, Darshan Singh Canadian, was killed in broad daylight. Around 200 communists fell victim to terrorism. Leaders of all parties were provided with security by the government. Satpal and other communist leaders continued their work along with security. At this time I had several occasions to visit Punjab and meet Satpal. He was the originator of the slogan: "Na Hindu Raj, Na Khalistan, Jug Jug Jiye Hindustan.!" This was both an appropriate political slogan and a call to action. It electrified all political activists and democratic masses who believed in the secular unity and integrity of the country. It was a stirring call against religious fundamentalism and in defence of secularism. I remember Satpal Dang and his few security personnel took me round Amritsar and the adjoining districts, meeting individuals and holding group meetings. In the midst of this terrorist threat we also had occasion to address two trade union conferences. For a day and night I stayed in the Dera of Arjun Singh Mastana, our militant MLA from the border constituency of Attari a week after this he was killed. The CPI's political activities at this critical time will always remain a glorious page in the struggle against disruptive forces. Satpal and his comrades were the inspirers of this historic activities. My dear friend and comrade of several decades is now no more. He was my friend and colleague. He remained my ideal through all these
years.
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Back to traditional crops
BY diversification, profitability and risk parameters are sure to be distorted.. In spite of mannequin reports on diversification of agriculture of Punjab and surrounding areas which tasted and enjoyed the fruits of the Green Revolution, the area under wheat and paddy has been constantly increasing over time, touching the peak now. In the rice-wheat system, the wheat crop is traditional and not so ecologically unfriendly but paddy stormed into the cropping pattern during the 1970s and has now come to occupy 67 per cent of the cultivated area in the kharif season in Punjab and 33 per cent in Haryana. Thus to diversify some area from paddy to other crops, the Union Budget 2013-14 has made a provision of Rs500 crore. Now we are confronted with two basic questions. What purpose of crop diversification will serve at this juncture? How to bring it about logically and without jeopardising the nation's food security and farmers' economy?
Journey from food shortages to surpluses The nation was in the grip of a food problem in the post-Independence era and even heavy food import bills could cater to the situation only partially. With the onset of technological transformation in agriculture since the mid-sixties, the Green Revolution belt provided not only a food security cover to the country but also generated huge exportable surpluses. But the dependence of the nation on this high potential food belt appears to be receding. With the recent expansion of irrigation infrastructure, the food deficit states are progressing at a fast rate but the Green Revolution belt having exploited most of its potential is getting engulfed into stagnation. Moreover, ecological concerns of this area are increasingly taking a serious turn. The overexploitation of natural resources, particularly causing decline in the quantity and quality of water, soil health, indiscriminate use of agro-chemicals etc are adding to social costs and do not find much justification for generating foodgrain surpluses, which are piling up to unmanageable levels for long term storage, domestic market and even for exportable trade. The quandary of the situation is that these surplus buffer stocks were achieved because of a favourable climate for over a decade in a row and we should not lose sight of possibility of any adversity in the future. Secondly, still a large chunk of our population (about 30 per cent in India and even 16 per cent and 20 per cent in Punjab and Haryana states respectively) is below the poverty line and thus deprived of two square meals. Let us also strive to improve the distribution of food in reality so that the food subsidy should reach the poor in reality. Therefore, completely dismantling this food bowl is not justified but cutting it short through diversification and maintaining it through various other corrective measures is a better feasible solution.
Three stakeholders with conflicting claims Let us not be too enthusiastic to do it overnight, overlooking the interest of some sections of society. There are three stakeholders with conflicting claims in the diversification aspect. The nation wants to alter the production pattern for lessening the surpluses but at the same time does not want to completely lose this food security belt forever. The state wants to tide over the accelerating environmental concerns. The farmer also wants diversification to come about but without losing his livelihood and least vulnerable alternatives. By diversification, profitability and risk parameters are sure to be distorted. The gap thus caused has to be compensated through market support and other indirect measures. Some feasible areas for diversification need to be taken as following:
The intergraded pest management (IPM) model successfully demonstrated by Sir Ratan Tata Trust is already in operation in Punjab. With almost comparable profitability of cotton and paddy it can work well and needs acceleration. Keeping farmers abreast of national and global markets, strengthening warehousing facilities for cotton, the economical use of cotton sticks etc are also essentially required.
This would not only help in reducing water requirements but also improve the soil health and check air pollution as its straw rather than being burned gets used as livestock feed and is thus recycled in the soil. Further, being a short duration crop it can accommodate a number of vegetable crops such as peas, potato and onion and short duration pulses in the crop rotations. The retail chain system is the strong need of the hour at this juncture. Working out a break-even price at which it can compete with non-basmati crop and supporting it effectively is essential to divert another 1½ lakh ha in the first instance.
Therefore, with these few salient possibilities, it is possible to diversify about 6-7 lakh ha with a little effort and set the ball rolling. All these alternatives are based on the existing potential crops which have already been tasted and tested by farmers. Suggesting new enterprises against the natural conditions would be rather disastrous and may not yield effective results. It has to be done in a market-driven phased manner. Waiting for a complete and perfect solution overnight may mean waiting for ever. — The writer is a former Professor & Head, Department of Economics & Sociology, PAU, Ludhiana
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