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A slap too many Mamata eats humble pie |
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Political consensus on foreign policy
Rest in peace, Patchee
General Musharraf is indicted, finally
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A slap too many This
time it was sad. Like him or hate him, but the look on Kejriwal's face sitting at Rajghat after being slapped yet again would make anyone take a pause and think about what is happening. The first time some people found it amusing, then it was called politics in Gujarat and Varanasi, now this is just too much. Here is the head of a party that is contesting more than 400 seats, no matter what its prospects. The country cannot just let him be slapped around. This is not how you express your resentment or disagreement in a democracy. Vote is the way. The man who hit Kejriwal may be an individual caught in his own life's misery, but this has to be condemned roundly by one and all. Not the way certain Congress and BJP leaders did it, qualifying their outrage by adding there was anger against AAP. There is probably more anger against the mainstream parties and their leaders as they have a history. Why only he is targeted, Kejriwal has asked. For one, simply because it is possible to hit him. Most other leaders are ensconced in layers of protection. Also, perhaps because people who became his followers did it from the heart, not out of material interest or political calculations. If disappointed, the wrath of such people also comes from the heart. For AAP this is reason to celebrate as well as fear. Its voters are real. The attacks and the challenges Kejriwal and other AAP candidates are battling — like little money to travel, canvass or advertise — also bring out the contrast between what they stand for and what the competition is aiming at. The grimy unshaven face of Kejriwal walking in the sun, as against the immaculately groomed Modi in designer eyewear, jackets and kurtas, embodiment of power and confidence in the slickly executed advertisements. Rahul stands somewhere in-between the two extremes. In election time, all of this will work differently on different voters' minds. Some will naturally go for a rebel, others for a symbol of power. The slap would only have sharpened the
divide.
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Mamata eats humble pie A constitutional crisis has been averted in West Bengal after Mamata Banerjee realised the limits of a Chief Minister and the might of the Election Commission. She took up a wrong fight and had to retreat shame-facedly. It is perhaps for the first time in India's electoral history that a Chief Minister has dared the Election Commission to arrest her as she would not obey its orders. The standoff was over the transfer of eight District Magistrates and Superintendents of Police accused of being biased towards the ruling party. She even attributed motives to the EC's action, suggesting the EC acted in concert with the Congress, the BJP and the
CPM. For 30 hours Mamata Banerjee remained defiant and relented after her more sober aides, including the Chief Secretary, gathered courage to explain to her the absurdity of her stance in as polite terms as possible. Her defiance could have forced the EC to postpone or cancel the poll and recommend President's rule. The Constitution gives the Election Commission sweeping powers, upheld by the Supreme Court in recent years. The officers conducting the poll report to the EC. A Chief Minister cannot use loyal officers to enhance the ruling party's poll prospects. If there is a complaint, the EC can examine it and act swiftly and firmly so that the perception of the poll being just and independent is maintained. Because of its objective and efficient performance the EC has earned citizens' respect and deepened the roots of democracy. In Punjab and Uttar Pradesh too the EC had recently transferred officers seen to be favouring the ruling politicians. The Chief Ministers of West Bengal and Punjab have something in common. Both have politicised the administration, bankrupted the treasury, piled up huge debt and expect a Central bailout. However, Mamata is a simple-living politician with no helicopters to fly and no corruption charges to fight. But Badal is more soft-spoken, pragmatic and rarely loses his cool.
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My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together. — Desmond Tutu
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Increase of crime in the Punjab
IN the Punjab Administration Report for 1912-13 we find it mentioned that the great increase of crime during the past few years is a phase common to every oriental country. "The mass of the people in the northern districts," says the report, "display a hostile or lukewarm attitude to hamper rather than assist the police. The dacoities that have occurred in the Rawalpindi division have been the work largely of well-to-do men, and the lambardars and other prominent men must have been well aware, in the majority of cases, of their misdeeds." In the last 6 years, murders and attempted murders show a rise of 25 per cent, homicides 19 per cent, grievous hurt 30 per cent, thefts 16 per cent, and dacoities 240 per cent. The percentage of convictions has declined from 33 to 28." A righteous community
"THE Parsees are benevolent, the Hindus are contemplative and the Mahomedans are brave: What are Indian Christians?" This novel question was suggested by Mr. A.H.S. Ashton, the Chief Presidency Magistrate of Bombay. Evidently he was thinking of certain virtuous characteristics developed by people by reason of their social and religious practices. We doubt if the sociologist would admit that in any community or race there is any such special development of virtuous qualities, though he would not deny the peculiar influences of history, tradition and environments. Everybody knows the wonderful philanthropy of Parsees, their business capacity and their principles; how the Hindus looked after their kith and kin, how studious they are and how meditative and contemplative; how faithful and loyal and brave the Mahomedans are. For Indian Christians, Ashton asked them to become a race of witnesses to truth and
righteousnesses.
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Political consensus on foreign policy
IN April 1977, just after the Janata Party government assumed office, the eminent Soviet Foreign Minister, Andrei Gromyko, arrived in Delhi, looking visibly nervous. Having backed Mrs. Gandhi’s Emergency rule, Gromyko expected a cold reception in South Block. His counterpart, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, smilingly put him at ease, saying that he had no hard feelings, asserting that “Indo-Soviet relations are strong and do not depend on the political fortunes of any individual or political party”. Happily, that type of statesmanship was retained amidst the heated rhetoric of the current election campaign. Both major national parties have not bickered about the approach to two major foreign policy issues. As tensions escalated in Ukraine, the UPA government took the position that while we would like issues to be resolved peacefully between the parties concerned, the legitimate interests of Russia cannot be overlooked. This was followed by the courageous decision for India to abstain in a US-sponsored resolution in the UN Human Rights Council, seeking an international inquiry into the civilian casualties in the last days of the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. This was a sensitive issue in which passions were competitively inflamed by political parties in Tamil Nadu, some of whom are allied to the NDA. Despite the surcharged atmosphere in Tamil Nadu, the BJP did not oppose the government action and, in fact, let it be known what it felt about India's larger national interests. The UNHRC resolution passed this year, unlike in the past, included the constitution of an open-ended international investigation into developments in a sovereign member State. This goes well beyond the current understanding and basic operative principles of the UNHRC. Moreover, unlike resolutions of the UN Security Council, resolutions of the Human Rights Council are not enforceable by international sanctions. Not surprisingly, this resolution did not secure the support of the majority of members on the Council. Only 23 of the Council's 47 members supported the resolution, with the majority either abstaining or voting against. Apart from South Korea, other members in India's Asian and Indian Ocean neighbourhood either abstained or voted against the resolution. These included China, Indonesia, Japan, Kuwait, the Maldives, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates. Despite their reputed global influence, the US and its allies could pick up support only from a few Latin American and African countries, The approach to the vote of the UNHRC revealed that both national parties felt that while India was committed to the safety, welfare and human dignity of members of the Tamil community in northern Sri Lanka, it should not allow itself to be totally isolated in Asia on an issue concerning its immediate neighbourhood. Based on the support that it received from two Permanent Members of the Security Council (China and Russia) and the overwhelming majority of Asian and Indian Ocean littoral States, Sri Lanka will ignore the more intrusive aspects of recommendations of the UNHRC. Moreover, we would only open strategic space for China and Pakistan in the Indian Ocean by totally alienating Sri Lanka. More importantly, it would become increasingly difficult for India to implement projects for the economic benefit of the northern Tamils without the cooperation of the Sri Lankan government. New Delhi's strategy has to be two-pronged. Politically, it has to work with world and regional powers to ensure that Sri Lanka fulfils its comment to credibly inquire into the entire range of human rights violations in the last stages of the conflict, alluded to by its Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission. This has to be accompanied by a phased and early reduction in the presence of the army in its north and an end to interference by its army in civilian affairs. Joint patrolling of the maritime boundary has to be enhanced to ensure there is no inflow of weapons to the North. The powers required to be devolved to the Provincial Chief Minister, Justice Vigneswaran, have not been devolved, particularly on lands. Bureaucrats posted by Colombo have to be warned that they will face action if they continue to flout directives of the Chief Minister. Economically, India's already substantial aid programme will have to be continued vigorously. India has allocated an estimated at $ 1.3 billion (Rs 8,000 crores) — its largest ever development assistance programme — for the Tamils in northern Sri Lanka. As many as 2,50,000 family packs comprising clothing, utensils and essential food packets have been distributed. Moreover, 95,000 packs of seeds and agricultural implements provided to those tilling the land. The projects being undertaken include the construction of 50,000 homes and supply of materials for around 43,000 war-damaged houses. There have also been major projects for the development of rail transportation, port infrastructure in Kankesanthurai, a 500 MW Thermal Power Station in Sampur and upgrade of Palaly airport. Development of human resources has been facilitated by upgrading schools and vocational training centres, the construction of hospitals and involvement in employment generation projects in agriculture, fisheries, small industries and handicrafts. Despite the stormy rhetoric, there has been virtually no major effort from the government, civil society organisations, political parties or business houses in Tamil Nadu to see how the state's human and developmental resources could be put to use for economically empowering people in northern Sri Lanka. Given its vast resources in fields like information technology and technical education, the State could make an immense contribution through collaborative interaction with people in Jaffna and elsewhere to ensure that the North emerges as a technical and industrial hub of Sri Lanka. This would necessarily require a cooperative effort involving the governments of India and Sri Lanka, together with the state government in Chennai and the provincial government in Jaffna. This would be a far better approach than joining the US and its European partners, who have contributed precious little to the welfare of Sri Lankan Tamils and merely resorted to sterile posturing and sermonising.
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Rest in peace, Patchee Buy
a pup and your money will buy/Love unflinching that cannot lie…… /When the fourteen years which nature permits/Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits…. /When the spirit that answers your every mood/Is gone - where it goes - for good,/You will discover how much you care/But you have given your heart to a dog to
tear" — Rudyard Kipling in a poem "The Power of A Dog". We had sworn not to add to our sizeable menagerie but how could the lady of the house refuse a permanent home to Kari's first-born! The tiny mite was also predominantly black but had a triangular, white patch on her nape and fawn-coloured splotches on the white coat over her sturdy legs. Instantly, she was named Patchee and will be so remembered, till memory lasts. Our staff had known that Patchee was sired by Tiger, the alpha mongrel of the hamlet, and Patchee too would flower out true to her pedigree: handsome, fearless and self assured. No strays or strangers dare step inside the compound without inviting fearful reprisal from Patchee. A goat, which once sneaked in un-detected, was mauled so terribly that she had to be put out and the owner compensated. However, Patchee was gentle as a lamb both with each domestic pet and all the sundry free ranging creatures, traipsing in and out of the compound. Five years down the time-line, unfortunately our idyll fell inside the Maoist's Liberated Zone and we had no choice but to flee by stealth with minimal belongings to our inherited house, leaving Patchee as part of the watch-and-ward arrangement. As we got inside the van and Patchee was denied permission to board, she howled piteously as only dogs in grave distress do. My wife was visibly unnerved and vowed there and then that she would not rest until reunited with Patchee, which took two agonising long years to accomplish. Last November Patchee would have been eighteen but fate willed otherwise. "There is sorrow enough in the natural way/ For men and women to fill our days/ And when we are certain of sorrow in store/ Why do we always arrange for more? …… /Our loves are not given, but only lent/At compound interest of cent percent/ For when debts are payable, right or wrong/ A short term loan is as bad as a long/ So why in heaven (before we are there)/ Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?" R I P, Patchee.
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General Musharraf is indicted, finally
THERE is no reason to be neutral about the Musharraf trial. This trial is as much about Musharraf as it is about who possesses the power to alter the compact between the citizen and the state in Pakistan. The crisis of public morality and ethics in this country is caused not because we are too judgmental in public matters but because we are not. Our judgement is reserved for matters mostly private. Why should citizens, who bear allegiance to the Constitution, not have a view on the Musharraf trial? In the interest of disclosure, there is nothing neutral about what follows. Musharraf is rightly being tried for treason. If convicted, in accordance with due process, he must be made to serve his sentence. The prescribed punishment for treason is death or life imprisonment. As someone opposed to the death penalty, one would like to see Musharraf behind bars for life. Not because Musharraf is evil, but because what he did was unconstitutional and how we deal with him will shape the kind of country we want our kids to grow up in. None of the arguments made by Musharraf’s apologists support the view that Musharraf is innocent or deserves to be accorded preferential treatment. If you delve deeper there are essentially two arguments in his support. One, that Pakistanis are not fit for democracy. We deserve to be dealt with a stick and it is in our own interest to be subjected to ruthless authoritarianism. Thus there was nothing wrong with what Musharraf did. His flaw was that he wasn’t ruthless enough. And two, Musharraf’s trial is not about rule of law, constitutionalism or justice. It is about revenge. Sharif and the judges are meting out victor’s justice. But we are essentially an opportunistic and morally corrupt lot who will dance to the tune of whoever assumes power by any means, fair or foul. We lionised Ayub and Zia, and also Musharraf post-1999. And we are doing it again to please the new masters by beating up on a poor general whose chips are down. In other words, let’s continue being the sordid hypocritical lot that we are and let Musharraf slide as well. The predictions that Musharraf will be taken off the Exit Control List (ECL) and allowed to flee or else will be granted pardon by Sharif if convicted, are based on such appraisal of our leaders and nation. We seem comfortable with manifestations of elites being more equal than commoners. A former army chief who ruled this country for almost a decade, Musharraf is no ordinary man. So Pakistan’s universe — foreign friends, guardians of ‘ideological and territorial borders’, the ruling elite across institutions — will conspire to ensure that Musharraf is not reduced to a commoner. The remaining arguments are all in favour of holding others accountable instead of letting Musharraf off the hook. Can two wrongs make a right? If 1999 was the original sin, why not pressure the PML-N into holding those saboteurs of the Constitution accountable instead of asking it to let Musharraf be? Judges, who decided the Zafar Ali Shah case, wronged the Constitution when they eagerly handed over to Musharraf the authority to amend the Constitution, which they neither possessed nor was theirs to give. Can’t Musharraf call them as witnesses and argue that he was made to believe by judges themselves that the Constitution wasn’t something sacred that an all-powerful general couldn’t tinker with? If we have a chequered history of neither standing by the Constitution nor defending the principle of democracy, can’t we start now? If Musharraf or other army chiefs blundered in the past, must the present high command justify a wrongful past? If our judges and politicos were once complicit, must the present lot be stopped from treading a corrective path? “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise,” Churchill had famously said. The world settled for democracy after all other forms of government were tried and found wanting. If Zardaris and Sharifs are running a rotten show, shouldn’t we push to heal our state of democracy instead of justifying what Musharraf did? Opposition to the Musharraf trial is fuelled by Pakistan’s upper middle class’s veiled disdain for average Pakistanis, a lot it finds unfit for democracy and in need of being civilised by authoritarian messiahs. If Musharraf were an Allah Ditta and not a general no one in their right mind would even fathom the idea of letting him off the ECL. Those in support of his name being taken off are not arguing that he is not a flight risk, but that he should be enabled to flee in the ‘larger national interest’. Musharraf’s lawyers would need to be creative with legal arguments in a court to establish that keeping him on the ECL is an abuse of authority, especially after his established conduct of refusing to appear before the court willingly. In a world that isn’t made up of angels, ‘Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone’ is essentially a claim for impunity by the powerful. Do we not hear such moral objections in the hundreds of cases decided by courts each day? It is about time we begin developing a consensus in Pakistan that all authority must flow from the Constitution and anyone who refuses to profess allegiance to it is as much of a traitor as someone who refused to profess allegiance to kings in the age when men ruled, not law.
— The writer is a Pakistani lawyer. Published by arrangement with The Dawn
Fact file Birth date: August 11, 1943 Birthplace: New Delhi, India Birth name:
Pervez Musharraf Father: Syed Musharaff-ud-Di, career diplomat Mother: Begum Zarrin Musharraff Marriage: Sehba
Musharraf (December 1968-present) Children: Ayla (daughter); Bilal (son) Education: Pakistan Military Academy, 1961; Military Academy of Kakul, 1964 Religion: Muslim
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1949-1956: His father is assigned to Ankara where he spends his early childhood in Turkey. 1964: Musharraf is commissioned second lieutenant in an artillery regiment in the Pakistani Army 1971: Becomes a company commander in a commando battalion during the second war with India. 1991: Gets promotion as major general. October 7, 1998: Musharraf is appointed chief of army staff with the rank of general. April 9, 1999: He becomes chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. October 12, 1999: Musharraf leads a coup against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and becomes head of government. He was fired by Sharif after the Pakistani army's failed invade Kargil. June 20, 2001: Becomes the self-appointed president of Pakistan while remaining the head of the army. April 30, 2002: A referendum is passed by a huge margin on whether Musharraf will hold office for another five years. August 2002: Musharraf implements 29 amendments to the constitution, granting himself the power to dissolve parliament and remove the prime minister. December 15 and 26, 2003: Two assassination attempts held on Musharraf's life. January 1, 2004: A vote of confidence in is passed in Pakistn parliament. It allows Musharraf to remain in power until 2007. He gains the two-thirds of votes in parliament that he needs by promising to step down as head of the army at the end of 2004. September 25, 2006: His autobiography, In the Line of Fire, is released. October 6, 2007: According to an unofficial vote count Musharraf won by a landslide in a presidential election. Many parliamentarians boycotted the vote in both houses. November 3, 2007: President Musharraf declares a state of emergency in Pakistan. He suspends Pakistan's constitution, postpones January 2008 elections, and imposes restrictions on the media. Government authorities arrest 1,500 people who protest against the emergency. November 28, 2007: He steps down as leader of army, a day before he is to be sworn in as president. November 29, 2007: Takes the presidential oath for the third time. December 15, 2007: The state of emergency is lifted. February 18, 2008: In parliamentary elections, Musharraf's party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, finishes third, behind the PPP and the Pakistan Muslim League-N. August 18, 2008: He resigns as president. July 22, 2008: Pakistan Apex Court issues notice that Musharraf is to defend himself on charges of violating the constitution by unlawfully declaring emergency rule on November 3, 2007. July 31, 2009: The Supreme Court rules that Musharraf violated the constitution on November 3, 2007. The court gives him seven days to appear and defend himself. August 6, 2009: He refuses to answer the charges against him and flees to the UK. August 11, 2009: An official announcement says that Musharraf faces arrest if he returns. March 16, 2010: Opposes U.S. President's plan for U.S. troops to pull out of Afghanistan by July 2011. He believes the troops should fight until the Taliban is defeated. May 21, 2010: Musharraf announces plans to re-enter Pakistan politics. October 1, 2010: Launches a new political party, the "All Pakistan
Muslim League". February 12, 2011: An arrest warrant is issued by court, in for his involvement in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. May 24, 2011: In an interview to a media house, Musharraf condemns the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. Calls it an act of war. January 8, 2012: Musharraf pledges to return to his country, despite the authorities threatening to arrest him for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. March 16, 2013: Musharraf announces his plans to return to Pakistan to lead his party in the upcoming elections. March 23, 2013: The Pakistani Taliban says that it will assassinate Musharraf if he returns. March 24, 2013: Musharraf returns to Pakistan after four years in exile. He is granted bail in advance of his arrival. There are three court cases pending against Musharraf. April 18, 2013: A Pakistani court rejects Musharraf's request for a bail extension and orders his arrest in a case he is facing over the detention of judges in 2007. April 20, 2013: Put under house arrest. March 31, 2014: A Special Court charges Musharraf with high treason: a crime that carries the death penalty or life imprisonment.
— Agencies
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We hadn't bought Patchee; she was simply a godsend. About three months after we had purchased a cottage, a mongrel from the Adivasi hamlet in our neighbourhood had decided to lodge inside the compound despite all efforts to the contrary by our domestics. No one knew her name and as is the wont of India's tribals, she was promptly christened Kari in keeping with her jet-black body-coat. In time, there was great deal of excitement when Kari took to digging a shallow pit beneath a pile of kindling twigs, preparatory to littering.
1947: General Pervez Musharraf's family moves to Pakistan when India is portioned. His family gets settled in Karachi.