P A G E
Monday, August 3, 1998
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E D I T O R I A L P A G E |
Monday, August 3, 1998 |
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Farce
unlimited
INDIA’S
NUCLEAR CAPABILITY |
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Government
work in full swing |
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Farce unlimited Remember the saying about history first unfolding as tragedy and repeating itself as farce? Well, with a minor modification this applies to the Jain Commission report on the conspiracy behind the Rajiv Gandhi assassination. His interim report, submitted to the government but leaked to a friendly journalist, led to the Congress pulling down the United Front government. That was the tragedy part. Its final report has prompted the ruling BJP-led combine to see a conspirator in Mr Karunanidhi and Mr Subramaniam Swamy, apart from the perennial suspect Chandraswami. The decision to set up a high-sounding “multi-disciplinary monitoring agency” is clearly a last-minute inspiration to nettle the two — the first is the enemy number one of the AIADMK and the second is the person the BJP loves to hate. As the DMK Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu has pointed out, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) did not find it necessary to question him (or several others, including Ms Jayalalitha), and to discover a need now is inexplicable. The fact is that the draft Action Taken Report (ATR) did not refer to Mr Karunanidhi but at the Cabinet meeting to approve the ATR, Mr Vazhapadi Ramamurthi insisted on this so as to raise once again the demand for the dismissal of the Tamil Nadu ministry. The defiant threat from Chennai reflects this. The innuendo about Mr Subramaniam Swamy is more ridiculous. He is to be questioned about a trip he made to London in 1995, four years after the Rajiv murder. Further, there is nothing to suggest that the new agency will be a multi-disciplinary one; barring a few officers from the External Affairs Ministry, the others will be from the various intelligence units and much of the work involves frequent foreign trips. Incidentally, India’s record in foreign investigation is pretty dismal. The final report and the
ATR are open to attack on two other counts. One, Justice
M.C.Jain’s restless straying into several
hair-brained hypotheses is sure to strengthen the defence
of the 26 men and women who have been sentenced to death
by a designated court in the same Rajiv murder case and
who have filed a revision petition in the Supreme Court.
Natural law will reject two successful conspiracies
behind one murder and the SIT prosecutors, who secured
the death sentence, will be forced to distance themselves
from the Jain report. Two, the ATR has muddied the
political waters, whatever be the motive of the ruling
combine. The response of various political parties will
vary, from angry denunciation by the DMK to a cautious
one by the Congress. This attitude will reflect in the
conduct of the MPs in Parliament. The ruling combine
hopes to complicate matters for the Congress in the way
of putting together a viable alternative. This may or may
not materialise. The party may adopt a tough line like it
did last year and alienate the UF and the DMK. Or, it may
demand a rejection of the final report as the UF rejected
the interim report. Nothing in the report suits the
Congress; leaders like Mr Arjun Singh who fervently hoped
that the inquiry would lay bare the identity of the
politicians or parties which colluded in the murder or
set the right atmosphere for the plotters and killers to
function and fulfil their mission, are a disappointed
lot. As the party intimately and emotionally involved in
the inquiry, it cannot remain neutral. The logical
reaction then appears to be for the party to point to the
utter failure of the Jain Commission and demand that it
should be consigned to the archives. Inquiry commissions
are successful or failures, but never so frivolous as the
one headed by Justice Jain. |
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SAARC: hopes belied As was obvious, the meetings between the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan and their Foreign Secretaries attracted more media attention than the discussions at the Colombo SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) summit. After all, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee and Mr Nawaz Sharif had found an opportunity for the first time after the Pokhran-II and Chagai nuclear blasts to exchange their views on issues plaguing the relations between the two major SAARC partners. But the "zero" outcome of the Indo-Pak engagement, as described by Mr Nawaz Sharif, made the Colombo deliberations lifeless. The Foreign Secretaries of the two countries failed to work out the much-awaited modalities for resuming official-level discussions, which have remained stalled since last September. The basic reason for this gloomy development was Pakistan’s obsession with the Kashmir issue and its intransigence on third party involvement in the matter, which India has been opposing tooth and nail as this approach clearly violates the spirit of the Shimla Agreement. Though the Indo-Pak
political problem remained in the "outer space"
of SAARC — a subject outside the charter of the
grouping — it did affect what was going on between
the Heads of Government of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh,
Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives. The
finalisation of the mechanism for the South Asian
Preferential Trade Arrangement (SAPTA) and the South Asia
Free Trade Area (SAFTA) cannot carry much meaning if
there is no end to the tense atmosphere involving the two
key members of SAARC. Pakistan's unwillingness to
concentrate on economic issues, keeping politics (which
means Kashmir in this context) aside, may delay the
ratification of the regulatory network of SAFTA by 2001,
as announced by SAARC Chairperson Chandrika Kumaratunga
of Sri Lanka. Islamabad's intention to give a political
tinge to the Colombo talks was also evident in its
aborted efforts to make the SAARC nations agree to
include in their agenda the question of "stability,
peace and security" in South Asia in the regional
context in the light of the nuclear tests by India and
Pakistan. It was wise on the part of the SAARC leaders to
reject the unholy suggestion on the plea that it could be
taken up only by keeping in view the entire global
security environment. In fact, they endorsed the Indian
stand that there could be no useful discussion on
disarmament without the involvement of all nuclear weapon
states. One fails to understand how Pakistan can afford
to ignore the economic reality at home in the wake of the
nuclear blasts which it did at every stage at Colombo. It
should have taken the cue from the announcement of Prime
Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee for lifting the
quantitative restrictions on 2000 items for SAARC
countries which meant that India was willing to give top
priority to trade and commerce, not allowing the
contentious political issues to influence the course of
the SAARC negotiations. But Mr Sharif, perhaps, thought
that this would not pay him politically when he would be
back home. Hence his attempts at dragging the Kashmir
question in whenever it was possible. This is a
destructive approach which will cause more harm to
Pakistan than to any other SAARC member. |
Pre-fab Babri Masjid IT is surprising that neither the Congress nor any other Opposition party in the Lok Sabha has so far sought an explanation from the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition about its stand on the report that a section of the members of the Muslim community in Uttar Pradesh have formed a Babri Masjid Reconstruction Committee with the specific objective of building a mosque at the disputed site in Ayodhya. It may be recalled that the same Opposition had lambasted the government for not stopping the Vishva Hindu Parishad and other members of the Sangh Parivar from preparing a pre-fabricated structure — at different locations — which could be shipped to Ayodhya at short notice for putting together a Ram Temple “within 24 hours”. The entire Opposition saw in the move to pre-fabricate the temple a sinister design which had the blessings of the government and described it as part of the hidden agenda of the BJP. A “pre-planned temple” was seen as a threat to the country’s secular ethos and an attempt to influence the judicial verdict on the dispute. By choosing to remain silent on the attempt of a section of the Muslims to resurrect the Babri ghost the Opposition leaders would only lend credence to the Sangh Parivar’s charge that their love for secularism does not extend beyond pampering the minorities. The not entirely unexpected development has put Mr Salman Khursheed, the new UPCC President, in an embarrassing position. He has been given UP in the hope that he would be able to bring back the Muslims to the Congress fold. Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav’s diffidence to take a stand on the Babri Masjid reconstruction issue too has something to do with his hold over the Muslim constituency in UP. In fact none in the Opposition, including the Left parties, may be willing to adopt the policy of “equidistance” in criticising the communal politics of both the Hindus and the Muslims. The question is: Who
should take a clear stand against the devious attempt of
a section of the Muslims in UP to raise the communal
temperature to the level which caused nation-wide
disturbances between December, 1992, and March, 1993? The
BJP-led coalition has already taken the position that the
VHP was not violating any law by making advance
preparations for constructing a temple in Ayodhya. By
this logic no one can stop the Babri Masjid
Reconstruction Committee from making similar preparations
for rebuilding the masjid at the same site which the
votaries of Hindutva have identified as Ram Janmabhoomi.
The casts for making the bricks with “Taamir Babri
Masjid” embossed on them have already been
despatched to different Muslim organisations for
producing the necessary material on a mass scale within a
time-frame — to literally steal a march (to Ayodhya)
over the VHP. The reason why such a committee was formed
is evident from the statement of its President, Mr Hashim
Ansari, that “if the VHP cannot wait for the court
verdict, why should the Muslims wait for the same?”
The stand which Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav takes on the issue
would be known on August 6 when the committee members
propose to meet him to seek his support for their cause.
A campaign to mobilise public opinion would be launched
in October, after the VHP holds its “Dharma
Sansad”. Unless the Centre decides to intervene
effectively and persuade the VHP to roll back its temple
construction plan, the nation may have to pay a heavy
price for the collective folly of the entire political
class — with one section backing the forces of
Hindutva and the other turning a blind eye to Muslim
reaction. The only reconstruction which should be
encouraged by all the right-thinking people of India is
economic reconstruction which takes care of the basic
needs of the poorest among the poor in the country. |
INDIA’S NUCLEAR CAPABILITY CALL it a quirk of history, or a unique confluence of two great personages at the dawn of Independence — India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and the great nuclear scientist, Homi J. Bhabha. It was this rare combination that shaped India’s thrust into an area of frontier science, the nuclear realm, much ahead of India’s overall scientific and industrial growth. That was also the onset of the atomic era worldwide. Nehru’s strong tilt towards the development of science and technology in India provided the sinews, and Bhabha transformed this dream into a glowing reality. It is this picture of India’s nuclear capability that is now unfolding, amazing for the friend and the foe alike. India’s path to the acquisition of nuclear capability has been distinct, with several features which mark it out from other countries opting for nuclear technology — whether for weapons or power generation. Britain and France had an early lead, in terms of resources and Western scientific collusion, and so they went ahead both as nuclear weapon powers and for electricity generation. China, on the other hand, focused overwhelmingly on weapon-making to the neglect of creating an infrastructure of research and development which resulted in tardy growth in indigenous peaceful applications, till the eighties and the nineties. India’s was the middle path — prioritising atomic power generation and other peaceful uses of nuclear technology, but at the same time keeping the weapon option open. In the early sixties, Dr Bhabha told a special gathering of MPs in the Central Hall of Parliament: give me a month’s notice and you can have atom bomb. But focusing on weapons would be too costly for India; a country like ours should invest on nuclear science to combat poverty — for power generation, medicine, agriculture and other spin-off benefits. But with world realities being what they were, India had to keep the weapon option. And thereafter Bhabha gave India a distinct choice — the weapon option as a byproduct of its development for power production, at incredibly small economic cost. Bhabha was able to chart this path for India — realised after his sudden death — because of a breakthrough in the advanced technology of reprocessing spent fuel for extracting plutonium. But there was a rider: this route to weapon option offered India a powerful nuclear deterrence but no more. It shunned the super power’s nuclear arms race. The path to nuclear capability charted out by Dr Bhabha had two basic features. One, that Indian nuclear technology acquisition gives primacy to a long-term strategy for power generation, along with all-round growth in allied scientific knowledge, a spin-off for industry in metallurgy, and nuclear applications for agriculture and medicine. Weaponisation takes a low priority in this scheme of things. Had this priority for weapon-making not been low, India’s first Pokhran test might well have taken place in 1966 or 1967 rather than in 1974. India could then have been within the NPT’s burra sahib’s club. The terse reality is that the Indian breakthrough in spent fuel reprocessing in 1965 hastened the advent of the NPT, aimed specifically to keep India debarred from weapon status under the non-proliferation treaty’s rules. The second basic feature of the Bhabha route to nuclear capability is stress on indigenous, self-reliant growth by laying a sound foundation. Which meant building an extensive infrastructure of research and development to achieve what in scientific jargon is called capability along the entire nuclear fuel cycle. What does this underscore?
Over the years, this concept and strategy has flowered
into one of the largest R & D set-up under the
umbrella of the Atomic Energy Commission, which in some
segments matches the most advanced facilities in the
West. It incorporates, among others, BARC, one of the
world’s most extensive laboratories in advanced
technologies; IGCAR (formerly the Reactor Research
Centre) at Kalpakkam, with a fast breeder test reactor
paving the way for the next generation Prototype Fast
Breeder Reactor (PFBR), and the Kalpakkam Spent Fuel
Reprocessing Plant — India’s third and most
sophisticated plutonium extracting plant; the Tata
Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), which has
helped build the world’s largest radioastronomy
telescope near Pune; the Centre for Advanced Technology
(CAT), Indore, high up on laser development;
Ahmedabad’s fusion technology institute where the
India Tokamak is already working, compiling know-how on
this futuristic area; and a host of nuclear fuel,
instrumentation and computer industries working under the
care of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). This is
the great legacy of Bhabha helping India achieve its
goals in nuclear technology applications. What then is the progress report on the main fronts of India’s nuclear capability acquisitions? The blaze of success to Indian nuclear science-technology in the recent weapon tests has been widely acclaimed; this is the sector which had a lower priority. Achievements in the priority sector — nuclear power production and allied fields, agriculture, industrial spin-offs, medicine and public health — appear less spectacular. And yet these are the areas where nuclear technology’s achievements bring greater glory to India’s nuclear scientists and institutions. Advances and achievements on the power sector, and in allied fields — metallurgy, computers, lasers — have led up to successes on weapon tests. As Dr Bhabha said, the reactor is more difficult to build than the atom bomb, for while the later allows the atomic chain reaction to explode, the reactor’s task is to control the chain reaction and harness it to give electricity. The Bhabha-prescribed route for natural uranium-fuelled pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWR) in the first generation, followed by plutonium-fuelled advanced reactors, such as fast breeders, in the second generation has been steadfastly pursued with the objective of activating India’s vast thorium reserves. The string of PHWRs under operation has meant greater perfection in indigenous design, the latest being the Kakrapar-II reactor, incorporating several safety features and automation-based controls that heighten the safety and operational efficiency in this standardised Indian design, far ahead of the Canadian RAPS-I model that became the starting point for PHWRs subsequently constructed in India. Consequent upon the upgrading of reactor design and operational efficiency, the charge that Indian PHWRs have low operational efficiency has been mitigated, with the latest Kakrapar reactors generating electricity at as much as 90 per cent capacity. Currently, four 220 MWe PHWRs are under construction — Kaiga I & II, and RAPS III & IV. Simultaneously, construction on the first 500 MWe PHWRs has begun at Tarapur. Another notable aspect is that R & D for the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor is complete, and design and development of this advanced reactor which will hasten the induction of thorium in the fuel chain is already at an advanced stage. The year 1997 also denoted a milestone in the power production strategy with the first breeder reactor, the FBTR commencing steady electricity generation which is being fed into the Tamil Nadu grid. The FBTR’s success story sets the pace and long-term perspective for India’s power programme. Decks are being cleared for the 500 MWe prototype fast breeder reactor whose construction is set to commence in 1999. A retrospective look shows
that the Bhabha strategy of indigenous self-reliant
nuclear development has paid India rich dividends.
Breaking the cordon sanitaire imposed by the West of the
last three decades on nuclear exports to India, Indian
nuclear scientists have maintained a steady and exacting
upward march, combining the priorities as they have been
set, for peaceful applications as well as the targets of
weapon tests. Several landmarks have been created in this process. The building of the Spent Fuel Reprocessing Test Plant at BARC by scientists and engineers headed by Dr Homi Sethna in 1965 was indeed a milestone. It was from the plutonium obtained from reprocessed spent fuel at this test plant that the Indian test at Pokhran in 1974 became possible. The Pokhran test was the cheapest first detonation anywhere in the world. Following this Indian scientists have built a full-scale reprocessing plant at Tarapur, while the test plant at BARC has been expanded and upgraded. A third reprocessing plant — the most sophisticated of Indian plutonium extracting plants — has been commissioned this month at Kalpakkam. A fourth reprocessing plant has been conceptualised for a site in North India for futuristic plutonium needs. Indian scientists’ grip over plutonium technology has placed India among the elite top four nations in nuclear technology. This has its impact on both sectors — peaceful applications in fabricating plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel for fast breeders and other advanced reactors — as well as for the weapon option. Bypassing the enormously costly uranium enrichment route, India is now a weapon state without imposing any burden on the Indian economy. The limitation, of course, is that India cannot and need not indulge in a nuclear arms race and must depend on a nuclear deterrent based on its weapon grade plutonium pool. On this score, the construction of the neutron flux research reactor Dhruva in 1985 was an outstanding event. It tied up India’s needs of weapon grade plutonium for nuclear deterrent strength. This indigenously designed and constructed high flux research reactor in which over 300 experts of BARC took part is indeed a pride and flagship of India’s indigenous nuclear capability. The Dhruva’s spent fuel when reprocessed gives weapon grade Pu-239, whereas reprocessed fuel from power generating reactors produces reactors grade plutonium in which Pu-240 is predominant. The country is witnessing the upcoming of another landmark at Kalpakkam with the fast breeder technology being harnessed for one of the most advanced breeder reactors in the world — 500 MWe PFBR. The stringent needs of quality and materials purity which go with the highly reactive sodium liquid metal coolant used in PFBR sets exacting tasks for metallurgists, engineers and scientists working at Kalpakkam. Dedicated scientists and metallurgists headed by Dr Placid Rodriguez and Dr Baldev Raj are the men on the job. And the work on the PFBR is in an exciting and promising phase. The induction of light
water reactors which Russia is to provide under an
Indo-Russian $3 billion agreement adds diversification
and enrichment to Indian reactor technology. The two 1000
MW reactors which are to be constructed at Kudankulam in
Tamil Nadu will help achieve the atomic energy production
targets. The Russian reactors will also give Indian
scientists and engineers experience of a new reactor
design and technology. India is among the few countries
which can accept some $10 billion worth of reactors of
French and American design — a unique opportunity
and a challenge to these Western countries as well as
India for a detente on India’s rights and duties as
a nuclear weapon state. |
The wages of teaching IN a money-minded world such as the one in which we live today, salaries become an important factor in terms of the quality of talent that would be attracted into an organisation and the amount of quality work that those already present will do. However, the government, through its curious wage policy for university teachers, seems to be hell bent on destroying whatever little remains of the university system. It could be said that the lowly salaries offered are commensurate with the service (or is it disservice?) that universities provide for society. But surely there are other, more constructive, fair and transparent strategies to help the supposedly inefficient teachers and researchers become efficient and accountable, or of removing them from the university system altogether in case they do not measure up to the standards commonly agreed to. As it happens everyone
recognises that there is something terribly wrong with
the appointments, promotions, working conditions as well
as the work done in the universities. But there has been
a cultivated reluctance to deal with the sources of the
condition which has been prevailing for decades now. The
reluctance is understandable. The Indian ruling classes
and the allies — politicians, bureaucrats and
managements of universities — have been taking the
advantage of wrong appointments, arbitrary promotions for
the distribution of favours to the chosen ones through
opaque mechanisms. Extraneous considerations have
invariably been more crucial in the unplanned and
irrational expansion of institutions of higher education.
Academic considerations have for long remained marginal
in the routine functioning of universities. So much so
that the situation today is such that close to every
appointment and promotion in the university is seen with
suspicion even by the well-meaning. No wonder that the more vocal and persistent critics of this mismanagement are heard neither within the academia nor by the beneficiaries outside. Either they are targeted and sidelined or coopted and accommodated. What remains constant are the repeated instances of insidious attacks on teachers’ dignity and autonomy sometimes targeting isolated individuals and sometimes against the whole community. These attacks, sometimes noticed and confronted but often ignored, come from a variety of established centres of power well entrenched in the university’s complex structures of governance, manipulation and control which are very closely linked with the social forces outside. Such irrational modes of managing the university have proved counter-productive as they achieve nothing except undermining the self-confidence and self-respect of individual teachers. But are we really concerned about promoting creativity, innovation and excellence? To make things even worse are the miserable salaries that university teachers get. It is an indicator of the collective naivete of the university dons that they are not able to convince anyone that their real salaries are much below than what is widely touted by the government. The government’s Fifth Pay Commission had rightly pointed out that the introduction of new salary scales would be a good opportunity to do a cadre review and bring in administrative reforms for the more efficient functioning of government offices. In the case of the universities, what happened was entirely contrary to this. First there was the Rastogi Committee which made such negative suggestions about salary modifications that the UGC rejected its recommendations and offered its own. In the process a good six months elapsed keeping the teachers wondering what their grades might be. Then the Gujral government kept on promising that the UGC grades would be implemented but did nothing on the matter. The subsequent Vajpayee government failed to see the logic of the UGC recommendations, if there was one, and offered a package in April which would have resulted in greater bureaucratisation and irrational hierarchies in the university system. When the teachers took to the streets en masse the Delhi High Court directed the union government to renegotiate the pay scales with the representatives of teachers in the light of UGC recommendations. In the meantime, the Joint Parliamentary Committee of the HRD Ministry reviewed the whole matter and, surprisingly — a change for the better — took the position that the UGC-recommended pay scales should be implemented. However, contrary to the JPC recommendations and the Delhi High Court suggestion the Vajpayee government unilaterally chose to offer the present scales which have forced the teachers to take to the streets once again. Interestingly, while the teachers all over the country have been so deeply upset by the pay scale controversy, the media did not find it worth commenting upon sufficiently. Maybe the media itself, like senior dons, has been taken in by the surface figures offered by the government which create a fallacious impression of impending riches being almost double than what they really are. The irony in this
hulla-balloo about teachers’ wages is that neither
the UGC nor the government has offered any justification
for their respective grades. |
THE Government of India, after breaking up at Delhi on the third instant finally met again at Simla early this week and is now in full working order. The calmness which used to mark such occasions in previous years has suddenly been stirred this year by the recommendations of the Inchcape Committee. Great sensation prevails amongst the Government of India clerks. Already, a start has been given by the Government of India, Commerce Department, by issuing notices of the termination of services to about 28 temporary clerks of their department. Besides the clerks, the axe is falling with full force on the chaprassis as well. * * * * The National Week is observed here with great enthusiasm and preachers move about in the bazaars at day time advocating the injunction of the National Programme. A fairly attended meeting was held in Edward Ganj on Sunday evening where speeches on Swaraj and other interesting topics of the week were delivered by Maulvi Ghaulam Mohd. and Pandit Ganda Ram Sharma. The audience was enjoined to cement Hindu-Muslim unity which they said is the key to Swaraj. It is satisfactory to
write that the reclamation question has not created a
gulf between the sister communities here and both have
admirably restrained themselves with tact and prudence. |
A taste of Punjabiat WARNED against mugging on the New York streets, we hired a cab to go round the shopping plazas of this multistoreyed concrete jungle one evening recently. In the Yankee land where even your own people are parsimonious when it comes to spending dollars, we had a pleasant experience with a Punjabi taxi driver who instantly reminded us of unforgettable “Punjabiat” — the creed of large heartedness, generosity and, above all, camaraderie. In the maddening rush of this metro where people from all over the globe land up to earn dollars even if they have to do menial jobs, our benefector, Lakhwinder Singh, the taxi driver, was the same robust Sardarji with a rustic sense of humour and affection for his countrymen. As we called the taxi, the back-door opened and my husband and my niece and myself sat on the rear seat while our nephew sat on the front. I had not seen the driver’s face as he did not get down to open the door. However, as soon as I settled in the rear seat, I saw a small strip of paper pasted to the back of the driver’s seat with the name “Lakhwinder Singh”. We were very happy that we had found our own country cousin as our driver. I could not resist talking to him in Punjabi. Lakhwinder was oblivious of the fact that we were also Punjabis. I asked him in “thate” (pure) Punjabi about his native village and in which district of Punjab it was. He then looked back and saw us. Smilingly, he said he belonged to Jalandhar. I was delighted and told him, “Main bhi te Jalandhar dee han” (I also belong to Jalandhar). We established an immediate rapport with the driver and asked him many questions as to how much he earned as a taxi driver and how often he visited Jalandhar. He lamented that he could not visit home for the past five years because whenever he planned a visit some problem cropped up, and he had to postpone it. All this while we had travelled through some streets and we had reached our destination. The taxi meter was showing 10 dollars (Rs 400). I took out a ten-dollar currency note and tried to hand it over to Lakhwinder but, lo and behold, he not only refused to take the money but also remarked, “You are from my “sehar” (city) and are like my own brothers and sisters. How can I take the money from ‘apane logon ton’ (from my own people).” No amount of persuasion worked, and Lakhwinder Singh insisted that he would take us to other places as well. We were much embarrassed with this little touch of Punjabiat even at a place where dollar-earning is the craze with everyone. Overwhelmed as we were, we took leave of Lakhwinder by thanking him profusely. However, the great shock
was for our nephew, a South Indian working in America. He
was rather shocked that there could be a taxi driver in
New York who could refuse to take the taxi fare, not to
speak of a tip. For once he too had the taste of
Punjabiat, a culture of large-heartedness, sacrifice and
true camaraderie. Long live Punjabiat. |
Beyond the Presidential reference THE largest apex court Bench that has ever sat since the year 1960 to hear a Presidential reference under Article 143 of the Constitution shall now try to resolve the deadlock between the Chief Justice of India and the government over appointments to the Supreme Court and High Courts. “Consultation of Judges by the Executive,” wrote pre-independence Federal Court Judge, Zafrullah Khan (later, Judge of the International Court of Justice) in 1944, “has been the subject matter of much controversy at the hands of text-writers, jurists and Judges...It is a jurisdiction the exercise of which on all occasions must be a matter of delicacy and caution.” Though part of a dissenting opinion, Khan’s warning is particularly apposite to President K.R. Narayanan’s latest reference to the Supreme Court. Whichever way the court decides (or, technically speaking, “reports” to the President under Article 143), the credibility and reputation of the judiciary including the Chief Justice of India, on the one hand, and the entire executive branch of government, on the other, are bound to be affected. Restraint, sagacity and statesmanship, more than intellectual ability, are what are required to answer the reference. So far as the questions posed in the reference are concerned, there is more of intellectual ability apparent in their formulation than statesmanship. This is no reflection on the President personally for, as settled in Shamsher Singh’s case, the decision to invoke Article 143 is no less dependent on ministerial advice than any other exercise of power by the Head of State. But it is difficult to resist the impression that the questions have been framed keeping individuals, rather than principles and concepts, in mind. Contrary to popular
impression, the reference does not aim at prodding the
Supreme Court into reviewing its earlier verdict in the
Judges’ Appointment and Transfer case of 1993.
Almost universally welcomed at the time it was pronounced
— the few dissenting voices that were raised, such
as this author’s, were lost in a chorus of applause
— the verdict enjoys very little support today even
in judicial circles. Leading the critics is the late H.M.
Seervai, Advocate General of Maharashtra for 17 years and
one of the greatest constitutional lawyers of his time. The majority judgement of five distinguished Judges and the two concurring opinions in that case “bristle”, says Seervai, “with almost every fault which can be committed in a judgement.” The faults listed by Seervai and unravelled over 40 printed pages of his commentary on the Constitution would daunt even the staunchest admirers of the Supreme Court. “(I)gnorance of the legislative history; ignorance of the provisions of our Constitution; ignorance or disregard of well-settled principles of interpretation; ignorance of the meaning of ordinary English words; inability to draw correct conclusions from passages cited; and begging the question to be proved.” The only point that Seervai has not made and which he could, with fair justification, have added relates to the actual working and implementation of the majority judgement. From Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah to Justice A.M. Ahmadi to Justice J.S. Verma to Justice M.M. Punchhi, no Chief Justice of India since 1993 can be accused of unadulterated, unqualified implementation of the judgement in letter and spirit. That is what happens when Constitutions are rewritten by judicial interpretation and rewritten at will. Returning to the reference, the first two questions posed by the President to the Supreme Court are obviously rhetorical. One, is the CJI not bound to comply with the prescribed norms of consultation and, two, is any recommendation made by him without complying with such norms binding on the government. Only one answer can be given to these questions and there was no need to ask them. Two other questions — questions No 6 and 9 — already stand answered in the 1993 majority judgement. The opinions of the other Judges consulted by the CJI while recommending an appointment must be in writing and the same must be transmitted by the CJI to the government (question No 9). And all the material and information conveyed by the government to the CJI while disagreeing with a recommendation must be shared by the CJI with the other Judges consulted by him (question No 6). Question No 3 seeks to know if the expression “consultation with the CJI” in Articles 217 and 222 (appointment and transfer of High Court Judges) means the sole individual opinion of the CJI. The 1993 judgement supplies an answer to this question as well. Both as regards appointments and transfers, the CJI must consult the Chief Justice of the High Court concerned. Besides, Supreme Court colleagues “who are likely to be conversant with the affairs of the concerned High Court” (for appointments), or any one of them “whose opinion may be of significance” (for transfers), should also be consulted. After the inception of the transfer policy, such colleagues would obviously include Judges who had earlier served in that High Court on transfer (question No 7), though the judgement is silent on this. Most of the questions then touch issues which have already been settled. And it would be vain to look for the object underlying the reference in the questions themselves. A clue to the object lies
perhaps in the words of Justice Felix Frankfurter, quoted
by Zafrullah Khan. Advisory opinions, said Frankfurter, a
strong opponent of them, “are not merely advisory
opinions. They are ghosts that slay.” |
Bengal “witch” shifts
to Delhi I sometimes marvel at the sheer survival — power of the Delhiites, for they manage to not only survive in the circumstances oft-mentioned by me but then, at least 10 per cent of them do so in the midst of partying, discothequeing, very conveniently converting events/occasions into publicity platforms ...... With this let me focus on last week’s Congress rally which marched a good 3 km stretch to focus attention on the rising prices. The prices haven’t come down even by one paisa but the graph of the Congress party and Ms Sonia Gandhi’s marching prowess have gone high on the publicity network. And before we move ahead I shouldn’t forget mentioning that the Congress had earlier got Ipsita Roy into their party fold (she fought the last general election from the Hooghly district of WB) and now the latest news is that she has even shifted base, from West Bengal to New Delhi. Ipsita holds special attraction amongst masses for she is hailed as the ‘witch woman’ of the present century India. Looking normal and behaving even more so, with none of the fabled witch qualities apparent, I simply had to ask her about the witch aspect to her personality esp in view of the fact that her father was in the Indian Foreign Service, spouse is a civil servant and then she has an impressive family lineage to boast of. “It’s a fact that I have a deep knowledge of the ancient craft/knowledge of the wise — called WICCA — but where the very title of witch is concerned I purposely took it on to combat the atrocities faced by the women of West Bengal... in the late 80’s women were being killed in rural Bengal on the pretext that they were ‘dayanns’ (witches) and it is basically to take on their tormentors that I took on this title ....” says she. Though Ipsita lost in the last election but she says there is no deterring her from party work and perhaps to do it from close quarters she has moved right here. Maybe she is the Congress answer to BJP’s Gita Sen. Though, unlike Sen, she is much more articulate but makes no heady predictions. Then, last weekend Sharon
Lowen, American dancer who has made India her home for
the past two decades apparently to pursue the Odissi
form, used the occasion of her birthday party to declare
from the terrace of her barsati the number of years she
has spent in India. Taking a cue from this each one
invited to the bash used the occasion to talk about
themselves, their work ....television hostess Renuka
Shahane’s father Arun Khopkar spoke of the films he
is making, Aruna Vasudev of the 10-year completion chart
of ‘Cinemaya’ the film magazine she is editing,
dancer — bureaucrat Shovana Narayan on the
Independence Day special celebrations she has been
working on and which can be witnessed on August 15 at the
Austrian Embassy confines (by now the world knows that
her husband Herbert Traxyl is the present Austrian
ambassador to India), Vinod Nagpal of his experiences of
some of the most heavenly moments at great ustads’
renderings. Coming down from the terrace, VJ and singer
Raageshwari also used last weekend to promote her latest
album ‘Pyar ka rang’ at a luxury hotel’s
not so luxurious looking discotheque and though the time
given was 7 p.m. onwards but till 9.25 p.m she
didn’t make an appearance and the sight of the so
many pathetic looking teenagers was enough to reveal that
the rest of the evening couldn’t be holding out much
promise ....... Then, another five star hotel, Maurya
Sheraton, used the 20 years of the existence of their
discotheque ‘Ghungroo’ to be an occasion enough
to celebrate. This time I could not drag myself to witness that, for it was time to do some probing as to what the British High Commission here would be doing on the first death anniversary of Lady Diana. But their spokesperson made it amply clear that there would simply be no ceremonies and for that matter nothing at all to mark the occasion for it will be observed as a private mourning and that there cannot be any official colouring to it. This brings me to write that some Bengali cultural setups are holding special programmes to mark the ‘byishe shraban’ (22 day of Shraban) of the death anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore. Bijan Mukherjee of ‘Impresario India’ informs that there will be dances, renderings of Tagore’s songs which he wrote on the season of Monsoon and special Rabindrasangeet by Reba Som (spouse of the ICCR director general with the rather special sounding name of Himachal — Himachal Som, that is) in the first week of August. Some stand out To counter my constant criticism of Delhi lifestyle of the so called pucca Delhiites there are few of those rare instances that do leave you feeling touched. Last month at a media reception hosted by the President of India, at Rashtrapati Bhavan, I witnessed a writer — activist alighting from three wheeler scooter. In fact, not even alighting from it close to the steps which take you up to the Rashtrapati Bhavan, but even keeping it waiting to slip back into it, once the reception got over. This lone scooter stood out almost blatantly amidst the so many cars. Not that every media person owns a car but those who don’t have one either borrowed one for the occasion or used cabs or took lifts with friends. But this lone writer journalist who seemed perfectly at ease with the scooter is none other than Anil Nauriya who even temporarily gave up his journalistic career during the Emergency to fall back upon his Law degree and become an activist. And Nauriya tells me that the former governor of Maharashtra Sadiq Ali who is settled in New Delhi also uses the same mode to commute. And Sadiq Ali is a frail,
elderly gentleman, who is in fact way into his 80s.
Whilst on people here who stand out rather impressively I
must also include the American ambassador to India,
Richard Celeste, who is one of those exceptional fathers
who carries his one year old son to many a party or
function. This when he is in his early sixties (this
little son is born from his second marriage).
Celeste’s other two children, from his first
marriage, were born in India when he was earlier posted
here in the ’60s. |
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