P A G E
Thursday, August 13, 1998
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E D I T O R I A L P A G E |
Thursday, August 13, 1998 |
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Time
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Mixing
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Time for resolute action WHILE the banned militant outfit, United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), has quickly claimed responsibility for Thursday's devastating fire in the depot of the Indian Oil Corporation at Thekeriguri in Nagaon district of Assam, the State's Director-General of Police, Mr K. Hrishikesan, has said that it is not a case of sabotage and an electrical short circuit might have triggered the fire. His logic for this conclusion is that the installation is guarded by the Central Industrial Security Force and the police is also present in the area in strength. But a big hole in this theory has been made by none other than the Deputy Commissioner of the district who says the security of the depot is in the hands of some unarmed ex-servicemen. If nothing else, this confusion points to the lack of preparedness to safeguard such vital installations despite open threats by ULFA to attack them. Local reports also talk of laxity. This was pointed out during a meeting in Guwahati on August 7 by the high-level coordination committee that looks after the security of all the oil installations in the state. Apparently, no lessons were learnt. The importance of the oil installations cannot be overstressed. Tuesday's fire alone has cost the nation upwards of Rs 15 crore. Moreover, the supply to the states of Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura, besides the Barak valley, will be badly affected. Despite the IOC's repeated assurances that the plant had an in-built hydrant system as well as adequate stock of foam, it has not been possible to douse the flames quickly. Even the fire tenders sent from Nagaon and foam-spraying equipment from Guwahati were not able to tame the inferno till the time of writing. The biggest worry is that if the fire from this largest-ever destruction of an oil installation in Assam reaches the nearby national highway which connects the state capital with Dibrugarh, the bitumen laid on the road will catch fire and a large part of the North-East would be cut off from the rest of the country. That is exactly what ULFA
wants. It has been systematically targeting road and rail
links with the rest of the country. Even if it is
believed that the fire at Thekeriguri was only
accidental, it is definite that ULFA is all set to strike
elsewhere in the days to come. The statement faxed to
newspaper offices in Guwahati by ULFA says that the
attacks are part of "Operation Dahan" and are a
protest against the observation of Independence Day in
Assam, "which had been colonised by India". The
unfortunate reality is that ULFA does have the means to
carry out its threats. The Army has been insisting that
ULFA wings must be clipped with determination but the
dilly-dallying of the government has let it thrive all
the way. In fact, it is no secret that quite a few
government functionaries are strong sympathisers —
if not active partners — of this banned
organisation. That has hindered the work of the security
forces all along. Even the Chief Minister, Mr Prafulla
Kumar Mahanta, has taken an inexcusably long time to go
along with the demand for dealing with the outfit firmly.
While utmost security during the run-up to Independence
Day is the need of the hour, the long-term plan has to be
to deal with this kind of activities with an iron hand.
If the government is soft, there is no dearth of soft
targets in the country for those bent upon shedding
innocent blood. |
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A tragic fallout AFGHANISTAN is reported to have fallen to the Taliban, a rag-tag outfit that has grown into an all-conquering army within four years. The ultra-fundamentalist Islamic force has captured the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, signalling the end of the road for Burhanuddin Rabbani and Ahmed Shah Masoud, the political and military chief of the Northern Alliance which pretended to rule the whole country. Not many will shed tears as the curtain falls on this charade, but the other implications are worrisome. Mazar-e-Sharif is enemy territory even after the rout of Masoud’s men. The dusty city is dominated by Uzbeks and Tajiks who are Shia Muslims. But the Taliban soldiers are Pathans and Sunnis. Tribal coexistence is an alien concept and Shia-Sunni hatred is ancient in Afghanistan. It was only in May last year that a local warlord extorted money from Taliban and allowed it to roll into the city as victors. But he soon changed his mind, turned the gun on his guests and piled the road with their corpses. Thus the capture of Mazar-e-Sharif can be the later-day version of the Soviet troops marching into Berlin in 1945 writing the last chapter of World War II or the repeat of Hitler’s advance into Moscow, which heralded the beginning of the end of the Third Reich. The defeated soldiers have withdrawn into neighbouring countries, which are plainly nervous at the little-known Taliban taking complete control of their country. For the present the common Afghan is happy, or at least relieved, that the last shot in the two-decade-old civil war, often indescribably brutal, has been fired. Will Taliban export its brand of Islamic revolution apart from confining Afghan women to purdah and her kitchen, denying education and employment, and forcing men to sport a beard and turban? Will it permit the transport of crude and natural gas from the Central Asian Republics through the country? If the answer is “no”, several US companies which hoped to make a killing, will feel sour. More important, will the nearly 5 million refugees now languishing in Iran and Pakistan feel encouraged to return home? If they do not, all three countries will go through prolonged turbulence. The only country which can
claim to be happy at the turn of events is Pakistan. The
Taliban is its creation, built and financed to clean up
Afghanistan of all armed groups and turn it into a safe
backyard for it. Only time will tell if the Taliban keeps
its part of the bargain or develops other ideas. For the
USA, which easily gets frightened at the spectre of
Islamic fundamentalism, seeing in it a worldwide threat
to its own hegemony, the news from Mazar-e-Sharif is real
bad. But then it can take credit(?) for its genesis and
growth. It is out of the millions of dollars worth arms
and ammunition, apart from generous infusion of cash that
first fundamentalist groups like the one headed by
Hekmatyar and now the ultra-fundamentalist Taliban were
nurtured. The offshoot of the 20 years of war has been
the total destruction of a country. The cities and
villages have been razed with hardly a few hundred houses
left undamaged. Agricultural fields and irrigation canals
will need years and a huge capital outlay for
reclamation. Roads are non-existent and the once vigorous
civil society has been torn asunder. The original US
purpose of rolling back communism has ended in rolling
forward Islamic fundamentalism of an extremely orthodox
variety which has great potential to destabilise the
sensitive region. |
Cricket selection muddle THE report that the Indian Olympic Association has sent the list of participants in different disciplines in the Commonwealth Games has given an unexpected twist to the controversy over the selection of cricket teams for Kuala Lumpur and Toronto. While the Board of Control for Cricket in India has yet to decide the composition of the teams for the Sahara Cup in Toronto and the Commonwealth Games the Secretary-General of the IOA, Mr Randhir Singh, has been quoted as having said that the last date for submission of lists by different sport organisations is over and India may not be able to take part in the inaugural one-day cricket tournament in Kuala Lumpur. It is evident that neither the International Olympic Association nor the International Cricket Council nor the Indian Olympic Association nor the BCCI had visualised the problems which would arise because of the inclusion of one-day cricket in the competition section of the Commonwealth Games. The clash of dates between the Toronto tournament, limited to five one-day contests between India and Pakistan, and the Kuala Lumpur Games was a minor problem which could not be sorted out. Of course, to have expected the organisers of the Commonwealth Games to have changed the dates for the one-day tournament would have been unfair. The blame, if any, for the clash of dates between the tournaments in Toronto and Kuala Lumpur should be accepted by the organisers of the Sahara Cup. Toronto is just a contest between India and Pakistan while Kuala Lumpur would test the skills of Commonwealth countries where cricket is played. There is another issue which remains unresolved. The sponsors of the Sahara Cup insist that picking a B-grade team for Toronto, either by India or Pakistan, would be a violation of the contract. But if India does not send the best team to Kuala Lumpur it may put in jeopardy its chances of picking up the gold medal in the contest in which the mighty West Indies would be represented by individual nations barring Guyana, which does not have a strong enough team for the Commonwealth Games. Then there is the problem
of the status of one-day matches to be played at Kuala
Lumpur. The ICC does not recognise Jamaica, Barbados and
Antigua — as also several other countries — as
worthy of being accorded the honour of playing one-day
internationals. The International Olympic Association, on
the other hand, cannot allow the West Indies to
participate as a single team and has yet to evolve its
own set of rules for determining the cricketing
credentials of participating nations. Then there is the
question of payment of match fee. Should the players in
the team for the Commonwealth Games offered
“international rates” for participation in a
tournament which may not be recognised by the ICC? No,
the IOA is not obliged to pay any amount of money as
“participation fee” to any member of the
Commonwealth contingent or offer five-star accommodation
to the cricketers. Of course, the question which needs an
immediate answer is whether the participation of the
Indian cricket team in the Commonwealth Games has become
time-barred. Mr Randhir Singh has indicated that a
special request can be made provided only the very best
team is selected for Kuala Lumpur. The BCCI says that it
would not allow the IOA to dictate terms. A common sense
approach would be to accept the overall authority of the
IOA for participation in tournaments like the
Commonwealth Games. Considering that the larger objective
is to make the game of cricket popular at the global
level it is only logical that even the ICC establishes a
working relationship with the International Olympic
Association. The sooner the conflict over jurisdiction in
matters relating to promoting cricket as a global sport
is resolved the better it would be for a balanced growth
of the game. |
Mixing spirituality &
humanism AS the 20th century is nearing its end, one is reminded of what was said by a science teacher during its beginning: “All that we have to learn in science have been learnt. Now there is nothing more to be learnt. Science is dead”. With such a pessimistic forecast began the century and it ended with acquiring a name, “The Century of Science” and also gave rise to its offspring — the 21st century — to be named in advance, “The Century of Information Science”. In a sense, the words of the nineteenth century teacher were nearly true as a lot of things which were bordering on mysticism and metaphysics were brought under the purview of science. Galileo Galilei in the 16th-17th century turned astronomy upside down and firmly established the Copernican heleocentric theory. Isaac Newton, who followed him, laid the foundations of mechanics. Michael Farady (1791-1867), the book binder’s assistant without any formal education, fascinated by the teaching of Humphry Davy, joined him as his laboratory assistant. His discoveries concerning electricity and particularly electromagnetic induction have immortalised him in the annals of science. Charles Darwin, who was a contemporary of Farady, shocked the world with his work on “The Descent of Man”. In the field of medicine, the work of Louis Pasteur was monumental, especially in the field of vaccination. The word “pasteurisation” has become a living memorial to this great scientist. And so when scientists thought that “Science had come to an end”, in their time and experience it looked true and the days of “pure science” were thought to be numbered. The end of the 19th
century and the beginning of the 20th century saw some
revolution of ideas in the field of physics, chemistry
and biology whose impact was phenomenal and led to an
exponential growth of science. X-rays and electrons were discovered and soon came “radioactivity”. In theoretical science, “The Theory of Relativity” and “Quantum Physics” proposed some ideas which were thought to be “Non-sensical”. It is from these apparently “Non-sensical” (or more appropriately non-common sensical) ideas we have today the nuclear reactors, spacecraft which can land on other planets, television, computers, lasers, genetic engineering, etc. All these would have appeared “Greek and Latin” to the scientist of 19th century who might have otherwise known Greek and Latin! Even though science has rocketed up at an astronomical rate, the teaching of science has more or less remained stagnant at the ground. It is only recently that science education is showing some improvement, thanks again to the products of science — like television, VCR, computers and Internet. It is indeed an irony when science has contributed so much to civilisation, and one is constantly in touch with the products of science, science education is still at a primitive stage. It is not only in India but also elsewhere in the world that educationists are worried about the poor quality of science education, exceptions notwithstanding. I have been in the field of science education for the past 40 years. Though things have somewhat improved over the years, a lot remains to be done. Since science education is part of general education, what is true of science education is also true of other fields. A lot of science educators stress on modern gadgets for improving the quality of education in general, and science education in particular. We have the slide projectors, overhead projectors, video films, multimedia education devices such as computers and Internet. The 21st century will see an increased use of various educational aids and innovative projects to teach science. A number of subjects could be learnt through computer software — laboratory work and the demonstration of scientific principles concerning a large number of subjects using computers and multimedia devices will become routine. A student can understand the working of heart through computer-simulated heart and can dissect a “virtual frog” without offending animal lovers. Model building and science exhibitions will also play a major role in science education. Science museums and planetaria will increase both in quality and quantity. Already many schools impart science education through quiz, elocution, debate, essay writing and group project work. Visits to major scientific organisations and lectures by visiting scientists will also form an important component of future science education. Science popularisation and science education programmes can also be sponsored by industries and business houses (as they sponsor sports events these days). Science journalism in India is conspicuous by its absence. Even journals like Science Today and Science Age which were doing a lot of service to science education have been closed down. One hopes to see the revival of science journals in the coming century. It is hoped that newspapers and magazines may also devote more space to science and science education. Though I do not want to
disagree with the proponents of modern technology for an
effective science education, I wish to stress that these
gadgets alone are not sufficient to improve the quality
of science education. They may at most create a passing
interest and in the best case may aid an already prepared
mind. Today’s education system — to use the trite phrase — trains people to memorise things without much of an understanding. (I am sure among the more than 50 per cent of the students who fail in their S.S.C. and H.S.C. examinations, there must be a large number of intelligent science students who could not cope up with the rat race of getting marks.) If science education has to see better days, the quality and quantity of education has to be redefined. It is a well known fact that students today are put to a lot of work which our ancestors were fortunate not to have. A good student of literature may be termed a failure if he fails to get sufficient marks in science. Similarly a brilliant student of science will turn away from science as he has to “score” marks in a number of other subjects. Though a balanced distribution of subjects may be good for the proper growth of personality, it should not prevent a brilliant student in a particular subject from coming into prominence due to the lack of sufficient marks in other subjects. Yet another aspect of science education is the need to question the existing facts and not to teach everything as a dogma. A lot of progress in science is due to such “negative capability” — to be uncertain at all times. The student should be induced to think laterally. The phrase “lateral thinking” was coined by Edward de Bono who was a master in the subject. However, lateral thinking is not new to India. It has been practised by seers from Vedic times, and it will be easier for Indians to think laterally than it is for westerners. In lateral thinking there
is, in general, no negatives and one need not be right at
every step. Lateral thinking can prevent sharp divisions
and polarisations and can lead to amicable solutions. By
arranging and re-arranging existing information and
looking at them in an unconventional way one can explore
most unexpected solutions to problems which are thought
to be impossible to solve. Lateral thinking encourages uncommon, yet interesting use of common things which may lead to a burst of creativity. Until recently laboratory work was confined only to college students. Now even school students have access to lab-work. Of course, the standards differ with some students fortunate enough to have access to schools with good science laboratories. Many poor school teachers may teach about “heat” without ever having seen a thermometer or talk about “magnetism” without ever being attracted to one. And so, on the one hand we have schools with excellent laboratories, devoted teachers and students from wealthy families, and on the other, just the opposite in a large majority of cases. A lot of teaching aids for science have come on the scene but even where they exist their usage is not optimal. A well-equipped laboratory without an intelligent teacher is as good as non-existent. Not many take to science teaching. It is last in the list of priorities, if at all it is there. The status of teachers has come down over the years, and unless it is elevated education, be it science or otherwise, will greatly suffer. Science education needs good teachers, good laboratories and motivated students. Without such a combination, modern educational aids, however interesting they may be, will be of no use. An improved quality of education, particularly science education, is generally believed to help the underprivileged a lot. But as Pandit Nehru said,: “Science has taught us how to produce more; but it has not taught us how to distribute the products of science in an equitable way.” Apart from the fact that science helps only the privileged few, there is yet another aspect of science which has come into focus, particularly after India (and Pakistan) exploded nuclear bombs. A lot of students have expressed their desire to take to science and manufacture nuclear bombs and missiles! George Gissing had said in 1903 (the same year in which Wright Brothers had flown their first aircraft at Kitty Hawk and announced to the world: “the invention of aircraft will make war impossible in future”). “I hate and fear science because of my conviction that for long to come, if not for ever, it will be remorseless enemy of mankind. I see it destroying all simplicity and gentleness of life, all the beauty of the world: I see it restoring barbarism under a mask of civilisation. I see it darkening men’s minds and hardening their hearts”. I hope science education in the 21st century will mix science with spirituality and humanism to prevent the fear of Gissing from becoming a reality! (The writer was
formerly Director, Nehru Planetarium, Mumbai.) |
Export sops: futile and harmful THE much-awaited response of the BJP-led government to the challenging problem of export promotion has been casual, indeed lackadaisical. It is very much in tune with its overall poor performance on the economic front. Mr Ramakrishna Hegde, the Commerce Minister, has avoided a serious reappraisal of the 20 per cent target set by him two months ago for export growth. Export growth, which was much lower last year has, however, further declined sharply in the first quarter of the current year. The additional fiscal sops for exporters he has now announced, which are estimated to cost the exchequer Rs 700 crore, are likely to be futile and harmful too. Mr Yashwant Sinha, the Finance Minister, has readily fallen in line with Mr Hegde. He has reconciled himself to fiscal concessions and incentives for the entrenched vested interests in diverse sectors of the economy after presenting his first budget. He has not cared to make a sober assessment of the aggravating fiscal and external payments position of the country either. The thrust of official policy through the eighties tended towards what was called import-led growth. The country was pushed in stages close to the foreign debt trap. The push finally became the shove in early nineties in the form of what is called the structured adjustment of the Indian economy. More and more items for unrestricted import and export, and credit financed imports with growing emphasis on the import of capital goods has since been the hallmark of official policy. The idea that generous fiscal concessions to exporters and credit — financed import of inputs for production to generate export surpluses and the depreciating rupee will enhance profitability of exporters and result in surge in exports has, however, failed to fructify. What has actually happened is the integration in an increasing measure of large private industry in India as the junior partner of foreign multinational business interests. Comprador business interests now articulate their demands and ambitions in this context. The Associated Chamber of
Commerce and Industry, for instance, put forward at an
early stage of the evolution and implementation of this
policy, the concept of “Tiara” companies as the
principal instruments for exports from India. These
companies, it was proposed, should be allowed freely to
“import all of their requirements (capital, raw
materials, components, ancillaries, computers and even
office equipment) on OGL and duty free”. In
addition, it was proposed that these companies should
have “freedom to expand or contract according to
business cycles without restriction on employee
termination and transfer or business closure in areas of
declining business”. In short, the Companies Act,
labour and other relevant laws should be scrapped. The scope for exports at a competitive cost is, however, bound to be limited in a society of mass poverty. There are, after all, limits to the curbs that can be placed on essential current consumption of the people. There too is the sharp recessionary phase through which the economies of the developed countries are currently passing. Protectionist barriers against exports of the developing countries, including India, to the developed countries are, therefore, going up. These conditions are making the assumptions, on which the export-import policy of the government is based, wholly untenable. It is open to question in these conditions that by raising the import content of Indian production capacities, internationally competitive export surpluses can be generated. On the contrary, much of import — intensive production is tending to satisfy consumption demand of the elite in the domestic market. The government has not yet capitulated completely to the pressure for opening the Indian market for unrestricted import of consumer goods. But the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO are working to this end. The small negative list of items appended to EXIM policy, which cannot be imported or exported freely, is being pruned on a continuing basis. While imports are being liberalised, export promotion is assumed to be something which will just happen. The advantage of low labour costs can be realised in full measure but only if Indian industry is based on technologies and capital goods adapted and developed by indigenous R&D and skills. To rely on direct foreign capital investment and technologies that such investments bring to produce for exports from India is bound to be counter-productive. The export promotion
measures devised by Mr Hegde and Mr Sinha are not novel.
They are essentially more of the same, which have already
failed in their ostensible purpose so far. The procedural
simplification which has tended recently to become an
attractive euphemism in policy making is expected,
furthermore, to induce producers and traders to exploit
opportunities in an increasing measure to enhance their
profitability, not so much from above board productive
activity, as from speculative and even a variety of
anti-social, even unlawful, operations. |
The theme song of Shimla IN the past when you happened to meet friends in Shimla you invariably asked where they were staying and for how long. These queries now are passe, for it makes little difference whether you are shaking up in Sanjauli or Summer Hill. The only question you now ask is: “How is the water situation there?” Shimla is no longer an exclusive resort that it used to be until three decades ago but a metro like Delhi which too prays and waits for water in summer. How do you feel when your benevolent hosts in Shimla tell you on the phone: “You’re welcome, but the water supply is fitful. In the bathroom buckets are empty, though a few mugs are full. So, no bucket bath but a Spartan mug wash?” Anyway, you don’t
visit friends for the sake of having a laborious bath but
to revive memories and share the family news. And yet,
when you sit together for rounds of tea and coffee you
can perceive the shades of unease under the eyebrows of
your doting hosts. After a hearty meal when you retire
for siesta, suddenly you hear their footsteps and their
instructions to the maid that she should first fill the
jumbo tub in the bathroom on the ground floor. And when
you meet them at tea, you notice an uncanny content on
their faces, since their tanks are full. That is what we saw last June when we spent a week with our hospitable hosts. They have tubs, storage bins, buckets and several other receptacles for the safe custody of water, but when the supply is erratic or non-existent, the pump and containers lie idle. For the first time we noticed this pump business in operation right across the road fronting out hosts’ house. We saw a tanker precariously parked in a hill cavity conspiring with a loud pump to supply water to an uphill hotel. “In May and June this is a common sight in Shimla,” remarked our friends the roof of whose house once used to be the playing field for monkeys, baboons and flying foxes. Of late these furry visitors have grown weary of the noise of the booster pumps and diesel fumes. One forenoon, after a coffee break at Cecil — Rs 50 per cup plus taxes — we were heading towards The Mall when we met an old friend, actually a cultural historian of Shimla. In younger days I found him fascinating for he enthralled me with amorous adventurism of lonely men and women in the town. “What’s new about Shimla?” I asked. After a reflective pause, he remarked: “The Scandal Point is now called Pensioners’ Chowk.” And as we neared the romance-laden point, we saw clumps of retirees standing against the array of banks to the north of this landmark. “What for do they gather here so regularly?” I asked. (“To discuss
water supply and its pressure,” he answered.) |
CALCUTTA: The Chief Presidency Magistrate today disposed of the case in which a young Congress worker, Ram Avtar Singh, was charged with having damaged the Black Hole monument. It was alleged that on Wednesday last the accused came near the monument with a National Flag in one hand and a hammer in the other and began to hammer the monument, thus causing slight damage. He was convicted under Section 427 I.P.C. for committing mischief and thereby causing damage to the amount of Rs 50 and sentenced to 18 months’ rigorous imprisonment. The maximum sentence provided is two years’ imprisonment. No attempt was made today to break the monument and no one was arrested. * * * * * Yesterday, the accused was imprisoned for one year and six months and not one month and six months as reported. Ahmedabad labour dispute AHMEDABAD: Dr De Souza,
District and Sessions Judge, has been appointed to settle
the bonus dispute in accordance with the agreement
arrived at between the Mill Owners Association and the
Labour Union. |
Farmers’ rights —
trampled IF you are educated, wear a shirt and a pair of trousers and cultivate crops with the help of a tractor, the chances are that you may not be called a farmer. Unless you are attired in a dirty dhoti-kurta, wear soiled shoes or chappals and still perform subsistence farming with a bullock-drawn wooden plough, you do not qualify to be a farmer. At least, that is what the USA, Canada, Australia, Japan and South Korea are insisting. Such is the underlying contempt for the farming communities of the developing world that the industrialised countries have refused to talk in favour of farmers. In fact, backed by the richest trading block, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the USA has been continuously making every possible effort to thwart the developing countries’ attempt to accord recognition to farmers’ rights — an expression of the farming communities’ contribution to their innovative capacity as breeders, and custodian of the traditional knowledge and biological resources. But why protect the rights of farmers? The Canadian Seed Trade Association pointed out in a booklet, Seeds for a Hungry World, that it bordered on fantasy to believe the “world’s first farmers knew they were improving the value of species for mankind ”. The first people who decided to plant one kind of seed in preference to another did so because they had observed something — perhaps better fruits or more grains per spike — and wanted similar or better results the next season. Nonetheless, these early farmers were the forerunners of today’s plant breeders. And as The Economist suggested way back in 1954: “The real experts in plant breeding are those millions of human beings who have inherited green fingers down through the centuries.” The debate, therefore,
revolved around the definition of a farmer, justifying
the need to bring in farmers’ rights, which led to
the collapse of the fifth extraordinary session of
Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture,
at Rome in June. And yet, two significant developments
emerged from the politically surcharged deliberations
that continued for five days. First, India continued to
lead the developing countries in protecting the rights of
its farming communities considering the volte-face being
aggressively pursued by rich traders. Secondly, the
European Union, which had so far resisted the developing
countries’ stand on providing protection and
privileges to the farming community, preferred to
withdraw support from the anti-farmer lobby. While the developed countries were keen that the gene-rich countries of the South facilitate the access to plant germplasm, they refused to adhere to the accompanying principles enshrined in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Accordingly, the countries which use plant resources from the developing world have to assure that the benefits accruing from the use of the germplasm is equitably shared with the communities which preserved and conserved the biological resources over centuries. This has to be accomplished by transfer of technology and by setting up of an international fund to support farmers’ efforts to protect plant biodiversity. Notwithstanding the defiant stand of the developing countries, the five foodgrain exporting countries, which stand isolated, are determined not to allow any move that strengthens the rights of the farming communities and thereby weakens the commercial interests of the seed and biotechnology industry. Knowing well that farmers’ rights are not compatible with the intellectual property rights system based on private monopoly control, these countries have waged an undeclared war that aims at eliminating any and all kinds of privileges for millions of resource-poor farmers. Their stand is very clear: the farmers who protected the plant biodiversity are not considered modern and hence the benefits should go to only those who are still engaged in subsistence and traditional farming systems. Ostensibly, at the heart of the controversy is the issue of farmers’ rights — the collective right of the farmers to their resources and knowledge. It not only provides the farmers the right to benefit from the biological resources and related indegenous knowledge, their right to save, exchange and improve seeds also becomes inalienable. Since these rights will cut into the profits of the multinational seed and biotechnology industry, the developed countries have relentlessly been campaigning against its imposition. More so, because many of these countries have fewer farmers left and have little interest in protecting them. For instance, with the number of farmers dwindling over the years, the USA had decided not to count the number of farmers in the next population census. In other words, farmer as a community will soon become extinct in the USA. Working all along towards the derecognition of farmers’ rights, the USA had not allowed international delibrations to proceed beyond treating farmers’ rights as a “concept”. At the fourth technical conference on plant genetic resources for food and agriculture, held at Leipzig (Germany) in June 1966, the USA had blocked any move towards developing farmers’ rights. A few months later, at the technical advisory committee of the CBD, which met at Montreal in September 1966, it did not allow a conclusion to be arrived at on the vexed issue of farmers’ rights in the light of the discussion around genetic crosion in agriculture. All that the conference agreed to, thanks to the efforts of the US lobby, was to allow presentation of a paper at the November 1966 Buenos Aires meeting “reflecting the diverse views and suggestions”. The OECD has time and again reiterated that interpretation of the trade agreement by any other forum than WTO is out of question. And WTO does not recognise farmers’ rights. In other words, having lost its farming society, the West is keen to destroy the strong foundations of sustainable agriculture and crop husbandry in the developing countries. But given the political mayhem that prevails in India, the powers-that-be are not even remotely concerned at safeguarding and protecting the Indian farmers from the international onslaught that renders the farming society vulnerable to unbridled exploitation. (Devinder Sharma
is a global food and trade policy analyst.) |
CPM to chart out new line THE CPM has initiated a review of its experience of working with various “bourgeois” parties to explore the possibilities of evolving a credible combination of Left, secular and centrist parties and groups which can fight the communal forces, now at the helm in the Centre. In Communist jargon, non-Left centrist political parties are generally characterised as bourgeois. The CPM politburo is expected to chart out its political line on the current phase of the national scene so as to place its findings before the party’s Central Committee when it meets here on August 20 and 21. The Central Committee is holding its special session to review preparations for the 16th party Congress, scheduled to be held in Calcutta from October 5 to 11, later this year. Significantly, the politburo is reviewing the party’s interaction/association with a variety of ‘bourgeois’ parties during the past two decades since its 10th plenary session held at Jalandhar in 1978, which was the first CPM party congress in the post-Emergency period — another high watermark in the phase of anti-Congressism. Incidentally, the CPM felt
the need to undertake such a review after the last
meeting of the Central Committee had finalised the draft
political resolution to be placed before the Calcutta
plenary session. The draft has already been circulated to
the ranks as part of the constitutional requirement, in
preparation for the party congress. For the first time, the political resolution has underlined the fight against communal forces as the “central task” in the days ahead. This inevitably means that the earlier concept of anti-Congressism has to be given up. One of the pertinent questions before the CPM therefore is to hammer out its new approach to the Congress and its future relations with it. This becomes all the more urgent in view of the Congress being the focal point of an alternative to the BJP-led government. Outlining “features of the new situation”, the draft political resolution has said: “Its (BJP’s) assumption of the reins of the state power poses greater dangers both “to national unity and democratic movements. The BJP coming to power is not an ordinary change of government from one bourgeois party to another. This is because, unlike other parties, BJP is the political wing of the RSS which has a fascist ideology”. The politburo’s attempt to take stock of its experience with “bourgeois” parties is apparently in view of the disintegration of the United Front, so painstakingly, constructed in 1996 to forestall the BJP’s takeover at the Centre. The CPM claims to have played a major role in forging the United Front which was then able to keep the BJP and its allies at bay and hold the central reins for a year and a half. So far, the CPM remains unrelenting vis-a-vis the Congress, and it asserts that “there is no question” of an alliance, or United Front with the Congress with its present policies. But, then, it has also underlined that “efforts must be made to reach out to its (Congress) mass following which has a sizeable section of people adhering to secularism”, as put by the draft political resolution. It is perhaps assumed that these Congress masses may become part of “a broad based mobilisation” in the struggle against communal forces. With the erstwhile United Front in a shambles, and almost ruling out an alliance as such with the Congress — a major all-India secular political force — the CPM has to look around and find possible allies from among the so-called secular democratic “bourgeois” national and regional formations which can be rallied by the Left in the fight against the communal force. Naturally, the CPM has to take into account, in the first instance, the erstwhile UF partners, both national and regional. Take the case of the Janata Dal which led the United Front Government. Today, it survives in Karnataka, though as a ruling party, but elsewhere it hardly matters. Mulayam Singh Yadav has swallowed most of it in Uttar Pradesh, and Laloo Prasad Yadav in Bihar. Whatever was left of it in Orissa after Biju Patnaik has been carried away by his son Navin Patnaik, giving it the nomenclature Biju Janata Dal (BJD), now an ally of the BJP. The CPM’s criticism of the Karnataka Government is that it has reversed land reforms and gone the whole hog with liberalisation which the CPM is determined to fight in the economic policy sphere. In the two largest states
of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the strong United Front
partners were the Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh and
the Rashtriya Janata Dal of Laloo Yadav. Notwithstanding
their secular approach, and defence of minorities, their
caste orientation is too obvious and no less divisive.
The Rashtriya Loktantrik Morcha designed by the
Mulayam-Laloo duo wants the Congress to lead the anti-BJP
fight. The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in Andhara Pradesh and National Conference in Jammu and Kashmir were important partners in the United Front but both chose to align with the BJP at the central level after the Lok Sabha elections. TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu, once convener of the UF could not stand by the UF due to political compulsions in his home state after the Lok Sabha elections. Neither TDP nor NC can be dubbed communal but their so-called “opportunism” appears to have alienated them from the Left, may be for the time being. It is also a fact that their local clash with the Congress pushed them closer to the BJP which had emerged as the largest party in the Lok Sabha. It is to be noted that the growth of communal parties in the political arena of the country as a force to reckon with, can be traced to the first phase of anti-Congressism in 1967 elections. Over the years, they — BJP and its forerunner Jana Sangh — have been deftly using both anti-Congressism and anti-Communism to advance at the national level and even in States. This was evident specially after 1989. A more recent case is that of Trinamool Congress of Mamata Banerjee carrying the BJP piggyback into West Bengal because of her blind anti-Communism. The complexity of the fight against communal forces by the Left is that, in large parts of the country, it is a negligible force, and has to join hands with other secular forces to accomplish the “central task”. And as things stand today, the Communists and the Congress will have to pull together to do, so, their differences on liberalisation notwithstanding. It may also be necessary
to evolve a modus vivendi even in Left-ruled States to
avoid a confrontationist approach, while dealing with
contentious socio-economic and political issues. This is
easier said than done but a struggle in that direction by
all concerned can alone create an atmosphere conducive to
making an all-embracing fight against communalism really
effective. In a significant shift in the light of its
central task, the CPM has already decided to extend
issue-based outside support to a Congress Government at
the Centre, should the need arise. — IPA |
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