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Monday, July 27, 1998
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Monday, July 27, 1998 |
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Unfair
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The
rise in crime graph
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Unfair US game IT is regrettable that the USA has politicised the question of a permanent seat at the UN Security Council for India. The State Department spokesman, Mr James Rubin, was unnecessarily brash in his tone when he said at his regular press briefing in Washington the other day: “Let me be very clear on that. Secretary of State Albright has been very clear on that. India is not going to blow its way into the Security Council as a permanent member. All it has done by conducting those explosions is to harm and make it impossible, in the current circumstances, for India to join the Security Council as a permanent member. We cannot support that kind of policy.” This speaks of American arrogance as a global policeman. For long, the world body has been used as an instrument of US policy, notwithstanding the fact that Washington has not cleared its dues, amounting to billions of dollars. It continues to misuse the UN and has shamelessly been imposing its views on the world body. This was surely not the idea behind the setting up of the United Nations after World War II. Every member of this international organisation is equal. But in practice it is the will of the Big Five, especially the USA, that prevails. What is disquieting is that America has virtually hijacked the world body and it is being increasingly used for the promotion of Washington’s strategic and policy goals. India deserves to be given a pride of place in the Security Council not only by virtue of its being the most populous nation in the world but also because of the principled and value-based role it has played for establishing a new global order. Today Washington comes out with an excuse of India’s nuclear explosions for denying it its legitimate right of getting a permanent seat in the council. President Bill Clinton and his advisers ought to remember that the nuclear debate would have been almost non-existent but for India’s consistent plea for an equitable and non-discriminatory disarmament regime. Unfortunately, the nuclear powers (P-5) have imposed an unfair system on the rest of humanity and India is being punished for questioning the fundamentals of this discriminatory approach. American leaders have apparently refused to learn from the collapse of the League of Nations. And by their negative responses, they seem to be turning the United Nations into yet another instrument of power for America’s global interests. The world body is already showing signs of decay. The slidedown will continue unless urgent steps are taken to thoroughly reform the UN and make it more representative of global realities. The Security Council too must be representative of the general membership of the UN. It is, therefore, essential that the developing countries like India become its permanent members. New Delhi is not begging for it. But its legitimate right cannot be ignored by China-centric American policy. In fact, the USA should have graciously sponsored India for the Security Council’s permanent membership . But grace and niceties seem to have become a casualty in today’s power-drunk Clinton regime.  |
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| A differ and defer team JUDGING by its actions (rather inactions), it is clear that the BJP-led ruling combine at the Centre is yet to develop collective thinking; what is more worrisome, it is also yet to establish a working relationship with the bureaucracy. “It is lack of experience,” Home Minister L.K. Advani explained in a television interview. That and inability to quickly grow on the job. From Mr Yashwant Sinha’s rapid back-and-forth movement to Mr Madan Lal Khurana’s now familiar routine of making an announcement and denying it the same day, the string of avoidable verbal mishaps attest to the impatience of the individuals and their reluctance to function in tandem with their officials. In the rule-bound and convention-driven system, there is absolutely no scope for the type of free-wheeling style most Ministers love to indulge in. Take the two latest examples. Mrs Sushma Swaraj, who showed promise during her first term, has done something totally unexpected. She challenged the power of the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) to refer the Prasar Bharati Bill to a select committee. Worse still, she questioned the authority of the Speaker to act on the committee’s suggestion. In her over-enthusiasm, she missed the basic point: the inordinately late arrival of the Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs to the BAC meeting and his failure to inform the members of the government’s intentions. She is today seething with frustration at her inability to table her pet Bill in this session itself. Mr Khurana tops those who find themselves always at sea. He promised to introduce several Bills in the second part of the Budget session and in each case he had to quickly retract. The Jain Commission report and the government’s response are the latest victims. Now the Lok Sabha has been asked to sit for a few days more just for this purpose. But there are serious differences of opinion in the Cabinet on the follow-up action, thus raising a question mark. The proposal to carve out four small states has to wait until the next session; obviously, the bureaucracy has not briefed the Minister on the complex procedures involved in the exercise and the financial implications, both for the mother and new states. Mr Ram Jethmalani is a lone ranger and his skirmish with the Chief Justice of India has not done him credit. But the stiff letter his Cabinet colleague, Mr Thambidurai, presiding over the Law Ministry, wrote, rightly provoked a mild rebuke from the CJI. Again, the Bill to scrap the Urban Land Ceiling and Regulation Act faces trouble what with the energetic opposition of actress Shabana Azmi. As an activist of the Mumbai slum-dwellers’ cause, she realises that if the Act is abolished, the land and building mafia will squeeze out the poor and raise plush multi-storeyed mansions. Finally, the insurance Bill, projected as the centre-piece of the government’s economic reforms legislation, has many months to make its appearance. This is a long list of non-achievements and explains the visible lack of enthusiasm among the ruling parties. |
| Sahib and the law THE popular impression is that most politicians in India consider themselves to be above the law of the land. How and why they have earned this reputation is a long story often told with inadequate exaggeration by the dream merchants of Bollywood. However, if they want to improve their image in the public eye, all they have to do is to follow the example of Delhi Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma. It can be called Sahib’s law of motion; which at least in one respect is an improvement on Newton’s outdated law of action and reaction. A politician seeking improvement in his public image should petition Mr Sahib Singh Verma to arrange for him a scooter and ride through the congested streets of Delhi to study the lack of civic amenities in the city. Once he gets caught in the heavy office-hour traffic he may even claim to have discovered the secret of perpetual motion — something the scientific community has failed to achieve even after persistent trials. But the purpose of the scooter-ride is not to make a scientific discovery — no matter how flawed — but to seek improvement in the political image, which otherwise shows him to be on the wrong side of the law. It is simple. The politician should not only not wear a helmet but should also be seen not wearing one. The Delhi Chief Minister was lucky that he got literally caught in the act of violating the traffic law by a battery of Press photographers. Most Delhi newspapers carried the priceless photograph under the caption, “Law-makers turn law-breakers”. No, the newspapers did not get the caption wrong. The Chief Minister had another VIP as a pillion rider — the one and only Mr K.L. Sharma, whose recent claim to fame was based on the newspaper pictures which showed him feasting on fruits while on “fast” against the inadequate civic amenities in his constituency. The next step for the image-conscious politician is simple to follow. He should call a Press conference and make sure that the DCP (Traffic) attends it as a special invitee. He should also make sure that the cameras are focused on him when he takes out two crisp Rs 100 currency notes to pay the fine for the traffic rule violation. He should ignore the question, as Mr Sahib Singh Verma did, that the fine for pillion riding without a helmet is much more. In any case, it is a question which Mr K.L. Sharma may like to answer at another Press conference. The public is advised not to get into the nitty gritty of the exercise. The purpose of calling a Press conference was to show Mr Sahib Singh Verma as a law-abiding citizen. Maybe some politician may call another Press conference some day to announce that he was surrendering his privilege to summon the DCP (Traffic) for paying the fine. Those who are familiar with the story of an Australian Prime Minister who paid the fine like any other citizen, without inviting the Press or summoning the police chief, after television cameras showed him not wearing the car safety belt, mandatory for even back-seat passengers, may still not be impressed with the effort of the Delhi Chief Minister to be seen on the right side of the law. |
| The rise in crime graph Combination of factors at play by K.F. Rustamji I would not believe anyone, not even the Union Home Minister, if he says that crime has not increased, or will not increase further. It is bound to increase owing to the conditions we have created in the land. Even lawlessness is lurking round the corner. We have already seen some of it in states like UP and Bihar, even Assam, and we have just emerged out of a horrible nightmare in Punjab. A good system of criminal justice which the British left behind is being destroyed by courts, lawyers and the police, and the apathy of the nation.  During the freedom struggle our leaders demanded separation of the judiciary from the executive to weaken the British government.That became the major theme of the Constitution, and it has proved to be a serious weakness of India ever since. Today each state government is like a “raj” without the “rajdanda”, which in every country keeps the ruler in place. The judiciary has distanced itself so completely that it appears to be totally unconnected with the government. Cases can go on indefinitely. The worst cases of violence and corruption can drag on for years. Known gangsters cannot be touched by the police. Mafias even direct the police to suppress their enemies. Pressure of the law cannot be put anyone through courts. In consequence, the police is told to use violence. A few deaths occur in encounters, and then a mistake, a wrong man is killed, which mass media and activists bring up noisily, and the police stops encounters. This is the cycle that we have used for the past 50 years. Crime increases, a draconian law is passed, the police misuses it, crime decreases, and it seems the law is no longer required. Once again crime increases, and there is an outcry, and another law is passed. How do we make the judiciary participate in the control of crime and disorder which is the basic reason for its existence? In no country in the world is the judiciary so independent that it cannot even be asked to speed up its rate of disposal. Nobody is even sure who can ask for an improvement. We, in the police, had hoped that someone in authority would see the situation and suggest remedies to correct the decline in justice. In the first place it is not clear who is responsible for justice in the land. The Prime Minister? The Home Minister? The Union Law Minister (who wants withdrawal of cases against his amma with unashamed fervour)? The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India? The Chief Ministers? The Bench or the Bar or all together? Or none? Presumably, it is the Government of India, but they have not even taken up reports of the Law Commission on the delay in courts and implemented the recommendations. The Attorney-General, Mr Soli Sorabji, seems to be the only one who has seen the danger. “Justice denied invites street law”, he says. “Mafias will give justice if justice is delayed. ”Actually, it will be difficult to change a system in which all have a vested interest, and which has evolved out of the freedom movement. Only a constitutional provision or amendment will make it possible for us to retrace our steps, and fix responsibility. It must clearly spell out that the Prime Minister (GOI) and the Chief Ministers are responsible for the administration of justice, in cooperation with the Supreme Court and the High Courts. They must have the powers to examine the performance of the judiciary, increase courts where necessary, or Lok Adalats or find other ways of reducing litigation, simplify laws, speed up disposal, and give all those powers to courts which are needed in the dispensation of justice. Slowly we are beginning to perceive that courts and lawyers, along with politicians and the police, are damaging the internal security of India. Few judicial officials want to offend the lawyer who asks for adjournment only to delay the case and weaken it. No one perhaps is willing to see that each case postponed fits into a pattern of lethargy and failure of justice. There are, it is true, subsidiary causes like police inability to bring the witnesses to court, or bad investigations, or political interference. What is the police to do when witnesses are produced, made to wait for a whole day, and then sent away as the court says it has no time. They refuse to come again. Besides, what confidence can witnesses have in the system. If the witnesses have incurred the wrath of a murderer, he may be out on bail, and the witnesses have to live in terror all their life. The same applies to political offenders accused of corruption.They come out on bail, after defrauding the nation of crores, like national heroes to the acclamation of rented crowds. The whole criminal justice system has been weakened by corruption, lethargy, lack of purpose, even lack of faith in the law, and lack of supervision. It has become lucrative to cheat. A complete overhaul is required. When the judiciary takes an easy line, the police is asked, even ordered, to correct it. The government tries to convert the weakness of the judiciary into a strength of the police. The police thinks it is an honour bestowed on it. And this at a time when we are on the edge of a social revolution, when millions of youngsters are restive owing to unemployment, when prices are not under control, the political situation is uncertain, and the poor have no hand to hold. What we need are judicial officers who want to intervene, decide cases expeditiously, who make us feel that a firm legal influence pervades the land. They may convict or acquit, that will depend on the evidence. Even the severity of sentence does not matter. It is the quick decision. They must give a decision within a time limit of six months in all cases. If we can impose a time limit on investigations, why has a time limit not been imposed on trials?It is a curious reversal of roles that has taken place in the field of criminal justice. It is not the criminal who is afraid of the law. It is the police that has been placed in the dock at every turn, often because it tried to imposed punishments. In addition, activists, lawyers, and courts that seek popularity by an anti-police stance, have led to a large number of police officers being prosecuted in public interest litigations that have made the police fear the law more than the criminal. At the same time, there are powerful crime-lawyer syndicates that operate, and in every case, even in important ones, the judiciary does not own any responsibility for delay, and governments call upon the police to act. In Punjab, the police officers who fought terrorism have been subjected to humiliation of a special type. They have been summoned by courts in PIL cases in different places, made to wait in corridors for hours, and then subjected to an insulting cross-examination. Unable to take all that was inflicted on him, Ajit Singh Sandhu committed suicide leaving a note that he preferred to die rather than live a life of humiliation. Why should the entire police force not be given the credit? Instead, why are the faults of a few made to appear as the faults of all? Is it to give a push to terrorism? Policemen, in self defence, always say that crime is not out of control. What they cannot say for fear of creating a scare or getting punished, or inviting a central team of observers, is that all the factors indicate that crime is increasing, will keep on increasing. Statistics of crime mean nothing. No police station registers crime as it should. If it did, the press would target individual police officers, and the legislature may go into hysterics. All attempts are made to keep the statistics presentable — not dependable, like the statistics of inflation. Several factors that make for the increase have come together, the worst of them being sanctions. Among the prominent factors are the failure of the police to keep track of criminals owing to the size of each charge, and the development of slums. Other causes: the large police contingent earmarked for security, the laxity of courts, poor patrolling, the nexus between politicians and criminals, the rise in prices and the devaluation of the rupee. At the same time there is no coordination among the different agencies. A notorious gangster, Al Capone, in the USA, who evaded the police, was finally caught for tax evasion, sentenced to 10 years and died in prison. In India we have no common enemy. All departments behave as enemies of each other. Every sociologist will tell you that the people of India are changing. They are not the same people as they were during the Moghul and British periods. Democracy is making them a sturdy people, and they want and demand a better life. If their condition becomes unbearable and they see injustice and disparities, they will not starve and die; they will work up strikes and stoppages. There are 400 million poor in India who are demanding justice, not the 1/4 million who stood up to defy the regime in Paris in 1789.We may be able to deal with extortions and kidnappings. We may even be able to track down the gangs and shoot them up. What can we do against a new form of crime of those companies that con one bank for a loan, and then cheat another one on the ground that the industry has failed and has to be revived. All that is kept secret. Is it in any way different from the extortion or kidnapping cases or murder rackets, except that the loot is much bigger, the danger of getting caught much less. Extend that game to mutual funds, all types of private banks and investment companies, and you have a case study of massive dishonesty. The whole banking industry needs to be the subject of an enquiry to uncover the tactics which have made the country poorer, and the affluent class richer. They make money out of the nation’s misery. The police can only keep this phase of crime under control if it behaves correctly and galvanise the whole city or countryside to give information and help. Massive rewards, rigorous searches for weapons, secret telephone numbers, mohulla vigilance, and proper publicity are needed. The police did it that way in Mumbai when bombs appeared in trains and near police stations, and managed to check that outbreak. They must learn how to galvanise a city, and take the help of citizens. If citizens help there can be no undetectable crime. That is only one part of the problem. We have not cared to help the poor in these difficult times when the rupee is fast losing its value and jobs are difficult to find, and crime is intimately connected with stagnation.As a nation, we seem to be obsessed with external dangers, and can imagine several that are illusory. But we refuse to see internal dangers. Population, economic degradation, the price rise, the devalued rupee, the sanctions, and unemployment can be more dangerous to peace. And when we combine them with judicial apathy, police misdirection and political inaction, we have all the ingredients for a big explosion that can shake us to our foundations. |
| Viagra in the land of Kamasutra by V.K. Kapoor We called him Koka Pundit, though his real name was Kamuk Aggarwal. He had acquired this name because of his phenomenal erotic knowledge at a very tender age. The real Koka Pundit was supposed to have written “Kok Shastra”, a detailed treatise on love and sex. We joined engineering college together. I left the engineering college after a month or so, joined arts and subsequently became a cop. He completed his engineering, joined as SDO and was dismissed after five years on corruption charges. He narrowly escaped jail. He became a contractor and subsequently an exporter and prospered. We met accidentally after many years, when I was posted as a district SP. The young thin college lad had bloomed into a healthy and prosperous looking adult. With a dark complexion, hooked nose and roving black eyes, he looked like a wanted face, from an Interpol bulletin. He was delightfully wicked. A sweet mix of cunning and convention, his two personalities smartly coexisted. He told me of his links with the grand and the fallen, the fabulous and semi-fabulous. He was in export business, which made him travel extensively. Whenever he talked of his foreign jaunts, his lizard eyes creased with desire. He talked of acres of tanned flesh and frolicking. It was a fantasy life. I found him a charming reckless slime. He had a devastating business acumen, and made money out of everything. As a young first-year student, he had been able to lay his hands on a pornographic book. He charged Re 1 each from 15 boys like me who read the book. Next time he got an illustrated book, and said that he would read the relevant portions and show the pictures to all of us at one go — only those boys were invited who had shelled out Re 1 last time, and of whom he was sure. This time he said he would charge only eight annas per boy. All 15 of us sat as he read through the explicit purple pages. Suddenly he stopped. Fifteen pulsating young bodies gave a collective groan. He said he would get eight annas more from everybody to read the last page and show what was there on those pages. We agreed and paid up. When I reminded him of this incident, he laughed uproariously and said that was called being street smart. He had a mind as sharp as a gutting knife. A small talent with a great deal of salesmanship, he could spot an opportunity and generate an opportunity. He made his principles plain — he did not have any and that itself was a matter of principle. He found my bourgeois domesticity enervating and non-creative. He said I should have been a teacher at some “putri pathshala” (a girls’ school) rather than being a policeman. Sometime back I met him at the pre-wedding celebrations of a friend’s daughter. It was a farm party. The green lawns, the swimming pool and the dancing floor gave the whole atmosphere a dreamland look. Koka had come back from California only two days back. He told me that he had three “pills” of Viagra with him, and patted his pocket. One had been used. It was “balle-balle”, he said and made a very suggestive gesture. Suddenly, Koka got up and advanced towards a couple who had just arrived. There was something deliciously corrupt about the woman. She was effortlessly gorgeous and looked radiantly appetising. The husband had a tired, used, fatigued body and the rundown appearance of an addict. The party warmed up. People started pouring in. Liquor was flowing. A large number of women were drinking. In India the middle class has come of age. The number of divorces are rising along with the number of washing machines. The cult of success has replaced a belief in principles. Prosperity dictates its own momentum. A newly emergent, restless, urban middle class looks for motion, stimulation and variety in life. A large number of high heels and low necklines were visible. Suddenly, a young crooner started singing “Koka” and the woman started dancing. Both of them had whisky glasses in their hands. The woman was dancing with gay abandon. Three or four middle aged men also chipped in and started making dancing gestures. I wondered whether they all had Viagra pills in their pockets. The husband was sitting by my side. He told me that he taught “professional living” and held regular classes. I could not understand what he meant by “professional living”. I complimented him on his wife’s excellent dancing talent. He exulted: “Guddi does everything like a battle tank.” I thought I would request Koka to give one pill to this guy. He told me that Koka and his wife were planning to open a “health club” and were shortly going to Hong Kong to buy the latest equipment. They had decided to name the club “Viagra”. After a month or so, I came to know that Koka died. He had gone abroad. His body was brought by his business partner, who had planned to open the “Viagra” health club. “Viagra” had claimed Koka’s life. I attended Koka’s last ceremony. The lady and her husband were there. I was really feeling sad. He was my old chum.After condoling with the grieving wife, as I was getting out the “lady” asked for my visiting card and telephone number. I told her that I didn’t have. She gave me her card and asked me to call. She was absolutely professional and clinical in her behaviour. No grief, no emotion — one deal soured, look for another. Perhaps that was “professional living” which her husband was teaching. As I was coming back, I was reminded of a couplet:Yehi zindagi museebat, yehi zindagi musarrat,Yehi zindagi haqiqat, yehi zindagi fasana. |
| How to take on China by Rahul Singh UNLIKE our ministers who have a habit of speaking out of turn — often on subjects outside their given responsibility — Chinese officials are very careful when they make public pronouncements. What they say has invariably been cleared in advance at the highest level and is part of a carefully considered policy. Which is why what the recently appointed Chinese Ambassador to India, Mr Zhou Gang, had to say to New Delhi journalists the other day in his second “on-the-record” press conference must be taken very seriously, indeed. He made two main points which need to be noted by the Indian authorities and by the Indian public. Firstly, that, there was no question of his country vacating Aksai Chin, which he claimed had been a part of China since “ancient times” and over which Beijing exerted “effective administration”. Secondly, that Kashmir was not an integral part of India, because it was “disputed territory”. He tried to moderate his country’s views by saying, in the same breath, that China was committed to solving the boundary dispute with India “in accordance with the principle of friendly consultation, mutual understanding and mutual accommodation”. This is nothing but double-speak at its worse.The Chinese hard-line follows the statement some time back by Union Defence Minister George Fernandes to the effect that New Delhi regarded China as its “main threat”. Beijing reacted with outrage. This was followed by India’s nuclear tests which were also condemned by China, another bit of hypocrisy, considering that China has been a nuclear weapons power for many years. Looking back, Mr Fernandes’s statement regarding China was clearly a calculated one, intended to justify the tests, which were already in the works. But let us first examine what the Chinese envoy had to say. Before that, however, a little background. Aksai Chin is a part of Ladakh and in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Surreptitiously, in the years of Jawaharlal Nehru’s well-meaning but rather naive “Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai” (Indian and Chinese are brothers), China occupied Aksai Chin, building a road across Indian territory to connect two sections of Chinese territory.Nehru knew about it but kept quite and hid what was really a blatantly aggressive and unfriendly act from the rest of the nation. He imagined that it was an aberration, and that he could still get India and China to be on amicable terms. Beijing had other plans. They did not include friendship with India. When the Chinese occupation of Aksai Chin could no longer be hidden from the Indian public, Nehru tried to make light of the matter in Parliament by dismissing the lost territory as land of little value “where nothing grew”. His explanation infuriated not just the Opposition but the general Indian public as well.Inexorably, India was dragged into a war with China in the high Himalayas for which the Indian troops were not in the least bit prepared. The Chinese army, on the other hand, battle-hardened by both the war against the Japanese and against the Americans in Korea, was totally ready. The result was a brief yet bloody clash in the Himalayas in which the Indian army was completely routed. To make the humiliation complete, the Chinese troops, with the plains of north-east India at their mercy, made a unilateral withdrawal from the areas they had occupied. However, they continued to insist that they did not recognise the McMahon line drawn by the British in the North-East, thereby laying claims to vast tracts of Indian territory behind that line. And, of course, they continued to occupy Aksai Chin. To make matters worse, they acquired, amicably, from Pakistan a part of what India calls “Pakistan Occupied Kashmir” (POK), which rightly belongs to India and Islamabad had no business to gift it away. So in many ways we have a lot to be bitter about the Chinese government. It initially spurned our hand of friendship, it occupied our territory, it went to war against us and defeated us, and then helped Pakistan to become a nuclear power by transferring nuclear technology to Islamabad. But in the last two decades or so, the geopolitical situation has completely changed. The Soviet Union, a long-time ally of India, has disintegrated. In China, a new leadership, more concerned about giving their people a better life rather than arm the country to its teeth, has been in power. And it has succeeded. We in India have not.With the May nuclear tests, we have decided to take on China, or so the BJP-led government says. Our main threat is not Pakistan, but China, says the BJP. Beijing retaliates with its traditional line: Aksai Chin is ours — along with other parts of India, such as Arunachal Pradesh — and has been since “ancient times”. And Kashmir is “disputed territory”. If New Delhi really want to raise the ante with Beijing, it should earnestly take up an issue where the Chinese are vulnerable. It should take up the Tibetan cause. We made the cardinal mistake in Nehru’s time of conceding China “sovereignty” over Tibet (the British had carefully used the word “suzerainty”). We did nothing when the Chinese invaded Tibet and tens of thousands of refugees, including the Dalai Lama, were forced to seek shelter here. A vital bufffer between India and China was removed, making it easier for the Chinese aggression in 1962. If we really want to put the heat on China and retaliate in a meaningful fashion to what the Chinese envoy has said, we should openly espouse the cause of independence for Tibet. If Beijing can claim that Kashmir is “disputed territory”, we should question the present status of Tibet and the many human rights abuses that have taken place there. The question is: does the present Indian government have the guts to do that? |
| POINT OF LAW Time for a delimitation debate by Anupam Gupta THE “Election Commission is a permanent body... having the necessary experience in conducting elections and tackling the nitty-gritty of election management and electioneering.... The Commission is an independent and completely neutral institution, and is perceived as such by both the polity and the general public in the country. It is, therefore, entirely in the fitness of things that the task of delimitation of constituencies, of ironing out the imbalances that creep in from time to time, including the question of rotation of seats for reserved categories, should appropriately be entrusted to the multi-member Election Commission. ”Touching an area not very familiar to lawyers and Judges, this proposal is the centerpiece of the Election Commission’s comprehensive cogitation on electoral reforms made public on July 17. And it exceeds in importance, and by far, even its proposal for taking over the adjudicatory functions of the Speaker under the anti-defection law (discussed in this column last week). For delimitation of constituencies involves the redrawing, in whole or in part, of the electoral map of the country. The Constitution has already fixed, says the Commission in its 38-page printed expression of views, the maximum and minimum limits for seats in Parliament and the State legislatures. Within those constitutional parameters, Parliament can further allocate the number of seats to various States in the Lok Sabha and can also fix the total number of seats in various Legislative Assemblies. “Thereafter, all matters relating to delimitation of ... Parliamentary and Assembly territorial constituencies should be left to the Election Commission. The Commission should also have the power to remove the distortions from time to time which affect the very basic principle of elections, namely, one man one vote. ”One man one vote. That, in the ultimate analysis and as much legally as politically, is the crux of the problem. “Legislators represent people, not trees or acres”, said the Supreme Court of the USA in 1964 in Reynolds versus Sims, elaborating the point in a classic statement. “Legislators are elected by voters, not farms or cities or economic interests.... (To) the extent that a citizen’s right to vote is debased, he is that much less a citizen. A nation once primarily rural in character becomes predominantly urban. Representation schemes once fair and equitable become archaic and outdated. But the basic principle of representative government (remains) — the weight of a citizen’s vote cannot be made to depend on where he lives.... This is the clear and strong command of our Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause... This is at the heart of Lincoln’s vision of government of the people, by the people, and for the people”. The Election Commission cites no judicial opinions but substantiates the point with illustrations that are as alarming as they are revealing. The Chandni Chowk Parliamentary constituency in the nation’s capital has only about 3.68 lakh voters, whereas the electorate in the Outer Delhi constituency exceeds 29 lakh. The Mumbai South Parliamentary constituency has only about seven lakh voters, while the Thane Parliamentary constituency in Maharashtra has a voting strength of 28.70 lakh. The Madras South Parliamentary constituency has nearly 20 lakh voters, which is double the strength of the electorate in the Mayiladuthurai Parliamentary constituency in Tamil Nadu. The value of a man’s vote in Outer Delhi, in other words, is one-eighth of the value of his vote in Chandni Chowk; the value of a man’s (or woman’s) vote in Thane is one-fourth of its value in Mumbai South; and the value of a vote in Madras South is one-half of its value at another place in Tamil Nadu. As elsewhere in the free world, political gerrymandering in India has made deep inroads into the principle of one man, one vote, the Constitution notwithstanding. Unlike the USA, however, gerrymandering is non-justifiable in India and no judicial redress is possible. This has come about primarily as a result of the Supreme Court’s 1966 judgement in Meghraj Kothari’s case, a judgement that is theoretically wrong but practically right. Matters of delimitation, ruled the Supreme Court (Justice G.K. Mitter speaking for a Constitution Bench), cannot be reagitated in any court of law once they are decided by the Delimitation Commission and its orders notified in the official gazette. Their publication in the gazette puts the orders passed by the Commission “in the same street as a law made by Parliament” under Article 327 of the Constitution, which law is rendered immune from challenge by Article 329 (a). This is because Section 10(2) of the Delimitation Act, 1972 expressly provides that upon being gazetted, every order of the Delimitation Commission “shall have the force of law and shall not be called in question in any court”. Between a “law” made by Parliament and an executive order or notification that has the “force of law” under a statute there is a whole world of difference, and the Supreme Court’s line of reasoning is marked by unpardonable jurisprudential confusion. Nor can the constitutional jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and High Courts under Articles 32, 226 and 136 be taken away by any statutory provision like Section 10(2) of the Delimitation Act.But Meghraj Kothari’s case is right, as I said, for a very practical consideration. And that is best stated in the words of the Supreme Court itself. If the orders passed by the Delimitation Commission under Sections 8 and 9 of the Act are not to be treated as final, it held, “the effect would be that any voter, if he so wished, could hold up an election indefinitely by questioning the delimitation of constituencies from court to court. ”Delimitation being what it is, the EC’s proposal to substitute itself for the Delimitation Commission has far-reaching implications. By all accounts, however, it is a proposal that merits serious consideration. |
 75 YEARS AGO For honour of national flag From Satyagraha Correspondent NAGPUR: Six volunteers were arrested yesterday and sentenced today each to six months’ rigorous and one month’s simple imprisonment. Twelve volunteers arrested on the 12th instant received the same punishment. Today six volunteers offered themselves for satyagraha and were arrested. In a largely attended meeting in Sanichari, a Mohammadan enjoined on the Mussalmans their religious duty to fight shoulder to shoulder with their Hindu brethren in defence of the National Flag. It is learnt that 80 volunteers of Seoni were not allowed to proceed to Nagpur by railway train. About 24 volunteers were transferred from the Nagpur Central Jail to Akola yesterday. Special arrangement was made to stop the train at Ajni, a suburb station of Nagpur, where passenger trains do not usually stop. The volunteers are coming from Gujarat this evening under the supervision of Mr Gopal Das Desai. |
| DIVERSITIES — Delhi
letter Grim marital realities — a study by Humra Quraishi LET us face some of the grim marital realities on the Indian urban middle class level. Though for the past few years I have been hearing (and writing) details about Usha Mahajan’s findings on her study of the urban middle and upper middle class marriage scene but it is only now — on July 25 — that those are coming out in the form of a book — “Utho Annapoorna Saath Chalain” (Kitab Ghar). Mahajan undertook this project as part of the KK Birla fellowship awarded to her and the conclusions that her study have brought about are enough to make our planners and experts sit up and review the facade revolving around marriage. Those blatant lies that all’s-going-fine-with-our-marriages need to be quickly buried for Mahajan’s findings point out that “90 per cent of the Indian urban marriages are far from happy, say just surviving for the sake of the usual reasons. I have come to the conclusion that the women resort to divorce as the last option, so just because divorce rates are low here should not mislead people into believing that all’s going right with the Indian marriages ......Indian women sacrifice just about anything to see that the marriage somehow pulls along and even women holding top positions have confided that they are not happily married yet have to give in for the sake of children and society “According to her study the basic causes for marriage breakups are incompatability and sexual unfulfilment, so much so that this book even highlights the growing trend of extra marital sex. “I think this trend has picked up from the last 12 years and with this even the concept of live-in relationships is picking up. You will be surprised to know that in the towns (Delhi, Agra, Cuttack, Bhuvaneshwar, Calcutta, Jamshedpur) I concentrated on for these findings, live-in relationships are very common esp in the University areas ... ”Like a good Indian she doesn’t end the book on a sour note rather harps on the fact that marriages and with them the family structures have to be saved, at any cost. If for no other sake than to counter the further spread of STD, VD and AIDS (she has even dwelt on these, esp in the context of premarital and extra marital relationship) Mulayam’s pourings Book writing to outpour political plots could become a new fad of politicians or of those drenched in political colours. Last week it was the release of Romesh Bhandari’s book ‘As I saw it’ and now one hears that soon Mulayam Singh Yadav’s autobiography is all set to be released. Mulayam has played his cards very well and has not limited the autobiography to just plain Hindi bhasha rather he has used the services of a former senior journalist to write it out in English, and Bhandari’s publisher to publish the same. And though the book is yet to be released but it is said that it is just the political ongoings that he has concentrated on. There is little to no mention of the personal details, which is a pity for no autobiography ought to be complete without the personal intermingled with the rest. And in his case this is particularly important, for till date very few have seen his wife (said to be living in the ancestral village of Uttar Pradesh) and his only child is staying and studying in some hostel. And he is one of those handful of politicians whose name is not linked with any woman, political or otherwise. And it is yet to be seen who would be the chosen one for the release ceremony (could be Phoolan Devi? Or Laloo or Rabri Devi?) and then, how many form the audience. In the case of Bhandari’s book release I was amazed to see the cross section — to be specific — there was the High Commissioner of Pakistan who had come along with his spouse, several Congressmen which included Jitendra Prasad, Manmohan Singh, Begum Rampur, many former civil servants and prominent amongst them was CBI’s former chief RC Sharma, MM Rajendran, Vardharajan and not to forget Bhandari’s own rather sprawling clan which was headed by his mother. Paper bags from ashram Though there is a lot of that vocal tirade against polythene bags but when it trickles to actual implementation it boils down to nil, so much so that government’s very own NDMC supplies big black polythene bags to residents of New Delhi for garbage deposits ....And with this backdrop, not having seen a paper bag in recent times except at channawallahs or in some high boutiques I was surprised to be handed atta, dals, masalas, cakes and namkeen in paper bags at the Aurobindo Ashram sales counter. |
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