Events that mark
end of era
By TVR Shenoy

Indian sports fans celebrated the 15th anniversary of India’s victory in the Prudential World Cup earlier this year. Cricket, however, is something of an acquired taste. Lots of nations — most of them — shall ignore it altogether.

Public meeting
at Calcutta
In connection with the Turkish Peace Celebration in Calcutta, a public meeting was held this afternoon, when Mr C.R. Das, presiding, took the message of the Turkish War in its open light. According to him, Turkey had attained independence but not freedom.

. A firm believer in personal liberty By Harihar Swaroop TENURES of successive Chief Justices of India of late have been too short. It is often said in a lighter vein that they retire even before the ink of their signatures dry on their judicial pronouncement from the high pedestal.

The many levels
of deterrence
By Bimal Bhatia

IN the post-Pokhran II scenario the aspect of deterrence has been least debated and most misunderstood within India’s strategic community.Notice how in the Indo-Pak context many analysts on both sides have totally ruled out a conventional conflict in view of the nuclear potential of both and the probability of a devastating outcome

By TVR Shenoy
Events that mark end of era

Indian sports fans celebrated the 15th anniversary of India’s victory in the Prudential World Cup earlier this year. Cricket, however, is something of an acquired taste. Lots of nations — most of them — shall ignore it altogether.

Offhand, I can think of only two games boasting a global audience — football and tennis. And even football is something of a hothouse plant in the American market. (What the United States describes as ‘football’ is closer to rugby.) No, the world at large won’t remember the World Cup of 1983; but it will remember the famous ‘Battle of the Sexes’ between Bobby Riggs and Billy Jean King.

The women’s movement had barely begun in 1973. But it was already provoking resentment, even alarm, in male circles. Some feared that women would provide further competition in a tight job market. And there were chauvinists in plenty who thought a women’s place was in the house and nowhere else — “barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen” as the cliché went.

Bobby Riggs, a professional tennis player since the 1930s, was one of the latter. But he cannily noted the commercial possibilities of the situation. He challenged the top women players of the era to compete against him, picking up a bonanza while proving that no female could take on even a semi-retired male.

Early in 1973 Riggs beat the legendary Margaret Court. To be honest he thrashed her, running up a score of 6-2, 6-1. This put the pressure squarely on Billy Jean King, already famed for her feminist views. She didn’t flinch from the challenge.

The day of the match was September 20, 1973. Riggs, more than a little cocky after beating Court, asked King if she would agree to a best-of-five match (the men’s standard) rather than a best-of-three (the women’s norm). She accepted — and beat him easily, winning three sets outright.

Some events mark the end of one era and the beginning of another. A survey conducted in the United States pointed that there were some things that stood out as the touchstone of a generation. Some said the happening that changed them was Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941, which drew the USA out of isolationism. Others said it was the assassination of Kennedy on November 22, 1963, that marked the end of a more innocent age.

Billy Jean King’s victory in the ‘Battle of the Sexes’ was considered equally seminal. The hype created by Riggs and his fellow chauvinists had backfired with a vengeance. When King won it wasn’t just her victory, but that of all women. It gave thousands the confidence that they could compete on equal terms with men (at least in some fields).

Rigg’s defeat didn’t mean that the struggle for equality was over any more than Pearl Harbour brought an end to the Axis forces in World War II. But the reaction of many women mirrored that of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill when he heard the United States had entered the war; he went to bed that night “saturated with emotion”, convinced of “ultimate victory”. That was essentially what many women felt on that night of September 20, 1973.

But there is a happy ending to the story. Riggs and King became good friends once the shouting ended. Just before Riggs died in October, 1995, he spoke to King one last time. “We really made a difference, Billie, didn’t we!” he said.

They had. If there is one lesson to be drawn from the ‘Battle of the Sexes’ it was that it is one war where nobody needed to lose and both sides could win.

By Harihar Swaroop
A firm believer in personal liberty

TENURES of successive Chief Justices of India of late have been too short. It is often said in a lighter vein that they retire even before the ink of their signatures dry on their judicial pronouncement from the high pedestal. All of them were top personalities and considered authority in various spheres of the judiciary.

They had their own ideas of reforming the legal system but before they could collect their thoughts, formulate schemes and implement them, they had to call it a day. The term of the outgoing Chief Justice, Mr M.M. Punchhi, lasted barely eight months and that too was bogged down in controversies.

After almost two decades, Mr Justice Adarsh Sein Anand, who succeeds Mr Justice Punchhi next month, will have a longer tenure; a little over three years. He will be occupying the highest judicial chair of the land when the 20th century is rung out and India and the world enter the 21st century. Apart from acquiring vast knowledge in the field of law, Mr Justice Anand is an academician, having the distinction of obtaining the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Law from University College, London. Since then he has come to be known as “Dr Justice Anand”.

His personality has been best summed up by Justice M.N. Venkatachalliah when he was the Chief Justice and Mr Justice Anand a judge of the apex court. “Dr Justice Anand”, observed Justice Venkatachalliah, “is a rare combination of a Judge, constitutional lawyer, scholar and more than all, a great human being whose personal charm and gracious relationship is matched and, perhaps, surpassed only by his great scholarship and penchant for justice”. This is, perhaps, best summing of the incoming Chief Justice’s personality.

Mr Justice Anand is a firm believer in personal liberty and right of citizens as enshrined in the Constitution. He is for strict enforcement of the laws governing personal liberty of a citizen. In a landmark judgement two years back he laid down 11-point guidelines for police personnel handling cases of arrests, detention and subsequent interrogation. Apparently, the mandatory direction to be followed by the police authorities came in the aftermath of reports of police atrocities and custodial deaths.

The guideline provides, among other things, medical examination of the detained person every 48 hours and permission to meet his lawyer during interrogation. Also, the police personnel carrying out the arrest and handling interrogation should bear accurate, visible and clear identification and name tag with their designation.

Mr Justice Anand is basically a product of Jammu and the field of his activities initially had been J & K, Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh. Despite being a bright student and belonging to a family having a thriving business, he had to struggle in life to make his way. Those who know him closely say he has been a dissenter and a rebel since childhood. The death of his mother when he was quite young and his father’s second marriage had a shattering impact on the young Anand’s psyche and the rebel in his personality came to the fore.

His intimate friends say that his days as a lawyer in Chandigarh when he attended courts during the day and worked as part-time lecturer of law in night were days of struggle. Few may be knowing that Mr Justice Anand married the girl (lone daughter of a Major-General) he loved and that too much against the wishes of his father and the stepmother. Both met in London when Mr Justice Anand was studying law there and she was a student of the London School of Economics. It was, as if, love at first sight.

Deprived of the tender love of his mother, Mr Justice Anand, has a very satisfying married life and the Anands have been described by family friends as an “ideal couple”. She has been the moving spirit behind Mr Justice Anand’s success in life, they say. Their three daughters have been married and well settled but none of them have taken to their father’s profession. In fact, none in Mr Justice Anand’s family opted for the legal profession.

Mr Justice Anand was also briefly associated with the Socialist party early in life but the dubious ways of politics did not suit his judicial temperament. Nevertheless, he became an admirer of Jayaprakash Narayan and the Sarvodaya leader became a sources of inspiration for him.

Mr Justice Anand made a mark in the legal profession quite early in age and at the age of 38 he was appointed Additional Judge of the J & K High Court. That was in the year 1975. A decade’s stint in the High Court qualified him to be elevated to the post of Chief Justice. His reputation as a fair Judge was by then established. He was transferred to Madras as Chief Justice of the High Court and became the first non-Tamil to occupy the coveted office.

Mr Justice Anand’s book —The Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir, its Development and Comments — has been the most authentic work on the subject and contains everything that one would like to know about Kashmir, its political history, evolution of the process of integration with the Indian Union and the factors that led to enactment of the state’s Constitution.

The book, first published in 1980, has been revised thrice; the latest revision took place only this year and the second one in 1994.

The many levels of deterrence
By Bimal Bhatia

IN the post-Pokhran II scenario the aspect of deterrence has been least debated and most misunderstood within India’s strategic community.

Notice how in the Indo-Pak context many analysts on both sides have totally ruled out a conventional conflict in view of the nuclear potential of both adversaries and the high probability of a devastating outcome. This conclusion is based on the flawed premise that deterrence functions at a single level and continues to operate on that plane.

It will be pragmatic for those in the apex politico-military hierarchy, responsible to formulate our nuclear strategy, doctrines and responses, to be familiar with the contours of the many levels of deterrence.

The main reason for Pakistan’s refusal to accede to a “no first use” commitment arises from its sheer lack of geographical depth and the relative superiority of India’s conventional forces, due to which it fears a dismemberment by India if its proxy war in Kashmir proceeds beyond India’s tolerance.

The first use of nuclear weapons in the Indo-Pak context, therefore, is more likely to be made by Pakistan. Such a contingency will, however, arise in the event of the failure of nuclear deterrence at the macro level which is now assumed to be operative on both sides.

Nuclear weapons are mainly political weapons to serve diplomatic needs including that of deterrence which is best described as a mix of political and military muscle to manoeuvre into a position of advantage in any contingency. Within the combined politico-military spectrum the highest purpose served by nukes is to avoid confrontations and prevent war which they do in many ways.

In the larger context thus deterrence involves not just a capacity to retaliate but also to withstand pressures and threats. In India’s context the issue of unresolved borders with China — their claim of entire Arunachal Pradesh, occupation of Aksai Chin and disputed small pockets in Himachal and Uttar Pradesh — requires India to negotiate from a position of strength, even if such a settlement were to be worked out by our future generations as suggested by the Chinese themselves.

In dealing with Pakistan, its one-point policy of annexing Kashmir at all “costs” could lead India into a situation of nuclear blackmail by an intransigent political leadership driven by a hard-headed military junta. Pakistan’s assertion that its nuclear programme is far superior to India’s and frantic pursuit of its missile programme underscores just this future scenario of the “Islamic bomb” being used to mete out a threat to whittle India into a weak-kneed “compromise”.

The next level of deterrence is in the prevention of war itself. Witnessed in the Indo-Pak context was the stand-off which did not lead to war during the run-up to the much-hyped exercise Brasstacks in January, 1987. Both nations were then assumed to possess incipient nuclear capability, and this “perception” of the other’s capacity to retaliate — along with associated factors like unaffordable costs of war and international repercussions — resulted in mere posturing in what got termed as operation Trident which was de-escalated at the diplomatic level.

Notched at the third level of deterrence within the political framework is the prevention of proxy war, just the type of meddling by Pakistan that has been exercising India since almost two decades — Punjab, J&K and now attempts to engulf the North-Eastern states. But how does one target insurgents and foreign mercenaries with nuclear weapons?

Empowering the nation is not just the nuclear capability but a national resolve flowing from such power which signals to the adversary the limits of interference in its internal affairs that can be tolerated. The nation’s core strength boosts the morale and imparts purpose to the military, paramilitary and other organs of state, while conveying to the militants what they are lined up against. In dealing with a sponsor state the level of threshold will be largely determined by the resoluteness within the political hierarchy.

Notice that we have variously been engaged in time and space in the entire spectrum of deterrence discussed thus far. Part of the motivation for posturing in Brasstacks stemmed from the requirement to caution Pakistan against continued fanning the fire in Punjab. This degenerated into a heightened proxy war in Kashmir which peaked in 1990-91, when there was speculation of a war/nuclear showdown. Pakistan’s blatant and persistent fuelling of the militancy in Kashmir suggests the inadequacy of the deterrent effect in this sphere arising mainly due to the absence of a well articulated “no-nonsense” policy.

There is a possibility, howsoever remote, that even with nuclear weapons, continued and unashamed sponsoring of insurgency may result in a conventional conflict arising out of Pakistan’s obduracy and a miscalculation of India’s threshold. Nuclear deterrence at the political level not being fail-safe, deterrence at the military level comes into immediate operation.

Within the military context also, which entails the use or threat of use of tactical nuclear weapons, deterrence is aimed at (a) preventing the escalation into a strategic nuclear conflict; (b) minimising the probability of a tactical nuclear engagement; and (c) enlarging or localising the scope of the conventional conflict in consonance with the national aim.

Accompanying an understanding of the dynamics of deterrence is the formulation of policies and procedures of who will have the control over the button at the strategic and tactical levels. This needs careful deliberation and analysis and will influence the complexities of a conventional conflict if forced upon India.Central to deterrence at the macro level, however, will remain the political will which shoots signals more powerful than the bomb itself making its use quite unnecessary.

75 YEARS AGO
Public meeting at Calcutta

In connection with the Turkish Peace Celebration in Calcutta, a public meeting was held this afternoon, when Mr C.R. Das, presiding, took the message of the Turkish War in its open light. According to him, Turkey had attained independence but not freedom.

Turkey belonged both to Asia and Europe, and an independent Turkey meant not only the federation of Asiatic Nations but a federation of Asiatic and European nations. He was not afraid of the Pan-Islamic movement because it was a genuine religious movement dedicated to the service of humanity.

He rejoiced in the victory of Turkish arms, because it symbolised the Asiatic federation, because it included in it Africa and Europe, because it promised ultimate unity of all races of the world and augured the establishment of true nationalism.

According to him, no nation could be free unless all nations of the world were freed. The so-called feud between nationalism and universalism was untrue. There was no truth in nationalism unless there was unity of all nations which led to the best interest of nationalism. The great message which Turkey was destined to give to the world not only of a federation of different nations of Asia but that of all nations of the world and he asked Indians to so work, think and dream as to make it possible to deliver this message to the world.

Babu Shamsunder Chakravarti said that while leaders in India were at their wit’s end to find means for the solution of Hindu-Mohammedan differences, the news of Turkish peace came as a great relief.