Playing the Kargil card
THE BJP-led alliance is unhappy over Congress’ attempts to pooh-pooh the victory of the Indian armed forces in Kargil.

Can Arundhati save the
Narmada movement?
By Harihar Swarup

TWO years back when Arundhati Roy won the prestigious Booker Prize, she was asked whether she had found what she wanted to do for the rest of her life and if she would now become a full-time novelist?

Her reply was: " I don’t know: I never set out to plan my life". Booker made her a celebrity overnight: she hit the headlines in newspapers and magazines published her photograph on the cover. Months rolled by and an unknown Arundhati rose from strength to strength not knowing what she would do next. Suddenly she found herself in the thick of "Narmada bachao andolan" (NBA).

Several months back she had come to the Narmada valley alone and the plight of villagers, who were to be uprooted, moved her. She made up her mind on the spot, pledged to espouse their cause. She was back in the Narmada valley early this month (August) but this time she was not alone — a whole caravan of Narmada activists followed her.

After a five-hour ride, she reached Jalsindhi, a sleepy little village in tribal dominated Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh, where the noted environmentalist, Medha Patkar, was on month-long "satyagraha", threatening to take "jal samadhi". Jalsindhi is one of the villages in the valley which would be submerged as a result of a rise in the height of the Sardar Saravor Dam in Gujarat. The "long march" was, in fact, a detour as the Gujarat Government had sealed its borders and imposed Section 144 Cr PC on the road to Jalsindhi passing through the state.

"It is great", Arundhati virtually screamed as she was welcomed by Medha. "Definitely, your involvement has strengthened our movement", she told the Booker Prize winner. "The rally for the valley" had been a resounding success.

Arundhati was back in the valley within eight days to lend support to the villagers facing submergence as Medha and 60 activists were taken in custody. The leader of the "Save Narmada movement" stood in knee-deep water along with her supporters for almost 12 hours as the level of swollen Narmada rose menacingly and the police had to remove her and her supporters forcibly. Medha and her supporters have since been released and they have returned to the area to continue their protest. The NBA leader has now a powerful supporter in Booker Prize winner.

Arundhati donated Rs 1.5 million — equivalent to her Booker Prize money — to the "Narmada bachao andolan" campaign in April.

In a widely published article in the following month, she wrote; "We have to support our small heroes. We have to fight specific wars in specific ways. Who knows, perhaps that’s what the 21st century has in store for us. The dismantling of big bombs, big dams, big ideologies, big contradictions, big countries, big wars, big heroes and big mistakes. Perhaps, it will be the century of small things. Perhaps right now, this very minute, there’s a small God up in heaven readying herself for us".

Hard knocks in life, and poverty have been Arundhati’s companion for long till the hidden talent in her came to the fore. In her own words: "I grew up in a very similar circumstances to the children in my book (The God of Small Things). My mother was divorced. I lived on the edge of the community in a very vulnerable fashion. When 16 I left home and lived on my own sort of....you know it wasn’t awful, it was just sort of precarious living in a squatter’s colony in Delhi".

There was a time when she used to sell empty beer bottles to eke out a living. There was yet another phase in her life when she returned to Delhi after a short stay in Goa. She rented a "barsati" near the Nizamuddin dargah and hired a bicycle at two rupees per day for commuting instead of travelling by bus. She reminisces "when every day I used to come back, beggars would say "Aaj bhi bach gayi".

The film director, Pradeep Krishen, saw her cycling down a street and offered her a small role in "Massey Saab" but before Krishen and Arundhati had barely known each other, she got a scholarship to go to Italy for eight months to study the restoration of monuments. She realised she was a writer during those months in Italy. She linked up with Krishen, now her husband, and they planned a 26-episode television epic for Doordarshan called the "Banyan tree". The serial was scrapped after they had shot only a few episodes. She, however, continued her career as serial writer.

Born on November 24, 1961, Arundhati is the daughter of a Christian woman from Kerala and a Bengali Hindu tea planter. It was not a happy marriage and she was unable to speak about her father without difficulty. "I don’t want to discuss my father. I don’t know him at all. I have only seen him a couple of times, that’s it", she had told interviewers.

Arundhati spent her crucial childhood years at Avmanam in Kerala. There, her mother Mary Roy (later a well-known social activist) ran an informal school named Corpus Christi where she developed her literary and intellectual abilities without being found by the set rules of formal education. A lot of the atmosphere of her Booker Prize winning book is based on her experience in what it was like to grow up in Kerala. She says: "It is the only place in the world where religions coincide; there is Christianity, Hinduism, Marxism and Islam and they all exist together and rub".

Looking back at her early life Arundhati says: "When I think about on all things I have done I am determined to negotiate with the world on my own. There are no parents, no uncles, no aunts; I am completely responsible for myself.

Playing the Kargil card

THE BJP-led alliance is unhappy over Congress’ attempts to pooh-pooh the victory of the Indian armed forces in Kargil. Launching the election campaign of the BJP, the party campaign committee chief, Mr L.K.Advani, said at a time when the entire nation and the international community had acknowledged India’s victory in Kargil, the Congress was raising eyebrows over the contention. Their stand was that the Kargil war was fought within the country and thus was not a war in the true sense.

Reacting to the Congress stand, Mr Advani remarked going by their interpretation even the non-violent movement launched by Mahatma Gandhi was no movement at all. After all, he also fought the British within India.

Mr Advani went a step further to argue his point. He said though the telecast of Pakistan TV had been banned in India, the Congress by its statements on Kargil had replaced their role. A visitor to Islamabad would be surprised to know that the Congress is Pakistan’s biggest hero these days.

Haryana politics

Strange it may seem, but the fact is that nowadays politics of Haryana are being played in the courtyard of politicians in Delhi.

It was common for leaders of regional parties to blame the Congress for taking decisions in Delhi concerning any state but now it seems even the regional parties have chosen the same path.

On Friday, Delhi was agog with reports that the INLD government led by Mr Om Prakash Chautala was under siege after the resignation of Mr Jagan Nath from his Cabinet.

Reports did the round that Mr Kartar Bhadana and his faction of the Haryana Vikas Party were busy plotting. The day was when Mr Chautala was in Delhi to address the PHDCCI.

Mr Chautala who must have been well aware of the pressure being mounted by some of his partners, held a series of meetings with them and took the most vocal of them in his car.

Not only did Mr Chautala give the aspirant a chance to vent his feelings but also gave him the honour of sharing the dais with him.

By the evening, all those who were making noises were pacified, at least so it seemed, as most of them made their presence felt at a dinner hosted by the Chief Minister for media in the Capital at his residence.

Campaign within campaign

The timing of the launch of BJP’s election campaign by Mr L.K. Advani had to be delayed by about half-an-hour as the power lines snapped. However, the scribes present at the party headquarters to cover the event were not complaining. The reason: That gave them time to launch their own election campaign.

With the elections to appoint office-bearers for the Press Club of India scheduled for the next day, several enterprising candidates went around distributing pamphlets and soliciting support. The Press Club politics for a change dominated BJP politics.

Only 90-plus

Noted Punjabi humorist Piara Singh Data, who was honoured by the local cultural centre of the Language Department of Punjab on his 90th birthday, sought a rather difficult present from his friends.

At a meeting with Punjab writers here, Piara Singh expressed the desire that his writer friends should also be honoured for their literary contributions provided they live above 90. Known for his humour, travelogues, biographies and children’s literature, the Delhi based author shared the secrets of his health with the gathering.

The nonagenarian author said his routine includes Yoga, morning walks and gymnastics.

Doordarshan at it again

Why has the Doordarshan revenue fallen so sharply? Well, if you had been present at a recent Press conference of the Prasar Bharati CEO, Rajeeva Ratna Shah, the answer would have come to you instantly.

The much-hyped Press conference of the Prasar Bharati CEO, to announce the 24-hour new profile for DD-I and DD-II, the two main channels of the National Broadcaster, was lacking as much in professionalism as are the programmes or the serials shown on it. When comparing it to the launches of the channels carried out by the private satellite television companies, there was no surprise that Doordarshan was fast running out of favour with the viewers.

To start with while the guests and the invitees were sitting round the tables waiting for the CEO to start addressing the Press conference, Doordarshan staff was testing its software to be shown. As was expected Doordarshan had set up its own system at the five star hotel in the heart of the city and as such it was found lacking at crucial moments.

Then when the promo began, the Doordarshan employees had no idea as to at what level the audio system is to be set. Once it was so high that it hurt the ears, and then suddenly it went so low that one had to strain to hear. Then in-between the lights kept coming on and off. Above all the first promo was for as long as 24 minutes, which left half of the guests yawning.

The icing came when the CEO started talking and showing the ‘vital statistics’ to stress that Doordarshan was still most popular. He kept exhorting the advertisers to watch carefully and decide which medium they should choose, where they would find the best value for their money and that Doordarshan should in fact be the first priority for the advertisers.

The manner in which the CEO kept almost hammering into the advertisers to choose Doordarshan above the others, left no doubt that the national telecaster was in a desperate situation. But then it also left one wondering whether it was proper for him to exhort like that.

Changing loyalties

Gone are the days when there was cross-pollination between the Congress and the Communists.

The recent decision of veteran CPI leader, Mr Rajeshwara Rao of Andhra Pradesh, to resign from the party brought an interesting fact to the fore.

Mr Rao’s son is a member of the Telugu Desam Party and an aspirant for the Assembly ticket while his younger brother, Mr N Vidyasagar Rao, is the state BJP President.

During earlier days, Mr Ajoy Mukherjee of West Bengal was a Congress leader while his brother, Mr Biswanath Mukherjee, and sister, Ms Geeta Mukherjee, were members of the CPI.

Similarly, while Mr Mohan Kumaramangalam was with the Congress, his sister Parvati was with the CPI. Incidentally, his son, Mr Rangarajan Kumaramangalam, who was once with the Congress, is now a Minister in the Vajpayee government.

(Contributed by SB, T.V. Lakshminarayan; K.V.Prasad; Girja Shankar Kaura; Tripti Nath and P.N. Andley)

75 YEARS AGO

Indian industries and labour supply

In a lecture delivered in London on the "Industrial Development of India", Sir C. Ernest Low drew attention to some of the advantages and disadvantages of industrial activity in India. He said that India possessed nearly every natural product necessary to a manufacturing country, but the difficulties were about the inefficiency of labour and want of proper organisation and adaptation.

The bulk of the industrial labourers, he pointed out, were agriculturists and they were largely employed in engineering and railway workshops. A very large number of them were also employed in mines and mills and they worked in these establishments because agriculture did not support them for one reason or another.

Most of these labourers were unskilled and they made no effort to improve the quality of their fields when agricultural conditions were favourable. Sir C.Low said that the intermittent nature of their work and their lack of education prevented them from becoming specialised workers.

It is obvious that the source of supply of unskilled labour being what it is, little improvement can be expected in the quality or output of the work.

As regards skilled labour, the lecturer said that middle class Indians did not do manual labour and could not, therefore, obtain practical technical training. This defect, however, has now been largely removed.