P A G E
Saturday, August 21 1999
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E D I T O R I A L P A G E |
Saturday, August 21 1999 |
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The
“many more Kargils”
LIONISED
ARMY JAWANS |
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Glimpses
of the stuff Sonia is made of
The
great birthday bash
Vacation
and after
Deaths from Cholera |
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The “many more Kargils” OPERATION Vijay is over. But, ironically, the Kargil conflict continues to live in its ominously looming shadows from Srinagar to Baramulla and Kupwara. While getting a battered nose from Dras to Batalik through Kargil, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif allowed his regular army men to literally climb down. But he, perhaps for the first time in his second avatar as the head of government, spoke what he meant: The battle is not over. There will be many more Kargils elsewhere.... As political parties are preparing to go to the polls, mentioning Kargil as an inflammable and rhetorically explosive issue, the post-mountain-war situation is assuming sinister gravity. “Pak attacks repulsed” is a daily headline in the media. The stress must be on the word, or the act of, “attacks”. Remember August 17. Two groups of Pakistani regulars and trained militants attack the Narianpur post in the Ramgarh sector. They cross the Line of Control (LoC) and cause death and destruction. At least, seven labourers working for the security forces are killed by the Pakistanis who have “intruded” into Zerhama in Kupwara district. Along the LoC, meanwhile, Pakistani troops shell Indian positions at Kana Chak, Gole Pattan, Bhaller, Nanga, Jogwan, Pallanwala, Khour, Garkhal, Shiderwan, Jobwal, Budhwar, Zero Point.... The list is very long. Far away, a day after Independence Day, 15 kg of killer material—as lethal as RDX— is recovered from the crowded Sealdah station in North Calcutta; the target is a Jammu-bound train along with other rolling stock and urban infrastructure. Can one skip regular and
daily onslaughts on Indian defence camps? Come to August
19. Four Indian soldiers are killed and 13 security men
are injured in two ambushes by heavily armed Pakistani
mercenaries (or regulars?) in Kupwara district. Pulwama
sees blood and gore on the same day. Vehicles are blown
up and citizens are abducted. Let us not count the days
or the casualties after our “victory” in
Kargil. Now the Pakistanis are hitting us deep inside the
valley or the border areas. Pakistan TV calls “the
daring of our brave” proactivity, a term first used
in the context of Pakistani subversion by Home Minister
L.K. Advani. The Tribune had then asked: “Will it
mean hot pursuit?” Mr Advani’s answer was most
evasively ambiguous. Now we are witnessing Pakistani
proactivity and a sort of queer and surprise pursuit by
the enemy. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee blamed his
political rivals in Chandigarh on Thursday for all the
ills related to the battle of Kargil and the current
killings of our soldiers and security men. His strategy
had “enhanced the image, prestige and status of
India”! “We remained firm in our resolve to
free every inch of our territory from the
intruders,” he added. The growing number of
intruders and their devilish “successes” not
only in Kupwara or Pulwama but also elsewhere take us to
a distressing conclusion. Those who died in the battle of
Kargil were recognised as martyrs and honoured. What
about the mounting casualties within the
“impregnable heartland” of Jammu and Kashmir?
Are we honouring these heroes? The enemy within and
without must be vanquished. Where is our
“Vijay”? Where is the “celebrated”
victory? |
BJP’s own economic agenda IN a dramatic departure from democratic practice, the BJP released its own economic manifesto, sharply different in many respects from that of the NDA which it heads. It was an out and out party affair: the venue of the release of the document was the BJP press room; it committed the party, and not the NDA, to implement the proposals. It bristles with ideas which will not be acceptable to alliance partners like the erstwhile Samata and the Akalis and, finally, seeks to reassure the Swadeshi Jagran Manch, an RSS offshoot. This “Charter of commitments and achievements”, it turned out, was distributed to foreign correspondents on Monday immediately after the Prime Minister released the regular manifesto but with a request to hold back publication. All this provoked a section of the media not normally friendly to the BJP to go for the jugular. One newspaper dubbed it an “explanatory memorandum”, something like a corrigendum to a tender notice, while another ran the report under the headline “One alliance, two economic agendas”. Thus began a keen debate on why this resort to a second agenda. Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha is not happy that the NDA’s National Agenda for Governance has not highlighted his successes — and he produces a formidable list — and has corrected the lapse, runs one speculation. Two, he wants to reclaim some of the clothes the Congress has run away with and also steal some other, among them is the pledge to shrink the fiscal deficit, promote more savings, slash non-plan expenditure and introduce a statutory ceiling on government borrowing. Three, he has strongly refuted the criticism of the Congress that the economy is sliding towards a 1991-type crisis. Quite the contrary, he says. All indicators talk of a healthy return to the growth path and the feel-good factor. And last, he highlights the liberal BJP stand on several issues, which are different from the collective agenda, and hopes to push them through since his party is likely to be strong enough to assert itself. Mr Sinha used the
opportunity to make two points. One, a small part of the
huge deposits of provident fund and insurance premia will
find its way to boost the sentiment in the stock market.
A form of Kargil tax will come on the agenda during the
winter session of Parliament. The PF decision is certain
to kick up dust. The Dave committee, which went into the
question, has recommended investing 10 per cent of the PF
accumulation or about Rs 6,000 crore, in shares. But the
representatives of the working class in the board
managing the fund have opposed the idea, convinced that
it is highly risky. They refer to the dead investment of
UTI, which has lost the struggle to maintain a 20 per
cent dividend. The argument in favour of diverting the
fund to the stock market is (a) it is the practice in all
advanced countries and (b) it will help depositors earn
more and help the government save on high interest rate
(12 per cent). The counter is that unlike in the West,
stock market in India is not conducive for long-term
investment and in the case of PF, safety of the deposits
is more important than the quantum of returns. The hint
about the Kargil tax will not be enthusiastically
embraced three months from now when the success of the
armed forces will be a memory. But Mr Sinha, a
non-doctrinaire BJP economic ideologue, has done his bit
of warning. |
Singapore’s “Indian” President THE election of Mr S. R. Nathan, a low-profile diplomat of Indian origin, as the next President of Singapore has important lessons for India in the context of Ms Sonia Gandhi's Italian birth and Indian citizenship. The reason why the debate has once again been revived by the Bharatiya Janata Party-driven National Democratic Alliance needs no explanation. The NDA's election manifesto has even promised to amend the Constitution for debarring the Congress President from becoming Prime Minister. Instead of raising trivial issues for gaining unfair political advantage the entire Indian political class should study and adopt the seemingly more liberal model of governance which Singapore has adopted. The Singapore model should be of special interest to the Election Commission and the Law Commission who have been asked to suggest improvements in the existing electoral laws of India. Mr Nathan, 75, was elected unopposed in spite of the fact that over 77 per cent of the population of Singapore is of Chinese origin. There was no voting because he was the only presidential candidate to have passed what can be called a government approved test of competence, which includes adequate administrative experience at the highest level. The BJP may point out that unlike Ms Sonia Gandhi the new leader of Singapore was born in the country of which he has been elected President. The argument may have passed muster had Mr Nathan not been the second President of Singapore whose ancestral roots are in India. In 1981 the Singapore Parliament unanimously elected veteran politician and trade union leader C. V. Devan Nair as the country's third President. The BJP leaders may point out that Mr Nair, like Mr Nathan, too was not born in India for them to change their stand on amending the Constitution with the sole objective of preventing Ms Sonia Gandhi from becoming President or Vice-President or Prime Minister of India. It is indeed true that Mr Nair, who was proud of his Malayalee roots, was not born in India. But he was not born in Singapore either!. He was born in Malacca in what is now Malaysia. He later moved to Singapore to take up a teaching assignment and later became a trade union leader. The BJP may like to explain how Mr Nair's case was different. It should be a matter of
pride for every Indian that a number of leaders of Indian
origin are now occupying the highest political office in
several countries. In May when Mr Mahender Chaudhary was
elected Prime Minister of Fiji residents of the village
in Rohtak, where he has his ancestral roots, distributed
sweets. Countries in the West Indies too have from time
to time elected leaders of Indian origin to the highest
political office of the land. Mauritius is virtually an
another India, but for the fact that French is the
official language of the country. But the most cheerful
news for Indians may come from British Columbia in Canada
where the name of the Punjab-born Attorney General Mr
Ujjal Singh Dosanjh is reportedly being discussed for the
post of Prime Minister. He is a member of the New
Democratic Party and is being tipped to replace Mr Glen
Clark who, from all indications, is on his way out. Mr
Dosanjh was born in Phagwara. After doing odd menial jobs
in England he found a permanent place for himself in
Canada where he found work in a lumber firm. His wife
persuaded him to study in his spare time. Had he not
entered politics, he would have been among the top
lawyers in Canada. Thus far there has been no audible
voice of political dissent against "an India-born
foreigner" becoming Prime Minister in a country
which for the fifth consecutive year was declared the
best in the world by the United Nations. However, as of
today Mr Nathan's election as President of Singapore
should be enough to make the day for those who take
legitimate pride in being Indian. Another round of
applause would be in order when Mr Dosanjh replaces Mr
Glen Clark as Prime Minister. |
LIONISED ARMY JAWANS ONE of the leading lights of the political party which has provided India its Defence Minister writing in a national newspaper about Congress’s efforts at “diminishing Kargil victory” records that the “jawan is the hero of the day, he could not have been so, but for the government that stands behind him”. The fact is that the government is not behind him but against him. That he has displayed raw courage, set new standards of selflessness, willingness to sacrifice his life for the country and covered himself with glory is due entirely to his dedication, indomitable spirit, discipline and the leadership the officer corps provided to him. The government has done everything possible to disadvantage and demoralise him. Be it the denial of equipment and wherewithal to cope with the most inhospitable terrain and weather where he was called upon to deal with the intruders, better equipped and provided than him, or the step-motherly treatment that the government of the day and those in the past have meted out to him on the most basic issue of terms and conditions of service, pay, allowances and pension. The only thing the present government has done and continues to do is to drive maximum political mileage out of the sacrifices of the soldiers at Kargil. After every successful war that the Indian defence forces have fought, their status, pay and allowances have been brought down. In keeping with that precedence the same treatment has been repeated even after their stunning performance at Kargil, professions to the contrary by the BJP and the BJP-led government notwithstanding. That is the yawning gap between military performance and political promise. The defence forces had pinned their hope on the BJP, a party that they perceived understood the nuances of national security and was alive to the past injustices done to the defence services. All that has turned out to be an illusion and a cleverly worked out deception. What, according to the Samata Party and the BJP government is their hero, in fact often gets equated with an unskilled labourer. The very government that claims to “stand behind him,” in reality and most regrettably does not “stand by him”. How else to explain the void between the government’s word and deed! The brave jawan of the Indian army, who on the one hand has earned the unequivocal admiration and gratitude of the nation, is on the other a victim of the most perfidious and perverted manifestation of discrimination. If he gave up his life and limb without demur and with abandon, it was his part of the commitment to his unit, comrades, officers and the nation and, regrettably, for a political leadership short on fair play and natural justice. First you compulsorily retire a soldier after 17 years of service (at the age of 35 to 37 years) in the national interest to maintain a youthful army, giving him no second career, and then you cut his pension down by as much as 30 to 40 per cent because he failed to serve for a minimum period of 33 years. It is the most perverse and invidious form of logic, unfair in the extreme and against all canons of natural justice. The measures on welfare of ex-servicemen announced by the Defence Minister on the eve of Independence Day, welcome as they are, relate to .00001 per cent of the army. Addressing the nation on the occasion of Independence Day, the President of India placed on record the country’s “boundless admiration and gratitude to the defence and paramilitary forces whose death-defying courage on the bleak and hazardous heights of Kargil, Dras and Batalik protected the country’s sovereignty and integrity”. Why this dilution and spreading of the credit for the remarkable achievements of the army by including the so-called paramilitary forces (CPOs) in the “death-defying” actions in the Kargil attacks? Is it the mischief of the speech writer or the supreme commander of the armed forces of India is oblivious of the simple fact that CPOs do not undertake actions of the type carried out by his army at Kargil. There is no mention in the speech of the steps that need to be taken to undo the injustice being inflicted on the man in the olive green and his compatriots in the other two services. Those who did not die, due to no fault of theirs, at Kargil, or merely lost a limb or two, and others who have survived many of the other wars and the endless battle against insurgency since the dawn of Independence, have to live with unemployment, penury, parsimony and privation to a ripe old age with no provision for their medical care. That is India’s hero for you, behind which this government claims to stand firmly! All countries in the world, including most democracies, give special consideration to their soldiers because of the nature of their duties and commitments, of which we recently had an exposure in the Kargil conflict. Their terms and conditions are quite different from those of civil services. The risk factor, besides much else, is the more visible of their conditions of service. They cannot be equated with others in the matter of pay, allowances and pension because their terms of service and operating parameters are quite apart. That is the rationale behind their special treatment the world over, sans India. In USA the lifetime retirement earning of a soldier is four times more than that of a policeman and five times more than a Federal employee. The pension is 75 per cent of the last pay drawn with no contribution from the individual towards his pension and the same is fully protected against inflation. It is more or less the same in the case of the UK, France, Germany, Canada and a host of other democracies. In Pakistan, the maximum admissible pension can be as much as 80 to 85 per cent. Enhanced pensions scales are meant to compensate for truncated and harsh careers. In India too, the armed forces were given an edge over civil servants in their pay, perks and pensions. Thus in India, a Brigadier drew more pension than a Chief Secretary of a state. Though there was equivalence of status, the military man had to be compensated for a truncated career. All this has been mischievously, systematically and persistently eroded and in fact, reversed. Earlier, pension was admissible to defence officers after completion of 15 years of service and to the civil servants after 20 years. Now it is the other way around. Such fundamental issues have been foreign to the Indian politician. Even when he is alive to such matters and wants to move in the direction of setting right the sustained injustice being done to soldiers of the Republic of India, he is stymied by the “Great Indian Babu” and rendered helpless, ineffective and even make to renege on his solemn promises. The services have been waging a losing battle against the formidable Babu in every area of defence functioning. What was hoped would depart with the British, that is the policy of “divide and rule”, has been honed to a fine art and repeatedly applied to the defence services by the government. The sustained down-gradation of status, pay etc of rank and file and others, has never been allowed to touch the army commanders and those of equal rank in the other two services and the service chiefs, being the only ones who can raise their voice. A stage has come where the dictum about welfare and well-being of juniors coming first always and every time is no more fashionable even to propound, what to say of its practice. Post retirement allurements (an illusion for most) have been enough to buy silence or acquiesce. Of late, hope for continued placement in Z category has been enough. What a fall, my comrades in arms! The minimum pension of 50 per cent of last pay drawn was granted to all civil government pensioners who retired before 1.1.96, quite some time ago. In the case of defence forces it was to be one rank one pension, which implied that a serviceman who retired before 1.1.96, would get the same pension as one who retires after this date, when the rank, total length of service and service in that particular rank is the same. This, in reality, works out to only, “a part compensation” for a truncated career, longer period of exposure to inflation compared to civil servants and innumerable harsh service conditions. There is no equivalence in the conditions of service between civil service and defence forces and that is the rationale for a separate pay commission for the latter and different pay and pension scales. The condition of 33 years service to qualify for full pension is slated to work against the defence forces personnel only. The six years dispensation mainly comes to the rescue of civil servants. The condition to hold the honorary rank for 10 months to qualify for pension benefits for that rank is also not operative as 95 per cent of honorary ranks are granted either after retirement or just prior to that, due to functional requirements of the defence services. So this condition too, is designed to further disadvantage the rank and file. At least three former PMs, the President of the Republic of India and 450 MPs of the 11th Lok Sabha, through their party manifestos, had committed to the acceptance of one rank one pension. The Defence Minister of India, in the presence of a million plus audience at Anandpur Sahib, had announced that the demand for one rank one pension of the defence services had been approved by the government and that it would be announced within a few days. That was in April, 1999. The infamous letter of June 7, 1999 issued by the Defence Ministry has made nonsense of all those promises and regrettably reduced the Samata Party’s hero to zero (The Jawan and hopefully not the Samata Party’s Defence Minister!) (The writer is a
retired Lt-General) |
After Chechnya, Dagestan THE brazen challenge of the Republic of Chechnya in the southern region of Russia and the war which erupted four years ago ended inconclusively. Chechnya’s defiance towards Russian authority is very much there and Russia with all its military might could not bring the tiny republic under complete subjugation. Now another ethnic republic, Dagestan, has mounted a rebellion against Russia. Before proceeding to examine the happenings in Dagestan it would be worthwhile to recapture briefly the events in Chechnya’s ethnic autonomous region in the Caucausian region in southern Russia. Chechnya has a population of 1.2 million with its capital Grozny with four lakhs. Twentytwo per cent of the population are Slovak Russians and the rest are Muslims consisting of various local tribes. Chechnya came into prominence soon after the Bosnian tangle in the Balkans was resolved by NATO led by the Americans. The rebellion in Chechnya was led by a former Russian General, Jokhar Dudayev, and the Russian army found it extremely difficult to put down the rebellion which assumed the proportions of a war. The Chechnya fight was fully televised by CNN and BBC which rather tended to put a brake on Russian efforts to put down the rebellion. An uneasy truce eventually followed but the Chechans never fully accepted the Russian control. Russian economy, never in a good shape at the best of times, received a terrible setback. The Chechnya war resulted in almost 1,400 out of 1,500 oil wells there getting closed. The irony of it was that soon after the war broke out there were Russian intellectuals like Yelena Bonner, widow of the well known scientist and Nobel Prize winner, Andre Sakharov, pleading for Chechnya’s self-determination. This phase was soon followed by events in Kosovo where the Muslim majority of the autonomous Republic of Kosovo wanted to secede from Yugoslavia dominated by the Serbs. The demand which was originally for autonomy later escalated to one of independence. The neighbouring state of Albania with a Muslim majority assisted and abetted the Kosovo Liberation Army which led the secessionist rebellion against Yugoslavia. Then followed the three-month long bombardment by the NATO countries leading to an uneasy peace, with the leading NATO countries supervising the arrangements before a permanent settlement is brought about in this region. Though NATO insists that Kosovo will not be entitled to sovereign status in the eventual settlement, the KLA and the Muslim minority appear unreconciled to anything less. Dagestan is one of the five republics with ethnic majority like Chechnya. Dagestan has a little over two million population, with ethnic Russians consisting less than 10 per cent. The ethnic Russians are a minority in every one of these ethnic Muslim autonomous republics in the Caucausian region. The importance of this region lies in the fact that it is one of the most crucial oil producing zones and the oil in the neighbouring Caspian region also is pumped through this area. The conflict in Chechnya seriously disturbed the transportation of oil and now with Dagestan becoming a disturbed region the Russian oil production and transportation are affected seriously. The rebellion in Dagestan, variously described as civil war and insurgency, broke out suddenly in the first week of August but the indications are that a lot of planning had gone into it in the neighbouring Chechnya before it was unleashed. In Dagestan about 1,200 armed militants entered from neighbouring Chechnya and occupied several villages and their demand is nothing short of independence of Dagestan. The militants are said to be led by foreign mercenaries originating from West Asian countries and Pakistan. A Pakistani national, Abu Abdullah Zafar, is said to be the leader of the mercenary group. The Russians have inducted massive forces and a large number of attack helicopters to deal with the crisis. Russia itself is in the
throes of political instability, with President Yeltsin
having dismissed the incumbent Prime Minister Sergeo
Stephaashin and inducted Vladmir Putin, who is a former
KGB Chief. Though his nomination has been quickly
approved by the Russian Parliament Duma, his
administrative and political skills remain to be tested.
Soon after assumption of office Putin declared that he
would put down the Dagestan rebellion in two weeks.
International observers and experts on insurgency are
already predicting a prolonged phase of Russian
engagement on almost exactly the same lines as in
Chechnya. This is entirely possible as the region is a
hilly one with neighbouring regions being Islamic. The
Russians have accused Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan
of assisting the insurgents on behalf of Arab oil
companies who seek to destroy the Russian system of
transporting oil from the Caspian Sea through the
autonomous republics of Dagestan and Chechnya. Apart from
the fact that there is an inexperienced Prime Minister at
Moscow, there are strong indications of mounting
challenge to the authority of President Yeltsin. With the
elections for the Duma slated for December this year and
the poll for Russian presidentship itself only a year
away, powerful forces are getting together to challenge
Yeltsin. There is a move to unite the various autonomous
republics and regional governors and this move is led by
Tartarstan’s President, Mintimer Shaim. |
Vacation
and after THE onset of summer in the northern part of the country invariably coincides with certain peculiar changes in the atmosphere. The air is full of a unique buzz, what with people trying to mentally attune themselves to face the scorching heat. Adults and children alike discuss vacation plans animatedly while some wait ardently for the season of mangoes and swimming. It is also time for the beautiful massanda and the bright yellow amaltas to bloom and shine to the full in the heat of the sun. Soon mirages appear on dry, deserted roads, the dust-laden trees find it hard to breathe and the people get lazy. Going out for a holiday was not so much of an order of the day when I was a child as it is now when I have children who are so painfully aware of the fact that they have not gone anywhere during the vacations while their friends talk about their long stints at fascinating destinations around the world. Invariably, I would be faced with the eternal question: “Where shall we go this summer?” This time, I was determined not to disappoint them. Fortunately, a friend offered his place in the hills and then came the day when we were all packed and set for a long break, away from the “scorching plains”. The place was a beautifully built cottage in a thickly wooded area of the hills, cool and serene with small narrow pathways that seemed to lead us anywhere and everywhere, getting suddenly lost behind the hill. The garden was an assemblage of wild flowers that stared back innocently at the onlookers. A small little pond, carelessly dug in one corner was full of heavenly blue lotus flowers. When the evening sunset spread its orange and crimson light on it, the picture would be complete. We all fell in love with the place and simply wanted to be there forever, live like the natives, or perhaps “reap and sing” like the “solitary highland lass” or just think of the Keatisan belle, “sitting carelessly on the granary, floor, thy hair soft lifted....” The time spent in those surroundings had already generated a lot of inspiration infused enthusiasm to face life afresh. Truely, the experience had been rejuvenating for the soul. The day of the final leave-taking had to come sooner or later. On the morning of the departure, negative feelings caught up; they have a habit of doing so. I spotted my little daughter looking wistfully at the blue lotus pond, caressing the tender white lilies in a goodbye gesture. As the car moved we shuddered at the thought of the plains, the dust, the smog, the heat and the rat-race. Everyone was exceptionally quiet on the way back as if trying to assimilate the time gone by, imprisoning whatever we could in the “mind’s eye”, driving down apprehensively, little knowing that nature had still something more in store for us. The winds were not hot and stormy anymore, the hitherto spotless sky was now overcast and beautiful dark clouds hovered around. The rains had already arrived in the plains! Quickly, the children rolled down their windows and out came little hands to receive the first drops of rain. It appeared as if — like a great poet once said — “God was sorting out the weather”. The leaves of the trees were bright green and dustless. God had actually washed “his terrain” and with it all the negative feelings within us. The fear of the hot plains flew away and suddenly one discovered the beauty at hand, only you must have the eye to behold it! Suddenly, my little one chirped in “Mama! I never realised we live in such a beautiful city!” Positive thinking! I was reminded of Riley when he mused that ‘the world is full of roses, and the roses full of dew, and the dew is full of heavenly love, that drips for me and you’! Driving down the
rain-swept roads we came back home which was now not just
“home, sweet home” but was much sweeter! |
Glimpses of the stuff Sonia is made of
WHO was it who said of Sonia Gandhi that she was a reader and not a leader. “Give her a railway timetable and she’II read that instead of her speech...27up, 19 down”. Cruel, you might say, but apt when you consider that the Congress President has so far seemed unable to speak spontaneously on any subject under the sun. Nothing that indicated even slightly that she was capable of impromptu methods of speech or conversation. So, when she finally spoke at her first press conference the overwhelming reaction among the hacks gathered in that airless tent, on a particularly hot and steamy morning last week, was amazement. She can actually speak, we gasped, she can answer questions in Hindi and in English and she can do so without needing to be prompted. So amazed were we that Sonia Gandhi had made no major gaffes that by the time the press circus moved on to the BJP office for L.K. Advani’s press conference legion were the hacks who rushed around spreading the word that she had passed with “flying colours”. There was one young reporter who was particularly enthusiastic. “She was fantastic”, he gushed to a veteran hack, “she answered brilliantly on Bofors, on Quattrocchi, on Jayalalitha’s corruption. There was not a question that she could not answer”. Even other, more restrained members of the fraternity were impressed, especially by the fact that she did not come up with the sort of one-liners that have misfired so badly that many have joked about the fact that every time Sonia Gandhi opens her mouth the BJP wins a few more votes. Among her more famous gaffes have been the comment outside Rashtrapati Bhavan about “having 272 votes and many more coming”. Two days later she had to swallow the “272” and eat the humble pie. Then came the comment on Kargil in which she said that the government by refusing to hold a Rajya Sabha session was only trying to make everyone else “shut up”. And, most recently we had the interview, in a controlled mode, from Allahabad in which she pronounced that the BJP did not “know the stuff I am made of.” An invitation to trouble and it came within hours with the BJP’s Arun Jaitley announcing that, on the contrary, they knew “exactly the stuff she was made of because they had discovered it during the Bofors scandal”. So far Sonia Gandhi’s relations with the Press have been in totally controlled surroundings. Her media advisers had drawn up lists of journalists to whom she had given gracious audiences which have worked since they have had the personal touch, as well as an air of noblesse oblige. Even those have been critical of her entry into politics have been invited and they have usually come away feeling important, if nothing else. In the words of one editor: “She was meant to have given me 15 minutes but I was with her for 45 and I’ll say this she isn’t as bad as I thought she would be but she isn’t much better either”. Most of the others who have met her for these private tea parties have come away saying similar things. Last week’s press conference was her first “real” meeting with the Delhi Press and we all went expecting that some attempt would be made to control the kind of questions she would be asked. For a start, the press enclosure was so for away from the stage that most people at the back could barely see Madame through the wall of cameramen that had been placed in front of us. Then, when it came to question time Anil Shastri (son of the late Lal Bahadur) took over as master of ceremonies and said that he would identify the journalists who would be permitted to ask questions. So, the first couple of questions were nice and easy and sounded like they had been planted. Why had more women not been given the party ticket? Hardly the most important question to ask Sonia Gandhi and then there was another which had the same friendly, planted quality about it. But, by now there was an uproar in the ranks of neglected hackdom with people grabbing the microphone and shouting into it that this was no way to handle a press conference and that everyone should be allowed to ask questions whether Anil Shastri wanted them to or not. Sonia wisely agreed to answer and then came a few tough ones. Had she brought the government down by lying to the President that she had 272 seats? The question annoyed her and she replied curtly that she was not ‘in the habit of lying.’ Then, inevitably, along came Bofors. Would she, if she became Prime Minister, continue the investigation into who took the bribes? “Yes, definitely” she said angrily. “I want the truth more than anyone else... my husband was crucified because of this”. What was her relationship with Octavio Quattrocchi and would she take action against him? “We still have no proof of his involvement, we have seen no papers from the CBI that establish his guilt”. But there was one question she absolutely refused to answer — was Quattrocchi a family friend? The answer to this question would have been the real test of whether she was in the habit of lying or not so your columnist was among those who tried hard to get an answer. Over the general din, I asked her again whether he was a friend of hers or not? Alas, no answer came. No proof, she insisted, no proof of his involvement in the deal. A lie, it turns out, since proof was furnished by the BJP days later — proof that has often been written about in the past. The only other question I managed to ask was what she would describe as her personal stamp on the Congress Party’s new manifesto and she evaded that too. She went into a long explanation about how many people she had interacted with while it was being written, which really was no answer at all. In fact, the Congress Party manifesto is the usual regurgitation of commitments to secularism and self-reliance with the only interesting aspect of it being the attack on the BJP. The BJP has been pilloried for putting together a ‘national disaster alliance’ (instead of National Democratic Alliance), for Kargil for the nuclear bomb, for its foreign policy, for destroying the morale of the armed forces, for neglecting the poor and for doing nothing right at all in its 13 months in power. Well, as Sonia Gandhi is
fond of saying when her foreign origin is brought up, it
is for the people to decide what the truth is. |
The great birthday bash
WELL, it could not have been more like the Filmfare Awards function. A whole lot of tamashawallahs, filmi style, flown up from Mumbai to perform Operation Vijay, a two-hour programme of mostly songs and dances live from Srinagar on the national channel of DD. Performed against an elaborate set on the Dal Lake, which, however, was hardly visible. Nor for that matter, were any jawans, for whom this show was ostensibly held, except for the performers in mock-military costumes prancing about on the stage with girls in short skirts. The Army had sensibly put its foot down for security reasons. So the bureaucrats and their ladies formed the main audience. But we had Naseeruddin Shah in cream sherwani doing the anchoring in flawless Urdu, we had Sridevi looking stunning after a long interval, we had the Big B himself, looking a bit wan. But it was left to Bachchan to thank all over again, after the Governor and Farooq Abdullah, the hero of the evening. No less than Rahul Mahajan, the son of the Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Pramod Mahajan. He was dressed in a local Kashmiri long sherwani embroidered ornately round the neck and he had teamed up with Stracon and other Doordarshan faithfuls as the credits put it, to “conceive and direct” the big bash. Since the Minister himself announced on the stage that the whole show was arranged by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, the national birthday on August 15 became something of a birthday bash for the Mahajan family as well. And very timely, on the eve of the elections. As for the local Kashmiri artists, there was a short local folk song at the beginning. But then, since everything in India now becomes filmi, who are we to complain? No one told us what the Kashmiris thought of it. We had been told that the launch of the 24-hour news channel of DD would be a “soft” one, and it was very soft indeed, since the Chief Election Commissioner had his eagle eye on it. Well, I dutifully tuned in to find a 15-minute blank blue screen with the caption “You are Watching Doordarshan’s News Channel”, the only variation being that sometimes there was music in the background and sometimes not. Then, without warning, there came a very cultural item on Pakistan, about its carpet industry, I suspect a repeat of a SAARC programme. Finally, the national news came on and then more general programmes, punctuated by long blanks and with test transmission added to the original caption. When I tried to contact DD’s News Section, I was told they had no telephones yet in their new habitat, the Central Production Studios, and one could only get them on cellular phones, which I did, and was told it was only an experimental transmission. In any case the studios have been declared haunted and they had had a havan performed to exorcise all evil. Besides, the local residents had protested about the studios in a residential area and a legal dispute was on. Which makes it all the more strange that the channel had to be started in its present foetal stage on the eve of the elections. The Chief Election Commissioner certainly has a point. For me, the most creative, original and touching programme on August 15 was Desh Ka Salaam, a 10-minute musical item on Star Plus, the third of a series by the Bharat Bala, Kanika (and, above all), A.R. Rahman team. Visually bold and futuristic, and beautifully rendered and edited, it featured giants like Bhimsen Joshi, Pandit Jasraj, Pandit Shiv Kumar and son (there were quite a few duos of this kind) Bhupen Hazarika, Hariprasad Chaurasia, the mandatory Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhonsle (but singing smilingly together for a change) and the inimitable A.R. Rahman himself, as passionately outstanding as ever. With one master singing or playing one line at a time and the next picking it up, the item not only held one spell-bound with its sheer creativity, but also brought a spontaneous patriotic lump to the throat. At the other extreme,
Channel V launched its new look with formidable
statistics (20 new programmes) on August 15, symbolic of
what started, together with MTV, as two channels bringing
us the best of foreign pop, first panicking into
Indianisation, then discarding most of its music for
what, for want of a better phrase, one can call chat
shows. Form travel to jobs, from campuses to style, there
is hardly a new idea, since all channels are doing it,
from the BBC to Star News, Zee, Sony, DD and the rest.
Besides, most of the anchors speak too fast, drop their
consonants, and some have strong nasal overtones (Peeya)
with notable exceptions like Yadu and Chandraye. But what
remains fresh and charming are Channel V’s visuals,
which are a joy and some of its stock characters have
stood the test of time. Whatever happened to One Gun
Murugun? |
Deaths
from Cholera SIMLA: During the week ending the 2nd August deaths from Cholera in Calcutta were 15, Madras 3, Rangoon 2; from Plague, in Bombay 1, Rangoon 19; from Influenza in Calcutta 5, and Bombay 2. Deaths from Smallpox were, in Calcutta 5, Bombay 16, Madras 7, Karachi 3, Rangoon 2. Smallpox cases in Calcutta during the week were 9, Bombay 20, Madras 12 and Karachi 12. Deaths from Cholera were reported also from Ahmednagar, Nasik, Hazribagh, Singhbhum, Madura, Trichinapoly, Yeotmal, Jaunpur, Ambala, Ferozepore, Ludhiana, Shahpur and Gujarat. The places freshly infected with Plague were Salem, Thaton, Tharrawaddy, Amraoti; with Smallpox Chingleput, Bassein, Henzada and Dera Ghazi Khan. Cholera is spreading in
Hyderabad, Khandesh, Karachi, Nowabshah, Larkana,
Birbhum, Bankura, Midnapur, Jalpaiguri, Patna, Gaya,
Champaran, Muzaffarpur, Monghyr, Balasore, Puri, Kamrup,
North Aroot, Bellary, Gunjam, Lower Chindwin, Upper
Chindwin, Nagpur, Bhandara, Chanda, Jubbulpur, Raipur,
Akola, Buldana, Benares, Mirzapur, Bundelkhand, Bhopal,
Baghelkhand; Plague in Coimbator, Bassein; Smallpox in
Nawab Shah, Sukkur, Kamrup, Godavari, Guntur, Pokokku,
Akola, and Baldana. |
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