Compromising security
IN June last year the Indian Navy, with the help of the Coast Guard, apprehended 26 arms smugglers off the Andaman Islands. The operation was conducted following information that two arms-laden trawlers from Myanmar were on their way to Bangladesh.

Avoidable dithering
CHIEF Election Commissioner M. S. Gill has made a timely demand for the quick disposal of cases arising from electoral disputes. There is a dire need for having an adequate number of judges to deal with the pending election petitions. Most of such cases are in High Courts and the Supreme Court.

Power populism
WHENEVER a politician calls for “rationalising” the electricity tariff he is actually demanding a sharp increase in the rate the farming community pays. Prime Minister Vajpayee has duly gone through the routine while opening a power project in Kerala on Sunday.

COMMUNISM & CAPITALISM
by Sunanda K. Datta-Ray
WILL communism and capital come together in this 120th anniversary year of Karl Marx’s birth, reminding us that Indira Gandhi strove for years for a new world economic order?

Iran and theocracy
by V. Gangadhar
ONE of the major international events of the past which still has reverberations in the region was the Islamic revolution of Iran. The revolution will be 20 years old in February, 1999. Militant Islamic forces overthrew the corrupt and cruel regime of Shah Reza Pehalvi who had been patronised by the West for several decades. Whether the revolution turned to be beneficial for the Iranian people is still being debated.

Arrogant super-rich brats rule the road
by P. Raman
A GROUP of boys had come to a newspaper office in Ahmedabad with a badly-typed Gujarati handout for publication on the city page. This writer was astonished to learn that one of them was the grandson of a leading city industrialist. His looks, dress and the hair were hardly distinguishable from his friends living in the city’s congested “poles”.

‘Iftar diplomacy’ at its peak
WITH the holy month of Ramazan ending, the hosting of iftars in the Capital reached its peak. The last Friday before Id saw the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, playing host and the next day, it was the turn of Congress President Sonia Gandhi to do so.

A woman-problem or......?
by Deepshikha Khaira
WOMAN has many definitions: daughter, wife, mother, friend, student, professional. The word “woman” evokes the thoughts of loving and learning, of tenderness of love, of giving birth to new life, of pursuing a career and of continuous efforts to strike a balance between the job and family. And for years the woman has stood up to all this.

75 Years Ago

Occupation and wages
THE following interesting details regarding Indian immigrant labour in the Fiji Islands have been received from the Colonial Secretary, Suva, Fiji, and are given in the “Lahore Gazette”:— “Since 1916 there has been no immigration into Fiji of labourers from India. Indians in Fiji are employed mainly in agricultural pursuits, although as many as 14,000 are engaged in industrial occupation.

Compromising security

IN June last year the Indian Navy, with the help of the Coast Guard, apprehended 26 arms smugglers off the Andaman Islands. The operation was conducted following information that two arms-laden trawlers from Myanmar were on their way to Bangladesh. It is an established fact that the bulk of arms in circulation among insurgent groups in the North-East are smuggled into India through the porous border with Bangladesh. However, instead of receiving a well-deserved pat on the back for the June operation the Navy top brass were indirectly told not to intercept gun-runners without clearance from the Defence Ministry. How else does one explain the strange missive from a former Defence Secretary, Mr Ajit Kumar, to the Services’ Headquarters that no action should be taken on specific intelligence received from the Indian Ambassador in Myanmar regarding trawlers carrying illegal arms? The timing of the letter is significant for understanding the full import of the direction from Mr Ajit Kumar whose posting as the top bureaucrat in the Defence Ministry was anything but glorious. The Indian Navy intercepted the trawlers carrying illegal arms and narcotics to Bangladesh in June. In July — July 27, 1998, to be specific — Mr Ajit Kumar asked the Services’ Headquarters not to act on the intelligence report about gun-running to Cox’s Bazar through the Andaman seas. The report that Mr Ajit Kumar did write such a letter to the Services’ Headquarters has not be en officially denied.

A point which needs to be kept in mind is that at the time of the June operation against gun-running through the sea route to the North-East Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat was the Chief of the Naval Staff and his differences with Mr Ajit Kumar are too well known to bear repetition. According to another report, at least three consignments of illegal arms — including two shiploads for the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah) and other insurgent groups — crossed the Andaman seas after Mr Ajit Kumar’s directive to the Services’ Headquarters not to act on intelligence reports on gun-running. The amount of money one can earn by encouraging — if not directly participating in — gun-running can tempt even a saint to look the other way. One line of reasoning is that the controversial letter could not have been written by Mr Ajit Kumar without taking Defence Minister George Fernandes into confidence. The dismissal of Admiral Bhagwat was itself an unfortunate development. A number of skeletons have since stumbled out of the cupboard. It is being said that Mr Fernandes had expunged the references to an arms dealer’s connection from the file of Vice-Admiral Harinder Singh without consulting the then Naval chief. Keeping in mind the situation in the North-East and in Jammu and Kashmir, it is only fair to request Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to take the nation into confidence and explain the rationale behind the letter from the Defence Secretary to the Services’ Headquarters asking it not to take action on specific intelligence received from the Indian Ambassador in Myanmar regarding the shipment of illegal arms to the North-East via the Andaman islands. Such a directive as was issued by Mr Ajit Kumar has the potential of compromising the country’s security and having a demoralising effect on the members of the defence services.

Avoidable dithering

CHIEF Election Commissioner M. S. Gill has made a timely demand for the quick disposal of cases arising from electoral disputes. There is a dire need for having an adequate number of judges to deal with the pending election petitions. Most of such cases are in High Courts and the Supreme Court. There are criminal charges against many sitting legislators. Dr Gill’s concern deserves immediate attention. The Union Government should realise that in spite of genuine complaints of electoral malpractices, etc, against them, many candidates are about to complete their five-year terms. The presence of criminals in legislatures is one of the major maladies of our democracy. Can a man against whom one day—some day—the charge of, say, malfeasance or moral turpitude is proved be held competent to be an instrument in the enactment of a measure involving ethical standards? Dr Gill is keen on pushing through a wide range of electoral reforms. A great deal of work has to go into such steps. The delimitation of constituencies, the implementation of various provisions to bar persons with criminal backgrounds from contesting elections and preparations for elections in nine states where the tenure of the Assemblies will expire between December and April next year are some of the urgent tasks before the commission. Training in the use of electronic voting machines on a universal scale is equally necessary. The commission requires more manpower and more funds if free and fair elections are to be conducted smoothly in troubled times. The commission needs full empowerment through men, material and legal provisions. Dr Gill’s chief concern is adherence to regular poll schedules.

It is good to know that the Chief Election Commissioner wants to penalise government officials engaged in election work for dereliction of duty and other lapses, which include the flouting of the commission’s orders. One hopes that his wishes will not be turned into horses by the government, which has more politicking than quick disposal of essential business on its survivalist agenda. The lethargic bureaucracy has contributed to the delay in electoral reforms in a big way. The Prime Minister has a reputation for responding promptly to the requests of high-powered statutory bodies like the Election Commission. The CEC has said that he has been in constant touch with the Prime Minister and officers of consequence in the Ministries of Home and Law. He has regretfully added: “We are disappointed that this (decision-taking on electoral reforms) has not happened.” Over to Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee.

Power populism

WHENEVER a politician calls for “rationalising” the electricity tariff he is actually demanding a sharp increase in the rate the farming community pays. Prime Minister Vajpayee has duly gone through the routine while opening a power project in Kerala on Sunday. He dubbed this generosity “power populism” (populism being an unacceptable word) and cross-subsidisation, robbing the industrial Peter to pay the farming Paul. The rest fell in pattern. The total loss on this score alone comes to Rs 6,000 crore every year, he said, and it is holding up investment, in the absence of which the country suffers frequent power cuts. This cannot go on since the country needs more than Rs 6,00,000 crore to generate an additional 1,00,000 MW during the next 20 years. The doom-gloom scenario is complete. In all this a few facts are slurred over or cleverly forgotten. A major factor behind the recurring loss is plain theft of power, almost always by city-dwellers and industrial houses. This is reflected in two ways. In India transmission losses — that is, electricity lost between the points of generation and distribution — is as high as 20 per cent. In many countries it is only about 7 per cent. Two, Union Energy Minister Kumaramangalam has gone on record saying that Delhi’s woes are in the main caused by theft, fully one-third of the available power. A little bit of vigilance here will have a magical effect on the balance sheet of the state electricity boards.

Then there is the thing about plant load factor. It denotes the degree of efficient operation of thermal units. As it is, very few units qualify for high marks. This poor performance is directly related to other factors. One is the health of the generation equipment. The Energy Ministry has admitted that in several units the efficiency level is one third of the original capacity because the plant is 30 or more years old. Two, the ash content in coal also contributes to bringing down generation. Finally, collection of dues from consumers is tardy. As the recent face-off between West Bengal and NTPC showed, the state had over Rs 800 crore as outstanding power dues. True, this does not translate into losses, but it does affect the cash flow and adds to the fund crunch, a chronic malady of the SEBs.

Now about power supply to farmers. As several experts and one feisty Punjab leader have pointed out, power goes the farmers way mostly at night. That is when the demand for power is at the lowest and when generating units have to keep working. Since power cannot be stored and since the units cannot be shut off for a brief duration, farmers should not be asked to pay on a par with, say, restaurants and shops which use power for decorative lighting or air-conditioning. As Mr Vajpayee himself has said, the kisan is ever willing to pay a reasonable tariff if he is assured of a regular supply. And now that so much has been said about the kisan fattening himself at the cost of development, the time has come to demand a national debate (as is fashionable these days). One final word though: the cost of every input goes into fixing the minimum support price of farm outputs. If agriculture is charged Rs 3 a unit, a howl of protest will come from the urban poor, those who buy their grain from fair price shops.

COMMUNISM & CAPITALISM
For free global economy
by Sunanda K. Datta-Ray

WILL communism and capital come together in this 120th anniversary year of Karl Marx’s birth, reminding us that Indira Gandhi strove for years for a new world economic order? Whether or not 1999 witnesses the fruition of her dreams, it is significant that in celebrating 40 years of his revolution, Cuba’s President Fidel Castro, one of the last remaining Marxist rulers, launched exactly the same kind of attack on the capitalist system as Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Prime Minister of Malaysia, had done earlier, both voicing criticism that is also echoed by respected international economists.

This last year before the millennium will remain incomplete if it fails to achieve two objectives. The first is a more equitable distribution of global resources that also allows developing nations to trade on a level playing field instead of being forever at the mercy of rich countries that rob patents, suppress nascent Third World industries , and flood vulnerable markets abroad with harmful or under-quality goods and commodities that they are not allowed to sell in Europe and the USA. The second is a new political order that reins in the absolute power of war and peace, life and death that the USA now enjoys over the rest of humanity.

That does not mean that the USA is a tyrannical power; it is far more liberal and democratic than many other such nations. But, as the 19th century British historian, Lord Acton, warned, all power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It would be a favour to the world, as much as to the egalitarian tradition of the land of the free, to avoid the excesses of the unipolar global polity that has threatened us ever since the balancing ballast of Soviet might disappeared.

Mr Castro and Dr Mahathir are as one on both the economic and political danger. The nub of their charges is that just as every country has two cultures — rich and poor — so, too, does the international community have two kinds of countries, rich and poor. The global system represent only the former, being tailored to reflect and promote the interests of the industrialised West. Perhaps this is only to be expected in a hierarchy that arose out of the ashes of World War II — like the Tokyo and Nuremberg trials — to perpetuate victors’ justice. The United Nations Security Council and the Bretton Woods monetary system were both products of the war. Some token compromise has been made since then by including Japan in the rich countries’ club, the Group of Eight; but Japan does not further the aspirations of the multitudes of Asia, Africa and Latin America. As their record in apartheid South Africa demonstrated, the Japanese ambition is confined to be “honorary white”.

The 1998 G-8 summit conspicuously failed to take any note of the crisis in eastern Asia triggered off, partly at least, by unscrupulous currency speculation by the leading finance managers of the Western world.

It is instructive to recall that only 2.5 per cent of last year’s global foreign exchange deals had anything to do with the real economy, 97.5 per cent being speculative. That means short-selling to push down the value of the Thai baht or Indonesian rupiah, and then buy at the discounted price to honour earlier sales at a much higher rate. Such racketeering caused the crippling economic crisis that pushed millions of Indonesians into poverty, and produced spiralling unrest, crime and deteriorating ethnic violence. In defending currency predators, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the long arm of American capitalism, went far beyond the 1944 Articles of Agreement which called only for “avoidance of restrictions on payments for current transactions”, not a fiscal free-for-all in which the law of the jungle prevails.

It is also instructive to note that the IMF is blatantly discriminatory in its response to similar problems in the First and Third World. Its insistence on Indonesia, Thailand, Brazil and Mexico closing down their own banks and financial institutions and repaying debts benefits Western creditors (who cynically encourage high interest borrowing in the first place) and enables Western businessmen to mop up Third World companies at rock-bottom prices. But when the American hedge fund, Long-Term Capital Management, two of whose directors won the 1997 Nobel Prize for Economics, was on the rocks, the United States Treasury quietly promoted a $ 3.62 billion rescue package even though the fund’s market exposure was more than 50 times the size of its equity base.

Little wonder that Prof Jagdish Bhagwati of Columbia University compared the free market to a pretty face that “is, in fact, a mask that hides the warts and wrinkles underneath” while Dr Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Harvard Institute for International Development, denounced the International Monetary Fund as “too powerful, too secretive”, and accused it of “deepening the crisis in Asia, Russia, and now in Brazil”. Even the multi-billionaire arch speculator, Mr George Soros, a poacher-turned-gamekeeper if ever there was one, warned that “extending the market mechanism to all domains has the potential of destroying society”.

What emerged during 1998 was some confirmation of all those suspicions of a superpower conspiracy to dominate the world. Thus, President Bill Clinton’s New Year’s decision to increase American arms spending by an astronomical $ 100 billion explains ex post facto the unwarranted bellicosity of Operation Desert Fox: Without the evil empire of the Soviet Union, the USA needs other global bogeys to justify policing. President Saddam Hussein and Mr Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born Islamic militant in Afghanistan, nicely fit the bill.

When Gen Dwight Eisenhower was in the White House, he attributed such machinations to what he called the military-industrial complex. Similarly, Mr Bhagwati speaks of a sinister Wall Street-treasury complex that takes far-reaching decisions affecting all our lives. His case is — and he substantiates it with specific examples — that the same luminaries flit to and fro between the United States Treasury, Wall Street banking and broking houses, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, protecting the same financial interests wherever they might be.

We are all their innocent victims, as we were once of the so-called Gnomes of Zurich, and as we also are, at another plane, of the economic sanctions and military punishments ordained by the Security Council.

Let there be no mistake, this is not to argue for a return to monopolistic state capitalism and regulatory economics. It is to demand a truly free global economy that takes note of the capability of individual players and ensures that the game is fair and equal. It is also to demand that if the United Nations Security Council cannot be expanded to reflect global demographics, it should be subject to the counsel and discipline of the General Assembly. Above all, it is to warn that the worst fears of 1992 — the emergence of a unipolar world — will subject all of us to the tyranny of Pax Americana unless early preventive action is taken.

(Formerly editor of the Statesman, Mr Sunanda K. Datta-Ray is editorial consultant to The Straits Times in Singapore.)

Iran and theocracy
by V. Gangadhar

ONE of the major international events of the past which still has reverberations in the region was the Islamic revolution of Iran. The revolution will be 20 years old in February, 1999. Militant Islamic forces overthrew the corrupt and cruel regime of Shah Reza Pehalvi who had been patronised by the West for several decades. Whether the revolution turned to be beneficial for the Iranian people is still being debated. But the event certainly changed the political set-up of the region.

The Iranian revolution gave a fillip to the fundamentalist groups and the nation became the first genuine and radical Islamic republic. Of course, in the past there had been other deeply conservative Islamic states which had existed with secular states in the West Asian region. The Iranian mass movement was the first in history to establish a theocratic state. One major offshoot of this development was the fear and nervousness in many parts of the world over the impact of Islamic fundamentalism.

Such an event, it was felt, would further divide an already divided world. The West was controlled by capitalists, the East was supposed to be Communist-oriented, both often at each others’ throats. To add to the tension, there were the fundamentalist forces establishing themselves in one of the most sensitive and trouble-prone regions of the world. As the rest of the world watched nervously, the leader of the revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, rejected the capitalist and communist ideologies and set out to establish something of his own.

It was not just rejection. For the new Iran, the United States of America was the “Great Satan”. Of course, the USA had played a notorious role in the Iranian history. It helped to topple the regime of Prime Minister Mossedegh, who had dared to nationalise the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which was a milch cow to the Western imperialists. The CIA helped the toppling process and put a break on Iranian nationalism. As if this was not enough, the USA did everything to prop up the Shah of Iran and sold him arms worth billions of dollars. These were used not to protect the nation’s integrity but against the rebels and dissidents operating against the Shah. The ruler’s vulgar ostentatious coronation ceremony, even as the people suffered in poverty and oppression, was hailed as a “major social event” by the leaders of the Western world.

What happened in Teheran prior to the revolution was similar to the scenario just before the French Revolution. While the masses hungered for bread, the elite feasted themselves on cake. But there was little scope for the communists to fish in the troubled waters of the country. The Shah had come down ruthlessly on the communists and the same continued even after the revolution. The Islamic leadership was contemptuous of the communists and labelled them as “the little Satan”. The Soviet Union, which rejoiced at the uprooting of the pro-West Shah, had little to cheer as the new regime cracked down on the local communists.

The Ayatollah did not follow the example of other Islamic states. His rule of jurisprudence, which was supposed to be a radical departure from the theories governing the Islamic world, was entrusted into the hands of those who were authorities on the Quran and the religious concepts of Islam. Unfortunately, power passed into the hands of the clerics. All branches of the government came under the control of the clerics. Khomeini himself was the head of this system and was acknowledged as the supreme leader.

Iran’s experiences as a theocratic state, however, were far from happy. The economy nosedived, the nation was branded as a “rogue state” exporting violent Islamic fundamentalism to other states in the region and got involved into a messy, tortuous war with neighbouring Iraq. Twenty years after the revolution, Iran is at the crossroads. Should it continue with the basics handed down by Khomeini and go along with the revolutionary path or change track after learning from the experiences of this turbulent period? Politics in Iran became sharply divided on the issue, and even today it is not clear what lay in store for the troubled nation.

A woman-problem or......?
by Deepshikha Khaira

WOMAN has many definitions: daughter, wife, mother, friend, student, professional. The word “woman” evokes the thoughts of loving and learning, of tenderness of love, of giving birth to new life, of pursuing a career and of continuous efforts to strike a balance between the job and family. And for years the woman has stood up to all this.

Whether a woman is a career woman or a stay-at-home mom or both is absolutely her prerogative. And if to be a career woman means to enter politics, to have access to Parliament, what difference does it make and how? To demand a 33 per cent reservation just because she is a “woman” is simply unjustified. It is a pity that women today still consider themselves the weaker sex or should I say the women today are so magnanimous that they happily accept the 33 per cent and leave the rest 67 per cent for their counterparts? But why only 33 per cent? Why not 50 per cent for that matter? After all, are we not the better halves?

If today the reservation policy for women is implemented, tomorrow there shall arise a demand for reservation within reservation. All widows, divorcees, chronic-spinsters, mothers (married and single), victims of rape, eveteasing shall raise their voices. And not to forget the “worldly wise” women above 60 years of age. I can see a complete potpourri of reservation.

In present times, when even the handicaps prefer to be called “handicapables” it’s a big shame that we want reservation for being what we “are”, for being what God made us: women.

By asking for reservation the women are giving their daughters the idea that even they are the “weaker folks” and the result: they “will” be the weaker folks for the rest of their lives, for the rest of their coming generations.

I, as a woman, am personally against this woman-belittling idea of reservation. Capable women live with dignity and do not need such self-demeaning crutches of reservation. What women actually need are lessons on personal growth and self-development. Once they learn that they can’t choose how they are going to die or when but can certainly decide how they are going to live. They’ll stop thinking of themselves as the “lesser ones” and begin to think as individuals. After all, to be a woman is nothing but normal. Pakistan, Bangladesh, England and India have produced women leaders who DID NOT reach their positions through reservation.

As Oprah Winfrey says — “Be A Queen. Own Your Power and Glory”, we must live our dreams and overcome obstacles on our own.

Come on, folks, I am not sorry for being a woman. ARE YOU?

Arrogant super-rich brats rule the road

by P. Raman

A GROUP of boys had come to a newspaper office in Ahmedabad with a badly-typed Gujarati handout for publication on the city page. This writer was astonished to learn that one of them was the grandson of a leading city industrialist. His looks, dress and the hair were hardly distinguishable from his friends living in the city’s congested “poles”. He studied in an English medium boarding school, but hardly flaunted his own upbringing in a sprawling bungalow. This was way back in the late 1960s.

The lifestyle, attitude and general conduct of the rich and super-rich have undergone sweeping changes since then. Philanthropy and benevolence as a tool of showing off the wealth is unfashionable for the post-reform genre. Instead, the younger generation thinks that their standing in the society measured by how much they could consume and show off. All those who had built the indigenous industry over a century led a frugal personal life. Big Gujarati sethjis visiting Delhi to lobby for licences and quotas for their projects stayed in the humble Gujarati Samaj rooms while their own managers operated from five-star hotels.

It is not a case of being miserly. For, the same sethjis liberally doled out more money to those waiting on the Samaj lawns seeking help for various purposes than they might have spent on the protected environs of five-star hotels. They came prepared for this. This writer has been a witness to this. It has been an approach to life, a mindset acquired over generations. Even while exploiting the labour as a class and merrily indulging in profiteering, they upheld philanthropy. It has been the rich merchants rather than kings and emperors, who had built more temples, viharas and stupas as part of their dharma and dhamma.

We have travelled far too long from the Upanishadic dictum “dharmaadartha prabhavate dharmaat prabhavate sukham”.... (dharma alone illuminates wealth and happiness). Humanism and philanthropy have no place in the post-globalisation market philosophy. As a result, business funds set apart for benevolence have been shrinking the world over. Vulgar display of wealth and acquisition has become an essential part of the new philosophy which itself thrives on induced consumerism as a tool of the market and a way to prosperity. It is intrinsically interconnected, and even a slight imbalance in consumption leads to recessions and dumpings.

The recent spurt in mindless assault on human life by the young generation of the rich and super-rich has to be viewed in this background. If state power grows out of the barrel of a gun, as Mao had defined, it could also be stymied by the power of wealth to protect the latter. A group of drunken youths — the number is still disputed — returning in their super-luxury BMW car after a midnight orgy in a South Delhi farmhouse crushes five to death and leaves two others in a coma. In a shocking display of callousness and contempt of human life, the merry-makers not only did not bother to stop and help the victims but reportedly sped past making contemptuous catcalls.

This is not all. In a calculated manner, they rushed to a friend’s home in an exclusive residential colony and washed the blood to erase evidence — all before dawn. But for the dogged efforts of an officer who traced the high-powered imported vehicle from the trail of an oil leak, the truth could never have come out. What followed illustrates the elite’s power of wealth and influence to twist the truth and subvert the rule of law. While the hapless near and dear ones of the victims — the home guards doing their duty on the road — wailed and moaned in the slums, the rich engaged a battery of lawyers in court to punch holes in truth and save the culprits.

In court, their friends and relatives arrogantly displayed wads of currency notes and conveyed the progress of the hearing on their cellphones. Even a retired Admiral came to the court to save the reputation of his grandson, one of the drunken merry-makers. Four became widows while eight kids became orphans. Delhi dailies are full of stories of how the rich tried to bend the rules by winning over law-enforcers and subverting the judicial process.

Sadly, the spurt in the top-of-the-line smart cars and their flashy advertisements on the TV with acrobatic racing and criss-crossing of lanes, have created a dangerous notion. The youth in sleek cars, drunk with liquor and power, simply try to show themselves off on the road as the ads induce them to do. A few days back, a mod girl deliberately jumped the red light in a busy intersection in Delhi, dragged the stunned cop for a long distance and raced past. Her high connections helped her escape. What a few rich boys in a jeep did to the girls of a college in a remote Madhya Pradesh town a few weeks back should still be fresh in our minds.

In a display of extreme arrogance, the boys ploughed through the girls who were eating lunch on the college premises, and reversed the jeep to ensure they are crushed. The story does not end there. As in other cases, everything is proceeding in such a way that the high and mighty will soon get off the hook. Sometime back, a high police officer’s son in Delhi was charged with the murder of a university girl in her apartment. But for the perseverance of the dead girl’s parents, the case might have been hushed up. There are similar stories from states, all pointing to an emerging pattern of a sick mind powered by elitist notions.

The debate on crime in films has become irrelevant long back. Behind the “culture” doled out simultaneously by dozens of competing TV channels is a well-calculated commercial motivation. Precipitated consumerism is the essence of the global market. The global market which tightly controls the media, and their crony capitalists have their own logic and capability to set their own rules of the game. Globalisation uses its powers to control the lifestyle, impose human attitude of its liking, buy culture and sell fashion at its will. It needs the super-rich but cannot sustain on them alone. So it manipulates the market to penetrate into the vast middle and lower middle classes.

For this, the entire human activity has to be put into a well-designed commercial mould. The multi-billion cosmetic market decides the very concept of beauty and sets the fashion. A glitterati has to be created so that every girl aspires to be a Miss World, every street a beauty clinic and, of course, every clinic selling points for designated brands. New fads bring wider markets for the slimming industry. Special chatterati TV shows and newspaper pullouts further enhance the fad and its perennial market. Along with this, a whole set of cosmetics flourishes.

If cars do not sell, do it through forced loans and gifts. The establishment obliges by keeping the public transport system inefficient. From this flows marketing concepts like “graduating into four-wheelers” and “first-stage buyers”, i.e. small cars. This further induces a desperate urge for climbing up socially through better acquisition. Thus the market war to sell every item in itself creates men of different social status in our subconscious mind. It is time someone studied the intense psychological pressures and psychic disorders caused by such market campaigns on those who aspire to acquire them but cannot.

Even routine crime reports talk of the failures to meet the consumerist urge as reasons for kidnappings, suicides and murders. Apart from such social tension, “the other market” devises its own ways to meet such situations. Most consumer items meant for the upper and middle classes have their own fakes or pale imitations to satisfy the deprived. Go to the mofussil shops around unauthorised colonies or the “weekly” markets. Who bothers about health hazards from such shoddy products made of harmful chemicals?

Leaning on a sleek car with a Coke in one hand and a cellphone in the other has been a status symbol until some time back. Now it is too common that it has lost its value as a showpiece, especially after the smarties from the Janata flats began to flaunt the strikingly similar toy phones. What a ludicrous affront to the snob! Pagers had only a short life as a showpiece. Globalisation does not assign any significant role for the poor because these “segments” do not constitute a market for high technology goods. By the time the “percolation” takes place, new generation products arrive. Thus the requirements of these dumb billions could be better left to the care of locally produced low technology, low quality goods. On the other, there is a vested interest in keeping them poor so that they would constitute cheap labour.

Paradoxically, the market-based economic philosophy itself is perpetuating class conflicts. Trade unionism is a dirty word and collective bargaining is anti-reform and hence should be demonised. Instead issues of the handicapped, women and child labour can be highlighted. Consumer rights have to be supreme, not civil rights nor right to dissent. White-collar crimes like bribery, pay-offs, tax evasion, etc. are sought to be depicted as legally punishable but morally and ethically legitimate. Demonisation of the politician and canonisation of the rich serve the same purpose.

Much of the ugly show by the nouveau riche and their underworld imitators can be traced to the cumulative effect of such factors. It is bound to evoke different forms of protest and outbursts of anger. If accepted modes of protests by legitimate institutions are muffled, the initiative would gradually pass on to undesirable elements. That is the more sad aspect of it.

‘Iftar diplomacy’ at its peak

WITH the holy month of Ramazan ending, the hosting of iftars in the Capital reached its peak. The last Friday before Id saw the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, playing host and the next day, it was the turn of Congress President Sonia Gandhi to do so.

However, there was an attempt to steal the thunder from Congress by the Samajwadi Party whose chief Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, organised an Iftar the same evening.

Iftars by political parties have assumed significance and are looked upon as a reflection on the goodwill the parties enjoy among the minorities.

Yet, Mr Yadav’s iftar was shorn of major political players barring former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar, RJD chief Laloo Prasad Yadav and two members of the Left parties, Mr A.B. Baradhan (CPI) and Mr Sitaram Yechury (CPM).

Mrs Sonia Gandhi stole the limelight by turning up at the iftar hosted by the Prime Minister, and the manner in which dignitaries and invitees queued to meet her perhaps was an index of the shape of things to come.

At the Congress iftar, Mrs Sonia Gandhi played the perfect hostess, going around the sprawling arena and interacting with people. For once securitymen did a good job by their discreet handling and not coming in the way of her meeting those who assembled.

That several leaders of other political parties, including Mr Chandra Shekhar, former Union Ministers Indrajit Gupta and Mr Ram Vilas Paswan and Janata Dal chief Sharad Yadav turned up at the iftar only underlined the growing importance of the Congress and its leader.

After all “iftar diplomacy” and its non-observance led to a strain relations between former Congress chief Sitaram Kesri and former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, but one wonders what message Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav is trying to send.

By holding the iftar the same evening as Mrs Gandhi, has Mr Yadav chosen to distance himself from the Congress or trying to ascertain his level of popularity both with other political parties and the minorities? Only time can tell the difference.

BJP’s milk politics

A senior BJP leader from Delhi recently asked a Central Minister to get the Mother Dairy and Delhi Milk Scheme heads replaced by partymen as the move would help the party in regaining the confidence of the Capital’s citizens.

The minister told him that this would boomerang on the BJP as milk prices were going to be raised and the blame would have to be shared by the party also. The BJP would not be able to make an issue of price rise as elections for the Delhi Assembly have just been held and this issue would not last for the next five years, the minister said.

Finance Minister’s openness

The Union Finance Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, who has been under criticism for failing to achieve a turnaround in the economy has adopted a novel idea to silence his critics. Last week he invited several economic groups for the routine pre-Budget discussions and sought their suggestions for this year’s Budget. This group included members of the Fourth Estate for the first time. Senior editors and economic writers who have been harsh on the Finance Minister were stumped by the invitation. Harsh criticism gave way to constructive criticism at the meeting and the Finance Minister diligently took down the numerous suggestions that each journalist had to make. Now at least the media cannot blame the Finance Minister for the various deficiencies that might crop up in the next Budget.

Mr Sinha can always turn around and tell his critics that they too were involved in the Budget making exercise.

Apart from the media critics, the Finance Ministry has also hit upon a new idea to deal with complaints of the common man. For the first time the ministry has opened a website for the public inviting their suggestions. The general public has to just access the ministry through “www.nic.in/finmin” on the Internet and type down their suggestions. The ministry says it would look through all of them and make the Budget really people-oriented.

Ministers on their toes

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s desire to expand the Cabinet last week may not have materialised, but the proposed decision managed to spur several ministers into action. Realising that the Prime Minister was planning a complete rehaul of his Council of Ministers, several members of the Cabinet got busy during the week to highlight their achievements and brash up their performance report. This week was hectic for mediapersons as several ministers held press conferences.

To begin with there was Union Labour Minister Satyanarayan Jatiya, who announced the setting up of the second National Commission on Labour. The Minister of State for Petroleum, Mr Santosh Gangwar, interacted with the media to brief them about the highlights of the Petroleum Conservation Week. Union Communications Minister Jagmohan, Minister for Surface Transport Thambi Durai, and Railways Minister Nitish Kumar were also among those who met mediapersons during the week.

(Contributed by Satish Misra, T.V. Lakshminarayan, K.V. Prasad and P.N. Andley)

75 YEARS AGO

Indian labour in Fiji
Occupation and wages

THE following interesting details regarding Indian immigrant labour in the Fiji Islands have been received from the Colonial Secretary, Suva, Fiji, and are given in the “Lahore Gazette”:— “Since 1916 there has been no immigration into Fiji of labourers from India. Indians in Fiji are employed mainly in agricultural pursuits, although as many as 14,000 are engaged in industrial occupation.

The number of Indians who are classed either as agriculturists or cultivators exceeds 15,000 and of this number a large majority are either farmers growing sugarcane, which they sell to the sugar companies, or are agricultural labourers employed in the sugar industry at a daily wage.

Labourers so employed are housed by employers and are given free medical attention by the Government. Generally also, they are allowed the use of plots of land on which to grow rice, dal and other products.