A post-poll price rise
NOW that the mid-term election is over, the government can stop smiling and start taxing the people. In the case of diesel, it is not taxing but increasing the price by a hefty 40 per cent.

Two-wheelers now
THE Supreme Court's query to the Centre whether two and three-wheeler scooters can also be subjected to stringent Euro-I and Euro-II emission norms is a natural corollary of the orders passed against four-wheeled vehicles some time back.

Killing as instant justice
LAST week four persons were clubbed to death by a mob in Meerut. Why? Because in spite of complaints of alarming increase in incidences of burglary the local police has not been able to solve a single case.

THE 1999 SIKH GURDWARAS BILL
Implications of its provisions
by Jasbir Singh Ahluwalia
THE Sikh Gurdwaras Bill, 1999, prepared, suo motu, by Justice (retd) Harbans Singh, Chief Commissioner, Gurdwara Elections, and sent by him to the Government of India for enactment requires an indepth study, for the proposed legislation, when enacted, would have an impact upon the Sikh society for the next many many decades.

Economy: post-poll challenges
by S. Sethuraman
PRESCRIPTIONS on what the post-election government in India ought to do are flowing from international institutions amid hopes from foreign investors that the country would see a phase of political stability for purposeful decision-making.

Public health system lacks infrastructure
by Reeta Sharma
IT is often felt that public memory is short. But surely one cannot forget the plague cases of Surat ? And the recent dengue cases in Ludhiana and Amritsar. Besides hundreds of cases of measles were reported from Chandigarh, only last October. How are these preventable diseases (for which authentic vaccines have been invented) re-occurring in our country?

Nobel Prize after 20-year wait
by Manju Jaidka
WINDFALLS of almost a million dollars don’t happen everyday. This year’s Nobel Prize is worth $960,000. And what was the brand new Nobel Laureate for Literature doing when the great news reached him? And what did he do soon after? Guenter Grass was painting at his house in Behlendorf (North Germany) when the academy called to say he had won the prize.

Indian national festival
by Tirthankar Bhattacharya
INDIA is a land of festivals. It is often claimed that there are 13 festivals in 12 months. Holidays for festivals are galore. People put on their best dresses and eat all goodies on such festive occasions.

75 Years Ago

October 7, 1924
Cotton Excise Duty
IT was only to be expected that the Assembly would vote for the abolition of the cotton duty. There is not in the whole range of duties and taxes for which the British Government in India has made itself responsible one more wholly unpopular or more utterly indefensible than this tax;

A post-poll price rise

NOW that the mid-term election is over, the government can stop smiling and start taxing the people. In the case of diesel, it is not taxing but increasing the price by a hefty 40 per cent. The excuse is that the international price has gone up and the government is committed to adjust domestic price of diesel and also three other petroleum products — fuel oil, low sulphur heavy stock (LSHS) and bitumen — every three months. There is cause for further worry since this assertion makes another steep climb inevitable within the next three months. According to official figures, there has been a sustained rise in the import cost of diesel since last June — up from $115 a tonne to $200 a tonne. This is in sympathy with the upward movement of crude prices from a record low (in real terms) of $9 a barrel to $24 a barrel. Thus the diesel price has shot up by nearly 80 per cent; half of this burden has now been passed on to the consumers and the turn of the other half will come as a New Year gift. A sharp slide in the price in West Asia will obviate the need, but it never happens in winter months and the prevailing market conditions too suggest a higher price. Petrol will not become dearer since it is already priced at twice the international rate and fetches the government a large surplus of Rs 5,000 crore; anyway the government retains the right to administer its price. But cooking gas and kerosene will not be spared and the Finance Ministry is sore that it is subsidising the two items to the tune of Rs 12,000 crore (gas Rs 5,000 crore and kerosene Rs 7,000 crore).

Dithering over the diesel price by a government which was ultra sensitive to voter disaffection had caused an additional subsidy burden of Rs 10,000 crore. But the latest decision will bring in about Rs 6,600 crore. And if the new government goes ahead with another increase, subsidy on this account will be wiped out. This turns the spotlight on the outlook of successive governments. The nation is treated to periodic pious promises of various kind and sometimes policy decisions are taken to translate some of them into action. But the very idea of hurting the consumer frightens the political masters and insincere excuses fill the air. Petroleum prices offer an excellent case study. The 1998 budget hiked the prices by 15 per cent and the Finance Minister offered a detailed justification for this action. Within hours the increase was scaled down to 12 per cent, so scared the government was of offending this or that coalition partner and also angering the people who could create problems for the shaky regime. Then a funny thing happened at the beginning of this year. The government cut the diesel price by Re 1 a litre to bring the domestic price in line with that in the world. A month later the Finance Ministry imposed an excise duty of, yes, Re 1 a litre, claiming it was raising revenue for some grand development scheme. The subsidy on each cylinder of cooking gas is Rs 157, or so the government claims. Experts maintain that it is only Rs 60 and with better management this could come down further. One certain upshot of the diesel decision is to push up the inflation rate. A conservative estimate is that dearer diesel and a shortfall in khariff output will combine to push up inflation by a minimum of 4 or 5 per cent points and almost immediately. The sharp rise in petroleum prices will increase import bill by about $ 5 billion, taking the trade deficit to $ 15 billion. For the common man as also the Union Finance Minister hard days are ahead.

Two-wheelers now

THE Supreme Court's query to the Centre whether two and three-wheeler scooters can also be subjected to stringent Euro-I and Euro-II emission norms is a natural corollary of the orders passed against four-wheeled vehicles some time back. On April 28, the court had suggested that no car without conforming to the Euro-I norm would be allowed to be registered in the National Capital Region after June 1 and without Euro-II norm after April 1, 2000. The court had also upbraided the car manufacturers for not following these norms while selling cars in India whereas they exported cars with the requisite gadgets. Suddenly there has been a flurry of design changes and more and more "green" cars are now coming on the roads. There is substance in the complaint of the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) that the Indian emission norms are the toughest in the world. The European Community norms notified for December, 2000, called Euro-I, specify a carbon monoxide (CO) standard of 8 for two-stroke vehicles. Even Japan prescribes a CO level of 8 for the year 2000 norms while in India it will be as low as 2 next year. But this kind of stringency has become inevitable in places like Delhi where pollution has crossed all limits. The national Capital has the dubious distinction of being a metropolis with perhaps the most suffocating air in the world. The dark fumes emitted by Delhi's more than three million vehicles are playing havoc with the lives of all. Seventy per cent of the pollution is caused by vehicles. Under such circumstances, extraordinarily tough measures are not only necessary but also unavoidable.

Perhaps India has to learn a lesson from tiny Nepal that has recently banned diesel-run three-wheeler scooters from the streets of Kathmandu. Incidentally, most of the 640-odd vehicles were made in India. It is ironical that these continue to run in the country of their origin. Nepal is also applying Euro-I norms, to be upgraded to Euro-II soon enough. More importantly, it is reported to be close to putting a ban on the import and plying of two-stroke motor cycles. The sooner India does the same the better. But getting tough with emissions from vehicles is only one aspect. A holistic approach has to be adopted if some real change has to be brought about. If vehicles have flooded the roads of Delhi, it is only because the Capital has no mass rapid transport system worth the name. In fact, it is one of the very few large cities of the world which does not have this facility. That is why people have to use their personal vehicles for commuting, which not only cost more to the individuals but also spoil air quality. Then there is the question of ensuring that the quality of fuel is good. Right now, the petrol and diesel sold at many places are of suspect quality. The use of CNG and battery operated vehicles has to be encouraged. While focussing on the menace, the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) has also to bring under its microscope mass polluters like the DVB. The old wisdom of prevention being better than cure is very much applicable.

Killing as instant justice

LAST week four persons were clubbed to death by a mob in Meerut. Why? Because in spite of complaints of alarming increase in incidences of burglary the local police has not been able to solve a single case. On the ill-fated day the victims of mob ire found themselves being accused of "moving around in suspicious circumstances". They were dragged to a spot where a murder had been committed and made to "confess" their crime. Thereafter the mob decided to lynch them before the police got wind of the setting up of a kangaroo court. The incident needs to be analysed in detail by sociologists and criminologists because what happened in Meerut is not an isolated case of "dispensation" of instant justice by a motley crowd of people. The growing tendency among seeminly law-abiding citizens to bypass the institutions established by law for the speedy redressal of grievances should be curbed before it assumes the dimensions of a national malaise. Besides, the lynching witnessed in Meerut goes against the universally accepted position that even known criminals have human rights. It cannot be denied that more often than not innocent persons end up paying with their lives for the inefficiency of the police in investigating crimes and maintaining law and order. In the Meerut case the police was founding wanting on two counts. The residents of Meerut are angry with the law enforcing agency because of its inability to solve crimes and arrest criminals. The lynching of four persons in Meerut merely confirmed the popular opinion about the efficiency of the police in protecting the life and property of citizens.

It appears that what Osama bin Laden is to the world of religious terrorism the "kachha- baniyan" gang is to the world of organised burglaries in at least North India. [Those lynched in Meerut were presumed to be members of this gang.] Any act of terrorism in which Muslims or Muslim organisations are suspected to be involved is traced to the doorstep of Osama, whose existence was not known to the world before the USA mentioned his name in the context of the bombing of its embassies in Africa. The "kachha-baniyan" gang too seems to have become omnipresent in a vast stretch of territory in North India. Reports of attacks by members of the larger-than-life gang figure on a regular basis in at least the print media. They are busy terrorising residents and robbing them of their valuables in Panchkula and Faridabad one day and are spotted in distant Meerut the next day. The "kachha-baniyan" gang seems to be more unreal than a real monster which cannot be eliminated either by the police or angry groups of people who believe in dispensing instant justice. The dreaded gang was last reported to have struck in north-west Delhi and committed a number of burglaries. The police, it appears, has allowed the myth to grow to cover its own inefficiency in investigating what are essentially local crimes. The Delhi Police, for instance, keeps coming up with different theories to explain why it is becoming increasingly difficult for it to arrest the disturbing rise in cases of armed robbery, burglary, rape and murder in the nation's capital. The law enforcers would have us believe that the "kachha-baniyan" gang is always a move ahead of the police "because it keeps changing its modus operandi"!

THE 1999 SIKH GURDWARAS BILL
Implications of its provisions
by Jasbir Singh Ahluwalia

THE Sikh Gurdwaras Bill, 1999, prepared, suo motu, by Justice (retd) Harbans Singh, Chief Commissioner, Gurdwara Elections, and sent by him to the Government of India for enactment requires an indepth study, for the proposed legislation, when enacted, would have an impact upon the Sikh society for the next many many decades. The scrutiny of the draft becomes all the more essential as it impinges upon the Sikh tenets and traditions.

The Bill has already created a controversy, which is more intense and widespread than that generated by the earlier draft of Justice (retd) Harbans Singh submitted by him to the Punjab government in 1986. This Bill was rejected by the then Barnala government, which vide its notification No 498 of August 18, 1986, appointed a new committee to “re-draft” the Bill for all-India Sikh gurdwaras legislation. I was given the honour of being the member-secretary of the new committee, which prepared a draft formally approved by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, then headed by Mr Kabul Singh. However, the whole exercise got nowhere, owing to the dismissal of the Barnala ministry. The 1999 Bill prepared by Justice Harbans Singh is nothing but a “re-play” of his 1986 draft with marginal changes which, make it all the more retrogressive.

In the Sikh mind, the idea of an all-India Sikh gurdwaras legislation has been that of self-management in the sense that all the historical gurdwaras in India as well as the shrines notified under the 1925 Act should be structurally organised into a unifocal, elected management with autonomous state regional units conceived as integral components of the SGPC with enlarged scope, functions, jurisdiction and membership.

Four objectives can be perceived in this idea. The first relates to the conception of a gurdwara as an institution rather than a property as in the existing 1925 Act. Secondly, it is hoped that the institutionalised consolidation of the religious power and polity would be instrumental in realising the universal values of Sikh religion and also in enabling the Sikh community to play, in its corporate capacity, its due role in world civilisation. Thirdly, the all-India legislation is looked forward to as an opportunity for democratising the gurdwara management with the due role of Sikh sangat therein. Modernisation of the gurdwara management is the fourth important objective expected of the legislation.

Unfortunately, notwithstanding the legal brilliance of the draft under reference, it does not correspond to the idea of an all-India piece of legislation, as it has grown in the Sikh mind. Nor does it tend to fulfil any of the above-mentioned objectives. It is violative of the Sikh tenets and traditions; it disintegrates the Sikh religious power and polity not only by weakening the present SGPC, which would be deprived of its jurisdiction over the three Takhts in Punjab as well as Sri Harimandir Sahib, but also by setting up nine other parallel, independent and rival state regional boards.

The present draft, like the previous one prepared by Justice Harbans Singh, envisages the setting up of a central board, which would have jurisdiction over Sri Harimandir Sahib and the five Sikh Takhts, with the proposed Punjab Board (replacing the present SGPC) having jurisdiction over the remaining gurdwaras only in Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh.

The proposed central board will have about one-third members from outside Punjab and their concerns and considerations might not be in tune with the concerns and considerations of the members from Punjab. This could lead to polarisation and pulls and counter-pulls.

The democratic principle of direct election of the members of the central board by the Sikh voters has been abandoned in the proposed Bill.

The provision regarding the central religious body, comprising the Takht Jathedars and the President of the World Sikh Council, would emerge as a dictatorial arrangement in respect of all Panthic matters — political and religious? This would affect democratic functioning of the present Panthic organisations such as the Akali Dal and the SGPC.

The proposal of compulsory registration of all the gurdwaras, whether historical, notified or ordinary, is another provision which would open the floodgates for governmental interference in the religious affairs of the Sikhs who might, then, tend to call their shrines as dharmshalas, rather than gurdwaras to escape the condition of compulsory registration.

The term “Sikh” has been so defined in the Bill that it would lead to a shrinkage of the social base of the Sikh community by knocking out the sehajdharis, who are recognised as Sikhs in the Sikh tradition. This knock-out would also lead to a vertical division in the Sikh community. And if at any time in future, the Central government chooses to adopt this definition of the term “Sikh” for national census, the Sikh population in India would be reduced overnight to a microscopic minority.

The Bill would be well within its legitimate domain and scope if it seeks to lay down as to who, among the votaries of Sikh religion, will be eligible as voters for electing the members of the various boards envisaged therein. The legislation can also prescribe as to who among the voters can be candidates for election to the gurdwara bodies. But, surely, it can be neither the domain nor the scope of an Act passed by Parliament to determine as to who is and is not a follower of Sikhism. This, in fact, is the domain of the religious tradition; no tenet or tradition of any religion in the world can surrender to the State the right to define as to who is or is not a follower of a particular religion.

The electoral pattern envisaged in the Bill would cause horizontal divisions also in Sikh society and destroy its organic unity. The pattern for the election of the members of the boards has been devised on the assumption that a gurdwara is not an institution equally belonging to all the Sikhs, but only a property belonging exclusively to the Sikhs of the territory in which the shrine happens to be situated. The Sikh society, thus, has been compartmentalised into separate electoral colleges for choosing their representatives on the central/regional/state boards.

The Constitution of India confers upon religious communities the fundamental right (Article 26) to self-manage their institutions and religious affairs. From this angle, the Bill should have been so conceived as to enable the Sikh community to self-manage its shrines without dependence upon the government whose control in the religious affairs should have been minimised. But the Bill goes in the opposite direction; vast powers have been proposed to be conferred upon the Central government to administer various provisions of the draft legislation.

Justice Harbans Singh’s another proposal in the draft to do away with the reservations in the gurdwara bodies for women and the Scheduled Castes, on the ground that all Amritdhari Sikhs are co-equal in Sikh religion, is tantamount to depriving the less-privileged, down-trodden sections of the Sikh community of their present “say” and role in the religious polity of the Sikhs. The elimination of their voice in the religious polity would inevitably have a multiplier effect at other levels also. The declaration of Sri Guru Granth Sahib as a “juristic person” in the proposed Act (Clause 14), under scrutiny, betrays Justice Harbans Singh’s ignorance of the status of the holy Sikh scripture as the“eternal Guru”, now proposed to be brought down to the level of a “juristic person” like an ordinary corporate firm or company! Further, this clause envisages Sri Guru Granth Sahib as a “property-holder”. The learned drafter has not comprehended that a gurdwara property vests in the shrine as an institution and not in Sri Guru Granth Sahib; hence the declaration of Sri Guru Granth Sahib as a “juristic person” for legal matters relating to property is most repugnant. On this ground alone this Bill deserves to be discarded in toto.

The author is Vice-Chancellor, Punjabi University, Patiala, and President of the Guru Gobind Singh Foundation, Chandigarh.

Economy: post-poll challenges
by S. Sethuraman

PRESCRIPTIONS on what the post-election government in India ought to do are flowing from international institutions amid hopes from foreign investors that the country would see a phase of political stability for purposeful decision-making.

India found itself in deep crisis at the start of the decade with an alarming rise in fiscal deficit and the erosion of its reserves to a level perilously close to default on its external obligations.

It was given to Dr Manmohan Singh as Finance Minister to begin to turn the tide in 1991 with tough demand management to beat the double digit inflation, a phasing down of fiscal deficit and building up of the foreign exchange reserves. Sweeping liberalisation of the economy saw smart industrial upsurge and impressive export growth for three years before a downturn set in, coinciding with the unstable coalition regimes at the Centre.

Fiscal deficit on a gradual decline reversed itself in 1997-98, and is set to rise disturbingly in 1999-2000, with the lower tax receipts, tentative pick-up in industrial activity and a substantial increase in defence expenditure as a result of the Kargil war.

Whichever government comes to power will be faced with the immediate task of setting the fiscal house in order, and may be forced to resort to measures to boost revenue such as surcharges and revision of petroleum product prices, held up during the elections.

Whether India can boldly launch the structural reforms that have remained unattended to for years, to impart dynamism to the economy and enable it to grow at 7 to 8 per cent on a sustained basis, will depend on the political strength that the new government will command and its ability to forge a broad consensus among all the parties on a minimum programme.

There is no doubt that the inherent strength of the Indian economy, developed over the decades, coupled with the liberalisation thrusts of the 1990s, makes it possible for the country to achieve a 5 to 6 per cent average growth rate — which is well above the trend of growth till the 1970s — and also to tide over temporary setbacks as have been witnessed over the past three years.

No matter the claims of the Vajpayee government that it has managed the economy well and that post-Pokhran economic sanctions did not have any impact, 1998-99 was a year of dismal performance not only in the areas of industry and exports but also in the case of inflow of external capital, official and private, which has now become an essential ingredient of sustained growth in an environment of globalisation.

It is true that economic sanctions had a relatively minimal impact at a time when the world economy itself was on a slowdown, triggered off mainly by the Asian financial crisis, whose contagion effect spared India with its limited exposure to global markets and a sound policy adopted for a few years in regard to external borrowings.

While direct US economic aid to India has been insignificant, the sanctions did affect a large volume of bilateral credits of other major countries as well as multilateral lending. The World Bank’s lending in the fiscal year ended June, 1999, was a bare $ 1 billion compared to the normal $ 2 billion to $ 3 billion on an average over the last decade.

In theory, the World Bank is not expected to allow political considerations to enter its lending operations, but the richer nations control the institution by their voting power, and the Vajpayee government was hardly able to win over any of the other traditional creditor nations, including Germany and Japan, to see that the Bank functioned on the basis of its charter strictly.

In its latest annual report, the Bank has blamed the nuclear-related sanctions and political instability for the economic drift. The lack of substantial aid pledges in 1998 through the India Development Forum would affect flows over the medium term, and the possibility of the forum reactivating itself for the year 1999-2000 at least will depend on the new government’s policies and postures in the early weeks of its office.

In 1993 itself, the Narasimha Rao government laid out an agenda of unfinished reforms, and the successor coalitions stuck to liberalisation and reforms though accomplishing very little. Radical noises were made by the Vajpayee government, especially by Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha who promised to announce a “second generation of reforms”.

The new Lok Sabha will have to take charge of the situation and debate many of the pending issues in financial sector reforms (insurance), infrastructure (telecom policy) and India’s stand at the World Trade Organisation in the context of the Seattle Ministerial Meeting (November 30-December 3).

At the end of the decade, India’s fiscal deficit leading to massive borrowings year after year presents as much a challenge as in 1991. Expenditure reform, both at the Centre and the States, must be at the top but prospects are dimmer with the competitive populism thrown up during the elections by the regional parties and caste-based groups. Probably in 1998-99, India had run a fiscal deficit well above 10 per cent, one of the highest in the decade.

Along with domestic finance, the new government will have to ensure that there are adequate external flows to finance current account deficits, though the level of the reserves may at present appear to be comfortable, even if these largely represent borrowings, including the $ 4.2 billion of the Resurgent India Bonds (NRIs). According to UNCTAD (UN Conference on Trade and Development), prospects for 1999 are for a slowdown in growth for South Asia due in part to an uncertain political climate and the armed border conflict between India and Pakistan. — IPA

Indian national festival
by Tirthankar Bhattacharya

INDIA is a land of festivals. It is often claimed that there are 13 festivals in 12 months. Holidays for festivals are galore. People put on their best dresses and eat all goodies on such festive occasions.

Some of the festivals are of regional relevance. There are some festivals which are restricted to certain communities or sects. Some families also have their own respective festivals which often are of the traditional moorings of these families. For instance, marriages, birth of a child and the related festivities, and ceremonial registration of some achievements of the members of the family.

They do not affect others outside of these parameters. When we talk of a national festival, we envisage its relevance to everybody in the nation irrespective of caste, creed and family affiliations.

Is there a national festival of India in the true sense of the terms “national” and “festivals”? One can perhaps mention Divali or Dasehra as examples of a national festival. But the problem is that, although these are virtually of pan-Indian occurrence, they have a sectarian syndrome. It is true that many people drawn from the parallel communities do often participate in the fun and frolic associated with Divali or Dasehra. But they cannot be regarded as national festivals due to their intrinsic religious overtone. Similarly, Holi, the festival of colours, should also be denied of the “national” badge.

A festival in which all the Indians jointly participate irrespective of their personal background does, in fact exist in India. This festival, which gained much importance in recent years, can doubtless be referred to as the “National Festival of India.” The name of the festival is the Indian General Election. Originally planned as a festival for once in every five years, due to its unprecedented popularity it has now been hailed as a festival coming after a shorter gap of time. It can be annual, bi-annual or even after every three months, perhaps.

Not only all the adults take part directly in this national festival, even the children enjoy its various ramifications. Some of them even indirectly participate in its “extracurricular” programmes.

In a festival one sees the enthusiastic participation of the people, exhibition of best spectacles, extravaganza in temporary bashes, the congregations of people and their processions, and frivolities of extraordinary sound and fury. In the preparations for and proceedings of the general elections in the country one finds all these a plenty. The colourful posters, banners, festoons and speeches make the occasion really festive. And doubtless the entire nation is whole-heartedly involved in it to make it a truly “national festival.”

Unlike other well-known festivals, the General Election, the accepted National Festival of India, make and un-make the rulers. Politicians act as the high-priests in a so-called worship of the shrine of Democracy. The people follow their “mantras” and perform the rituals with the ballot papers as substitutes for flowers. The results of this performance are known soon. Thereby follow dance, music, shouting of joyous notes to make the ambience truly festive. It is likely that in near future this National Festival will figure in the calendars listing the holidays of national importance.

Public health system lacks infrastructure

by Reeta Sharma

IT is often felt that public memory is short. But surely one cannot forget the plague cases of Surat ? And the recent dengue cases in Ludhiana and Amritsar. Besides hundreds of cases of measles were reported from Chandigarh, only last October. How are these preventable diseases (for which authentic vaccines have been invented) re-occurring in our country?

The answer to this question is directly related to the concept of public health system. This follow-up is on this very concept.

What is public health? To quote Prof. C.E.A. Winslow of the USA, “It is not a branch of medicine or engineering. But a profession dedicated to a community service which involves the cooperative effort of a dozen different disciplines.”

How old is the concept of public health? Well, only last year the USA celebrated 150 years of the existence of the American Public Health Association.

In India, it was during the British rule in the early 1930s that an “Institute of Hygiene and Public Health” — (IHPH) — was established at Calcutta with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. Today, under the Government of India IHPH awards a nine-month diploma in Public Health to qualified doctors.

Interestingly, till 1965, in joint Punjab, there were two different cadres under the health system. While one was specifically responsible for “medicare services”, the second concentrated only on “public health service”; both at the state as well as district-level. But unfortunately, the government, both in Punjab and Haryana, besides the Administration in the Union Territory of Chandigarh amalgated the two totally differently aimed services. The end-result is that today we have head of health services from the medical service alone. That they not only lack the perspective of public health concept but are also devoid of any infrastructure as is indicated by the outbreak of diseases like measles, dengue, malaria and even dreadful cholera.

In Chandigarh the public health system stands transferred from the Administration to the Municipal Corporation of Chandigarh, MCC. Now whether it is water supply, sewerage, malaria control sanitation etc the sole responsibility of looking after the public health service sector rests with the MCC.

Besides, a ‘Regional Institute of Public Health’ (RIPH) headed by Dr Satnam Singh, the city has a full-fledged department of Community Medicine at the PGI and also a department at the Chandigarh Medical College, in Sector 32.

When one talks of public health one has to take cognisance of the communicable diseases that are caused due to lack of sanitation or poor infrastructure and monitoring of the public health system. Measles is one of the communicable diseases and Chandigarh has had a taste of that only a year ago. In fact, public health experts tell us that for over a decade, the country’s public health systems have been trying to prevent six vaccine-preventable diseases, which include measles. Live-virus measles vaccine given to a child between 9 and 12 months gives effective almost life-long immunity.

It was a conscientious paediatrician at the Chandigarh Medical College Hospital who while treating children with pneumonia as a complication of measles reported the same to the department of communicable diseases at the Medical College Chandigarh and to the Chandigarh Administration. That was in December last year. Following that a house-to-house survey detected 100-odd cases in a labour colony south of Burail village.

One lesson that must be learnt from measles outbreak in Chandigarh last year is loud and clear: In respect of measles, live-virus vaccine, only if given within 72 hours of exposure will provide protection. Therefore, prompt reporting too has to be done, within 24 hours of a suspected case. Vaccination itself will be of no use to children if delayed.

According to the Chandigarh-based RIPH executive chairperson and honorary director, Dr Satnam Singh, “As a nation we have understood the logic and urgency of establishing at least six institutions of hygiene and public health which are sufficient to provide 200 to 300 graduates each year. The staff is adequate in these institutes. And yet we continue to invest heavily in more and more colleges and medical science universities”.

He said following a memorandum of understanding with the RIPH, Punjab had a strong case both with New Delhi and WHO to establish an institute of Public Health in Chandigarh. This would involve technical collaboration with Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland. The cost of this project to the country would be only one-quarter of capital and recurring costs required to support a medical college and its hospital. However, according to Dr Satnam Singh the cost-effectiveness in terms of disease, disability prevention, all-round increased productivity and lives saved would be tremendous.

In this backdrop a comment by Lord Swraj Paul is very apt: “In India what we need to stress on is education and health”.

Nobel Prize after 20-year wait
by Manju Jaidka

WINDFALLS of almost a million dollars don’t happen everyday. This year’s Nobel Prize is worth $960,000. And what was the brand new Nobel Laureate for Literature doing when the great news reached him? And what did he do soon after? Guenter Grass was painting at his house in Behlendorf (North Germany) when the academy called to say he had won the prize. Immediately after the call he left to keep an appointment with his dentist; $960,000 this way or that, dentist appointments still have to be kept!

When asked for his comments he quipped: “I was constantly a candidate for 20 years. That kept me young. Now, old age is irrevocably starting”.... “At my age, I will gladly take the prize.”

Guenter Grass (b. 1927), German poet, novelist, playwright, sculptor, and printmaker, became the literary spokesman for the German generation that grew up in the Nazi era and survived the war. He is the fifth consecutive European to win the prize and Germany’s seventh Nobel literature laureate. The last was Heinrich Boell in 1972.

Born and brought up in Danzig, Grass has been a witness to historical upheavals of the mid-century. He passed through the Hitler Youth movement, was drafted at 16, wounded in battle, became a prisoner of war, had a chequered history as an art student in Dusseldorf, a tombstone-cutter, and a drummer-boy, and finally became famous as a novelist of the post-war years. In 1956 he wrote Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum, the German director, Volker Schloendorff, later based a movie on it), a novel which presented his view of the post-war Germany and earned him the title of the “conscience of his generation.” This epic novel is narrated through the eyes of a child, the central character, Oskar Matzerath, who refuses to grow as a protest to the cruelties of German history and communicates only through his toy drum. The book was followed by Katz und Maus (1961; Cat and Mouse) and Hundejahre (1963; Dog Years); the three together form a trilogy set in Danzig.

From Danzig, Grass turned his attention to Berlin. In the play Die Plebejer Proben Den Aufstand (1966, The Plebeians Rehearse the Uprising) Bertold Brecht appears as the Boss, who declines to leave his theatrical preoccupations to support the East Berlin workers’ reformist uprising. The novel Ortlich Betaubt (1969, Local Anaesthetic) and the drama Davor, based on the novel, also had Berlin as the scene of events.

From 1986 to 1987 Grass lived in India, which he has depicted in Zunge Zeigen (1988, Show Your Tongue). His most recent book is Mein Jahrhundert (1999), a running commentary on the 20th century. Grass is an accomplished artist and has illustrated many of his own books.

Like all authors who come into the limelight Grass, too, has been dogged by controversies. He once said the horrors of Auschwitz could not have occurred without a strong Germany. He was horrified at the nation’s unification in 1990 after the fall of the Berlin Wall and has never shed his fear that Germany may stray again. Grass gave his view on German unification in A Broad Field, giving the Stasi — the dreaded East German secret police — a prominent role in the book.

There have been other controversies. Grass and other German writers of his generation have been criticised in a recent book, The Language of Silence, by Ernestine Schlant, a professor of German and comparative literature at New Jersey’s Montclair State University. Schlant, the German-born wife of Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley, says the writers’ books virtually ignore the Holocaust and experiences of Jews.

Nobel Academy secretary, Horace Engdahl, who announced the prize, admitted that the Academy was aware of controversies surrounding Grass: “In fact, Guenter Grass has been surrounded by storms fairly often,” he said. “...But we don’t take those things into consideration. We sit down and read the book, and the book is darn good.” With The Tin Drum, the Nobel Academy said, “it was as if German literature had been granted a new beginning after decades of linguistic and moral destruction.”

Praise has poured in from other literary colleagues, including Nadine Gordimer, Vaclav Havel, Czeslaw Milosz, Wislawa Szymborska. Salman Rushdie, in a st1atement through his agent, called Grass “the greatest European novelist of the second half of the 20th century.’’

Other contenders for this year’s Nobel for Literature included: Cees Nooteboom and Hugo Claus from the Netherlands; India-born authors Salman Rushdie and VS Naipaul; Estonia’s Jaan Kross, Albanian Ismail Kadare, Czech Milan Kundera, Portugal’s Antonio Lobo Antunes, the Swedes — Astrid Lindgren and Tomas Transtromer; Indonesia’s Pramoedya Ananta Toer; exiled Chinese poet Bei Dao; South America’s Jorge Amado from Brazil and Mario Vargas Llosa from Peru; Mexico’s Carlos Fuentes; and Morocco’s Ben Jelloun.

But, Horace Engdahl told reporters: “There were no serious contentions.... It was an easy choice.” The Swedish Academy praised Grass for his ironic and fantastic fables, which “portray the forgotten face of history.” They feel that The Tin Drum will become “one of the enduring literary works of the 20th century.”

75 YEARS AGO

October 7, 1924
Cotton Excise Duty

IT was only to be expected that the Assembly would vote for the abolition of the cotton duty. There is not in the whole range of duties and taxes for which the British Government in India has made itself responsible one more wholly unpopular or more utterly indefensible than this tax; and it is a highly significant fact, significant as showing the change which has taken place even in the temper of the official world that when the matter came up for consideration at Tuesday’s meeting of the Assembly, no attempt was made even from the official benches to defend the duty.

The exact contrary was the case. Sir Charles Innes said that there was not in India a Britisher who did not regret that this tax had been imposed, and admitted that it had done much political harm.

In the same key the Finance Member, who said that he had personally not a word to say in favour of the duty which was bad in its origin, and he would not mind being the Finance Member in whose time this wrong was righted. After this it was, of course, inevitable that the motion in favour of the abolition of the duty should be carried without a division. We can only hope that the Government will lose no time in giving effect to the resolution.