Culpable move in USA
WHAT appears as a set of well-intended and unofficial American proposals floated by “the Kashmir Study Group” is essentially a document produced with much calculated effort to undermine India’s territorial integrity and sovereignty in its northern part.

Azhar shown the door?
MOHAMMAD Azharuddin deserved a better farewell from international cricket than the one given to him by the national selectors on Wednesday.

EDUCATION, BUSINESS & GOVT - I
Empowering the deprived in C’garh
by Ravi Kalia
INDIA can take pride in the accomplishments of the past 50 years. It has created great research institutions (like the Bhaba Atomic Research Centre), expanded the role of colleges and universities (like Indira Gandhi Open University), built the enviable Indian Institute of Technology system, and increased accessibility to colleges for the disadvantaged .

Need for new economic policy
by Balraj Mehta
HARD times are ahead on the economic front for the new government whenever it is formed. The multiple strains in the Indian economy have sharpened to an extent that they are likely to assume crisis proportions in the current year.

Multipolar world — India’s top priority
by M.S.N. Menon
ON October 1, China marked 50 years of Communist rule. True, China has changed much over the years, but it remains as inscrutable as ever. What role will it play in Asia and the world? We have no clear answers. Nehru once confessed: “We were living in a fool’s paradise about China”. We still are to a large extent. We were victims of false sentiments ( Hindi-Chini bhai bhai) and were under the illusion that China would join us to create a better world order.

“Who was hurt?”
by J.L. Gupta
HE was not old. Probably, in his early fifties. But, he looked tired. Almost exhausted. The wrinkles were already beginning to show on his face. The unfortunate road accident appeared to have taken a lot out of him. During the last two years, he had gone through two surgeries for the repair of his femur.

75 Years Ago

October 8, 1924
The Lahore Municipality
IT has been attempted to be made out that the non-Muslim members who resigned their seats on the Lahore Municipal Committee some time ago partially as a protest against the high-handedness of the President were only actuated by communal feelings.

Culpable move in USA

WHAT appears as a set of well-intended and unofficial American proposals floated by “the Kashmir Study Group” is essentially a document produced with much calculated effort to undermine India’s territorial integrity and sovereignty in its northern part. The “Study Group” has come out with unthinkable propositions backed by detailed text and several anti-India maps. The Group’s character is worth noticing. As a report in The Asian Age explains, it functions as an advisory body to the US State Department. It claims that its new detailed proposals are based on “responses received from opinion-makers, including government officials, in both India and Pakistan.” The Group’s report takes off from the Livingston proposals generally known in the form and format of “Kashmir: A Way Forward.” The Age printed its details some time ago. The think tank maintains that “the responses were positive towards the creation of a Kashmir entity”. The latest news item on this topic quotes the Group as stating that former bureaucrats and defence officials were involved in the preparation of the draft proposals which had now been “concretised” into three options: Two Kashmiri entities on either side of the Line of Control (LoC), one entity straddling the LoC, or just one entity on the Indian side of the LoC. These entities will have “their own government, constitution and special relationship with India and/or Pakistan”. The proposals are said to be under discussion “at different levels” in both countries.

The identification of areas for the entity or entities will be on the basis of religion and Kashmiriyat. For instance, the tehsils of Kashmir proper, Doda district, Gool Gulabgarh in Udhampur district, Poonch and three northern tehsils of adjacent Rajauri could be made part of the new autonomous entity or entities acceptable to both India and Pakistan and the “people of Kashmir”. What about Pakistan-occupied Kashmir? The document presumes that “what is now Azad Kashmir would opt to have sovereign status more or less equivalent to that of the eastern Kashmiri state”. The Group is almost specific in its references to India but either hedgy and vague or generally partial to Pakistan. It calls the LoC dysfunctional and without any logic. It envisages the exchange of about 11,815 square kilometres of Indian and Pakistani territory, forgetting that entire Jammu and Kashmir is constitutionally an inalienable part of India. Of late, the American attitude to the Kashmir issue has been perceived as by and large positive or objective. In the light of the advisory status of the Group and its claim of wide and top-level consultations in India and Pakistan on the matter, a big question mark has been put on the quality of Indo-US ties. Will someone in the US State Department clarify the actual position? To the average Indian, the “report under discussion” is culpable, nay, sacrilegious.

Azhar shown the door?

MOHAMMAD Azharuddin deserved a better farewell from international cricket than the one given to him by the national selectors on Wednesday. For someone who started his career in 1984 with centuries in the first three Test matches of his career to be told through gestures, if not words, that he has overstayed his welcome in the Indian cricket team would, without doubt, upset his countless fans across the globe. In 1989 Mr Raj Singh Dungarpur as chairman of the selection committee sprung a major surprise by presenting a shy and self-effacing Azharuddin as captain of the team of the 90s. The 90s are coming to a close and Mr Dungarpur has just stepped down as President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India. Must Azharuddin be shown the door because his “godfather” is not around to protect him from fair and unfair criticism of his stint as captain? Would it not have been far more dignified on the part of the members of the selection committee, headed by former captain Chandu Borde, captain Sachin Tendulkar and the new coach, the one and only Kapil Dev, to let him prove his fitness and form in the three Test home series against New Zealand? If he says that he has at least two years cricket still left in him, why not let him prove his form in the home series? However, his detractors should not be left in any doubt that Azharuddin’s place in cricket’s hall of fame cannot be taken away from him through such petty gestures. It would take a monumental effort for even the most accomplished cricketer to improve upon his one-day and Test record as captain of the Indian team.

It is not that Azharuddin record as captain was without blemish. Kapil Dev led the team in just one World Cup in 1983. And he inspired the players into performing the giant-killing act of beating the West Indies to earn India the distinction of being the first team from the sub-continent to lift the cricket World Cup. Azharuddin got the opportunity to lead the team in three World Cup tournaments but without much distinction. In fact, a big question mark still hangs over the circumstances in which India managed to lose the 1996 semi-final game in Calcutta to Sri Lanka. Be that as it may, the real reason for keeping Azharuddin out of the team announced for the Mohali Test may have more to do with the fact that Tendulkar is back as captain and Kapil Dev has replaced Anshuman Gaekwad as coach of the senior side. The shabby treatment he meted as captain to a player of the calibre of Kapil Dev is not a classified secret. Manoj Prabhakar’s match-fixing outburst too has something to do with the way he was treated during Azharuddin’s stewardship of the team. Then there are those who believe that Tendulkar’s poor record in his first stint as captain can be traced to the “calculatedly” indifferent form of his predecessor, Azharuddin. It is also not a secret that Tendulkar was not too happy when Azharuddin was reinstated as captain ostensibly to help the little master regain his touch with the bat. The decision to drop Azharuddin from the team on the plea that youngsters need to be groomed keeping the future in mind may actually have something to do with his “victims” now making him pay for his past sins as captain and player. If it is so, it is not a case of poetic justice. It certainly is not cricket.

EDUCATION, BUSINESS & GOVT - I
Empowering the deprived in C’garh
by Ravi Kalia

INDIA can take pride in the accomplishments of the past 50 years. It has created great research institutions (like the Bhaba Atomic Research Centre), expanded the role of colleges and universities (like Indira Gandhi Open University), built the enviable Indian Institute of Technology system, and increased accessibility to colleges for the disadvantaged . In addition, each generation has provided a greater academic opportunity for succeeding generations, by increasing the availability of education and training beyond high school. Education alone has done more than any other factor to contribute to India’s economic and social well-being.

However, this success has been characterised by the uneven and unfair distribution of access to higher education. According to the United Nations, only 53 per cent of the Indian population is literate (the Indian government claims 64 per cent literacy), and most of those who can read are men. There is a correlation between family income and education opportunity. Children from poor and illiterate homes tend to remain poor and illiterate. Some suggest that Indian schools by themselves are powerless to change the cycle of poverty and illiteracy. I do not agree.

India’s educational institutions can make a difference, provided only if they themselves break fundamentally with the elitist theories and practices inherited from the British system, which have been followed faithfully and uncritically. Unfortunately, Indian universities are better at developing the talents of middle and upper income students than at teaching those from less privileged circumstances, which explains why, according to the 1999 National Readership Survey, university education is available to only 14 per cent in the urban areas and 3 per cent in the rural areas.

Education in India faces both unprecedented challenges and unparalleled opportunities. The pathway to broader success is to keep the doors of learning institutions open to all, and to open them even wider. With the help of the portable technology, we can take the classroom to the poor sections of Chandigarh (and other cities) to empower the disadvantaged, and to change the lamentable life of 20 to 25 per cent of the population that lives in unauthorised colonies. (According to Indian government sources, between 350 and 400 million people live below the poverty line nationwide.) This can be achieved by increasing access, affordability, and achievement in education. The focus here is on promoting functional literacy.

As early as 1967, Chief Commissioner M.S. Randhawa noted that the city would have to focus attention on the weaker sections of the population — labourers, untouchables, and low-paid government servants. Yet in 1971, 15 per cent of the population in Chandigarh lived in unauthorised settlements; today (1999) nearly 25 per cent of the population lives in unauthorised colonies. This situation could have been avoided if the efforts to address the slum problem had been better informed by the issues of income, jobs, security of tenure, land and development policy, health and, above all, education. I believe Panjab University, which has played a pivotal role in India’s progress, can be an invaluable partner of the Chandigarh Administration in resolving the twin problems of poverty and unauthorised colonies. This experiment in education in Chandigarh can serve as a model for other cities of India, just as the city has served as a model for urban planning.

A major factor contributing to the growth of unauthorised squatter colonies in Chandigarh has been the city’s poor economic base. Since its inception, Chandigarh has been dependent on State and Central agencies for funds needed for development. Even though this is not unusual in the case of Indian cities, which are extraordinarily subservient to their state governments, in Chandigarh it became a handicap at the local level for the improvement of the economic condition of urban labour. The problem was further exasperated in the absence of local property taxes, which remains a controversial issue between the residents and the administration. The struggle between Haryana and Punjab for the control of the city has not helped matters. The influx of unskilled labourers from the neighbouring states has also put an additional burden on the city.

Preoccupied with the administrative and planned physical character of the city, Chandigarh’s planners had paid, and continue to pay, little attention to the urban labour and had discouraged — and continue to discourage — informal activities. The importance of the informal sector lies in the fact that the formal sector, because of its capital-intensive base, is not only small in developing countries but its employment growth rate is also slow to absorb additions to the urban labour force. Besides, many newcomers to the job market are too ill-educated and ill-trained to participate in the formal sector. Discouraged from using alternative means for generating income and shut out of the formal sector, urban labourers are forced to squat illegally in Chandigarh.

The problem of the poorly educated urban poor is not limited to Chandigarh or to India. Even in industrial countries the problem of urban poor persists. In the USA, the richest country in the world, one million youths from 12 to 17 years of age are illiterate — unable to read as well as the average fourth grader, says a new government report. Why so much illiteracy in the land of plenty? The answer is because there is racism. Blacks and other minority groups receive the worst education. In India’s case, the caste-based prejudices exasperate the situation. India’s commitment to socialism, on the wane now, never had the strong welfare-state component found in Europe.

In the USA, partnership programmes have been forged among educational institutions, businesses and the government to fight urban poverty and economically revive decaying neighbourhoods, which have been designated as “Economic Enterprise Zones.” There are the examples of The University of Chicago, The University of California (Berkeley), The University of Southern California (Los Angeles), Trinity College (Connecticut), and others, which have taken a proactive role in transforming their decaying neighbourhoods vis-a-vis the city. These success stories have been duplicated in Britain, France, and scores of other countries, including Asian nations. The proactive approach requires taking the classroom to the targeted community, which is now possible with the portable technology available. Panjab University can play the proactive role by promoting the following: (a) Functional literacy to inform the people in the unauthorised colonies on issues relating to health and sanitation, and develop job-related skills among such sections as electricians, plumbers, carpenters, and so on. (b) Child raising and family planning. (c) Organisation skills and political participation.

To be functionally literate is to possess the basic skills needed to successfully survive in the modern world. This educational approach will not just benefit the under-class but also the middle-class population. The educational goal advocated is that of mature literacy for all the citizens. Functional literacy constitutes the only sure avenue of opportunity for disadvantaged children, the only reliable way of combating the social determinism that now condemns them to remain in the same social and educational condition as was true in the case of their parents.

No modern society can hope to become a just society without a high level of universal literacy. In turn, a democratic system cannot function without universal literacy. Illiterate and semi-literate Indians are condemned not only to poverty, but also to the powerlessness of incomprehension. Knowing that they do not understand the issues, they do not trust the system of which they are supposed to be the masters. They do not feel themselves to be active participants in society, and they often do not turn out to vote. The civic importance of universal literacy lies in the fact that true enfranchisement depends on knowledge, which in turn depends on literacy.

In an informal but poignant encounter I recently asked a teenage girl in Chandigarh why she was not in the school? Her response was that her family’s financial circumstances required her at home, and that she felt socially inadequate, although she wanted to attend a school. I’m confident a formal survey will confirm that a large number of Indians think that education is the only way to climb socially and economically. Any response to that demand must be based on collaborative efforts which includes the government, business and the professions, religious and civic organisations, and students and their parents. Everyone has a part, and certainly a stake, in building a literate society.

The writer is a professor in the Department of History, The City College of The City University of New York. He is the author of “Chandigarh: The Making of an Indian City.”

(To be concluded)

Need for new economic policy
by Balraj Mehta

HARD times are ahead on the economic front for the new government whenever it is formed. The multiple strains in the Indian economy have sharpened to an extent that they are likely to assume crisis proportions in the current year.

There was a further fall of as much as 13 per cent in public as well as private investment in 1998-99 which has made economic growth prospects dim for the current year. There has been a continuing decline in public sector investment in the nineties because of ideological reasons and inability and unwillingness of successive governments to mobilise investment resources. While speculative trading on the stock markets has boomed from time to time, substantial resources have not accrued for private investment either during the past five years. The stock market scam of 1993-94 shattered the confidence of the general public in the trade in stocks and shares on the stock markets. There has been a sharp fall in equity issues in the primary market. The business corporations raised Rs 34,000 crore in 1995-96 by offering their equity for sale on the stock markets. They were able to attract only Rs 10,000 crore in 1997-98 from the general public for their equity issues. The position in this respect has since deteriorated. Foreign direct investment too has tended to be meagre and fallen from the peak of about $ 4 billion a year to about $ 2 billion last year. With the fall in the rate of investment — public, private and foreign — economic growth prospects in the current year cannot be bright.

While public and private investment has been falling, the fiscal and revenue deficits of the government have been swelling. Expenditure of the government on the administration and security —internal and external — has been exceeding the budgetary provisions during the past six years. The hike in the emoluments of executive officers in public sector undertakings estimated to be as much as Rs 2000 crore this year, and the clamour for a sharp increase in defence expenditure are making matters worse for the fiscal position of the government. This is bound to have an extremely adverse impact on investment prospects for strengthening economic and social infrastructure for economic growth.

The position on the critical energy front has become very exacting this year. The international prices of crude oil and petroleum products have spurted. The production of crude oil in the country is declining and its domestic reserves are depleting at fast rate for want of replenishment. Combined with a rise in defence expenditure, which has acquired a strong popular appeal, especially in the middle class after the armed conflict with Pakistan on the Kargil border, and the rise in the cost of import of oil and petroleum products, the external payments position too is likely to become vulnerable.

The hurdles in the way of boosting domestic as well as foreign investment for economic growth, adequate funding of the social sector and provision for emergency relief measures have indeed become formidable. The government is not able in its debilitated condition to provide adequate financing for even the running of the administrative, law and order and security machinery, let alone socio-economic development.

The idea is widely entertained and occasionally articulated in some interested quarters that fiscal incentives and credit offerings to urban upper and middle classes, landed gentry and rich farmers combined with the pay hike for government employees would stimulate private spending and boost consumption demand in the market. This in turn, it is argued, would result in a dramatic rise in revenue collections of the government and help industry to pull out of recession. This line of reasoning is fanciful, indeed perverse, and totally anti-people.

The inflation rate based on the wholesale price movements may have declined and given some relief to the upper and middle classes in the current year. But retail prices during the year are still higher than those in the last year. Deficient rain and floods may presage a fall in agricultural production. The declining trend in the inflation rate is, therefore, beginning to reverse and may soon become unmanageable. The ironic, indeed tragic, part of the market-friendly economic policy necessarily is that while the mass of the people suffer from deprivation, and their income and purchasing power shrinks, growth tends to be not only sluggish but also pro-rich.

The socio-economic reality as well as its adverse fallout for the polity of the so-called economic reforms can no longer be missed. The reform process initiated in 1991 has failed to make good the promise of accelerating economic growth and its benevolent trickle-down effect has eluded the mass of the people. It is indeed time to reflect and introspect on economic policy alternatives.

The narrow social base of the market-friendly economic reforms has emasculated the process of meaningful socio-economic development in India. This has had and will continue to have extremely adverse economic and social implications for economic growth with equity and stability of the polity. Market-oriented investment, combined with poor infrastructure facilities — material and social — has impelled investment, private as well as public, to the move-away from manufacturing to trading and financial speculation. The so-called community of private investors in India have become more and more parasitical. The unplanned growth of the services sector at a fast pace, with industry and agriculture remaining essentially stagnant, has pushed the Indian economy deeper and deeper into the mire of stagflation.

The glib talk of moving on to what is called the second phase of the economic reform programme ostensibly to accelerate the rate of economic growth and social welfare is lacking in conviction as well as credibility. Such an attempt will indeed be foolhardy. The first phase of the market-friendly liberalisation-globalisation policy has only aggravated the social-economic ailments of the country. But the self-styled economic reformers, working under the spell of cliches borrowed from abroad and functioning in the political arena in India through political formations of all hues, can no longer hide their culpability.

It will not be possible to come to grips with, let alone resolve, the challenging problems on the economic front by relying on the market-friendly, socially disoriented scheme of economic growth and policies associated with it which have not stood the test of efficacy and democratic acceptance in Indian conditions — economic, social and political. These policies will have to be discarded. No government will be in a position to play successfully the populist card either. It will have neither the resources nor popular goodwill for such a diversionary move. The need is for a radical policy change and a genuine and a fresh start with an authentic and appropriate pro-people alternative policy and its efficient and honest implementation for equitable economic growth which will restore social peace and political stability as well as ensure security — domestic and external.

“Who was hurt?”
by J.L. Gupta

HE was not old. Probably, in his early fifties. But, he looked tired. Almost exhausted. The wrinkles were already beginning to show on his face. The unfortunate road accident appeared to have taken a lot out of him. During the last two years, he had gone through two surgeries for the repair of his femur. And then, pursuing the claim for compensation, he had virtually become a court bird. At the end of a long legal battle, the Tribunal had given him a compensation of Rs 1 lakh. On his counsel’s advice, he had appealed to the High Court for enhancement. He was hoping that his misery would give him some money.

One fine morning, the registry informed him that the case shall be placed before the ‘‘Lok Adalat’’. “Somehow, he was not very enthusiastic. Not even optimistic. He was not looking for a fortune. What would he get? Even if he won? He reached the court. Early. But, on his crutches.

The case was called. The counsel stood up. Like the others who had preceded him, he made an impassioned appeal to the court. “My Lord! A compound fracture. Two major surgeries. Both, under general anesthesia. Yet not able to walk without crutches. Has not been able to do a thing since the accident. Totally dependent on others for everything. Even for his daily needs. Yet, the poor man has been awarded only Rs 1 lakh. He will not be able to get even Rs 1,000 per month as interest. What shall he live on? He is poor. He deserves your lordship’s indulgence. The amount should be doubled. At least”.

The counsel for the insurance company was quickly on his legs: “My Lord! Whenever my friend’s lips moved, we heard a lie. What was the appellant doing? What was his daily wage before the accident? What has he lost so as to be entitled to claim any compensation? Despite his beard, I would call him a bare faced liar. The claimant has already got more than what he deserved”. And so on.

The address was more for the consumption of the officers of the company who were present in court to help in the speedy settlement of cases. It was an undisguised appeal to the gallery.

The judge looked at the claimant and asked: “You had undergone the last surgery about two years back. The surgeon had put a plate. The operation was successful. Are you still experiencing difficulty in walking? Who has asked you to use the crutches? The doctor or the lawyer?”

“Hazoor! Vakil Sahib ne kaha thaa”. (Sir! The lawyer had asked me.)

The counsel for the company felt elated. Victorious. Was quick to interrupt. Waited to have the judge’s attention. He was looking to go for the kill.

The judge was not impressed. He ignored the counsel and continued talking to the claimant. About his family. The village. The number of cattle-heads. The weather. The crop. And finally, he asked, “Anything else?”

He may have looked green, but he was no vegetable. In his own inimitable style, he said, “Sir! I am happy. I have only one submission to make. I had an accident. I had fractured my leg. I had gone through the pain. I had suffered two surgeries. Stayed in hospital. I had borrowed money to pay for my treatment. Still, I got Rs 25000 and my lawyer Rs 75000”.

And then, he asked: “Who was hurt? Me? Or the lawyer?”

Multipolar world — India’s top priority
by M.S.N. Menon

ON October 1, China marked 50 years of Communist rule. True, China has changed much over the years, but it remains as inscrutable as ever. What role will it play in Asia and the world? We have no clear answers.

Nehru once confessed: “We were living in a fool’s paradise about China”. We still are to a large extent. We were victims of false sentiments ( Hindi-Chini bhai bhai) and were under the illusion that China would join us to create a better world order.

We cannot have enduring relations with china unless we know why our relations went the way these did. Even today we know so little on the nature of the Chinese state, on the ethos of the mandarins who ruled China on the ideas which shaped the Chinese revolution in our times, on the men who guided it and on the circumstances which are shaping China’s destiny today.

The new generation, brought up in the hot-house that was China not long ago, under the watchful eyes of the Maoists, bristles with passions and prejudices. We have to live with it and even work with it to create a better world. But they do not know us. They do not know what moves the mind of India.

China is a close neighbour of India, with links going back to several ages. India has given more to China than it has taken from it. And so has Russia, another close neighbour. China owes its revolution to Russia, as also its evolution as a modern state. But China betrayed both Russia and India.

India has to come to terms with the new mandarins in Beijing. We must know what animates their psyche. For once, we had a close glimpse of their passion during the celebrations of the 50th anniversary. As CNN, the US TV station noted, these were a display of China’s military might and its nationalism . No wonder! One country, one people, one language — this can be truly said of China. China’s energy flows in one direction.

India is also one country, but it is a country of a thousand people and a thousand languages and a thousand problems. Its immense diversity has made it most vulnerable. But our people are not even aware of this vulnerability. They do not know what is needed to hold them together. They chant “unity in diversity”, but know nothing of its implications.

What had been China’s contribution to human thought? “Start with a clean slate” exhorted Mao. He believed in wiping out the past. The point is he was preparing the peoples of the world for an era of Chinese supremacy. There were, of course, many in the world who hankered after the Chinese pie. With what result? In Indonesia, 80,000 Communists were slaughtered. In Cambodia, three million lost their lives. And about 30 million Chinese perished in famines and excesses of the Cultural Revolution. And many more millions perished elsewhere. And, above all, the entire Communist movement came to naught.

But all that enthusiasm to create a new world order disappeared in 20 years. The USA — the arch enemy of China — became its best friend by the early seventies! Maoism was given a speedy burial. What about Maoists all over the world? They were abandoned to fend for themselves.

Today China accepts that great mistakes have been committed. But it can do little to make amends. Has it learned anything from its experience?

Today, we know the Chinese leaders better because their masks have worn thin. China, which ought to have become a bulwark against imperialism and a powerful ally of the newly free peoples, became a friend of the most powerful imperialist nation — the USA. It served American foreign policy. It played Caliban to America’s Prospero. Thus was China responsible for another lease of life to imperialism — or, to put it more bluntly, for the perpetuation of Western supremacy and for the emergence of USA as the sole super-power. An irony? A true one.

But isn’t it a greater irony that after having destroyed a viable bipolarity in the world, China is now opposing a unipolar world! Worse, it is trying to bring about multipolarity in cooperation with that very country (Russia) which it helped to destroy!

Today America plays a highly complex game of balance of power in Asia. The goal is to balance the four major powers — Russia, China, Japan and India. And China is one of the principal props in this US game.

We would like to live in peace and amity with the Chinese people. But there can be no friendship with China except on terms of complete equality. This it refuses to concede.

One cannot believe that the entire Chinese people have strayed from their ideals. That is why, when we meet the Chinese again as friends and brothers, there should be less scars on our bodies to remind us of the days of our conflicts and acrimony. The scars of 1962 are more than enough. It is this understanding which should inspire and guide our policies towards China in the coming years. As a mature nation, we owe it to ourselves to act in tolerance. The Chinese, too, belong to an ancient civilisation. One hopes similar thoughts will prevail with them.

On the importance of Asia to the USA, an American authority had said: We have recognised since 1898 that the key to success in securing domination over western Pacific and Asian waters has been to maintain a balance of power in the area. It has been axiomatic for our policymakers that we could tolerate no country’s coming to power with such force, stability and aggressive nationalistic ambitions as could challenge our paramount status in that part of the world.

If anyone is helping the USA to stay put in Asia, it is China. How? Because the small Asian nations are so afraid of China that they plead with the USA to stay on. And China has done nothing to assuage the fears of Asian nations, big and small.

Much has been said and written that the next war will be fought in Asia. Does it mean that the West intends to build a future world free from challenges to its authority on the ruins of Asia? The West considers the emergence of Russia, China, Japan and India — all Asian powers — as a threat to its own global supremacy. China cannot be oblivious of this. And yet it has taken no step to prevent such a war.

China follows a single-minded policy — that of augmenting its own military strength by any and every means. Its entire economic effort is geared to buttress its great power ambitions. US strategists believe that China could be a powerful disruptionist force against the nationalism of Asian nations. Similarly, Japan, they think, can serve as a check on China and Russia, as also act as a junior partner in carrying out US policies in Asia. And of course, China is expected to balance the rising power of India.

What then are the prospects before India? At the heart of the Chinese strategy is the lingering hope that a future world war will take place in Asia, and that out of this holocaust China will emerge the supreme arbiter of Asia, and perhaps of the world.

What can India do in the face of these prospects? By itself it can do little. But in concert with other nations, much can be done. A multipolar world — this should be India’s first priority. Second, it must seek a concert of like-minded nations to create a new world order. Third, India must strengthen the UN and its agencies, for the that lies the true salvation of weaker nations.

75 YEARS AGO

October 8, 1924
The Lahore Municipality

IT has been attempted to be made out that the non-Muslim members who resigned their seats on the Lahore Municipal Committee some time ago partially as a protest against the high-handedness of the President were only actuated by communal feelings.

The allegation is scarcely borne out by the resolution which a Muslim member wanted to move at the last meeting of the Committee.

It ran as follows:- “That this Committee is constrained to deplore and condemn the maladministration of the Lahore Municipality and attributes it to the unconstitutional and high-handed manner in which the President conducts himself in municipal affairs.”

As if to add point and force to this complaint, this resolution itself along with two others were ruled out of order by the President on the plea that they were not in accordance with the new byelaws, a plea which was challenged by more than one member.