P A G E
Monday, October 11, 1999
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E D I T O R I A L P A G E |
Monday, October 11, 1999 |
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Storm
in the South
CLOSE
LOOK AT THE MANDATE |
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Where
courts should fear to tread
Usual
excuses for unexpected Cong losses
Mujahideen
of Peshawar
October 11, 1924 |
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Storm in the South UNLIKE the temperamental North, the four southern states tend to be electorally conservative. This year though two of them were lashed by a storm which, however bypassed the coastal state of Kerala. Tamil Nadu voted broadly the same way as it did last year with the crucial change of the DMK replacing the Jayalalitha-led Anna DMK as the key ally of the BJP. The smaller parties stayed their course. The Congress won two seats after having drawn a blank in the past two elections. But the Tamil Maanila Congress of Mr G.K.Moopanar and Mr P.Chidambaram was wiped out despite the heroic efforts of the two to bring together the dalit factions and a faction of the minorities. This “third front” as the organisers ambitiously call it, has the potential to grow if it succeeds in attracting the two Left parties and also the Congress. That is the present plan and the assembly elections in about 15 months time should hasten the process of regrouping. That will mean isolating the AIADMK which is already making angry noises against it poll ally, the Congress. The election results have shown that the Vanniar caste is solidly with the DMK-led alliance and that explains its capture of a large number of seats in the northern districts. The Thevar-dominated South supports the AIADMK. The Thevars love to beat up the dalits and the two will not be on the same side of the political divide, which makes the prospect of a viable third front look over-optimistic. There were two surprises: the CPI lost its traditional Nagapattinam seat after holding it for nearly two decades and the CPM won in Madurai again after more than two decades. Karnataka and Andhra
Pradesh have gone in the opposite directions and with a
vengeance. The Janata Dal (U)’s shot-gun marriage
with the BJP turned out to be a disaster for both. Chief
Minister J.H.Patel and Chief Minister-in-waiting
Yediyurappa were routed and the Congress scored a runaway
victory. It was a surprise even to the winning party and
a big consolation prize to offset the demoralising effect
of the drubbing in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. All its
top leaders were cast away in what can only described as
an electoral tornado. CWC member Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy, P.
Shiv Shankar and P. Upendra have lost their Lok Sabha
seats as has Mr Janardhana Reddy the Assembly seat. The
Congress could win just five seats, the lowest tally
ever. The rout of the ageing leaders is a double blow
since their reduced stature will strip them of the
capacity to rebuild the party organisation and there is
no effective second line of leadership. In Tamil Nadu too
a similar situation exists and the churning process
within the party at the national level should throw up a
solution. The failure of the Congress to regain the base
will leave the political space to the BJP and it would be
a repetition of the Uttar Pradesh fate in the two
southern states. In this sense, the election results are
a warning and the next five years are long enough to undo
the damage. |
Pak sectarian violence THE sectarian violence which erupted last fortnight in the Sindh province of Pakistan is showing no signs of abating. It is not without reason that Karachi is counted among the most violence-prone cities in the world. Even the untrained eye cannot miss the traces of fear mixed with rage in the countenance of most residents of what was once the financial capital of Pakistan. Under the surface calm lies buried the lava of sectarian hatred. Of course, volcanoes do not serve notice before they become active. But those living in the vicinity learn to read nature’s subtle signs and take protective action. For instance, during the period of Moharram, members of the Shia sect in Pakistan set up vigilance committees by way of precaution against attacks on their congregations by the more rabid members of the Sunni sect. The Prophet’s birthday and the festivals of Id-ul-Fitr and Id-uz-Zuha are celebrated by the entire Muslim world irrespective of sectarian considerations. But the Shias and the Sunnis do not let their guard lowered either during the holy month of Ramazan or the celebration of the festivals. That is what makes the attack on a Shia mosque during the Friday prayer last fortnight by masked men a bit of a mystery. What was the occasion? The attack claimed 10 lives. The “out of season” sectarian violence is a new development even by the abnormally high level of religious violence in Pakistani society — the reason for which can be traced to the flawed version of Islamic rule sought to be imposed on the country by successive leaders. Since the attack on the mosque, several other incidents of sectarian violence in which members of the Shia community were killed were reported from other parts of Pakistan. According to one estimate, the senseless attacks have so far claimed nearly 50 lives and left many wounded. The fundamentalist Sunni organisation Sipah-e-Sahaba and the equally obscurantist Taliban are being blamed for the targeting of Shias in the fresh wave of violence sweeping the country. A section of the Shia
community has given a new twist to the issue by accusing
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s father known as
“Aba Mian” as the brain behind the killings.
Aba Mian is a supporter of the Sipah-e-Sahaba and his
hatred for Shia Muslims is no secret. It takes two to
keep the game of sectarian hatred alive. Last
Saturday’s report from Karachi suggests that the
Shias have got over the shock of the surprise attack and
have started vendetta killings across the country. In
separate incidents members of the fundamentalist Shia
organisation Tehrik-e-Jaferia killed at least 10 Sunnis
as part of their agenda of “a dead for a dead”.
So long as the basic differences between the members of
the two sects are not resolved through dialogue by the
religious heads of the two sects, Pakistan will have to
learn to live under the shadow of mindless sectarian
violence. In India the Shia-Sunni bitterness has to some
extent been brought under control through the collective
effort of the spiritual leaders of the two communities.
The stray incidents which do periodically erupt do not
have the backing of any recognised group or organisation
of either sect. It is about time the political leadership
in Pakistan abandoned the idea of converting the country
into an Islamic state. Most of West Asia is dotted with
small and medium-sized Islamic states because they do not
have to deal with the Shia Muslims. Iran too is an
Islamic state. It does not report sectarian violence
because there are hardly any Sunni Muslims in the
country. But Pakistan can never be a peaceful Islamic
country without causing Shia-Sunni friction in the
interpretation of laws and issues related to the
appointment of the spiritual and temporal heir of the
Prophet after his death. |
CLOSE LOOK AT THE MANDATE BY the time these lines appear in print the Bharatiya Janata Parliamentary Party shall have formally elected Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee as its leader and the National Democratic Alliance endorsed it. Hence the President, Mr K.R. Narayanan, should have no hesitation in calling upon Mr Vajpayee to form the government. If he wants to be too technical, as he has been in the past, he may perhaps ask the 23 parties that support the BJP to formally commit themselves to supporting Mr Vajpayee. The BJP, on its part, had been saying during the elections that, even if it singly formed a majority in the Lok Sabha, it would still opt for a coalition government. And since the BJP has returned to the Lok Sabha as the single largest party, the debate on whether the single largest party should be invited by the President to form the government — first raised by the Congress — in preference to the coalition formed before the election has become totally irrelevant. In fact, immediately after the results were known, Mr Vajpayee started consultations with the allies (and astrologers, it is said) on government formation. The question uppermost in the minds of the people is as to how long the conglomeration of 24 parties will last. The question is pertinent in the light of past experience, but my own guess is that the coalition partners, in their own interest, would try not to destabilise the government at least for a year or two. The implications of yet another election on the heels of the present one are too fearful to contemplate. This raises the question as to why the electorate has not been putting its faith in a single party. The reason is simple. No single national party is in a position to form a majority on its own. The BJP contested only 330 seats out of 548 and was wise enough to enter into alliances with the regional and other parties. The Congress contested a much larger number and maintained the pretence of its ability to form the government on its own, only to waver at the last moment and say that a coalition could not be ruled out. It paid the price for its indecision. On its own, it secured the lowest ever number of seats in the House, Mrs Sonia Gandhi notwithstanding, or possible because of her. She has asked for soul-searching, and this may include the question of the leadership of the party. The BJP has been brought down a peg or two. It could just maintain the number of seats it had in the last Parliament, Mr Vajpayee himself could not maintain the margin of victory he had in 1998. Thus it is crystal clear that it was a hyperbole to suggest that the BJP and the Congress had become two axis around which the regional and other parties rotated as satellites. The truth is otherwise. In Andhra Pradesh, Mr Chandrababu Naidu has not only successfully shed the N.T. Rama Rao legacy but carried the BJP on his shoulders, although he is modest enough to say that the TDP and the BJP have complemented and supplemented each other. In fact, with 27 parliamentary seats in his pocket, he will be a force to contend with. Nothing perhaps exposes the weakness of the BJP as the outcome of the parliamentary and Assembly elections in Karnataka. The central leadership foisted the Janata Dal (U) on the local unit and forced an alliance, with disastrous results. The Chief Minister, Mr J.H. Patel, lost in the election and the Congress gained an absolute majority in the Assembly, as it did in Arunachal Pradesh. The Vajpayee charisma, if at all it was there, simply did not work in UP, thanks especially to the mismanagement by the Chief Minister, Mr Kalyan Singh. The party could secure no more than 31 seats, much less than what it got in 1998. As against the BJP the Samajwadi Party, under the leadership of Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, secured 26 seats, thereby stunning the experts, and the BSP in its quiet manner improved its position. Thus the national parties in particular have to do a good deal of heartsearching and also try to find the real message of the voters. Rote words like a fractured vote are of no help. The vote is positive: adjust your sights and build up an alliance at the Centre and encourage cooperative federalism. The second message is that, hence forward, governments are to be judged by results, not by promises; by performance, not charisma. The third message is that what matters is not what the political parties mention in their manifestos but what really touches the lives of the people: water, roads, schools and electricity — in short, development in its true sense. A Deve Gowda may, by fluke, become the Prime Minister only to be defeated in the next election. Ditto for a Gujaral, who may be denied a ticket by the Akalis, even though he did a lot for them as Prime Minister. Even Mr Laloo Yadav in Bihar has bitten the dust, perhaps the most spectacular defeat in 1999. Dr Manmohan Singh and Mr P. Chidambaram must also reflect on why despite their proven competence they have been rejected by the electorate. Here there is message for Mr Vajpayee too. Liberalisation is fine and necessary but unless globalisation has a human face, encore by the World Bank and the IMF is not going to ensure electoral victory at home. Nor is Sensex a true indicator of the popular mood and hopes and aspirations. It is a known fact that the initial victims of liberalisation and globalisation are the poorer sections of society. They are hit not only by economic inflammation but by the inflation of expectations built up through massive advertisement. One has to take into account not only the opening up of markets in the villages and semi-urban areas but also the existence of kutcha roads and non-existence of drinking water wells in thousands of villages, poor primary education and polluted environment. The challenges before Mr
Vajpayee are greater than was the case in 1999 because a
lot more is expected from him at home and abroad. |
Economic challenges before India SOON a new government will be formed at the Centre. It is also now apparent that whosoever comes to power will have to come out with a realistic economic policy eschewing all the erstwhile political rhetoric and furthering the process of economic reforms. The BJP Finance Minister of the caretaker government at the Centre has recently committed virtual opening up of the economy at the international economic and financial fora. The world economic scene has changed a lot since India gained Independence half a century ago. So has the Indian economy itself. To reiterate once again the policies which were relevant 50 years ago are irrelevant today; the protectionist ideas were introduced in economics literature by Prof Regnar Nurske and other development economists in the early forties and fifties on the ground that “nascent industries” in order to grow needed protection from foreign competition. This protectionist approach was to be for a few years till the industries were able to stand on their own. But these policies continued for more than four decades, and one of the most dangerous unintended consequence was that it made the domestic industries ignore the ideas of efficiency, cost effectiveness and innovation as its protectionism ensured monopoly profits to them. Since the goods manufactured by us were shoddy we could not capture any segment of international market for any of our products even though we desperately needed to raise our exports. Therefore, all this rhetoric about swadeshi, which essentially translates into protectionism, needs to be dispassionately reconsidered and jettisoned over a period of time. In today’s world markets are very sensitive and they either react positively or negatively to every pronouncement coming from responsible quarters; even rumours can make or mar the markets, and once there is a run on the market no amount of fire-fighting can help to stop the run even though the economic fundamentals may be very strong. This could also affect the rupee. Moreover, we are already a signatory to the WTO and any unilateral action on our part will invite counter-measures from other countries and could well jeopardise our exports. If we block the goods of other countries entering India way beyond what is acceptable under the WTO, the other countries can also block our goods and ask Indian businessmen to close down their shops in their country. Do we want this? It is, therefore, hoped that the government at the Centre would not do anything which would lead to the loss of confidence in the Indian economy not only among foreign investors but also among domestic ones. Once it has taken a decision not to reverse the reform process then it has many important tasks to take care of immediately. The first and the most important task is not only to maintain the current rate of economic growth around 5 per cent but also to make efforts to increase the growth rate by one to one and a half per cent more. This calls for massive investments both from domestic and foreign investors. Secondly, the capital market, especially the primary capital market, (as opposed to the secondary capital market which has shown buoyancy recently) is almost dead; no new issues have hit the capital market in the past two and a half years which essentially means that no important industrial units are coming up in the country. In the absence of primary capital market there has been an influx of bonds to mobilise the savings of the general public. There is nothing wrong with the bonds as such, but too much of bonds in the market is not good for the healthy development of the primary capital market. It is, therefore, important for the new government to come out with a set of economic policies, within the broader framework of economic reforms, to revive the primary capital market. The third important task before the new government would be to push up the investment in the infrastructure sector. The Vajpayee government talked about it but did not do anything. According to the Rakesh Mohan Committee report on infrastructure, the country would need investments of the order of Rs 4,000 billion. It would be impossible for the government to raise this sum from its own sources. Even foreign investors will not be able to bring in this massive amount. Therefore, the government will have to think of various sources for raising money for investment in the infrastructure sector. As it is common knowledge, our infrastructure — which includes roads, railways, ports, airports, telecommunications, power, etc. — is not in a very good shape. Without the development of infrastructure we will not be able to enjoy the fruits of economic reforms. Therefore, one way to raise significant resources for infrastructure investment is to allow part of pension funds and insurance funds to be diverted to this sector. This may require some changes in our pension and insurance regulations. Fourthly, the financial sectors reforms have not yet started. It is not enough to allow some banks to come up in the private sector. We have to open up the insurance sector to private investors, both domestic and foreign. Most of the political parties agree that foreign investors should not be allowed more than 49 per cent stake in the insurance companies. If that is so then the government should come out with an appropriate law that allows the private sector to enter the insurance market. At the same time, the government should strengthen the Insurance Regulatory Authority so that it can play an effective supervisory role. The insurance and business, both life and general insurance, has much to offer to the public but because of the monopoly position enjoyed by the LIC and the GIC the insurance products offered by them are limited and premia very high. Once there is competition in this sector the public will get many more products at competitive rates of premia. Fifthly, the government has to look into disinvestment in the public sector. The main function of the government is to maintain law and order, protect borders and to enforce the rule of law whether it relates to the economy or civil society. It is not the job of the government to compete for business. Therefore, except for strategic industries like defence and space the government should get out of the economic business. The Disinvestment Commission has done very important work and made recommendations for disinvestment in the public sector but has not been able to make its impact. These recommendations must be taken seriously and implemented. There is also need to strengthen the commission. Finally, the new
government should have a serious look at the structure of
subsidies which have grown into a heavy burden in the
past few years. The Deve Gowda government had already
published a White Paper on subsidies. This can serve as a
basis for doing away with certain kinds of subsidies and
adding some more wherever necessary. — INFA |
Mujahideen
of Peshawar BUT for brief intermittent breaks in Shimla, Ambala and Ferozepore, necessitated by my father’s army postings I spent the first 24 years of my life among the mujahideen of Peshawar, Bannu and Nowshehra. Of course, in those days, those fellows were not known as mujahideen. They were plain looters and murderers. My grandfather used to tell me that every Friday, they would come to Peshawar from the adjoining tribal areas and loot Hindu and Sikh shops there. Sometimes, they would try to loot houses as well. That was the reason why every house on its top fifth storey had a morcha. Men would go up there and shower bullets on the mujahideen down. That would drive them away. In earlier times, they had to be paid jazia (religious tax), too. “Pay them their jazia and they would go back home. For they come not so much to kill Hindus and Sikhs as to loot them. Killing was done only when there was resistance against looting.” Looting apart, what else kept them going? Manufacture of illicit arms in underground factories and trafficking in illicit drugs like hashish and cocaine, locally grown and coming from Afghanistan. In these enterprises,one of their principal accomplices was the tehsildar of Landikotal, the last railway station on the Northern Railway, four miles this side of the Afghan border. He was one of the richest persons in those areas. And he was duly protected by the British for he was the one who used to keep an eye on the khasedars in the villages around. Those khasedars were appointed by the British, on the recommendation of the Political Agent, as village constables on Rs 10 per month. One of their principal responsibilities was to see that the roads in their areas were kept safe for the movement of troops. In my days, in the forties, I could see the mujahideen standing on the benches in cinema houses during interval and ogling women, mostly prostitutes, sitting in the gallery. Not just ogling them but also indulging in perverted sex, all by themselves. They would do that unmindful of any norms known to civilisation, including perhaps their own brand of it. The Pathan gatekeepers would see that but adopt the “couldn’t care less” kind of attitude towards the ugly spectacle. When did those fellows assume the high-sounding denomination of jehadis, mujahids or mujahideen? Was it in 1947 when they invaded Baramula and other places in Kashmir and raped Muslim girls en masse? Or was it when they joined the Afghans in throwing the Russians out of Afghanistan? Did they know the holy Koran? Its meanings? Its noble principles? Principles common to all religions. Did they know how to read the holy Koran? I can’t answer that. But on the way to my alma mater, Islamia College, Peshawar, there was a tiny mosque. Returning from the cantonment on their cycles, one day some students stopped there to quench their thirst. Out came a jehadi with a dagger in hand. “This is not a piao (drinking water booth) or your father’s house”, said he, “that you have come here to drink water. Go away before I pierce the dagger through your stomach”. The man was a gambler.
He along with his gang was using the mosque as a gambling
den. |
Where courts should fear to tread
INDIAN democracy has triumphed yet again. Against all odds, obstacles and perils. Including opinion and exit polls, touted as electoral propaganda much the same way as the Kargil war, the deshi-videshi slogan, the stability card and all else. The incredible diversity of the poll result — Punjab voting one way, Haryana the other; so also Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in the North, and Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka down South, neighbours pulling in opposite directions; and to cap it all, Maharashtra voting one way for Parliament and almost the other way for the State Assembly — is the best proof, if proof were needed, of the fairness of the exercise. There is ample cause to celebrate here despite the staleness, the mealy-mouthed staleness of India’s politicians. And to encore outgoing Election Commissioner G.V.G. Krishnamurthy’s handsome tribute to Indian democracy. ‘‘If England is the mother of Parliaments,’’ GVG told UNI, in an interview carried by The Times of India on October 3, ‘‘India has become the mother of elections.’’ Holding general elections in India, he said, is equal to holding polls in the ‘‘whole of Russia, Europe, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia’’ put together. That may sound a bit geographically over-stretched but the underlying (sense of) achievement cannot be doubted. Or denied. And yet, legally speaking (for law, not politics, is this column’s staple), there is much to be disturbed about. Even alarmed. For the first time since Independence, for the first time in such a big way, the judiciary chose to get entangled in the on-going election process. Bihar, Kerala, Allahabad, Bombay. A gruelling five-phase, six-week-long general election saw High Court after High Court lose patience, entertain writ petitions regarding some election grievance or the other and summon the Election Commission for an explanation. Despite an express constitutional bar, and clear Supreme Court rulings, against such intervention. ‘‘Notwithstanding anything in this Constitution,’’ reads Article 329, clause (b), ‘‘no election to either House of Parliament or to the House or either House of the Legislature of a State shall be called in question except by an election petition....’’ The Article as a whole is titled: ‘‘Bar to interference by courts in electoral matters’’. Is this ‘‘Great Wall of China’’ (asked Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer in 1978, on behalf of a Constitution Bench of five Judges) ‘‘set up as a preliminary bar, so impregnable that it cannot be bypassed even by Article 226?’’ and answered the question comprehensively in the affirmative. Article 329 (b), he said, speaking from the summit in Mohinder Singh Gill’s case, is a ‘‘blanket ban on litigative challenges to electoral steps taken by the Election Commission and its officers for carrying forward the process of election to its culmination in the formal declaration of the result.’’ Election, in this context (he ruled further), has a very wide connotation, commencing from the Presidential notification calling upon the electorate to elect and culminating in the final declaration of the returned candidate. ‘‘No litigative enterprise in the High Court (he continued) or other court should be allowed to hold up the on-going electoral process because the parliamentary (or state) representative for the constituency should be chosen promptly.’’ There is a remedy for every wrong done during the election, he said, but it is postponed to the post-election stage when an election petition lies before the High Court. Hear now what Chief Election Commissioner M.S. Gill, the man (or the authority) at the centre of it all, has to say on the subject. I quote from an interview to The Times of India as reported last Thursday, October 7. An interview by way of a post-election review. The CEC (says The TOI) made another point: ‘‘The unprecedented number of interventions made by judges in the poll process, even though the Constitution declares no court in the land may come in the EC’s way once a poll process had begun.’’ There are 55 recognised parties, 5,000-odd candidates and a High Court in each state (said Mr Gill), with tiers of subordinate courts. ‘‘If courts begin to step in and we are going to be hauled into court after court throughout the country, our hands will be full of nothing else. As it is, despite (the constitutional authority) this election has seen our limited staff very heavily engaged in High Courts throughout the country.’’ More on these High
Courts, the Election Commission, the Supreme Court and
Article 329 (b) next week. |
Usual excuses for unexpected Cong losses
UNEXPECTED election results at least where Delhi is concerned, for nobody expected ‘safe’ Congress candidates Meira Kumar and Dr Manmohan Singh to lose in these elections, from the Karol Bagh and South Delhi constituencies, respectively. And, now, of course, the usual excuses are surfacing — lack of grassroot level workers and over confidence of the candidates. To this let me add this bit too. On Thursday and Friday when I tried to get in touch with veteran Congressman Jag Pravesh Chandra to ask him the reasons for the party’s dismal performance in the Capital, at first he didn’t come on the line, although I could distinctly hear him tell the person who was attending to the call ”just tell her I am not at home!” Persistence made me call up again and this time it was worse. He began by saying “Jag Pravesh Chandraji ghar par nahin hain”. When I told him that I had recognised his voice he fumbled and muttered” Why should I comment on these results? I have nothing to say! After all, I am no longer in command... so why should I talk....” When such is the reply of an octogenarian politician then you can imagine what has gone wrong and where. There is a sense of disillusionment not only amongst the grassroot level workers but even amongst the party leaders. In fact when I got in touch with Dr Karan Singh and asked him the reasons responsible for the party’s defeat in Delhi he began with a couplet — “aashiane ki baat karte ho/dil jalane ki baat karte ho/humko apni hi khabar nahin/tum zammane ki baat karte ho”. But then he went ahead with details: “I was so involved campaigning in Lucknow that I cannot comment on what was happening here or what went wrong here but in Lucknow my defeat was because of two factors — rigging and poor organisational setup, at all levels. I would have got at least 50,000 to 60,000 more votes if the party was better organised and also if rigging didn’t take place”. He didn’t complain about the rigging. Why? “If I had complained about the rigging they would have countered by saying that I am bringing up all this as an excuse, because I was losing... and I firmly believe that a certain level of grace has to be maintained even if you are losing... but I do plan to visit Lucknow very regularly and do whatever work the party asks me do to.” And though as of now there is no apparent bitterness amongst the Congress party workers but this could be because the majority of them can foresee the fact that sooner or later Priyanka Vadra Gandhi is going to make her way into active politics. At first there were those weak denials but now the latest is that she has yet to make a decision. Her charisma and personality having worked for these elections, there seems little chance of her shunning politics. Together with this there is news that her two political advisors are Capt Satish Sharma and R.C. Sharma. The former, of course, needs no introduction and the latter is CBI’s former chief who, just prior to his retirement, came into sharp focus not only because of the controversy around the extension granted to him also because the accident he’d met with — falling from the aircraft door, at the Guwahati airport. And reliable sources point out that for these elections the Congress had offered to field him from Karnal but he’d declined. And last week he was seen camping in Amethi along with Rahul. And when I got in touch with him he was tightlipped, not really giving a definite answer to the role he would be playing “Yes they asked me to go to Amethi, I was there for two days. And though there is no definite task given to me but I would take up any responsibility they (Congress party) offer....” Changes and much more Needless to say after the formation of the Cabinet a round of transfers would take place by and large, civil servants are relaxed that it is the Vajpayee-led coalition which is back, because there was a rumour that in case the Congress party formed the government, one of the tasks before it would be to reduce the retirement age from 60 to the original 58 years. And together with the transfers a certain level of which hunting would also take place. Maybe it has already begun. I say this because out of the 12 NGOs which were signatories to the advertisements issued by a Mumbai-based publication ‘Communalism Combat’ and which targeted the Sangh Parivar (through these advertisements), four have got notices from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. Giving them 30 days to give the details of the foreign funding they were receiving. But these ‘targeted’ NGO groups — Kali for Women, Centre for Women’s Development Studies, Indian Social Institute, Voluntary Action Network India — which have been issued notices rightly point out that they did not fund the campaign “we were just signatories to the campaign... we were critical of the discriminatory tactics of the government vis-a-vis women and minorities. After all, we are living in a democracy, it is our fundamental right to voice our concern”. They also point out that it seems unfortunate that only four of them have been focused on, although it is a known fact that several organisations, including the VHP, get massive foreign funding....” What is the government’s comment on this? Tragedy turns real! There has been much hype
around the ancient Greek Tragedy — Aeschylus’
‘Prometheus Bound’ — which was all set to
be staged here, by the Greece-based Attis theatre group.
In fact a series of receptions, including one hosted by
the Greek Ambassador to India, Mr Yannis Alexis Zepos,
were arranged to welcome this theatre group. But, then,
there comes in the news that the group’s tour to
India stands cancelled. Reason, one of the lead artists
has fallen ill and hospitalised. Tragic end of the
tragedy, at least for the Indian viewers! |
October
11, 1924 IT is now perfectly clear that Mr Ramsay Macdonald’s Government have no intention of bending before the storm. Mr Ban Spoor, at the conclusion of a Cabinet meeting, is reported to have said that “the Government would most firmly oppose both the Unionist vote of censure and the Liberal amendment.” Mr Clynes, the leader of the party in the Commons, was just as emphatic in expressing the same view. “Labour”, he said, “has never shirked a challenge from either of the two parties and is ready to meet it now, if it came from both.” Unless, therefore, there is a sudden change in the attitude of the Liberal Party, a General Election is inevitable within the next few weeks.
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