P A G E
Thursday, October 28, 1999
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E D I T O R I A L P A G E |
Thursday, October 28, 1999 |
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Zia
overshadows Kemal
CONGRESS
& SONIA GANDHI |
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US
firm seeks patents on human gene codes
Miss
Mistake
October
28, 1924 |
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Zia overshadows Kemal THE composition of Pakistan's National Security Council and the Cabinet, along with the widely publicised chargesheet filed in Karachi against former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, are two broad indicators of the administrative and policy lines Chief Executive General Parvez Musharraf is likely to follow in days to come. Think of Mr Sharifuddin Pirzada's dominating presence in the Musharraf set-up. This hawk was General Zia-ul-Haq's Attorney-General who abolished most of the legal curbs on the autocratic regime. The dictactor's will was the effective law of the land, he used to say. And Mrs Atiya Inayatullah? This close associate of General Zia decided how society was to bend before jackboot policy. The choice of Mr Abdus Sattar as Foreign Minister is a strong pointer. He has worked for his country in India and acquired the reputation of being a sophisticated craftsman of anti-India policies—from within and without the power network. Take a look at the chargesheet against Mr Nawaz Sharif and several senior persons working with him. High treason and sedition are among the charges. These allegations, if proved, are punishable with death. Mr Nawaz Sharif has also been accused of conspiring to engineer a mutiny in the armed forces and deliberately endangering the lives of more than 200 passengers of a PIA plane which "carried the General also from Colombo". The plane had run out of fuel, it is said, and it landed with military help after it was refused permission to land by Mr Nawaz Sharif's civil authorities in Karachi. The detailed chargesheet is bound to be a life-snuffing exercise. One is reminded of the "benevolent takeovers" of the late Generals Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan and Zia-ul-Haq. After having said that
he was "enjoying power", the other day, General
Musharraf mentioned Turkey's Kemal Ataturk (1881-1938) as
his role model. The builder of modern Turkey was a fine
soldier who defended the Dardanelles against the British
in 1915 and drove the Greeks out of Turkey in 1922.
Although called a virtual dictator, he was the President
of his republic and a reformer, moderniser and abolisher
of the Caliphate. He recognised the contemporary
humanitarian values and tried to keep powerful groups
away from obscurantism and fanaticism, which together
denote today's fundamentalism. Is the Pakistani Chief
Executive moving close to Kemal's vision and ideas? Or
has he already come close to the Zia model? The ruling
organisations and the Karachi chargesheet create the
impression of the presence of a typical Pakistani General
acting in indecent haste. The Chief Executive is treating
the State as his fiefdom. The disillusioned people are
still in a state of shock—and fear. The USA can
afford to carry out experiments with what it calls
potential democracy from a distance. But India has to
react quickly to the projections of reality in Pakistan.
Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee was the Foreign Minister of the
Morarji Desai government and Mr Desai was well-disposed
towards General Zia. New Delhi is being credited with
full familiarity with Pakistan's slippery political
pathways. Our attitude towards the Musharraf regime
should be cautious and correct. |
In the name of Rajiv Gandhi RAJIV Gandhi is back in the news, rather his name is; and it is quite an achievement for a dead man. The inclusion of the name in the Bofors chargesheet provoked the first walkout of the 13th Lok Sabha with many more to come. For the present the BJP can justifiably gloat over the near isolation of the Congress and also its reluctance to join in a regular debate on the controversy. But comfort will be short-lived. The main opposition party is very angry, does not have a clear strategy and has, therefore, to stiffen itself as an implacable critic. Though other anti-BJP parties have shown no sympathy for its Bofors woes, the Congress will team up with them on every issue to harass the ruling front. It has no choice if it is to remain faithful to its pledge of withdrawing cooperation in tackling the legislative work. And there are any number of areas in which opposition parties disagree with the government policy and will like to reshape it radically. The two Houses of Parliament will thus witness a regular war of words mostly from non-ideological standpoint. Of course, the ruling alliance and its supporting columns are branding the hostile Congress stand as obstructive of national reconstruction and the party cheerfully accepts the charge and adds that everyone has practised this at one time or the other. The two main warring groups are firing tired cliches and limp arguments at each other, ironically in all seriousness. The BJP says it is routine for the dead accused to figure in a chargesheet in column 2 and lumps Rajiv Gandhi in the company of three assassins, two of serving and former Prime Ministers and one of a Chief Minister. A murdered Prime Minister is getting the same status as his murderer! Ridiculous, but then that also is part of Indian politics. For good measure, the saffron party has asked the aggrieved Congress to go to court to get Rajiv Gandhi’s name deleted and in the same breath has solemnly declared that the CBI is a totally independent organisation and it will be a constitutional sin to issue political directives to it. This is pure political fiction and there is no Booker prize for it. This claim flies in the face of Home Minister Advani’s disclosure in Ahmedabad last week that the Prime Minister had asked the CBI, and it implicitly obeyed, to hold back the chargesheet for two months. So much for the CBI’s autonomy. And even today everyone accuses the same fiercely freedom-loving CBI of delaying the Bofors investigation for more than a decade under political influence. If the agency has suddenly started asserting itself, it will be a remarkable transformation, deserving an epic treatment! Now for the painful part
of the nature of the charges. Analysts who had the
patience to wade through the 25-page chargesheet, have
not found any charge, let alone evidence. True, money has
changed hands in the purchase of 400 Bofors guns, but the
receiving hand does not belong to either Rajiv Gandhi
— there is the categorical statement by former CBI
director Joginder Singh to support this — or the
former Defence Secretary, who too is living abroad. The
then government did push out the old Indian agent and
opened the door for an Italian friend of the former Prime
Minister. It surely is an improper act but not a crime
warranting the resurrection of a dead man’s name in
a porous chargesheet. Seeking and accepting a commission
by a private individual as a percentage of the value of a
deal is not illegal, yes, even in India. Doubting
Thomases need only talk to anyone who proudly sports the
surname of Dalal. On the other hand, in the case of a
public servant — the term used in the Prevention of
Corruption Act to describe both political masters and
government employees — it is a kickback and merits a
jail term. India has in the past been convulsed with many
controversies and the one over the inclusion of Rajiv
Gandhi’s name is one of them. The controversy has
taken an ugly form and there should be a truce
immediately so that the political aspect and the legal
aspect can get separated and the law can take its own
course. |
Life cycle assessment LIFE cycle assessment is the new buzz word in the vocabulary of environmentalists and ecologists. In Chandigarh the initiative for introducing the concept has been taken by Punjab Engineering College Principal Rajneesh Prakash who as founder-President of the Indian Life Cycle Society has organised an inter-action with Japanese experts on the subject later this week. The inter-action is expected to make clear to enthusiasts and committed environmentalists why and how the new strategy for promoting the concept of environment protection is an improvement on the conventional approach. For instance a number of local and state administrations have imposed a blanket ban on the use of plastic bags, influenced evidently by the global campaign about their negative impact on the soil and most forms of life. But ILCAS believes that the current approach is akin to throwing the baby with the bath water. There may be some substance in the suspicion that the current campaign against the use of plastic bags has been initiated by the West at the behest of the USA. The anti-plastic campaign is primarily meant to prepare the ground for the launching of a new substitute. The substitute material for replacing plastic bags has most certainly been tried and tested in the laboratories of the developed world and declared ready for marketing in the Third World where awareness about environmental issues is not as widespread as it is in the West. In other words, selective and wise use of plastic bags and their subsequent disposal may be a better option than, evidently under the influence of motivated western propaganda, impose a ban on their use - which, in any case cannot be enforced. The Centre too has
decided to introduce the concept of LCA in key sectors
for keeping the environmental problems within manageable
limits. To begin with it has identified the country's
dependence on coal, and its long term consequences on the
health of plant, animal and human life. A holistic
approach to the problem of excessive use of coal for
meeting the energy needs of the country would suggest
that if it has a negative impact on plant life, it cannot
be good for all other forms of life which depend on the
former for sustenance. The LCA approach is expected to
find a solution for reducing the use of coal - which is
used for running 70 per cent of the power plants in the
country - in the energy sector. The Union Ministry of
Environment and Forests has been requested to accord
priority the LCA of the coal cycle. Mr T. R. Baalu, Union
Minister for Environment and Forests, while inaugurating
a three-day environment summit, organised by the
Confederation of Indian Industries, announced that
similar LCAs would be conducted in other key sectors. It
goes without saying that an eco-friendly approach to
industrial growth should be based on technology
upgradation, renovation, modernisation and judicious use
of available tools and techniques. The three-day summit,
in which US Energy Secretary Bill Richardson too is
taking part, has rightly chosen the "triple E
factor" - energy, environment and efficiency - as
the key topic of discussion. |
CONGRESS & SONIA GANDHI IN love, war and elections the winner takes all. The loser is usually ignored and left alone to lick his or her wounds as best as he or she can. However, the centrestage having been occupied so far by Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee and the elephantine coalition he heads, attention is now shifting to the Congress. For a variety of reasons, not all of them flattering to the once Grand Old Party. The next important of these is the painful coincidence that the Congress, with a history of 112 years, has secured precisely that many seats in the 540-member Lok Sabha which represents its worst defeat ever. Indeed, its performance under the leadership of Mrs Sonia Gandhi is much poorer than under the stewardship of either Mr P.V. Narasimha Rao or Mr Sitaram Kesri, both of whom were shown the door. And yet objective observers of the scene — a rare and, regrettably, disappearing breed — cannot help noticing that the party which has ruled India for 45 years of the 52 years since Independence, does not seem to be adequately aware of the shocking reverse it has suffered. Even more shocking is the character of such discussion on the painful subject as has taken place in the highest echelons of the party’s leadership. It has yielded nothing more than a renewed bout of factional bickering, with some stalwarts sniping or sneering at one another and several others pretending that nothing serious had happened. And perhaps inevitably the deliberations have ended with the appointment of a committee of enquiry and “introspection” under the chairmanship of good, old Mr A.K. Antony. At a rather early stage, the discussion on the poll debacle, which no Congressman worth his salt admits to be a debacle, was diverted to another, much more vital subject: the Bofors chargesheet in which Rajiv Gandhi has been named as one of the accused even though, having gone to his rewards, he cannot be tried. This is the second and rather powerful reason why the spotlight is turning to the Congress as a party to Mrs Sonia Gandhi as its leader. The party, through its Working Committee, has reacted with predictable anger over Rajiv’s memory being “maligned” needlessly by the BJP-led government, driven by “political vendetta”. But it could have orchestrated or coordinated the expression of its hurt feelings better than it did. While Mrs Sonia Gandhi herself made a dignified and measured statement deploring the Vajpayee government’s crass political “motivation”, the party’s departing spokesman, Mr Kapil Sibal, allowed himself to talk of a “political joke” and a “legal joke”. He and even the Congress Working Committee’s resolution on the subject have hinted at the party launching a fight against the charges against Rajiv both in Parliament and on the street. Wouldn’t it be better instead to get the chargesheet against the late Prime Minister — which, according to the Congress, is unsupported by any evidence, leave alone a clinching one — quashed by a court of law now that the matter is sub judice? But then law and courts have to take a backseat when partisan politics takes over, as it seems to have done on both sides of the divide. The Vajpayee government, speaking through the Union Home Minister, Mr L.K. Advani, has talked loftily about the law taking its own course and the National Democratic Alliance making good its promise to combat corruption in public life. To this the Congress riposte is that there should be equal zeal in exposing the sugar scam, the telecom scam and other scandals for which leading lights of the BJP and its allies are allegedly responsible. Across the subcontinental divide, the new Pakistani military ruler, Gen Parvez Musharraf, has ordered an investigation of his own into the sale of sugar to India from which ousted Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s family is supposed to have made huge profits. This will surely come in handy to the Congress. But it remains to be seen whether the party is justified in believing that a vigorous public campaign against the inclusion of Rajiv’s name in the Bofors chargesheet will yield the kind of dividends that the agitation against Indira Gandhi’s “persecution” by then Janata government during 1977 and 1978 had done. Nor is this the end of the dismal Bofors saga. Quite apart from the time that the examination of scores of VIP witnesses and other proceedings will take in a judicial system notorious for its astonishing delays, there appear to be wheels within wheels. Even those who have applauded the Vajpayee government for having at last filed the chargesheet and named Rajiv as well as the Italian businessman and “friend of the Gandhi family”, Mr Ottavio Quattrocchi, in it, are expressing dismay over the continuing omission from the chargesheet of the Hindujas. The CPM has emphatically underscored the point. Others have enquired whether the famous Hinduja Brothers enjoy too close a proximity to the BJP leadership at the very top. Inextricably interlinked with the potentially explosive Bofors chargesheet is the third, and in some respects critically important, issue of the assumption by Mrs Sonia Gandhi of the office of Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. The decline in the fortunes of the Congress during the general election notwithstanding, she is now the supreme, if not sole, leader of the party. She combines in herself the presidentship of the Congress, the chairmanship of the Congress Parliamentary Party and the leadership of the Opposition in the Lower House of Parliament. The last is a constitutional office. Mrs Gandhi’s assumption of it finally disposes of the question who is the Congress party’s nominee for the post of Prime Minister if and when the party comes to power either on its own or in a coalition with other parties or groups. On this score she has been criticised widely, sometimes sharply. Instead of concentrating all offices and power to herself, critics say, she ought to have broadbased the Congress leadership. It is also argued by many, including some of her well-wishers, that she should have asked someone else to be the Leader of the Opposition, if only because she lacks both parliamentary experience and the skills needed to be an effective Opposition leader. In fact, within the BJP camp there is glee that before long Mrs Gandhi will prove herself to be “ineffective” and this would be of great advantage to the present ruling combination. The argument may or may not be valid. But there are two serious difficulties about it. In the first place, it is hardly fair to prejudge a person. Wasn’t Indira Gandhi herself, in the first year of her Prime Ministership, dismissed as a “goongi gudiya” or a dumb doll? But, that apart, the second aspect of the issue is more important. For Mrs Sonia Gandhi to forgo the office of Leader of the Opposition would have been a renunciation of her claim to the office of Prime Minister and an admission of her inadequacies well in advance. She cannot be blamed for refusing to do either. Indeed, if she was not interested in leading the party to office and power, she need not have contested the election to the Lok Sabha at all. She could then have named a putative Congress Prime Minister other than herself which is what the upper middle class so eagerly wanted her to do. If she wants to lead her party in Parliament and the party readily accepts it, why should others cavil at it? Of course, she is open to criticism because as Opposition leader and “shadow Prime Minister” she should have at least shed the office of Congress president so that the organisation could have elected a successor and an element of democracy and collectivity of leadership could have been reintroduced in a party that, since the seventies, has been run on wholly authoritarian lines not only by Indira, Rajiv and Mrs Sonia Gandhi but also by Mr Narasimha Rao. The Congress
party’s “abject dependence” on “just
one family” has also attracted much opprobrium. Not
everyone who feels unhappy at this state of affairs is
motivated by malice. But here again the question is that
if all members of the Congress are happy, publicly at
least, to wallow in the situation that obtains, what can
outsiders do? |
New issues to dominate
Seattle agenda DEVELOPING countries have neither a collective negotiating strategy nor common concerns to articulate at the Third Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) at Seattle (USA) on November 30-December 4. India tried and failed to get even a G-15 endorsement on at least a few core issues which would have helped developing countries to assert their interest in ensuring a more equitable world trading environment. The powerful trading nations of Europe and the USA are set to turn Seattle the launching pad for a new “Millennium Round” of trade negotiations which will include not only the major issues in the built-in agenda of the WTO — agriculture and services —, a hangover of the long drawn-out Uruguay Round (1986-94), but also industrial tariffs, investment, competition, e-commerce and the environment. Developed nations through the G-8 summit in Cologne in June last endorsed a new round of “broadbased and ambitious negotiations” to achieve substantial results. Their communique did ask for proposals for progress in areas where developing countries, especially the least developed ones, could make “solid and substantial gains”. However, in actual negotiations, if past experience is any guide, the individual countries have to give and take and end up with something which may not be wholly satisfactory from their angle. India had taken the stand that it was premature to talk of a new trade round when major issues like agriculture and services, which figured in the Uruguay Round, were yet to be negotiated and the potential gains from trade liberalisation undertaken by them, as enjoined in the Uruguay Round agreements, were yet to be realised to any significant extent. Not only India but many other developing countries have also encountered new forms of protectionism in developed countries, limiting access to their markets. Several non-tariff barriers and an indiscriminate use of anti-dumping measures had also been cited by them. But India’s line that non-implementation of obligations under the Uruguay Round should first be taken up before moving on to a new global round has not elicited the expected support even among developing countries. Over the last three years India has had to give in following rulings against it by the WTO dispute settlements body, in regard to the protection of intellectual property rights and the removal of quantitative restrictions (QRs) on imports maintained on the balance of payments consideration. A larger number of QRs has been phased out and India has been offered to complete the process by 2002, but a recent WTO ruling in favour of the USA implies that QRs have to be dismantled by the end of 2000. As an interim measure, India amended its Patents Act to provide “mailbox facility” for the receipt of product patent applications. But India has to put in place very soon the necessary enactments to conform to all the obligations under the agreement of TRIPs (trade-related intellectual property rights). Against the background of a muted voice of developing countries, India is preparing itself to be proactive at Seattle and focus on expanded market access to these nations lowering their tariff peaks on items of export interest to them. On textiles, which accounts for some 30 per cent of its exports, India has already lowered its import restrictions and duties on textile imports but five years after the Uruguay Round agreements, market opening by developed countries remains insignificant with the backloading of benefits beyond 2002. It would be in fairness to demand a reopening of the Textile Agreement to bring about an early end of the present quota regime under the old multi-fibre accord. One issue which can bring all developing countries together will be labour standards, which the USA had been attempting to bring on the WTO agenda, on the ground that cheap goods made by “forced labour” or child labour are being dumped on developed countries’ markets. While the European Union insists that labour rights must remain a matter for WTO concern, it might not press it at Seattle for inclusion in the agenda of the new trade round. Developing countries have held that the question of labour standards is within the jurisdiction of the ILO. The 15-nation European Union has been at the forefront in calling for the launch of a new round of negotiations with a three-year limit and has tried to hold an olive branch for the least developed countries that proposals would be made for special and differential treatment with a duty-free access for essentially all products from the least developed countries. In arguing for an expanded trade agenda, the European Union seeks to distract attention from the impending fight against export subsidies for agriculture in the OECD countries which spend $350 billion a year on support to farmers. The EU has not been phasing out the subsidies as provided for in the Uruguay Round agreements, before agriculture is fully integrated in the international trading system. Canada, the second largest grain exporter after the USA, has also urged the elimination of export subsidies and a reduction in domestic farm support. While India must get ready to face competition in agricultural trade, it has to ensure that in the further negotiations on subsidies and tariffs, its concerns for food security and rural development are fully taken care of. In the run-up to the
135-nation Ministerial Meeting of the WTO, the UN
Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said in a
report that Seattle should facilitate a “positive
trade agenda” with a clear recognition of
“development countries’ priorities” and
broader access to their markets being made the single
most important theme.— IPA |
Miss
Mistake A SENIOR revenue officer once told me that when Miss Mistake was roaming about in search of an abode, God had asked her to chose a place where she wanted to finally reside. She preferred the Revenue Department and since then she is comfortably perched on there. Encroachment on government land, unfaithful partition, wrong mutation, innumerable land laws and the complexity of khasra and khatauni numbers help Miss Mistake to thrive in the wide network. During our revenue training, the Kanungo, who had come to teach us about “revenue matters”, was candid in saying, “Ghalati se khasre mein bata number para / to samajh lo panja-chakka jara” (If there happens a division of khasra number even by mistake, then fivers and sixers in your pocket are at stake.) Times have changed and Miss Mistake now has shelter in almost all the government departments. Ms Maneka Gandhi was shown as a “male” in the electoral rolls by mistake. Probably the “man”in her name was the culprit. My name is also uncommon in this part of the country, so my first driving licence was in the name of “Misterniwas Joshi”. By mistake, of course. The greatest problem for me, however, is my identity card. I have been shown as my “wife’s wife” in it. When I enquired about it, the officer concerned replied with a smart wink that it was by mistake. That wink, however, was so naughty that I apprehended that he knew about the so far guarded secret of my being henpecked. Miss Mistake generally prefers to stay in government departments but does not mind visiting the private folds too. When Mr Virbhadra Singh became the Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh for the fourth time, though for six days only, a note issued by a private well-wisher fell into my hand. It read “Neverend Shri Virbhadra Singh is, once again, the C.M. of this State.” I was puzzled because “neverend” did not appear to me a genial expression to show the continuity of Mr Singh. Later I was told that it was “Reverend”, and “Neverend” was by mistake. Missy once played a
cruel joke on the people of Gyabung village in Kinnaur
district. “Gyabung” means an ass in Kinnauri
dialect. The people of that village, in collective
wisdom, decided to change its name to “Gandhi
Gram”. A board displaying the new name was installed
there one fine morning to be removed instantaneously
because the painter had forgotten to paint the letter
“n” in it. It was by mistake that the name of
the village had changed its gender. |
US firm seeks patents on
human A US biotechnology company is seeking to patent segments of the human genetic code in an attempt to cash in on its research before British-led moves are implemented to prevent the ‘‘human blueprint’’ becoming the private property of a few corporations. Celera Genomics has stunned the scientific world with its claim to have decoded about a third of the entire blueprint, the human genome, in little more than a month. It has also predicted that it could complete the job by next year, simultaneously or even ahead of a parallel, publicly funded, project under way in British and US laboratories. The unravelling of the billions of coded sequences in human DNA (the chemical base of all genes) is expected to revolutionise medicine, and pave the way to genetically based cures. It could also open up limitless opportunities to influence human evolution by manipulating genetic codes. Celera claims to have isolated 1.2bn of the estimated 3bn building blocks that determine the design of the human body. But contrary to its earlier assurances that its research would be made publicly available, the Maryland-based company said last week that it was applying for patents on 6,500 of its discoveries. ‘‘Celera’s mission is to become the definitive source of genomic and related agricultural and medical information,’’ the company said, adding that the use of its data would be available ‘‘on a subscription basis’’ to universities and other companies. Celera’s mass patent application represents a blow to British-led efforts to negotiate an Anglo-American accord to ban patents on the human genome and to ensure that the fruits of the research are available worldwide to help combat and prevent disease. The deal under discussion by Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, reported in the Guardian last month, would oblige all laboratories to waive their patent rights. The British-owned Wellcome Trust and the US National Institute of Health, which are leading the publicly funded research, would publish the code for each gene within 24 hours of its discovery. In the US Congress, the House of Representatives science committee said it might hold special hearings on the proposal by Celera. Its president, Craig Venter, told Congress last year that the company’s research would be freely available. The US Patent Office says it has issued three patents so far for decoded segments of human DNA and is considering up to 10,000 other applications. However, Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Washington-based watchdog the Foundation on Economic Trends, described the patents as illegal. ‘‘Nothing in our patent laws allows this. Under US law discoveries in nature are not inventions. The US Patent Office has been violating its statute,’’ Mr Rifkin said yesterday (Sunday). Celera, alongside other biotech firms, insists that so much effort is put into isolating and decoding genes that it should be subject to intellectual property rights. Mr Venter, a former surfer with a penchant for pet poodles, insisted company policy would not change. ‘‘There are no losers in this system. Every researcher in the world will have the human genome ahead of time,’’ he said. He worked on the British end of the human genome project until last year when he quit to start Celera. The company uses supercomputers to identify the codes, and such is the speed of the equipment that Celera has leapfrogged the publicly funded Anglo-American effort. However, its methods provide thinner information about what function each gene segment serves — the crucial link to combating disease. Francis Collins, head of the US National Human Genome Research Institute, said mapping out the human genome was only ‘‘the beginning of the road of discovery’’. ‘‘To make it useful requires lots of additional steps that will be inhibited if you put up a lot of tollbooths early on that road and make people less interested in travelling at all.’’ Mr Rifkin predicted that if companies like Celera were permitted to patent genes, the costs of modern medicine would rise exponentially. Doctors would be forced
either to provide the tests or to face being sued. Mr
Rifkin warned: ‘‘The costs are going to break
the health care system. This will not hold.’’
— The Guardian |
India must avoid fruitless
“talk trap” PAKISTAN’S new “Chief Executive”, Gen Pervez Musharraf, like his predecessors both civilian and military, is once again harping on a “package deal” with India but New Delhi must know that failure to make Pakistan eschew cross-border terrorism will lead to the familiar “talk trap” as before. The last military dictator, Gen Zia-ul-Haq, used invidious “cricket diplomacy” (he invited himself to the Indo-Pak cricket match in Jaipur) to begin a dialogue with India under US tutelage but negotiations floundered in the face of continual Pakistani attempts to foster insurgency first in Punjab and then in Kashmir till former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao put an end to the charade by passing a resolution in Parliament reiterating that the whole of Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and the only thing left to be negotiated with Pakistan is the vacation of its illegal occupation of a portion of it. Thereafter talks were put in cold storage till the Gujral Doctrine was enunciated and “non-reciprocity” governed India’s relations with her neighbours. Vajpayee’s “bus diplomacy” during his second tenure in office led to the signing of the Lahore Declaration, followed immediately after by the massive Pakistani Army intrusions in the Dras-Kargil segment of Northern Kashmir. That was perfidy that shocked every world leader and isolated Nawaz Sharif and his Chief of Army Staff, forcing them to withdraw their troops back to the Line of Control. Having learned the lessons of Kargil the new BJP-led coalition can hardly be sanguine about the efficacy and longevity of any compact with a military dictator in whose hands jehad is a geostrategic tool and on whose lips the Kashmir still resonates with the gunfire in Kargil. Talking to him will be walking into the same “talk trap” as before. One way to avoid this familiar outcome would be to make it clear to both the new powers that be in Pakistan as well as those in Washington who are pushing for a resumption of a dialogue between the two countries would be to insist that there should be a bilaterally verifiable-end to cross-border terrorism. The shutting down of terrorist training camps inside Pakistan, POK and Afghanistan would be a prerequisite. Washington’s assertion that it cannot “walk away” from the situation in Pakistan lest it leads to financial catastrophe is not borne out by geopolitics. Gen Musharraf’s visit to UAE and Saudi Arabia — the only two other nations that recognise the Taliban regime in Afghanistan — underscores a nexus wherein Pakistan will never be short of finance to fund the Pakistan economy. What Gen Musharraf has to ensure is that what comes in the form of aid to the madrassas which are churning out the “talibs” is not siphoned off. If he is able to get the banks to reclaim the several thousand crore it has disbursed to wealthy defaulters the Pakistan economy can be put on an even keel and at the same time meet the conditionalities imposed by the IMF and the World Bank. There is, therefore, no need for Washington to spill tears over the likelihood of Pakistan becoming a “failed state”. I will be more appropriate, in the interest of peace in this region, that Washington put pressure to bear on Pakistan to end the nexus that exists between itself and cross-border terrorism not only vis-a-vis India but also with the Central Asia Republics and beyond. Holding out the threat of the likelihood of a nuclear war on the subcontinent only helps to bolster that threat as a weapon in the hands of a military dictatorship that has finally come out of the “troika” cupboard. Now that both Washington
and New Delhi appear to be on the same wavelength on the
issue of cross-border terrorism some concrete results on
this issue should be made the bedrock of future
negotiations be it a “package deal” or anything
else. Nothing else will bring peace on the subcontinent.
— ADNI |
October
28, 1924 PROFESSOR H.F. Ward, an American sociologist, who is on a visit to India told an interviewer in Bombay the other day that he would study the ethics of the Indian industrial problem. He is very much interested to know whether India would make the same mistakes that western countries did in organising the industrial life of the masses. Referring to the questions, he said: “What you can do in the form of self-government depends very largely upon how you organise your economic life. If, for example, in due time, India gets self-government, but at the same time the condition of the masses and the labouring classes is such as compels them to live on a semi-starvation basis, where is then the freedom?” Professor Ward is quite right. India’s self-government must mean greater contentment of the people and the economic prosperity of the masses. Measures are
consequently being urged for the industrial advancement
of the masses which under the present form of government
has been very unsatisfactory. |
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