Pak under IMF squeeze THERE is no mercy in the world of international finance. Ask the once mighty Asian Tigers which went through the wringer in the middle of 1997.

Two questions for Atalji
ON Tuesday Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee completed the formality of filing his nomination papers for the Lucknow Lok Sabha constituency.

Criminals at large
MEHAM is back in the news, and for all the wrong reasons like before. The supporters of the ruling Indian National Lok Dal seem to have unleashed a rein of terror and they do not spare even policemen.

DEVELOPMENTS IN INDIA & IRAN
Challenges before liberal leaders
by V. Gangadhar
INDIAN Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee writes poetry, appreciates art and culture and has the reputation of being a liberal. Left to himself, he would concentrate on national development, cultural affinity and religious tolerance. Unfortunately, Mr Vajpayee has not been able to make much these issues. He is caught up, in fact he is a prisoner of extremist forces.

Readiness slips as quake memories fade
by Colin Joyce and Tomoko Ugajin
WITH perhaps 40,000 people dead, it seems insensitive to hope that the earthquake in Turkey has done some good. Yet for the residents of Tokyo, it may yet serve as a timely warning.

Bargain in Lahore
by V. N. Kakar
MAHABIR Gali no. 2, Nisbet Road, Lahore, winter of 1944, Sunday. Onkar Nath Kapoor and I are in Lahore, on French leave from our unit in Ferozepur cantonment. We are staying in the house of Onkar’s brother who is legal adviser to Janki Dass Kapoor and Sons, the famous cycle merchants.

Pak under IMF squeeze

THERE is no mercy in the world of international finance. Ask the once mighty Asian Tigers which went through the wringer in the middle of 1997. Or, better still, take a look at Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the multi-front struggle he is fighting. The massive majority he won in the National Assembly more than two years ago suddenly looks brittle. His opponents are baying for his blood and so are their thousands of supporters. The IMF is issuing tough diktats which are perfectly designed to fuel mass protest. After forcing the government to impose a savage 15 per cent general sales tax and curtly ordering a rollback of two poverty alleviation schemes (self-employment as transport operators with easy and low interest loans and mass housing), the IMF now wants a reduction in defence expenditure and the imposition of an agricultural tax. The first will deepen the Kargil anger and the second will trigger a revolt by the powerful feudal land-owning class. Mr Sharif can always say no and ask the Fund to mind its business but that defiance will choke off a promised credit of $ 280 million, a periodic instalment of a sanctioned $ 1.6 billion. In sum, mujahideen, an explosive armed gang of several thousand young men and mercenaries, traders and the opposition have united to demand that he offer his head owning responsibility for the shame of Kargil and bartering away national sovereignty for a dubious face-saving devise.

In Pakistan defence expenditure is a matter of national pride. Ballooning budget salves the nation’s collective macho sentiment and even a minor mishap ( like Kargil) leads to an uproar. And Kargil happened only a few months back; can Mr Sharif sell the idea of reducing army spending to his people? He cannot. Also, in an unrelated development Foreign Secretary Shamshad Ahmed talked tough on Defence Day (Monday). Referring to the recently published draft nuclear doctrine, he promised to match India “bomb for bomb and missile for missile”. It may be rhetoric and not a rejoinder to the IMF demand for a sharp reduction in defence expenditure. But it reflects the thinking of a section of Pakistani officialdom. Islamabad also points out that nearly 95 per cent of military expenditure is met from internal revenue and only 4 per cent from sources like supplier credit. In another coincidence, Pakistan commissioned a sophisticated Agnosta submarine in a French shipyard! This is the kind of action that Mr Sharif and his people feel good at and happy with. Pruning defence budget? Mr Sharif might as well say, we shall soldier on.

Two questions for Atalji

ON Tuesday Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee completed the formality of filing his nomination papers for the Lucknow Lok Sabha constituency. His visit to the city was marked by the usual show of exuberance by Bharatiya Janata Party activists. Mr Vajpayee attended a "havan" at the party office in Lucknow before driving down to the collectorate for filing the nomination papers. Secularists might question the propriety of the "havana" arranged for Mr Vajpayee at the party office. If they were to raise such a frivolous issue in the name of protecting secularism, they would need to be firmly told that Mr Vajpayee attended the Hindu religious ceremony not as Prime Minister but in his personal capacity and as a candidate of a party which at the height of the Ayodhya agitation had given the slogan: "Garv sey kaho hum Hindu hain". The BJP candidate from Rampur, Mr Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, may have offered special "namaz" before filing his papers. However, Mr Vajpayee's visit to Lucknow should make independent and objective observers ask two questions which he may feel inclined to answer. The first question concerns the role of Lucknow University Vice-Chancellor H. K. Awasthi in the exercise of completing the formality of filing Mr Vajpayee's papers. There is absolutely no problem with Uttar Pradesh Housing Minister Lalji Tandon, Lucknow Mayor S. C. Roy and BJP state unit President Raj Nath Singh proposing the name of Mr Vajpayee as the BJP's candidate from Lucknow. However, in which capacity did Mr Awasthi put his signatures in the column of the proposers? Packing academic institutions with activists and sympathisers was for long rumoured to be part of the BJP's “hidden agenda”. Has the party decided to shed its mask on the controversial issue of keeping academic institutions free of overt political activity? Mr Awasthi's mere presence at the collectorate was sufficient to confirm reports of the saffronisation of Lucknow University.

The second question relates to the BJP's stand on genuine as also exaggerated concerns of the religious minorities, particularly the members of the Muslim community. In an election telecast after filing his nomination, Mr Vajpayee reiterated his party's commitment to secularism and sought to assure the members of the minority communities that their welfare and interests would be his government's responsibility. He deserves a brownie point for not promising to make minority issues his government's "priority". In any case, the expression "responsibility" sounds far more reassuring than "priority". However, even a leader of the stature of Mr Vajpayee could not avoid making the usual reference to the "reduction in the incidents of communal tension and violence" in the country during the 17 months the BJP-led coalition has been in power at the Centre. In distant Thiruvananthapuram Mr L.K. Advani, as if on cue, almost repeated what Mr Vajpayee said in his election telecast on the well-being of the minorities during his visit to Lucknow. As Union Home Minister he was evidently able to lay his hands on the statistics which he produced at his election meeting in Kerala to prove that since 1989 incidents of communal violence had shown a sharp decline (during the current BJP rule). It is about time the BJP changed its USP for impressing the minorities. Implied in the present stand of the party is the message that the minorities should vote for the BJP merely to ensure communal peace. Will the communal demon devour them if they act otherwise? Neither Mr Vajpayee nor Mr Advani nor another senior BJP leader has thus far produced statistics on the measures taken by the governments in the past 17 months for raising the economic and educational levels of the minorities. Muslim organisations have raised a number of issues during the current round of elections. However, neither the BJP nor other political parties have cared to answer at least the genuine concerns of the minorities in India. At one extreme is the Samajwadi Party of Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav making the inappropriate promise of job reservation for members of the Muslim community and at the other is the BJP which believes that the absence of communal tension is equal to socio-economic and educational upliftment of the minorities. In between is a large grey area covered by the neither-here-nor-their stand, often bordering on appeasement, of the Congress. No political party has bothered to evolve a comprehensive policy which could help the minorities get out of social, economic and educational backwardness.

Criminals at large

MEHAM is back in the news, and for all the wrong reasons like before. The supporters of the ruling Indian National Lok Dal seem to have unleashed a rein of terror and they do not spare even policemen. On Monday night, supporters of the party beat up an SHO and his colleagues right there in the Meham police station just because the SHO had dared to arrest the salesman of a liquor vend for opening it on the election day. Among those against whom police cases have been registered for threatening, assaulting and attempting to murder four policemen are one block samiti president and one municipal committee president, both active members of the INLD. Policemen do become the targets of mob fury occasionally but this type of brazen attack by party cadres is rare in places which do not happen to have a militancy problem. The demoralisation that will set among the policemen if the criminals are not suitably punished soon can well be imagined. But then Haryana is quite a "militant" state in its own right. There has been a sudden spurt in such incidents ever since Mr Om Prakash Chautala came to power. His supporters seem to think that just because their party is in power, they are beyond the reach of law. Only last month, the INLD MLA from Meham, Mr Balbir Singh alias Balli Pehalwan, allegedly misbehaved and threatened the Deputy Commissioner of Rohtak. Two days later, the Executive Officer (EO) of the Rohtak Municipal Council was manhandled and maltreated allegedly by a municipal councillor, who belongs to the INLD.

Even if these are stray incidents, the party high command must take serious note of them because these can tarnish its image. It is not very shining to begin with. There are very many residents of Haryana who wear a "didn't-I-tell-you?" look and point to the general prediction that the moment Mr Chautala comes to power, his green brigade would start behaving like a goon brigade with a vengeance. Offers of protection may not be coming from the top but the bad publicity that such incidents are generating should be a matter of great shame and concern for the senior functionaries of the party. In his own interest, the Chief Minister should arrange to keep his men in leash. The cock and bull story that they made up to justify the beating up of the policemen in Meham -- that the Inspector had brought a girl to the police complex -- does not have many takers. The new Chief Minister must realise that public opinion may prove to be more powerful than he would have imagined. General revulsion over such violence and the folly of some senior functionaries to protect the criminals have led to the ouster of leaders taller than him.

DEVELOPMENTS IN INDIA & IRAN
Challenges before liberal leaders
by V. Gangadhar

INDIAN Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee writes poetry, appreciates art and culture and has the reputation of being a liberal. Left to himself, he would concentrate on national development, cultural affinity and religious tolerance.

Unfortunately, Mr Vajpayee has not been able to make much these issues. He is caught up, in fact he is a prisoner of extremist forces. The Prime Minister’s frequent assurances that the issues of Article 370, the Ram temple and the Uniform Civil Code will not be raised during the Lok Sabha polls had been contradicted by the RSS, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal. Mr Vajpayee may flaunt his liberal credentials, but only to a certain limit. He knows he would never be in a position to disown the motives of the saffron brigade. If the BJP and its allies were voted back to power, it would be interesting to note how far Mr Vajpayee is able to go ahead spreading the secular and liberal message.

But at least during the course of the poll campaign the Prime Minister is safe. This is because the saffron brigade had realised that the chances of the alliance coming back to power would be jeopardised if Mr Vajpayee was told to tone down his liberalism. The saffron brigade is waiting for the day when the BJP would be voted to power on its own so that it can exert its influence and implement its own policies. This is going to be a fascinating struggle in the months to come.

A situation similar to this exists in Iran. Moderate President Mohammad Khatami had given some hope to the large number of liberals and moderates in the country, but his reformist attitudes have been vigorously opposed by the conservatives and religious fundamentalists led by the supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. The future of Iran very much depends on the ability of the President to carry the entire nation with him on this major issue. A more liberal, moderate Iran would be no longer regarded as an “outlaw” by the Western powers and could play a significant role in the future of West Asia.

But this will not be an easy task for Mr Mohammad Khatami. The supreme religious leader is well entrenched in national politics and has a large following. If the President is seen to lean too much towards liberalism, it can be curtains for him. The conservatives, time and again, have been successful to arouse the masses on the issue of religion and traditional values. Mr Khatami has to move forward very carefully if his reformist attitude has to succeed. In fact, he has to act like Mr Vajpayee in Iran.

Clerics in the administrative and judicial structure, the business and trading community and representatives of charitable institutions had always backed the supreme religious leader. They adhered to the strict interpretation of the principles of the 1978 Islamic Revolution which led to the bloody exit of the Shah of Iran. For nearly 19 years they held the centre stage in Iran. But with the election of Mr Mohammad Khatami as the President in 1997, there had been a rethinking on this issue. Iran saw the emergence of groups of reformers who believed that the time had come for a re-evaluation of the revolutionary principles ushered in 1978. They feel that most of the principles have become out of date in view of the changing political and social set-ups in the world, particularly West Asia.

Along with the reformers, there had been the emergence of marginal groups who argued that the revolution was such an important movement in national history that its impact could never be minimised or erased. It rekindled all the cherished values in Iran and should hold its own even if Iran adopted a more democratic system at the top. At the same time, the youth in Iran demonstrated clearly at the time of the 1997 elections that the country was in need of a change. A change towards liberalism. A sizeable number of Iranian women also supported this move. The students and women could not agree with the marginal groups in holding the values of the revolution as something sacrosanct. Unfortunately, they were not allowed to field their own candidates in the elections. Yet there was some consolation for in the election of Mr Khatami as the President, the liberals thought Iran had found someone who would go some way in bringing their dreams to realisation. If one went by his past performance, Mr Khatami had been able to give some hope to these groups. But his ability to stand up to the conservatives in case of a major confrontation is still in doubt.

There have been skirmishes between the two groups during the period of the Khatami presidency. Each group has won some and the result can be termed a “draw”. The harsh sentence imposed on the pro-Khatami Mayor of Teheran was diluted to a great extent. The conservatives forced the President to change his liberal Interior Minister but could not prevent him from appointing a successor who was equally liberal and reform-minded. Extremists who ran amok killing intellectuals from the marginal groups were arrested, tried and punished. So far, there have been no clashes between the President and the conservatives on major issues like constitutional and economic reforms.

What exactly do the liberals demand? They want freedom to study subjects of their choice, free travel within the country and abroad, removal of all kinds of censorship, more opportunities for women in higher education and jobs, and equality with the menfolk. These may not amount to much, but Islamic fundamentalists have strictly forbidden any role for women in public affairs.

It is true that President Khatami’s reformist moves have been often stalled. Questions are raised about his ability on this issue. But during the recent elections to local bodies, the reformist groups gained significant successes. While liberals hoped that this victory would dampen the influence of the conservatives, they hit back by forcing the closure of a liberal newspaper and demanding that the government should go slow on some of the reforms announced by it. Tempers rose, students clashed with the police and there was the fear that the President would be ousted. The riots, for the first time, saw a direct confrontation of the aspirations of the students and the rigidity of the conservative elements. The latter clearly had the superiority in muscle power, but the students were inspired by their own ideals and fought back bravely.

There is, however, a growing realisation in Iran even among the conservatives that there can be no going back to the old days of the Revolution. The conservatives may have won in the matter of roadside clashes, but without public approval, how can they cash in on this? The judiciary in Iran appears to lean towards the reformers and this is a major gain for the President. While not involving himself directly in the recent clashes, Ayatollah Khamenei, would prefer to let the reformist movement go ahead, but at a reduced momentum.

But there are certain basic differences between the political situation in Iran and India. While the conservative elements remain in the political background, the battle is much more in the open in Iran. President Khatami can confront the conservatives in the open, but Mr Vajpayee cannot. Fortunately, there is no Ayatollah in India who took an active interest in politics. The few Swamis and Sadhus who contested the polls dare not act against the party high command. So far India has been spared of the violent clashes of the nature of what is happening in Iran. But if the BJP and its allies come out with a comfortable majority after the Lok Sabha polls, the fundamentalists will not hesitate to demand their pound of flesh. Does Mr Vajpayee possess the tenacity and political acumen of President Khatami? Only time will tell.

Readiness slips as quake memories fade
by Colin Joyce and Tomoko Ugajin

WITH perhaps 40,000 people dead, it seems insensitive to hope that the earthquake in Turkey has done some good. Yet for the residents of Tokyo, it may yet serve as a timely warning.

Every September 1, Japan marks the anniversary of the great Tokyo earthquake of 1923 with Disaster Prevention Day. Emergency services, military forces and volunteers converge on the capital to hold drills, put out fires in mock buildings and encourage citizens to try the ‘Quake Room’, which simulates a trembler that register seven on the Richter scale. And though the whole event retains a sanitised, even festive, atmosphere, most leave with the sense that they ought to be ready if the Big One ever hits Tokyo.

The problem is that simply not enough people maintain that sense of danger. Though their densely-packed city perches atop two geological fault lines, many Tokyoites remain casual about the dangers. The city experiences a handful of small tremors every year, but nothing big enough to cause real fear. It takes the occasional disaster to shock people out of their complacency.

After the 1995 Kobe earthquake, which killed over 6,300 people, the Japanese were supposed not to need any more reminders. People rushed to the shops to buy up emergency-use goods, took measures to secure their houses and made plans for the event of an earthquake. But many feel the awareness has not lasted.

Public awareness is crucial to limiting quake damage, as authorities acknowledge. “We learned from the Kobe quake that the first five to ten minutes after a quake — before emergency services can get to the scene — are critical to saving lives,” says Nobuyo Kainuma, chief of Tokyo’s disaster prevention planning section.

The Tokyo authorities have taken this lesson to heart, helping to train volunteer groups and incorporate them into overall relief strategies. Kobe survivor Sakai is a member of a volunteer group organised by Rengo, the trade union grouping, and recalls that “my strongest memory was of helplessness, so I wanted to be able to do something if it ever happened again.”

But a fellow-volunteer, Kazuo Mikami, fears that many feel less urgency: “Perhaps you need to actually experience an earthquake to know what it is all about.”

Like the Turkish quake, Kobe stunned people by the shoddiness of the building work it revealed, and the tardiness of the official response. Buildings snapped in half, bridges and raised expressways collapsed. The Self-Defence Forces (the military) sat around waiting for orders, and firefighters in neighbouring Osaka were idle. A few miles away fires raged through heavily populated sections of Kobe.

Work since undertaken by the government and metropolitan authorities has been a tacit admission of the failings of Kobe. Earthquake-reinforcement has proceeded apace; bridges — some 30,000 of them — expressway supports and buildings have been strengthened.

There are plans to close Tokyo’s roads to vehicular traffic, allowing emergency vehicles proper access. In Kobe, families attempting to drive out of the city blocked crucial routes.

Seismic monitoring equipment has been installed in 95 weather stations across the city to help rapid assessment of which areas have been hit hardest, whereas at the time of the Kobe quake there were just two.

In 1998 the government also abandoned research into earthquake prediction, acknowledging that years of research may have proved counter-productive. Without producing an accurate system of prediction it had given many the impression that they would get advance warning.

And this year’s special drill showed that the preparations are not merely a case of generals fighting the last war. Working on the assumption that a lunch-time quake would leave 3.7 million office workers stranded far away from their homes in commuter towns, the Self-Defence Force assisted 500 workers home by river and on foot.

Some of the grander dreams of post-Kobe days have come to little: plans to survey the earthquake-readiness of homes nationwide at government expense have proved prohibitively costly. Nevertheless, metropolitan authorities estimate that a quake of the same magnitude as Kobe in the much more heavily-populated Tokyo region would cause some 7,000 fatalities and less destruction of property.

But quakes have a way of defying predictions, as the Kobe earthquake showed by occurring in an area of low seismic activity. Some of the problems earthquakes cause are long-term. The illness known as post-traumatic stress disorder can set in among survivors several months later: suicides among older people became a particular feature of post-earthquake Kobe, as many despaired at the destruction of their neighbourhoods and loss of friends.

Suminao Murakami, professor of engineering at Yokohama National University, says that the authorities in Tokyo have responded well to the challenges of reinforcing the city, but is worried about what he calls the “soft aspects” of managing earthquakes.

“In Kobe there has been a tendency to equate ‘cleaning up’ with ‘recovery’. A city is not a collection of buildings but a place where people live together,” he says. “Simply putting up shiny new apartments does not equal rebuilding the city.”

For Tokyo, survival is the more immediate issue. But a 1997 nationwide survey showed people to be lamentably ill prepared. Twenty-three per cent admitted to having made no special preparations for an earthquake, compared with the 22 per cent who had worked out the way to their nearest evacuation centre. The same percentage has an emergency stash of water and food.

Watching the nightmarish scenes from Turkey on the television, the authorities can only hope that a few more Japanese were prompted to prepare. Or one day, people may talk of Turkey and Tokyo in the same breath. — Gemini

Bargain in Lahore
by V. N. Kakar

MAHABIR Gali no. 2, Nisbet Road, Lahore, winter of 1944, Sunday. Onkar Nath Kapoor and I are in Lahore, on French leave from our unit in Ferozepur cantonment. We are staying in the house of Onkar’s brother who is legal adviser to Janki Dass Kapoor and Sons, the famous cycle merchants. It is a five-storey house. We have been given a room on the ground floor.

The servant brings bed-tea and forgetting that World War II is on and we are on “Active Service” we sip our tea leisurely. “Aloo, mattar, piaz, gobhi, tazi sabzi” — shouts the vegetable-seller, moving briskly, smartly, a large basket on his head. From the top floor, Onkar’s bhabhi shouts back and asks him to stop and tell her the rates.

“One anna a seer,” or something like that, says the vegetable-seller, naming his vegetables one by one and quoting their rates and proclaiming vociferously in the same breath that everything he has brought is fresh and straight from the fields and nothing like what he sells is available anywhere else in Lahore.

Onkar’s bhabhi brings the man down to where he is. If he has quoted one anna per seer for peas, she quotes one dhela (half of an old paisa) for the same. Same about the rest of the vegetables. Dhela by dhela, Onkar’s bhabhi goes up. Dhela by dhela, the vegetable-seller goes down. Finally, the bargain is struck, somewhere midway between what the man has initially quoted and Onkar’s bhabhi has initially offered.

Rates thus settled, quantity of each vegetable needed made known to the vegetable-seller, Onkar’s bhabhi glides the chhikka (basket) down. It is tied to a strong rassi (thin rope) the other end of which is held fast by Onkar’s bhabhi. The vegetable-seller weighs the vegetables purchased in his balance, puts them one by one in the chhikka, arranges them carefully to make sure that nothing falls out and then Onkar’s bhabhi pulls the chhikka up with the experience of one long accustomed to that kind of drill.

The chhikka or the hanging basket, if you must translate it into English, was a remarkable device. It saved the buyer a trip down to the street and then a tiresome climb back up to the top floor. It was large enough to contain anything you wanted to have. Naturally it had to be vertical. For exchanging things like sweets and special dishes between two houses opposite each other, there was another variety of chhikka — horizontal, each end tied to each of the two houses.

While the horizontal chhikka symbolised the warmth of relationship between families, the vertical one symbolised the trust between buyers and sellers. Onkar’s bhabhi that Sunday morning did not have to come down into the street to personally see the vegetables the vegetable-seller sold to her. Nor did she have to check their weight. She had taken it for granted that the bargain she had struck with the vegetable-seller was bound to be honoured. Enough “give and take” had already taken place.

Any wonder why when everybody else is talking about all that has transpired in Lahore between Vajpayee and Nawaz in the holy month of February, I should be thinking of what I had witnessed that Sunday morning of 1944 in Mahabir Gali no. 2?

Sardar Dyal Singh Majithia: liberalism and politics
By Prem Nath Kirpal

DYAL SINGH was not a politician. Parliaments, Councils, Ministers, electorates, parties, majorities — such words were not in common use during his life-time. The times during which he lived were non-political, generally in India and particularly in the Punjab. The country was experiencing a quiet and slow renaissance in all the spheres of life. Men had begun to question things and to apply reason to old customs and conventions of society. The modern man was becoming conspicuous. All over India, great leaders arose who themselves appreciated and asked their countrymen to adopt some of the most commendable features of western civilisation. People were deeply interested in education, reform of social customs and material prosperity. Men were too busy to think of political rights. Interest in politics was only confined to a very small fraction of upper classes, the almost negligible minority of graduates of the universities. Even their attitude towards the Government was more of admiration than criticism. The admiration of that generation was inevitable. The university graduate received his education in English, studied the literature and institutions of the English people and acquired great interest in them. The Government in England was strong and benevolent and the masses had not risen to the standard of enlightenment and prosperity necessary for the birth of political consciousness. Parliamentary Government in England was at the height of its success and utility. Issues were simple; a small electorate took active interest in political questions; and the leadership of an enlightened and liberal upper class never failed to produce great statesmen of the calibre of Gladstone and Disraeli, men who worked Parliamentary democracy almost to perfection. The Government of England stood to the whole world as a model of what a government ought to be. The Indian graduate in the last seventies read the impassioned utterances of Gladstone reported by the newspapers; he had already studied the orations of Burke in his textbooks. Out of these arose an academic interest in liberty. The men of the last eighties who founded the Indian National Congress were utopians; the few of them who had practical programmes were not democrats. In fact, politics only formed an aspect of the Liberal Movement which was gradually transforming society and in the second half of the nineteenth century this aspect was not prominent though it was coming increasingly into the limelight.

Sardar Dyal Singh evinced much interest in politics but he realised that political rights must be deserved by his countrymen before they could be enjoyed. To deserve political rights it was necessary to liberalise social customs and remove social shackles by the spread of liberal education. To this end his countrymen were to devote their energies. The public must be educated and the duty of an enlightened leader like him was to articulate public opinion and to keep the Government in touch with it. For this end he started The Tribune newspaper and managed educational institutions. The Tribune, under his wise direction and tactful management, began to exercise an influence in the Punjab. Under the Lieutenant-Governorship of Sir Dennis Fitzpatrick, a Punjab civilian once wrote to the “Pioneer” newspaper at Allahabad that the Punjab was being ruled by the Governor and The Tribune and that the Secretaries and district officers were nowhere. The Sardar was very well-informed about current politics and sometimes wrote very able editorial notes for The Tribune. He loved the spirit of British institutions; he adored Parliamentary government of England and he was loyal to British rule. But he did not like the bureaucracy and never went to humour the much-humoured executive officers. With his education, his position, his family and wealth he could have easily won official honours and favours; but he never cared for them and hated the highbrow attitude of the bureaucrat. He was independent and did not care to please even the highest officers.

Dyal Singh associated himself intimately with the Indian National Congress from its foundation. In 1888 he went to attend the Congress session at Allahabad. The Congress of that year met under the open disapproval of the Governor of the United Provinces and only bolder spirits joined the ranks. Dyal Singh had no mind to go to Allahabad but the official attitude made him firm in his decision to stand by the Congress at that juncture. In 1893 the Congress was held at Lahore under the presidency of Mr Dadabhai Naoroji, M.P. Sardar Dyal Singh was elected as the Chairman of the Reception Committee and delivered a remarkable address which deserves to be quoted at length. The address illustrates the politics of the times, with which the Sardar was in full accord. At the outset the Sardar praised the advantages of British rule which were gratefully acknowledged by even the most patriotic Indians of those days.

“It is our peculiar good fortune to live under a Government which, by the spread of liberal education and the annihilation of distances, has made it practicable for us — the inhabitants of the remote parts of this vast empire — to meet every year at different centres to discuss those great problems so intimately connected with the advancement and prosperity of our Fatherland. We have a glorious past, of course, of which we need not be proud, and clearly see the prospect of a hopeful future before as under the benign influence of British rule and I think most of us present here believe that the kingdom of heaven is not behind but before. The darkness that enshrouded the land for so many centuries has begun to be dispelled, and the streaks are already visible above the horizon that herald the approach of a glorious dawn.”

The Sardar refers to Lord Ripon, the hero of the Liberal movement in India, in the most glowing terms:

“A generation later appeared on the scene that liberal-minded ruler, that candid friend, that cordial sympathiser, that suppressor of wrongs and supporter of the weak and the down-trodden, the best and the most illustrious of Viceroys, the righteous Ripon to whom we owe the amalgam that united the scattered units of the Indian nation and stimulated those national sentiments and aspirations of which the Indian National Congress is the direct outcome.”

The Punjab had become a part of British India much later than other provinces. So naturally political awakening lagged behind in this province. But owing to the efforts of leaders like Dyal Singh large numbers of people were beginning to take interest in public affairs. In 1893 before the gathering of the Congress, the Sardar could speak of the Punjab in the following words:-

“To suppose that the Punjab has held aloof from the Congress is absurd. Is it possible that those credited with possessing most fire in their blood should be the least susceptible to this influence? No, the wand of the magician has touched our eyes. The history and literature of England have permeated our minds, the great heritage of our Western Aryan brethren has descended on as collaterally as it were, and we are allowed at times, grudgingly it may be, to have a share in it. Can we then in the midst of this national upheaval remain quiescent and indifferent? The same generous causes that are at work elsewhere have been operating here also and any difference in the results hitherto obtained is attributable mainly to the fact that these causes reached here last in point of time. We may naturally be somewhat behind the other provinces in the race of progress, but we are not idle, and if we be true to the traditions with which our past records are replete, we should try hard to make up our deficiencies and take our proper place in the march of national advancement.”

As years advanced, the Indian National Congress which was encouraged by the Government for the first few years became an object of official suspicion. The Congress was accused of disloyalty. Dyal Singh strongly refuted such accusations. The Congress, he held was a perfectly loyal body which had adapted itself to changed circumstances. He emphasised on this point and paid a tribute to English Liberalism in the following words:

“The hand of the clock cannot be put back. The country has been advancing rapidly under the banner which floats and flutters in the air proudly from Peshawar to Calcutta. The arbiter of the destiny of nations has not placed the people of this vast country under the aegis of British rule for no purpose. The ancient mother of art and science, of religion and philosophy, rent and torn by internal dissension and trampled under the oppressor’s relentless foot, was to be rescued from her woeful fate, and lo! a body of obscure merchants was sent out to trade in the East. And how this magnificent Empire was built up subsequently is known to the readers of history. But these merchants from the far West were only the means to an end. Flushed with success, exultant man often arrogates to himself what he could have never dreamt to accomplish without the help of the Almighty, the causer of causes.

“There is a divinity that shapes our ends. It is this divinity that shaped the ends of the body of obscure merchants, instilled patience and wisdom in their breast, expanded their views, enabled them to overcome their older and more powerful competitors, diverted their attention from commerce to conquest, taught them to form a mature organisation out of raw materials, inspired them with the principles of righteous toleration and led them along the career of splendid achievements which are now the wonder and admiration of the whole civilised world. England’s mission in India would remain unfulfilled if she failed to raise a once great but now fallen country from her present degraded position, to place her on the path of moral, material and political advancement and prosperity. Happily for both England and India the genius of the English people is eminently fitted for the performance of this mission. Their views and sympathies are as liberal as their possessions are worldwide and it is, therefore, that they have been able to establish an Empire over which the sun never sets. In the economy of providence there is always a fitness of things, an adaptation of means to ends; and if at this moment England leads the great powers of the world it is because she had eminently deserved her exalted position. And that position she will continue to occupy and to maintain as long as she does not descend from her high moral pedestal, and governs, the people committed to her care by providence not in the interests of the rulers but of the ruled. For ourselves we are fully sensible of the numerous boons we have received at her hands and our hearts overflow with gratitude.”

By looking at the aims of the Congress set down in his speech by Dyal Singh, one of the most independent-minded leaders of the time, one would be amazed at the great change in political outlook. What a comparison with the aspirations of the Indian National Congress today !

The Sardar said:

“What the Congress contends is not that the country should be transferred from English to Indian hands, — not the change of hands, for it would be entirely suicidal, but that the people should be governed on those broad and liberal principles which have been held by eminent British statesmen and administrators themselves to be most conducive to the interests of both the rulers and the subjects .... And let us trust that our rulers will not misunderstand our utterances, nor misjudge our actions but will be considerate and charitable towards us. Give us our just rights, concede our reasonable demands, govern us on principles of equity and good conscience and strengthen the foundations of the Empire by broadbasing it upon the people’s will.”

At the end of the session the President, Mr Dadabhai Naoroji, the Grand Old Man of India, praised Dyal Singh for his great work in the Congress. Indeed the session of 1893 at Lahore, had taken place largely through the interest and patronage of the Sardar. The address from which we have quoted above was widely reported and favourably commented upon by the newspapers all over India and even in some of the English papers. The session of 1893 did immense good to the younger generation in the Punjab. Liberal politics permeated all over the province and the feeling of nationalism gained ground. Dyal Singh continued to work actively for the Congress by propagating liberal views through the agency of The Tribune, which had become a very influential paper shortly after it came into existence in 1881.

Soon after the Lahore Congress session of 1893, the Sardar gave his attention increasingly to political questions which were beginning to assume importance. It is quite likely that if his life had been spared for a few years more, Dyal Singh would have played a prominent role in the political times which came soon after his death. It was inevitable that a man like him who was devoted to the cause of Reform and whose very breath was progress, should identify himself with the new thought and new movements of times. Men, who, in the restlessness of youth, start with a radical outlook on social and political questions, gradually settle down to a conservative attitude. In most cases hopes and aspirations, political programmes and social utopias, once burning with human energy and zest, cool down in the course of time. Dyal Singh, however, was cast in a different mould. With a generally poor health and a suffering body, he had an active and growing mind which always leapt forward to embrace new ideas. It was due to this unceasing intellectual zest and a continuous broadening of outlook that the Sardar anticipated forces which had to mature into movements in later ages. Though he was not a politician, yet we can trace a definite tendency towards serious attention to political problems, which were about to burst after his death, during the last few years of his life. In 1895 Dyal Singh wrote a small booklet in English on Nationalism. In the pamphlet the Sardar discussed, at length, national feeling with special reference to India’s needs. The book was registered under Act XXV of 1867, and copies were circulated among the members of the Congress, the members of the Indian Association and the friends and admirers of the Sardar. The booklet was widely appreciated. The Sardar continued to be the President of the Standing Committee of the Indian National Congress.

Lala Harkishen Lal gives a wonderful testimony to the Sardar’s grasp of public affairs in the following words :“ For a short time once I was asked to hold the charge of The Tribune as Editor. I had written to newspapers before but I had not tackled everyday incidents from the editorial chair before. When the Manager of The Tribune brought me a note to this effect from the Sardar, I had much hesitation but I was assured that the Sardar was willing to help me if I undertook the task. I agreed. I wrote some notes the following morning, took them to him and read out the same to him. His criticism and remarks showed me that he had followed the trend of public affairs more closely than an ordinary educated man does and especially, a Sardar; but I was surprised to find that he had also written for me or for The Tribune a few notes himself which he had handed over to me to be printed if I liked. I did let them go in the paper. They were much appreciated and I got the credit for them.”

Dyal Singh was also the first Chairman of the Indian Association, a liberal body of young and educated Punjabis, which came into existence in the eighties of the last century. The Sardar continued to guide the activities of this body till his death and his advice was generally useful to the Association. In 1897 Dyal Singh led a deputation of the Indian Association to present an address to His Honour Sir William Mackworth Young, the Lieutenant Governor of the Province.

It is very difficult to define Dyal Singh’s political opinions because he was not a politician in the modern sense of the term. There is no party label, no dogmatic political creed, no catch-word, for which the Sardar stood. To him politics were something subsidiary to reform and liberalism, the main interest of his life. Liberal aspirations, political or social, always thrilled him. But liberalism in his time was more needed in social fields than in the reconstruction of political systems. To Dyal Singh liberalism was the principle, reform was the programme; but the field was much vaster then and something transcending the petty political issues. He breathed the Reformers’ optimism, characteristic of the Victorian Age; he fought for justice through his newspaper whenever any wrongs came to light; he was intensely patriotic. But beyond that, his political thought did not go. In his politics Dyal Singh was the child of his age.

This article has been made up of extracts from the unforgettable book, “Dyal Singh Majithia — A Short Biographical Sketch,” written individually by two distinguished scholars, educationists and administrators in 1935.