EC’s exit problem
IN a clear and expected vote, the Supreme Court has stopped the Election Commission from banning publication of opinion and exit poll results in the media.

Motivated delay
THE agony of two Indian soldiers in Pakistan's illegal custody has been further prolonged because of the insistence of that country to release them only in the glare of international publicity.

Mayhem in Moscow
TWO bomb blasts in less than a week in multi-storey residential blocks in Moscow have claimed over 200 lives. The incidents have again highlighted the need for evolving a collective strategy for waging an effective war against global terrorism.

MILLENNIUM JITTERS
Holocaust or hiccups?
by Darshan Singh Maini
EVERSINCE the creation and man’s existential consciousness and despair in the face of all manner of imponderables, “prophets” of doom have been predicting the world’s “meltdown” — the moment, in short, of cease and reckoning.

DA yes, reforms no
by Arvind Bhandari
SO, with an eye on the general election, the ruling coalition has offered yet another lollipop to the Central Government employees in the form of an additional instalment of dearness allowance. But where are the administrative reforms, which are supposed to be a concomitant of such repetitive bonanzas?

She even breathes Gandhism
by Reeta Sharma
SHE wears her poise like an exquisite ornament of a woman. Her conversation flows like a quiet, genteel river through the woods. Often her face lights up.

‘Jinnah’ reopens old wounds in Pakistan
LONDON: Opponents of the film “Jinnah”, with Hollywood actor Christopher Lee playing Pakistan’s founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah, have sworn to raze theatres screening the film and attack its distributors when it is released next month, The Observer newspaper reported.

Tactics in air travel
by Mohinder Singh
WITH mass tourism and jumbo jets, packed planes and crowded airports, long-distance economy-class travel can turn out to be quite exhausting. Here are a few tactics—fair and unfair—which have the potential of easing your travel travails. The rest is left to luck.

75 Years Ago

Bombay police constable fired at
Alleged dacoit captured
BOMBAY: A sensation was caused on Queen’s Road and its vicinity this morning by the exploits of an upcountry robber who fired two revolver shots at the police constables who attempted to capture him while engaged in committing a dacoity at half past two this morning at the residence of a watchman of the Musalman cemetery.

EC’s exit problem

IN a clear and expected vote, the Supreme Court has stopped the Election Commission from banning publication of opinion and exit poll results in the media. The Tuesday order has merely postponed a verdict on this vital question, which as the Election Commission hopes, will now be taken up by the new Parliament and the liberal opinion at large. At the first glance, it would appear that the apex court has upheld the validity of these polls and also accepted their central role in the coverage of election news. This is the impression some media men have created in a self-serving fashion. The use and reliability of these sample surveys were not even an indirect issue in the legal battle which the Election Commission wanted to wage against the combined power of the media but in an unusually listless fashion. The point at dispute was whether the commission had the power under the Constitution to ask the media to fall in line. The court clearly doubts this and has told the commission to exercise such authority without seeking its (the court’s) support. Now the commission has only one option: to approach the media and use its considerable moral standing to refrain from interfering in the voter’s right of free choice. It can also reach out to the electorate to caution against placing undue reliance on the opinion or exit polls. In the past they have often turned out to be wrong and can be so in future also. In a society split and fragmented both horizontally and vertically, with political awareness coloured by extraneous considerations, a sample survey has to suffer from severe limitations. By giving the findings big play, the media is trying to promote the poll as information age oracles. The Election Commission hit the wrong road and missed the desirable destination.

Dr Bhaskar Rao, the doyen in this field, frankly admits that the findings of the poll can influence at least 10 per cent of the voters. These are the people who do not have strong political opinion but will like to be on the winning side. This can make a big difference in regions where a 5 per cent shift converts victory into defeat or the other way round. A greater danger lies in manipulating the findings. An interested party can hide behind the supposed neutrality of a newspaper or a television channel to so organise a survey as to prejudge the result in favour of the party it supports. This reality forces both political parties in the USA to employ an independent pollster of their own. One or two countries in Europe ban opinion polls during the days leading to the voting and in the USA exit poll results are aired only after the last vote is cast. Restrictions of some type thus become inevitable in a complex society like India and the current campaign ending in a four-phased polling has added to the problem. But a blanket ban is unworkable. Foreign television channels can be tapped to air the findings (conducting an exit poll is not illegal) or for the really curious the result can be put out in an Internet web site. These are not insurmountable problems and given the mischief potential of an unprofessional opinion poll, a national debate becomes imperative, leading hopefully to a degree of self regulation.

Motivated delay

THE agony of two Indian soldiers in Pakistan's illegal custody has been further prolonged because of the insistence of that country to release them only in the glare of international publicity. Obviously, Pakistan wants to make a spectacle out of the plight of the soldiers who had inadvertently strayed into Pakistani territory. Only Islamabad believes its argument that they were involved in an attack on a Pakistani position in the Shyok-Turtok sector near Siachen on August 29. In fact, the Pakistani insistence that they would be released through the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is in itself against military etiquette, tradition, custom and international norms. The ICRC comes into the picture only during the exchange of prisoners between two countries engaged in an armed conflict. Since that condition no longer exists between India and Pakistan, it is improper on the part of the latter not to hand them over to the Indian Army at a flag meeting at the LoC. Handing them to the ICRC amid the popping of flashbulbs is all the more detestable. This is a question of the dignity of the soldiers. Although Pakistan has had the dubious distinction of mutilating the bodies of the soldiers it captured during the Kargil conflict, there is no reason why it should continue to indulge in similar perfidy. This is the minimum it owes to Lance Naik Ram Singh and Jawan Bajinder Singh. It should not forget that the Indian soldiers went out of their way to give a decent burial to Pakistani soldiers killed during the intrusion, even at a great risk to their own lives. It is another matter that Pakistan refused to receive the bodies of some others.

That also brings one to the question of the fate of the four other Indian soldiers who were part of the six-member patrol team. Pakistan denies any knowledge about them although there are wide-spread apprehensions in India that this might not be the whole truth. If any Pakistani agency was involved in their disappearance, it would only worsen the relations between the two countries. Having a little bit of genuinely healthy relationship is far better than maintaining a façade of bonhomie. This lesson from the Kargil misadventure is imperative for the dirty tricks department in Islamabad or wherever it is located. Recent reports indicate that the Kargil intrusion was planned a long time back but was given up because the then Foreign Minister had argued that he would find it impossible to justify the action at international fora. It has been taking many similar steps which would be as, if not more, difficult to justify. The treatment meted out to captured soldiers is one of them.

Mayhem in Moscow

TWO bomb blasts in less than a week in multi-storey residential blocks in Moscow have claimed over 200 lives. The incidents have again highlighted the need for evolving a collective strategy for waging an effective war against global terrorism. Russian President Boris Yeltsin thought he was being profound when he said that “terrorists have declared war on us”. Of course, they have as is evident from the developments in Dagestan and Chechnya. In Almaty, Foreign Ministers from 16 countries pledged on Tuesday to strengthen peace and democracy in Central, South and West Asia. The relevance of the agenda for promoting peace and democracy adopted at Almaty should be seen in the broader context of ethnic and territorial conflicts,drug trading and growth of terrorism in the world’s most populous continent. To say that Russia is having to pay for the sins of the Soviet Union is to state the obvious. The Red March to Kabul in 1979 in many respects contributed more to the growth of terrorism in Asia than any other development in the past two decades. By a strange coincidence, the period when the Soviet tanks rolled into Afghanistan was also the period when the Islamic Revolution took place in neighbouring Iran. The global policeman — the USA —found in the likes of Saudi-born terrorist Osama bin Laden a two-in-one solution for the “Moscow red and Shia green” threat to its geo-political position in the region. The collapse of the Soviet Union may have provided comfort to the USA. But even it was caught unawares by the post-Cold War developments in Bosnia, Albania, Kosovo, Chechnya, Dagestan and other Central Asian republics.

As of today few nations can claim to have a clean record on the issue of combating global terrorism. Most of them continue not only to back but also to provide arms, training and money to mercenaries and at the same time join the chorus of condemnation of acts of terrorism from global platforms. The Almaty conference was no different. Every nation supported the pledge for promoting peace and democracy in Asia and yet Iran objected to the presence of Israel and Pakistan, as usual, claimed that the Kashmir issue was a stumbling block to the establishment of peace in the sub-continent. Afghanistan continues to be in the evil hands of those who were hired by the USA for driving out the Soviets and for keeping a hostile eye on Iran. The futility of organising conferences like the one in Almaty was exemplified by the presence of Afghanistan, the single most potent source of spreading terrorism in the region, which too committed itself to promoting peace and democracy at the global level. It is becoming increasingly clear that the brotherhood of global terrorism is far more united in implementing its agenda than the brotherhood of civil society represented by the US-controlled United Nations. The solution for stamping out global terrorism is simple. Terrorists cannot survive without the money to buy sophisticated weapons. The money for buying arms is provided to them by international drug cartels. All that the global community has to do is to attack just one of the three sources of strife in the world — drugs, arms and terrorism. If it could concentrate all its energy on destroying the well-entrenched drug cartels, it would automatically also achieve the objective of breaking the backbone of global terrorism and making the sale of illegal arms less attractive. But one reason why drug cartels and arms merchants are usually not being touched is because they are also in the business of funding domestic politics. Terrorists are mere pawns in their hands.

MILLENNIUM JITTERS
Holocaust or hiccups?
by Darshan Singh Maini

EVERSINCE the creation and man’s existential consciousness and despair in the face of all manner of imponderables, “prophets” of doom have been predicting the world’s “meltdown” — the moment, in short, of cease and reckoning. Many a world scripture and many a book of sermon could be cited as evidence, not to speak of the science fiction scenarios which could trigger “the imagination of disaster”, to recall a Jamesian phrase, and thus cause moral miasma, spiritual chaos, and a sense of the breakdown of God’s machinery. Even more serious scientists of the modern times have been talking of the slow extinction of the human species, and of the withering away of the world into total oblivion. The concept, for instance, of neotony maps out “the progressive juvenilisation” of man — a reverse evolutionary phenomenon. This doomsday literature, therefore, has a hoary past, though despite such thunderous omens, Adam and Eve have managed not only to survive, but to have created a most wondrous hum and buzz of life.

And now just as we approach the year 2000, the tribe of doomsday scribes, particularly in “God’s own country”, have started the Great Game on a scale that could put the fear of God, and of brimstone and hell in all simple hearts and souls. And the name of the game, so to speak, is Y2K or the computer “bug” that’s going to cause a terrifying “glitch” in and around all computer communities. The computers of today are primed for the last two digits: 99, and despite some brave announcements, a total solution is nowhere in sight yet. So, watch out the midnight hours of December 31, 1999, when the millennium revelries may turn suddenly into a holocaust, and you may wake up (if, at all) into a mess of unimaginable horrors!

Let me confess at the start that I have remained computer “shy” despite its obvious blandishments. Even a “lapdog” that could hug and help launch a dream of words couldn’t take my fancy. The trusted manual typewriter and later (since my illness) the long faithful hand, were always good enough for me. The feel of the pen and the white virginal sheet still produces a certain kind of warmth and intimacy, if not a frission! So, I feel secure since the computer “bug” has no direct access to me. But as the computer-fed paranoids would say, the problem is not personal; you could still be in a doomsday ditch, for somewhere the computer touches your life — outside in the wide, wide world of the maker man. Even in God-forsaken countries, telephones, electricity, water-supply, banking and what not — all, all could plague every Jack and Jill, every sage and savant! So, we are willy-nilly all in the same egg-shell basket, though in “the developing countries”, one could still manage to remain afloat somehow. Our “god of small things” would still be benign enough to feed the flock!

Coming to the American scene which I often find painted in dark shades — in these top magazines, TV shows, and in the latest doomsday volumes — I find myself returning suddenly to the Hiroshima-Nagasaki fiery holocaust of 1945, and the books that came out in a rash for years to come. The Americans, “Pioneers of the new Eden”, had given mankind some blinding flashes and vision of the shape of things to come! The biblical words had become “flesh” in nuclear bombs.

More pertinently, my memory of such moments has a literary hinterland. H.G. Wells’s swan song “Mind at the End of Its Tether (1945) which I picked up from a Simla second-hand book shop for a song (heavily priced in sterling, otherwise) had predicted that, like trospero’s fanciful “brave new world”, the world of God would soon go clean out of existence “leaving not a wrack behind!” Well, the world keeps bustling and bursting out at the seams, even as the British savant-novelist’s bones have turned into dust, and his forebodings gone awry.

Musing thus, I return to W.B. Yeats’s famous poem of 1919, “The Second Coming” and its frightening pictures and images of “the Anti-Christ” in the form of a slouching wild “beast” of prey. That’s the kind of language which the doomsday evangelists have always used, and which is still a theological tender. Yeats’s massive, nerve-shaking image was, in reality, a memorable metaphor for the forces of evil and insensate hatred which had seized the corporate imagination of the European communities after World War I. And that terror compounded by the Nazi rhetoric and holocaust has left residues of its venomous virus in the veins of fascist racists wherever they live or surface.

No wonder, then, the more Bible-driven zealots and the more timid in the USA are stockpiling everything — from cold-cuts and condoms to generators and water-pouches, and a few nutty ones have retreated to mountain hideouts and built shelters. The silicon chip seems to have rendered quite a few silly and small. The great computer revolution which had changed the mental map of the new generations is being seen by such souls as the devil’s own handiwork. A hysterical response is being created to promote cults of cranks and fakes and freaks.

However, as we can see, no such traumas are even an imaginative possibility in our part of the world. The immemorial India, in any case can take it all — the “bug” and the nasty business in its long metaphysical stride even if some “glitches” may cause annoyance. That’s perhaps the ironic privilege of the poor and the depressed of the world.

To cap it all, some researchers and theologians are now beginning to add new doubts to the continuing tamasha. It’s being suggested that the year of Jesus Christ’s birth is itself now a subject of much controversy. Thus the millennium may, in reality, be already over, or behind us — or ahead by several years! So all this fuss and pother is getting sillier and sillier by the day, and the jitters may end up in tilters on the dreaded day! Who except God knows when the theatre of life is going to be folded up, and that particle of dust called man — the most dangerous particle on earth, as a wit put it — is going to be put to eternal sleep? No holocaust then on the midnight hour of the last day of 1999, but only a flurry of hiccups — and a bonfire of doomsday literature!

DA yes, reforms no
by Arvind Bhandari

SO, with an eye on the general election, the ruling coalition has offered yet another lollipop to the Central Government employees in the form of an additional instalment of dearness allowance. But where are the administrative reforms, which are supposed to be a concomitant of such repetitive bonanzas?

The Fifth Pay Commission report remains relevant even today. The 1600-page tome is divided into 172 chapters of which 33 pertain to the entire gamut of much-needed administrative reforms. In fact, the Commission’s generous recommendations about payscales have validity only if they are viewed in the context of this larger frame of reference.

Leaders of newly independent India blindfoldedly adopted a colonial type of administration. Over the last 50 years no attempt has been made to reform the antiquated administrative system and bring it in line with the needs of a developing nation. The voluminous report of the earlier Administrative Reforms Commission has also been gathering dust for the last three decades.

The result is that today the Indian administration is riddled with inefficiency, unaccountability, secrecy, insensitivity and, of course, corruption. Administrative tardiness has retarded the country’s economic progress and also caused much harassment to the average citizen. Bureaucracies have never enjoyed a high reputation anywhere in the world, but the extraordinary perniciousness of the Indian administrative juggernaut makes it among the most intolerable on the face of the globe.

The Central Government should initiate administrative changes without further delay. But it can be safely predicted that this will not be done. Meaningful administrative reforms require tremendous political will, which cannot be expected of a government run by hydraheaded monstrosities, whose sense of security is no better than that of a daily-wage worker. Substantial pay hikes unaccompanied by administrative reforms are tantamount to pampering of government employees, who are already derided by the suffering populace as sons-in-law (or daughters-in-law) of the government.

The army of under-employed babus — which has increased from 4.4 lakh in 1948 to 41 lakh at present — should be cut by 30 per cent over the next one decade. As a first step, the 3.5 lakh posts currently lying vacant should be abolished. The mentality that it is the duty of the Government to provide jobs to people, which is a hangover of the “mai-baap” syndrome of the colonial days, should be jettisoned. Government service is meant for carrying on the business of governance and not generating employment.

In recommending substantial pay hikes for Central Government employees the Commission has aimed at some kind of horizontal parity with the skyrocketing salaries in the private sector. But this would only have proper justification if the foolproof security of service enjoyed by government employees were to be removed. There is need to evolve a system whereby inefficient government employees are shunted out in the event of demonstrable non-performance, as happens in the private sector.

At present, files move sluggishly through a labyrinthine jungle even for the purpose of taking minor decisions. The Commission has rightly recommended that no file should be required to move through more than three hierarchical levels for a decision to be taken. This would lessen file-pushing, quicken decision-making and promote accountability.

The Commission has recommended enactment of Right to Information Act, establishment of a National Election Fund as well as an anti-corruption agency having an independent constitutional status (we have been talking about the Lok Pal) and introduction of a Citizens Charter. These steps would address concerns like lack of transparency, spread of corruption and absence of people-friendliness.

The pre-eminence given by the Commission to the IAS has caused much resentment. This is because the IAS as constituted at present is a completely flawed concept. Beyond recommending a separate examination for the IAS, the Commission has failed to go into the question of reform of this superior service. The IAS comprises generalists who rule the roost despite their ignorance of the subjects they are supposed to deal with.

The IAS should be divided into seven streams — agriculture, engineering, finance, health, education, art and culture and accounts. Candidates competing for any of these seven streams should be academically qualified in that particular subject. Those who emerge successful should work only in their selected stream. An IAS officer would thus not only be a high-level competitioner but also a specialist.

Tactics in air travel
by Mohinder Singh

WITH mass tourism and jumbo jets, packed planes and crowded airports, long-distance economy-class travel can turn out to be quite exhausting.

Here are a few tactics—fair and unfair—which have the potential of easing your travel travails. The rest is left to luck.

At check-ins, it’s common to encounter several long lines. And as everyone knows, whatever line you are in, will always be the slowest. Correctly gauging the “slowness rating” of people standing in a line is an art which can come from years of experience.

Travellers with one bag are generally faster. Not only because they have one bag to check in but it also indicates their ability to be better organised.

Inexperienced travellers are generally slower. You can recognise such people from the way they carry their tickets, passports, etc, in a large document folder. They talk excitedly in the line, their luggage is new or of monstrous size, and they keep looking at their watches when there is still an hour to go before the flight.

If you are travelling two, one technique is to wait in separate lines. The one who gets in first to the front can check in the other.

If you’re minded to jump queues, better do so in front of a group. Groups tend to be inward looking and so the people in the forward part of the group will have their back to the front of the line. They are less likely to notice a queue jumper.

When the flight attendants come round with the drinks trolley, the best thing is to ask for just water. Water is the most efficient way to counter dehydration caused by dry cabin air; no other drink is 100 per cent water.

As water is often not carried on a drinks trolley, the attendant would go muttering to the galley to get it. Meanwhile you can help yourself to a few extra packages of peanuts—enough to stay alive till the meals service.

Much of the adventure of airline eating (there’s none in the quality of food) is in trying to remove various food items from their packages without spilling all over.

For an inexperienced traveller, the cellophane packet containing cutlery and napkin presents the first hurdle. You are supposed to slide the packet vertically down over the knife until the top of the packet is pierced. Tearing off lids from cup-like containers of liquid can be quite a risky undertaking.

And what about managing all those discards within the limited confines of the tray? One strategy is to put them away in the seat pocket in front—a practice frowned upon by airlines. Another is to take the air sickness bag out and load it with wrappers and lids.

A small sign that is missed by most inexperienced passengers is there in front of each section which lights up. “Toilets Aft Occupied”, when there are no free toilets at the rear of the section.

For a really free run to the toilet in a chokingly full plane, you may have to employ the strategy of heading there during mealtimes or when the seatbelt sign comes on. To some people it appears an impossible proposition to get up with their finished food tray in front. Yet the manoeuvre can be executed if you lift the tray steady by a foot and neatly squeeze yourself out of an aisle seat.

As to the seatbelt sign, you should be able to interpret whether it is for serious turbulence or more for the convenience of attendants in serving food.

Nowadays in partially filled planes, the airlines cram all passengers together in the front of each section. That way flight attendants are saved on steps to take, and passengers don’t get restive seeing a mass of empty seats. This practice, however, has opened up a window of opportunity for comfortable sleep by those willing to take advantage of empty rear seats.

When you gauge from the gathering in the departure lounge that the flight is going to be partially empty, immediately head for the back on entering the plane. Choose an empty centre row, lift all the armrests, and lie down as if sick or asleep. Even those occasional folks who have assigned seats in the row could be put off by the spectacle, and may choose to sit elsewhere when other seats are empty nearby.

Never volunteer anything. Only speak in answer to an official’s questions. Answer all questions briefly. Never try to be funny with them or complain about their procedures. Look the officers in the eye: passport and customs staff usually put great store in the eyes, as if they can read a traveller’s soul through his eyes.

She even breathes Gandhism

by Reeta Sharma

SHE wears her poise like an exquisite ornament of a woman. Her conversation flows like a quiet, genteel river through the woods. Often her face lights up.

Dr Rashmi Sudha Puri is no firebrand. Fire or another form of violent expression cannot be associated with her. That’s because she has consciously imbibed a legacy which grooms you to be cool and calm. This legacy is none other than that of non-violence. Yes, she is a Gandhian. For the past 30 years, she has been breathing only Gandhism, which has left an indelible mark on her personality.

As honorary Director of Gandhi Bhavan, Prof Rashmi Puri is Reader in the Department of Gandhian Studies, Panjab University. She was sent on deputation for three years (1996-99) by the Government of Mauritius to be Chairperson of Gandhian Studies. She also visited Canada, Thailand, Germany and UK in connection with seminars and research projects besides teaching assignments in the USA.

During a recent tete-a-tete, asked whether she thought if Mahatma Gandhi was a super-human being?

She replied no. He was a super-human but, of course, a superior human being. But he never stopped growing, which eventually enabled him to rise above fellow human beings. In this process of learning, he was like any other student, having personal fads, likes and dislikes.

Q: Both in retrospect and times to come what is the essence of Gandhiji?

A: In retrospect, he displayed a commitment to certain universal values like truth, fearlessness, detachment and non-possession. His sense of conviction made him a rebel against discrimination and inequality. This was yet another profound aspect of his character. The universe will have to realise one day that non-violence has to be the law of peaceful life. It amply proved its relevance in the days gone by and would remain so. The human race will take its own time to learn the essence of Gandhiji.

Q: How do you view the Mahatma’s role towards his wife, Kasturba? Don’t you think he was largely unfair to her keeping in mind the incident when he forced her to remove the excrement of a foreigner?

A: I said that he was no super-human being. Also let us not forget that he was the product of a feudal society. He grew with a certain mind-set of those times, which gets rejected in this particular incident. But you cannot deny that he soon shed his initial conditioning of mind and eventually displayed his respect for Kasturba saying: “She was my Guru in teaching me tolerance”.

Q: As a social scientist studying Gandhiji for such long years, do you think it has made a difference in your life?

A: Yes, of course. Studying the Mahatma has certainly made an enormous difference in life. It’s through him one learnt that we are equal. He was ridden with a passion for social change which made him a post-modernist. His complete faith in goodness to achieve noble ends left a tremendous impression on anyone.

Q: What are your experiences as a daughter, wife and a mother?

A: We were four sisters. While our brother was always showered with extra attention, we four, nevertheless, were not denied love and equal opportunity. Our parents educated us all in the best institutions of our time. As a wife, my husband married me without any dowry at all. In fact there is a hilarious incident in this regard. My husband told me that he would prefer simple clothes on me. I took him literally and got pastel-cotton suits stitched for my marriage. So when relatives and friends came to see his newly married wife, they ended up asking me, “where is the bride?” Anyway, he treated me as his equal and never stopped me from pursuing professional goals.

Q: What has been your experience as a woman right from your childhood?

A: Fortunately, I never had to live with self-pity. As a daughter, wife, colleague, I have faced situations and incidents which most men also face. Even my mother-in-law never ill-treated me. In fact, I have to acknowledge that she provided me priceless support. My children were safe and happy under her supervision, when I went to teach at the university. But I know most women are faced with discrimination, exploitation and hardship.

Q: Do you think the western outlook had influenced our psyche?

A: Yes, to some extent, especially in the educated class of women. For instance, women’s study groups have done tremendous work to sensitise people on the gender bias and other issues related to women. However, of late, their approach is turning Western. But the two have no meeting point. For instance, the Indian woman is associated with the home and family. Even today the working woman is emotionally attached to the concept of a family. So instead of sensitising our society in this regard, we are glamorising independent family units with an individualistic approach towards life. In the West they have already lost the concept of a well-knit family and are faced with broken homes, lonely old people and deserted children growing with distorted psyche.

Q: How do you view dowry issue in our society?

A: It’s the parents of the girl who are to be blamed for this menace. They do not give equal education and opportunities to their daughters, besides equal share in their property. If your daughter and a son are both professionals, drawing an equal salary, then you would give her dowry not on demand from the boy but as her right. Today dowry is slowly getting substituted with the girl’s professional status. But we have a long way to go, especially when the number of uneducated and poor is high. It is this class where parents “are in hurry to get rid of their daughters”. They need to make their daughters economically independent, before looking for a match.

‘Jinnah’ reopens old wounds in Pakistan
India Abroad News Service

LONDON: Opponents of the film “Jinnah”, with Hollywood actor Christopher Lee playing Pakistan’s founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah, have sworn to raze theatres screening the film and attack its distributors when it is released next month, The Observer newspaper reported.

The paper said an Urdu daily has run a sustained campaign against the film, calling the actresses in it “prostitutes,” NNI news agency reported. Quoting the daily’s editor, the paper said he claims to be “a law abiding man” but feels the film was “deeply objectionable” and ought to be stopped. Others have denounced the film as a “Hindu and Zionist plot.”

Mian Azhar Amin, NNI’s Lahore bureau chief, said he would launch violent protest outside cinema theatres and against those involved in the film project. “Either they will die or I will die,” he said.

Opponents of the film, the brainchild of Cambridge-based Pakistani academic Akbar S Ahmed, say it fails to show sufficient respect to Jinnah, the London-trained lawyer who in effect forced Britain to give Indian Muslims their own homeland in 1947.

The paper said Jinnah has a near-mythical status in Pakistan. “The life story of the ‘Quaid-e-Azam’ (Great Leader) is a key part to the curriculum for every school child, portraits of him hang in every school, military mess and office and the smallest towns have streets and squares named after him,” it said.

The paper said much of the controversy has focussed on the choice of Lee, 77, famous for his roles as Dracula in Hammer horror films, to play Jinnah.

“Many Pakistanis are concerned that a white Western actor, particularly one with Lee’s background, will make Jinnah a figure of ridicule. But much of the criticism has been deflected by Lee’s performance — he is flying to Brazil next month to pick up an award for the film,” The Observer said.

The controversy, it said, is focussed instead on scenes in the film which hardliners — both secular and religious — say are either indecent, un-Islamic or ‘un-Pakistani’.

“A scene that features Jinnah in tears over the violence that rocked the subcontinent when India and Pakistan split has caused particular outrage. The critics believe that if Jinnah is crying for the victims of the killings at Partition, he is crying over the formation of Pakistan,” the paper said, “That apparently is unpatriotic,” film-maker Ahmed said last week.

“Hardliners have also taken issue with scenes that show Jinnah’s wife collapsed on a bed wearing a skirt. Though she is dying of cancer and morphine has left her unconscious, the scene has been criticised as indecent,” the paper said.

75 YEARS AGO

September 16, 1924
Bombay police constable fired at
Alleged dacoit captured

BOMBAY: A sensation was caused on Queen’s Road and its vicinity this morning by the exploits of an upcountry robber who fired two revolver shots at the police constables who attempted to capture him while engaged in committing a dacoity at half past two this morning at the residence of a watchman of the Musalman cemetery.

The shots missed the mark. The robber was eventually captured. On search, he was found to be in possession of a seven-chambered revolver and 24 cartridges.