The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Jaya gets reprieve

HIGH Court judgements do not attract nationwide attention, not when their effect is to clear political heavyweights of the taint of corruption. Leaders walking out legally unscathed in much publicised graft cases provoke a yawn on the analogy of a dog biting man. But the Madras verdict, described by a respected newspaper as “dramatic”, quashing a criminal case against AIADMK supremo and former Chief Minister Jayalalitha has done precisely that and because of a combination of reasons.One, experts have declared it an “open and shut case”, an American expression to say that conviction is inescapable. Now the Judge has thrown out the chargesheet itself — that is, before hearing could commence — as lacking in evidence and the case as not being based on prima facie grounds. In other words, he feels that there is no case since there is no violation of any law and the facts and documents the prosecution has relied on are not worthy of any consideration. Reading and re-reading the brief summaries published in newspapers, it is clear that the Judge, Justice Thangaraj, has given Ms Jayalalitha the full benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he believes that political decision-makers deserve maximum leniency in interpreting the law of corruption. Thus his two telling points. A Chief Minister can acquire his or her government-owned property and this does not violate the bar imposed by the IPC. Two, she and her business partner bought the land and buildings of the Tamil Nadu Small Industries Corporation (Tansi) for Rs 6 crore in an open auction and hence there was nothing fraudulent about it. But the prosecution charge is that the property was grossly undervalued and the state government lost Rs 3.5 crore in the process. The judgement, at least the reported summary, is silent on this. The property is in Chennai and should command a huge price and Ms Jayalalitha functioned as the sole leader of the government and given her known impatience with dissent or opposition, it is highly unlikely that any genuine buyer would have entered the bidding in opposition to the mighty Chief Minister. The judgement is again silent on this.

The crash and collapse of a corruption case, touted as an airtight one, has naturally spread dismay in anti-Jaya circles and jubilation among her partymen and supporters. It is a stunning political setback for the ruling DMK which had made the corruption cases the central point of its programme. She is one of those few leaders who attract the admiration and antipathy of people in equal measure. Another reason for surprise is the Judge’s attitude to bureaucrats. In another case decided on the same day he blasted a former Chief Secretary and a former chairman of the state Electricity Board. He held them responsible for the import of substandard coal, the first for not acting on the adverse noting by a junior and the second for hurrying with the import although the decision was taken by his predecessor. Interestingly, he has absolved the former Chief Minister in the same case by remarking that there is no record to show that she had read the same critical note. Another source of amazement is that the two judgements go against the recent trend in the state. One former Minister has been jailed and fined for “amassing” wealth valued at Rs 33.72 lakhs. An MLA has been jailed for seven years and asked to pay Rs 1 lakh for owning assets worth Rs 2.35 crore. A few months back a former Electricity Minister was sentenced to a prison term in neighbouring Kerala, all three cases have raised hopes that the judiciary is finally cracking down on political corruption. One eminent Judge has now written a dissenting note. That explains the excitement across the nation.

Is Pak offer genuine?

VERY few people will take seriously what Ms Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan's Ambassador to the USA, said on Monday in the course of an interview with CNN. She used the occasion to declare that her country was prepared to resume the dialogue with India that got snapped following the Kargil crisis. She has floated an idea called Track-II. This means that as part of Track-I, India and Pakistan should pick up the thread of dialogue from where they had left it earlier and resolve all the issues spoiling their relations. Track-II involves third party intercession, which she justifies by arguing that the reality of intense antagonism between India and Pakistan will prevent them from ushering in an era of peace and friendship in this part of the globe in the new century. The Track-II approach, in her opinion, will bring about the desired improvement in the quality of life of more than one billion people living in the region. And Pakistan is "willing" to restart the peace process without any preconditions. On the face of it, the approach sounds fair, though India will be totally opposed to third party intercession. The basic requirement, however, is the atmosphere for dialogue which is missing because of the machinations of Islamabad. Pakistan rulers do not show genuine willingness for developing friendly relations with India. They are, perhaps, scared that such a situation will jeopardise their own politico-economic and religious interests. Hence their efforts to keep alive the tension in the area. This has been the reality throughout the period since the birth of Pakistan.

How else does one look at the Kargil intrusion which destroyed the congenial atmosphere for lessening the tension in the region created by the Lahore bus diplomacy on Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's initiative? Or, why should the rulers in Islamabad spend their energies on perpetuating the proxy war in Jammu and Kashmir? Why should they involve themselves in acts like the recent hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane or printing of fake Indian currency notes? The truth is that Pakistan is not genuinely interested in improving relations with India. What Ms Lodhi has said is meant only for diplomatic consumption. One would stop doubting Pakistan's intentions if it first generates the atmosphere necessary for initiating the kind of dialogue the journalist-turned-ambassador talks of. Saying something and doing exactly opposite of it will not do.

Leased out airports

THE recent escalator incident in which an innocent girl lost her life at the Delhi airport has been only the last straw. Air travellers would testify that all airports of the country have been run worse than bus stands for donkey's years, with even elementary services scarce. The confusion, corruption and mismanagement prevalent there are legion, qualifying them to be among the worst in the world. All attempts to operate them professionally have been frustrated by vested interests. The government's decision to lease out the upkeep of five airports - Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta, Chennai and Bangalore - is born out of that frustration. The "in-principle" decision is in keeping with the recommendations of the Prime Minister's task force on infrastructure. It is rather bold because the previous BJP-led government had cleared corporatisation of select airports. The lease route indicates that the government is keen on quicker results, because corporatisation would have taken years if not decades. It presupposes that handing the airports over to private sector for 30 to 59 years would free these from the clutches of the red tape. However, that seems unlikely because even the government itself does not seem too keen to loosen the strings. The old mindset that it is the government's prerogative to operate everything from bread factories to cultural organisations --- how much so ever inefficiently --- has not changed one bit, so much so that when this decision was taken, the Civil Aviation Minister was not even ready to disclose the names of the airports which were to be privatised. If at all the government actually agrees to do the unthinkable, one can be sure that it would still find a million ways to interfere in the functioning. After all, it has to cater to innumerable VIPs who want to use the airports as their personal fiefdom. Nor does the Airports Authority of India look over-eager to shed its powers and clout.

Now that the first step has been taken, it is necessary to continue taking the logical next ones. But there are pitfalls already. Employee unions have stepped in to castigate the decision. Their concern, as usual, is about their job security and salaries. The modalities of the lease terms have yet to be worked out but the powerful unions have already concluded that the government is putting everything precious of the country on sale, at rent much lower than the one it should ordinarily command. How glorious had been their role in preserving the crown jewels of the country? How much was the country getting out of the massive investment so far? These are the questions which none of them likes to answer. The fact of the matter is that the government just does not have the resources for taking care of modernisation, maintenance and upgrading that all airports require urgently. Just look at the mess that takes place whenever there is fog in Delhi. One hopes that the committee constituted by the Civil Aviation Ministry comprising its own officials and those of the AAI will be able to come up with a suitable formula and the country will be able to find right investors. While evaluating the merit or otherwise of the leasing out decision, the touchstone should be the services offered to the paying public and the security of the nation. What must be kept in mind is that airports are not run for the sake of keeping some people in employment but to provide reasonably good service to the public. That, unfortunately, has been conspicuous by its absence for more than five decades now.

WOMEN'S RESERVATION BILL
Male chauvinism at its worst
by P.K. Palli

THE first world conference of women held in Mexico about 25 years back and the second one in Beijing in 1995 devoted concentrated attention to the plight of women. The status-paper — a basic document — prepared by the Department of Women and Child Welfare in the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) to be presented before the Beijing Conference recounted at length the unenviable position of women in India.

One can call it only unfortunate that during the five decades of India’s independence little has been done for the development and uplift of our female citizens who roughly constitute 50 per cent of Indian electorate. All our unending talk about changing social attitudes towards women, therefore, remains platitudinous gimmickry and women have remained just a marginal force.

It is amazing that in a country like India where the highest object of worship is in the feminine form, crime against women should have assumed such alarming proportions. There is a crime against the fair sex committed every six minutes, as per the information released by the Crime Record Bureau of the Home Ministry. These crimes include rape, molestation, cruelty by the husband or relatives apart from dowry deaths. Most of these cases are reported from rural areas where the literacy level is low and the women are unaware of their rights. Several victims do not lodge a complaint, apprehending a social stigma.

Such has been the state of women at the social level. At the economic level, the situation is no better. The reconstruction of economy in the past decades has marginalised them within the work force. Almost 90 per cent of women in employment are marginal workers and thus outside the purview of progressive labour laws. Not only are the wages poor but the women are also not covered under any social, protective schemes like provident fund or maternity leave. In most of the families headed by women, poverty is stark.

In the organised sector, of the 26.8 millions employed, the number of women is just 3.8 million. Of these 2.4 million or 62 per cent are in the public sector and only 1.4 million in the private sector.

The government has announced a number of employment and income generating schemes, like the Jawahar Rozgar Yojna, Integrated Rural Development Programme, loan schemes etc. But none of these has changed the poverty profile of our women. They continue to be harassed whether at home or at work.

In view of this painful reality, it has been rightly emphasised that the rights of women can be safeguarded only if they are empowered at all levels.

There are areas where women need no props from men. In the university or competitive exams, they score on the strength of their own academic credentials. In a large number of cases, they score top positions. And here they need no reservations or quotas. However, in the areas which have remained the exclusive domain of men, they need some kind of mechanism whereby, particularly, the knowledgeable among them could be encouraged to participate in the decision-making bodies. This mechanism came through the seventythird constitutional amendment Act on Panchayati Raj which provided for reservation of not less than one-third of seats with regard to both membership and chairpersonship in all the Panchayati Raj institutions for women.

However, when it comes to giving representation to women in the legislative bodies, we experience road blocks like we did on July 13, 1998, when the Bill was slated to be introduced in the Lok Sabha. In fact this day will go down in history as the day of grand betrayal. Snatching the Bill from the hands of the Minister concerned and removing it from the table of the Speaker by an elected member of Parliament was a naked display of vandalism and has rightly put a question mark on the ruling party’s ability to govern. The Bill has been brought again before the House after obtaining consensus, announced the party in power. What kind of consensus were they looking for when every political party had included such a representation to women in its election manifesto? The attitude of our leadership has shown male chauvinism at its worst and , at work, a mindset which has been fashioned on “manusmriti”. Centuries have rolled by but in the murky depths of man’s unconscious, women still stands as no more than a doll to play with, an object of pleasure, a commodity to be called as and when needed. Let us quote Manu, the sage, the lawgiver to the decadent Hindus:

“Men must make their women dependant day and night and keep under their own control ..... A woman is not fit to live independently.”

So, the sordid happenings in Parliament were no more than a telling illustration of that mindset which just refuses to see women as anything other than a mere household item.

Since the proposed Bill has again been moved the scenes in Parliament are again the same. It needs be seen how best we can make it move. It was painful to see Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee saying that ugly incidents during two days in the House over the Bill had lowered the image and dignity of the highest legislative forum. Our Parliamentarians should know and realise that the whole nation watches their act and conduct both in the House as well as outside it. They are required to conduct themselves in a dignified manner. Otherwise the nation will not forgive them. The Bill, it appears, is not acceptable to the male members in its present form because it envisages reservation of constituencies. Psychologically, every member of a Vidhan Sabha or Lok Sabha fears that his constituency may not be reserved for a woman. So, his opposition to the Bill is dictated by the instinct for survival. The demand from certain quarters for a caste based reservation is to create confusion and to have the entire exercise stalled so as to perpetuate male monopoly over politics.

If our political parties have been vying with one another, for all these 50 years, to pamper, one backward community which does not consist of more than 2 per cent of our total electorate, it is in the interest of these political parties to see reason and care for women who are 50 per cent of our electorate.

(The writer is a retired High Court Judge)

Hijack drama: USA and its media
by R.A. Singh

THE high drama of the Christmas eve hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane en route from Kathmandu to New Delhi and its subsequent hop, skip and jump from Pakistan, to West Asia to Kandahar in Afghanistan riveted headlines and television screens in the USA for a number of days. There was heightened interest because this was not seen as a run of the mill takeover of a commercial flight. The media told the American public that the situation was rife with dire possibilities because it contained an explosive mixture: Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, and the hair trigger of Kashmir over which the two nations had already fought more than once.

The hijacking was an even more intense preoccupation for the million-plus NRIs in America. In addition to a degree of inevitable concern over the fate of the hostages, the one-week drama sparked animated conversation at Indian restaurants, kaffeeklatsches and cocktail parties. Many were the allegations made about the inept handling of the crisis by leaders of the BJP-led government. Many of the charges were true, but some were clearly triggered by partisan prejudices; others were embroidered for the listeners’ entertainment and amusement.

There is no gainsaying the fact that the media can play an important role in any hijacking or hostage situation. The hijackers depend on and try to exploit the media. Media organisations thus have an added responsibility to ensure that they are not led by the nose to disseminate information planted by the high-flying hijackers or their backers on the ground. And this was where the Western media in general, and the US media in particular, came a cropper. They regularly ladled out propaganda put out by the hijackers and their patrons. An early example was when most news outlets went along with an agency report that the hijackers were Sikhs. The gratuitous slur on the Sikh community understandably enraged its members who protested vociferously, but as in all such cases, the damage had already been done.

The big newspapers in the USA are ensconced in the integuments of 21st century electronic packaging, but such sophistication is not matched by the accuracy of their news reports. The crusading instinct has become extinct no less because scribes have come to believe that freedom of the Press is an immutable right handed down to them by providence. Thus, they keep pontificating on things they least understand. They describe the hijackers as freedom fighters, struggling to liberate Kashmir from “Hindu” India. They describe Masood Azhar, head and chief ideologue of the Pakistan-based Harkat-ul Mujahideen (listed as a terrorist organisation by the State Department), as a pious cleric. They insist on describing the Government of India as a “nationalist Hindu government” which is akin to referring to the US Administration as a “Christian super power.” And although India was clearly the victim in the hijack drama, the media here found it hard to rise above old habits of being even-handed between India and Pakistan. The reports hardly gave their readers a balanced view of what was going on.

Some much-needed perspective on why the USA should declare Pakistan a terrorist nation was offered by India’s Ambassador Naresh Chandra while speaking at a panel discussion on terrorism organised by the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies on January 6. The Ambassador pointed to the folly of viewing the hijacking as an India-Pakistan affair. “India should not be put in the unique position of being the prosecutor,” he said. “Today it is India, tomorrow it could be someone else.”

The Ambassador also gave his mostly American audience some irrefutable facts about Pakistan’s involvement in the spread of terrorism: The Harkat-ul Mujahideen, spawned and nurtured in Pakistan, under its various other names, had operated in the Philippines during the Pope’s visit; it had been involved in the abduction of people of various nationalities; it had hit the World Trade Centre and the CIA headquarters; it had also issued “jihad” statements against not only India, but also against some powerful nations.

The hijacking was not carried out by a bunch of amateurs driven by religious or ethnic fervour. They were well-trained and equipped with all the technological expertise needed for the evil deed. They had access to trained personnel and intelligence assets at Kathmandu airport. It is well-known that the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence wing, has been developing such intelligence assets in Nepal for quite some time.

The Ambassador also referred to the perpetrator of a previous hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane that had been forced to fly to Lahore. The passengers and crew had been released after a great deal of media-covered dramatics.

The principal hijacker gave an interview to an Australian newspaper during the height of the recent hijacking, in which he openly admitted that he had been recruited and trained by the ISI to hijack the Indian aircraft.

In the latest incident, the hijackers would only communicate through the pilot — except in Lahore, where they had no hesitation in speaking to the authorities. When the plane was proceeding towards Dubai after refuelling in Lahore, the Air Traffic Control in Lahore sent a message informing the hijackers that they could land in Kandahar. Such tender, loving care for the hijackers of a commercial airliner by the airport authorities in Lahore is bizarre, to say the least.

All the above makes a prima facie case, even under the stringent US law, to determine that Pakistan was a terrorist state. But the Clinton Administration is obviously wearing blinkers and has difficulty is absorbing all the circumstantial evidence. It kept asking for hard evidence, such as confessions and photographic proof, which are inherently impossible to come by.

The see-no-evil syndrome with regard to Pakistan is hardly new for Washington. For several years, Presidents Reagan and Bush kept the Pressler Amendment at bay by certifying that Pakistan was not pursuing a nuclear weapons programme, despite credible intelligence information that it was. The political myopia had then been caused by the need to cultivate Pakistan as a willing conduit for arms supplies to the Mujahideen fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan. The latest fallacy within the Clinton Administration is to believe that Pakistan can be an easy gateway for Washington to the Central Asian republics which, among other things, are rich in oil and gas. The USA is, therefore, unlikely to be inclined to declare Pakistan a terrorist state despite all the supporting evidence.

At the panel discussion, Ambassador Philip C. Wilcox, former State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism who is apparently still clued in to the power elite, went to great lengths to explain why declaring Pakistan a terrorist state was difficult to do. He said it involved a “profound and difficult decision” taken only when where was compelling evidence, which of course was lacking in the case of Pakistan. Ambassador Cox then went on to reveal his partiality to Islamabad when he pointed out that Pakistan had experienced a lot of political violence. There are also groups there that have supported terrorism. But, “Pakistan has contributed to the international effort to fight terrorism and has been a partner of the USA in that effort.”

Ambassador Cox went even further. According to him, the US belief is that the roots of terrorism are to be found in various kinds of ethnic, geographic and other conflicts. Taking a great leap forward from that formulation, he said that was what gave the highest priority to finding resolution to the Kashmir conflict! He did not, however, indicate the need to go to the roots of the murderous animosity that diverse groups around the world feel towards the USA.

The fact is that where other nations are concerned, America will preach sermons about democracy and human rights. But when its own interests are affected, the USA will display unflagging resolve to capture an Aimal Kansi, or tighten the screws on the Taliban to force them to hand over Osama bin Laden. But they will never make similar demands on the Taliban or Islamabad to hand over the hijackers of the Indian Airlines plane.

Meanwhile, the hijacking starkly highlights the total inability of the effete Vajpayee government to safeguard the nation’s interests. Home Minister L.K. Advani recently had his own security details augmented. Does he believe that would raise the safety of the nation? Even a senior functionary of the RSS, the ideological wing of the BJP, has charged the government with cowardice for acceding to the hijackers’ demands.

The hapless passengers on the Indian Airlines plane were forced to remain blind-folded for hours together. But who put the political blind-fold on External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh so tightly that he could not realise the folly of singing paeans of praise for the Taliban? Since negotiators had already wrapped up the hostage deal, where was the need for the Minister to fly to Kandahar in the company of three convicts sprung from jail? All that he achieved was a brief moment of media glory, followed by days of sustained criticism from all and sundry.

And why such effusive praise for the Taliban? They were hardly tough on the hijackers, who were never more relaxed than in Kandahar. If the Taliban really wanted to convince a doubting world that they were responsible and accountable, they would have arrested the hijackers the moment they came down from the aircraft and put them on trial. That could have been their entry pass to the comity of nations. They will discover that passing praise from Jaswant Singh will cut no ice in Washington and other capitals.

(The writer is a Washington based analyst.)

Does criminal justice system exist?
by Tavleen Singh

TODAY, what I have to tell is a typical story of Indian justice and I will leave it to you then to decide whether we have such a thing as a criminal justice system at all or whether the whole thing is not some kind of strange illusion. The story I have to tell is about the Uphaar cinema case but it could just as easily be a story about any other attempt to obtain justice in India.

Three years ago, on June 13, 1997, to be exact, 59 people were killed in one of the most needless tragedies ever — because they went to see the opening show of the film ‘Border’ at Delhi’s Uphaar cinema. Immediately after the tragedy an inquiry was ordered and its findings established that it was criminal negligence on the part of the cinema’s management that had resulted in the death of these people. One paragraph in the Naresh Kumar Inquiry Committee’s report will suffice to illustrate just how criminal this negligence was. “When Mr Malhotra (the manager) along with other staff members realised that the fire could not be brought under control, they came out of the cinema hall leaving everybody esp. (sic) the viewers to their fate. Had the management not wasted these precious 9-11 minutes, the lives of the innocent viewers would have been saved”. The report also said that Mr Malhotra was more worried about his cash box and his car than the people dying inside the death trap his cinema had become.

In any other country this gentleman would have been in jail as would those members of the well-known Ansal family responsible for allowing Uphaar cinema to be run in a way that endangered the lives of those who came to it. Against all safety norms the Ansals allowed an electricity transformer to be installed in the cinema’s basement car park. It was on account of a short circuit in this transformer that fire spread to the cars parked in the basement and poisonous smoke from the fire then spread through the cinema hall killing unsuspecting viewers. Some of those who survived said there would have been fewer deaths if the management had at least opened the doors. They did not.

But, they are not the only ones to blame. The Delhi Administration is the real guilty party because not only did its negligence allow safety norms to be violated but its incompetence was then responsible for the Fire Department arriving too late to be of any use and for failing to save the lives of those who managed to get to hospitals. It is a terrible story and there is almost not a civilised country left in the world where the guilty would have gone unpunished for so long except India. Here, believe it or not, three years down the line and charges against the 16 accused are yet to be framed. They have not been framed because of a series of incomprehensible delays the last of which came last week when the Additional Sessions Judge, who has heard the case for the past eleven months, was inexplicably transferred days before he was ready to frame charges. The new judge will now have to go through the whole procedure again.

According to Jagdeep Mann, who lost his wife and three children in the tragedy, “transferring Judge L.D. Malik to Delhi’s legal aid cell amounts to transferring a DIG to police lines”. Clearly, it is a punishment posting for a judge who fought the system (non-existent system?) enough to hold almost daily hearings in the case. But, this is only one of so many needless delays that you and I need to seriously wonder whether there is such a thing as a justice system left in India. The litany of these delays is typical of what goes on in virtually every case that comes before our courts. You do not need me to remind you that the only reason why the Indian government was able to trade three terrorists for the hostages in the recent hijacking of IC 814 was because they had been rotting in our prisons for four and five years.

In the Uphaar case it first took a year and a half for copies to be made of the chargesheet to be distributed. This in a time when computers are able to produce as many copies as anyone would need in less than a day.

Then came other delays. Lawyers became mysteriously absent on the day that they should have been in court. Judges caused their own delays and the end result has been that all the accused men are out on ball and will remain so far at least another ten years which is approximately how long it will take before the ‘due process of the law’ finally comes to an end. Will justice be done if it takes that long? Of course not but that is how our justice system works in India.

Meanwhile, those who lost loved ones in this needless tragedy continue to fight because if the guilty men of the Uphaar tragedy are not punished then there will be similar tragedies in other cinemas and this is what hope to prevent. In the words of Jagdeep Mann, “even if justice is eventually done its not going to do anything to change my life. My wife and children will not come back but if I continue to fight it is because I am trying to make sure that nobody else ever goes through what I have done”.

Now, let me tell you the consequences of Uphaar for you and me. In the immediate wake of the tragedy the Delhi Administration made a huge racket about the fact that not a single cinema in Delhi is, in fact, safe. At the time of the incident I remember going to meet the Lt-Governor with the Union Government’s Health Minister, Renuka Chaudhuri. The Governor then was a man called Tejinder Khanna, one of our most important bureaucrats, and he admitted that not one of Delhi’s seventy cinemas had sufficient exits and entrances to allow cinema goers to leave safely in case a similar fire occurred. He had a plan, he said, to close the cinemas down for a few weeks and ensure that proper safety norms were put in place.

Do you know what has happened since? Nothing. Even the brand new PVR Priya multiplex which has just been renovated to plaudits from the media and general approval does not meet safety norms. In fact, despite so many cinemas in one place there is only one entrance and one exit out of the complex.

God forbid that there should been Uphaar type fire in this complex because the tragedy that would occur is too horrific to contemplate. It is only if justice is done in the Uphaar case, and the Ansals, their staff and the long list of guilty Delhi Administration officials go to jail, that cinema owners will realise that they cannot put the lives of ordinary viewers at constant risk.

So, we come back to the criminal justice system and its complete inability to shake itself out of its torpor sufficiently to give us anything that can even loosely be described as justice. When are we going to get a government in Delhi that realises that things have already gone too far and that special measures are called for? When are we, you and I, going to shake ourselves out of our apathy and start demanding change?