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| Saturday, April 15, 2000, Chandigarh, India  
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The
Cronje effect
NATIONAL
SECURITY |
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| Vatican status at the UN under
challenge by A. Balu CAN Akal Takht, or for that matter, other major religious faiths such as Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism, seek the status that the Vatican enjoys at the United Nations since 1964 — that of a “Non-Member Permanent State Observer” — instead of just an NGO? This may be a hypothetical question, but can be posed in the context of the current moves by some organisations of Roman Catholic activists, who feel there is no justification for granting the status of a state to a religious institution.
Imperial
Delhi
Why
Priya Rajvansh was killed?
Politicking
with minorities in J&K
April 15, 1925
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HANSIE Cronje's confession has had the effect of setting the cat among the pigeons. It has jolted the International Cricket Council and the respective boards of cricket-playing nations into furtive action. Members of most boards are not yet admitting that some their own players may be involved in deals which have made redundant the meaning of the expression "it is not cricket". Reports that the Board of Control for Cricket in India too is now likely to take the allegations of betting and match-fixing by players more seriously than it did when Manoj Prabhakar blew the whistle need to be taken with a pinch of salt. There is even talk of a fresh enquiry being ordered into match-fixing allegations, based on the findings of the Chandrachud Committee. Any enquiry which helps clean up the muck should be welcomed. But there is a vital difference between an impartial investigation into alleged acts of wrong-doing and a witch-hunt. Almost all the bookies who have tried to involve players in their dirty deals are Indians. The logical inference would be to suspect even the Indian board officials and office-bearers of the state units of having some kind of link with the crooks. A fair enquiry should also cover the complicity, if any, of the members of the state units and the BCCI in extending indirect patronage to the bookies. The popular impression is that the roots of global corruption in cricket lie in the subcontinent. The decision to promote cricket in Sharjah was, perhaps, the biggest factor which helped facilitate the entry of big crooks in the game of cricket. Asif Iqbal's name figures often as the brain behind the idea of playing cricket in the desert. But he may also have first hand knowledge of the behind-the-scene games which the bookies play, specially during matches involving India and Pakistan. The decision to allow Sahara India to sponsor a five-match one-day series between India and Toronto too may have contributed to the game becoming even more dirty. A man is known by the company he keeps, and the BCCI should be known by the kind of sponsors it has attracted for funding Indian cricket. The admission of wrong-doing by Cronje should make at least Mr Jagmohan Dalmiya realise the folly of globalising cricket at a break-neck speed. The Union Sports
Minister has decided to call a meeting of former and
current Indian captains and some board officials for
examining what needs to be done for exposing the
involvement of players and administrators in betting and
match-fixing deals.It is obvious that a number of steps
need to be taken immediately for making the BCCI put its
"corrupt" house in order. One step which would
make the board shiver with fear is to disallow the
cricket team, put together through its efforts, to use
the country's name while taking part in all future
international games. After all the BCCI is a society of
private individuals over which the government has no
control. Why should it have the undeserved privilege of
using the country's name for its teams? Saurav Ganguly
may be captain of the BCCI team; but unless the board
takes the issue of banishing corruption from the game, he
and members of his team should not be allowed to tell
future generations that they played cricket for India.
Governments of other cricket-playing countries too should
contemplate action on similar lines to ensure that a
Shane Warne or a Mark Waugh in future is not let off with
a mild rebuke for accepting money from a bookie. Once the
ICC members put together enforceable guidelines for
reducing the scale of corruption in cricket, their teams
may again be allowed to represent their countries.
Without the governments cracking the whip on corruption
in cricket, the once noble game cannot be saved from the
stranglehold of the "market forces". |
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IN Bihar death is not the last sleep either individually or collectively. It is the last and final awakening. A life's value in terms of money is a charitable amount of Rs 1 lakh. If there is an element of disaster in the last scene of the act, there can be a little more money by way of incidental assistance. But on a sacred occasion like Ramanavami, self-forgetfulness means all, including truth and lying, in the name of the Lord! Daltonganj is a prominent place from where one can reach Ranchi by road within hours. It is a town once patronised by the British and, therefore, its infrastructure is not insubstantial, although it is primitive even 50 years after Independence. A procession of the devout passes through the streets on the "auspicious" day on to a road, apparently wide and well swept. There is soulful chanting of mantras and singing of bhajans by ecstatic believers for whom "Ramachandra Kripalu.... " is the necessary part of the festive ritual. In this area, the breeze is normally gentle. In autumn, there is no storm. Suddenly, a time-weary and high-tension wire falls on the cheerful procession. A part of the concourse is hit and killed instantaneously. Many of those who are following them get killer shocks but are allowed by destiny to breathe for a few minutes. There are certain luckier ones who are evacuated to die in the moderately equipped hospital. There is nothing strange about such deaths in Mrs Rabri Devi's Bihar. The Devil loves nothing more than political callousness. There is no regular
checking of electricity lines anywhere in the state. So
why look for safety measures in Daltonganj? A state which
has abundant coal and thermal power resources is really
blessed. But to be blessed, one has to live—in
Daltonganj, Ranchi or Patna. Those religious people who
perished in broad daylight (when tubelight was not needed
on the road) went to their long home. But their mourners
did not go about the streets, as the scriptures want. If
they were devotees or passersby, they ran for safety. If
they were officials, they went to the eager media to vent
their lies through. It is the responsibility of the Bihar
State Electricity Board (BSEB) to maintain the power
lines. Its officers and men are directed by the
Divisional Commissioners to accompany large groups of
people on the move. On that fateful day, the BSEB
personnel preferred a quiet holiday to their presence at
posts of duty. The Commissioner, a lady, says the BSEB is
to blame for the great loss of life. The BSEB says that
people in the procession themselves invited death and
disaster. They carried a Hanuman flag quite high and
snapped cables which killed many persons. Those who know
the height at which the overhead electricity cables are
fixed in Bihar also know that no Hanuman flag can touch
them. Is the Commissioner keen to tell the truth? If she
knew that the BSEB Superintending Engineer (SE) was out
of station for a long time, what did she do? She is
supposed to be in charge of the overall vigilance set-up
and killer powerlines are one of the major sources of
danger. Is it the duty of the SE to look after the health
of the power lines personally? There are numerous JEs
(junior engineers) to do the normal supervision. Is the
Power Minister right in blaming the tragedy on the stars
on Rama's birthday? Has the Chief Minister done anything
more than announcing ex-gratia payments to the next of
kin? The Daltonganj episode signifies callous killing by
negligence. Dr Rajendra Prasad said a few months before
his death in the capital of Bihar: "Negligence is
the rust of the soul that corrodes through all her best
resolves." He was speaking like Feltham and not like
Mrs Rabri Devi. The killers should be identified and
brought to book. It is time for a powerful awakening. |
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IT is not quite in order to celebrate the Centre’s decision to elevate the Amritsar airport to international status. For one thing, it has had unofficial international stamp for about 20 years when Air- India began a flight to Birmingham. Then Ariane airlines of Afghanistan had a regular cargo service until an UN resolution banned aircraft from that country having any international contact. These days two Central Asian republics offer a gateway to many cities in Europe. Uzbek Airlines claims to provide its passegers not only a brief and pleasant stopover at Tashkent but also travel in luxury. Indian Airlines flies regularly to Sharjah. These demand the presence of the customs and immigration/emigration staff and Amritsar has them. The government has also taken over additional land for expansion. If the use of the airport by these airlines does not make it an international one, what will? The government thinks a formal Cabinet decision followed by the inevitable letter from the Secretary of Civil Aviation will. Actually the decision is not as meaningless as it may sound. An airport stamped international will have to have all those facilities that go with that status. So, the airport will look better, work better and will be better. To upgrade the place and keep it at that level, the Ministry will give a grant. Once that is in place, more airlines will eye Amritsar as a possible choice for expanding operation. Actually, the government has launched an ambitious plan to develop all airports over a period of time and lucky Amritsar finds itself in the first list. The people of this region will fervently hope that it will be the turn of Chandigarh next. The Cabinet is obviously
still under the Clinton effect. The clearance to convert
the Hyderabad airport into a world class one and to
revive the stalled project for a super airport at
Bangalore is like tracing the US President’s actual
and missed visits to these two dotcom cities. The second
one is to be built by the private sector and the
government will hold only a 26 per cent stake. Airports,
both big and small, do not form the core infrastructure.
Telecom, roads, ports and power do. Yet it is in this
sector that privatisation is gathering momentum. First
private airlines and now private airports! Even those
political parties and groups which routinely oppose what
they call a sell-out to multinational corporations
resolutely ignore these dramatic changes. It is not as
though a miraculous consensus has emerged on handing over
airports and airlines to Indian and foreign operators; it
is that the opposition parties see no vote-winning
potential in raising a controversy since the common man
is hardly interested in this costly mode of travel.
Businessmen and bureaucrats are the patrons of airlines
and there have been rapid liberalisation and deregulation
in all areas of direct interest to them. It seems India
will soon have economic sectors completely restructured,
and another partly reformed and the rest untouched by
change. No prize for guessing which will be what. |
NATIONAL
SECURITY NO other subject raises such a sense of urgency amongst those who are conscious of national security, and no other subject meets such a tide of misinformation and ignorance, as the subject of the nation’s defence and its requirements. The reason for this avoidable state of affairs has been a deliberate effort by the various governments of the day to keep this national requirement under the wraps of unwanted secrecy, supported by a faulty policy to meet this aim. This dismal state of affairs for the past 53 years has not only cost the nation tremendously in terms of priceless lives of our fighting men and mind-boggling foreign exchange but has also unpardonably jeopardised the security of this country a number of times. The mandatory defence doctrines and supporting policies have been so conspicuous by their absence that it required a foreign think tank like the Rand Corporation to point out this glaring omission as late as in 1995. The ensuing kneejerk reaction of the government did result in the three service headquarters submitting some hurriedly prepared instruments in the form of doctrines and strategies, which totally failed to meet the demands of security when the time came. The failure of intelligence (favourite whipping boy of all), in the 1962 Chinese aggression was surprisingly repeated in the Kargil episode, after 37 years. Fortunately, the situation was saved by the right political decision this time to leave the armed forces alone (IAF included) to meet the task. The task was duly met by our fighting men headlong, and the rest is of course part of the nation’s history now. The subsequent allegations and counter-allegations after the Kargil encounter followed by detailed reports by services and other specially appointed bodies, all bring out a number of reasons for failure at various stages, like lack of proper military intelligence and various methods of obtaining the same, lack of coordination and understanding between various military and paramilitary bodies in the field, absence of long promised weapons and fighting equipment with the forces involved, glaring omissions by decision makers, or even taking of strategic decisions by unaccountable nonprofessionals at a number of places. The nation would have become aware of this unpardonable omission way back in 1962 had the Henderson Brookes report into this infamous debacle was properly studied, instead of being hidden into the oblivion of secrecy. The reason then as now, is surprisingly the same, and that is the total lack of a proper national security apparatus as mentioned above. Nevertheless, now it is very fortunate for the nation that the national media has come a long way in the last three to four decades. The entire nation, which in 1962 was misled by faulty or no reporting, could not only be galvanised emotionally this time, but was brought on the edge by real-time and remarkably accurate reporting throughout the Kargil war. As a result after the campaign, accurate and highly professional analysis of various successes and failures at all political and military levels continues for the benefit of the country. A number of factors have emerged which require urgent and immediate attention at the appropriate levels. First and foremost, as brought out earlier, is formulation of a national military doctrine and overall strategic thought process. For this study of military threat one would have to define real or potential enemies of the nation from where these threats could develop. At the same time, the strategic and military potential of the earmarked enemies would have to be identified. This would enable us to list our adversaries and the type of threat they pose in order of priority. With this data in hand, the decision makers would be able to formulate appropriate systems and procedures to develop the national resources in military, industrial, economic, political and other disciplines. Subsequently the foreign, defence and other policies could be formulated, for the nation to adopt. It is the shortcoming of our country in this sphere which led to the uncalled for controversy, when Defence Minister George Fernandes, while mentioning the threat from China, allegedly referred to it as an enemy of India. The biggest setback to the nation has of course been in the field of defence due to this failure. Keeping this in mind the Defence Minister ordered a number of reforms. The main one to begin with was to form the three service headquarters and the Ministry of Defence as one body, at one location. To the utter disbelief of the nation it was observed that ever since its formation after Independence, the bureaucratic body of the ministry and the service officers cadre were more at loggerheads over various issues, than working as a cohesive team for a common goal. It is common knowledge that the unfounded fears of the imaginary coup in the fifties (because of the various coups around India) served as an excuse for this manipulated distance between the ministry and the services, thus resulting in service officers and the bureaucrats acting as rivals instead of as comrades. This has been the prime reason for all the subsequent damage caused due to the lack of proper defence doctrine and strategy, and the government is yet to initiate any step in this direction, as promised. Besides, a number of points have been raised after the Kargil war by the various fact-finding committees, and have been rightly hailed by the media and the nation as most urgent. From the surveillance equipment for intelligence gathering, target acquisition and weapon delivery system for the IAF fighter aircraft, rockets, field guns, ammunition and gun locating radars for the army, and host of other arms and equipment all have their priority and would rightly be met. The increase in the defence budget by nearly Rs 13000 crore does bring cheer to the security conscious amongst us, but the army chief Gen V.P. Malik, was nearly pleading when he asked the government to administer the spending of the Rs 13000 crore not only in the right manner but also without delay. A major portion of the allotted budget, or the bonus, is bound to go to fulfilling the various demands of the three services. For the Air Force it could be the lease of the Russian Beriev A-50 air borne early warning and control (AEW & C) aircraft, or purchase of nuclear capable Backfire (TU-22M) bombers, purchase and upgradation of the remaining SU-30s to SU-30MK1, the replacement of Mirages and Jaguar lost in attrition or the induction of the long overdue advance jet trainer. For the army it could be the purchase of the spare parts for the Bofors gun, purchase of the new 155mm self-propelled gun, going in for the South African mine protected vehicle (MPV) or import tanks like the T90s to fill in the shortfall created by MBT Arjun due to some fault in its armour. For the Navy it could be the refitment of the aircraft carrier Gorshkov along with the purchase of the Mig 29k as its air group, purchse of the Amur 1650 submarine or the newly developed Trishul or Toofan cruise missile carrying ship. The list is long and thought provoking. The commonality of weapon and equipment between the three services is indeed glaring and means wastage of resources if not handled in advance. If the Navy intends going in for the Mig 29k for its new carrier, then it must be borne in mind that the Air Force too using the same fighter, can share a large number of resources with the Navy in terms of manpower equipment and armament. This is also true in the case of a large number of radars and missile used by the services. Such large number of foreign puchases brings to the fore the shortcomings in defence indigenisation programme. Here the previous plan of the Defence Minister regarding formation of the six task forces between the private industries of India and the public sector undertakings to promote the indigenisation in defence sector becomes valid, and should be one of the guiding points while formulating or updating the national strategies and defence doctrines. The sense of urgency
amongst the security minded people over this state of
affairs is evident. Theirs is a national feeling asking
very rightly for an immediate and a right course of
action, for it is well known that the so-called friends
and well wishers would want India to be constantly in
this sorry position so that they continue to take
advantage of the situation in terms of massive earnings
in foreign exchange, and India continues to jeopardise
its security. |
Vatican
status at the UN under challenge CAN Akal Takht, or for that matter, other major religious faiths such as Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism, seek the status that the Vatican enjoys at the United Nations since 1964 — that of a “Non-Member Permanent State Observer” — instead of just an NGO? This may be a hypothetical question, but can be posed in the context of the current moves by some organisations of Roman Catholic activists, who feel there is no justification for granting the status of a state to a religious institution. The Vatican, like Switzerland, which enjoys a similar status, is entitled to take part in policy-making conferences and to vote on the recommendations or resolutions they issue just like a member state of the world organisation. Switzerland, though the seat of many international organisations, has remained out of the United Nations. The Swiss electorate had voted against joining the UN in a referendum held in 1986. Representatives of Catholics For a Free Choice and other women’s and civil society groups convened a press conference at the United Nations in New York recently to step up the campaign for demoting the status of the Holy Sec — the government of the Roman Catholic Church — otherwise known as the Vatican. They said granting government privileges to what was in reality a religious body was questionable statecraft. The Vatican, in their view, did not fulfil any of the four main qualifications to be regarded as a state — a permanent population, defined territory, government and capacity to enter into relations with other States. They urged the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, to open an official review of the status of the Vatican at the United Nations. Ms Frances Kissling, President of Catholics For A Free Choice, claimed that the campaign was going on very well and that almost 400 organisations had endorsed it. The organisers were waiting for a higher number of signatures before submitting their petition to the Secretary-General, although postcards on the campaign had initially been sent to his office, she said. Other participants at the press conference spoke of the “double standard” of the Vatican in matters relating to women. They said it sought to impose its religious values on others with total disregard for the secularity of the United Nations, and the other religious views, values and individual freedoms. The Vatican also denied the reality of the issue of abortion. The campaign against the Vatican has predictably provoked angry reaction from another coalition of religious and civic non-governmental organisations. The day after the press conference addressed by women activists, the opponents comprising both men and women declared at a press meet that the campaign to remove the Holy Sec at the UN “is about abortion, not religion.” “For a long time now, this venerable institution, the United Nations, has been the playground of fundamental left-wingers,” Mr Tom Minnery, said. “They call themselves forces of tolerance, but on this issue, the right of unborn children — the basic human right to live — they will not tolerate a view that differs from their own, and hence, their campaign to kick the Holy Secout of the United Nations.” Mr Robert Maginnis, vice-president, Family Research Council, an evangelist organisation, said: “The organised drive to expel the Vatican from the observer status is anti-catholic of the most vicious sort, and it is intended to intimidate pro-life delegates of developing countries.” Ms Wanda Franz of the National Right to Life Committee, said those who opposed presence of the Holy Sec at the UN do so because they are in the forefront of those encouraging a culture of death. “They want free reign to export our failed abortion politics to other countries, where they force unwilling women to have abortions, even in their ninth month of pregnancy, as in China, and where they encourage sex-selection to seek out and kill baby girls, as in India. “The opposition to the Holy Sec was a bigoted call to eliminate the diversity essential to the United Nations. The Vatican has stopped short of reacting to the campaign against its status at the UN. The UN spokesman has also declined to comment on the campaign. Interestingly, last week, the Secretary-General, Mr Annan, met the Pope at the Vatican and presented him with a bound copy of the UN Charter and also a copy of his Millennium Report. Analysts familiar with
the working of the United Nations believe it will be
naive for the campaigners against the Vatican to expect a
change in its current status at the world organisation.
But Ms Kissling, as a Roman Catholic, believes that
“miracles” are possible. |
Imperial
Delhi I QUOTE from an article, “It’s a Far Cry”, written by me and published in the now defunct Blackwood’s Magazine, in December, 1973. “They had done their job well — Lutyens and Baker — blending the old with the new; retaining what they could of the cities that had been built before them by the Rajput Chauhans, the Muslim Tughlaks and Suris and the Mughals who had followed them through the mountain passes in the north-west. “They had planned with skill, with care and with love. Those who had once ruled the great city — Prithvi Raj Chauhan, Babar, Humayun, Akbar and Aurangzeb and others — they immortalised by naming the wide, tree-lined roads after them. The planners were aliens, belonging to the ruling race, but they had felt no urge to destroy or to obliterate, only to do homage to a glorious past.” We have hitherto associated the name of Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens with the planning and building of New Delhi between 1912 and 1929. Among his other notable achievements were the designing of the Cenotaph in Whitehall and the lions in Trafalgar Square in London. Very little was known of the man himself till his daughter, Mary Lutyens, wrote his biography published by John Murray. Mary’s mother, Emily, was the daughter of a former Viceroy of India, Lord Lytton. Reading the book one gets the impression that the author’s father had a puckish, childlike sense of humour. He has been described as “pink, bald and addicted to puns”. It was, I suppose, this side of him that designed the stage sets for J.M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan”. Once, having been chided by the Vicereine, Lady Hardinge for a petty misdemeanour, he begged her pardon with the following words: “I will wash your feet with my tears and dry them with my hair. True, I have very little hair but then, you have very little feet”. The tragedy in Lutyens’ life is revealed by his daughter in her book. He had loved his wife dearly but she became impossible to live with because of her complete involvement with oriental theosophy and occultism. She became a follower of Annie Besant and, having forsworn sex, fell platonically in love with Krishnamurti. Lutyens bore this estrangement for 20 years without letting it interfere with his work or dampen his spirits. In another book, “The Lyttons of India” Mary Lutyens recalls the violent disagreement that took place between her father and his assistant, Sir Herbert Baker. It arose over the approach to the Viceroy’s House, now Rashtrapati Bhavan. Lutyens favoured a clear view of his noble edifice from Kingsway (Raj Path) while Baker stood firm on making it appear gradually as one ascends the rise between North and South Blocks. He won his point and Lutyens gave in with his characteristic good humour, saying, that he had at last met his “Bakerloo!” As a Dilli-walla, born
and bred, I am inclined to side with Lutyens. |
Why Priya
Rajvansh was killed? IT was after they arrested Ketan Anand that I visited the house that is supposed to be the reason why the actress, Priya Rajvansh was murdered. It lies at the end of a Juhu street, its low roof and tiny gate almost concealed by the forest of fancy, high-rise buildings that surround it. Many of these buildings are unfinished but even in their unpainted, windowless condition it is possible to see signs of the luxury apartments they will one day be. Apartments that will sell for crores of rupees despite the current slump in Mumbai’s real estate market. Even a casual stroll down this street is enough to understand why there would be many people interested in getting their hands on Chetan Anand’s decrepit, little bungalow which has so obstinately resisted changing with the times. What brought me to the scene of the crime was the hope that by coming here I might make some sense of what, if the police version is to be believed, seems like a pretty senseless crime. Most of Mumbai’s newspapers have bought the police version. With almost malevolent glee they have supplied every prurient, little detail of what the police says is the maid’s confession. Mala, they say, has admitted under ‘intensive questioning’ that she and her accomplice, Swamy, killed Priya at the behest of the Anand brothers who paid them the princely sum of Rs 4000. The maid has also allegedly claimed that she was having an affair with Vivek and that Priya had to die because she objected to them using her dead lover’s bedroom for their amorous activities. Even if the affair did exist this sounds like a bizarre reason to murder someone who was not even living in the house.To strengthen their story the police also leaked information about a dispute over the little bungalow by the sea. Priya wanted to sell the property, they say, and was angry with Ketan because he was refusing to do this. In which case should it not have been Ketan who ended up dead? The first person I talked to in my efforts to make sense of the crime, was Manju, the maid Mala’s daughter. She, her two small brothers and a large, friendly dog are now the only occupants of the Juhu bungalow but they live in the servant’s quarters. The bungalow itself has been sealed by the police. Manju, a short, dark-skinned girl with a long plait and a surprisingly unafraid manner had no hesitation in telling the story as she knew it. She had not been home at the time of the murder, she said, but when she returned around 10 p.m. her mother told her that Memsahib had sent her to buy some milk (to make pudding) and that by the time she returned Priya had been murdered. “She found this out because the watchman from the Maharani of Bhavnagar’s house had come looking for Memsahib because she was supposed to be having dinner there”. The Maharani lives in the same street, a two minute walk away. Had Manju seen her mother since her arrest, I asked, and she said she had and that her mother had told her that the police had beaten her badly. “They took my brother in for questioning as well” she said “and they stripped him and made him sit naked in a corner. He was also roughed up and when he came home he showed me a lump on his head”. The only thing Manju was reluctant to talk about was the murder itself. She did not know anything about it, she said, because she had not been home. Before leaving the bungalow I wandered through its small, overgrown garden to the front and noticed that only a small strip of beach separated it from the sea. This provides a magnificent view but, surely, building activity would have been restricted by the CRZ (coastal restriction zone) law which forbids building activity too close to the beach. So could the Rs 10 crore that the property is said to be worth be a mythical figure? It was mythical, a relative of Ketan and Vivek confirmed. On condition of anonymity he said, there was much about the police version that was mythical. It is true, he said, that Ketan wanted to continue to living in the home he grew up in but even had he wanted to sell it he would have to give the house’s real owner, a builder called Mittal, first option. He often tried explaining this to Priya but she appeared to have fallen into the clutches of people connected with Mumbai’s builder mafia who had convinced her that Mittal could be dealt with once the property was sold. “Why is the police not investigating the possibility that she could have been murdered by someone connected with the underworld because everyone knows that it is they who control real estate in Mumbai? Why do they not look into the curious fact that the property is now technically free since one of the owners of the tenancy is dead and two face life terms?” Other people I talked to confirm that when the Anand brothers were produced in court the courtroom was filled with builders mafia type people. Friends of the dead actress confirm that she was meeting people who were connected with builders because she wanted very much to sell the property and she thought that they could help her to do this. She needed the money, they say, and this was her only way of getting it. They also admit that they find it hard to believe that she could have been murdered by Ketan and Vivek Anand although one friend did confirm that she was always complaining about the maid’s rudeness. So, who did kill Priya Rajvansh and why? This is not an easy question to answer now that the police has used the media to try and condemn Ketan and Vivek Anand. The press has, sadly, allowed itself to be used instead of making even minimal efforts to find out what really happened. And, as someone who spent a whole morning flitting between Juhu police station and Santa Cruz, where the Anands are being kept in police custody, let me add that investigative journalism is not easy because the police reveals only what it wants to. At Juhu police station they told me that if I wanted to see Ketan Anand I would need the permission of a senior police officer by the name of Rajendra Singh. They gave me a number for him but when I rang I was told, not surprisingly, that he was in a meeting that would last all day. At Santa Cruz I was told that I could only see him if Juhu police station gave me permission. I gave up realising that the only people in a position to find out the truth behind Priya’s death were the police themselves. But, will they make a
sincere effort if they know that they are up against
Mumbai’s shadowy underworld? We can only hope they
do because the only thing that seems clear is that a dark
and sordid tale lies behind the murder of the actress and
that there has to have been a motive bigger than the
motives the police has so far attributed to the Anand
brothers. |
Politicking with minorities in
J&K Can you recall the
time To this question of Abdul Rahman Rahi, a Kashmiri poet, one can recall many instances. One can start from Lal Chowk in Srinagar and go on to Florida, (USA), Bindura (Zimbabwe), and London. Before 1947 Sher-i-Kashmir Sheikh Abdullah waged a crusade against the monarchy in the state. in 1967 thousands of Pandits dared the government and demanded the right to life, liberty and employment. In the nineties multitudes of Muslims gathered to demand independence from India and usher in Nizam-e-Mustafa. When Hindu girls were raped and men killed in Anantnag as a precursor to the anti-Pandit crusade in the late eighties, a section of protestors against the politics of fear and intimidation urged the well-settled Pandits outside the valley to strive for the timely migration of Pandits from the valley. The elderly who savoured the cool air of the valley in summer, while enjoying secure jobs in the plains, questioned this assertion. They said if minorities left the valley, what would happen to the secular character of the valley? In this manner they would be handing over Kashmir on a platter to Pakistan. Events that followed, of course, proved them wrong. Recently when Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal opened the gates of Punjab to besieged Kashmiri Sikhs during the bhog ceremony of 35 Kashmiri Sikhs at Chatti Singhpora, it was evidently welcomed by people of varied political shades. This politicking with human life and dignity is not confined to politicians of the Indian variety alone.Politicians in Americans are engaged in a battle over the custody of six-year-old Elian Gonzalez who survived a shipwreck escaping from cuba along with his mother and step-father (the mother didn’t survive). Fidel Castro has said the boy should be reunited with his father. But Elian’s Miami relatives want him to remain in the USA. Cuban exiles who fled the country and settled in Florida declare that “we will go the last mile” to prevent Elian from either being re-united with his father or heading back to ‘Castroland.’ Cuba is an idea preserved in the lyrical memory of exiled novelist G. Cabrera durante. He has written that the metaphor of the ship that sinks and a Cuban, Lord Jim, who cowardly saves himself is completed not with Fidel Castro’s famous phrase “the rats are leaving the sinking ship”, but with the only “Titanic” crew member who had survived - “I didn’t abandon my ship, your lordship, my ship abandoned me,” he told an English judge. Cuban exiles in the words of kassabova, the writer of novel “Reconnaissance”, are aware about “those in the freedom and the prosperity of the mature West who suffer from broken manicure, lack of love and understanding, excessive body hair, failed relationships, paranoia, fatty thighs, ennui and children — they hate us, our misery, our darkness of our East”. Still they prefer exile to Castroism. In Oxfordshire a gang of white youths tried to set on fire a mulatto. The victim, Christopher Barton, escaped with superficial burns but indelible marks on his psyche of hate against whites. It seems the world over one suffers because a section of society perceives that you are different, they abuse you for being so, and then hound you to the concentration camp or throw you on the pyre. Dictatorship of or on behalf of the proletariat gobbles up human rights of all, including the dictator. Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe supported the right of squatters to invade white farms and asked white farmers “if you can’t accept rule by blacks you can leave: no one will stop you from leaving. All doors are open.” He listed all the border crossings through which whites could flee Zimbabwe and added, “if you want a plane, we can accompany you to Harare airport... let (white) farmers not create unnecessary circumstances that might lead them to being hurt”. There was also a vote in Parliament to remove the right to compensation for land seizure. These utterances and actions by a Non-Aligned movement leader kindle the historic acts of Sher-i-Kashmir. on assuming the charge of Jammu and Kashmir’s Prime Minister after the state’s accession to India he ordered land to tillers without compensation by the stroke of a pen, thereby dispossessing many, including Pandits, of their land holdings. Years later acting on behalf of the Muslim majority in the valley, Congress Chief Minister Gulam Mohammad Sadiq passed a law to ensure preference to the Muslim majority in state jobs and admission to professional and other educational institutions. These measures curbed the rights of minorities in the valley and forced them to fend for even small jobs outside the valley. The anti-Brahmin movement in Tamil Nadu and other South Indian states pushed the proved a precursor to the anti-Mandal agitation which unleashed caste-based majoritarianism. Bihar is the worst example. The majoritarianism in Jammu and kashmir is of religious variety, different from racial and caste ones. Perpetrators of majoritarianism in the state lack sympathy of the majority in India. An exile from the state is caught in between the culture within him and the culture of his adopted place. He can’t leave the former and accept the latter either. His condition of siege has been described by Keshav Malik as: “But come the
hour of ghostly moon |
April
15, 1925 THE strong and energetic protest made by General Smuts against the Colour Bar Bill in South Africa has had some effect. As will have been seen from a Reuter telegram published yesterday, General Hertzog admitted that there was a good deal in what General Smuts had said. Whether the admission will eventually lead him to eliminate the obnoxious features of the Bill we do not know. What we can safely assert, however, is that the principle he lays down that it is not always possible in practice to adopt the ethically sound and just course is fraught with danger both to South Africa and the rest of the Empire. It was a great Christian
statesman who declared on a memorable occasion that what
is morally wrong can never be politically expedient. That
dictum is just as true in the case of South Africa as in
any other part of the world. |
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