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| Monday, May 29, 2000, Chandigarh, India  
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Mini,
mini expansion
GLOBALISATION
MANTRA |
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| The savagery in Sierra Leone by V. Gangadhar SINGING and dancing on the streets of Sierra Leone! It must have been a strange sight, as though the unfortunate victims residing in hell had lined up for a bit of entertainment. For nearly 10 years life had been hell in this South-West African state which had been torn apart by one of the worst-ever civil wars. The sufferings and cruelty inflicted on the civilians had shocked the entire world, yet no remedial steps were taken. The conscience of the world was sleeping as far as Sierra Leone was concerned.
Apex
court wades into water dispute
Time
for the CBI to bare the truth
May 29, 1925
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PRIME Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s Cabinet expansion on Saturday turned out to be the biggest political non-event. It was supposed to be a major exercise, as he himself said a few weeks back while returning from Mauritius. And he added to the excitement earlier in the week by hinting at restructuring economic Ministries and finding new captains. In the event, nothing of the sort happened. The Samata re-nominated Mr Nitish Kumar for its reserved berth and the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) chief inducted his handpicked men into the Vajpayee government. There are eminently unnoticeable changes at the level of Minister of State. Tourism has virtually “taken over” culture, signalling that culture will have importance only to the extent it attracts tourists and it will have no independent role. Despite the distinct impression of being a job quarter done, there are powerful signals from the mini, mini expansion. One, Mr Nitish Kumar’s triumphant retreat from Bihar politics proclaims the NDA’s loss of hope of ever ousting the present state dispensation. Even if the NDA were to rig up a majority, the man who led it for 10 brief days will not be the Chief Minister. Mr Nitish Kumar has banished himself from the state, first by resigning from the Union Cabinet and becoming the Chief Minister and now by abandoning the legislature party and returning to New Delhi. Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav, released from detention just about this time, will surely redouble his efforts to wean away disgruntled members of the Samata and the Janata Dal (U) and there are many. The inclusion of two BJD men and, more importantly, the dropping of Mr Dilip Ray is an admission by the Centre that the Orissa party is a personal fief of Mr Naveen Patnaik. Mr Ray is a bitter man. He was a favourite of Biju Patnaik and split the Janata Dal and brought his son to head it. Now the same Mr Patnaik has made him a non-leader as he earlier threw out Mr Bijoy Mahapatra. For a new- comer to politics, the junior Patnaik has learnt to be an autocrat in a remarkably short time. It is a matter of regret that the Prime Minister agreed to the harsh treatment of Mr Ray. At one time he was the Centre’s interlocutor with Ms Jayalalitha and TDP supremo Chandrababu Naidu. He is a popular leader from western Orissa and may use his free time to undercut the Chief Minister. By giving in to Mr Naveen Patnaik, the Prime Minister has conceded the claim that the alliance parties have taken certain ministerial berths on long lease and the Centre has abdicated all its rights over them. This comes out louder and clearer in the case of Mr N.T.Shanmugham of the PMK of Tamil Nadu. He was expected to be dropped for his miserable performance in Parliament. He retains his place but now heads another Ministry. A sack would have sent a better message. Urban Development
Minister Jagmohan gets a good chit. Not only does he
retain his Urban Development portfolio but he also gets
the additional charge of Poverty Alleviation. His party
MPs from Delhi are baying for his blood, fearing that his
enthusiastic demolition drive would cost them mega votes.
For his detractors, all heavyweights, it is double
whammy. Not one of them figures in the expansion. As
usual, Ms Sushma Swaraj did not take the oath of office
although she was and is the favourite of the media. In
fact, she is a victim of media overkill as it sponsors
her candidature at the whiff of an expansion. This Rajya
Sabha member from UP is counted as a Delhi MP and her
inclusion will not go down well with the more senior MPs.
Anyway, the Prime Minister does not want to annoy any of
his party men as is evident from his failure to fill a
BJP “vacancy” caused by the resignation of Ms
Uma Bharati. Madhya Pradesh leaders are against her
return to the Union Council of Ministers and the Prime
Minister is loathe to find a substitute. As a result, the
BJP’s share has shrunk. That should spur BJP
ministerial aspirants to double up jockeying. |
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THE dictionary gives the meaning of the word "hijack" as "use force, or threat of force, against those in control of an aircraft or vehicle, in order to achieve certain aims or to reach a desired destination". At least 26 members of Parliament from Bihar will have to use all their political might to have the dictionary meaning of the word changed to escape the charge of having actually hijacked an Alliance Air plane on May 12. The legal definition of the act of hijacking is substantially similar to the dictionary meaning of the word. The hijacking of the Indian Airlines plane from Kathmandu to Kandahar by Pakistani militants had made international headlines and attracted global condemnation. But the dimensions of the crime committed by the MPs from Bihar have evidently escaped the attention of the law enforcers. A prima facie case of hijacking of an Alliance Air aircraft operating on the Delhi-Lucknow-Patna sector on May 12 by 26 MPs can be made out on the basis of reported and "admitted" evidence. And Union Civil Aviation Minister Sharad Yadav can be made to face the charge of aiding and abetting the commission of the crime. The incident occurred when the evening flight from Delhi to Patna via Lucknow was getting ready for take-off. Mr Prabhunath Singh of the Samta Party was, in a manner of speaking, responsible for masterminding the hijacking. He, perhaps, wanted to help his Patna-bound MP colleagues to get the "feel" of the dictionary meaning of the word by using actual force for reaching the "desired destination". He violated another law, enforced by the civil aviation authorities across the globe in the interest of passenger safety, by using his mobile phone from inside the cabin for speaking to Mr Sharad Yadav. A member of the flight crew was snubbed for mentioning the flight safety rule. The Civil Aviation Minister promptly obliged his colleagues from Bihar and ordered the authorities concerned to skip Lucknow and fly the plane directly to Patna. If the law enforcers
really want the lawmakers to be punished for performing
the role of law-breakers, they should get cracking
without further delay to stop interested parties from
destroying vital evidence in possession of the civil
aviation authorities. Plus there is television news
footage of the role of the MPs in making Mr Sharad Yadav
order the rescheduling of the flight. It was illegally
detained at the Delhi airport to give time to the civil
aviation personnel to carry out the Minister's order. The
present generation of MPs may not even have heard the
name of Mr Hiren Mukherjee. Nevertheless, the incident
forced him to express his anguish in the form of an
article for a Calcutta-based newspaper. The hijacking of
an aircraft on Indian soil by members of an institution
he had helped build as one of its founding-members from
1952 to 1977 made him shed tears. His lament was that the
institution of parliamentary democracy had fallen into
undeserving hands. Mr Mukherjee saw in the episode a
"body-blow to the image of our Parliament
by...members from Bihar, who virtually hijacked an
aircraft bound first for Lucknow. It was an act of
gangsterism...." His still-agile mind strayed back
to better days which prompted him to say that "if
our people are not to forfeit that respect, not only on
account of the almost daily exhibition of bad manners
during proceedings of the two Houses, but also because of
the hooliganism — no less — in the hijacking
case, they must be reassured that the culprits will be
brought to book". Prime Minister Atal Behari
Vajpayee himself should take the initiative of assuring
the veteran parliamentarian, with whom he must have
shared happy moments as members of a constructive
Opposition, that those involved in the hijacking of
flight CD-7411, Delhi-Lucknow-Patna, on May 12 will not
be spared. There is another reason why the Prime Minister
should not hesitate to order proper investigation of the
incident and institution of cases against the accused. If
the 26 MPs and the Civil Aviation Minister are not
punished, India will lose the moral right to demand the
extradition of the Pakistani hijackers of the Indian
Airlines flight from Kathmandu to Delhi in December last
year. The law on the subject does not distinguish between
the domestic and international nature of incidents of
hijacking. |
GLOBALISATION
MANTRA AMERICANS demonstrating against policies and institutions engineered by their own power elites? Surprising but true. The protesters were no mavericks, nor from any lunatic fringes of that affluent society. They were ordinary Americans who are moved by causes other than their own immediate and unconditional gain, causes such as environmental protection, fight against disease and deprivation and exploitation, and for justice and fairplay in international economic dealings. And they came out in their thousands, first in Seattle last autumn and then in Washington last month. Calling themselves “Mobilisation for Global Justice”, they attacked the World Trade Organisation for its “unfair and unjust” dispensation and the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for its policies and prescriptions which “Sap the poor to fatten the rich” and impose cures on developing countries that lead them into crippling debt traps and put them further at the mercy of the self-anointed global economic doctors. (So blatantly motivated is their “advice” that the Bank’s own chief economist, Mr Joseph Stiglitz, accused the duo of “imposing unwarranted misery on millions of East Asians” and quit in disgust.) The authenticity of these charges and that they echo a widespread feeling are reflected in the fact that the Bank-Fund establishments thought it prudent to admit in an official communique that “the benefits of the world economy are not reaching everyone, especially those in the developing countries” and that the duo’s role in this regard has become a matter of “growing public debate.” High time it did. The globalisation mantra, let’s face it in this country too, has brought no salvation to the vast majority of nations and peoples. On the other hand, it has deepened disparities between as well as within nations. On the worldwide human welfare index, the developing countries remain as far removed from the developed as they were, and so do the masses from the rich layers within the developing world. What has indeed changed is that the rich countries as such and the rich sections in the poor countries consume more things and more of all things than ever before, even as the poor countries and the poor multitudes in them remain as deprived as ever. According to the World Health Organisation, more than one and a half billion people in the developing world still do not have access to drinking water, and over two billion live without access to minimal sanitation. In terms of roti, kapada and makan, not to mention education and medicare, the magnitude of the deprivation is substantially higher. Perhaps more than any other developing country, India encapsulates this deplorable situation. A decade after the globalisation reforms, the teeming masses remain untouched by even the feeblest signs of betterment. The poor continue to be poor and the poorest among them are poorer and there are more of them now, not just in numbers but in percentage terms. According to the National Sample Survey, in the early fifties 53 per cent of Indians were below the poverty line. The picture did not change much in the subsequent 20 years. Then the percentage fell to 38 between the mid-seventies and the late eighties (the heydays of the discredited licence-permit raj!) and further declined by four points in just 12 months, July 1989-June 1990 (when the country was said to be on the brink of economic disaster!) And that is where the percentage has remained since. In other words, the much tom-tommed globalisation, etc, notwithstanding, every third Indian “lives under conditions of absolute poverty”. Add to this those who are underemployed, malnourished and without adequate shelter, education and health care, and the number rises phenomenally. This after a decade of reforms, a decade which also saw India figure among the top 10 most corruption-ridden countries! There are economists and apologists who say that the NSS finding is a “statistical artefact”, that the last 10 years have in fact been “a period of high growth”. This stand reflects a certain obsession with “the growth rate” and it has played havoc with policies, priorities and decision-making. It overlooks the fact that growth rates by themselves do not spell true national progress and societal welfare. But never mind the NSS; one needs only to look around without blinkers and one will see that nothing has improved for the vast majority of Indians, and for millions among them things are actually worse than 10 years ago. One has only to ask certain basic questions that determine the quality of life to realise that the wretched of the Indian earth remain the wretched of the earth. Do the landless labourers in this predominantly agricultural country own land or any other fixed assets now? Are the marginal farmers any less marginal today? Did farmers ever before commit a virtual mass suicide as they did in Andhra a couple of years ago (even as the IT-savvy “model” Chief Minister of their state was reaping a rich harvest of national and international paeans)? Are the people (and cattle) of Gujarat and Rajasthan, to take the current situation, less vulnerable to hunger and disease than people were in earlier drought situations? Despite the Green Revolution, etc, is Indian agriculture no longer a gamble on the monsoon? Take another set of criteria. Are there fewer children out of school than before? Do women in villages walk fewer kilometres or those in urban slums stand in shorter queues at the drip-dry public hydrants to get themselves a bucketful of water? Do more people who need hospital care have access to hospitals now? Is there any medicine which is cheaper than it was a year ago, never mind 10 years ago? In fact, is there anything, even basic dal-roti, which is not costlier today, in most cases by a 100 per cent and more, from the levels just a few years ago? As for our seemingly prosperous big cities and metros, not only are these a handful of tiny islands in an ocean of deprivation, the rich and well-off sections there are abject minorities amidst millions who live a hand-to-mouth and largely degrading existence. Even for the relatively better-off sections, the middle and lower middle classes, taps still run dry, electricity is part-time, transport is a nightmare and other basic utilities and civic amenities are in a dismal state. More than one-third of the population of the nation Capital lives on roads, under flyovers or in inhuman conditions in jhonpries. Morning walkers still see rag-pickers foraging the municipal bins and visitors at temples and mosques and bus-stands and railway stations are still accosted by hordes of beggars. It is not uncommon to read reports of people selling their children for money or girls in their teens taking to prostitution to earn a livelihood for their destitute families. Just the other day, in a case replicated not infrequently elsewhere in the country, an unemployed man in Delhi killed his four children, his wife and then himself because he could not feed them. It is not a matter of some individuals. In this last decade of “high growth rate”, the number of unemployed on live registers has increased from 20 crore to 30 crore — more than the population of the USA and Canada together! So where is the eldorado that globalisation and the rest of the new economics was supposed to take us to? Where is the manna that Dr Manmohan Singh, the first “reforms” Finance Minister, promised would fall from Indian skies “within three years”? There was no sign of it even after five years of Manmohanomics, and there is no sign of it even today. The Narasimha Rao-Manmohan Singh government was deservingly booted out by the people but so entrenched has the Bank-Fund globalisation blueprint got in the minds of our ruling classes that the succeeding Gowda-Gujral regimes hoisted an even more rabid reformist Finance Minister on the country. Unfortunately, the “different” government now in the saddle has learnt no lessons and proved no different; it has in it plenty of clones of the preceding regimes who also believe that the emancipation of the country lies in the “MNCpation” of the economy, and they are going about it in a way that would make the ghost of Marie Antoinette blush with envy. You can’t now afford even the PDS atta for your two morning chapatis, try imported cornflakes; can’t pay the new price of cooking gas, get yourself a micro-oven; can’t buy milk for your children after the 100 per cent hike in its price, give them imported condensed milk; you’re thirsty, have a coke; can’t afford adequate clothing, buy an imported blazer (which has just been put on the list of free imports along with ham and poultry products and 700 other items!); don’t have access to an ordinary telephone, get yourself a mobile; don’t want to travel on the footboard of poison-belching buses, buy yourself any of the dozen-odd foreign cars now available in the market.... All this may sound too
cynical but let’s be honest— isn’t this
what the decade of globalisation, liberalisation and
reforms have been all about? The alternatives to basic
necessities mentioned above are indeed available in India
today, but how many Indians have benefited or can benefit
from them? Yet, successive governments have continued on
this path — emancipation through
“MNCpation” and luxury consumerism, a scheme of
things in which the needy millions just don’t
figure. So, when the high priests of globalisation regret
that the benefits have not reached everyone, it is
nothing but camouflaged hypocrisy; the benefits are not
designed to reach everyone. It is a dispensation which
has abnegated its responsibilities to the majority of
people and it continues unchallenged because of its
ability to benefit and enrich certain classes venal
enough to be part of it. |
The
savagery in Sierra Leone SINGING and dancing on the streets of Sierra Leone! It must have been a strange sight, as though the unfortunate victims residing in hell had lined up for a bit of entertainment. For nearly 10 years life had been hell in this South-West African state which had been torn apart by one of the worst-ever civil wars. The sufferings and cruelty inflicted on the civilians had shocked the entire world, yet no remedial steps were taken. The conscience of the world was sleeping as far as Sierra Leone was concerned. Many of the armchair democrats in the West quite often described Africa as unfit for democracy. In a way this cannot be denied. After being freed from years of colonial rule, the nations in Africa enjoyed freedom and democracy for only brief periods. Then they fell victims to civil wars, tribal disputes, military coups and counter-coups and economic stagnation. What was more alarming was the cruelty inflicted on the people during these changes. Murder, torture, arson, rape and looting became so common that the media hardly gave details of these.The tribals of Rwanda and Burundi, by turn, indulged in genocide and there was mass blood letting every two or three years. In Sierra Leone, the rebels often killed and mutilated their civilian victims. The country has the dubious distinction of having the largest number of people without arms. These had been cut off in the local skirmishes. Why then did the men and women of this unfortunate country sing and dance on the streets? They were celebrating the capture by the security forces of the rebel leader, Foday Sankoh, who had been leading a civil war against the government. He had been guilty of mass murders, rape and decapitation of people. One of the most notorious and cruel despots in Africa, Sankoh had been eluding the security forces ever since the civil war erupted last year. Sankoh, who was stripped and paraded by his captors, was then put under the custody of the British forces who had landed in Sierra Leone to fly out its citizens stranded there. The British troops, on an urgent appeal from the UN and the Leone government, had prolonged their stay to help out. They now hold the rebel leader in custody at a remote security centre. The British troops must be wondering how long they will be saddled with this responsibility. Observers of Africa are uncertain about the consequences of the capture of the rebel leader. Will his troops become demoralised and agree to cooperate with the UN forces? The Sierra Leone civil war is nearly 10 years old. It began in the eastern borders adjoining Liberia, another African nation whose recent history is bathed in blood. The revolt against the one-party government of the All-People’s Congress was led by Foday Sankoh, a former corporal in the national army who had had a varied career. Calling his group the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), Sankoh launched several attacks against the central government. In these he received support from the Liberian side, particularly the rebel movement led by Charles Taylor. The rag-tag army of Taylor was full of blood-thirsty ruffians whose cruelty was later to be matched by the followers of Sankoh. By a strange twist of fate, Taylor became the head of a popular government in Liberia and continued to support his friend across the border. The support continued to this day. According to latest reports from Liberia, President Taylor, while commenting on the Sankoh arrest, said that no future talks on Sierra Leone were possible without the participation of the rebels. This meant that Sankoh had to be released from custody. This had happened in the past but Sankoh had made nonsense of such opportunities and drifting back to his notorious ways of murder and mutilation. The coups, counter-coups and the army intrigue in this diamond-rich kingdom are too numerous to mention. Presidents, army commanders came and went out of power with alarming frequency. Even Sankoh, despite his fearsome reputation, once functioned as the Vice-President of Sierra Leone. He was the first to break any accord where he was involved. But he retained his group of faithful followers by offering them a large share of the booty they looted. What were the rebels fighting against? There was corruption, of course, and the government was anything but efficient. The people of Sierra Leone may have supported the rebels, but could not suffer the torture inflicted on them. Normally, rebel forces fighting a government tried to win over the locals. But the Sierra Leone rebels led by Sankoh had no such scruples. They seemed to enjoy shedding blood, any kind of blood, from friend to foe. Sankoh, in fact, was held in Nigeria while peace negotiations were on. But he was released because it was felt that he could play a positive role in the process. One peace accord signed on May 18, 1999, did not last and was followed by another. The deal offered the RUF four Cabinet posts in a national unity government. In return, the group was told to disarm. Naturally, this did not happen. Sankoh and his group of thugs, used their power and position to gather more arms and money. He was always planning to capture power in Sierra Leone. This government did not last long and Sankoh was back to his bad, old ways. It was then the UN was persuaded to take some firm measures and despatch peacekeepers to keep the rebels at bay. This did not happen. On the contrary, several members of the peacekeeping forces were kidnapped and held to ransom by the RUF. At one time, more than 500 peacekeepers were held hostages. Will peace ever come to this unfortunate nation? The UN should know by now that no peace accord would be possible with Sankoh around. The Sierra Leone government, with the backing of the UN peacekeepers, should convince the rebels that they may have a role in the future of the country, provided they disowned their discredited leader. The rebels should stop supporting Sankoh and surrender their arms. The Liberian leader, Charles Taylor, should not be allowed to meddle in the internal affairs of his neighbour. As for Sankoh, he should be tried by the human rights courts, and his crimes against humanity made public. There should be enough witnesses to depose against him. They are the unfortunate one without their arms and legs. The world, particularly Africa, had been too lenient with Sankoh, who could be bracketed with Uganda’s Idi Amin and Congo’s Mobutu. Even these, occasionally listened to reason and knew which way the wind was blowing. But Sankoh remains an unrepentant monster. If the UN wanted to retain its credibility, it should not allow Sankoh to return to any kind of negotiations in Sierra Leone. They should understand that it was under his orders that hundreds of peacekeepers were kidnapped. India has a particularly
important role in the affairs of Sierra Leone. We had
sent large contingents of our soldiers as part of the
peacekeepers, and some of them are now in the custody of
RUF. We should take stern measures to get them back to
safety. |
Apex court
wades into water dispute “DISPUTES over water resources,” wrote Upendra Baxi, one of India’s leading law academics, in 1992, “may seem to many of us, imbued with post-modernist ethos, to be marginal to sculpting visions about human futures.” Federalism, he said, is not just a matter of arrangement of legislative and administrative relationships between the Union and States. The federal idea, and ideal, is above all about equitable development and the most just uses, humanly possible, of available resources for development which benefits the impoverished. “The failure of thoughtful scholarship,” Baxi went on to comment, a bit harshly, “ready to serve as a mediator of explosive resource disputes, creates a breeding ground for bloody practices of power. To the extent water turns into human blood, the practitioners of knowledge become co-accused with the practitioners of power.” Mindful perhaps of such a reproach, the Supreme Court of India — the paramount practitioners of legal knowledge in the country — took an important though small stride forward last month towards mediating in inter-State river disputes. Article 262 of the Constitution, ruled a five-member Bench of the Supreme Court (four Judges delivering five judgements), does not debar the court from entertaining under Article 131 a suit filed by a State against another and relating to the “execution and implementation” of an “already adjudicated” inter-State river or river valley dispute. Drawing a distinction between an inter-state dispute that stands adjudicated and one that is still pending adjudication (before a tribunal set up under the Inter-State Water Disputes Act of 1956), and limiting Article 262 to the former category of disputes, the court has thus reserved or rather acquired for itself a jurisdiction to intervene, and enforce some kind of a legal ethic, in a highly contentious and volatile area of Indian politics. The politics of water. An “ouster clause” in the original Constitution, Article 262 empowers Parliament to exclude by law the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court or any other court in case of any dispute or complaint regarding the “use, distribution or control” of the waters of any inter-State river or river valley. Adopted by Parliament in 1956, the Inter-State Water Disputes Act expressly provides for such exclusion. Notwithstanding anything contained in any other law, reads Section 11 of the Act, “neither the Supreme Court nor any other court shall have or exercise jurisdiction in respect of any water dispute which may be referred to a Tribunal under this Act.” Article 131, on the other hand, confers original (as distinguished from appellate) jurisdiction on the Supreme Court. Subject to the other provisions of the Constitution, it says, the Supreme Court shall have exclusive jurisdiction in any dispute between the Union and one or more States or between two or more States “if and insofar as the dispute involves any question (whether of law or fact) on which the existence or extent of a legal right depends.” Arising out of two suits — one filed by Karnataka against Andhra Pradesh and the other by Andhra Pradesh against Karnataka — relating to the Krishna river water dispute, the April 25 verdict unanimously reads down Article 262 to the advantage of Article 131. Both the suits sought directly or indirectly the enforcement or implementation of the award of the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal, apportioning the waters of the Krishna among the three riparian states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Maharashtra was also a defendant in both the suits, with the plaintiff in either case accusing the defendants of gross violation of the Tribunal’s award. At the heart of the controversy lay Karnataka’s attempt to raise the height of the Almatti dam, fiercely opposed by both Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Unlike land resources, said the award of the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal, whose distribution among the states is resolved by the very establishment of their boundaries, the water resources of a common river are not subject to automatic allocation among them by the delineation of their political frontiers. “A river is an indivisible physical unit, and the riparian states are in a state of permanent dependence upon each other. The utilisation of the waters of the river within the territory of one State influences the conditions of water utilisation in other States.” In the absence of legislation, agreement, award or decree (it continued), the Tribunal has to decide the dispute in such a way as will recognise the equal rights of the contending States and at the same time establish justice between them. “Equal right does not mean an equal division of the water. It means an equitable apportionment of the benefits of the river, each unit getting a fair share.” It is this principle of equitable apportionment which is now the established legal and judicial principle of distribution and allocation of waters among riparian States. And it is precisely this principle which in actual practice, runs up against provincial populism on either side, conjures up hostile passions and renders enforcement or compliance a grave political risk for any incumbent Chief Minister. Judicial enforcement seems to be the only way out. This, and not any
transcendental legal logic, is the ultimate rationale and
justification for the April 25 verdict and for the
Supreme Court’s assumption of a jurisdiction
expressly barred by the Constitution. |
Time for
the CBI to bare the truth LET’S bypass that flinging fixing match being played between those two ageing cricketers. Its time the investigating agencies bared the truth so that all those sessions, crying or otherwise, come to an abrupt halt. Moving on, the first week of June will see several changes in the administrative setup here — five Secretary-level bureaucrats are retiring on May 31 and this will automatically bring about a reshuffle. Then, there are rumours (I say rumours because this news could not be confirmed by authentic sources) that the Cabinet Secretary, who is otherwise due for retirement in October, is moving to the World Bank so if that happens another minor reshuffle will take place. And to top all this, June being June, when several VVIPs take off for their annual holiday, so it will be a month of who’s going and where and for how long. The Prime Minister is visiting Leh on June 8 and 9. And two days prior to that, an advance party reaches there and this is no ordinary group rather eight of our top dancers who would be presenting (in Leh) a spectacular dance concert called Natyam. I witnessed Natyam when it was performed at the India Habitat Centre for the International Lawyers’ Conference and I was left impressed (mind you, I’m not easily impressed) as our six classical dance forms were well woven together in this two-hour dance concert and to top it all the dancers participating in this Natyam are our very best — Uma Sharma (Kathak), Raja and Radhya Reddy (Kuchipudi), Pratibha Prahlad (Bharatnatyam), Bharati Shivaji (Mohiniattam), Kiran Sehgal (Odissi) and Guru Singhjit and Charu Mathur (Manipuri). Needless for me to add that witnessing ‘Natyam’ is sure to be a treat for the people of Leh. Meanwhile, we, in New Delhi, are continuing with the ‘undying season’. I must write about two unusually relaxed evenings. Gopal Sharman’s ‘‘experiment’’ Last weekend it was indeed relaxing to hear melodies of the ‘30s, ‘40s and 50’s. Several of those one had never really heard before. In fact when Gopal Sharman ended ‘‘that experiment’’ of singing melodies of the years gone by, with these lines ‘‘Duniya rang rangeeli baba/yeh duniya ek sundar bagiya/shobha eski nyari hai/ har daali par jadu chaya /har daali matwari hai...’’ (from the film ‘Blind Singer’, made in the late 1930s) the audience sang along with him — thats a different story that most in the audience were much beyond those mid years. ‘‘I want to expose the people of this city to the haunting nostalgia that these evergreen songs carry. The most unfortunate aspect is that these songs are slowly fading, because they are not being sung or played.... I think my experiment has been successful, for the first test is passed when the audience decides to sing along with you’’ said Sharman. And come September a series of such evenings will stand out at the Akshara Theatre. Where songs and haunting lines — right from ‘Zindagi khwab hai’ to ‘Yeh raate, yeh mausam, yeh hasna hasana...’ to ‘Tum na jaane kis jahaan mein kho gaye...’ would be made to stay on by Gopal Sharman and sitarist Nurullah Khan. Changing trends Last month ‘mushairas’ dotted the social scene and now last week, Saroj Vasishth, enthusiastically invited one to a gettogether of writers and poets -‘Samvad’, where a collection of their writings was also released. And even before one could hear those verses the very concept of Samvad appealed — any writer or poet, aspiring or established, can become a member of Samvad (membership is free) and thereby, on a certain platform, read out and continue reading out from his or her works.... And I have purposely brought in ‘continue reading out...’ bit as on May 18 (latest Samvad meet, held at the India International Centre Annexe) as other poets and writers kept their verses short and crisp, the one politician around seemed to break the unwritten rule. Yes, Keshri Nath Tripathi, Speaker of UP’s Vidhan Sabha went on rather long with his poetic outburst. Of course, no opposition to quieten him or bully him to put a fullstop after the initial outburst. I don’t know whether you would agree with me but whenever politicians are invited to literary meets they do try to stand out (sarcasm intended) with those extra frills ( in the form of words or otherwise). Others who came up with their verse that evening were Abhimanyu Anant (poet settled in Mauritius), Sheila Gujral, Padma Sachdeva, Kanhaya Lal Nandan, Balraj Komal, Shyama Sondhi, Saroj Vasishth, Pratap Sehgal, Kusum Ansal, Sunita Jain — Jain was in fact the convener of this function and though she is a professor of English at Delhi IIT, but writes poetry in Hindi. ‘Samvad’ continued over tea and Sheila Gujral did mention to me that her poetry collection would be released later this year, adding, ‘‘manuscripts of two unfinished novels are lying around and several short stories too, but, then, I don’t seem to find the time to finish them...you know if you are married to a politician it gets difficult to take out time for your creative writing...’’ And the two trends, if
you can call them so, which I noticed that evening could
be termed disappointing — that is disappointing from
a romantic’s point of view. Foremost, poets
assembled that evening did not focus their words/verse on
the proverbial beloved. As if the times we are living in
has ebbed the very concept of romance. Another
disappointment was to hear line after line revolving
around grandchildren. All these years one heard of poets
writing on loneliness, nature, women, mehfils, haunting
memories, love for the country, valour, quest for freedom
etc but never really on grandchildren! |
May
29, 1925 ONE of the resolutions passed at the Faridpur Conference urged that with a view to establishing a peaceful atmosphere in the country it is absolutely necessary that all political prisoners should be released and that those in exile should be allowed to return. The present is pre-eminently the fittest time when the Government should agree to this reasonable demand. The political atmosphere is remarkably calm today, and statesmanship demands that the Government should also take advantage of the present opportunity. The first step that it
can take to make the country contented is to release
political prisoners who are suffering because they love
their country. |
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