E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

Water: dry ideas
IT was quixotic for the Centre to ask the states to surrender their power to develop water resources as it indeed did on Friday at a meeting of the National Water Resources Council. And it naturally got a resounding rebuff. There are several things wrong with the so-called revised policy. It is almost the same as the one adopted way back in 1987 partly. But what is new are three proposals and all of them are highly objectionable. 

OPINION

Need to review Hawk AJT deal
by Cecil Victor
THE Government of India is about to place an order with Britain for the Hawk advanced jet trainer (AJT) and it may be walking into a trap of international embargoes. It could end up paying for the aircraft it may never get.

POINT OF LAW

Background to J&K autonomy debate
by Anupam Gupta
“THE constitutional relationship between the State of Jammu and Kashmir and the Union (of India),” Prime Minister Indira Gandhi told Parliament on February 24, 1975, announcing the Kashmir Accord, “will continue as it has been, and the extension of further provisions of the Constitution (of India) to the State will continue to be governed by the procedure prescribed in Article 370.”

MIDDLE

Sugar-free watermelons
by Madan Gupta Spatu
A SUCCESSFUL salesman is he who can sell a comb to a baldy, television to a blind person and a car to a beggar, that too at 15 per cent interest. It is only the market technique through which one can dispose of the garbage of one’s house at the rate of gold.

DIVERSITIES — DELHI LETTER

Airlines’ chief causes traffic chaos
by Humra Quraishi
THIS week has been dull and to top it all the erratic power supply has been painful (that’s the word for it). No great/noteworthy happenings except a reception hosted by the Ambassador of Libya, Dr Nuri Al- Fituri Al-Madani, in honour of the visiting Minister of Foreign Affairs of Libya, Mr Abdul Rahman Shalgam. And I am purposely bypassing all those publicity gimmicks by Virgin Atlantic Airways chairman Richard Branson. 

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

Water: dry ideas

IT was quixotic for the Centre to ask the states to surrender their power to develop water resources as it indeed did on Friday at a meeting of the National Water Resources Council. And it naturally got a resounding rebuff. There are several things wrong with the so-called revised policy. It is almost the same as the one adopted way back in 1987 partly. But what is new are three proposals and all of them are highly objectionable. In the days of clamour for autonomy, the Centre wants to set up a river basins organisation with statutory powers. Since the body will fix the share of the riparian states, it will be under the Union government. This provoked a loud protest with Punjab, Madhya Pradesh and the southern states denouncing it as an abridgement of their constitutional power. So vehement was their protest that the Prime Minister had to intervene to assure them that the Centre would not thrust any policy on the states but would go by consensus. Gauging the mood, he virtually adjourned the meeting. The second controversial clause was the guidelines the policy set out on sharing waters. Last was the widespread impression that the water policy is yet another attempt at encroaching on the authority of the states. The exercise exposed one thing: the Centre did not take the elementary precaution of consulting the states before launching a major drive to solve the perennial problem of making the optimum use of river water. And it reflects badly on its crisis management skill.

Prime Minister Vajpayee made the right noises even if it meant a textbook approach. Water is a precious commodity and the country has to use it wisely to provide drinking water and irrigation to farm land, to generate power, to run industries and to promote navigation. He also touched on the danger areas. Increased population needs more water as does the growing industry. Pollution is destroying the quality of water and this in turn affects the environment. All very well said, but history reveals how zealously the states guard their water resources, even if they cannot fully tap it for want of reservoirs and canals. Ideally, the Centre should draft a policy for each river, which will help all concerned and not take away any existing benefits. At first glance this may sound extremely utopian and unrealistic. In rural India water is an emotional issue, as the prolonged Punjab problem has shown. How then is it possible to evolve a mutually agreeable package? Simple. Water is one resource which is either underused or grossly abused. If the policy attacks these twin-sins, the Centre’s manoeuvring capacity will vastly increase and an understanding leadership can do the rest.

Then there are lower riparian states like Haryana (Punjab denies it this status as for as its rivers are concerned), Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu which feel cheated by the upper riparian states. All river water disputes revolve around this real and perceived injustice. Once again, Haryana has highlighted the contours of the problem as a recipient state sees it. If the SYL canal is completed, it can bring more land under irrigated cultivation and increase food production. Chief Minister Chautala estimates the value of the additional output at Rs 500 crore. He is peeved at the way the Ravi water is allowed to flow to Pakistan while his state suffers from an acute paucity and increased demand from Delhi. There will be a solution once the Ranjit Sagar dam is ready but then that is a jam-tomorrow proposition. A related inference is unavoidable. The BJP-led government is in a hurry to solve all problems but the available intellectual resources are inadequate to cope with the reality. There is also the old policy baggage which some leaders suddenly remember and try to push it through. Seen in this context the collapse of the efforts to drum up a national water policy reveals a deeper malaise.

“Star wars” setback

WHILE there is bound to be considerable disappointment in the US scientific community over the failure of an interceptor missile to hit a target missile over the Pacific on Saturday, the world in general will heave a sigh of relief because this setback may diminish the momentum for a national missile defence system which President Clinton is keen to initiate before he demits office. Of the previous two attempts, only one succeeded, that too partially. The elaborate but undependable system designed to protect the USA and its allies in the event of a limited attack by ballistic missiles fired by rogue states or terrorists is far too expensive to be sold to the taxpayers easily. The failed test itself cost upwards of $ 100 million and the project itself might cost more than a mind-boggling $60 billion. The public might now start asking whether it is really worthwhile to have such an “iffy” toy up there in space. But their earthy wisdom is pitted against a bunch of hawkish Pentagon scientists who have yet to come out of their cold war hangover. Solidly behind them is an equally determined, billion-dollar arms industry, which is feeling insecure, now that there are not enough avenues of futuristic battles. To be sure, they are not going to give up quite easily. Already a damage control exercise is on to convince the public that it was only a technical failure of the booster rocket that was supposed to release a warhead-busting device called the “kill vehicle”. This powerful lobby is likely to make a determined effort soon to make sure that the project remains on course. So frenzied is this pressure group that a few years ago, there was an attempt to sell the “star wars” scheme to the country and the world by raising the bogey of rogue asteroids and comets colliding with the earth in the near future. At least that sci-fi scheme has been shelved for now. The President has to decide before the end of the year whether the USA should go ahead with the construction of the initial phase of the national missile defence system so that it will be ready by the year 2005.

Even if the test had been successful, the NMD programme is a dangerous and counter-productive scheme. For one thing, it takes a US-centric view of the world which may not at all be for the good of the world. In fact, it may revive the very arms race that it sets to curb. Russia has already expressed its strong opposition as has China. India may also have to reassess its options. And an overt arms race is not the only likely byproduct. It may also spawn a clandestine spread of nuclear weapons. China’s help to Pakistan in this regard is a case in point. The USA has been insisting that the system is aimed at unpredictable countries like North Korea but China is not convinced. Even if the USA does not show enough concern for world opinion, it must listen to its own experts. A sizeable section of them has been crying itself hoarse that the testing methods are flawed and the system is just not feasible. It now remains for President Clinton to decide whether he wants to be known as a realist or as a gizmo-loving dreamer. What he should remember is that his Rambo image has already done considerable harm to US interests.

Unquiet flows the Jhelum
Losing fickle allies to make dubious friends
by Sumer Kaul

IF the Vajpayee government and the BJP in particular feel deeply discomfited by the latest turn of events in Kashmir, they have nobody but themselves and their advisers in Washington to thank for it. The autonomy resolution, so called, adopted by the state assembly, has its roots not in the original instrument of accession, nor in the ruling National Conference’s election manifesto; this development is a result of the Centre’s decision to release the Hurriyat leaders and talk with them to resolve the “Kashmir problem”. As I wrote at the time, not only “is it difficult to discern any sense or strategy” in the decision, it is “a shot in the dark that is likely to boomerang”. The autonomy resolution and the nature of the preceding debate are portents in this direction.

How ill-conceived the Centre’s move was is reflected in the construction Home Minister Advani put on it. The government has taken “a very strong stand” against Pakistan, he said at the time, and so “we have decided to take a lenient stand with our own dissidents”. Even as the “strongness” of the stand against Pakistan remains a government secret, what foxed observers is the rechristening of a bunch of avowed secessionists as “dissidents”. If the government is privy to some evidence that the rag-tag coalition of anti-accessionists, fundamentalists and out-and-out pro-Pakistan elements have had a change of heart and wiped off their secessionist spots, surely there should have been some hints, some utterances from the Hurriyat leaders to that effect? To date they have said nothing whatsoever that would suggest a departure from their known views. The only departure in evidence is the one made by the National Conference.

While the Centre’s initiative is widely believed to be at the behest of Washington (the Hurriyat leaders were released within a week of the Clintonian visitation!), its immediate result has been to push the National Conference into reverse gear. Casting aside half a century of history, the National Conference now wants a relationship that falls way outside all known parameters of provincial autonomy, and all suggestions and demands made by other parties and other states in this regard.

Redesigning the existing federal architecture in favour of democratic decentralisation between Centre and states and, equally, within states right down to panchayats, is a long-standing need that ought to be addressed without further delay or dither. What the Kashmir assembly resolution — it should rightly be called National Conference resolution — demands is altogether different. It seeks minimalist links with the rest of the country, a virtually independent dispensation which it claims is in conformity with the instrument of accession. True, that document formally envisaged limited accession. But it is also true that the wording in the agreement notwithstanding, for all political and practical purposes, Kashmir became a part of India. The accession was endorsed by the popular Kashmiri leader, Sheikh Abdullah, and later unanimously ratified by the State’s constituent assembly. Then, over the years, under Congress rule at the Centre and National Conference rule in the state, the relationship was deepened and widened until Kashmir became virtually like any other state of the Union.

The same National Conference now wants to put the clock back. Why has this happened? Never mind what Farooq Abdullah may say, the entire exercise stems from the fear of the party and especially of Farooq Abdullah that the Centre’s move to seek a dialogue with the Hurriyat has the very real potential of rendering them (National Conference) irrelevant. So we had better upstaged the Hurriyat, is obviously the thinking of the National Conference. And if the preferred survival kit means reopening the accession, so be it. Witness the stridency of the National Conference members during the debate and witness how they indulged in Hurriyatspeak — approving references to “still valid” UN resolutions, threats that should the Centre make a compact with the Hurriyat then “we (National Conference) will become dangerous”, open warnings to the Centre to go along or “we can accede to any other country”, etc.

These are desperate outbursts of a party which suddenly finds itself an endangered species in Kashmir’s politics. Which is not to say that the National Conference tactics are justifiable. Nor can one ignore the dangerous consequences of this line of action. This prospect is reinforced by the fact that the Farooq government quietly shelved the report of the original (Balraj Puri) committee on regional autonomy in favour of a hastily compiled report by his associates and cronies which recommends carving out separate administrative regions in the state on a religious basis. Apart from the condemnable underpinning of what can only be described as a three-nation theory (roughly, Muslim Kashmir, Hindu Jammu and Buddhist Ladakh) , this mischievous scheme has no place in the valley (“Muslim Kashmir”) for its original inhabitants, the Kashmiri Pandits. Is it because the valley has already, and shall we say conveniently, been cleansed of them?

Even more ominous is the fact that the proposed dispensation will fit in nicely with the designs of anti-India forces and in fact prove a facilitative first step towards implementing any of the several but essentially similar formulae worked out by American think-tanks — “solutions” which would partition the state on communal lines, with the coveted centrepiece, the valley, going out of India. Unthinkable for us at the moment, but an eventuality nevertheless.

By all accounts, the Congress party and most of the other parties in Parliament will oppose the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly/National Conference resolution as well as the regional revamp plan. Nor can the Bharatiya Janata Party, despite its leadership’s great desire to make history, possibly countenance any dilution of the existing arrangement. In fact, some party functionaries and MPs have come out strongly against the autonomy resolution. As for the NDA government, at the time of writing (three days after the motion was adopted by the J&K Assembly) the only reaction was Mr Advani’s statement that the resolution would be considered by the government after the Prime Minister’s return from his European journey. Significantly, however, the Home Minister followed this the next day by saying that a decision on the resolution would rest with Parliament. Although he also hinted that, “given the composition of the House”, Parliament would reject the demand, one cannot discount the pressures that Americans will undoubtedly put on the ruling coalition, principally on the BJP, to move away from the status quo in Kashmir. In other words, nudge us towards making more and more blunders.

How further events will unfold only time will tell. But one does not have to wait on time to see the damage already done. Thanks to the American advice to deal with the Hurriyat, or rather thanks to the government succumbing to this advice, the anti-national Hurriyat has suddenly achieved official recognition, indeed a certain respectability. This has already worsened the political atmospherics in the state.

Any mature leadership could have anticipated this. But if you cease to think on your own and in your own national interest, if you make plaintive appeals to other powers to help you with your problems — you invite advice, and when you do that you find yourself obliged to accept it. The trouble, moreover, with accepting advice from foreign quarters is that it does not stop at one single initiative. One “advice” leads to another and it becomes a process over which you have less and less control. So if we are “advised” to talk with the Hurriyat, we have no go but to accept the advice, sparing not a thought to the antecedents as well as possible intents of the adviser, nor to the impact of the move on the fortunes and attitude of the party that has by and large stood by India, namely, the National Conference.

Even in the unlikely event of the Hurriyat leaders being persuaded at some stage to give up their secessionist stand, it needs no great insight to anticipate that they will extract a price that may prove unbearable for India’s integrity and secularism. On the other hand, should the Hurriyat agree to maintain full links with India, Islamabad will without doubt disown them — and prop up others to carry out their bloody machinations in the state. Pakistan has done this before and will do it again. And yet another Indian initiative will come a cropper, and the tragedy of Kashmir — and of India — will continue.

Even in the unlikely event of the Hurriyat leaders being persuaded at some stage to give up their secessionist stand, it needs no great insight to anticipate that they will extract a price that may prove unbearable for India’s integrity and secularism. On the other hand, should the Hurriyat agree to maintain full links with India, Islamabad will without doubt disown them — and prop up others to carry out their bloody machinations in the state. Pakistan has done this before and will do it again. And yet another Indian initiative will come a cropper, and the tragedy of Kashmir — and of India — will continue.

Sugar-free watermelons
by Madan Gupta Spatu

A SUCCESSFUL salesman is he who can sell a comb to a baldy, television to a blind person and a car to a beggar, that too at 15 per cent interest. It is only the market technique through which one can dispose of the garbage of one’s house at the rate of gold.

Babu Ramlal and Girdharilal are both colleagues in a government office. They are seasoned vendors having equivalent experience of service. Both are designated truants as they slip from the office after marking their attendance, placing their spectacles and purse-cum-lunch packet on the table, straightway dashing to their sites with any current consumer items.

This summer, both purchased truckload of watermelons and decorated the football like green fruits on the pavements of either sides of Madhya Marg. As ill luck would have it, Babu Ramlal’s stock turned to be entirely tasteless and colourless too. The size of the heap remained the same till afternoon as all the customers frowned upon him for spoiling their previous taste by offering a free bite of the fruit.

On the other hand, lady luck smiled on Girdharilal. His lot of watermelons came out to be very fresh, tasty, red, juicy and sweeter than honey. “Khand Tarbuje — Khand Tarbuje”, he hawked at his highest pitch. He disposed of three-fourth of his stock within no time and retired to his folding bed kept beneath the tree.

Babu Ramlal’s investment was at stake due to inferior lot. He cursed his lot and blamed his better half who had proposed the “Today’s Item”. Seeing no customer around, he opened all the newspapers currently being published from Chandigarh. Babu Ramlal otherwise has no flair for reading newspapers but he subscribes only because, he gets so many colour supplements, pamphlets and one Hindi newspaper free with one national daily. He also collects bundles of stale newspapers from his office and wraps the saleable items or disposes them of to “raddiwala” to fetch a bonus.

While glancing over a page of a newspaper sans news, he came across an ad. Like the “thirsty crow” he also hit upon an idea. Babu Ramlal was also a “khandani vendor” having good experience of Chandni Chowk.

He put up a colourful big banner across Madhya Marg that read: “Export quality sugar-free watermelons specially grown for figure conscious ladies and diabetics.... Limited stock.”

As soon as the big banner fluttered across, the traffic jammed. The idea spread like jungle fire on telephones, fax and Internet. Chandigarhians as per their diehard habit and characteristics, lined up.. and within minutes, Babu Ramlal was free from sugar-free watermelons with more money, more orders and, of course, a good interview to local stringers and lensmen of the media.

Need to review Hawk AJT deal
by Cecil Victor

THE Government of India is about to place an order with Britain for the Hawk advanced jet trainer (AJT) and it may be walking into a trap of international embargoes. It could end up paying for the aircraft it may never get.

It must learn the lessons that are obvious from the British refusal to return two naval aircraft that were sent to it for repairs. The excuse given is that the USA, which has imposed an embargo on the sale of weapons to India for its nuclear tests at Pokhran in May, 1998, is not allowing the transfer of any weapons platform in which any US-made component is fitted. The Sea Harrier jumpjet as well as the Seaking helicopter used by the Indian Navy that were sent for repairs contain systems and sub-systems supplied by American arms manufacturers.

Defence Minister George Fernandes has said that India has had to resort to cannibalising parts from other aircraft to keep its Sea Harrier fleet operational. It means that the operational strength of Harriers, which are the prime strike component of India’s fleet air arm, is being eroded at a rate equal to the maintenance cycle.

If India signs the contract for the Hawk advanced jet trainer it may never get the delivery of the aircraft because it contains several components that are made by US manufacturers as in the case of the Harriers. Not long ago something similar happened to Indonesia which has purchased Hawk aircraft from Britain. The USA forbade the use of America-produced radar and communications equipment that is installed by Britain in the Hawks. The last of six aircraft purchased by Indonesia were delivered recently — ferried by ship and without radars and communications equipment. Indonesia now has to look to other sources for these two types of equipment before the aircraft are worthy of their quoted capability.

The Indian Cabinet recently decided to buy the British Aerospace Hawk trainers to fulfill a recommendation made by the La Fontaine Committee in the middle of the 1980s as a trans-supersonic platform on which Indian Air Force pilots would train before they begin operational flying on supersonic fighters. This was intended to reduce flying accidents 41 per cent of which, the La Fontaine Committee said, were caused by human error.

It recommended the acquisition of an advanced jet trainer (AJT) because the two aircraft used for the transition — the Hunter and the MiG 21 — suffered from design limitations. Nevertheless the IAF continued its training programme based on these two aircraft till the Hunters became obsolescent and were decommissioned. The MiG-21s are still being used as transitional trainers.

The Government of India some time ago signed a contract with Russia to upgrade and modernise the last of the series of MiG-21s — the MiG-21 bis — but things are happening extremely slowly because many of the systems and subsystems selected by India are from nations that toe the US line on supplies.

Under these circumstances, which are not likely to change unless the USA lifts the embargo, the Government of India has little choice but to scrap the Hawk deal, and use the money which it intended to hand over to the British, to resuscitate the MiG-21 production line at Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd and continue to use this aircraft for its training programme as it has been doing for 12 years.

Additionally, greater use of simulators, as recommended by La Fontaine, should become standard practice in the IAF.

At the same time the government must review the other factors that have contributed to accidents in the IAF: material failure, including component malfunctioning which was assessed at 43 per cent of the causative factors (the others being bird hits 11 per cent and others 5 per cent).

This it must do if for no other reason than to spare the nation the mortification of being informed that one of its strike aircraft just fell out of the sky because of a malfunction in the middle of battlefield as it happened with the MiG-27 at Kargil. A second aircraft, a MiG-21 piloted by Flt-Lt Nachiketa, was shot down while he was looking for the wreckage of the first plane.

Cannibalisation for want of adequate spareparts, inadequate maintenance procedures, and human error in the fitment of components are the major cause of most of the accidents affecting the IAF.

In the current international, environment, where embargoes dictate the availability of the military equipment, the government will have to learn to marshal the vast resources that have been created over the past four decades both by way of laboratories and ordnance factories as well as the accretion of technical skills in its work-force. Buying the Hawk aircraft under these circumstances with eyes wide open will not be in the national interest.

India will have to learn to live with the fact that apart from the embargo imposed by the USA, there is another insidious international denial regime called the Waasanaar Arrangement by which the developed nations are denying crucial high-technology equipment to those nations that do not sign on the dotted line on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the CTBT and the Missile Technology Control Regime. India falls foul of all of them. — (ADNI)

Background to J&K autonomy debate
by Anupam Gupta

“THE constitutional relationship between the State of Jammu and Kashmir and the Union (of India),” Prime Minister Indira Gandhi told Parliament on February 24, 1975, announcing the Kashmir Accord, “will continue as it has been, and the extension of further provisions of the Constitution (of India) to the State will continue to be governed by the procedure prescribed in Article 370.”

“Sheikh Abdullah was very anxious,” Indira Gandhi informed Parliament, “that, to start with, the constitutional relationship between the State and the Centre should be as it was in 1953 when he was in power. It was explained to him that the clock could not be put back in this manner. Mirza Afzal Beg (who had signed the Accord on behalf of Sheikh Abdullah) pressed for the transfer of provisions relating to the fundamental rights to the State Constitution, the removal of the supervision and control of the Election Commission of India over elections to the State Legislature, and the modification of Article 356 (so as) to require the State government’s concurrence before imposing President’s rule in the State. It was not found possible to agree to any of these proposals.”

“I must say to the credit of Sheikh Abdullah,” she added, “that despite his strong views on these issues, he has accepted the Agreed Conclusions (known as the Kashmir Accord).”

The most important feature of the 184-page report of the State Autonomy Committee adopted by the J&K Assembly on June 26, and rejected by the Union Cabinet last week, is the absence, the complete absence, of any reference to the Kashmir Accord, or to Sheikh Abdullah’s acceptance of the terms and conditions embodied therein, on the basis of which he returned to power in 1975 after a gap of 22 years.

Contrary to popular impression, the report does not seek to reopen the question of Kashmir’s accession to India. “Our faith in the future of the State as a willing, content and enthusiastic member of the Union of India remains undiminished,” it says (at page 10).

Neither in the analysis presented nor in the tone or language used in the report — both apparently a lawyer’s handiwork — is there anything to suggest that the repeated, thematic emphasis on “autonomy” is intended to serve as a springboard for secession.

Farooq Abdullah, writes the distinguished former civil servant and J&K Governor from 1981 to 1984, Mr B.K. Nehru, in his autobiography “Nice Guys Finish Second” (1997), speaking from personal experience and observation, “was the first honestly elected leader of the Kashmiri people who felt himself totally Indian, who was not neutral about Pakistan but definitely anti-Pakistan, who, unlike his father, repeated ad nauseam to audiences in Kashmir the fact that the accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to India was final, that Kashmir was an inalienable part of India and anybody who did not like it could lump it, for he had no place in Kashmir and was welcome to go to Pakistan.”

There is nothing in the autonomy report, Kashmir’s latest demand upon India, to contradict this assessment. Far more attacking “briefs” have been prepared before in other parts of India, Punjab included, and in Kashmir itself by the liberal intelligentsia and so-called champions of “human rights”.

The autonomy report does speak glibly of “the immenseness and the pace of erosion of State autonomy from 1953 onwards” (page 70) and of “forty years of unconstitutional practice hav(ing) created a mess” (page 111). But not once in its 112 pages (the remaining 72 pages being consumed by nine appendices), does it speak of “human rights”.

And yet, even as a lawyer (or constitutional lawyer), it is not only difficult but impossible to agree with the report or to accept most of its recommendations. Apart from other things, the Kashmir Accord accepted by Sheikh Abdullah in 1975 totally destroys the legitimacy of any claim to revert to the pre-1953 constitutional position of the State of Jammu and Kashmir.

The fundamental rights chapter of the Indian Constitution, referred to by Indira Gandhi in her speech in Parliament, was extended to Jammu and Kashmir for the first time in 1954 (subject, though, to some exceptions and modifications as also the addition of a new Article 35A, protecting special rights and privileges of “permanent residents” of the State).

The Election Commission of India supervises, controls and conducts elections to the J & K legislature since 1960 (when the amended Section 138 of the J&K Constitution of 1957, empowering the EC, came into force).

And President’s rule can be declared in the State under Article 356 since 1964, by virtue of the Constitution (Application to J&K) Third Amendment Order passed that year by the President of India, with the concurrence of the State Government as required under Article 370.

But that is not all that was accomplished upto 1975, or thereafter for 25 years till AD 2000, under the Constitution of India or the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir.

(More on both the Constitutions next week).

Airlines’ chief causes traffic chaos
by Humra Quraishi

THIS week has been dull and to top it all the erratic power supply has been painful (that’s the word for it). No great/noteworthy happenings except a reception hosted by the Ambassador of Libya, Dr Nuri Al- Fituri Al-Madani, in honour of the visiting Minister of Foreign Affairs of Libya, Mr Abdul Rahman Shalgam. And I am purposely bypassing all those publicity gimmicks by Virgin Atlantic Airways chairman Richard Branson. He’s been here the whole of last weekend (July 7-8) and this time got off the elephant’s back but hopped into one of our autorickshaws (with an additional 40 autorickshaws following him) and causing a terrible traffic chaos in the heart of Connaught Place, so much so that many in the crowd lost their footwear or limped about in broken sandals. And naive that we are we have gone and fallen right into his publicity traps.

There’s been little to no criticism of his airlines’ tie up with Air India (or say vice versa), with emphasis on what he was wearing or riding or lifting. I am told that at the dinner hosted by him on July 7, at Virgin Lands — a spot near IGIA — he picked up one of the so called ‘chosen’ models whilst the guests simply stared on. Branson sure knows all those ways to distract. A pity that we sit distracted.

Where our children stand? Down there!

Another important event scheduled to take place here on July 12 is the release of UNICEF’s report ‘‘Progress of Nations -2000’’. In fact, from 1993 onwards, UNICEF releases an annual report ‘‘which examines the nation’s progress towards the achievable goals set at the World Summit for Children in 1990....This year the Progress of nations focuses on four issues: HIV/AIDS and its effects on children, child malnutrition, child labour, progress in immunisation and vaccine initiatives’’.

The report will spell out some gloomy figures at least where we are concerned, in fact there’s a hint of it in the very invite. I quote: ‘‘Indeed, the country hosts the highest number of people with HIV/AIDS in the world, the highest number of malnourished children, the highest number of polio cases and the highest number of working children...’’

Shouldn’t we hang our heads in shame. With this dismal scenario we go distracting each other along caste and creed lines. And now along bifurcation lines. What business do we have to call ourselves civilized when we can’t take care of our children — of their needs and priorities and of their very survival. I don’t know about your towns and cities but here, in New Delhi, right where the political who’s who live, sullen faced children are seen with begging bowls at chowks, bus stops, railway stations, streets etc.

And before I move on I mention that though I cannot pinpoint the exact state of the child in Iraq but till date UNICEF has not been able to put pressure on the UN and its agencies to bypass all those sanctions, so that the child survives in today’s Iraq. Ironically, it is the UN Newsletters which periodically graph out the dismal state of the Iraqi child and even go on to mention the lack of food and nil medical facilities responsible for it. If I may put it rather bluntly — what is the point of these detailed reports when one cannot strike at the very root cause, especially if it is a known and well established one.

Before moving ahead, let me mention that Iraq celebrates its National Day on July 17. And the Iraqi Ambassador to India, Salah Al-Mukhtar, is hosting a reception-cum-dinner that very evening. ‘‘Sanctions continue but we are somehow surviving because Americans have not been able to kill and dampen our spirit’’, said this ambassador who quit as the editor of one the leading Iraqi newspapers to serve his country, as a diplomat. In fact, as the diplomatic parties and receptions pick up once again, there will be new faces on the circuit because ambassadors/high commissioners of several countries have been recently transferred. And these include the ambassadors of Hungary, Germany, Israel, Cuba, Panama.

Honest man of the year

Anyway, this dullness at least vis-a-vis events should subside next week onwards. On July 15, ‘Honest Man of the Year’ award will be presented to Khushwant Singh, by Andhra Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu. In fact, when Kaamna Prasad telephoned to invite me for this function I couldn’t help asking her why this change from the Prime Minister to the Chief Minister ( No, I am not being presumptuous, its just that earlier in April when this function was all set to take place there were talks that the Prime Minister would give away the award). And in her typical style she quipped, ‘‘Why Chandrababu Naidu? Because we’re looking towards the future!’’

An honest answer, I presume. And a book on Khushwant will also be released and it has write-ups by those who have known him. Anyway, there couldn’t be a more honest writer than Khushwant, for the man writes as he speaks. He’s not bothered about any of those frills or formalities and can be ruthlessly frank. Wish we had more of such men around and things would automatically change.

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

What humanity desperately needs more than new sources of power, more than leisure or prosperity, is a new conscience. When that arrives, man’s intelligence and man’s will can forge a way to a general level of prosperity not only far greater than human hope has envisaged but also eternally durable. Philosophers, economists, statesmen — with a zeal enforced by necessity — are seeking today security for a failing world. The solution to their quest must be found chiefly in a new universal moral and spiritual consciousness of brotherhood applied in practical terms to the organisation of human society.

—Stanwood Cobb, Security for a Failing World

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What we need is something totally new — a revolution, a mutation in the psyche itself. The old brain cannot possibly solve the human problem of relationship. The old brain is Asiatic, European, American or African .... Let us ask ourselves ... is it possible for a human being... to bring about a revolution not only in his outward relationships but in the whole field of his thinking, feeling, acting and reacting?

— J. Krishnamurti, Freedom From the Known

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Conscience is not the same thing for all. Whilst, therefore, it is a good guide for individual conduct, imposition of that conduct upon all will be an insufferable interference with everybody’s freedom of conscience.... Even amongst the most conscientious persons there will be room enough for honest differences of opinion. The only possible rule of conduct in any civilised society is, therefore, mutual toleration.

— Mahatma Gandhi, Young India, September 23, 1926.

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There is no need to develop a conscience. The need is to drop the conscience and develop consciousness.

— Osho, The Fish in the Sea is Not Thirsty.

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The mind separates, the mind divides. For the mind proceeds by the method of comparison and contrast. Walk the way of unity, seeing all things in the One.

Reverence for what is beneath us, below us, for the humblest and poorest of all living things, for the birds and beasts; for they are in no way inferior to us. The winds of the soul are two — wisdom and sympathy.

— Sadhu T.L. Vaswani, cited in The Peace Pilgrim