E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

A long way to go 
POLITICAL corruption has once again erupted as a subject of public discussion with a degree of ferocity, even though it was always alive just beneath the surface. But the conviction of former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao and his Home Minister Buta Singh does not deal a fatal blow to either those who demand or give hush money in crores.

Fighting over floods
THE bickering and the war of statements over the floods in West Bengal make a depressing spectacle. One had thought that at least during such an occurrence, everyone would sink the narrow differences and lend a helping hand to the suffering millions. But you can depend on politicians to belie all hopes. Nearly all of them are busy passing the buck and blaming their opponents. 

 Violence in West Asia
IN West Asia one step forward and two steps backward are considered signs of progress. But the violent clashes between Palestinian civilians and the Israeli security forces may have pushed back the peace talks several steps behind the baseline. The lull after four days of bloody clashes does not necessarily mean that life would begin to return to normal. 

OPINION

UNENDING VIOLENCE IN J&K
Close look at attacks on Army camps
by A. N. Dar
ONE can understand bomb blasts. Even grenade attacks. Also one-to-one attacks. In a situation as prevails in Kashmir one has to live with these. What can you do, for instance, if a man wearing a pheran comes to you with a revolver underneath his garb and shoots? You can do nothing till he makes you his victim. One can even understand someone placing a bomb in a car and timing it to go off when he wants. This happens in other areas of the country as well. There is nothing peculiar to Kashmir in this.

ULFA threat to Bhutan’s security
by P. K. Vasudeva
AS Bhutan is a protectorate of India, this country is responsible for protecting the former’s sovereignty from external aggression. What happens if the threat is from within or from militants like those of the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) and Bodos? Of late, ULFA and Bodo militants have been hiding in the safe jungles of Bhutan to carry out their activities in the Northeast, especially Assam. Bhutan, a peaceful kingdom, is threatened with the presence of ULFA and Bodo activists.

Naughty at forty
by Poonam Khaira Sidhu
MY son Bilawal is a millennium kid. He’s nine going on nineteen. He’s the acknowledged computer whiz in the family. Even his father, a sometime engineer now a bureaucrat, asks for his assistance. With an uncle inside Intel and another in an Internet start-up, he gets regular updates on hardware and software. The relative merits of Pentium versus Itanium or Xeon processors are kid stuff.

by P. Raman
The temples of discord
TEMPLES are considered to be centres of meditation, spiritual peace and tranquillity. Devotees trek to far away pilgrim centres in search of salvation and solutions to their innumerable material worries. Unfortunately, the abodes of the God on earth have also been centres of political power games, religious vendetta and priestly fracas. Historically, fortunes of the places of worship underwent ups and downs in accordance with the political vagaries of the time.

A long way to go 

POLITICAL corruption has once again erupted as a subject of public discussion with a degree of ferocity, even though it was always alive just beneath the surface. But the conviction of former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao and his Home Minister Buta Singh does not deal a fatal blow to either those who demand or give hush money in crores. This is because the menace exists at all levels and in all political parties. As one wit cynically put it, the most dependable cementing force in Indian politics and administration is a hunger for easy money and a readiness to misuse the official position. So corrupt ways will continue to influence key decisions and the punishment of Mr Rao and Mr Buta Singh will not change it. A detailed report on the 287-page judgement in a national daily has several interesting details. The only charge against the twosome is conspiring to induce people to demand bribe and others to meet the demand. In other words, Assistant Sessions Judge Ajit Bharihoke has found them guilty under Clause 12 of the Prevention of Corruption Act. Under this the minimum sentence is one year and the maximum seven years in prison. The nation will know on October 11 how many years they get. Their chief worry should be precisely this. If the judge awards a jail term of less then three years, he will have to suspend it, allowing the two to prefer an appeal in the High Court. If it is three years or more, they have to immediately surrender themselves to the police and spend some days in a jail waiting for bail from the higher court. Some leading lawyers feel that the two can file a petition in the higher court even before the day of judgement and seek relief. This is a rarely trodden route and a cautious man that Mr Rao is, he will avail of the first and conventional option. Once the case is in the High Court, the sluggish legal process will give them reprieve for years before the law really catches up with them.

There is unconcealed glee at the conviction. The CBI, tired of repeated failure of its prosecution, has claimed it as a signal success. Both are unwarranted. Mr Rao did what several others, big and small, have done in a similar position. Buying legislative support is the done thing. Defection is the fig leaf that sanctifies this sale and purchase of legislators. Many will read the judgement carefully to avoid those mistakes Mr Rao committed and carefully cover up their criminal trail. Of giving up the highly immoral habit, there will not be even a passing idea. So much about the judiciary striking at power-wielders with its awesome power. The CBI cannot claim this case as its great triumph. The four Jharkhand Mukti Morcha MPs who collected cool crores for switching loyalty have gone scotfree, thanks to an odd interpretation of Article 105 by the Supreme Court. This provision is there to enable members to speak and vote fearlessly in the legislative chamber but has helped them to sell their votes for a fancy price and enjoy immunity. The apex court found their action covered by the Article extending them a different kind of protection. Surely the four MPs accepted the bribe outside the Lok Sabha and hence in a non-sensitised area, thus exposing themselves to the rigours of the law. Mr Rao, by contrast, instructed his close aides to do the needful to drum up majority support and save his government. And they delivered the goods. In a different clime his strategy would have been hailed as a masterstroke. Today he faces a possible jail term. It cannot be the case of the Assistant Sessions Judge that Mr Rao produced the money and offered it in a jute bag to the four. So, who did it? And not only they are now free birds but remain unidentified. The CBI investigation has many gaping holes. As always. The flurry of cases in Chennai and Patna and now in the Vigyan Bhavan annexe in New Delhi is generating a false sense of complacency and it is dangerous. The JMM bribery case, in the ultimate analysis, reflects the failure of the political system, the investigative agencies, the eager-beaver media and to some extent the judiciary. There is a thin silver line though. It was a private citizen who stumbled on the bulging bank accounts of the MPs and started the process that has now reached this phase. The government has increased the number of Padma awards to 100 from this year, and he should figure in the list.

Fighting over floods

THE bickering and the war of statements over the floods in West Bengal make a depressing spectacle. One had thought that at least during such an occurrence, everyone would sink the narrow differences and lend a helping hand to the suffering millions. But you can depend on politicians to belie all hopes. Nearly all of them are busy passing the buck and blaming their opponents. The weirdest accusations have come from Ms Mamata Banerjee who has said that it is the Left Front government that engineered the floods! The state government on its part has been clamouring for the declaration of the floods as a national calamity, despite the fact that there is no provision for such a special category. Congress president Sonia Gandhi has poured oil on the fire by declaring that the NDA government is playing politics with the floods. The fact of the matter is that the conduct of all the parties is dubious. If the Centre has appeared to be less than eager to rush aid, the state government, instead of sending a report to the Centre, sent a four-member delegation of Left Front MPs to the President asking for a grant-in-aid of Rs 962 crore. The end result is that while people are dying, the men who matter are playing a chess game. This is a heartless modern version of Nero playing the fiddle while Rome burnt. Nor is this spectacle being witnessed for the first time. Such feuds always take place between the Centre and the affected states whenever a natural calamity strikes.

The irony of it all is that rules about what should be done in such a situation are quite clear. The Eleventh Finance Commission specifically says that it is the primary duty of the states to incur the necessary expenditure on the immediate relief. The role of the Centre is to provide supplementary assistance as it may not be possible for a state to immediately come forward with sufficient funds to meet natural calamities, which may occur suddenly and with intensity. In this regard, the performance of the state government has been anything but satisfactory. While floods are a common occurrence there (the Eleventh Finance Commission has put West Bengal and five other states in the low income category where natural calamities occur year after year), the flood control measures that it ought to have taken have been conspicuous by their absence. Even basic items like boats and first-aid kits were not available. Its allegations against the Centre would have sounded more credible if it had put its own house in order. Apparently the charge of stepmotherly treatment is only a feeble attempt to camouflage many shortcomings of its own. There is no substitute for efficient administration. Look at what happened in Uttar Pradesh last month. It is ruled by the BJP, which is in power at the Centre too, and there was no shortage of aid when it faced floods. And yet, the water fury devastated several districts. Residents allege that relief work was tardy to the extent of being non-existent.

Violence in West Asia

IN West Asia one step forward and two steps backward are considered signs of progress. But the violent clashes between Palestinian civilians and the Israeli security forces may have pushed back the peace talks several steps behind the baseline. The lull after four days of bloody clashes does not necessarily mean that life would begin to return to normal. The Israeli security forces expect a more violent backlash after the Palestinians have buried their dead and listened to inflammatory sermons. The latest round of violence may not mean the end of the peace talks. But Mr Bill Clinton's dream of becoming the most successful lame duck US President would remain unfulfilled. At the end of the day he would carry with him only happy memories of having tried to achieve the miracle of making Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat sign the elusive peace accord. In the theatre of conflict in West Asia the flames of the current round of violence would ignite memories of earlier tragedies among both factions. Mr Barak has had the good sense to establish telephonic contact with Mr Arafat to minimise the damage to their collective effort for durable peace. However, at the street level each side is blaming the other for the violence which had claimed over 20 lives. It is a pity that neither side has spotted the man who has single handed caused a serious damage to the peace process. Mr Ariel Sharon, the Israeli opposition leader, has reason to display a demonic grin. He is responsible for the conflagration and yet no one is pointing a finger at him.

If he were allowed to have his way, he would do unto Palestinian Muslims what the Nazi Christians had done unto the Jews. With whatever backing he has among the hawks in Israel, he did manage to provoke violent incidents in which the Israeli security forces were forced to fire at irate Palestinian youths. It was only later that the security forces decided to use rubber bullets for restoring peace in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Such was the scale of success of Mr Sharon's mischief that clashes were reported even from the Arab-majority parts of Nazareth. What did he exactly do to provoke the Palestinians? He decided to tour the Temple Mount-cum-Al Aqsa complex on Thursday. Had the Israeli authorities tried to stop him, it would have been taken as an attempt to stop the Jews from visiting the holiest of their holy shrines. But his presence angered the Palestinian who saw in the visit an attempt by the Jews to establish their claim over a shrine which is equally religiously dear to the Muslims. The status of Al Aqsa is a major headache for both Mr Barak and Mr Arafat. The suggestion that the two sides should show their hand at least on issues over which there was no disagreement was shot down. It was rightly pointed out that putting Al Aqsa on the backburner might give mischief-makers time to turn a political issue into a religious one. And aroused religious passions are more difficult to control than political differences. As far as the global community is concerned, its immediate objective should be to ensure the return of early, though somewhat uneasy, peace in West Asia. Meaningful peace talks can only be resumed after the passions on both sides have cooled down.

UNENDING VIOLENCE IN J&K
Close look at attacks on Army camps
by A. N. Dar

ONE can understand bomb blasts. Even grenade attacks. Also one-to-one attacks. In a situation as prevails in Kashmir one has to live with these. What can you do, for instance, if a man wearing a pheran comes to you with a revolver underneath his garb and shoots? You can do nothing till he makes you his victim. One can even understand someone placing a bomb in a car and timing it to go off when he wants. This happens in other areas of the country as well. There is nothing peculiar to Kashmir in this.

This, of course, happens often in Kashmir where militants can pick a car on the roadside and conceal a bomb in it. It happened more recently near the State Bank of India on Residency Road in Srinagar though it was done cleverly by first setting off a bomb blast and, when the police and reporters and photographers had collected nearby, setting off a disastrous car bomb. One can even understand landmines going off when a specific car passes over. Clearing landmines across a road is a difficult task anywhere. We just do not have enough counter-equipment, which can warn of IED placements. Reports say that we do not have enough equipment. Its lack has led to attacks on leading politicians and high-ranking military officers, the recent one resulting in the killing of a brigadier and a colonel.

But what one cannot understand is why repeated attacks can be made on armed forces camps. We must take particular notice of this and make it impossible for militants to attack the camps. A danger is that attacks on armed forces camps demoralise the country and the impression gathers that if these camps cannot be defended, what can security men do in isolated bunkers? We must understand the psychology. Even our failure in getting hold of Veerappan in a far away Karnataka jungle has emboldened the militants in Kashmir to openly say that if India cannot get rid of Veerappan, what can it do to them?

The general comprehension is that the armed forces camps are well guarded and difficult to penetrate. Is this so? Hundreds of soldiers are stationed in them. We have to take into account the points with which the militants press their advantage. Knowing these, we should be able to defend the camps and save lives. We must, for instance, take into account the militants’ plans to come in on suicide missions. They are then able to do the worst. The best way to halt them is not to let them get into the camp. This is important. Once a militant on a suicide mission is able to gain entry, he can achieve the worst. Last year during an attack on an armed forces camp when the militants attacked at night, one of the officers, who was sleeping at the time, was reported to have come in flashing a torch. This made him an instant target. The militants want surprises. There have been cases of militants coming in wearing the uniforms of the armed forces. How can anyone who gets into a camp in a soldier’s uniform be simply allowed in? Does it show that there is not enough proper checking and supervision? It should cause no surprise that the militants wear Army uniforms. That this happens should be known to all those who plan the defences of the camps. Adequate anticipation would mean that proper preparations should be made to thoroughly check anyone wanting to come in. From a lay point of view, the best way is to make it difficult for anyone to enter. Another old-style lay measure would be to have successive barricades to stop the entry of people coming in from outside. This could be countered by the argument that the militant would not try to gain entry at the regular entrance. How do we then stop people wearing Army uniforms from coming in? Certainly, there can be other checks too.

Anyone trying to walk inside should have to undergo body checks at several places. This should not be difficult in a camp. If you have 5,000 men in a armed forces camp, is it difficult to have not, as for the present, 10 men on guard duty but 25 or even 50? Perhaps in a large number of cases it would mean that great many people would be wasted on guard duty. But when other action is not taking place elsewhere, this can certainly be done. This will save you the lives of a colonel or a major or a captain or a gunner. Is that not profitable enough? Mr George Fernandes should spend less time in Bihar and West Bengal and pay more attention to what he is paid for. If another Union Minister Jagmohan can go from locality to locality looking for the houses which should be pulled down, why not someone like Mr Fernandes give personal attention to this? He did pay this kind of attention to Siachin. He could do this elsewhere too. If our country had people in power who spend less time in politics than in the technologies and techniques under their charge, our country could boast of better achievements.

Last year on a visit to Kashmir I had a chance to see from outside several armed forces camps. They left me, a lay civilian, rather disappointed. One could see that there was very little protection. It appeared that one could enter a camp easily, more so in the dark. Fencing is often inadequate. The entry point may be guarded but elsewhere it is easy to enter. Maybe a sentry at one end would see an intruder. Perhaps he would be able to do nothing if the suicide intruder barged in driving a truck or a jeep as the Palestinians once did in Beirut to an American army camp and killed nearly 300 soldiers. Why can’t we have the defences of the camps better managed? According to one newspaper estimate, there were at least six attacks by suicide bombers after Kargil last year. One of the most gruesome was in the Badami Bagh cantonment camp when Maj Purushottam, the PRO, was killed. Militants entering the biggest cantonment in the valley should make us ponder. The latest attack was in Beerwah in Badgam when three jawans and a Major were killed and the armed forces had to press helicopters against the intruders.

If you stop militants from getting into the camps, you will save not only lives but also stop demoralising the forces as well as the citizens. That the militants can get into the camps and kill is tremendously demoralising.

The recent episode of one section of the security forces entering the camp of another section on a suspicion that men of our own forces were involved was very sad indeed and highlighted the lack of coordination. This should not happen again. Recent Press reports have indicated that measures have been taken to block the entry of militants into camps. There should be more such steps. The lives of men who are defending the country are important. There can be no laxity. Nor the impression that the militants, even though on a suicide mission, can draw any advantage. They should also not get any publicity advantage.

Now that the winter is coming, there may be more such militant attacks, especially in the darkness of night. The camps should be made safe.

ULFA threat to Bhutan’s security
by P. K. Vasudeva

AS Bhutan is a protectorate of India, this country is responsible for protecting the former’s sovereignty from external aggression. What happens if the threat is from within or from militants like those of the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) and Bodos? Of late, ULFA and Bodo militants have been hiding in the safe jungles of Bhutan to carry out their activities in the Northeast, especially Assam. Bhutan, a peaceful kingdom, is threatened with the presence of ULFA and Bodo activists.

Intelligence agencies are reported to have found evidence of ULFA cadres receiving training in the handling of arms and explosives in the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan and landing in Bhutan jungles for carrying out their activities. The training was arranged at the behest of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan, which received substantial amounts of money from the outlawed insurgent organisation for sending its cadres to the training camps.

Security of the Bhutan king, its people and the need for more funds to strengthen its army to take on militants, if they decide to retaliate, are the essential problems facing the Himalayan kingdom. A near-unanimous decision (out of 150 members, there were only four or five notes of dissent) was taken by Bhutan’s National Assembly recently to use force against ULFA and Bodo militants, who have been taking shelter in the Southern Bhutan jungles since 1992. There is a fear that the militants may target the king personally and the people of Bhutan.

There are nearly 20 ULFA and four Bodo camps in the Deothang and Koipani areas in Bhutan. ULFA has already been asked by the Bhutan Government to move out of the country. While a number of these camps in Bhutan have been cleared, hard-core cadres are still in their jungle hideouts. Some of the ULFA cadres have also taken shelter in Arunachal Pradesh. It is believed that the Khaplang faction of the outlawed National Socialist Council (NSCN) helped ULFA in having in Arunachal Pradesh.

The Chief Operations Officer of the Royal Bhutan Army (RBA), Mr Goongleon Gongma Lam Dorji, recently informed the National Assembly during a long debate on the issue of Indian militants that the security forces were equally concerned about the safety of the king and that “Bhutan faced a serious threat to its national security with the emergence of the ULFA/Bodo problem. Therefore, the full responsibility for national security had been reposed in His Majesty the king during the 75th session of the National Assembly.”

According to reports, Bhutan Home Minister Lyonpo Thinley Gyamtsho informed the National Assembly during the debate that since November 20, 1998, they have been holding meetings with ULFA and Bodo militants and telling them to leave their country. He pointed out that they also had a meeting with ULFA Commander-in-Chief Paresh Barua on May 7, 1999, where along with him three members of the Royal Advisory Council were also present. They told the ULFA leaders very clearly that their presence in Bhutan was affecting their sovereignty and security, “causing great concern in the public and could harm Bhutan’s friendly relations with India, Assam in particular.”

With the decision by the Royal Government to hold talks only with the top leaders of the outfit, it was mutually agreed that at the next meeting their chairman, Mr Arvinda Rajkhowa, along with Mr Paresh Barua would also be present for the third round of official-level talks but there was no response till April. Finally, they received a call from Mr Barua in early May this year expressing their inability to attend the meeting because of security reasons. Similarly, his talks with NDFB chief Rajan Daimary did not materialise as he also expressed his inability to come and hold discussions before June 15 so that he could present his report about the meeting to the National Assembly.

The Home Minister strongly reacted by saying that “they have not only violated the territorial integrity of a sovereign, independent country but also seem hardly concerned over the countless difficulties they are causing to Bhutan and its people. They have added insult to injury by not coming for talks, especially after having agreed to it last year.”

The Assembly feared that the moment the supplies to the camps were cut off and people punished for dealing with the militants in accordance with the National Security Act, there might be clashes between the militants and the Bhutan security forces, thus endangering the lives of innocent Bhutanese. Bloodshed would follow, which Bhutan wanted to avoid.

Bhutan Foreign Minister Lyonpo Jigmi Thinley also opined that the ULFA/Bodo problem was not only a security threat to Bhutan but also to India. If this problem was not taken seriously, it could effect “the close friendship and understanding between India and Bhutan.”

The Army and the police are issuing contradictory statements. They have been claiming for quite sometime that the back of ULFA has been broken. Its ranks are demoralised and some of the top leaders are willing to surrender. The militants have been totally isolated from the people, who not only refuse to give them shelter but also lynch them often when they try to extort money.

At the same time they admit that fresh recruits by ULFA are being sent to Bhutan and Myanmar for training. The series of bomb blasts on rail tracks, roads and bridges occurring since the end of July, leave no doubt that the militants are far from being down and out.

It is in this context that the recent arrest in Guwahati of two assistant field officers (Pakistani nationals) and two Indian agents of the ISI and their startling revelations assume special significance. According to their confession, Pakistan not only wants to disrupt power and oil supplies, blow up vital installations and create large-scale disturbances in the Northeast but also to “liberate” Assam.

India should help Bhutan in throwing out ULFA and Bodo activists from their jungle hideouts before they make it as their permanent base. This will also help India’s security forces to establish peace in the Assam region.

The writer, a retired Colonel, is a defence analyst.

Naughty at forty
by Poonam Khaira Sidhu

MY son Bilawal is a millennium kid. He’s nine going on nineteen. He’s the acknowledged computer whiz in the family. Even his father, a sometime engineer now a bureaucrat, asks for his assistance. With an uncle inside Intel and another in an Internet start-up, he gets regular updates on hardware and software. The relative merits of Pentium versus Itanium or Xeon processors are kid stuff. Little Sehaj Bir, his younger sibling, who is also very computer savvy acknowledges big brother’s ability to break through the codes in game CDs. The Internet is not the final frontier. It’s his turf, where he’s completely at home.

But millennium kids need the excitement of new challenges all the time. Also the Net has spawned its own culture and language through the virtual chatrooms. Bilawal was not allowed to chat because his old-fashioned mom thought they were dens of virtual vice. But mom was also not immune to Bilawal at his best behaviour and when he pleaded “You know all my friends are into chatrooms on the net. Can I chat too, please, under supervision only”. Well, I reckoned no harm done if he’s supervised. So come Sunday and my nine year old, seven year old and their father were all ready to enter a chatroom.

It was a crowded chatroom, one of scores on the net. There were about 18 regulars, with their names in the name-age-location sex (ALS) specification. So there was cupid 16, blonde 21, hunk20, Adonis 24, and belle15. Not one had a sensible name, or was over the age of 25 and certainly no one as young as Billy. So how are you going to sign on we asked him? “As Billy9 of course”, he said. “No you can’t give your real identity away”, we reasoned. So he signed in as action boy albeit with his real age. This is how the action went.

Actionboy 9: Hi!! I’m happy to be in this room.

There’s sudden consternation in the chat room.

Cupid16: Hey Actionboy!! are you really 9?

Actionboy: is happy to get a response.

Hunk20: You really shouldn’t be here kid.

Belle15: Clear off kid!! Go find someone your age.

And, they’re back to chatting with each other.

Blondie21: Hey hunk!! Do your muscles match your IQ?

Hunk20: Try me Blondie. I will surprise you!

Adonis24: Say Belle, are you as pretty as your name means and what do you do? —————-and so the cyberflirtations continued.

My son couldn’t quite figure out the ongoing chatroom conversations. He asked quite plaintively: Why don’t they talk about hobbies or science or game-CDs or chest codes?” We the supervising adults really had no answer to that one. Not one to give up, he tried again.

Actionboy9: Isn’t there any one who will talk to me? Please!

Blonde21: Hey kid, clear off!! Learn to take good advice, OK?

Hunk21: (Taking pity) OK kid talk, but after this you leave.

Actionboy9: What’s your favourite game CD?

Hunk21: Doom, I guess, but my college assignments don’t leave much time to play.

Actionboy9: Do you like science and do you know what a Supernova is?

Hunk21: Hey kid! This is getting a bit too techie. Go to bed!! Bye!!

Actionboy9 a.k.a Bilawal, my nine year old, saddened and disappointed, signed off.

Dad, dangerously close to 40, when men get naughty, was, however, hooked.

It had been another one of those days in office. I was tired, and stressed. So, after an early dinner and putting the kids to sleep, I hit the bed and within minutes I was in slumberland. When I awakened, it was dark. A look at my wristwatch set the time at 3 AM. I glanced over at the sleeping kids and discovered my husband was missing.

I was up like a shot. Hey!! Where was my better half? I jumped out of bed and rushed out into the living room. No signs of him! Where could he be, it was hardly a civilised hour. I had visions of him running away with a secret girlfriend or a neighbourhood siren. I sat down on the sofa, trying to compose myself and sent up some silent prayers. It was then that I heard the tap-tap of the keyboard from the study. I gingerly climbed upstairs and peeped in.

My husband of 10 years sat glued to the monitor. He was much to my horror in the midst of a conversation with 21 year old sirens in a chatroom on the Internet. The old adage, “Men get naughty at four- O, forty”, is true. My sober, almost 40-year-old is now a confirmed net chatroom junkie. He’s up at unearthly hours surfing the net and chatting away in any chatroom he can find. What did I say about kids filter? Please ladies, use the husband filter too. Don’t allow your husbands unsupervised access to chatrooms!!

The temples of discord
by P. Raman

TEMPLES are considered to be centres of meditation, spiritual peace and tranquillity. Devotees trek to far away pilgrim centres in search of salvation and solutions to their innumerable material worries. Unfortunately, the abodes of the God on earth have also been centres of political power games, religious vendetta and priestly fracas. Historically, fortunes of the places of worship underwent ups and downs in accordance with the political vagaries of the time.

Even if one steers clear of the controversies like Islamic destructions and the Brahmanical assaults on Buddhist and Jain vihars, the rajas and the social forces of the day had extended considerable patronage to wrest control of the prominent temples. For the rajas, obeisance to a powerful presiding deity has been as important as inventing a devine dynastic lineage. While the rajas fought to turn the deities their own kula devatas, the priests and Brahmin neighbourhood wanted their ritual control.

The current upheavals surrounding the prominent temples and pilgrim centres of the land mark an extension of the old tussles for domination. The rajas have apparently been replaced by the state authorities and the new social forces whose power can no longer be ignored. Kerala Congress leader Vayalar Ravi’s allegations of caste discrimination against him at the famous Guruvayur temple has been just a symptom of a deeper malaise. Forget about social and caste skirmishes over a large number of local shrines. At least a dozen big ones like the Pashupatinath temple in Nepal, Badrinath, Puri, Vaishnodevi and now the Kalka Kaali temple in Delhi have been in the thick of different kinds of controversies.

Temples and pilgrim centres are no more the exclusive preserves of a few upper caste rich or the old type of wandering sadhus. A new brand of middle classes with surplus money have emerged. Expansion of communication and transport have made pilgrimage a pleasurable experience. Existence of airstrips and luxury coaches have made communion with the heavenly abodes much easier. Shrines in inaccessible hills have the added advantage of adventure sports. The mandatory LTA for the staff has given it a sudden boost. A glance at the temple towns will show the evidence of the booming pilgrim business.

The old dusty dharamshalas have been replaced by costly hotels and guest houses to suit the tastes of the visitor. One can expect every possible comfort, of course for a price. There are privately owned “paid ghats”. Hotel touts even offer you a package of all services, including the pujas and panda charges. To tap the full potential, new attractions like boating, ropeway ride and visits to what is being claimed ‘150-year-old’ or ‘200-year-old’ ‘babas’. ‘Prachin’ (ancient) temples have been invented and given new mythical names.

This apart, the temples have been gaining in importance due to the surge of a new sort of bhakti movement in urbanised India. The proportion of temple-goers has gone up. However, this does not necessarily mean that the new generation is turning more spiritual. What we perhaps see today is not the virtue-based selfless spiritualism of the old kind. Instead, it is a quest for more divine benevolence in their materialist pursuit. As life becomes crudely competitive, uncertainties about the future, tension and worry become unbearable. It begins right from the nursery.

Constant pressure on individuals to meet the target has been the watchword of modern management. Added to this tension is the new market philosophy “perform or perish” which forces people into undesirable short-cuts like outright cheating and financial frauds. This, again, adds to the perpetual fear of being detected and punished. Tension gradually leads to hypertension and a host of “modern” illness. This is not confined to a few thousand well-heeled executives. Daily kidnappings for ransom, simple disappearance and suicides of the failed entrepreneurs and ruined staff bare the acute mental agonies of the millennium man.

He or she finds easy refuge in gods and godmen. The ‘post-material’ (a stage in most developed countries where the middle classes have reached basic levels of consumption but yet under pressures) problems of the European middle class should provide ample testimony to infinitude of this painful phenomenon. They readily fall for anything that will relieve tension — from visits to the temples to miracle man and yoga. Thus the new bhakti movement has made the temples and shrines more popular and prosperous. Soaring revenues have added a new dimension to the tussles for the control of the shrines.

Take the case of the famous Pashupatinath temple. The tradition of appointing pujaris from the south was originally aimed at emotional integration. It is still prevalent in shrines like Badrinath and Kedarnath. But this measure of integration has now become the source of discord. Swelling collections at the temples has intensified the battle for domination. The south Indian bhatts (priests) and their assistants of Nepal’s guardian deity had some time back filed a case in court challenging the Pashupati Area Development Trust’s demand for 25 per cent of the revenue for the upkeep of the surroundings. The bhatts argue that even auditing the temple funds was against the tradition and thus ‘anti-god’.

Some Nepali Brahmins had even staged a dharna for replacing the south Indian bhatts by sons of the soil as pujaris. The bhatts counter this by stating that the bulk of the temple revenue also came from the swelling number of cash rich Indian pilgrims and tourists. The controversy has caused a sharp division in Nepal with the civic body, the trust and Nepali Congress parliamentarians taking sides. Demands for the priests-of-the soil had also reverberated the hills of Badrinath and Kedarnath. During Mayawati’s regime, it had taken the form of an agitation. Badrinath Rawal (chief pujari) has to be a Nambudiri and at Kedarnath a Karnataka brahmin. Some attribute the tradition to Adi Shankara. The issue crops up depending on the presiding Rawal’s equation with the Badrinath authorities and local leaders.

At Vaishnodevi, it has been a question of financial control. As in many other shrines, the traditional pujaris immensely benefited from the sudden rush of well-to-do pilgrims. Despite this, the priests refused to part with even a fraction of the collection for the upkeep of the area. Finally, it was Jagmohan who put some order in the Vaishnodevi management which instantly released huge funds for providing facilities for the pilgrims along the mountainous route. At one stage, the VHP men too backed the priests by putting forth the argument that temples should be left to pujaris and the sarkari babus had no business to run them.

The same has been the arguments whenever the authorities sought to regulate money-spinner temples like Tirupathi. A few months back, prominent Delhi BJP leaders engaged themselves in a confrontation with the traditional priests of the Kalka temple over its takeover. The tug-of-war still continues. Slurs frequently erupt at the famous Puri temple whose origin itself is shrouded in controversy. Many argue that it was originally a tribal shrine, and was ‘civilised’ by the local raja centuries back. Last month a fresh scandal relating to excess supply of precious government timber for the construction of the annual rath broke out. The racketers thus pocketed, year after year, huge chunk of the God’s money.

The recent Guruvayur episode brings forth the issue of ritual reform to suit the new social pressures. But the sad aspect of the controversy has been the way Ravi tried to politicise the issue by raising a non-existent “caste bias”. It began with the marriage of his son at the temple. Temple marriage, an apparent response to the church marriages, has been of recent origin. Dozens of marriages are officiated by the pujari in front of the deity beyond the outer wall of the temple. Under the temple custom, newly weds, right from Brahmins, never go inside the temple for 10 days after marriage. Devout Hindus consider it sinful to do so. The Congress leader’s son violated this custom and went round the sanctum-sanctorum after the function.

The tanthri whose function is only to ensure right ritual practices (he is not the head priest as reported in the media) was on the sick bed with cancer. When informed of the ritual violation on the phone, he directed to do a punyaham (spraying holy water). This was enough for Ravi to level charges of casteism against the ‘CPM-nominated’ Devaswom Board. The punyaham, he said, was done because he was a backward Ezhava. The board clarified that under a High Court judgement, all ritual matters are decided by the Nambudiri tanthri who inherits the post. It was in the thick of the closely contested civic polls in the state.

Soon Ravi changed the position and alleged that the ‘cleansing’ was done because his wife was a Christian and produced documents to show that the son had declared himself as Hindu. Kerala temples which follow the mimamsic practices prescribed by Tanthra Samuchayam, don’t recognise reconversion. They go by birth. Thus this is a grey area for the Tanthri. Recently, a big temple at Mavelikara in Kerala had removed chief pujari Vishnu Narayanan Nambudiri — who is also a known poet — from the post because he had crossed the seas to visit London.

There are temples with strange kind of customs. Some prevent women’s entry, others perform animal sacrifices. Recently a Shankaracharya talked of building ‘cheap’ temples for the converts into Hinduism. Delhi’s Bhiron temple accepts country liquor as prasad. Serious efforts have been made to make Dalits as pujaris and introduce mantras in Tamil. There are sharp differences over such moves. These involve issues like discrimination of women, backwards and Dalits, animal rights, amassing wealth in the name of god etc. Growing awareness, assertion by the new social forces and pressures from within are bound to cause more similar upheavals in future. Faith itself has never been static. The question is how much of the mimamsa will survive the surge of new social forces. 

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

—Rig Veda, 10. 117. 5