E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

Paddy is not for burning
SOME kisans burned paddy at Khanna mandi about 10 days back; they were not seeking heat but demonstrating their red-hot anger at the painfully slow procurement. The FCI first tried to duck its responsibility, delayed the date of the operation and finally reset the specification of the grain for procurement. Now FCI chief Bhure Lal says 80 per cent of paddy offered to his agency fails to make the grade. 

Poor extradition record 
INDIA seems to have perfected the art of botching criminal cases requiring the extradition of the main suspects. The investigating agencies appear to develop cold feet the moment the opportunity shows up for nabbing a criminal holed up in a foreign country. Questions are already being asked about who was responsible for the delay in making a formal request to the Thai authorities for the extradition of Chhota Rajan. 

Popular revolt
AN old fox that he is, Mr Slobodan Milosevic may very well try some kind of “last stand” to retain power in Yugoslavia, but it is more or less certain that his 13-year iron rule has come to an ignominious end. The popular uprising against him is too widespread and spontaneous to be reversed. He goes out on a limb in the true tradition of a tyrannical dictator too drunk on his power to see reason. 

FRANKLY SPEAKING

OPINION

ON THE SPOT

by Tavleen Singh
Disturbing images from AMU
IT’S hard to go to Aligarh Muslim University these days and not return with disturbing images. The image of a student community so alienated and paranoid that it sees discrimination against Muslims in every event, enemies of Islam lurking in the shadows of every bush; of intelligent, rational citizens of Aligarh who believe the worst of the university, believe even that students were capable of engraving Allah on the back of an intelligence official caught on the campus; of the rise of a new, angry Islam becoming increasingly combative in its message and in creating an atmosphere of grievance and hurt that cannot lead to any good; of politicians who go mainly to stir up further trouble.

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

Paddy is not for burning

SOME kisans burned paddy at Khanna mandi about 10 days back; they were not seeking heat but demonstrating their red-hot anger at the painfully slow procurement. The FCI first tried to duck its responsibility, delayed the date of the operation and finally reset the specification of the grain for procurement. Now FCI chief Bhure Lal says 80 per cent of paddy offered to his agency fails to make the grade. The moisture content is alright and the grain is well cleaned. But the problem is discolouration and he blames the soil, the seed and researchers for this. One cannot be more comprehensive in inventing pretexts for keeping away from the mandi. He does not say it but everyone knows the real “defect” — bulging godowns and dipping demand. Mr Bhure Lal has suddenly found that the entire south rejects the inferior Punjab rice, which means that the region where rice is the staple food will not buy grain from this region which also means that the FCI will not lift it either. Obviously southern preference is blamed for a northern scandal which is what the overall FCI policy is. There is another voice, actually many voices, but this one commands instant notice. Punjab Agricultural University Vice-Chancellor Kalkat challenges the FCI statement. He is a farm scientist and should know what he is talking about. He says paddy this year is not more discoloured than last year and the quality is very good. All farmers repeat this with one of them saying that thanks to good weather this year the harvest is the best in quality in recent time. Blaming the grain for its inability to rescue the farmers is adding insult to injury. If Mr Bhure Lal and his political master Shanta Kumar were to have a magic wand, they would have made the mountain of paddy in Punjab and Haryana vanish in a trice and then go to sleep peacefully. They will then not have the twin problems of buying up more than 15 million tonnes which they do not want and hunting for unavailable space for storing it.

The failure of the government’s food policy is spectacular. First, it issued a series of firmans to dispose of the growing wheat stock, now about 27 million tonnes. It slashed the price but still there were no takers. It expected flour mills and other states to scramble for the grain since it has already choked off cheaper import from Australia. The wheat stock remains unmoved. Now the Central Government is pursuing a different line; it refuses to lift paddy on the specious ground of poor quality, which is actually an afterthought. It had a full year to chart its course and head off the crisis it has wantonly created. If it really believes that the discolouration is caused by poor quality seed, what does it propose to prevent it next year? Or, perhaps trot out the same argument again? Its lethargic response is evident from a related decision last week. The Civil Supplies and Public Distribution Ministry has proposed a marginal reduction in grain prices for below the poverty line (BPL) consumers. It was a sensible move, at a time when poor regions in three states are slowly slipping into a drought. Last year’s famine-like condition had hit the poorest the most. The Cabinet in its wisdom postponed a decision, instead of setting up a group of Ministers to re-examine the issue. It is either immune to or unaware of the obscenity of grain rotting in one place and the poor going malnourished at another. One idea is to start food for work programmes even while reviving the midday meal scheme. It is no defence that since the two failed in the past, they should not be thought of again. There is something like learning from the past and also redesigning them. The aim should be to dip into the stocks to fight poverty. Instead the government is content to anger the Punjab and Haryana kisan. Somebody, some day has to pay a price for this folly.

Poor extradition record 

INDIA seems to have perfected the art of botching criminal cases requiring the extradition of the main suspects. The investigating agencies appear to develop cold feet the moment the opportunity shows up for nabbing a criminal holed up in a foreign country. Questions are already being asked about who was responsible for the delay in making a formal request to the Thai authorities for the extradition of Chhota Rajan. The Union Home Ministry is blaming the foreign office and the Maharashtra government the Centre for the fiasco in seeking the don's extradition for facing trail in countless cases of murder and extortion. There is substance in the popular perception that most gang lords either operating from India or foreign soil enjoy the patronage of corrupt politicians and bureaucrats. The Chhota Rajan story, after he fell out with the Dubai-based Indian don Dawood Ibrahim, has a communal angle as well. By the time a police party could be sent to Bangkok with the relevant papers the Thai authorities had completed the formalities of giving the gangster, whose patriotism was praised by certain high-profile politicians, a one-way ticket out of the country. A million questions need to be asked about why the investigating agencies have such a poor record in nabbing the really big fish of the crime world. Look at the Dawood case. He controls his Indian "businesses" from the luxury and security of Dubai. He rubs shoulders with the high and mighty in the emirate and has a personal box for entertaining important guests at the Sharjah cricket stadium. It took the investigating agencies four years after the Mumbai bomb blasts, which forced Chhota Rajan to set up his own gang, to secure the permission of the Supreme Court for initiating extradition proceedings against Dawood. After the legal hurdle for the don's arrest was crossed on May 7, 1997, the police went into the slow mode.

Nearly one year after the apex court's permission the CBI woke up again to request the government for reviving the extradition process with Pakistan, where Dawood was last sighted in the company of influential people. In December, 1999, External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh informed the Lok Sabha that the main accused in the Mumbai bomb blast case had again shifted to Dubai and that the government would initiate steps for his extradition. But has the police been able to lay his hand on Dawood or Chhota Shakeel or any other leading member of the gang? The fact of the matter is that Chhota Rajan, Shakeel and Dawood and even the home-based sandalwood smuggler Veerappan may never be arrested because of the fear of their spilling the names of politicians, bureaucrats and police officers on their payroll. For similar reasons the main accused in the Bofors scam were allowed to flee the country before the police went through the motions of securing their extradition. The Hinduja brothers are now technically beyond the reach of Indian courts. According to reports, Gopichand Hinduja "bought" British citizenship and surrendered his Indian passport in June, 1998. A year later Srichand followed in the footsteps of his brother. Ashok Hinduja holds an Indian passport. But he is not wanted in the Bofors case. The latest news about Ottavio Quattrocchi is that a fresh attempt is to be made to secure his extradition from Malaysia. After a former CBI Director Joginder Singh made a much-hyped trip to Kuala Lumpur everyone in the organisation seems to be keen to make a business trip to Malaysia. Will the third trip made in February result in the arrest of the Italian operator? The proof of Ottavio would be in the physical presence of Quattrocchi on Indian soil. 

Popular revolt

AN old fox that he is, Mr Slobodan Milosevic may very well try some kind of “last stand” to retain power in Yugoslavia, but it is more or less certain that his 13-year iron rule has come to an ignominious end. The popular uprising against him is too widespread and spontaneous to be reversed. He goes out on a limb in the true tradition of a tyrannical dictator too drunk on his power to see reason. He had tightly closed his eyes to reality. He could have withstood the international sanctions imposed after he was indicted for alleged crimes against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, if only he had remained conscious of the fact that he was becoming more and more unpopular among his own countrymen. For far too long, he tried to present himself as the unquestioned leader of a proud and independent nation. In the beginning, the countrymen went along with him. But this drove him to excesses. His country sunk into penury while he and his cronies savoured the luxuries of office. It might have been possible to read the pulse of the people, but he had controlled, penalised or shut down independent media. Perhaps that is why he never came to realise how strong public sentiments were against him.

Having been taken in by the aura that he had falsely created around himself, he unexpectedly announced elections earlier this year. He was obviously banking on the disunity of the 17 opposition parties which were always at the throats of each other. The first shock came his way when the fragmented opposition zeroed in on Mr Vojislav Kostunic, a highly respected professor of law, as a common candidate. The apolitical Kostunic was untainted by any scandals and fired the imagination of a country badly in need of a rallying point. A flustered Milosevic made his second blunder when he called him a traitor. This is one word that is considered worse than death sentence in Serbia. The support for Mr Kostunic swelled and he swept the September 24 elections. But the old dictator indulged in rigging on a large scale, and was declared President. The people had had enough of him and the spontaneous outburst saw hundreds of thousands of them swarming the streets of Belgrade and storming the Federal Parliament as well as the building housing the executive of Mr Milosevic's Socialist Party. In this almost bloodless coup, the army has remained confined to the barracks and the police seems to have joined the protesters. The state TV which is back on the air in its “new independent” format has already declared Mr Kostunic as the new President. He in turn has vowed that his mandate will be very short and that in a year and a half at the latest, free and democratic elections for the Yugoslav Parliament will be called. That should be music for the ears of the people groaning under a ruthless dictatorship. If all goes well, international sanctions will be removed soon enough and the Balkan state may be able to make yet another new beginning.

INDIA AND NEW GLOBAL ORDER
Imperatives of power politics
by Hari Jaisingh

HOW should we go about the onerous task of evolving a new global order, now that the problem of competitive negativism which dominated big power thinking during the Cold War days is not all that pressing. There is, in a way, a vacuum in global thinking and action with regard to creating a viable alternative to meet new challenges. The old order is surely changing, though the old mindset lingers on. Herein lies the problem.

Everything is in a state of flux in international relations today. No one knows which power is playing what game and for what purpose. Old global ties are dramatically changing. New ties remains to be forged on the basis of new ground realities in critical areas. Even India's relations with the USA are under transformation, though the Cold War mindset persists among America's policy-makers.

In the 21st century, the world cannot be built on old colonial calculations. Every issue has to be viewed afresh, with an open mind. Every proposition will have to be tested on the touchstone of new logic. This is as relevant to India as it is to the big powers.

What can be the type of equations India ought to evolve to find a place of honour in the comity of nations? How genuine are America's new responses? How about the mindset of some US strategists who play a key role in American power games?

Remember Dr Henry Kissinger, a former US Secretary of State. He was the author of pro-China and pro-Pakistan tilt of American policy in Asia. The other person who also played a significant role in this regard is Dr Zbigniew Brzezinksi, a former US National Security Adviser. I interacted with him at an international conference on Asia-Pacific and the global order held in New Delhi early this week under the auspices of the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR).

I must commend the initiative taken by the ICSSR chairman, Prof M.L. Sondhi, for this purpose. A number of scholars from India and abroad were present on the occasion. Notable omissions were China and Pakistan. The two countries matter a lot in Asia's future development.

A new order has to be based on free thinking and free discussions, backed up by a fresh approach and need-based concepts. It is, therefore, absolutely necessary that India's thinking persons should interact freely and openly with their counterparts in Pakistan and China. Out of such interactions will emerge answers to some bilateral problems as well as harmonious thinking some time or the other.

Take the case of Dr Henry Kissinger and Dr Brzezinksi. Dr Kissinger is no longer anti-India. He is an active lobbyist for this country in Washington. Dr Brzezinksi may not have changed much. He still carries with him some old elements of the Cold War era, though he is showing signs of appreciation for this country.

The message for policy-makers in South Block is clear: the country's foreign policy cannot be a closed shop. It has to be run on new dynamic lines with a degree of pragmatism and flexibility.

Ideology has ceased to matter much in international relations. Everything is realpolitik that derives its substance from enlightened self-interest. Challenge lies in harmonising diverse interests for global peace and prosperity to mutual advantage.

More than free economy, the crucial factor ahead is socio-economic management and apt use of socio-economic instruments to make the earth a happier place to live in.

Two critical elements in this regard will be efficient management of conflicts, ethnic or otherwise, and efficient house-keeping which includes equitable distribution of wealth and other resources.

What the world has been witnessing in recent years is a revolution of rising expectations. People the world over want results. They want a right environment and infrastructure for growth and better living. In a new global order, we must not ignore the basic issues of illiteracy, poverty, poor hygienic conditions, disease and environment. There must be a firm and time-bound global commitment for the eradication of the major ills of society.

What should be India's place and role in the days ahead? The end of the Cold War and due stress on globalisation and liberalisation should prompt us to see the world and its problems in a new perspective.

The problem with our leaders and policy-makers is that they have neither a vision nor a passionate commitment to give the country and the people the "deal" they deserve. They have actually divided the nation along caste, communal and sectarian lines and have pursued policies and postures which have no relevance.

Where does the USA stand? Is it aiming at an imposed global stability based on power equations of important countries instead of ensuring stability through genuine mutually beneficial patterns of cooperation? Perhaps, in reality Washington is setting up regional hegemons in different parts of the world that are supportive of its global goals.

Be that as it may, New Delhi must begin to see world realities afresh and accordingly formulate its response system. Take the Pokhran blasts: In pure economic terms, N-blasts may not make sense. And mind you, ours has been a badly mismanaged economy without a proper sense of direction.

India's nuclear teeth will lack the necessary bite without its well-developed economic muscle. I believe that if we have to make our nuclear power worthwhile and meaningful for the nation, then we should avail of the existing opportunity to rebuild the country economically.

Some sincere efforts have surely been initiated by the present NDA government. But these are simply not good enough for rapid strides on the development.

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is badly caught in the shadows of his own party and its coalition partners. He is yet to muster sufficient courage and set the pace for the country's leap forward. He must not forget that his success story in the USA was written not by the performance of his government but the success stories of the Indians in the USA. The role of the External Affairs Ministry in this regard was, at best, only marginal.

America's "change of heart" is, after all, dictated by its enlightened self-interest. The problem with our policy-makers is that they are never sure where the Indian interests lie. For, they just settle for a few "crumbs" while conceding major concessions.

As a nation we have undergone a series of shock therapies — first at the hands of Pakistan in 1948 in its attempt to grab Kashmir by other means and later by China in 1962 which directly hit this country's Gandhian concept of non-violence and panchsheel for promoting good neighbourliness.

India has since then been caught between the Gandhian concept of non-violence and its desire to evolve as a modern state and a big power. There is invariably a hue and cry when the country adds to its nuclear might commensurate with its position as a major Asian power.

There was a global uproar when Mrs Gandhi went in for a nuclear blast in 1974 and later when Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee picked up courage and showed India's nuclear teeth in self-defence and for peaceful purposes in 1998.

Pokhran II was nothing but India's feeble response to China's growing nuclear and missile power and its help to Pakistan directed against this country.

I must say that India has suffered in the absence of proper appreciation by big powers of India's place on the global power chessboard. Partly it is our fault. We have not played our cards well. Nor have we pursued our national interests in a determined and coherent manner.

The time has come to apply the necessary correctives and work towards achieving our national goal and targets. This requires a clear perspective so that we play our role rationally and realistically.

Our leaders must tell the world where we wish to stand and what we expect from the powers that matter.

First, India must not be equated with Pakistan as the USA had been doing till recently. India has to be recognised as a major power in Asia along with China and Japan.

Second, India as a nuclear power must be accepted without any discrimination as the big powers have done in the case of China.

There cannot be two global standards — one to appease China and the other to beat India with on the CTBT and related proliferation matters. In fact, the onus of nuclear non-proliferation in Asia should be with Islamabad and Beijing, and not with New Delhi. Of course, ultimately we should all aim at establishing a nuclear-free world.

Third, the US sanctions must be lifted as they are unrealistic and uncalled for. Also, ways and means must be found for a permanent UN Security Council seat for India.

Four, terrorism must be seen as a major threat to peace globally, especially in South Asia. For that purpose, we need all-round cooperation to tackle Pakistan-sponsored Taliban-type of trans-border terrorism. In this context, India will have to evolve its own dynamics of security which should be broad-based.

Five, a new global order must speed up the process of faster economic growth and ensure equitable social justice. The gap between the rich and the poor nations must be bridged. The task ahead is gigantic. But as a nation of one billion people, we have to carve out a new role for us in the new order we wish to evolve.

The great IT paradox
by Rahul Singh

INDIA is a land of perplexing paradoxes. We are witnessing one just now. We boast, with good reason, that we are in the forefront of information technology (IT). Indian software experts are in great demand all over the world and India sources, as well as exports, a great deal of computer software. Indian IT companies, like WIPRO and Infosys, have been going great guns, bringing their shareholders big rewards. Bill Gates comes to visit India and a whole host of Chief Ministers line up to see him.

Yet, during the last month telecommunications all over the country were paralysed because junior engineers and technicians in the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had gone on strike, while many employees of the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) had been “working to rule”. Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD) calls and International Subscriber Dialling (ISD) were badly affected.

In other words, it was very difficult to make long-distance calls, within and outside India. Even e-mail and the Internet deteriorated. Not just business, all kinds of other activities that depend on the phone lines, such as railway reservation bookings and faxes, were affected.

The stock market, where prices fluctuate every minute and where transactions worth hundreds of crores take place every day, was probably the worst sufferer. The President of the Delhi Stock Exchange is on record as saying that he estimated the lost transactions on his stock exchange alone have totalled almost Rs 200 crore. The losses for the whole probably run into several times that amount.

There is a strong suspicion that some DoT or MTNL employees resorted to sabotage. That is the only explanation for the disruption of long-distance phone lines, which are automated.

Indeed, the sabotage theory is being taken pretty seriously at the highest levels of the government: The Union Minister for Telecommunications, Mr RamVilas Paswan, no less, announced that an inquiry committee would be set up to look into how long distance phone services were disrupted. He also said that strict disciplinary action will be taken if, as suspected, sabotage took place.

But you can take that assurance with a pinch of salt. Mr Paswan is known to be partial to labour unions and will not want to antagonise one of the most powerful unions in the country.

The Delhi High Court has also got into the act. It too, has demanded that the government take strict action against those responsible for disrupting phone services. But whether the government will pay any heed to what a high court says is another matter. The high court was adjudicating on a petition filed by a non-governmental organisation (NGO), Telecom Watchdog, challenging the corporatisation of telecommunication services from next month.

The Central Government has committed itself to privatising telecommunications and the first step is the creation of a new corporation, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), to replace DoT. The argument for privatisation is two-fold.

One, there will be more funds to extend telecommunications in the country. The tele-density in India, which means the number of phone lines in relation to the population, is still very low. It needs to be increased many times if India is to progress. The tele-density in China, for instance, is much higher than India’s, a major reason why China’s economic growth rate is so much higher than ours.

Since it costs around Rs 1.5 lakh per extra phone line in the rural areas, the government clearly does not have the necessary funds, which would run into thousands of crores. Hence, the induction of private financing.

However, the second main reason for privatisation is perhaps even more compelling: Greater efficiency. The big question in this context is whether, after the creation of BSNL, the Indian telecommunication sector will become more efficient. If the experience of MTNL is any guide, the answer is, “very doubtful.”

MTNL was launched with great hopes and fanfare. But it has proved a huge disappointment. It has been just as corrupt and inefficient as the earlier setup, despite often having good and well-meaning technocrats at the top.

Why? Mainly because the unions have ensured lack of accountability and an absence of the work ethic. When there is no accountability and little work ethic, nobody gets fired and promotions take place as a matter of course, not for better performance. When you don’t get fired even for the most serious offences, like sabotage and corruption (forget minor ones, such as putting in a phone line but not giving a connection until some under-the-table money is paid), what else can you expect?

It is nobody’s argument that wholesale privatisation is the cure for all the economic ills facing the country. The government must continue to play an essential role in certain areas, like health and education. But the least the Indian public demands is that it gets good value for the services it pays for.

If DoT, or even MTNL cannot deliver the goods honestly and efficiently, the Indian authorities must look for alternatives. Above all, there must be accountability. Good performance should be rewarded, poor work penalised. The Indian public still pays extremely high rates for long-distance calls, in and outside India, whereas in most other countries, the rates for such calls have fallen dramatically in the last decade or so. It is no coincidence that these countries have privatised their telecommunications sector, brought in competition and made the principle of accountability paramount.

Disturbing images from AMU
by Tavleen Singh

IT’S hard to go to Aligarh Muslim University these days and not return with disturbing images. The image of a student community so alienated and paranoid that it sees discrimination against Muslims in every event, enemies of Islam lurking in the shadows of every bush; of intelligent, rational citizens of Aligarh who believe the worst of the university, believe even that students were capable of engraving Allah on the back of an intelligence official caught on the campus; of the rise of a new, angry Islam becoming increasingly combative in its message and in creating an atmosphere of grievance and hurt that cannot lead to any good; of politicians who go mainly to stir up further trouble.

Anywhere, on any campus these things would be cause for concern, in Uttar Pradesh where you see everywhere the breakdown of governance and law and order the concern is inevitably greater.

It was the arrest of an alleged terrorist from the AMU campus that took me there last week. Mobin Ahmed was picked up on September 3 by policemen in plainclothes who came in a Tata Sumo into which they allegedly dragged him. This was in the middle of the afternoon and by evening the entire student body had erupted into a fury of rage and agitation. For 16 hours after Mobin Ahmed disappeared neither the district administration nor Vice-Chancellor Hamid Ansari had any idea who had abducted the student. The Vice-Chancellor made desperate inquiries and even called the Union Home Minister at 3 a.m. to find out if he knew anything about what had happened. He did not but further inquiries revealed that the youth had been picked up by a police contingent from Agra.

Shortly afterwards the police claimed that Mobin Ahmed had confessed to being a terrorist and had admitted involvement in various subversive activities. The story appeared prominently in the national press and even if the rest of India believed the police version it is not something that AMU students believe easily. Why should they? Everyone knows what our police is capable of in the process of “interrogation.”

Mobin Ahmed’s arrest was a ham-fisted exercise by any standard but to make matters worse the UP Government, or someone else in authority, decided to send an Intelligence Bureau official to snoop around the hostel in which he resided. He was found wandering about the corridors of the hostel asking strange questions and carrying a camera. Students, already disturbed by Mobin’s arrest, then made matters worse for themselves by locking him in a room and thrashing him till he produced his identity card. They claim that he was beaten up because they thought he was a thief and that they handed him over to the Vice-Chancellor as soon as he identified himself. But it was from this incident that the rumours of “Islamic torture” (Allah engraved on his back) have emanated and continue to be believed by those who wish to believe the worst about AMU.

Even those who do not believe the story admit that the university has become a hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism. When I asked students about this they were vehement in their denials but added: “What do they mean by Islamic fundamentalism? If you mean that because we do namaz five times a day we are fundamentalists, then we are”.

My conversation with the students took place under a tin shed in the compound of the Mohammed Habib Hall, the centre of most of the unrest connected with Mobin’s arrest and the IB official’s travails. The conversation began with a small group that grew as we talked. And, everyone denied that the university had become a stronghold of SIMI (Students Islamic Movement of India) or of the Jamaat-e-Islami but admitted that SIMI — allegedly a militant organisation — had a couple of hundred members and Mobin had for a while been one of them. Two hundred members was an insignificant number when you considered that AMU had a strength of more than 25,000 students. They resented the “defamation campaign” that the university was being subjected to by local newspapers and gave me examples.

There was, they said, the charge that a terrorist in Kashmir had an AMU identity card on him. The card had turned out to be a forgery and the Vice-Chancellor had issued a statement confirming this but local newspapers and some national continued to print the charge. “Even the BBC reported that the card was a forgery but some newspapers have continued to make it. Is this not defamation? “Asked Atif Rafi, who had taken upon himself the role of interlocutor for the students.

He was a skinny, intense youth who believed that he had personally experienced discrimination for being Muslim. “I wanted to go to a summer camp with a corporate house but the moment they found I was from AMU they refused to consider my application,” I suggested that there could have been non-racist reasons for this but Atif was supported by everyone else when he said that it was only because he was a Muslim and that when it came to finding jobs was the same problem.

Another example of “discrimination” they gave me was that when a group of industrial chemistry students visited the Mathura oil refinery recently they were denied permission to witness the refining process because they were from AMU. Teachers confirmed that this had happened.

The most disturbing thing about my conversation with the students that afternoon was that their deep sense of grievance did not match the pettiness of the examples of discrimination they gave me. It was as if they needed to find reasons to have a grievance against Hindu India and that here in AMU they were free to give vent to these grievances.

When I mentioned this to the Vice-Chancellor later, he said it was what he always thought of as the “post-92 syndrome”. The demolition of the Babri Masjid remains unforgotten and the syndrome surfaces every time there is an incident of some kind.

Others were more forthright and admitted that a large number of students in AMU came from madrassa backgrounds that had virtually trained them to be susceptible to the influences of militant Islam. The result is that the nature of the university has changed and become more Islamised: manifestations of this come in the hijab that more and more girls have taken to and in a religion becoming more popular.

The last thing you need in such an atmosphere is for political leaders to descend when there is an incident of some kind and sympathies totally with the position the students take.This is exactly what happened after Mobin’s arrest. There is no question that it was wrong but it is equally wrong for students of AMU to nurture so deep a sense of grievance. How can AMU not be viewed with suspicions if this atmosphere persists?

Spiritual Nuggets

All of us keep swinging between the two extremes of happiness and sorrow throughout our lives. The feeling of a transient joy in our daily life arouses in us the desire for an everlasting bliss. The main receiver of all positive and negative experience is our mind. All feeling of joy or sorrow vanishes when there is no link between the body and the mind… Everlasting bliss is possible only for realised soul.

—Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, Merging With Shiva: Hinduism’s Contemporary Metaphysics, chapter 52

***

To realise who you are is to realise that you are not! If you want to be, never try to realise, because in the very process of realisation the ego disappears. And the self is only another name for the ego. There is nothing like self-realisation. Yes, there is realisation but the realisation always makes you absolutely clear that the self has never existed in the first place and it is not there; it has never been there.

—Osho, Guida Spirituale

***

When the one Lord revealed himself to me,

I lost myself in Him.

Now there is neither nearness nor union.

There is no, longer a journey to undertake,

No longer a destination to reach.

Love, attachment, my body and soul,

And even the very limits of time and space,

Have all dropped from my consciousness.

My separate self has merged in the Whole:

In that, O Bahu, lies the secret of the unity that is God!

—Abyaat-e-Baahoo, 3. From J.R.Puri and K.S. Khak, Sultan Bahu

***

In the ocean in which I am,

Neither I exist nor the ocean,

None knows this secret,

Except him who is thus transformed

—Khwaja Frid-ud-Din Attar