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November 25, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Making CVC
toothless Paper sanctions Another rice crisis |
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THE THREE NEW STATES Restructuring security
management
Grim, degrading poverty
Sharif, Benazir unite
against ruling General
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Making CVC toothless MR N.
VITTAL'S dream of making the office of the Chief Vigilance Commissioner an effective tool for stamping out corruption in high places will remain a dream. He wanted statutory powers not for himself but the office he holds for catching corrupt senior public servants by the scruff of their neck and making them pay for their crimes. Even within the limits of the powers which he currently has as the country's top watchdog against corruption he has shown the rare willingness to practise what others have merely preached by putting the names of the officers under investigation on the ubiquitous Net. However, a joint select committee of 30 MPs assigned the task of examining the provisions of the proposed Bill for giving more powers to the CVC in its wisdom has come to the conclusion that his wings should in fact be clipped! And it is not only the CVC's wings which are sought to be clipped by diluting the contents of the proposed Bill. The recommendations of the JPC run contrary to the December, 1997, directive of the Supreme Court. The cynics, of course, felt that the apex court had assumed the functions of the legislature by directing the government to introduce transparency and accountability in the functioning of the investigation agencies. However, a case can be made out to explain the phenomenon of judicial activism on the basis of the latest information placed before Parliament. On Wednesday Minister of State for Personnel Vasundhara Raje informed the Lok Sabha that the Central Bureau of Investigation had arrested 379 public servants on charges of corruption in the past four years, but the prosecution of the accused was taking a long time. The fact that only 20 out of the nearly 400 senior public servants charged with having committed acts of corruption have been convicted thus far is bad advertisement for the government. Political interference in the working of the CBI is believed to be largely responsible for the low rate of conviction of corrupt bureaucrats and politicians. The Supreme Court had other factors too in mind when it directed the government to grant statutory powers to the CVC and also the enormous responsibility of supervising the functioning the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate. However, the recommendations of the JPC have once again exposed the duplicity of the political class on the issue of combating corruption in high places. Just where its interest lie are clear from the "popular view" that elected representatives should be excluded from being treated as public servants for the purposes of vigilance enquiries. Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee wants the office of Prime Minister to be brought under the purview of the proposed Lok Pal, but the "popular view" seeks exemption for the elected representatives. The political class has been dragging its feet on the introduction of the Lok Pal Bill for the same reasons which have forced it to show its true face on the issue of giving more powers to the CVC. An effective Lok Pal and a CVC are necessary for giving teeth to the professed political commitment of weeding out corruption at the highest level of administration, both political and bureaucratic. Mr Vittal wanted the procedures to be made more flexible for starting investigations against senior bureaucrats. But the JPC has said a firm "no". The lone voice of dissent has come from Mr Kuldip Nayar. He has not minced words in stating that the recommendations for the dilution of the powers of the CVC go against the spirit of the Supreme Court directive on the subject. He is not alone in believing that "the CBI has a dismal track record. It has got politicised. It has been reduced to the status of a government department ... it would have been far better if the CBI had been put under the CVC". However, it is doubtful whether his strong voice of dissent in the present circumstances will prove enough even for reviving the debate on how to make corrupt politicians and bureaucrats pay for their crimes. It is evident that the public itself would have to be more assertive for making its servants mend their crooked ways. |
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Paper sanctions THOSE who found many oddities in the conduct of Indian elections have now the US presidential election stalemate to poke fun at. Those who found it strange that Mr Narasimha Rao should be punished for bribing MPs while the MPs who received gratification went scot-free have now an international parallel to marvel at. The USA has imposed sanctions on Iran and Pakistan for receiving missile technology from China in 1992-93, while the sanctions against China for these transfers have been waived because it has promised to clean up its act. That is politics, American style, for you. The two-year US ban will apply on export licences for commerce and state-controlled items in all new US government contracts with several entities in Iran and Pakistan, and their sub-units and successor bodies. Pakistan has protested against the action, but it is more for form’s sake. The sanctions, which will apply to the Defence Ministry and the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission, are not going to have much impact, because such sanctions are already in force because of its 1998 nuclear explosions. The USA has admitted as much. Same is the case with the efficacy of sanctions on Iran, because of an existing embargo. It remains among seven nations labelled by the USA as state sponsors of terrorism, a designation that robs it of much US aid. In any case, Pakistan is already in possession of complete M-11 missiles, major sub-systems and production facilities, because of the previous US inaction. If it is any consolation for India, the US sanction is an implicit acceptance of the Indian stand that Pakistan has been receiving large-scale missile aid covertly. The USA denied it all along, only to confirm it at this late stage. China’s sale of missiles has long been a major irritant in US-India relations because the former had not, until now, taken legal action to stop it. China has pledged to improve its export control system, including publishing at an early date a full list of missile-related items, including dual-use ones. That sounds excellent but for the fact that similar promises were made in the past also without ever being adhered to. Numerous US intelligence reports have indicated that China’s sales have continued unabated for several years. In its semi-annual report to Congress made available in February, the CIA had said that China was continuing to sell missile parts to Iran, North Korea and Pakistan. Some ballistic missile assistance to Pakistan continues and China is also involved in missile-related transfers to Libya and Syria. In fact, the language of the Chinese pledges strongly resembles statements made by Chinese officials in 1992 and 1994 when US sanctions against China’s sale of missiles and technology were waived. The USA seems satisfied with just that. The way its spokesman put it, the development will strengthen cooperation between the USA and China to achieve the common objectives of preventing the spread of ballistic missiles which threaten regional and international security. The new arrangement will come in handy for US satellite companies to launch more US satellites on Chinese booster rockets at much cheaper rates. It is another matter that such a practice has already resulted in the improper sharing of US missile technology by at least three US manufacturers. US intelligence officials admit that the missile knowhow improved the reliability of Chinese nuclear missiles, including more than a dozen the CIA believes are targeted on US cities. What matters the most is that the US industry leaders are happy at the business opportunities that the waiver will generate and that is what matters the most. |
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Another rice crisis THOSE who think that the rice problem is over should think again. Paddy is rotting in mills in Punjab and Haryana since shelling has stopped thanks to unresolved issues between millers and the FCI. What is more, workers from Bihar and UP, the mainstay of the milling operation, have gone back, threatening not to return. The FCI, having solved the bigger question of procurement price and permissible percentage of damaged grain, has run out of both energy and ideas to tackle the latest one. It is not going to fret about the sticky situation which basmati exporters have landed themselves in. Anyway since the growers and the government agencies are not involved in a negative way, there is no hue and cry and it is time for siesta. But left unsolved, the developing confusion could damage the long-term interests of agriculture. Exporters, mostly based in Delhi, have stocked up on basmati rice hoping to make a killing. At the beginning of the season, the going price was Rs 1200 a quintal of paddy. With the leading traders setting the trend, others too joined and quoted a steadily higher price till it touched Rs 1450. That is where it stands today. When milled a tonne of rice costs more than $ 420, compared to the Pakistan offer price of $ 370. That is a big price differential and traditional importers are complaining. But India is not out of the race. India sits on a bigger stock and has extensive facilities for parboiling the grain to produce the variety which is most popular in Saudi Arabia. (Parboiling is steaming the grain before milling and it ensures that the rice is unbroken and firm.) Inspired reports from Saudi Arabia talks of huge carry over stocks there, implying that it may not need any import. Despite the fact that India is notoriously inefficient in collecting commercial intelligence, trade circles are confident that importers from West Asia, the European Union and pockets of South-East Asia will resume buying after February when it is time to replenish their stock. A long report in an economic newspaper, based purely on interviews with exporters, presents a conflicting picture. Overseas sales have slowed down but prices have not crashed. This is because there is no accurate estimate of the basmati paddy crop. If the harvest is smaller than the previous year because of the unseasonal rain, the prices will rise in the coming months adding lustre to export prices. Such an attitude is not surprising. In India even in the new millennium trade is essentially speculation, or what the new generation of analysts describe as a mind game. In such a setting, everyone takes risks and if things go badly, find somebody or someway to lessen the burden. This year the slide in the value of the Pakistani rupee against the dollar has given a slight edge to basmati exports from there. But this is set off by two factors. Pakistan cannot cater to the growing demand for basmati from traditional consumers and Indian grain is superior. Finally, the Indian diaspora is bigger and will not mind paying a little extra to eat desi rice. But there is a grey area. If one or two exporters, who bought paddy at the lower price and who find the interest burden heavy, decide to sell at a discounted price, the herd mentality will take over and there will be mayhem. But then neither the growers will lose nor the FCI will face the firing squad. |
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THE THREE NEW STATES THE States of Chhattisgarh, Uttaranchal and Jharkhand have now come into existence. The birth of the three States has been marked by controversies and there is little doubt that they would continue to dog them. A significant factor about these three States is that none of them was recommended by the States’ Reorganisation Commission of 1955 headed by Justice Fazl Ali. H.N. Kunzru and K.M. Panikkar were the other members of the commission which toured the country extensively and met hundreds of delegations before submitting the report. The Fazl Ali Commission itself was the outcome of the State of Andhra, which was conceded by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, on the linguistic principle, in the wake of widespread riots throughout the then Madras Presidency. The Fazl Ali Commission was primarily concerned with the creation of new States on a linguistic basis and it did not take into account the aspirations of the tribal people. The Fazl Ali Commission had emphasised that in strategic areas and border regions effective Central control was necessary and the measure of autonomy which might be conceded to those areas should be primarily governed by consideration of national security. In the years which followed the SRC Report these important recommendations were totally ignored. The most important example was that of Assam. The SRC had recommended Assam should remain a single unified State with the erstwhile princely State of Tripura being merged thereof while the State of Manipur should be made a Union Territory and later merged in Assam. But what followed saw Assam being broken up into several States, with Nagaland coming into being in 1963, followed by Mizoram, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh. Tripura and Manipur also retained their entities as separate States. The Seven Sisters, as they are called, have become an unstable region plagued by insurgency, not to speak of lack of development and effective administration. The Fazl Ali Commission had specifically recommended the creation of the States of Vidharba and Telangana but these were not conceded. In Telangana there was a sustained agitation, which petered out after the leading agitationists were compensated with political plums. However, there are rumblings again in these two areas: The constitution of Vidharba is strongly opposed by the Shiv Sena leader while the Congress, BJP and NCP are equivocal. In Telangana, both the BJP unit and a section of Congressmen are in favour of the State being carved out of Andhra Pradesh. The demand for these two States is slowly growing and time will tell if they would some day emerge as separate States. K.M. Panikkar of the SRC had pleaded for the bifurcation of UP primarily for improving the administrative efficiency of the State. His recommendation was for a separate State, called the Agra State, consisting of Western UP districts of Meerut, Agra, and the districts of Rohilkhand and Jhansi divisions. However he excluded the districts of Dehra Dun and Pilibhit. Ajit Singh, the Kisan leader and son of Charan Singh, has been advocating a State on similar lines but there are not many takers of the idea. The Uttaranchal region has had a chequered history. These areas consisting of the Kumaon and Garhwal regions falling between the Kosi river marking the border between Nepal and India and the Satluj river were once part of Nepal. The Anglo-Nepal wars ended in these areas being conceded to the victorious British as per the Treaty of Sugauli in 1816. The Treaty also conceded the territories between the Singalila range and Tista river to the British, which resulted in Sikkim and the Darjeeling regions coming under British Rule. The Gorkhaland agitation of Subhash Gheising is indirectly the fallout of the Sugauli Treaty of 1816. Gheising speaks of the Gorkhas of Darjeeling having “brought the areas with them” which according to him, justifies his demand for a Gorkhaland which would principally consist of Darjeeling district. The Gorkhaland agitation is dormant at present but Gheising is prone to provoke sudden agitations at regular intervals. While the Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh are primarily tribal areas, Uttaranchal is not. The Kumaon and Garhwal regions with a population of over 70 lakhs contribute a considerable proportion of armed forces in the country and practically every family in the region has a member in the armed forces or paramilitary forces. Each of the States has its grievances which are not taken care of merely by the formation of the States. In Uttaranchal, the State capital at Dehra Dun, though designated as temporary, does not satisfy most of the people especially in the distant regions of Uttar Kanshi for whom Dehra Dun is as far as Lucknow. Moreover the imposition of Chief Minister Nityanand Swamy, who is essentially a Haryanvi, led to some rumblings among the legislators. There was also a considerable controversy about the inclusion of district of Hardwar in the new state. Chhattisgarh has got its own problems. It is said that Ajit Jogi was imposed by the Congress High Command as the Chief Minister, even though he is a quintessential Chhattisgarh tribal. Of all the three Chief Ministers of the newly created States, Ajit Jogi has got the best credentials by way of educational qualifications and administrative experience. But that does not solve the serious problems of the new State. The drought in the region has led to an exodus of a large number of poor tribals into the neighbouring States for sustenance. It is indeed unfortunate that as many as 10 to 16 districts of the State should be drought-affected and Chief Minister Jogi has a major problem in his hands. A Central team has already arrived there and hopefully the problem would be dealt with effectively. Meanwhile, political trouble is growing with a dissenting groups of seven MLAs led by the Shukla brothers of Raipur waiting for an opportunity to topple the Jogi government. In the permissively political atmosphere of today, the veteran Congressman V.C. Shukla was seen confabulating with BJP leader Kushabhao Thakre for exploring the possibility of a tieup with the BJP and bring about the downfall of Chief Minister Jogi. Jharkhand, with all its rich natural resources, is a poor State. The slender majority which the BJP Chief Minister Babu Lal Marandi commands, does not give hope of a stable government. JMM leader Shibu Soren’s acquiescence with the Marandi regime is but temporary. Governor Prabhat Kumar has asked the Chief Minister to prove his majority on the floor of the House and if that goes through satisfactorily, the new administration should settle down to tackle the problems of this state. Political leaders like V.P. Singh have voiced the demand for setting up another State Reorganisation Commission. While in principle this demand may be valid, the present economic situation of the country does not permit such a luxury. There are already many demands, apart from Vidharbha and Telangana, for several other States like Bodoland, Purvanchal or Seemanchal, Kamtapur, Hemprek of Kerbis etc. The autonomous region of Bodoland was conceded by the Centre in Feb, 1993 but this only vetted the appetite of Bodos who are now asking for nothing less than a fullfledged State in the northern areas of Brahmaputra. The Bodos, however, do not constitute a majority in the area. They claim that their demand for the State is based on historic factors when the Kachharis, Demass and Bodos had their own kingdom in the region. The Bodoland demand had led to similar demands from various tribal groups of Assam, such as the Kerbis asking for ‘‘Hemprek’’, meaning homeland. The Kerbis claim to be the largest single tribal group of Assam but there are also other tribal communities like Cachharis, Rabhas, Lalungs, Misings and Hmars. It is possible to satisfy all these tribal communities if they start aspiring for even autonomous regions, let alone separate State. The people of North Bengal districts are reportedly aspiring for a Kamtapura state based on certain vague historic factors. It is, however realised that in the context of the Gorkhaland demand of Gheising, the possibility of any such demand of the so called Kamtapur, even being given serious thought. The Purvanchal or Seemanchal State idea was suddenly thrown up by Tasleemuddin, a politician of mixed background, from Bihar. His new state is supposed to consist of about 15 districts of Bihar and West Bengal in their respective northern regions. A dubious distinction of this state would be the largest concentration of Bangladesh migrants there and quite sensibly Tasleemuddin has quitened down, at least for the present. In the context of all these various ideas and aspirations on the part of disparate groups of people, the Centre would do well to go slow in creating any more states. The more the states the more the drain on Central resources and also more problems on the law and order fronts, which the Centre could ill afford. ——— The writer is a former Governor of West Bengal and Sikkim. |
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Restructuring security
management THE need for adequate security management for the country has been repeatedly stressed at various levels post-Kargil. During the last one year and a half, several experts and groups have gone into the matter. Some of the findings of the Subrahamanyam Committee and its recommendations have been taken note of by the Vajpayee Government. Four task forces have gone into the exercise for an integrated security system, which includes among other things, the appointment of a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), the restructuring of the Defence Ministry, integration of the present regional commands of the three military services — the Army, Navy and the Air Force — and a unified defence intelligence organisation. Each proposal has been or is being gone through in depth. The recommendations of the task forces will hopefully be studied extensively by a Group of Ministers (GoM), already constituted by the Prime Minister. In fact, the GoM is reportedly going into the recommendations of the task force on intelligence gathering which is known to be one serious lapse which led to the massive intrusion of Pakistani forces in the garb of militants in Kargil and adjoining sectors. The recommendations of the task force, which are reportedly under study of the GoM, include an integrated defence intelligence agency. This matter, as also the recommendations of the three other task forces, are expected to be finalised by the GoM very soon and by the Government by the year-end. So they claim. Whatever, may be the recommendations of the expert committees and the proposals of the Group of Ministers, two things require highest priority to provide adequate security to the country. One, civilmilitary cooperation in defence planning without any move to upgrade the Defence Secretary or the Chief of Defence Staff to a five-Star General, as has reportedly been proposed by some experts. It matters little if the Defence Secretary is designated as a Principal Secretary to the Government of India. What is required, and must be done fastest, is the full involvement of military top brass in decision making. There must be a logical and systematic procedure for the security of the country, which is the duty of armed forces and not the filepushers in the Defence Ministry. The major lacuna in the present system, as a retired Lt-General has pointed out, is that since independence the military has been deliberately excluded from the national security decision-making loop. This has resulted in the failure of the armed forces to work out a coherent and long-term joint military strategy that would support the country’s national security policy. The absence of military top brass in decision-making has invariably resulted in wrong and untimely acquisition of military machines, the modernisation of which has fast grown in the developed world. Some highly sophisticated machines have been procured from abroad at high cost and inducted into the Service without proper training to the troops, most of whom have been deployed for civil duties. Importantly, the military commanders have been invariably kept in the dark about the national security and, therefore, had often to react belatedly to the situations as and when they developed — like in the north-east in 1962 and in Kargil last year. This lacuna makes it incumbent on the Government (attention Mr Defence Minister) to make the armed forces an essential part of the national security planning. They and not the likes of Mr Brajesh Mishra can work out an effective security plan, backed by other civil and economic inputs. Doubtless, the proposal is bound to be opposed by the bureaucracy since defence decision-making has been its monopoly so far. But, please, national interests must come first. Now about the proposal to appoint a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS). The task force headed by former Minister of Defence in Rajiv Gandhi’s Government, Arun Singh has not recommended the upgradation of the CDS as a five-Star General, which has been considered necessary by those who favour this appointment to be senior to the Service Chiefs. Arun Singh’s “No” to such a proposal is perfectly in order, because if you create a post of a Field Marshal or equivalent ranks in the other two Services, then it would amount to the creation of several other posts, to assist the CDS, as also a full-fledged Secretariat for him. Such additional expenditure is bound to create more problems than solve any. This proposal was mooted and considered seriously some years ago, but it was vehemently opposed, and rightly so, by the two smaller Services — the Navy and the Air Force. Their plea was that since the Army is the largest Service, the CDS will always be from the land force and that the other two smaller Services will be reduced to merely a subordinate status. They never wanted Army to have “big brother” status. It is, therefore, evident that the problem of the CDS is more “in-house” among the three Services. Evidently, therefore, the creation of a CDS will create greater inter-Service rivalry, which already exists. Moreover, there is little sense in creating a “super-chief” when we already have a Chiefs of Staff Committee, headed in accordance with the seniority among the Chiefs of the three Services. This arrangement ensures superb inter-Service cooperation, which is so essential in present day warfare strategy. No war can be fought with full cooperation between the land, air and sea forces. In fact, there has also to be an intra-Service coordination within each Service in view of the great strides being increasingly made in the sophistication of military machines and communication systems. A coordinated operation between the three Services can best be planned by the Chiefs of Staff Committee, rather than the CDS, a super-commander being proposed — and surprisingly considered seriously by the government. There is no denying the fact that it is essential to have a “super body” for modern-day defence planning. And, importantly, all the militarily advanced countries have this authority in one individual. But in the armed forces system that India has at present, a “single point supreme authority” in the shape of the Chiefs of Staff Committee and its integration with the Ministry of Defence are most suited. Secondly, and more importantly, there is a great necessity of civil-military cooperation. Ministers, their advisers and filepushers should not treat military commanders as “just fighters” against enemy in accordance with “civilian planned” strategy, got stamped by military commanders. On its part, the Chiefs of Staff Committee, the three Service Chiefs, in other words, must try to evolve a joint operational doctrine to meet the likely future threats, which they themselves should anticipate, in addition to those that may be spelt out by the Government and its National Security Council. Similar exercises could be undertaken at regional command levels of the three Services. Like the proposal for the creation of a CDS, the suggestion to set up integrated tri-Service regional commands is bound to create more problems than improve operational effectiveness. Joint operation is doubtless a better plan than integration of Services commands in the interest of an effective national security.
(INFA) |
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On the spot IT is hard to go to Orissa and not return feeling sad, angry and exhilarated all at the same time. Sad because of the terrible, terrible poverty, angry because it is completely needless and due entirely to bad, bad governance and exhilarated because it is unquestionably one of our most beautiful states. And, had it been governed even halfway well it should have been prosperous, magical and wonderful instead of famous only for its cyclones, droughts and other disasters. Inevitably, on my first day there I travelled to Ersama, one of the districts worst affected by last year’s super cyclone. My taxi driver had much experience of this route since he had ferried many journalists along it in recent weeks so he knew exactly where to stop. You could tell a cyclone-hit village he said not just by the fallen trees — which remain — but by whether it had one pucca house among the mud huts built under the Indira Awas Yojana. “You will never see more than one in a village” he said “because the government has a lottery system and you only get a house if your name comes up”. Our first stop was in a village called Maanpur to which we were drawn by the pucca house we saw from the main road. In the village the first man I met was called Khirod Chandra Jena who was bitter about his name not having come up in the lottery. “All I got was Rs 2,000 as compensation because my house was destroyed in the cyclone. But I have not managed to rebuild it because it costs Rs 10,000 to build even a mud house and where am I going to get that much money from.” It was a Dalit village in which most people were landless and earned Rs 40 a day by working on other people’s land. This year it has not rained sufficiently for there to be enough work so nobody managed to get more than 15 days’ work a month. Everyone wanted me to take their names down in the hope that this would draw the government’s attention to their plight. Nobody in the village had even the simplest amenities of modern life — cycles, radios, televisions — and their only demand was that they be given loans to set up some kind of business. They wove baskets, they said, and if they had enough money they could go into Cuttack and sell them. This village was close enough to Cuttack for them to be able to reach it quite easily but the further I went into the interior the less I met people who even considered such a possibility. How can we, they asked, when we earn barely enough to eat. Everyone I met said they had received the Rs 2,000 that the Government distributed as compensation after the cyclone but it had been of no use because they had used it mainly to pay for food after the relief trucks stopped coming. Everyone I met said they needed financial help to rebuild their lives and that without it they had no hope of lifting themselves out of their grinding poverty. It was poverty so grim, so degrading that almost nobody believed that there would ever be hope of any kind. The cyclone has made things worse in a
peculiar way because the food and clothes that came in the relief trucks — in the first few weeks after the disaster — has made people believe that the Government is capable of looking after them indefinitely. Nobody is prepared to accept that this is simply not possible so they continue to wait for the new Chief Minister they elected, eight months ago, to wave a magic wand and transform their lives. In Bhubaneswar I met the Chief Minister, Naveen Patnaik, who gave me a list of things that had been done already by way of rehabilitation. It said that since the government took office on March 5, 2000, it has accorded the “highest priority” to reconstruction programmes in the cyclone affected districts. “Rs 1,661.73 crore was arranged from various sources to fund the reconstruction programme out of which Rs 1,103.70 crore has been received so far. Out of the amount received Rs 855.90 crore has already been utilised.” Emergency repair of 9661 schools has been completed, 27,353 houses were built before the rains came and another 13,762 are half complete. Loans have been sanctioned to build another 1.28 lakh houses of which disbursement has already taken place for one lakh households. Subsidised rice is being provided and subsidised seeds to those whose livelihood was destroyed by the cyclone. It was a long and impressive list but since Orissa’s real problem is its desperate poverty nothing will ever be enough. Nothing will change either unless Naveen Patnaik can provide a system of governance different to the kind Orissa has so far seen. Visiting Bhubaneswar, at the same time as I was there, was a team from the British Government’s Department for International Development. They were asked by the last Orissa government two years ago for advice on how governance could be improved. Among the major recommendations they have made is a drastic reduction in the size of the state’s bureaucracy. Even a 1 per cent reduction in government staff could save Rs 120 crore a year and in one government department alone — water resources — 37,000 employees have been identified as unnecessary. Will Naveen Patnaik have the political will to make this kind of drastic change? A member of the DFID team I talked to said that they had not seen much hope so far and that even the Voluntary Retirement Scheme they had proposed had petered out because procedures took so long that people lost interest. The team has proposed other ways of cutting government spending and building infrastructure but nothing much has happened so far. This is a tragedy because if the government does manage to start thinking in new ways it should not take them long to realise that Orissa could become prosperous just by building up its tourism industry. On my second day I went to Konarak and then drove along a road they call Marine Drive to Jagannath Puri and I was dazzled not just by the beauty of the temples I saw but by the spectacular beaches and beautiful countryside. If Orissa gets its act together it alone could get more tourists than the rest of India currently attracts. Orissa has ancient links to Bali in Indonesia and for centuries boats have left from Orissa’s shores on what is still called the Bali Yatra. Bali’s temples and monuments, its rituals and religion all reflect the influence of Orissa but the irony is that Bali is today one of the most famous tourist destinations in the world and Orissa has been forgotten. Bali is prosperous on what it learned from those travellers the Bali Yatra brought and Orissa has slipped into poverty and degradation. Yet, just the old city of Bhubaneswar has temples so beautiful that they take your breath away. Konarak is still one of the most magnificent monuments in the world but there is not even a single, decent hotel where you could spend the night. Despite its extraordinary, sensual beauty it is hard not to come away from Orissa feeling a little sad. |
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Window on Pakistan IS anyone listening to the deposed Prime Minister of Pakistan, Mr Nawaz Sharif? Perhaps none, not even those in his own party, the Pakistan Muslim League. since October, 1999, when the military coup dethroned him and put him behind the bars, except for his wife, Kulsoom, and her small band of supporters, the PML has been by and large ignoring what Mr Sharif has been suggesting from the jail. Last week, even the party headquarters in Islamabad was captured by his detractors before the Central Working Committee could hold a scheduled meeting. A reading of some leading Pakistani newspapers like Nawa-e-Waqt, The Nation, Dawn and Frontier Post suggests that the Grand Democratic Alliance, a combination of most of the mainline political parties that includes the PPP of Ms Benazir Bhutto and other smaller parties, is not taking the desired shape to challenge effectively the military ruler, Gen Pervez Musharraf. The PML is sharply divided on the issues of joining the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) as well as the ever-increasing role of Mrs Kulsoom Sharif. It is on the verge of a split. “Only a miracle can save it”, as one commentator put it. One group, whose leader is a former Interior Minister, Mr Shujjat Hussain, has nearly captured the party headquarters. It feels no useful purpose will be served by joining the GDA. This group of detractors of Mr Sharif also believes strongly that no useful purpose will be served by denouncing the military rulers. Confrontation would not pay. Evidently, these people are in touch with the army rulers and are speaking on their behalf. Interestingly, the second group is loyal to the jailed Prime Minister but hates the PPP and other political outfits since they had launched a drive to oust Mr Sharif from power much before the military took over the administration on October 12 last year. This group believes that the anti-Sharif campaign created an atmosphere of hatred against the Sharif government and made the job of the military chief easier. No useful purpose would be served by joining what these leaders term as an opportunistic alliance. Mr Sharif is, however, totally in favour of joining the GDA. He sees this can afford him a chance for escaping the gallows. He has already been sentenced to death or to endless years in prison. As a shrewd politician, who during the last elections had won a two-thirds majority on the slogan of peace and development, Mr Sharif also feels that his party’s association with the GDA can help him meet the challenge thrown up by the military rulers, leading to the establishment of an elected government. On the other hand, PPP leader Benazir Bhutto, who too has been sentenced to jail in absentia, has nothing much to lose. She is desperate to bring the parties of all shades together. She sees a democratic setup once again emerging. Equally, General Musharraf — now in troubled waters due to a tide of crime, violence, rising inflation, massive unemployment and international isolation — is determined to see that no such alliance, whether grand or not-so-grand, emerges. Here is what a Pakistani columnist, Mohammad Malick, said some time back: “the fact remains that the Pervez Musharraf government has become painfully aware of the inevitability of putting on a political face. The reasons abound. With the trade and business community up in arms against Shaukat Aziz (Finance Minister) and his men, the economy is in a virtual stall. What better breeding ground for public unrest? The controversial Kalabagh Dam needs to be built to counter the looming water crisis. But talk about it to anyone in the three provinces outside Punjab and sparks fly. Relations between the provinces, particularly between Punjab and the rest, could hardly turn any worse. The latest developments in the Kashmir issue betray a radical departure from the army’s well-known approach to the solution of this problem. A departure, which in the good old days could have even earned the sobriquet of a sell-out for a political government. But, then, the international realities, which present themselves to a chief of Army Staff duplicating as the head of the government, are always different from those confronting a simple Army Chief. The problems faced by the government are daunting, to say the least, and it has apparently realised that in its bid to get the ball rolling in the people’s court there was no viable alternative to enlisting the support of the political forces. The series of meetings between General Musharraf and various politicians were never a part of the army’s original strategy, which was aimed more at the castigation of the traditional politicians rather than their emancipation. But the latest government moves indicate the redrawing of its original political road map”. One could sum up the people’s mood the way another well-known columnist, Omar Kureishi, did in Dawn: “It is not that the general public does not care about Sharif or the politician as such. It is not that it does not care enough to take on themselves any extraneous hardships. Because this general public owes the politicians nothing. The leaders they elected never owed them, never even tried to get them safe drinking water”. What Omar said could not be more true. But this disenchantment has dangers of its own kind. It can encourage the men in khaki to continue to rule with the gun. |
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Not by years but by disposition is wisdom acquired. —Plautus, Trinummus, act II, scene 2. *** All human wisdom is summed up in two words; wait and hope. —Alexander Dumas, the Elder, The Count of Monte Criste, chapter 117 *** Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much Wisdom is humble that he knows no more. —William Cowper, The Task Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon, line 96 *** Wisdom is a weapon that can ward off destruction. It is an inner fortress that no enemy can assail Wisdom will harness the mind diverting it from wrong and directing it toward right It is wisdom to live in the world In the way that the world lives. Those who know, know what will happen next. Such things are unknown to the knowing. Those who possess wisdom possess everything. Whatever others possess, without wisdom they have nothing. —Tirukural, 421-23, 426-27, 430. Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, Weaver's Wisdom, chapter 43. *** By yourself committing wrong you defile yourself. By yourself not doing wrong you purify yourself. —The Dhammapada, XII *** With the Past, as past, I have nothing to do; nor with the Future as future. I live now, and will verify all past history in my own moments. —Ralph W. Emerson, Journals (1854) *** Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present. —Albert
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