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| Wednesday, December 20, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Hell called Pak jails Another paddy crisis |
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Polite policemen!
INDIA’S ‘LOOK EAST’ POLICY Paswan owes an explanation
From gulli-danda to Nimbus Two Thousand
Timely data for policy formulation
The History of Christmas
‘‘Collaborators’’ keep quiet on apartheid
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Hell called Pak jails THE heartrending stories narrated by Bhogal Ram and Kharaiti Lal, the two Indian prisoners repatriated on Monday from Pakistan, should wake up the country to the plight of several hundred Indians languishing in various Pakistani jails for long. The conditions they face are worse than in a Roman galley. Losing one's sanity is the only way for many to escape reality. Torture has been so severe that a good number of Indians are believed to have died. Their bones are said to be unceremoniously dumped in an unused cell. The country which thinks nothing of torturing even the embassy staff is even more barbaric on ordinary prisoners from a neighbouring country like India who happened to have strayed into its territory. They are always treated as spies and tormented mercilessly to extract a confession. Most admit all the allegations just to escape the constant agony. That only makes life more difficult for them. This has been going on for decades. Whenever prisoners are exchanged, those returning from Pakistan are no better than walking corpses. This brutality is in sharp contrast to the humane gestures by the Indian officials whenever Pakistanis are caught in the Indian territory. The most shining example is that of the courtesies extended to the Pakistani PoWs after the 1971 war. This was acknowledged by the prisoners themselves. But even that has not shamed the Pakistani authorities into learning civilised behaviour. The most pitiable is the plight of Indian soldiers languishing in Pakistani jails for the past three decades. There are no authentic figures available but there are more than 100 soldiers in those hellholes. Among them are 24 pilots of the Indian Air Force and many officers and men of the Army. The eyes of their family members have turned into stones, waiting for these "missing in action" heroes. All they have got so far are empty words and hollow promises. No government has shown the political will to make their repatriation the top priority. Dejected family members have organised themselves into a Missing Defence Personnel Relatives Association. Yet, they have not been able to get justice. As if to rub salt into their wounds, the families of the soldiers declared missing in action are not paid salary even though they went missing in action while performing their duties. Instead they are paid pension and do not get other benefits. This lack of sensitivity spawns the feeling that they have been abandoned. A writ petition is pending in the Gujarat High Court regarding this matter. The officials of the Union Government and the Defence Ministry hardly, if ever, turn up for the hearings in the court. Ironically, even the two prisoners who returned on Monday claim that they had gone to Pakistan on the prodding of intelligence agencies for gathering information. Even if their claim is a total lie, at least the fate of regular soldiers believed to be in Pakistani jails deserves utmost attention. |
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Another paddy crisis THREAT is blackmail by other means. A clueless and nervous Central government sees even in legitimate demands an attempt at armtwisting, procrastinates and finally succumbs in full public view. As it did so in the case of the paddy crisis in Andhra Pradesh and Bihar on Monday. Why it waited till the cyberabad chieftain asked his band of MPs to get ready to pull the plug on the government is a mystery. With 29 members of the Telugu Desam Party in the Lok Sabha, Mr Chandrababu Naidu can topple the alliance government all by himself. There is no threat of defection by his flock and he does not tolerate revolt either. But why this ununderstandable delay till he went public with his bitter complaint and bluntly talked of dire action? Newspapers have been putting out reports of a deepening crisis in the whole of the Telengana region and three coastal districts of Krishna and West and East Godavari, which are rich paddy bowls. The state, as indeed the entire South, does not have direct procurement by any central agency, but FCI lifts levy rice from shellers. Normally there is no problem but this year the FCI created one by downgrading three widely grown varieties and hence fixing the price at Rs 510 a quintal, down from Rs 540 for
superfine variety. It also refixed the quality of grain, quite arbitrarily, the kisans say. This had a magical effect on the millers. They fled the market and the growers had no way of disposing of their produce and no cash to repay the loans either. The Centre rushed Food
Minister Shanta Kumar and after talks with the Chief Minister and officials in Hyderabad he promised prompt action. He offered to buy at least a million tonnes of paddy for milling on FCI account. As it happened in Punjab and Haryana a few months back, the FCI sabotaged the assurance and the paddy remained unmoved from make-shift markets. Incidentally, the mandi concept is unique to this region and elsewhere grain purchase is a private arrangement between the farmers and millers. And hence the FCI’s policy hints and directives disrupt this always to the detriment of the helpless farmer. The problem has been in the making for several weeks now and the Centre has been eerily inactive, obsessed as it was with the Ayodhya issue. Even now it has no clear idea of how to cope with the situation. The mounting rice stocks with the FCI cannot be exported because of higher price compared to the global rates and also because of poor quality. Nor can it unload the grain in the public distribution system as consumer resistance is building up after the price increase early this year. The FCI has no storage capacity. All this points to rice rotting until it somehow disappears. The Centre’s agriculture policy talked of “modernising” farm operations and increasing the warehousing facility. Making the kisan sick with worry is the only modernising visible so far and now privately owned warehouses have been stunted by the banks being forbidden to accept the receipts as negotiable instruments, good enough for getting loans. So much for coordination between two ministries headed by BJP members. The farming community has clearly lost faith in this government. A report from Amritsar darkly points to farmers switching from wheat to anything, yes, anything. Mostly vegetables and oilseeds. They fear that as it happened with kharif paddy so it will be with wheat, and there will be no guaranteed procurement and they do not want to undergo the agony all over again. But there is a real and present danger. In the past prices of onion, potato and carrot crashed in the wake of excellent harvest, forcing the growers to plough the produce back as green manure. That will be a disaster but from the looks of it, the government does not even know the crisis is waiting to happen. |
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Polite policemen! THE entire nation would be watching with interest the miracle the Delhi Police has promised to perform. How else should one react to the news that policemen in the national capital will receive lessons in talking politely to ordinary folks? Once the scheme is implemented a substantial number of "old school" policemen may be forced to put in their papers on the plea that it is rather too late in the day for them to receive lessons in good manners. By way of abundant precaution the Delhi Police should inform the general public before actually launching the rather ambitious project. Why? Because the average citizen expects the average policeman to be rude and gruff in its dealing with the public. A policeman who walks up to a rickshaw puller or a taxi driver and talks politely to him may be mistaken for an imposter. And it is not just Delhi where policemen are recognised through their rude conduct. Their image in Haryana, Punjab or elsewhere in the country is no different. The judiciary has from time to time pulled up the members of the police force on specific complaints of their involvement in custodial deaths or acts of brutality or of implicating innocent persons in false cases, as happened with Ruchika's brother. But no serious attempt has ever been made to make the police shed its colonial attitude in dealing with the complaints and grievances of the ordinary citizens of free India. If the Delhi Police succeeds in its efforts, it would be a major achievement worth being recorded in letters of gold. The lessons in being polite would be part of a comprehensive package which includes introduction of the concept of community policing. However, to expect the lathi-happy Indian constable to start behaving like the British Bobby is not going to be an easy task. But the effort, nevertheless, is worth the time and money that will be spent on making the Delhi policeman shed the scowl from his face. Although the project has been sponsored by the United Nations Development Fund, its success will depend upon the intensity of involvement of the senior cadres in making the rank and file understand the value of polite conduct. The Bureau of Police Research and Development has rightly pointed out that the responsibility of ensuring law and order in Delhi rests mainly with the middle and senior-level officers. They are primarily responsible for encouraging the lower cadres to use third degree methods and foul language even while conducting routine investigations. It is, therefore, evident that the reforms process will have to begin at the top. The officers themselves will have to first change their own mindset before imparting lessons in good conduct to the ordinary policemen, who in a certain context merely carry out their masters' orders and take the rap in the event of public protest against police highhandedness. |
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INDIA’S ‘LOOK EAST’ POLICY THE External Affairs Minister Mr Jaswant Singh, will be leaving shortly for Myanmar to inaugurate the 144 km road that the engineers of our Border Roads Organisation have built, linking the township of Tamu with the railhead at Kalemyo in Myanmar. This road is essentially designed to provide Indian goods market access to important centres in Myanmar like Mandalay. One hopes the minister will undertake a part of his journey by road travelling across the national highway from Imphal to the border town of Moreh, located barely two kilometres away from Tamu. He will find the visit revealing. Provided the authorities don’t intervene and ask traders not to display foreign goods, Mr Jaswant Singh, will find the markets in Moreh and other border towns well stocked with goods from Myanmar, China and Thailand. If he visits any small township across the border in Myanmar he will find the shops there well stocked with Indian bicycles, consumer goods, pharmaceuticals and even electrical generators. If Mr Jaswant Singh’s officials study the trade statistics prepared by the mandarins of Udyog Bhavan they will find that none of these trade exchanges are reflected in the official data. Those dealing with enforcement will label all these border trade exchanges as “smuggling”. But for the people of the North-Eastern states the exchanges of goods across the borders artificially drawn up by the British merely reflect a continuation of their historical links with countries like Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and China. We often tend to forget the fact that through centuries there has been a natural exchange of peoples, goods and services between our North-East and the countries of South and South-East Asia. The Ahoms of Assam after all migrated several centuries ago from the Shan state of Myanmar, where the language spoken is almost identical to that spoken in Laos and Thailand. The Chins from Myanmar have migrated over the past centuries to Manipur and Mizoram, and the Maities of Manipur have ties for over 2000 years with the Burmans of Myanmar. There has been similar migration to the North-East from the Yunan province of China. The ties between what is now called Bangladesh and its neighbours like Assam and West Bengal are also so close that there is little that governments can do to prevent the free movement of goods and services across national boundaries. Likewise, there are now nearly half a million people of Indian origin living in Myanmar who retain close cultural, emotional and spiritual ties with India. Just over two years ago Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand came together to form an economic association called BIMSTEC linking the littoral states of the Bay of Bengal. This economic grouping aims at promoting rapid economic cooperation between members in key areas like trade, investment, tourism, fisheries, agriculture, transportation links and human resource development. India and Sri Lanka have already concluded a bilateral free trade agreement that is showing the potential to rapidly expand trade and economic cooperation. As members of ASEAN, Myanmar and Thailand will be moving towards developing free trade ties. It is, therefore, important that India should move ahead in concluding free trade agreements with Bangladesh and Myanmar as soon as possible. The way should be paved for BIMSTEC to move towards becoming a free trade association. One effective way to deal with insurgency in the North-East would be to cooperate with Myanmar in the development of forestry and agricultural resources in its Sagaing division and Chin state that border Mizoram, Manipur and Nagaland. The immense hydroelectric potential of the areas bordering India could be developed to promote rapid economic growth of the North-East. China and Myanmar are now not only opening out their economies to foreign investment but also endeavouring to become major tourism destinations. While India attracts barely 2.5 million tourists annually, an estimated 72 million tourists visited China in 1999. Beijing alone has 65000 hotel rooms, almost the same number as the whole of India. Our capital city has only 8000 hotel rooms. Thus, while much was being spoken in India about China posing a strategic challenge to us, the fact of the matter is that unless we set our house in order and shed some of our policies regarded as sacred like reservations for the small-scale sector and treating tourism facilities as highly taxed luxury industries, we will soon find ourselves increasingly marginalised both industrially and in spheres like tourism by China and other East Asian countries. More importantly, we will find people living in our North-East raising queries about why they cannot be the beneficiaries of larger incomes through tourism, trade and transit as their neighbours to the east. The belief in New Delhi that problems like public disaffection, unemployment and insurgency can be overcome merely by pouring financial resources into border states whether it is Jammu and Kashmir or Assam, needs to be reviewed. A greater emphasis has to be placed on these states raising their own resources and enhancing productive employment by encouraging tourism, trade, transit and foreign investment. There has naturally been concern that the opening out of border trade in the North-East would lead to the region’s own industries being adversely affected by a flood of Chinese goods. With China set to join the WTO, it would have to make its trade and pricing policies much more transparent than at present. It is, therefore, important that arrangements should be concluded with China so that trade across land borders is conducted on an MFN basis with an appropriate tariff structure. This arrangement could extend to the Indo-Tibetan border also, with the progressive opening out of an increasing number of border check posts to promote trade. There have been some recent discussions on how to promote such cooperation with China regionally in a Track II process, popularly known as the Kunming initiative. The road we are at present constructing in Myanmar will have little utility in promoting our interests if we continue to follow restrictive and unrealistic border trade practices. It is ludicrous to expect traders living in our North-East to observe cumbersome procedures and banking arrangements in their trade with counterparts across the border. Procedures need to be simplified so that traders in the North-East can exchange goods on barter and through counter trade arrangements. There is also need for introducing a number of trade facilitation measures to promote border trade with Myanmar and Bangladesh, including transportation systems that allow cross-border movement of vehicles and the provision of auxiliaries like weight bridges and cold storages. It makes economic sense to evolve measures for Myanmar to provide the requirements of agricultural commodities like rice and dals to our North-East under counter trade arrangements, rather than pay huge subsidies for supplies from distant parts of India. It is essentially for New Delhi to ensure that such arrangements are expeditiously put in place. The North-Eastern states will then become centres of transit for trade with our eastern neighbours. All this only increases the urgency for concluding free trade agreements with our eastern neighbours. Given the high levels of literacy and the prevalent use of English in some of our North-Eastern states like Mizoram, the IT industry must be persuaded to move into software parks in the region. These parks will serve to attract business and trainees from our eastern neighbours. While moves are underway to construct an international airport at Guwahati, there is need to look at measures to promote foreign investment to attract tourists from ASEAN and East Asian countries, including the Yunan province of China, to the North-Eastern states. The land routes in Myanmar, bordering Manipur and Mizoram should be opened to travel, pilgrimages and tourism. While much has been spoken over the past decade about a new momentum being imparted to our “Look East” policies, these will best serve our national interest only if they are integrally linked to the promotion of the economic progress and welfare of the people of the North-East. The writer is India’s former High Commissioner to Pakistan. |
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Paswan owes an explanation AFTER allowing the postal employees' unions to hold the nation's communication system to ransom for 13 days, the government has acted exactly as it is used to doing in the past. Unfazed by the severe strictures of the Supreme Court for its capitulation to dacoit Veerappan, the executive prepared itself for another snub from the judiciary. Lost to all sense of shame, it had to be reminded by the Delhi High Court that there is an act called ESMA and that it needs being enforced. The employees' unions defiantly ignored it by saying that the strike would continue even in the face of ESMA. And suddenly the strike has ended with a statement by these very union leaders that it cannot be sustained. The mystery is not explained although it is not at all incomprehensible. For it has now become a sacred tradition with governments, both state and Central, first to adopt tough postures, cause serious economic losses, dislocation and hardship to the public and then, without saying even so much as "sorry", start "negotiations", needless to say, from a position of weakness and finally arrive at a "settlement", a euphemism for surrender. In the case of the postal employees' strike in 1998 the very same attitude was in evidence. Only the Minister was different. The public is never told what precisely are the demands and their implications, and why they should or should not be accepted. At the end of the strike, therefore, the people are unable to judge precisely as to which side was in the wrong. The demands, initially resisted as unreasonable and the strike declared illegal, cannot be compared with the "final" settlement. Nor can one be sure that the final settlement is really final. We thus have periodic strikes interrupted by truces of sorts to be called off whenever it is expedient for the employees to do so. The unwillingness to invoke ESMA was writ large on the government attitude. It had no intention of invoking it if the Delhi High Court had not intervened. The Left governments of West Bengal and Kerala predictably and contemptuously refused to use ESMA in their states. At the national level, too, it is not clear whether ESMA has really been applied. Was there a deal which the government was already prepared for? It appears that the government itself had a vested interest in some of the striking unions and so at the prospect of the first touch of ESMA the government was quick to take care not to embarrass its vote-banks by calling their bluff. Since all parties with due lack of conscience pander to organised and parasitical white collar unions, it was naturally good politics for the ruling party to keep the initiative with the government and project this surrender as a negotiated settlement. The terms of the settlement have not been announced nor has anyone cared to raise the question. The print media has taken this sordid affair with an uncharacteristic detachment. It has not felt itself called upon to ascertain and educate the public, especially as the government has avoided an explanation. The general public, long used to paying for the services it does not get from governments which it does not deserve, suffers without protest as political leaders fail to mobilise public opinion against disruptive strikes. There is thus every reason to fear that at an opportune moment the settlement will be thrown overboard and the same sequence will be repeated. If the strike was illegal as was made out in the first instance and confirmed by a threat to invoke ESMA in some states, has any arrest been made? Have the services of any of the employees, who abused the privilege of being protected public servants, been terminated? Since there is no news on this score, is one to infer that the customary "no victimisation" clause has been the first to be conceded? Consequently, will be period of absence from duty, far from being treated as a break in service, be "regularised" as leave of the kind due? And with that will there be a search on for helpful precedents so as to justify an exception to the "no pay for no work" rule? With such a disgraceful record, will any employee in any department genuinely wanting to remain loyal be left with the courage to be loyal? And if the postal employees glory in their triumph, can the Telecom Department, Railways, the banks, the electricity boards and other unionised establishments lag behind? After all, it was Mr Paswan as Minister of Railways who created embarrassment for the Postal Department by giving certain concessions to railway employees without the concurrence even of the Finance Ministry and so, in the midst of such permissiveness bordering on looseness, how long shall we take the loyalty and discipline of the much-maligned police constable for granted? Rather than be photographed as a lathi-wielding violator of "human" rights, would he not some day like to be photographed sitting on dharna while women constables catch up on their arrears of knitting, their faces beaming like so many Christmas trees? The writer is a former Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab. |
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From gulli-danda to Nimbus Two Thousand SURABHI, my 14-year old, wants a Nimbus Two Thousand to go to school! “Nimbus Two Thousand, what is that, girlie?” asked I in utter bewilderment at such a funny term. “Oh, come on, Mama, why are you so archaic? Don’t you know, it’s that famous Harry Potter’s magic broomstick? One can glide smoothly anywhere with it and can fly and shoot off like a Concorde and that too in fractions of seconds. How lucky, that Harry Potter...” swooned Surabhi, her eyes glued to the latest bestseller craze of J.K. Rowling. “A broomstick...” my eyes blinked in wonder, “but how will it help you dear, I fail to understand,” I persisted with my queries marvelling at the capacity of a broomstick and its immense popularity with the kids. “Oh, mom, it can do anything in the world. A broomstick is essential for Quidditch,” she responded. I groaned out of utter ignorance. Not again! Quidditch?” I muttered, wondering what in the world that was. “Yeah, you know, four balls, seven players on broomsticks... I know I can’t have it. I wish I had a wand though, with phoenix hairs and unicorn tails,” she rattled off leaving me completely non-plussed. By now I had grown suspicious about my knowledge. Or else, the girl was under some influence, I thought. “And, you know, mom,” she almost said in a whisper, “it can help me put a memory charm on the history teacher when she gives us lots of facts and figures to memorise.” “Memory charm, oh God! What is that nonsense,” I was beginning to lose my temper. “Oh, cool down, mom, that Nimbus is so coo... l,” she crooned, her eyes glinting mischievously, “you know, memory charm can even make you forget who you are — you completely go into oblivion and yet alive. Mom, only if I could put it on you for a little while, you could forget your nagging and pestering me to study and do my homework all the time. Oh, mom, what a treat it would be! It would be worth experimenting, isn’t it...,” she went twittering nonchalantly, completely missing a look of horror and disbelief on my face. The conversation left my head in a dizzy and I was appalled at the audacity of the children these days whose minds were constantly occupied and fascinated by these extra-terrestrial tricks and semblance of games they seem to be playing in their minds or whatever. Have we come a long way... Have we reached the Moon... Are we planning to go to Mars... I kept wondering and asking myself? Minds of the children of 21st century still fascinated by tales of wizardry and witchcraft — not only children but adults alike, the statistics confirm — unbelievable but true! The world of the Unknown and the Mysterious always held the human brain in a trance, in suspense, in fascination, gloating over the fact that the human curiosity was but a natural reflex. The unparalleled success and craze of the “Harry Potter” series has only confirmed this and given children an opportunity to let their imagination go haywire with devices like “broomsticks” and “magic wands” and goblets and azkaban and what not? Gone are the days when we revelled in simpler games like gulli-danda, kanche, pithoo, stapu, kho-kho, gitte or even more ruddy games like football, volleyball, hockey or “I spy you.” Playing outdoors in fields in the evenings was a ritual and a relaxation we looked forward to. Sweating profusely was a natural phenomenon and a cure for all the physical ailments. What do children of “Our Age” know or understand of all this, sitting in air-conditioned rooms and dreaming of Nimbus Two Thousands? For them, the journey from Gulli-danda to Nimbus Two Thousands? is indeed a smooth one. Long live the Nimbus Two Thousand! |
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Timely data for policy formulation FRED ARNOLD, Vice President of ORC Macro, a premier research organisation based in Calverton, Maryland, USA was in India for the release of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-2) in November. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, which initiated the project, designated the International Institute for Population Studies as the nodal agency for the survey. ORC MACRO and the East West Center in Honolulu, Hawai, provided technical assistance for all survey operations in the first and second NFHS surveys. Dr Arnold said his company’s effort was to provide high quality and timely data to the Union Government on population, health and nutrition. More importantly, ORC Macro has managed to collate a representative sample of India’s population and critical inputs from women about their own conditions. He said though migration to West Asia had reduced considerably, the brain drain to the USA, Europe and Australia was continuing. ORC MACRO is credited with more than a hundred surveys in nearly 70 countries. The 55-year-old expert who specialises in demography has co-edited a book, “Asian labour migration to the Middle East.” The survey funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through ORC MACRO had a sample of 90,000 married women in the age group (15 to 49) from all the states. Excerpts from the interview: Q. What is the aim of the survey? A. The whole idea is to provide high quality, timely data to the Government of India, non-government and international organisations to help them design policies and improve programmes in respect of population, health and nutrition. We have a representative sample of India’s population and a wealth of information from women on their own condition and the situation of the country. Q. What is the thrust of the project? A. The focus areas have been defined in consultation with the Union Health Ministry. For the present survey, we had two meetings at IIPS, Mumbai. Officers from various ministries, NGOs and experts from focus areas participated in the discussions to arrive at a consensus. Much of the content is specific to the needs of India and the Indian government. Q. What is the total expenditure on the survey? A. The cost per interview and the field cost is the lowest in India. It’s been very economical in terms of the large and complex size of the sample. I hope the benefits outweigh the cost of the project. If programmes can be designed to improve India’s population, the information provided will be well worth it. Q. What was the nature of the research and specific role of ORC MACRO? A. In large States we had about 7000 to 10,000 field investigators. Of the 13 field organisations, five are population research centres. The other eight are private sector companies. We have provided technical assistance for sample design, field work, data processing and writing of the report. People from ORC MACRO with very sound field experience in health, population and nutrition visited India for consultation from time to time. Q. How would you sum up the main findings of the survey? A. The nutritional aspects are very interesting. For the first time in India, we have national level data on women, children and various aspects of malnutrition. The survey is also able to point out some problem areas and other areas in which progress has been made. Q. Has the survey dealt with child sexual abuse in Indian families? A. There is no question that child sexual abuse is a problem but who would give you reliable information on this? We have some information on two aspects of domestic violence, namely, actual experience of women with domestic violence and their attitude towards it. Q. How do you view the Indian government’s efforts to control population which touched the one billion mark in May? A. India was the first among all countries in the world to have a national family welfare programme. After four decades, about half of all women are using contraceptives and the programme has recently shifted emphasis to reproductive and child health approach. That is a very positive shift. The new national population policy has a lot of strength. It is moving in the right direction. I hope that the very ambitious objective of the policy can be achieved. It’s a big challenge. This is the business of the Indian government. We are not here to tell anybody what to do. We are here to provide quality information to help improve programmes in the areas of population, health and nutrition. Q. How do you look at migrations from India? A. Ten years ago, migrations were very substantial particularly from Kerala. Persons from all South Asian countries were migrating to West Asia. Certainly, the number of migrants to West Asia has gone down but that does not mean that brain drain from India has stopped. Indians are migrating to Europe, the USA and Australia. The Indian community has been the most successful immigrant group if you look at their education, income and professional status. |
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The History of Christmas FOR the first time in many years I’ve decided not to make my personal Christmas card. I don’t seem to have the energy for going through this ritual. The writing of envelopes and scribbling “love and all good wishes” takes an enormous amount of time and effort when a hundred and fifty to two hundred cards are involved. I envy the young who are now getting ready for the big bash of the year. In my childhood and youth, I and my brothers and young sister spent the better part of the vacation in my mother’s ancestral home in Tiruvalla. My uncle, my mother’s brother and his family took care of us while my mother and father stayed back in Kollam. I’m not sure whether my father, who was cynical about religion and questioned its value, even remembered Christmas when it arrived. My mother’s family were generally puritanical, considering all pleasures sin (or very nearly so), but Christmas was different. This was a time when they let themselves go — my uncles, aunts, cousins all shed their normal inhibitions. They feasted and sang. There was no wine, though, but that didn’t matter. The smell of Christmas, in those days, filled the house days before December 25. Basically it was the smell of plum cakes being baked. We made a Christmas tree by sticking a large branch of a casurina tree into a large flowerpot, covering its spiky nuts with toffee papers and hanging other decorations which had been collected over the years on the branches, and, of course, a lantern. There was no electricity in those days, so we put lighted candles on the tree. Sometime it would catch fire so it had to be watched. The children were given Christmas presents by the elders. My aunt, Saramkotcha as we called her, who had a teacher’s job in Jaffna, was the chief Santa Claus. She had presents for all, not expensive but interesting. One Christmas, the well-to-do families of our area (called Teepany) decided to have a Christmas party for the children of the Pulayas (Dalits) who worked on their estates and in the rice fields. They had their own little church and the party was held nearby. My uncle put on the robes of Santa Claus and went among the children distributing sweets. When he came near his daughter, Thankamma, who was only four, she screamed in fright. She had never seen such an apparition. My uncle pacified her saying, ‘ Appachanadi, molay’ (It’s your father, little one). There was carol singing and a tableaux presented by my girl cousins who appeared with wings. On Christmas Eve, the Salvation Army choir and band came to all the well-off homes around and sang carols. ‘Silent night, holy night’ they sang as the drums boomed, making it anything but silent. It was, nevertheless, a memorable occasion for us children. Christmas Day itself was not fun at all. We had to wake up at four in the morning to go to church. It was sheer agony. The time was fixed to coincide approximately with the time in Bethlehem when Jesus was supposedly born. The service over we would rush home for a breakfast of appam and mutton stew. After a short nap, we would be ready for lunch. It was not elaborate, but grand enough for us, with chicken curry and pilav. Looking back, we should thank the Bishop of Rome in the fourth century who invented Christmas. The date chosen was an arbitrary one, to coincide with the pagan festival to celebrate the winter solstice. At first the Church tried to discourage all the merry-making to make Christmas a solemn feast, but tradition prevailed. “The history of Christmas dates back over 4000 years’, says my encyclopedia. Many of our Christmas traditions were celebrated centuries before Christ was born. The twelve days of Christmas, the bright fires, the Yule log, the giving of gifts, carnivals with floats, carolers who sang while going from house to house, the holiday feasts, and the church processions, all can be traced back to the early Mesopotamians.” In Scandinavia during the winter months, the sun would disappear for many days and people feared it would not return. After 35 sunless days, scouts would be sent to the mountaintops to watch for the return of the sun. When the first light was seen, the scouts would return with the good news. A great festival would be held, called Yuletide, and a special feast would be served around a burning Yule log. The Romans celebrated their God, Saturn. Their festival called Saturnalia began in the middle of December and ended on January 1. With cries of ‘Jo Saturnalia’, the celebrations would include masquerades in the streets, and the exchange of gifts for good luck. Wishing you all a merry Saturnalia! |
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‘‘Collaborators’’ keep quiet on apartheid MRS Stella Sigcau does not like to be reminded of it, but she was Africa's first female Prime Minister. She lasted just 86 days in office before a military coup overthrew her government in the South African ‘‘independent’’ black homeland of Transkei. That was 13 years ago. Today Mrs Sigcau, who serves as Minister of Public Works in President Thabo Mbeki's Cabinet, is unusually quiet on the issue gripping South Africa: should whites apologise for apartheid? The question is more than academic to Mrs Sigcau, because some of those who oppose a new campaign to persuade whites to admit they benefited from racial oppression ask why only one group is being asked to sign the ‘‘guilt list’’. They argue that the system would not have proved as durable but for the collaboration of large numbers of black people. Many black South Africans worked for the apartheid police, army and the civil service. Others served on township councils denounced and attacked by the African National Congress (ANC) when it was underground. Poorer people often faced a nearly impossible choice between collaboration and destitution, and the point at which they contributed to their own oppression was not always clear. But there is no doubt that people such as Mrs Sigcau — who was once denounced in Parliament as an ‘‘apartheid spy’’ — and other black people who served as homeland leaders, police chiefs and judges benefited from the oppression of their compatriots. Yet none of those who once served apartheid and now work for the ANC have seen fit to say sorry. They include the ANC Prime Minister of the corruption-plagued Mpumalanga province, Mr Ndaweni Mahlangu, who previously served as Deputy Chief Minister in the Kwa-Ndebele homeland. Among the ANC's members of Parliament are mixed-race people who joined the racially segregated Parliament under Mr P.W. Botha, and former military officers from the black homelands. The ANC argues that there is no need for such people to apologise because its white opponents are using the issue to justify their own refusal to admit that they benefited from an evil system. Mrs Sigcau is a Pondo Princess whose father, the late paramount chief Botha Sigcau, was the first President of Transkei after it was carved out as a corral for Xhosas by the white Government. It was hardly a free country, being dependent on Pretoria for its entire budget as ‘‘foreign aid’’ and for the only recognition of its sovereignty other than by the other three ‘‘independent’’ homelands. Transkei's citizens scraped a living as best they could from the overpopulated and overworked land, but Mrs Sigcau did not suffer. She lasted less than three months as Prime Minister but, by her own admission, that was long enough for her to accept a hefty bribe from the hotel and casino magnate Sol Kerzner in return for gambling concessions. Mr Mbeki is said to keep Mrs Sigcau in his Cabinet because her heritage gives her sway over Transkei's rural vote. The ANC's spokesman, Mr Smuts Ngonyama, makes the previously unheard-of claim that Mrs Sigcau was really an ANC underground operative, even though she has been denounced in Parliament as exactly the opposite. Her office says she has no comment. Mrs Sigcau was overthrown in 1987 by a bloodless coup by another apartheid servant who went on to prominence in the ANC. General Bantu Holomisa was Transkei's military ruler for five years then, after joining the ANC, became a Deputy Minister in Nelson Mandela's Government. He fell out with the party after publicly spilling the beans on Mrs Sigcau's bribe-taking. Gen Holomisa says he has nothing to apologise for. Others in Mr Mbeki's Government have also refused to say sorry. The Minister of Home Affairs and leader of Inkatha, Mr Mangosuthu Buthelezi, ran the KwaZulu semi-autonomous homeland through the bloodiest years of his party's war with the ANC. He took secret money from the apartheid Government to fund the conflict, and Inkatha collaborated with the security forces in murderous attacks on unarmed township residents in the ANC's heartlands. But he has repeatedly said that he has nothing to apologise for, and these days the ANC does not ask him to do so. —By arrangement with The Guardian |
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God is the source and the substratum of permanent peace and happiness. How can one realise Him to attain bliss? By way of dogmatic beliefs, mystic syllables, acetic practices, rituals and ceremonies, fasts and pilgrimages? Certainly not. The only way to reach Him is through love — intense longing which can be felt but not described. — Dr T. R. Shangari,
Sant Charan Das :
Jivana Aur
Upadesha ***** Love is not a game played by children, It breaks the bond Of the body and the soul. Mount first the gallows, you may then be accepted. ***** There is a call, from the gallows to all the lovers. If you desire to love, take not a step forward, surrender first your head, then ask what is love. ***** The blaze of love is strong, The brave and wise alone Can jump into the blaze. Love is the game of death, The blaze alone win the game. Roast your body alive, Then enter the sport of love. A lahooti (realised soul) alone knows O Budhal, the secret of love. — Budhal, a Sufi poet ***** Care not for your head, If you are in love, Surrender your head, says Latif, And place it before the beloved. Love is a deadly snake. The affected alone know what it is. — Latif, a Sufi Poet |
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