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| Monday,
March 26, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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Price and
procurement Pakistan
and CTBT |
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CORRUPTION IN
POLITICS: A DEBATE-I Tehelka:
the Chandigarh connection
Aladdin@search.com
"This meeting of the citizens of Karachi held under the auspices of the Karachi District Congress Committee congratulates the Swarajists and others who walked out of the Assembly and the Provincial Councils in obedience to the Congress mandate."
Science,
politics and HIV vaccine
Samatha shadow across Balco sale deed Anupam Gupta “I WOULD prefer being a nomad in the hills,” said Jawaharlal Nehru in 1952, “to being a member of stock exchanges, where one is made to sit and listen to noises that are ugly to a degree. Is that the civilisation that we want the tribal people to have? ...I am quite sure that the tribal folk, with their civilisation of song and dance, will last long after stock exchanges have ceased to exist.”
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WHAT appeared to be a never-ending wait has ended with the government announcing the minimum support price (MSP) of wheat at Rs 610 a quintal, an increase of 5.7 per cent. Punjab Chief Minister Badal finds it satisfying although he would have been happy if the MSP had been hiked to Rs 735 as he had demanded. Actually, his satisfaction comes from the thought that he and his Haryana counterpart, Mr Chautala, have successfully pressurised a reluctant Centre to reject the recommendation to freeze the MSP at last year’s level of Rs 580 a quintal, if not to slash it to Rs 520 to suppress FCI buying. That would have been an unpopular move, particularly in Punjab where the Assembly election is due early next year. But the upshot of a higher MSP will be to keep the private trade and storage operators strictly away from the market. A buyer from a mandi in Punjab has to pay Rs 70 over and above the MSP by way of levies, cess and arhtiya commission. This is at least Rs 45 higher than the open market price and that too on the eve of wheat harvesting. The chances are the price will come down once the grain floods the mandis. Another factor inhibiting the private trade is the huge stock with the FCI and the decreasing sale through the PDS. All this shows the absence of a clear-cut policy covering the entire gamut of agricultural production, marketing and feeding the poor in the rural and urban areas. The higher MSP of barley (up by 16.2 per cent) and gram (9.5 per cent) should induce the kisan to take to these paying crops, or so the government fondly believes. It is a hope that is unlikely to come true. The MSP announcement is a minor obstacle. The real test for the two state governments will come when wheat starts arriving in the mandi. The FCI is sitting on nearly 25 million tonnes and if last year’s trend of wheat procurement repeats itself, it will have to buy about 14 million tonnes in Punjab and Haryana. There is neither storage capacity nor any prospect of disposing it of. The government says the revised MSP will mean an additional expenditure of Rs 570 crore but is coy about the likely increase in the carrying cost. The FCI has estimated that the annual carrying cost is over Rs 2,000 a tonne. There is utter confusion because the MSP is decided by the Agriculture Ministry, procurement by the FCI by the Food and Public Distribution Ministry and subsidy by the Finance Ministry. It is time to ask the Centre to know its own mind on farm products. |
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LAST week the Pakistan army corps commanders reportedly gave the green signal to Chief Executive General Pervez Musharraf to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. However, the ground for the announcement was prepared in November last year. Pakistan Foreign Minister Abdus Sattar was given the sensitive task of gauging the popular mood on the subject. His assignment was to convince the political hawks and religious groups that Pakistan stood to gain more by signing the CTBT than by sulking on the unfair terms of the treaty. However, Mr Sattar played only a supporting role in preparing the ground for Pakistan to change its stand. The argument which clinched the debate in favour of the signing of the treaty was crafted by State Bank of Pakistan Governor Ishrat Hussain. No one had the courage to challenge him when he pointed out that Pakistan was losing financial help worth $ 2 billion every year because of its stand on the CTBT. Signing the treaty is one of the unwritten conditions of the International Monetary Fund for the bailout package which Pakistan desperately needs for reviving its moribund economy. The signing of the treaty would also mean resumption of loan from Japan. Recently the Japanese leadership offered the carrot of increasing substantially the volume of assistance, which was between $ 500 and $ 600 before the nuclear tests, if Pakistan agreed to put its signature on the dotted line on the document which would prohibit it from conducting nuclear tests ever again. Of course, it would be naive to presume that Pakistan’s Foreign Minister and the State Bank Governor had not been briefed by General Musharraf on what they were to say in public. Shortly after the SBP Governor’s statement in favour of signing the CTBT a Pakistan foreign office spokesman emerged from the shadows to say that his country’s stand on the CTBT was not linked to that of India. How the domestic audience will react to the statement in which for once India does not figure as a “cause and effect factor” is not difficult to understand. What needs to be reiterated is that India’s defence policy, of which nuclear deterrence capability is an essential component, has only marginally been influenced by Pakistan’s hostile posturing. It is dictated more by the overall regional situation, which includes the nuclear capability of China. But will General Musharraf really sign the CTBT? He may if he first musters the courage to stamp out the India-centric Islamic fundamentalists fed and nurtured by a myopic leadership in Pakistan. And that is easier said than done. |
CORRUPTION IN POLITICS:
A DEBATE-I THERE is a story in the Bible (John, 8) of the Pharisees bringing to Jesus Christ a woman caught in adultery who, according to the Law of Moses, could have been stoned to death. In order to test Jesus the Pharisees asked him: “What do you say about her?”. For a time Jesus kept quiet. But as his questioners kept persisting, he stood up and said to them: “Let him without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her”. At that, St John tells us, one by one the Pharisees left, leaving Jesus and the woman alone. Whereupon, Jesus looked up and asked the woman: “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, Lord”, the woman replied. And Jesus said: “Neither do I condemn you; go and do not sin again”. One is reminded strongly of that story as one listens to the Opposition members lambasting the NDA government for large-scale corrupt practices being condoned. If only they would look at themselves in a mirror and ask themselves whether they are without sin, they might sober down. The truth of the matter is that there is no political party and hardly any top politician who is not corrupt. But, then, does that mean that we have to condone corruption? Corruption is in-built in our parliamentary system. Putting a party together costs money. Ask Mr R.K. Jain of the Samata Party. Elections cost money. Ask any party. Just running a party costs money. The money has to come from somewhere. And everyone these days knows how and from where it is raised. Instead of running down corruption which is the cheapest way of indulging ourselves, we have to ask ourselves how best this disease can be fought. One possible answer is the scrapping of the parliamentary system and opting for a presidential form of government. Not that it does not have its own drawbacks. There is always the fear that a President, duly elected, may turn out to be a dictator. There is the fear that a duly-elected President may indulge in cronyism and place his favourites in different ministries only to raise more money through corrupt practices. Everything is possible. But at least a President elected by the entire nation does not have to worry about coalition parties demanding their pound of flesh. A Vajpayee elected through universal suffrage does not have to keep Mr George Fernandes in and Mr Ramakrishna Hegde out. He would have more elbow room to pick and choose his colleagues. Under the present parliamentary system, Mr Vajpayee is at the mercy of every small party and its pitiless leader. And every small party, in order to survive, must make money when it has the power. Logic suggests that such parties will indulge in corruption as and when opportunities present themselves. The Defence Ministry is peculiarly susceptible to pressures because it makes the most substantial purchases from abroad, and putting the leader of a small party as Defence Minister clearly was asking for trouble. Let it, however, be remembered that even when a large party such as the Congress was in power, it did not prevent it from using defence purchases for getting cuts and we are all familiar with the HDW and Bofors. So, what in the end is the solution? One way is to take a leaf from Indira Gandhi who said in another context that corruption is a worldwide phenomenon and so why not accept it as part of our system? Another way is to amend the Constitution and disqualify any party securing less than a certain percentage of votes (whether it is five, 10 or 15) from getting its
nominees elected. That would mean having a second round of general elections which would drastically reduce the number of small parties and their threat to a good government. That may also reduce the menace of regional and caste-based parties which are the bane of our politics. We do not necessarily have to accept coalitions as the last word. We can change the system, if we really want to. As of now, any charismatic leader can set up a party and mess up the political system. One has only to remember that between 1952 and 1989, the country had as many as 197 political parties in the field! This is a disgrace. Even today in Tamil Nadu, we have, in addition to the Congress, the DMK and the AIADMK, such parties as the Puthiya Tamizhagam (a Dalit outfit), the Pattali Makkal Katchi and the Tamizhaga Rajiv Congress, not to mention the Tamil Manila Congress (TMC), the Dalit Panthers of India and the Makkal Tamil Desam. Besides, we are told, two other parties have sprung up like the Deavidar Telungar Association and the Kongu Vellala Association. This is reducing politics to absurdity. If and when such parties get inducted into a coalition at the Centre, the first thing their leaders would do is to find ways and means to raise funds through whatever means are available. That is courting disaster. In the circumstances, one has to ask oneself which is the best means of reducing (not eliminating) corruption. Human nature being what it is, it is idealistic to pretend that any system can eliminate corruption. What one can only do is find a method that would reduce corruption to the minimum. We have seen that giving any one party a solid majority — as it happened when Rajiv Gandhi was voted in with an overwhelming majority — does not necessarily help reduce corruption. After all, Bofors took place under a strong Centre. Formation of a Third Front won’t help either. Messers Jyoti Basu, Deve Gowda, V.P. Singh and company are not the ones to evoke respect. A Third Front is just another coalition that is not going to be any better than the NDA. That is why it is worth our while to give the presidential form of government a chance. Would that be too idealistic a way out? Possibly. But the USA seems to have done reasonably well under a presidential form of government. It may not be the perfect solution, but at least it has many positive features which are worth trying out. If a Cabinet member under the presidential form of government is found guilty of corruption he can be summarily sent away without any danger of the government falling. And if the President himself is guilty of corruption, he can always be impeached. It has been argued that it is not the system that is at fault but the people whose duty it is to make it work, and that even a bad system can be run well by good people. That is forgetting the fact that good people don’t seem to exist any longer. We have to take cognisance of that sad fact. The tragedy is that people are scared of changing the Constitution. Any effort towards it raises all kinds of, mostly irrational, fears. But in politics, as in life, the choice is not always between black and white. One has to learn to live with grey areas, knowing full well that compromises are hard on the conscience. How one wishes that like Christ, who told the woman to go and sin no more, we could tell the NDA to do likewise! There is need to condemn, but then one must not be afraid to make alternative arrangements. A presidential form of government is one such, but who is ready to bell this particular cat? The writer is a Mumbai-based veteran journalist and commentator. |
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Tehelka: the Chandigarh connection THE Tribune’s editorial page (the “In the news” column) the other day highlighted the Chandigarh connection to the tehelka expose that continues to rock the nation. It says: “Tehelka.com’s CEO and Editor-in-Chief Tarun J. Tejpal and RSS man (as he claims) R.K. Gupta — who says that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had stayed in his house for past 17 years whenever he was in Chandigarh — belong to the capital of the two states” (Punjab and Haryana). Tarun Tejpal has been described as an itinerant journalist who made good in his profession and later in his business. I do not have the pleasure of knowing him. But “Raj Kumar Gupta, the other Chandigarhian finding mention in a big way in the newspapers and TV news programmes these days”, is another cup of tea. His name brings forth bitter memories of the early days of the Janata Party government in 1977 when I happened to be the Deputy Commissioner-cum-Estate Officer of Chandigarh. During one of my reviews of the commercial properties in Chandigarh, I found someone buying plots in bulk in Sector 17, the central business district of the City Beautiful. This person was adopting a novel and innovative method for amassing property and wealth in Chandigarh. Commercial as well as residential properties were auctioned at periodical intervals by the UT Administration with the number of plots regulated to keep a check on prices and speculation while earning the budgeted income for the exchequer. During the auction at the fall of the hammer the successful bidder was to deposit 20 per cent of the value of the property with the balance to be paid within one year. There was no limit on the number of plots that one could buy. My investigation of the large-scale purchases by one entity revealed startling facts. It was reported to me that one Mr R.K. Gupta, owner of United Builders, was the person buying up several commercial plots. His modus operandi was simple. Days before the quarterly auction he got hold of the details of the plots to be auctioned, selected the ones he would buy and sold built-up space in advance, collecting full payment. From the amount thus collected he made the down payment of 20 per cent on the plots he bought with the highest bid. He even had the audacity of issuing advertisements in the newspapers to attract buyers. It is but natural that nobody could match his capacity since it was not with his money that he was bidding. Obviously, he had insider help from someone in the Estate Office. But, unfortunately for Mr Gupta, being leasehold property, the rules prohibited such sales unless completion certificates and special permission were obtained from the Estate Office. Sensing the danger to public interest and the possibility of one person buying up most of the business district to indulge in speculation, I acted firm and fast. I issued an open Press advisory to the public, cautioning it to exercise care since such a transaction violated several rules and, therefore, was fraught with risk. The effect was dramatic. In a matter of hours Mr Gupta’s well-drummed up empire collapsed. Mr Gupta was furious when he walked into my office next day seeking an explanation. I told him what the rules were, and all I have done was performing my duty of informing the public about these rules. To this he retorted, “What rules, D.C. sahib. Don’t you know that we are ruling the country now and your paper rules cannot bother us.” Though I did not like his language, mannerism and the tenor, I was patient. I advised him that rules were rules and if he had no faith in me he might consult some legal expert. On this he blurted out, “Who is your Minister in Delhi. Oh, Sikander Bakht [the then Union Minister of Housing and Urban Development]. I will just phone him and ask him to talk to you.” I politely told him that the Minister talking to me would not make any difference since rules were clear on the subject. On this Mr Gupta lost his temper and sense of proportion and started screaming at me, ‘What do you think you are? A mere D.C! Do you know who I am? An original trustee of the RSS. These fellows who are Ministers now are nothing for me. Do you want Vajpayee or Advani to come? They will come if I call them. It was I who gave them a place to work in Delhi at Jhandewalan.” My patience was wearing thin and I somehow got rid of him saying that I was indeed a small man and all that I was concerned with was the enforcement of rules. If he with his might and power got the rules changed, I would be the first person to implement them as a disciplined administrator. Needless to say, the rules stayed as they were, and Mr Gupta had to abort his “Grand Chandigarh Dream”. Subsequently, I learnt that Mr Gupta on that day had swore vengeance and some time later played a leading role in instigating Central and state government agencies to institute inquiries and file false reports against me. Though all their efforts to “fix me” failed, Mr Gupta and his RSS friends did succeed in putting me through months of mental torture and also have me shifted out from the post of Deputy Commissioner, Chandigarh, unceremoniously. His RSS connections in Delhi, Chandigarh and Haryana were so strong that despite their best efforts (Mr T.N. Chaturvedi, then Chief Commissioner, Chandigarh [presently BJP Rajya Sabha MP], Mr Krishan Kant, then Chandigarh Lok Sabha MP [now Vice-President of India] and Mrs Sushma Swaraj, then a Haryana Minister and now a Union Minister) they could not contain the gross injustice and insult inflicted on me by the powers that be. Under the circumstances the disowning of Mr Gupta by the RSS bosses in the wake of tehelka.com expose sounds comical, if not outright farcical. |
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Aladdin@search.com DON’T ask me, “Ask Jeeves”, is the answer a net-savvy parent may give to his schoolgoing kids these days, when asked for help with homework. As there is no P.G. Wodehouse employed Jeeves in the house, the reference obviously is to the internet search engine that goes by the name. And why not, when an all-knowing and all-obeying “cyber-genie” can be brought to life just by the click of a mouse — akin to the rubbing of Aladdin’s magic lamp in the Arabian Nights — to do the needful. No wonder, people these days seem to have their own favourite search engine, like their preferred brand of tea, coffee or newspaper. It may be the one that opens up new vistas on an “Alta Vista”, leaves you goggle-eyed with astounding result on “Google” or makes you yell an exciting “Yahoo” on finding hidden treasures. Though at present there seems to be few takers for the desi dotcoms, nothing to beat them for India related info. Just the other day, when a friend living abroad e-mailed me an SOS to sent him some pictures of India’s partition, I simply pressed “Go” on the search engine of an Indian news magazine, that I recalled had brought out a special issue on the country’s 50 years of Independence. Today’s India can perform such dotcom magic and the required photographs had reached Australia, before I could say wow www...! Similarly, sometimes back when doing a special feature on R.K. Narayan’s 94th birthday, I needed to quote from a brilliant essay on him published by Time many years ago. All I had to do was glean the results of a search engine that gave me more than 20,000 matches on the legendary writer! Though I eventually did find my Malgudi Man, it left me in a tizzy. And that’s the flip side of the web wonders; the information overload — take it or leave it! At times the fascination with the search engines can also turn into a morbid obsession. Take my recent twitch of pain in the neck. When it wouldn’t go away after applications of balms and hot water bottles; I decided to be my own doc. And that’s when my journey to cyber-hypochondria started. Hunting with some key words on my favourite www world of medical dotcoms — I became my own interpreter of maladies. Diagnosing the problem as a serious one, named with high sounding medical jargon, I went to see the expert just to reconfirm the gravity of my affliction. Not surprisingly the doc had a good laugh at my dotcom quackery and dismissed the problem as a minor one. Though, greatly relieved, I did feel let down by my cyber. doc! But to put balm on my bruised ego, there is again no better palliative than a dose of some ego-surfing on a search engine. All I have to do is feed in my name in quotes and say “Go”. And lo and behold, the magic lamp lights up to produce a few humble matches — the claim to fame mostly as bylines for the “middles” published. And if this one too makes it to print, there would be some more work for
Aladdin@search.com. |
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75 YEARS
AGO AT a meeting of about 200 citizens of Karachi, mostly local Swarajists, held on Saturday night the following resolution was passed: "This meeting of the citizens of Karachi held under the auspices of the Karachi District Congress Committee congratulates the Swarajists and others who walked out of the Assembly and the Provincial Councils in obedience to the Congress mandate." This, however, was not the unanimous opinion of the meeting, other speakers pointing out that it was no use congratulating the Swarajists as by their action they had done harm to the country. Another speaker said the electorates should have been consulted before the step was taken. |
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Science, politics and HIV vaccine CLINICAL trials of Remune, a resistance boosting vaccine in Thailand have been stalled as a controversy rages over the motives of the researchers involved. The proposal to move to Phase II trials is led by Dr Churdboonchart, who has invested one million Baht ($ 25,000) in shares in Immune Response, the company producing Remune. But leading researchers from Thailand and the USA are insisting that the volunteers who were injected with the vaccine did not show any significant impovement. The National AIDS Committee has become a political entity where different groups are lobbying to ensure that their personal interests are taken care of.
WFS Work
experience Brian O’Dea of Toronto, Ont., Canada, served his time — 10 years, for pot smuggling. Now that he’s out he wants to go straight: he took out a display ad in the “employment wanted” section headlined “Former Marijuana Smuggler” in the Toronto-based National Post looking for legitimate employment. Qualifications? “Owned and operated a successful fishing business — multi-vessel, one airplane, one island processing facility,” the ad reads. “Simultaneously owned and operated a fleet of tractor-trailer trucks conducting business in the United States. During this time, I also ... participated in the executive-level management of 120 people worldwide, in a successful pot smuggling venture with revenues in excess of 100-million annually.” In an interview with the paper, O’Dea said he hopes “someone will read that ad and realise, jeez, not only did he operate that scheme, but he did it in secret. That shows tremendous coordinating ability.” References? You bet: the ad notes that the U.S. District Attorney will provide one.
(National Post) Old
English on the ropes To the British novelist Kingsley Amis, it was “that featureless heap of elephant’s sputum”. To Alison Powell, researching her PhD at Cambridge University, England, it is a language she “fell in love with”. To Luke Wiespeser, a second-year at Leicester University, England, it proved so compelling that his housemates repeatedly told him to shut up about it during Manchester United v Sturm Graz. To most English students, it’s Beowulf. It is, of course, Old English (OE). Oxford University, England, is again discussing whether to drop Old English as a compulsory part of the English syllabus from 2002. Last year’s attempt to oust it was headed by Prof Valentine Cunningham, but failed after a faculty majority voted to keep it as a compulsory first-year course. Since then, the Old English community — represented most vocally by Dr Elaine Treharne, also of Leicester — has dug in for what is expected to be a tough fight. This time around, it seems freshers will be given a choice between Old and Middle English. “The position of Old English in British universities is increasingly beleaguered,” admits Patrick Parrinder, professor of English at Reading University, England. “We no longer have a full-time member of staff capable of teaching the subject.” He blames economic pressures. “Our priority must be to keep alive the study of Chaucer, not of Beowulf.” Yet — curiously — public awareness of Beowulf has rarely been higher, thanks to Seamus Heaney’s recent translation of Beowulf that still outsells fellow poets Carol Anne Duffy and Ted Hughes’s Tales from Ovid on Amazon.co.uk. Judging by the speed with which Heaney’s translation has leapt on to US undergraduate English programmes, it could yet be the saviour of Old English.
Guardian |
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Samatha shadow
across Balco sale deed “I
WOULD prefer being a nomad in the hills,” said Jawaharlal Nehru in 1952, “to being a member of stock exchanges, where one is made to sit and listen to noises that are ugly to a degree. Is that the civilisation that we want the tribal people to have? ...I am quite sure that the tribal folk, with their civilisation of song and dance, will last long after stock exchanges have ceased to exist.” Half a century after these words were spoken, the Balco case has thrown up, in bold relief, the same historical conflict between the rapacious urges of modern economy and the need to protect India’s original inhabitants, the Scheduled Tribes. Even as per the 1991 census, Madhya Pradesh — from which the new tribal state of Chhattisgarh has been carved out — was not only India’s largest state but had the country’s largest tribal population as well. The tribal population of Madhya Pradesh, almost 154 lakh, was nearly one-fourth or 23 per cent of the tribal population of the
entire country. So far, said Nehru, speaking further at the Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Areas Conference in the capital on June 7, 1952, we have approached the tribal people in one of two ways. One might be called the anthropological approach, in which we treat them as museum specimens to be observed and written about. To treat them as specimens for anthropological examination and analysis, he said — except in the sense that everybody is more or less an anthropological specimen — is to insult the tribal people. Balco or no Balco, most of us in the country today, better endowed by biology and better treated by history and geography, still tend to follow or echo this approach. The other approach, said Nehru, is one of ignoring the fact that they are something different, requiring special treatment, and of attempting to absorb them into the normal pattern of social life. A leading exponent of this integrationist approach, the late Prof G.S. Ghurye, one of the founding fathers of Indian sociology and social anthropology, has in his book on the Scheduled Tribes chosen to describe them as the “imperfectly integrated classes of Hindu society”. The so-called Aborigines, he writes, who form the bulk of the Scheduled Tribes, are best called Backward Hindus. But that is not an approach that Nehru would countenance either, and his views are important because they find expression in the Fifth Schedule to the Constitution, the central point of debate in the Balco case. “The way of forcible assimilation (said Nehru) or assimilation through the operation of normal factors would be equally wrong. In fact, I have no doubt that, if normal factors were allowed to operate, unscrupulous people from outside would take possession of tribal lands. They would take possession of the forests and interfere with the life of the tribal people.” “We must give them a measure of protection in their areas,” he added, “so that no outsider can take possession of their lands or forests or interfere with them in any way except with their consent and goodwill.” The outsider in the case of Balco is Anil Aggarwal, a non-resident Indian who lives in London. Chairman and Managing Director of Sterlite Industries, Aggarwal has made acquisitions across the world, Balco being the latest. This includes a copper mine in Australia, a gold and copper mine in Armenia and a copper smelter in Mexico. From Rs 83 crore in 1990-91 Sterlite’s turnover has jumped to a phenomenal Rs 2,925 crore in 1999-2000. By acquiring 51 per cent of Balco’s equity Aggarwal has acquired not merely the Korba facility, including, bauxite mines, an alumina refinery and a 270 MW captive power plant. He has acquired as well in the process a fully built-up township spread over 15,000 acres (or 6,000 hectares) and housing 4,000 families. The mines, the factory, the township — all are on land originally owned by tribals and protected by the Fifth Schedule to the Constitution (Administration and Control of Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes) read with the Madhya Pradesh Land Revenue Code enacted by the Governor thereunder. “Under the scheme of the Constitution,” ruled the Supreme Court in 1985 in Lingappa Pochanna’s case, “the Scheduled Tribes as a class require special protection against exploitation. (Their) very existence as a distinctive class and the preservation of their culture and way of life, based as it is upon agriculture which is inextricably linked with ownership of land, requires preventing an invasion upon their lands.” The power of the State legislature, it said, to make a law under Entry 18 of the State List in the 7th Schedule in respect of “transfer and alienation of agriculture land” includes not only the power to prohibit such transfers and alienations but also the power “to reopen such transfers and alienations.” And saying so upheld as constitutionally valid the Maharashtra Restoration of Lands to Scheduled Tribes Act, 1974, annulling transfers made in favour of non-tribals. “A legislation which in essence and substance,” another Bench of the court ruled three years later in P. Rami Reddy’s case,” “aims at restoration to the tribals of the lands which originally belonged to the tribals but passed into the hands of non-tribals...certainly cannot be characterised as unreasonable.” In the absence of protection, it said, the economically stronger non-tribals would in course of time “devour all the available lands and wipe out the very identity of the tribals... It is precisely for this reason that the architects of the Constitution have with far sight and foresight” enacted the Fifth Schedule, empowering the Governor to prohibit or restrict by
regulations the transfer of tribal land. Nor is the expression “land” in the Fifth Schedule, added the court in the ruling pregnant with implications for the Balco case, confined to land per se. Such a narrow interpretation would render the “benevolent provisions impotent and ineffective”. “Land” in its legal sense is a comprehensive expression wide enough to include buildings or structures raised thereon. Decided by a majority of 2 to 1, the Samatha case of 1997 strengthened the Fifth Schedule even further, nay, revolutionised it by applying it even to government or state property. The “executive power of the State to dispose of its property under Article 298,” wrote Justice K. Ramaswamy for the majority, “is subject to the provisions in the Fifth Schedule as an integral scheme of the Constitution.” “The legislative power of the State under Article 245 is also subject to the Fifth Schedule (so as) to regulate the allotment of government land in the Scheduled Areas.” There is, he held, an implied prohibition under the Fifth Schedule on the State’s power of allotment of its land to non-tribals in the Scheduled Areas. “The Constitution intends that the land always should remain with the tribals.” If under the Cabinet form of government, he added, government land is transferred to non-tribals, “peace would get disturbed (and) good governance in the Scheduled Areas would slip into the hands of non-tribals, who would drive out the tribals and create a monopoly (for) the well-developed and sophisticated non-tribals...” Justice Ramaswamy’s hortatory, rambling and repetitive style of writing judgements is disconcerting, of course. And some of the directions given by him in the Samatha case are plainly beyond the jurisdiction of any court. But there is no doubting either the correctness or the creativity of the essential ratio of his opinion that the Fifth Schedule applies to government lands as well. An opinion consciously and happily joined in by another member of the Bench, Justice Saghir Ahmad. “If the Government was allowed to transfer or dispose of its own land in favour of non-tribals (says Justice Ahmad), it would completely destroy the legal and constitutional fabric made to protect the Scheduled Tribes. The prohibition, so to say, disqualifies non-tribals as a class from acquiring or getting property on transfer.” The prohibition on sale of land to non-tribals, he adds, and the further requirement that if the property comes to be vested in the Government, or becomes property at the disposal of the Government, “it will be sold, assigned or distributed only to the tribals...is a measure, nay a strong measure... to give effect to the philosophy of distributive justice.” A heavy onus, a very heavy onus indeed, lies on the BJP government at the Centre to justify the Balco sale in the face of such clear, tribal-friendly law. |
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There is something more than heart in you — your being, your life-source. Just as you know through the mind... you know something from your heart which is deeper than the mind. The mind cannot go into it. It is too deep for it. But behind the heart, still deeper is your being. **** When mind knows we call it knowledge. When heart knows we call it love. And when being knows we call it meditation. —The Rajneesh Bible, Vol II **** If a margosa seed be dropped into a beverage composed of sugar, honey and ghee, the whole of it becomes so bitter, that although milk may rain upon it for a thousand years the mixture will lose nothing of its bitterness. This is symbolical of the wicked, who, however, good people may be to them, never lose their natural tendency to do evil. **** One should keep oneself five yards distant from a carriage, 10 yards from a horse, 100 yards from an elephant; but the distance one should keep from a wicket man cannot be measured. **** In the afflictions, misfortunes and tribulations of life only he who actively helps us is our friend. —Niti Shlokas or Moral Stanzas. |
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