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| Saturday,
April 7, 2001, Chandigarh, India    |
Moving with Pant in
Kashmir Rally rollback West Asia on the
brink |
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Trouble brewing on the communal front How fair is the military judicial
system?
Tavleen Singh
N-issue: Musharraf in difficult straits
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Moving with Pant in Kashmir GOING by its yet another initiative, the Government of India is well-intentioned, sincere and serious about restoration of peace in the militancy- rocked state of Jammu and Kashmir. It has, in fact, been quite enthusiastic in seeking a solution to the Kashmir imbroglio. But the problem with the authorities in New Delhi is that their moves are either ill-timed or inadequately focused. The latest proposal too to invite all militant organisations for talks suffers from these handicaps. It ought to have been realised that every peace move requires proper interaction, sufficient groundwork and thorough preparation before it is made public. Unfortunately, common sense and logic are not strong points in the corridors of power in New Delhi. Adhocism rules the roost in South Block and that is the reason why the policy-makers hop from one "magic formula" to the other without examining its potency for the desired result. To say this is not to question the induction of Mr K. C. Pant as the new peace-maker on behalf of the Government of India. He is a mature and experienced administrator of politics. He is a low-key leader and not flashy as Rajesh Pilot was as Minister of State for Internal Security in the P.V. Narasimha Rao government. The late Congress leader then showed both initiative and dynamism to establish contacts at different levels to pursue his peace agenda. Mr Pant will, however, take some time before he comes to terms with the complexities existing in the valley and beyond. What sort of brief he has for his proposed peace dialogue with militant organisations is not quite clear from the three-page official statement. The All-Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) has already dismissed the government's offer for talks as "drama". This is a pity. This once again shows the APHC in its true colour. Kashmir today needs well-focused action, and not mere words. Equally vital is an integrated approach so that the various agencies and groups of individuals involved in the peace process do not work at cross purposes. In fact, this has been a major operational problem. Take the four months of ceasefire. What is its balance-sheet? Though it was a well-meaning and sincere move on the part of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, the authorities could not even sustain the people's goodwill which was there in plenty to begin with. The ceasefire chapter actually exposed the policy-makers' flaws in thinking and action. Kashmir is not a simple issue of war or peace. It is a highly complicated issue in which the shots are being mainly called by foreign mercenaries, Pakistan and its sponsored militant organisations which operate freely in the valley to disturb peace. In the absence of correct political signals, there is very little the Indian security forces could do in the circumstances. The net result is that the government has landed itself in a bigger mess today. We wish the authorities good luck for the new initiative. We would, however, like to reiterate that Kashmir requires a sharper clarity of thought and action backed by tremendous guts, determination and sustained efforts in a coordinated manner. In this context, India's willingness to have a bilateral dialogue with Pakistan can help, provided New Delhi is clear about its goal, target and parameters of its peace agenda. However, the critical factor in the peace process will continue to be Islamabad's military establishment, ISI included, and the new power of Islamic fundamentalists who are out to destroy India's secular fabric. This must not be allowed to happen. The challenge before us is to strengthen the voice of sanity in the valley. Can we do it? Mr Pant will have to find an answer to this daunting question amidst the on-going tragedy. |
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Rally rollback THE NDA has finally decided to end something which it should never have started: holding counter-rallies to attack the Congress on the Tehelka tapes issue. From the first meeting in Delhi it became evident that several allies were either unenthusiastic to participate or were plainly hostile. This was no secret as those who kept away from the Ramlila ground rally showed. The DMK was absent as was the TDP. Orissa’s Biju Janata Dal too was missing. The Shiv Sena was there but the very next day Mr Bal Thackeray returned to his attack on the PMO. Thus the concept of the NDA had shrunk to the BJP, the Samata, the MDMK of Mr Vaiko (he has since walked out of the DMK-led front) and the regional parties of Punjab and Haryana. More importantly, it was wrong to expect these parties to throw their weight behind a person (Mr George Fernandes) who is seen to have committed a serious impropriety by allowing his official residence to be used for fund raising. As a TDP leader caustically remarked, defending wrong-doing is not part of the NDA manifesto. Also, the allies were not consulted before the NDA stamp was put on the whole exercise. This is now sought to be remedied by convening a meeting. It is too late to repair the damage caused to the image of the ruling alliance. The NDA spokesman now bravely says that since the Congress has not kept its word of organising protests, there was no need for any counter-rally. The opposition party merely wanted to keep the issue alive and the BJP was doing that admirably. So it decided to take it easy. It is difficult to measure the embarrassment for the NDA. A public meeting in Hyderabad without the TDP, one in Bangalore without the JD (U) and one in Mumbai (now cancelled) without the Shiv Sena. Worse, the one in Lucknow on April 15 is being called a kisan rally, perhaps for want of a nobler cause. Surely kisans will not be amused. Prime Minister Vajpayee’s declaration that he would not resign is a retort to a demand nobody has raised. The only demand is for the government to register a case and hand over the investigation to the CBI. The government’s loud defence is making this demand sound reasonable. |
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West Asia on the brink THE fact that Israel has not formally declared war on Palestine should not be taken as a sign of hope for restoring peace in West Asia. The USA and its client states have seldom felt the need to make a formal declaration before waging actual war against imagined or real enemies. However, the palpable escalation in what began as street violence when Mr Ariel Sharon was only a firespitting opposition leader has everything to do with the fact of his having become Prime Minister. The sight of the Palestinian blood, trapped in a region about to explode, seems to give the new Israeli leader some kind of a vicarious pleasure. As far as Israel is concerned, so long as Mr Sharon is at the steering there is no question of going back to the period when people on either side of the divide had begun dreaming about giving peace a real chance. The sight of Israeli gunships and helicopters pounding Palestinian positions should at least force the international community into some form of action for preventing the situation from giving birth to a full-blown war. The hawks within the ruling establishment are in a nasty mood or else they would not have gone so far as to suggest the targeting of Mr Arafat's house as "the final solution" to the seemingly intractable problem. The reason for the indifference of the global community to the fast deteriorating situation in West Asia is not difficult to understand. The recent summit of Arab leaders in Amman provided more than a clear hint why the Palestinian cause has few takers at the global level. Mr Arafat's pleading for the closing of ranks against the common enemy impressed no one at the summit attended by most Arab heads of state. At the end of the day all he got from the champions of Arab unity was an inadequate amount promised for the Palestinian cause at an earlier summit. The only positive voice was that of the young and energetic new Syrian leader Bashar Assad. However, even his passionate plea for abandoning the policy of "each man for himself" for calling the bluff of "butcher Sharon" made no impression on the assembly of Arab leaders. Therein lies the explanation why a homeland for the Palestinians was a doomed project from the very beginning. |
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Trouble brewing on the communal front I have a foreboding of trouble on the communal front. Hindu fringe parties have been acting precipitately in Ayodhya, and there is at the same time a new Muslim agitation, also in
UP, which has been deliberately started to provoke police violence. The Hindu agitation has the protection of the State, and the police there has often been accused of bias against Muslims. The Muslims on the other hand are not only exposing themselves heedlessly, but they are encouraging the young to create hostile situations and invite police violence. In this whole process the Muslim minority will again suffer, but who is explain to the student leaders and their supporters outside, that the Muslims of India have suffered enough? They were shattered by the partition, battered in Pakistan when they migrated, and were just beginning to find peace in India which has lasted for a few years and has been broken recently. The real cause of unrest in Muslim youth, as in all youth, is unemployment. Can’t they see that the agitation that they are starting will make employment still more difficult? Many people do not hire Muslims even as drivers, cooks or peons. Should we make the divide wider, or should we endeavour to remove suspicions, even ban discrimination by law, if it is not already covered? The Pakistan army learnt a lesson in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) which it is trying to apply in J&K and other parts of India. The lesson was that the “firm action” against the agitation for freedom turned the population against them, and eventually led to their ouster. “Firm action” often became atrocity which did not damage the freedom movement. It damaged Pakistan. Niyazi and his officers personified brutality, because they were driven by politicians who felt they could not allow Mujib and East Pakistan to dominate over the west. What the politicians had messed up, the army was asked to correct, and the damage became irreparable because the wrong methods were used. Now the agencies of Pakistan are trying to provoke the security forces to oppress the Muslims of India, and some of our officers in the army and police are falling into the trap. They believe that by harassing them, they will get information about who is supporting the terrorists. What they fail to see is that the first cause of alienation is atrocity and its propaganda, and it dries up all information. Jehad was first directed at J&K. Now it appears to be targeting the whole of India. What will be the implication of it for the Muslims of India? Will it help them? Or cause more damage to their position in this country? To talk loosely about another Ghaznavi coming as deliverance is itself a provocation. Is there a plan to give provocation to the police and to invite harsh measures so that fundamentalism that has been started by the Taliban is able to get a footing in India, skipping Punjab (Pak) which was the first target? I feel we should have a special DGs’ conference to discuss the issue in all its aspects, bearing in mind that we are in an economic depression, jobs are scarce, justice is weak, and politically we are in a confused state. There is no unity even on vital national issues. This is the time when the National Integration Council should justify its existence. Provocation is openly being given by some Muslim leaders. To say “I hate being in India” will make every Indian say “Why the hell are you here?” The extremists are provoking with angry words and rioting. What should we do to counter the agitation? Locking them up would be easy, some may hate to be treated that way, but, very few. Second we have to apprise the police that the worst way to deal with the situation would be to lose control over the force and permit uncontrolled violence. This is exactly what the jehadis want. They want to become martyrs, and to go round with a begging bowl to the Muslim countries to beg for funds, ostensibly for jehad, but in reality to earn a living in difficult times. We have to send a message to all ranks of the police that they must not act in anger or try to teach lessons, certainly not to kill without sanction of the law, Pakistan thought they would suppress the freedom movement in East Pakistan by indiscriminate killings. They raised so much anger in the Bengali people that they themselves were booted out. Now the same tactics are being initiated by their agents in India. They want the Indian security forces to act irresponsibly. I wonder if our police leaders realise what a difficult job it will be to handle the provocation to their men. Secondly, state governments must not badger the police to stop the trouble at once. If the security forces act wrongly, an aversion will start, which is ground prepared for jehad. It is a dangerous game that is being played. It is intended to create serious resentment among Muslims. Even those who are silent and cooperative will feel alienated and lost by unjustified killing. Let us think less of security forces and their pressure and think more of political solutions and economic measures. The main political figures that have to deal with the situation are the Prime Minister and the Home Minister. They have to first restrain the Hindu fringe parties. Then open dialogues with all those who advocate campaigns of violence. To postpone dialogue is an easy way but it never succeeds. In any case it exposes trouble makers. We have not studied, I think, the impact of the economic depression on students and their employment hopes. Instead of creating jobs, all that we are doing at present is reducing them in the name of privatisation. All that may be desirable from the economic angle, but would be dangerous from the social or law-and-order angle. The initiative is now being taken over, in Pakistan, from the politicians and the army by religious clerics who make a living out of murder, and by encouraging bigotry and religious animosity at the expense of the economic welfare of the people. Yet there are signs that the evils propagated in the name of religion will be countered on both sides by the people, aided by television and the media. One day there will be such a violent revulsion against the clerics who are misusing religion that they will be running for shelter from the wrath of the people, casting aside their religious robes, and hiding in the mountains and jungles in disguise. The few dispensaries that have been opened by the army and BSF for the people, together with the interaction of locals with officers, the meetings with Kashmiri journalists have helped India more than the statements of the leaders urging firm action (J&K needs more support from Yashwant Sinha). If only we could make the rank and file of our security forces understand what the game plan of the Pakistan agencies is, the groundwork for our success will be prepared. Side by side we have to arm large sections of the threatened population with 12-bore guns, not less than five per village. Such resistance groups have been tried in various operations of the country and have proved successful even though a few weapons were lost. It strengthens public morale and encourages the flow of intelligence. It would be dangerous to underrate the threat to peace from the Taliban disruptionists. They are misleading young Muslims, and endangering the security of all Muslims. This is the time when we need a combined effort from politicians of all parties and from all sides of government, and most of all from the people to meet the threat. The police will need special guidance to use only minimum force any excess will be a disservice to the nation. A vital role has to be played by all-party Mohalla Committees to keep the people together and save them from the wiles of the jehadi disruptionists. |
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How fair is the military judicial
system? ARMY follow the procedures of jury system where the civils counsels are allowed to appear for either side. Elaborate procedures, codified in Army Rules 1954, akin to the Criminal Procedure Code in the civil, are followed in all cases which are remanded for trial by General/District Court Martial. The accused is associated in all the stages of investigation at the pre-trial state and is given full opportunity to put across his defence. There are several modes of disposal of a disciplinary case and the General Court Martial is the highest forum of military trial, which is ordered only after thorough scrutiny and examination of the case by the judicial wing of the Army. At the commencement of the trial, the accused can object to the members of the court martial; object to the change(s); challenge the jurisdiction of the court martial on numerous grounds and raise a plea in bar of the trial. A detailed procedure has been laid down in Army Rules to deal each of the aforesaid situations. On the merits of the case, after listening to the entire evidence produced by the prosecution and the defence, along with the arguments of the prosecution and defence counsels and the summing up by the Judge Advocates, the members sit in closed court for consideration of finding. The finding of the court martial is arrived at by majority vote in a most democratic and legal manner, where voting commences from the juniormost officer. The verdict of the majority is recorded as the verdict of the court and is announced as subject to confirmation. Since December, 1993, a court martial is required to give brief reasons in support of its finding(s) apparently with a view to showing more transparency. If the accused is found guilty, he is also given an opportunity to address the court in mitigation of punishment. Again, the members sit in a closed court and decide the sentence in a democratic manner. Pertinently, the Presiding Officer has no power to influence the junior members either in arriving at the finding or in the passing of the sentence. In the Army an accused guilt or innocence is adjudged by his own peers. It is the onerous duty of the Presiding Officer and the Judge Advocate to see that at the trial, the accused does not suffer from any disadvantage because of his position as such. An accused cannot be convicted unless the jury is fully satisfied of his guilt. It must also be remembered that in armed forces, acquittal or conviction, in any case, has no bearing on the career prospects of the prosecutor who is considered to be an officer of the court and discharges his duties most fairly. In fact, he is bound to ensure that no material fact in connection with the offence charged is omitted which would, if given in evidence, tell in favour of the accused. The finding and sentence passed by a General Court Martial are not valid until confirmed by higher authorities. To ensure that there is no error in the proceedings of a court martial, the proceedings of every court martial are reviewed by the Department of the Judge Advocate General. On review, such relief is granted to the accused as may be merited under the circumstances of the case. Further, if an accused feels aggrieved by any order, finding or sentence of a court martial, he is statutory entitled to submit a pre-confirmation as well as a post-confirmation petition against such order, finding and sentence. Such petition may be addressed to the confirmation officer before confirmation of the proceedings and after confirmation, to the Central Government or any officer superior to the confirmation officer and are considered on merit. A trial by court martial is as fair as is possible for any trial to be. It is, however, true that the percentage of convictions in the Army is higher in comparison to that of the civil courts. But the higher percentage of convictions in court martial trials in no way adversely reflects on the quality of justice in the Army. Higher percentage of convictions in the Army is due to reasons entirely different from those operating in cases prosecuted before civil courts. In the Army, a case is not sent for trial without thorough scrutiny. Moreover, unlike witnesses in civil courts, Army witnesses being simple, soldierly and accused’s companions in his weal and woe, rarely depose falsely against him. It is, therefore, natural that when such witnesses depose against their own comrades, their testimony is generally believed by the court. Further, in our democratic setup, the Constitution is supreme and all the laws must be in conformity with its provisions. Though provisions of the Army Act, 1950, and the rules made thereunder have, from time to time, be challenged, the various high courts and the Supreme Court have upheld the same. Though the members of the court martial are detailed by the convening authority, the said convening authority has no role to play in the decisions to be arrived at by the court martial as the same are based on absolute majority of votes of the members. Pertinently, where there is equality of votes on either the finding or sentence, the decision is deemed to be given in favour of the accused. The decisions by the members of the court martial are entirely based upon the evidence adduced before them. The trials by court martial are conducted in a fair and transparent manner, strictly in accordance with law and it is unfair to call the military judicial system as archaic. In this regard, I may also refer to the observation of the Supreme Court regarding the court martial, as made in the case of UOI V/s Maj A. Hussain (AIR 1998 SC 577) which are given below: “Proceedings of a court martial are not to be compared with the proceedings in a criminal court under the code of Criminal Procedure where adjournments have become a matter of routine though that is also against the provisions of law. It has been rightly said that court martial remains to a significant degree, a specialised part of overall mechanism by which the military discipline is preserved. It is for the special need for the armed forces that a person subject to the Army Act is tried by court martial for an act which is an offence under the Act. Court martial discharges judicial function and to a great extent is a court where provisions of the Evidence Act are applicable. A court martial has also the same responsibility as any court to protect the rights of the accused charged before it and to follow the procedural safeguards. If one looks at the provisions of law relating to court martial in the Army Act, the Army Rules, Defence Service Regulations and other Administrative Instructions of the Army, it is manifestly clear that the procedure prescribed is perhaps equally fair, if not more, than a criminal trial provides to the accused.”
— The writer, a retired Colonel, is Principal, Dayanand College of Communication and Management, Chandigarh. |
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Supreme Court is the hero
of this story FOR
all those of you who live in other cities and are looking at the chaos in Delhi’s public transport system caused by the CNG problem as if it were something that did not affect you please pay more careful attention. This is your wake up call! What is happening in Delhi will soon happen to you, and may already be happening, only you have not noticed yet. As someone who travels in a lot of Indian cities, a lot of the time, allow me to tell you that one of the uglier things they have in common is air pollution. This is true not just of our cities but even of many of our smaller towns. The problem is so serious that on winter evenings you can see the pollution hanging over crowded streets and bazaars — in even small towns like Meerut and Aligarh — alike a thick, grey pall. As has already happened in Delhi, you will discover soon from your doctor, that every other child in your city or town suffers from bronchial problems directly related to air pollution. So, if the Supreme Court succeeds in its commendable efforts to clean up Delhi’s air it affects all of you. But, from the reaction of Delhi’s citizens you would not know it would you? Angry commuters, stranded because of the sudden absence of adequate public transport, burned buses and stoned policemen in Delhi’s streets last week without realising that they were playing right into the hands of the government that is directly responsible for their problems. Chief Minister, Sheila Dixit, villain number one in the story, pronounced in the tones of some medieval martyr that she would face ‘any punishment for contempt of court in the interests of the people of Delhi’. If this were not enough she added that the Supreme Court did not understand ‘the ground realities’! Please let us not be fooled by this kind of talk. Mrs Dixit has made such a mess of the task the Supreme Court ordered her to do that if she had a less elastic conscience she would have already resigned. Instead, she is trying to become a heroine at the cost of the health of the citizens she has been elected to protect. So shameless is her behaviour that she spends more time protecting the image of her government than the interests of Delhi’s citizens. Her Transport Minister, Pervez Hashmi, has been a loud and vocal presence on our television channels in recent days protesting that if there is a crisis it has been caused by the Central Government and not him. What can he do, he says, if the Ministry of Petroleum does not provide him with enough CNG (compressed natural gas) pumps to cater to the needs of the commercial vehicles that have been banned from plying in the streets of Delhi since April 1? He has a point but what he does not tell you is that if the Delhi Government had taken the problem more seriously in the two years it has had to make the change then the Central Government would have had no choice but to deliver. To confirm this I rang Anil Aggarwal, one of our most eminent environmentalists and a member of the Supreme Court’s watchdog committee on pollution. I caught him on his mobile phone in Laos so the conversation had to be brief. Who was more to blame, I asked, the Delhi Government or the Central Government and this is what he said. “Fundamentally, it is the fault of the Delhi government but, yes, there is a shortage of CNG, and that is the responsibility of the Central Government”. Anil’s Centre for Science and Environment has done a study of air pollution in Delhi that gives us the horrifying information that one person dies in Delhi every hour because of air pollution related diseases. The Chief Minister needs to be held directly responsible for this because she has had time since 1998 to do some thing to clean up Delhi’s filthy air and has done little more than the usual tokenism. And, then every time she fails to meet a new deadline she throws up her hands and plays the martyr and, alas, she manages to get the people on her side because they are the ones directly affected every time public transport gets hit. The story of air pollution in Delhi, and everywhere else in India, is a story of incompetent, uncaring governance. Delhi was recognised as being among the four or five most polluted cities in the world several years ago. When Kamal Nath was Environment Minister in the Narasimha Rao Government he admitted to me in an interview that the SPM (suspended particulate matter) in Delhi’s air was dangerously above international standards and that something needed to be done urgently. He made policies, set new norms, made pronouncements but nothing much happened and Delhi’s citizens continued to breathe air that poisoned them with every breath. It was when government failed that the Supreme Court intervened in a petition filed by some environmentalists. It recognised that more than 60 per cent Delhi’s air pollution was caused by vehicular emissions and ordered the Delhi Government to convert commercial vehicles from diesel to CNG. The deadline to achieve this should have been April, 2000, but the Delhi Government, supported by transport trade unions, made a huge ruckus and it got extended by a year. There should have, by now, been 5000 CNG buses in Delhi but as the anger of commuters demonstrated there are hardly any. Had the Delhi Government been serious about its fight to clean up the city’s air it would have provided the buses, reduced red tape in giving permissions, and then been in a better position to attack the Central Government. There is no question that the Central Government is also to
blame. What have the Ministers of Petroleum and Environment been doing in these past two years? In two words: almost nothing. If they had been functioning properly not only would there be sufficient CNG filling stations available but there would have also been a massive public health campaign to make people aware of the seriousness of the problem. Perhaps, then ordinary commuters may also have realised who the real villains of the piece were. Far from being the villain the Supreme Court is the hero of this story. If it succeeds in what it is trying to do in Delhi it will set a precedent for what can also be done to clean up the air not just in Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai but also in Bhopal, Guwahati, Jalandhar and all those other small towns who do not yet fully understand how serious the problem. Please keep in mind that till the late seventies Delhi had air so clean you could eat it. All it took was 15 years, perhaps even less, for it to become one of the most polluted cities in the world. |
IN order to observe public enthusiasm and interest aroused during the Baby Week and to keep the lessons learnt during the week continuously before those most in need of education in this respect, the Bombay Baby Week Committee has appointed a Standing Committee to carry on propaganda all the year round. The Standing Committee has decided to fit up a small travelling van with miniature replicas of the stalls, posters, models, etc, exhibited during the week once a month or oftener. The van will visit selected localities such as the compounds of a number of Chawls and the exhibits will be arranged and kept there for a day followed in the evening by lectures and propaganda by cinema films. |
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N-issue: Musharraf in difficult straits CHIEF Executive Gen Pervez Musharraf is in difficult straits. Pressing economic compulsions have forced him to seek the opinion of his corps commanders to launch a drive for creating an environment so that Pakistan could sign the CTBT (Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty). Though the CTBT has ceased to have much significance because of the American disinterest in the proposed treaty with Mr George W. Bush (a Republican) taking over as US President, Japan, Germany and certain other donor countries plus the World Bank and the IMF are unwilling to bail out the sinking Pakistan economy so long as it does not declare its resolve to sign the CTBT and initiate moves to cap its nuclear programme. Thus General Musharraf last month sent his Foreign Minister, Mr Abdus
Sattar, to Japan to impress upon the biggest aid giving country that Islamabad was serious about signing the CTBT, but before taking this step it would have to obtain a national consensus which might take time. To appease the international community, the military regime also decided to retire its two prominent nuclear scientists — Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, Chairman of the Kahuta Research Laboratories, and Dr Ashfaq Ahmed, head of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. But as the news spread throughout the country, the Musharraf regime attracted flak from almost all directions. Immediately, therefore, the ruling General declared that he had no intention of dismantling Pakistan’s nuclear projects and issued orders for the reappointment of the two scientists as his Special Advisers. Dr Khan and Dr Ahmed willy-nilly accepted the offer but this could not subdue the anger of the people in general. Their unhappiness finds reflection in the letters-to-the-editor column of the newspapers and magazines. A letter by Prof Mujahid Kamran has this to say: “Bringing down Dr
A.Q. Khan has some similarities to the destruction of the historic statues of the Buddha in neighbouring Afghanistan. And the bitterness of it lies in the fact that it has been done through an institution that owes more to him than to anyone else... “The news that Dr
A.Q. Khan has been appointed ‘Adviser’ to the Government of Pakistan has come as a shock to all patriotic Pakistanis. However, the move is not surprising because, as I tell my students almost every day, Pakistan is one country where betrayal and treachery of the most sordid and profound kind pervades the corridors of power at very high levels. I doubt if Dr Khan would accept being Adviser to the Government of Pakistan — he had previously refused to accept the position of the Minister of Science and Technology. Dr Khan always has his hand on the pulse of the people and knows well that the people of this country have no respect for any government, and to be associated with any government will not enhance his stature. His stature is independent of, and far above, government positions. “Dr Khan is merely 64 years old, is full of ideas and enjoys ideal health. In my entire life I have seen only two ideal administrators — none of them was a General or a bureaucrat and both were Pakistanis. The two men are Dr
A.Q. Khan and the late Professor Abdus Salam, and I have had the privilege of knowing both of them quite closely. Both were mistreated by our governments out of pettiness, or cowardice, or out of a combination of such visible and inscrutable factors. Instead of utilising his capabilities, the authorities have sought to render him ineffective — at least this is how the people of this country interpret the move. “I tell my brilliant students going abroad for higher studies not to come back to Pakistan. As long as we have the mindset prevalent among military Generals and the
DMG, who consider themselves to be the ‘best’ in the country and enjoy perks and privileges not commensurate with their true capabilities, there will be no ‘need’ for scientists in this country. What we need are Generals, petty bureaucrats and corrupt politicians who can be bought easily. This country has an unwritten caste system — the Generals and bureaucrats are the Brahmins and we, the people of this country, with all their creativity and contribution, are the
Shudras.” General Musharraf’s difficulties do not end here. A recent editorial in The News said, “At the end of the first eight months of the current financial year, Pakistan’s trade deficit has swelled to $1.18 billion, up by 8.97 per cent as compared to the corresponding period last year. Seen against the whole year’s target of $800 million, the deterioration in trade deficit is much sharper even during the July-February 1999-2000 period. According to the latest foreign trade figures, exports in the July-February period were $5.99 billion and imports stood at $7.17 billion. With the import growth slowing down in this period, the worsening of this balance should be a matter of considerable concern. It is, therefore, evident that a more determined effort will need to be mounted to curtail non-essential imports and accelerate exports on a much faster rate than what has so far been achieved... “As indicated by the Commerce Minister, the current financial year may end with a $1.2 billion trade deficit which will be the same as last year. But such a large gap on trade account cannot be sustained, specially when the country is burdened with a huge external debt, and its overall balance of payments position has remained under pressure. As already mentioned, any further rise in import demand can exacerbate the situation...” But very little can be done so long as there is no international financial assistance of a massive scale. Pakistan’s economy is reeling under not only increasing debt burden but also unending drought conditions in most parts of the country and the sanctions imposed after the Chagai nuclear blasts. Owing to political instability and other unattractive factors foreign institutional investors are not interested in taking risk. But the World Bank’s Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President, Mr Nicholas Stern, believes that Pakistan’s economic health can be revived if it brings about more institutional reforms, good governance and elimination of corruption, and introduces prudent fiscal policies to improve the investment climate. One cannot expect all this from a ruling General who must be a totally confused person today, specially after his grilling on the issue of signing the CTBT and taking care of Pakistan’s nuclear scientists. |
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Every beggar today would be a king, Every blockhead sets up as a Pundit; The blind man would be a connoisseur of gems, That is the modern way of talking of things; The really bad man sets up as a spiritual leader; The liar is judged the perfect type of man; So it is in this iron age; but Nanak even now The Guru can teach us how to choose among men. —
Guru Angad Dev, Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Var Malar, page 1228. ***** All men have access to the Guru But a mere glimpse of the Guru does not save them; Without understanding of the Guru’s Word The self is not made clean nor the love of the Name implanted.... —
Guru Amar Das, Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Rag Vandhans, page 594 ***** Hail, all hail to the True Guru, the Perfect, Who hath grasped the Highest Truth! On encountering the Guru, every thirst is slaked. Body and mind are freshened. Hail, all hail, to the Guru, to Truth Incarnate.... —
Guru Ram Das, Sri Guru Granth Sahib, Slok Vadhik, page 1421. ***** Breaking the barriers of delusion, My Satguru unfolded this mystery: The one Soul fills all vessels, Yet remains apart from all. —
Mira Bai, Laghi mohi Ram Khumari ho |
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