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June 3, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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GUEST COLUMN MIDSTREAM |
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The demise of art in the world of
science?
Harihar Swarup
Officialdom indifferent to peace
moves
Humra Quraishi
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Chinese nationalism vs American
nationalism AMERICAN nationalism is clashing with Chinese nationalism. That is a real issue. But the standoff between China and the USA has the elements of unreality around it, because the conclusion is foregone. The domestic and international imperatives on both sides prompt compromise and a search for conciliation. American nationalism has generally been underrated or inappropriately fathomed. It lurks behind the veneer of internationalism. It dons the cloak of international obligations and security needs of the US and its allies around the world. But its objective was made amply clear in a report prepared as far back as 1992 by Paul Wolfowitz, who has come back as defence Secretary Rumsfeld’s deputy. The objective was to deter any power from “challenging our leadership” and “maintaining a military dominance capable of deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role”. The US must remain number one power in the world. If this is not a manifestation of American nationalism, then the word loses any significance that it might have. However, because the USA is a global power, the only global power in fact, its nationalism is mature and less abrasive. This made it possible for Washington to seek compromise with Beijing on the spy-plane issue without inviting public wrath. The fear of this public wrath was an important factor in the hard stance that the Chinese government took on this issue. The Chinese Communist regime has been encouraging and utilising Chinese nationalism to retain its control and legitimacy but its actions are also circumscribed by the force of this nationalism. Any Marxist content of this nationalism was shed long ago and it has now become a combination of nation-state nationalism and traditional cultural-nationalism. The mix has become a potent force that is now independent of the Chinese communist regime. It would not be much of an exaggeration to say that the Chinese leaders are riding a tiger that could get out of control if not reined in properly. As a well-known dissident intellectual living abroad put it, a wave of nationalism has been sweeping the Chinese intellectual class and the youth for nearly a decade prompted by the fear of disintegration. Its more extreme catch phrase has been “a China that can say NO”! (to USA and others). Many of them have now come to the view that “the weakening of state capacity in China” could lead to “the collapse of central authority” and even to “disintegration of the nation”. The Chinese Communist prefer to use the word “patriotism”, but for most intellectuals and the people generally this nationalism is “modernised.” Confucianism that would allow the Chinese people to acquire modern knowledge and modern institutions from the West and yet maintain the Confucian cultural traditions that makes up the collective experience of the Chinese people. In any case this new nationalism is the principal moving force in China today and explains — at least partly — Beijing’s stand on the bombing of its Embassy in Belgrade and the recent spat over the US spy-plane’s collision with a Chinese jet fighter and its crash landing on Chinese territory. The Chinese authorities made a clever translation of the American words “very sorry” to make it sound like an apology to satisfy domestic opinion. They are also utilising the incident to limit US arms supplies to Taiwan. Nevertheless, while the Chinese and American nationalism are real issues, the current stand-off is in some respects phoney. There are limits beyond which the two sides cannot allow their relations to deteriorate. Both are constrained by their domestic and international needs requiring a less strident relationship. The US domestic needs are obvious. China both a lucrative market and one of the destinations for American capital. East Asia is a major port of call for American merchandise and high technology. There is an influential American lobby at work in Washington to promote Chinese interests because at stake are its own interests. In this period of economic slowdown it becomes even more important to retain the Chinese market for the US capital and high technology. America’s international needs calls for a manageable relationship with Beijing. China plays more than marginal role in the Asia-Pacific community that the US has been promoting assiduously. More crucial is China’s permanent status in the Security Council. Whenever the USA has sought to get its standpoint accepted by that decision-making body at the UN it has had to reach implicit understanding with the Chinese to prevent any use by Beijing of its veto power there. Equally relevant are Beijing’s domestic needs that constrain it to adopt a more moderate international stance, not just its economic links with the USA but also other domestic problems that it is facing. The US remains China’s second largest trading partner, with Chinese exports topping $ 52 billion (excluding Hong Kong) and imports $ 22 billion leaving a huge surplus in China’s favour. The USA accounts for some $ 16 billion investment in the Chinese economy. China has also developed a high degree of interaction with the world economy. China has notched up notable economic progress and the official figures are well known. Less known are the formidable economic and socio-political challenges to the Communist regime. Even its growth figures are suspect in the eyes of many international analysts. A study by Standard and Poor in February this year estimated that “GDP growth has likely been 4 per cent to 5 per cent in the past two years, if adjusted for inaccurate reporting and overvaluation of output.” The statistical problem with the official figures “result more from politicised data gathering than from technical shortcomings. Chinese statistics are collected at the local level and are conveyed, layer by layer, through the vast apparatus of government ultimately to Beijing, by which time they have been modified to suit the political needs of the long chain of officials who handle them”. Agricultural has begun to stagnate and grain production dropped last year by 17 per cent with the acreage under grain continuing to shrink year by year. Consequently there have been widespread but sporadic peasant protests and demonstrations. Nearly a hundred million peasants have by now swarmed on the outskirts of big cities and towns in search of greater economic security. The widening rural-urban divide has only contributed to the growing social disparities. Premier Zhu Rongji told a press conference in March on the conclusion of the National People’s Congress meet that income disparities in China had reached “alarming levels” and promised that the government would accord this problem a top priority. Crime, corruption and unemployment constitute major domestic problems. Corruption has reached incredible levels, so much so that the Communist leadership had declared the struggle against it as a “life and death” struggle. Unemployment has soared to worrying levels. According to official figures some 110 million urban laid-off workers and new entrants into the job market and nearly 150 million rural jobless threaten social stability. Yet another official study pins China’s urban jobless at 11 to 15 per cent of the urban labour force. Without meaning to belittle Chinese achievements, the point is obvious that all these domestic and international requirements of China enjoin restraint in managing relations with the USA and other powers. But Chinese nationalism, indeed an increasingly confident and assertive nationalism, has become a potent force in international relations that not only the US but other countries too will have to contend with in a sensible and rational manner. The writer is former Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Delhi University. |
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Getting ready for General Pervez Musharraf’s visit to India EVEN more intriguing than the turn-about of the Vajpayee government on the question of negotiating with General Pervez Musharraf’s military regime in Pakistan is the reported “curtain-raising” commentary of Pakistan’s High Commissioner Ashraf Jehangir Qazi in New Delhi. Disregarding the fact that Musharraf and his colleagues were still busy consulting, to draft a reply to Atal Behari Vajpayee’s letter proposing unconditional talks, Qazi rushed to preconditional opinions on Pakistan’s behalf. In an interview published by The Hindustan Times, he said Islamabad had in mind “the implementation of the UN Security Council Resolutions for a settlement acceptable to a majority in Jammu and Kashmir.” He clarified: “A plebiscite is what we have in mind. It didn’t happen earlier because India didn’t agree to it. . . . . Our position is not going to change with the bilateral dialogue.” He also demanded “a guarantee” from India about the Hurriyat’s participation. The Hurriyat, he is quoted as saying, could not be treated on a par with other Kashmir groups. It would be charitable to describe Qazi’s reported remarks as frivolous and ill timed. They could, indeed, be easily interpreted as intended to wreck the talks even before these have got off the ground. Going by what The Hindustan Times has reported him as saying, it would seem pertinent to ask whose interests he was serving! Hardly Pakistan’s. And does he—as well as others in Pakistan who think like him—not know about the prior conditions and requirements of the UN Resolutions before a plebiscite can be held? The UNCIP Resolutions on truce and plebiscite of August 13, 1948, and of January 5, 1949, want Pakistan to withdraw, first, all its forces and raiders from the entire state; when the commission shall have checked and notified India about the withdrawal of the Pakistani forces and raiders, the Indian Government would begin to withdraw the bulk of its forces from the state in stages. The Indian Government would maintain a strength of forces agreed upon with the commission to assist in the law and order administration. Is Qazi certain that the Musharraf military regime will agree to these prior UN conditions and requirements before a plebiscite is held—which the UN Commission would hold all over the state and not in the valley alone? Meanwhile, the precise reasons that led the Vajpayee government to drop unexpectedly all its known preconditions, including the ending of cross-border terrorism, will perhaps be revealed in due course. It is well-known everywhere that non-Kashmiri Pakistan-based fundamentalist “Islamic” organisations such as Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed have been carrying out terrorist attacks for years in Indian-administered J&K, obviously with Pakistani aid and encouragement. Vajpayee has also made an about-turn from New Delhi’s oft-voiced objection to negotiating with a military regime that ousted a democratically elected government. Interestingly, the Commonwealth Secretariat is still seized of the question about accepting the bona fides of the military regime in Islamabad. In addition, the Vajpayee Government has withdrawn its offer of “Non-initiation of combat operations,” generally mis-called ceasefire. To all appearances, Pakistani leaders were caught unawares by the talks offer. In immediate reaction, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Abdus Sattar spoke of Islamabad responding in “a positive spirit.” Pakistan’s military spokesman Rashid Quereshi declared, however, that for “any meaningful talks” the leaders of the Hurriyat Conference would have to participate. In his immediate reaction, Pakistan’s High Commissioner Qazi was relatively reasonable, in contrast to his subsequently reported formulations—“while [we] respect the aspirations of the Hurriyat and must find a way of including them, this meeting is taking place between two heads of government.” So, in the circumstances, the leaders of the Hurriyat Conference are protesting that they continue to be relevant. Whispering resentment has been started by them in the valley against bilateral India-Pakistan talks. Pakistan-based fundamentalist “Islamic” groups have dismissed the invitation to talks as “an Indian trap.” Other circumstantial factors in the midst of which the Vajpayee government’s offer came included, first, some “track-2” visits. The Shahi Imam of Delhi and, before him, Maulana Assad Madani of the Jamait-e-Ulema-e-Hind, which is allied to the Deobandi school , visited Pakistan. The Maulana observed while in Pakistan that what was happening in Kashmir was not jehad. The chief of Pakistan’s Jamait-e-Ulema-e-Islam, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, was reported intending to visit India. The second factor is the visit of Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji to Pakistan and, about the same time, of the Chinese Communist Party Politburo member Li Changchun to India. During their visits, both called for peace talks between the two countries. Musharraf went out of his way to urge China to play “an active role” in South Asian affairs. Thirdly, the USA, it is speculated, may also have played a persuading role behind the scenes. State Department spokesman Phil Reeker applauded the Indian initiative and said: “we have encouraged both the countries to engage in a process of dialogue.” The talks, whenever Musharraf should come to Delhi and whenever they should begin, cannot, of course, be expected to provide solutions at a go. But they would settle presumably the area of discussion and the atmosphere for progress. India has suggested a composite dialogue. There are a number of issues pending in addition to Jammu-Kashmir: Siachen; Sir Creek; drug trafficking; economic and commercial ties (with reference among other things to Pakistan’s due extension of Most-Favoured Nation status to India); and so on. But for peace the J&K issue is undoubtedly the crux of the matter. It may have to be taken up, first of all, for practical resolution of differences—even though Musharraf and all his friends, allies, partners and colleagues are probably quite aware of Pakistan’s imperative and immediate need for economic succour, such as would ensue from SAARC’s real take-off. For a realistic and lasting settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir issue, at least four alternative courses come immediately to mind. First, an agreement to turn the Line of Control into an international boundary. This course flows from the assumption that it is not possible to “change the map” in Kashmir once the contending parties have become nuclear-weapon powers. In July 1999, former US Deputy Secretary of State Teresita Schaffer, who had taken charge of the Centre for Strategic International Studies in Washington, stated in an interview that “the West, the West Europeans, the USA, Canada and Japan believe that it is not possible to change borders between two countries that have nuclear arms, and consequently the settlement [on Kashmir] will have to basically keep the same LoC, if there is a settlement.” A second course might be to make the LoC temporarily an international boundary—for, say, five or 10 years—with the two countries getting down seriously along with other members of SAARC to realise the immense potential of the Association and turn it into a consequential economic community—and thereafter perhaps a union, on the model of the European Union. The question of Jammu and Kashmir could then be taken up again at the agreed time—if it had not already become irrelevant, a là the long-standing Franco-German dispute over Alsace-Lorraine which vanished into limbo with the establishment of the European Economic Community, the earlier stage of the European Union. A third alternative course might be to establish an India-Pakistan condominium for the valley while leaving untouched the rest of the LoC as international boundary. The valley would have its own independent administration, with Delhi and Islamabad jointly looking after its defence and foreign affairs, among possibly other unanimously agreed subjects. A fourth course might be to give independence to Jammu and Kashmir on the condition of its being a permanent member of SAARC: the Constitution of the Association would be duly amended to stipulate that no member-state could relinquish its membership and opt out of the Association without unanimous agreement among members. These are a few alternatives that come to mind at random. There may be others. Optimism, duly restrained, is natural in the obtaining circumstances. Restrained, yes, but hope does spring eternal in the human breast. It won’t be kept down.
(Asia Features) |
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The demise of art in the world of
science? THERE will be no more Beethovens, no more Rubens and no more Michelangelos, Shakespeares or Miltons. The future of the arts surely lies in the sciences. Is this not a scandalous statement especially for the Far Left, almost a funeral oration that throws a shadow on the future of painting, drama, music and other arts? This is ironical when seen in the background of a dark century of extremes and cultural decline. We have gradually moved into a Byzantine afternoon when science becomes attractive to the youth for its classiness and splendour. Drama has already declined. The novel, says Naipaul — himself so celebrated a practitioner — has outlasted its historical moment and now stands deceased. Factual writing will now overtake it. The form of the novel and music is turning grossly digital and hybrid; Madonna overtakes Mozart. As Rushdie states: 'Over 8,000 novels were published in Britain last year. It would be a miracle if 80 of them were good. It would be cause for universal celebration if even one were great.' George Steiner, here, would be bound to argue: what else could one experience after Auschwitz, the Nazi attempt to annihilate the Jews? 'We are getting very tired in our novels... Genres rise, genres fall, the epic, the verse epic, the formal verse tragedy. Great moments, then they ebb. What novel can compete with the best of reportage?' The death of the author has already been announced in France. Western metaphysics and ethics stand eclipsed after the 20th century cataclysms. The bloodless collapse of communism is not an event to gloat over seeing what it has brought in its wake. For all we know this might end in the final emasculation of Christianity. Commenting on Christian culture, Steiner says: 'More than arguably, European civilisation will not regain its truth or natural vitality until the causal implication of Christianity, of its founding doctrines and institutions thereafter, in the 20th century catastrophe, are faced up to unequivocally.' Science can be put on a podium, but like the humanities it has to be scrutinised critically. If artists and writers an be chastised for their ideological stands, why not the natural sciences which obviously have sprung from the loins of conflict and tyranny. Has not biological research brought about ethical and moral quandary? The cosmopolitan culture initiated by science has not in any way invigorated the arts or brought the world together. Contrary to C.P. Snow's belief enshrined in his 1959 lecture, The Two Cultures, that science would reunite a world divided by the Cold War, it seems that Auschwitz is once again around the corner. Both Steiner and Lionel Trilling have also failed in their diagnosis of dialectics between science and the arts. The most concentrated and innovative impulses towards the future that a scientist needs to possess have instead moved the world towards philistinism and the edge of a dreadful collapse. The practical and functional aspect is the sine quo non of all scientific endeavour whereas this does not hold good for the artist. It is difficult to bridge the gulf between the science and the arts, between reason and emotion, between Enlightenment and Romanticism. The humanising role of the arts can never be allowed to be usurped by science. Far from rendering art, music and literature redundant, the onslaught of a scientific temperament has taught us that we need them to make sense of our increasingly alien and inhuman world. Daniel Johnson writes, 'At the dawn of the scientific revolution, the mathematical and religious genius, Pascal, recoiled in terror from 'the eternal science of those infinite spaces'. Those spaces are no less silent, no less infinite, no less terrifying today, merely because we know a little more about the matter that fills them." But if one was to now move to examine this problem from a slightly different angle, it might show us how the scientific world is backed by the super-rich elite which in turn is needed for the arts to flourish: the Booker Plc, the Nobel Trust, the Rodes scholarship, the Saatchis, are all patrons of art. Renaissance art, similarly, was controlled by the millionaire patrons. It was this age that kindled the desire to purchase the rare and the beautiful; merchants and bankers, such as the Medicis, used their money to ensure the creation of the finest artefacts. As Lisa Jardin, professor of English at London University, argues, 'We need enlightened patrons. Committees do not create good art. If you believe, as I suspect most of the Labour Party believes, that art is an optional add-on, and a committee should pick a few ethnically worthy people to invest in, then art will be dead in 100 years'. The lip-service of the government is not good enough. It may be argued that the rich are the only begetters of art. The people who lay the stones that go into building architectural masterpieces, on the other hand, endure their poverty as an inevitable part of the creation of beauty. State sponsorship cannot contribute much towards the promotion of art; it has to be realised that it is the individual entrepreneurial patron who can help in the continuation of our civilisation. In the 16th century, we know that these patrons had taste and were supremely cultivated, and if not they sought advice. We are now benefiting from their patronage because it was the first century of a consumer boom in the arts when out of avarice sprang a society of the 'acquisitives'. Money made from the spice trade had to be spent somewhere and where better than on paintings and sculpture with the motive of exhibiting wealth and style. Conspicuous consumption was a manifestation of power and taste. These nouveau riche became the chief collectors of art; and thus they are needed today to ensure that art works flourish; on their part, they must realise like the Popes in Rome that money must be spent on books and other artefacts as an investment in the cultural well-being of the future. Modern civilisation is the direct inheritor of the great art produced in the past, evident in its exhibition at the Louvre in Paris, or the Uffizi Museum in Florence, or the Vatican. The cultural identity of Europe was forged by the great artists; they made and shaped the Europe we see today. But it was the rich who allowed the environment and the economic conditions for such art to flourish. A culture has to value creativity, but this culture will disappear if science takes over the production of art instead of providing an economic and cultural base to support it. Mass production of too many novels, for instance, has almost satiating the reader who is on the verge of boasting that he has little time for reading the contemporary novel. Judgement is thrown to the wind and the discerning editor is dead. The practice is to pump thousands of novels into the market and wait for some to click commercially. Too many titles to chase the reader away. Some, however, do pick up bestsellers or half a dozen titles by known writers every year. The rest of us enjoy either reading Proust, Balzac or Kundera, finding the Graham Swifts, Thomas Keneallys and Edmund Whites only flashes in the pan. |
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4th military dictator of Pakistan “PAKISTANI
PUNCH” in Urdu is a satirical magazine and some of its comments are hilarious indeed. One of them relates to four military dictators, including Chief Executive Gen Pervez Musharraf, who have ruled the country from time to time. The magazine, in one of its issue, has a dig at the performance of military dictators and posed the question — what are the achievements of the army rulers? According to the magazine, “Field Marshal Ayub Khan lost Kashmir ( reference to the 1965 war), Yahya Khan lost East Pakistan and Gen Zia-ul-Haq lost Siachen”. When a curious reader wanted to know about the likely achievement of Gen Musharraf, the reply was “Oh, God forbid.” Another satire sought to portray a scene in Attock Fort where the deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was being tried following his ouster in a coup by Gen Musharraf. The case had come to be known as “Nawaz Sharif helicopter corruption trial”. The prosecutor was no less a person than the Attorney General himself. The cross examination of the prime witness reproduced by the “Pakistani Punch” runs on these lines: AG to the witness: Isn’t it true that you accepted five million rupees to compromise this case? The witness stared out of window and did not respond. The AG repeated the question again and again but he did not reply, necessitating the Judge’s intervention. The learned judge leaned over the witness and ruled: “Please answer the question”. The startled witness quipped “I thought he (AG) was talking to you”. Gen Musharraf , whose forthcoming visit to Delhi has touched off more excitement than hope, is the fourth military dictator of Pakistan. Like his predecessors in uniform, he has thrown out the elected government of Nawaz Sharif and exiled the ousted Prime Minister along with his family members. Gen Musharraf was little known outside Pakistan, or for that matter, even his own country till he was appointed army chief by Nawaz Sharif and, as a proverb goes, bit the hand that fed him. The General overthrew his Prime Minister almost in the same way as Gen Zia ousted and, subsequently, hanged Z.A. Bhutto. Mercifully, Gen Musharraf only banished the one he saluted. The Chief Executive is basically a Mohajir, whose ancestors hailed from Rajasthan and initially moved to Karachi where young Musharraf had his education. He has also an ancestral house in the walled city of Delhi, known as “Neharwali Haveli” where he was born. The Haveli is being given a facelift and the General must be quite excited to see his birth place. He finally settled down in Gujranwala in Punjab and preferred to project himself more as a Punjabi than Mohajir. Though Musharraf is a Mohajir, he is known to have intense hatred for the MQM leader, Altaf Hussain. According to Pakistani analysts, at the bidding of Nawaz Sharif, Gen Musharraf, in his capacity as the army chief, set up special military courts in Karachi to try the MQM cadres on charge of terrorism. Several of them were sentenced and two executed before the Pakistan Supreme Court declared these courts as unconstitutional. An article published in the “International Herald Tribune”, reveals General Musharraf had an undistinguished career till 1980s when he caught the eye of Gen Zia who assigned him the task of training the mercenaries recruited by various Islamic extremist groups for fighting against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. It was during these days he came in contact with Osama bin Laden, then a reputed civil engineer of Saudi Arabia, who had been recruited by the CIA and brought to Pakistan for constructing bunkers for the Afghan Mujahideen in difficult terrain. According to the Herald Tribune Gen Zia also picked up Musharraf (then a Brigadier) in 1987 to command a newly-raised Special Services Group base at Khapalu in Siachen area. To please Gen Zia he launched an attack on an Indian post but was beaten back. In spite of the reverse, he continued to enjoy the confidence of President Zia. General Musharraf also started a policy of bringing in Punjabis and Pakhtoons from outside and setting them in Gilgit region of occupied Kashmir in order to reduce the Kashmiri Shias to a minority in their traditional land and this continues till today. The “Friday Times” quoted a local Shia leader, Muhammad Yahya Shah as saying: “We were ruled by the Whites during the British days.We are now being ruled by the browns from the plains”. The rapid settling of Punjabis and Pakhtoons from outside, particularly the trading classes, has created a sense of acute insecurity among the local Shias. Nawaz Sharif had appointed Gen Pervez Musharraf as Chief of the Army Staff after disgracefully removing Gen Jehangir Karamat . The new COAS had also superseded two of his seniors — Lt-Gen Ali Quli Khan, Chief of the General Staff and Lt-Gen Khalid Nawaz, serving as Quarter Master General (QMG). Deeply hurt and humiliated the two Generals, having impeccable reputation as professionals, tendered their resignations. Lt-Gen Khalid Nawaz was known to be one of the finest soldiers produced by the Pakistani army. There was widespread resentment in the army first, because of “unceremonious exit” of General Karamat and secondly, because of supersession of two senior most Lieut Generals and thirdly, because Musharraf was a Mohajir. It is now well known that Gen Musharraf only apprised Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of the bare outline and not of the details of his Kargil misadventure. Could he have defied the Prime Minister or hatched a conspiracy behind his back? A report published in the Washington Post at that time had expressed the fear that Pakistan might be on the brink of military takeover. The report proved to be prophetic. Only time can foretell what is in store for India’s hostile neighbour and the fourth military dictator of Pakistan. |
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Officialdom indifferent to peace moves PRIME Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s invitation to General Pervez Musharraf and the Pakistani military ruler’s positive response to it notwithstanding, there is little difference in the attitudes of the bureaucracy in the two countries. To begin with there is the case of the Pakistani poet Aftab Husain who has been running from pillar to post for the last several months seeking asylum in India. The poet who translated Vajpayee’s poems in Urdu was hoping that he would be accommodated in India in the spirit of the Lahore declaration. After all it was during Vajpayee’s famous bus ride to Lahore that Husain had risen to prominence and the Indian Prime Minister had invited him to visit Delhi. His fate changed once the military government took over in Pakistan and ever since Husain has been hounded. His decision to take refuge in India has not been fruitful as for the last few months he has been sustaining himself on the basis of temporary visa. The officials are mum on his application for asylum. The fate of Indians getting into Pakistan has been no different. The recent incident is that of an Indian globe-trotter, Vikas Singh, who entered Pakistan in his bicycle. Though he claimed that he sneaked across the Afghan border into Pakistan after failing to get a Pakistani visa in Kabul and his motive was only to cover as many countries as possible in his bike, the authorities in Pakistan refused to take a lenient view on his case. A local court awarded him three years hard labour for entering the country illegally. If these incidents are any indication then the road to peace is not going to be all that easy. Intellectual duty The Congress, one would think, performs only political duties as a political party. We now learn that it also performs an “intellectual duty.” This comprises warning people about the RSS philosophy and striking a rapport with those away from the RSS ideals. The party apparently does this duty in public interest and if it serves the party’s interest as well, that is just incidental. A senior party leader, who was talking about this “public intellectual duty” of the Congress, however, inadvertently conceded a point. If the Congress has to regularly apply intellectual rigour to counter its ideological rival, the latter must also not be producing trash. Gender sensitisation Is gender sensitisation only a women’s forte? It appears so if the list of participants invited for a workshop on “Gender Sensitisation” being organised, on June 4 here, by the National Commission for Women and Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) to finalise the draft curricula for Mass Communication Tentative Programme is any indication. Of the 20 participants, all but one of them belong to the fairer sex. Moreover, the Chief Guest for the occasion will also be a woman —Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj. Diplomacy changes Fresh changes are drifting through the corridors of the Ministry of External Affairs. First it was the turn of Chokila Iyer to storm the male bastion and occupy the all important post of Foreign Secretary. Till her ascendancy to the top post, the only familiar public face representing the fairer sex was the Director for External Publicity, Ms Monica Kapil Mohta. Now it is the turn of another woman officer who would be in public eye every day. The officer, Ms Nirupama Rao, has been made the new spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs. She replaces Raminder Singh Jassal, who takes over as the Ambassador in Israel. Poor
public relations The Finance Ministry officials may be good at statistics but when it comes to public relations they are a letdown. A case in point is the recent income tax raid on the business premises of a leading builder, who also owns a leading English weekly in the country. The Editor of the weekly, Outlook, was quick to point out that the raids were motivated as the government was not happy with the views expressed in the magazine. This stance had the support of the entire media community. In the backdrop of this development, there were several scribes who wanted to get the reaction of the Finance Ministry. To begin with they were greeted by a rude official (the official PA was on leave) in the office of the Revenue Secretary S.Narayanan, who refused to fix up an appointment for them. A visit to the Chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes was also not fruitful as there too the babus prevented the scribes from meeting their busy sahib. The end result was that the builder got all the publicity and the Finance Ministry and the Income Tax Department came out in poor light. The least that the Finance Ministry can do is to brief their official Information Officer to react to such developments in time. Smiling Buddha The Left Front’s last bastion in India has a smiling Buddha to lead its territory. Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya, who has emerged from the shadows of his more illustrious predecessor and one time Prime Ministerial candidate, Jyoti Basu, seems to have come on his own. He, however, does not seem to have visions of throwing his hat at the national political stage. “Jyoti Basu was a great leader. I am a small fry. Let me concentrate on my state”, was all the affable leader would say about his ambitions at the national level. (Contributed by Satish Misra, T.V. Lakshminarayan, Prashant Sood, S. Satyanarayanan and Gaurav Choudhury). |
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Aren’t we messing up Gandhi’s
legacy? BEFORE one could extend congratulations to the Ministry for Small Scale Industries and Agro Industries for beginning the trend of giving the much-needed contemporary look to the Khadi Gram Udyogs, some startling facts have come to the fore. With the first revamped KGU opening on May 31 (at New Delhi’s Khan Market) the circles are agog with the very choice of the designers — one of them is Malini Ramani who has lately been in the midst of two major controversies — last year draping the National Flag on her body in a self-designed costume, and then she was present at the shoot-out that took place at her socialite mother Bina Ramani’s restaurant Tamarind Court, where model Jessica Lal was shot dead. The other designer is Rohit Bal, who hasn’t been in the thick of any controversy, but hasn’t ever been associated with ethnic wear either. Correct me if I am wrong but Mahatma Gandhi’s very idea behind the KGU was to encourage the idea of simplicity in life and attitude, and to reach out to the common man who can’t really afford ‘highclass’, high-priced wear. However, with the very recent changes there is a revised price-list to boot — the list is in front of me and just for your sampling one Rohit Bal designed bushshirt (marketed through the KGU) is for Rs 495, and again a Rohit Bal designed kurta pyjama set is for Rs 785. Definitely unaffordable prices for the common man. And that in itself is a blow to the entire concept of Gandhism for if KGU get beyond the reach of the common man then what remains for him/her? I think the minister concerned Mrs Vasundhara Raje should indulge in some introspection, followed by some explaining. On the other hand, there seems to be a virtual bounty where herbal, ayurveda products and organic foods are concerned. You just have to think of any of the herbs and herbal formulas and they are likely to be marketed through these outlets. Latest on the foreigners’ order The latest on the Foreigners (Report to Police ) Order 1971, is that it is being reviewed and in all probability the foreigners whose overnight stay has to be reported to the local police station would get restricted to just Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. But as a senior journalist pointed out, “This in itself would mean harassment to the most vulnerable section of our society .....on one hand we proclaim that we ‘re trying to solve many hurdles coming in way of people-to-people contact living in this subcontinent but then you go and bring about such rules. And if this order is passed and implemented it would discourage the flow of relatives from Bangladesh or Pakistan for fear of harassment of those who come, and those who invite them or in whose houses they stay. Why harass relatives/friends when all possible enquiries could be made at the visa-granting stage or in the case of visa extensions etc .....” In fact, here I must add that last year a group of Lahore-based journalists who were visiting New Delhi on an invitation extended by a well-known local body to put up a photographic exhibition at the Press Club of India, were upset by the fact that they were denied accommodation in several of the city’s guest houses with the proprietors /managers telling them pointblank that they have problems with the police if they let Pakistanis, Iranians or Afghans stay in the guest houses. In the midst of these suspicions and generalisations why do we keep hosting SAARC meets, cross-country writers workshops where the bhai-bhai mantra is so very religiously chanted that you get wary of the very purpose of it all? Why hold these meets when you know that thereafter those highflown speeches there’s no respite for the common man living in those shacks who’ll probably have to do a fair amount of explaining to the local cops , even for something as innocent as his sibling’s visit — as though his poor parents committed a sin in producing one here and the other there, across the borders .... Tell me why? Each year I sit and think (and as always think aloud!) about why the Social Development Fair takes place in the month of May when heat is at its zenith. This fair is primarily meant to bring about awareness amongst the masses but for some strange reason it is so scheduled that none from the common rung can ever view it. Tell me, in this heat why would anyone from the not so privileged sector come all the way to the IPTO grounds ? I am really curious to know who decides on this rather strange set of dates — this year like last year this fair was on from May 16 to 21. Another query Another in the tell-me-why series: Why is the shooting of films allowed to take place in the supposed high security areas — such as the Rajpath with Rashtrapati Bhavan, the North and South Blocks in the backdrop. There is a certain sanctity attached to the very area, to the very high offices that lie in its vicinity and to have Bollywood masala films shot here seems a little difficult to digest, especially in these times when security seems to be the keyword. |
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