The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

EDITORIALS

Timely judicial intervention

WHAT Mr Rajnath Singh did on becoming Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh last year can be adequately summed up by the punchline of a popular soft drink commercial featuring Amitabh Bachchan and a kid. The superstar tries to trick the youngster into parting with the last bottle of the soft drink available at that point of time. But the new age kid cannot be taken for a ride. He pulls the bottle away from Amitabh and says "mujhe kya aap ulloo samajhtey hain". The good news is that there is a growing body of individuals who somewhat in the manner of the kid in the soft drink commercial now refuse to take nonsense even if it comes from the so-called political authority. Mr Rajnath Singh, who was sent back to UP after a spell as a minister at the Centre, thought no one would challenge the legality of the political gimmick that he played in the name of helping the members of the most backward castes in the state. He must have known that the decision to create a quota for the MBCs within the job quota for the other backward castes would not stand judicial scrutiny. Yet he went through the exercise with just one objective in mind. What? To somehow improve the poll prospects of the Bharatiya Janata Party at the expense of the other two Dalit parties in UP, namely the Bahujan Samaj Party of Ms Mayawati and the Samajwadi Party of Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav. He set up a UP Social Justice Committee that promptly cleared the proposal for giving jobs to the MBCs from within the quota reserved for the OBCs.

However, the new law was promptly challenged in the Supreme Court by public spirited individuals. They evidently wanted to tell Mr Rajnath Singh through the medium of public interest litigation whether he really thought that "hum log sub ulloo hain". The Chief Minister who received ill-deserved applause from his colleagues for painting both Ms Mayawati and Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav in a corner through the MBC law has only himself to blame for the predicament the BJP may now find itself in UP. With the assembly elections due next month, there is little time for him to launch some sort of a damage control measure. The Supreme Court order staying the operation of the new law is a clear setback to the BJP's dream of projecting itself as the messiah of the Dalits and the MBCs. The political equations are likely to register dramatic changes following the apex court's intervention in favour of those who had challenged the MBC law. The advantage is likely to shift to the Samajwadi Party that is already ahead of the rest of the pack according to pre-poll surveys. The BSP may be a marginal gainer for the simple reason that its track record of having done political business with the BJP has not gone down well with a section of its own political constituency. Of course, it is too early to make a guess about the outcome of the elections in UP. However, there is a clear message for all in the Supreme Court order. The message is that it does not always pay to use populist measures for duping the voters.

Measured response

IT is a standard practice that whenever a country finds an embassy personnel of another country indulging in undesirable activities, which is just a polite word for spying and asks him to leave the country, the other country reciprocates in kind almost immediately, asking a diplomat of the first to leave the country because of his similarly undesirable activities. Pakistan borrowed a leaf from embassy books when it responded to India’s demand for extradition of 20 persons by saying that it wanted India also to send back its own men. This was a clear case of tit for tat. It was also obvious that a list was not being compiled, but being invented. This wrangling could have turned quite ugly but External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh has taken the wind out of the Pakistani sail by saying that if the latter would send such a list, Ministries of Home and External affairs would work “double time” to send the criminals to Pakistan. Since India has done so in the past even without an extradition treaty, Pakistan can rest assured that its fugitives from law would reach it in no time. But first, it has to give a list of criminals hiding in India, because, as Mr Jaswant Singh has made it clear, no such formal request has reached India so far. He was not being sarcastic when he said that the list could be sent even on fax and the request would be processed post-haste. Unfortunately, the bogey has been raised by Islamabad only to confuse other countries, which will do nothing to improve relations between the two neighbours.

As has been mentioned repeatedly, sincerity is missing from the good General’s avowed anti-terror campaign. He has been thriving on words without displaying the right spirit. For instance, evidence is overwhelming that Dawood Ibrahim has been lavishly hosted in Pakistan for long. But Gen Pervez Musharraf simply refuses his existence. Look at the clever ploys he has used to hoodwink everyone. When coming to Agra, he asked the notorious don to go out of the country for a brief while so that he could swear before international media that he was not in Pakistan. Technically correct, tactically brilliant, but a shallow excuse nevertheless. Similarly, now that Dawood uses more than 10 passports, several of them issued by Pakistan, the General is again insisting that no “Pakistani” would be handed over to India. If Dawood can be called a Pakistani, good old Gen Musharraf may very well call himself a German or an American or whatever. Mr Jaswant Singh has done well to adopt a constructive approach instead of trying to match such half-baked shrewdness.

Woes of engineering aspirants

AFTER a country-wide debate, the Union Human Resource Development Ministry has finalised a plan for a single test for admission to the different institutions offering engineering courses in the country beginning with this academic year. However, the plan has been derailed because of non-cooperation by premier institutions of technical education. Only 26 institutions, most of them not known for academic excellence, spread over 12 states have consented so far. The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will conduct the All-India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE) for these cooperating institutions on May 19. Thus, instead of relieving the burden of students aspiring to pursue an engineering course, the introduction of the AIEEE will add to their woes. Their list will now include another test besides those conducted at the state level and by the central universities themselves. This is not to mention the Joint Entrance Test (the preliminary and main) for entry into any of the prestigious IITs, India's most respected brand name in the developed world. This shows that the problem directly related to the future of the nation is not being handled seriously. Perhaps, the bureaucracy and the ruling political class have failed to see a merit in the idea and hence its implementation in this ad hoc manner.

One can understand that since education falls in the State List, the Centre cannot impose the AIEEE on an unwilling state. Yet the country has to find a way to end the crisis caused by the plethora of entrance tests. Plus-two-level students (science stream) are under tremendous pressure. Besides preparing for the CBSE annual examination, they have to work hard for seeking admission to a course of their choice in a reasonably good institution. Very few of them are able to get through without the help of coaching shops mushrooming in every big and small city. Their parents have to shell out a major portion of their annual earning so that their wards gain the academic level required for the purpose. Yet nobody can be sure that the efforts will bear fruit. This cut-throat competition is confined to less than 50 per cent of the seats available, as the other half — the payment seats — is reserved for the moneyed class A major portion of what are known as the free seats goes to the reservation categories under different heads. The system is not only too costly from Indian standards but also discriminatory in nature against the students belonging to the rural areas where the majority of the country's population lives. A broad-based single all-India entrance examination system, if it finally becomes a reality, can reduce the cost considerably besides minimising the avoidable tension and harassment of the students and their parents.

OPINION

Giving armed forces due dignity
This is no way to handle a Corps Commander
K. S. Randhawa

INDIA is the only country in the area from the West (Europe) to the East, including Africa but excluding Japan and Australia, where the armed forces have never thought of usurping the power of the established central authority of the nation. The British left a few good legacies in the subcontinent. Thanks to the vision of men like Field Marshal K.M. Cariappa and our Service Chiefs, every successor continued to salute the national flag and the Constitution and never expressed any political view, militating against this sacred equation.

Men in uniform have stood by the nation in its hour of need, doing everything from defending against aggression to assisting civil power. Despite having a limited infrastructure, every task which calls for grit and determination falls on the armed forces. These range from floods, earthquakes, counter-insurgency, epidemics to internal strife. Name it and the last stop where the chaos and calamity has been brought to halt has been the men in uniform. Few people understand this unparalleled loyalty to the country where with his hands tied behind the back, a soldier is at the receiving end but is unable to protest. Some of us with hindsight believe that some elements in the bureaucracy and politics have taken the Services for granted, and at times there has been a tendency to take the advantage.

The decline of the standing of the armed forces started when the first Service Chief, whoever he was, accepted a post-retirement lucrative gubernatorial assignment. There were exceptions who came to the conclusion that there could be no better job in the evening of one’s life than to have been the head of one’s Service in the armed forces. It is most unfortunate that a great soldier like General Thimayya was persuaded by a man the nation worshipped, Nehru, to withdraw his resignation as the Chief and then he got pushed around. We in the Army used to say in cheaper days that if we all contribute Re 1 each and give it to our Chief, he will never be bought over by anyone for any reason at the cost of the armed forces’ dignity. The next setback was a very reasonable statement by a gentleman-soldier Army Chief General Rodrigues, who had commented that “good governance was as much of interest to us as others” or words to that effect. It is believed that he got a rap for it from the government and withdrew his statement and himself and then it was an oblivion for him. Had he in his wisdom declined to withdraw his statement and stood by it, we would have held him in even greater esteem, as it would have made the government think that soldiers are not tinker-tailors to be knocked around. I mean no disrespect to that fine officer. Sometimes, as good obedient human beings, we relent.

I recall a controversy following the allegations that General V.P. Malik was seeking an extension or elevation to the CDS. I wrote to the media, “Please do not bandy about General Malik who, more than anybody else, realises that having come all the way from a Mianwali, (now in Pakistan) service background, he has risen to the dizzy heights of 4 Rajaji Marg”. Having known him, I had said that Mianwali boys did not accept crumbs.

By a quirk of fate I do not recall meeting or even seeing the present Army Chief, General S. Padmanabhan. However, as one who follows the fortunes of a Service to which I owe so much, I did follow his track record in the crucial appointments he held while looking after his remit in Jammu and Kashmir. It was all done very quietly, in a humble way. I have only heard him twice since he occupied the chair. Once initially and then on the evening of January 11, 2002. I recorded his briefing to the media on the television word for word and then did the same for the address by General Pervez Musharraf, President of Pakistan. This was done to enable me to study the body languages of both, frame by frame, in slow motion. This is what gives a complete indepth perspective of what the man has in his heart, behind his words.

I was impressed with his restricted, sharp, incisive responses, always given with a smile. I could see that the media felt at home with his easy style. To a loaded question, his response was, “I do not know and even if I know I cannot and will not tell you” or words to that effect. He did talk but only in response to a persistent query what if the nuclear dimension comes in, should conventional warfare force its implementation in a certain situation. The General said that any nuclear exchange in the South Asian region would lead to a “disaster”, affecting eastern and western oil supplies and the regions in Central South Asia and create a hue and cry. He went on to say that nuclear weapons were not meant for fighting. It would be foolish to even think of it.

He made it clear that India’s policy was not to be the first to use the nuclear option. He reiterated that there could be no triggering of situations as the Indian Army would only look forward to events as they unfold. He did indeed say that India had the capability of launching a second strike, were they, and he implied the Pakistani leadership, man enough, (“a slip of the tongue”) and then the correction, “mad enough to use it”. He referred to the point elaborated that if anyone uses the nuclear weapon against India and its assets and interests, then the perpetrators of such an outrage would be punished so severely that their continuation in any fray will be in doubt. He clarified, on the question of triggering a war, that decisions on war were taken by the government and the political leadership.

On the subject of troops build-up, he said there was no upping the ante. He was a man of peace. But if somebody comes to me with a war, the nation will believe that this man can bite.

Notwithstanding his earlier trade union activities, I have held the Defence Minister, in high regard as a simple son of the soil doing a straightforward duty. I have seen him at close quarters but will only touch on two incidents. He came to Kandla when the port was damaged by tidal waves and I was standing there when he arrived aboard a helicopter. No relief work was going on as the entire district administration was mesmerised and frozen awaiting him and Mrs Sonia Gandhi. He asked Port Trust and district officers as to how he could help. They requested him to distribute small relief supply bundles to some victims. The officials were taken aback when he said that he had come to do something substantial if he could. And before you could say Jack Robinson, he had taken off for Delhi. I took the liberty to say that “relief work will start Sir, the moment you leave the scene. He did not know me and I was in civvies. He gave an understanding smile.

I have been in Siachen. It is not possible to comprehend what it takes to exist there, let alone fight and defend it. Small packages of stores took three days from the base camp to the destination on a man pack basis. The same distance could be covered within no time with much greater load on a snowmobile, but the bureaucrats in South Block, who had never got their bottoms off their chairs, could not comprehend this. It took no time for Mr Fernandes, on assuming the Ministership, to see for himself and understand it. What a treat it was when he sent three of the involved bureaucrats to Siachen. The snowmobiles were sanctioned in no time. It does a lot of good to a poor soldier, leading a miserable life but yet with a smile, to share a mug of tea and a pre-cooked snack with his “Raksha Mantri”. His visits were worth the while. ‘At worst he could have reduced them in numbers, as admittedly they also burden the system.

Now we find inexplicably that the same son of the soil , Mr Fernandes has flayed and denounced a very mature and capable Army Chief, who has spoken just twice till today and each word, each expression has been a measured one, with the right body language. He brought to naught, with a flourish of the Defence Minister’s baton, all that had been achieved in an impressive press conference, which allayed the concerns of the man in the street and gave both men and the Army the confidence that while India will never press the nuclear button itself, let it be clear to its adversaries that the response would be something never seen before. It was General Padmanabhan’s day and down to the last other rank it gave enormous confidence in his leadership and that of the government. Perhaps, it must have been the ego of the politician in him that it is only his prerogative to analyse and to answer the queries and misgivings of the media and the people. It was not of someone who has been simple Spartan sharing his home with young Burmese students and not even a security guard to protect India’s “Raksha Mantri”.

Now from January 20 there have been banner headlines in television programmes and the print media that India’s strike Corps Commander, Lieut-Gen Kapil Vij, GOC, II Corps, with the reputation of being an impeccable professional, has been sacked and removed from the command to be replaced by his junior, Maj-Gen Bhupinder Singh Thakur. Lieut-Gen Kapil Vij would soon have finished his tenure and in the normal course would have been succeeded by the other illustrious officer. The government will always know much better to judge actions than we people. There is, therefore, no quarrel. For whatever reasons a change was, perhaps desirable, if not necessary. There are ways and ways of doing it. Assuming that General Vij had gone beyond his remit, he could have been replaced. But what is objectionable is the manner in which the government has gone about it. The government knows better, but if it did not require a crash action, then an errant Corps Commander could have been sent to Army Headquarters within a couple of hours by helicopter, asked for an explanation and, if the explanation did not satisfy the government he could have been given a choice of being posted out or resigning.

His entire command, and for that matter the Army, is taught to look up to senior battle commanders, especially strike corps commanders who are selected from the very best. One day such a strike corps commander is on a pedestal and the next day on the mat. Imagine the feeling of the jawans who carry very deep-rooted respect for their commander to see him pulled off the pedestal unceremoniously. This cannot but affect the morale of the armed forces and give them the feeling that under the shade of the politician and the bureaucrat, even a senior Service office is pushed and messed around.

Any amount of damage control cannot be convincing. An issue, which could have been handled diplomatically, has hurt the feelings of those who value the uniform. By one in a million chance, I went to the railway station on the evening of January 20 and saw something like five carriages full of young beaming recruits of the Armoured Corps Centre, Ahmednagar, and the Mechanised Infantry Centre being rushed on the Jhelum Express to join these very formations of the Strike Corps in the concentration area in Rajasthan. They were moving on a crash action basis even before the completion of their training to a possible war zone. Now, on arrival, as they have no access to the newspapers, they hear what is popularly called “langar gup” that their esteemed Strike Corps Commander, whose photographs adorn the hall of fame, is lying in dust.

I have enough experience to understand that such things do not happen without the consent of superior commanders. My only disappointment is that the same thing could have been done keeping in mind the dignity of the Service, the men and its commanders.

The writer is a retired Lieut-General.

FOLLOW-UP

No harassment, say police women
Reeta Sharma

A radical change has taken place in the Chandigarh police vis-a-vis recruitment of women in the past one decade alone. Just 20 years ago, there was only a sprinkling of 10 to 15 women personnel in the force. Till 1998, women were recruited only at the lowest rank of constable.

It was only in 1989 that for the first time three women were recruited as Assistant Sub-Inspectors (ASI). In the past 12 years, the Chandigarh police have been paying a very considered attention to the recruitment of women in its cadre. Today it has one Inspector, six Sub-Inspectors, 10 ASIs, 16 Head Constables and 227 women constables.

The Chandigarh police women have proved that, given a chance, they can excel and even bring laurels. They have achieved distinctions not only while performing their duties but also in the All-India Police Games and various national and state championships.

The first women to have been given independent charge of two police stations were SI Parveen Sharma and SI Sukhwinder Kaur. At present, Gurjeet Kaur Rathore and Poonam Dilawri, both SIs, are holding independent charge of the PGI and Sector 43 police stations. Was it a smooth cakewalk for them? Did they face harassment, ridicule and negation of their work?

“Yes, at the initial stages our male colleagues indulged in unbridled behaviour like abusing and narrating cheap jokes in our presence. It used to be extremely embarrassing. But when we complained about it to our SHOs, their response was not only positive but also effectively correctional. Their rebukes and warnings had the desired effect on the regimented force, who immediately fell in line and the presence of women amongst them began to be respected”, revealed agile and rather sharp SI Gurjeet Kaur Rathore.

SI Sita Devi, smart and fluent in English, is an efficient computer programmer. Commenting on male colleagues, she said, “They are far more refined than their counter parts in Punjab and Haryana. Besides, our senior officers are accessible any hour of the day and night. This close interaction of the seniors has been an invisible disciplining rod for the entire force. That is why there has never been any humiliating situation for any woman in the force”.

Inspector Parvesh Kumari, who has also got training as a commando, has risen to this rank solely on the strength of her conviction and perseverance. The first woman to become an Inspector, she had joined as a constable but continued to improve her qualifications and skills. Thus appearing in various exams for the promotions enabled her to succeed and reach a rank within years, which is unprecedented. She too feels that male colleagues in the Chandigarh police are very well behaved and are a role model for any other police in the country.

SI Harjeet Kaur is a woman of few words but huge actions. Once she had to chase a PCO employee of Sector 42 who had stolen a couple of things from this STD booth. “With two of my male colleagues, we encircled him from three different directions and finally we succeeded in catching him in Sector 21. But unfortunately, the entire market’s shopkeepers became suspicious of our identity as we were in civil clothes. Many of them tried to forcibly free him from me. But I continued to hold the boy from his collar and my training helped me to ensure that the boy did not escape”.

SI Sunila Kanda is a charming and ever smiling face. Her pleasant personality would make any complainant comfortable in her presence. Talking about women in the Chandigarh police, she said, “Whether it is our S.P. or I.G., they reach out to the lower rank personnel directly. There is no hesitation on the part of the seniors to speak to any ASI or SI, be it a woman or a man. This helps build a certain confidence, especially in the women force”.

Head Constable Sunita Bakshi voiced some common problems. “Though I am senior and my children have grown up but majority of women in our force are young and have small children to take care of. There are few women whose in-laws or parents are staying with them. But most do not have any such support structure. So whether it is sickness or crèche or school or food or social responsibility, it is women who are expected to take care of. On the contrary, our male colleagues have a readymade support structure available to them in their homes and they are not even expected to take care of any household or children’s responsibilities except as providers”.

It was during Ms Kiran Bedi’s posting as I.G. in Chandigarh that these women had requested her to provide a modern, suitable infrastructure to enable them to perform their duties more efficiently. She, on her part, had promptly agreed to open an ideal crèche and a preparatory school with a bus service to pick up and drop children. But somewhere along the line, the idea has got pushed aside. What these women genuinely need is an ideal crèche, inclusive of a preparatory school, with a facility of boarding for children matching their long duty hours.

At present they do have a pre-nursery school in Sector 26 and a crèche in Sector 46. However, both not only need to be improved but also require to be under one roof.

It is amazing that in this 21st century these women personnel of the police have no separate toilets and restrooms in their respective places of duty. Except for two police stations, there is no provision to respect their privacy in this regard. Interestingly, even women complainants or visitors into various police stations are forced to use toilets meant for men only. So much so even the Crime Against Women Cell does not have any separate toilet for women.

Although none of these women personnel have faced any sexual harassment at their workplace, yet, the Chandigarh police is the first in the country to have set up a “sexual harassment complaint committee” with Parvesh Sharma, Gurjeet Kaur Rathore and Sita Devi, all the three SIs, as members.

Enthusiastic and full of exuberance, these women police personnel feel that they should be given challenging roles to perform.

For instance, there is no woman posted as Moharer Head Constable (Munshi). They feel that they can be trained and given into this job too.

TRENDS & POINTERS

After food, Americans have taken to ‘junk English’

US English-speakers are sloppily serving up the linguistic equivalent of junk food: candy-coated nouns, heaping helpings of jargon and adjectives devoid of real weight, in writer Ken Smith’s mind.

“American English is in a bad way, and it’s probably not going to get better any time soon,” he told a crowd of about 50 people gathered at a Washington bookstore over the weekend to hear his wry lament on the state of English in the USA.

Fortythree-year-old Smith is the man reminding us to eat our proverbial vegetables and avoid the temptation to use fashionable yet function-free phrases such as “highly impactful,” “user-friendly” and “at-one-ment.”

In his new book, “Junk English,” the New York-based Smith categorises the sloppy syntax Americans hear and use each day and translates it into better English.

In what he describes as a “painful” process, Smith immersed himself in jargon and bad English for six months, studying magazines and newspapers, reading the inserts in his phone bill, watching TV commercials and listening to radio.

Certain patterns began to emerge, and many of the same words cropped up repeatedly — words such as “issue,” “address,” “factor” and “focus.” Words like “issue” are often used in place of the more concrete “problem,” Smith reckons.

Another common offence is inflating vocabulary unnecessarily — “saying ordinary things in extraordinary ways” like using “expeditiously” in place of “quickly.”

Words once powerful — such as “hero,” “visionary,” “crisis” or “unique” — have been weakened by overuse. Phrases wear out their welcome by using more words than necessary — “the financial sector” in lieu of “finance” or “on a daily basis” instead of “daily,” he says. AFP

“My sweet Lord” tops British charts

George Harrison returned to the top of the British music charts after an absence of 31 years with the charity reissue of his single “My Sweet Lord”.

Harrison first released the song in January 1971 and became the first Beatle to have a hit in his own right. The band broke up in 1970.

“My Sweet Lord”, which rose to the top on Sunday, was the biggest hit during the solo career of the guitarist, who died from cancer in November at the age of 58. DPA

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

Avoid the mistake of thinking that the violent man is a strong-willed man. Violence and obstinacy are alike signs of weakness.

Avoid the effort to develop a strong will without regard to Thought and Feeling. Its strength depends upon their adjustment.

Avoid the fear of failure. Fear hinders actions.

Avoid anxieties as to the future, in the spirit of confidence that the best is yet to be.

Avoid overreliance on the judgement of others, that you be not as a reed that is shaken by the wind. Will the right thing and do it.

Accept the truth that conquest implies control alike of body and mind. It is both possible to exercise such control and a duty that you owe to yourself.

Keep the idea of psycho-synthesis before you: Feeling, Thought and Will working in perfect harmony. If the Feeling and Thinking are right, the Will will be right.

Face all your problems boldly.

Self-respect is a potent factor of Will. This disposition is one to be cultivated assiduously.

There is wide difference between a setback and a defeat. Unless you are demoralised, you are not defeated. Review your strategy and renew the attack from another angle.

— Wise Sayings

***

‘He abused me, he beat me,

he defeated me, he robbed me’

— in those who harbour such thoughts

hatred will never cease.

‘He abused me, he beat me,

he robbed me’ —

in those who do not harbour such thoughts hatred will cease.

For hatred does not cease by hatred at any time: hatred ceases by love, this is an old rule.

— The Dhammapada