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Monday,
February 25, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Crackdown
on labour Peace at
hand?
After
Musharraf’s visit to USA |
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Freaks
at Nehru Park
Judges’
XI versus Lawyers’ XI: reflections on a cricket match
Bouncy
chairs, car seats on raised surface perilous for infants
2001, Literature: V. S. NAIPAUL
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Crackdown on labour The government calls it the second generation of reforms on labour but it is the first generation. The Union Cabinet has decided to allow enterprises in special economic zones to hire and fire workers at will. What this means is that they do not have to follow the traditional and accepted pro-labour laws guaranteeing life-long work and livelihood. This was a gift of the industrial revolution and introduced in this country early in the years of state-sponsored industrialisation. In a country where only 5 per cent of the work force is qualified and mostly traditionally trained, a legal safeguard of their jobs was needed and previous governments gave it not as an economic measure but to secure the electoral base. Rural poor form the biggest vote bank. Now the BJP-led NDA government has taken a U-turn. And it faces a risk. It has decided that workers in special economic zones, set up last year to promote export on the lines of Chinese policy, will not enjoy any special rights, and not even the rights enjoyed by an unskilled worker in any sweat shop. The decision has angered the central trade unions, including the BJP-affiliated Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh, to announce a nation-wide protest and strike. This is just the beginning and in the days to come the temperature will go up and the government will have a big problem to handle. The government knows that it has invited big trouble and is trying to justify its decision. But its arguments sound hollow. The opposition of Mr Sharad Yadav to the decision is also well-known. |
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Peace at hand? So much blood has been shed in Sri Lanka -- and so mindlessly -- that peace is long overdue. Perhaps the memorandum of understanding drafted by Norway to bring about a permanent ceasefire between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) can be the harbinger. Unfortunately, it is accompanied by so much of turmoil that one cannot pin one's hopes too high. There is fierce opposition from none other than President Chandrika Kumaratunga herself. She has accused Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe of flouting Constitutional procedures on getting her approval, keeping Parliament and the Cabinet in the dark, and ignoring consensual norms governing a cohabitation arrangement between rival parties controlling presidency and Parliament. Her opposition is apparently politically oriented. What is noteworthy is that she has not rejected the MoU outright. But others like the main opposition party, the Janatha Vimukta Peramuna, may be less tolerant. It has strongly criticised clauses which seem to create legal parity between the armed forces and the LTTE and confer legitimacy on the latter's territorial control over parts of the nation. There is also criticism that it does not safeguard civilians living in the northeast from LTTE atrocities such as child conscription, extortion, kidnapping and revenge killing. However, the government has strongly defended the arrangement, saying that it is not possible to get a problem-free ceasefire anywhere in the world. On the other hand, difficulties exist on the LTTE side as well. The experience so far is that its commitment to any settlement is never complete. It has broken many agreements in the past and the army is reluctant to take it at its words. Ceasefire has existed between the two sides since Christmas but there have been bloody flare-ups. Every lull in fighting has only been used by it to recoup. To that extent, there is strong apprehension that the agreement may be no more meaningful than the West Asian peace parleys. Tenuous it might be, but the agreement is the best news to come out of Sri Lanka in a long time. Ironically, India is nowhere in the picture. It took no part in the whole process, perhaps because of the singeing it received during the IPKF fiasco. But this attitude may reduce its leverage with both parties to the conflict. A direct involvement was not necessary; a behind-the-scene intervention could have done the trick. Peace in Sri Lanka is very important for India, not only because it is a fellow SAARC member and a neighbour, but also because it can have a bearing on the internal strife in India. |
After Musharraf’s visit to USA THE contours of President Pervez Musharraf’s visit to the USA were fixed before he set foot on American soil. He was to be rewarded for aligning his country with the Bush administration in the campaign against terrorism. He was to be prodded into acting on the promises he had made in the January 12 television address. Third, he would be judged by how he followed the straight and narrow path in curbing terrorism at home and its export to India. The results of the visit generally followed the script, except in two significant aspects. He did not receive the military supplies he sought, in particular in relation to the F-16s. His attempt to get the US formally to mediate in the Kashmir issue was meant more for his domestic constituency than out of any serious expectation he might have had. And he damaged his credibility by overplaying his hand twice. He alleged an Indian link in the kidnapping of the killed Wall Street Journal reporter in Karachi and put a gloss on this incident by implying that the reporter was alive in order to win a favourable Press before his meeting with President George W. Bush. In a sense, General Musharraf’s visit to claim his bonus from the USA has proved beneficial to India, not in terms of what he did not receive but in being told in plain words of Washington’s policy towards Pakistan. He was given the promise of a long-term relationship in the civilian and military fields based on his willingness and ability to curb terrorism. In any event, neither side wants the early departure of US troops from Pakistan. The surprise is in how faithfully the USA is following its declared policy towards the Indian subcontinent in seeking parallel but unhypenated relations with New Delhi and Islamabad. As the flow of high-level American visitors to India shows, the Bush administration is seeking to buttress its relationship with New Delhi in the civilian and defence fields even as it is sending out signals to General Musharraf that the goal of close relations is attainable on the premise of a Pakistan that does not host or export terrorism. If General Musharraf is willing and able to comply with American demands and the process of Indo-American cooperation proceeds apace, Americans would be in a position, for the first time since Indian and Pakistani independence, to have equal leverage on the two countries. We are in the early days of this new phenomenon and General Musharraf will need to keep in check his tendency to be too clever by half, as he demonstrated in the USA and earlier at the Agra summit. Besides, rooting out terrorism in Pakistan’s body politic and in the Army is likely to be an arduous task. Admittedly, returning Pakistan to civilian rule has receded in the American scale of priorities. As in the days of the Cold War and now in what American calls the “war on terror”, US democratic concerns are a flexible commodity. But the Pakistani people’s yearning for a democratic polity will not go away. How General Musharraf juggles with honouring his commitment to the Supreme Court with retaining his country’s presidency without contesting an election remains to be seen. In all likelihood, it will strain credibility and invite further unrest and complications at home. Over the decades, Pakistan, not India, has been the interlocutor with the USA as a succession of military rulers have been willing to give Washington what it wanted provided they received the toys of war and money. This relationship reached its apogee during the anti-Soviet phase in Afghanistan in which American money and arms were channelled through the sticky fingers of the Inter-Services Intelligence. After the Soviets left and America turned its back on Afghanistan, Pakistan was left with the wages of the war: drugs and Kalashnikovs and extremist militants with time on their hands. Pakistan’s difficulty in disengaging itself from the export of trained terrorists and arms to Indian Kashmir lies in the nexus between the terrorists on the one hand and the ISI and elements in the Pakistan Army on the other. There is in addition the Pakistani leadership’s decision to use the militants to fight a proxy war with India. To change these equations, General Musharraf will have to fight entrenched interests while seeking the support of a population that will feel alienated by being deprived of democratic rule. A danger sign is General Musharraf’s recent attempt to redefine democracy by suggesting that his, not the politicians’, was the most democratic form of government. Ayub Khan, for a time the most successful of the military rulers of Pakistan, had sought to promote his form of democracy which he called “basic democracy”. In essence, he tried to undercut the political class by making lower-level functionaries in the countryside the direct beneficiaries of a spoils system. General Musharraf’s belief in his own infallibility and messianic mission to save his country will make his formidable tasks more difficult of attainment. In terms of prestige, General Musharraf has scored a few points by being feted by President George W. Bush in the White House, a symbolism of some importance in view of his pariah status prior to September 11. His countrymen must pray that his new-found respectability does not go to his head. The dynamic of a military regime has its own logic and if the General falls for it, he would invite his own end and the tribulations of his country. We must not forget that India has benefited from America’s “war on terror” because American power and Pakistan’s new compulsions have led to the destruction of terrorist nests and terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan. New Delhi can have no desire to follow the Philippine example in inviting American special forces to fight its battles in Kashmir. But India expects the USA to pressure Islamabad to end its proxy war with New Delhi. The picture in Pakistan remains mixed, with a conditional support from the USA testing General Musharraf’s mettle to the utmost. The outlook can only turn bleak if he were to harbour illusions of his own grandeur after his handshake with President George W. Bush. India can only hope that the General will steady himself to take his country to a safe harbour opening the way for better relations. |
Freaks at Nehru Park All the freaks of the world come to Nehru Park. We have the Hand Clappers, we have the Manic Guffawers, we have the squirrel-Feeders, we have the Mobile Readers, to name only a few. The first time I encountered a group of Hand-Clappers, they stood in a circle, as if in a ritual dance of a hill tribe. One person led and the others followed. The movements ran to a pattern, sometimes above the head, sometimes behind the back, and then below a raised leg. The combined effect was that of pistol shots, so sharply was one palm struck against the other. It was not uncommon to meet individual Hand-Clappers, going along in a dull, plodding way, till suddenly the urge came upon them and they started clapping like mad, as if in appreciation of an inaudible musical performance. And sometimes, you met them in twos and threes, going about their separate paths, hands clapping as if in question-and-answer sequence. One day, I could not hold back my curiosity any longer. The next lone ranger I met I buttonholed and asked: “Why do you clap your hands?” The man stood dazed: “Don’t you know? If you clap your hands, your blood pressure goes down. The harder you clap, the faster it reduces.” It was acupressure at work! How silly of me not to have realised. From that day, I have been turned into the most enthusiastic hand-clapper in any audience that you can name. Long after the general clapping has died down, you can see me in full form, trying to scale down my burgeoning BP. The Manic Guffawers start laughing like mad men in a Bollywood movie, without so much as warning you in advance. The first time I heard them, I let out a blood-curdling yell and leaped six inches into the air. For a second, I thought the Jaish-e-Mohammad had let loose their artillery. Now I encounter groups of these Manic Guffawers, laughing without any humour or Khushwant Singh jokes to tickle them, gurgling in loud bursts of air, till they have run out of breath. And the explanation for this outlandish
behaviour is that it is a yogasana, which uses the laughter muscles to put the entire psychosomatic system into a state of tensionless peace. There is a father-son partnership which feeds the squirrels. They carry large gunny bags on their shoulders, with a tap at the bottom, and move from one Japanese rock to another, strewing wheat, gram and maize in prolific quantities. There is a lone lady, who sits in padmasana in a pine forest, with black crows flapping their wings above her and black stray dogs wagging their tails around her, while she feeds them tidbits. There is another pious soul who searches out ant-hills so as to supply these with wheat flour and sugar. UN agencies trying to reach food to starving Afghans could take lessons from these do-gooding hikers. We also have an extra-large Sardarji who says prayers loudly while he waddles along the jogging track. Two laps around the park and he is so fagged out he has to restore his tissues with two hot cups of tea, biscuits and cake. I have not told you about the middle aged man who makes strange slow movements of his hands around an oversized torso. I would have been mystified about what he was up to, if I had not seen two Japanese girls giving lessons in Falun Gong a few months ago! |
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Judges’ XI versus Lawyers’ XI: reflections on a cricket match There is no separation of powers when it comes to playing cricket, just bonhomie, camaraderie and perhaps a bit of not so naive socialising. Nor should the sight of “law” and “justice” playing against each other rather than in tandem puzzle the lay spectator. It is just weekend recreation, after all, and it would be absolutely churlish to read anything more into it. Organised jointly by the Bar Association of India, the Delhi High Court Bar Association and the Supreme Court Bar Association, the cricket match between the “Justice XI” and the “Legal XI” at Delhi’s Karnail Singh Stadium last Saturday, February 23, attracted not inconsiderable media attention even if it did not exactly hog the headlines. The “historic sporting encounter”, wrote an inspired staff reporter of The Hindu the next day, February 24, wielding his pen even more impressively than the judicial and legal luminaries wielded the willow, was a “memorable event for their fans and followers”. The photographs of the event published yesterday in The Hindu (on page 3, bottom) and The Hindustan Times (page 1, top) do not show any fans or followers. But there is no doubting that Judges have a large “fan following” among lawyers, especially those who appear before them every other day and the size of whose earnings varies inter alia with the length and quality of the judicial temper. While the Justice XI, comprising judges of the Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court, was led by Justice B.N. Kirpal, the next Chief Justice of India, the Legal XI was captained by leading lawyer-turned-Congress leader Mr Kapil Sibal and included his equally celebrated colleague at the Bar, now the ever-so-active Union Law Minister, Mr Arun Jaitley of the BJP. That, a wag might say, is a conveniently judicious mix of all those who matter or may come to matter in the foreseeable future in this area of public life, with the Opposition being given a slight edge for appearance’s sake. Justice, after all and as the saying goes, must not only be done but must appear to have been done. “On a perfect spring afternoon,” reads the story in The Hindu — if judges come, can spring be far behind? — “judges as well as lawyers tried to show their cricketing skills in a limited-over encounter.” “Batting first,” it says, “Justice XI made 135 runs in their stipulated 25 overs, the highlight of the innings being a prolific half-century by (Justice) Mukul Mudgal, with some valuable contributions from (Justices) C.K. Mahajan, R.S. Sodhi, B.N. Kirpal, Manmohan Sareen and A. Bhan.” That, by a remarkable coincidence, left a target of 136 runs for the legal hawks in the rival team. A target that Delhi’s trained professional elite is so accustomed to chasing. “Chasing a respectable and significant target of 136 (The Hindu continues) — the Article of the Constitution under which the litigants through lawyers file their special leave petitions before the Supreme Court seeking justice — the Lawyers XI had to struggle till the penultimate ball of the match, thus making it a nail-biting finish.” It is not the first time, of course, that lawyers have had to struggle before judges, though it always pays to struggle for bonhomie’s sake in the cricket field before embarking on the real struggle in court. For, as Benjamin Cardozo put it in his judgement in Woolford Realty Co vs Rose (1932), “expediency may tip the scales when arguments are nicely balanced.” Supreme Court or High Court, and whether on the civil or on the criminal side, it is discretion disguised as expediency which tips the scales in the majority of cases. “(W)hat with its baffling legalese, lottery techniques, habitual somnolencies, expensive proclivities, multi-decked inconsistencies, tyranny of technicalities and interference in everything with a touch of authoritarian incompetency” — to quote the comprehensively inimitable Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer — the Indian justice system is operated by discretion today more than at any time in the past. And the more the system comes under the pressure of India’s teeming numbers, the greater the number of cases it entertains and the lesser the amount of time it has for each individual case, the more obvious does the role of discretion become in the process of adjudication. And the more pressing the demands of livelihood upon the legal profession. Otherwise one of the greatest legal scholars to have walked the 20th century, Roscoe Pound was wrong, hopelessly wrong, when he described the idea of gaining a livelihood as “incidental” to a profession. “Historically,” wrote Pound in 1944, “there are three ideas involved in a profession: organisation, learning and a spirit of public service. These are essential. The remaining idea, that of gaining a livelihood, is incidental.” Whether in the United States (which has given to the world the concept of ambulance-chasers) or in India, and whether in the 1940s or in the year of grace 2002, the truth, especially so far as the legal profession is concerned, is the other way round. The imperative of gaining a livelihood has always been, and shall always remain, the principal driving force of the profession, both learning and public service taking a second place though not always incidental. An imperative that determines as well the ethics of the profession in practice and dictates, both in and out of court, its behaviour towards judges. “After all is said and done,” wrote Judge Harold R. Medina in the American Bar Association Journal in 1952, reflecting on the judicial function, “we cannot deny the fact that a judge is almost of necessity surrounded by people who keep telling him what a wonderful fellow he is. And if he once begins to believe it, he is a lost soul.” Or, with due apologies to all concerned, if he once begins to play cricket. |
Bouncy chairs, car seats on raised surface perilous for infants Infants need round-the-clock attention. And busy parents trying to keep an eye on their babies while handling daily chores around the house bring them along from room to room. According to a new study, if the baby is strapped into a removable car seat or bouncy chair, the position of the seat or chair is critical to the baby’s safety. Placing a seat on an elevated surface like a kitchen table or counter top could be disastrous. The findings of the study would appear in the March 2002 issue of the Archives of Disease in Childhood. Dr Tim Wickham, a specialist registrar in pediatrics at University College Hospital in London, led the study while at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital pediatrics accident and emergency department in London. He and his colleagues noticed that they were treating head injuries in infants who had fallen while strapped into either car seats (detachable infant carriers) or bouncy chairs (also known as “bouncers” or “bouncer seats”). In many cases, the seats had been resting on an elevated surface, such as a kitchen counter. ANI Of divorce, work stress and death Besides the mental trauma and anxiety related to work stress and divorce, latest research has proved that there may be even more negative consequences than you would think. The study finds each can lead to early death for men and the risk is even greater when the two factors are combined, reports Ivanhoe. While stress inducing factors that come on suddenly such as death of a loved one, natural disaster, or episodes of severe anger are already known to trigger premature death, the role of chronic, enduring stressors at work and at home were not previously known. Researchers studied the effects of two common chronic life stressors, work-related stress and unhappy marriages that end in divorce. Work stress may involve demanding pressure for performance, low rewards and low decision-making abilities. Divorce often results in a reduced sense of purpose and identity, and an altered relationship with children and community. Further, marital stress often spills over into work life, creating additional work stress.
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Depression in Textile Industry According to reports published in Bombay papers, several big mills have decided to stop working or to close for eight to twelve days in the month. The effect of this decision will be felt by the mill labourers more keenly than by the mill-owners themselves. Obviously, this depression in the textile trade is due to large quantities of mill produce remaining unsold and increasing imports of foreign cloth. The Textile Tariff Board completed its enquiry and the report was expected to be signed last week. It appears, however, that there are yet some difficulties to be overcome. |
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The Lord’s Name is my wealth; I neither hoard it for myself Nor sell it for a living. Nam is my farm, Nam is my orchard; Thy slave worships thy Name And seeks Thy shelter. Nam is my asset, Nam my capital Other than Thee, O Lord, I know of no riches. I neither hoard Thy Name Nor sell it for a living. Nam is my kinsman, Nam is my brother, Nam is my companion, Who will be my succour At the hour of death. I neither hoard it Nor sell it for a living. .... My wealth is the Lord’s Name; I hoard it not for myself, I sell it not for a living. — Kabir Vani; Sri Guru Granth Sahib, page 1157 *** The Vedas and granths deal with experiences about the Lord; They tell us of means to cross the ocean of existence. But reality cannot be understood without a Master. The Master comes and makes us understand. — Bhai Gurdas, Var I, Pauri 17 *** Purification of the heart is more important than cleanliness of the body. Fearlessness is the key to life. By ruminating over the misdeeds of others, our own mind loses control and starts repeating the same misdeeds. You cannot remove the thorns appeared out on the earth. But if you put on shoes, the thorns will fail to hurt you! Never desire to be served. Always remain eager to do service. The world in fact is aberration of mind. — Mahatma Mangat Ram Ji Maharaj (1903-1054), Samata Prakash |
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