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Sunday,
April 28, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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GUEST COLUMN
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MIDSTREAM KASHMIR DIARY
Harihar Swarup
Ambika Soni grows powerful under Sonia
Humra Quraishi
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GUEST COLUMN
Punjab, these days, is passing through a cataclysmic phase in its governance. Some of its institutions are in a state of deep crisis. The recent happenings around the Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC) have not only caused consternation among the people but have put a question mark on the functional credibility of this constitutional body. These events have not only raised significant questions on the image of the PPSC but also stirred the basic contradictions lying dormant in our minds. The constitutional democracy and its dynamic institutions, perverted by money bags, have thrown the constitutional propriety to the wind and people are in an epoch of confusion and chaos focusing their attention on media headlines in order to speculate about the future. It is, therefore, pertinent to put to critical gaze the sordid state of affairs that have thrown the entire State into the quagmire of defeat and dismay. The new Punjab Government has ripped open the mask of hypocrisy from the faces of the big bosses of the PPSC and has earned praise from every segment of society. The phenomenon of corruption has not appeared suddenly; it is the result of age-old savagery that made our politico-administrative horizon extremely narrow and parochial compelling us to pin our hopes on the mediocrities in public life as well as their acolytes and grown-up brats for achieving our ideals. But the standards of public life started deteriorating leading to the total perversion of democracy and eventually bringing nothing but gloom and despair. Over the years, the decadence in the standards of public life in India has been more intense and depressing. A feeling has emerged among the people that while cynicism advances, constitutionalism retreats and idealism fades leading to the emergence of an atmosphere of collective sadness. The historical development that has shaped the institutional structures could not stand the test of time and a creeping malaise, lack of vision and degradation of morality have created a paralysing impact on the people and the collective life in our country. Corruption seems to have become the hallmark of our public life. If politicians have institutionalised it, bureaucracy has legitimised it. Undoubtedly, the present PPSC Chairman has vulgarised it to the extreme. It has no parallel anywhere in the world. Sadly, leaders of political parties, top echelons of bureaucracy and the educated elite have always tended to serve their own selfish interests and motives without understanding the basic democratic norms and institutions. Their creative impulse and imaginative vigour could not cross the frontiers of their own self and they developed a behaviour utterly individualistic, and candidly utilitarian devoid of democratic content. It is, therefore, implied that the PPSC and other constitutional bodies cannot be properly understood without a clear and constant reference to their past performance. A resilient hopefulness can only come if we peep into the keyhole of past events. It is a matter of shame and disgust that the PPSC that was created with the intention of selecting the deserving and the talented for higher government posts has degenerated so much that people have lost faith in its performance. The recent notoriety that it earned through its Chairman Ravi Sidhu made it a cesspool of corruption, den of nepotism and favouritism. These bodies have been overpoliticised to such an extent that their fate always remains in the hands of the political masters. The point can be illustrated with a case that shocked every one at that time. In the 1980s, a PPSC member, right in the office premises, slaped the Chairperson. The case went to the President of India and top judicial authorities of the country. It was so casually dealt with that no body is aware of its fate while the incumbents concerned have completed their term and retired. The PSCs were always considered as pocket-boroughs of the ruling politicians and their affairs were never seriously taken into consideration. Every year, the PPSC presents its report to the government in order to be tabled in the State Legislature but these were never seriously debated. This is because the appointment of the PPSC Chairman and members remains in the hands of the political leadership. The performance of the entire PPSC cannot escape the public eye even when it works behind close-doors to help their own kith and kin. The false concept of “inherited intelligence” comes to the fore when we sometimes look at the list of successful candidates in the PPSC selections. The names of the wards of the PPSC topbrass and the ruling party bosses ‘shine’ at the top and it obviously discourages the other competitors who put their heart and soul in the studies but simply failed to ride the horse because they belonged to the common stock lacking in money bags. There are in fact no fixed criteria for the appointment of the PPSC Chairman and members. Politics alone matters. The recent events have proved that the present mode of appointment has gone utterly defective and new methods must be explored. The Constitution is silent on the functional aspect of the PPSC. The executive instructions that provide the guidelines present the most reactionary chapter in the organisational nature of these bodies. The instructions only represent the whims of the political leadership. The commission that was to serve as a check on the executive autocracy becomes a poor dependent on the mercy of the executive of the State Government. The appointment of the PPSC Chairman and members is a delicate matter; their appointments should be made in the open session of the State Legislature free from the hegemony of the political and bureaucratic titans of the establishment. There should not be any square pegs in round holes. Persons having high academic qualifications, valid intellectual sensitivity and clean public image should serve these august bodies and they should be open to public scrutiny. The powers and functions of the Chairman and members should be clearly defined and their mutual relationship needs to be clearly mentioned. The Commission should work in a team spirit for the realisation of their objectives. The PPSC Chairman is the captain of the team and not its boss. Members should not commit school boy errors and the Chairman is not to behave in the spirit of a colonial Headmaster. The Commission need not act as a functionary of the government. Instead, it should serve as a check on the arbitrary functioning of the government on matters relating to recruitment and promotions. The mode of interview, the appointment of subject experts and the norms of evaluation must be the business of the entire Commission. These should not be left to the whims and caprices of the Chairman. The selections are made by the Commission, not by the Chairman. The Constitution’s relevant articles in connection with the Commission need to be reviewed. Let it be understood that it is not the Constitution that has failed the country but it is the nexus of power crazy politicians and indolent stiff-necked bureaucracy that have failed the Constitution. India needed not only national independence but a social revolution that could change the entire thought process of the people to usher in a new resurgent India where money power could remain under the hegemony of people’s power. People must pause and ponder. Reformatory patch work will not serve the purpose. Only a radical overhaul of the system can show us the path of genuine progress and real democracy. If democracy should survive, it should be infused with new vigour and vitality. The people should remain vigilant to defend and protect the democratic institutions. Only then, Sidhus, Lalloos, Jayalalithaas will melt like winter snow before the authentic dawn of the summer of democracy. The recent events leading to Ravi Sidhu’s actions in the PPSC have utterly shaken people’s faith in the Commission. The Constitution needs a drastic revision in progressive spirit so that no distortion could work in the original functional behaviour. It must define the functional parameters of these bodies. Otherwise, the spirit of democracy will be destroyed. The writer is a former Member of the Punjab Public Service Commission. |
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SPECIAL FOCUS If a nation in our fast times wants to achieve multidimensional growth, its universities need to be made avant-gardist. The exemplary and incredible accomplishments of the USA, the UK, Russia and France in sciences, humanities, and in the use of knowledge for the transformation of everyday life, are before us. All this became possible due to the uncompromising way of building up and administering their universities by the politician and the academic at the helm. In recruiting and nourishing talent, their approach is futuristic as well as responsive to the needs of the present. This double sensitivity has made their universities not only “advanced” but also relevant to society. During my graduate days at the University of California, I had a friend who was a world renowned scientist but running his own flourishing business concern. He was very close to the then Governor of California, Mr Brown. My friend once mentioned to the Governor that he would like to be a professor at the University of California if he could help him. The Governor very candidly and warmly told him: “My friend, I like you immensely, I enjoy your company, but what do I know of the University of California? I am simply the ex-officio chairman of the University’s Board of Governors. You have to go and talk to the University people, if they like you they would hire you”. Friendships, personal relationships and academics do not mix there. This is how those advanced countries have raised their world famous universities. Professors occupying chairs there are capable of changing the directions of knowledge the world over. No wonder several secretaries (cabinet ministers) of the American President are taken from among the university professors. Indian universities today are in no position to meet challenges and lead knowledge as well as socio-political reorganisation. Prevalent corruption, absence of a transformational value system with a captivating utopia, lack of intellectual leadership are a few symptoms that tell of the inadequacy of our academic and moral fabric. The universities should respond to three major challenges —globalisation, regional consciousness and interdisciplinarity. . The first two areas of thought and their infrastructural implementation are collisive. Globalisation includes higher information technology that builds up transformational network which is totalitive and threatens the sovereignty and identities of different nations and cultures. As the world becomes a “global village,” to use this expression of Marshal McLuhan, “small” cultures face the danger of disappearance. With the benefits of new science, technology and economic prosperity, small or regional cultures have acquired a self-consciousness that equips them to combat for their survival. India is a large subcontinent where society functions with two simultaneous
networks: the national or supercultural and the regional. These two networks are not without tensions and storms. With the rise in cultural self-consciousness, after their ensured survival, the regional cultures are eager to re-negotiate their relationship with the supercultural network. What was conceived in 1947, and even sometime after, has become obsolete. The paradigm of majority-minority, in the present situation, has also lost its relevance. For the new dialogue or second negotiation, Indian universities have to reorganise their departments for producing the minds that are competent to generate new ideas. If we go through the Commonwealth Universities Handbook 2000, only a couple of Indian universities appear to have set up a department addressing itself to this problems. Only Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi and Shivaji University in Maharashtra have departments to study regional development and related matters. Guru Nanak Dev University at Amritsar had started a Journal of Regional Studies but it has not made much headway. The third major challenge which the Indian universities have miserably failed to respond is interdisciplinarity. New insights in various areas or disciplines are possible only by involving several of them. Instead of specific discipline studies, now the emphasis is on area studies done by the teams of several specialists who as a collective transcend their narrow specialisations. From among the central universities, only Jawaharlal Nehru University has organised its centres with a sensitivity toward multidisciplinarity. The University of Delhi has got single discipline departments although there is a faculty of interdisciplinary studies. Its being in a cosmopolitan city, exposure to international developments and with many facilities for foreign visits of the teaching and administrative staff, have not affected the basic, now obsolete, organisation of the university. The regional universities have also not done much better. The Commonwealth Universities Handbook 2000 shows that from among the regional universities, only Bharatidesan University of Tamil Nadu, Cochin University of Science and Technology of Kerala, North Maharashtra University of Maharashtra and Shivaji University have got schools of interdisciplinary studies which have possibilities of multi-insight research. Sadly, most of the universities of India have not adapted themselves to the recent revolutions of world-thought, new research, and postmodern styles. As a result, they turn out a re-hash of what has already been done. The most prominent notion and reality around which corporate or institutional organisations are made today is: Contingency. No moment now is considered lasting. There is rupture, a new breakthrough, a new possibility happening every moment. All institutions for this reason need constant restructuring and replenishment with new energies and talent. Our universities have still to match steps with this fast-paced present world. This of course also needs the reorganisation and reorientation of our higher political and academic bodies (like the UGC) to catch up with and monitor the vital changes taking place internationally. Our politician guiding the destinies of the states and their universities is woefully behind. Despite limitations, we have to restructure universities so that they can become centres of contemporary excellence and turn out minds competent to generate new ideas that can become contributions to world research. These interdisciplinary and internationalised minds have to help in finding more adequate ways to strengthen the intercultural and regional dialogue. To help Indian universities respond to the new challenges, the following suggestions are made: (i) the States should appoint competent and internationally aware Vice-Chancellors of high moral fabric; (ii) Abolish the unidisciplinary departments and set up multidisciplinary schools; and (iii) set up special departments for the study of the intercrossing of supercultural and regional networks. For bringing about these changes, the universities’ acts should be re-written. The writer is former Professor of English, Punjabi University, Patiala. |
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Need to reorient higher education I recently had the honour of receiving education from a telephone lineman. He had come to repair a fault in the line. After he had done his work, I invited him in for a cup of tea. He reluctantly agreed. He has two children, a daughter studying in the 12th standard and a son in the 10th. Both are good at studies and want further education. The father, however, can afford to educate only one child. “My daughter must drop out”, he said unhappily. His situation is shared by millions of Indian parents. They value education but do not have the resources. Many do not know that banks provide education loans. Others do not want to take a loan, doubting if their children will find work at the end of an expensive course. The want of money and information clouds up their half-lit minds and, in the event, most decide to sacrifice their daughter's future. Obviously, something is terribly wrong with the way we have organised our education. But can anything be done about it, or should we resign ourselves to the “inevitability” of this all? In a typical Indian appropriation, globalisation may have become the latest exemplar of the fruits of karma, yet there is much we can do. The first thing we can do is to establish a national database of human resources, both available and required. This will greatly help in planning and organising our education. It will also help people pick a career decisively. In the contemporary world economy, human beings are the greatest source of resources. These should not be idly wasted. We need also to reorient our expenditure on higher education. In place of raising “palatial buildings” (as an editorial in The Tribune recently pointed out), we should concentrate on developing intellectual assets, both human and non-human. Educational institutions should organise their own resources for constructing the buildings. The funds provided by the state should be used exclusively for the enhancement of intellectual assets and should be linked to performance. There is need to effect vertical and horizontal integration of educational institutions. This will help evolve a long-term vision of the aims and direction of education, overcome the hierarchical fragmentation that presently characterises education, eliminate duplication of teaching and research, and improve the overall quality of work by permitting greater exposure to the ground reality as well as the high ideals. We should devise channels for greater community participation. This will require, and ensure, transparency, accountability and relevance. The concept of private management may have to be redefined as that of community management. Universities and colleges need not be treated as ivory citadels; their portals — and account books — should be open to the community. This will help attract endowments from the people who are ready to give but want to ensure that their gifts are not pilfered or squandered. The imperatives of frequent reskilling in the workplace demand that the educational institutions design short-term and customised courses for the working people. Continued, flextime education has tremendous potential to generate funds for the fund-starved higher education. The obsolete water-tight division of courses and subjects calls for a thorough scrutiny. Students should get greater freedom to choose combinations of subjects and courses. We ought to respect their discretion and aptitude and keep in mind also the fast-changing marketability of skills. We must adopt technology in a big way with the clear aim of cutting costs. A painless transition to the technological classroom is possible by recasting the pedagogical practices. Teachers must prove they are indispensable and not mere stand-ins for the audio-visual aids. The prospects of redundancy and retrenchment need not scare any teacher worth her or his salt; education is not for providing employment to the unemployable. We should recognise this notwithstanding the fact that our education is gravely understaffed and requires, moreover, a rationalised deployment of teachers. We should also reorganise the teachers' orientation and refresher courses to make them worth the enormous expenditure incurred on them. Short, one-week courses every alternate year can replace the present three- and four-week courses. Short-term horizontal and vertical mobility of the faculty would also enhance their skills and lend a deep and broad edge to their own education. The most important thing to do, however, is to create a proper appreciation of the vocation and pursuit of education. This is also the most difficult thing to do at present, for the current tendency is to confound education with mere profit-oriented training. The thoroughly commercialised and technology-imbued mindset may not appreciate that certain kinds of “uselessness” are indispensable. Humanities and the basic sciences are worldwide the unhappy victims of such thoughtlessness only. We must not fail to see education as the activity that has for its aim “the improvement of the human being”. For this purpose we should not hesitate to include Current Studies also in the curricula. In these times of mind-boggling changes and mind-numbing disasters, the improvement of the human being cannot happen without a ruthless gaze into the moment that is now. This involves, however, a risk: that of the parochialism of the present when viewed from ideologically tinted glasses. To secure education against this risk, we can devise programmes of study that would include critical studies of broad economic, cultural, political, technological and other trends that define the present moment and then entrust the judgement of specific events to the students' liberal instincts. |
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MIDSTREAM Prof Amrik Singh, former Vice-Chancellor of Punjabi University, made some significant observations about the Punjabi language last week. The context for his remarks was provided by the release of Time Out, an eminently readable collection of Punjabi stories by prominent writers, translated into English (Srishti Publishers, New Delhi). He commented on the “de-Punjabi-isation of the Punjabi language”. He said “de-Punjabi-isation” takes place in families that have stayed for generations abroad, specifically the USA. The first generation, he said, remained in close touch with Punjabi; the second remained in touch “more or less”, mixing English words increasingly in Punjabi conversation, which took place mostly at home, usually with old Punjab-remembering parents; for the third, Punjabi became practically a foreign tongue, and so did Punjabi customs and traditions. For example, after Partition, some Punjabis settled in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu or Kerala and learnt the local language and customs. They became as de-Punjabicised as Punjabis who moved to the USA. Prof Amrik Singh was concerned with the Punjabi mind’s gesture and significance. This is true of other Indian languages too. First, in South Asia not only Punjabi but also most other major languages are in the process of being “de-flavoured” and “de-characterised”. Secondly, there is bound to be a profound socio-cultural and socio-political impact of this fairly general “language de-characterisation”. Some Punjabi writers load their Punjabi with Sanskritised Hindi words to get awards and other favours from the constitutionally Sanskritised-Hindi leaning authorities at the Centre. The kind of “Punjabi” thus created is difficult for most Punjabis to understand. But it does bring in awards and favours for its authors. It is not as if this is not happening in Pakistani Punjab and in Pakistan generally. There, the reason is very likely to be not the garnering of literary awards and favours but the giving to Punjabi and other languages used in Pakistan a “holy Arabic” kind of “flavour”. On the Indian side of the Punjab border, Sutinder Singh Noor and some others are deeply involved in the international Punjabi conferences. Many Indian-Punjabi writers and editors are similarly engaged in keeping to the traditional trend and direction of Punjabi — writers like Prof Swarn Singh, who edits Qaumi Wangar, Gulwant Farigh, and a host of others. The usual criteria of traditional “flavour” and particular “character” in expressing the Punjabi gesture of mind are works such as, primarily, Waris Shah’s Hïr Ranjha, and the work of Punjabi mystic poets such as Baba Farïd, Bulleh Shah and Sultan Bahu. Punjabi writing has on both sides of the India-Pakistan border suffered because of the exclusion of Gurmukhi from Pakistani Punjab; and of Shahmukhi (the Persian alphabet in which Punjabi was originally written before Gurmukhi joined it around the mid-sixteenth century) from Indian Punjab. The exclusion of these scripts on both sides is based on communalist sentiment. The decisions to exclude these scripts were taken shortly after Partition. Some time ago, we heard of the re-introduction of Shahmukhi in Punjabi University courses at Patiala, and of Gurmukhi in Panjab University at Lahore. Nothing came of the reports.
Asia Features |
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KASHMIR DIARY The British loved Kashmir. The climate was so like that in England, only much drier and sunnier. They so enjoyed travelling to even the remote corners of the valley that, quite early in the twentieth century, the British Resident in Srinagar arranged to bring live Rainbow and Brown Trout from England and introduced them into the streams that flow from near the Amarnath cave in the south-east of the valley, towards Kokernag and Achhabal in the south and towards Kangan in the north. Those fine fish are still to be found in Kashmir. Over almost a century, they had been carefully bred in the valley's fish farms. The best were always reserved for breeding, while the rest were sold. In the streams, they were protected through tight controls on fishing. During the 1990s, the three fish farms were frequently visited by militants or members of the armed forces demanding fresh fish of the best quality. The men in charge of the farms did not of course dare to refuse any of these visitors with guns and the farms were soon depleted. Indeed, militants even burnt the one at Mammer near Kangan, along with the tourist cafeteria opposite. So, about two or three years ago, there were hardly any of these prized fish left in that farm. That situation has been salvaged since, and shoals of trout can be seen swimming in the six tanks there. Two of them contain the big ones, weighing upto five or six kilograms each. These tanks are covered by nets, since the big ones can jump several feet and could hurt their sharp teeth against the concrete edges, and then possibly develop fungus infections that could affect the entire tank. These big ones are not sold. They are gently squeezed down the sides during the breeding
season. Their tiny progeny are fed, first on bits of liver and then on other little fish. As they grow bigger, they are either released into the adjacent river or sold at the Saturday market of the Fisheries Department in Srinagar. Most of the fish sold there come from the bigger farms at Kokernag and Dachigam, where too marauding militants did their share of damage. Far greater damage, however, has been done in the open streams during these years of mayhem. There are hardly any fish left in the Sindh Nullah river, which flows by Kangan and Ganderbal before joining the Jhelum. Over the past decade, all and sundry have been fishing at will. The British had trained Malik Ghulam Mustafa of Kishtwar to take charge of the state's fishery resources. He introduced Chinese Carp and other exotic fish to the valley. They are still to be found, along with the hybrid Mahseer near Pattan. Such is Kashmir's reputation as a haven for anglers that former US Ambassador Frank Wisner spent time in Dachigam with his rod even amid the political turmoil here in 1996. These serve as a magnet for high-spending anglers but such niches of the tourism trade have never been properly developed here. For the moment, the situation is far from conducive for such initiatives. |
Lanka’s charismatic
Prime Minister
Having seen her father, also a Prime Minister, assassinated when she was barely 14 and her husband gunned down in 1989, she became more resolute in pursuing what she believed to be the right course. Often heard saying politics is in my blood, Chandrika did not get scared when she narrowly escaped an assassination attempt while campaigning for the presidential elections in 2000. It was the final day of campaigning and as she addressed her last poll meeting in Colombo, an LTTE suicide bomber blew herself just five metres from her, killing 20 persons. Chandrika suffered injuries to her right eye but undeterred by the ghastly incident she appeared on television with a white patch on her eye. No wonder the people of the island nation elected her for a second successive term as President. She first came to power as President in 1994. She was 48 at that time. One of her most daunting problems — taming the Tamil tigers — still remain. Educated at a convent school in Colombo, she spent five years at the University of Paris. Tilted towards socialist ideology and having reportedly taken part in the famous 1968 student demonstrations in that city, she has now changed her beliefs and firmly supports Sri Lanka becoming a market economy. Chandrika was in Delhi last week on an unusually long seven-day visit, ostensibly, to deliver Madhavrao Scindia memorial lecture but she took the opportunity of briefing Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh, about the ongoing Norwegian facilitated peace process. She has stressed the need to obtain guarantees from the Tigers over the question of safeguarding human rights in north-east Sri Lanka before conceding the LTTE’s demand for lifting the ban on the outfit. Tigers have been demanding that the ban be scrapped before the peace talks begin in Thailand in June. In the thought-provoking Scindia Memorial lecture, President Kumaratunga talked about the causes that led to terrorism. The search by the newly independent nation-state for a separate specific national identity had, at times, not paid sufficient attention to the aspirations of the diverse, ethno-religious and cultural entities living within the state. While the nation as a whole engaged itself in the enterprise of constructing its new identity, some communities within the nation commenced their own struggles, to seek what they believed should be their separate identity . In most countries troubled by armed conflicts and terrorism at present, the demand is invariably for recognition of a specific ethnic or religious identity, often clothed in the trappings of a separate state. At this point of time, states and governments must begin to address these demands and their just causes and find solutions. She, however, disapproved the tactics of terror and murder employed by terrorist movements which cannot and should not be condoned by any human being. Sri Lankan politics has radically changed since December. The United National Party (UNP) has returned to Parliament with a majority after a gap of nearly eight years, weakening President Kumaratunga’s hold over domestic politics. For the first time in 25 years, the President and the Prime Minister do not belong to the same party; for the first time the President’s party does not enjoy a majority in the Sri Lankan Parliament. President Kumaratunga will now have to deal with the UNP, led by Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe who , in turn, will have to share the executive powers of the government in a practical manner, if effective governance has to take place. |
Ambika Soni grows powerful under Sonia In the run-up to Punjab elections, whenever Ambika Soni’s name cropped up in the media as a possible choice for Chief Minister, she was emphatic to deny such suggestions. Her job at the AICC then as head of the media department, in-charge of the Congress president’s office and general secretary of some southern states was not insignificant but there was speculation that she might opt going to Punjab as Chief Minister because of the political niche it would allow her to carve. After all, former AICC spokesman Ajit Jogi had chosen to be Chief Minister of Chattisgarh and Mr N.D. Tewari, despite four innings as UP Chief Minister, agreed to be the Chief Minister of the small state of Uttaranchal. Ruling a state, it is generally felt in Congress circles, brightens the leader’s chances for future sweepstakes at the Centre. But Ambika Soni firmly chose to be a person of the Congress organisation and the strategy has paid off. In addition to her earlier responsibilities, Ambika Soni has become Political Secretary to Congress president Sonia Gandhi. As General Secretary, she is now in charge of the big states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh and Kerala, all of which have Congress Chief Ministers. Two-time Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh, a possible number two in the Congress, would now report to Ambika Soni as would Ghulam Nabi Azad, her contemporary at the AICC, who was recently sent as PCC chief to Jammu and Kashmir. Before going to Jammu and Kashmir, Azad evidently extracted a concession from the Congress President about not having to report to a General Secretary. However, his dealing directly with the Congress President’s office (CPO) actually means liaising with Ambika Soni who is in charge of the CPO. Ambika Soni’s power of calling the shots at the AICC was also evident by the way in which those perceived close to her got berths in the latest AICC reshuffle. Despite her not holding a post concerning Punjab, almost all leaders from the state make it a point to call on Ambika Soni whenever thay are at the AICC. Insiders say she also played an active behind-the-scene role in the unanimous selection of Capt Amarinder Singh as Punjab Chief Minister. Is it a lack of any overt political ambition, ``comfort factor,’’ and her low profile which have endeared Ambika Soni to the Congress president? Hyperactive Pawar Maharashtra strongman Sharad Pawar’s sudden hyperactivity has raised many eyebrows in political circles and curiosity is egging many a scribes to hunt for the real cause behind this. A little bird tells us that Nationalist Congress Party President’s activities can be distinctly divided in two phases. One was pre-Godhra and the other is after the communal carnage in the neighbouring state of Gujarat. While in the first phase, he was barganing hard for becoming the Finance Minister in the National Democratic Alliance Government with his party colleague P.A. Sangma becoming the Lok Sabha Speaker for the second time, in the next phase he is busy preparing ground for his return to his parent party. Yes, Pawar would like to return to the fold of the Congress but in a position of strength as the tragedy of Gujarat is having an adverse impact on his voters. Congress President Sonia Gandhi has already emitted positive signals for welcoming Pawar back. Reshuffle Shourie? A great talent hunt is going on within the Bharatiya Janata Party to find candidates for the Union Cabinet reshuffle which can release energetic and committed leaders for the party. In this process, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee wants to kill two birds with one stone. He wants to please the Rashtriya Swyamsevak Sangh as well as create more space for future allies too. With the Rashtriya Swyamsevak Sangh targeting Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, the Prime Minister is already looking for Sinha’s replacement. Home Minister L.K. Advani has suggested Minister of Disinvestment Arun Shourie to occupy the Finance Minister’s chair. Shourie is being actively supported by S. Gurumurthy who is close to the RSS as well as to other BJP leaders. As for Sinha the question is whether he would become jobless? No, assert party insiders, saying Sinha’s hands are already full with Jharkhand affairs. They say, the mineral rich State is not run by Chief Minister Babulal Marandi but by Sinha. Political chemistry The right kind of chemistry is essential for two individuals to come together. This becomes all the more important between two politicians. Consider the Mayawati-Rajnath Singh example. As the political temperature soared in Delhi on April 25 over the formation of a government in Uttar Pradesh, one important political symbolism was generally glossed over. Former UP chief minister Rajnath Singh was conspicuous by his absence as senior BJP leaders from the state met BSP’s powerful vice-president Mayawati for confabulations. Mayawati just cannot stand the sight of Rajnath Singh. She has not forgotten that it was Rajnath Singh and not Kalyan Singh who was the wrecker-in-chief of her coalition government with the BJP in 1997. Old wounds are hard to heal, they say. Instead, the BJP high command sent Lalji Tandon and Kalraj Mishra to meet Mayawati. Both of them have a fine rapport with her. Tandon’s equation with Mayawati is phenomenal: she had tied ‘raakhi’ on his hand. Pak referendum The Pakistan government is taking Gen Pervez Musharraf’s proposed referendum for April 30 very seriously. The Pakistan High Commission here has made arrangements on its premises for citizens of Pakistan residing in India or on a visit, to cast their votes in the Referendum. Pakistani citizens who will have attained the age of 18 years on April 30, 2002, will be eligible for voting on presentation of their passports or national identity cards. The polling will start at 9 a.m. (IST) and close at 5 p.m. (IST). Hats off to the enthusiasm and fervour with which the Pakistan High Commission officials here are organising the polling. This is despite the fact that Pakistan’s Supreme Court is currently hearing a petition on a daily basis challenging the legal and
constitutional validity of the referendum by which Gen Musharraf is seeking to extend his term as President by five years. (Contributed by Prashant Sood, Satish Misra, Rajeev Sharma and
T.V. Lakshminarayan). |
Secular face disfigured Teesta Seetalvad, Editor of Communalism Combat, summed up the Gujarat situation and the government’s inaction, in these words: Yeh Government besharmi dikha rahi hai ...thousands have been raped and killed, over a lakh lodged in camps, mass burials have taken place yet this sarkar continues ...This government refuses to take action even after it has been proved that the police played a blatantly biased role. In fact, in Ahmedabad city alone, in 30 hours (from February 28 to March 1), 36 out of the 40 persons killed in police firing were Muslims!” She together with SAHMAT, managed to get 40 carnage survivors to travel from different parts of Gujarat to the capital city so that they could narrate those details of torture and rape before a wider audience. And to hear those details required solid nerves. In fact, most in the audience sat shell shocked and several could be seen crying. Raj Babbar, who sat glum faced along with the Gujarat survivors, refused to comment: “ I’m feeling ill after hearing all this ...what madness is prevailing in that state?” And when I asked Ahmad Patel, who hails from South Gujarat, whether he feels angry or dejected by the Gujarat carnage he said, “Both...it’s a hopeless situation and things would worsen if Modi is not sacked...You can’t imagine the manner in which the innocent have been looted and killed.” A theatre person MK Raina commented: “This governmnet has messed up the situation in J&K and now we’d lose Gujarat if this situation is allowed to prevail.” After hearing what the survivors had to recount, there is little left for imagination. Said Yusuf Khan Pathan of Gujarat’s Visnagar in Mehsana district: “A total of 11 members of our family were killed by mobs and then I wasn’t allowed to bury the dead ...saw the bodies of my wife, two girls and son lying cut to pieces... I identified the accused as Daya Purushottam, Babubhai Purushottam, Ramesh Daya Madhabar and it was the local MLA Prahlad Ghosa who supplied the arms. And Chief Minister Narendra Modi transferred DSP Gahlot when he tried to locate the bodies of those killed and brought A.K. Sharma in his place...The new DSP buried the case and for 11 days wouldn’t even hear me, wouldn’t even lodge an FIR...” A great majority of these survivors spoke not only of just the mob fury but also of the biased role of the police. “In most places the police not just helped the rioters but even joined in the loot and rape sessions.... I saw four cops trying to rape a 10-year-old girl and when I shrieked, they pounced on me.... I have seen it all” spoke another survivor, Reshma, from the Naroda Patiya locality: “Before escaping I witnessed Kausar Bano being raped in the Javan Nagar maidan. Her stomach was carved open, her baby flung into the fire before she was sexually abused , cut up and burnt...our only fault is that we are Muslims! On the one hand you say it is a free and secular country but on the other you are killing people because they are Muslims! You want us to get lost but this is our country. I was born here and I want to die here.. Kill me here” What does Prime Minister Vajpayee have say to these sentiments voiced by the carnage survivors? How can he talk of securalism? How can he justify this ethnic cleansing? This brings me to write that after the MEA’s rather strong reaction to criticism pouring in from the Western media and diplomatic circles, there is speculation that there would be tighter curbs on the movement of the foreign media and diplomats in Gujarat, so as to discourage exposure of the blatant goings on. Several diplomats from the Middle Eastern countries confirmed that there is speculation in their countries and with the visual media showing those images of carnage these denials from the MEA hold no weight. “It’s all there in the open ...all those images are there on your television screen, so what’s left to query? This summer in Ahmedabad: Call it a silver lining to this entire mess but many of the who’s who are heading towards Ahmedabad for relief and rehabilitation work. It will be the focus of attention for filmmakers, writers
and, of course, activists. |
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President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s mother, Srimavoh Bandaranaike created history having emerged on the international scene as the world’s first woman Prime Minister. Her daughter, the present Head of State of Sri Lanka, is fast coming up as a powerful leader of the South Asian Region; she has a charismatic personality. Though Srimavoh had achieved the distinction of being the world’s first woman Prime Minister, her critics often called her a kitchen woman someone who knew all about cooking, but nothing about running a country. In sharp contrast to her mother, nobody dare call Chandrika a kitchen woman. She says: “I have never in Sri Lanka ever felt that I was discriminated against or my authority was contested by the men working under my authority. In this country the fact that you are a woman doesn’t deter you from doing anything if you are talented and you can do your job properly just the same as for a man”.