E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

Towards fair poll in J&K
INDIA has issued a virtual challenge to the forces within Jammu and Kashmir and abroad, including Pakistan, which have been levelling the charge that elections in the troubled state are not free and fair.

Haryana is loser
ALTHOUGH still fragile, peace is finally returning to the turbulent Jind area of Haryana. The month-long violent, and unwarranted, agitation by the Bharatiya Kisan Union, marred by police firing and traffic blockades that inconvenienced ordinary people no end, had brought much discomfiture to the Om Prakash Chautala government.

Car number-plates
AN empty mind is where the devil works. And he seems to have found enough empty minds in the country's bureaucracy. He is using them to play havoc with the time and money of ordinary citizens. Years ago he found a willing ally in Mr T. N. Seshan, who as Chief Election Commissioner decided to introduce voter identity cards for reducing the incidence of electoral malpractices.

OPINION

BJP devises new strategy
Lessons for opposition parties
S. Nihal Singh
THE Bharatiya Janata Party has developed a new programme to buck the trend of recent heavy state election and byelection defeats. It is to grab power in the states by any means it can to try to tilt the balance away from a preponderant Congress presence around the country in contrast to its own puny representation.

MIDDLE

Black and white resolutions
Gopal Kaith
I was born in a village. My family owned a herd of cattle. Two oxen. With them we ploughed our fields. Two cows Naudhi and Tholi. The latter was hornless. Both of them pave us a number of calves. Mother was quite familiar with the habits and tantrums of the cows. They too understood mother’s language and gestures. A word of threat from mother’s mouth stiffened them like trained policewomen.

A POINT OF VIEW

Overdue reforms: recipe for stability
Subhash C. Kashyap
AT a time when war clouds are gathering and the nation appears close to the brink, it is good to remember that the system that the founding fathers gave us has survived many a difficult crisis.

TRENDS & POINTERS

Deserts wife for not speaking English
A man from Bihar has deserted his wife, ostensibly because she did not know how to speak English. An abandoned Suman Singh has complained to the police at Ekma, Saran district, about 75 km from Patna, that her husband sent her back to her parents saying she did not fit in his social circle because she could not speak English.

• Making voters ‘feel good’

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

EDITORIALS

Towards fair poll in J&K

INDIA has issued a virtual challenge to the forces within Jammu and Kashmir and abroad, including Pakistan, which have been levelling the charge that elections in the troubled state are not free and fair. The challenge lies in Chief Election Commissioner J. M. Lyngdoh’s declaration in Srinagar on Monday that “anybody from anywhere in the world (of course, with the exception of Pakistan) would be given access to polling stations” to satisfy himself/herself about the truthfulness of India’s claim regarding its democratic process. The invitation is particularly aimed at attracting the attention of the international media and independent agencies like human rights organisations to see for themselves how transparent the functioning of India’s democratic system is. Certain major steps have been announced as part of a strategy to increase the voter turnout during the coming elections, which are obviously going to be keenly watched by the world community as a whole. It is for the first time that political parties will not be allowed to issue voter slips. Instead, the task will be performed by representatives of the Election Commission. Electoral rolls will be updated with the help of those used in the panchayat elections, which are believed to be more authentic than the ones meant for assembly or parliamentary polls. The security forces have been specifically told that their interference in the electoral process in any manner will not be tolerated. They have been made to realise that their job is to sanitise the polling booths and to ensure that there is no law and order problem to hinder the exercise of casting of votes by people. Everything possible is being done to enable the voters feel free from any kind of fear while exercising their right of franchise.

The Chief Election Commissioner’s move is going to leave the All-Party Hurriyat Conference, so far against participating in the electoral process, in a state of quandary. Its leadership has already been exposed for exploiting the sentiments of the people to make money through questionable means. If Hurriyat leaders boycott the elections they will be losing an excellent opportunity to try their luck at the hustings in an atmosphere as clean as could be expected under the circumstances. People, who are sick of militancy, yearn for peace and the revival of normal economic activity. Anyone who boycotts the poll may be accused of being an enemy of peace. If the 23-party conglomerate revises its stand and participates in the elections, it will appear to be a realistic political force and a believer in the democratic means for playing the leadership role. But it cannot be sure of victory as is true in the case of any other political formation, including the ruling National Conference. This is the beauty of democracy which India has been practising right since Independence with the cooperation of the people, including those in Jammu and Kashmir.

Haryana is loser

ALTHOUGH still fragile, peace is finally returning to the turbulent Jind area of Haryana. The month-long violent, and unwarranted, agitation by the Bharatiya Kisan Union, marred by police firing and traffic blockades that inconvenienced ordinary people no end, had brought much discomfiture to the Om Prakash Chautala government. It has allowed the law-breakers to get away with the act and accepted most of their demands. However, it has saved itself from total surrender by not relenting on the main demand — waiving of all electricity dues. A decision on that has been left with the Chief Minister, who is currently leading a delegation abroad to attract foreign investment. A cool look at the government-BKU standoff is necessary to avoid the reccurrence of such an unfortunate development in future. When in opposition, Mr Chautala had made promises that he knew he could not keep. He had reportedly even supported the BKU agitation then. Now he, and more than him the ordinary citizen, is paying for it. The Congress in Haryana, which is clearly against giving any free power and water to farmers, has also played an irresponsible role by trying to fish in the troubled waters, by organising a padayatra and adding to the woes of the people. For its short-term political goals, it is supporting the BKU, which has shown total disregard for the difficulties its confrontation with the government and resort to traffic jams had inflicted on ordinary citizens.

The problems of farmers are understandable. The production costs are rising and returns from agriculture declining. They deserve all sympathy and support to cope with the present situation. However, the BKU is harming the farmers more than benefiting them as its latest agitation has shown. While quite a few families have lost their bread earners in the avoidable police firing, the BKU’s main demand, which brought the farmers onto the roads, remains unaccepted and unacceptable. What is worse, the Haryana Government representatives led by Mr Sampat Singh, Finance Minister, have allowed the kisan organisation to run away with the idea that the coercive tactics it had adopted do bring about the desired results. This will encourage the BKU as also others to resort to similar methods. Blocking roads as a pressure tactic has become frequent all because the protesters go unpunished and instead manage to get their demands accepted. The BKU protesters had gone a step ahead. Twice they had taken policemen as hostages and committed other illegalities. No one will be punished as the government has withdrawn the cases against all BKU workers. Who has gained from this needless confrontation is not clear. However, it is Haryana that has lost.

Car number-plates

AN empty mind is where the devil works. And he seems to have found enough empty minds in the country's bureaucracy. He is using them to play havoc with the time and money of ordinary citizens. Years ago he found a willing ally in Mr T. N. Seshan, who as Chief Election Commissioner decided to introduce voter identity cards for reducing the incidence of electoral malpractices. The objective was noble but the scheme was impractical. Now it is the turn of the Ministry of Surface Transport to cause avoidable harassment to the owners of motorised vehicles. The decision to introduce high security number-plates for reducing the incidence of car thefts sounds good to the ears. But is the scheme feasible? Clearly, an under-worked babu decided to have a bit of fun by selling the hare-brained concept to his political masters. In these insecure times, the political masters thought they would be doing ordinary citizens a good turn by "raising" the level of security of their vehicles if not their lives. The scheme has run into predictable difficulty. The authorities concerned simply do not have the wherewithal for providing the high security number-plates within the arbitrarily fixed time limit. Once again it was a public- spirited individual who filed a petition in the Punjab and Haryana High Court against the directive to challan vehicles that do not follow the new colour code by June 30. The court has now asked the Chandigarh Home Secretary to pass a "speaking order" within four weeks on the representation of the petitioner regarding the new colour scheme, without the high security features, for number plates of vehicles.

The petition was filed after the Union Territory Home Secretary, the Haryana and Punjab authorities and the Union Ministry of Surface Transport did not bother to explain to the petitioner the advantage of the scheme in its present form. The authorities, instead of solving a non-existent problem, have complicated the issue. The present decision to merely change the colour of number-plates to the one prescribed by the Ministry of Surface Transport does not make any sense. Once the high security number-plates are available the vehicle owners would be made to undergo the exercise again. Why? The scheme cannot now be abandoned, because under the old arrangement commercial vehicles followed the colour scheme now made mandatory for private vehicles. The damage has already been done. What are the options for protecting vehicle owners from further harassment? A simple solution would be to provide high security number-plates to only new vehicles. Those not covered by the scheme should be given sufficient time for following the new colour scheme. It would mean that all vehicles, private and commercial, would follow the new colour code, but only the new ones would have the high security cover. Thereafter the local transport authorities should prepare new number-plates for old vehicles also and inform the owners when they are ready for collection against payment of the prescribed fee. Indeed, if there is a will there is always a way.

OPINION

BJP devises new strategy
Lessons for opposition parties
S. Nihal Singh

THE Bharatiya Janata Party has developed a new programme to buck the trend of recent heavy state election and byelection defeats. It is to grab power in the states by any means it can to try to tilt the balance away from a preponderant Congress presence around the country in contrast to its own puny representation.

The objective seems to be to reverse the widespread impression that the BJP is on the decline, variously laid at the door of bad and venal governance and the astronomical levels of corruption. Far from trying to live down the ignominy of how the BJP grabbed power in Uttar Pradesh a few short years ago, the party has decided that ends justify the means.

The BJP’s new strategy was on display in the recent Goa assembly elections and the lengths to which it went to gather just enough support to form the government. And in the recent Maharashtra political turmoil, in which political parties were reduced to enacting a farce — shunting MLAs around the country like prize cattle, with charges of abductions flying around — the new BJP aggressiveness to grasp power was evident.

Besides, the manner of selecting a nominee for the country’s presidency was again a pointer to the BJP’s single-minded resolve to stack the cards in its favour. After making much of the consensus formula, the BJP selected the Maharashtra Governor, Mr P.C. Alexander, only to give him up on the strength of the Opposition’s disapproval and the opposition of the BJP’s own hardliners. Mr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was selected as much to worst and divide the opposition parties as it was to offer the BJP’s lip-service to the creed of secularism.

In the arrangement that finally led to the formation of the Mayawati government in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP leadership’s desperation in having at least a toehold in the state’s power structure led it to accept humiliating terms. Despite the party’s unhappy experiences with Ms Mayawati, she has been given a virtual carte blanche in running the government and she has not been coy in using the authority granted to her.

Nor are the BJP’s planners oblivious to the benefits of the eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with Pakistan on the party’s fortunes. Understandably, the country rallies round the flag at a time of national crisis (mercifully, India’s flag-waving has not reached American proportions) and contentious national issues recede in public consciousness. Thus the Gujarat carnage, the biggest recent blot on the BJP’s governance and ideology, was forgotten for a time.

Unsurprisingly, there is little talk one hears from the BJP these days about morality or how the party is a cut above the rest in its political practices and discipline. Both these concepts went out of the window years ago and BJP men and women, even more avidly than those of other parties, are ready to feast at the expense of the public exchequer. A Nanaji Deshmukh might lament the fall of public standards but he has been left on the shelf of history by the prevailing BJP philosophy.

It would appear that the BJP has come to the conclusion that with power slipping away from its hands and the next general election not that far away, radical measures are required to rehabilitate the party. If there is internal discussion on the causes of the steep fall in the BJP’s popularity, it remains a secret. The conclusion of the dominant wing of the Sangh Parivar is that it is simply too late for the party to reform or reinvent itself. This has led to the inevitable programme of using any means to damage the opposition parties, particularly the Congress, in the states they rule and try to wrest power.

The new tactic is of a piece with the BJP’s orchestration of defiance towards the tragic Gujarat events and refusal to admit that both the state and Central governments failed miserably in protecting citizens’ lives or quickly bringing the situation under control. No one is, therefore, surprised by the stridency of BJP spokesmen in defending the choice of Mr Kalam for the presidency. In the BJP’s book, bold and constant reiteration of a line becomes the truth.

The BJP can only be heartened by the opposition parties’ disarray over the presidential candidate. One had never set much store by the People’s Front, but the manner and speed with which it unravelled after the Samajwadi Party had broken ranks to support Mr Kalam was extraordinary. The Congress had little choice but to go along with the National Democratic Alliance’s candidate because the numbers were against it and the party did not want to be seen as spiking a respected Muslim candidate.

Which brings us to the main opposition party. Mrs Sonia Gandhi has grown in office to an extent in her ability to feel the pulse of the people and in divining the selfish interests of many of those who surround her. But she still has a long distance to cover and for a party that rules four times the number of states the BJP governs, the ring of supreme confidence is missing. One Congress handicap is that Sonia, representing the Nehru-Gandhi destiny though she does, has still fully to surmount the handicap of being foreign-born.

Apart from the BJP, there are other parties working against the Congress. The Left is divided between pro-Congress and anti-Congress factions. The Samajwadi Party, which had earlier frustrated the Congress’ return to power at the Centre, remains suspicious and is zealous in guarding its bailiwick against it. And for regional parties like Andhra’s Telugu Desam, the Congress remains the main adversary. Even in Tamil Nadu, the expected merger of the Maanila Congress with the parent body will not be welcome news for the two main Dravidian parties.

The Congress has a long way to go in rehabilitating itself in the Hindi heartland of UP and Bihar and in harvesting the goodwill and votes that are returning to it because of the widespread disillusionment with the BJP’s performance and methods of governance. Since the Congress is the opposition party at the federal level and the tribe of Congress Chief Ministers has grown phenomenally in recent times, they are exerting greater influence over the party, as was evident in deciding on offering support to Mr Kalam.

The moral of the story for the opposition parties is clear. Unless they pull up their socks to thwart the stratagems of the BJP, singly and collectively, they might lose a winning hand.

MIDDLE

Black and white resolutions
Gopal Kaith

I was born in a village. My family owned a herd of cattle. Two oxen. With them we ploughed our fields. Two cows Naudhi and Tholi. The latter was hornless. Both of them pave us a number of calves. Mother was quite familiar with the habits and tantrums of the cows. They too understood mother’s language and gestures. A word of threat from mother’s mouth stiffened them like trained policewomen. A simple pat on the back made them lick their calves with loving care. Mother alone could milk them. They did not allow anyone else to touch their udders. The successful milking operation required two things. First, the calf would tug at the udders and drink its mother’s milk. Then the calf had to be kept within the cow’s eyesight it was my duty to catch hold of the calf as mother did the milking.

Life was hunky-dory. Plenty of fresh and pure milk to drink glasses of lassi to gulp. A lot of butter to lap up at liberty. The animals also constituted an important part of our family. Not having enough fodder for them was as shameful as not having adequate food for human family members. When any animal fell ill or died, we shed tears and mourned. We skipped meals. And did not eat non-vegetarian food.

Schooling separated me from home. And I came to Shimla where father was a government official. For the first time I had the taste of adulterated milk. Our milkman was an old man. He was popularly called “Pandji”. He owned about half a dozen buffaloes, and was forced to sell pure milk. He had a large number of customers. I was one of them. Early morning we went to his house. At about 5 a.m. At times, earlier. We squatted in front of his sheds in a long line with a variety of pots and pans.

In rainy season we sat under multi-coloured umbrellas. In winter many customers came draped in blankets and shawls. Some wore monkey-caps. Other tied their heads with mufflers. As Pandji emerged from his big kitchen, he was greeted with a chorus of “Pandji Maharaji!” He responded rarely. All eyes were on him. Many rose to their feet. More to peep into the buckets than to show respect to him. A silent message went around. “No water in the buckets.”

A couple of smart customers stood on the threshold of the sheds and humored Pandji with flattering talk. We suspected that Pandji had pails of water stored in the sheds the previous evening. A few over-enthusiastic customers came, sat and chattered in front of Pandji’s bedroom about an hour in advance. “Sacrificing sleep is the price we have to pay to get pure milk,” they said on such occasions. Pandji came out cursing them for disturbing his sleep. Then he admonished his young lanky son and beautiful daughter-in-law for reasons not understandable to us.

The debonair daughter-in-law then obeyed his commands with extra circumspection, swiftness and sweetness. A typical Indian “bahu”. But as tactful, tender and tolerant as Hardy’s Tess!

The late-risers could be seen running towards the sheds like Mini-Milkha Singhs. In winter it was a dangerous thing to do. Some of them would slip and fall on ice. Every winter about half a dozen customers ended up with fractured limbs! Many escaped with minor injuries.

Pandji converted many of us into milk maniacs! Just for a handful of silver! He was never caught red-handed. But for about a decade, I saw no change in Pandji’s behavior. He refused to meander from his own Milky Way!

A POINT OF VIEW

Overdue reforms: recipe for stability
Subhash C. Kashyap

AT a time when war clouds are gathering and the nation appears close to the brink, it is good to remember that the system that the founding fathers gave us has survived many a difficult crisis. It withstood the Chinese aggression in 1962, Prime Minister Nehru’s demise in 1964, four wars with Pakistan in 1947-48, 1965, 1971 and 1999, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri’s sudden death at Tashkent in 1965, another Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984, external and internal emergencies and continuing terrorist onslaughts and nuclear threats. During the most turbulent situations also, elections have been held and are being held. The Union and State Legislatures have functioned even during periods of war and emergency. Whatever problems we faced were sought to be solved within the system.

The National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRWC) noted that the last few decades had seen a great deal of political instability. During ten years, there were seven governments and these were unable to provide stable administration and stable policies. The reasons were not far to seek. We adopted the Westminster first-past-the-post (FPTP) model of elections but forgot that it presupposed for its success a two-party system. In a pluralistic society such as ours, some political parties had a vested interest in progressively appealing to narrower and narrowing loyalties. Clearly, if a candidate could win on less than one-third share of the votes polled, he did not have to generate a wider appeal. By making caste and community a factor in political powerplay, we made the divide even wider and deeper in the Indian society and rendered it nearly impossible for Babasaheb Dr. Ambedkar’s vision of a casteless and classless society ever coming true.

The Commission felt that the increasing instability of elected governments was attributable to unprincipled, opportunistic political realignments from time to time and defections and re-defections. The administrative and economic costs of political instability and short-lived governments were enormous and unaffordable. The need for political stability became more pronounced because “in administering any economy in the global context, a reasonable degree of stability of government and strong government is important.”

The Anti-Defection Law in the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution was supposed to prevent defections but, in effect, it has become an enabling law for larger defections. As the Commission says, “en bloc defections are permitted”. Defectors are usually lured with ministerships or other political offices and perquisites “so openly that it really makes a mockery of our democracy”. The Commission recommends that all defectors — whether individual or groups — must resign and contest fresh election. They should be debarred from holding any public office of a minister or any other remunerative political post without winning a fresh election. Also, votes cast by them to topple a government should be treated as invalid.

A significant suggestion repeatedly made by the present writer since 1968 i.e. from before the Chavan Committee Report and endorsed by the Commission is in regard to the size of Councils of Ministers. The Commission recommends that the practice of having oversized Councils of Ministers must be prohibited by law. A ceiling on the number of Ministers in any State or the Union government be fixed at the maximum of 10 per cent of the total strength of the popular house of the legislature as provided in the article 239AA applicable to Delhi. Also, the practice of creating a number of political offices with the position, perks and privileges of a minister should be discouraged and their number should be limited to 2 per cent of the total strength of the lower house.

The nature of our political system and the resultant politicisation of caste and communal identities have proved to be very divisive of society and disruptive of the national ethos. To cobble up a workable majority to form government, compromises have to be made and ideology or notions of quality of governance take a back seat. It becomes difficult to take strong measures to curb corruption and provide clean and quality governance. In the end, it is the citizen who is the victim of all the misgovernance.

The Commission found that most of the independent candidates are dummies and only vitiate the sanctity of the electoral process. Only a few — six out of 1900 in 1998 and nine out of over 10,000 in 1996 — got elected. Such independent candidates should be discouraged and only those who have a track record of having won any local election or who are nominated by at least 20 elected members of panchayats, municipalities or other local bodies spread out in majority of electoral districts in their constituency should be allowed to contest for Assembly or Parliament.

The hung houses also come because the electoral system is divisive and generates communal and caste-based vote-bank politics. Also, the real cause of instability is concentration of power in the present top-down model of polity. The bottom-up Gandhian model envisaged decentralisation of power with village at the centre and power flowing upward from the grassroots to concentric circles of multi-tier governance and direct elections only at the panchayat and nagarpalika levels. The NCRWC carefully considered the strong presentations and representations made in support of this Gandhian model but, as the consultation paper had pointed out, the model was not found feasible in the present situation.

Another suggestion that the present writer had been persisting with for more than a decade and which most directly impacted on the problems of hung legislatures and instability of governments related to the election of the Leader of the House by the Lok Sabha/State Assembly, appointment by the President/ Governor of the person so elected as the Prime Minister/Chief Minister and his removal only by a constructive vote of no-confidence. The Commission after due consideration favoured this suggestion.

While any effort to provide that the Lok Sabha/State Assembly should not be subject to dissolution before expiry of its fixed term or that the Council of Ministers should have a fixed term, would be deemed most undemocratic, it is felt that the recommendation of the Commission for the election of the Prime Minister/Chief Minister by the House and his removal only on a constructive vote of no-confidence has tremendous potential to lend the much-needed stability to the government. Incidentally, this would not require any constitutional amendment or legislation either.

The most controversial issue before the NCRWC was that of the eligibility of persons of foreign parentage and birth occupying high public offices in India. With incontrovertible arguments, a fervent appeal on grounds of patriotism and national interest and security was made particularly in the context of large-scale infiltration in the North-East. The Commission failed to arrive at a consensus and stood divided 5:5 and a prominent member — a distinguished former Speaker of Lok Sabha and national leader from the North-East — resigned from the Commission on this issue.

Presumably on considerations of evolving a less divisive and more unifying political party system for the nation, the Commission unanimously decided that only parties or pre-poll alliances that obtain at least 10 per cent of the total votes cast all over the country should be recognised as national parties and allowed to contest elections to Lok Sabha. Those similarly recognised as State parties or alliances could contest for the houses of the State Legislature and the Rajya Sabha. This decision was subsequently modified to say 10 per cent all over India or in half the States.

Finally, the Commission dropped the percentage requirement altogether and merely recommended that the Election Commission should progressively increase the threshold criterion for eligibility for recognition so that the proliferation of smaller political parties is discouraged. It still recommended that only national parties or alliances should be given a common symbol to contest for Lok Sabha. Even this, if accepted and implemented, would be a great advance towards building national unity and stability.

The question is whether the Government would ever have the time and inclination to consider the positive and worthwhile recommendations of the Commission.

The writer, a former Secretary-General of the Lok Sabha, was a member of the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution. 

TRENDS & POINTERS

Deserts wife for not speaking English

A man from Bihar has deserted his wife, ostensibly because she did not know how to speak English.

An abandoned Suman Singh has complained to the police at Ekma, Saran district, about 75 km from Patna, that her husband sent her back to her parents saying she did not fit in his social circle because she could not speak English.

The 28-year-old woman from Gunjpar village married Air Force employee Sanjeev Kumar Singh in 1996. Both belong to Bihar, where people predominantly speak Hindi, the country’s dominant language.

“One morning my husband said that I was not fit for his class and society because I could not speak English and he wanted an English-speaking girl as his wife,” Suman Singh said.

She said after taking her to Pune, where he was posted, her husband suddenly told her one day to return to her mother’s house, but she refused to go.

Suman Singh claimed that on June 22, 2000, her husband forcibly put her in a train to Bihar and has not got in touch with her since.

Her family has tried its best to bring about reconciliation, but to no avail. Even the village council attempted unsuccessfully to resolve the matter amicably, after which a police complaint was filed.

Suman Singh said her inability to speak English was merely an excuse and her husband actually abandoned her over dowry.

“I was harassed by my husband and his family for more dowry since I was married,” she alleged. The police have registered a case of dowry against Sanjeev Singh. IANS

Making voters ‘feel good’

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s Social Democrats have picked an unorthodox way to try reaching voters: condoms in the party’s bright red colour.

Red boxes containing 100 condoms with the slogan ‘’Feel Good, SPD’’ are being sold at a gift shop at the party’s headquarters for 44 euros (40 dollars). Reuters

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

If you would have light within and without, place the luminous Name of Rama on your tongue, like a jewelled lamp on the threshold of the door O Tulasidas.

—Shri Ramacharitamanasa, Bala Kanda

***

—Shri Ramacharitamanasa, Sundara Kanda