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Wednesday,
July 17, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Omar is only one of many Saving judicial image Protests for power |
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India’s poor law-enforcement record
Mistress Memory
Giving professional touch to marital disputes
Chinese women bare their souls
Pain-killers hinder healing process
Cuddles, not cash, count in well-being
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Omar is only one of many After a trial lasting three months, an anti-terrorist court has handed a death sentence to Sheikh Omar for the kidnapping and killing of US journalist Daniel Pearl. Actually, the trial was supposed to last only a week but dragged on due to the replacement of two judges. Had such quick trials been routine, the achievement could have counted as a feather in the cap of the Pakistani justice-delivery system. But most other terrorists are either being let off quietly or are being proceeded against leisurely as if they are petty economic offenders. Ironically, this uneven behaviour has given vent to allegations that Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh has been sentenced to death double quick only because of the pressure from America. What chief defence lawyer Rai Bashir said is echoed by most Pakistani militants: “Had it been a case of murder of a Pakistani, the court would have freed the accused”. Sheikh Omar has pleaded innocence (which criminal doesn’t?). General Musharraf can establish his impartiality if he brings other terrorists to trial with the same alacrity. Militants were expected to cause mayhem during the announcement of the verdict but a strict vigil kept them at bay. That shows that if the Pakistani government is serious about taking action against the trouble makers, it can easily do so. The bugbear of uncontrollable public protests has been created only to escape from reining in the criminals who happen to have the blessings of the government. That does not mean that men like Omar Sheikh do not have sympathisers to their inhuman cause. There are many in Pakistan who are convinced that all the gory acts perpetrated by these jehadis are fully justified. The rebellion that is brewing against the government is only because the terrorists cannot reconcile themselves to being hemmed in by the very officials who used to be hands in glove with them till recently. General Musharraf can turn coat at US bidding but the government he heads is full of terrorist sympathisers. If only Pakistan had refrained from encouraging terrorism as a matter of clandestine state policy, it would not have faced such a predicament. America is, of course, enemy number one of the jehadis. So is India. But the unholy war is not being waged against these alone. Sheikh Omar, who was released two and a half years ago by India to end the hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane, has declared openly that it is a Muslim-versus-the rest of the world battle. This is his vain attempt to be a representative of Muslims. Actually, what he and others of his ilk are waging is a war against humanity. A great religion like Islam is vehemently opposed to the massacre of innocent people. |
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Saving judicial image The Supreme Court’s recent ruling in what can be called the “judges case” will indeed help the higher judiciary from getting entangled in non-judicial controversies. The apex court said that a sitting Judge of a High Court should not be allowed to hold a post under any other authority as “it may not be in the best interests of the independence of the judiciary”. A three-Judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India B. N. Kripal spelled out the ground rules for allocating non-judicial work to sitting judges of the high courts. The Bench laid down the path-breaking guidelines while disposing of a special leave petition against the judgement of the Madras High Court that had rejected a petition filed by a group of advocates. The advocates had challenged the appointment of Justice E. Padmanabhan, a sitting Judge of the High Court, as President of the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Pondicherry. Mr Justice Padmanabhan had resigned the post even while the petition was being heard by a Bench of the High Court where he is a sitting Judge. It is indeed true that the practice of allowing a sitting Judge to hold a post of chairman, vice-chairman or member of a tribunal whose decision can be reviewed by the High Court had the potential to create a piquant situation. The apex court also issued a note of caution against the practice of inviting a sitting High Court Judge to head a commission of enquiry. Technically there is nothing wrong with the practice of inviting a sitting Judge to help conduct an enquiry under the provisions of the Commission of Enquiry Act. However, it should be done in the rarest of rare cases. Keeping in mind the mounting backlog of cases, the apex court pointed out that preventing a sitting judge from performing his regular duty for abnormally long periods added to the burden of the judiciary and slowed down the process of justice. The Indian judicial system, in any case, in its present form is among the slowest in the world. Why slow it down further by giving extra-judicial assignments to sitting Judges of High Courts? The Madras High Court’s lack of caution in allowing a sitting Judge to become Chairman of the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Pondicherry, prompted the apex court to issue the instruction that the Chief Justice of a High Court “shall bear in mind the relevant circumstances and shall not compromise the dignity of the office of the sitting Judge and shall strive to preserve the independence of the judiciary”. |
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Protests for power Free electricity for farmers in Punjab has often been opposed on the ground that they use it recklessly. It also spells financial ruin for the already cash-strapped Punjab State Electricity Board. One stark fact that gets buried in the din of debate is that farmers seldom get regular power,
specially when they need it the most, that is, the paddy sowing season. When farmers took to the streets in many parts of Punjab on Monday, as The Tribune reports indicate, they made their point abundantly clear, albeit in a noisy and violent way: where is the so-called free power? Some farmers have found an alternative in diesel pumps, but these are unviable in the long run and inflate the costs. The paddy crop has wilted in large areas for want of irrigation water. That means serious financial trouble ahead. Many have taken loans to buy tractors and farm inputs and they all have high hopes on the paddy crop for loan repayments. Far more serious is the dwindling watertable, which is truly a disaster-in-the-making. Paddy cultivation and an indiscriminate use of the limited water resources are largely to blame. Why is there not adequate power? Demand for power is the maximum during this period. The PSEB authorities are well aware of this, but they are helpless. Politically motivated free power supply along with large pilferage has left them with little funds to repair or replace the defective transformers and worn-out wiring. Besides, for how long can a near bankrupt power board carry on, waiting for the ever elusive rescue package? The delay in the arrival of the monsoon has compounded their problems. There is simply not enough power and the existing infrastructure is inadequate to carry whatever limited power is available. This is specially so in smaller towns and villages where power supply, if available, does not last more than an hour a day. Protests in these areas are the loudest and even violent. While urban consumers are increasingly switching over to airconditioners and other high power-consuming gadgets, villagers do not get enough power to meet their basic needs. This imbalance needs to be corrected. The farmers’ anger, directed at PSEB officials and property, was misplaced. They have to understand the ground reality. The present situation of near powerlessness is because the power board has been bled white over the years for short-term political gains by the successive governments. It has not been allowed to be run professionally. Political interference in its management has led to over-staffing and inefficiency. An overhaul is immediately called for. The best available talent within the board and outside may be put on the job and given a free hand to turn it around within a time-frame. Otherwise, privatisation is the answer. Several boards in the country are following this road to revival. The political leadership should realise that these are the initial signs of serious trouble. It can spread, if not effectively responded to. |
India’s poor law-enforcement record Over the centuries the world has depended on war and conquest. It is only towards the end of the last century that we began to think that the future lies in harmony in cooperation and a parliament of man. I wish I could write a novel or a short story with the hero fighting an election. He would say, “I don’t want the support of any political party; they are all the same. I want to stand up and shout: ONLY THE CONSTITUTION, ONLY THE LAW, that is all I want. That is all I stand for.” A lovely Gujarati girl is distributing pamphlets which end with the following quotation from Froude, “What then is the use of history, and what are its lessons if it can tell us little of the past and nothing of the future. Why waste our time over so barren a study. It is a voice forever sounding across the centuries, the laws of right and wrong. Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity. For every false word or unrighteous deed, for cruelty and oppression, for lust and vanity, the price has to be paid at last, not always by the chief offenders but paid by someone. Only justice and truth can endure and live.” The Gujarati girl turns to the hero and says, “We have made mistakes in Gujarat, we have to go back to the road that leads to harmony. They exchange glances, fall in love. “Only the law, only the Constitution”. He says, “Don’t be stupid, say what we should do.” Now I don’t know how to push the story forward. All that I want to do is to bundle them off to Toronto, hand in hand, in the end. Can anyone help? Don’t forget that the message of the story is harmony, which means union and justice which few want to see or even believe in. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the British were good empire-builders, good soldiers, good administrators, but they failed to build up the Commonwealth in the right way. There is, I feel, a curious dislike among Englishmen of losing their island identity and merging with something bigger. I wonder what would have happened if there had been no General Dyer, no Jallianwala Bagh, no insistence on putting the Congress down with lathi charges, not even an independence movement. Instead India and Britain were able to achieve a lasting union with India sitting in the House of Commons. This would have been quite contrary to the British notion of progress — supping with the natives. They believed in dominance, they rode the high horse always, wanting to hit opposition abroad with hard blows, but at the same time allowing dissent of any type in their democracy at home. Britain never produced a leader who could join all the nations in an enduring and self-supporting Commonwealth, the way the Europeans have formed a union of Europe. Margaret Thatcher was certainly not the person who could do it. She lacked the foresight to see the way the world was developing. Perhaps Nehru could have done it. Or Jean Trudeau of Canada or Tony Blair, who is imaginative, has not even tried to do it. Lester Piereson of Canada may have done it. We never produced in the Commonwealth a Jean Monnet who was the father of the European Union. The reason: we are trapped in violence and totally lack vision. The British neatly stepped in wherever there was confusion and disunity. One example of British rule is given in what has been called the Denshavia Horror which occurred in Egypt when the British held control of it. A party of British soldiers went to an Egyptian village to shoot pigeons which were the main source of income for the villagers. When their protests were ignored, there was a scuffle in which some minor injuries were caused, but it was considered to be a major insult to British rule. A trial led to the following punishment: four hanged; two penal servitude for life — one for 15 years; six to seven years penal servitude; three to imprisonment for a year with 50 lashes each. One man was let off to show that justice was the sole concern. This is the sort of result when panic seizes an administration and the worst forms of cruelty are resorted to secure the administration, which is exactly the reason which finally leads to the overthrow of the administrator. It is centuries since the first laws of Hammurabi appeared. But the world has never understood what justice means, and why it endures. Contrast this with our own record of law enforcement in India after Independence. There is a basic misconception in the Indian mind that the law is meant to be broken. Civil disobedience, I think, strengthened that idea, and the fact that we were under foreign rule confirmed it. The lawyers who worked to get Independence for us made enforcement of the law so lax after Independence that today there is absolutely no deterrence to crime by punishment in a court of law. It is only the police which brings about a semblance of deterrence, which is often brutal and inappropriate. If we want to grow and prosper as a Republic, we have to secure justice which is firm, quick and decisive. With the virtual suspension of punishment for crime, one would have expected large-scale disorder by the poor. In fact, whatever advantage the laxity in law enforcement has given, has gone to the rich, not to the poor. Corruption among politicians and government servants has certainly prospered. The unreliability of bankers and fund managers and trickery in corporate finance has definitely increased. The entire financial structure of the land has been threatened by unreliability in our financial institutions. Next comes our record of communal violence. It is something we have to feel ashamed of; and should not attempt to glorify as we are trying to do in Gujarat. This, in a land noted for its liberal culture and Gandhi, is the most dismal failure that we have had to endure because the law has failed to punish anybody who breaks it under the pretext of communalism. Apart from judicial laxity, the police does not have the strength, the autonomy or even the integrity to act decisively to perform the duty enjoined on it by law. Gujarat is basically a police failure, which may be repeated in several other states because of the inability of the police to combine and show some vitality. Mr K.S. Dhillon, in his excellent survey of police reforms, says, “Pakistan has now clearly stolen a march over India by introducing major reforms in the organisation, structure and working of its police, with a view to fully depoliticising it. Ironically, most of the reforms are based on the recommendations of our own National Police Commission. While we have only allowed the eight excellent reports submitted by the NPC as far back as 1981 to gather dust, Pakistan has quietly gone ahead and freed their police from political control by enacting the Pakistan Police Ordinance, 2001.” Coming back to the short story, I think it should end by making the hero a corrupt politician, and the Gujarati girl activist is murdered by a mob for preaching harmony. That ending would fit into the times we are living in. The writer is the Founder-Director, BSF, and Member, National Police Commission. |
Mistress Memory It would, of course, be a palpable truism that without the faculty of memory, there would have been no history, no civilisation, no art, culture etc. Memory is that cellar of the mind where the wines of thought and emotion mature for long periods of time to give off their aroma — or their stink! Thus, whichever way, she moves, Mistress Memory is seductive whether she rock you on her knee or cuff you into confusion. One of the best known Russian emigre writers of English, Valdimar Nobokov in his autobiography, Speak, Memory, tosses up so many coloured balls, and plays with so many coloured marbles as to create a whole poetry of passions and poisons. Memory triggers off requiems as well as moments of revelry. The Greeks apotheocised this human faculty in so many ways. But, equally, there are some memories which, unable to face the sun, drop into the pit below. Or, we may keep them canned — away from the eye of scrutiny. Yes, there are certain hurts that wouldn’t heal with the passage of time. The scars would show till the end. Most of such memories belong to one’s period of childhood when all manner of hobgoblins seek to possess the child, or cause him to contract complexes whose dark energies keep impinging even on the adult mind. To be sure, the luceration of one’s spirit in youth, or in the middle years of one’s life is linked to two injuries in particular — failure or betrayal in love, and the multiple mischiefs that poisoned one’s professional life. As one broods more and more over such events and persons and places, they come to occupy all the empty spaces in one’s consciousness. The computers of the mind are so conditioned as to flood the heart with grief at the touch of a button, as it were. Unrequited passion and failed dreams have a peculiarly heavy and dark presence. Like snarled, stricken, old trees, these rooted memories remain there with their prickly thorns and thistle. Historians and writers also talk of “the racial memory” which again has a genetic aspect. Injuries and indignities to which the Jewish people were subjected from the time of the Exodus, making them nomadic tribes, scattered over distant places, unable to worship their Jehovah openly, and compelled to live in ghettoes, undoubtedly, queered and conditioned the Jewish psyche. And till this day, millennia later, the sense of huge injustice, of even paranoia abide. The present-day state of Israel, of course, has moved, history and metaphysic right into the picture and they have not only recovered their dignity, but also their lost power. And their own high-handedness now, and the plight of the Palestinians suggest that communities and races carry a load of fixations they cannot shed. In fact, vengeance becomes a corporate obsession on either side. Memory, thus, is an enigmatic, inscrutable, “mistress” whose ways and wiles, whose consolations and caresses abide. |
Giving professional touch to marital disputes The creation of Crime Against Women Cells (CAWC) was recommended by the Padmanabaiah Committee as part of the police reforms in 1999. Unlike many states, which are implementing the recommendations at a snail’s pace, Punjab has taken the lead by establishing CAWCs in all districts. While most of these cells are doing commendably well to cope with crime against women, Ludhiana has a rather unique cell, established on September 10, 2001, on the initiative of the then D.I.G. Range, Suresh Arora. Ludhiana SSP Harpreet Sidhu, has ensured that highly professional people join this cell. “I wanted the cell to be under the charge of willing and responsible professionals to give it the right kind of direction. I am glad that Dr Ravinder Kala agreed to join us. She has the expertise of a psychiatrist and long experience. Within six months we have achieved amazing results”, says Sidhu. Dr Ravinder Kala, the co-coordinator of the cell, says that the cell has added new dimensions to my own profession. In my private practice as a psychiatrist, I only came across cases of stress, strain, depression or psychotic disorders or mental illness. But the Ludhiana CAWC offered me exposure to much larger issues of life. Marital discord is such a vast and multi-dimensional issue that it has enhanced my professional challenges”. Of the 664 cases of marital dispute received by the Ludhiana cell, 531 were addressed. In 72 cases, mutual divorce was agreed to without any bitterness. Only 26 cases were beyond repair, forcing the cell to lodge FIRs. The cell is now working on 153 cases, while action is pending in 191 cases. “We have been given instructions that no political personality or party workers or people with lack of commitment and conviction are to be selected. Eventually, we selected 20 volunteers and 10 police personnel of various ranks for this cell”, revealed Dr Ravinder Kala. The mindset of police personnel is groomed in a positive direction so as to make this cell a success. “People come to us in traumatic and desperate situations in marital disputes. Each party wishes to have revenge. Besides, whenever the police intervenes in such a situation, all doors of reconciliation often get closed. There was no mechanism for the police to achieve positive results. Dr Kala provided us that elusive mechanism by giving professional training to police personnel to enable them to handle marital disputes in the right perspective. Besides, her husband, Dr A.K. Kala, delivered talks on alcoholism, drug addiction, depression, which often are the root causes of marital discords. Then, Dr D.J. Singh of Punjab Police Academy, Phillaur, gave a talk on the role of counselling” said the SSP. Added Dr Kala: “While training the volunteers and police personnel, I focused their attention on the following: (A) Counselling should be strictly a professional relationship rather than personal.(B) Counsellors should have empathy, not sympathy, for the victims (C) Counsellors should learn to handle a crisis like the breakdown of women, physical clash of the two parties or any instigation with a very cool mind. (D) Counsellors are not to carry the hyper emotional situations of the disputing parties to their own homes. “It is important for the counsellors to remain dispassionate while handling such problems. The ambience of the three rooms and a hall provided to us for the CAWC was equally important. We put up green plants, used pastel shades on the walls and soothing lamp lights rather than harsh tube lights. At the end of the training all counsellors were made to sign an oath to guard the privacy of each victim. In counselling, the first session with a disputing couple is inevitably the catharis. It is in the second session that the acceptability of counselling begins to emerge. From then onwards, we give four sessions in two weeks. In these sessions we also work on the key relatives of the couple”, said Dr Ravinder Kala. Harpreet Sidhu has worked out the cost of each marital dispute that the state exchequer bears. “You see, each case of marital dispute, which involves the police, prosecution, judiciary and jails, costs the state exchequer Rs 1.06 lakh. Then we also worked out the cost of counselling cell. By solving 222 cases, we have saved Rs 5.90 crore for the state exchequer. Our cell has united couples, who had been living separately for the past seven years,” he elaborated. Gurdial Singh, SP, who is also actively associated with the cell, said, “While crime on every other front has shown an increase, the scene on the marital disputes displays a decline. For example, last year we received 117 cases. However, this year only 64 have approached the police. We do not close the case once the couple agrees to unite. There is a very structured three-month follow-up. Besides, we also pay surprise visits to the couples”. According to Harpreet Sidhu and Dr Ravinder Kala, marital disputes often emerge from alcoholism, drug addiction and the “only son syndrome”. The only sons are often faced with a conflict within about their role towards their parents and their wives. Mostly the “only sons” end up messing up their married life because they fail to maintain the right kind of balance. Besides, an increasing number of girls’ parents interfere in the married life of their daughters. Their over-protective attitude towards their daughters and over-bearing interference also cause avoidable marital disputes. Yet another dimension is the awareness and assertiveness among the women, which Indian men are unable to digest. |
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Chinese women bare their souls Xinran laid bare the tortured souls of Chinese women in a radio phone-in programme that prised open a tiny window onto a world of inconceivable suffering. Women poured out tales of gang-rape, incest and suicide to her show “Words on the Night Breeze,’’ prompting Xinran to go on a voyage of discovery around China to lift the veil on their heart-breaking lives. The result was “The Good Women of China,’’ her ode to the hidden voices of her vast homeland. “Most Chinese women are living in a big old castle which has been closed but surrounded by a high wall for 1,000 years,’’ she told Reuters in an interview to mark the book’s publication. “I just wanted to open some little tiny holes in the wall and let western people have a look with their own eyes.’’ Xinran became a national icon for women in China as she ventured into discussing dangerous territory — from lesbianism to incest, from wife-beating to arranged marriages. She said of her ground-breaking show that sparked up to 200 letters a day from anguished listeners: “It built a space for Chinese women when they were having a hard time.” Xinran left China five years ago to live in London, explaining “I needed some space for myself.” Writing the book proved a cathartic exercise. But still she is haunted by nightmares about the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution when her father was imprisoned and Red Guards burst into their house, burning his books and her toys. They even cut off her plaits and burned them. “In the daytime I try to be smiling,’’ she said. “But in the nighttime I always wake up with bad dreams.’’ The book’s most moving victims are the women still grappling with their personal tragedies after the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, the 20th century’s worst, that killed 300,000 people.
Reuters
Certain pain-killers may significantly hinder the healing of broken bones, a study has revealed. Studies on rats suggest that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) can delay or even prevent the mending of fractures, according to a report in the magazine New Scientist. NSAIDs, which include aspirin and drugs made from ibuprofen such as Nurofen, are taken by millions of people every day around the world to ease the pain of broken bones. The magazine said: The issue may have escaped attention because the older generation of NSAIDs, such as ibuprofen and indomethacin, delay healing by a few weeks instead of blocking it. —
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Cuddles, not cash, count in well-being It’s true: money can’t buy you happiness. Alex Michalos, a recognised international expert on smiles and frowns, says study after study has shown that cuddles are what counts in well-being, not cash. Professor Michalos of Canada’s University of Northern British Columbia, told an international conference in Australia that, as a determinant of a person’s happiness, relationships were five times more important than income. Michalos, addressing the World Congress on Sociology in Brisbane, said that having a partner was a key to being happy. “It’s romantic and sappy, but it’s accurate,” he said. Robert Cummins, Professor of Psychology at Deakin University, also impressed on the gathering the primacy of human relationships. A recent survey in Australia, he said, had shown that partnered people on tiny incomes did almost as well as people without partners earning six times as much. “This is indicating to us the great importance of having someone that you can share your life with,” he said. Interestingly, Cummins said that a person’s satisfaction with life usually remained steady — like body temperature and blood pressure. “It’s an internal management system that keeps us feeling good about ourselves,” he said. The normal range was 70 to 80 per cent. When a score dropped below 70, depression loomed — in much the same way as a small increase in body temperature indicated the onset of a fever.
DPA Moderate tipplers face hypertension Hypertension is very easy to come by, if you are a man and more so if you have about one or two drinks a day, say Japanese researchers. Regular tipplers who consume one or two glasses of alcohol have a much higher incidence of hypertension than those who do not drink at all, reports the “Alcohol: Clinical Experience and Research” journal. Though a decrease in the risk of heart disease has been associated with moderate drinking habits, American studies have also found that regular alcohol consumption does not affect hypertension risk below a threshold of three to six drinks. Two major bones of contention between the Japanese and American populations may help explain the aberrant findings of these studies. The incidence of hypertension rose with the amount of alcohol men drank during the course of the first Japanese study. Susumu Ohmori and colleagues at Kyushu University found that up to a point, ex-drinkers, who had not had a drink within three months, were still nearly twice as likely to develop hypertension as men who did not drink at all.
ANI |
The true servant is one who merges oneself in the Master. — Shri Guru Granth Sahib *** He who greets his master and is also impudent towards him, wastes himself completely. — Sri Guru Granth Sahib *** The real servitour is rare — one among millions. — Sri Guru Granth Sahib *** He whom the Lord enables to work under his hukam is the real sewak. — Sri Guru Granth Sahib *** He who lives the holy teachings by his mind and utters the Name Divine by his tongue is never shaken or in doubt. He is truly wealthy when he has wealth of God’s Name. The perfectly endowed master has established his credit with God. —Sri Guru Granth Sahib *** Offer pray at God’s holy feet; thus doubts and fear are destroyed. Purify the mind (soul) in the company of saints for getting absorbed in the Name Divine. —Sri Guru Granth Sahib *** Bereft of fear meditate on the Lord. —Sri Guru Granth Sahib *** A servant's gain is to lay aside all selfish pleasure, to do his master's service, and not be greedy. — Shri Ramacharitamanasa, Ayodhya Kanda A servant is he who protects his master's interests, however, much others may find fault with him. — Shri Ramacharitamanasa, Ayodhya Kanda *** Shame herself would be ashamed to look at servant who evades compliance with his master's will. — Shri Ramacharitamanasa, Ayodhya Kanda *** Mean-spirited is the servant who seeks his own advantage by placing his master in an embarrassing situation. — Shri
Ramacharitamanasa, Ayodhya Kanda |
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