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Wednesday,
October 9, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Education as commerce Afghanistan beyond bombs
Globalisation and politics |
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What the stars foretell
The menace of NRI grooms deserting wives
Why one chooses painting, another robbery?
Should people publicise happiness?
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Education as commerce RUNNING a private school has become a very lucrative and recession-proof business. Government schools are badly run, lack the necessary infrastructure and do not give due importance to English, which many these days believe is essential for grooming a child for a top job. So most parents send their children to convent or public schools. This has led to a wild growth of school business in the private sector. Private schools, with honourable exceptions, not only charge hefty fees and pay meagre salaries to teachers, but also prescribe expensive books, not authorised by the NCERT. Parents are forced to buy too many books, notebooks, stationery and uniform either from the school itself or from select shops. There is a nexus between book publishers/stationery, uniform suppliers and school managements. Apart from being costlier than the books prescribed by the NCERT or the school board concerned, these are substandard, badly written and carry mistakes which children find hard to understand and digest. This leads them to the door of the tuition mafia active in almost every town. Even NCERT books are not without mistakes as recently pointed out by experts. Certain book writers have rewritten history in a hurry and gone overboard in their enthusiasm to push Hindutva. But the over-burdened children are unlikely to grasp the agenda that has shaped the new NCERT books. It is revolting to see frauds, academic as well as financial, played in the name of imparting education. There is the obvious need to drastically reduce the schoolbag burden on children and its consequent financial fallout on the parents. The CBSE, state school boards, the state authorities in charge of education and parents should join hands to check the open loot by schools. The lavish lifestyle of private school principals and managers speaks volumes of their newly acquired prosperity from a hassle-free business with all tax exemptions granted. The handsome returns from the school business have attracted others — multinationals selling cold drinks, fast food and dairy products, amusement parks, travel agencies, private hospitals, etc — to lure innocent customers to buy their wares. Schools permit, rather encourage, agents from these institutions to advertise and sell their packages during school hours to captive consumers. Consumerism with all its financial and greed-inducing implications strike children at an age when they cannot differentiate the good from bad. Some stinking-rich parents turn their children into walking advertisements of their wealth. There is need to rethink our priorities. We should learn to say no to the unreasonable demands of children and the businessmen in education, and involve ourselves in the upbringing of our children in a more healthy and dignified way. |
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Afghanistan beyond bombs THE Taliban have capitulated; the Afghans have a functioning government, international recognition and a new currency. Why are they not happy still? Because Afghanistan has refugees traumatised by 23 years of conflict; rampant corruption; warlords consolidating power, paying just token respect to the government in Kabul and anaemic foreign aid. No wonder, the country constantly seems to be poised between recovery and anarchy, more towards the latter right now. Kabul’s writ does not run in several of its provinces, and there are just too many reminders of war — like the recent discovery of a cache of thousands of pounds of arms and explosives. Operation Enduring Freedom was the name of the military action that the USA launched a year ago against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban who were sheltering him. He has not been captured and if the latest report on Al-Jazeera television channel is any indication, Bin Laden is alive and fanning the fires of terrorism. Most of his senior comrades managed to escape the long arm of American retribution. After the ouster of the Taliban and the convening of the loya jirga or “grand council” on June 19, which selected Mr Hamid Karzai as the President of the Afghan Islamic Transitional Government, there has been positive movement, but still there are causes of concern. The vacuum has been filled up not by democratic forces but warlords, and Kabul has just token control over many of them. Recently, leaflets have been distributed asking people to shun modernisation and return to the norms of the Taliban days, though this is hardly likely as thousands of women have flocked to educational institutions , most noticeably in Kabul. At the same time, the security of the new government is a major concern. President Karzai has had to face two assassination attempts and two of his Cabinet colleagues have been killed. What is needed is to focus on building the nation. Only one-third of the $4.5 billion international aid promised by the developed nations has materialised and the Afghans are suffering. Economic recovery is still very far off. However, the redenomination of the Afghani, though painful (it means reducing the previous currency notes by as much as three zeros), is necessary. Of course, the dominant currency in Afghanistan will continue to be the US dollar. Afghanistan needs more intervention from the Peace Corps than it does from gun-wielders. The future of Afghanistan lies not in bombs, but in buildings. Reconstruction has to take place on a large scale. There are lakhs who have no housing facility and winter is round the corner. More than 17 lakh refugees have returned to Afghanistan and the UN and CARE officials have expressed doubts about whether they have enough food to feed the people in winter. This is the real recurring problem of the war-torn nation that needs redressal on a war-footing. Enduring freedom will only come if Afghanistan’s government, infrastructure and economy are in a proper shape before the next loya jirga in December, 2003, that will adopt the country’s constitution before going to the polls. |
Globalisation and politics GLOBALISATION is generally conceived of in economic terms, in the gains and losses it entails for the developing world in particular. But its reach is far broader and wider, impinging on a country’s culture and social mores and, most importantly, on its politics and standing in the world. If many in India have been shocked by the strictures of the US Commission on International Religious Freedoms castigating the country for Gujarat and the climate of intolerance encouraged by the state government and the BJP-led government at the Centre, they have only themselves to blame. It is an attribute of globalisation and the Information Age that the targeting of minorities in one area or region does not remain a domestic issue. As Prime Minister A. B. Vajpayee and his deputy, Mr L.K. Advani, have discovered during their sojourns abroad, they have had to apologise to the world for the shame Gujarat has brought India. But the manner of their apology in focusing on its external impact, rather than in unequivocally condemning the evil of the anti-minority actions, underlines the Bharatiya Janata Party’s inability to tackle the problem head on. Indeed, Gujarat will remain an albatross around India’s neck as long as the ruling party’s ideology and electoral compulsions negate the very basis on India’s nationhood. And globalisation means that Gujarat will continue to hinder the promotion of the country’s interests around the world. To be classed in the same group as Pakistan in the matter of treating minorities should give the sober elements in the BJP some food for thought. Yet the BJP seems set on a course that can only prove suicidal. The Gujarat Chief Minister, Mr Narendra Modi, would be a footnote in history were it not for the fact that he symbolises the philosophy of the Sangh Parivar. And, however, outrageous his statements, the party’s leadership is disinclined to discipline him in any measure. At the lowest level, his obscenities are a blot on the political landscape. Politically, they are an indication of how low the BJP can stoop to try to conquer. Indeed, far from censuring Mr Modi, Mr Advani extols his virtues as the state Chief Minister. Where does the country go if the holder of the second highest executive office in the land gives a certificate of excellence to a rabble-rouser playing with the essential building blocks of the nation with breathtaking nonchalance? Are we to assume that the BJP has decided to use any means to return to power? Or are the contradictions between the Sangh Parivar’s ideology and the compulsions of ruling a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society sought to be reconciled by tightly wrapping up the party in the Hindutva cloth? The BJP’s mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, has had the prescience to begin with the young in moulding future generations into a philosophy of militant Hinduism (a contradiction in terms) and religious intolerance. At the teenage level, the BJP government is now seeking to brainwash students with a revisionist version of history in textbooks in which Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination is a non-event and the epoch-making Russian Revolution (whatever one’s opinion of it) is a mere coup. This is a true gauge of the BJP’s attempt to remake India and Indians. The Sangh Parivar is now seeking to elevate its philosophy to the status of other world movements such as fascism to claim a place in the sun. Its opposition to the communist creed is apparent from its view of the Russian Revolution although it has still to pronounce on the blessings of fascism. But some similarities between the two movements can be traced. Both believe in the infallibility of their creeds, both are intolerant of dissent and both tailor history to the needs of their philosophy and the compulsions of grabbing power and retaining it. It is not merely a question of President Pervez Musharraf using the Gujarat events for his favourite India-bashing exercises, at the United Nations and elsewhere, but the wider problem of promoting India’s interests around the world. If the BJP is set on demolishing the country’s prized assets of a functioning democracy and a tolerant pluralistic society, despite aberrations, how can New Delhi aspire to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council? How can it exercise influence commensurate with its size, population and potential strength in the councils of the world? During its long years in office, the Congress had on occasion exploited the Hindu or Muslim card to serve electoral purposes. There was a time that Indira Gandhi took to visiting temples, and after her assassination, the election campaign that brought Rajiv Gandhi to power with a commanding majority was a blot on the party of Indian independence on a par with the anti-Sikh riots in New Delhi. Again, the Congress party has been less than honest in how it has sought to counter Mr Modi’s poisonous utterances in Gujarat. For all that, the Congress still symbolises the country’s pluralistic and secular approach and its performance in state elections is an indication of the electorate’s inclination to return to it for want of a better alternative. Whether the Congress will succeed in returning to power at the Centre is dependent upon a whole set of circumstances. But the BJP-led coalition seems set to last its full term, thanks to the support of its partners in the National Democratic Alliance with their own anti-Congress agendas. The prospect thus appears to be of Mr Vajpayee seeking to promote the country’s interests in the world as best he can, hobbled by the ideology of the Sangh Parivar, to the strains of the hosannas being sung by Mr Advani in praise of Mr Modi. It is utterly futile to fault General Musharraf by blaming the temple massacre in Gandhinagar on his utterances or to criticise the USA for interfering in the country’s domestic affairs. Quite apart from the right President George W. Bush has given himself to act pre-emptively in any corner of the world, no country can escape censure for perpetrating uncivilised acts at home. When those acts are sought to be justified as the philosophy of the ruling party, India is stacking up the odds against itself. How Mr Vajpayee will square the circle remains to be seen. |
What the stars foretell ONE thing common in most newspapers is “What the Stars Foretell” which is lapped up by the readers. But to what extent they are convinced is a different thing. I don’t bother about my stars on weekdays, as I know my routine can’t be changed. However, Sunday is different. I must read the “stars” before I read the headlines. One fine Sunday as I opened the leading newspaper of the North region and looked for what my stars foretold, this is what I found: “Celestial forces are very favourable. A happy week ahead. People born in the second week of the month may get invitations for a free stay and parties”. I was very happy. Five days passed, but nothing happened — No good news, no free invitation ! What could I do except wait. The surprise came on Saturday. The sixth day. A phone call — a sweet voice ! “What can I do for you ?” I asked. “ You are very lucky Sir. We put thousands of names on our computer and your name has been selected for a free stay of seven days in Shimla and free dinner at a famous restaurant in Chandigarh”. “But why my name?” I asked. She replied: “ We select five lucky couples from all over India and you are one of them. Enjoy your stay at Shimla and if you like you can become the member of our company by paying Rs 2 lakh and then you can enjoy a free stay of seven days every year for the next 99 years”. I could feel a few drops of sweat on my forehead. I told her that her computer had made me lucky but my father would not part with a sum of Rs 2 lakh. So I rather no accept the offer. “Don’t worry. You enjoy your holiday and then consider it,” she replied. Free stay was not possible because of my strict boss who would not give me leave. Hence I thought of taking advantage of the free dinner. My friend who was also in the same boat gave me his coupons. A month passed before I thought of sending one of the coupons to my friend in Chandigarh who is very close to me. After two to three days I got a call of thanks from my friend, who was much obliged as he and his family had enjoyed a nice dinner. Taking advantage of a school holiday, I took my family to Chandigarh and dreamt of a free dinner in an excellent restaurant of the city. I was wondering why they call it a stone city. The people of Chandigarh are so nice and courteous. Dressed in our best, my family and me walked into the restaurant. The manager was a well dressed gentleman. He welcomed us. We selected a centre table. The waiter was very courteous. The decor of the restaurant was extremely good. It was a very nice feeling. Dinner was served with great care and hospitality. We enjoyed every bit of it. As we were about to finish, the courteous waiter asked whether we’d like a dessert. Since it was a free dinner, we ordered the costliest icecream. It seemed as if we had completed the quota of food for the next eight days. We were very happy; as everything was “on the house”. As we were about to get up, the bill came. I read it out of sheer curiosity. It amounted to about Rs 5,000. I took the coupon out from my pocket and handed it over to the waiter. He requested us to wait for a few minutes. I thought I might be requested to sign a voucher. After a few minutes, the waiter came along with the polite manager. The courteous manager bowed and said:“ Sorry Sir, the coupon is no more valid. We had cancelled the scheme with this company two weeks ago. I felt sweat running down my face but told him gently: “Only last week our friend Mr Gulshan has availed of this coupon”. “Yes Sir, and we have been looking for that man ever since,” roared the courteous manager.
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The menace of NRI grooms deserting wives HARJIT
KAUR brought up her four children, two daughters, two sons, against all odds after her husband had passed away. Her life in Sheron Nigah village in Amritsar with just a few Kanals of land at her disposal was extremely tough and challenging. Besides rearing children, she had to till her land just to survive. In this backdrop, when a match for her daughter, Rajwinder Kaur, came from a family, whose son was settled in Yeman, Harjit Kaur thought that the back-breaking struggle in life was about to wind up. Rajwinder Kaur was thus married to Sukhdev Singh, son of Hazara Singh of Khuda Cheena village in Gurdaspur district in 1991. After some time, Sukhdev Singh left for Yeman leaving his wife with his family. The life became tougher for her with each passing day in her pregnant condition. According to her, everyday confrontation with her mother-in-law eventually forced her to live with her own mother in Sheron Nigah. Here, she continued to receive letters from her husband. But when she gave birth to a daughter, nobody came from her in-laws house. Her husband, however, sent her 200 dollars. That was the last of her happiness. The next five years were spent in agony by Rajwinder Kaur and her mother. Both had no clue what was happening either in Yeman or in the house of the boy. “We came to know very late that my mother-in-law had organised my husband’s remarriage at Amarkot in 1998. He went back with the second lady on my passport”, reveals Rajwinder Kaur. Her mother, who was already finding it hard to make two ends meet, had to start yet another struggle in her life. She approached Bimla Dang and Raj Verma of the Punjab Istri Sabha to seek justice for her daughter. Both crusaders chased the Batala police and eventually got a case registered. Batala, SSP, Alok Nath Angra deputed DSP Satinder Singh to deal with this case. He made all-out efforts but since the boy had escaped to Yeman nothing was coming as relief to the girl. There are no laws that could enforce extradition of the boy. However, the court has declared the boy a proclaimed offender. “While that serves the boy and his family right, it actually brings no relief to Rajwinder Kaur”, says Raj Verma, who has been pursuing the case on a day-to-day basis. Meanwhile, Bimla Dang and Raj Verma have gathered information that Sukhdev Singh allegedly murdered somebody in Yeman for which he had been sentenced to jail. The second woman too gave birth to a daughter. According to the Punjab Istri Sabha, Punjab is full of such cases. As per a survey, in at least 60 per cent cases NRIs have deserted their legally wedded wives. Most of these girls are left with the parents of the boys so as to serve them. Here, it may be recalled that Kuljit Kaur and Aman Kaur, two sisters, were married to two NRI brothers in Nawanshahr but were never taken abroad by their husbands. The in-laws had literally imprisoned them in their house till they succeeded in fleeing after three years and two months of their marriage. These girls have also been fighting their case in court for the past seven years. The case of Balbir Kaur, a daughter of Gurdial Singh of Thalla village in Phillaur, only reiterates the issue. She was married to Jaswinder Singh, son of Prehlad Singh, in 1990. Her husband left her with his parents and returned to the UK. For the next two years, he never returned. Meanwhile, Balbir Kaur continued to serve her in-laws oblivious of the doings of her husband in the UK. It was as late as 1994 that she and her family learnt that he had remarried in the UK in 1992. The victims, Balbir Kaur and her family, have now registered an FIR against the boy and his family. The case of Sukhwinder Kaur, daughter of Shingara Singh of Mander village in Nawanshahr, speaks volumes about the menace of deserted wives. She was married to Kanwaljit Singh, son of Tirath Singh of Chhachhrari in Nawanshahr, in 1994. The NRI groom, for a change, had escorted his wife to the UK, one year after the marriage. She stayed with him for the next two years but he brought her back in 1997 by misleading her. He took away all her travel documents and passport on the sly and returned to the UK without informing her. The girl and her family had no option but to register cases against him and his family. This issue was raised with Mr Ujjal Dosanj, when he became the Premier of British Columbia and was visiting Punjab. He too was fully aware of the menace of NRI grooms deserting their legally wedded wives. In fact an overwhelming number of such grooms belong to Canada. Ujjal Dosanj continues to assert, “As there are no laws that can effectively nail such grooms, it would be best for Punjab to hold the families of the grooms accountable for indulging in illegal weddings of their boys. In fact, no NRI groom can come and marry another girl without the connivance of his parents and relatives. Everybody who attends such a wedding should be brought to book to exercise pressure on the NRI grooms. Unless there is a social boycott of such weddings, the unsuspecting hapless girls from Punjab will continue to be cheated”. Sources reveal that while it is within the purview of the Punjab Government to set up fast-track courts with the permission of the judiciary, it cannot play any role to get the victims their share in the property of their husbands, who may have deserted them. But as Mr Satyapal Dang, a social activist, says the menace of deserting wives by NRI grooms not only has international legal loopholes but also socio-economic angles to it. “It is a well known fact by now that there is no fully effective legal relief available in such cases. However, this problem has deep roots in our social structure as well as the economics of life. If there are poor people, who get allured to marry their daughters imagining a blissful life for their daughters, then there are also parents, who are driven by the greed of marrying their daughters to NRI grooms. Their greed envisages greener pastures for the entire family in the form of immigration. Many parents have married their daughters to NRI groom, who were double their age and even more. We desperately need amendments to the present laws and even formation of new laws to tackle this menace. For the time being, the government should exercise the right to cancel the passports of such NRI grooms to deliver some iota of justice to the deserted girls”, comments Mr Dang. |
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Why one chooses painting, another robbery? OSCAR Wilde, who knew about such matters, once opined that there was `no essential incongruity between crime and culture’. As it happened, Wilde found that a felon’s life was an uncultivated affair. Pious citizens spat at him on railway platforms during his journey to Reading Gaol. Once there, he bruised his delicate fingers picking oakum and sewing mailbags. By contrast, the disgraced British politician and best-selling novelist Jeffrey Archer, jailed for four years for perjury, fritters away his sentence by driving himself to a local theatre to perform frivolous chores backstage and, rather than needing to swab off spittle, he pauses obligingly for the paparazzi en route. How much more enlightened we are! The change that occurred between Wilde’s term of hard labour and Archer’s play-acting was largely the result of a campaign by Arthur Koestler, supported by David Astor when he edited the London-based Observer newspaper. Koestler had been a prisoner of conscience in fascist Spain and Vichy France. Having escaped to England, he was promptly interned as an enemy alien. The experience convinced him that the penitentiary should not be a place of grinding penance. He and Astor `crusaded’ — as Koestler put it — to persuade the UK Home Office that its detainees should be allowed to educate themselves by developing creative talents. He organised an annual competition for writing and painting, and donated cash prizes. Now, almost 20 years after his death, the Koestler Award Trust distributes gongs for ceramics, soft toys, rapping and video art. Artists enjoy seeing themselves as raffish outsiders, people of dubious morality. As Hambling admitted in her speech, painters steal from one another (though they call it borrowing); T.S. Eliot likened poets to burglars, who invade the unconscious mind under cover of darkness. Is it equally permissible for criminals to define themselves as artists, deftly exhibiting technical skills as they pick locks or pockets? Wilde, long before his own imprisonment, impudently vindicated the poisoner Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, who eliminated a woman because she had thick ankles. But the affinity between crime and culture can only too easily be sentimentalised. The Guardian
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Should people publicise happiness? I
was distinctly perturbed when, on arriving at a house party recently, I discovered my very close friend Claire holed away in a darkened corner of the kitchen with her husband. My problem with the scenario was this: the two of them were snogging (kissing), in the most unapologetic fashion imaginable. Snogging like they weren’t over 30, with jobs and mortgages and, worst of all, like they hadn’t been married for two years. Snogs were the unique preserve of the teenager, and were to be enjoyed behind bike sheds or in multiplexes, but definitely not up against expensive fridges at civilised house parties. The very fact that there isn’t a grown-up word for the activity rather supported my stance, I thought. It’s legitimate in the early stages of non-teen relationships of course, because in those giddy, lust-addled moments you effectively revert to 14-year-old behaviour anyway. But in the context of a long-term, mature relationship, snogging seems utterly incongruous. Apparently, I was wrong. An international survey carried out by Mills & Boon recently revealed that 37 per cent of British male adults thought their snogging technique needed improvement (Canadian men, for some inexplicable reason, were far more confident about their abilities than their British counterparts). That would imply that a lot more than 37 per cent of men consider snogging to have some currency in their lives, that a great deal of them would be in long-term relationships, and therefore that — even though I am nearly 30 and married with two cats — I should be thinking about it, too. I asked one Canadian friend for her perspective on the issue, on the grounds that she had access to Canadian men and should therefore be something of an authority. ‘I’m never sure what that word means,’ was her considered response. ‘It sounds kind of like what happens to old sweaters.’ That’ll be snagging. ‘Oh, right. Is snogging like making out, then?’ And so I had to explain that snogging is a bit like kissing but more aggressive, a bit like sex but strangely far more intimate, and that probably as a result, many people who happily have sex with their partners on a regular basis can’t countenance the idea of snogging them in any way. A friend, who has been with her partner for seven years, thinks that snogging is faintly absurd. ‘It would feel completely obscene,’ she says. ‘I kiss my boyfriend hello and goodbye, obviously, but the idea of us properly kissing, using our tongues, is horrendous. I can’t bear it when friends do that kind of thing in front of me. It’s about showing off, I’m sure. I instantly suspect that a relationship is in trouble when I see people going to those kinds of lengths to publicise their happiness. Snogging is protesting too much, in my book.’
The Guardian |
The sea surges up with laughter and pale gleams the smile of the sea beach. Death-dealing waves sing meaningless ballads to the children, even like a mother while rocking her baby’s cradle. The sea play with children, and pale gleams the smile of the sea beach. *** On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in the pathless sky, ships get wrecked in the trackless water, death is aboard and children play. On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meeting of children. *** Thou hast made me known to friends whom I knew not. Thou hast given me seats in homes not my own. Thou hast brought the distant near and made a brother of the stranger. *** I am uneasy at heart when I have to leave my accustomed shelter; I forget that there abides the old in the new, and that there also thou abidest. *** Through birth and death, in this world or in others, wherever thou leadest me it is thou, the same, the one companion of my endless life who ever linkest my heart with bonds of joy to the unfamiliar. *** When one know thee, then alien there is none, then no door is shut. Oh, grant me my prayer that I may never lose the bliss of the touch of the one in the play of the many. *** On the slope of the desolate river among tall grasses I asked her, ‘Maiden, where do you go shading your lamp with your mantle? My house is all dark and lonesome — lend me your light!’ She raised her dark eyes for a moment and looked at my face through the dusk. ‘I have come to the river,’ she said, ‘to float my lamp on the stream when the daylight wanes in the west.’ I stood alone among tall grasses and watched the timid flame of her lamp uselessly drifting in the tide. —Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali |
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