PERSPECTIVE

SPECIAL FOCUS ON POLICE REFORMS-II: FIELD REPORTS
Indian police: from where do we start the reform process?
The problem of pucca and kacha police
Prabhjot Singh

Police, the coercive arm of the State, is entrusted to perform the basic duty of maintenance of law and order besides bringing criminals to the book by holding proper investigation. To discharge these duties effectively and efficiently, the police cannot function in isolation. Its interdependence on the other wings of criminal justice, including prosecution and judiciary, and public face which determine the credibility or respect it commands in a democratic set up.

Society gets the police it deserves. In a political and vibrant society, depoliticalisation of the police continues to be an issue for discourses organised from time to time by involving both serving and retired policemen besides bureaucrats, legal luminaries and other experts.

In the last 55 years after Independence, what most of the police commission reports have gathered is only dust. This speaks volumes for the sincerity and earnestness of the powers that be to streamline the police organisation and make it service- and result-oriented.

When the British introduced policing in India, it was for a specific purpose — to curb and contain the rebellion or opposition to the Imperial rule. Maintenance of law and order was the main brief for the police which worked discreetly as an agent of the Empire. The system was so designed that the Station House Officer had on his fingertips information about “bad elements”, including those opposed to the Empire.

Since mid-19th century, the police may have graduated itself from .303 rifles to AK-47s and successive governments may have modernised its telecommunications, provided it sleek Gypsies to improve mobility or increased its strength manifold. However, the attitude of an average policeman remains the same. His philosophy continues to be to “please the bosses” and forget the rest.

Interestingly, if one interacts with policemen at different levels, one finds two types in the force — the “pucca police” and the “kacha police”. It is the “pucca police” that intermingles and becomes an integral part of any system or society. It is this segment of the force which is not only minutely familiar with the topography of the “ilaqa” it polices, but remains hand in glove with the criminals of the area.

The “kacha police” is of provincial or the Indian Police Service officials who come for fixed tenures, invariably three or less years, depending upon the patronage they enjoy of their immediate political bosses. At times even when you have good meaning and well intentioned leaders of the police force of an area, their efforts get thwarted by the “pucca police” refusing to cooperate.

“Police and thieves are also mixed up. If police wants, it can track down a criminal, including a pickpocket in less than 24 hours”, is not only the common belief of an average law-abiding citizen, but is actually true.

Can a drug smuggler or a bootlegger carry out his clandestine activities in a specified area without the patronage of the police bosses of that area? It is not difficult to guess an answer. The world has changed. But our police refuses to change. Why?

The challenges before any police force in 21st century are certainly different as it has become far more complex, critical and technical. Globalisation, advancement of technology, including communication and weaponry, policing no more remains confined to “jurisdictional boundaries”.

The Government’s endeavour to reform the police ends up in naming commissions or committees. The last of these, headed by former Union Home Secretary, Mr K. Padmanabhaiah, was given the mandate to recommend a new concept and structure for a police force of the new millennium, which is modern, efficient, people-friendly and which can command public trust and cooperation.

The Padmanabhaiah Committee recognised six major weaknesses of the Indian police. These are (a) the attitude, behaviour and the mindset; (b) lack of fairness and impartiality in dealing with public, especially in the investigation of crime; (c) a widely held perception that it is a force to take care of the interests of the political and social elite; (d) willingness to be manipulated by the party in power; (e) rampant corruption at various levels; and (f) registration of crime.

These weaknesses need no elaboration. The events of the past few weeks are clearly indicative of the force we have. Whatever be the political compulsions or necessities, the “misuse” of the force during the annual meeting of the general house of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) does not augur well for the force visualised by the Padmanabhaiah Committee.

Clearly, police administration has to be bifurcated into two parts — maintenance of law and order; and detection of crime. A sharp decline both in the crime detection and conviction rate continues to send alarm signals. Without getting into irrational comparison with the Western societies, the present-day strength of the police to the population it caters is, if not fairly adequate, more comfortable than what it was 10-15 years ago. Each time you have requirement to show off force, you could get back to the various Central Police organisations which have witnessed phenomenal growth in the past 20 years. The men in uniform, including those trained in handling riots or maintenance of law and order, become immediately available. Then the Centre and the States share the Reserve battalions.

The Padmanabhaiah Committee report says that the police in India derives its statutory powers from the Police Act of 1861. For 86 years thereafter, it remained an integral part of the British India colonial administration. During this period, it imbibed the credo of colonial force and became the repressive arm of the administration. Unfortunately, even after 55 years of Independence, it continues to be saddled with an unflattery image.

Recently when the Directors-General of Police of various States and Union Territories met at Delhi where Union Home Minister L.K.Advani was the chief guest, the States were asked to come out with a mission statement which should be affirmed as an oath by the police personnel.

The basic fault in the police administration lies in the recruitment of the personnel. A number of experts, including retired police chiefs, have strongly advocated the need for pre-training centres from where the talent should be picked. The Committee suggested setting up of a National Board for Police Recruitment to take over this responsibility.

Another viewpoint is to lower the gap between other ranks and officers. See the working environment in which 92 per cent of the force works and the perks, facilities and environment of the remaining 8 per cent in general and just 2 per cent at the top in particular.

The next point on the agenda has been the training of the force. Whatever be the recommendations of the Committee, the fact remains that 98 per cent of the force in any State gets just 2 per cent of the total training budget while the top 2 per cent of the force eats up the remaining 98 per cent. What a disparity!

More important, nearly 75,000-strong Punjab Police, with a budget of nearly Rs 1,000 crore, spends 92 per cent of its financial allocation on salaries, administrative bills and other such things. It is only the remaining 8 per cent that goes to training, upgradation of facilities, modernisation of fleet and arming policemen with modern weaponry, besides others.

The recommendations of the Padmanabhaiah Committee apart, any top heavy or committee should not be encouraged. Let the training of the police personnel be introduced at the grassroot level including the districts. And this training should be made mandatory for every one at least once in eight to 10 years.

The Padmanabhaiah Committee rightly points out that there are only 120 non-cognisable offences listed in the Indian Penal Code and the line dividing cognisable and non-cognisable offences is very thin.

The emphasis on some of the silent wings of the force, including intelligence, computerisation and modernisation, logistics etc., also needs the careful attention of police analysts, planners and experts .These are the wings which form the backbone of a force. But in the absence of requisite recognition, these wings are treated as “punishment posting units”.

It may be one of the reasons that commission after commission and committee after committee had been taking serious note of the lack of proper career planning and cadre management in the State police forces. The Punjab case is before everyone. The way the cadre is being presently managed, we will get the results in a couple of years.

There are arguments for and against the Police Commisionerate system in all metropolitan towns. While one school of thought says that the politician-bureaucrat nexus will not allow power to slip from its hands, the other school wants the new system to be given a fair trial. Of course, the experiment, wherever introduced, has more or less worked well.

Another important area for reform has been infrastructure. Of the total 11,976 police stations in the country, 2,846 do not have any building. The case with police posts is no different. The Eleventh Finance Commission has recommended Rs 153 crore for constructing buildings of 273 police stations. Tamil Nadu has not only standardised the design of a police station but also decided to computerise them. 

Movement sans direction
Varinder Singh

Several initiatives over the years notwithstanding, modernisation, in the context of the Punjab Police, has always been a misnomer for various reasons, in particular, for the lack of interest among policymakers and inadequate grants required for the purpose.

Though about 50 per cent of the old and dilapidated buildings of police stations were replaced with new ones — at some places with people’s active participation as also donations extended by them — little has been done to modernise the processes of investigation, registration of cases, infrastructure, replacement of vehicles and to ensure the much-publicised computerisation of police stations.

Top police officers speak of paucity of funds for poor progress in the field of modernisation. Non-availability of printed FIR registration forms in most of the police stations, even investigation kits, prove that the reason for the poor state of affairs in the police administration is the lack of interest, or indifference on the part of the top brass. This is sad because they have been making tall claims to project the “right image” of the force before the people. There has been little attempt to whole-heartedly strive for general improvement of things at the ground level.

Same is the case with the state government, which has been failing to provide the mandatory matching grants required for securing Central grants for the purpose. As per the existing norm, Central aid for modernisation of police stations and the force would be extended to the States only if the latter contribute their share of the matching grants. In the case of Punjab, it was about Rs.32 crore per annum. But unfortunately, Punjab has been extending only Rs. 5-7 crore per year. This has led to a quantum loss of the Central grants, thus, adversely affecting the modernisation process.

The indifference on the part of the officials concerned can be gauged from the fact that as much as Rs 8.47 crore, a part of the Central grant sanctioned for the financial year 2000-2001 for various modernisation projects, was allowed to lapse. The State took up the matter with the Centre. Fortunately, the latter revalidated the grant recently to carry out the modernisation projects.

Though shortage of funds is considered a major hindrance, the presence of irritants which, otherwise, have been proving to be major stumbling blocks in the way of modernisation of police stations, show that it was not a case of sheer shortage of funds, but lack of direction, vision and initiative. Amazingly, despite its immense utility for decades — even during the British rule — the investigation kit, which used to be equipped with tools required for on-the-spot probe, does not exist in any police station of the state for the past 30 years.

Similarly, maintenance of records, a very important component of investigation, has been near to zero for shortage of the required printed forms and stationery. In almost all cases, police officers ask complainants to bring in their own plain paper to get FIRs registered. Most of the police stations don’t have the mandatory four sets of printed FIR registration forms for onward transmission to the Senior Superintendent of Police, the court, the police station and to the accused under the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).

The absence of hi-tech equipment and tools needed for scientific investigation have also affected the pace of modernisation. Most police stations in the state don’t have special brushes for picking up foot and finger prints. Similarly, no police station, except some in Ludhiana, is equipped with cameras, essential tools for investigation. There are also no computers.

The Punjab Police had been able to get a large number of vehicles during militancy. Director-General of Police Mahal Singh Bhullar has said that old vehicles would be replaced. However, half of the fleet remain grounded for past five years due to the government’s inability to pay huge bills for maintenance. About 25 per cent of the police station buildings are in a dilapidated condition. At some places like Jalandhar, a few police stations are running from the “encroached” shops or historical buildings. The one at Sultanpur Lodhi is being run from a historic fort!

“The modernisation process has taken off and we have no problem with the availability of latest weapons. So much so, we have cameras at all police stations and a video camera at every third police station in Ludhiana”, says Mr S.K.Sharma, Inspector-General of Police (Jalandhar Zone). He, of course, admitted to this writer that funds have been a major problem in the modernisation effort.

Some young and energetic officers took the initiative to modernise the police stations and their infrastructure with people’s help. The police stations at Lambra, Kartarpur and Malsian in Jalandhar district are excellent specimens of people-police cooperation. The concept of community policing has worked well, resulting in the people coming forward to contribute towards construction of new police station buildings. At Lambra, an NRI donated a piece of his prime land worth Rs.1.5 crore.

Similarly, in about half a dozen police stations of the Jalandhar range, reception rooms have been set up to help visitors and save them from unnecessary harassment by unscrupulous officials. “The reception official jots down the particulars and guide the visitor to the official concerned. As a result, no official would be able to make a visitor wait unnecessarily for disposal of his or her case”, says Mr Rohit Chaudhary, Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Jalandhar Range. His endaveour is to ensure modernisation in areas which will improve things without incurring any expenditure, he says.

“We have issued job cards to constables on duty so as to apprise them about their responsibilities in detail. Our another effort is to upgrade crime records which cost us nothing. Computerisation will serve no purpose if we are not equipped with proper records”, Mr Chaudhary says. Interestingly, maintenance of records could be judged from the fact that at some police stations more than 100-year-old history sheets continued to be kept open even as the accused died decades ago. “This is a fact and we have now decided to reopen about 2,000 history sheets,” he says.

Police doesn’t function in a vacuum; it’s part of our national ethos!
V.K. Kapoor

There is a revolution in the methodology of crime and terrorism. Police is increasingly become weak and vulnerable because events have outstripped its professional ability to handle them or even learn from them. Our policemen are too busy coping with what is urgent to think about what is important. Crises have come one after another like pounding surf. There is disdain for the establishment and despair for the future.

Crime has increased both in scale and complexity. It has become far more pervasive, subtle, sophisticated, lethal and ruthless. Some criminal “empires” are richer than many poorer countries. Crime is increasingly being used as a substitute for legitimate endeavour. Police doesn’t function in a political or social vacuum. It is a part of national ethos. Honest and well-meaning people get honest and well-meaning police.

Ben Whitaker remarks, “the public use the police as a scapegoat for its neurotic attitude towards crime. We expect him to be human and still inhuman. We ask him to administer law and yet ask him to waive it. We resent him when he enforces law in our own case, yet demand his dismissal when he doesn’t. We offer him bribes, yet denounce his corruption”.

More changes will take place in the next few years than have taken place in the last few decades. People and products that aren’t in tune with the changes fast become obsolete. Life’s imperative is to grow or die, stretch or stagnate. There are changes in power, speed and magnitude. We have to cope more quickly than ever with problems that are much bigger and an order of complexity much greater than before. The world is inevitably going to get more complex as we become able to do more, need more and want more.

In a performance-based profession like police, the end result is that finally matters. Beneath the starched khaki hide the cracks, flaws and sins. The skills of the police are not uptodate and they aren’t learning the new ones. You can’t fight today’s battles with yesterday’s solutions. Mounting compromises and concessions have induced a weary cynicism in society. The professional environment of police is toxic. The police have become the handmaiden of political entrepreneurs. We have a flat-footed police force out of sync with ground realities, handicapped by politicisation, red tape and turf war. For all acts of omission and commission, politicians, society and the media need a visible target to hit and that is police. A policeman’s professional life is a haphazard drift from one point to another. They move without reaching anywhere.

What is required for a successful long innings in police is a little oiliness, a dash of wiliness, an infinite capacity for smooth and doubletalk and a facade of loyalty to the boss. A policeman believes in law and order in a curiously innocent way. He believes in it more than the public he serves.

Law and order, after all, is the magic wand from which he derives his power, individual power that he cherishes as nearly as all men cherish individual power. And yet, there is smouldering resentment against the public he serves. They are at the same time his ward and his prey. As wards they are ungrateful, abusive and demanding. As prey they are slippery, dangerous and full of guile.

There is an effective communication breakdown between the cop on the beat, his professional superiors and society. A basic behavioural dilemma exists between the policeman and society. What is missing is trust. Trust is the emotional bank account between two people. The trust between the policeman and society is at its lowest ebb. Trust in relationships can’t be fabricated. Sincerity can’t be faked for long.

Eventually, leaders reveal themselves. There is a crisis of leadership in the Indian Police. The leaders lack professional expertise, ability to motivate and lead from the front. The result is a multiple personality disorder that is manifested in diluted loyalty and total loss of respect for his senior. An ordinary cop on the street is adrift in the whirlpool of different pulls and pressures and finding no guidance or protection from his professional superiors, he finds succour in the arm of some small-time ‘neta’, goon or local ‘godfather’. A policeman can’t write his own script, he can’t choose his own course and he can’t control his destiny.

The leadership lacks the courage to think and act strategically. The decisions are made with limited and blunted awareness. Energies are wasted in polarising, politicking and protecting turf. They are bad role models. The leadership in police by and large consists of unappetising figures — rude and untrustworthy. The professional style of police leadership is based on volatile moods, arbitrary decisions, raw emotions and ego trips.

A policeman emits the smell of frustration and dead brain cells. He is used, misused and abused by his superiors and society. At the leadership level in police there is a lot of ‘Jail Material’. Petty, banal but mere vigorous and less scrupulous officers generally assume the leadership in police. When you shine a flashlight on the steamy underbelly of police, human garbage comes out. The character of a policeman suggests two halves of an incoherent whole. Policeman is at odds with society because he is at odds with himself. The policeman passes his unhappiness and frustration to society.

The police needs ideological restructuring. The key to quality products and services is a quality person. The key to personal quality is character and competence. Quality is not an accident. It is a result of sustained planning, hard work and discipline. What is needed is police with a human approach to people.

People’s skills are useful which amount to saying that it is good to be nice. It is so true that it is trivial says Paul McHugh of Johns Hopkins University ‘understanding one’s feelings, empathy for the feelings of others and the regulations of emotions in the way which enhance living.’ Primitive emotional response still holds the key to survival. The old fashioned way, by getting to the right sources, is the only approach. About 90 per cent of the communication is non-verbal.

Studies have called police work ‘a high risk lifestyle’. Not high-risk in terms of physical dangers of the job, but high risk in terms of attitudinal problems, behavioural problems and intimacy and relationship problems. As a police officer progresses in his career, he becomes cynical. Life is like an airplane. An airplane has four forces working on it. Gravity pulls it down but the wings produce lift, which picks it up. The engines produce thrust. The air around the plane produces drag or resistance. In order to fly a pilot will take the plane, point it into the greatest amount of resistance and add the maximum amount of thrust. Maximum thrust into maximum resistance produces lift. Once airborne your height or elevation is controlled by attitude. If you pull back on the stick the nose of the plane points up. You have a positive attitude and will climb. If you push the stick forward you have a negative attitude and will fall. Fall far enough and you will crash. The problem with cynicism is that destroys all attitudes. All attitudes become negative and thus the cynic will eventually crash.

It is time effective steps were taken to check the rot in police. The police sub-culture spawns three types of officers — Marginalised, Demoralised and the Criminalised. The good, honest, efficient and professionals are in the first category. It is the criminalised who play the centrestage because they believe in the law of the ruler and not the rule of law.

The recruitment rules to the IPS should be amended. There should be closest scrutiny of the professional graph of the officers. Any officer who doesn’t get empanelled after two chances should be retired. Most of the police officers deserve to be retired after 20-25 years of service. There is a tremendous accumulation of human garbage in the higher echelons of police.

Whenever there is a law and order problem, paramilitary force or the army is immediately rushed. The best way to set things right is to make police a Central subject or the Centre should have a more effective say in the posting of the DGPs and Intelligence Chiefs. Otherwise, the police will continue to be a sick joke of society that makes more noise than impact.

The writer is former Additional Director-General of Police, Haryana.

PROFILE

Golden boy full of promise
Harihar Swarup

Communist China has come a long way since the gory days of transition of power. Barely 13 years ago the last General Secretary, Zhao Ziang, was put under house arrest in Beijing after being swept aside in power struggle for sympathising with student protesters. History was made when China’s first orderly and peaceful transfer of power took place two weeks back with 59-year-old Hu Jintao replacing Jiang Zemin as the CCP General Secretary. Incidentally, Jiang, 76, and known as the Chinese supremo, departing from the past practice, abdicated his post to a younger leader.

This was also, for the first time, that Jiang, even though he stepped down, would continue to wield power; retains the title of President until the legislature meetings in March, and remains commander-in-chief of China’s army.

Hu Jintao was a protege and favourite of the party patriarch Deng Xiaoping, possibly, the greatest Chinese leader after Mao. It is a known fact that while choosing Jiang as his successor 13 years ago, Deng had willed that next supreme leader would be Hu. In choosing Hu, the just concluded 16th Party Congress remained loyal to the wishes of Deng, who had picked him (Hu) as Jiang’s successor. Deng, who (this correspondent had privilege of meeting him in December, 1988) died in 1997, had installed Jiang after the crackdown on Tiananmen Square protesters in 1989 as his successor and chosen Hu as the fourth generation supremo of the party. Deng was, apparently, impressed by the brilliance of young Hu, who had come to be known as the party’s “golden boy”, possessed a photographic memory, always spoke extempore without even notes and never tripped over a Party line.

Incidentally, three Chinese leaders in succession — Deng, Jiang and Hu — have been advocates of economic reforms which has now opened China’s doors to a curious world. The process of reforms were, in fact, initiated by Deng and carried forward by Jiang. China specialists say Hu inherits from them an economy booming with exports and foreign investment but, at the same time, threatened by mammoth unemployment and growing gaps in wealth as a planned economy evolves into the capitalistic “socialist market economy” devised by Deng. While the world’s largest Communist nation is economically freer than ever before, it remains far less free in political sphere.

Handsome and stylishly-suited, Hu is a former hydraulic engineer . At 39, he became the youngest member of the party’s governing central committee in 1982 and ten years after he was elevated to the Party’s powerful Politburo. It was, precisely, at this time, that Hu came to the notice of Deng and the late paramount leader picked him to become the core of the Communist China’s fourth generation leader. Hu also served as Party Secretary of Tibet for four years. He was in Tibet in 1988 during the riots against the Chinese rule and was said to the brain behind imposition of martial law in the Himalayan region. Diplomats and Tibet experts, however, held the view that he was, possibly, carrying out orders from Beijing.

Hu was transferred to yet another “hardship posting” after Tibet. He was shifted to western China to construction sites in beleaguered Gansu province during the Cultural Revolution. “Long years of work in remote and poor areas inhabited by ethnic minorities have tempered Hu’s character as well as made him a staunch supporter of the policies of reform and door opening”, says Hu’s official biography. Describing him as “a man of the people”, the biography also says he left his “footprints” in as many as 86 counties he had worked. His critics say, he is a wily operator, a party climber who lacks big ideas, let alone the political clout to implement them. They, however, admit that he gets things done.

A native of the eastern farming province of Anhui, Hu was made the Vice-President of the Party in 1998 and also Jian’s deputy on powerful commissions that control the Chinese army. He was still not very well known even in China till US bombs (mistakingly) destroyed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999. Three Chinese reporters were killed, setting off furious anti- US protests in Beijing and elsewhere in China.

As a mob besieged the US Embassy in Beijing, Hu appeared on TV praising the protesters for expressing “the Chinese people’s strong indignation at the unwarranted bombing and exhibiting patriotism.

Hu’s most important phase of career begins now. The question being asked is whether he will be able to establish himself as China’s supreme leader. 

DELHI DURBAR

Inaudible voices at DD fete

Talk of Doordarshan’s lack of professionalism. At the first DD monthly awards distribution function held on the lawns of the DD premises in New Delhi recently, the seemingly antique microphones failed to amplify the voices of the speakers including its soft-spoken Director-General S.Y.Quraishi and special invitee and media critic Amita Malik. As a result, audience sitting in the second row could barely hear Ms Malik’s experiences with DD and its critical appreciation. When a scribe walked up to Ms Malik to fill in some blanks, she turned down the request to repeat anything and said that they should have intervened and complained that nothing was audible. She, however, repeated a few sentences reluctantly. Even Ms Malik’s inquiry if the audience could hear her was not audible. At the end of the programme, a visibly exhausted Ms Malik complained to Dr Quraishi the futility of the exercise as her speech could not be heard.

Uneasy choice

It is an uneasy choice for the Congress leaders in Punjab who have their eyes set on some office. They have been told by the high command to either seek a post in the Pradesh Congress Committee or be in the queue for heading state-run corporations. The high command apparently wants to enforce the one man-one post principle and has not yet cleared the PCC though it has been some months since H.S.Hanspal became the PPCC chief. It is learnt that a party leader, who is now OSD to the Chief Minister, wants to have a post in the PCC as well. The high command, however, wants her to focus on one job at a time. Similar is the case of a former MLA from Moga who is interested in both heading the state organisation on health and getting a berth in the PCC. Party MLAs, who are aspirants for ministerial berths in any future expansion of the Capt Amarinder Singh cabinet, are also being dissuaded from seeking any appointment in the PCC. There are many aspirants for every post and the attempt apparently is to accommodate as many as possible without raising a hornet’s next.

Help for Mulayam

Parliament is abuzz with stories about a senior Minister of the Atal Behari Vajpayee government giving some important tips on Gujarat to Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. After drawing a blank in his pursuit of power in Uttar Pradesh, Mr Yadav was more than eager to teach a lesson to Congress President Sonia Gandhi but did not have enough understanding about the political map of Gujarat. So, he reportedly turned to his old friend with whom he has been in touch since the early nineties.

The ties were further strengthened and cemented by none other than Mr Yadav’s “man Friday” and SP General Secretary Amar Singh. In 1998, the relationship touched the nadir when Mr Yadav refused to back Sonia Gandhi’s effort to form the Government at the Centre after the Vajpayee government was defeated by one vote in the Lok Sabha. At that time, this particular minister had convinced Mr Yadav that the Samajvadi Party’s future would be sealed if he supported Sonia Gandhi. This time, the Minister has not only identified 122 seats from where the Samajwadi Party should contest but also promised other assistance.

Bonding force

Newly re-elected Rajya Sabha MP from Uttar Pradesh Amar Singh seems to have taken over the role of being the single biggest bonding force as far as Delhi’s “social” evenings go. At a party thrown by him at the Convention Hall of the Ashoka Hotel in New Delhi recently to celebrate hotelier Lalit Suri’s birthday, not only the who’s who from the political world but even those who have earned a reputation for other reasons were there rubbing shoulders.

The list comprised politicians to artists to cricketers to Bollywood stars to top industrialists. Leading the pack was Bollywood superstar and close friend Amitabh Bachchan with wife Jaya. Among the industrialists were K K Birla, Anil and Tina Ambani and Vijay Mallya, Union Ministers Pramod Mahajan and Arun Shourie, new Rajya Sabha member Farooq Abdullah and his son Omar, former J&K minister Ajatshatru Singh and father Karan Singh, Shabana Azmi, Margaret Alva, Sharmila and Tiger Pataudi, the Nandas of the Escorts, and former foreign secretary Romesh Bhandari.

Farooq the singer

The do by Mr Amar Singh of course had many surprises in store. The biggest came from former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Farooq Abdullah. Always known to hold the audience through his fiery speeches, towering Farooq Abdullah this time held the attention of all through a beautiful rendetion of old hindi film songs. After requesting one of the Bollywood playback singers to sing an old song, Dr Abdullah was finally on the stage singing a duet with the lady to everyone’s pleasant surprise. Even as the ebullient Vijay Mallya danced to Dr Abdullah’s tunes on stage, recognised singers like Sukhwinder Singh and Sapna Mukherjee went unnoticed. It was a performance beyond expectations.

VHP vs Advani

The Sangh Parivar launching torpedoes at Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is nothing new. But in the past few days the increasingly aggressive Vishva Hindu Parishad’s salvos against the so-called “Hindutva hardliner” and Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani came as a shock. Earlier this week, an intrepid journalist asked the Prime Minister at his hastily convened lunch at 7 Race Course Road residence what would have happened if there had been two Praveen Togadias in the Sangh Parivar. Vajpayee seemed stumped for some time. But after his familiar pregnant pause, he shot back: “Ab kis kis Parivar ka hisaab rakhein..”

Junior ministers

It is a known secret that many Ministers of State, belonging to the BJP, in the Atal Behari Vajpayee Government hardly have any official work as their seniors have kept most of the brief to themselves. But thanks to Gujarat Assembly polls scheduled for December 12, these worthy “deputies” would get an opportunity to hold fort for at least 10 days. The reason: their senior ministers have been drafted by the party for the November 30-December 10 campaigning. As they say when the cat is away the mice will play. And what a playing field for them now that the winter session of Parliament is on.

Contributed by Tripti Nath, Prashant Sood, Satish Mishra, Girja Shankar Kaura, Rajeev Sharma and S.Satyanarayanan.

DIVERSITIES — DELHI LETTER

Fun evenings and parties galore
Humra Quraishi

New Delhi is swinging from one extreme to the other. Fun evenings, the latest being the reception hosted on the occasion of the Lebanese National Day at Ashoka’s new restaurant ‘Mashrabiya’.

You can judge the numbers who’d turned up from the very fact that though there’s never been any parking problem at its sprawling expanse, on Nov 22 evening, there was simply no place to park except on the outer corners of the outer roads.

Two factors responsible for this rush. Lebanese Ambasador to India Jean G Daniel and the Lebanese cuisine. He is a popular diplomat on the circuit here. To me he holds a special place as he is from the country of Khalil Gibran, whose words see me through the most difficult phases of life.

Let me also focus on the famous Amla family of Srinagar (owners of the Broadway hotel and theatre of Srinagar) who have slowly but very steadily moved away from Srinagar to New Delhi, taking hold of one restaurant after another.

Last fortnight they took hold of Ashoka hotel’s pub, Steel and now they have taken this Lebanese restaurant on lease. Great publicity for them, for their new restaurant, as the capital’s who’s who was seen entering this open air restaurant and eating to their heart’s content.

As I stood there I couldn’t help recollecting that exactly two years back the chief guest (the then Vice President, the late Krishna Kant) hadn’t turned up for the national day celebrations of this country but this day there were so many VVIPs that it was difficult to keep count. As they say, if feasts come they come in a row.

Last Monday was Oman National Day with one of the finest cuisines. Here I must add that unlike the receptions hosted by the Western countries, those hosted by Middle East countries are complete with snacks, followed by an elaborate dinner.

The UAE National Day falls on Dec 8. UAE Ambassador’s spouse Ayesha al Shamsi is from Lahore, speaks fluent Punjabi and is a big hit with the Punjabis of the city.

As we sat on the same table at the Omanese National Day, she was chatting in fluent Punjabi with travel writer Inder Raj Ahluwalia (who has just been bestowed with a prestigious French national award for his travel writings).

Focus on AIDS

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KASHMIR DIARY

Fidayeen put forces on alert
David Devadas

Begging can be a very dangerous business in Kashmir these days. Some time ago, a mendicant was killed outside a Border Security Force camp in the late evening darkness at Nunar, a village not far from Srinagar. He was a familiar figure in Nunar and most people used to laugh at him as a mad man. Pitying his gypsy existence, some of them would hand him scraps of food. The poor man had gone to the camp that night and shouted at the soldiers on guard duty at the gate to give him food. When he kept repeating his chant even after they warned him to move away, they let loose a burst of automatic fire. He died on the spot.

“It’s not their fault,” says the headman of the village, shaking his head. “Suicide attackers do approach military camps that way. They thought he was a fidayeen (suicide attacker).” It is a bitter reality of the situation here that the suicide attack tactic that has become common over the past three years has placed security forces on hair-trigger alert. Camps across the valley have gradually come to resemble the sets of war films dreamt up by an overly dramatic moviemaker. Fifteen foot walls surround some, triple barbed wire fences, with live electric wires between them, have come up around others. Under the heavy drop gates lie iron slabs with huge iron spikes that would halt any vehicle less than a tank. At night, soldiers often push out huge rolls of barbed wire beyond them. Lights have been set up right around the perimeter of most camps and empty bottles are often tied to barbed wire fences, so that their clanking would warn guards of anyone shaking the fence.

The scene along the rocky, bushy landscape of the road leading up to the Avantipora air base could easily be the setting for a Rambo film. It leaves one breathless with unease as the barrels of several guns jut out from behind trees and drums, pointing straight at one.

On one occasion, I got delayed leaving for Bandipora. By the time the car approached Bandipora at around 8.30 pm, we had to pass a large army camp. A little before a byroad winds off towards the camp, boulders and old tyres had been placed across the main road. My driver, scared of just such a panic volley as the one that killed the gypsy in Nunar, switched off the engine and headlights before requesting me to walk slowly to the camp gate and request the soldiers to let us pass.

I walked towards the thick roll of barbed wire, calling out loudly in Hindi. There was no response and I stopped, but my driver urged me to go closer. As I got close enough for the soldiers to see that I was alone, a voice answered, asking where I thought I was going. Following lengthy explanations that I was a journalist, had to go to Bandipora for an interview related with the elections, had got delayed and was frightened to go back in the dark, the voice finally instructed me to remove the obstacles myself and replace them after the car had crossed.

Only halfway through the conversation was a strong flashlight switched on for a better view of me. The soldiers cannot be faulted for these precautions. The soldier holding the torch could have been shot as soon as he switched it on. Suicide attacks have often begun with a lone fidayeen approaching such a gate to locate the exact position of its guards so that they can be killed before the camp is invaded. There were plenty of rocks and bushes near that gate for attackers to lurk behind. As the headman of Nunar observed after the gypsy’s death: “Nobody can be blamed in these circumstances.” The sad fact of course is that the ordinary Kashmiri, even one as innocent as that gypsy, can fall victim to the dictum: “When in doubt, shoot.”

No doubt, one of the objectives of the revised terrorist strategy of suicide attacks is to cause just this sort of panicky response among soldiers, and thus further alienate them from the common people. Withdrawing into a shell might appear to be a less than soldierly tactic but it has served the purpose of minimising damage. Going after suicide attackers aggressively would only lead to the frequent killing of innocent Kashmiris, for fidayeen add the ultimate weapon, eagerness to die, to that other lethal weapon of any guerrilla, surprise.

The result of the forces’ tactic of caution is that such panicky responses as the one in which the gypsy died are rare — and the general reaction in Nunar indicates that people by and large do not blame the soldiers when such mistakes do occasionally occur.