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Thursday,
January 30, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Irreparable loss Mindless attack on Gandhi Killing democracy
Spying & lying by Pak diplomats |
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Boys behind girls in reading books
Making life a celebration
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Irreparable loss A
favourite remark of the Punjab Chief Minister, Capt Amarinder Singh, used for attacking his political opponents for the state’s slow progress in information technology and biotechnology is that “the Akalis don’t think beyond agriculture.” The Captain, in contrast, likes to project himself as a more educated, better informed, more modern Chief Minister than his immediate predecessor. It is all the more disquieting then to know how the archival records of Patiala should be handled so recklessly —that too in the reign of a scion of the erstwhile state and in his own constituency by his own government’s officials. True, the Chief Minister cannot be held responsible for the rough and careless way government officials have got used to working over the years, but he is expected to take a good care of the precious records prepared and maintained under the supervision of his father and the Rajparmukh of PEPSU, Maharaja Yadavindra Singh. Collected and compiled on the latter’s initiative with the scholarly efforts of Dr Ganda Singh and his successor V. S. Suri, the archival records, including residency records, documents of the Khalsa Durbar and accounts of British officials relating to the princely states of Patiala, Nabha, Faridkot, Malerkotla, Kapurthala, Jind and Nalagarh, were kept in Rajindra Kothi in the Baradari Gardens of Patiala. The rare and irreplaceable documents were catalogued after years of hard work and maintained for easy access to research scholars and others. However, to make space for a 15-day exhibition being organised on the state’s heritage under the aegis of the National Gallery of Modern Art, the archival records were bundled into tractor-trailers by officials of the Patiala Development Authority and dumped into the Punjab
Languages Department building. Some 35,000 books were shifted to the reference library of Punjabi
University. Some of the records, it is reported, were damaged in the process. The
labour of years in cataloguing the records has thus gone waste due to the criminal negligence of a few officials. The semi-literate officials carrying out the orders of their seniors may not be aware of the damage they have caused, but those in the decision-taking position were surely expected to know better. Such occurrences are quite natural in an environment in which heritage has become a marketable commodity.
Important buildings associated with the country’s history are now being
renovated for turning them into heritage hotels to earn some dollars and pounds. What is worse, the ancient buildings are being refurbished to give them a contemporary look to make them acceptable to tourists and visitors. The front portion of Rajindra Kothi, for instance, is being given a facelift with the use of cement in place of lime and mud used in the original version. Officials are yet undecided whether to use the building for exhibitions or as a heritage hotel. The
literacy rate in Punjab might have climbed to 70 per cent now, but the number of “educated illiterates” is also growing. Obviously, something is wrong somewhere. |
| Mindless attack on Gandhi IT is ironic that while India is observing the martyrdom of the Father of the Nation, certain US publications and TV channels are ridiculing Mahatma Gandhi. An article in the latest edition of Maxim, a lifestyle magazine, depicts a strapping man in a “Muscle” T-shirt beating up Gandhi. The article calls for “a healthy regimen of violent assaults” and urges readers to “teach those pacifists a lesson about aggression”. The three-page article includes 21 illustrations of the strapping man hitting, choking, kicking and throwing Gandhi. The magazine had gone after Gandhi in November, 2000, also when in an article headlined “Oh, Calcutta: Three Reasons to Hate Gandhi” had described him as a “lousy husband”, a “rotten father” and a “horrible role model”. Its licentiousness becomes all the more odious in today’s context because, as Mr Michael Matsuda, chairperson of the Orange County Asian Pacific Islander Community Alliance in California, says, after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the USA and with the anti-war movement, this article is telling people to beat the crap out of Asians and pacifists. It is thus fanning the flames of hatred and bigotry. The Indian community in the USA is
scandalised. The fun poked at the revered Mahatma by MTV USA is not quite so venomous but it is in bad taste nevertheless. An animated series beamed by the channel shows a group of scientists creating clones from the DNA extracts of Gandhi, Buddha, Joan of Arc,
J.F. Kennedy, Cleopatra, etc. The Gandhi clone is shown as “Teen Crisis Hotline volunteer; School mascot ‘DNA Dan’; The Solid Gandhi Dancers (treasurer); Waiter at TGI Chili’s in the mall; Eating extreme food products; Water Wiggle; Rap career; Dry humping; Being the ultimate party animal”. Well, everyone is entitled to one’s own level of humour but this one is really sick. It is one thing to see puny men trying to run down one of the greatest men that ever walked on the earth but quite another to be a witness to his deliberate denigration on such a large scale. While the sense of outrage felt by every Indian — and every human being for that matter - on the issue is understandable, it would be best not to give too much importance to the handiwork of some sick minds. Such mudslinging is a self-defeating exercise which can have very little impact on the minds of sane people. Gandhi is too great a person to be vilified by a bunch of ignoramuses. |
Killing democracy THE Congress leadership itself is responsible for the crisis it is facing in Uttar Pradesh following the revolt by seven of the 23 MLAs. UP Assembly Speaker Kesrinath Tripathi merely confounded the crisis by revoking the suspension of Mr Akhilesh Singh from the Congress Legislature Party for giving legal status to the split. Seven out of 23 fell short of the legal requirement of one-third of the members walking out of the parent party without inviting the provisions of the anti-defection law. So, the ever helpful Speaker did the impossible by “reinstating” Mr Akhilesh Singh as a Congress MLA. The MLA from Rae Bareli was suspended in November last year for alleged anti-party activities and the Speaker had given the decision his seal of approval. But on Monday Mr Tripathi did the impossible. Here is a nightmare for those who respect constitutional propriety and a sweet dream for those who thrive on political wheeling dealings. Hey presto, the split in the CLP was legal and above board! Eight out of 24 was just the right number for the rebel Congress MLAs to be recognised as a separate group called the Akhil Bharatiya Congress Dal. CLP leader Pramod Tewari was shown by television channels raving and ranting with Mr Tripathi quietly listening to the epithets that were hurled on him. He has heard them before. Ironically Ms Mayawati was the one who had accused the Speaker of killing democracy when he sanctified the defection of 12 Bahujan Samaj Party MLAs as a legally tenable split in 1997 to save the Bharatiya Janata Party government headed by Mr Kalyan Singh. But this time Ms Mayawati is obviously not complaining. With the POTA controversy having soured her relations with the BJP, with whose help she became Chief Minister last year, and the Opposition headed by Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party baying for her blood, she has no choice but to play the politics of “hook or by crook” for staying in power. And Mr Tripathi has done what he does best in such circumstances, twisted the Constitution and the provisions of the law, for helping the party in power. The Congress has no choice but to seek judicial redress. But justice in India takes a long time coming, and the damage the development in UP has caused to the Congress image may affect the party’s electoral prospects in Himachal Pradesh. Besides, its growing irrelevance in the politically most important state may also cause havoc to its standing in the states under its control. In any case, justice in such a case as the Congress proposes to seek from the courts is not easy to obtain. Ask Chief Minister
Mayawati. She took her complaint right up to the Supreme Court. What she was complaining again was the legality of the split in the BSP Legislature Party. What she got was a split verdict by the highest court of the land! One Judge was in favour of disqualifying the MLAs for defying the party whip, but his colleague on the Bench had a contrary view. The issue was referred to a Constitution Bench. And that is where the matter rests today with the “questionable” BSP MLAs having completed their term without knowing the legal status of their membership of the most controversial legislature in the country. |
Spying & lying by Pak diplomats JUST a few months after the death of General Zia-ul-Haq in mysterious circumstances in an air crash in 1988, the Military Attaché in the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi, Brig Zaheer-ul-Islam Abbasi was caught red-handed while attempting to obtain details of Indian Army deployments from an Indian contact. While junior diplomats and staffers had been caught in the past in similar circumstances, this was the first time that a senior diplomat in the Pakistani mission in New Delhi had actually been caught indulging in blatant espionage. Mr Abbasi was no ordinary army officer. General Zia had handpicked him for his job. His expulsion only made him more virulently anti-Indian. He became an even more rabid Islamist after his expulsion. As the Brigade Commander in Siachen, he launched some suicidal attacks on Indian positions, resulting in his soldiers taking heavy casualties. Surprisingly, promoted to the rank of Major-General, he was arrested in 1995 while attempting a violent overthrow of the Government of Benazir Bhutto, only to be released shortly after General Musharraf assumed power. Quite obviously, General Musharraf was not unsympathetic to General Abbasi’s ideological orientation.
Brigadier Abbasi’s misdemeanours placed Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in an awkward position. He did not want to upset the prospects of normalisation of relations with the newly elected Pakistan Prime Minister, Ms Benazir Bhutto. But at the same time he could not afford to have an individual like Mr Abbasi with a reckless and insatiable appetite for espionage in India. The matter was explained to Islamabad and he was asked to quietly pack his bags and go home. Things, however, changed for the worse in the 1990s. The Pakistani appetite for espionage grew, as did the expulsion of Pakistan diplomats and staffers from their High Commission in New Delhi. But this period also saw the emergence of a new phenomenon. Every time a member of the Pakistan High Commission was caught spying and expelled, the ISI responded by physically getting hold of members of the Indian mission in Islamabad and beating them up. Sadly, those responsible for decision-making in New Delhi chose not to respond to such barbaric behaviour and undermined the morale of our staff serving in Islamabad. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif told me that he regarded violence against diplomats as barbaric. Yet, officials of our High Commission were beaten up on two occasions within months of Prime Minister Vajpayee’s visit to Lahore. Interestingly, Mr Nawaz Sharif was out of the country when both these incidents occurred. On one occasion, when ISI goons abducted one of our staffers in the presence of his wife and neighbours, the Pakistan government flatly denied that any such incident had taken place! The past decade has also seen the emergence of a far more aggressive posture by the ISI to use our porous borders with some of our neighbours to reinforce the espionage and destabilisation potential of their High Commission in New Delhi. While these Pakistani efforts did not bear fruit in Myanmar, they have met with a measure of success in Kathmandu and Dhaka. Nepal became a major centre for ISI activities in the 1990s. There were a number of incidents when Pakistani diplomats in Nepal were caught trying to smuggle counterfeit currency notes into India. There has also been evidence to establish that there were links between diplomats of the Pakistan mission in Nepal and the hijackers of IC 814. Dhaka has for long been a centre for ISI activities in our Northeast, with a highly overstaffed Pakistani mission working hand in glove with their Bangladeshi counterparts. Such activities invariably pick up momentum when there is a government in Dhaka led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its fundamentalist allies like the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Islami Oikyo Jote. Time magazine recently reported that agents of the Bangladesh military intelligence “maintain their contacts with their counterparts in Pakistan’s ISI and have a long history of supporting rebels across the border”. It also reported that over 150 heavily armed men belonging to the “Taliban and Al-Qaida from Afghanistan” had entered Bangladesh by boat in December, 2001. The terrorist group Harkat-ul-Jihad-ul-Islami that has maintained long-term links with the ISI, the Taliban and Al-Qaida and operates in Jammu and Kashmir, now seems to have no dearth of support in Bangladesh. But New Delhi will necessarily have to be patient with both Nepal and Bangladesh in dealing with the problems arising out of ISI machinations against India, executed on their territories. While Nepal that has been forthcoming in addressing our concerns, is going through a period of political turmoil, we would have to engage Bangladesh in a comprehensive dialogue to address issues of mutual interest and concern. Pakistan will necessarily have to be dealt with differently. New Delhi recently expelled four officials of the Pakistan High Commission for “activities incompatible with their diplomatic status” — a euphemism for spying. It is no secret that roughly 70% to 80% of the staff members of the Pakistan mission in New Delhi are from the ISI. Their primary tasks are espionage and promoting subversion through contacts with dubious elements in organisations like the Hurriyat Conference. Many of these gentlemen are pretty amateurish and get caught red-handed at some stage or the other. When they are caught and expelled the ISI responds by physical violence against our staff in Islamabad. This necessarily escalates tensions in an already strained relationship. Since Pakistan is averse to promoting people-to-people contacts and trade, economic and cultural relations with India, there is really no justification for their having a jumbo-sized mission in New Delhi. India got reduced the size of the Pakistan mission in New Delhi from 110 to 55 during the events that followed the December 13 attack on our Parliament. The time has perhaps come to move to further reduce the size of the Pakistan mission in India to 20. While we will have to reciprocally reduce the size of our mission in Islamabad, we can afford to do so and function efficiently once our visa procedures are rationalised and simplified. A smaller Pakistani mission with 20 personnel will be severely restricted in its ability and inclination to indulge in espionage and subversion. We will also be able to reduce instances of diplomats being expelled and our staff in Islamabad will become less prone to getting beaten up. We can consider having larger-sized missions in each other’s capital when the two countries start having normal, good neighbourly relations. There is no dearth in Delhi of social climbers, self-styled peace activists and others given to holding candle light vigils at the Wagah border, who deem it a great privilege to be seen and photographed with the Pakistan High Commissioner. One of our most distinguished diplomats, Mr K.S. Bajpai once wryly noted that any good Indian who saw the Pakistan High Commissioner being wined and dined in Delhi and believed in rebirth, would ardently wish that in his next birth he would be the Pakistan High Commissioner in India! In marked contrast, innocent Pakistanis in Islamabad and elsewhere who invite the Indian High Commissioner and his wife or colleagues to their homes even for a meal, often meet with very harsh treatment from the ISI. Delhi’s socialites should bear this in mind. The writer is India’s former High Commissioner to Pakistan. |
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How Gandhiji failed to prevent Partition THE 55th death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi today offers a grateful nation an opportunity to recall the saga of its freedom struggle under the unique leadership of the Father of the Nation. The astonishing event of the British leaving India as friends and not as a vanquished foe is as fascinating a story as could ever be conceived for any fairy-tale, and remains unparallelled and an all-time first in the history of mankind. On this solemn occasion it would be appropriate for the nation to remember Mahatma Gandhi's single-handed and relentless last-ditch fight against the division of the country on the eve of Independence, when his colleagues and the old guards of the Congress had abandoned their age-old goal of a united India. Among all the leaders of the freedom struggle, Mahatma Gandhi alone had foreseen the horror, death and destruction that the nation would have to face if the Congress agreed to the British dividing the country before handing over power into Indian hands. And he alone among all the leaders tried his utmost till the last to prevent that great tragedy taking place. When Partition loomed large on the horizon and there was no acceptable solution in sight to prevent it, Mahatma Gandhi advised the Congress leaders to come out of the Interim Government which they had joined only six months earlier, and be bold enough to ask the British to hand over unified India to Muslim League leader Jinnah. The Congress, he advised, should further freely and sincerely cooperate with the government that Jinnah could form with the assurance not to use its majority in the Central Assembly against the government simply because of its identification with the Muslim League. Mahatma Gandhi clearly saw that since it was impossible at that stage to persuade Jinnah to agree to the Congress taking over power from the British and running the government of a united India, the only way left to prevent the Partition of the country was for the Congress to get Jinnah to run the government with the Congress support instead of giving the British an excuse to divide the country. Under the Mahatma's proposal there was the possibility of Jinnah becoming less fanatical on the issue of Partition and more receptive to keeping the country united by his experience of running the government with unqualified support from the Congress, assuring him that it wanted to play fair with him and the Muslims. The alternative — the Partition of the country with all its terrible consequences — was too disturbing for Gandhiji to contemplate, as the events later turned out. Gandhiji's scheme had provided that if Jinnah did not accept the offer to take over power for the whole of the country and run the government with Congress support, the British would hand over the government of the whole country to the Congress, and it would seek such cooperation from Jinnah and the Muslim League as was possible to run the affairs. So far as the British were concerned, said Gandhiji, they were free to hand over the power of united India to a party of their choice but under no circumstances should they play politics by facilitating the division of the country on the plea that the Congress and the Muslim League were unable to arrive at an agreement. Mahatma Gandhi was not against Partition per se if it became inevitable after the British had left behind a united India. What he was totally opposed to was the division of India by the British. Partition was welcome if Jinnah and the Muslim League wanted this to happen even after a period of running the government of unified India with Congress support. "We are unable to think coherently whilst British Power is still functioning", said Gandhiji in a statement. "Its function is not to change the map of India. Today, in the presence of the British Power, we are only demoralised. After it is withdrawn, we shall have the wisdom to think coherently and keep India one or split it into two parts or more." In a fair assessment of the situation that the Viceroy shared with his advisers at that point of time Mountbatten stated that in framing his proposal Gandhiji's "basic objective was to retain the unity of India". Gandhiji felt, said the Viceroy, that the Muslims' fear must be removed before it could be made to work better. "And once the British had handed over a unified India," the Viceroy told his advisers, Gandhiji doubtless thought that "the Indians themselves would be able to adjust matters and set up some sort of Pakistan, if necessary." The Congress leaders led by Pandit Nehru and Sardar Patel, however, failed to comprehend the unfolding events and to support and back Gandhiji's plan. Dr Ram Manohar Lohia in his unimitable style recorded later that "the leaders were too tired and hungry for power. So they gave in and fell for Partition much against the advice of Gandhiji". Mahatma Gandhi was not tried at three scores and seventeen, and therefore much older than them, when survival of the unity of India was at stake. Having failed to bring round his colleagues to his viewpoint to give the unity of India a chance of survival, Gandhiji tried to convince the British about the blunder they would be committing if they divided the country before leaving it. He, however, failed again and the consequences were as he had foreseen. The Press report that the "full force of human misery during the world's largest forced migration" resulting from the Partition of India will "soon burst on TV screens" on the release of graphic film footage from the Imperial War Museum will only remind the world that ways and means were available to avert Partition and the tragedy, and that the British could have left a golden legacy behind if they had handed a united India to the Indians as advised by Mahatma Gandhi. The writer has a well-received book on Mahatma Gandhi to his credit. |
Boys behind girls in reading books LEISURE pursuits do not follow girl-boy lines as clearly as they once did. But one thing has remained the same: reading is female. Christoph Schaefer, a spokesman for the Reading Foundation in Mainz, says the statistics show this to be true. In an OFCD questionnaire, 42 per cent of 15-year-olds admitted not liking reading — a break down of that figure reveals that 52 per cent of the boys but only 26 per cent of the girls conceded this dislike. Schaefer said the foundation’s own surveys indicated that girls were more interested in reading and were better at it. A literature specialist at Oldenburg University, Joerg Steitz-Kallenbach, said: “Boys read less, they read in a different manner and they also read different material than girls.” Because there was a close relationship between reading ability and success at school, the reading difference had consequences: boys were potentially losers in education. There are many reasons for the difference. Says Steitz-Kallenbach: “Boys who read quickly develop an image as a softy.” The parents’ reading habits also played a role. If the most the father reads is the newspaper, the message was that men do not read books. The Reading Foundation has started several projects to encourage reading, especially among boys. In class, boys were better able to analyse sports magazines while girls were better with youth magazines.
DPA |
Making life a celebration LIFE is another name for tension but much of the stress is of our own creation. We go on increasing it by our own actions and misdeeds. We feel jealous of others — neighbours, colleagues or friends. This is negative thinking. Also we go on increasing our wants, desires and try to amass wealth by hook or by crook and indulge in corrupt practices to satisfy our unquenchable thirst for pelf and power. This tendency is a great obstacle in the way of leading a tension-free life. Too much stress has an adverse effect on our body and mind. Also chronic stress leads to the failure of one’s immunological mechanism. Is there a way out from all this? Yes. Unflinching faith in the Almighty and His countless blessings are the best way to counter stress. Let there be an unconditional surrender. Make Him your master. Leave everything at his disposal and he would never fail you. All that is happening in your life is to mould you into a better person. Clearly, meditation and yoga have proved very effective in overcoming stress. Meditation connects us to our soul and helps one to grow in understanding his/her own self. It is an appointment with the self. It is a conscious effort to become fully alive and radiate positive vibrations. These days people have a common problem — anxiety — which leads to depression and stress. The remedy is not only medication but meditation as well which works wonders Meditation is focussing attention on a higher level of consciousness. It is a sort of introspection. The results are amazing as one would feel alive and relaxed. Meditation keeps not only psychiatrists but also physicians away. It gives the body the much-needed rest, normalises the blood pressure, reduces the incidence of heart attacks and increases one’s IQ and energy. Sahaj meditation is like looking into the mirror and Sudershan Kriya is like polishing the mirror. In our hectic life everyday, we feel exhausted. Meditation will make us concentrate on the inner self. We enter the stage of self-dialogue. All this tones up the body and the mind whereby the level of stress is lowered, thus leading to a higher level of efficiency. Proper use of breathing helps us develop positive thinking and attitudinal change. This is a tool to bring mind, awareness and concentration into the present. Meditation and breathing philosophy have a miraculous healing touch. They act as balm to the bruised hearts. Yoga gives amazing results in fighting stress and in providing a peaceful, stable bent of mind. Yog Sadhna is a panacea for all the ills of the body and the mind. It teaches serenity and brings out one’s excellence in life. It coordinates the body and the mind, logic and emotions and conditions our system. It is the best stress buster. If a person practises Sadhana by closing his/her eyes and coordinates the breathing with the ‘Dhyan’, his/her concentration of mind will improve and the stress and tension will go away. More important, developing a positive attitude will help us overcome stress. Every morning say to yourself, “Today will be a great day. It is not good to be down. There is always something to be happy about. I am going to help and make someone happy today”. So be an optimist if you want to be stress-free. Try to extend a helping hand to the needy. To live for others is the most fertile pleasure in the world. Above all be contented. Curtail your wants and desires. Simplicity and austerity are the main sources of true happiness. Great prophets like Gautam Buddha, Mahavir Jain and Mahatma Gandhi spread the same message. Let us sow the seeds of goodness and noble feelings in our mind and weed out all that is evil. This is what our soul is craving for. Let us hold moral values in high esteem and stress would be miles away. This way life can be a celebration. |
The bhakti practised for the destruction of sins, offering all fruit of actions to God, with the idea that it is one's duty to act in the spirit of sacrifice for gaining the pleasure of God, with the notion of difference involved in it, is the sattvika type of bhakti. — Bhagavata Purana, III. xxix .10 Sattvika, rajasika and tamasika bhakti are called secondary because desire and the notion of difference are involved in them. Among them rajas is superior to the tamasa, and sattvika is superior to the rajas type of bhakti. — Narada Bhakti Sutra, 57 |
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