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Tuesday,
February 18, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Kalam’s offer to Pak Something for everybody India’s cup of woes |
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The idea of “regime change”
Connecting places and people too
UP: party system under threat
Beauty lies in the head of robot!
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Kalam’s offer to Pak IN his first address to the joint sitting of Parliament on the opening day of the budget session on Monday President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam highlighted the government’s intention to maintain friendly relations with all the neighbours of India, including Pakistan. The trouble, however, is that every move of India towards good neighbourly relations has been responded to by Pakistan in a negative manner — an increase in terrorist violence aided and abetted from across the border. The recent incident in which the top diplomat of the Pakistan High Commission was found involved in supplying funds to Kashmir-based terrorist outfits showed that the mission was there not for discharging its diplomatic obligations but for fomenting trouble in India. Yet India is ready to maintain the level of diplomatic representation that existed before the controversial official was expelled but only if Pakistan sends a replacement for him. This offer made by President Kalam shows how seriously India takes the principle of bilateralism. The Indus Waters Treaty, the Shimla Agreement and the Lahore Declaration are based on this principle. An effort was made to end the Kashmir crisis by holding a dialogue with Pakistan ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf in Agra in July, 2001, but he sabotaged it by his immature behaviour. India had agreed to the talks even though it had to dilute its stand slightly — that a recourse to dialogue was possible only when Pakistan ended its support for cross-border terrorism. Pakistan continues to work on terrorism as an instrument of state policy till date. It has failed to honour the commitment it made even to the international community in the wake of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. Yet it wants India to again agree to holding talks with Kashmir as the focal point. President Kalam’s speech makes one understand that India is committed to finding solutions to problems involving its neighbours through the internationally recognised route of dialogue provided there is a conducive environment. This can come about in the case of Pakistan only with its honest cooperation which is missing. In that case, the Government of Pakistan will have to drastically redesign its Kashmir policy based on cross-border terrorism. Is the Musharraf regime ready for it? President Kalam has rightly stated that the “chief threat” to India’s internal security is “external”. The government has to maintain a constant vigil on this front. It should not allow issues relating to the two principal communities to be exploited by India’s enemy number one. In this context, he mentioned terrorist attacks on Gandhinagar’s (Gujarat’s) Akshardham Temple and Jammu’s Raghunath Temple when people maintained calm in the face of extreme provocation. We must not do anything to help the enemy’s destructive designs. Perhaps, that is why he advised the religious leaders of Hindus and Muslims to accept a court verdict on the Ayodhya issue. This will help the promotion of “an atmosphere of mutual understanding, goodwill and accommodation” essential for faster all-round growth of the country. |
Something for everybody AN election manifesto tends to be a much more lavish version of a populist budget, because its drafting committee does not have to bother about where the money is going to come from. Quite expectedly, the BJP in Himachal Pradesh has pulled all stops while promising sops to each and every section. At the same time, it has focussed on making Himachal Pradesh a "model state". If voted to power, it has committed itself to eliminating illiteracy, corruption, unemployment, poverty and hunger. Fit for Ripley's? There is more. There will not only be jobs for all but also potable water for all villages and urban localities by 2008. It has envisioned a bright future by laying stress on development and security. The top priority is sought to be given to infrastructure development and basic amenities. That is how it should be. If it does stick to a time-bound plan to fulfil all commitments such as constructing tunnels to link Jubbal with Kotkhai and Una with Bilaspur, it will not only bring prosperity to the state but also tourists. But the big question is whether it is in a position to do so. Of course — it insists — because of its track record of
"jo kaha, woh kiya" during its current tenure. Now that is a debatable point, but the BJP — or any other party for that matter — brooks no debate at such a stage. Employment is a major issue in Himachal Pradesh. The BJP has offered to generate as many as nine lakh jobs for the youth. Daily wage workers have been given the lollipop of regularisation. However, its commitment to make it mandatory for industrial units to recruit workforce from within the state may not go down too well with the industrialists. Women are similarly sought to be won over with a large number of schemes. There are matching gestures towards
Dalits, OBCs and ex-servicemen. Decorated soldiers are to be given the status of freedom fighters. The larger issue of religion has not been forgotten. The BJP will bring a piece of legislation to ban religious conversion. How one wishes it and the Congress had shown similar enthusiasm on the issue of weeding out corruption, especially among politicians. The concerted attacks by Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh have not been forgotten by Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal. Talking to newsmen during the release of the manifesto, he said that his party would fight to get back the Shanan power house and Himachal's legal share under the Punjab Reorganisation Act and also prevent the interference and
"goondaism" of Punjab. One can well imagine what kind of relations the two neighbouring states may have in the years to come. |
| India’s cup of woes THE Indian security agencies would do well to prepare a contingency plan for protecting the members of the Indian cricket team from becoming victims of mob fury the moment they return from their ill-starred World Cup campaign in South Africa. The reported attack on Mohammad Kaif's house in Allahabad was just a glimpse of what the so-called super stars should expect from their fans if they do not lift their performance in the remaining four games to qualify for the super six stage of the tournament. The Indian fans do not expect their idols to perform miracles. All they want from them is a good fight and decent performance. Decent performance? The last such act was performed by the
invincibles-in-the-making during the ICC Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka last year. That had made cricket buffs believe that the sensational victory in the tri-nation NatWest Trophy in the final against England too was not a fluke. Thereafter the players and the Board of Control for Cricket in India decided that wasting their time and energy on questioning the terms of the contract that the International Cricket Council had drawn up for participation in the World Cup was all they needed to do for repeating the magic of 1983. It was at that point of time that the Indian team started falling apart. The policy to rest key players in the home series against the West Indies was the turning point in the fortunes of the Indian cricket team. The defeat by a 4-3 margin at the hands of the under-rated West Indian team should have sent alarm bells ringing. It did not. The New Zealand tour that followed was a nightmare. Stephen Fleming and his players literally treated the feared Indian batting lining up as a cat treats a mouse. Some teams, perhaps, begin to enjoy destroying their own reputation and India is one of them. It lost a warm-up game to a local side in South Africa. It tried its level best to help Holland cause the first major upset of the tournament. The Dutch players evidently had more respect for their reputation than the Indian players themselves. The Dutch bowled out India, as most teams now do with boring ease, within the allotted 50 overs. While chasing a modest target of 205 the last two Dutch players mocked at the Indian bowling before going down with their head held high. The highest scorer on the two sides was a Dutch player and so was the man of the match. Only an incurable optimist expected the Indian team to beat the highly motivated and professional Australians in their group match. Skipper Saurav Ganguly had the audacity to say at the end of a humiliating day on the field that "we did every thing right except scoring runs." The more he speaks the more angry the disappointed fans are likely to become. If most Indian players have forgotten how to play decent cricket, they should do the nation of their birth a good turn by at least keeping their trap shut for the duration of their stay in South Africa. The Indian fans have already begun collecting disposable material for the same players for whom special puja ceremonies were organised across the country. Forget the sponsors who have lost the money they had spent on preparing the World Cup ad
campaigns. The real losers are the countless fans who had pinned their hopes on Ganguly's gang to win the World Cup for India. |
The idea of “regime change” Regimes have been bad by definition ever since France’s ancient regime ended in 1789, giving the word a foot in the door of the English language. One dictionary cites “a communist regime” as illustration. Another says, “We must overthrow this corrupt, fascist, totalitarian regime.” Speak of “the Castro regime” by all means, but “the Bush regime” is thus a sacrilegious oxymoron. Politics being all about packaging, politicians constantly reinvent old ideas and practices to claim a niche in the gallery of immortals. Turkey massacred over a million Armenians but ethnic cleansing began with Bosnia. Every megalomaniac since Attila the Hun has dreamt of shaping the future but never been credited with trying to usher in a new world order. When Japan complained before World War II that white imperialists had seized all the raw materials and markets it should have been complimented on anticipating today’s fashionable economic demand for a level playing field. As Britain’s Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, was supposed to have coined the ringing phrase, “wind of change”, which made a virtue of necessity for decolonisation had already been forced on the colonial powers. Even those three magic words were not original. Macmillan purloined them without so much as a by-your-leave from Sarojini Naidu, whose poem, To a Buddha seated on a Lotus, runs, “The wind of change for ever blows/ Across the tumult of our way,/ To-morrow’s unborn griefs depose/ The sorrows of our yesterday./ Dream yields to dream,/ strife follows strife,/ And Death unweaves the webs of Life.” Regime changers in the USA dismiss death’s unweaving as necessary collateral damage — another innocuous sounding modern Western phrase to play down death and destruction in an Asian land. According to the White House spokesman, Mr Ari Fleischer, a single bullet can do the trick. General Pervez Musharraf is the most recent of a long line of obliging Pakistani brasshats to demonstrate again that even a bullet is not necessary to change the regime provided two conditions are met: the regime must consist of democratically elected civilian politicians, and the agents of change must be military men who enjoy Uncle Sam’s confidence. In India, voters regularly and peacefully achieve regime change. Declassified records show that in 1971 the British helped to oust Uganda’s Milton Apollo Obote. The instrument of change was “a splendid fellow” who played football. Sergeant Idi Amin had made himself a Major-General by the time destiny anointed him. When it turned out that “Animal Farm” was his favourite bedtime reading and Napoleon his second name, the Royal Military College at Sandhurst tracked down and ticked off the British officer who first gave Idi his stripes and set his feet on the ladder of ambition. Pakistan’s General Zia-ul-Haq, America’s supremo for counter-change after the Soviets’ bloody regime changing in Kabul in 1978-79, objected to being paid peanuts. In the end, it cost the USA much more to have the Taliban regime installed, and even more to liquidate it. But for its tunnel vision, the Taliban might have learnt a thing or two from the fate of another regime that initially enjoyed American benediction. South Vietnam’s staunchly Roman Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem had no Bamiyan Buddhas to demolish, but his sister-in-law clapped gleefully when Buddhist protesters set fire to themselves and called it a “barbecue”. When Ngo and his gang were butchered in 1963, the American Ambassador, Henry Cabot Lodge, summoned the butchers to his office and congratulated them on a job well done. As a thief set to catch a thief, Ngo could expect no quarter. That is something for President Saddam Hussein, America’s protégé during the Iraq-Iran war, to remember. He must envy North Korea’s inscrutable Chairman Kim Jong Il who has bombs. Bad luck, Mr. Saddam has oil. Iraq might otherwise have got away with magnets and centrifuge tubes as Pakistan got away even when the American Central Intelligence Agency produced similar evidence that successive American Presidents concealed from Congress and pretended did not exist. Now that the invasion of Iraq seems inevitable, the USA should also remember that externally manipulated regime change seems always to replace the unsavoury with the abominable. Such coups have rebounded on the USA in South Vietnam, Uganda, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Washington originally heaved a sigh of relief when Gamal Abdel Nasser toppled King Farouk of Egypt and General Fidel Castro overthrew the Batista regime. Later, it regretted and tried to undo both events. The Chinese, Russians and French made it clear after General Powell’s recent passionate performance in the United Nations that despite Mr. Saddam Hussein’s alleged offences against the UN Security Council’s Resolution 1441, they most emphatically did not want war. Beyond suspecting why the USA does, beyond fearing that it could become a habit, they know that invading Muslim Iraq — especially while continuing to ignore the anguish of Palestinians — would invite disaster. As the Malaysian Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, and others have warned, it could kindle the fires of an international jihad. The cry for revenge will resonate from Xinjiang to the Philippines, with more Chechen and Palestinian martyrs, more Bali and Mombasa bombings. Yet, America’s right-wing Christian believers — the Republican Party’s moral backers — yearn for just such hostages to fortune. A think-tank in the USA suggests that a higher American military profile in Asia would achieve regime change in China by hastening the democratisation process. Not content with his murderous military operations in the occupied territories, Israel’s Prime Minister wants Palestine’s Chairman Yasser Arafat removed and replaced by an even more malleable — read puppet — regime. Iran, Sudan and Syria await President George W. Bush’s pleasure. An American journalist, Thomas P. Healy, put it to the former chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq, Mr Scott Ritter, an ex-marine, that if any other Head of State used the term “regime change” it would be called terrorism. “It is terrorism,” Mr. Ritter replied. The lone superpower is not expected to impose Pax Americana like 19th century British proconsuls in Jodhpurs and sola topees. As Dr Henry Kissinger, the former Secretary of State, writes, the USA should “transform its power into moral consensus, promoting its values not by imposition but by their willing acceptance in a world that, for all its seeming resistance, desperately needs enlightened leadership.”Otherwise, we are forced back to the question that the Roman satirist, Juvenal, asked nearly 2,000 years ago — Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes? But who is to guard the guards themselves? |
Connecting places and people too THE shrill whistle of a steam engine is enough to kindle one’s fantasy and imagination to chug along. Railways have always fascinated people, transcending the socio-economic divide. Travel by train is as romantic as any. Some may disagree. But, I’m sure, they too share a love-hate relationship with the railways. Love and hate alternate, amen! If the good old Frontier Mail, Toofan Express and Deccan Queen were famed for the comfort and style of their own in their heydays, and formed the backdrop for many a screen romance, the cross-country train journeys undertaken by Mahatma Gandhi travelling third class evoked their own romance. Gandhi turned the colonial railway, of which the avowed objective was to strengthen the imperial hold over India, into a means of struggle against the British! Even today, it is unthinkable for the organisers of a grand rally to put up an impressive show without the railways. Ironically enough, the same railways becomes an object of the protesters’ ire regardless of the relevance of their cause to the national lifeline. Perhaps, because of its visibility and versatility! If India lives in her villages, it moves on its railways. It touches the life of almost every Indian. More than connecting places it connects people. Imagine the joy of a jawan rushing to catch the first train homewards to unite with his bride. Relatives gathering at the village railway station to receive the fauji returning home is a sight to behold. A rose grower in Ambala finds it most convenient to send fresh blooms overnight to the florist in Delhi. A bank official commuting between Sonepat and Delhi cannot do without the railways. For the multitude of college-goers, servicemen, businessmen, milk vendors et al railways in literally their lifeline. Mumbai sans suburban services would be nightmarish. Who doesn’t know that the hotel industry at Chandigarh lost a big chunk of their clientele after the introduction of Shatabdi services? An airlines had to shut shop and leave the City Beautiful! The thriving trade of Mumbai’s dabbawalas owes a lot to the fast moving suburban trains. They collect meal boxes from a number of houses to carry them on the suburban network to reach thousands of office-goers enabling them to savour home-cooked food without much ado. Despite diesel and electric locomotives having taken over the railway traction, nostalgia beckons the good old steam engine, perhaps the most robust version of James Watt’s invention. British Rail has rightly retained about 1200 steam locos to haul tourist trains in certain circuits in the UK. Indian Railways too have taken care to preserve 20 odd black beauties to work on the hill railways and elsewhere. The picturesque and the prestigious Kalka-Shimla, all set to celebrate its centenary, is one of them. The historic run of the Fairy Queen in 1997 won for the country a Guinness world record. Indian Steam Railway Society has been set up to sustain steam to the cause of steam locomotive. But what about the faceless rail workers who remain in the background but engaged in ensuring safe and efficient rail travel. Thousands of station masters, cabinmasters, guards, drivers, gangmen, gatemen and other staff constantly remain on their toes. Hundreds of pairs of eyes watch a train during its run to ensure its safe passage. But they don’t get written about except when they fail. They are our unsung heroes.
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UP: party system under threat AT the peak of the defection game in Haryana three decades back, ‘Aaya Ram-Gaya Ram’ became the most dirty word in politics. The voters’ ire had then forced political parties to deny tickets to many of them in subsequent elections. UP Chief Minister Mayawati has broken all previous records in political witchcraft. Yet why this muted protest from the intelligentsia against the massacre of democratic traditions and the conspiracy of silence by the constitutional authorities? Why every one from the constitutional authorities to the political parties watch the Mayawati tamasha when the very party system under parliamentary democracy has come under threat in UP? The conspiracy of silence is really frightening. The pracharak Governor does not find it necessary to send reports to the Centre about the endless defections and daily inductions which make a mockery of majority. The Speaker with his proven record in the last House, has not done anything to dispel the image of being partisan. Since all major players in UP politics have themselves been guilty of similar practices at some point of time, they have little moral authority to throw brickbats at Ms Mayawati. They will now find it convenient to legitimise selective raids, arrests under POTA, fabricating charges and threat to life, etc to force the MLAs into submission. When all this becomes the order of the day, the first casualty will be the very control of the political groups on their MLAs, something which is the essence of the party system of government. It begins with the compulsions of the political parties to rely more on the candidate’s personal ability to win the extra votes. ‘Winnability’ has become a major criterion for the selection of candidates. This is an indication of the erosion of the party system at the grassroots level. After the elections, the winners use this leverage to press for ministership. If they fail to get, they just try their luck elsewhere. The more the criminalisation of politics and more the dependence by the political parties on the fiefdom of feudal, goonda and criminal elements for votes, the more their control on the elected MLAs gets loosened. Once a cadre-based party, the BJP had its worst in UP. About a dozen of its MLAs had quit the party — with many more in toe — just because Ms Mayawati had denied them ministership. A group of independents and others who had their own axe to grind, had tied up with Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav’s SP to topple the Mayawati government. Ms Mayawati survived only due to the Congress refusal to join the move. This marked the beginning of the Mayawati saga of political persecution. Barring a few, MLAs were raided, some arrested and charges slapped on others. Police and BSP touts went round MLA quarters displaying incriminating documents to those who were still trying to mobilise resistance. Thus what Mr Vajpayee and Mr Advani in Delhi could not do with their party MLAs was achieved by Ms Mayawati’s police and POTA. The erosion of party control was more telling in the case of the Congress whose seven MLAs switched to the BSP. If the UP model catches on party-based democracy will soon come under strain. Ms Mayawati has also taken a leaf from what Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav had done when he was the Chief Minister. He had then tried to systematically poach into other party, including the left. The Kalyan-Rajnath duo had achieved the same purpose by engineering splits in major political parties. Ms Mayawati now sets her eyes on JD(U)’s three MLAs, two of the three Apna Dal and the lone National Loktantric Party apart from seven of the 23 Congress legislators. Ms Mayawati has combined every available instrument of oppression. Ms Mayawati’s staunchest ally BJP has been the chief critic of the misuse of such powers. Now the same party is conniving at the worse kind of misdeeds. Criminals are freed from jail and their cases withdrawn in exchange of support to Ms Mayawati. Watch how Mr Vajpayee and Mr Advani now try to defend all those crude assaults on civil liberties and MLA’s rights. The BJP leaders admit that their only concern was somehow to prolong the alliance until the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. With 85 Lok Sabha seats, Ms Mayawati could give them the much needed help. For this, Mr Advani and Mr Vajpayee are prepared to overlook all other sins, including the fast erosion of the party’s own support base in UP. The local BJP leaders resent this. Strangely, neither side is guided by any commitment or principles. Raja Bhayya is a known criminal with so many murder cases against him. However, this history-sheeter has been a BJP MLA and an honourable minister in its earlier government. While Ms Mayawati’s only aim was to teach him a lesson for organising revolt against her, the state BJP leaders fear that this had tended to alienate the Thakurs from the party. Ms Mayawati herself has not done much for the Dalits but her arrogance seems to have disturbed the BJP’s upper caste supporters. Thus state BJP leaders tell Mr Advani and Mr Vajpayee that even if they could keep Ms Mayawati in good humour, a section of its original supporters are bound to desert it. Until a couple of years back, it was customary to attribute Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav’s strength to his hold over the local thugs and goondas. Now no political party in UP can succeed without the support of criminal elements. Mr T.N. Seshan had once put the number of criminal candidates in UP at 200. Every major political party has its own share of criminals. Released criminals are straightaway made ministers. The BJP Government under Mr Kalyan Singh had made every defected criminal MLA as minister. Lack of affirmative action encourages the pernicious process. |
Beauty lies in the head of robot! FORGET the mirror, ask the robot how charming you look. Artificial intelligence experts in Fife have unveiled a robotic head, which can scientifically determine how attractive women are to men. But they have warned that it does not work in reverse because masculine appeal to women is not as likely to be based on looks alone. Specialists at Kirkcaldy-based Intelligent Earth company said that the head-shaped android was capable of calculating how “feminine” or “masculine” a person’s face is, according to a report in BBC. They claim that with feminine faces the android can assess attractiveness to men. “The artificial intelligence technology we have developed here learns to recognise what sex someone is by drawing on its past experiences, in much the same way that the human brain learns when we are children”, managing director David Cumming was quoted by BBC as saying. “It examines a number of facial characteristics to determine what sex someone is, so the more classically feminine a woman looks, then the quicker it will decide what sex they are. Psychological research has shown that a woman’s attractiveness directly relates to her femininity and so we can also use this reading as a measure of a woman’s attractiveness to men”, Cumming noted.
ANI |
Observe prayer at early morning, at the close of the day, and at the approach of the night; for the good deeds drive away the evil deeds. —The Quran 2,40 *** An offering consisting of muttered prayers, is ten times more efficacious than a sacrifice performed according to the rules (of the Veda). —Manu Smriti 2,85 *** If you pray to the deity with sincerity, you will assuredly realise the Divine Presence. —Chucho Jijitsu *** With prayers one unlocks heaven. —German proverb *** When in prayer you clasp your hands, God opens his. —German proverb |
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WHEN the American Secretary of State, General Colin Powell, first used the term “regime change” in congressional hearings last year, it recalled the character in “Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme”, by the 17th century French writer, Moliere, who was astonished to discover that he had unknowingly been speaking prose for more than 40 years. For, General Powell had only found a new name for an old practice.