The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

EDITORIALS

Violent civic poll

VIOLENCE, booth-capturing and arrests disgraced the Congress victory in the second phase of the civic poll in Punjab on Sunday. Official involvement in unlawful activities was massive as the Punjab State Election Commission suspended and charge-sheeted some 120 officials, mostly teachers, patwaris and civic employees. Senior officers are also known for playing a partisan role, but their subtle tactics, political connections and position help them beat the law. Poll violence, booth-capturing and rigging are a rarity in Punjab. However, on Sunday a Bihar-like situation prevailed in certain parts of the state’s Doaba and Majha regions in which people exercised their franchise to elect 75 municipal councils and three nagar panchayats. Most irregularities were reported from the Jalalabad, Abohar, Fazilka and Malout areas. Many other towns were tense and some witnessed armed clashes. The violent incidents point to the letdown by intelligence agencies and the administration’s failure to take preventive measures. There were allegations of police and official connivance to ensure the victory of the ruling party’s candidates. It is common knowledge that whichever party is in power in the state, many in the police and the civil administration openly work for its candidates. Not just the district police chiefs, even the SHOs are posted on partisan considerations. A change in government is followed invariably by a major police and administrative reshuffle. The politicisation of the police and the bureaucracy coupled with the inability of some neutral but spineless officers to withstand political interference is responsible not only for the lawlessness during Sunday’s poll but also for the general misgovernance in the state.

Despite the mayhem, the voter message is clear. He has not yet forgiven the Akalis for corruption and non-performance. The Punjab Government’s anti-corruption drive, despite its slowdown and selective targeting, is still appreciated. The Punjab voter faith in the Chief Minister’s promises to root out corruption and undertake development work is still alive. The voter in the small town has given the Congress another chance to show results. The state of civic amenities in Punjab’s towns and cities is appalling. During and after the days of militancy, small towns as well as big cities have exploded with population growth and haphazard expansion. Due to the continued callous neglect of villages, residents are migrating to towns for better education, employment and growth opportunities. This has put tremendous pressure on the already limited civic amenities. The towns and cities stink in the absence of a reliable sewerage and a waste disposal system. Property prices have skyrocketed. There is chaos on roads. To top it all, the municipalities lack funds. A disastrous civic scenario is building up in urban Punjab with extremely dangerous implications. Poll violence is a pointer to the shape of things to come. Until immediate remedial measures are undertaken, the situation could well go beyond control. Planned civic development is a major task and challenge before the newly elected municipal councillors as well as the Punjab Government.

Kashmir blinkers

EVEN when there was no Iraq crisis to engage the attention of the global community incidents of Pakistan-sponsored cross-border terrorism in Kashmir seldom received the attention they deserved. A combination of the failure of Indian diplomacy and the lop-sided priorities of the US-centric global community have encouraged Pakistan to consistently defy the norm of not raising bilateral disputes at multilateral forums. President Musharraf derailed the NAM agenda that included putting diplomatic pressure on US President George W Bush for seeking a peaceful resolution of the Iraq crisis. His raving and ranting on the Kashmir took the focus away from the more pressing issue of how to avert a global catastrophe during the NAM summit in Malaysia. The world is being pushed to the brink of a war by an unrelenting America. But Pakistan could not give up the habit of raising the Kashmir issue at the United Nations Security Council during the debate on a second resolution fixing March 17 as the deadline for attacking Iraq. Pakistan is a non-permanent member of the Security Council and its reference to the Kashmir issue took the members by surprise. Who can argue with the Pakistani diplomats who thought nothing of raising even the riots in Gujarat at the UN?

Pakistan raised the K word again, perhaps, for the umpteenth time at the two-day ministerial-level meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Conference that opened in Cairo on Monday. Its Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed described as “rubbish” India's assertion that cross-border infiltration continued in Jammu and Kashmir with the backing of the ISI. But the global community knows better. Pakistan's insistence that it is not associated with insurgency flies in the face of increasing international evidence linking sections of President Musharraf's government — in particular the ISI — with training camps and supply depots along the LoC. There is also circumstantial evidence that links Pakistani operations in Afghanistan in the mid 1980s — during General Zia-ul Haq's term — to covert operations in Kashmir after the conclusion of the Afghan civil war. And General Musharraf has not exactly dismantled the apparatus that helped Afghan mercenaries work for Pakistan in Kashmir. The only way Pakistan can be made to see reason is by attracting the attention of the international community to the ground realities on either side of the LoC. Increasing opposition to his Iraq policy both within the country and internationally may just about make President Bush realise that a successful war against global terrorism cannot be fought by random selection of targets. Pakistan has to be tamed for the campaign to gain the momentum it had gained after 9\11.

Anti-Blair revolt

WHILE almost the entire world urged the USA to desist from marching onto Iraq, one country that faithfully seconded whatever it said was Britain. That is why Mr Tony Blair was derisively referred to as Sancho Panza or major-domo of President George W. Bush. The faithful ally may not remain that way for long because a serious revolt has broken out where President Bush least wanted or expected it. A close aide of the British Environment Minister has resigned and many others have threatened to follow suit. It is not only junior members of the government but even some Cabinet Ministers who are believed to be toying with the idea of parting ways with the Prime Minister if he supported a US-led attack on Iraq without a second UN resolution. As many as 200 Labour MPs may also join the anti-Blair revolt. The rebels had mustered 122 votes against Mr Blair in the House of Commons a fortnight ago and their numbers have been swelling steadily ever since. This sentiment has come as a shot in the arm for the anti-war lobby. On the surface, close aides of Mr Blair have been displaying nonchalance, but it is obvious that the British Prime Minister is rattled by the turn of events. Hectic telephone diplomacy is said to be on to secure a second resolution which would give Iraq up to March 17 to disarm completely as demanded in Resolution 1441, passed unanimously in November. At the same time, an equally forceful attempt is being made to persuade Saddam Hussein to go into exile.

While the USA is bound to be disappointed at the unexpected turn of events, this might very well be the bulwark against war. There are many fence-sitters who would have jumped on the American bandwagon if it already had a few solid supporters occupying the front rows there. But the developments in London have changed the entire equation. Washington will be wooing Security Council members like Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea and Mexico from a position of weakness. Mr Blair too will be a far less effective campaigner than he has been so far. Iraq has already started exploiting the situation to its advantage. It has sent a list of demands to the United Nations, which includes a call to strip Israel of its weapons of mass destruction and force it to abide by Security Council resolutions telling it to withdraw from occupied Palestinian territory. Not only that, it wants that the USA and Britain should be branded “liars”. With France, Germany and Russia already opposing them, Mr Bush and Mr Blair are now more isolated than ever.

OPINION

Rhetoric on Iraq & emerging reality
Will it lead to American isolation?
T. V. Rajeswar

THE war against Iraq is set to begin anytime after March 17. President Bush, supported by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, has gone too far ahead in the preparation, deployment of forces on land, air and sea all around Iraq and with the rhetoric justifying his move.

United Nations Resolution 1441 directed Iraq to disarm completely, and the UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, a Swedish national, and his team have been on the inspection mission. Mr. Blix submitted interim reports in which he spoke of Iraqi cooperation, the interviews held in private with Iraqi scientists, surprise visits to suspected locations, etc. In his latest report submitted to the Security Council on March 7, he has said that they have no evidence that Iraq has resumed any weapons programme after 1991 and they have no evidence that Iraq was in possession of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. However, more time was required for a complete and thorough inspection.

France, Russia and China, permanent members of the Security Council, are of the view that more time should be given to Mr. Hans Blix and his team and there is no provocation for a war. The USA and the UK are, however, bent on giving an ultimatum to Iraq for total disarmament, failing which it should face the consequences. If their resolution secures majority support in the 15-member Security Council, it is likely to be vetoed by anyone of the three dissenting permanent members.

President Bush addressed the American people on the television on the night of March 6 when he said that diplomacy was at its final stage and the time for decision had come. He began by referring to the havoc caused by just four planes seized by the terrorists on September 11, 2001, now universally referred to as 9/11, and said that he would never again expose the people of America to such dangers. He tried to link Al-Qaeda with Saddam Hussein and Iraq and alleged that Al-Qaeda had received support and backing from Saddam, whom he called a murderer and evil. He referred to the colossal damage and loss to the economy of America by 9/11 and said that Iraq would never be allowed to pose a threat to the USA. It was his responsibility to ensure that Saddam was disarmed. Mr Bush also said that Saddam was cheating the UN by hiding his weapons of mass destruction.

A commentator, who came on the BBC soon after, said Mr Bush's television address that night was meant to upstage Mr. Blix’s report to the UN on the next day since the USA had advance knowledge that his report would not be incriminatory. There was no evidence of concealment of weapons of mass destruction and if the USA had any, the super power should have passed it on to Mr. Blix. The commentator also said that there was not a shred of evidence to link 9/11 with Saddam Hussein or that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the USA or any other country.

All this makes no difference to President Bush and his inner circle consisting of Vice-President Richard Cheney, Defence Secretary Rumsfeld and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. President Bush himself had invested in oil industry and the sale of his shares in the Harken Oil Company two months ahead of its collapse had created a stink. Mr.Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton dealing with oil wells around the globe. Ms. Rice had served on the board of Chevron, a leading oil conglomerate in West Asia, for many years. As the inveterate defender of common cause, Mr. Ralph Nadar said, “President Bush’s government is marinated in oil”.

It has been alleged by several analysts that the primary objective of the US war against Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam is to get access to its enormous oil resources. Iraq has the second largest reserve of oil in the world, after Saudi Arabia, and if this oil is made available to the USA on easy terms by a friendly regime, the economy of the USA would bloom. Understandably, the US administration rejects all such imputations.

The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, an independent Washington think tank specialising in military matters, has estimated that the total cost of war and its aftermath which may last up to five years would be about $132 billion. This estimate has allocated $10 billion as aid to allies, but it will be much more. Turkey was promised $20 billion in cash and loans and it may eventually fall in line, though its parliament has rejected the stationing of troops in the country. Israel has sought $4 billion as military aid and $8 billion in loan guarantees while Jordan has asked for $1.5 billion as well as weapons and missiles. Pakistan may benefit to the extent of $12.5 billion. The US economy is already in the dumps and the dollar is losing against all the currencies of the world. President Bush is undeterred by the spectre of the dangerous economic consequences to his country for many years.

As the USA prepares for war, its people are frequently asked to take precautions against terrorist attacks, which the CIA and the FBI put out at regular intervals. People rushed to buy duct tape to seal the windows and doors and a fear psychosis seems to be spreading. If the claim of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Osama bin Laden’s aide who was recently arrested in Pakistan, is to be believed, Americans all over the world are likely to be the targets of terrorist attacks if the war began.

President Bush has propounded a new doctrine of ushering in democracy in West Asia after the Saddam regime is destroyed and Iraq comes under American occupation. Pentagon sources claim that Gen. Tom Franks, who commands the allied forces, may be in occupation of Iraq anything up to a period of two years, if not more. The calculation of the Bush administration is that this will have a reverberating impact across West Asia leading to the ushering in of democracy. The Saudi regime is naturally alarmed and so are the other ruling families in the region, but they are so helpless and disunited that they can do nothing against the US scheme of things.

Certain analysts believe that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, followed by the fading of the monarchic regimes in West Asia and the dawn of democracy within the next decade or two, should be welcomed. That will, indeed, be a historic development, and as important as the collapse of communism in the 1990s. The royal regime in Saudi Arabia has been instrumental in promoting Wahabism, the most fundamental form of Islam. Saudi Arabia sends out about $6 billion every year for the spread of Wahabi fundamentalism all over the Muslim world and the countries where Muslims are in a minority as in India.

The fact that most of the terrorists who caused havoc in the USA on 9/11 were Saudis and that funds for them also emanated from Saudi Arabia cannot be overlooked. The Rand Corporation document, which was revealed a few months back, suggested the partition of Saudi Arabia and the removal of the royal regime there. This may well come about within a few years after Iraq.

In a contrived article in a leading American weekly, President Bush’s deep religiosity has been highlighted. It is said that Mr Bush has always been an ardent church-goer and Bible reader, and the first thing he does in the morning after he wakes up is to read evangelical sermons. When he decided to run for the presidentship he called leading pastors to tell them that he had “heard the call” to seek the Presidency. And now Bush's “evident conviction that he is doing God's will” in declaring war against Iraq has been clearly said. All this sounds very disturbing and one may well ask why the Muslims should be accused of fanaticism and fundamentalism when there is a matching form in the Christian world and that too at the highest level in the White House.

Prof. Paul Kennedy, the celebrated author of “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers”, had recently cautioned his American people against “hubris, overextension and interference across the globe”. He said an America that would treat the UN as a cipher and invent new and dubious doctrines regarding preventive military actions is in danger of isolating itself. Citing Rudyard Kipling’s “Recessional”, warning the British Empire in the 1990s, Professor Kennedy concluded his piece thus: “Lo, all our pomp of yesterday is one with Nineveh and Tyre, Judge of the Nations, spare as yet, lest we forget, lest we forget”.

MIDDLE

Hair-raising questions
R. K. Kaushik

IT is well known that Gen Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq ruled Pakistan from July 5, 1977 to August 17, 1988. He also remained Chief of the Pakistan Army during this period. In fact, he was a Military Dictator, who held the posts of Army Chief, Chief Martial Law Administrator and President of Pakistan.

Zia-ul-Haq was born in Jalandhar on August 12, 1924, and had his school education in Jalandhar and in Delhi. He joined St Stephen College of Delhi after his matriculation in 1940 and did his BA (Hons) in history in 1944. He got commissioned into then Royal Indian Army in June, 1945 in a Cavalry Regiment.

He was a Lieutenant at the time of India’s partition and slowly got promoted to higher positions in the Pakistan Army and took over as Army Chief in March, 1976, superseding seven Army Generals senior to him. Zia-ul-Haq’s father was a Head Clerk in the Ministry of Defence in North Block before partition. He was Arain by caste which claims its ancestry — nay lineage — in Saini’s and Kamboj’s of India.

General Zia had an introvert nature. He was a teetotaller and preferred to spend his spare time with his wife (who was his paternal uncle’s daughter) and four children.

Zia had a barber, Salim, who was very sharp, wise and, of course, an excellent barber. He had also mastered the art of cracking jokes while cutting the General’s hair so as to keep him in good humour.

Once it so happened that General Zia had put some anti-dandruff lotion on his hair just before the start of the hair-cutting session on a wintery Sunday morning of December, 1984. Salim found the General’s hair too sticky. He came across a novel idea and asked the General: “Sir, when is your goodself holding elections”. General Zia did not reply and remained silent. After sometime Salim again asked the same question. The General kept mum again. Then Salim repeated the question for the third and even fourth time also without eliciting any response from General Zia-ul-Haq.

The barber came out of the room after finishing the cutting. He had just returned to his shop in a posh market area of Islamabad when he received a call from a Brigadier who was General Zia-ul-Haq’s private secretary asking him as to how he dared to enquire about elections from the General.

Salim answered with a kid’s innocence: “Sir, the General’s hair were too sticky and not easy to cut. So whenever I asked him about elections the hair would become erect and I was able to cut them easily. That’s why I had to ask the same question four, five times.”

The Brigadier was perplexed and did not know what to say.

REALPOLITIK

The “you-did-too” syndrome
P. Raman

THE other day, an old BJP veteran, now a state governor, lamented over the falling calibre of the Indian politicians. In a private chat, the ailing pracharak put much of the blame for the degeneration on the “generation now” of the Indian politics, including those of his own party. His definition of the “generation now” does not necessarily mean the younger politicians or the aspiring ones.

The economic reform has created a powerful elite class with overpowering control over all social activities. The cumulative influence of this urban class on the course of politics is much stronger than the newly empowered social groups in the north. The sudden rise in the status of these “wealth creaters” has given them an edge. Earlier too the traders and business donated to political parties. But any formal association of the “tycoons” was viewed with suspicion.

The one-leader regional parties have also contributed their share of the new political culture. They set their own rules of the game without the fear of a high command. Those like Mr Chandrababu Naidu have a better record. But most provincial outfits have often strode roughshod. If Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav patronises the criminal elements as candidates to garner the much needed additional votes, others will also have to be competitive. Thus even the national parties followed the same practice. All those ugly tricks indulged in by Mayawati will soon become order of the day. Ms Mayawati’s ally BJP has already silently endorsed them.

Until a decade back, major political formations were identified with distinctive segments of society like the poor, middle class, labour, traders and peasants. Its leaders had assiduously tried to build such images and adopted political programmes and policies to further the interests of these sections. Now even the caste-based provincial parties have realised the limitations of depending on exclusivist constituencies. No single section, caste or religions, can give a majority in any major state. This realisation has forced the parties to coopt other groups into theirs.

It is thus a sort of equalisation, a levelling of the ground for the entire spectrum of the non-left politics. They all make similar kind of policy pronouncements — promising more and more reforms at the chamber seminars and international fora and populist promises at poll meetings. As they lose credibility at both levels, calling names and scandal mongering take over. When you don’t have any distinct political or ideological identity to present and no social or economic agenda to put forth, the only way to seek vote is to resort to other kinds of marketing strategy. This means more dirty tricks and wild accusations to confuse the voters.

That is how “you-did-too” has become the present-day politician’s stock-in-trade defence. Every political sin and administrative failure is justified by claiming that the rival had also committed similar offence. People reject a regime and vote for another in the pious hope that the latter will offer something better. A new regime cannot justify its own misdeeds by “they-did-too”. One offence cannot be justified by a previous similar offence. On the other, the “they-did-too” defence is a plain admission of failures by an incumbent government.

When Ms Mayawati’s unprecedented birthday bash invited public ire, her instant defence has been that Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav too had misused official machinery for similar occasions during his rule. This is a poor defence because one wrong would not set right another wrong. Ideally, Ms Mayawati should have exposed her rival better by setting an example by herself. Similar has been her this week’s reaction to the video tape revealing how she had asked her MLAs to part with the bribe from the contractors.

If Mr Yadav had collected a share from the MLA funds for his family’s trusts, why did she hesitate to demolish his image? According to the Ms Mayawati tape, she had said that the contractors undertaking the work on the MLA funds gave Rs 2 lakh to the “forthright” MLAs and Rs 10 to the “clever” ones as bribe. Of this, she had sought a share of Rs 1 lakh and Rs 2 respectively for the party funds.

Similarly, the BJP government’s only defence of the saffronisation of history and filling institutional bodies with RSS workers has been that the previous governments had also done so. The BJP was voted to power four years back with the hope that Vajpayee would put an end to all such past wrongs and break fresh ground for a non-partisan administration. The Opposition too frequently takes shelter under similar “you-did-too”. It is customary for the ruling party to trot out the figures of loss to the exchequer whenever Parliament proceedings are blocked by the Opposition. The latter counter this by citing similar boycotts by the present ruling party when it was in the Opposition.

Often the same “you-did-too” material is used by the rival sides to conceal their respective guilt. Mr Virbhadra Singh was made Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh when cases against him were pending. The BJP condemned the action by highlighting the Opposition’s hypocrisy in boycotting Mr George Fernandes on a similar ground. The Congress, on the other, argues that the BJP has also done so in the Tehelka case.

The BJP systematically makes available to its MPs “you-did-too” kind of documents to defend the government in Parliament. Misuse of POTA is justified by the misuse of TADA and similar Acts in Maharashtra and Karnataka. If a Congress Chief Minister orders raids on the premises of a BJP Chief Minister, another BJP Chief Minister slaps sex scandals on the former’s MLAs. It has been the politicians’ failure to present credible programmes and better performance that makes them to take recourse to meaningless platitudes.

TRENDS & POINTERS

Sour more sweet for kids: research

SOUR taste preferences are more intense during childhood, say US researchers who hit upon the surprising discovery.

Of the five taste sensations - sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and savoury or umami - sour is the least understood. The preference for salty and sweet foods appears early in life, increases and then peters out during late adolescence, says Julie Mennella of the Monell Chemical Senses Centre in Philadelphia.

More than a third of the 35 children that Mennella studied favoured the taste of super-sour gelatin-flavoured with more citric acid than is present in concentrated lemon juice-relative to weaker-tasting stuff. None of the children's mothers enjoyed the extra-sharp jelly, says a report in Nature.

“Sour preference is not a fad that has been created by candy companies,” argues Mennella. Many children, she points out, go through a phase where raw lemons are a favourite food. Over 100 years ago Charles Darwin noticed his own children's fondness for sour apples and gooseberries that adults won't touch.

The research bodes well for those who are concerned with childhood nutrition, diabetes and obesity. The kids who preferred sour tastes were less picky eaters, munching a greater variety of fruits and vegetables. They were also less afraid of trying new foods.“It’s a good sign,” says dietician Valeria Duffy of the University of Connecticut in Storrs. “Citrus can be a great source of vitamin C, folate and a lot of important nutrients.”

Genetics, taste-bud size and taste-bud density are thought to influence taste perception. Charles Zuker of the University of California, San Diego, and his colleagues recently identified the genes for cells' sweet, umami and bitter receptors. Sour flavours probably tickle channels in taste cells that let charged ions in and out.

Eat nuts to avoid TB

A new study has revealed that a chemical, called nitric oxide (NO), found in peanuts could prove to be an effective treatment for tuberculosis, which kills millions of people the world over every year. The chemical nitric oxide is thought to play a key role in mobilising the body's defences and scientists believe it is a deficiency of NO that makes some people vulnerable. In theory, boosting NO levels could correct the problem, according to a report published in the European Respiratory Journal.

The researchers say that one way to do this is may be to give people capsules of a substance called arginine, which is used by the body to produce NO. Arginine is found in particularly high concentration in peanuts. For the study, scientists from Linkoeping University in Sweden tested the theory in a test involving 120 patients with TB in Ethiopia, reports BBC. ANI