E D I T O R I A L   P A G E

EDITORIALS

Mere words won’t do
Quite expectedly, condemnation and sympathies — genuine as well as synthetic — have been pouring forth from all over the world after the Pulwama massacre of 24 Kashmiri Pandits.

A disquieting signal
Controversy could have been Haren Pandya’s second name. In politics as in life, the last unsavoury episode usually has a long shelf life. 

Demystify VAT
The value added tax (VAT), which is scheduled to be introduced in the country from April 1, is opposed by certain sections. This is partly due to misunderstanding about the VAT and state governments are doing little to demystify the new tax.

 

OPINION

Fundamentalism, narcotics and ISI
Linkage is clear and menacing
G.Parthasarathy
On March 21 Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca and Wendy Chamberlain, former US Ambassador to Pakistan, appeared before the House International Relations Sub-Committee for the Asia-Pacific.

MIDDLE

Uprooted tree, and memories!
Bibhuti Mishra
That evening something drew me there, inexorably and as I neared the imposing gate the years peeled off revealing what had lain buried in me all these years. Suddenly I became an excited young man entering the portals of the university with head held high and heart aflutter. 

OF LIFE SUBLIME

Define your values to discover happiness
Harsharan Kaur Gill
Amrit was blessed with all amenities of life. He had a very affectionate family to share his joys and sorrows. His profession of a teacher kept him busy during the working hours.

TRENDS & POINTERS

Vitamin C can boost fertility
Students used to survive in Costly London by selling their semen to fertility clinics in the city’s West End. At about 15 pounds sterling a pop, sperm donation remains a viable way for students to make some hard cash.

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

EDITORIALS

Mere words won’t do

Quite expectedly, condemnation and sympathies — genuine as well as synthetic — have been pouring forth from all over the world after the Pulwama massacre of 24 Kashmiri Pandits. All the tried and tested phrases and words have been put to good use with the outrage being expressed in louder tones than the wails of those hapless residents of Nadimarg left behind to bear the scars of that nightmare for their entire life. Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani has openly laid the blame at the door of Pakistan. That is all very well, except that nobody has offered any guarantee that the Kashmiri Pandits would not be treated as cannon fodder. Mr Advani wants them to stay put bravely. Implicit in this exhortation is the clause that the government will be only as successful in protecting them as it has been so far. He says that leaving at this stage would mean playing into the hands of the enemy. The choice before the 8000-odd Pandits is stark: put their lives on the block or leave their hearth and home like many others before them. Their plight is indeed pathetic. Those who are responsible for their well-being have nothing to offer except lip sympathy. The “healing touch” is meant for militants, not their victims, it seems. It should be clear to the Centre as well as the state government that whatever they do to win over the Kashmiri militants, they cannot succeed without cutting their links with Pakistan.

Gen Pervez Musharraf is smug in his belief that as long as he is doing the bidding of America, he is free to do whatever he wants to in Kashmir. His theory is strengthened by the American reaction to the Pulwama killings. An official spokesman has once again advised India to resume dialogue with its neighbour. Coming from a country which is hot on the heels of President Saddam Hussein in the Iraqi desert, the statement sounds hollow and misplaced. For once, India has reacted with uncharacteristic indignation. “If dialogue is more critical than combating international terrorism …, then one can legitimately ask why both in Afghanistan and Iraq military action instead of dialogue has been resorted to,” the Ministry of External Affairs spokesman has said. It is certain that the USA will not respond, because it has no answer. Kashmiri Pandits have no options, but the Indian government has two. One, it should somehow convince the international community that the fight against terrorism is meaningless till Pakistan continues to practise it as a matter of state policy. Two, it must take a leaf out of America’s book and pay Pakistan back in its own coin. How would the self-styled custodians of global anti-terrorism front respond to the second proposition? President Bush and his advisers have a lot to answer.

A disquieting signal

Controversy could have been Haren Pandya’s second name. In politics as in life, the last unsavoury episode usually has a long shelf life. His list of achievements during his mercurial career in politics are likely to get buried under the reams of reference to his differences with Chief Minister Narendra Modi during the post-Godhra assembly elections in Gujarat. However, not even his bitterest political rivals could have ever thought that he would meet a violent end. The immediate concern of the law enforcement agencies should be to ensure communal peace in the state. In Mr Modi’s Gujarat one person was killed when a group of hoodlums objected to members of the Muslim community celebrating India’s victory over Pakistan during the just concluded cricket World Cup in South Africa. The killing of a senior Sangh Parivar member can be exploited by criminal elements for raising the communal temperature in the state. Pandya was taking a walk in the famous Law Garden when he was shot from point blank range. The state has been put on high alert. After all Mr Pandya was as much a product of the RSS culture as Mr Modi and after the post-Godhra incidents of violence relations between members of the two main communities are at best tentative. The tension in sensitive areas provided some clue about the fragile nature of communal peace in the state.

When Pandya was Home Minister in Keshubhai Patel’s government the RSS had persuaded him to step down from office. It was widely interpreted as a tactical move. He was made the sacrificial lamb for having dared to act against a junior colleague’s brother said to be involved in a case of attempted murder. The junior minister, Purshottam Solanki, himself had a criminal background. But instead of defending Pandya the then Chief Minister made him resign. Of course, it was not just the arrest of Solanki’s brother that gave Mr Keshubhai Patel the opening to get rid of an inconvenient colleague. Pandya had projected his political boss in bad light and the latter was merely biding his time to strike. That Keshubhai himself was later eased out of office to save the Bharatiya Janata Party from being voted out provided only notional comfort to Pandya. However, he could not reclaim his place in the party even after Mr Narendra Modi was rushed from Delhi for fighting the fire of public disenchantment with the BJP in Gujarat. The new Chief Minister evolved his own agenda for saving the party and the image of the Sangh Parivar from further damage. And Pandya did not fit into his scheme of things. The BJP leader from Ellisbridge constituency in Ahmedabad had in his deposition before the tribunal, headed by Justice Krishna Iyer, investigating the post-Godhra riots in Gujarat blamed Mr Modi for the targeting of the Muslims. Hell hath no fury like a Narendra Modi annoyed. Pandya was not only made to resign as minister, but was also pressured into withdrawing his name from the Ellisbridge constituency where he was extremely popular. Of course, the BJP leaders in Gujarat and Delhi have gone through the motion of expressing shock and dismay at the brutal killing of a “disciplined soldier of the party”. But only the politically blind would not have seen his complete marginalisation after Mr Modi led the BJP to an emphatic victory in Gujarat.

Demystify VAT

The value added tax (VAT), which is scheduled to be introduced in the country from April 1, is opposed by certain sections. This is partly due to misunderstanding about the VAT and state governments are doing little to demystify the new tax. Instead, worried about the possible erosion of their tax revenues, the states plan to continue some of the existing taxes which the VAT is supposed to replace. The Punjab Government, for instance, has introduced a Local Area Development Tax in place of octroi. There are levies like the sales tax, entry tax, turnover tax, luxury tax, work contract tax, lease tax and mandi cess which are all supposed to be rolled into the new VAT. The Central Sales Tax is also supposed to be abolished. The continuation of some of these taxes will add to the manufacturer’s costs and ultimately may be passed on to the buyer. There is widespread apprehension that prices of certain consumer goods would go up once the VAT is introduced. Maharashtra experimented with the VAT in 1995 and withdrew it after consumer prices went up. Tamil and Kerala too introduced their own versions of the VAT and faced problems. The empowered committee, which comprised state representatives and an observer from the Centre, did not go into this aspect while framing the VAT. It was more interested in protecting state revenues. The VAT implementation is a big challenge before the states and they have shown little interest and made little effort to create awareness about the positive aspects of the VAT. There is an immediate need to remove fears of agitating traders and chemists about the VAT and isolate the entrenched interests.

The introduction of the VAT is an attempt to unify the different sales tax rates in the states, simplify the tax system, discard the plethora of taxes that have hampered growth and unnecessarily burdened the industry, leading to harassment of industrialists and traders. Multiple tax rates are not only confusing and irritating — much to the advantage of tax lawyers — they also lead to a lot of avoidable litigation and jack up the production cost of a product as also its price. The VAT system is expected to ensure that an overwhelming majority of the taxpayers, almost 90 per cent in Punjab, will have an opportunity of self-assessment. As in case of sales tax, there is no provision for the prosecution of a taxpayer unless some fraud or attempt at tax evasion is detected. More importantly, a uniform tax structure will present India as a single market to the manufacturer within as well as outside the country. Another advantage is that it will make the Indian industry more competitive in the emerging economic scenario. A common worry of the states is that they would lose revenue heavily in the transit period. The Centre has promised to make good their losses, if any, on a reducing basis. On their part, the states have to exercise austerity and cut government expenditure to move towards a regime of lower taxation for faster growth.

OPINION

Fundamentalism, narcotics and ISI
Linkage is clear and menacing
G.Parthasarathy

On March 21 Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca and Wendy Chamberlain, former US Ambassador to Pakistan, appeared before the House International Relations Sub-Committee for the Asia-Pacific. Wendy Chamberlain was asked by Dana Rohrabacher, Republican Congressman from California: “How will you characterise the ISI’s involvement in the opium smuggling business on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border over the past six years?” “Substantial” replied Wendy Chamberlain. “So the Pakistan Intelligence Service had substantial involvement in the opium business along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border over the past six years?” he asked again. “Over the past six years, substantial”, confirmed Ambassador Chamberlain. This was the first time that a senior American official testifying under oath, publicly admitted what had been long known and vehemently denied, by General Musharraf and his minions about the direct involvement of the ISI in drug smuggling.

Substantial evidence had earlier emerged in the 1990s about how the ISI had indulged in drug smuggling across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and used vehicles of the army’s National Logistics Cell to transport heroin from Peshawar to Karachi and Lahore. It is no secret that the ISI uses the drug money to promote terrorism abroad. The US Congress should now inquire why the Clinton Administration chose to cover up these facts during its eight years in office.

It is not without reason that Pakistan’s army has been categorised a “rogue army”. The highly respected International Crisis Group (ICG) in Brussels has recently described how General Musharraf and the army establishment have been promoting the interests of fundamentalist political parties of the MMA in Pakistan. The ICG asserts that neither the MMA nor any other religious group can confront the military. Nor do they feel the need, since General Musharraf’s Administration has “appeased the clergy hoping to use them against domestic opponents”. The report adds: “The Musharraf Government’s pro-Mullah approach has, in fact, been clear before, during and after the 2002 national elections. While moderate secular parties have been systematically targeted, religious parties function and receive state support”.

The ICG report notes that the MMA’s anti-Musharraf rhetoric contrasts strongly with its willingness to work with the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q) Government. It stated: “In Baluchistan the MMA sits comfortably with the PML-Q with the military’s approval. Although a junior partner, the MMA received seven of the 14 portfolios. Its members control 90 per cent of the provincial budget as well as all funding, including international aid channelled by Islamabad”. Thanks to the generosity shown by General Musharraf to the fundamentalist forces in his country, the USA faces the prospect of having to deal with a situation where the only two Pakistan provinces bordering Afghanistan (NWFP and Baluchistan) are governed by pro-Taliban fundamentalist parties working hand in glove with the ISI.

There is growing evidence to substantiate that while General Musharraf proclaims his undying loyalty to the American war against terrorism, he is also cozying up to the fundamentalists of the MMA. While the candidatures of members of Benazir Bhutto’s PPP and Nawaz Sharif’s PML (N) were rejected on frivolous grounds, there was virtually no instance when candidates of the MMA were similarly treated. Maulana Azim Tariq, the leader of the fundamentalist Sunni Sipah-e-Sahiba, that has a record of countless pogroms against Shias, was suddenly released from jail in and permitted to contest from Jhang. Not surprisingly, he won handsomely and sits today in the treasury benches alongside the ruling PML (Q). The Jamat-e-Islami leader, Prof Ghafoor Ahmed, was elected to the Senate from Rawalpindi with the support of the ruling PML (Q). While the MMA is permitted to hold anti-American demonstrations, burn American flags and even voice some criticism of General Musharraf’s policies, opposition politicians and newspapers that criticise the good General are dealt with summarily. ISI goons mercilessly beat up Rana Sanaulla, a Punjab Provincial Assembly member of Nawaz Sharif’s PML (N), in Lahore for daring to criticise General Musharraf.

The ICJ report describes the “elections” held by General Musharraf in October as “seriously” flawed. Even Christina Rocca who is very circumspect in saying anything that General Musharraf may find objectionable described these elections as “flawed”. The ICG report indicates that by continuing to give a free hand to jihadi groups to collect funds and train and arm terrorists for infiltration across the Line of Control, General Musharraf is in violation of the provisions of Security Council Resolution 1373. Pakistani groups designated as terrorist organisations have merely changed their name and continue to function with ISI support. The Jaish-e-Mohammad now calls itself the Khudamul Islam and the Harkat-ul-Ansar as the Jamiat-ul-Ansar. To placate the Americans, Maulana Masood Azhar is no longer the head of Khudamul Islam. The organisation is now be headed by a Karachi based cleric Maulana Abdul Shah Mazhar. Maulana Masood Azhar, however, remains a “consultant” of the organisation.

The ICG recommends that the international community should take steps to force General Musharraf to change course. It suggests that General Musharraf should be asked to take firm steps to curb religious extremism and militancy, reform the education sector, enforce strict anti-terrorism laws and finally gear up his security forces to prevent infiltration and movement of jehadis across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. Going by the testimony given by Christina Rocca before the House Asia-Pacific sub-committee on March 20, it is unlikely that the embattled Bush and Blair Administrations will have either the will or the inclination to take these tough measures in the midst of their Iraq military campaign. While Rocca spoke glowingly of forging a new relationship with India, a country she described as a “major regional power”, she also urged Pakistan to progress towards “political moderation” and “economic modernisation”. She lauded the recent elections in Jammu and Kashmir, the policies of Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Syeed and the appointment of N.N. Vohra as the Union Government’s interlocutor with Kashmiri groups. She regretted that “violence in Kashmir continues and is aimed at exacerbating tensions”. She asserted: “Ending infiltration into Kashmir remains a key goal” and went on to say: “In the broader context we will continue to urge dialogue and contact between India and Pakistan”.

While Rocca’s reference to India being a “major regional power” is obviously intended to flatter us, we cannot ignore the fact that unlike last year, the Bush Administration is no longer asking General Musharraf to immediately and unconditionally end infiltration across the Line of Control. The recent killing of the moderate Hizb- ul-Mujahideen leader Abdul Majid Dar and the massacre of Kashmiri Pandits at Pulwama near Anantnag on March 23 are clear signals that General Musharraf intends to keep the pot boiling in J&K. He is determined that efforts by Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Syeed to promote reconciliation do not succeed.

It would be unrealistic and indeed naive to expect the Americans will pull our chestnuts out of the fire, especially as they themselves are in the midst of a firestorm in Iraq. The Americans know that General Musharraf and the ISI have no intention of either ending their involvement in drug smuggling or stopping infiltration of their jehadis across the Line of Control. We need to be very clear and firm about how we are going to respond to these developments.

MIDDLE

Uprooted tree, and memories!
Bibhuti Mishra

That evening something drew me there, inexorably and as I neared the imposing gate the years peeled off revealing what had lain buried in me all these years. Suddenly I became an excited young man entering the portals of the university with head held high and heart aflutter. Life was a song full of the strains of the romance. You just had to have time and, yes, the inclination.

Twenty years later I was entering the university portals.

As my car swerved inside the gate my head turned left, instinctively. It looked for her sitting there demurely waiting for the town bus, the pleats of her starched sari neatly traced along her long legs. She was no beauty, just a plain jane, tall fair slim and bookish!

But there was something about her — the way she took long strides to the library with her Kolhapuri going spat spat spat or the way she turned her head to look at me with the dark rings below her eyes shading the smile ..there was something that arrested me.

In the library she would sit with piles of books burying her pale face in the pages of Shakespeare and Hardy poring over reams of critical works and I would sit watching her from a corner — her long dark tresses going down her waist, her slender neck girdled by a golden chain with a little pendant hanging from it. She would take that pendant now and then between her fingers and chew on it absent-mindedly, her small, pearly teeth partly bared!

We never went beyond the “hi” thrown at each other hurriedly. She was too tucked in her books to care and I was too proud to stand bare.

Yet she tugged at me, made me restless with just a glance.

Days passed then months and one day she came back with a red bindi blazing from her fair forehead. She gave me a look, a long lingering one and smiled a deep sad smile. I felt weak and later angry and frustrated. The first warts were appearing in the fair face of life and I was beginning to understand them.

My car had drawn to a halt. Right before me was the three-storeyed structure bathed in moonlight. It was summer holidays and the place looked spooky caught in a sepulchral solitude. Yet it was our life’s hub, not so long ago. Where were they?

The boy who ran along the dark corridors shrieking like a banshee in the dead of the night.

The young dandy who was always in and out of love.

The story teller who could weave the most incredible of yarn in a minute!

I had got down from the car and was pacing the broken asphalt when the smell struck me.

There stood the canteen, its glass panes broken, completely deglamourised.

I remember the day it was launched as a glass cabin; we had gorged on 70 mm dosa and downed coca-colas. The familiar smell of the canteen had brought the memories back. There was something burning at the corner of my eyes threatening a flood.

I revved up the engine desperately trying to escape.

The car had gone a few paces when my eyes crashed against a big black blank.

There used to be the huge banyan tree there that was supposed to house ghosts.

After midnight we could not pass that way; it stopped us in our tracks like a brahmarakshasa .The thick knurled roots hanging in the air looked like the locks of some ogress. Any moment it could spit fire laughing uncontrollably or the spirits could jump down from those old branches and break into a devilish dance.

OF LIFE SUBLIME

Define your values to discover happiness
Harsharan Kaur Gill

Amrit was blessed with all amenities of life. He had a very affectionate family to share his joys and sorrows. His profession of a teacher kept him busy during the working hours. But slowly he was finding deterioration in his inner self. Some abstract questions enquiring the reality of life started pondering in his mind.

Gradually one day he found himself in the grip of depression at the prime of his life. Even after analysing his various life situations responsible for his present state of mind, he couldn’t pinpoint the reason. However, he was quite astonished at his pal, Jeevan, whom he considered to be less blessed as compared to him, always budding with life and vitality. During his casual conversations with Jeevan, Amrit could outline the basis of the real happiness of life. He realised that all the achievements will lose their meaning with the passage of time.

In an unending lust man keeps on eyeing new targets and ultimately gets too tired in accomplishing them. This monotony of life dampens the spirit to lead blissful life. He discovered that along with meeting the challenges of life, Jeevan has identified and developed a set of values in his life and by perusing those values he is deriving sustainable pleasure.

Values are motivating factors in human behaviour. They provide a basis for judgement, discrimination and analysis, and it is these qualities that make intelligent choices possible between alternative courses of action. A person who holds a particular set of values can easily weigh different options in the light of these values and derive satisfaction. Various motivating values of human behaviour can be comfort, health, ambition, love, desire for knowledge, technological satisfaction, play, art, religion etc. The value of comfort basically is the interest in making life as pleasant and agreeable as possible, actively seeking satisfaction of the senses. The value of health implies interest in physical and mental well-being with readiness to act to make this possible. The value of ambition refers to the interest or desire for success, for responsibility in social order and victorious achievements. The interest and satisfaction in relationship with people broadly defines the value of love. The interest in truth in all of its ramifications and the satisfaction in its use in all aspects of living outlines the value of desire for knowledge.

A person who values play prefers to take interest in creative and imaginative activities in fantasy or in reality, in words or in conversation. The interest in beauty in all forms of expressions such as painting, music, writing or in objects themselves refers to the value of art. An individual who holds the value of religion shows interest in goodness and rightness in all aims and purposes. These values have opposite or negative connotations and motivations also. For example negative of ambition is not lack of it but indifference; the negative of religion is not lack of it but evil. These negative values motivate action, as do their positive counterparts.

Some values are important and desirable for their own sake and worthy of being sought for themselves and are termed as intrinsic values. The love of a mother and child, man and woman is expression of beauty in human relationship. A beautiful landscape, an art collection are all expressions of art. Such experiences stimulate artistic and creative abilities of an individual and become a source of sustainable pleasure for him/her. An instrumental value is a means of attaining other values or goals but they also lend equal charm to the human life. To add charm to one’s life one must try to intimately relate his instrumental and intrinsic values.

A conscious effort on the part of all family members from the beginning to work out their own set of values suitable to each other helps in guiding the conduct of family members and in making proper choices in life. A good value pattern of an individual constantly motivates him accordingly and do not let any void to creep into one’s mind which may lead to undue frustrations. The judgments in choosing the course of action or line of thought one takes are constantly being weighed in the light of values one holds. So in routine life when one finds the course of action he pursues matching his internal instincts, he really experiences the pinch of bliss just by accomplishing his routine work. This interest in routine work does not let his emotions flow in any unguided direction but focus them to make one more composed, stable and cheerful.

Values are the product of human interaction with his/her environment. A congenial family environment promotes a good value pattern among its members. Values grow out of human interests and desires. So when a person establishes and defines his value pattern, he finds a divine pleasure in pursuing his latent interests and desires. Values give meaning to life as one discovers a great moral strength when he finds good values associated with his personality which usually provides an able direction in his life.

TRENDS & POINTERS

Vitamin C can boost fertility

Students used to survive in Costly London by selling their semen to fertility clinics in the city’s West End. At about 15 pounds sterling a pop, sperm donation remains a viable way for students to make some hard cash. Now that the government is planning to add top-up fees to students’ financial burdens, more male scholars may be tempted to take matters into their own hands with a little top-up of their own.

At the root of the demand for semen is a growing problem with male fertility: sperm counts in the West have fallen by half in just 50 years, and continue to decline at the rate of 2 per cent per year. While it is not known for certain what is causing this precipitous decline, pollutants are the chief suspects, particularly chemical entities known as xenoestrogens, which are believed to mimic female hormones and/or block the effect of male hormones in the body.

Some scientists believe such hormone-disrupting effects are also a major factor in other male maladies that are on the rise, including congenital abnormalities of the penis and testicular cancer. There is some evidence that fertility can be boosted using a nutritional approach. One nutrient that seems to be of benefit is vitamin C.

The testes contain especially high concentrations of it, and low levels of this nutrient in the body have been associated with low sperm counts, increased numbers of abnormal sperm, and a tendency for sperm to stick together (known as agglutination).

Research suggests that vitamin C can improve sperm counts, increase the percentage of viable sperm, and reduce a tendency to agglutination. From the studies, taking 1,000mg of vitamin C each day looks like a safe and economical fertility enhancer. The Observer

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

Kabira:

Even worthless bushes

Are invaded by a nearby sandal tree.

Its fragrance makes everything around it

A likeness of itself.

—Kabir Granthavali Sakhi 4.1