The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

EDITORIALS

Political word war

THE tragedy of the Indian State is that even after 55 years of Independence it has not evolved a system of what can be called “efficient political replacement” that is essential for the healthy growth of parliamentary democracy. For over 40 years the country had been stuck with the Congress in its various avatars — never mind the brief political relief provided by nonviable alternatives. The current war of words that has broken out between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party at best reflects the helplessness of the Indian voters. They will have to choose between the known devil and the familiar deep sea when the next round of Lok Sabha elections becomes due in a few months from now. The third alternative is nowhere in sight. In any case, on several occasions it has proved a worse cure than the disease. So “we, the people of India” shall continue to remain constitutionally supreme but in reality dependent on the low grade politics of the two main political parties for keeping democracy alive. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee did not display any new insight or raise the level of the political discourse above the level of the “usual” while participating in the celebrations marking the completion of the five years of the National Democratic Alliance’s rule. Today's trumpets are designed to be blown by none other than the persons in whose honour they once used to be blown. There was no reference to Kargil — the lack of advance information that allowed Pakistan to walk into Indian territory or the heavy price that the brave jawans had to pay for the inefficiency of the political leadership. None of the 24 NDA partners mentioned tehelka and the subsequent witch-hunt of the enterprising group of journalists who thought they were doing the leadership a favour by exposing on their behalf the scale of corruption even in the post-Bofors defence deals. There was no reference to Godhra and Gujarat nor to the tapes that should have made Ms Mayawati resign as Chief of the Bahujan Samaj Party-BJP coalition in UP.

The only point in favour of the NDA is that Mr Vajpayee has become the first non-Congress Prime Minister to complete a full term. But the picture on the other side of the political spectrum, where the Congress is waiting impatiently to wrest back power from the BJP-led alliance, is not bright either. There was nothing that was not said before by Congress President Sonia Gandhi at the “Desh Bachao” rally in Delhi. Corruption by the rival political parties is an issue that is attacked in India by those who are sitting in glass houses. The passing of the law, later struck down by the Supreme Court, giving virtual immunity to crooks and criminals wanting to contest elections did not enhance the image of any political party. Neither has the dithering over the women’s reservation Bill. Make no mistake about it. This is an issue on which there are no serious political differences. Its passage is being held up because of the visible gender divide between women politicians who want 33 per cent reservation of seats and men who just want them not to rise above the panchayat level in a more substantial way. Mrs Sonia Gandhi believes that reworking the “gharibi hatao” mantra may see the Congress regain the lost political ground. Amen to that and to the tall promises of the NDA. What may be the outcome when elections are held is difficult to predict. What can be said with great certainty is that the best team stopped winning elections after Indira Gandhi introduced distortions in the system of parliamentary democracy.

Case of Kashmiri Pandits

JAMMU and Kashmir has been passing through a very difficult period for a long time because of the Pakistan-sponsored terrorist menace. Throughout these turbulent times the nation’s enemies have tried every trick known to them to destroy Kashmiriyat, the very essence of the valley’s social life. Their dirty game was aimed at achieving this heinous objective by sowing the seeds of communal illwill. Thus, it was not surprising if Kashmiri Pandits became their primary target, making over 3.5 lakh of them to flee their villages and towns in search of safer places elsewhere in the country. Despite this, not all the Pandits felt compelled to say goodbye to their compatriots belonging to other communities. But the recent killing of 24 Pandits by terrorists at Nadimarg, it seems, may change the complexion of Kashmiri society forever if nothing concrete is done quickly. Reports suggest that the remaining Pandits at Nadimarg are going to leave their home with the hope of never coming back. If this finally happens, the 10,000 or more members of this community who are still left at various places may no longer remain there. As the All-India Kashmiri Pandit Conference says, these 10,000 Pandits are spread over 271 places and feeling highly insecure after the Nadimarg incident. Going by intelligence reports, terrorists may attempt more Nadimarg-type killings to scare these Pandits away from the valley. The Pandits too want to move out but have been unable to do so because the state government has been coming in the way. The government should prevent their final departure in the interest of Kashmiriyat, but not without guaranteeing them as much security as possible. It will be a sad day for India if terrorists and their sponsors — which means Pakistan — succeed in turning Kashmir into a place where no Pandit can think of surviving. The Government of India and the Mufti Sayeed government should together ensure that such a scenario never comes about.

It is just not possible to think of Kashmir without the Pandit community. Kashmir without the Pandits will be a soulless valley. One can easily visualise the repercussions of such a horrifying development. But the big question is: how to prevent this? The state government has been talking of setting up an exclusive enclave to enable Pandits to live in peace. That is why it has been appealing all the migrants to return to the land of their forefathers. But this is not a viable solution. In fact, this may further complicate the matter. The best answer to the problem is to eliminate the source of the trouble by any means. That means getting the jihadi “factories” in Pakistan put their shutters down. It is the products of these “factories” who are pushed to this side of the border by the Pakistan armed forces to indulge in killings. Pakistan had promised to dismantle the militant jihadi infrastructure in the wake of 9/11 to prevent terrorist infiltration into India, but it has done little in this regard. India should launch a fresh diplomatic drive to expose its enemy number one in the comity of nations.

Timely concern

DELHI Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and Health Minister A.K.Walia have taken the right initiative in hospital waste management. Their concern on the flagrant manner in which bio-medical waste is treated by various government and private clinics/ nursing homes is timely. It is common knowledge that this waste is not treated properly. Elaborate rules and methods for their disposal do exist. But they remain on paper and there is hardly any institution that follows them scrupulously. The National Capital Territory of Delhi is not the only exception in flouting the scientific methods and procedures prescribed for the disposal of waste. This deep-rooted malaise continues in almost all states and Union Territories. What is deplorable is the half-hearted manner in which some hospitals treat even dead foetus, placenta and amputated body parts, little knowing the harmful effects on the human population and general environment. The Delhi government has now made it clear that all institutions — official or non-official — generating, collecting, receiving, storing, transporting, treating, disposing of and/or handling bio-medical waste will have to follow the Bio-Medical Waste (Management & Handling) Rules, 1998. More important, the government has maintained that any failure to implement the rules and guidelines by any healthcare establishment shall be liable to pay a fine of up to Rs 1 lakh and five years of imprisonment under the Environment Protection Act, 1986, and other relevant rules.

Even though the Delhi government’s steps need to be emulated by all other states and Union Territories, the former’s initiative will carry weight only if they are implemented in letter and spirit. It would be better if the government took action against one or two establishments which are found to be flouting the rules with impunity. Only then will the government be able to demonstrate that it means business. Such an action will also goad other hospitals to fall in line or face action, punitive or otherwise. The non-governmental organisations should also be involved in this exercise. Institutions such as the Centre for Science and Environment have done considerable work in hospital waste management. Their services should also be enlisted in spreading general awareness and for benefiting from success stories in as many hospitals as possible. Nowadays, the buzzwords are, burn, bury or disinfect the waste chemically. This attitude must change for the better. The focus should not only be on how best to manage the waste but to make less waste as is being practised in Bangalore’s Indian Air Force Command Hospital.

OPINION

History’s most unpopular war
Towards redesigning the world order
Praful Bidwai

WHEN President George W. Bush launched war against Iraq on March 20, his advisers promised him an almost painless short-duration conflict leading to a quick “regime change”. The theorists of “Shock and Awe” believed that a “decapitating” strike on a government building in Baghdad would eliminate President Saddam Hussein and the core of Iraq’s leadership, leading to the government’s collapse or surrender. If that didn’t work, the use of 3,000 deadly “Tomahawk” missiles in 48 hours — more than the total used in the entire 1991 war — would paralyse the Iraqi state and destroy military command posts. This would wreck the morale of Iraq’s army and trigger its instant disintegration or a coup.

Within three days, this strategy came a cropper. US intelligence agencies made a grave blunder in assessing the vulnerability of the command structure — and probably Mr Hussein’s location — and the morale of Iraqi forces, in particular the Republican Guard. This was of course of a piece with the terrible mistake they made in 1991 when they bombed a civilian shelter in central Baghdad, killing 400 innocent people — believing that Mr Hussein was present there. (The same happened in Libya in 1986, when the USA ended up killing Mr Muammar Gaddafi’s baby daughter, not him.!)

Last week, the badly shrunken war coalition, comprising just the USA, Britain and Australia, committed another mistake. It took its own rhetoric about “liberating” Iraq seriously and launched an assault through the predominately Shia south, hoping that the people there would shower roses upon the invading troops. The troops would then rapidly march on Baghdad, which would soon fall: after all, the coalition enjoys overwhelming, indeed forbidding, military superiority over its half-disarmed, sanctions-battered, adversary. Totally forgotten were lesson from the past, during which the colonial British repeatedly promised to “liberate” Iraq from “tyrants” and “dictators”. Lt-Gen Stanley Maude in March, 1917, said, like Gen Tommy Franks does today: “Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators”. A terrible spell of colonial tyranny followed. The Iraqis learned never to trust imperial powers.

The war coalition has been jolted by numerous setbacks, which have the potential to radically change the course of the conflict, especially its political complexion. These include stiff resistance and shows of popular anger against the invasion, the confirmed death of several Western soldiers, capture of at least seven US prisoners of war (PoWs), loss of five combat aircraft and many tanks and artillery pieces, a fratricidal attack by an American soldier, and repeated re-eruption of fighting in cities earlier declared “captured”. Militarily, the biggest “negative” is the emergence of “guerrillas” and “guerrilla tactics”. The Iraqis are fighting to defend their nation — not for Mr Hussein!

Irrepressible resistance from snipers and militias has proved as damaging to the coalition as artillery engagement by Iraq’s regular forces. In almost every town declared “taken” earlier, the Anglo-Americans are still fighting for control. This is true, as this is written, of Basra, Nassiriya, Najaf and Karbala. The war coalition had a terrible time “pacifying” Umm Qasr for five full days after its official “fall”. Iraq’s only deep-sea port, and key to supplies of heavy weapons and humanitarian aid, Umm Qasr has a population of only 4,000. What might happen in Basra (population 1.5 million) can only be imagined. The British seem all set to target civilians by declaring Basra a “military objective”. They are also playing the “Shia card” by inventing an “anti-Saddam revolt”. If all this is a prelude to what’s to come in Baghdad, then US-UK forces could get sucked into close-quarter combat and guerrilla warfare —in which they enjoy little advantage over the adversary, unlike in high-technology warfare.

Despite fierce assaults on the Republican Guard, Iraq’s military command is holding out; Mr Hussein is in full control. If this situation persists, the USA will have two options as its troops enter Baghdad from the south and the newly opened northern front: get into close combat i.e. street-to-street warfare, or apply discriminate force by bombing civilian facilities (e.g. TV stations), or residential areas — as happened on March 26 at a busy market in Baghdad, where 17 civilians were killed. Among Washington’s options are “e-weapons” and “microwave pulse-bombs”. Although called “non-lethal”, these can cause horrific damage. Microwave pulse-bombs release powerful electromagnetic radiation, which instantly “fries” all electronic circuits within a radius of 2-2.5 kilometres, melting down radars, computers, radios, hospital machinery, ambulances, even hearing-aids and pace-makers. This last is like a person’s heart exploding!

Such methods will greatly increase “collateral damage” — kill innocent people by the thousand! They could speed up Baghdad’s fall but won’t stop urban guerrillas snipping at the invading troops. The occupiers will probably retaliate with excessive force — like Israeli forces do in Palestine, causing worldwide outrage. The vital question is: how many casualties is the US-UK coalition prepared to suffer if this war becomes messy and prolonged? Gulf war veteran US Gen Barry McCaffrey says the coalition’s casualties could be as high as 3,000 dead!

The US public is shocked by Iraq’s capture of five PoWs. A rattled Washington has accused Iraq of “parading” and mistreating them, in violation of the Geneva Conventions. Iraq did display the PoWs and allowed interviews with the local media. This was wrong, although Iraq didn’t “parade” the PoWs to arouse “public curiosity”. The British were far worse — and even more wrong to display Iraqi prisoners marching with their arms raised above their heads or with white handcuffs at the back. More deplorable is the widely publicised treatment by US forces of bedraggled Iraqi PoWs, who were made to kneel down and strip-searched.

The Geneva Conventions are, above all, about protecting innocent civilians and children — whom the Anglo-American are shooting. Only one (the third) deals with the prohibition of PoWs’ inhumane treatment and harassment of PoWs, or subjecting them to “insults and public curiosity”. This description is totally inappropriate in the present case. The American PoWs, were not humiliated or aggressively interrogated on camera — unlike in 1991, when they seemed to have been beaten to exhaustion: they could barely lift their heads.

The USA follows terrible double standards on PoWs. Take Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, where over 600 Al-Qaida suspects lie detained, often in chains, inside cages, worse off than animals. Brutal methods have been used to extract information from them, driving 29 of them to attempt suicide. The USA doesn’t even call them PoWs, only “unlawful combatants”. This is an insult to international law. The USA invokes only one international convention, although it has violated several far more important statutes, including the UN Charter itself!

Clearly, the USA has a huge credibility problem. It has blundered in underestimating the strength of Arab nationalism and its own unpopularity in Iraq’s neighbourhood. For instance, in next-door Jordan, the ratio of positive to negative perceptions of the USA has decreased from 34/61 to 10/81 after Washington announced it would attack Iraq. Equally inept was America’s attempt to bring Turkey on board. Turkey has refused to station 62,000 US troops, thus denying them easy access to northern Iraq. It has since offered overflight rights on condition that its forces enter Northern Iraq to put down the Kurds. This has further alienated the Kurds from the USA, and complicated war plans.

Why has the USA taken such grave risks while mobilising a formidable armada of the latest “fourth-generation” weapons to pound Iraq into submission? US objectives go beyond oil and even the search for global economic dominance. They are rooted in a plan to establish its total and unfettered global supremacy. The USA is making a naked bid to redraw the map of the Middle-East and redesign the world order — through military hegemony. Nothing sums up this grand venture more eloquently than the ideas of the Washington-based think-tank, the Project for the New American Century. PNAC explicitly wants an American Empire, in which the USA alone has veto power and calls all the political shots. Such “full-spectrum” dominance precludes even “advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role”.

PNAC’s members include Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush and Elliott Abrams. These men are at the apex of US power. President Bush has actually implemented some of PNAC’s key recommendations. The Iraq war is only one. Mr Perle admitted this on March 21 at a briefing by the American Enterprise Institute (which also include neo-conservative guru William Kristol and other buddies of people “embedded” in the Bush Cabinet). The super-hawks’ short-term post-war agenda? Radical reform of the UN, “regime change” in Iran and Syria, and “containment” of France and Germany!

The world is up against such demonically powerful forces. We must resist their unjust, illegal and horrible war. If it is Iraq and Iran’s turn today, it could be North Korea, Pakistan or India’s tomorrow. This is not alarmism. A visit to <<www.newamericancentury.org>> should convince anyone that it is the cold truth. That’s why our government and political parties shouldn’t waffle on Iraq. Nor should citizens be indifferent to the peace movement. Too much is at stake.

REALPOLITIK

The biggest riddle of Vajpayee government
P. Raman

SOME time back, Realpolitik had referred to the might of lobbying in Delhi’s power establishment. Lack of faith in a system of well defined policies, a consciencious strategy to use the administrative levers to the best of political advantage and the proximity of elections have all made lobbying and resort of pressures a booming enterprise. Behind every major policy decision or reversal of it is the long arms of some interested group or other.

When lobbying fails, it hardly does if it is for right group by the right men through the elite circuit, pressure tactics invariably take over. Then finally plain threats. This seems to be the biggest riddle of this government. Mr Vajpayee has been firmly in the saddle without any challenge from the NDA allies. Barring stray entreaties by Mr Chandrababu Naidu, the rest just do not bother about the policy matters of the government.

The Congress largely goes by the government decisions — and strangely backs them even when these are reversed without making much of the noise. Lacking self-confidence, the party is so scared of any possible backlash if it went against the tide. Mr Vajpayee has no cause for undue threats from the parivar. Yet this government hardly takes any decision without the right kind of lobbying. A series of government moves during the past ten days show how vulnerable is it to the manipulations of the influence peddlers.

The month-long hide and seek by the government in the face of high tension pressures from different quarters on the issue of uplinking norms for news channels has been a case in point. On the issue of foreign role in print media, the BJP itself has been sharply divided. But it is not so on news channels. The party’s most trusted channel friends have been putting pressures against granting uplinking facilities to those with total foreign control. The target was Rupert Murdoch’s Star News. It was all ready to launch its much publicised Hindi channel from April 1 after its contract with NDTV expires.

The Union Cabinet first endorsed the decision to put a 26 per cent cap on foreign investment in news channels that want to uplink from the country. Then the foreign pressures began mounting. For over a week the ministry went on drafting and revising the relevant guidelines as the armstwistings got intensified. The draft was revised at least thrice, and notably, both sides seemed to know the exact wording of each of them at every stage.

At one stage, an influential channel close to the ruling establishment was even boasting about their success. But the powerful foreign lobby had the last laugh. Finally, the Prime Minister himself summoned the Information Minister. And at the eleventh hour, both Star and CNBC got a 90-day reprieve so that their plans do not get affected. Zee News will get one year to comply with the new policy.

The foreigners also gained on another score. Unlike the FDI norms for the print media, under the new guidelines a foreign broadcaster with 26 per cent stake can exercise total control by partnering with a group of institutions which will own pieces of the remaining 74 per cent. What had worked was the threat that any failure to bless the foreign channels would mean a signal for the foreign investors.

Mr Yashwant Sinha had the bad name of being a ‘rollback’ Finance Minister. Though looking tough, his predecessor is no different. He had valiantly declared the now routine subsidy cut on urea. That is part of the reform and every Finance Minister has to follow the drill. But like his predecessors, Mr Jaswant Singh too was forced to yield to the farm lobby. This time too, the threats came from within the ruling party.

Introduction of VAT has been another important ingredient of the reform agenda and it had formed part of this year’s budget. Mr Jaswant Singh has narrated the miracles brought about by VAT in developed economies. But make no mistake, he can never implement it in the way it has been envisaged. The pressures and threats are so intense that he will have to either drastically revise it or drop altogether. As in most other cases, the pressures for the reversal has come from Mr Vajpayee himself.

The problem with this government has been that it borrows proposals from the old IMF textbooks without much of a thought or the minimum degree of indigenisation. The VAT can be effective in small countries with higher degree of compliance. It is not easy to work in a country with a high dose of federalism. Even the USA — otherwise our favourite model — has found it unworkable in their federal setup.

Initially, every one thought VAT was a brilliant idea. Its procedural complexities were realised at the enforcement stage. Over five lakh medical stores and dealers went on a strike. Other traders are also on the war path and have announced bandhs in their states. A rather interesting post-reform philosophy has been that while strikes by the workers is pernicious, actions by the owners are perfectly legitimate and responded to by the authorities promptly — whether it is truckers, traders or cable operators. Now a high-level meeting has been fixed to review the proposal. The BJP, traditionally called a party of the traders, has begun lobbying for its interest group and government will surely have to yield.

The other policy reversal pertains to the relaxation of the non-transferability clause for telecom firms. Under the original terms and conditions, licences were not assignable or transferable. Similarly, the licencee company was barred from creating any third party right in any manner and a lock-in period was prescribed during which the equity structure of the company could not be changed under any circumstances. The main beneficiaries of the relaxation are Reliance and Bharati, the two private giants. While it is too early to gauge the full implications of the decision, it will certainly meet the long demands of the licencee firms for their free merger and de-merger.

Thankfully, the government, at least as of now, has not conceded the demand for relaxation of certain obligations by the licencees (like provision for rural connections, clearing of the dues and such conditions). But this will certainly accelerate the process of the expected competition-induced realignments in the telecom sector. Cartelisation and mergers are the processes by which crowded markets elsewhere had developed into viable competitors. Soon after the government decision, four cellular operators — BPL Mobile, Escotel, RPG Cellular and Spice Telecom — have come together to create a Mobile-First alliance. More than averting mutual competition, this will enable them put up combined pressures to preserve their interests.

Governments have to be responsive but not pressure-prone. The Vajpayee establishment seldom tries to be seen as being firm. It often creates situations where lobbying and armstwisting become inescapable. This is because well after five years in office, the BJP government is yet to evolve a meaningful decision-making process. Pre-decision consultation at the coalition level is totally non-existent. With two senior leaders in the Cabinet, BJP organisation’s role in government policies has been marginal. Even the backroom boys keep on changing. Apart from the reform-related decisions, other ideas have to come from the interested groups. The casual approach makes it still worse.