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Friday,
May 23, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Now
upper-caste quota Criminals at large |
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Abuse
of dowry law THE Delhi High Court's suggestion in favour of less stringent application of the anti-dowry law is likely to create a controversy. It wants the offence to be made bailable, and in cases where no physical injury is involved the creation of a mechanism for helping the parties reach a compromise.
Islamic
society and democracy
A novel
contest
A site
of historic war, but sans memorial
Revealing
the truth of war and more
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Now upper-caste quota FOR the past many months Brahmins, Rajputs and Kayasthas had been holding angry demonstrations in Rajasthan demanding reservation for the financially downtrodden among their communities. Many ministers were supporting their respective community’s demands. This clamour had become so shrill that at times it appeared that the state was on the verge of a caste war. Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot resisted the demand for quite some time but has finally succumbed — with a fine sense of timing. He knew that ever since this plea was taken up by the Social Justice Front (SJF), it had quickly gained public acceptability. It was being used by the Opposition as a stick to beat his government with. There were even rumours that the meeting of the national office-bearers of the BJP scheduled to be held in Jaipur on May 25 was to pass a resolution in support of the demand. Mr Gehlot has pre-empted the move by granting 14 per cent reservation in government jobs to the economically poor among the forward castes. It is a deft political move. He has cleverly deflected the criticism by putting the onus on the BJP-led government at the Centre. If the BJP accepts the demand by getting around the Supreme Court order in the Mandal case — which is unlikely — Mr Gehlot can take credit for the pioneering role and if it does not, then he can lay all the blame at the door of the BJP. With elections in the state in November, anyone who annoys the powerful “upper castes” will be in for trouble. The Vajpayee government will realise that extending reservation to the Jats was not such a wise idea after all. The political gains that it made in the parliamentary elections through this ploy might very well be wiped out by the furore that ensues in case it rejects the demand of the “upper castes” now. The BJP knows it as much as Mr Gehlot that it is not possible to go beyond the upper limit set by the Supreme Court in the matter of reservation. Yet, this quota is over and above the 49 per cent reservations enjoyed by the Scheduled Castes (SCs), the Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Other Backward Classes (OBCs). Mr Gehlot has played his card well. The BJP will have a tough time countering it, especially at a time when government jobs are shrinking fast. In any case, Brahmins can be given reservation only by scrapping the present system and coming up with economic reservation. But now that Rajasthan has taken the lead, a similar demand is bound to be raised in the rest of the states. The run-up to the 2004 general elections is going to be unusually interesting and unpredictable. |
| Criminals at large THE increasing cases of abduction in Bihar is a matter of serious concern. Close on the heels of the kidnapping of a Patna-based jeweller, a neurosurgeon was held captive for a huge ransom. Fortunately, both were released by the abductors supposedly without exchange of ransom money. The strike threats by the businessmen and the doctors in protest against the kidnappings seem to have helped in their release. Some of the abductors, who have links with inter-state gangs have been arrested. But what is more alarming is the reported involvement of politicians in both cases. The kidnapping of the neurosurgeon, for instance, has led to political sparring between the ruling Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance at the Centre. A minister in the Rabri Devi Government has accused Union Small-Scale Industries Minister and BJP leader, Dr
C.P. Thakur, and a Samata Party MLA, Mr Sunil Pandey, of having links with the criminals. Both have, no doubt, refuted the charge, but the allegation is serious enough to warrant an impartial probe not only to ferret out the truth but also to bring the guilty to book. The ruling RJD too has been accused of sponsoring crime. For instance, it is charged with the murder of a BJP leader on the day of Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav’s much-publicised lathi rally. Whatever the allegations and counter-allegations among the political parties, it is clear that the Rabri Devi Government has failed to check the growing incidence of crime in the state. Abduction, extortion and murder have become the order of the day and the law and order machinery seems unable to check crime, mainly because of the patronage criminals enjoy. Worse, the government has not taken any action against those RJD leaders who are accused of abetting crime. For instance, those who murdered the BJP leader are still at large. Over the years, Bihar has acquired the dubious distinction of being a lawless state. Part of the problem is due largely to the iniquitous socio-economic system. Unemployment has acquired a menacing proportion and falling standards in education have only exacerbated the problem. Those who are unable to find jobs are tempted to take up crime as a profession. More so, when there are many successful criminal-turned politicians serving as ministers and legislators. Clearly, criminalisation of politics has played havoc with Bihar. |
| Abuse of dowry law THE Delhi High Court's suggestion in favour of less stringent application of the anti-dowry law is likely to create a controversy. It wants the offence to be made bailable, and in cases where no physical injury is involved the creation of a mechanism for helping the parties reach a compromise. The court seems to have made a sweeping generalisation, based on inadequate data, when it said that "there is a growing tendency among women to rope in each and every relative, including minors and even school-going kids, in such cases". Really? The stated purpose was evidently to save the institution of marriage. Unfortunately, a woman who wants to send her husband and his entire family to jail does not have much going in favour of saving her marriage or the institution that made her marry the man she evidently loathes. The High Court even referred to a Supreme Court order that criticised the harassment of innocent persons on the complaint of the aggrieved women. No one can deny that in the rarest of rare cases spiteful women have abused the provisions of the anti-dowry law for harassing members of their spouses' families. If one were to extend the logic of the likely abuse of the provisions of various laws for making them soft, a case can be made out for a jurisprudence-free society! The earliest legislation on dowry was passed in 1961. It was a compromise between the points of view of those who were opposed to and those who supported the giving and taking of dowry. It was toothless. A Joint Select Committee of Parliament on Dowry in 1980 reported the spreading of the malaise to all classes, communities and castes and that formed the basis for the decision to revise the anti-dowry law. The amendments introduced in 1983 and 1984 failed to protect the women from being abused by their spouses and in-laws. The drastic changes introduced in 1986 recognised the demand for dowry as the mother of most gender-related crimes. The crimes of rape, bride-burning, sex determination and female foeticide were in some way linked to the low social status that most women were given by their husbands and in-laws. The Delhi High Court should have looked at the plight of married women before the anti-dowry law was given teeth to understand the long and tortuous route the fight for gender justice has taken. It should also have taken note of the fact that in spite
of a plethora of gender-correct laws, the male-dominated system still does not allow women a place of respect and equality in society. The fact of the matter is that no man-made law can ever be perfect. How the system works the laws makes them appear draconian or effective. |
Islamic society and democracy THE Muslim world conjures up images of a society which is inward-looking, docile and undemocratic. It represents all that is wrong with the modern world. And after the rise of Al-Qaeda and 9/11, it now carries the burden of a society which harbours international terrorism and poses a serious threat to the civilised world. Even a more paternalistic view of the Muslim world is that since Islam and democracy are like oil and water; they just do not mix. It is impossible to build democracy, the argument goes, without democrats. Such a view is not confined to western analysts alone. The ultra-conservatives in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere also argue that Islam has its own mechanisms and institutions which do not include democracy. The Islamists go to the extent of considering democracy as “apostasy.” Slogans like “no constitution and no laws and only rule is the Quran and the law of God” and “we are neither socialist nor capitalist, but Muslims” appeal to those who find solace in Islam. The views of Islam from the days of Inquisition have remained largely intact. Islam to inquisitors symbolised “terror, devastation and the demonic hordes of hated barbarians”. The simple-speak propagated by the Bush White House has sought to equate mainstream Islam with Wahabism. It has led to many myths that all Arabs are Muslims, all Muslims are Islamists and all Islamists are fundamentalists. Myths flourish on both sides of the so-called civilisational divide. Islamists too have sought to fortify themselves by myth, nostalgia for the golden age and the spectre of the diabolical West. The late Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abd al-Aziz Bin-Baz warned Saudi youth in 1995 not to travel to the West for vacation because “there is deadly poison in travelling to the land of the infidels”. Islam is religion of over one billion people and is a rapidly growing faith. Only one out of four countries with Muslim majorities have democratically elected governments. Of the 52-odd countries with Muslim majorities, only 11 are liberal democracies, 14 are halfway to democracy and 27 have varying shades of autocracies. But does this mean that Islam is antagonistic towards democracy? Islam is neither inherently antithetical to democracy nor monolithic. No religion is democratic as no political culture is solely determined by the religion of its majority. As Francois Burgat, eminent French scholar on Islam, says, “Muslim civilisation was democratic no more than Christian civilisation was before it became so.” If liberal democracy hasn’t taken firm roots in the Muslim world, particularly Arab states, is has many causes. Whereas Muslims make up just one-fifth of the world’s total population, they constitute more than half of the 1.2 billion population living in abject poverty. There is thus a pervasive sense of debilitation and encroachment in the Islamic world today. The trauma of modern Islam results from a sharp contrast between its medieval successes and more recent tribulations. If the Muslim world tends to view Saddam’s downfall as Muslim humiliation, it is thanks to such mental make-up. The authoritarian legacy of the Ottoman empire, meddling by colonial European powers in the early 20th century and continuing struggle against Israel are some of the factors inhibiting progress towards democracy. The European colonial penetration did not allow the flowering of the nation-states. What emerged instead were tiny states based on arbitrarily drawn borders and heterogeneous populations. This led to constant cross-border feuding. The European colonialists preferred to work with tribal chiefs and elites to lay the foundations of modern states. Liberal democracy is the end product of specific socio-economic and intellectual context in the West. It is not easy to transplant this model in other societies, particularly where politics has strong tribal overlay. Like Latin America of the 1950s and 1960s, the Arab world too has shown its preferences for the caudillos (strongmen on horseback) who guarantee stability, security and continuity. As Fareed Zakaria has succinctly put it in the context of Iraq, building the institutions of democracy “is not 50 per cent of the job. It is 90 per cent of the job”. It is not election so much as the “institutions of liberty” like a functioning judicial system, free Press, economic reform, civic institutions and multiple political parties which are critical to the success of democracy. The US has suddenly woken up to the need for democratic reforms in the Arab world. However, the Arab and Muslim regimes elsewhere have only exploited America’s double standards on democracy and political reform. The US seeks to promote democracy but not if it destabilises its own allies howsoever regressive and repressive or if it brings fundamentalists to power. Saddam was bad and hence he had to go, but Saudi rulers are allies even though Al-Qaeda is the inevitable result of Wahabism. Military intervention against the Taliban and Saddam is a global campaign and an exercise in self-defence, but if Mr Yashwant Sinha says that India has even better case for a pre-emptive strike against Pakistan-based terrorists all hell breaks out. Palestinian acts of defiance are terrorism, but Israeli incursions into Arab territory are not. The Muslim world need not be seen as “one-size-fits-all” category. Bangladesh and Turkey are functioning democracies. Pakistan has had several spells of democracy. If Indonesia and Malaysia virtually remained for long one-party democracies, it was in conformity with the regional model. Now Indonesia has joined the democracy train. Iran need not be a western-style democracy. But free elections have become a regular feature and power has changed from one party to another. Several Arab States are also at varying stages of democratising their polities. Algeria is no more a one-party state. In the past five years or so, it has held parliamentary, presidential and municipal elections. Initially, it created a limited multi-party system which coexisted with the army. But in 1999, Mr Abdelaziz Bouleflika was elected the first civilian President and Algeria is now fast evolving into a free participatory democracy. In September 2002, Morocco held national elections which were by far the fairest poll in national history. The fundamentalists Justice and Development Party has doubled its presence in parliament. For the first time the Opposition has been voted to power. It is by no means a small gain. Bahrain, Qatar and Oman have taken historic steps towards democracy. Qatar is the smallest state in the Arab world but Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani is the most reform-minded leader in the Gulf region. He has abolished the Information Ministry and with it the system of censorship. In April 2003, Qataris voted overwhelmingly in favour of their first real constitution. Bahrain elected a new parliament in October 2002 which has real power to enact laws. Bahrain is moving towards converting its hereditary monarchy into a constitutional monarchy. However, it is Kuwait which has the longest democratic experience having held its first election in December 1961. Kuwait parliament has full legislative powers. It has a right to investigate government conduct, openly debate issues and approve laws. The smaller states have taken the lead. While global factors — near universal embrace of democracy, advent of globalisation and a new topography of power — account for political change in the Muslim world, many of the states initiated democratic change much before 9/11. After all, the age of innocence is over and the realisation is dawning on the oligarchic regimes that with globalisation, the big may or may not eat the small, but the fast will certainly eat the slow. The writer is the author of “Globalisation or
Gobble-isation: The Arab Experience”
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A novel contest HOW does one define a perfect woman? Obviously, there cannot be just one precise definition that will hold good everywhere. Different people, different viewpoints, and, therefore, different definitions. Sometime back I read in a newspaper that people in a small town of New Zealand held a contest to choose their “perfect woman” from among the 50-odd participants in the fray for the title. According to the judges of this contest, a perfect woman was one who could change a car wheel, prepare a sheep for shearing, open a beer bottle without an opener, darn socks, reverse a tractor-trailer loaded with hay, mend a fence, consume a quart of beer, and do other such odd jobs in the shortest possible time. I wonder if people living in a small town of India were to hold such a contest, then how they would go about it. Of course, our socio-economic conditions are vastly different from those prevailing in New Zealand. As more than 70 per cent of our population lives in villages, our perfect woman contest shall have to be devised in a different way. The participants in our contest shall have to go through the whole gamut of all those everyday tasks that fall to the lot of the average Indian woman living in a village. Thus, each aspirant for the perfect woman title shall be judged by how quickly she can cook, wash, clean, scrub, sweep, mop, knit, stitch, embroider, sew, spin and weave. Then, there will be bonus marks for those contestants who know how to milk cows and buffaloes, raise hens, churn curds to make butter and butter-milk, winnow grain from the chaff, carry home from the village well three earthen pitchers filled with water, two balanced on her head (one atop the other) and the third held in the crook of her arm, and such other tasks. But, while doing all these things as quickly as she can, she must not forget to breastfeed her infant baby, who, whimpering and wailing, is most of the time clinging to her. Doubtless, the winner of such a contest would be some strapping village woman, who is well used to slogging for long hours without ever complaining of fatigue. But then, contest or no contest, women in our villages have always been like this. It is almost axiomatic to say that an ideal housewife in a rural household is one who is the first to get up in the morning, invariably before the crack of dawn, and the last one to go to bed at night, after finishing her various chores in the kitchen. |
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A site of historic war, but sans memorial
ON the Banur-Kharar road just a few kilometres off Landran lies a small village which has so far remained hidden in a maze of history. In appearance Chapar Chiri resembles any small Punjab village, with a few pucca houses devoid of any basic necessities of life. Yet this was the place where the battle of Sirhind, called the mother of all battles, was fought and won by the Sikhs under the command of Banda Singh Bahadur in 1710. It is at this place that having sacked Sirhind, the Sikhs for the first time had a foretaste of freedom. It gave the Sikh nation a shot in the arm and a feeling that they had as much right to rule as any Mohammedan ruler or an Afghan invader. The succeeding years saw the Sikhs fighting nothing short of political emancipation of their territory. The Sirhind victory not only brought to end the decadent Mughal rule, but also established a brief but important four-year Sikh rule in Punjab. The Sikhs for the first time became rulers of the land of five rivers. Despite its historical importance, Chapar Chiri remained in the dustbin of history for over two centuries. It would have been lost to the ravages of time for ever, but for the efforts of one Inder Singh of Sohana, who discovered the place in 1950. Realising its historical importance, he built a small kuctha kotha and looked after the place in the best possible way with his limited means. After his death, a survivor of the famous Jaito-ka-Morcha, Ishar Singh, took over the control of the place and built a modest gurdwara in 1955. According to “mukh sevadar’ Prem Singh, Ishar Singh served the place for 40 long years till his death in 1988. Ishar Singh, an illiterate, ex-Army man, looked after the place with devotion. He made every effort to accord the place the recognition it deserved. It was during his time that political leaders of the stature of Master Tara Singh addressed the Sikh sangat at Chapar Chiri. Yet the place failed to attract the attention of political leaders, who found little time to lay even a brick in memory of those selfless soldiers who had died for their faith. The intensity and magnitude of the battle can be gauged from the fact that though the Sikhs won against heavy odds, they had lost 20,000 men in action. The Wazir Khan army had lost more than 60,000 troops. Interestingly, where the dead Sikhs were cremated en masse, a memorial stands even today on the premises of Jyoti Sarup Gurdwara in Sirhind. However, the place where they had fought and died, no war memorial has ever been raised in their honour. A few years ago, a broken piece of a sword, a khanda made in 1694 and some other weapons were recovered from a well in the village. Chapar Chiri has about 45-50 houses and 500 inhabitants. A panchayat committee consisting of Balwant Singh, Dalip Singh, Zora Singh, Prem Singh, Daljit Singh, Harnek Singh and a few others runs the gurdwara with its modest means. The gurdwara has about 18 acres of land, yet the committee has failed to mobilise resources to build a war memorial. When The Tribune team visited the place, it found the power cable disconnected at the sevadar’s house since the bill was not paid. While the state can be blamed for not taking care of a great historic site, the panchayat committee has never thought of organising even a simple function on the battle anniversary, which falls on May 12. When quizzed on this, Prem Singh says that farmers at this point of time are busy in harvesting. Therefore, the committee holds a function every year in February in memory of all martyrs, including those of Nankana Sahib. The place suffers from utter neglect. Till a few years ago, there was no school in the village. Now, the Bank of Punjab runs Guru Nanak Foundation School. A new building is coming up to house the gurdwara, for which kar seva is being undertaken by Harbans Singh of Delhi. But there is yet no sign of a war memorial for the unsung Sikh heroes. The villagers demand that a function should be held on May 12 every year to remember those who had laid down their lives. Prem Singh says the SGPC should open a kirtan training centre at this place so that people are taught Gurbani. In addition, the village needs better infrastructure. Earlier, Chapar Chiri was part of Kharar subdivision, now it is part of Mohali. Since for every errand villagers have to rush to Mohali, they need better means of travel and communication. Mr Balwant Singh, who had been the village sarpanch for 15 years, says they have approached both the state government as well as the SGPC for financial help, but none has contributed as a result of which neither the memorial nor any function has been held on May 12. “We have also tried to get grants through the panchayat committee but in vain. The government or the SGPC must take care of such a historic site”. Mr Prithipal Singh, a Sikh scholar based in Ludhiana, laments the absence of any war memorial at the site. “It is surprising that Chapar Chiri has escaped the notice of the Sikhs, the successive governments and even the SGPC for so long.” Another Sikh scholar, Prof Tajinder Singh of Jalandhar, echoes similar sentiments. “Not only a war memorial should be raised in memory of those who had realised the Sikh dream but also the weapons recovered from the site should be preserved for future generations. After all, the Sirhind victory marked a new epoch in Sikh resurgence,” he says. |
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The battle of Sirhind: a background WAZIR KHAN, the Governor of Sirhind, had vowed to finish the Sikhs root and branch. Two younger sons of Guru Gobind Singh, Baba Zorawar Singh and Baba Fateh Singh, were bricked alive on his orders when they had refused to embrace Islam in 1704 at Sirhind. The Sikhs were keen to avenge the killings. Four years later, a chance meeting took place between Lachman Das, later known as Banda Singh Bahadur and Guru Gobind Singh, on the banks of the Gadavar. The Guru sent Banda Bahadur to Punjab to punish Wazir Khan and destroy the Mughal empire, which had let loose repression on Sikhs. In October, 1708, Banda marched towards Punjab along with a band of 25 Sikhs and a hukamnama, which enjoined upon the Sikhs to assemble under his banner. As Banda reached Delhi, thousands gathered under his command. After subjugating Sonepat, Samana, Shahbad, Mustafabad, Kapuri and Banur, Banda led his troops to take on Wazir Khan, who also came out of Sirhind to confront the Sikhs. Whereas the royal army had cannons and cavalry, the Sikhs had only swords and spears. The two armies clashed at Chapar Chiri on May 12. Though the enemy had the upper hand initially as Banda Bahadur directed the attack, sitting on a sandy mound. But he soon joined his forces and pounced on the enemy. A pitched battle was fought for two days during which Wazir Khan fell to the sword of Fateh Singh. The Sikhs raised a victory cry and razed Sirhind to the ground. Banda formally took control of Sirhind on May 14, 1710.
— HSV |
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Revealing
the truth of war and more BUNKER 13 (published in the UK by Faber & Faber, pp297), Aniruddha Bahal’s fast-paced debut novel, reminds me of The Naked and The Dead, Norman Mailer’s literary breakthrough. Mailer’s fictionalised account of the taking of the Pacific islands during the Second World War broke new ground in 1948 with its rough and ready military vernacular. Much like The Naked and The Dead, Bunker 13 is elevated by first-hand authenticity; it is no less gritty and the text is similarly revealing about the truth of war. Bahal is a journalist with impeccable credentials. Over the past decade, as one of the leading investigative journalists at the Indian news daily tehelka.com, Bahal has unearthed a number of hard-hitting corruption stories. Posing as an arms salesman, he bribed his way into the company of India’s Defence Minister, George Fernandes, and handed over Pounds sterling 3,000 to one of the Minister’s colleagues. In similar scoops, tehelka.com obtained footage of army officers, government bureaucrats, even the president of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, gladly taking bribes. The scandal was a deeply embarrassing setback for the nationalist BJP Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Tehelka.com saw its traffic escalate to around 30 million hits a week and the repercussions for Bahal were also cataclysmic. His stories prompted widespread anger as well as respect and he is now at once an insider and outsider in his own country. Bunker 13, like most first novels, draws on its author’s own experience. Its protagonist, MM, is a thrill-seeking reporter who, in his previous life, was an army cadet. Using his investigative skills, he manages to reach both the Indian army and the corrupt political establishment. Smugglers and drugs-runners are his contacts. Tracing a path through the Kashmiri borderlands with India’s elite Special Forces, MM stumbles across his greatest story yet: a rogue group of Indian army officers are deeply involved in a crime ring that smuggles drugs and captured weapons out of the Kashmiri jungle. While he is on assignment with the troops, a cache of weapons and drugs is discovered: MM is then ordered to help unload the goods on to the international market. The plot may sound fanciful but Bahal has documented very similar stories as a journalist. Similarly, his India bears little resemblance to its
official image as the `great democracy’; away from the cultural centres of Ahmedabad and Mumbai (Bombay), India is a seething, corrupt and nefarious hinterland where religion, nationalism and moral values are openly bartered for personal gain. Bahal’s style is full of pace and character. He appears to relish the new lease of life fiction offers and his prose is influenced by the hard-bitten, women and alcohol-fuelled language of the modern thriller genre: `Man, you have enough alcohol in here to launch a polar satellite vehicle. Johnnie Walker Blue Label! The only time I have seen the bottle is in a Star TV ad, the one with that slinky blonde in it that blows her skirt in the ventilator.’ As MM hikes on blistered feet through the Kashmiri jungle, he reflects: `You are increasingly feeling that you needn’t have got into the shit you find yourself in right now, tabbing 20km with a 20kg rucksack burning your back.’ Bunker 13 is inspiring. That Bahal has turned his attentions away from news - and towards war - is a treat.
The Guardian |
Do not say, “I am too young,” for you shall go to all to whom I send you.
— Jermiah 1:7 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousnes’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
— Matthew 5:10 |
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