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Tuesday,
June 17, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Cops-cum-terrorists Musharraf the maniac Empowered by education |
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The coalition question
Winged menace
Kasauli’s rich & famous face
eviction
Short take
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Cops-cum-terrorists NOW one knows how terrorists in Kashmir manage to keep not just one but several steps ahead of security agencies. The DGP of the J and K Police has confirmed that six of his men were involved in the killing of former state Law Minister Mushtaq Ahmed Lone and his brother last year, besides two fidayeen attacks on police and paramilitary forces in Kupwara. That substantiates the worst fears of all those concerned about the scale and reach of terrorism in the state. Instead of the police forces having moles in terrorists’ ranks, the opposite has been happening. The feeling of disquiet among the forces and the other government agencies is understandable. With policemen themselves acting as terrorists, nothing and no one is really secure. While the DGP has tried to reason that these were lower-ranking officials and the incidents were isolated, it is necessary to look into the role of senior officers as well. There are reasons to suspect that the nexus may be widespread with roots going fairly deep. It poses grave risk not only to 3000-odd VIPs who have been provided security but also all government installations. A thorough screening is the need of the hour with not even the seniormost officials being spared. The guilty policemen have not only acted against their country but also their colleagues who always stood by them. Such incidents happen because of the tendency of a force to protect every colleague, even if he happens to be tainted. For instance, when certain army officials had expressed doubts about the integrity of some of the state policemen, the entire police force had risen as one against this “slur” on its fair name. It was made out as if each and every policeman had been accused and was not considered trustworthy. That was an undesirable and unfortunate spin to a good-intentioned remark. Had the police force been reasonable and applied correctives then and there, things might not have come to such a pass. Now that the scandal is full blown, a thorough overhaul of the entire security system is in order. Every policeman that has sympathies with antinational forces is capable of doing incalculable harm to the country. He can not only aid and abet the killing of marked men, but also kill a few persons himself so that the police force itself gets discredited. A similar threat comes from surrendered terrorists also. There have been many instances of such SPOs running away with their weapons. The menace can be curbed only if the central and state agencies act in tandem in letter and spirit. |
Musharraf the maniac PAKISTAN President Pervez Musharraf remains what he has been throughout his life — an army man. He seems to have learnt not even the ABC of politics. He has provided ample proof of this in his latest interview with an Indian television network, NDTV 24x7. At a time when he should have been extremely careful about his utterances on Kashmir and other issues, he has spoken as if he is only the Chief of Army Staff. When asked whether there could be another Kargil, his answer was: “Depends on how we proceed on the peace track, on how things develop. One can’t say.” He did not rule out another Kargil. This is not how the man who holds the reins of power should conduct himself, that too when India and Pakistan are moving towards a dialogue process. This is, in fact, more than posturing on the Kashmir question. He has virtually issued an ultimatum that India should be prepared for another Kargil if the Kashmir issue is not resolved at the first available occasion. Indirectly, this also means that Kashmir should be taken up on a priority basis if India wants to live in peace. Such thoughtless statements will lead us nowhere. These will spoil the atmosphere and make India believe that Pakistan is not serious about normalisation of relations. Perhaps, Islamabad does not want to go beyond the position that existed when terrorists struck the Parliament building in New Delhi on December 13, 2001. Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani has rightly said that in such a situation “no fruitful talks will take place”. Then why does General Musharraf insist on taking up Kashmir as the top item on the agenda for talks? Somebody in Pakistan or the US should tell him that there is a thing called the environment. Rain comes only when there are clouds in the sky. If he wants the Kashmir knot to be untied, he must help create a conducive atmosphere. This is possible by taking up issues which are easier to be settled. He has admitted that he does not trust India. His opinion may be different with a change in the status of the Indo-Pak relations in areas like trade, sports and culture. This will lead to increased people-to-people interaction. In the process, the two governments may be forced to avoid indulging in rhetoric on Kashmir and find a mutually acceptable solution to this emotional problem. Let us hope General Musharraf will quickly realise the significance of this pragmatic line of
thinking. |
Empowered by education THE results of education as a route to empowerment are there for all to see. Tulsa, who topped the plus 2 examination of the Punjab School Education Board, is from a poor background. Her father works as a watchman in Ludhiana. In the Haryana School Education Board results that were announced a few days ago, it was Poonam
Khatri, a girl from Panchkula, who topped the district. Her father works with
HUDA. The story from Nagpur was even more interesting. Prasad
Akkanouri, who topped the Higher Secondary Certificate examination in Maharashtra, had run away from home and was working as a waiter, preparing for his examinations. Prasad was not poor, he just ran away because of a desire to “achieve something in life.” That is one wish all youngsters who have been topping the examinations of various state boards have. This is what motivates them to dream beyond their present lot in life and make the efforts required to lift themselves to the level they aspire to be at. This overpowering desire makes them into the super achievers that they are. When they leap beyond the limitations imposed by such handicaps as poverty, lack of opportunity and even medical problems, the achievement is even more laudable.
Pratik, whose cornea is damaged, and Naveen, who is thalassaemic, both from Chandigarh, did well in the CBSE examination in spite of their physical problems. In Mauli
Jagran, near Chandigarh, the slum-like conditions were not a deterrent for Abhishek, who performed brilliantly as a class X student. Last year, it was Rakesh from the unauthorised Rajiv Colony in the area who topped the non-medical stream of the ISC examination. A gardener’s son, a watchman’s son and another watchman’s daughter; it is a growing roll of honour. The passing out parade held recently at the Indian Military Academy, Dehra Dun, was an occasion for celebration for all parents of the 431 Gentlemen Cadets, who have now become officers of the Indian Army. It was more so for the significant number of jawans whose sons are now officers. The kind of education and upbringing the children now have, which their parents did not, is an important factor. The role played by various persons in encouraging the children also has to be lauded. Often it is the teachers and the principals of various institutions who spot the talent and nurture it, at times they even push a diffident child. Corporate institutions have also been supporting quality education for the underprivileged. It is this kind of affirmative action by various players in our society that helps in bringing out the best in all these students. Their achievement makes everyone proud. They have been empowered because of their dedicated studies. Hopefully, their example will be the best inspiration for others. |
The coalition question TO coalesce or not — that is the question. The two main parties contending for the New Delhi throne in the next year’s general election are already beginning to answer the question in different ways. More newsworthy has been the new stance adopted by the Congress on this count. Party president Sonia Gandhi caused some surprise with her statement in Srinagar earlier this month, indicating a readiness on the part of the main opposition group to consider power-sharing at the Centre. This seemed to mark a sharp and significant departure from the party’s policy over its long years away from the nation’s helm. Did it, really? The Congress had left little doubt, thus far, about its utter aversion to the idea of participating in a coalition government at the Centre. The party’s leading voices have made the idea sound like an ideological compromise the Congress could just not countenance. In its frequently recalled Pachmarhi resolution in September 1998, the Congress had rejected the course of coalition politics for itself. The resolution was adopted at a party conclave in the picturesque hill resort of Madhya Pradesh, just four months after the Pokharan II nuclear-weapon tests and despite their loud and clear political message. We shall revert to this point later. Even before that, the Congress had demonstrated its profound disinclination to participate in any power-sharing arrangement at the top of the country. It had done so repeatedly. It refused to join the government headed by Charan Singh, though it helped him come to power for a short period in 1979 by dislodging the first non-Congress regime of the Janata Party at the Centre. Ditto with governments headed by Mr Chandra Shekhar, Mr Deve Gowda, and Mr Inder Kumar Gujral, all of which the premier national party had helped come into being. The Pachmarhi resolution sought to convert this aversion to coalition rule into a philosophical argument. It spoke of coalition rule as running counter to national interests and of coalition politics at the Centre as “a transitional phase”. Critics saw this as an attempt to rationalise the party’s nostalgia for the days of its power monopoly, which had no realistic chance of returning in the foreseeable future. The Congress, in their view, was waiting ever so wistfully for this “phase” to pass and for its own comeback to the position of political pre-eminence it enjoyed in the first three decades after Independence. If that were so, such a phase of waiting itself would seem to have proved transitional, to go by the reported revision of its stand on sharing power at the Centre. The party would seem to have given up on the chances of its return to power on its own, at least for now. The assumption of Pachmarhi’s critics has been that the days of coalition rule in New Delhi are here to stay. There is a very different assumption, however, which would also warrant, perhaps even more amply, the altered line of Congress adoption. This is the assumption that the Bharatiya Janata Party, heading the NDA regime now, is here to stay as a major national-level political player. The Congress may have abandoned Pachmarhi, but the BJP seems to have accepted the substance of the resolution — that coalition politics can and should only be a “transitional phase”. Ever since its landslide electoral victory in Gujarat, which showed how well communalism could nurse a state-wide constituency, the BJP has made no secret of its new ambition: a bid for unshared power at the Centre. It has left no doubt that this will be the objective of its campaign for the general election of 2004. Indeed, even of its campaigns in the Assembly elections that will constitute the run-up to the climax next year. To this end, the BJP has ferreted issues, such as Ayodhya, out of the famous “back burner” again. Not far from Pachmarhi, for example, redoubtable Uma Bharati has been working overtime to create a new temple tangle in Bhojshala. Many sections, and not only the increasingly insecure minorities, look upon this as a looming threat to the entire country. The Congress, of course, claims to share the fears of these sections. It even talks, off and on, of an Indian fascism — even if it makes a distinction in this regard between the BJP and the Sangh Parivar and between sections in the party. If the Congress means what it says, there is a cut-and-dried case for its participation in a coalition regime at the Centre. It is in the interest of unity against what the Congress considers such a serious threat to the country, above all, that it must be prepared to share power in New Delhi. There is no assurance, however, that the Congress will be guided by such an overriding consideration. It is doubtful, in fact, that the Sonia statement was itself influenced by a single country-level strategy. The Congress has not been totally averse to state-level coalitions. The party president was citing Jammu and Kashmir, where the Congress shares power with the People’s Democratic Party of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, as an example of the alliance the party was prepared to enter into in order to bar the BJP’s path back to power. The analogy is inept, and not only because the alliance barred such a path only for Dr Farooq Abdullah’s National Conference after it had fallen out with the BJP and the NDA in New Delhi. More importantly, the PDP as an offshoot of the Congress is only part of the latter’s “parivar”. So is the Nationalist Congress Party of Mr Sharad Pawar, formed in protest against the idea of a Congress under the leadership of a “foreigner”, but sharing power with the parent party in Maharashtra. So, too, by now, is the set of allies that have always been riding the Congress bandwagon in Kerala, where coalitions have long been the way of political life. These power pacts do not promise the kind of Congress-participated coalition at the Centre that Mrs Sonia Gandhi has spoken about. The real test will be whether the Congress is ready to join hands with the parties with which no ideological or political compulsions have persuaded it even to attempt a polite handshake through several general elections. Parties such as the Samajwadi Party of Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav or either of the Dravdian parties, the DMK and the AIADMK. Thus far, the Congress has shown interest, even if of an inconsistent variety, only in state-level tie-ups with such occasional allies. Antipathies inherited from the days of anti-Congressism — those all but forgotten days when the Congress was a big enough force to inspire the formation of an anti-Congress phalanx — are ironically coming in the way of the party forging an anti-BJP front. These antipathies can be overcome if the Congress places its avowed ideology above them. No such principled view of the political stakes in the crucial polls ahead is visible, however, in the manner in which the Congress plans to meet the BJP-”parivar” challenge. MP Chief Minister Digvijay Singh’s competitive compromise on the cow issue is a case in point. The party’s response to the threat it decries should be no surprise when one recalls how Pachmarhi followed Pokharan II. The writer is a Chennai-based political commentator |
Winged menace I
am a bird lover. It is my obsession for my winged friends which impels me to undertake a frequent pilgrimage to the Bharatpur bird sanctuary, with the same devotion as I do to Tirupati. However, for the last two years or so they have begun to try my patience and nerves. My winged friends are making a desperate effort to deprive me of space in my very compact apartment. My rear verandah was uncovered from its front, this gave a golden opportunity to pigeons to enter in, perch atop my airconditioner and dump sufficient quantities of grass and straw in the nesting season and raise their families. They were rendering it impossible for me to keep our airconditioner clean, while making a mess also of our immaculately clean home. Enough is enough, said my wife, and it was at her behest that I decided to barricade their entry by putting a steel grill. The grill, though impenetrable to pigeons, had enough cleavages to permit the free flow of air and sunlight. After about an year our joy knew no bounds, when we discovered that our magic formula had worked. We had after all defeated the evil designs of an enemy with a dogged determination. This year we were in for a rude shock. Even in this 21st century Man, after all had not got the better of nature. Much of our chagrin we discovered that the nuisance value of one of God’s creation was replaced by that of another. Even though the barrier placed by us protected us from pigeons, little sparrows with grass and straw in their beaks descended into our verandah in their hordes. These birds, after dumping all the mess at vantageous points, settled down comfortably in their new habitat. We were determined not to allow them to settle down and raise their families. In such a situation God would not pardon our sin of being a homebreaker. God, we believe, only rewards the home makers. The rationale of God’s above promise made us sporadically clear all the building blocks of the sparrows’ supposedly “promised land”. After protracted deliberations both within the family and outside, we decided to plug all the sparrow-friendly gaps in the grill with a poking steel wire, which, we believed would hurt the little creatures and thereby act as a deterrent. The steel wire of the appropriate variety was laid in sparrow friendly pockets in the firm belief that we would perhaps, be able to outwit the tiny, perfidious swift flying menace. For about a month there was no trace of the birds and we were thrilled with our efforts. One fine afternoon, while we were celebrating, what we believed would have been a triumph of Man over nature, our short lived joy soon turned into despair on observing beak-filled sparrows make a beeline into our verandah and attempting to settle down on what we erroneously believed was an inhospitable terrain for them.
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Kasauli’s rich & famous face
eviction
AN Army move to resume all old grand residential properties in Kasauli is threatening to expel many old and respected citizens of this cantonment. Amongst the threatened species are Khushwant Singh, the family of the late Mr B.K. Nehru, Sanam Harbaksh Singh, wife of the legendary Chief of the Western Command, Lt Gen Harbaksh Singh, artist Vivan Sundaram and about 80 others. The Army says it is short of accommodation, and thus needs to acquire all of Kasauli’s old houses which have been caringly nurtured and maintained by the families whose association with this station, in many cases, goes back to more than half a century. Yet the shocking reality is that properties already in the possession of the Army are in a dismal condition. It seems that an over-zealous General at Command Headquarters and/or a Brigadier sitting in the sub-area in Ambala want to leave their mark as battle-ready combatants now that they have been asked to step back from the borders with Pakistan. It is also believed that the Army would ultimately like to convert Kasauli into a virtual station. Such an arrangement would enable it to lord it over Kasauli without bothering about any civilian role or rights in this more than a century and a half old cantonment, which is one of the most unique of its kind in the country. In fact, if it had not been for a group of civilian and retired military residents who organised themselves into the Society for the Preservation of Kasauli and its Environs (SPOKE), the immediate periphery of this cantonment would have been turned into a slum of environment-damaging apartment blocks and concrete villas as in the case of Shimla and Manali. The Army has virtually played no role in these efforts to preserve Kasauli and its environs. The entire population of Kasauli is alarmed and concerned at the on-going defence exercise to show the door to Kasauli’s well-known high profile residents. It is feared that shopkeepers and vendors, and restaurants, dhabas and hotels will all be bombed out of business by this ill-considered move to dislocate the life and soul of Kasauli. Once the olive greens take over the entire cantonment, tourists will be dissuaded from visiting Kasauli, which will be turned into a virtual military camp. Moreover, the on-going operation to transform Kasauli into an exclusive military station will not only involve a massive financial outlay, but also entangle the Army and defence authorities in a web of legal battles. In the case of an ongoing case of resumption, the authorities are still doing rounds of the courts for the past 10 years. The existing regulations also require that in the case of resumption of any property, the owner has to be not only compensated financially, but also be provided with a suitable alternative plot in the cantonment. As things stand, funds should not be a problem to meet the ostensible housing shortage as Rs 16,000 crore have been earmarked for a nationwide programme to meet the housing needs of defence personnel. The response in Kasauli appears to be to “carpet-bomb” the existing land-holding and property structure in the cantonment instead of adopting a more rational approach of enforcing cantonment regulations. There are holdings in Kasauli like the Masonic Lodge, of the now infamous Ravi Sidhu, in whose case the defence authorities did precious little to stymie his illegal acquisition of the property. There are other properties which have been bought and sold in dubious ways, with the command and defence authorities acting as spectators, even as willing “partners” in such transactions. Such properties along with other buildings lying derelict with the military can easily be developed to meet the Army’s needs. Lax control and enforcement in the cantonment are also visible in the matter of certain property owners being able or allowed to brazenly disregard various bye-laws pertaining to construction and renovation. In certain old-grant compounds new cottages have been built, new storeys added to houses, garages have been built on the roadside, and properties have been rented out for commercial considerations. It can be nobody’s case that the authorities should remain mute spectators to such violations. In fact an efficient, honest, clean across-the-board approach to enforcement, even acquisition of properties in whose case the spirit and conditions of the old grants have been broken, would largely be able to meet the Army’s requirements in Kasauli. If the defence establishment has been blowing hot and cold in Kasauli, sections of the old grand house-owners have gone into a knee-jerk and panic mode reaction. They have organised themselves into an association to take stock and defensive steps to protect their interests and rights. This group has organised a team-meeting on June 17 as its old watering hole, the Kasauli Club, institution at present being managed by the Western Command. Ironically, the command authorities should, perhaps be pushed to convert the sprawling estate of the club into a combination of an institute with a club, a mess, a sports centre and a residential complex for Army personnel. If they did this, of course in an eco-friendly manner, and in combination with better control and enforcement, there would be no need to “carpet-bomb” the cantonment with extra morale gained at the expense of tempting beverages from the CSD’s cellars. The defence and Army brass should be engaged in a dialogue to find ways to streamline the administration of cantonments, keeping in mind that these unique habitats have a role in preserving the environment, besides being areas of recreational interaction between soldiers of serving units, retired soldiers and a civilians population that respects cantonment regulation and the cantonment way of a healthy lifestyle. Cantonments are not exclusive military stations, which is a distinction that needs to be maintained and preserved. In the meantime, much can be done to spruce up the declining image of the Army and the plummeting standards of administration and maintenance in Kasauli. There are Army buildings and phone booths that are plastered with hoardings of various companies, national and multinational. There are roads with broken railings, and garbage bins that remain uncleared for days at a stretch. The Army premises in the security area have also been rented out to boutiques, fast food joints and a shoe company. There is also talk in the town that there is a plan to start a bar and restaurant for the public within the brigade compound. Indeed, there is much to be done in Kasauli; what is not required is to “carpet-bomb” the residents and make a refugee of 90-year-old Khushwant Singh and his friends who live along the upper and lower Malls. |
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Short take NOW
that Talhan is on the road to normalcy after a police-brokered written agreement, it is time to ask and answer questions like: what went wrong? Was the trouble avoidable? Was the whole issue mishandled? Will the peace pact last? Talhan is not a typical Punjab village. Prosperity is visible in every street with kothi-type houses. There is a plus-two level government school. All children of the village go to school. The results, however, are less than satisfactory. The literacy level in the village is unbelievably high at 95 per cent. Yet the highly educated and religious residents of the village have earned the ignominy of engineering a communal clash, something rare in Punjab. The largely clean-shaven Dalits swear by Sikhism, have their own gurdwara and they all pay obeisance to Guru Granth Sahib. The Jats have their gurdwara, the now famous Gurdwara Baba Nihal Singh, built at the “smadh” of the Baba, a Ramgarhia Sikh. The other castes have their gurdwara. The village, divided on caste lines, follows a religion that forbids such divisions. Each gurdwara has its own management, but it is the Jat management of Gurdwara Baba Nihal Singh that others eye with envy. The reason: the huge offerings by village NRIs. The Head Granthi, Bhai Manjit Singh, while talking to a Tribune team on Saturday on the gurdwara premises, estimated the annual “charahwa” to be in the range of Rs 1.5 to 2 crore. The gurdwara has two huge dewan halls for kirtan and air-conditioned rooms where Guru Granth Sahib is kept. How do they spend the money that comes to the gurdwara? The managing committee has constructed the village school and hospital buildings, paved the streets and undertaken other development work. Before the present trouble started, they used to hold their social, cultural and sports functions together. Then how did the problem start? The ordinary Dalits, whom The Tribune team spoke to in the curfew-bound village, said the development work done is uneven. “They spend more on their own areas,” said a Dalit bank employee. Asked to elaborate how they would “benefit” if their two members were included in the managing
committee, a village panchayat member said the Jats did not have to pay their electricity and water bills as these were paid up by gurdwara money, while they had to shell out from their own pocket. Why doesn’t the village panchayat, which has a Dalit majority, undertake development work? The panchayat has no funds. The NRIs won’t give their spare dollars and pounds to the panchayat for the welfare of all. They donate liberally to the gurdwara as a token of thanksgiving to the Almighty and in memory of their departed ones. The village dispute would not have flared up had the police, anticipating trouble, disallowed the function at the Muslim Pir’s “smadh”, identified and detained the handful of culprits. The first-ever communal clash in the village that took place on June 5 could have been easily averted had the district administration been alert since the village had been witnessing a Jat boycott of the Dalits for the past some months. Second, the “outsiders” also played a motivated role by organising a “backlash” in Phagwara and Jalandhar. The incidents at Jalandhar and Phagwara were not spontaneous. Influential people with political clout spread the trouble as the district officials were caught unawares. Whether the firing at Jalandhar’s Buta Mandi, killing one person, was resorted to by the police or mischievous elements is yet to be established, but it did raise passions. Third, the transfer of the DIG, the SSP, two SPs and one Inspector, who were familiar with the situation at the ground level, was an unwise decision. While only a proper inquiry will establish who let down the government in maintaining the peace and who managed and financed the Dalit backlash, accusing fingers are being pointed at certain Congress leaders of the area. The entire episode has muddied the image of the Amarinder Singh government. To redeem the public faith in the government’s capacity to handle such sensitive issues, it is imperative the culprits, no matter how highly placed, are brought to justice. Incidentally, the media too has blemished itself. The villagers blamed it for misrepresenting the facts and blowing up the situation.
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