The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

OPINION

A flawed reservation policy
It’s time to curtail rather than expand its scope
by Ram Varma
There can be no spectacle so ludicrous as the “kingly” Kshatriyas, looking regal in their handle bar moustaches and massive safas (folded headgears), and the “godlike” Brahmins, the sandalwood paste tilak on their foreheads proclaiming their Vedic antecedents, taking to streets and demanding a slice of the reservation cake for being economically backward.

MIDDLE

Song of promise
by K. Rajbir Deswal
The extremities of summer intensity compel me to think of the gone-by winter which was equally exacting. Then we longed for a little warmth and found much solace in Shelly’s famous quote, “If winter comes can spring be far behind !” The spring came and on its heels, the autumn.

Hope of vested interests, despair of visionaries
P.S. Chanana
The joy of its lovers, the hope of vested interests, the refuge of the unconventional and the despair of visionaries, Chandigarh is the home of a variegated population. From the affluent to the bare one-meal earners, from the highly educated to the totally illiterates, from the technical experts to mason helpers, from the cultured to the uncouth, from the compassionate to the callous, from the socially sensitive to the apathetic and indifferent, we proudly have them all here.

After the demolition drive
By An Encroacher
I am 32 years old and have four children, of which one is a girl. I have never been to school and am illiterate. Yesterday my house was demolished because it was an illegal encroachment on government land. After many years, this was the first night we spent without the guilt of doing something illegal.

Calculating costs of India-Pak standoff
Sudeshna Sarkar
The confrontation between India and Pakistan from December 2001 to October 2002 cost the two nuclear-armed neighbours billions. And, for the South Asian region, the cost was substantially more. This was the opinion of analysts from both countries who attended a conference on the “Cost of Confrontation 2002” in Kathmandu hosted by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, a private, non-profit educational organisation.

SPIRITUAL NUGGETS

Rework women's Bill
Put the onus on political parties

The Women's Reservation Bill in its present form can become law only if the government decides to convene a POTA-type joint session of the two Houses of Parliament. But the possibility of the ruling coalition opting for a joint session can be ruled out for two reasons. One, the issue of reservation of seats for women in the country's legislatures is not an urgent national requirement. That is the official line. Two, a joint session was convened after the POTA Bill fell in the Lok Sabha. Lok Sabha Speaker Manohar Joshi deserves praise for taking the initiative of calling an all-party meeting yet again for resolving the deadlock before the commencement of the monsoon session in the second week of July. A point that has been consistently emphasised by most political parties is that the objective is laudable, but the approach for achieving it is flawed. During the meeting with Mr Joshi different formulas were discussed for ending the standoff. The three fresh suggestions that were made by the representatives of the mainstream political parties are interesting in as much as they revealed the thinking of men as politicians. The Samajwadi Party leader suggested the scaling down of the size of the proposed quota to 15 or 20 per cent.

Political parties lack either honesty or the will. In effect the male-dominated Parliament has turned the issue into a source of personal embarrassment for women. Any number of jokes can be picked up from various Net sites ridiculing women as law-makers. The issue is not the so-called political differences. Even leaders of the parties that are publicly in favour of a 33 per cent seat-quota in legislatures for women, privately admit lack of enthusiasm for a law that enlightened Indians say the country needs badly. However, the Election Commission's suggestion for placing the onus of giving a minimum of 33 per cent tickets to women candidates on the political parties appears to be pragmatic. A simple law, and not a constitutional amendment, is all that is needed for making it mandatory for the parties contesting elections to give the specified percentage of tickets to women. In one respect the modified reservation bill will be an improvement on the present proposal. Women will not necessarily have to contest against women. It will give them the greater confidence to face the electorate. In due course this arrangement will give birth to real gender equality, and end gender protection.

Himachal’s leap
Wake-up call for Punjab, Haryana

In a country where 40 million children in the 6-14 age group are without education, Himachal Pradesh’s effort to send all its 8,000 left-out children to school by next month is commendable. This is particularly so given the hill terrain where schools are inconveniently located, requiring children to trudge long distances, and the relative financial inadequacy of their parents residing in a state with limited avenues for upward mobility. The credit goes as much to governmental initiatives like the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, launched three years ago to put elementary education within the reach of every child, as to the determination of children and their parents who see in education the only ladder for climbing out of their present financial morass. Another Himachal disability is that unlike Kerala, the first state to achieve the constitutional obligation of providing universal elementary education, it does not have a very enlightened society and a mature political leadership committed to social development. The chief reason for Himachal’s great leap forward in the field of elementary education is, perhaps, the realisation that a government job is the ultimate dream of a large part of the population and that requires some education. Second, tourism is another main source of employment and that too cannot be tapped without educational skills. Children will get motivated to stay in school and study enthusiastically only if employment is assured. That is the next challenge before the state government.

Himachal’s success commands greater admiration when seen in the light of what its better-off neighbours like Haryana and Punjab have achieved, or rather not achieved. In Haryana as many as 2,00,000 children in the 6-11 age group do not go to any school. Punjab, despite its relative financial superiority and widely believed image of being a progressive state, ranks 16th in literacy in the country. Further, the quality of education in both states, as their school boards’ recent results indicate, is dismal, particularly in government schools located in the rural areas. The state of school education can be gauged from a recent report in The Tribune which states that there are 33 senior secondary and high schools in Fazilka subdivision of which 27 are without principals or headmasters. So inadequate is the basic infrastructure and such is the government apathy that the Punjab and Haryana High Court had to tell the state authorities to provide two separate toilets for boys and girls in every school. Lack of proper facilities and environment compels many children to leave school midway. The dropout rate in both states is alarming. Lack of funds cannot be a valid excuse that a state can advance for not pursuing the goal of universal elementary education. It is lack of political will that is responsible for the high level of illiteracy in the country.

OPINION

A flawed reservation policy
It’s time to curtail rather than expand its scope
by Ram Varma

There can be no spectacle so ludicrous as the “kingly” Kshatriyas, looking regal in their handle bar moustaches and massive safas (folded headgears), and the “godlike” Brahmins, the sandalwood paste tilak on their foreheads proclaiming their Vedic antecedents, taking to streets and demanding a slice of the reservation cake for being economically backward. It was absurd enough when the ruling BJP, in a fit of populism before the elections five years ago, bestowed the benefits of reservation upon the Jats, who are the principal landowning class of the North.

Now it is the turn of the ruling Congress party in Rajasthan, seized by the same fit of election-related populism, to propose 14 per cent reservation to the Brahmins and the Rajputs. The irony is that it was these upper castes which had perpetrated inhuman indignities on the Dalits, and were progenitors of the problem that was sought to be mitigated by the policy of affirmative discrimination.

The story of reservations in this country testifies to the wisdom that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The founding fathers of the Republic had devised it as a kind of escalator to be used by the Dalits to catch up with others, who had a headstart over them. The escalator was to run for 10 years. As they were discriminated against in the earlier social and political order, stultifying their springs of creativity, this antidote was considered necessary to rejuvenate them.

Clearly, the 10-year time was too short, and Parliament routinely extended it decade after decade, and the escalator is still in use. And there is the rub. It now looks that it has become a permanent fixture of our polity, thanks to the powerful lobby of the Dalits in Parliament cutting across party lines. This has created bad blood and heart-burning among others. What is worse, the progeny of the one or two-time users, who suffer from no social or educational disability, having been brought up as children of the elite, are now monopolising the escalator, although they do not really need it. They are edging out the really needy and deserving among the Dalits, frustrating the original objective. They should be debarred forthwith.

Besides, there is a basic infirmity embedded in the scheme. It glossed over the fact that even within the SC and ST spectrum there is a hierarchy of castes and sub-castes. The degree of social stigma and disability greatly varies among them. Between the highest caste in the SC and the lowest there is a world of difference. Just as there was no level-playing field between the Brahmins and the SCs, there was no such thing between the Chamars and the Bhangis, the shoe-making class and the scavenging group, respectively, though both are categorised as SCs. The same is true of the STs; the Meena tribe is far more advanced than many forest or hill-dwelling tribes that are cut off from civilisation. It was, therefore, unrealistic and unjust to give them bulk reservation as SC/ST. The result is that the lion’s share of the reservation cake has been taken by the Chamars and the Meenas, and only a few crumbs have gone to the more disabled among the SCs/STs. Logically, a few homogeneous groups should have been carved out from these broad categories, taking expert advice from sociologists, and the quota of each group determined on a rational criterion.

Such distortions were all too apparent from the very beginning, and indeed it was incumbent on Dalit leaders themselves to have suggested suitable reforms in a spirit of fair play. To my mind, the continuance of the scheme in the present form has become counter-productive. What is required is (a) the benefit should be restricted to first generation users, (b) a kind of reservation within reservation for homogeneous groups should be devised, and (c) a clear policy for its gradual shrinkage and ultimate termination evolved.

The reservation cake was substantially enlarged by the hasty implementation of the Mandal Commission report by the then Prime Minister, Mr V.P. Singh, which earned him the sobriquet “the Messiah of the Backwards”. He created a parallel escalator for the Other Backward Castes. Unlike the SCs, the OBCs had not suffered from the severe social disability of untouchability, and were only marginally handicapped educationally, which was being redressed by a scheme of scholarships and which could have been further fortified. Mr V.P. Singh dropped a bombshell that created deep cleavages and sharply divided our society. It was only natural that the castes and communities that were left out also started clamouring for it, and the Jats and the Ahirs and many others were later allowed to have a ride on the escalator. Reservations became a joke. The Supreme Court saved the situation to some extent by ruling that the total reserved seats should not exceed 50 per cent of the intake. The latest battle cry from the Brahmins and the Rajputs is a pointer to the spread of the poison in the whole of the body politic and should make the country sit up.

On the question of reservation to the OBCs, I have my reservations. In fact, I consider them not only unnecessary but also positively harmful and undesirable. I was myself born in a backward class family and was a recipient of the Government of India scholarship of a princely sum of Rs 40 per month at the undergraduate level and Rs 60 per month at the MA level. This considerably helped me at a time when my father, a bricklayer, earned Rs 5 a day and made, on an average, Rs 100 a month. It did not dishearten me that there was no reservation for Backward Classes in the IAS. I was sure that I did not need the crutches of reservation for entry into it. But if there had been a reservation arrangement, I would have certainly taken the primrose path, and, by taking it, fallen in my own self-esteem.

I feel that if I had not entered the service competing with the best in the country, and had done it partly gratis, I would not have held my head as high as I did in my career. I am convinced that what socially and culturally disadvantaged children really need is liberal scholarships for studies in good schools and special coaching, not reservation. Reservation is a favour, which weighs down the recipient, and stigmatises him for life. If we are serious about social justice, we should build a network of high-quality residential schools in the rural areas for Dalit, OBC, and economically poor children and provide them a wholesome environment and a dedicated faculty, which gives them ample food for thought. The rest would follow.

Reservation has done more harm than good. There has been a disastrous lowering of standards in the civil, medical, engineering and other technical services and in the educational institutions. This compromise with quality and excellence has affected the healthy growth of the nation. Besides, the quota system has injected a lethal poison in our society and filled hatred in the minds of the people, particularly the youth. If we take the human resource development route seriously and invest in it liberally, reservation may not be needed.

— The writer is a former Chief Secretary of Haryana

MIDDLE

Song of promise
by K. Rajbir Deswal

The extremities of summer intensity compel me to think of the gone-by winter which was equally exacting. Then we longed for a little warmth and found much solace in Shelly’s famous quote, “If winter comes can spring be far behind !” The spring came and on its heels, the autumn. The cycle goes on. And on and on. But the severity of seasons does hold a promise. I am reminded of a junket. The scene is reproduced here.

The long spell of the dry winter is on its last leg. There is very little chill left in the quiet breeze. Trees, plants and creepers are all denuded of their green leaves. They have come to stand on the ground as if turned upside down with roots superimposed on the dry branches and appearing like a delta on a map. They no longer obstruct the view. One could see through the brown boughs robbed of their foliage.

When the winds blow, they make a sensational sound of whizzing past those needlelike desiccated endings. The whistling tune could be heard even without an effort of lending an ear. The assaying winds rub shoulders with and muzzle past the bark on the trunk, teasingly. Hardened bark falls off with a slight push. Today the winds carry the day for all that season the bark at least never gave way to the winds’ drives and urges.

Pale leaves, which can be counted, are just about to literally lose all touch with their holders. They aren’t hanging anywhere now but on fate. No obligations of holding up anymore but it is just a matter of time. In the ears of the branches, on which they grew and graduated, they seem to be whispering parting words, for who knows when their call is announced. Time has come to make speeches.

The final moment is stimulating and easy to figure out. The leaves start dropping. Still stately. Still in style. Like a pendulum. Swinging and swaggering. From the branch to the ground. To rest there for some time. Or to be swept and blown off again.

They had never obliged the breeze when they stayed on the branch. Still moored, at the most they swivelled for a while. Their soft pithy texture held them on to the branch like a limb. Its hardening severed all connections. Still they seem ungrudging. They have lived their life on the branch with all the splendour and loftiness. In falling down they see a fulfilment. A culmination. A union. A contentment. Full circle.

Besides the leaves and the bark the other things that dry up and still hold on are the pods with seeds in their coffers — a promise to be born again. The outer covering or the coat makes sound of baby-toy with seeds inside. Again the winds play their gremlin game to make the pods twitter.

They whir. They clink and tinkle. It is as if they are talking. It is as if with every thrust, mild or mighty, they are poking fun at the winds’ huddle. Fiercer the breeze and they burst out into a peal of laughter — an uproarious one. On their fall they don’t seem to be having any regrets. Those who still hang on, greet them. Their chatting is interesting to unfold.

The leaves seem to have enjoyed a roller-coaster ride all their life. Their togetherness made them strong. It was always collectively that they experienced the propelling and whacky winds. If a whiff was there, it wasn’t for a single one. It was for the entire bunch. They all had dangled all through as if sounding a word of caution to each other, “Be careful!” There were some stutters and stammers too among them. But they were part of the chorus.

It is only the shining moon in the sky that appears to be ogling at their dance and listening to their song of promise to be born again, beside me.

Hope of vested interests, despair of visionaries
P.S. Chanana

The joy of its lovers, the hope of vested interests, the refuge of the unconventional and the despair of visionaries, Chandigarh is the home of a variegated population. From the affluent to the bare one-meal earners, from the highly educated to the totally illiterates, from the technical experts to mason helpers, from the cultured to the uncouth, from the compassionate to the callous, from the socially sensitive to the apathetic and indifferent, we proudly have them all here. The affluent live in the two to six-kanal houses, primarily in the northern sectors, although housing space is not a criterion of their affluence for some people with moderate means had also purchased large plots when prices were fixed and affordable. The retired and working bureaucrats and defence officers, business executives, a few former landlords of Punjab and kith and kin of prosperous NRIs, at present form this upper class. The ministers, too, are in this elite group.

They live in very open houses, in well-maintained areas and enjoy all amenities of life. They have leisure to play golf, enjoy club life and attend socials. Although nearly isolated from other segments of the population, among themselves they have close and intimate relationships. Life in Chandigarh is fairly pleasant for them. The government employees in the city still form the majority group. They are the diverse population dispersed over the vast expanse of the city. They live in 5-marla to 2-kanal houses and flats, either owned or rented by them. Although not all of them may be doing work in their offices for long hours, they are a busy lot. They disappear into the maelstrom each morning and return late in the evening. Back home they must attend to one or the other family responsibility. This section of our population exhibits a wide range of human characteristics. There is a general complaint that some of our ‘babus’ suffer from a sadistic tendency; they enjoy the inconvenience, discomfort, humiliation and loss suffered by the people whose cases they deal with in their offices. A number of them are even blamed for dereliction of duty. It will, however, be uncharitable not to acknowledge the presence of the conscientious, helpful and incorruptible among them.

The professionals like the university, college and schools teachers, doctors, engineers, architects, etc., are a class by themselves. A number of them depending on the hierarchical orders are covered in the above mentioned two classes of our people. However, these people have a distinctiveness about them. By and large, they are a cultured and sophisticated community. But, unfortunate as it may seem, it is nevertheless a fact, that professional ethics have severely crumbled in the case of some of them. Complaints against a section of doctors in private practice with regard to the quality of service provided by them and their exorbitant fees are not uncommon. Quite a number of school and college teachers are also caught up in the escalating malaise of private coaching of students, mostly manipulated through coercion, persuasion or repeated suggestion. At the same time we are also lucky in having a number of teachers, intellectually able, socially committed and passionately devoted to the profession, dispersed over schools and colleges of the city. Sadly, these imaginative and innovative teachers, hemmed in by conservative forces, fail to break new ground. At the university level, the dons have not yet fully established themselves as a proud intellectual force of the city.

The most vibrant section of our city people are our young students. They enjoy far more freedom and facilities than were available to their fathers or grand-fathers. But regrettably for them our ailing educational system is not directing their new found freedom and energies to a purposeful life. Exposed to innumerable influences, young folk are a challenge both to their parents and their teachers. Dissatisfaction with the educational programme, uncertainty about their future, freedom without responsibility and falling social norms are contributing to disquiet among our young people.

Over the years the number of people in business at all levels has increased. While some are engaged in the small scale service industries, wholesale trade, contracts for buildings, supplies, etc., others are in the retail business run in small and big shops all over the city. Overcharges, unsatisfactory quality of commodities, spurious or adulterated products and general indifference to the insensitivity of the consumers are not uncommon to experience in small markets. The building of this modern city in the flourishing state of Punjab attracted unemployed and underemployed semi-skilled and unskilled workers, particularly from Bihar, UP, and Nepal.

The marked improvement in the economic conditions of these early migrants and the distinctive appeal of the city encouraged many more people from their regions to rush to Chandigarh. Successive migration waves are increasing the overall population of the city as also the burden on its resources. The report covering the decade 1991 — 2000 showed population growth of 40 per cent in Chandigarh as compared to 21.34 per cent across the country.

Originally built for a population of four lakh, the city has now got more than double the number of residents. The migrants, largely unaware of the benefit of birth control, have added to the natural increase of the city’s population. Most of these people live in squalid and degraded conditions in shanties illegally put up on the vacant public land in the city and on its edges. Unhealthy living conditions, lack of full time work and soft targets of the city prompt some of them to take to crime. It will be ungrateful to forget the ubiquitous local politicians who claim to be the guardians of the migrants — their vote bank — and wish the Administration to be soft towards them when they err.

The creation of the Municipal Corporation in the city has widened the sphere of their political activities and made their political wrangles commonplace. And senior politicians of the two states, comfortably ensconced in their chambers, watch listlessly or patronisingly the two streams of nepotism and corruption merrily flowing down to their states.

We have with us our senior citizens. Some of them are very well looked after by their families, others reasonably attended and a few ignored. Every morning they walk along the flower-beds in the Rose Garden or in other city parks musing over the days gone by or talking among themselves about the current political events.

We, the old and new settlers of the city, irrespective of our origin, caste, creed, economic and social status, and vocation, consume the city’s electricity and water in an alarmingly liberal way, add to the air pollution through an excessive use of our vehicles and are unmindful of the worsening hygienic conditions around us. The daring among us break bylaws, encroach upon government land, drive recklessly and create traffic chaos. Still more daring are rapidly bringing about the demise of the Peripheral Act.

In short, we the people of Chandigarh, with our weaknesses stronger than our strengths, yet hopeful of a better future, are presently a threat to city’s environment, exceptionally demanding on its resources and a challenge to its management and administration.

— The writer is a former visiting Professor of Education,
Punjabi University, Patiala.

After the demolition drive
By An Encroacher

I am 32 years old and have four children, of which one is a girl. I have never been to school and am illiterate. Yesterday my house was demolished because it was an illegal encroachment on government land. After many years, this was the first night we spent without the guilt of doing something illegal. However, we had not been “very illegal” because we committed the illegitimate act of building the house before a certain date, so my family is entitled to an accommodation elsewhere as part of resettlement.

That notwithstanding, the last night went by without sleep because my children wouldn’t stop crying, terrified from the day’s demolition drive — my eldest son (12) picked an argument with a senior police officer who had three red stripes on his shirt sleeve. He got beaten up with a stick. What else would happen if you fight with an officer? We collected our scattered household goods and left it at a shop where a relative of ours is a servant. We spent the night under a tarpaulin stretched on sticks behind a school boundary wall. In the morning we were pushed away by a watchman. My husband has been drunk for the past three days (he does this every time there is a problem). He beat me up for not making the children sleep — my daughter (3) also had an upset stomach to add to the situation.

I am told it will be a while before we are resettled. Still, the Chandigarh Administration is better than our government in Bihar.

Anyway, all this is our fault. We should not have taken possession of land that has been paid for by others. After all, just because we were born does not entitle us to put a foot on earth. (Probably that’s why God brings forth children head first into this world!) Air is free to all, water can always be stolen or begged for, but one cannot expect the world to give us land to sleep under a thatch.

But my people don’t understand this. Just because their homes are demolished they get violent and attack government officers doing their legal jobs. We were given notice before the demolition and should have handed over the land peacefully, but that was difficult while I was busy figuring out where to get a tough sheet of plastic for our roof that had holes and the rains were approaching (last year was better as the monsoon failed).

Our political leaders could not help us as the move was a surprise to them and also maybe because elections were not near. Government officials are our only hope, but somehow they are also the ones who demolish our houses. That complicates the situation. There is no money to go to the courts.

The good people of the city who drive scooters and cars somehow find us very dirty and dangerous. I must admit our living areas smell bad and our boys rarely go to school and pick up fights. Alcohol is more plentiful in our homes than food. But what am I and my children to do? Our nights are going to be spent on the road.

The only place we can voice our concern is the Press. But the journalists come with cameras and mikes only when the roofs are falling. “That makes good pictures,” I heard one man with a camera tell his partner. So I decided to write myself. But I cannot write. Luckily, a journalist came by after the destruction, who offered to write verbatim what I said and get it published, provided I did not give my story to anyone else. It occurred to me that there are always a lot of politicians, journalists and crows around after our slums are demolished and precious little food is scattered around. I don’t know what the former two look for.

— This is a fictional piece written by Kuljit Bains.

Calculating costs of India-Pak standoff
Sudeshna Sarkar

The confrontation between India and Pakistan from December 2001 to October 2002 cost the two nuclear-armed neighbours billions. And, for the South Asian region, the cost was substantially more. This was the opinion of analysts from both countries who attended a conference on the “Cost of Confrontation 2002” in Kathmandu hosted by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, a private, non-profit educational organisation.

Sundeep Waslekar of the Mumbai-based International Institute for Peace Initiatives estimated that in the wake of the attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13, 2001, “Operation Parakram”, the mobilisation of nearly 700,000 troops by India along the border with Pakistan and full readiness for war, cost the nation $1.8 billion, or 0.45 per cent of the gross domestic product.

Roads and property worth around $50 million were damaged, while on the Pakistan side the damage to such infrastructure was negligible. However, troop mobilisation cost Pakistan, which had amassed 300,000 soldiers, $1.2 billion or 1.87 percent of its GDP.

India lost 1,874 soldiers, according to Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes’ statement in Parliament. Similar statistics were not available from Pakistan.

However, the damage was much more on both sides in terms of policy and political costs. India was unable to put an end to cross-border terrorism and the long standoff, according to Waslekar, had a negative effect on the troops morale.

For Pakistan, the policy costs included dilution of its policy focus and relative neglect of the Afghan front as well as a feeling of uncertainty arising out of Indian brinkmanship. Tourism in both countries was affected by the travel advisories issued by foreign missions asking citizens to stay away from the region. Politically, Waslekar said, the standoff saw the strengthening of Narendra Modi, the Gujarat Chief Minister whose government had witnessed communal violence that claimed 1,000 lives.

Pakistan too paid a political price with the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) religious alliance emerging as the third major force in the Pakistan National Assembly and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf consolidating his powers.

India had to pay a heavy price where terrorism was concerned with at least seven major attacks killing many, including civilians — ranging from a strike on the Indian Army camp at Kaluchak in May 2002 to the murder of Hurriyat Conference leader Abdul Ghani Lone in Jammu and Kashmir, the attack on the Akshardham temple in Gandhinagar and the attack on a paramilitary camp in Srinagar in November.

Pakistan too was not spared of terrorist activities, with increased attacks on foreigners within the country and increased mobility of terror groups like Al Qaida. It also saw the strengthening of the Lashker-e-Taiba’s grip on its society, a partnership between religious parties and extremist groups in the 2002 poll and Islamisation of the North West Frontier Province. Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema of Islamabad Policy Research Institute said the confrontation caused diplomatic fallout in the entire region, also affecting the progress of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

“Not only the postponement of the summit became the order of the day but work in other areas also lost pace,” he said. “The advent of the forces on the borders took a very heavy toll on Track II efforts... people to people contact with planned seminars relating to India-Pakistan relations were cancelled.”

The real victim of India’s “coercive diplomacy” was peace in South Asia, he added, and the confrontation between the two neighbours with “professed commonalities” affected their image. IANS