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Tuesday,
July 1, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Panchayat spirit triumphs Borrower to creditor What others say
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Reforming the civil services
Monkey business
Kapurthala’s precious artefacts in neglect
PM’s China visit
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Panchayat spirit triumphs PANCHAYAT elections are fought with a lot of passion in Punjab. The rivalry was expected to be all the more sharp this time in the light of Akali-Congress friction. But the expected sparks did not really fly despite the excessive use of illicit liquor and other intoxicants during the electioneering. Violence did break out on the polling day and the death of two persons that took place in firing incidents in Batala and Tarn Taran police districts, is extremely regrettable. But if one assesses the overall picture, violence was mostly confined to the border districts. In the rest of the state, the traditional village camaraderie dominated over the party-based confrontation. Perhaps that is why elections to nearly 2,100 gram panchayats were unanimous - of course with the added incentive of a generous grant from the State government. Panchayat elections are not fought on party symbols. Yet, there is a clear demarcation as to which candidate owes allegiance to which party. But once the results are out, both the Congress and the Akali Dal tend to include certain elected candidates in their own lists. Neutral observers are of the view that the ruling Congress has a slight edge over its Akali rivals, with the BSP being a distant third. The defeat of the Akali candidate at Badal, the native village of former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, symbolises the overall situation. Even at Tohra, the candidate of former SGPC chief Gurcharan Singh Tohra prevailed over a rebel Akali Dal nominee by just 82 votes after the recounting of votes. Mr Badal may blame this on the government’s strategy to hem him in with the help of vigilance raids at the time of the elections but there are apparently other reasons also which the Akalis will do well to identify and eliminate if they have to stage a comeback. A large number of woman candidates have won thanks to the reservation they enjoy. Their real empowerment will take place only if their male family members do not hustle them into being proxy victors. Rural areas may not be as divided on party lines as urban areas are but caste and community polarisations are a harsh reality. Elections accentuate these. The excessive use of liquor and drugs also sharpens the divide. Now that the elections are over, it is time to fill the chasm. While the job can be done only if the residents of various villages are themselves ready to forgive and forget, it will help if outside forces leave the villages alone. |
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Borrower to creditor FROM being a perpetual borrower, India has turned a creditor. The country has now advanced a loan to the IMF from whom it traditionally used to borrow. The credit, $291.70 million to start with, is being given to the IMF by becoming a member of its Financial Transaction Plan (FTP). Only such countries can become members of the FTP as have a comfortable balance of payments and foreign reserves position. India has foreign exchange reserves of $82 billion as on June 20. The money given under the FTP has been realised from the forex reserves and will fetch a reasonable rate of return from the IMF. India is also free to use this amount, if need be. This is definitely morale-boosting news and sends a signal to the global community about the country’s financial strength and resilience. Earlier, the government had prepaid bilateral and multi-lateral foreign debt amounting to $4 billion. The process to retire expensive debt is expected to continue. India has certainly come a long way from having to pledge its gold abroad and being on the verge of a loan defaulter in 1991. However, a reality check will reveal the picture being projected of the country’s finances is not as rosy as it seems. The country’s internal and external borrowings are a source of worry. The foreign debt stands at $105 billion and is still rising. Although among the top 15 indebted nations, India improved its rating from being third in 1991 to the ninth position in 2001. The World Bank has categorised India as a “less indebted country” since 1999. The debt -GDP ratio is high at 20.6 per cent when compared to China’s 15 per cent in 2002. There is nothing wrong in taking a loan, but how a country utilises it makes all the difference. When a government spends many times more than what it earns, that creates problems. India’s high fiscal deficit is frequently pointed out by the very foreign institutions whom it expects to impress by turning a creditor. There are very few takers for the high-cost credit available within the country. Indian companies prefer to raise money from outside the country because of much lower interest rates. As far as prepayment of debt is concerned, that is only a normal activity of replacing more expensive loans with less expensive ones. Such financial transactions need to be seen in the broader context of whether the targeted growth rate of 8 per cent has become achieveable in the near future. This is unlikely despite a possible normal monsoon this year. |
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What others say LISTENING to US President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, they seem to be determined not to be midwives to a new terrorist state. The road map is supposed to prevent such a state from coming about. Yet there is no escaping that the cease-fire that Israel is expected to accept will result in such a state, or the ultimate continuation of the war to eradicate the nascent Palestinian "unity government" of terror. The "initiative," as last night's internal Palestinian agreement among the terrorist groups now attacking Israel is called, is not really a cease-fire, but a set of demands on Israel in order to agree to a cease-fire. Just one of these demands is the release of all the terrorists Israel has captured so far.
— Jerusalem Post Mugabe’s battered ego NOTHING could be more calculated to prejudice Zimbabwe’s ailing economy than a two-year election campaign. President Mugabe announced last Thursday in Shurugwi that he was on the campaign trail. “We should start preparing for the 2005 election now because 2005 is not far away,” he was quoted as saying. In fact 2005 is a long way off. And the last thing this country needs is more disruption, political violence and uncertainty. Admittedly Mugabe urged war veterans and Zanu PF youths not to be lawless. But only days before in Nyanga, his inciting remarks about Roy Bennett had been followed by Zanu PF supporters — youths and war veterans — moving on to Bennett’s Ruwa Farm where they reportedly looted property worth close to $60 million. Cattle and sheep were slaughtered. This month two editors at the ANZ stable were charged under Posa for publishing material that could engender hostility towards the president. Quite clearly Mugabe intends to hide behind the cover of oppressive legislation that enables him to get away with saying what he likes, no matter how damaging to others, while preventing his critics from saying too much about his own record. — The Zimbabwe Independent  |
Reforming the civil services INDIA’S massive bureaucracy is maintained at a huge cost by the country’s taxpayer, whose average income is among the lowest in the world. But the governance they get in return is dismal. Public perception about the members of the civil services, who function at the cutting edge and policy making levels, is that they are “burdensome low-performers” heading a highly bloated system, which is perceived to be corrupt and inefficient in governing the country. More than any other service, this is applicable to the IAS. It is in this context that civil service reforms need to be analysed and implemented, not just whether doctors and engineers are to be recruited to these services or not. The ailments afflicting India’s civil services are:
The need today is for forward-looking, proactive governance that can pull the desolate nation out of the rot of corruption and communalism that is ravaging its polity and destroying its edifice. For this the static and sterile civil service that is administering the country should transform itself into a vibrant, transparent management cadre. The core principle of civil service reform should be to make this transformation happen so that the unimaginative, acquiescing and egocentric civil servant can become an imaginative, un-acquiescing and result-oriented manager. For this purpose, civil service reformers should become iconoclasts and demolish pet theories, myths and mindsets that are not in consonance with democratic governance and a modern proactive civil service. Some of the myths and mindsets that need immediate dismantling are the “law of Umerta” that prevents civil servants from speaking out their mind; the “arrogance of over-protection” that makes them unresponsive; the doctrine of “political neutrality” making them accomplices to misrule and the practice of “Jack of all trades” which is at the root of non-professionalism in civil governance. Collectively, these archaic concepts and practices have reduced civil servants into mere journeymen trying to hide their inability and incompetence under these convenient myths. “Political interference” has become the “fashionable word” to describe this malady that is responsible for the poor state of governance and rampant corruption in the country. The archaic dictum that “a civil servant should be seen, not heard” does not fit in with sound principles of management. Under this anachronistic arrangement, decreed by the erstwhile colonial masters who only wanted a “lackey service”, some of India’s best minds that constitute the civil service are being choked and wasted as mere status quo time-servers. What is worse, by remaining silent and unable to speak up against corruption and misrule, the conscientious among the civil servants are fast losing their principles and personality. This is unacceptable, particularly so in the face of acute paucity of professional and managerial talent in the government and the mounting corruption and venality in governance that is destroying the fibre of our democratic polity. The doctrine of “Political neutrality” as is being advocated now is self-defeating since it envisages a meek and “abdicating” role for civil servants. It is also presumptuous since it is based on the assumption that in our imperfect democracy ruling politicians represent all the people and interests and what they say should be the final word in the matters of governance or administrative action. This is a fallacy and cannot be accepted. The Founding Fathers’ rationale for the creation of elite all-India services and giving them constitutional guarantees and protection meant that civil servants have a constitutional role to play in giving honest, fair and just governance to the people, particularly those the ruling politicians do not represent. In our skewed ‘first-past-the-post’ electoral system where the reality is a low voter turnout, ruling politicians and their parties hardly represent 25-30 per cent of the electorate. If the civil servants strictly observe the “law of Umerta” and in the guise of “political neutrality” surrender to the rulers of the day and do their bidding without demur, where will the majority of the population flee? Too much of protection can reduce a person to the level of cowardice. This is what is happening in the case of India’s civil servants — they do not have the courage even to face a transfer or some minor inconvenience for upholding the principles of good governance. They compromise and acquiesce in just to keep their posts and positions safe. IAS officials would expect officers of the armed forces, who are not very much less qualified than them, to gladly accept postings at “God-forsaken places” and take the supreme risk of death with a smile to save the nation's honour. But they themselves will not bear even a fraction of this discomfort to defend the people's honour. The practice of “Jack of all trades” is the villain of professionalism and probity in civil service. Nowhere in the civilised world is such atrocious practice of governance practiced where experienced and competent technocrats and professionals are compelled to play second fiddle to green horns with title subject knowledge. Besides perpetrating non-professionalism and non-performance in governance, this feudal practice enables politicians to play favourites and gives them the unbridled power to post anybody for any job, the main criterion being their pliability. In addition to dismantling these cobwebs and moth-eaten hangovers, the civil services should be made to accept and adopt people’s participation and prosperity as the core purpose of governance. Civil servants should be transformed into proactive managers taking into account the role they are expected to play during the course of their long career. Setting Performance standards and indexes for organisations and key administrators, to enable government to function effectively and deliver efficient services should be among the primary objectives of civil service reforms. This is more so because in the reform era governments and the people increasingly expect civil servants to engage more effectively in management — of projects, of change and of the efficient delivery of service. Anyone who fits into such a scheme of the civil services should be welcome to join in whether he or she is a doctor or an engineer. It is for the individuals to decide. All the same it is futile to believe that just by inducting a few doctors and engineers civil services would become professional. The truth is that within years of joining service, most of them, particularly the over-engineered IITians, lose their moorings and turn out to be neither specialist professionals nor generalist administrators! Indeed, an avoidable tragedy of drained talent and wasted resources! The writer is a retired IAS officer |
Monkey business Mr Era Anbarasu, a former Member of Parliament from Tamil Nadu has just been put through the wringer by monkeys. He had recently gone to the central secretariat in New Delhi to meet Finance Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh and as he was coming out, he was surrounded and attacked by a horde of unruly monkeys and one of them bit him in the ankle and he had to rush to a private nursing home for an emergency anti-tetanus shot. A deeply distraught and emotionally traumatised Mr Anbarasu has written a long and passionate letter to Prime Minister Vajpayee narrating in pitiless detail his ordeal and urging him to immediately deploy central para-military forces to clear the secretariat complex of all monkeys. Terrorists, militants and separatists, he has written in his letter, are a threat to the unity and integrity of the country, but monkeys are a constant threat to officials working in the secretariat. The Akhil Bharatiya Monkey Sangarsh Samiti (ABMSS) has strongly condemned the tone and tenor of Mr Anbarasu’s letter calling it in “poor taste, biased and lacking in perspective.” Talking to mediapersons, a spokesmonkey said: “We’re not at all surprised by Mr Anbarasu’s outburst for his anti-monkey prejudices are well known and need no reiteration, but it has hurt us deeply that he has levelled baseless allegations in his letter to the Prime Minister.” The spokesmonkey said that monkeys are keeping their doors open for a free, frank exchange of views with Mr Anbarasu and if the latter has any grievances against monkeys, he can state them without fear of victimisation. The spokesmonkey, continue its briefing said: “It’s a fact that many monkeys were loitering in the corridor outside the Finance Minister’s office, but they had an appointment to see Mr Jaswant Singh and we’re surprised that Mr Anbarasu should have taken exception to our presence. We monkeys don’t want to hanker after government jobs and we want to be self-employed and start our own small business retailing in bananas and fried groundnuts and Bengalgram and we had approached the Finance Minister for loans under the Self-Employment schemes for the urban poor.” “An adult rhesus monkey respectfully approached Mr Anbarasu with a request that he intercede with the Finance Minister and recommend its case for a loan, but the former MP brusequely and contemptuously shooed it away and in the ensuing melee, he suffered a minor tooth mark. The spokesmonkey said that Mr Anbarasu had overreacted in rushing to the hospital for an anti-tetanus shot when mere amputation of the leg below the knee would have been enough. The spokesmonkey regretted that Mr Anbarasu had equated monkeys with terrorists and militants stating: “Aspersions like these will only alienate monkeys from the national mainstream. The spokesmonkey categorically denied that monkeys were a constant threat to officials working in the secretariat saying: “Government officials are one of us.”
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Kapurthala’s precious artefacts in neglect
WHAT to talk of people of Punjab in general, hardly anyone in Kapurthala, called the Paris of Punjab for its beautiful buildings, knows that a precious treasure of rare artefacts is lying unattended in the city and is virtually decaying for want of care. They are lying stuffed in a room of the Kapurthala Sainik School, or the erstwhile palace of Maharaja Kapurthala. The rare artefacts include a fully-loaded huge mechanical clock that shows moisture, the planetary position, temperature, the time in 12 countries. There is a rare pneumatic orchestra as also an automatic tune player — all unique pieces imported by Maharaja Jagjit Singh from France or Switzerland about 100 years ago. Apart from these, there is a round table showcasing all eight wonders of the world, which took years to complete as it is made of thousands of tiny coloured marble bricks. Among the numerous artefacts are a beautiful tree made of jade, a replica of an Egyptian mummy, a soldier's armour, a record player made by Keith and Prowse Co of London, a large richly engraved pierced facade of the Mourish Palace framed with two central pillars, a rare Swiss made automatic tune box, a 200-year-old, 12 feet high beautiful mirror with a maple wood golden frame and a model of Palace of Versailles, which was specially brought from France before the construction of the Maharaja's palace started in 1900. The palace in itself is the only true replica of the Palace of Versailles in the world with a minor change in its dome. The only thing which roubles one after securing entry into the room is the way the precious pieces have been lying unattended to because of the state government’s failure to preserve them properly. Seepage from the ceiling has taken its toll. So much so no effort has ever been made to popularise the place, which can be turned into a big museum to attract tourists from across the country. The treasure of art has so far been looked after by the Kapurthala Sainik School authorities, without any government funds. The artefacts were handed over to the school authorities along with the palace building in 1961 when the school came into being.
The unique feature of the rare huge clock is that it simultaneously used to show the time in 12 major cities: Paris, Madrid, Berlin, Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, St. Petersburg, Tehran, Mumbai, New York and Beijing and has eight different chimes. Besides, depicting the exact planetary position, it also warned its proud owner about the possibility of rain, storm or clouds in advance — nothing short of a wonder in those times and that too for being based on mechanics. The sad aspect is that it has been lying unutilised for want of repairs. "It was brought here in 1896 by Maharaja Jagjit Singh, who also brought the automatic pneumatic orchestra from Paris in 1890," says Maharaja Sukhjit Singh of the erstwhile royal family. Similarly, the huge seven feet high pneumatic orchestra box is nothing but pure magic in mechanics as it used huge paper cassettes to create music. There were different places and sizes of holes in the paper cassettes which produced different tunes and songs once compressed air was made to pass through the countless holes. A huge box still encases about 30 such paper cassettes. The volume was adjusted with the help of seven horns on the top of the automatic orchestra, which looks like an almirah and which used to be played whenever the palace had a new royal guest or at the dinner time of the Maharaja. But it is also lying idle due to some fault which could not be detected because of its intricate mechanism. Another Swiss made automatic tune box used to chime 12 different popular tunes of that time such as Harlech, Ricoletto, the British Grenadiers, Mikado Valse and Faust. The colourful round table is made of several thousand tiny coloured marble bricks, cut and affixed to size in the best possible manner to depict the Tomb of Cecilie, Metella the Pantheon, the Arch of Septimius, the Colosseum, the Temple of Vesta, Via Sacra and the temple of Castor and Pellux. Interestingly, even to show the shades of the buildings, the artist used tiny bricks of different colours. "We were able to locate a mechanic for the repair of the clock, but he demanded a whopping Rs 3 lakh for the job," said Capt R.K. Goyat, the Registrar of the Kapurthala Sainik School. Sad over the plight of rare pieces, which once were part of the Maharaja's grand drawingroom, Mr Sukhjit Singh said no effort was being made by the government to preserve the part of what was being described as heritage. "The plan of the state government to convert one of my palaces into a museum has failed to go ahead after the Centre refused to give its nod," rued Mr Sukhjit Singh, who is one of the few visitors to the palace drawingroom where the rare pieces have been placed by the Sainik School authorities.
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PM’s China visit A subtle and significant message was conveyed to Pakistan during Prime Minister Vajpayee’s just-concluded visit to China. Vajpayee did not raise the issue of Pakistan at all during his talks with the Chinese leadership in Beijing. It was China which raised Pakistan-related issues and complimented Vajpayee on his latest peace effort. India only responded to Chinese queries and this too briefly. While Vajpayee spent hours with three key Chinese leaders — President Hu Jintao, Prime Minister Wu Jibao and Chairman of Military Commission Jiang Zemin — Pakistan was discussed for not more than 10 minutes. Another message for Pakistan: bilateral relations cannot be kept hostage to any particular political problem. India and China have had a quantum leap in bilateral trade — $ 5 billion at present from a mere $ 300 million till a few years ago— despite the decades old border dispute. On the other hand, there is Pakistan whose stand is well known: Kashmir first, trade later. Gujral-Singh doctrine
What should India do to the US request for sending troops for a “stabilisation force” in Iraq? The issue has triggered an intense debate across the country. Two former Prime Ministers — I K Gujral and V P Singh — have come out with their own “doctrine” on the subject. The Gujral-Singh doctrine states that the decision should not be on the basis of reconstruction contracts, which smack of “mercinarism.” The new world that New Delhi perceives is different from what neo-conservatives in Washington visualise. So the way out, it says, is to explain India’s position to the US and build friendship based on shared values and ideals. At a time when the BJP-led NDA is formulating the country’s foreign policy in tune with the WTO regime, the doctrine propounds policy guidelines of “ideal Ram Rajya” situation. Any takers?
Language politics
in Delhi
Finally, Punjabi and Urdu have been granted the second language status in the Capital. Both the BJP and the Congress are claiming credit for it and the Akali leaders, not to be left behind, are trumpeting their role in the whole effort. All with an eye on the assembly elections in Delhi slated later this year. None talks of enriching the growth of these two languages. In the mesh of vote bank politics, the question to be kept in the run up to the assembly poll will be whether Punjabi and Urdu become another pocket of influence and give psephologists another factor to count while determining the swing aspect.
‘Farewell, see
you again’
The Railway Board’s outgoing Chairman I.I.M.S Rana has not been able to follow the customary practice of visiting some of the 16 zonal headquarters, the Kolkata metro, six production units and 43 workshops and major training institutes for group services in the last month of his office. That is because of his pre-occupation with safety review meetings following the Golden Temple Express accident and the visits of the President and the Prime Minister to Bihar. This is the first time that the Railway Board Chairman has not been able to take formal leave of his colleagues. But it seems that another top post awaits Rana. The Rail Bhavan grapevine has it that Rana may become the Chairman-cum-Managing Director of Rail Vikas Nigam, a new public sector undertaking set up by the Railways.
Contributed by R. Suryamurthy, S. Satyanarayanan, S.S. Negi, Satish Misra |
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