The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

THE TRIBUNE SPECIALS

50 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE

TERCENTENARY CELEBRATIONS

Thought for the day

OPINION

An orgy of opportunism
Marriages and divorces common in Lucknow
by Inder Malhotra
Climactic events in Uttar Pradesh, leading to the collapse of the government of Ms Mayawati and the swearing-in of the Samajwadi leader, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, as Chief Minister for the third time, have turned the spotlight on all that has gone wrong with Indian politics over the last half a century.

MIDDLE

Honoured alike by royalty and rebels
by Lalit Mohan
India’s second President, Dr S. Radhakrishnan, once had a close brush with Hindustan Socialist Republican Association, the organisation set up by Bhagat Singh and his comrades. In 1930, after the death sentence had been pronounced on the three revolutionaries, the struggle appeared to be petering out in Punjab.

Misty Meghalaya’s silent revolutions
Information technology, not insurgency, fascinates the youth
by A.J. Philip
ONE and a half years ago when the selection committee for the Northeast Media Exchange Fellowship programme of the National Foundation for India took up for consideration a project proposal to study the "Internet revolution in Manipur", its members had a hearty laugh.

REFLECTIONS

EDITORIALS

Milking the consumer
Scarcity and middlemen responsible

BECAUSE of the drought last year the country is facing milk shortage. Cooperative milk suppliers in the metropolitan cities are particularly hit and are not getting the required supplies despite a modest increase in the prices. To cash in on the situation, private traders have started procuring milk from northern states, leading to an imbalance in demand and supply in the region. A traditionally milk surplus state like Punjab is also facing the crunch, that too in a month which is considered the peak period. Quite a number of milk cooperatives, including Punjab Milkfed, Parag Dairy and the Rajasthan federation, have approached the National Dairy Development Board with requests to import skimmed milk powder. However, Mr V. Kurien, head of the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation widely admired for contributing to the White Revolution in the country, does not believe there is actually a shortage and has opposed the idea of importing either milk or milk powder. Luckily, the situation of scarcity is not likely to last long and the supply is already picking up.

There are some serious milk-related issues that need immediate attention. Reports of synthetic milk made in UP towns like Meerut, Saharanpur and Muzaffarnagar and supplied to bulk sweet makers in Ludhiana, Jalandhar and other towns have been appearing in the media off and on, but the state health authorities are yet to take any visible action against the offenders playing with public health. The state inaction has helped the milk mafia to spread its tentacles. Then there are private vendors and traders who manipulate prices to their advantage. The overstaffed, bureaucratised state cooperatives too have contributed to the sharp gap between the milk price paid to the producer and the price charged from the consumer.

Doubts about the quality of milk coupled with an increasing awareness about the health risks of consuming high-fat milk have forced many urban consumers leading a sedentary lifestyle to reduce the consumption of milk and milk products. The high price has put milk beyond the reach of many Indians. All this will have serious repercussions for the dairy industry in the long run. In the post-WTO scenario, cheaper imports are posing another threat to the domestic milk industry. To stay in business, Indian milk producers and suppliers will have to cut down the cost of production and distribution. There is need to improve the functioning of the state cooperatives. The Gujarat milk cooperative has already shown the way.

Pharma pact by WTO
The needy may have access to cheaper drugs

Last Saturday the World Trade Organisation’s 146 member states reached an agreement in Geneva on making inexpensive drugs available to poor countries for fighting deadly diseases. The absence of an agreement could have jeopardised the WTO trade talks, scheduled to begin at Cancun in Mexico later this month, as for many poor countries cheaper drugs is a life-and-death issue and they could have walked out of the Cancun trade summit. So it is a victory for the poor world which was pitted against the powerful pharmaceutical companies of the developed world. The pact clears the way for the WTO to focus on other issues like farm subsidies, services and investment.

There were three parties to the dispute over drugs. First, the pharmaceutical companies, mostly of the US, which pump huge amounts into research and make life-saving drugs. These drugs are very expensive, bring in heavy returns to the manufacturers, who naturally expect their patents to be respected. It is said the US pharmaceutical companies earn $150 billion by selling drugs within the country and only $25 billion outside. Second, the relatively better-off developing countries like Brazil and India, which use a different process to make essential drugs patented by US companies. The Indian patent law allows this. The US companies object to Indian and Brazilian firms not only selling cheaper drugs within their countries, but also exporting them, particularly to the developed world.

The third party to the dispute are the poor countries, mostly African, which neither can manufacture own drugs nor import them from the US because of the prohibitive prices. A large number of patients suffering from life-threatening diseases like AIDS live in these countries. Under the WTO pact the US companies have agreed to the export of cheaper drugs by Indian and Brazilian firms to the poor countries in a limited way only for specific diseases and want their drugs to be packed differently. While allowing cheaper drugs for the poor on humanitarian grounds, the US drug producers hope from 2005 the WTO members will start punishing patent violations. Indian pharmaceutical companies hope to gain in a big way by entering the developed world with cheaper generic and other drugs whose patents’ have expired. This is what has led the foreign financial institutions to pick up shares of Indian drug companies.

Romeo in burqa
Love is blind and crazy too

It was meant to be a unique love story. But the hyperactive imagination of some policemen turned it into a bizarre action thriller. In most Muslim societies the burqa is now a symbol of gender repression. But it has always been effective in helping both criminals and innocent persons escape to safety. It was this piece of Muslim women's outerwear that turned both the love story and the action thriller into a collective damp squib. It would be grossly unfair to blame the love-lorn young man from Varanasi for abusing the burqa for reaching his Laila, or the cops for mistaking him for a terrorist behind that veil. What was he to do? The girl’s father had made it virtually impossible for the two lovers to meet. He hit upon the bright idea of wearing a burqa for reaching the lady he loved, a theme beaten to death by Bollywood producers.

But don't blame the cops for acting as inadvertent spoilsport. It was not the burqa but the unfeminine height of the figure inside it that aroused their suspicion. A few tears of sympathy for the failed lover boy may be in order. It takes only a second to say I love you, but a lifetime to prove it. He never got that all important second to utter the most difficult three words that serve as the foundation of successful relationships. Now he may have to spend a lifetime ruing why he followed the moth-eaten Bollywood script.

However, lovers would not be lovers if they behaved like normal and rational human beings. Look at Farhad who died trying to extract milk from rock, Or the re-invented Devadas who saw everything change around him, including the exotic sets and the gorgeous costumes and dance numbers. But even Sanjay Leela Bhansali could not stop him from dying at the doorstep of Paro. Of course, various forms of the burqa as an effective veil have been used by kings and commoners through the ages for different purposes. The purdah and the politicians can be the subject of fruitful research. What apparel or stratagem the irrepressible Subramaniam Swamy used for sneaking out of the Parliament House complex after marking his attendance during the Emergency is not clear. The lover from Varanasi should seek him out for his story to have a happy ending.

OPINION

An orgy of opportunism
Marriages and divorces common in Lucknow
by Inder Malhotra

Climactic events in Uttar Pradesh, leading to the collapse of the government of Ms Mayawati and the swearing-in of the Samajwadi leader, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, as Chief Minister for the third time, have turned the spotlight on all that has gone wrong with Indian politics over the last half a century.

There is no need to mince one’s words. For the rude reality is that opportunism of the most cynical kind and blatant political promiscuity have become the order of the day while the most elementary norms and decencies of democratic functioning are being thrown to the winds. Merely to catalogue the course of events in the most populous and politically key state is to stress the point.

It was the BJP that committed the original sin immediately after last year’s poll that yielded a hopelessly fragmented verdict. The saffron party, despite deep divisions of opinion within it, decided to prop for a third time a ministry headed by the feisty and imperious Ms Mayawati, “Dalit ki beti” and the effective leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

Twice before, the BJP had helped her to come to power, primarily to keep its bete noire, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, at bay. Twice, in the words of top BJP leaders, Ms Mayawati had “betrayed them”. And yet, swallowing all their qualms, they tried to retain a share in power by her grace. They were in for a sore disappointment.

For, true to type, the lady ruled as a capricious dictator, promoted her own agenda and ran a dispensation remarkable for mass transfers of officials and wreaking of vengeance on opponents. Her BJP colleagues in her Cabinet, with the possible exception of her “rakhi brother” Lalji Tandon, she treated with indifference at best and contempt at worst. She missed no opportunity to rub the BJP’s collective nose into dirt.

Several state leaders of the BJP, led by Mr Rajnath Singh, a former state Chief Minister and currently Union Agriculture Minister, repeatedly demanded that their party should end the “marriage of inconvenience”. But the party’s Central leadership told them to pipe down. It pursued this line even after Ms Mayawati overreached herself, demanded Union Culture Minister Jagmohan’s scalp and invited a snub from Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The calculation of BJP top brass was crass and caste-driven. Alliance with Ms Mayawati at whatever cost, they felt, would yield the BJP a rich harvest of Dalit votes first in the November assembly elections in five states and then in the all-important Lok Sabha poll next year.

All these fond hopes have now been delivered a deathblow. Indeed, Ms Mayawati, wisely deciding to stay away from the Mulayam-ruled U.P. for a while, has announced that she would devote her time and undoubted energy to “destroying” the upper-caste and “anti-Dalit” BJP, until last week her close ally.

So what did the BJP, jilted a third time, do? It transferred its affections to Mr Yadav from Etawah whose growing fondness for an “anti-communal” coalition in New Delhi, with the Congress as the leading party, was irking the BJP no end. It is no secret that when Ms Mayawati decided to say “bye, bye” to the BJP, the latter’s first reaction was prevent Mr Yadav from forming an alternative government and to impose President’s rule in U.P. while keeping the assembly in suspended animation. After some reflection, however, wiser counsels prevailed.

In the first place, many besides his usual allies were jumping on the “Mulayam bandwagon”. To stop him would, therefore, lay the Vajpayee Government in Delhi open to the charge of craven partisanship. Second, and more important, the BJP strategists realised that the only alternative to a “Mulayam Ministry” was an early election in U.P. which did not suit their party.

Hence the tacit understanding between Mr Yadav and the BJP that he would not seduce BJP MLAs and it would not stand in his way to power. What a comment this is on the confidence the party with a difference has in the fidelity of its legislators! But then in 1997, the year of Indian Independence’s golden jubilee, when “Bhenji” had pulled the plug on the then BJP Chief Minister Kalyan Singh, he had split the BSP and the Congress and mustered a majority.

In this murky milieu, is it any surprise that Mr Kalyan Singh and the new Chief Minister of UP, at one time implacable foes, are collaborating with each other enthusiastically? It is a different matter though that Mr Kalyan Singh is determined to “destroy the BJP” while Mr Yadav is expected to honour the behind-the-scene deal with the saffron party.

Ironically, every single actor in this theatre of the absurd is facing a dilemma of his or her own making. The Congress, that at Shimla was most anxious to rope in Mr Yadav in a Congress-led secular front to oust the BJP from power, has suddenly become wary. Having demanded that the Samajwadi leader be invited to form a government, it has gone shy about joining his government. Like the BJP until the other day, the Congress, too, is dazzled by the Dalit vote that Ms Mayawati can transfer at will.

But the nature of the political beast is making a change in the Congress strategy agonisingly difficult. Deeply tormented by loss of office for 14 long years, all the 16 Congress MLAs in a House of 403 are insistent on the party joining the government at once. The wily Mr Yadav has offered each one of them ministerial office. If thwarted in their ambition, all 16 could quit the Congress and join the Samajwadi Party! How would Ms Sonia Gandhi square this circle?

The woeful tale need not be lengthened. But one act of chicanery merits a mention. In order to forestall Ms Mayawati, the BJP leaders went to the Governor ahead of her and gave him a curious letter. It said that if she asked for dissolution of the assembly she should be told that the BJP had already withdrawn support to her. But if she made no such demand, the letter should be ignored. Does this explain why crucial Raj Bhavans are being filled by the likes of Mr Vishnukant Shastri, a dedicated member of the Sangh parivar, just as the Congress used to stuff them with its own loyalists in earlier times?

MIDDLE

Honoured alike by royalty and rebels
by Lalit Mohan

India’s second President, Dr S. Radhakrishnan, once had a close brush with Hindustan Socialist Republican Association, the organisation set up by Bhagat Singh and his comrades. In 1930, after the death sentence had been pronounced on the three revolutionaries, the struggle appeared to be petering out in Punjab. Those still at large pondered over another suitable “action” that could infuse some life into it. After considering several alternatives they settled on the assassination of Sir Geoffery de Montmorency, the Governor of Punjab.

I came to know of the details of the conspiracy because two of the family’s elders, my father, Virendra, and father-in-law, Durga Das Khanna, took active part in it. In fact, the latter was even sentenced to death by the Sessions Court in Lahore. He was acquitted later by the High Court.

A young Pathan from NWFP, Hari Krishan was chosen to do the job. He was reputed to be a crack shot. He was to do the laat-sahib who was also the Chancellor, at the Panjab University convocation in Lahore, as he was walking down the aisle. Dr Radhakrishnan, already a man of repute, was to preside over the function.

Hari Krishan, who had been smuggled in as a part of the invited audience, fired as the academic procession was on the way out. The former President’s son, S. Gopal, writes in his biography: “As the speakers were leaving the hall, a young man rose, bowed to Radhakrishnan and then, pulling out a revolver, fired at the Chancellor, wounding him”. His first shot hit the Governor. The second killed a police guard.

In that congested gathering there was no question of Hari Krishan fleeing and this he knew even before he went in. He was arrested, and eventually hanged. He failed because he was apprehensive about injuring any bystander. The hall was very crowded and he could not get a line of fire clear enough to ensure that no one else got hurt. S. Gopal confirms: “Asked why he had failed in ‘his attempt the young man answered that he wished to avoid hurting Radhakrishnan.”

(Many years later when Durga Khanna met India’s second President in Rashtrapati Bhavan the latter remarked in jest: “I was lucky to have escaped with my life. Otherwise I don’t know where shots fired by you fellows would have hit.” He also said that he had met de Montmorency in England and he still suffered from a pain in his posterior!)

Sometime after the incident, when the British government announced that Dr Radhakrishnan would be knighted for his contribution to the world of letters, Sir Geoffery, the target of the assassination attempt, himself said: “It is rare for a man to receive at once honour from the King and the homage of a revolutionary”.

Such was the eminence of Sarvapelli Radhakrishnan. Bertrand Russel once said that he was one of those “who serve to make the culture of India one of the glories of human achievement.” Unfortunately, of India’s first three distinguished Presidents he is the only one who has no memorial in the capital. No road or building or institute is named after him. A prominent road that skirts on one side, in a crescent, the premises that was for five years honoured by his residence, still carries its old, imperial name. To rename it “Radhakrishnan Crescent” would be just one small tribute to one of the tallest Indians of the last century.

Misty Meghalaya’s silent revolutions
Information technology, not insurgency, fascinates the youth
by A.J. Philip

Mrinal Miri

M.M. Jacob

ONE and a half years ago when the selection committee for the Northeast Media Exchange Fellowship programme of the National Foundation for India took up for consideration a project proposal to study the "Internet revolution in Manipur", its members had a hearty laugh. Leading the pack was Sanjoy Hazarika, who specialises on the Northeast. On that day when, unknown to them, a gory drama was being enacted in distant Godhra, what amused him the most was the applicant’s ignorance. "What to talk of the Internet, the Manipuris have not even seen the computer" said the former New York Times correspondent.

None of the selection committee members could have visualised then that in so short a time, there would be a metamorphosis with Cyber Cafes becoming ubiquitous all over the region. Today, information technology, not insurgency, is what fascinates the youth in the Northeast. Small wonder that major advertisers in the newspapers are computer institutes. Most hoardings and billboards that dot the Scotland of the East, as Shillong is called, announce one computer course or another.

The traditional religious house of the head of a Khasi state

Meghalaya Governor M.M. Jacob does not find anything amiss in this phenomenon. In fact, he regrets that the computer revolution came a little late in this part of the country. By now a seasoned Shillong resident, having stayed close to eight years in the beautiful Raj Bhavan, he points out some of the inherent advantages Shillong has vis-à-vis information technology. The pity, he says, is that not even a fraction of the potential has been tapped so far.

"For better maintenance of computers, air-conditioners are a must. In Shillong, there is no need for air-conditioners as the whole city is naturally air-conditioned", said Mr Jacob who hastened to point out that there was not a single air-conditioner or ceiling fan in the sprawling Raj Bhavan. He, therefore, considers Shillong as the ideal centre for setting up Call Centres, one of the most thriving businesses in the country. He has another reason to proffer: Khasi women have the best accent having learnt the language from the English themselves since 1841 when the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists sent a mission to the Khasi Hills and which remained there till 1969.

Like in the case of spreading education in the state where until not long ago human sacrifice to propitiate U thlen, a mythical gigantic snake, was not infrequent, the church played a pioneering role in setting the foundation for the computer revolution in Meghalaya. The Vice-Chancellor of the North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU), Dr Mrinal Miri, who is known to the readers of The Tribune having headed the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, for six years, paid full compliments to the Catholic-run St. Antony's College for the path-breaking role it played in sowing the seeds of computer education in the state.

Enjoying a holiday in his beautiful house on the NEHU campus at Mawkynroh-Umshing near Shillong, which has been converted into a virtual art gallery by his wife-cum-colleague-cum-painter-cum-novelist Sujata Miri, he told me about the bit his own university played in the spread of computer education. Of course, he said this with the rider that he did not want NEHU to degenerate into a computer institute. "Our core areas are humanities and science and we cannot make any compromise on this" said the VC, whose emphasis has been on the biodiversity of the region, which is one of the richest, and its rich historical legacy, which is yet to be written in a cogent, authentic manner.

On its part, the Meghalaya government has also been encouraging computer awareness among the people. Soon, the Governor hopes to have in place a system whereby at the press of a button, he can get information from any district or department. Though not so conspicuous, another silent revolution has been taking place in the "abode of the clouds".

The day I was in Shillong, a local newspaper reported all across eight columns that the six-yard wonder that is sari was becoming the national dress of women from Kanyakumari to the Northeast. But a closer look showed that the use of sari was on the decline. Even those who had fallen for the temptation of what some call the perfect female dress have begun choosing other modes of dress.

The most popular dress for women is now salwar-kameez, that is when they put away their jeans and top. Ghagra-choli, which was common until a few years ago, is fast giving place to trendier dresses. In any case, the traditional dress of the Khasi women is facing extinction. In fact, the fashion-conscious among them have already started abandoning it.

It is not the first time that the Khasi dress style is under such threats. Many people assume that the ankle-length overgarment of brocaded and fringed silk, known as "jainsem" and a shawl called "tapmoh" covering head and shoulders are the traditional dress of Khasi women. As Nigel Jenkins writes in his celebrated book Through The Green Door, the Khasi women were known for their scant dresses. The missionaries, who were scandalised by the flimsiness of their dress, hastened to cover their converts' near-nakedness with yards of silk and woollen cloth, leaving only the face and the ankle for a sinner’s eyes to delight upon.

In the urban areas, the tendency now is to discard this dress. School-going girls are invariably introduced to frocks, which are now the standard uniform. Once they are through schools, they pick up trendier dresses than "jainsem" and "tapmoh". For many, sari was once an option but they are now finding greater convenience in salwar-kameez.

At the present rate of adoption of trousers and salwar-kameez, it may not be long before they replace the dress popularised by the missionaries. Few will, of course, shed tears over it as the Christian dress code for women in Kerala — chatta, a loose blouse that leaves no cleavage exposed, and mundu that leaves little to the voyeur, has virtually become a part of Kerala’s sartorial history. In any case, the traditional Khasi men's wear — the sleeveless coat or jymphong, which is a garment leaving the neck and arms bare with a fringe at the bottom, and with a row of tassels across the chest had given way to trousers and shirts even in the villages.

Dresses come and go but there are certain enduring characteristics about the Khasis, which elevate them to a class entirely of their own. One of them is the democratic trait in them. Mr Jacob, who has sworn in as many chief ministers as the years he has spent in the ‘Queen of hill resorts’, does not remember a single instance when the Meghalaya MLAs "rushed to the well of the House" or shouted down one another.

"It is not that they do not have any differences. The Khasis and the Gharos do not see eye to eye on any issues but they have their own ways of sorting out their differences," said the Governor who was so impressed by the democratic credentials of the people that he wrote an article on the phenomenon for a Commonwealth publication.

It is not difficult to trace this healthy attitude to the religious and social traditions of the people. Monarchy was never strong in the Khasi and Jaintia Hills, which constitute the present state. Instead, they had a Siem system, which continues to this day. The head of the Khasi state is the Siem or chief. He is a limited monarch as his powers are circumscribed. It is he who hears all disputes, civil and criminal, and the decisions are arrived at through consensus. No decisions are imposed from above and it is never a practice to interrupt anybody in his speech or presentation. This practice is reflected in their day-to-day life where contentious issues are always debated and decided.

The people see the Legislative Assembly as an extension of the durbar where the Siem presides. One disadvantage of the system is that decisions are never quick. It is now three years since the Assembly building was destroyed in a massive fire but the members continue to discuss in their makeshift Assembly how the new building should look like. Fortunately, it took only one hour for two drivers to decide who should drive me down to Guwahati!