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ON RECORD The
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PROFILE COMMENTS UNKEMPT
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ON RECORD
AS part of making the
paramilitary forces more effective, the Border Security Force (BSF), one
of the largest paramilitary forces in the country, has been asked to
hand over the counter-insurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir to the
Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and focus full attention to guarding
the sensitive Indo-Pak Border on the Western Sector and the entire
Indo-Bangla Border, including the riverine border. Is the BSF ready to
meet the new challenges, was the obvious question The Tribune put to BSF
Director-General Ajai Raj Sharma who came out candidly throwing light on
range of issues in an exclusive interview to The Tribune. Excerpts: Q. The Group of Ministers has recommended the CRPF to take over
counter-insurgency operations in J&K from the BSF. When is the pull
out likely to be completed? A. Yes. We will be handing over a part
of Srinagar City to the CRPF by the end of this month, and the other
portion which we have with us will be handed over slightly later, say in
three or four months. Q. Do you think the delay in BSF pullout is
due to the fact that the CRPF is still in the process of raising
additional companies? A. I really do not know. But, I think it
would be administratively better to hand over in parts and not the whole
city as a whole. Because the CRPF will also get used to the new work and
we will also be able to move out of Srinagar in a more easier fashion.
Therefore, we are dealing with it in two parts. Q. Are you geared up
to meet the challenges of guarding Indo-Pak borders on the Western
Sector and the entire Indo-Bangla border? A. We are already
guarding the two borders. We will continue to do that and the BSF is
very well prepared for it. After the pull out of the BSF from the
counter-insurgency operations in Srinagar, we will be quite strong at
the borders. Q. On the Indo-Bangla borders, is it very difficult to
guard the riverine border. What measures you have taken? A. No
doubt guarding riverine borders is a very difficult task. Keeping the
problem in view, as part of our modernisation plan, we are purchasing 14
ships and these will work as floating Border Outposts (BOPs) in the sea
or in the river and each floating BOP will be having four very efficient
speed boats, which would not only patrol the area, but also chase and
intercept any water vessels indulging in any illegal activities. The
speed boats will have armed personnel with sophisticated communication
network. Q. Are you facing fund crunch in your modernisation
programme? A. No. There is no fund crunch. The modernisation plan
for the BSF has been made out for five years. The BSF has been given
adequate funds, about Rs 2,300 crore, and all the areas, which need
modernisation, have been identified. We are also procuring some of the
state-of-the-art surveillance system to guard the borders. Q. Now
and then, there is tension at the Indo-Bangla border. Are you happy with
the cooperation of Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) ? A. Cooperation in past
last six to seven months has improved considerably. Their cooperation is
a must and very necessary and fortunately, with the change of command in
BDR, our cooperation has improved to a great extent. I think today the
cooperation between BSF and BDR is far better than what it was in the
last few years. Q. The BDR has recently denied the presence of ISI
operatives in Bangladesh soil. Your comments. A. That is the stand
of the Bangladesh Government and BDR can’t say anything other than
that...We understand their (BDR’s) problem. They can’t go against
the policy of their government. But our (BSF-BDR) relations are good and
I am sure in future if we need any help from them it will be
forthcoming. Q. What about joint patrolling in the Indo-Bangla
border? A. In the last DG level talks between BSF and BDR, held in
Dhaka in April this year, the BDR had agreed for joint patrolling.
Accordingly, we had made out the procedure for that and sent it to them
for approval. As far as we know, the BDR had agreed and is willing to do
joint patrolling. We understand that so far they have not been able to
get the approval from their government. So, now again the BSF-BDR talks
are going to be held in a month or two and I think the position will be
clear then. Q. In recent time terrorists are carrying out more and
more fidayeen attacks. Do you have plans to send your jawans for special
training abroad, especially Israel? A. If we are offered any
special training abroad, it will be acceptable to us. But, after I took
over as the BSF Director-General I found that the fidayeen attacks were
growing. So, we organised ourselves a new course for officers and men to
counter fidayeen attacks and I think the force is quite well prepared to
meet the challenge. Q. A BSF jawan’s biggest grudge is the lack of
adequate welfare measures like housing and lack of promotional avenues.
Your comments. A. There is a scheme for increasing the residential
quarters as well as Barracks. The BSF has been given funds for that
purpose and there was delay in construction by the CPWD. So we have now
decided to involve certain other agencies like the NBCC to speed up the
housing programme. I think the housing position will be much better in
the next three to four years. The main welfare measure, the BSF has to
initiate is to give solace to the families, because there is high
casualty rate in the force. We have to help widows get jobs,
accommodation and in education of their children. We have schemes for
that and we are trying to make them more effective. We are trying to
rehabilitate widows at a number of places. But we are not really
satisfied in what we have done so far and we have to increase our
efforts in this direction. |
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The price women will have to pay if they want freedom THERE are many myths and
misconceptions related to rape. In the film “The Accused”, Jodie Foster, the heroine, is raped because she asked for it: dressed provocatively, drinking excessively and dancing outrageously late at night, she is believed by all to have provoked rape. Gang rape is the price a woman has to pay should she want to enjoy her freedom. The film shows, on the other hand, that rape has less to do with sexual desire because it stems from a will to exhibit male power by sexually subordinating the woman. So what if she dresses as she chooses? So what if she has not returned home at the “respectable” hour? Rape here is a form of male authority which is seen where ever there is power politics at work, be it in the office, in a hospital, in a police station, in a caste situation or during an army rampage. The cover page of many of India's newspapers carried the news of the rape of a college student by the Army’s most elite unit. The narration had a strange bias: it said little about the rape victim, the primary sufferer. Instead we read about the “fall from grace”
of Warren Hastings’ “battle-hardened” cavalry, handpicked soldiers who had “taken a knocking”. From the reportage, it appeared that all we had to worry about was the stained honour and dignity of an army unit for which four of its men were responsible. The headlines were largely about the one dimension of the rape: how it had rattled the Rashtrapati Bhavan and the Army’s top brass. Clearly, the majesty of the battalion was more important than the violence wreaked upon the woman. Here was an example of an institution superseding the rights of the individual. Would such a crime be reported on the front page if it had not been committed by the President’s Body Guards? The reference to Hastings was also a bleak reminder of the Raj, the rape of culture, and a colonial patriarchy and brutality which are still present among the Company’s males. Soon upon its heels was another incident of the Swiss diplomat who was raped in her own vehicle. This time, the victim was an important dignitary, a foreigner, and the chase for the criminals is going on in right earnest. Rape is usually one of the most under-reported offences in India. It is a wry irony that lower middle class or lower class rape is seldom considered a matter requiring state intervention. Perhaps it was just as well for a woman of some stature to be traumatised before the state machinery could be activated. Rape in the period of India’s colonial history, where power was most overtly displayed, was also not merely the metaphorical “rape” or exploitation of the nation. The Indian women were actually raped then because a woman’s body was considered to be the “land” which had to be plundered by the invading enemy. After Independence/ Partition, Hindu and Muslim men raped each other’s women because their bodies had to be marked, again a sign of violation and contamination of each other’s property. When geo-physical annexation was not possible, a convenient victim was the woman's body which symbolised the humiliation of their men. A parallel example of this kind of violence would be burning down someone’s house when you are very angry with them. It is a pertinent question to ask why women are victimised when they have no role to play in provoking men into punishing them? They were not responsible in either inviting the colonisers or in partitioning the country. This kind of sexual outrage has largely been seen from the perspective of dishonouring the country through the dishonour of its women (who, I might add, had not dressed provocatively). Hence rape becomes a matter of shame for everybody, especially when native men have not been able to protect their women from external aggression. It is bewildering how “shame” and “humiliation” have become cultural constructs attached to the rape victim when she has not committed a crime. The victim’s family suffers from dishonour largely because sexual
chastity and marital fidelity are treated as social virtues which must be guarded at all times. The “theft” of virtue, then, inevitably, brings dishonour. Rape has always been explained away as a matter of sickness or dementia, even lust, which are shrewd ways of diverting attention from its criminal aspect. A lot of rapes are committed because men have always succeeded in getting away with it. In many cases, it is an aggressive statement of male power especially since women have become powerful professionally. Unless severe penalties are imposed upon the perpetrators of the crime, committing rape will be no different from the crime of parking one's car in the wrong place: it is only when the vehicle is towed away that the public can be coerced into doing what is acceptable. Not only a system of punishment and legal wrangling, but also socialising young boys to defend life and inculcating in them the right to love are important. Instead of training men into becoming profit-seeking, power-obsessed, competitive creatures, they should be taught the values of gentleness, consideration and respect for the other which have traditionally been regarded as “feminine” concerns. One also wonders why the guilty are allowed to cover their faces? The police must allow the media to expose them to the world. It is such apathy against women that prompts feminist organisations to protest. We need to take account of these forms of viciousness against women to expose the cultural matrix of repressive tensions which is part of their daily lives. This alone would open up an innovative space for negotiating with and subverting the male power
game. The writer, who taught Feminist History at Oxford University, London, is presently Reader, Department of English, Panjab University, Chandigarh |
PROFILE
Evidently, Moulvi Ansari and those who have snapped ties with pro-Pakistan Syed Ali Geelani mob think independently for themselves and no longer advocate violent means to achieve their objective. They firmly believe that violence has to be replaced by dialogue. They have veered around to the view, though belatedly, that they have to come to terms with the new situation after the assembly election. the people of Kashmir too have been increasingly realising that sacrificing the youth was a fruitless exercise and the split in Hurriyat is a manifestation of the unmistakable desire of the people of Kashmir to live in peace. The person who represents the changing mood in Kashmir is Moulvi Ansari who heads the Hurriyat at this crucial juncture. A Shia cleric, heading a religious group “Itehad-ul-Muslimeen” (Unity of Muslims), Maulvi Ansari is a moderate leader and is opposed to the strict Sharia laws like “purdah” being imposed on the populace by certain militant groups. He is of the firm view that the inherent “Kashmiriyat” of the people should remain intact. Sixtyseven-year-old Ansari hails from a family of academicians. He completed his undergraduate studies in Lucknow and went to Najaf in Iran for higher studies in Arabic literature, Islamic economics and political science. Having established himself as a prolific writer, Maulvi Ansari has authored as many as 20 books in Urdu including “Insani Kamal”. He also edits an Urdu magazine “Safeena”. His political “Guru” was the late Sheikh Abdullah who initiated him in the hurly-burly politics. Abbas Ansari is against accession of Kashmir to Pakistan and has been hitherto advocating independent status for Jammu and Kashmir. Part of the “pro-Azadi” faction within the Hurriyat, Maulvi Ansari has been an assertive voice in the conglomerate. Toeing his line have been JKLF leader Yasin Malik, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Abdul Ghani Bhat of the
Muslim Conference. Abbas Ansari is the fourth chairman of the Hurriyat who replaced Ghani Bhat on the latter’s completion of his three-year term. Ansari is also, incidentally, the first Shia to head the Hurriyat. The views of Maulvi Ansari reflect the likely role of the conglomerate in the coming months, particularly the Centre’s peace initiative. He feels that dialogue and not gun can solve the Kashmir issue. He has been quoted as saying that “the Kashmir issue is not a border dispute, but a humanitarian problem. It cannot be solved through gun, but only through negotiations”. Soon after taking over in July, he called for an immediate ceasefire between the security forces and the militants saying that the Kashmiri people had suffered enough for over a decade and need to get out of the present phase of fear. The Hurriyat leader also suggested the re-opening of the Uri-Rawalpindi road so that the people of both parts of Kashmir could meet their kin. “The people on both sides of the Line of Control (LoC) have been craving to meet each other. When India and Pakistan can resume the New Delhi-Lahore bus service, there is no harm in reopening the Uri-Rawalpindi road”. Incidentally, Ansari too has an extended family living across the LoC in Pakistan. Lately, he has slightly modified his stand on the question of US mediation in the Kashmir dispute if Washington plays the role of a friend and not a master. In his opinion, the idea situation would be direct talks between India and Pakistan. “India and Pakistan basically belong to the same soil. It would be wiser if the two countries display maturity and resolve the Kashmir problem on the negotiating table without third party intervention”, he has been quoted as saying. Maulvi Ansari also wants India and Pakistan to explore the possibility of associating Iran in an India-Pak dialogue since Iranian leaders are well wishers of India and have also friendly relations with Islamabad. He had met Iranian President Mohammad Khatami in January, this year. Surprisingly, Maulvi Ansari’s sentiments were articulated by Pakistan’s Opposition leader, Maulana Fazlal-ur-Rehman: “The ultimate end of every militant struggle is negotiation and now the Kashmiri Mujahideen movement should reach that
conclusion”. |
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COMMENTS UNKEMPT IN films and in sports there are, today, oodles of “silly money” strewn around. That’s what a young British footballer said recently while his fraternity contemplated a no-play strike because a colleague had not taken a drug test before an international match with Turkey and was dropped from the team. He said he “forgot”. Young men of 18 or 20, footballers with the big clubs get paid 10,000 pounds, 30,000 pounds even 100,000 pounds a week to play. Eventually, better sense prevailed and they played but there is something obscene about being paid so much, about the negotiations involving millions of pounds for the transfer from one club to another. A thick swathe of media people write about nothing else but the gossip surrounding players and their playing. The players themselves are much more absorbed in their ad-contracts than in the game. From this to match-fixing is an easy step. Isn’t that a terrible blow to the dignity and spirit of the games? No wonder only amateurs were allowed once to compete in the Olympics once. If that rule prevailed today then the Olympics, Wimbledon and the Opens, the World Cup in Football, Cricket or Hockey would shrink to pale stringy events. Even today some of the world’s best tennis players
shrug off Davis Cup fixtures through all manner of hollow excuses because there's no money in them. Playing for one’s country is honourable but not attractive. Of course time does not stand still. World-class players have
may be 12 or 13 years of top-level playing life before they become has beens, planning to live a sybaritic life in beautiful tax havens. So they are not so much to blame and the strident and competitive commercialism of payments for telecasts and the luscious ad-contracts that commercial companies heave on them for their expensive smiles. Indian sports leaders have reached that point of suffocation of their game while the talented young wear out their lives with no nutrition or skilled training. Every now and again they make a few pathetic paragraphs in the newspapers and then slide back into uncaring indifference. And so onto beauty contests, star nights tax free “star” payments and innumerable TV clips, hoardings and industries built around sports and clubs. Manchester United’s enormous incomes from souvenirs, loads of money invested in designer clothes, footwear and accessories, all far removed from the Olympic ideal. In game after game, sport after sport the corrupting hand of commerce has muddied the spirit. Also have come frequent injuries, racial taunts in games and battalions of hobos who riot and destroy shops, cars and restaurants. But this is perhaps an unstoppable wave which has reached our shores and has already banged on the doors of Parliament and assemblies and have got entrance through the Members Only gates. There is little dignity left. I can't imagine Laurence Oliver, John Sielgud, Ralph Richardson, Peggy Ashcroft or Vanessa Redgrave doing advertising capers for clothes, tobacco, TV sets, cars (export duties waived) and so on but even our Big B goes through those hoops. I wish this new breed of role models did not, sometimes, bring out the worst in the crowds that go to gawp at them and invite them to preside at some of the gravest national ceremonies and occasions. Somehow I can't visualise Don Bradman knocking back a bottle of Pepsi for a fee.
* * * * Of Buddha and Bodhgaya The Archaeological Survey of India has lately burnt its fingers in the digging at Ayodhya. It is a pity that such bodies cannot put themselves above niggling criticism about professional malfeasance. But much more did I take to heart the frustration of a senior Bhikshu at the Mahabodhi Temple in Bodhgaya. The ASI was doing repairs to that magnificent temple but they were so slow that the full glory of the structure remained hidden for months on end from the eyes of pilgrims, devotees and visitors. Meanwhile, building material obstructs pradakshin. India’s administrators — so few of them are learned in the lore and history of their land — have been unable to appreciate the Buddha and Budhism. They have never understood why, for more than 2000 years, men and women from distant shores, China, Japan,
Thailand, Sir Lanka, Burma, Viet Nam, Cambodia among them, have been touched by the Buddha’s teachings and have come in droves to visit the places hallowed by his footsteps. If our decision makers had true veneration for them those places their facilities, their environment and the pilgrims' welcome would have been a major concern. Bodhgaya would have been the golden door for relations with those countries. Bodhgaya is one example. For most pilgrim and others access to Bodhgaya is still through the crowded and untidy city of Gayqa. Its railway station has no special cell to welcome and guide the people who come from many lands, speaking many languages, dressed in varieties of clothes, all united in a reverence for the Buddha. They want to be helped to their own kind of food, they want to know about transport and accommodation and, perhaps, be put in the way of brochures and pictures. Perhaps something is done during a Kalachakra, but for the ordinary visitors at ordinary times I saw nothing. Of the temple itself what can one say? It reigns over the whole of Bodhgaya with serene beauty. A certain peace settles on the mind as one enters the precincts after having walked in through the wide and noisy surrounding yard lined with shops, eating places, disabled and aged beggars, stray dogs and books,
calendars, images and souvenirs spread out on the floor. There is an electric thrill to think that the Buddha had trod there, meditated, walked as lotus flowers sprouted from his every step. It is the Buddhist countries which have worked to preserve the sanctity of Bodhgaya. Their temples, meditation halls, monasteries and guests houses (built often in the style of the originating countries) like Thailand, Burma, Japan, Tibet and so on give the place character. Elsewhere there are a large number of nondescript hotels and guest houses coming up unsupervised and unregulated. Many trees are defaced with signs announcing places to stay at. A slow invasion common to all Indian places of worship is taking over Bodhgaya. But all this desecration cannot take away from the sanctity. From the wonder of the Bodhi Tree, from the chantings in many languages, from the
grace and beauty of the Buddha image which seems to greet every visitor individually. Sitting outside the shrine there are monks and pilgrim nuns patiently reading the Buddhist texts in their own language. And one cannot forget that Rabindranath Tagore said that only once in his life did he feel like prostrating before an image and that was when he saw the Buddha at Gaya. Vivekananda expressed the true emotion of the sanyasin or householder when he described himself as “the servant of the servant of the servant” of the
Buddha. |
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DIVERSITIES — DELHI LETTER WELL behaved and well controlled, we Indians ought to call ourselves, for Prince Charles was spared questions on butler Paul Burrell’s revelations about Diana in his biography “A Royal Duty”. Interestingly, this book hit the stands on Monday. The very next day, Prince Charles landed here. We stood and gaped and wondered in awe. Surprisingly, there seemed not even a fleeting mention of Diana, though on his previous visit to India, he was accompanied by her. It may be recalled that on that visit the couple had showed signs of drifting apart, writ large by the body language captured in the photographs taken whilst they were here and stayed in a special suite in the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Musical peak Whilst on the British, can the Germans and Austrians be lagging far behind? This weekend, the Germans are throwing open the gates of the Max Mueller Bhavan for competitions, quizzes, raffles and the grand finale — Mumbai’s Sivamani and Munich’s Andreas Keller — bursting into a musical peak. Of course, the evening will also witness the draw of the much-hyped bumper prize which could take one of us Indians to Germany — free and for a full four weeks. And then, there is a big bodied tourism contingent from Austria. In fact, at one of the informal interactions with the media, a tourism promoter from Salzburg, Stefan Herzl, had come armed with a brochure with the 20 century Fox movie “Sound of Music” cast and title well splashed on it. We can’t push back the 1960s made film based on Baron Georg Von Trapp’s aristocratic Austrian family, which itself was based on Maria von Trapp’s autobiography “The Story of the Trapp family Singers”. The Diwaniyas Moving on, finally there seems much focus on the Middle East. Last week the Institute of Social Sciences held a seminar to focus on the democratic process in Kuwait with special thrust on the “Diwaniyas”, the so-called roots of democracy in Kuwait, which find a parallel in our panchayat system of governance. To show captured shots of the “Diwaniyas”, documentary filmmaker Satya Prakash screened his film on this rather unique democratic institution. Several Arab watchers spoke on the changes coming about in the Arab world especially after the chaos in Iraq. But here again the man who stood out was the Syrian journalist, Dr Y.L. Awwad, who is based in New Delhi as the South Asia Bureau Chief of the Al Arabia television. He is also the president of the Foreign Correspondents Club of South Asia. Awwad covered the US aggression into Iraq and was taken into captivity. He has, of course, been released. There is so much focus on Iraq. On November 4 and 5, there would be two lectures on “Ancient Iraq” by Dr Shereen Ratnagar. She had studied Mesopotamian archaeology and cuneiform at the University of London and been a Fellow of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq. She has written on trade relations between the Indus valley and Iraq. Reaching out At Khushwant Singh’s home, I met the US-based Nanak Singh Kohli, one of those Sikhs who finds a noteworthy mention in the book on the prominent Sikhs in the US by Dr Surjit Kaur and Gurmukh Singh. In the 1960s, Kohli was a teacher in Amritsar drawing a salary of a couple of hundreds before he moved towards business — first in Bihar and then shifting all the way to Washington — rising to be one of the most successful businessmen in the US. Last fortnight, he was here on a personal mission. Kohli has set up an educational trust — Sunder Amarsheil Charitable Trust — to help promote education all over India and the start money is 5 crore with the place of start — Punjab’s Ropar district. He says that the money flow will expand as the education outreach expands “cutting across caste and religious boundaries”. Concern over Mallika Harsh Mander is ActionAid India's top man and is also one of those bureaucrats who quit the IAS in the wake of the Gujarat riots. The most remarkable aspect is that he is not one of the silent spectators to the communal build-up. When the noted artist Mallika Sarabhai is being made a victim of communal politics, he has appealed to the citizens to voice their concern at the hounding. The concerned citizens of Delhi would be meeting this weekend at the India International Centre
Annexe. |
He created seven heavens, one above the other. His work is faultless. Turn up your eyes: can you detect a single flaw? Then look once more and yet again: your eyes will in the end grow dim and weary. The seven heavens, the earth, and all who dwell in them give glory to Him. All creatures celebrate His praises. Yet you cannot understand their praises. Benignant is He and forgiving. — The Koran Religion is the love of life in the consciousness of importance. —
George Santayana Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind. — Albert Einstein When the eye is pure,
it sees purity — Hakim Sanai Wherefore God? The world itself suffices for itself. — The Purva-Mimamsa (Vedanta) |
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NOTWITHSTANDING the initial skepticism over the Centre’s offer for peace talks with the All Party Hurriyat Conference, the conglomerate’s new Chief, Moulvi Abbas Ansari, has increasingly come to be known as the true voice of the people of Kashmir.