The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

EDITORIALS

Groping in the dark
Where is the alternative to globalisation?

ABOUT one lakh World Social Forum activists from 130 countries who have descended on India's financial capital, Mumbai, have made themselves known for what they are against - globalisation, child labour, women's exploitation, transnational companies, the pro-US bias of the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO, the US war against Iraq and President Bush in particular. Not many know what they stand for. They have spent less energy on clarifying, much less convincing, the rest of the world about the alternative they have to globalisation. The presence among them of top social activists and intellectual stalwarts like the winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize from Iran, Shirin Ebadi, former World Bank director and Nobel economics laureate Joseph Stiglitz and writer Arundhati Roy does lend weight to their message that "another world is possible".

The Brazil-based World Social Forum, started as a counterpoint to the World Economic Forum, has a wide agenda, but limited following. They have advocated sugarcane juice as an alternative to Coca Cola and Linux software in place of Microsoft Windows. There is merit in their argument that globalisation promises prosperity to all, but delivers to a few, that it has failed to eradicate poverty and that the rich-poor gap has widened. It is also not entirely wrong, as they point out, that MNCs with their financial muscle and political clout do influence government policies in their favour and skim off huge profits while paying limited taxes.

Yet few governments have followed their advice and globalisation continues to be the roller-coaster. Few in India have protested against globalisation. There is a political consensus on the economic reforms launched in 1991. MNCs are now seen more as creating employment than exploiting cheap labour. Some of the issues the WSF raises do need to be addressed. Social security for the downtrodden has to be ensured. To avoid a "jobless growth", education needs to be reoriented by imparting skills, which are in demand. Globalisation is not a perfect answer to poverty, but there does not seem any alternative available at the moment.

Musharraf's jihad
He must make it a fight to the finish

PAKISTAN President Pervez Musharraf has, perhaps, for the first time taken a categorical stand against all kinds of terrorists, including those fomenting trouble in India's Jammu and Kashmir. He has declared a jihad against these elements, using their own favourite terminology. He vowed to eliminate them while addressing a joint session of Pakistan's parliament (National Assembly) on Saturday. It seems he has used the term 'jihad' to denounce terrorism, extremism and sectarianism to convince the public that the forces of destabilisation have been misusing the Islamic concept for their destructive designs. The fake jihadis, of course, have to be fought not only with the gun but also at the ideological level to take the war he has launched to its logical conclusion.

The General deserves support from all peace-loving people. Small wonder that his bold announcement has evoked a good response from political leaders in India. The announcement, no doubt, is an outcome of the thaw in India-Pakistan relations following the recent meeting between Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the Pakistani leader. The other factor that has emboldened the General is the understanding he has reached with the powerful alliance of six religious groups, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA). He could not have embarked on this life-threatening task had there been no rapprochement between him and the MMA, once believed to be the political arm of the jihadis.

The latest vow of the General is quite different from the one he had taken in the wake of 9/11. The Pakistani leader then did not consider those causing death and destruction in India's Jammu and Kashmir as terrorists. They were treated as "freedom fighters". The apparent change in his opinion is mainly because of the threat to his life posed by the Kashmiri terrorists. Whatever be his compulsions, today he finds himself in a situation from where there can be no going back. He will have to close the Pakistani foreign policy's jihadi chapter forever to ensure that he is there to guide his country's march to peace and progress.

Taming of the best
Indian cricket on a new high in Oz

A FLASH in the pan is seldom repeated. What the Indian cricket team has been doing to the Australians in their own backyard with amazing consistency is simply breathtaking. First, it spoiled Steve Waugh's farewell by dominating the best team in the world in the four-Test match series. Now it is making Ricky Ponting's life difficult by making Australia look an ordinary one-day team. Even the non-believers should now stop rubbing their eyes in disbelief and get ready to applaud India as the best team in international cricket.

The process has begun and it is only a matter of time for Saurav Ganguly's team to get formal recognition as the top dogs of international cricket in both versions of the game. India could have won the Test series 3-0. Even a 1-1 result was enough to make Waugh's team feel the heat of the Australian summer. Now India is showing the same hunger in the tri-nation one-day series. Zimbabwe's poor performance has taken away some of the gloss from what promises to be a keenly contested one-day series between the official World Champions and the potential number one team in the game.

The most heartening feature of the amazing transformation is self-belief that every member of Team India seems to have. The burden of India's success does not now rest on the sturdy shoulders of Sachin Tendulkar. India won the Test in which Sachin failed with the bat. Rookies Irfan Pathan and L. Balaji must have surprised even themselves by not letting the team feel the absence, through injury, of Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh and now Ajit Agarkar. With all the batsmen in fine fettle, the team management should now give young Parthiv Patel a chance to cement his place in the playing XI as a wicketkeeper-batsman.

Thought for the day

Good order is the foundation of all good things.

— Edmund Burke

ARTICLE

Politics of opportunism
The BJP is getting a face-lift
by S. Nihal Singh

IT is an axiom in politics that in a pluralist society of many faiths and creeds, only a centrist dispensation can rule the country for a sustained period. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s dilemma was that a divisive and raucous campaign brought it to power in Delhi and it had to pay due heed to the votaries of extremist views so generously exploited by the present Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani in his infamous Ayodhya rath yatra.

In logical terms, the Gujarat pogrom against Muslims was the culmination of the BJP’s vote-winning agenda. It took a long time for the BJP leadership to acknowledge the enormity of the Gujarat tragedy precisely because what goes under the rubric of Hindutva was the magic wand that transformed the BJP’s strength of two in the Lok Sabha to its emergence as the single largest party.

After completing five years in power at the federal level, the BJP is giving itself a face-lift as another electoral test approaches. For one thing, it has gained the self-confidence to view itself as the new party of governance. Second, whatever gods the BJP worships, it must veer its programmes towards the centre if it is to displace the Congress in the long run. The Ayodhya platform is still essential in enthusing and keeping together the Sangh Parivar; nor can the Ayodhya cry be entirely given up.

But the central theme of the new BJP is now one of moderation, an attempt to appeal to a wider constituency and the wrapping up of the Hindutva theme in inoffensive colours while seeking a temple at Ayodhya by persuading Muslims to give up their claim. Of course, the various organisations making up the Sangh Parivar give the BJP the freedom to let them beat a strident drum while the political party sings a different tune.

In the recent assembly elections, the BJP demonstrated that it is capable of harnessing modern technology and marshalling its forces methodically to win its objectives. It has emerged as the better street fighter than the lackadaisical Congress and is clued up on the caste and class equations of the areas in contest. Nor does it have any compunction in making opportunistic deals and alliances in climbing the ladder of power. The manner in which the BJP captured power in Uttar Pradesh in the 90’s remains a classic instance of supreme cynicism.

The canvas of a national election is, of course, immeasurably wider than elections to a few assemblies. Apart from exploiting its operational strengths, the BJP chose to find chinks in the Congress-ruled states, banking on the anti-incumbency factor. In the general election, the party is seeking a second term and thus must build upon its record by proclaiming a “feel good” factor. The “India Shining” advertisements and television commercials are meant to reinforce the theme of these accomplishments.

The BJP’s projection is of Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee with his carefully calculated image of a moderate posited against a foreign-born Sonia Gandhi. It would be unfair to suggest that Prime Minister Vajpayee’s approach to China and Pakistan is election-oriented, but there is little doubt that the party will seek to exploit the new opening to Pakistan and his standing there to blunt the anti-Muslim connotations the party evokes. Indeed, many Pakistanis imply that they have a vested interest in Mr Vajpayee’s continuance in office so that he may take the peace process forward.

Thus the main strands of the BJP’s election-winning strategy are being put in place. Ostensibly, the party is seeking a majority in the Lok Sabha on its own, but the leadership is well aware that the arithmetic does not add up, given its virtual rout in Uttar Pradesh and the clout its major regional allies seek to retain in their strongholds. With a panicky Congress party pulling out all the stops to seek alliances of various hues, the BJP’s brand of opportunism will have less room for manoeuvre. The BJP leaders’ criticism of the Congress tie-up with Tamil Nadu’s DMK is like the pot calling the kettle black.

If the BJP and the Congress are equal in opportunism, other distinctions must be sought. While there are diminishing returns from the Ayodhya plank, this is also true of beating the drum of secularism. The BJP’s “cultural nationalism” — a code phrase for Hindutva — is one point of distinction to the extent the Congress refrains from practising “soft Hindutva”. At any rate, in recent years, the pendulum of the Hindutva debate has swung some way towards the BJP’s definition, except for the hardy variety of the communist kind or the old guard in the Congress.

The Muslim vote — crucial in many constituencies — traditionally goes against the BJP although some in the community might be swayed by Mr Vajpayee’s peace initiatives towards Pakistan. In stature, the Prime Minister decidedly stands above the Opposition leaders and his party will try to beat the Opposition with the Sonia stick (whatever her status as a prospective prime minister) because the “foreign origin” issue plays to the BJP’s advantage.

Two alignments are likely to prove pivotal in the BJP’s attempt to return to power, those in UP and Tamil Nadu. Neither of them is easy but in an age of political opportunism, neither is impossible. Mr Mulayam Singh’s ruling Samajwadi Party in UP has been a traditional adversary of the BJP, but the efforts of the Congress to seek the support of Ms Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party, in Uttar Pradesh and elsewhere, would be an incitement for the SP to be receptive to the BJP’s overtures.

In Tamil Nadu again, few in the BJP can forget how Ms Jayalalithaa helped topple a BJP-led coalition at the Centre. It was largely thanks to the ineptitude of the Congress that the BJP could return to power. But Mr Vajpayee and his party will no doubt be willing to forgive, if not forget, Ms Jayalalithaa’s past moves now that the Congress has tied up with the rival DMK and a clutch of other parties. The rider is that both Mr Mulayam Singh and Ms Jayalalithaa are likely to strike a hard bargain, particularly in setting aside seats for the BJP, knowing full well that the regional parties’ clout is proportional to the seats they occupy in the Lok Sabha. Andhra’s Chandrababu Naidu is a shining example of how much he gained from Mr Vajpayee while keeping the party out of the central Cabinet.

MIDDLE

A freedom fighter’s agony
by Bhai Mahavir

“THIS is Sunderlal Tripathi,” he was introduced, “a freedom fighter and writer.” A very old man stood before me, calm and upright with a gleam in his eyes and a mild smile adorning a wrinkled face.

“I am 94 and a mrityunjaya (death defier),” he said, “I was deputed to write a history of Bastar but none of the promised facilities was extended to me. Still I resolved to do the job because I deeply love my Bastar. I laboured hard but my work was destroyed. I want just two minutes from you in the morning.”

He was there at 8 am sharp. I requested him to sit down but he politely refused. “I have only two minutes, ” he said, “so here is my tale of woe”, and left. It is not always that two minutes mean only two. Tripathi was an exception. So also was his representation — an eight-page matter typed amateurishly but corrected meticulously.

“They (state government) offered me a house in Bastar for a nominal rent but declining that I took one at the normal rate. Burrowing through Vedic literature, the epics, Indological sources and ancient texts and spending time in the country’s better known libraries like Calcutta National Library and the Asiatic Library and doing the typing on my own machine, 18 months’ toil yielded a 1500-page-long manuscript of Bastar’s history.

“It was with a feeling of fulfilment that I left Hyderabad with my own baggage: the manuscript, history books and my loyal typewriter, I reached Raipur. The bus which I caught for Jagdalpur carried the brother of the local jailor also and his elaborate marriage party. I had a reserved seat in the bus but a burly Muslim member of the baraat had grabbed it and moved a miserly bit for me with great difficulty. He was a chain bidi-smoker. The majority of the marriage party were fleshy wrestlers among whom I sat awe-struck all the time.

“Midway at Bhanpuri, a police inspector came and sat next to the bidi addict. To his ill luck he could not stand the smoke and objected. There was a fracas and the pehalwans floored the inspector. I got the bus stopped. Somehow we reached Jagdalpur bus stand where several jail inmates stood ready along with the jailor and deputy jailor to unload. The inspector rushed to the police station. The jailor entreated me to go and persuade the inspector to excuse the baraatis so that the marriage went off undisturbed. The deputy assured me full care of my luggage. I relented but when I returned I found he had taken away all my bags. I was nonplussed and narrated my tale of woe to the DIG, who happened to be in Circuit House that day. The DIG ordered an officer to direct the jailor to return my baggage at once. But the jailor behaved like one of his hardened criminals, flouted the DIG’s directive and quietly slipped out of the town after marriage.

“A sympathetic security man informed me that my belongings were in the jail lavatory. I informed the DIG and the Central Government. The police searched the jail but my precious goods had been dumped in the Indravati river. Local police officers and jailor were colluding in swallowing jail grants. Seventyfive thousand was recovered in cash from Jailor’s house. After a long trial he was removed from service which I learnt later, was not the first time for him. The Collector of Bastar secured for him a contract of supply of rice to the NMDC whereby he made a lot of money.

“My long and strenuous labours had been ruined. It thoroughly broke my spirit and no interest was left for me in life.”

The narration was so pathetic that I would have lacked words to console the venerable Tripathiji. I recalled Bhartrihari’s timeless categorisation of men from the noblest down to the lowest: such as cause damage to others even when it is of no benefit to themselves. This last category, he says, we “just don’t know what name to give to them” (te ke na jannimahe).

Here, I felt was a specimen !

OPED

Separate waste at source, then treat it
A ‘garbage-to-gold’ development model from Vellore
by Papri Sri Raman

The per capita municipal solid waste generated every day in India is as much as half a kg.

VELLORE district of Tamil Nadu has been judged the cleanest district in India by the government’s Total Sanitation Programme.

As one crosses the dry bed of the Palar river, the road turns abruptly into so narrow a street in between rows of single-storeyed houses that it is difficult for a bus to steer the sharp corner.

What, however, surprises visitors are the clean streets and lack of heaps of garbage in the heart of this small town, known for its colleges, high security prison and industry.

Once upon a time, the river was wide. Three high bridges span its width, showing us how public funds are used mindlessly. There is also a low motorway touching the river bed. When this river began drying up, it was said to have gone underground.

The name in Tamil means a river of milk and the town sits on it midway between the two burgeoning southern metropolis of Bangalore and Chennai. A lot of building activity is underway all around.

Recalls the district’s chief administrator Mohandoss, “Vellore was not long ago a place where the saying went, there was no water and no trees, nor did its temple on the Tirumalaikodi hilltop have a deity”.

The Indian remote sensing agency, exploring ground water in Tamil Nadu, now has a satellite map showing how much of the Palar water course is no longer on the surface.

The people of Vellore are, however, changing this state of affairs. “Water is beginning to return to the Palar and the barren hills around are becoming green,” he says, “and our hill temple has a deity too”.

How all this was achieved is a simple business and in many corners of India, be it in a Mumbai suburb or a Haryana village, the “garbage-to-gold business” as it is called , is spreading fast, providing an income- generating solution that is worth emulating in every household in the country. And if an entire district like Vellore can do it, so can India’s other 453 districts.

The per capita municipal solid waste generated every day in India is as much as half a kilo. For a city of 13 million people, it is about 6,000 tonnes per day.

The central pollution control board predicts that 1,400 sq kilometre of dumping land will be required in another 35 years’ time for just housing waste in India.

Vellore district has come up with a solution. Don’t dump it.

The concept is absolutely basic. The district believes that garbage needs to be treated as soon as it is generated, where it is generated and turned into an organic, chemicals-free manure sold at as high a price as Rs 10 per kilo.

The model separates garbage at the source, be it at households, at farms, villages, wards, municipalities, educational institutions, hospitals, jails or temples. Every kind of human conglomerate has an example here.

Government officials proudly tell visitors: “This is only a starting. Today we have 10 villages, two town panchayats and five municipality wards covered by the total sanitation and integrated projects programmes. In a year’s time, we hope to extend this to the whole district”.

The agencies that helped this district, were the state government, supported by NGOs like Exnora International, led by a young activist, C. Srinivasan, who received the Ashoka International Fellowship and underwent conservation training in an American university only to return home to lead civic participation.

The district also receives funding and support from the national afforestation programme and the total sanitation programme, laying a strong basis for sustained and profitable ventures.

The Vellore model of development includes waste management, composting and integrated development projects in a deemed university, the Vellore Institute of Technology, a temple, the Narayani Peedam zero waste scheme in Malaikodi, the Gandhinagar town panchayat and Vellore municipality’s public funded projects.

Palavanchathu Kuppam village of the district has a rural “clean village” programme and Selamantham village panchayat demonstrates its vermin-composting ‘garbage-to-gold’ and cattle-rearing programmes.

These six projects involve at least 12,000 people and waste generated in the living and working environments of variable communities, including farmers, shopkeepers, towns people, village people, in bazaars and hospitals, from the very poor to the very affluent.

The waste is kitchen waste, toilet waste, cattle waste, temple waste, hotel and shop waste, degradable and non-degradables, plastics, metal and tyres, at least 70 tonnes of solid and liquid refuse which have to be taken care of every single day.

The Vellore Institute of Technology houses a nearly 7,000-strong student and teacher community. The institute bioconverts degradable waste in a shed on the campus.

The bio-degrading engine the institute is using is 27 cows it keeps in its decomposting shed, constantly munching away the vegetable waste from mess kitchens and converting them into cow-dung in just 24 hours, where any other method would have taken weeks! Cows rescued from slaughterhouses are fed!

From the dung comes biogas used to light up hostels. The institute also uses solar energy and is ready to teach everyone clean technology.

This manure is then used to plant lakhs of trees on the naked hills all around. Once the hills are green, springs feed the river.

If there is a district where people have proved they can give themselves income-generating work from nothing, it is Vellore district down south.

DELHI DURBAR
Keeping choice of PM open

CONGRESSMEN, who envision Sonia Gandhi occupying the seat of power on the majestic Raisina Hill in case the secular front with the Congress in the vanguard comes to power at the Centre, are bemused that their party chief has put the issue of Prime Ministership on the backburner. At least that is the understanding of certain Congress allies like the DMK, the RJD and the LJP. They have welcomed Sonia Gandhi’s averment that the issue of Prime Minister can be decided later by the people.

Nevertheless, there is an increasing realisation that installing Sonia Gandhi as Prime Minister even if the Congress emerges as a leading entity of the secular front in terms of arithmetic in the 14th Lok Sabha compared to its other pre-poll allies is not without its attendant problems. DMK supremo M Karunanidhi has commended Sonia Gandhi’s decision not to project any Prime Ministerial candidate. Karunanidhi recalled that when V P Singh became Prime Minister, he had not been projected as the Prime Ministerial candidate. The same was the case with I.K. Gujral and H.D. Deve Gowda.

Jaya throws tantrums

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa knows that she holds the whiphand as far as the BJP is concerned in the southern state. With the DMK having broken free from the BJP-led NDA and sealed an electoral arrangement with the Congress, the AIADMK supremo knows there is no one else that the saffron brigade can turn to. It has become imperative for parties outside the Dravidian fold to join one of these two parties in Tamil Nadu. Jayalalithaa has begun posturing that the AIADMK would like to go it alone in the coming Lok Sabha elections in the state and win all the seats.

It is unlikely that Jayalalithaa will part with 10 out of 39 Lok Sabha seats to the BJP in Tamil Nadu. It is apparent that the BJP will have to send one of its stalwarts and old friend Jaswant Singh to work out things with the Amma. In the past when BJP-AIADMK relations were delicately balanced, the good offices of Jaswant Singh came into play.

Mufti vs Farooq

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed is quite a contrast to his predecessor in style and substance. Not given to flamboyance, wit and turn of phrase, Mufti Sayeed chooses the occasion and words carefully. He refused to take any questions on the Centre’s impending talks with the Hurriyat during a recent press conference in the Capital about winter sports and urged mediapersons to come to the venue of his meeting with the Prime Minister.

The Mufti does not go beyond what he wants to say. Former Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, on the other hand, was a scribe’s delight. He could be combative, emotional, fiery, measured - all on a given day. His Pakistan-bashing evoked a lot of attention. But tracing Farooq Abdullah in the Capital was not easy as his public relations guys were almost never aware of his whereabouts.

Kapil as new avatar

From the dizzy heights of cricket to helping slum children. That is Kapil Dev Nikhanj adorning a new avatar soon. Kapil Bhaaji is bringing together Indian cricket greats and Bollywood stars to launch an NGO called Khushii. He plans to hold a double wicket competition in the national Capital on February 22. The competition will feature Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan, Virender Sehwag, Aamir Khan, Mahima Choudhary, Sunil Shetty, Vivek Oberoi, Akshay Khanna and Karisma Kapoor, among others.

Contributed by T.R. Ramachandran, Satish Misra and Prashant Sood