What he added by way of embellishing the argument that he was being singled out was even more extraordinary. He pointed out that no Minister of State is entitled to a cellphone but every minister has such a gadget. That is precisely the point. Blatant misuse of perks is so widespread that a beginning has to be made somewhere. Mr Rudy cannot say that only he is being made a scapegoat. If one of the officials of the ministry he heads is caught stealing, will Mr Rudy allow him to go scot-free if he counters that he should be arrested only after every single thief is imprisoned?

Now that Mr Rudy has painted himself into a corner, he has made a virtue out of necessity and says that he will be paying his own bill. The nation would like to know whether he is affluent enough to engage in such five-star luxuries. If yes, how many such holidays — or working trips as he calls them — has he enjoyed in the past and how did he pay for them? The opposition is justified in shouting a vociferous "howzzat" and a neutral umpire will find it very difficult to move his head from left to right.

The ruling party is entitled to argue that it has not violated the election norms as the election process is yet to start. This is too legalistic to stand moral scrutiny. But then who does not know that before formally notifying the election dates, the Election Commission has to examine various issues such as finalisation of electoral rolls, availability of men and material and deployment of security forces in sensitive areas? All this would take another two or three weeks. It is in this context that Mr Krishna Murthy has asked political parties to follow the code of conduct and refrain from using public funds for political campaigning.

In the ATP ranking, Leander Paes has barely managed to be among the top 100. But as a Davis Cup player, he is among the best. When he plays for India, he ends up surprising himself. The bronze that he won in the 1996 Olympics is more precious than pure gold. The surgery for removing a life-threatening tumour had forced him out of competitive tennis some months ago. He is not yet fully fit. Yet, in the crucial Davis Cup tie against New Zealand at Invercargill he won both the singles and paired with Mahesh Bhupathi for the doubles to give India a 3-2 win.

Ganguly's team could have made February 8 even more memorable. Instead, the inept batting performance and unimaginative handling of the inexperienced bowling by the captain in the crucial game in Sydney made Indians hang their heads in shame. Their performance in the three-Test series had won them the respect of the Australian public. They continued to impress the crowds with some breathtaking performances in the league games of the one-day series. But running out of steam in the crucial games is an old Indian failing. If Paes had played cricket, he would have shown India's cricketing icons how to raise the level of one's game when one is playing for the country.

— John Keats

The crisis now is due to an inter-related and complex set of problems. The issues arise out of low productivity, low purchasing power, inadequate infrastructure, a gross inequality of state-conferred benefits and a perceptible withdrawal of the state from the agriculture sector. Put differently, we still have far too many people dependent on agriculture for a living. Just as we still have far too many people with much too few employment opportunities. And above all we still have far too many farmers whose fortunes and fates are determined by the monsoon.

At least 260 million people are still below the official poverty line, which means that one out of every four Indians suffers from not having enough income to meet their daily food requirements. This inability to buy enough food will not be mitigated by just producing more. What we need is to produce enough jobs for these starving millions to put enough food on their plates each day. When that happens production will once again become the problem. And that day is not very far off.

The GNP growth rates of the last two decades — the 1980s and 90s — have been 5.7 per cent and 5.9 per cent respectively. This clearly suggests that at least a 6 per cent growth in GNP for the next two decades is on the cards. “At this level India will require 374.7 million tonnes of cereals in 2020. This steep rise in demand will be due to the resultant higher per capita consumption of cereals and of livestock products. We are thus looking at a possible cereal deficit of 115 to 142 million tonnes. It is clear that the agriculture growth rate must accelerate considerably.”(Prospects for India’s cereal supply and demand to 2020 by G S Bhalla, Peter Hazell and John Kerr, November 1999).

Current food production trends, however, are a cause for concern. The growth of total foodgrains — with the advent of economic reforms — slumped to 1.66 per cent in the 1990s as compared to 2.85 per cent in the 1980s. The main reason for this has been the sharp decline in government spending on agriculture and irrigation infrastructure. The combined share of agriculture and irrigation in total plan outlays has come down from the high of 31.04 per cent in the fourth five-year Plan to just 10.63 per cent in the tenth Plan.

There can be little doubt that in the past 50 years the Indian economy has been irreversibly transformed. Fifty years ago agriculture was India’s primary economic activity. Now it is the smallest of the three sectors. The share of agriculture and allied activities in the country’s GDP has declined continuously since Independence. While agriculture accounted for more than half (56.89 per cent) of India’s GDP in 1950, in 2000-01 it only contributed a quarter (24.90 per cent). The decline in agriculture’s share has meant a commensurate rise in the share of the industry and services sectors. The industrial sector, which contributed 14.27 per cent of the GDP in 1950, now accounts for a little over a quarter (26.92 per cent); while services in the same period grew from 29.80 per cent to account for almost half (48.18 per cent) of India’s GDP.

While India’s economy has been transformed, Indian society still remains primarily agrarian for the majority of the population, an overwhelming 69 per cent still depends on agriculture for sustenance. Agriculture remains the major employer providing 59.84 per cent of the jobs. But this is changing, for while 68.45 per cent of the workforce found employment in the sector in 1983, by 1999-2000 this had come down to 59.84 per cent. This meant a growth in the shares of both the manufacturing and the services sector as employers. Employment in the manufacturing sector grew from 14.34 per cent in 1983 to 17.43 per cent in 1999-2000 and the share of services sector increased from 17.21 per cent to 22.74 per cent over the same period.

Though the proportionate share of — the industrial and services sectors has risen, the absolute numbers employed in the agricultural sector have remained almost the same since the advent of economic reforms. The absolute numbers employed in agriculture rose from 207.23 million in 1983 to 242.46 million in 1993-94, but came down marginally to 237.56 million in 1999-2000. But this is the first time that absolute numbers employed in agriculture have actually registered a decline. Still the number is too small for a country aspiring to join the league of developed and industrialised nations in the near future.

The hugeness of the agricultural sector — in terms of employment — is clear from the fact that even the entire organised sector pales in front of it. In 2002 the employment in the entire organised sector with 27.96 million in it was a mere one-eighth of the agriculture sector. While the much touted information technology (IT) sector is bringing in huge foreign earnings and so much cheer, its potential to overcome the current employment drought in the country seems extremely minimal. The entire IT sector employed only 0.7 million persons in 2002. According to Mr Kiran Karnik, President of the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom), even by 2008 the IT sector will generate only 2.1 million jobs (1.1 mn. in IT services and 1.0 mn. in BPO). This is small consolation for a country that adds around eight million to its labour force each year.

Looking at the employment scenario, we see that from 1983 to 1993-94 the workforce increased by 71.69 million. Thus, on an average, 7.1 million jobs were created each year during the period. If this trend was maintained in the following period (1993-94 to 1999-2000) the workforce should have increased by 43 million. However, it increased by only 22.55 million. Thus, 20.45 million jobs were lost or not created during the period, exacerbating the chronic unemployment problem even further. The major reason for this is also apparent. Employment in agriculture has remained dormant, even though employment growth in the industry and services sectors has been better; it has been enough to make up for the negative growth in agriculture sector jobs.

A transformation of the national economy may occur only when people move from agriculture to other sectors. This is only possible when huge investments are made to increase agricultural production and productivity, which will in turn create jobs in the construction and engineering sectors. In the process, per capita production in the agricultural sector will rise, making it a commercially viable business. This is simple logic, but it continues to elude our planners, administrators and, of course, our leaders who determine the allocation of resources. 
To be concluded

The conference at Lahore reminded me of a two-decade-old interesting incident. It was the early eighties when Indira Gandhi had come back to power after the brief Janata Party experiment. I was in Delhi when an acquaintance asked me to help his two friends who were on a visit to India from Pakistan. They wanted to buy a book, "My Truth — Indira Gandhi", based on a series of interviews by Emmanuel Pouchpadass (Vision Books, New Delhi).

On making enquiries we were told that the book was available at a shop in Delhi's Darya Ganj. After great difficulty we reached there, but found the owner too busy to talk to us. Anyway, we mentioned our requirement to one of his assistants and a copy of the book was handed over to us. As I asked for the price, the owner expressed his desire to know where from we had come to buy a single volume. He was a wholesale dealer.

Before I could say anything, one of my companions replied in chaste Punjabi, disclosing that "We are from Rawalpindi." Now I was sidelined. They talked for half an hour in Punjabi and the shop-owner would get emotional in-between.

His family came from Rawalpindi. They had their business ruined in the wake of Partition. But Lady Luck had smiled on the family again and it was successful in establishing itself in the business of book-publishing and distribution.

At the end of it all, the Pakistani guests took out a 100-rupee note (the price of the book mentioned on its cover) to make the payment. The shop-owner politely said, "No sir, take it as a gift from us. I am thrilled to meet you, Pindiwalo. Kindly pray to God to make us friends so that we can meet frequently." He thanked me too for bringing Pindiwalas as customers to him.

Will our prayers ever be heard? 

Today he is faced with the challenge of assuring the Sikh community that the Bill proposing a ban on wearing ostensible religious symbols in public schools will in no way target them or bring them any harm. In an exclusive interview, he says that he visited the Golden Temple ``out of respect, consideration and recognition of the good relations the French people had with the Sikhs historically.’’

Excerpts:

Q: Given the friendly relations between the French and the Sikhs, is your government inclined to review the proposed ban on ostensible religious symbols like the headgear of the Sikhs?

First of all, we are not contemplating an overall ban on anything. What the law that we are about to vote will be aiming at is to ban religious symbols from public schools at the primary and secondary levels. So anywhere else the law is not applied. It is not applied to the university. It is not applied to public places. It is not applied on the streets. The law will be restricted to a very specific area in terms of location and in terms of substance. We don’t want an exhibition of religious symbols in public schools. The vast majority of the children in France go to public schools, which have played all along in our history a very important role in bringing people together even if they come from very different backgrounds - social, religious, ethnic or linguistic. And it is here they become united as French citizens. If we allow the destruction of this space which is neutral and free of religious interference, our model of integration will be at risk.

For instance, the American model is to have people living together as minorities, as communities. In France, it is not working like that. Outside the school, children can have whatever religious life they want, wear whatever religious symbols they like. For instance, if you take our friends, the Sikhs, we never thought one minute of banning the turban from public places. The Sikhs will always be allowed to go around freely with their turban and beard.

So its very important to understand. But it is also very important to understand that France is not America, not Britain, not India. We have our own ways. In France, 25 per cent of the population is of foreign origin. And of course, we have the largest Muslim population in Europe. We also have the largest Jewish population. And it has been working very well as a sort of very efficient machine to get people to become French without abandoning their own tradition. The government is committed by law to support the possibility for all citizens to practise their religion freely and it is a basic tenet of our democracy but the limit is that at school where we make the French citizen, we don’t want any religious interference. The law will provide for that. And why are we doing that now because there is a new phenomenon. There is a temptation among some people to destroy this specific model of French secularism. So we are not refusing globalisation. We are not refusing multi-culturalism. What we are refusing is to have people trying to destroy the system from inside instead of using the liberty that everyone has to develop his religious feeling or cultural tradition.

Q: How and when will the proposed ban be enforced?

In theory, the law will apply only to schoolchildren. The law is being debated. It will be implemented only in September this year. No hard decision such as expulsion will be taken. There will be no extreme measures without a dialogue between the headmaster, the teacher and the student. One year from the beginning of the implementation of the law, it will be reviewed by Parliament. This is an exceptional measure. The ban will cover public schoolchildren from Grade I to XII. The girl who comes with the hijab to school will have to take the veil off when she goes into school. Liberty, equality and fraternity are our motto. It is a very serious business. Liberty - it means that the children must have the liberty to be free of any religious competition at school. Equality is important to ensure equal access of all boys and girls to education. What we have seen is that girls wearing scarves refuse to attend biology classes which talk sometimes of sex, natural sciences or anatomy and sometimes refuse to attend classes with the boys. It means that you will have second class students. We cannot accept this. The problem is that the Chief Headmaster has either to make concessions or to expel the girl. The children have the right to education but if the family puts them in a situation where they cannot, it is a big fault. That is the reason why we have to make the law.

Q: Do you think a review of the proposed ban in favour of the Sikhs will be considered discriminatory to other religious minorities living in France?

There will be no review for one particular religion or category. All our laws are universal. So we cannot exclude the Sikhs or anybody else from the implementation of the law but what we can do is to try to implement the law in the most sensible and appropriate way and we will do that for all categories, not for the Sikhs alone. To implement the law, you have to take into account the concrete situation on the ground. And of course I cannot say that the Sikhs will be immune from the law. What I can assume is that in view of the fact that they are very law abiding citizens and there is no proselytising in the Sikh tradition, we will do our best to accommodate them as much as we can. For the French, the Sikhs are a very special lot. In all the variety of Indian people, the Sikhs are a very special category. The Sikhs in France are worried. But quite obviously this problem in numbers would be a tiny problem because you have a population of 5,000 Sikhs in all. You can easily guess the number of boys going to school. It is a problem which will be handled with consideration, attention and sympathy. We will do our best to make sure that they are not harmed or unjustly targeted in the French crowds. You will see the turbans in French crowds just as now. There will be no change. In our viewpoint, what is at stake is the possibility for us to carry on accepting immigrants, accepting new populations and bringing them into the French fold. We will address the issue in a very appropriate, balanced and cautious way.

Q: There is already a public outcry from the Sikh community in France. Can this move harm France’s secular credentials?

Multi-culturalism and globalism have been with us forever. We attach a lot of value to our laicite which in French means secularism. We have had horrible religion wars in our history. We like politics. We like discussions and debate and political confrontation but we have made sure that we don’t kill each other in the name of things like religion. Our secular credentials are protected by this decision which we have taken.

Q: The Vatican has assured the Sikhs full support in protecting their right to wear the turban. Your comments.