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ON RECORD Why India can’t afford a long 5-phase poll schedule |
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PROFILE REFLECTIONS KASHMIR DIARY DIVERSITIES
— DELHI LETTER
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ON RECORD
FORMER Union Minister Vidya Charan Shukla, 74, stays in the limelight even without being in power. Not shy of fighting tough battles, Mr Shukla’s contest from Mahasamund against former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi has evoked nationwide interest. His gradual sidelining by the Congress first pushed him into the Nationalist Congress Party and now into the BJP. The NCP’s fighting the Assembly elections on an anti-Congress plank is believed to have contributed to the defeat of the Ajit Jogi government in last year’s Assembly elections. For a leader once identified with the power politics of Sanjay Gandhi, Mr Shukla has travelled quite a distance to throw his weight behind the BJP. A seven-time MP from Mahasa-mund, Mr Shukla is contesting from the constituency after 15 years. In an exclusive interview to The Tribune, he says that he has changed parties not for personal gain but for a struggle. Excerpts: Q: How was your campaigning in Mahasamund? A: It went on well. The final meeting was held in Mahasamund town. I told voters about the work done by me for the area in my years as Member of Parliament. Even when I did not contest, I was moving through the constituency participating in the programmes of the Chhattisgarh Sangarsh Morcha and the Chhattisgarh Sangarsh Parishad. My political work has been continuing. Q: You are accused of changing parties. A: Does it also include change from the Congress to the Congress(I)? When symbols change, parties also change. In 1969, V.V. Giri contested for the post of President against the official nominee of the Congress, Neelam Sanjeev Reddy. I went with Indira Gandhi. The Lok Sabha elections were held in 1971. In 1978, she split the Congress to form Congress (I) and we went along with her. Do you count these as defections? In 1987, Rajiv Gandhi expelled me from the Congress along with some other leaders. All of us decided to fight back against arbitrary expulsion and formed the Jan Morcha. The Morcha did not have any constitution, membership or symbol. We later formed our own party which we called the Janata Dal. Can this be called defection? I joined the Chandra Shekhar government on the suggestion of Rajiv Gandhi. In March 1991, he revoked my suspension. Congress president Sonia Gandhi had promised to give me the ticket from Mahasamund in 1999 but later gave it to Shyama Charan Shukla. I resigned from the Congress for the first time in April, 2003. My definition of defection is that it is done for gain. In my case, it has been for struggle. Q: While in the Congress your relations with Congress president Sonia Gandhi were perceived to be strained. Did it start after the decision about the party ticket from Mahasamund in 1999? A: No, it ended there. The last time I met Mrs Sonia Gandhi, I conveyed that my telling her all kinds of things in dozens of meetings had not affected her. I told her that I won’t meet her though I will remain in the party. I told her that if she needed my suggestion, she could send for me and I will come personally. But she never felt the need of calling me over, so I did not go to meet her. Q: Do you think Mrs Sonia Gandhi was prejudiced against you? A:
I don’t want to say anything about it. Q: Has Mr Ajit Jogi’s candidature from Mahasamund made your contest difficult? A: I don’t think so. If Mr Pawan Diwan was in the fray as the Congress candidate, the tactics would have been different. The time involved would have been the same but money involved less. Mr Jogi is very well-off. Q: What about your statement that Mr Jogi’s candidature against you was a big conspiracy? A: Yes, it is a big conspiracy. It is simply the tip of the iceberg but I won’t elaborate at this stage. Q: What about your oft-repeated statement that the Emergency of 1975-77 was wrong? A: Yes, I have said it several times and Indira Gandhi also said it. The imposition of Emergency was wrong and Press censorship was even worse. That really created all the problems for me and for Indira Gandhi also. Q: You have not campaigned against your brother S.C. Shukla who contested as the Congress candidate from the neighbouring Raipur seat? A: If the party had asked me, I would have gone to campaign. But the party gave me no such duty. Even he was not asked to go and campaign against me in Mahasamund from where he was the sitting MP. It is not that we had made an agreement of any kind. Q: Was there any sympathy for Mr Ajit Jogi after being seriously injured in an accident? A: I don’t think so. There was no apparent indication of sympathy. Q: What about the posters of Mr Jogi in hospital put up by his supporters? A: It is an odd question for me to answer. I have to say nothing for or against it. Q: How do you feel in the BJP? A: I feel normal in the party. The BJP has changed a lot. I have known the party since its inception. There is a sea-change in the BJP in the past 25 years. There is also a sea-change in the Congress from what it was in 1980. Q: Was this election different from your earlier contests? A: Every election is different in terms of quality and quantity. Earlier there were simultaneous polls to the State Assemblies and the Lok Sabha. My election symbols have changed in 1971 and 1980. The 1977 elections after the Emergency were different. Every time, we see a rise in election expenses. I last contested from Mahasamund in 1989. In 15 years, there has been a qualititative change in political workers and leaders across the country. Q: The BJP claims that five years of its rule are better than nearly 50 years of Congress rule. A: I am not commenting anything of this nature. These are campaigning points in an election. Q: Will you benefit from the perceived popularity of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee? A:
The personality of Mr Vajpayee is perceived to be better than that of Mrs Sonia Gandhi by the common man in Chhattisgarh. |
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Why India can’t afford a long 5-phase poll schedule THE nation is on the election mode. The first and second phase of polling were over on April 20 and 22. The three other phases of polling are due on April 26, May 5 and 10. The Lok Sabha was dissolved on February 6 and the Election Commission announced the polling schedule for Parliament and five State Assemblies on February 29. Ipso facto the model code of conduct for these elections came into effect from that date onwards. The Election Commission has introduced some welcome changes to check the role of money power in the elections. These changes seek to curtail and minimise expenditure as also reducing the duration of formal campaigning for candidates to two weeks. From the date of notification of the elections, the model code of conduct has been strictly enforced in the country. The current elections have brought to the fore some drawbacks which demand the serious attention of the Election Commission. Why can’t the Lok Sabha elections be held on a single day as in most advanced democracies of the world? One can understand the limitations faced by the commission regarding the availability of security forces as also the electronic voting machines. It is because of these two reasons that elections are being held in five phases spread over two and a half months. The states that will go to polls in the last phase of the elections on May 10 are the worst affected in terms of governance. Even in normal times, there is an abysmal lack of work culture in government offices and establishments. The enforcement of the model code of conduct is all that the bureaucracy and officials in administration want as an excuse to bring the government to a standstill. Government work all over the country has been paralysed and under the convenient umbrella provided by this embargo, the principle of “No Work Full Pay” is the happily accepted mantra in all government offices today. This interpretation of the model code of conduct suits everyone. Surely, this was not the intention of the then Chief Election Commissioner, Mr T.N. Seshan or his successor, Mr M.S. Gill and their colleagues when they introduced the much-needed electoral reform. The code was designed basically to curb corruption, forestall the hijacking of the electoral system by money power and muscle power and prevent unlawful practices like offering inducements, bribery, etc. Unlike the Centre and five states going to the polls where governments are working in a caretaker capacity, the others are not. They are regular, duly elected governments in office, with a popular mandate and fully empowered to govern, perform and deliver. Once again, it could not be the intention of the Election Commission to make such governments non-functional in exercising their constitutional right to govern without prejudice to the electoral process. A country still struggling for socio-economic stability can ill-afford a two-and-a-half month undeclared vacation. Because of this long drawn election, the public and the voters are understandably reluctant to respond with any degree of enthusiasm to the electioneering efforts of the candidates and the respective parties. In fact, the actual energisation and mobilisation commenced after the filing of nomination papers. In terms of expenditure as well, no political party and/or candidates can afford a marathon campaign and the resultant poll expenses for a period of two and a half months. During this period of state-sponsored inertia, the treasury and the state exchequer will continue to foot the high salary bills of the ministers, the chairmen of various boards and corporations and, of course, the bureaucracy and employees for their non-performance and non-functioning. Again, it could not have been the aim of the Election Commission to defeat the very purpose for which the people elect governments — to work, to deliver and be accountableto the people in a democracy. To illustrate the ludicrous extent to which the model code of conduct can be misinterpreted, financial assistance by the government to critically ill and economically poor patients, awaiting life-saving surgery and medical treatment in recognised hospitals, on humanitarian grounds, was sought to be withheld even though it is paid by draft or cheque to the hospital concerned and not to the individual patients. Does it not stand to reason that if this aid is not forthcoming in the shortest possible time, the patient may not survive to hear the results of the elections on May 13? Where has sensitivity and human understanding gone? With the impending summer threatening to be severe and unrelenting, the drinking water crisis stares thousands of villages in the face. There are any number of government officials taking the easy way out and saying: “because of the model code of conduct nothing can be done till the elections are over.” Therefore, the aberrations that surface necessitate some measure of re-evaluation of the system so that the contradictions and misinterpretations not intended in the directives of the Election Commission are dealt with by the powers that be in a constructive manner. Surely, the electoral process cannot be allowed to drag on for a quarter of the year almost from the date of the dissolution of the Lok Sabha. n The writer is Tourism Minister, Himachal Pradesh |
PROFILE Why should 81-year-old Jethmalani, having undergone a bypass surgery, oppose Vajpayee? He still swears by his bond of friendship with the Prime Minister. According to BJP leader Lalji Tandon, who was at the centrestage of the “Sari” distribution tragedy, the legendary criminal lawyer choose to contest against the Prime Minister for cheap publicity. True, Jethmalani has been hitting headlines since he sprang a surprise by deciding to oppose Vajpayee. In March, 1999, the Prime Minister too had surprised everyone by including him in his Cabinet. For BJP leaders, he is now the enemy number one and they call his decision to oppose the Prime Minister “a Himalayan blunder”. “Frustrated intellectual”, “Mentally sick” and “Anti-national” are some of the epithets hurled at him. There was a time when Jethmalani was at the centrestage of attack on Rajiv Gandhi on Bofors issue. In the late eighties, he had endeared himself to the BJP when he virtually created a nightmare for the ruling Congress party by posing a set of 10 questions every day relating to the Howitzer deal. In sharp contrast, he has now been bitterly lambasting the BJP for dragging in Sonia Gandhi’s name in the Bofors investigation and argues that in 26 volumes of the Bofors case chargesheet, the name of the Congress President had not found mention anywhere. His warning to the BJP leaders is loud and clear: “I too have something which, if revealed, will implicate the Prime Minister and his colleagues”. Jethmalani is, possibly, the only leader of the type who loves to land in controversies and thrive amidst conflicts. The records bear testimony to this impression about him. He has either fought the cases of the indefensible or of the underworld mafia dons or even the worse criminals whom no one would like to defend. Jethmalani gained tremendous clout by adopting this approach and hogged media headlines for days together. He has, no doubt, a razor sharp mind and sound knowledge of the law. A few years back, in his standoff with the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice A.S. Anand and Attorney-General Soli J. Sorabjee, he endeared himself to Shiv Sena Supremo Bal Thackeray but lost his ministry. A grateful Thackeray ensured his return to the Rajya Sabha. It is generally believed that Jethmalani has a match in only one leader and that is the ebullient Subramanian Swamy. Traits of their personality are identical in many areas — both are intelligent, perceptive, have a razor sharp mind and, above all, the tenacity to give sleepless nights to their adversaries. Both would not hesitate to take recourse to calumny, deceit and innuendo to achieve their objective. The clash between Jethmalani (when he was the Union Urban Development Minister) and his Secretary, Kiran Agarwal, and two senior officers is still being talked about in bureaucratic circles. Whatever the criticism against Jethmalani, with him around, there cannot be a dull moment — be it in Parliament, the Supreme Court or the sprawling ministerial
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REFLECTIONS WHY not call beauty contests pretty pageants was a question asked by a young man, on NDTV 24x7 programme “The Big Fight”. This question sent me researching and exploring. I will share with you my findings a little later. ( I watched the programme on the Internet in the United States). The arguments forwarded by the exponents, for and against on the issue of beauty pageants, were both very engaging and diametrically opposite. Here is what attracted my attention: First, the arguments for, these beauty contests as were forwarded. The contests are an exercise of freedom of choices. They are legitimate. These also a form of entertainment. Been selling for last 40 years. Hence it’s the demand. Not about body brand but in-depth exercise in someone’s future development. It’s body plus looks. It’s a packaged personality who can handle stress, passion, and charity work. It’s all about functioning democracies and right for women to make choices. And women are mature to make these. What is wrong with upward mobility? It gives women the flexibility with what they want to wear. This is a choice of a profession. It’s about empowering women and opening more windows of opportunity. It’s also a mutual agreement to promote a product. The products any way had to come for the world is a global village, so its all in step. This is the way society has moved. Society gets what it deserves. Those who have a problem need not go for it. Now arguments against these pageants: It’s about larger social implications the way women are treated and exploited in society. It’s all about beauty types. All about body sizes. It’s sexist. A piece of money, selling your creams. A meat market. Used for an artificial beauty criterion. Promotes anorexia, the way they display the woman’s body. The idea developed in 1921 to keep the tourists at the Atlantic City beach resort. How many women can be 5’9”. Its selling an unreal dream which sets expectations and challenges with complications for women in general. Beauty cannot be categorised in 36x20x36. You cannot judge a personality by two questions. Page 3 has now made it to Page 1. Quicker way to get noticed. It’s all about becoming artificial jackets. It’s all about looks. Otherwise, why is not the dark skinned with stub noses and thick lips from Africa not selected? I went back to the Thesaurus to understand the question as to why can’t we not call these contests pretty pageants. And this is what this volume called Roget’s International Thesaurus, a system, which brings together at one place all the terms associated with a single thought or concept. And I found the following associated with the term “beauty”: Prettiness, handsomeness, comeliness, gorgeousness, sight for sore eyes, masterpiece, glamour girl, doll, adornment, attractive, charm, elegance, bloom, glow, charisma, comeliness, daintiness, thing of beauty, makeup, cosmetics, beauty-care products, pancake make-up, powder talcum, foundation, lipstick, nail polish, cold cream, perfume, shampoo, vanity case, shapeliness, good looks. (list not exhaustive). I searched for linkages to intelligence, intellect, and brains? But these were not found with the said word “beauty”. So why were we making up and doing the word splitting? I wondered for myself? Or agitated and wishing for something which is not in the semantics of the word “beauty” as the English language goes. The focus is only on looks and appearance and all that goes to enhance it. Hence it is and can be a business like any other. And hugely global, only worth billions of dollars! This is, of course, not a judgement on the issue, but an analysis of the question posed in the programme, which was intending perhaps to find a deeper meaning to the word “beauty” and substitute it by another word “pretty”. But as is evident both these are synonymous. Hence there appears a need to locate one, which may meet the perceptions of those who would like to give a deeper meaning to the word “beauty” by offering the concept of a beautiful brain in a beautiful
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KASHMIR DIARY IN the minds of ordinary Kashmiris, attitudes towards militancy, the freedom movement, elections and the peace process are spinning as in a kaleidoscope. I have discovered this starkly in informal conversations over the past few days. The other night, for instance, I spent the evening with the Mir family. It was a relaxed affair, the three sons squatting on the carpet with their father and me in the extended kitchen, a small white-specked television in a corner, opposite the one in which Mir’s wife was cooking dinner, contributing to the conversation as animatedly as the rest of the family. Mir is Acting Principal at a college in the rural outback of the city, his eldest son is a contractor and the other two aspire to be models. After we had spoken of the Mrs Mir’s ailments, Mir turned to discussing electoral prospects. He and his family are not going to vote but they are interested in the outcome — not only on the national stage but also the impact on state politics. The boys, I found to my surprise, were quite positively disposed towards Farooq Abdullah, the former Chief Minister and patron of the National Conference. “It was not fair. He should not have lost power,” said the eldest, Mudasir. The young men spoke of how much the two main political parties here were paying workers to put up posters and banners, or add to the crowds in their rallies. Determined to pull itself back into the reckoning, the National Conference is apparently paying more than the People’s Democratic Party. The boys — too young to clearly remember the 1987 elections, the last before militancy erupted — say they have never seen campaign activity of this sort. This despite the fact that Tata Sumo jeeps, convoys of buses and even the posters and banners here are much sparser than in other parts of the country. The reactions of young men like Mir’s sons indicate that, although the turnout of voters might actually be less than in 2002, interest in the mainstream political process has increased since then. The same family would have abused India five years ago. Then, they would have focussed on human rights abuses by the forces, particularly the police. The reason for this change is in large part to be sought in the pre-occupations of the Mir brothers. The eldest looks for supply and maintenance contracts from the Army and the government and the others look for glamorous careers in metropolises. Thousands of other young Kashmiris look for careers or education there. Raheel Khurshid, who has just graduated from Anantnag’s Degree College, gushes with the joy of being admitted to Pune’s prestigious Symbiosis College for a degree in mass communication. Sartaj Khuroo of Rawalpora worked in Delhi for a while after obtaining an engineering degree here. Suhail Naqshbandi is still working in a computer animation company there. And a young journalist who does not want to be named is considering the offer of a post at New Delhi’s Institute of Defence and Strategic Analysis. Unlike the generation that grew up in the Eighties, most Kashmiris of this generation have little interest in politics. The reasons are many. The winds of Islamic fervour were blowing from Iran and Afghanistan then. The series of political blunders that Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi had committed in Kashmir had sharpened revulsion against the Centre. A huge number of educated unemployed youth had been created by the radical land reforms and the free education that was provided in Kashmir. Their frustrated aspirations for white collar employment combined with the political and geo-political factors to create this explosion of violence through the Nineties. Abdur Rahim Sheikh, 55, says at Avantipora that the youth today want only employment and business opportunities. But these attitudes of young Kashmiris are no more than an opportunity. For if the aspirations of young men like Mir’s sons are frustrated, that anger too will seek a vent. Noorul Qamrain, journalist and film-maker, adds the caveat that this lack of interest in the freedom movement does not mean that it is over, only subdued. “It is simply disinterest, in both the elections as well as the boycott,” he says, adding that the ethnic assertion at the heart the violence here remains. Qamrain, of course, belongs to the generation that grew up in the Eighties, full of passions for freedom and Islamic assertion. |
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DIVERSITIES —
DELHI LETTER
A
seminar on panchayats started here under the aegis of the Institute of Social Sciences (April 23-25). Though around 1,500 women delegates are attending it, with actress-activist Shabana Azmi and noted lawyer Indira Jaising as special guests, an irony looms large. In this round of elections, the very word “panchayat” seems almost missing or lost. Not just at the manifesto level but even during the campaigning. I asked Ash Narain Roy about this. His answer was simplistic: “all political parties give lip-service to panchayats”. Of course, he says, the Left parties give some importance to them. The media tends to ignore it.
Get Goa going
Trust me to be on the road and on the move whilst a raging hailstorm had also decided to take off. On April 22, I was driving in one of those frenzied moods to be punctual (for a change) for the release of Maria Aurora Couto’s book “Goa: A Daughter’s Story” (Penguin). Delhi does seem to have its own set of book lovers. For the IIC auditorium was packed that evening. People were seen trooping in, braving the storm to hear the author and the panelists for the evening — Fali S. Nariman, Rajdeep Sardesai, Dilip Padgaonkar and Shobhana Bhattacharji. In fact, this week would see some more book releases. Amrit Lal’s “Governance in India: Theatre of the Absurd” is one. Having resigned from the Indian Railway Traffic Service, Lal writes rather blatantly. His first book “India: Enough is Enough” was hard hitting. In the latest one, he seems to spare none. “There’s black money flowing, there’s no accountability, the country is being ruined amidst survival of the unfittest!”. Any solutions? Yes, he writes, if we follow China and Singapore. In Singapore, even the most powerful gets subjected to the strictest mode of governance. In China, there is no leniency shown to the top brass, says Lal. Also released this week are Rajbir Deswal’s two books. One is an anthology, “Taron Ka Jangal” and the other is a book of anecdotes around Haryana. An IPS officer, Deswal has focused on the varying aspects of life in the rural pockets. Unlike others, Deswal’s conservation rarely borders on any of the sarkari talks, rather about what’s happening in the literary circuit or at the level of the aam aadmi — mundane people like you and me.
Sufi impressions
Just received an invite from Alliance Francaise for Gurdeep Singh’s forthcoming exhibition, “Sufi Impressions”. The note accompanying the invite says that the artist has been “highly influenced by Abida Parveen’s renditions of Bulle Shah’s poetry. Gurdeep’s works neither reflect any philosophy nor does it hide anything. His work aims to achieve a glimpse of the ultimate reality, the absolute truth.”
To welcome the Bengali New Year, the Bangladesh High Commissioner organised a Baisakhi mela. It’s heartening to see Bongs speak so very warmly to each other that the rest of us don’t really seem to matter. Incidentally, the former High Commissioner of Bangladesh, Tufail Haider, is back in New Delhi as the Special Adviser to the Regional Director, World Health
Organisation. |
The Diety makes the sacred text. With prayer we approach Him who finds the way for us. He reveals the hymn in the heart. — The Vedas By which act can I escape from suffering in this unstable and changing world, so full of misery? — Lord Mahavir An atom of God’s Name rids us of countless of our sins. — Guru Nanak Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. — Jesus Christ Man comes from God in the beginning, in the middle he becomes man, and in the end he goes back to God. — Swami Vivekananda |
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“GOD save one from Ram Jethmalani” is the general refrain in political circles. He is
feared, hated and admired and, if he falls out with someone, he will chase him up to the hell irrespective of the consequences; it doesn’t matter if he himself goes to hell along with his victim. He is very quick at making enemies but still has a large number of friends — rich, powerful and poor whom he had helped at times of distress. A maverick politician and a brilliant criminal lawyer, known for defending the indefensible in courts, Jethmalani, after initial flip-flop, has now taken up cudgels against Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the battle at the hustings. Lucknow, being the Prime Minister’s constituency, has been drawing nation-wide attention but with Jethmalani jumping into the fray, the capital of Nawabs of Avadh is being watched internationally.