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Avoidable growth Tread with caution |
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Belated visit Centre’s policy on Manipur lacks direction NOTWITHSTANDING Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil’s description of his visit to strife-torn Manipur as “helpful, enlightening and encouraging”, it is doubtful whether it has achieved any significant purpose.
BJP’s nationalism
Humour in habits
An INLD misadventure in Haryana Akali Dal not communal
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Avoidable growth THE utility of religion-based census aside, the figures of “growth” and “decline” of religions as contained in the latest census report confirm certain postulates. The marginal increase in the growth rate of the Muslims and the marginal decline in the growth rate of the Hindus have a lot in common. A characteristic of demography is that the population growth rate is higher among people who are educationally and economically less developed. At the bottom of the heap of development are the Muslims. They, therefore, account for a higher growth rate. The decline in the growth rate among the Hindus is only marginal, which is indicative of the marginal progress the community has achieved. But in terms of absolute numbers, their growth rate is staggering given the fact that they account for 80.5 per cent of the population. This should nip in the bud any mischievous propaganda on demographic lines. In view of the relative prosperity the Sikhs enjoy thanks to their hard work and enterprise, a decline in their growth rate was only to be expected. Even so, the sharp decline — from 24.3 per cent to 18.2 per cent — needs a closer look. Low fertility rate, migration, more people declaring themselves as non-Sikhs and female foeticide could be some of the reasons. There are only 893 women for every 1000 men in the Sikh community for which killing of female babies is to blame. The Christians are the only ones among whom women outnumber men. However, on most other indices, the Jains account for the best performance. The Parsis, whose numbers have fallen, are a different kettle of fish. It is not surprising that the Jains, who have one of the lowest growth rates, topped in terms of literacy. They are one of the most affluent communities. If anything, all this buttresses the point that development — educational, economic and social — is the best contraceptive. With the present growth rate, India will soon overtake China as the most populous nation. The fertility rate in India continues to be one of the highest in the world while contraceptive use is one of the lowest. This is despite India being the first to adopt an official family planning programme. Yet, even today safe contraceptives are beyond the reach of significant sections of the population accounting for lopsided growth rates. |
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Tread with caution THE India-Pakistan composite dialogue process is moving slowly but surely and on positive lines. This is clear from the ministerial-level talks held in New Delhi. On the whole, the discussions were constructive. The agreement to start a “Special Day” Amritsar-Lahore bus service for facilitating visits to religious places like Nankana Sahib is bound to be welcomed by all. One can hope that the Munabao (India)-Khokhrapar (Pakistan) rail link will also become a reality in the near future. Such progress was not possible on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service because of Pakistan’s reluctance. The matter will be discussed later on to remove the roadblocks. All these may promote people-to-people contacts, necessary for friendly relations between the two neighbours. External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri admitted that they discussed all the items on the agenda, including the “old” and “difficult” ones — which mean Kashmir and cross-border terrorism — in a frank atmosphere. Pakistan wanted a special mechanism for handling Kashmir, but India saw in it a ploy to accord primacy to what Islamabad calls the “core issue”. India expressed its concern at the failure of Pakistan to honour its commitment on fighting terrorism, but in such a manner that the dialogue process remains unaffected. One could notice a desire on both sides to ensure that the talks must continue. The coming meetings, particularly the one that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Pervez Musharraf are likely to have in New York, may speed up the dialogue process. The talks in New Delhi acquired special significance as India told Pakistan that it had an “open mind” on the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project. India went further ahead to fulfil Pakistan’s diesel requirements, so far being met by costly imports from Kuwait. This has highlighted the point that both countries will reap immense economic gains if they establish friendly relations. |
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Belated visit NOTWITHSTANDING Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil’s description of his visit to strife-torn Manipur as “helpful, enlightening and encouraging”, it is doubtful whether it has achieved any significant purpose. The visit itself, in the first place, was belated. The Home Minister wasted almost five weeks since the alleged rape and killing of Manorama Devi on July 11. This incident triggered violent protests against violation of human rights by the Assam Rifles with various organisations demanding stringent punishment for the guilty and the immediate withdrawal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958. Had he or even the Prime Minister visited the state at that time, it would have helped to cool down the temperature and created an atmosphere conducive for negotiations. Surprisingly, the Centre is yet to take a clear-cut stand on the draconian Act. It is this attitude of dithering and delay that is responsible for the continuing impasse. Mr Patil’s meeting on September 5 with Apunba Lup, a conglomerate of 32 organisations spearheading the ongoing movement, failed mainly because he was curt in telling them that the Act would continue in force in the state. He may have said that there were three views on the Act in Imphal. But he should have been flexible in his approach and tried to evolve a constructive solution across the table acceptable to both sides. Unfortunately, the Centre’s policy on Manipur lacks direction. There is every reason for the Centre to consider the growing demand for the repeal of the Armed Forces Act which is said to be far more draconian than TADA, POTA and the Defence of India Act. It has certainly not succeeded in fighting insurgency. Its continuance will further alienate the people. New Delhi should try to win the hearts of the people by withdrawing the infamous Act which is said to be the main hindrance for restoration of normalcy in the state. |
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None climbs so high as he who knows not whither he is going.
— Oliver Cromwell
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BJP’s nationalism A brief quiz may help understand better the Bharatiya Janata Party’s idea of “nationalism”, its newest mascot. Your timer starts now. “It is ideology alone, which sparks enthusiasm in party workers and reinforces their commitments to idealism. Also, an ideology is needed to establish a political party with a distinct individuality.” Was this BJP President Venkaiah Naidu speaking, after his party’s recent “chintan baithak” (brainstorming session) in breezy Goa? Or was it media-savvy Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh spokesman Ram Madhav on the same occasion? Neither, in fact. It was BJP leader K.L. Sharma, way back in 1986. And this was the main point he had to make as the head of a committee set up to probe the causes of the party’s near-total rout in the Lok Sabha elections of 1984. This was the committee’s conclusion despite the known fact that Indira Gandhi’s assassination and the resultant sympathy wave for the Congress had defeated the BJP and left it with its lowest ever tally of two seats in the Lok Sabha. To make it more of a parallel to the present case, the party had then suffered its worst ever debacle under Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who himself lost in the erstwhile BJP bastion of Gwalior. Mr Madhav’s call for “idealism and ideology” as the BJP’s need of the hour and Mr Naidu’s talk of “ideological training” of the party cadre have come in a similar context, if not an identical one. The context makes clear the meaning of the “ideological roots”, to which the party returns every time it loses the general election, every time it returns to an opposition role. The context also shows up the contrived logic that has led some to see a new “maturity” in the party’s adoption of “nationalism” as its banner for the coming period. This “nationalism” is but another name for “cultural nationalism” that, in turn, is a coy-expression for “Hindutva”. Which, again, is a misnomer for minority-bashing. To carry the analogy further, the poll debacle and the party’s post mortem in 1984 led to the replacement of Mr Vajpayee by Mr Lal Krishan Advani as the party’s top leader two years later. The same replacement has taken less than two months this time, and Mr Advani is firmly back at the helm despite Mr Naidu’s official status as party president. In both cases, the replacement was the BJP’s signal of a shift in its political line for the coming period. It could not, of course, specify the period. But it cannot be forever, as watchers of the party and its “parivar” should know from experience. Under Mr Advani in the late eighties, the BJP set out on its “rathyatra” to Ayodhya and to a dramatically augmented political presence. Its two Lok Sabha seats of 1984-88 increased to 86 in 1989 and to 119 in 1991. It became a leading political player and has not looked back since then. But it could not go beyond claiming a share — even if the biggest — in the power cake. If Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav arrested the ‘rathyatra’ in Bihar, realpolitik placed limits on what the party could achieve from its special “ideology” alone. It is obvious what made the party depart from its “ideology” now and then, and what brought Mr Vajpayee back to the helm on these occasions. The need for the BJP to find and keep political allies - to share power, in short — is what prompted the party on both these counts. The issues of fundamental importance to its “ideology” had to be kept on the “back-burner” (no less a household phrase by now than Hindutva) to facilitate the formation of power-sharing fronts. At these junctures, the party has preferred a Vajpayee of more versatile appeal over an Advani of Ayodhya and “ideological” aggression. The former Prime Minister does not fill the bill; even if the party’s new creed is “nationalism” without the “cultural” prefix. The BJP’s precursor, the Bharatiya Jan Sangh (BJS), was founded in 1951 as a harbinger of Hindutva, though the catchword had yet to be coined. Under Mr Balraj Madhok, the party set out to assail Nehruism as anti-Hindu. This is not the place to examine in detail if Jawaharlal Nehru — who paid glowing tributes in his “Discovery of India” to personalities ranging from Adi Shankara to Ramakrishna Parmahansa and who willed his ashes to be immersed in the Ganga - deserved that description. Obviously, however, what the Jan Sangh meant was that the policy of secularism was not sufficiently anti-minorities or, more particularly, anti-Muslim and anti-Islam. The BJP was later to oppose such a stance by any or the entire liberal-left political spectrum as anti-Hindutva. The Jan Sangh found its first use for the “back-burner” when it joined the multi-party Jayaprakash Narayan-led movement in the seventies. It kept the “core issues” of its agenda cooking but hidden from public view on its home appliance, even when it merged into the undivided Janata Party in 1977 and tasted a slice of power at the Centre for the first time. Not much later, it stomped out of the Janata Party on the “dual membership” issue, declining to sever its links with the RSS. The Jan Sangh renamed itself the Bharatiya Janata Party, as it was loath to lose the advantages of its Janata legacy. The political front of the Sangh Parivar had tasted power achieved through an alliance, and “back-burner”-based tactics became all the more the party line, despite the ideological loyalty asserted on the dual-membership issue. Almost as an inevitable sequel, Mr Vajpayee became the party helmsman in 1980 and inscribed “Gandhian socialism” as the unlikely slogan on the BJP’s banner. This, however, did not mean that the “back-burner” did not keep burning bright. The early eighties, in fact, witnessed the first major show of strength by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) in the form of its Ekatmata Yatra series. In an unsettling expression of “nationalism”, the first of these “yatras” in 1983 was flagged off by the King of Nepal, to whom leading Parivar members have continued to swear extra-territorial loyalty. (“He is the king of all Hindus”, the reigning Shankaracharya of Kanchi, for example, has repeatedly declared.) In an elaboration of the same nation-breaking “nationalism”, the participants took a pledge to “prevent infiltration, proselytisation, cow slaughter, social integration, and re-building of the temples at Ayodhya, Mathura and Kashi.” (“social integration” here referred to the aim of VHP campaigns like “homecoming” or re-conversion of Christian tribal communities.) Mr Vajpayee, of course, winked at all this, even while he was supposed to be leading the BJP away from its communal and otherwise crippling legacy. Just as he was to wink at the Narendra Modi-sponsored massacres in Gujarat, even while he was said to be putting “development” higher than Hindutva on the party agenda. The avowed return of the party to the “ideology and idealism” of “cultural nationalism” under Mr Advani in the latter half of the eighties was only a renunciation of pretensions of tactical prescription. It still made a disastrous difference to the country. The much-advertised return to the party’ roots — and to Mr Advani — threatens similar consequences. The BJP’s “nationalism” is yet another name for the politics and ideology to which it returns after every major electoral rebuff. Which is why the new party mascot is no reassurance to the
nation. |
Humour in habits ROBERT Lynd narrates an amusing but revealing anecdote in his essay “On habits”. He was a regular visitor to a restaurant. The waiters knew him by face. Once when he visited the place, after a long lapse, a waiter came and handed him a pack of cigarettes. Lynd asked him how could he say it was his. The waiter told him, “You always open your pack from top of the left side”. A second mature-habit clasps and leads us day by day. Take care of your habits in first 20 years and they will take care of your last 20! Many of us develop funny habits which command us through life though we may not be aware of them. I know of a pretty girl working in a postoffice who rubbed her nose twice left and right, before handing over the stamps to the customer. Dilip Kumar caressed his luxurious black head-crop whenever he looked amorously at his film heroine, then smiled and lowered his eyes. It was more of a habit than a screen mannerism. Many have the funny habit of utterance or gesture. A school teacher of mine gave his nose a pick. He often picked unseemly hair protruding from his nostrils. I had a friend who tweaked beard several times a day and earned his wife’s reprimands. Sometimes the habit turns into a compulsive behaviour much to the amusement of others. Literary dictator of the 18th century, Dr Johnson, had acquired the queer habit to touching every post he passed in the street. He went back and touched it if he missed one. Some Indian cricketers have the habit of looking skywards on reaching their 50 in one day internationals and a ton in the Test matches. At least two have the habit of kissing the locket or pendant decorating their neck. K. Srikkanth had the freaky gesture of walking away from the wicket towards the leg umpire with an impish smile on his lips. Habits play unexpectedly funny tricks. It is as if some invisible switch suddenly goes on and one obeys its order. A retired army man was returning home with a basket of eggs. A street urchin teased him shouting, “Halt! Attention!” The switch went on, the soldier obeyed, the basket of eggs came crashing
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An INLD misadventure in Haryana THE Haryana Government’s decision to amend the Punjab Agricultural Produce Marketing Act, 1961, to allow contractors to enter the market for the purchase of agricultural produce is a retrogressive step which will throw farmers again in the money-lender’s net and the predator’s trap. The love-hate relationship between the INLD and the BJP in Haryana has a sinister connotation. In his flirtation with the BJP, Chief Minister O.P. Chautala has ended up picking the BJP baby-contract farming. The Green Revolution in India has been achieved at a great cost. The blood and sweat of farmers, farm labour, untiring efforts of agricultural scientists, subsidies on agricultural inputs, credit facilities advanced by the government and financial institutions, assured MSPs, advances by the RBI to state governments and their appointed agencies to buy agricultural produce and sheer determination of Indira Gandhi helped India achieve self-sufficiency in foodgrains. She threw the begging bowel India had been carrying for a long time in the Bhakra canal that her father had built with a vision which made Punjab and Haryana the granary of India. The NDA government headed by the BJP and supported by the INLD also, under the pressure of agri-business corporations and supported by the US, was contemplating to allow MNCs to enter agriculture production. Dubious saffron-clad economists had prepared the blueprint of this policy. When the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee asked the farming community to reduce the prices of agriculture produce after the partial withdrawal of subsidies on agriculture inputs, an increase in the diesel prices coupled with an enhancement of the electricity tariffs and subsequent warning of his Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha to the cooperative banks to reform or perish, the peasantry remained oblivious to the impending danger. The BJP has been critical of collective farms under Communism and cooperative farms as envisaged by Nehru. In a spirit of nationalism of its own brand, it wanted to acquire land to create big farms where the economies of scale could reduce the cost of production. For compulsory acquisition of land, the owner was to be exempted from paying income tax on the sale of the land. To prepare the farmers for such an eventuality, a new concept of contract farming was crafted. The contractor, some agri-business corporations, would enter into an agreement with the farmer to purchase his produce and lend him money for the purchase of agriculture inputs and payment of his bills. The contractor, on the face of it, looks very benign, coming to help the farmer and the agreement on paper is also just fine and fair. In the process over a few years, these agri-business corporations will eliminate three critical agencies which had supported the farming communities — the Food Corporation of India, cooperative and grameen banks and commission agents or arhtiyas. Thereafter, poor farmers will be left at the mercy of contractors. The amendment Bill aims at providing a market and a mutually agreed price to the farmer for his produce. Neither the unlettered farmer understands the fineprint nor does he has any inkling about the moisture content in the produce or the quantum of foreign agents therein. To reduce his cost, the contractor or sponsor will have only one market yard where the helpless farmer will be obliged to bring his produce. The notification or denotification of the market yard will carry a price tag. In case of a dispute, the farmer can go for a legal remedy and the case will be decided in 30 days. There is a provision of appeal against the judgement and the appellate authority will decide the case in 30 days. Time lags between both eventualities would take another 15-20 days. In 75-80 days either the last date for admission of the farmer’s ward to college will expire or the season for the marriage of his daughter will be over or both. In his book “Folklores of Capitalism”, Thruman Arnold has observed: “Corporations now enjoy unlimited life, virtual freedom of movement anywhere on the globe control of mass media; the ability to amass legions of lawyers and public relations specialists in support of their cause and freedom from liability for the misdeeds of wholly-owned subsidiaries. They also enjoy the presumed right to amass property and financial resources without limit; engage in any legal activity; bring liability suits against them; make contribution to individual candidates, political parties; political action committees and deduct these contributions from taxable income as business expenses; withhold potentially damaging information from customers and avoid restriction on the advertising of harmful but legal products in the name of commercial free speech.” According to the amendment Bill, no title, rights, ownership or possession of land will be transferred or alienated or vested in the contract farming sponsor or his successor or his agent as per the agreement. The language is fine to impress the gullible reader. What happens when the contractor or sponsor does not come forward for the next season? Agri-business corporations or their wholly-sponsored subsidiaries that would jump in. A subsidiary has a distinct identity of its own. It is neither a contractor nor a sponsor nor a successor nor an agent of its MNC and vice-versa. Today marginal farmers and landless people augment their meagre income by selling milk. When these agri-business corporations enter the field, their farms would be hedged not by a barbed wire but by razor-sharp wires and they would deprive the villagers of their customary right of cutting grass for cattle. Contract farming culminating in MNCs’ business will have serious repercussions on farmers of other states and countries. European preferred bananas from the Caribbean farmers. US agri-business corporations — Chiquita, Dole and Del Monte — grow bananas on large plantations in Latin America where they have displaced small farmers from their lands. They alone control two-thirds of the world’s banana market. Chiquita donated $1.1m to the Democratic Party and $ 1.4m to the Republican Party. The US used the WTO to force Europe to end its preference for small Caribbean producers and open its markets to unrestricted access by global mega-corporations. The fate of rural folks can be understood by this example. “The Dole company of the US now owns the majority of the high quality land in the southern island of the Philippines. Farm labour is replaced by fossil fuel-guzzling machines. Jobless destitute peasants migrate to slums and crowded alleys of the cities where, in turn, job competition drives wages down and rents up,” says “Post-Corporate World” by Dr David C. Korten, a former professor of Harvard Business School. The NDA government committed a cardinal sin by opening up the telecommunications and oil sectors, placing national security at stake. Food supply and food security are as essential for national security as weapons for the defence forces. You do not have to be a communist to quote Karl Marx. He says: “Neither a nation nor a woman is forgiven for an unguarded hour in which the first adventurer who comes along can sweep them of their feet and possess them.” I am not a land-owner. I had about 10 acres of land which I gave for the poor when I became a minister. It given me pain to visualise that the door is being opened to the first adventurer, an international predator called MNC, to hold this motherland in captivity and become a menace to the security of this nation at the most critical and crucial moment of its history. The MNC echoes Siren’s song: “My way is natural, right, inevitable. The pain will soon be over and from here there is no return.” In the light of above, I hope sanity would prevail and the Chief Minister would reconsider his decision.
**** The writer is a former minister of Haryana
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Akali Dal not communal KULDIP
NAYAR'S recent indictment of the Akali Dal in these columns has hurt me. The Akali Dal is not a communal party. It has always had Hindus, Muslims and Christians as its members. It follows the path laid down by stalwarts like Ruchi Ram Sahni. We have had Hindu and Muslim ministers in our last Cabinet and we have a fair share of Hindu MLAs this time as well. And yes, the son of a former BJP Vice-President, Chaudhry Swarna Ram, has also joined our ranks. The contention that the Akali Dal controls gurdwaras and does not allow other parties an inch of space is incorrect. As far as SGPC gurdwaras are concerned, the Akali Dal has democratically contested and won the elections. In Delhi, the Congress backed group won the majority. Fair game, one would say. Others like the Communist parties tried their luck by contesting the elections, but withdrew later. But unlike the Akali Dal, the Congress indulges in a dubious politico-religious game. In Punjab, it fielded a B-team against us and provided them all kinds of support, cash, kind, police protection and coercion. Many of these candidates were those who were denied the ticket by our party. Regarding the quadricentennial celebrations, who invited the President and the Prime Minister to participate in the celebrations? The Akali Dal did. The list of invitees included people from all religions. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and the Dalai Lama were among those invited. Who approached the Sanatan Dharam Sabhas and Ram Lila Committees seeking their participation? We did. Who helped organise marches from Benaras, Maharashtra and Rajasthan? We did. The Akali Dal is also accused of confining Sikhism to Punjab. Sikhism is too liberal and too vast a religion for anybody to be able to confine it. No one, neither the Akali Dal nor any other party will ever be able to confine it, even if it tries to. The Akali Dal has also been accused of playing up religiosity. In fact, the accusation during the past one-decade has been the exact opposite. The Sikh hardline section has been hammering the Akali Dal for being too secular a party. We have been accused of being a Punjabi party, and not being a Sikh party any longer. On any given day, just pick up any Punjab newspaper and at some conference or the other, Sikh hardliners can be seen accusing the Akali Dal of avoiding the Sikh Panthic path. So which of these allegations are true? The Akali Dal today is more liberal than most political parties. The cadre is more secular than most other parties. Sectarian issues are never mentioned, leave alone discussed in our party. The author is duly invited to attend any party meet or session for a first-hand experience. Moving on to the SGPC now. Today, most Akali MLAs are not SGPC members and vice versa. In fact, hardly 2 per cent of the 170 SGPC members are MLAs. I am not justifying the failures of the SGPC. More needs to be done, and I hope the SGPC members will undertake curative steps. Given the annual collections of the SGPC, if this money is spent on education, no child would remain uneducated in Punjab. The SGPC should lessen its huge army of employees and spend more money on health. Preachers should take up social issues and help stall rising trend of drug and alcohol abuse. Meanwhile, something about terrorism. I can name half a dozen Congress politicians of Majha who were in league with militants. They promoted Bhindranwale and used a section of the militants to settle scores with Akali leaders. I do not have to illustrate my point. Mr Nayar in his numerous writings over the past two decades has already documented this. It is the Akali Dal that suffered due to terrorism promoted by the Congress. Our party is virtually bereft of an entire generation of leadership due to the turbulent decade. Those responsible for this are enjoying perks of power, courtesy the Congress regime. One last point. The terms “Sikhs” and “Akalis” have been used in such a fashion that at times both intermingle. And the Akalis have been repeatedly condemned. It seems that Sikhs are being condemned by a curious mismatch of words. First equate Akalis with Sikhs and then condemn the Akalis. The net result is that the Sikh community is shown in bad light.
**** The writer is a spokesman of the Akali Dal |
While there was the darkness of ignorance, I saw the whole universe as a reality. But when the sun of knowledge has risen, I see nothing at all. This is wonderful indeed! — Sri Adi Sankaracharya You must learn calm submission to the will of God. Duty is the best school for it. This duty is morality. Drill yourself to be thoroughly submissive. Get rid of the “I”. — Swami Vivekananda I am a man of faith. My reliance is solely on God. One step is enough for me. The next step He will make clear to me when the time for it comes. — Mahatma Gandhi You exist everywhere; wherever I go, I find You, O our True Creator! — Guru Nanak The stage of devotion called Bhava (speechless absorption in God) is like an unripe mango; Prema or ecstatic love is like the ripe fruit. — Sri Ramakrishnan |
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