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Nonsense and census Step by step Rajiv's limpets |
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Surrender is not an option
A grateful welcome
Punjab’s first freedom fighter
From Pakistan
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Nonsense and census IT is unfortunate that a responsible government organisation should goof on vital information. On Monday, the Registrar- General and Census Commissioner released a Press note which said the Muslims had registered a higher growth rate than the Hindus. BJP President M. Venkaiah Naidu was one of the first to describe the census figures as a matter of grave concern. Other Sangh Parivar leaders were shriller in expressing their worry over the “demographic imbalance”. But as it turns out, all their “worries” and “concerns” were misplaced because the census authorities had not revealed the whole truth. The 2001 census figures included Jammu and Kashmir, the only Muslim-majority state, unlike the 1991 census which did not include J&K. The one prior to that – the 1981 census – did not include Assam. When both Assam and J&K are excluded to make the comparison logical, the picture that emerges is quite different – the Muslims have recorded a lower growth rate than that of the Hindus. It is surprising that the Census authorities overlooked this fact when they released the figures of the first religion-based census. They had completed the census a long time ago and they had a lot of time to prepare a cogent Press note. To admit a day after the media carried lead stories on the subject that the figures were misleading as the Census Commissioner has done is to admit his irresponsibility. The new data should set at rest the propaganda that the Muslims have been growing faster than other communities. Instead of “worrying” about such non-issues, political leaders like Mr Naidu should concentrate on laying down policies that ensure greater development which will automatically slow down the demographic explosion. However, there is no guarantee that the census statistics would not be misused by interested political parties. As early as a century ago a book tiled Hindus: A Dying Race was published. All the author’s projections have been proved incorrect but that has not prevented vested interests from selectively quoting it. This is all the more reason that the census authorities should have been more careful while releasing their data. |
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Step by step NO dramatic results were expected when External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh and Pakistan Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri held their talks as part of the composite dialogue process on September 5 and 6. Therefore, the India-Pakistan Joint Statement issued on Wednesday is not discouraging for those yearning for peace and prosperity in South Asia. They agreed on some of the proposals made for confidence building, friendly exchanges and trade and economic cooperation and decided to continue their discussions on other issues. What was more significant was the expression of their determination to take the peace process forward without, in any way, disturbing the course of the dialogue. The desire to move forward on the peace track could be noticed in the declaration that “the ministers held detailed and substantive discussions and reiterated the confidence that the composite dialogue will lead to the peaceful settlement of all bilateral issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, to the satisfaction of both sides”. It is reassuring that the ministers “agreed to continue with the serious and sustained dialogue to find a peaceful, negotiated settlement.” The people on both sides should be hopeful of positive results so long as the two sides continue to exchange their views. The continuance of the dialogue has its own significance. What is more satisfying for India is that the two sides have recalled the January 6, 2004, Joint Statement and exchanged their views to ensure that the process set in motion should continue in an atmosphere “free from terrorism and violence”. However, India will have to keep reminding Pakistan to do more than whatever it claims to have done on the front of fighting terrorism as promised in January. The reports that terrorist infiltration from across the border has increased in the recent past cannot be ignored. Terrorists are the worst enemies of both India and Pakistan. Under no circumstances should they be allowed to call the shots. |
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Rajiv's limpets There was no need to raise eyebrows when someone in the Bharatiya Janata Party called Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a modern Shikhandi. Anyone who knows the story of Mahabharata should have no problem in accepting the Sangh Parivar's description, because whatever his (or its) shortcomings, the non-hero was at least on the side of dharma and not the Kauravas. Taking the same line of argument further the saffron supporters have unwittingly accorded Mrs Sonia Gandhi the status of Arjun. Since they are in the Opposition they might as well let the people know who is playing which role in their ranks. Be that as it may, the old school parliamentarians are, of course, not happy. What would become of Mr Laloo Prasad Yadav and Mr Amar Singh, not to mention the loose cannons in the Congress and the BJP if they follow the textbook?. What was once parliamentary language has now been dead for several decades. In fact, an impetuous Rajiv Gandhi once dared to break the old rule by calling his opponents limpets. He had to apologise. More recently, even Mrs Sonia Gandhi was made to quickly backtrack from her description of Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee as having lost his mental balance (mansik santulan). Recently the irrepressible Rail Mantri made a substantial contribution to the growth of a new age political jargon that leaves nothing to imagination. Mr L. K. Advani has thus far not responded to Mr Laloo Yadav's charge of being an "antarashtriya bhagora" (international absconder) However, Mr Amar Singh evidently did not like being called a power broker, although he said it was an honour. Going by his high standards of stooping low to score debating points, the riposte was rather weak. Who does not know that the Rail Mantri loves to project himself as a "joker"? By calling him a "national joker" the Samajwadi Party leader has merely raised his stature. |
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Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life. — Herbert Henry Asquith |
Surrender is not an option No terrorist attack in recent times has evoked greater horror, condemnation and revulsion than the attack in the small town of Beslan, located in Russia’s Caucasian region, bordering Georgia. Over one thousand schoolchildren and their parents were held hostage there and hundreds perished in the ensuing carnage. Very few of us in India understand what is happening along Russia’s Caucasian borders. What we are witnessing there is a vicious conflict being waged against a democratic Russia, seeking to build a pluralistic society, by separatists, committed to Wahabi extremism and medieval barbarism. The separatist aim is to create an Islamic emirate in Chechnya and its surrounding areas. The Chechens have historically challenged Moscow’s rule ever since the Caucasian region was incorporated into Czarist Russia in 1859. Chechnya, like many other parts of the Soviet Union, proclaimed its independence when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. But no Russian ruler can ever conceive of total Chechen independence, because of the region’s crucial strategic importance. Russian access to the Black Sea and the Caspian is through Chechnya. Russian oil and gas pipelines to Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan go through Chechnya. Moscow, therefore, had no option but to use military force to deal with a separatist rebellion led by Chechen military commander Dzokhar Dudaev, who gave a call for jihad and brought in Arab, Afghan and Pakistan jihadis to fight Russian forces in 1993. Despite initial setbacks, the Russians reasserted their authority after Chechen President Aslan Mashkadov, who was elected in 1997 defeating the Wahabi-oriented Shamil Basaev, proved incapable of preventing Basaev and his followers from seizing control of large parts of the republic. Things came to a head when Basaev and his Arab supporters led by a fanatic Wahabi, Ibn-ul Khatab, mounted a military operation in 1999 to seize control of the neighbouring Republic of Dagestan. The conflict in Chechnya ceased to be just another civil war and assumed international dimensions primarily because of the support that the Chechens received from Saudi Arabia, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and from Pakistan. Saudi Arabia financed the jihad in Chechnya with hundreds of millions of dollars routed through its so-called “charities” that had close links with the Saudi royal family. The Governor of Riyadh, Prince Salman, who is King Fahd’s brother, and King Fahd’s “favourite son” Prince Azouzi are known to have been personally involved in training and financing Chechen terrorists. Ever since the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan in 1994, Afghanistan became a major base for supporting, training and arming fundamentalist Wahabi-oriented groups, like the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in Central Asia and supporters of Chechen terrorists like former “President” Zelmikhan Andarbaev and Shamil Basaev in Chechnya. Taliban support for terrorism in Chechnya was voiced by its Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil who advocated for diplomatic recognition to Chechnya as an independent country and proclaimed: “It is the Muslim world’s shame that it does not support the Chechens. They are my brothers. They are Muslim”. Given the links between the ISI and the Taliban, Pakistan also provided support to Chechen terrorists. Andarbaev visited Pakistan in 1999-2000 and collected funds for the Chechen jihad. The Naib Amir of the Jamat-i-Islami (JI), Prof Ghafoor Ahmed, welcomed Andarbaev and gave a call for jihad in Chechnya. He also set up a fund for this jihad. In January 2000 the Amir of the JI, Qazi Hussein Ahmed, appealed to Pakistanis to support Chechens in Grozny with weapons. There have been a number of reports even in the Pakistan press about Chechen terrorists being ideologically indoctrinated and trained in a madrasa linked to the Haqqania Mosque in Pakistan’s NWFP. After the American attack and the subsequent overthrow of the Taliban regime, the Chechen terrorists in Afghanistan were scattered, with large numbers now operating from areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, in North and South Waziristan. These Chechens are supported by groups operating in Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere in India, like the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed. Over the past five years, the Russians have faced a terrorist challenge that dwarfs the challenges we face in India. Schools have been attacked, political leaders assassinated, innocent persons held hostage like during the attack on a theatre in Moscow, aircraft have been hijacked, or blown up and the capital rocked by periodic bomb blasts in crowded locations like Moscow’s underground Metro. But, under President Putin’s leadership, the Russians have not wavered in their determination never to yield to terrorist demands that compromise national unity, sovereignty and dignity. They have also not hesitated to use covert means to eliminate terrorist leaders seeking refuge abroad like Andarbaev, who was killed in Qatar on February 13, 2004. While Russia denied any involvement in Andarbaev’s killing, three Russian citizens charged with involvement in the killing were set free by the Qatar authorities, after what was evidently some hard Russian pressure. Diplomatically, Russia has sought to mend fences with Saudi Arabia following a visit to Moscow by Crown Prince Abdullah in September 2003. But suspicions of continuing Saudi involvement with Chechen terrorists remain. The Russians are also obviously concerned at what are perceived as attempts by the United States and its NATO allies not only to erode Russian influence in Central Asia and the Caucasus but to also loosen Moscow’s hold in outlying and strategically located republics like Chechnya and Dagestan. India has a track record of surrendering to terrorist demands. The disgraceful surrender by the V.P. Singh government during the kidnapping of Rubaiyya Saeed led to the insurgency in Kashmir getting a boost. The release of three hardcore terrorists during the hijacking of IC 814 led to Maulana Azhar masterminding the December 13, 2001, attack on Parliament and Omar Saeed Sheikh brutally killing American journalist Daniel Pearl and establishing links with the hijackers of 9/11. The third terrorist then released, Mushtaq Zargar, now operates from Muzaffarabad in PoK, directing terrorist operations in J&K. We are now told that the Congress-led UPA government acquiesced in a payment of $ 1 million for the release of the three truck drivers kidnapped in Iraq. Is it not time that we should at least get a unanimous resolution adopted by our Parliament, affirming that we will never change our national policies, pay ransom, or release detained terrorists in response to terrorist threats? Should we sit quietly with folded hands as we now do, when terrorists operate against us with impunity from safe havens in Pakistan and
Bangladesh? |
A grateful welcome We were engaged to be married when the Indian Army fought the Chinese in NEFA and I was involved in the fighting at Dhola Post at the Namka Chu river and had gone missing. When I finally returned in June, 1963, we decided to get married and to forget the traumatic experience of the war and its aftermath. We spent a night at Dehra Dun on our way to Mussoorie for our honeymoon and learnt that my commanding officer (CO) with whom I had fought the Chinese from the same bunker, had been promoted and was in Dehra Dun with his family. It was natural for us to pay our respects to them and be blessed. Service etiquette demanded that I brief my bride about the couple we were going to meet and I did that. My CO had earned an out-of-turn promotion to the rank of Brigadier and was on his way to take over a brigade at Amritsar. His wife was a British lady who had two sons aged between 35-40 from her first husband who was my CO uncle (Chachaji). While on his deathbed he had extracted a promise from my CO to marry his wife after his death. We reached their residence unannounced and I rang the bell. The lady came out and as I introduced myself. Before I could introduce my bride, she grabbed me and started hugging and kissing me and broke down sobbing, muttering. “Oh! Y-o-u a-r-e B-h-u-p” and tears were rolling down her cheeks. It took her quite some time before she realised that my bride was waiting to be introduced. I was perplexed and deeply touched by the affection shown to me. I did not know how the bride reacted to all that but, when I looked at her and introduced her, she was smiling and being given a long and affectionate hug. And then the lady turned to me and said, “Bhup, wipe that lipstic off your cheeks otherwise the bride would object.” It was indeed a very emotional meeting as we sat down to a cup of tea. The “shagun” and other formalities over; the lady looking at her husband and the tears still welling up in her eyes said, “Bhup, believe me when I say that I do not find sufficient words to thank you enough for what you did, almost at the cost of your own life, for my husband in the battle. He had told me everything.” Then she turned to the bride and said: “Raj, you are extremely lucky to have him as your husband. But for him, my husband would not be alive today. I shudder to imagine what would have happened to me”. My embarrassment was total and I was rendered speechless, because I respected my CO no less than my father. Before we bid a grateful goodbye to them; the late Brigadier Maha Singh Rikh and his wife presented his metal epaulettes of the rank of Lt-Col to me out of which one or the other part always decorated my shoulders till I
retired.
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Punjab’s first freedom fighter
After half a century of Independence, it is worth remembering those who set out on the road to freedom. Mrs Annie Besant in her book “How India Wrought for Freedom” has given us some facts which are not often mentioned in history books. The idea of the setting up of an all-India organisation for the advancement of India, she says, originated in the annual convention of the Theosophical Society of India held in Adyar, Chennai, in December 1884. Apart from the local organisers, 17 delegates from all over India had gathered there for the convention. They included the cream of the intellectuals and thinkers of the time such as Surendranath Banerjea, Dadabhoy Naoroji, S. Subramania Iyer, Anand Mohan Bose, P. Rangiah Naidu, P. Ananda Charlu, Narendranath Sen, V.N. Mandalick, K.T. Telang, C. Vijaya Ranga Mudaliar, Charuchandra Mittar. One of them was Dyal Singh, who had come from Kashi, where he was born in 1848. His father, Lehna Singh, a favourite general of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, had taken refuge in 1844 and had bought property. Dyal Singh, orphaned at the age of six, was moved from Kashi to Majitha near Amritsar. He got his education at Christian Mission School in Amritsar and grew to be a man of great qualities of head and heart. When he took charge of the huge jagirs and estates of his distinguished father and grandfather, from the court of wards, he set out to carve a place for himself. He travelled to Great Britain and Europe. After his return in 1876, he set up himself as a great builder, a realtor and a connoisseur in jewellery and precious stones. He earned a great fortune, and used this money in charities and for movements for religious, economic, social and political advancement. He was the President of the Punjab branch of the Indian Association, which proved to be a precursor of the National Congress. Most of Dyal Singh’s friends were Bengali lawyers, teachers or administrators. With their help, he set up the weekly Tribune to mould the opinion of people of North India. As there was no hall in Lahore for public meetings, the courtyard of The Tribune became the venue of public meetings to be addressed by such veterans as Madan Mohan Malaviya, Surendranath Banerjea and Raja Rampal Singh of Kalakankar. It was possibly in the company of Surendranath Banerjea and Anand Mohan Bose that he went from Calcutta to Chennai in 1884 when The Tribune was three years old. The delegates to the Theosophical convention decided to form an all-India organisation for which purpose they decided to meet in Poona in December, 1885. Because of the plague epidemic in Poona, it met instead in Bombay and came to be known as the Indian National Congress. Dyal Singh himself was not there, but he had deputed the Editor of The Tribune to attend this in-camera session. He sent Bipin Chandra Pal, a Sub-Editor of The Tribune, to attend the third session (1887) at Chennai. This session was a landmark. It asked for a repeal of the Arms Act and discussed ways of taking the movement to the masses. The British masters got frightened. No more government invitations to the delegates to the Congress session. The powerful diehard elements in the British bureaucracy now called the Congress a “seditionst organisation”. Their stand was supported by the Governor of UP. Dyal Singh, who was a man of great self-respect, never hankered after titles or official favours, did not attend durbar, was advised by some of his friends not to attend the fourth session in Allahabad. He ignored the advice and decided to attend the fourth session. In fact, he seconded the nomination of George Yule as President of the Congress. Interestingly, in the defamation case filed against The Tribune and its proprietor, Dyal Singh, by a police superintendent Warburton, one of the charges levelled against Dyal Singh was that he had allowed an avowed revolutionary, Allah Ram, by name, to address a meeting in the courtyard of his ancestral Majitha House in Amritsar. Dyal Singh was keen that a session of the Congress be held in Lahore. In 1888 this was not agreed to. But four years later the annual session again at Allahabad, decided, with Dyal Singh’s concurrence, that Punjab’s invitation be accepted and the Congress met in 1893 in Lahore. Dyal Singh was elected Chairman of the reception committee. The details of the session were worked out meticulously; all tickets were sold out. Dyal Singh, who had built a number of houses for being rented out, placed them at the disposal of the delegates. All the important leaders, including Surendranath Banerjea, visited The Tribune office to look up the old files for preparing their speeches. Dyal Singh was sick, but he insisted on being present. He sat for some time on the podium, requesting for permission that his address be read out by someone else. Financially, it was among the most successful sessions. After paying Dadabhoy Naoroji and a British M.P. friend’s passage to India and back, the Congress had a saving of Rs 10,000 which became the nucleus fund to construct the Bradlaugh Hall in Lahore. It is a pity the Congress Bhavan in Chandigarh does not exhibit his portrait. The Tribune had become so popular that, as British bureaucrats once claimed, “Punjab was being ruled by two entities, the Governor and The Tribune. Secretaries and District Officials were nowhere in picture”. The rival paper, the Civil and Military Gazette, which characterised The Tribune as a paper of “Bengalee Babus”, lamented the importance given to The Tribune. |
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From Pakistan QUETTA: The Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) has decided to get the support of other Opposition parties, mainly the ARD, for a countrywide movement against the President for holding both offices after General Musharraf hinted at not shedding his uniform. The MMA's Deputy Parliamentary Leader in the National Assembly Hafiz Hussain Ahmad told a Press conference here at Quetta Press Club on Tuesday. He said the MMA provided the army an opportunity to exit through a constitutional amendment. The MMA had to take a bitter pill by incorporating the LFO in the Constitution for saving the country and the system. General Pervez Musharraf under the Constitution is bound to choose one of the top slots, either the post of President or Chief of the Army Staff. He had opted for the Presidency and promised to shed his uniform till December 31, 2004, Hafiz Ahmad added. Referring to General Musharraf's interview to a TV channel, wherein he said that the majority of the people of the country wanted him to stay in uniform, Hafiz Ahmad said that this utterance had shaken the confidence of 1.5 million people of Pakistan. — The Nation 10,695 women raped annually ISLAMABAD: On April 10, three daughters of Imam of a local mosque in a tehsil of Multan were allegedly abducted and subjected to rape. Till date the girls have not been returned to their parents. Due to the local pressure one of the girls was returned the next day, but her sisters were still in the custody of the abductors. According to their father, the abductors were influential people and nobody could do anything against them. Around 10,695 women become victims of rape annually. The Progressive Women Association registered and followed 322 cases of rape since last December 2000 -2003 in the twin-cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. In the past two decades, numerous rape victims, who have pressed charges or become pregnant out of wedlock, have in turn been charged with adultery.
— The Nation Initiatives for tribesmen PESHAWAR: NWFP Governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah has said the government wished to involve tribesmen in the decision-making process, adding that the agency councils were being formed in line with the need of the hour as well as the requirements of the people and the coming generations. He was talking to a 25-member delegation comprising elders of the Orakzai Agency at Babar Mela during his daylong visit to Hangu. The Governor said the headquarters of certain agencies were also proposed to be established within the agency limits so that the people could be benefited more easily and the facilities in the fields of education, health and other social sectors were made available to them at their doorsteps. —
The News
The General’s
uniform PESHAWAR: Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain has said that whether President Gen Pervez Musharraf remains in uniform or decides to doff, it is a secondary issue because every government in Pakistan has
sought protection of the military uniform. Speaking at the Peshawar Press Club's "Meet the Press" programme here on Tuesday, he said the issue of uniform would be there as long as a people's government was not established in Pakistan. Every ruler in the past had sought the help of the "uniform" and compromised on principles, he added. He said that former Prime Ministers, including Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, had formed their governments with the help of the "uniform". —
The Dawn |
It is worth sacrificing precious life for the sake of India’s unity and her social integrity. Our sorrowing hearts will follow your sublime penance with reverence and love. — Rabindranath Tagore (in a message to Mahatma Gandhi before he started his fast at Yeravada jail on September 20, 1032) Beauteous is the Guru’s Word meditating on which man attains to God. — Guru Nanak The wise are instructed by reason; ordinary minds, by experience; the stupid, by necessity; and brutes by instinct. — Cicero If there is one place on the face of earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India. — French scholar
Romaine |
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