O P I N I O N S

EDITORIALS

Alvida, Arafat
A charismatic leader passes into history
Yasser Arafat, who led the Palestinian movement for an independent homeland for nearly four decades, has died a broken man. His dream of Palestine could not become a reality in his lifetime.

Leadership on test
Uma episode, a symptom of the malaise in BJP
FEW would have been surprised by the dramatic events in the BJP that led to the suspension of Ms Uma Bharati from the primary membership of the party.

• Thought for the day

ARTICLE

Governors not Centre’s lackeys
Keep them above party politics
by Rajindar Sachar
The recent controversy over the transfer of Governor S.S. Barnala of Andhra Pradesh to Tamil Nadu raises a question of deep constitutional propriety: what is the status of a governor and would it be unfortunate if it were allowed to be slurred over by the rightly perceived unsavoury image of Ms Jayalalithaa, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, by many critics, including the People’s Union for Civil Liberties?

MIDDLE

A food yatra
by Shiv Kumar
Mumbai’s month-long dusk-to-dawn gastronomic orgy is reaching its end. Not to be left out of all the fun, the last of the stragglers are making tracks to “Chotta Pakistan” — once a pejorative, now a shortcut to the all-night food fiesta extending from the Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus up to Haji Ali.

OPED

The face of Palestinian nationalism
Yasser Arafat, who died in France today, was the standard-bearer of Palestinian nationalism for nearly half a century who never saw his dream of an independent state become a reality.

• After Arafat, who?

Delhi Durbar
Prime Minister seen as headmaster
Some of the senior ministers in Dr Manmohan Singh’s Cabinet have not taken kindly to submitting a report card about the functioning of their ministries and departments with specific reference to the implementation of the Common Minimum Programme.

• Shivraj Patil’s in-house meetings
• Rahul Gandhi and civil aviation
• Duplicating PMO’s work

REFLECTIONS

EDITORIALS

Alvida, Arafat
A charismatic leader passes into history

Yasser Arafat, who led the Palestinian movement for an independent homeland for nearly four decades, has died a broken man. His dream of Palestine could not become a reality in his lifetime. If at all Palestine is reborn in parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the areas governed by the Palestinian Authority after the 1993 Oslo Accord, it will not be enough for Arafat's soul to rest in peace. He could not think of a Palestinian state without East Jerusalem as its capital, where he spent his early childhood with his paternal uncle after his mother's death. Even his wish for being buried there could not be fulfilled. The West Bank town of Ramallah, where he had his headquarters, is his final resting place.

In the evening of his life, he was considered the biggest obstacle in the way of peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. This was the opinion held both in Washington and Jerusalem. Now that he is no more, the sincerity of the US and Israel will be on test. What happens on the front of the Palestinian homeland, which was to become a reality by 2005 according to the abandoned roadmap for peace, will determine the success of the man who steps into Arafat's shoes.

Arafat, even after he had been confined to his Ramallah headquarters because of the Israeli blockade for a few years, continued to control all the levers of power in the Palestinian movement. That is why he as the head of the Palestinian Authority could change his Prime Minister whenever he wished. He prevented the emergence of a leader who could succeed him easily. While he was battling for life at a French military hospital he nominated PLO politburo chief Farouk Kadoumi as his successor, little realising that the latter had been opposed to any accord with Israel. Arafat refused to recognise the claim of Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei and his predecessor Mahmoud Abbas for the leadership role though they are highly respected for their negotiating abilities. This shows that Arafat had his strong likes and dislikes which hurt the Palestinian cause. Yet he ruled over the hearts of his people till his last. The Palestinians and many in the rest of the world can never forget him.

Leadership on test
Uma episode, a symptom of the malaise in BJP

FEW would have been surprised by the dramatic events in the BJP that led to the suspension of Ms Uma Bharati from the primary membership of the party. That she was in a defiant mood was apparent when she first refused to accept the post of general secretary and then accepted it only on her own terms. She was cut up with a section of the party leadership which, she believes, did not adequately defend her when she had to quit the chief ministership of Madhya Pradesh. She also did not take kindly to their lukewarm response to her 'Tiranga yatra'. So when party president L.K. Advani virtually admonished her in public, she reacted wildly inviting the disciplinary action against her.

The incident is a grim reminder that things are far from prim and proper in the BJP and Mr Advani's ascension as party president has not made any significant change in the situation. Unable to reconcile themselves to the loss of power at the Centre and in Maharashtra, the leaders are at one another's neck. The assumption that by virtue of his seniority, Mr Advani would be able to restore a semblance of discipline among them has been found to be wrong. He did not have any clue about Ms Bharati's mind when he virtually equated her with Mr Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, reportedly the root cause of her anger. How could she suffer this ignominy when she thinks it was her leadership that helped the BJP to snatch Madhya Pradesh from the Congress? Had the party chief been more decisive in dealing with her tantrums, Wednesday's ugly spectacle could have been averted. To be fair to Ms Bharati, the party president was unable to remove her impression that he wasn't even-handed.

If anything, the episode shows that Mr Advani does not have a magic wand to solve the problems of the BJP. The party that used to boast about its large number of second-rung leaders today has only a bunch of cantankerous loudmouths to show off. Its reputation as a disciplined party is in tatters. Indecisive as Mr Advani is about the kind of leadership he should provide to the BJP, he oscillates between hard Hindutva and soft Hindutva. The disciplinary action will make sense if it is tempered with a forward-looking policy that will enable the BJP to play its rightful oppositional role.

Power at a price
Maharashtra farmers feel cheated

The Maharashtra farmers who had supported the Congress-NCP combine in the just-concluded elections hoping to get free electricity are in for disappointment. The new coalition government plans to switch off free power to them. The previous government had announced the free power bonanza four months ago shortly before the assembly elections. After winning the elections, both Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and NCP leader Sharad Pawar have discovered that the Maharashtra State Electricity Board cannot bear the burden of free power, amounting to Rs 1,600 crore a year. The farmers have a reason to feel cheated.

It is not just the cost of free power that weighs heavily on Maharashtra’s finances. The World Bank has decided not to fund the state’s expansion plans involving an outlay of Rs 51,000 crore if it does not pursue the power reforms. The plan to unbundle the state power board into separate generation, transmission and distribution companies was shelved last year. That the state faces a financial crunch is well known. Development projects have got stalled for want of resources. The state carries a massive debt burden of Rs 1,03,000 crore and its fiscal deficit is Rs 18,460 crore.

It has been proved in state after state that giving free, unmetered power to any large section of society is not financially viable. The Andhra Pradesh government, which is also riding the populist free power bandwagon, has decided to exclude corporate and big farmers from the purview of the free power facility. Punjab was forced to discontinue the free electricity supply after its power board was bled white by the politics of appeasement. The state government had no funds to stem its mounting losses. Bad economics and vote-bank politics cannot co-exist for long.

Thought for the day

History is the essence of innumerable biographies. — Thomas Carlyle

ARTICLE

Governors not Centre’s lackeys
Keep them above party politics
by Rajindar Sachar

The recent controversy over the transfer of Governor S.S. Barnala of Andhra Pradesh to Tamil Nadu raises a question of deep constitutional propriety: what is the status of a governor and would it be unfortunate if it were allowed to be slurred over by the rightly perceived unsavoury image of Ms Jayalalithaa, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, by many critics, including the People’s Union for Civil Liberties? Is the governor a mere appointee of the Central government who holds the office during the pleasure of the President, and who can be removed or transferred at the whim of the Centre? The Central government seems to suggest that a governor’s position is much less secure than a Class IV employee. This view is a distortion, as the Supreme Court has ruled that a governor occupies a high constitutional office, and that executive power of the state is vested in him. He constitutes an integral part of the legislature of the state, though not in the fullest sense.

This immediately raises a question of deep concern: whether Mr Ram Mohan Rao should have been asked to go on supposedly unsubstantiated grounds. What I am concerned about is whether Mr Barnala should have been appointed Governor of Tamil Nadu without first consulting the Chief Minister. The telephonic talk which took place and which is now admitted by the Home Minister clearly shows that the latter took a categorical stand that the Centre was not bound to consult the Chief Minister.

He has made an astonishing statement that though the Sarkaria Commission has recommended such a course but it has no value until it becomes a law. He also stated (which not appear to be fully correct) that it has not been the practice to consult the Chief Minister. During Nehru’s time and even subsequently the Centre would consult the Chief Ministers even belonging to its party. It was a question of showing courtesy to the constitutional entity of the state government and recognition of the federal nature of the Constitution.

In this approach to governance Mr Patil forgets that in a democracy it is not only the law or the constitution that governs day-to-day working but also the constitutional conventions. It needs to be emphasised that the functioning of a true democratic society is not determined merely by having a liberal constitution; for that matter, even admittedly dictatorial regimes have a constitution with high-sounding guaranteed human rights. The real test is the way the spirit and the conventions of the Constitution are followed.

As Dicey wrote, “that conventions were intended to secure the ultimate supremacy of the electorate as the true political sovereign of the state. Conventions are a whole code of precepts for the guidance of public men, which will not be found in any page of either the statute or the common law, but which are in practice held hardly less sacred than any principle embodied in the written constitution.”

In short, by the side of our written law, there has grown an unwritten or conventional constitution. This may be described as the “climate of opinion” of our Constitution to an extent which no politician should be allowed to ignore if democracy is to be kept up.

Moreover, it should not be forgotten that though the Sarkaria Commission’s recommendations may not have yet been legislated, many of its basic recommendations have been accepted and acted upon by the government for years and have been accepted even by the Supreme Court as laying down sound principles of Centre - State relations. Thus, in Bommai’s case the court, while elaborating as to what should be the various principles on which action should be taken under Article 356 of the Constitution (imposition of President’s rule in states), referred to appreciation to the Sarkaria Commission report and went on to say that “it is not necessary here to refer to the said elaborate discussion.

Suffice it to say that we are in broad agreement with the above interpretation given in the report (emphasis supplied) of the expression “the Government of the State cannot be carried on in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution”. We are of the view that except in such and similar other circumstances, the provisions of Article 356 cannot be pressed into service.

Similarly, in its report, the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution, headed by former Chief Justice Venkatachaliah, has concluded that “the commission feels that the governor of a state should be appointed by the President, after consultation with the Chief Minister of that state (emphasis supplied). Normally, the five-year term should be adhered to and removal or transfer of the governor should be by following a similar procedure as for appointment, i.e. after consultation with the Chief Minister of the concerned state.”

In that context, Mr Patil’s attempt to belittle the Sarkaria Commission’s recommendations was, to say the least, unfortunate and showed a splash of arrogance of power not normally associated with affable Home Minister Patil. Maybe he was provoked into it by the clever sleight of hand of Ms Jayalalithaa by taping the conversation. But, then, it was naive of Mr Patil to assume that Ms Jayalalithaa would take such a blow without making some effort at embarrassing the Central government for its partisan act. His complaint that there was a breach of confidentiality or privilege in disclosing the information to the public has no validity. These are all public matters and for transparency in government functioning, and the right to know by the public is the first priority in a democracy.

There is doubt that Mr Barnala was being brought to Tamil Nadu at the instance of the DMK, which was beholden to him for having refused to dismiss the DMK government during the Chandra Shekhar regime in 1990. Indeed, it was a commendable act. I had then commented that “of course, one comes across the shinning example of Mr Surjit Singh Barnala, who gave up his governorship rather than agree to dismiss the DMK government in Tamil Nadu at the instance of Mr Chandra Shekhar, who wanted to please Rajiv Gandhi. That is why, Mr Barnala’s present gratuitous acquiescence in the game plan of the Central government has caused great disappointment.

Mr Barnala was in no danger of being asked to go even if he had refused to accept his transfer to Tamil Nadu. The Central government could not have afforded to act so arbitrarily with Mr Barnala who genuinely commands public respect.

The whole episode has left a bad taste in the mouth — treating the Governor as a lackey of the Central government. I feel that to avoid such unpleasant instances, appointments and transfers of governors should be made by a committee consisting of the Prime Minister, the Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, Speaker of the Lok Sabha and the Leaders of the Opposition in both Houses (as in the case of members of the National Human Rights Commission). Let us keep the office of governor above petty party politics.

The writer is a former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court.

MIDDLE

A food yatra
by Shiv Kumar

Mumbai’s month-long dusk-to-dawn gastronomic orgy is reaching its end. Not to be left out of all the fun, the last of the stragglers are making tracks to “Chotta Pakistan” — once a pejorative, now a shortcut to the all-night food fiesta extending from the Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus up to Haji Ali.

The best spot to brush by a celebrity or three is on the shadow of the glittering Minara Masjid, all lit up during Ramazan. Here, Mumbai’s beautiful people suddenly don’t seem squeamish as they jostle for place with coolies and construction labourers. Film stars, models, airline crews and newspaper editors happily squat at rickety tables and eat with their fingers.

Seasoned foodies insist that the fare is completely harmless. Only carry your own bottle of water.

Most of the stall owners are migrants from North India. The cooks generally are from Lucknow, one is told. They come to the city every Ramazan and return home with a tidy sum.

Thanks to the efforts of food writers like the late Behram ‘Busybee’ Contractor, Mumbai comes to feast here on pheasant — bater. Fattened for the feast, the brownish birds are displayed at every stall, never mind the wildlife laws. After diners make their choice, the bird is expertly slaughtered and skewered on a charcoal grill before being served with sliced onions and mint chutney. Most people avert their eyes till a plate of delicious bater is thrust under their noses.

Keeping with the solemnity of the occasion, the neighbourhood is ‘dry’. Till a few years ago, the more adventurous types discreetly quaffed their favourite poison out of hip flasks while waiting in their cars to be served. Traffic regulations and the burgeoning crowds put paid to that.

The main course done, it is time for dessert. The roadside chaps have no chance before the legendary Sulaiman Mithaiwala. Huge frying pans on coal braziers on the footpath are frying the famed reddish brown malpuas in ghee. One malpua nicely suffices for four. Phirnis and idli-like shandals served with white sweet sauce and home-made ice-cream bring up the rear.

At less than Rs 600 for two persons, the fare seems reasonably priced till one realizes that the locals pay far less. “We can spot an ‘outsider’ from afar,” a waiter once told me.

OPED

The face of Palestinian nationalism

Yasser Arafat, who died in France today, was the standard-bearer of Palestinian nationalism for nearly half a century who never saw his dream of an independent state become a reality.

A career that saw him graduate from guerrilla leader to the Nobel Prize-winning President of the Palestinian Authority, fizzled out amid Israeli calls for his assassination and demands from his own people for drastic reform.

But his status as the 40-year symbol of the Palestinians’ fight for their homeland was never challenged and he leaves a huge gap, difficult to fill.

His death at 75 also showed that time finally caught up with a man known as a survivor, who outlived nearly all his great rivals, even cheating death by walking away from a 1992 plane crash in the Libyan desert.

Yasser Arafat was born Mohammed Abdel-Rawf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Hussaini, on August 4, 1929. The official version of his life history records that he was born in Jerusalem. However, numerous biographers have established that he was, in fact, born in Cairo, where his father, from Gaza, owned a business. He spent his childhood shuttling between the Egyptian capital and Palestine.

By 17, he was running guns to Palestinian groups fighting the creation of a Jewish state as the British mandate in Palestine crumbled after the end of World War II.

He fought in the 1948 war between Israel and its Arab neighbours that immediately followed the foundation of the Jewish state.

Shattered by Israel’s crushing victory, he returned to Egypt and Cairo University, where he studied engineering and became involved in Palestinian political circles.

Falling foul of Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser, Arafat left Cairo for Kuwait where he established an engineering business with fellow Palestinians.

Together with Khalil al-Wazir, Faruq Khaddumi, Salah Khalaf and Mahmud Abbas, he founded the Fatah movement in 1959 to fight against the Jewish state.

Arafat, who had taken the nom de guerre of Abu Ammar, was elected chairman of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in February, 1969, and stepped on to the world stage in his trademark Arab headdress, or keffiyeh, and green fatigues.

Short, paunchy and usually sporting stubble, Arafat rose to leadership by the force of his fiery personality, his acute instinct for political survival and his total dedication to the cause.

Invited to address the UN General Assembly in November 1974, Arafat summed up his philosophy in words still relevant three decades on. “Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter’s gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand,” he told world leaders in New York.

After securing the PLO leadership, Arafat began an odyssey that saw him wind up in Tunisia after being expelled from Jordan by King Hussein’s troops in 1970 and from Lebanon by Israeli forces, led by his nemesis Ariel Sharon, in 1982.

With military options running out and the eruption of the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in the West Bank and Gaza in 1987 he began to negotiate with Israel.

Arafat renounced terrorism in December 1988 and recognised Israel’s right to exist, prompting the US to end a 13-year ban on talks with the PLO.

A Palestinian delegation was included in the Jordanian team to the 1991 Madrid conference which launched a US-and Russian-backed attempt to find a comprehensive peace between Israel and its Arab neighbours.

As the Madrid talks dragged on, Israel and PLO representatives began secret direct talks in Norway.

The resulting first Oslo agreement, signed in Washington in September 1993, ushered in Palestinian autonomy in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho.

Arafat returned to Palestinian territory in July 1994 and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

But the peace process was derailed when a Jewish extremist gunned down Rabin November 4, 1995, and it has never really recovered.

US President Bill Clinton brought Arafat and then Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak to his Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland in July 2000. The talks, aimed at a final peace settlement, collapsed, paving the way for the eruption of the second intifada two months later.

Under heavy international pressure, he reluctantly agreed to appoint his first-ever prime minister, Mahmud Abbas, in April 2003. Abbas’ successor, Ahmed Qorei, has endured an equally tempestuous relationship with Arafat, threatening to quit at least twice in just over a year.

The Israeli government, headed by Sharon since February 2001, had long since stopped talking with Arafat. — AFP

After Arafat, who?

The following Palestine leaders are possible successor to Arafat: Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie, 66, a veteran ally of Arafat, was the key negotiator in secret talks with Israelis in Oslo that led to interim peace deals in 1993. Qurie, also known as Abu Ala, gained a reputation as one of the more skilled Palestinian politicians in his role as speaker of the Palestinian legislature.

But unlike Arafat, he lacks charisma and has little popularity with the public. Long Arafat’s number two in the Palestine Liberation Organisation, Mahmoud Abbas, 69, co-authored interim peace deals a decade ago that gave Palestinians limited self-rule.

He served as prime minister for four months in 2003, but resigned after losing a power struggle with Arafat. Abbas has avoided public attention as much as Arafat sought it.

Seen as a possible successor to Arafat in the long term, Marwan Barghouthi is serving an Israeli jail sentence for orchestrating murders, a charge he denied.

The fiery orator is widely regarded as the grassroots political leader of the uprising begun in 2000 and helped coordinate the first ‘’Intifada’’ that ended in 1993.

Articulate with magnetism, Barghouthi, 45, became the most popular Palestinian leader after the president because of his perceived distance from corruption in Arafat’s circle.

Mohammed Dahlan is a former interior minister and security chief in Gaza without an official post. But he remains perhaps the most powerful of several strongmen in a territory ridden by factional fighting.

He is prominent in a younger pro-reform generation posing a leadership challenge to the old guard around Arafat.

Jibril Rajoub formerly oversaw the Palestinian internal security apparatus in the West Bank and served most recently as Arafat’s national security adviser. Rajoub is a fluent Hebrew speaker who had many coordinating contacts with Israeli officials during the peaceful 1994-2000 period of Palestinian self-rule.

But his image slipped among Palestinians when he left his headquarters with the apparent acquiescence of besieging Israeli forces in 2002. — Reuters

Delhi Durbar
Prime Minister seen as headmaster

Some of the senior ministers in Dr Manmohan Singh’s Cabinet have not taken kindly to submitting a report card about the functioning of their ministries and departments with specific reference to the implementation of the Common Minimum Programme (CMP).

He is believed to have taken his “class” beginning with the junior ministers not having independent charge. The complaint of these ministers of state is that their seniors have not allocated any work to them.

After a while, the irrepressible Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav suggested that it was time to invite UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi for dinner. She had to wait in another room as the Congress chief cannot attend Cabinet meetings or those of the Council of Ministers convened by Dr Manmohan Singh.

Shivraj Patil’s in-house meetings

Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil may claim that his three-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir was successful and a step forward with the Centre’s peace initiative, but political observers in the Valley feel that the series of meetings were nothing but “in-house” ones which will have no impact whatsoever on the ground.

During his visit to Srinagar, Patil began his engagements in keeping with protocol. He first called on the Governor, then the Chief Minister, and the Deputy Chief Minister, MLAs, MPs, opposition leaders, etc. There was not a single meeting with leaders of any of the separatist groups.

This prompted one political observer to comment that if he had gone to J and K to speak to those who are already in league with the state and Central governments, then the Home Minister could have had his “in-house meeting” through the hotline and helped save resources spent on his visit by way of security arrangements and hospitality.

Rahul Gandhi and civil aviation

While most consultative committees of MPs were constituted after the last Budget session of Parliament, the one for the Civil Aviation Ministry fell in place just last month.

The reason: Rahul Gandhi had evinced interest in civil aviation. However, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad sought to consult Sonia Gandhi before finalising the list. Her nod was necessary just in case she had other plans for her son. But that was not to be and Rahul will sit at meetings of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to the Ministry of Civil Aviation.

Duplicating PMO’s work

Is Statistics and Programme Implementation Minister Oscar Fernandes duplicating the work of the Prime Minister’s Office? The answer would seem in the affirmative. Even though the PMO has issued directives on the implementation of each of the 190-odd items in the Common Minimum Programme, the ministry headed by Fernandes has also issued a similar circular fixing additional responsibility on the political heads.

Contributed by S Satyanarayanan, Gaurav Choudhury and Prashant Sood

REFLECTIONS

Why do you waste your time searching for
Him in temples while He sleeps in your heart?

— The Upanishads

See the flower. How generously it distributes its perfume and its honey. It gives to all, gives freely of its love. And when it work is done, it falls away quietly. Try to be like the flower, unassuming despite all its qualities.

— The Bhagvad Gita

The purpose of creation was to teach each jiv the remembrance of God.

— Guru Nanak

Anything which is a hindrance to the fight of the soul is a delusion and a snare, even like the body which often does hinder you is the path of salvation.

— Mahatma Gandhi

Something wonderful, something hidden. A gift unique to you. Find it.

— Emerson