O P I N I O N S

EDITORIALS

Compelling reasons
It was too risky to attend Dhaka summit
INDIA was constrained to take the decision not to attend the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit at Dhaka which was to begin on February 6. Two compelling reasons for the decision were the extraordinary situation in Nepal and the recent developments in the host country. India’s decision would have pained Dhaka but it could not be helped.

Mess in Goa
The Speaker is wholly to blame
THE dismissal of Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar and the installation of Mr Pratapsinh Rane as his successor are mainly a result of Assembly Speaker Vishwas Satarkar’s irresponsible conduct in the House. Both the Governor and the Speaker owe an explanation to the nation.

Hike that cheers
The Left wins, the salaried benefits
WEDNESDAY’S decision to raise the rate of interest on the Employees Provident Fund by 1 per cent should cheer the employees as also the Left parties. In most cases, contributions to the EPF are the only savings that employees make to take care of their pre- and post-retirement needs.

• Thought for the day

ARTICLE

Consensus in democracy
Foreign and defence policies need to be debated
by J. Sri Raman
Answering questions in the Lok Sabha on the External Affairs Minister’s reported observations in Seoul, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently affirmed his government’s commitment to “continuity and consensus in foreign and defence policies”. The absence of any political and media reaction to the statement suggests its acceptance as an unexceptionable axiom.

MIDDLE

The secret code
by Raj Kadyan
IT was the first social function in my diplomatic assignment. We sat next to each other at a dinner-dance evening in the Hilton, Paris. True to her communist mode she wore a long-sleeved loose jacket with high neck. On our round table her husband sat two seats away, almost facing us.

OPED

From Amritsar to US Congress
Recognition for Dalip Singh Saund
by Roopinder Singh
Now a post office in the USA will soon be named after a person from a village that did not even have a school, let alone a post office when he lived there. This is the story of a remarkable man who created history by becoming the first US Congressman of Indian origin in 1957.

Delhi Durbar
Bajan Lal to be CM?
With the one-day poll in Haryana behind them, the contestants will have to cool their heels virtually till the end of this month when the results will be known. This has irked all sides of the political spectrum.

• On a sticky wicket
• The Congress requisitioned the services of Prime
• Congress for soft Hindutva?
• Sharad Pawar meets Jaya

REFLECTIONS

EDITORIALS

Compelling reasons
It was too risky to attend Dhaka summit

INDIA was constrained to take the decision not to attend the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit at Dhaka which was to begin on February 6. Two compelling reasons for the decision were the extraordinary situation in Nepal and the recent developments in the host country. India’s decision would have pained Dhaka but it could not be helped. The security situation in Bangladesh could not have been overlooked by India when it weighed the pros and cons of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh attending it. There have been a series of incidents in the recent past, including a bomb attack on the very hotel where the Prime Minister would have been put up and the assassination of a former finance minister of Bangladesh. Also, a nationwide strike would have coincided with the summit. In short, the situation was far from congenial for holding the summit.

Of course, Dhaka has claimed that it has made foolproof security arrangements. India could not have relied on the promise given the past incidents and the anti-India sentiments that prevail among a section of the ruling establishment. For years, India has been bringing to Dhaka’s notice that insurgents operating in the Northeast find a safe sanctuary in Bangladesh when the security forces turn the heat on them in India. Apart from expressing lip sympathy, Dhaka has done precious little to smoke them out from its territory or provide logistical support to the Indian forces to deal with them on their own. It should have learnt from Bhutan which is no longer a safe haven for the United Liberation Front of Asom.

Equally important, India’s participation in the summit would have lent a measure of legitimacy to the royal coup in Kathmandu, which it has roundly criticised. In fact, it was quite a surprise for India that despite the grave situation in his country, King Gyanendra decided to attend the summit. Obviously, he wanted the SAARC forum to give the impression that the situation in Nepal was normal. India knows only too well that it is not. In any case, if a SAARC summit has to be productive, it should be held in situations of normalcy when the participants do not have to worry about their own security. Alas, Dhaka did not fill the bill.

Mess in Goa
The Speaker is wholly to blame

THE dismissal of Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar and the installation of Mr Pratapsinh Rane as his successor are mainly a result of Assembly Speaker Vishwas Satarkar’s irresponsible conduct in the House. Both the Governor and the Speaker owe an explanation to the nation. Clearly, there was no reason for him to suspend Independent MLA Philipe Neri Rodriguez when the House took up the vote of confidence motion against the Chief Minister. The fate of the Parrikar government was precariously hanging in the balance. The only course left before the Speaker was to ensure the smooth conduct of the House in a fair and impartial manner. But Mr Satarkar peremptorily suspended Mr Rodriguez and got him evicted by the Marshals. He ordered the voting in such a way that most of the Congress legislators could not even exercise their franchise.

The Speaker appeared to be more loyal than the King. Mr Satarkar has acted in a highly arbitrary and partisan manner, unbecoming of the high office of the Speaker. His rationale for suspending Mr Rodriguez was that he did not appear before him despite intimation in connection with a petition filed by the BJP seeking his disqualification. This is absurd and unconvincing.

The Constitution has bestowed on the Speaker untrammelled powers in conducting the business and proceedings of the House. But he cannot behave irresponsibly and irrationally. There are occasions when Speakers did save tottering state governments by exercising their casting vote. Kerala, for instance, witnessed this example for months together when Mr A.C. Jose was the Speaker. Similarly, Mr Satarkar should have exercised this option on Wednesday in the event of a tie. However, his deliberate action of preventing a legislator from exercising his legitimate right to vote was totally unwarranted as it negated the very essence of parliamentary democracy. Instead of facilitating a smooth resolution of the crisis in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution, the Speaker, by his partisan conduct, has exacerbated it. What a pity!

Hike that cheers
The Left wins, the salaried benefits 

WEDNESDAY’S decision to raise the rate of interest on the Employees Provident Fund by 1 per cent should cheer the employees as also the Left parties. In most cases, contributions to the EPF are the only savings that employees make to take care of their pre- and post-retirement needs. Interest rates have been on the decline largely because of lower inflation and infusion of funds from abroad. This had led many employees to park their surplus funds in real estate and stock markets where returns are high, but so are risks.

The interest rate hike may prevent employees from splurging their hard-earned money on consumer goods, the race for acquiring which is all too visible, and bring them back to the safety of EPF. Squandering EPF savings, meant essentially for old age and pressing needs like a daughter’s marriage or for buying a house, on lifestyle items may render one helpless in tackling the uncertainties of post-retirement life. The cost of living in general and of medicare in particular has been on the rise. This calls for maximum possible savings. Better returns from the EPF will induce employees to save more.

The Left demand for a raise in the EPF interest rate to shield employees from possible onslaughts of liberalisation had been rejected in the past by the Finance Ministry on the ground that the EPF organisation could not pay out more than what it earned. Now the government has bowed to the Leftists’ demand so that they do not protest the hike in the FDI limit in telecommunications from 49 to 74 per cent. It is a trade-off and an unavoidable outcome of coalition politics. Consequently. the Finance Ministry will have to cough up Rs 700 crore more to lighten the burden of the EPF organisation. The politics of give and take is at play.

Thought for the day

In politics a man must learn to rise above principle. — American proverb

ARTICLE

Consensus in democracy
Foreign and defence policies need to be debated
by J. Sri Raman

Answering questions in the Lok Sabha on the External Affairs Minister’s reported observations in Seoul, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently affirmed his government’s commitment to “continuity and consensus in foreign and defence policies”. The absence of any political and media reaction to the statement suggests its acceptance as an unexceptionable axiom.

There would indeed appear to be a consensus on the imperative of a consensus on the specified policies. Neither of these consensuses, in fact, is compatible with the polity created by the country’s most fundamental consensus. Neither, in other words, is compatible with democracy.

Some may defend the Prime Minister’s observation, despite its basic untenability, by citing its immediate background. Mr K. Natwar Singh, who had earlier embarrassed the government on the issue of Indian troops for Iraq, had just repeated his act with a remark on the country’s nuclear policy in a media interview in South Korea. This, suggest the defenders of the claim on “consensus”, compelled the statement of Mr Manmohan Singh. The defence leaves much to be desired, to say the least.

The government’s embarrassment over the remark attributed this time to the External Affairs Minister (and subsequently denied) reflects embarrassment over its nuclear policy itself. The policy it now professes represents a sharp departure from the policy the Congress professed for decades — as one with a “national consensus” behind it. It has not been made clear when and how the policy of making India a nuclear-weapon state and then a nuclear-weapon power won such a “consensus” in its favour.

The current policy on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), too, represents a similar embarrassment for the party and most of its allies in and outside the government. According to the denied report, Mr Natwar Singh said, while India had always opposed the discriminatory NPT, it would like North Korea as a signatory to the NPT to abide by it. Whether he said it or not, the formulation clearly flows from the government’s keenness to join the “nuclear club” and enforce the NPT on the rest of the world. This, too, marks a sharp departure from the policy the Congress has professed for decades — again, as one with a “national consensus” behind it.

The Prime Minister, thus, has not exactly chosen the most convincing illustration of the commitment of the ruling Congress to a “consensus”-derived nuclear policy, a crucial dimension of the country’s defence policy. Even if he had found a better illustration, however, he would still not have been right. The point is that his party was not right when it claimed a “national consensus” in favour of its policies in the past, either. Nor was the Bharatiya Janata Party, when it adopted the Congress tactic during its terms in office.

A limited case may be made for “continuity” in the conduct of the country’s policies — as in continued adherence to past treaties or a continued commitment to participate in bilateral or multilateral events. An even more limited case may be made for policies based on a “national consensus” in times of a national emergency. No case, however, can be made for “continuity” and “consensus” in the policies of a nation, whose polity provides for a change of governments on the basis of a popular mandate.

It would be idle, indeed, to pretend that such a “consensus” ever existed in the policies specified by the Prime Minister. Take, for an important but now-forgotten instance, the foreign policy of non-alignment. The Congress government of Jawaharlal Nehru adopted and conducted this policy amidst fierce opposition in the country.

The Jan Sangh, the BJP’s parent party, and the Swatantra Party ran a full-fledged campaign, unrestrained by any idea of the need for a “consensus” in foreign policy, for years against non-alignment. The two parties borrowed from the redoubtable John Foster Dulles to denounce the policy as “amoral” and even “immoral”. It was unprincipled, they argued, to stay “neutral” in the Cold War and not to join the just anti-Communist crusade conducted from Washington. They gave up the campaign only after a popular consensus over non-alignment evolved by the early seventies.

The campaign led to unbridled opposition, as a logical corollary, from the same parties (as well as the Socialists) to the policy of special relations with the Soviet Union. The brittle pages of the back issues of “Organiser” and “Swarajya”, associated with the Sangh and the Swatantra respectively, contain much fire- and-brimstone stuff against friendship with what the Right and the far Right considered Satanic forces. This policy, too, was to win a consensus in its favour, but only after years of a debate that democracy sanctions and sanctifies.

The same goes for the defence policy, very much a derivative of the foreign policy. Wide differences in security and geopolitical perceptions and perspectives cannot but warrant vigorous debates on defence policy issues. Particularly memorable are debates on such issues in relation to China that rocked Parliament with political ramifications outside in the period before and after the war of 1962.

Aspects of the defence policy were involved, too, in the Bofors issue. It was a corruption issue, of course, that made the name of the big gun a household word across the nation. The election issue, however, led also to an educative debate on the role of middlemen in defence deals.

As mentioned before, the county’s nuclear policy, too, is very much a part of its defence policy. Contrary to subsequent official claims, no consensual approval greeted the proclamation of India as a nuclear-weapon state in 1998. The Left opposed it openly. And, the then columns of Mr Mani Shankar Aiyar (despite the disclaimer in a fine-print footnote, distancing him from the party line) are proof that there was no consensus in the Congress on the issue.

To claim a consensus in India’s foreign and defence policies is no different from claiming that there was a consensus in the US on bombing Vietnam out despite the country’s anti-war protests that won in the end. It is the same as claiming a consensus in the US on the Iraq war despite the millions who have said “no” to it in the streets. To claim a different rule of democracy for India would come dangerously close to arguing for a lesser democracy for less developed countries.

The soft-spoken Mr Manmohan Singh may have meant only to set the record straight on what Mr. Natwar Singh said or did not say. The Prime Minister’s statement in Parliament, however, should serve to prompt a long-overdue debate on “national consensus” and democracy.

MIDDLE

The secret code
by Raj Kadyan

IT was the first social function in my diplomatic assignment. We sat next to each other at a dinner-dance evening in the Hilton, Paris. True to her communist mode she wore a long-sleeved loose jacket with high neck. On our round table her husband sat two seats away, almost facing us.

“Do you speak French?” I asked conversationally.

“My French is smaller than my English,” she replied demurely.

Giving up the linguistic line I broached another subject, “Where did you meet your husband?”

“I meet him when hungry,” she said.

Perhaps it was the quizzical expression on my face that prompted her to add, “Both of we working in Budapest”. Our small talk proceeded haltingly for the next half hour. What appeared peculiar was that before answering a question she always looked at her husband, as if for approval. I did not give it much mind.

The band came on. I asked her for a dance. She looked at her husband and I felt he signalled an eyebrow approval.

She selected a spot where her husband could see us. Without a word she started a slow foxtrot, quite out of tune with the band. I politely followed. I had a struggle following the beat and synchronising the step. Her loose slacks made it impossible to see her foot movement.

I gradually began to feel a strange pressure of her grip on my right shoulder. It wasn’t the constant squeezing action, but the pressure passed on from one finger to the next. I wondered what it could mean. Then a chilling thought made occurrence.

She could be passing a coded message to her husband. I shivered at the possibility. I tried to furtively detect if there was any device wired to her wrist. But her sleeves almost reached her knuckles; perhaps on purpose, I thought.

The finger pressure now felt even more pronounced. I noticed her husband staring at us stoically. A large drop of perspiration materialised at the back of my neck and glided down. My lips went dry. All those shenanigans of the regime depicted in George Orwell’s book “1984” came back in reflection. I felt trapped. I wished the music would stop. But the number went on and on.

At last the band paused and we headed for our table. I was trying to recollect what national secrets I may have inadvertently divulged. My pulse was racing and coherent thought became impossible. Sitting down brought some physical relief but I was still sweating.

She said something to her husband in their native language and the latter burst out laughing. Then looking towards me he said in perfect English, “My wife wants to apologise. Being a novice at dancing, she was counting her steps on finger tips”.

OPED

From Amritsar to US Congress
Recognition for Dalip Singh Saund
by Roopinder Singh

Congressman Dalip Singh Saund with President John F. Kennedy

Now a post office in the USA will soon be named after a person from a village that did not even have a school, let alone a post office when he lived there. This is the story of a remarkable man who created history by becoming the first US Congressman of Indian origin in 1957.

Chhajalwadi, 24 km from Amritsar, was the village where Dalip Singh Saund was born on September 20, 1899, and from where he and his brother Karnail Singh would walk to school. On Tuesday, the US House of Representatives unanimously approved a bill to name the US postal service office building located at 30777 Rancho California Road in Temecula, California, as the Dalip Singh Saund post office building. The bill has to be passed by the Senate and President Bush before it comes into effect.

Dalip Singh was elected to the US Congress, not once, but three times. He lived in a joint family, the elders of which were engaged in farming as well as construction business. His father was Natha Singh and one of his three brothers was Karnail Singh, who retired as Chairman, Railway Board, in 1962 and whose engineering skills were legendary. The third brother, Sardul Singh, looked after the family’s land.

“Dalip Singh was always interested in public work. He prevailed upon his parents and made them start a school in the village, something he and his brothers had been deprived of,” says Anup Singh, Karnail Singh’s son and Saund’s nephew, who followed his in his father’s footsteps before becoming a Vice-Chancellor of Punjab Technical University.

Saund studied in a school in Baba Bakala, near Amritsar, and at the Prince of Wales College, Jammu, where he earned his BA degree in mathematics from Panjab University in 1919.

He immigrated to the USA in 1920 and he wanted to study food canning and open up an industry in India. “I assured my family that I would study in the United States for at least two and not more than three years and would then return home,” he wrote in his book “Congressman from India”.

He was a student of College of Agriculture, University of California, Berkeley, and lived in an accommodation maintained by Sikh Temple, Stockton. He also took additional courses in mathematics. This was to become his field later and he eventually got a PhD degree in Mathematics.

A political being, he was the national president of the Hindustani Association of America, and though he was qualified, he could not get any teaching job, because of racial discrimination. He took up various blue-collar jobs, including foreman of a cotton picking gang, and other work in canning facilities.

“In the summer of 1925, I decided to go to the southern California desert valley and make a living as a farmer,” says Dalip Singh in his book. He was then still a turbaned Sikh, though later he became clean shaven. He had a tough time as a farmer and though he wrote “My Mother India” (published by the Stockton Gurdwara in 1930) which was a rebuttal to “Mother India”, an anti-India book by Catherine Mayo that had caused much agitation among Indians.

Dalip Singh was always politically active and he was a good speaker, using gurdwaras or other public fora such as clubs, for his talks. He married Marian Kostain in1928. She gave up her US citizenship for him since a Federal law dating from 1790 declared that only White immigrants were eligible for citizenship. She came form a distinguished family of Hungarian painters, and her father was an artist, as was her brother. Dalip and Marian Saund had three children. The eldest, Dalip Jr, was born in 1930, followed by his sisters Julie and Ellie.

In 1946 the Luce-Celler Bill liberalised immigration and Saund was one of the early petitioners for citizenship, which he got in 1949.

A year later, he was elected judge of Justice Court, Westmoreland Judicial District, county of Imperial Valley, but following a lawsuit by local businessmen, he was denied the seat because of a technicality. He was elected judge of the same court in 1952 and served until his resignation on January 1, 1957.

He won the poll to the 29th congressional district by 3,300 votes. He became the first Democrat to have won from the constituency and the first Asian American to do so. He was on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and in 1957, he was sent as an official emissary of the House of Representatives, to tour various Asian countries, including Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines and India.

He received tumultuous welcome in India, and won people’s hearts when he spoke to them in Punjabi. He was re-elected to the Congress in 1958 and in 1960, but he suffered a severe stroke, in May, 1962. It left him disabled — he could neither walk, nor speak. However, over a period of time, with the devoted attention of his wife, he eventually was able to walk, with the aid of a walker.

Dalip Singh Saund died on April 22, 1973. He left behind a rich legacy. Indian-Americans have a string of achievements to their credit. However, politically it took 49 years for Bobby Jindal, the man from Hisar to reach the House of Representatives on a trail blazed for Indians like him by Dalip Singh Saund from Chhajalwadi.

Delhi Durbar
Bajan Lal to be CM?

With the one-day poll in Haryana behind them, the contestants will have to cool their heels virtually till the end of this month when the results will be known. This has irked all sides of the political spectrum.

However, for the Congress leaders the scene inevitably shifts to the national Capital. Lobbying for the leadership stakes has already begun.

Smug Congress leaders from Haryana are upbeat that they are regaining power in the state though Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala believes they have a real fight on their hands.

From the fractious Haryana Congress, there are several contenders with three-times Chief Minister Bhajan Lal in the vanguard.

Then there is Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Sir Chhotu Ram’s grandson Birender Singh. While Birender Singh, who missed the Chief Minister’s post in 1991 following the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, believes that the Congress President will opt for a younger leader like in him for the Chief Ministership.

Bhajan Lal insists he is way ahead of all others in the leadership stakes. He managed the ticket for a maximum number of his candidates followed by other faction leaders like Birender Singh, Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Union ministers Selja and Rao Inderjit Singh.

On a sticky wicket

That Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala realises there is an anti-incumbency factor against the INLD is evident from the fact that he is contesting for the assembly from two seats. He roped in former J and K Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah to campaign in the Muslim-

dominated areas of Haryana as also Rajya Sabha MP Tarlochan Singh to do his bit in the Punjabi-dominated areas.

The Congress requisitioned the services of Prime

Minister Manmohan Singh at the last minute as the party found it was on a somewhat sticky wicket in Haryana.

Congress for soft Hindutva?

Is the Congress heading for a soft Hindutva? That is the question doing the rounds with Rahul Gandhi, attending brainstorming sessions of the youth brigade at religious centres.

He did so the other day when a meeting was organised at Lord Ram’s Chitrakoot. The next brain- storming session of this youthful Congress brigade is scheduled to be held at Lord Krishna’s Vrindavan. This amidst doubts in the Congress high command if it should withdraw outside support to the Mulayam Singh Yadav government in Uttar Pradesh. Is the Congress now seeking divine intervention to rejuvinate the Congress, which is in a shambles in Uttar Pradesh?

Sharad Pawar meets Jaya

Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar’s meetings with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa last month have raised eyebrows in the corridors of power at the Centre. Did Pawar and Jayalalithaa discuss measures connected with tsunami relief or was there more to it?

Considering that Pawar and Jayalalithaa have been friends for more than two decades, there is speculation on what they could have discussed. Sources aver Jayalalithaa has expressed apprehensions over the disproportionate assets case against her which is to be taken up in a court in Bangalore.

Contributed by Gaurav Choudhury, S Satyanarayanan and Manoj Kumar.

REFLECTIONS

— The Buddha