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Negative vote Populism
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King’s coup in
Nepal
Feeling is seeing
Wildlife crimes in
Punjab A pop
culture coup for the KGB Chatterati
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Populism at play RAILWAY Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav has left the passenger fares untouched in his second budget. This may be due to his own compulsions or the UPA government’s pro-poor stance or the Leftist pressure. However, the Rakesh Mohan Committee’s recommendation for an 8 to 10 per cent hike in the second class fares in five years, once again, remains unimplemented. It may appear that the freight rates have remained unchanged. Actually, the freight rates have been rationalised. Groups of commodities have been merged to reduce their number from 4,000 to 80, resulting in a higher tariff for certain commodities. The reclassification has reduced the freight cost of kerosene and LPG. The offer of concessional travel to farmers, milk producers, unemployed youth and rural students, though populist, is welcome. The Railways, which runs 14,000 trains daily and is the world’s largest single employer after China’s army, accounts for 3 per cent of the Centre’s spending. The biggest of the world’s four railway networks, it lacks professionalism and is politics-driven, saddled with huge losses because of a bloated workforce and mismanagement of assets. Some 230 railway projects, requiring a Rs 43,000-crore investment, are pending. Projects worth Rs 20,000 crore will remain unfinished even after five years. Ministers tend to run the Railways as their personal fiefdoms. This year, on the Prime Minister’s intervention, the Railways has received Rs 850 crore more to improve its efficiency. The income of the Railways grew by 8.3 per cent up to December 2004, over the corresponding period of the preceding year. The introduction of 46 new trains will further bolster the railway revenues. Lack of safety continues to be a serious concern of the travelling public. A special railway safety fund has been created with Rs 3, 522 crore, but nothing less than accident-free, timely train services will satisfy today’s passengers, who are demanding and assertive of their rights. The Rakesh Mohan Committee’s other suggestions like corporatisation of the production units, induction of professionals in the Railway Board and hiving off of non-core activities have also been ignored. This is a letdown from a government of the reformers. |
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A week is a long time in politics. — Harold Wilson |
King’s coup in Nepal King
Gyanendra, the 11th scion of the Shah dynasty, appears to be on a deathwish, taking Nepal on a course of self-destruct. He has pulled out most of his mothballed cronies to help him rule and reign for 100 days, three years or till kingdom come, whichever is later, though the real power behind the throne is Chief of Army Staff, Gen Pyar Jung Thapa. Recently, there were two Democracy Day celebrations in Nepal: one in Tundikhel Parade Ground, organised by the Raj Parishad where the King and the Royal Nepal Army (RNA), the crushers of democracy, were the star attractions; and the other by the ousted political parties on the streets of Kathmandu, which was snuffed out by the RNA even before they could assemble. And there was a third one — in Delhi, organised by second-rung leaders of political formations who fled Kathmandu to protest against the King’s coup. Such is the recurring irony of democracy in Nepal. The appointment of two have-been Prime Ministers — Tulsi Giri and Kirti Nidhi Bista, both notorious for their royal patronage — as vice-chairmen of the Council of Ministers and the establishment of a Royal Commission on Corruption Control whose composition is frighteningly anti-people, have demonstrated that the King has deployed his forces in a fight to finish. Anyone inside or outside Nepal who thinks the King can be brought around to restoring democracy does not understand the makeup of Raja Gyanendra. No amount of international pressure or persuasion is going to make him roll back the royal
putsch. It will have to come from within. The Government of India (GOI), which has a history of shaping democracy movements in Nepal, was fooled by Gyanendra over his intentions after he took over the throne following the Palace massacre. The BBC television film that followed called Murder Most Royal makes it clear that the royal debate over restoring absolute monarchy and crushing the Maoists were the real issues in the Palace and never nurturing democracy. It was Gyanendra who became King first at age 4 in 1950 who felt it was his divine task to ensure that power remained with the Palace and was not transferred to the people of Nepal. The GOI failed to recognise that the threat posed to democracy by the King was far greater than the threat the Maoists posed to Nepal. This led to the continued but confused chanting of the mantra that the prosperity and stability of Nepal rested on the twin pillars of constitutional monarchy and multiparty democracy whereas what actually existed on the ground was absolute monarchy and notional democracy. Delhi should have read the writing on the wall once the King dissolved Parliament and later dismissed the government. In fact, he ceased to be a constitutional monarch on October 4, 2002. February 1, 2005, was merely the day of the ceremonial takeover. The debate in Delhi is currently centered around making a choice between the King and the Maoists. A sizeable thinking is that if you do not support the King, the Maoists will seize power in Kathmandu and we would have to deal with a terrorist group. This assumption is flawed. First, the Maoists, who are operationally in a strategic stalemate for the last two years were only contemplating launching a strategic offensive in February this year. The King’s coup preempted both the Maoist offensive and Prime Minister Deuba’s planned elections. The Maoists launched their last major attack against the RNA in March last year at Beni. Since then they have mounted mere nibbling operations at a few places because they do not have the capacity to dislodge an RNA garrison any more. Worse, they do not have the capability to hold ground. Like the RNA the Maoists are also severely overstretched. They are short of weapons, ammunition and logistics. The emergency rule has dislocated their communication network based on landlines and cell-phones. Given this ground reality, it is inconceivable that the Maoists can seize power in Nepal militarily any time. The allied imponderable being touted is that once Maoists are in power, together with the Maoists in India, especially those bordering Nepal, they would jointly create a compact revolutionary zone, stretching from Hitauda to Hyderabad. This too is a fallacious assumption and betrays a proper understanding of the differences in the character and motivation of the two Maoist movements, notwithstanding the tactical, logistical and even some ideological linkages between them. Another line of thinking is that should India abandon the King, China and Pakistan will occupy the space vacated by Delhi. This logic was tenable in 1960 when the first Royal coup was mounted. Geography and geopolitics will constrain both China and Pakistan from crossing the red line in Nepal. Once India and the international community impose economic sanctions and stop military assistance, the RNA is not going to grind to a halt. It has grown in strength over the last three years thanks to India’s massive modernisation and training programmes by 30,000 soldiers and 35,000 police men. From an Army of seven operational brigades in 2001, it is today a force of five operational divisions with 14 brigades, supported by Special Forces, airlift and fire power. On paper, this is no mean force. Unfortunately, the RNA does not have the stomach to take on the Maoists. For the RNA there is one emerging problem: its depleted resources — 7500 troops are on UN Peacekeeping and guarding national parks — are being diverted towards promulgating Emergency Rule and “the Beginning of the New Era”, the King’s one point programme for entrenching a New Monarchy. If the democratic forces unite and start an overground/underground movement, that would open the second front against the RNA. It should be quite clear that stopping the supply of military equipment will not degrade the RNA’s current fighting capacity, certainly not for the next six months or so. The decisions by India to stop military aid and the US and the UK in reviewing their nominal military aid programmes would send the right signals to Narayanhity Palace in Kathmandu. South Block need not lose any sleep over the suspension of its military assistance programme. There are two other issues at hand. First, how does India help in restoring democracy in Nepal when the King is determined to prevent this from happening? Many feel that it is not India’s job to promote democracy in the neighbourhood or elsewhere. It is up to the people of Nepal to decide what form of government they want. We do not go about lecturing Pakistan or Myanmar about democracy any more. We will, of course, support democracy without endangering our national interest and India will deal with whichever government is in power. This reasoning flies in the face of what we have been consistently doing in Nepal for decades — supporting and promoting democracy without undermining monarchy. It is time now to make our choice. Three weeks of martial law seems a lifetime for the people of Nepal. Delhi has finally seen the real face of King Gyanendra. Sooner than later, India will have to abandon the new monarchy in Nepal. Gyanendra is forcing this choice on New
Delhi. |
Feeling is seeing
THREE years ago when my laptop conked out, I thought of going in for a desktop. I was weighing the pros and cons of buying a branded product, when a friend volunteered to assemble one for me. And when he said he would personally buy all the components made by the best manufacturers and himself assemble them, I could not resist the offer. After all, there was a net saving of over Rs 5,000. What if something happened to the machine? “Am I not here to set it right?” he asked in a reassuring tone. That was a clincher. Once he got the green signal from me, he went to Nehru Place, the capital of computer hardware in New Delhi, and bought all the components. There were at least 100 parts from the monitor to the keyboard to the mouse and to the motherboard. He also brought several software compact discs, some of which came free with the peripherals. He had a young boy to help him in his work. Though I had heard about assembling of computers becoming a cottage industry at Nehru Place, I had never seen anyone doing it. I was as curious as a child given a synthesiser on his birthday by his doting mother when my friend began opening the packets one by one. Each time he took out an item, he would tenderly feel the piece and keep it in a certain order, comprehensible only to him. He was so engrossed in his work that he did not care to have even the tea served to him, not to speak of the snacks my wife prepared specially for him. This was not surprising as he was passionate about everything that he did. The only time I heard him say mass, I was wonderstruck as he did not bother to open the liturgical book even once. With the same level of concentration he displayed while reciting the Lord’s prayer or blessing the cup and the chalice, he guided the young boy: “Now take that cylindrical part, connect the two wires of it to the bottom of the motherboard. After that, take that flat-surfaced piece and gently push it into the extreme right-hand slot on the motherboard”. Of course, he would not leave it at that. He would physically check whether the boy did as he was told. He did not want to take any chance, for the boy was a novice. Over a few hours the computer took shape: the monitor, the keyboard, the mouse, everything was in place. He checked again and again to ensure that everything was perfectly connected. We all waited with bated breath when the boy plugged it into the mains. There was no fire, no explosion. The latest version of the Windows opened as effortlessly as possible. There was no hitch whatsoever. What about the Internet? My friend had a personal Internet account with Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited. He was thoughtful enough to bring the software to load it on my computer. I logged into the system using his login name and password. In an instant, I was surfing the Net, opening my Yahoo mailbox and sending and receiving test messages. My wife and children were all excited about the new computer, which could play music and even films on Video CD. However, the excitement of watching a movie or downloading a song was nothing compared to the excitement of watching him assemble the computer. But my friend could not see the happiness writ large on our faces. Alas! he was blind.
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Wildlife crimes in Punjab Then there are numerous “green” NGOs, a considerable following of nature-conscious children from schools across the board and a growing awareness of environmental concern among the print media. There is the new Forest Act and the comprehensive Wildlife Protection Act 1972 (updated by Parliament in 2003), which together form effective instruments of State policy for the preservation of wildlife and its habitats. Above all, the visual media today reaches out to almost each family (down to the slums) with daily exposure to wildlife and nature at large. Hardly a month goes by in Punjab without startling violations of wildlife statutes. In the last 12 months alone the state has witnessed all varieties of wildlife crimes. To begin with was a keeper of the law an SDM, detained with three dead Peafowl (the national bird at that) along with the weapon used for the hunt and empty cartridge shells. A while later, two practitioners of the bird trapping trade were apprehended near Ludhiana (not by the State by apparatus but by an animal rights enthusiast) with two regal-looking eagle owls in the prime of their life. The owls were headed for an outlet at Delhi where they were expected to fetch Rs 20,000 per bird. Then there was the news of the wetland eco-system in the Gurdaspur district, once home to thousands of residents and migratory water-fowl, now misappropriated by the local panchayats. From the Harike water-fowl sanctuary, there were the disturbing reports that this “Ramsar wetland of international importance” is suffering from utter neglect by the state. Lately, there was the news from Hoshiarpur of killing a sambhar for human consumption using fail-safe traps energised by electricity and gruesome photographs of their carcasses. It will do us in Punjab no good to take the cynical stand that the scale and horrors of wildlife crimes in other states are far worse. Yes, that may be so. But if Punjab wants to be “counted” in the long run as a progressive state then it will need to showcase the preservation of its wildlife along with the wilderness habitats as much as the state’s socio-economic prosperity. Perhaps the one wildlife crime that should make every Punjabi in India and abroad hang his head in sorrow and shame occurred on January 24, 2005. Just about the time that the full dress rehearsal of the Republic Day pageant was in full swing at Delhi, we in Punjab had done to death in injudicious haste at leopard who had strayed into a school building at Phillaur. The police constables who shot the leopard looked as though they had accomplished something valorous. A trained, armed and highly motivated terrorist who sneaks inside an urban home is in a class apart from a leopard who may also be found in a similar setting. The police is trained and expected to close with the terrorist to “smoke him out and get him dead or alive” borrowing the favourite line of President Bush post 9/11. To have expected them to tackle an errant animal was in the first place a patently absurd decision. In all probability they may not have known that there is a specialised gun with a non-lethal bullet, designed to incapacitate strayed animals and thus avert a potential man-animal conflict situation. Only if a police officer had used his telephone facility to seek advice from experts at the Wildlife Institute of India (a centre of excellence) at Dehradun, that leopard need not have died in the prime of life. The Institute would have surely recommended the use of a tranquiliser gun. And one such gun was indeed available at less than 20 km from the scene of confrontation. What prompted the Chief Wildlife Warden to permit the shooting of the leopard will remain a mystery. It may not be exciting news that the latest survey places Mumbai as the fourth most populous city of the world and that it tops the ranking for India. But what will certainly be news for most is the fact that the Sanjay Gandhi National Park at Borivli is situated well inside the municipal limits of the city. Besides other wildlife, leopards of this park have always been a special attraction. As of now there are more than 30 leopards there in which once prompted Mr J.C. Daniel of the Bombay Natural History Society to remark that “these are the only leopards in the world with a metropolitan city postal address! The memory that remains with me is the sight of a leopard on his rock casually watching a Caravelle aeroplane fly over the park...” Living in such close proximity does bring about man-animal conflict situations now and then. But they are managed with efficiency and compassion. For instance, in the 1980s when numbers had crossed the holding capacity as many as 34 leopard of the park were trapped/tranquilised and removed to other sanctuaries/forests. We too should have incapacitated the Phillaur leopard with one tranquiliser dart rather than pump six lethal AK-47 bullets in him. At this stage it will serve no purpose to point the accusing finger at anyone. Rather, it is a collective failure of all of us in Punjab. Let us learn that in all future conflict situations, the benefit of the doubt must go to the animal. All civilised societies have come to abjure the death penalty in principle. Let us be liberated in our attitude to the animal world just as much. Lastly, let us remember the words of earthy wisdom addressed by the Red Indian chief of Seattle in 1854 to President Franklin Pearce of the USA: “What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would surely die from a great loneliness of the spirit.” |
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A pop culture coup for the KGB The intrepid Russian spy, saving the Motherland if not the world, has come in from the cold. Not since his heyday in the 1960s and ’70s, when espionage novels and movies grabbed the imagination of a teen-age Vladimir Putin, has the Russian secret agent enjoyed such a celebrated place in popular culture. Blockbuster movies, TV series, best-selling novels and even theme restaurants are restoring luster to the FSB, the Russian intelligence service, and its predecessor, the KGB, as the country mines the contemporary fight against terrorism and the Soviet past in a search for incorruptible heroes. For critics here, the reemergence of the heroic agent reflects the Kremlin’s desire to cultivate greater patriotism, one loyal to the strong, centralized and secretive state that is at the heart of President Putin’s ambitions for Russia. “The common ideology for many writers and filmmakers now is that the only clean institutions we inherited from the Soviet Union were the special services, and without them life in the country would be completely degraded,” says Natalia Ivanova, deputy editor of Znamya, a literary journal. “There is a correlation between who comes to power and what kind of heroes are preferred by mass culture.” Putin climbed to the KGB’s upper ranks before going into politics. Through much of the 1990s, Hollywood films and TV series and Latin American soap operas dominated movies and state television. The vast majority of homegrown production was crime sagas. “But a new trend has appeared in the last year,” says Daniil Dondurei, editor in chief of Cinema Art magazine, “and it’s clearly connected with an attempt on the part of the authorities to form patriotic consciousness in the country, particularly with regard to the 60th anniversary of victory in the Second World War.” On Sunday the Russian Defense Ministry plans to launch what it calls a channel of “patriotic TV.” It will show war documentaries and feature films to create “effective informational and ideological influences to ensure the social activities of Russian citizens,” Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov wrote in a letter quoted by the financial newspaper Kommersant. Last month, Ivanov had complained about the mass media, saying the “moronization of the people must be stopped.” “When Putin came to power, the idea came with him that the KGB is the real power in society and the guarantor of stability and safety,” says Victor Shenderovich, a political satirist who left NTV after the channel was taken over by Gazprom Media, an arm of the state-controlled gas company. “It’s amazing, really, but everyone is now trying to create legends or fairy tales about the security services.” Dramatic series such as “The Red Capella,” “Saboteur” and “KGB in a Dinner Jacket” lionize the exploits of the intelligence services in the fight against Nazi Germany and in the Cold War. Popular fictional heroes from the Soviet era such as Maj. Pronin, a James Bond knockoff, have been resurrected. Five Pronin novels have been reissued in the last year and have sold extremely well, according to Mikhail Kotomin, fiction editor at Ad Marginem Press in Moscow. It was some of the Soviet-era material now back in vogue that first attracted Putin to the KGB, according to “First Person,” a book-length series of conversations with the president that was published in 2000. “My notion of the KGB came from romantic spy stories,” Putin said, noting particularly “The Shield and the Sword,” a book, and later a movie, in which a Soviet agent infiltrates Nazi Germany. |
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Chatterati Attending
a fund-raising lecture organised by a Delhi-based NGO, Ritanjali, all were full of admiration for Javed Akhtar. He actually did a reality check. Pointing out how art was linked to more material changes in society, the poet and his wife, Shabana Azmi, spell- bound the audience in a free-wheeling discussion with NDTV’s Rajdeep Sardesai. Ritanjali has adopted a tsunami-hit village, Karaikal, where they are involved in the field of education and community development. Six students from Vasant Valley School sent by the NGO for carrying out relief work at Kalikappam village told the city’s who’s who how these three weeks had changed their lives. They helped rebuild their lives by buying them stuff, even replacing the old wooden boats with fibre glass ones. The chairman of the NGO is Arun Kapur, the man behind the success of Delhi’s top school Vasant Valley. Celebrity kids of Vasant Valley along with their parents generously do whatever is possible for Ritanjali. Nowadays resentment against NGOs seems to be in the air in many places. It is a known fact that the majority of NGOs are more involved in inviting the who’s who, clicking page 3 photos, holding seminars and workshops in five-star hotels and then inviting international organisations to generate funds. They also hold workshops and charge exorbitantly. The grassroots work is probably the last thing on their mind even after taking funds. Recently, a whole lot of licences were cancelled and registrations nullified for missing funds. Hopefully, the government will crackdown more sternly on many others. Of art and
artists We have had art coming out of our ears last week — Anjala Kuthalia’s Shah Rukh with Khan fixation so soon after Hussain’s with Madhuri. Clearly this is another artist filmi chakkar. Well, she managed to rope in a few Bollywood sideys for the show. Though the muse was absent. Then we had Sacnidra Nath Jha’s art of vibrancy of colour and a direct approach to his subject. Images of Kashi its ghats, sadhus, devotees performing “aarti”, the pantheon of gods is the “Charnamrit” collection inaugurated by Farooq Abdullah. Then the magic of black and white by Nupur Kundu. For her obviously art has no boundaries. The strong strokes establish a steady streak of confidence. But the event of the week was the b’day bash for SH Raza, the Paris-based artist, hosted by industrialist SK Modi. Dinner with top artists a crooner singing old Hindi numbers, and celebrities. Here you can’t even afford to discuss the kind of cash you have to dole out even for a stroke of Raza’s brush. So, a week full of artwalas with brushes, jholas, chappals and a confused lot of page 3 walas with deep pockets wondering where to invest in. Thefts in Laloo land Now this is amusing. Newspapers are carrying stories of Pramod Mahajan involved in the share scam of Reliance and making thousands of crores overnite. But in Laloo’s Patna, BJP top shots Pramod Mahajan, Arun Jaitely and CP Thakur fell victims to pickpockets in the presence of the SPG and a state police posse. Former Prime Minister Vajpayee had just addressed a rally when the trio was escorting him from the make-shift stage to his car when pickpockets struck, taking advantage of the assembled crowd. Mahajan’s wallet containing Rs. 10,000 vanished while Jaitely and Thakur found their mobile phones missing. A Jaitely aide subsequently clarified the cell phone was actually stolen from the security guard, who usually carries it around. Hey! Isn’t he supposed to guard? Anyway, BSNL was informed immediately about the theft and asked to freeze the
SIM cards to prevent misuse. This story is the most amusing and shocking one heard in recent times. This kind of lapse is, however, rather worrying. While evidence about the security ring around VVIPs being loose had us in splits, this could only happen in the Laloo land, is the only comfort some of us have.
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To satisfy the necessities of life is not evil. To keep the body in good health is a duty, for otherwise, we shall not be able to trim the lamp of wisdom, and keep our mind strong and clear. — The Buddha It may be that I shall find it good to get outside my body—to cast it off like a disused garment. But I shall not cease to work! I shall inspire men everywhere until the world shall know that it is one with God! — Swami Vivekananda Heaven and Earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. — Jesus Christ There is but one true Lord in the world; there is no other. — Guru Nanak
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