O P I N I O N S

EDITORIALS

Darkness ahead
Survey rings alarm bell
ALTHOUGH the power scenario countrywide is dismal, at least 12 states are heading for a serious shortage of power. The worst-affected, as revealed in a recent ASSOCHAM survey, include Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab.

Girls shining
They can excel everywhere as in schools
THE excellent results posted by girls during various school examinations are a pointer to the bright future they are reserving for themselves through hard work and tenacity. This is not a one-off exception but a recurring phenomenon which is becoming more and more pronounced with the passage of time.

• Thought for the day

ARTICLE

Fuss over Indus-I
India’s rights are set out in the Treaty
by B.G. Verghese
THE Indus Water Treaty must rank among the triumphs of the United Nations system since it was signed in 1960. However, with President Musharraf having taken a U-turn on the ideological (“unfinished business”) aspect of the J&K question, does he want to demonstrate relentless pursuit of the “core” issue by charging India with threatening Pakistan’s lifeline by violating the treaty and developing strategic capability to hurt it by drying up the Chenab and Jhelum or flooding them!

MIDDLE

The name game
by Mahesh Chadha
IT was not until Major Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore won a silver medal at the Athens Olympics that I knew that he too has a nickname, Chilly. In the Services this could have one of the two meanings; one who is as bitter and sharp as chillies or else he is an absolute “Thand Master”, who takes everything casually and does not produce what is desired or expected of him.

OPED

Women in armed forces
by Air Marshal R.S. Bedi
THE recent media coverage of proceedings against Flying Officer Anjali Gupta has created a fair deal of adverse publicity for both the women in uniform and the armed forces. However, it must be stated in all fairness that the women have generally acquitted themselves well with odd exception here and there.

Disability no bar to education
by Richard Garner
MARK Ellis lived in a world of his own until the age of 32, unable to read and write or communicate with many of those in whose care he was placed. He was unconscious for the first three months of his life and his doctors wrote him off as “uneducable”.

Semi-respectable ethanol
ETHANOL began as a political product. The idea of powering automobiles with alcohol distilled from corn acquired traction mainly because Archer Daniels Midland Co., the leading ethanol producer, is a big financier of politicians and because Iowa, which serves as Ethanol HQ, hosts that odd and oddly influential event known as the presidential caucuses.

From the pages of

The Native Sepoy

REFLECTIONS

EDITORIALS

Darkness ahead
Survey rings alarm bell

ALTHOUGH the power scenario countrywide is dismal, at least 12 states are heading for a serious shortage of power. The worst-affected, as revealed in a recent ASSOCHAM survey, include Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab. The energy deficit in these states ranges from 7 per cent to 25 per cent. Barring Delhi, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh, the whole northern region is in for serious trouble. The southern region is comparatively better off. States like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala have shortages of less than 1 per cent. Power scarcity hits industry, agriculture and ultimately development, while ordinary citizens sweat it out in unrelenting summer heat.

There are no immediate signs of improvement in the emerging dark scenario as demand keeps burgeoning and projects to generate additional power are put on hold for lack of funds. The state electricity boards are nearly bankrupt. The profligate state governments too are in a financial squeeze. Foreign direct investment is wary of entering India’s messy power sector after the Enron misadventure. The domestic power companies with meagre resources can play only a limited role. Power reform implementation is terribly slow in states as political parties in power fear an adverse political fallout. The vested interests in state electricity boards want to preserve the status quo for obvious reasons. The Centre now expects the states to solve their own power problems.

In the given situation, all that can be done to augment power supply is to plug leakages, check power pilferage, strengthen the regulatory regime, improve governance, minimise political interference and introduce commercial discipline so that government departments and other institutional defaulters are forced to pay up. The hydel power potential has not been fully tapped for want of adequate funds. The northern states can pool their resources to commercially exploit the hydel potential in Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal. Alternative and cheaper sources of energy need to be explored as a vast majority of the rural poor ( 77 per cent) have no access to electricity.

Girls shining
They can excel everywhere as in schools

THE excellent results posted by girls during various school examinations are a pointer to the bright future they are reserving for themselves through hard work and tenacity. This is not a one-off exception but a recurring phenomenon which is becoming more and more pronounced with the passage of time. Today, they are not only giving stiff competition to boys but have also surged ahead in many streams, cornering top positions. This is the way their salvation lies. For far too long they have been confined to four walls of their homes. If just these few years are enough for them to prove their mettle, one can well imagine the peaks they can scale in a decade or two hence. Girls of today know that the key to their empowerment is education. In a fiercely competitive world, menfolk are not going to make way for them willingly. They will have to prove their worth the hard way.

That is the route to gender equality as well. It is one thing to parrot set lines about the sons and the daughters being equal but quite another to “walk the talk”. This reality will be accepted by all only if the women prove themselves as useful in every sphere as boys are considered to be. Once the girls excel in examinations, they go on to earning similar respect and place in the job market.

Ironically, while some girls are doing so well, they have sisters in rural and interior backwaters that are still kept indoors like galley slaves. Even basic education is denied to them. Just one day before the good news about the examination results, we carried another story about girls of a particular community living near Kaithal who are packed off as brides when they are barely 12 or 13, law be damned. Such prejudices are vanishing but not quickly enough. The country can congratulate itself on the good show of girls only when the fate of their sisters in less supportive setups changes for the better.

Impetus to infrastructure
High Court ruling in the right direction

IN an infrastructure-starved country, the Karnataka High Court’s order to the state and its agencies to speedily implement the Rs 2,250 crore Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor project is to be lauded. The petitioners and the new coalition government in Karnataka had alleged irregularities in land acquisition. Observing that the changed stand “was not because of fraud or misrepresentation” but followed from pressure exerted by Mr H.D. Deve Gowda, whose JD (S) is a junior partner in the Karnataka coalition, the court quashed the petitions challenging the project. It has called for the prosecution of two officials, including the Chief Secretary, for perjury and withholding documents.

The 140-kilometre distance between Bangalore and Mysore currently takes three to four hours to cover. The high speed corridor will reduce the time to less than two hours, besides adding various facilities along the way. The benefits to the region are enormous. Well-connected satellite towns have been known to reduce congestion in the central urban area. Economic activity at both points and along the stretch will increase. While Bidadi already has many industries, Mysore has the presence of companies like Infosys. Mysore is also an important tourist centre. In many ways, the corridor project, finalised more than eight years ago, is a good example of what can be done to decongest major urban centres while simultaneously encouraging growth.

Given the push and pull of conflicting interests keen on getting their slice of the pie, everything from roads to power projects is mired in turf battles, procedural wrangles, litigation and political posturing. While corruption cannot be condoned, the message is clear: don’t hold the projects vital to a growing economy hostage to the pursuit of personal and political gains.

Thought for the day

God is subtle but He is not malicious.

— Albert Einstein

ARTICLE

Fuss over Indus-I
India’s rights are set out in the Treaty
by B.G. Verghese

THE Indus Water Treaty must rank among the triumphs of the United Nations system since it was signed in 1960. However, with President Musharraf having taken a U-turn on the ideological (“unfinished business”) aspect of the J&K question, does he want to demonstrate relentless pursuit of the “core” issue by charging India with threatening Pakistan’s lifeline by violating the treaty and developing strategic capability to hurt it by drying up the Chenab and Jhelum or flooding them !

India’s rights on the three Western rivers are clearly set out in the treaty. All existing uses in J&K were protected. Over and beyond that, India was permitted to develop 1.34 m acres of additional irrigation in J&K, against which only 642,477 acres has been achieved. Further, India is allowed 3.60 MAF of storage, categorized sector-wise under the headings of general conservation, power and flood storage and by main and tributary rivers. India is well below the permissible limits in every sector and category of usage and has built practically no “storage” as opposed to run-of-the-river “pondage”.

The treaty binds India to inform or consult Pakistan on planned withdrawals and works on the Western rivers and to ensure no harm or derogation of its water rights. There have been 27 occasions when such information has been passed or consultations organised, and the record shows that Pakistan has raised objections in virtually every case, even with regard to micro-hydro plants. Though dressed up as design or engineering queries, the objective has been political and the motivation to delay if not deny progress that primarily benefits J&K.

India is entitled to almost the entire waters of the Sutlej, Beas and Ravi. Yet it releases over 3 MAF (mostly flood waters) down the Sutlej and the Ravi to Pakistan on account of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link dispute and the fact that the Indira Gandhi (Rajasthan) Canal is yet to be completed.

Baglihar is a run-of-the-river peaking project on the Chenab, 110 km from the Pakistan border. It has an installed capacity of 450 MW and a gross storage of 396 million cubic metres of water of which the live pondage will be no more than 37.5 m cu m (or 46,570 acre-feet) which is to be returned to the river in strict accordance with treaty stipulations. The balance is dead storage for trapping silt. Construction is well advanced and the first power unit should start generating by 2007. With the addition of more turbines and minimal additional works, Baglihar-II will subsequently generate another 450 MW during three or four monsoon months.

Pakistan was informed in 1992 that India planned to go ahead with Baglihar and work commenced in 2000. Objections were really pressed only recently and actually specified in January 2005. The six objections then listed variously related to pondage, gated spillways, under sluices and the level of the intake channel. But the punch line has been that the dam can store/release a sufficient quantum of water to dry up or flood the river in Pakistan for several days.

These fears are fanciful. The fallacy lies in adding dead storage to live pondage and assuming mala fide intent that would primarily, and first, adversely affect the Indian villages along the Chenab valley and the Salal Dam lower down. Indeed, any “flood waters” would dissipate before they reached the border. The argument that every dam can be used as a strategic weapon is perverse reasoning

Pakistan insisted on resort to a neutral expert unless India agreed to suspend construction. However, the treaty does not provide for a work-stoppage and India accordingly declined to do so, especially in view of the fact that it agreed to a temporary halt to the construction of the Tulbul Project, which has since languished unresolved for 17 years.

The Jhelum was traditionally used for navigation and floating timber but the river has silted. The Tulbul Project was accordingly designed to retard the Jhelum flood within the banks of the Wulur Lake through which the river passes. Instead of emptying rapidly with the recession of the floods, a control structure at the Lake’s exit would retard depletion of a natural pondage of some 300,000 acre feet of water through October to May. This would reduce silt flows downstream to the benefit of both the Uri and Mangla projects in India and Pakistan and augment their power output. However, Pakistan argues that Tulbul would be a “storage dam” and is therefore barred by the treaty.

Turn to Kishenganga/ Neelum, a tributary of the Jhelum. Rising near Gurez, the river flows through J&K and then crosses the LoC to enter PoK as the Neelum before falling into the Jhelum near Muzaffarabad. The Indian Project envisages a 75 m high concrete dam at Gurez at about 8000 feet to store 140,000 MAF of water and divert some flows southwards through a 23 km tunnel into the Madmati Nala, which empties into the Wulur Lake through which the Jhelum flows. Given a head of about 600 m, an installed capacity of 330 MW is planned. The sizeable displacement and environmental impacts, however, raise sensitive issues that will have to be internally addressed.

India communicated its intention of going ahead with the Kishenganga project in June 1992 and Pakistan responded soon after, listing three objections. The first is that inter-tributary diversions are barred and that water drawn from a given tributary must be returned to that same river. The second is that existing Pakistani uses must be protected and India’s Kishenganga Project will deprive it of 27 per cent of the river’s natural flows, thereby doing injury to its existing 133,000 ha of irrigation in the Neelum valley and a 900 MW Neelum-Jhelum hydro station on which construction is in progress at Nowshera. The third objection relates to certain design features.

The Indian response is that the treaty unambiguously provides that “Where a plant is located on a tributary of the Jhelum on which Pakistan has an agricultural use or hydro-electric use, the water released below the plant may be delivered, if necessary, into another tributary but only to the extent that the then existing agricultural use or hydro-electric use by Pakistan on the former tributary would not be adversely affected”. This suggests that inter-tributary diversions in the Jhelum basin are permitted and that only “the then existing” agricultural and hydro-electric uses shall be protected.

Pakistan has to substantiate and not merely assert 133,000 ha of irrigation in the Neelum valley. And how far has construction of the Nowshera hydro-electric plant proceeded and what are its specifications? Planned utilisation would imply a future rather than an existing use. Would the same argument apply to a planned diversion by India on which work has recently commenced? In any event, the Neelum catchment below the Kishenganga dam river receives several influents that make the discharge at Nowshera many times larger than the mean flows at Gurez. The Indus Commissioners have decided on further meetings and site inspections. This will hopefully clarify issues.

(To be concluded)

MIDDLE

The name game
by Mahesh Chadha

IT was not until Major Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore won a silver medal at the Athens Olympics that I knew that he too has a nickname, Chilly. In the Services this could have one of the two meanings; one who is as bitter and sharp as chillies or else he is an absolute “Thand Master”, who takes everything casually and does not produce what is desired or expected of him. Surely Rajyavardhan alias Chilly belongs to the first category.

What is there in a name? So said Shakespeare. A rose called by any other name would smell as sweet. In the Army and in other such services almost everyone is known by a pet or a nick or a code name. It is often the code name that is given by juniors to their seniors for obvious reasons. Invariably the fellow stands by it both in letter and deed.

In the armoured corps especially, this tradition is more prevalent. Either you already have a pet name given to you by your parents in the childhood or else you acquire an apt one from your regiment. However, most of the pet names that I have come across conform to the variety of kings and their entourage, vegetable, bird or animal worlds.

While in the king’s variety there was hardly any except one who being a Commanding Officer never punished any jawan and would often treat his officers “On Me” in the mess. In the vegetable category there was a Tinda, a Kaddu, a Ginger and a Chikko; in the animal and bird varieties there was a Tusky ( Tusker), a Cobra and a Bulbul, whereas Ullu (Owl) is an often called name.

Besides, there were many others who had anglicised or shortened names like Bantu, Don, Kaku, Tich, Narsi, Randy, Garry, Chinni, Nikkie, Shivi and so on.

The one who ripped open any vehicle was nicknamed Spanner and another who knew too much was known as a walking talking Encyclopaedia (for at that time there were no computers). all said and done each had his own peculiarities of character, demeanour and conduct.

Tinda indeed looked like the one, as he wore very shabby dress both on and off parade and was generally avoided because of his foul tongue — somewhat akin to the taste of Tinda. Kaddu was absolutely round and appeared to be coining an occasion to seek the boss’s acceptance to his hospitality. He somehow did well for himself and rose to be a Major-General. Ginger was a handsome blue-eyed fellow who was softspoken and not at all bitter as Ginger, but was fixed by the Corps Commander for not rendering him the desired advice during an exercise.

Chicko was a very handsome, tall man who knew his beans and would downsize all and sundry under the sun. He rose to be a Lieutenant-General.

However, most of all that flash in my mind were two personalities; One named Ghoogy (a scary-looking bird that closes her eyes on seeing a cat) who proved to be otherwise a lion hearted commander and was awarded a Maha Vir Chakra (MVC) during the 1965 war. He had the gift of the gab and could convince anyone on earth that armoured operations could be launched anytime anywhere. He finally rose to be an Army Commander. The other one was named Sheru (Tiger) who had a very feeble squeaky voice who never even commanded a unit to be called a Tiger. It remains a mystery how he was named Sheru. I suppose both Ghoogy and Sheru had a strange quirk of fate, or perhaps as Shakespeare said, what is there in a name!

OPED

Women in armed forces
by Air Marshal R.S. Bedi

THE recent media coverage of proceedings against Flying Officer Anjali Gupta has created a fair deal of adverse publicity for both the women in uniform and the armed forces. However, it must be stated in all fairness that the women have generally acquitted themselves well with odd exception here and there. As expected, they came to the services in numbers for. Donning the uniform was not only a novelty for them but also a sort of romance never experienced before.

A woman candidate recently refused to get herself medically examined by a male service doctor. In fact, there was nothing new about this practice in the armed forces, or for that matter, amongst the civilians.

Women from every strata of society are regularly examined by male gynaecologists all over. So much of hue and cry was raised in this case that the armed forces were driven to issue specific instructions that the female candidates would henceforth, be examined by lady doctors only.

Women wanting to join the armed forces which has been all along an exclusive men’s domain will have to learn slowly to adjust themselves without playing too much on their sexuality or being too conscious of their sexuality. After all.

The armed forces are not like the co-ed colleges; here women have to live and work together with men always.

During the Gulf war, the women soldiers not only fought along with men but also shared tents with them. They also slept often in the open alongside men beside their trucks.

The Indian social milieu is bound by age-old traditions. In our society women in close proximity, not amounting to fraternising, is still a taboo.

Since most women in the armed forces come from middle or lower middle class families, their adherence to age-old moral values is still rigid. Now that more and more women are coming forward to join the military service, it may not take long for them to shed inhibitions.

Flying Officer Anjali Gupta, who has been in the news for a number of reasons, faced court martial proceedings on account of continued misdemeanour. Her integrity came under doubt when she was found resorting to unfair financial practices. Counselling and warnings had little impact on her.

Finally, she had to be court-martialled under the service rules for as many as 13 charges of devious nature; thus earning the dubious distinction of being the first woman officer from the armed forces to face the court martial.

The moment this action got going, she came out with allegations of sexual harassment against her three superior officers. These officers were consequently served notice by the police based on her complaint.

These allegations could well have been taken care of under the service rules and regulations without any need for her to go to the civil police. Not being content, she even went on to file a petition before the Karnataka State Commission for Women.

Notwithstanding, the IAF ordered a court of inquiry into her charges. The Chief of the Air Staff has said that the complaint would be examined in a “transparent and fair manner but according to the rules”.

It wouldn’t be long before the facts come out in the open. But the damage to the reputation of these officers, as also the Air Force already stands done. It is learnt that her conduct in the previous unit was no better. She was counselled frequently by her commanding officer to behave in a manner befitting a service officer.

The propensity to make inappropriate use of their gender as a weapon to beat the service rules would only bring disrepute to women and the services.

Earlier too, there was a case of two women cadets at the Air Force Academy resorting to trading charges of sexual harassment against their instructors. Failing to cope with the requisite standard of training, they were warned for withdrawal from the academy as per the procedure laid down in all such cases. That led them to charge their instructors with sexual harassment. The proclivity to exploit their sexuality by resorting to self-defence has to be curbed firmly.

Maybe the military bureaucracy has to define various sexual crimes sexual discrimination and sexual harassment afresh. In fact, physical abuse, coercion, profanity etc all have to be redefined in a proper context and fresh laws and rules framed.

Most of the western democracies have women in their armed forces. In some countries, they are also allowed to participate in combat. These women proved their mettle in the Gulf war by doing what they were trained for.

But this is not to say that there were no known cases of sexual harassment or fraternising. None of these cases, however, fell in the category of gender exploitation as in our case.

No doubt, Indian women in the armed forces have to face many odds. They command men, their peers are men and so are their superiors. They have to learn to be at ease with their gender in this predominant male environment.

The syndrome that she is different amongst male colleagues tends to isolate her, more so if she happens to be high up on the performance or organisational ladder.

Surprising but true, even the ego comes to the surface at times. A woman officer high on the performance graph stands the risk of being discredited by her male peers as well as the subordinates who find her extra smartness and outstanding performance a challenge to their manhood.

Studies on women professionals in the West have revealed that all men are same where their egos are involved. Man’s ego and his mindset vis-a-vis woman is common worldwide, irrespective of their cultures.

The ego hassle was, surprisingly, also noticed in a couple, both in the flying branch. The wife apparently stood out as a better aircrew professional than the husband, who gradually and perhaps, unconsciously began to turn hostile towards her.

However, this is an isolated case. But what has to be taken care of is the tendency to use female sexuality as a weapon of blackmail.

****

The writer is a former Director General, Defence Planning Staff.

Disability no bar to education
by Richard Garner

MARK Ellis lived in a world of his own until the age of 32, unable to read and write or communicate with many of those in whose care he was placed. He was unconscious for the first three months of his life and his doctors wrote him off as “uneducable”.

Much of his childhood was spent in a hospital ward with mental patients, and, when he finally got to a school, he was tied to his chair during lessons.

Now aged 47, Mark, who was born with cerebral palsy, has graduated from university and yesterday he received the “individual learner of the year” award for triumphing over adversity as part of Adult Learners’ Week.

He is planning to take up employment as a mentor to other disabled people to show them what they can achieve.

Mark could not pick up his award in person as a result of a fear of rail travel, after he was robbed on his last journey (a girl and a boy offered to go and buy him coffee and then took his money). But he said: “I’d like to be with disabled people who may feel they are less valued.”

Mark has given talks to staff from Trinity College, Dublin, Leeds University and the Royal College of Nursing to increase their awareness of the potential of people with disabilities. He is planning to continue his studies, by taking an MA at Liverpool Hope University College, where he graduated in sociology and American studies.

It is a far cry from the memories that his father, a former seaman, has of the time when his son was born. “The doctors said to us: ‘Just take him home, make him comfortable. Unfortunately, he’s uneducable,’ “ Tom Ellis, 69, recalled.

He was a month overdue when he was born. “It was a very difficult birth - a double breach,” said Mr Ellis. Mark spent the first three months of his life unconscious, and from the age of eight until 11 lived in a hospital ward with mainly mentally disabled adults.

“It was like a scene from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest,” said his father. “He was on a big ward with at least 20 other patients in it, and hardly anyone of his age.”

Within a week of his arrival, someone set fire to the ward and he managed to set off the alarm. It was incidents like this that led his parents to believe he was mentally alert and capable of achieving much more. “Unfortunately, they kept him heavily sedated,” said Mr Ellis. He did receive some education at a special school after coming out of hospital, but his father later discovered he had been tied to his chair while in the classroom. “He never learnt anything,” he added.

From the school he was sent to a day-care centre, still unable to read and write, where he spent most of his time among elderly people. It was not until his father was told of Hereward College in Coventry, a national college specialising in education for disabled students, that he began to start learning, at the age of 32. “He couldn’t read or write and couldn’t even hold a pencil in his hand,” said his father.

A former police officer who was lecturing at the college spotted potential in him. He was given a note-taker, who wrote down his responses as he used a speaking machine to answer questions.

—The Independent

Semi-respectable ethanol 

ETHANOL began as a political product. The idea of powering automobiles with alcohol distilled from corn acquired traction mainly because Archer Daniels Midland Co., the leading ethanol producer, is a big financier of politicians and because Iowa, which serves as Ethanol HQ, hosts that odd and oddly influential event known as the presidential caucuses.

But disreputable origins do not rule out a respectable maturity. Like the young delinquent who makes good, ethanol has put on a suit, acquired sophisticated friends and become a pillar of society. Almost.

Ethanol’s new acceptability reflects the disgrace of its rivals. Nobody likes the idea of relying exclusively on oil, partly because of the terrorism connection in the Middle East and partly because gasoline is so expensive; it’s now cheaper to fill your car with ethanol in some parts of corn country.

Meanwhile a supposedly green additive to gasoline called MTBE has been found to pollute groundwater; ethanol, which reduces sulfur and carbon monoxide emissions (albeit at the expense of some extra smog), is taking its place. As a result, U.S. production of corn-based ethanol is growing at 30 percent a year, and other countries are headed in the same direction.

A few years ago, this expansion would have seemed ridiculous. Ethanol was reckoned to be a net energy loser: It took more energy to produce a gallon of the stuff than you could get out of it by burning it.

But that’s changed thanks to new methods of growing corn, which use less energy-intensive fertilizer, and thanks to more efficient ethanol distilleries. Now researchers at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois report that you get 25 percent more energy out of a gallon of ethanol than it takes to grow the corn, transport it and distill it.

Skeptical researchers still say there’s a net energy loss, but they concede that this loss is much smaller than was once supposed. And everyone agrees that next-generation ethanol, made from grass or other raw materials that don’t need fertilizer, promises a clear reduction in the use of fossil fuels and a win for the environment.

This good news could have bad consequences, however. The ethanol lobby wants to use the energy legislation pending in Congress to require a floor for national ethanol consumption, an absurd piece of central planning.

Moreover, the lobby wants to use its new respectability to defend its subsidies, which remain indefensible. If Congress wants to promote alternatives to oil (because of terrorism) or to all hydrocarbons (because of global warming), it should tax these disfavored forms of energy and let the market figure out which alternatives make sense.

Instead, it lavishes a tax break of 54 cents on each gallon of ethanol, a subsidy that comes on top of the federal dollars that flow separately to corn growers.

Ethanol’s continuing political nature is reflected in trade policy. If ethanol were part of a serious terrorism or environmental strategy, there would be no reason to require that the ethanol be made domestically.

— LA Times-Washington Post

From the pages of

October 20, 1886

The Native Sepoy

The most useful servant of the British Government is the Native Sepoy. It is with the aid of the Native Sepoy that India was won for the English. But in spite of all this, he is the most cruelly neglected of all public servants. The salary he gets is less than what an ordinary cooly boy earns... The Government, however, pays no heed to his complaints. It lavishes all its favours upon the English soldier... The sepoy is a sensible man, more intelligent than his English comrade, and he keenly feels the injustice that is being systematically done to him.

But why does he take to soldering at all, if it offers no advantages to him? The reason is not far to seek. Sometimes he becomes the dupe of recruiting agents, at other times he is the victim of martial instincts and “ijjat”. His fathers and grandfathers had been soldiers, and he cannot take to any other profession, as it would be prejudicial to the dignity of the family. He enlists himself with hopes, but they vanish away in the midst of the dreadful reality, and he “cuts his name” as soon as he gets an opportunity. Some small favours are now going to be shown to him, but we can assure the Government that no half-hearted measures in shortening the period of good conduct pay, in increasing the half mounting pay, or in shortening the term of service for ordinary pension will do.

REFLECTIONS

— The Upanishads