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Hooda’s blunder Home loans
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The poor get their due
Politics of Partition
Shirdi’s salute to Bollywood
Protecting the tiger Summit leaves
EU adrift Chatterati
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Hooda’s blunder ONLY recently Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had spoken against giving free power to farmers. But we find the Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has chosen to waive farmers’ power dues which will cost the state exchequers as much as Rs 1600 crore. By doing so, he has made a political investment that may or may not pay in the next elections. But he has revived the imprudent practice of political giveaways in the state. Mr Hooda forgot that Mr Parkash Singh Badal lost the Assembly elections in Punjab despite his giving free power to farmers. In Andhra, Mr Chandrababu Naidu won his first election despite his charging for power. A Tribune debate recently showed that many farmers do not want free power. They want an assured supply of power. Politics of waiving bank loans and electricity arrears has long been discarded as financially suicidal. There is now almost political consensus that states must avoid freebies and instead introduce user-charges for services like power and water. Mr Hooda’s government seems out of step with the prevailing economic philosophy, practised and preached by the leadership of his own party at the national level. His misplaced generosity will ruin the state’s finances. He has handed out the bonanza on a platter without pressure. The Congress manifesto made no mention of it. The Budget made no provision for the write-off. Mr Hooda had no answer as to from where he will raise the money to what is clearly a political move to win over farmers. The power utilities in the state can hardly absorb the loss. Instead of pushing the power reforms, abandoned mid-way by the previous government, the decision can ruin the state’s financial health. His first Budget will increase the fiscal deficit and raise the state debt to a new high. What is worse, Mr Hooda has sent the message around that governments are pliable and bills need not be paid. Today it is the farmers’ turn, tomorrow another section of society would rise to agitate to squeeze some benefits out of a weak administration. What is the guarantee that farmers would pay their future bills after the benefit is realised? Governments do need to be generous, but only when there is a flood, drought or any other natural calamity. Then too relief has to be targeted at the needy. |
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Home loans costlier AS indicated by the Reserve Bank of India in its latest credit policy, interest rates on home loans have started rising. Two major players in the home loan market—HDFC and ICICI Bank—increased their floating lending rates by half a percentage point last week. While some smaller banks have already effected rate hikes, the government banks led by the State Bank of India are also expected to raise their interest rates in the near future. This is bound to worry those planning to buy a house and go in for a loan. Why are interest rates rising? Globally, interest rates are looking up. Rising oil prices are set to derail the calculations of many governments. In India, the cost of funds for banks has been on the rise for some time. To attract more funds, some banks have increased rates on bulk deposits. Since the government has a large borrowing plan in the pipeline, yields on government securities have started moving up. The most crucial question before the existing home loanees is whether they should consider converting their floating rate loans into fixed rate loans since the difference is now only of one percentage point. However, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and some banking experts feel that the present regime of benign interest rates will continue. Their hope rests largely on easy liquidity and large inflow of funds in the system. Besides, it is in the interest of all to keep the interest rates low. But the interest rates are linked with inflation. If the UPA government hikes the petroleum prices, an indication of which has been given rather frequently, despite opposition from the Leftist allies, then inflation would naturally go up. This, in turn, would lead to an increase in the interest rates. From June 16 the 10.2 per cent service tax announced in this year’s Budget on the construction of residential complexes has come into force. All this is bound to make prospective house seekers jittery. |
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The poor get their due SEVEN rich nations, members of the G-8 minus Russia, have taken a major step towards helping 18 poor countries of the world. Fourteen of the beneficiaries belong to Africa and they have been faced with a serious debt payment crisis. The G-8 Finance Ministers last week decided to write off 100 per cent debt of these poor countries which they owed to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The debt relief comes to $40 billion, which will be used mainly for providing better health services and promoting education. The laudable decision has been taken as a result of an initiative launched by the Bank and the IMF in 1996. Nine more countries may benefit in the coming few months as a result of the initiative. This is not all that is going to happen on the front of poverty alleviation. There is a serious drive for providing 100 per cent debt relief to at least 62 countries with a view to realising the Millennium Development Goals adopted by the UN — which means helping these nations to reduce their poverty and the incidence of disease by 50 per cent by 2015. This is, however, not enough so far as the ultimate goal of eliminating poverty is concerned. The rich will have to facilitate as much investment in these countries as possible so that the poverty-stricken people can get their rightful share of the development cake. They have, in fact, been suffering mainly because of the Cold War policies of the rich. During that period the corrupt and inefficient regimes in the poor countries were given huge loans to ensure their survival because they were anti-communist. This negative approach caused more impoverishment, leading to the situation that prevails now. It is, therefore, the primary responsibility of the G-8 group to bring the poor countries out of the debt trap in which they find themselves today. |
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When two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather. — Samuel Johnson |
Politics of Partition THERE is a belated debate on the responsibility for the partition of India and the role played by Mohammed Ali Jinnah. This highly personality-oriented debate has deflected attention from the real reasons for Partition. Jinnah was not the real author of Partition but was a convenient instrumentality in the hands of the British. The recently released British documents would show that Partition came about because the British feared that India would walk out of the Commonwealth and adopt a neutralist position in the coming confrontation between the West and the Soviet Union. That would deprive Britain of bases and communication facilities in the strategically vital North Indian Ocean area in between the oil-rich Middle-East and resource-rich South East Asia. They felt a pliable and not quite viable Muslim state in North-West India abutting Soviet Central Asia, Afghanistan and the Middle-East would provide the British the necessary bases. They had cultivated Jinnah and the Muslim League throughout the war period. Jinnah was not a practising Muslim. He was not a mass leader. Nor was he endorsed by the Muslim clergy of that time. The ruling Muslim leaders of unionist coalition parties in Punjab and Sind and Fazlul Haq in Bengal were not the supporters of Jinnah. The overwhelming support for Jinnah came from Muslim-minority provinces. Yet the British made Jinnah the sole spokesman of the Muslims. The British Governors of Sind, Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province worked harder than any Muslim League cadre to bolster up Jinnah’s position. The Viceroy of India, Lord Wavell, had already drawn up the partition plan in February 1946 even before the Cabinet Mission arrived in India. Jinnah had no choice but to accept the moth-eaten and truncated state of Pakistan. Faced with the threat of “Operation Balkans” of conducting province-wise referendum by the Congress too, Nehru and Patel had to accept the partition of India as a better proposition than fragmentation of India. In the given circumstances, the Congress leaders did the best possible. They managed to integrate all the princely states, provide India a liberal democratic constitution and contributed significantly to building up India over these years into a global actor and modern nation-state. The mistake committed by the Congress was not to accept the advice of a man like Rajaji of going along with the British in the war effort. Surely, the Congress was anti-fascist and anti-militaristic. Certainly, it was realised that the defeat of the Allies in World War II would have been disastrous from the point of view of Indian national interests and, as Rajaji emphasised, from the viewpoint of Indian freedom. No doubt, the demand of the Congress that if the Allies were fighting to save democracy and for upholding the four freedoms as Roosevelt proclaimed, then they should promise India freedom at the end of the war, was quite logical. But international relations are not based on strict logic. Churchill, the Conservative Party, the bureaucracy in the Raj as well in Britain and the British services leadership were distrustful of the Congress leadership, especially of its declaration that an independent India would leave the Commonwealth. Therefore, they decided to cultivate Jinnah, build him up and used him to partition India. That is all now water under the bridge. But it has a very valuable lesson to learn for India of today. In international politics it is extremely counterproductive not to have a correct and comprehensive assessment of the overall external situation and be totally preoccupied with oneself. If the Indian leadership had carried out a correct assessment of the British policy towards India and of Britain’s perceived strategic compulsions, and played the game with greater sense of realpolitik and less of self-righteousness the tragedy of Partition could perhaps have been averted. India did contribute magnificently to the war effort and played a great role in the defeat of Germany and Japan. India stayed on in the Commonwealth. When Indian security was threatened as in 1962, Jawaharlal Nehru agreed to allow American U-2 aircraft to fly from Indian bases. India also got independence at the end of World War II. Yet because of its confrontationist posture and rhetoric India failed to save its unity. Today the US is publicly offering to help India to build itself as a world power in the 21st century. China did not hesitate, first to seek the help of the Soviet Union and thereafter that of the United States to build itself as a major power. Instead of carrying out a cold, calculated and comprehensive assessment of the likely future international situation and the motivations of the Americans in making this offer, many Indians, like the Congress party in the forties, are indulging in self-righteousness and reviving their old grievances about the US behaviour in the last five or six decades. They emphasise the likely costs by extrapolating the past without assessing the likely benefits if there were to be a change in the American strategy. When major powers make U-turns in their policies they try to call it a major strategic initiative. That is what both Kissinger and Zhou en-Lai called their change of policy. Therefore, such discontinuous charges in policy are known to occur in international politics. Statesmanship requires a country to probe the signals generated by a hitherto indifferent nation carefully instead of ignoring them. There is no attempt in this country to look at the compulsions of the US to befriend India as there was no attempt in 1945-46 to look at the British strategic requirements. The ethics of such compulsions are of less relevance so long as they do not affect adversely our own interests. The Chinese could not care less about accepting US help in building up their own economic and strategic strengths the underlying US motivation was to break up the Soviet Union and emerge as the sole superpower. The Chinese only looked at it as being beneficial to their interest. Unfortunately, the Indian political class has been conditioned by six decades of politics of myth-making and the psychology of weakness. It is time we learnt the lessons of 1947 and avoided the mistake of not assessing the motivations of other players in international
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Shirdi’s salute to Bollywood AS he emerges from the little mosque, 85-year-old Ghulam Habib Abdul Rehman Pathan seems an unlikely candidate to sing paeans to Bollywood. A devout Muslim sporting a luxurious beard, Pathan remembers a time when the Saibaba’s shrine at Shirdi was humbler and devotees came in tongas and bullock carts to pray. “After Manoj Kumar made his movie on the Saibaba, life changed entirely here,” says Pathan. The cult film of the 1970s has paid rich dividends to Shirdi’s residents. With pilgrims flocking from across the country, the simple mud huts of Saibaba’s early devotees have transformed into brick and mortar structures housing small businesses. Even the dilapidated mosque which Saibaba made his home has given way to an elaborately carved stone structure. “The mosque gradually crumbled and the place got several facelifts in subsequent decades,” recollects the wizened Pathan who as a boy earned Rs 1.50 monthly as a watchman. Working on a project for the National Foundation for India, I am eager to find traces of the legendary amity which saw groups of Hindus and Muslims worshipping side by side here. Instead, I find middle-class India swaying to tunes from tinsel town. “You will identify the Muslims in the queue as they usually donate a chaddar at the mazaar,” says Razzaq Shaikh, a local leader. On the face of it there is little discernible difference between worshippers clad uniformly in western style shirt and trousers for men and churidars for women. Eastman Colour has touched even the images of Saibaba sold at wayside stalls. “Few people buy photographs of the real Saibaba clad in tattered robes leaning against the walls of his mud hut,” admits the owner of a local photo studio. “People have forgotten that Saibaba lived a simple life,” says Shivaji Bhaskarrao Shinde, an employee of the Shirdi trust. His family heirlooms include coins, notes and photographs of his great grandmother Laxmibai with the Sufi saint. Old timers say Saibaba used to hold langars or community kitchens where Hindus and Muslims were served food out of the same pot. “Baba himself used to serve non-vegetarian food to his devotees,” says Shinde. Now, the Maharashtra government has banned the sale of meat near the shrine much to the consternation of the local Muslims and Dalits. Even the Moharrum procession at Shirdi has been abandoned in contrast to the opulent Ram Navami celebrations even though Saibaba himself insisted on observing the rituals of both communities. The Maharashtra government’s move to placate the rich mercantile castes have paid off with the Shirdi Trust earning Rs 90 crore last year. Not surprisingly, most trustees are linked to the ruling Congress and Nationalist Congress Party. As murmurs of discontent grow within Shirdi itself, the trust has come up with a brainwave. “We have enough land in this town to recreate a model of Old Shirdi to educate and entertain pilgrims,” says Bhausaheb Watchaure, the bureaucrat who manages the Shirdi
Trust.
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Protecting the tiger CAN the tiger be resurrected in Sariska? Theoretically, yes it can be! Sariska is an established tiger habitat. But you need the political will for sanitising the tiger reserve and ensuring that innumerable encroachments — human as well as cattle and thousands of mines around Sariska that add to the pressures on the park — are removed. Though the Prime Minister has taken interest in ensuring the survival of the king of the jungles — he was even fortunate enough to see a majestic animal in Ranthambhore — the bigger question is: can his interest in the tiger be sustained? Will there be follow-up and action at the field level? Can we strengthen the forest security system? Can we check poaching? Can the Salman Khans and Pataudis be stopped from killing the fast-depleting prey base of the tiger? Can we manage our parks and forests better? Can we ensure that systems work in this country? This is not the first tiger crisis. It is the third or fourth. Every time there is a tiger crisis, there is a hue and cry, expert committees are appointed to look into the issue and after a few months it is back to square one. The recommendations gather dust in the Pariyavaran cupboards. For a decade now the central government has been asking the Rajasthan Government to relocate the 26 villages in the Sariska tiger reserve — four of these villages were even ready to move out. Villagers do disturb the tiger terrain. Living almost at the subsistence level, they are lured and almost compelled to assist poachers. On the periphery of the tiger reserve are another 300 villages that look enviously at the lush green serenity of the protected reserve. By hook or by crook, they find ways and means of getting in their cattle for a good meal. Everyone has to be proactive. The frontline forest staff is not trained to deal with poachers moving with guns. Each forest guard is in charge of 15 sq miles of forest area. The area they are supposed to protect has remained the same for decades, but the pressures on the protected areas have gone up. Another major problem facing all national parks is the move to give forest lands back to the tribals. The government’s Scheduled Tribes and Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill could well finish whatever remains of our wildlife, tigers in particular. It is all very well to say let people protect their own forests. It may, in fact, be happening in a few isolated pockets like Dahanu in Maharashtra, but we can’t save tigers while having tribals in the same space. There would be an overlap of the prey (in this case the tiger and other wildlife) and the predator (man/ tribal who has traditionally depended on the forests and wildlife for sustenance). You must have clearly demarcated tiger reserves and national parks where there will be no intrusion and where wildlife, with the tiger at the apex is the first citizen. There should be no mining in these areas, no temples to which hordes of pilgrims are attracted, no poaching and the best possible wildlife and forest management. There have been several attempts to involve tribal and local communities in forest management and these efforts should continue. But, let us face it, it has not happened. It is also a fact that forest dwellers hunt, use forest resources for their survival while the Salman Khans and Pataudis and the forest contractors kill/destroy for pleasure and out of greed for some quick green bucks. They are definitely greater criminals than the poor who kill out of a need. The 1997 pilot eco-development project of Rs 212 crore over five years around seven protected areas had the same goal — to reduce pressures on the forests and wildlife by investing in development of communities and areas around protected areas. Income-generating activities, infrastructure development, minor irrigation projects, development of pasture land, improved breed of cows and social forestry was to ease the pressure on forests. It was a carefully thought- out project to which the World Bank, the Global Environment Facility and the central and state governments contributed. There were delays and hiccups to the project and since the vast amount of money could not be spent in the allotted five years, it got another two years’ extension. The states were to provide additional staff for the eco-development project but they did not. The existing forest staff was shifted out for eco-development work and the core areas had to make do with minimum protection. The project ended in 2004 and except for Periyar, where eco-development work was successful, in Pench, Gir, Buxa and Palamau and Nagarhole, the results were not commensurate with the vast sums pumped in and in Ranthambhore, the project failed totally. The pressure on all these protected areas continues. There has to be constant vigil. There were three other committees before the present task force headed by Sunita Narain of the Centre for Science and Environment. All of them made some excellent recommendations. In 1994, the Subramaniam Committee report on checking of poaching of wildlife and monitoring of trade in wildlife skins and parts made 55 recommendations. Not one of them was implemented though it was discussed at various levels. There was also a report by Mr J J Dutta, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, MP, and another by a committee appointed by the Delhi High Court after a huge haul of skins in 1993. The recommendations of these committees included training of forest staff, more money, better equipment. It meant an investment of Rs 2,000 crore in the Ninth Plan for checking poaching, better management of wildlife and control of illegal trade in wildlife. Every time the Indian Board for Wildlife met, it sought implementation of the Subramaniam Committee report but in vain. |
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Summit leaves EU adrift AFTER two days of rhetorical posturing in public and acrimonious haggling behind closed doors, leaders of the 25 European Union nations failed to reach a budgetary compromise early Saturday and prepared to return home even more divided and uncertain about Europe’s future. Emerging after a final attempt to bridge the gap collapsed, the leaders of the two main opposing sides, France and Britain, denounced each other in unusually angry terms. French President Jacques Chirac declared that “Europe is in a serious crisis” and put the blame squarely on Britain and other countries that blocked a proposed budget. He cited “the egotism of certain countries.” “It’s a vision of a weakened Europe that emerged,” he told a news conference after the talks collapsed. But at a separate news conference British Prime Minister Tony Blair made clear he was fed up listening to Chirac’s claim to speak for the European Union. “I’m afraid I’m not prepared to have someone tell me that theirs is the only view of what Europe is,” said a bristling Blair. “Europe isn’t owned by anybody. Europe is owned by all of us.” Coming just weeks after voters in France and the Netherlands dealt a fatal blow to the union’s proposed new constitution, the failure to find common economic ground plunged the E.U. further into a political sinkhole and raised new doubts about its ability to find its way out. Blair vetoed a final agreement on a proposed budget for the years 2007 through 2013 because it would have committed Britain to a reduction in the annual rebate, currently about $6 billion, that it receives as a portion of the funds it pays into the E.U.’s treasury. The Netherlands, Finland and Sweden, which are among the E.U.’s largest per-capita contributors, also opposed the budget. Their leaders complained that their countries paid too much in and received too little from the organization. Spain joined in because it argued that it needed more funding for its poorest regions. Opponents of the budget said there was no reason a final decision needed to be reached at this summit—E.U. spending will continue unaffected for now. Others said it was crucial for the E.U. to take a united stand, if only to show skeptics that members were still committed to a united Europe despite the recent referendum defeats. Chirac, stung at home by the referendum defeat of the constitution he had championed, targeted Britain’s annual rebate in the often tendentious session of the leaders. Blair insisted that Chirac agree to a reduction in the $13 billion in price supports that French farmers receive each year. All during the afternoon and into the evening, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, whose country holds the union’s rotating presidency, journeyed from office to office in the vast, ultra-modern headquarters of the European Council, an E.U. governing body. They held one-on-one sessions with leader after leader, seeking to forge a face-saving deal that would allow the heads of government to claim they had rededicated themselves to a united future. —
La Times-Washington Post |
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BJP turns to Vastu Shastra by Devi Cherian THE crisis within the BJP was resolved, not by the modified draft or the forceful intervention of Vajpayee, but by Vastu Shastra. Vastu experts scanned the BJP Ashok Road headquarters and found the problem in the main hall where crucial meetings take place. Senior leaders sat facing the North, which was a conflicting position. So on Friday at the crucial meeting the senior leaders were made to sit facing the East. Interestingly, the excuse given was to make more space. On the contrary, the new arrangements actually reduced space. Only when after that meeting everything went all and the Advani drama was over the episode was related to all. Statues of Dalit leaders The doors of the Bahujan Samaj Prerna Kendra were opened the other day. Mayawati, Kanshi Ram and Ambedkar had their larger-than-life bronze statues at the centrestage. This 105-foot tall pyramid-like structure, made with red sandstone and marble works, is spread across 2,450 square metres. There are statues of other backward class icons like Jyotiba Phule, Shauji Maharaj, E.V. Ramaswamy and Sri Narayanan Gundu. The opening ceremony was performed according to the Buddhist tradition. Mayawati’s entire family got together for an elaborate photo session. All statues were crafted by Ram Prasad. The centre also has a huge library where books by Ambedkar and other Dalit icons are kept. Two marble plaques in Hindi and English carry excerpts from the will of Kanshi Ram. He has directed in his will how his and behenji’s ashes should be divided into two portion and preserved in the Prerna Kendras in Lucknow and Delhi. Mayawati rewarded the six Buddhist monks who performed the pooja with rupees one lakh in cash and baskets of fruits and an umbrella. So Mayawati has a temple of her own in a building which overshadows Lucknow’s Raj Bhavan. Summer — page 3 style With the mercury soaring to new heights, the party scene is quite dull. But that really does not stop our Delhi’s hep crowd from being at the restaurants that are happening. So what if the three-sixty at the Oberois is getting a bit stale. It is like the drawingroom of a page 3 type. Some look as if they have just walked in from a boutique in the lobby. Bag, sunglasses, shoes, all matched. The first stop could also be the parlour, Sylvette, in the basement. No a thing out of place’. Manicured and pedicured like pure pedigreed puppies. You could be seated next to some celebrity like Mahesh Bhupati, Karishma Kapur or Vinod Khanna, who are regulars there. The Oberoi, any way, could be now called the Punjab Chief Minister’s office too. The whole Cabinet of prosperous, hurly burly Surds with their yuppies are there nearly everyday. And you will be forced to hear, they are all off to their favourite places for holidays. It’s Europe, you know! Turkey being the favourite. Dilli mein nazar bahut lagti hai! After all, India stinks and is not hygienic enough. The latest trend is also to send kids off to school abroad. The education system here is the Pitts and not Yankee enough. |
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From the pages of TATA’S NOBLE SCHEME WE hear that Mr J.N. Tata, a well known citizen of Bombay, has started a very elaborate and extensive scheme, which should by and by enable the poorer members of his community who show marked talents and ability to pursue their studies in the liberal arts and sciences, either in this country or in Europe. Some lakhs of rupees have been set apart for that purpose and certain well-known Parsee gentlemen, at the request of Mr Tata, have formed themselves into a committee for the purpose of considering the best means of carrying out the objects of the scheme. As the plan originally contemplated by the donor cannot be carried out in its entirely for some time to come, Mr Tata has, we hear, set apart a sum of money to make immediate experiments as a guide in the furtherance of the larger scheme. |
He who believes in God’s name, succeeds, as no other deed is of any account in His court. — Guru Nanak A foe to God was never a true friend to man. — Young There can be no salvation without dwelling upon the name of God. — Guru Nanak Let us preach where we all agree and leave the differences to remedy themselves. — Swami Vivekananda  |
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