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Advani’s flip-flop Thank you,
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Salaam Bombay
Political vacuum in
Pakistan
A newspaper’s
many personalities
Document When authors face
media
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Thank you, President The
President has withheld assent to the Haryana Casino Bill. This was quite expected for two reasons. First, in June last Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam had withheld assent to the Haryana Public Gambling Bill. The passing of this Bill would have opened the door for casinos. The President’s refusal indicated the casino Bill too would meet the same treatment. Secondly, foreign investment is prohibited in the lottery, gambling and betting business. Despite the law being very clear on this issue, the Om Prakash Chautala government had pushed hard the two Bills. The then Governor, Babu Parmanand, resisted government pressure and reserved the Bills for the consideration of the President. Earlier, Captain Amarinder Singh too had enthusiastically pursued the proposal to create a Las Vegas in Punjab. If the Captain had his way, the state would have turned into a gambling den by now. The move, however, met with widespread opposition from sections of society and politics and the Punjab State Women’s Commission. Sensing the public mood, the Congress High Command spiked the Captain’s plan. Mrs Mohsina Kidwai, the then Congress General Secretary in charge of Punjab, conveyed the party leadership’s decision to the media, observing: “Capt Amarinder Singh, being a well-educated person, will keep the party’s policy in mind while taking any step in this connection”. Thus rebuffed, the Captain abandoned the misadventure midway and decided to stick to the lottery business. The opening of casinos is against the Indian ethos. Why must we pick the worst of western culture for emulation? Casinos are supposed to promote tourism and generate revenue for the cash-strapped states. India has much better things to offer to tourists. Its varied, rich heritage is an attraction that has not been fully tapped. Religious tourism is also underexploited. A state thriving on earnings from casinos is not a very comforting idea. Instead, the governments can cut their flab and wasteful expenditure, and attract private investment by building better infrastructure for promoting tourism and creating an industry-friendly environment. Casinos are lazy governments’ prescription for the illusions of progress.
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Salaam Bombay Mumbai
will require oodles of its famed resilience to recover from the unbelievable downpour on the Terrible Tuesday. It literally went down under when it rained more than it ever had in nearly a century anywhere in the country. Imagine getting nearly a metre of rainfall in a matter of hours! The cosmopolitan city turned into a sea for some time, losing nearly 300 people to drowning, landslides and electrocution. Things were equally bad in many other places of Maharashtra and the death figure is inching towards the 700-mark. The worrying part is that what has happened once can happen again. Is the city really prepared to cope with a challenge of this magnitude? On Tuesday, it certainly was not. All public services just collapsed. City planners will have to ask themselves honestly whether they had at all braced themselves for such a worst-case scenario. Rather, many of the deaths occurred because houses had been constructed at places where they should not have been. Contractors did the unthinkable and the civil officials acquiesced in greed. Land-use laws will have to be enforced far more strictly in future. Ironically, while Mumbai was coping with highwater, Bombay High oil rig was engulfed by fire causing a loss of life and considerable investment the country had made in oil drilling. Many glorious stories of selfless service were scripted during the deluge. Mumbaikars proved once again that they can take care of their own. Nameless residents risked their lives to save total strangers. Five-star hotels opened their cavernous halls to house the destitute. It is this spirit which keeps hope alive that the home to India’s financial and movie industries will rise from the slush soon enough. It is another matter that there are villains also in this plot. They spread rumours that dams had burst, thus causing a stampede on Thursday in which a large number of people lost their lives. Their motive seemed to be to steal from locked houses. Again, the Mumbaikars did not wait for the police to subdue the mischief-mongers, but gave them a dressing-down themselves.
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Don’t let what you can’t do interfere with what you can do. — John Wooden
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Political vacuum in Pakistan Two
news items illustrate what is happening today in Pakistan. One is the ongoing campaign to arrest terrorists, the Taliban really, who are causing so much trouble to the coalition forces in Afghanistan. The second is the election for next month’s local government bodies. From the President down to most aware citizens, everyone seems to be in an electoral mode. Demands of the coalition forces from Afghanistan are strident that Pakistan should prevent the regrouped Taliban from crossing into Afghanistan. The accusations from the American Generals and the Afghan officials, including President Karzai and others, are about Pakistan being rather soft on the Taliban, though it is fully cooperating in their war on terror by having arrested over 500 Al-Qaeda linked suspects. In the latest phase of Afghan conflict, apart from its internal fissures and widely distributed power centres warlords and drug traffickers — often the same person — persistent attacks by the Taliban are frequent. They are perceived to be coming from Pakistan. Pakistan’s official stance is that their security along the common border is stringent and there is not much likelihood of Taliban crossing into Afghanistan for doing battles there. But it is also repeated that the border is long and is porous and the terrain so difficult that sealing it is impossible. However, the combined American and Afghan pressure has forced Musharraf to order a crackdown on Taliban-type Islamic extremists throughout Pakistan. There are difficulties: it is hard to distinguish between an Islamic jihadi-cum-sectarian militant from the Taliban. All these qualities can be combined in any one person and such persons are all too numerous to be nabbed. The fighting in Afghanistan flares up occasionally and heavy casualties are inflicted supposedly on the suspected Taliban and locals. This “collateral damage” on the local population is considerable. That has a direct impact on Pakistan’s Pushtoon population living alongside the border with Afghanistan, the famed Durand Line. The position in Pakistan is peculiar. Normal politics has been on hold for at least six years. The military regime has imposed a civilian government comprising feudal grandees and modern business executives. The mainstream rightwing and slightly right of the Centre parties, Nawaz Sharif’s PML and Benazir’s PPP, have had their top leaders driven out of the country and are not being given free play. The field is open to only President’s friends in landed aristocracy, businessmen and the mullahs. Indeed the mullahs are having a field day. They have a virtual political vacuum to fill. Their electoral showing in the controversial election of 2002 gave them an importance they never had. They now control one-third of the National Parliament, have a government of their own in the Frontier province and have controlling numbers in Balochistan. Their sights are high. Their leaders are astute, projecting themselves as the true legatees of Pakistan, with an eye on the next general election in 2002. The LG election in August would only be a stepping stone to their final victory later. The President is hamstrung by the traditional military-mullah alliance in which the GHQ has used the mullahs as proxies, especially in the NWFP and Balochistan. Apart from military’s alleged help in the 2002 general election, its role in clearing district government Nazims (administrators) to selected rightwing persons is dubious. Apart from that, Pakistan society is all but terra incognita from the point of view of social scientists. Governments in Pakistan have always belonged either to one out of many factions of Muslim League or directly to Generals. The only exceptions were the ZA Bhutto’s PPP government from 1971 to 1977 or two PPP governments under Benazir Bhutto in the 1990s. Otherwise it was either officially-favoured Muslim League or Generals who have ruled Pakistan. Throughout this period the national agenda was written by mullahs simply because all these governments had no political policy or ideology to advocate, certainly not simple democracy and human rights. They all relied on empty slogans of Islam and Islamic solidarity to tightly hold Pakistan together without social justice or political share to either individuals and provinces; the only government there was the central. Provincial governments have been no more than glorified municipalities. All decision-making was centred in Islamabad. The result was that while the governments relied on the empty slogan of Islam, the mullahs adroitly came to be accepted as guides to what Islam means. Mullahs’ Islam was something entirely new that Muslims throughout their 1400 years did not see. It is a new Islam born after World War II in which interpretations by Maulana Abul Ala Maudoodi and Hasan al Banna of the Muslim Brotherhood have contributed. That contribution has now been tacitly accepted by orthodox ulema. The root cause of the spread of Islamic extremism fixing a purely political goal of capturing power soon breeds extremism. Contribution has also been made by the US: throughout the cold war it financed obscurantist Islamic groups. In 1980s something like $ 40 billion was spent in Afghanistan, half of which was appropriated by religious leaders, tribal sardars, Pakistani generals and Afghan warlords. The mullahs have been flush with unexplained money since. Pakistan Army and the mullahs had to cooperate closely during the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan in 1980s. The consequences of that war have not been looked into. The CIA-mullah alliance created a Frankensteinian monster: Taliban-type fanatics. Effective rather than formal syllabi in Pakistan and madarsas elsewhere now teach an Islam that was not foreseen by the founders of Darul Uloom Deoband. It has to be understood as a fascist reaction to the long rule of European colonialism and the heaping of humiliations by Israel and the US policies while sustaining effete autocracies in Muslim countries in recent times. Thus indoctrinated Islamic jihadis changed the enemy from the Soviets to US and Israel. Current anti-western postures to suicide bombers is easily explained. They are looking to re-establish Islamic domination over at least the Muslim countries in the shape of seizing powers from the corrupt kings, sheikhs and assorted dictators. The climate of opinion in Pakistan is increasingly anti-American and anti-west. But the government is intensely pro-American and is acting in close coordination with America. This is creating its own blowback effect on the public opinion and not without reason. The infrastructure of support and protection to Taliban, Al-Qaeda and the other jihadis is the natural outcome. Here the Indians, the US and the rest of the west have a job to do. They have to understand what they are up against. Not that extremism does not directly impact the intellectuals in Muslim societies, wherever the species exists. Indeed this Islamic extremism is going to hurt the Muslim societies far more because it is quintessential fascism that would put paid to human rights of the most of the population. Right under the nose of President Musharraf, the NWFP government has had Hasba Bill passed that would create a parallel judicial system to ensure that nobody acts against the mullahs’ edicts. The politics of President Musharraf is anything but confused. It is perhaps sincerely against the extremism and militancy. But the President appears to depend on the votes for his re-election as President in 2007 on the MMA’s (the six-party religious alliance) votes. It is hard to break the decades old military-mullah alliance, especially when mullahs can be useful to generals in future. What the Americans can get through their pressure remains to be
seen.
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A newspaper’s many personalities A newspaper is not merely a paper published periodically for circulating news matter suitable for its readers. It is a morning addiction like bedtea or morning walk or pooja. However, for me, it goes much further than that — to assume many fascinating personalities. Depending on what you are looking for and who you are, a newspaper becomes one or more of following things. Huespaper, if you are an artist and see colours even in black and white. Duespaper, if you are looking for how to solve your income-tax problems. Fusepaper, if you happen to be a protagonist of fusionism: a policy that favours union or coalition. If your interest lies in opinion-gathering, a newspaper is viewspaper for you. Cuespaper gives you the last words of an actor’s (read, politician) speech serving as a hint to the next speaker. If you are contemplative by nature, you read the newspaper as musepaper. For a disciplinarian, a newspaper transforms itself into pewspaper, with a fixed place for everything. For the artful and the cunning, a newspaper is rusepaper, ruse de guerre, a strategem of war, albeit wordy duel, or ruse contre ruse, cunning against cunning. Treating it as Zeuspaper, you are looking for the hero you would love to worship: Zeus being the greatest of the national deities of Greece. The word “news” has produced over two dozen interesting words, notably: newsy (gossipy), newsagent, newscast, newshound, newspaperdom, newsprint, newsworthiness, news-writer. The word “press”, which means newspapers and periodicals collectively, is a common name for a newspaper. The press has been called the fourth estate, colloquially. The ancient parliament of Scotland consisted of the king and the three estates — viz. (1) archbishop, bishops, abbots, and mitred priors; (2) the barons and the commissioners of shires and stewartries; and (3) the commissioners from the royal burghs (boroughs). A newspaper’s shelf-life may be a fleeting temporariness, but its impact is long-lasting.
Ironically, though the public memory is short, everyone can yet remember, if vaguely, that this is something they read in some newspaper long, long
ago!
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Document I also sought to emphasise that the Indian economy is stronger than it has ever been and we hope to participate in and benefit from the economic processes of globalisation. We are determined to be a competitive destination for investment, including foreign investment and the US business community could contribute to development in India through greater investment and trade. We are uniquely placed to enter into such mutually beneficial interaction drawing on the strength of our knowledge sector. Hence another important goal was to underline to the US that the emergence of India as a centre of knowledge based industries and services would provide a good basis for long-term collaboration between our economies. The expansion of the Indian economy and acceleration of our growth rates is crucial not just for our own people but would be beneficial to global economic progress and stability. My discussions in Washington with President Bush and members of his Administration were productive and helped advance these national goals. Both sides agreed that our relationship was based on shared values and shared interests that included the strengthening of democratic capacities where desired and without coercion, and in combating terrorism without selective or segmentation. The conclusion of the UN Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism proposed by India, at an early date, was deemed a priority by both countries. On the economic side, we welcomed the launching of a CEOs Forum that has brought together the best business minds of both countries. We discussed the urgent need for modernisation of India’s infrastructure and our quest for greater investments in this sector, in view of its centrality for the continued growth of the Indian economy. Recognising the importance of the rural economy, we also agreed on an agricultural initiative aimed at facilitating a new generation of research and agricultural practices to build on the Green Revolution. Appreciating the importance of technology to India’s economic and social development we also discussed measures that would ensure more liberal and predictable access to US technology. We will endeavour to build closer ties in frontier areas such as space exploration, satellite navigation and launch, and related commercial activities that would greatly benefit our space industry, which is now recognised as a global leader. A Science and Technology Framework Agreement has been agreed during my visit that provides for expanded joint research and training. Underlining the intent of working at a new level of cooperation, the United States announced the removal of five Indian organisations from its Entity List – three from the space sector and two from atomic energy – and indicated further review in this matter. India’s quest for energy security as an essential component of our vision for our development was a significant theme of my talks. I elaborated the imperative need for India to have unhindered access to all sources of energy, including nuclear energy, if we are to maintain and accelerate our rate of economic growth. I am pleased to state that the US understood our position in regard to our securing adequate and affordable energy supplies, from all sources. This approach, I underlined, would enable us to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. This would have concomitant advantages for all in terms of reduced pressure on oil prices and environmental sustainability. It was in this context that we affirmed the importance of cooperation in the civilian nuclear energy sector. Accordingly, a central element of my interaction with President Bush was the resumption of bilateral civilian nuclear cooperation between India and the United States, which has been frozen for decades. President Bush and I agreed that we would work towards promoting nuclear energy as a means for India to achieve energy security. The US side undertook to adjust its laws and policies domestically and to work with its friends and allies to adjust relevant international regimes. Full civilian nuclear energy cooperation would include, but not limit itself, to the expeditious consideration of fuel supplies for Tarapur. The US will also encourage other partners to consider similar requests favourably. We also obtained consideration of our desire to participate as full partners in the International Thermo Nuclear research Project and the Generation IV International Forum. These programmes in frontier areas of science and technology have considerable potential for our country’s and indeed global energy security in the future. The US agreed to consult other participants with a view towards India’s inclusion. This is a testimony not only to the enormous international stature and respect achieved by our nuclear scientists but recognition of their attainments. Our nuclear programme in many ways, is unique. It encompasses the complete range of activities that characterise an advanced nuclear power including generation of electricity, advanced research and development and our strategic programme. Our scientists have mastered the complete nuclear fuel cycle. The manner of the development of our programme which has been envisaged is predicated on our modest uranium resources and vast reserves of thorium. While the energy potential available in these resources is immense, we remain committed to the three-stage nuclear power programme, consisting of Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) in the first stage, fast breeder reactors in the second stage and thorium reactors in the third stage. These would need sequential implementation in an integrated manner. Our scientists have done excellent work and we are progressing well on this programme as per the original vision outlined by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Dr. Homi Bhabha. We will build on this precious heritage. The joint Statement recognises that as a responsible State with advanced nuclear technology, India should acquire the same benefits and advantages as other such States which have advanced nuclear technology. As a result we expect that the resumption of India’s nuclear trade and commerce with the US and globally, is an achieveable goal, involving the dismantling of the technology denial regimes which have hitherto targeted India. Predicated on our obtaining the same benefits and advantages as other nuclear powers, is the understanding that we shall undertake the same responsibilities and obligations as such countries, including the United States. Concomitantly, we expect the same rights and benefits. Thus we have ensured the principle of non-discrimination. I would like to make it very clear that our commitments would be conditional upon, and reciprocal to, the US fulfilling its side of this understanding. The Joint Statement refers to our identifying, and separating civilian and military nuclear facilities in a phased manner and taking a decision to place voluntarily civilian nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards. India will never accept discrimination. There is nothing in this Joint Statement that amounts to limiting or inhibiting our strategic nuclear weapons programme over which we will retain unrestricted, complete and autonomous control. I repeat there is nothing in this Joint Statement that amounts to limiting or inhibiting our strategic nuclear weapons programme over which we will retain unrestricted, complete and autonomous control. Reciprocity is key to the implementation of all the steps enumerated in the Joint Statement. We expect a close co-relation between the actions to be taken by the United States and by India. Indian actions will be contingent at every stage on actions taken by the other side. Should we not be satisfied that our interests are fully secured, we shall not feel pressed to move ahead in a pre-determined manner. Hence phased action, in terms of identification and separation of civilian nuclear facilities based solely on our own duly calibrated national decisions will be taken at appropriate points in time, consistent with our national security interests. Before voluntarily placing our civilian facilities under IAEA safeguards, we will ensure that all restrictions on India have been lifted. Our autonomy of decision-making will not be circumscribed in any manner whatsoever. I wish to emphasise to this House that the basis for this understanding was a clear recognition that India is a responsible nuclear power with an impeccable record on nuclear non-proliferation. Our strategic policies and assets are a source of national security and will continue to be so, and will remain outside the scope of our discussions with any external interlocutors. I should like to take this opportunity to assure Hon’ble Members that the Government will not allow any fissile material shortages or any other material limitations on our strategic programmes in order to meet current or future requirements. The defence and security interests of our country are our highest priority and will continue to remain so. Our policies and actions have earned us global recognition and widespread esteem, which I am sure, the House recognises and welcomes. This allows us not only to make a credible case for an end to three decades of technology denial but also to find a central and growing place in international organisations. I used the occasion of my visit to the US to spell out the basis on which India has made a compelling case for expansion of the UN Security Council and for our admission as a Permanent Member. The US has a different position on this matter and has not found it possible to endorse India’s position. It is my hope that over time the US will recognize the validity of what we say. In fact, the Joint Statement itself reflects growing US recognition of this position. It states “international institutions must fully reflect changes in the global scenario that have taken place since 1945.” I therefore believe my visit to the United States has led to greater understanding and appreciation of our concerns and interests. It has contributed to significant initiatives that have important economic and developmental implications for India. I have made a strong case on behalf of the Indian people that our voice be heard when decisions that affect us are made in global councils. I am confident that this House would welcome these developments.
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When authors face media Mediapersons
taking to full-time writing is not a new phenomenon but facing their former colleagues can be a trying experience for some. Shreekumar Varma, author of “The Lament of Mohini” (Penguin) and a columnist with The New Indian Express, says: “What I don’t much care about is the sound bite syndrome, picking up words and using them out of context simply to complete a programming requirement. “And, of course, the lack of preparation before interviews. I don’t know how avoidable this is given the dizzy pace of journalism. I haven’t had a problem with television interviewers so far; they’ve been pretty much complete with their homework. “But I have faced a couple of newspaper journalists who were extra casual. This sometimes irks me because I’m somewhat a journalist myself and still prepare myself before an interview,” Chennai-based Varma adds. But falsities are more offensive than being caught unprepared, say others. “What really irks me about the media is how they, more often than not, make half-truths the entire truth. There is a palpable intellectual laziness amongst media people today, a smug sloppiness that would be laughable if it wasn’t disturbing,” Jaideep Varma, author of “Local” (Indialog) and a former advertising professional, told IANS. Says the debutant Mumbai-based writer: “At the launch of my book, a TV channel picked up that there was a feature film that I’d been trying to make in 2004. Without even checking with me, they figured that the launched book (‘Local’) was originally a film script and since I couldn’t make the film I’d written the book version! “This was highly irritating because ‘Local’ had always been a book. As an exercise for its third draft, in 2002 I’d written it as a film script, which helped me streamline the book further, and shown it to (filmmaker) Sudhir Mishra, who was my chief guest at the launch and no one else. But it was originally, and even later, always a book and not as an afterthought which the channel seemed to imply.” Not all authors have a grouse though. Says Humra Quraishi, author of “Kashmir — The Untold Story” (Penguin) and a columnist with The Tribune: “I have no such complaints. On the contrary, I would like to say that over the last few years, there’s come about a strange tendency to heap all blame on the media. Media bashing, as it is called, is a rather unfortunate tendency. “Another aspect is that we speak rather too spontaneously, more along the strain of a conversation, without really realising that once it is reproduced in print, the spontaneity might surprise or shock.” “But then it’s much better to be spontaneous and forthright than come up with some guarded or contrived stuff,” Quraishi said. Sharad Chandra, author of “The Higher Fidelity” and winner of the best translator award by the Translators’ Association in 1993, agrees: “On the media-writer relationship, I would say the Press is rather favourably disposed towards writers and accepts its cousins happily. “Whenever the media has gone against a writer, it is not against his or her being a writer, but against a particular issue.” Chandra, who has written for several mainstream newspapers, vouched: “I have a pleasant rapport with the Press.” —
Indo-Asian News Service
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From the pages of Threatening letters
Very ingenious theories have been advanced to explain the authorship of the many threatening letters which have recently come to notice in this Province. It has been maintained that Hindus have fabricated Mahomedan names or designations to impose upon the authorities and to bring discredit upon Mahomedans; on the other hand, it has been as stoutly asserted that Mahomedans have assumed Hindu names and sent threatening or abusive letters to newspapers and elsewhere. The Municipal Secretary of Amritsar, who is neither a Hindu nor a Mahomedan, received a threatening letter and it was asserted that it must have been sent by a Hindu as the person threatened is very popular among Mahomedans. However, the old saying about threatened persons living long has been so far verified as no attempt has yet been made upon the lives of people who were given very short shrift in the letters addressed to them, or in notices pasted on walls. These threats were more or less meaningless for previous notice of murder is not usually given, and the persons recently murdered, including Pandit Lekhram, had no warning or intimation of their fate.
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See the man who lives happily among those unhappy ones who hate. He alone is free from hatred. See the man who lives happily among the unhappy greedy. He alone is free from greed. Like the bright goals, he lives happily indeed feeling radiantly on happiness. — The Buddha The intention of generosity is not the same as being generous. The intention of being truthful is not the same as actually telling the truth. The intention of knowing God is not the same as becoming wise. Intention must be into practice.
— Book of quotations on Hinduism There are all kinds of people in this world. Some like to fast, some to feast, some to pleasure, some to pain, some to think of thing material, some to things spiritual. It is the last who escape the bounds of Karma. — Book of quotations on Hinduism Those who remember God while they are standing, sitting, and in repose, and meditate on the creation of the heavens and the earth: “Our Lord, You have not created this in vain. Glory to you! Keep us safe from the torment of fire.”
— Book of quotations on Islam Mere birth does not make a good king. If the prince is disrespectful of his elders and discourteous to young, he is not worthy of being the king. He must be noble in behaviour as well as in birth. — The Mahabharata
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