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Go home, Buta Cong economic mantra |
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Learning with joy
Should lawyers resort to strikes?
Fond memories
Reclaim the ceasefire Bollywood speaks for the native Stop the presses! Seriously, stop!
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Go home, Buta BIHAR Governor Buta Singh’s continuance in office had become untenable soon after the Supreme Court held dissolution of the Bihar Assembly unconstitutional last October. With the Supreme Court giving the reasons for their verdict, he should not remain stuck to the saddle even for a minute. In a majority verdict on the dissolution of the Bihar Assembly in May last, the court found that he was politically biased in taking the decision. The sole purpose of his report to the Centre, based on which the President dissolved the Assembly, was to ensure that the Janata Dal-United did not form a government. The court found the Centre guilty of not cross-checking the Governor’s report before acting on it. In other words, Mr Buta Singh had mala fide intentions. The indictment could not have been more explicit or worse. The apex court’s harshness is not at all surprising. If he was a man of honour, he would have put in his papers the moment the Supreme Court judgement flashed on the tickers. Instead, he was even seen on the TV trying to brazen out his failure to live up to his oath of office on the specious plea that the elections held afterwards under him were the fairest of all. In retrospect, the JDU-BJP combine might also be grateful to him as his decision indirectly facilitated fresh elections and a better mandate for the coalition. But in no case does this mitigate the unfairness of his decision, which seemed to have been dictated by Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav. The court took a lenient view of the Centre’s imposition of President’s rule and the President’s signing the proclamation. It made it abundantly clear that issues of majority support were better determined on the floor of the House than in the chambers of Raj Bhavan. Although a new Assembly is already in place in Patna, the Supreme Court judgement imparts a significant lesson to all those holding gubernatorial assignments. The court has deprecated the practice of appointing politicians as governors. Though there is some sort of a consensus on the prescriptions of the Sarkaria Commission for the appointment of governors, all political parties still see the governor’s post as a preserve of politicians. However, there is no guarantee that non-politicians will measure up to the governor’s tasks. In fact, much depends on the integrity of the person concerned and his understanding of the Constitution. It is the duty of those in authority to choose only people of sterling qualities so that in times of crisis they are able to uphold the Constitution, irrespective of the pressures that the Central leaders or anyone else can bring to bear upon them for expediency.
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Cong economic mantra IT is difficult to dispute what Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said about his government’s efforts to “transform the face of India and the lives of the ordinary people” in the course of his address to the plenary session of the All-India Congress Committee in Hyderabad on Monday. During the past 20 months of its existence the United Progressive Alliance government has, no doubt, taken initiatives to ensure that all sections of society are able to share the fruits of growth. If things keep moving the way they have been it will be easier to sustain a 7-8 per cent growth rate. Agriculture, which has been growing at a slow pace, may show increased activity once it gets the attention it deserves, as promised by the Congress at Hyderabad. But what about the essential labour reforms and disinvestment in public sector undertakings? The economic resolution adopted at the Congress plenary session remains silent on such contentious issues. There is also no mention of allowing FDI in the retail sector, expected for a long time. The party is more bothered about the concerns of the 15 million small retailers, but not about the advantages that may be available to the countrymen as a whole once FDI in this vast sector is permitted. There is no point in repeating old slogans. The economic resolution gives the impression that the interests of the party and the government will get precedence over all other concerns. Compulsions of electoral and coalition politics should not act like a brake. Taking care of the sensibilities of coalition partners is alright, as is reflected in the declaration that “ under no circumstances should Navaratna companies be privatised”. It is well known that the government will go in for disinvestment only in those public sector undertakings about which there is consensus among the coalition members. But it can amount to allowing the government to do business, which should be left to businessmen alone. To lay “the foundation for achieving a growth of 10 per cent during the 11th Plan” which the Congress wants the government to do, it would require a relentless pursuit of the reforms—of course, in Dr Manmohan Singh’s words, “reforms with human face”. Aiming high is, after all, in the nation’s interest.
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Learning with joy BOARD exams have always caused fear in the minds of children and parents, threatening them with their potential for irrecoverable damage and the loss of a lifetime’s opportunities. NCERT’s move to provide 20 percent of the marks based on internal school assessment, which will also take into account co-curricular and behavioural skills, is a welcome move that will afford several benefits. Literary, artistic, cultural, and sporting skills, along with skills like team spirit and respect for the environment, are keys to both professional achievement and personal fulfilment. The Central Board of School Education (CBSE) and the Haryana Education Board have done well to already implement the move. Other Boards across the country will hopefully follow suit soon. The need for both “scholastic and non-scholastic” skills was first highlighted a decade ago by the Y.N. Chaturvedi Group, convened by the government to examine the recommendations made by the Yashpal Committee’s 1993 report “Learning without burden”. The Yashpal Committee had been tasked to suggest ways to reduce the academic burden on students, and they had focussed on the size of the school bag and the “joyless learning” environment that prevailed in our schools. They had also critiqued the stress on information rather than knowledge, the centralised character of the curriculum, over-reliance on text books, and unhealthy competition. The Yashpal Committee had recommended that “concept-based questioning” replace “text based, quiz type, questioning” in the Class X and Class XII board exams. “This single reform,” the report had stated, “is sufficient to improve the quality of learning and save the children from the tyranny of rote memorisation.” While the Chaturvedi group agreed, they stressed an emphasis on “Continuous and Comprehensive Evaulation (CCE) incorporating both scholastic and non-scholastic aspects.” These words and phrases have been bandied about in the country’s education policy statements for a long time now, and it was about time that they were put into action. A start is being made, and more steps will hopefully follow, towards giving our children the gift of joyful learning.
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Punctuality is the politeness of kings. — Louis XVIII
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Should lawyers resort to strikes? NO, No, No. Without recrimination or rhetoric, do consider the public perception of the practising lawyer in India. It is at times good to see ourselves as others see us. The picture is not very flattering. And what is the cause? No one has stated it more eloquently, or with greater brevity, than that master of the English language, William Shakespeare: “Men at some time are masters of their fates: / The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves that we are underlings” Several centuries later, Lord Scarman said much the same thing, in many more words! At a conference of the Law Society of New Zealand in 1984, to which I was invited, the distinguished Law Lord expressed some home truths about the legal profession which are worth noting. He said that lawyers must not arrogate to themselves a position of dominance in the society they serve. But “their position as servants of society” (he said) “is indispensable”. “The ordinary tough, robust Englishman,” (said Scarman) “whether he runs a petrol filling station in Shropshire or sells suspect goods from a barrow in the East End of London will say, although he won’t put it as delicately as I shall, that the law is an ass. But he will never say lawyers are idiots. He may say they are too expensive. He may say they are overbearing. He may say they are fortunate and far too wealthy. But he will, and does, respect them. The law may fall into disrepute but lawyers do not, unless they themselves create the circumstances in which they can become disreputable”. Yes, we become disreputable when we treat the profession as a business and give the impression that we will do anything – literally anything – for payment. We become both disreputable and unpopular when we choose, at our own pleasure, not to appear for clients in courts, tribunals and authorities before which we have an exclusive statutory right to practise. We demean ourselves, and our profession, when we resolve to strike work – and (so) paralyse the working of courts, tribunals and statutory bodies where cases and causes demand our expertise, our intercession and assistance. And yet (as Lord Scarman said) ordinary people respect lawyers – this is particularly true in India. People see lawyers as “more equal” than themselves. They regard lawyers as trained to use the freedoms granted by the country’s Constitution, as persons who know better than ordinary people how to use these freedoms. In times of grave crisis – constitutional or national – they look to lawyers (and associations of lawyers) to see how they react. They have done so in the past – and continue to do so in the present, notwithstanding the lawyer’s peccadillos, notwithstanding that on occasions, at the drop of a hat, we will not work for those who pay us. What is the reason for this? I believe it is because, over the years, without the support of legal guarantees, the practising lawyer in India has shown his true mettle – that he is at his best when the going is rough. Lord Atkin once said that an impartial administration of the law is like oxygen in the air; people know and care little about it till it is withdrawn. When it was withdrawn in India during the Internal Emergency of June 1975 the majority of those who stood up and were counted were the country’s practising lawyers – they openly fought the establishment, espousing human rights’ causes. The organizations established during this internal emergency for upholding civil liberties are still flourishing today – Citizens for Democracy, People’s Union for Civil Liberties. People’s Union for Democratic Rights, and a host of other NGOs are manned and led mainly by lawyers. An increasing number of practising lawyers, (as well as former judges, academic-lawyers and law-journalists) are now crusading against varying forms of injustice and exploitation, and assisting in promoting change and development in favour of the poor and the deprived, particularly through the expedient known as PIL (Public Interest Litigation); an innovative technique developed by India’s Judges, with the active assistance of the legal profession. But do remember, my lawyer friends, that an independent legal profession can never survive without public support – neither in India, nor elsewhere. And the public (the litigating public, the thinking public) simply abhors strikes by lawyers. I recall what the late Justice Dorab Patel said in his keynote address to a seminar held by the International Commission of Jurists (in Kathmandu in September 1987), “In the long run” (he said) “the manner in which judges and lawyers discharge their duties can build up public opinion for the courts, and public opinion is a better safeguard for the independence of judges and the utility of lawyers than laws and constitutional guarantees”. Justice Patel knew what he was talking about. He had raised a groundswell of public opinion (in his favour) when he preferred to resign as a member of his country’s Supreme Court rather than take a fresh oath of office to the Martial Law Administrator under the then newly-promulgated Constitution of Pakistan. What Justice Patel said is not restricted to his own country. It applies to India also. And we lawyers would do well to pay heed. One last, self-serving reason why lawyers should not strike: I have always taken the view that we are a service-oriented profession, and that with frequent striking of work by the legal profession, Judges will get used to direct exposure to litigants, and with the exposure will come the inevitable experience, that nearly 80 per cent of cases can be effectively disposed of without (rather than with) the assistance of lawyers! When that day arrives (as I always tell my friends at the Bar) it will be the death-knell of the practising lawyer’s profession, because Judges and litigants will then conclude that lawyers are not so indispensable after all! That is why in the end, in the overriding interest of professional self–preservation, lawyers should not resort to
strikes.
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Fond memories CHANDIGARH College of Architecture (CCA) was established on August 7, 1961. As a founder-teacher, I have fond memories of umpteen events associated with this premier institution. Ours was the first professional college in the “City Beautiful” to have girl students on its rolls. There were three girls in our first batch of 30 students. We held our first prize distribution function in the small courtyard next to our classrooms in the Punjab Engineering College building. Monsieur Pierre Jeanneret, who was the Chief Architect and Town Planning Adviser to the Government of Punjab, was the chief guest of the evening. Like his cousin Le Corbusier, he had a puckish sense of humour. Though small-statured, he was full of zest, and liked the company of young students. When two of the three girls, who were “miniscule” females, came up to receive their prize for long jump, Monsieur Jeanneret expressed surprise “I don’t believe you can jump at all. Come, let me see if you really can”. The girls instantly obliged. It was a remarkable long jump — twice their height — two metres! “No. No. You don’t know. I show you how to jump”, said Monsieur Jeanneret in his broken English. And true enough, he jumped with keen boyish enthusiasm. It was a hearty frog hop. He broke the girls’ record by two millimetres, and felt visibly proud of his manly feat. But to save the girls from embarrassment, he shared with them his victory more as an amusement than as an achievement. He had to, because he discovered that his spectacles had jumped ahead of him by two metres. In one go he broke two things in this historic CCA event — girls’ long-jump record, and his glasses. He went back home that evening with sweet memories — and bruised
knees.
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Reclaim the ceasefire THE increasingly incendiary situation in Sri Lanka is crying out for someone to step in to end the spiralling violence that could take the country back to war. More than sixty Sri Lankan troops have been killed in landmine blasts in various parts of the north-east in the past six weeks. Despite denials by the LTTE, these blasts were clearly their handiwork. In the same period, one senior Tamil Parliamentarian and several LTTE supporters, including a newspaper vendor in Jaffna, have been shot dead by paramilitaries operating in areas under Sri Lankan government control and allegedly enjoying the backing of the Sri Lankan forces. Mr. Eric Solheim, the Norwegian Minister for International Development and coordinator of the Sri Lankan peace process, faces a formidable job. True, he has been having a credibility problem with a section of the Sinhalese who have projected him as being soft on the LTTE. Many of them would love to have someone else in his place. At one point, President Chandrika Kumaratunga, having invited the Norwegian team for talks to Colombo, dropped him out of her guest list. Mr. Solheim has taken such slights in his stride and has persevered with the peace process, while his government has fully backed him as an objective and impartial peace maker. There have been suggestions in the past from the Sri Lankan side seeking Mr. Solheim’s replacement. But given the critical nature of the current situation, such counsel shall have to wait. Mr. Solheim’s first priority will be to get the four year old ceasefire agreement back on track. Of course, the LTTE will continue to push the line that they have no hand in the claymore mine blasts that have been blowing up the Sri Lankan troops in incident after incident. But nobody would buy that yarn. By persisting with that line, they could only hope to raise the stakes. That is a game that can be played only up to a point. But in order to get the LTTE to stop these acts, Mr. Solheim would need to get the Sri Lankan government to rein in the paramilitaries operating in areas under their control. The LTTE’s version is that the Sri Lankan military intelligence is using the paramilitaries to attack their targets. That position gained credence after two UNP leaders claimed that it was their government under Prime Minister Ranil Wickramsinghe that had engineered the eastern LTTE commander Col. Karuna’s rebellion against Prabhakaran. In any case, the Sri Lankan government cannot escape responsibility for the actions of the renegade elements operating in parts of the north-east that they control. It is possible that there is an expectation in certain quarters in Colombo that the government could use the paramilitaries to the same effect as the vigilantes were used in exterminating the JVP cadres by President Premadasa in 1989. But such a naively optimistic view grossly underrates the LTTE’s strike capabilities. Given the nature of Mr. Mahinda Rajapakse’s southern constituency, he has, during his election campaign and after, indicated that his government would renegotiate the ceasefire agreement. He has also been promising his constituents that the solution to the ethnic problem would be sought within a unitary State constitutional model. Mr. Solheim would need to persuade the Sri Lankan government to see that both these would be untenable positions, and cannot be sustained if the ceasefire agreement is to be upheld and implemented. The February 2002 agreement does bestow reciprocal status to the LTTE vis a vis the government. That clearly is not to the taste of many people in the Sinhalese south, especially those representing the JHU and the JVP. But then, that is an agreement reached between LTTE and the Sri Lankan government, and cannot be unilaterally altered without threatening peace in the island. One must be able to appreciate that while there may be a universal distrust or dislike of the LTTE among the majority population in the south, that does not automatically translate into a consensus in favour of a war at the present juncture. The ceasefire agreement, for all its flaws, real or imaginary, has saved young Sinhalese lives and also helped the economy. There is thus a constituency favouring its continuance even if it may not be as well articulated as the extremists. That may be one reason why Opposition leader Mr. Ranil Wickarmsinghe—so early in Mr. Rajapakse’s honey moon period—chose to criticise the JHU and the JVP for “subverting” the ceasefire agreement. As for Mr. Rajapakse’s ideas on a unitary state, there is more than one opinion on the subject even within his own party. The President’s position is clearly at variance from that of his predecessor. Mrs. Chandrika Kumaratunga, whose baseline position was for a federal framework in which the quantum of devolution alone was the subject of argument. The President’s offer of “maximum autonomy” within a unitary constitutional framework may be music to the ears of the JVP and the JHU, but no Tamil party can take it seriously. The unitary constitutional framework was not acceptable even to the moderates among the Tamil groups participating in the Thimpu and Bangalore talks in the eighties, how can the LTTE accept it as the basis of any negotiations two decades later? President Premadasa’s peace initiative collapsed within months after the departure of the IPKF in 1990. And, President Chandrika was fully into a war with the LTTE within a year after her election in 1994. So, despite the current despondency there still must be hope if the two sides are willing to build on the positive aspects and reclaim an agreement that deserves to be treated better than it has been in recent months. |
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Bollywood speaks for the native AS
critics look back at the films of 2005, some are calling Mangal Pandey as one of the most disappointing movies of the year. Whether Mangal Pandey will go down in the annals of Indian film history as part of a cinematic oeuvre remains to be seen. What this film – and the earlier Lagaan – has done is establish an emerging trend in popular cinema: telling the story of colonialism from the native’s point of view by thoughtfully exploring the power relations between the coloniser and the colonised. One can argue that Mangal Pandey or Lagaan are not the first films to bring nuanced narratives of India’s colonial history on screen. Indeed, Ray’s Shatranj Ke Khiladi accomplished the task 25 years ago. Yet, Mangal Pandey and Lagaan are distinctly different. They are commercially viable films which don’t cater to monolithic notions of Indian or English identity. The fact that in each of these films Indian and British characters are cognizant of their attraction, enmity and love for each other, tells a story of the complex ways in which colonialism functioned. The coloniser-colonised relationship was never one of binary opposites. Mrinalini Sinha in her path-breaking book, Colonial Masculinity: The manly Englishman and the effeminate Bengali writes of the “colonial unconscious” which resulted from “a simultaneous attraction to and repulsion of the colonised.” These films can neither be understood as windows on the past, nor vehicles of false history (as some claim in bringing court cases against the producers of Mangal Pandey). Rather they do, as historian Dipesh Chakrabarty writes, “understand the ambivalent ideology behind the civilising mission.” Refusing to use the colonial setting merely as an exotic décor, the films portray the empire, not as a world where white men’s dreams and fantasies are realised, but rather, to show the day-to-day lives of ordinary Indians. For instance, in Mangal Pandey, from the wet nurse, the phanka-puller, to the untouchable, the film gives us the voices of those at the margins of colonialism, not simply the zamindars and maharajas. Multilayered motivations of European settlers can be found in scene after scene, including stories of petty officers in the East India Company. Rethinking colonialism via films is a world-wide phenomenon. In Hollywood, count Steven Spielberg’s critical look at slavery in Amistad as the story of slave Cinque’s efforts to return to Africa. Merchant-Ivory’s Jefferson in Paris narrates the little-known story of Sally Hemings, Thomas Jefferson’s slave, lover and mother to six of his children. Senegalese director Ousmane Sembene’s movies Mandabi and Camp de Thiaroye have depicted the racist colonial policies of the French in West Africa. Chinese directors Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou, in their films Farewell My Concubine, Judou and Raise the Red Lantern, explore British occupation of China. French films like Indochine and Scent of Green Papaya have carefully depicted French colonisation of Southeast Asia. Mangal Pandey complements such a genre.
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Stop the presses! Seriously, stop! GOOD evening and welcome to HOT News, the cable channel that brings you all the most important news of the moment. Tonight’s top story: Arab television network Al-Jazeera reports that it has received a new audiotape from al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, threatening – We interrupt our broadcast to bring you this late-breaking news: According to unconfirmed reports, Sexiest Woman Alive Angelina Jolie is expecting a child with her “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” co-star and Sexiest Newly Adoptive Father Alive Brad Pitt. HOT News will bring you updates as we learn of new developments. We now return to our regularly scheduled newscast. The United States and the European Union have concluded that further talks with Iranian leaders over the country’s nuclear program are futile and have – This is just in: She’s definitely pregnant! In this exclusive video footage, we confirm that Angelina Jolie’s baby bump is beginning to show. Anonymous sources tell us that two of the Most Beautiful People in the World are expecting the most beautiful baby ever, in the next four to six months. Good wishes to the now officially happy couple have begun to pour in from all over. Stay tuned as we continue to monitor this developing story. We now take you back to our regular newscast, already in progress. Amid growing concern of an avian flu pandemic, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan warned – We interrupt our program to bring you this news flash: In a just-released statement, Jennifer Aniston’s publicist has revealed that Brad Pitt did not contact his ex-wife to inform her of Angelina Jolie’s pregnancy. Aniston, former star of the hit television show “Friends,” learned about her ex-husband’s impending fatherhood with his now-confirmed current girlfriend from our live newscast just a few moments ago. Approached on the set of her new film, a tearful Aniston told our reporter she wished – This is just in! We interrupt our breaking news story to bring you the following breaking news and take you live to the White House where President Bush is about to address the nation. President Bush: My fellow Americans, this is indeed a great moment for our country. A baby resulting from a Jolie-Pitt union will not only beautify our already beautiful nation, but also reaffirms the family values that have made this nation of ours the greatest in the world. Laura and I were thrilled when we heard the news yesterday. Actually, I found out around the same time as Brad because I utilized my special presidential post-9/11 powers and had my “listening ears” on. Heh-heh. I’m sure gonna miss Angie on “Friends” – but there’s always reruns. On behalf of all Americans, Laura and I would like to offer our heartfelt congratulations to the bodacious Brangelina. And that wraps up our evening broadcast, folks. We’re all out of time. Thanks for tuning in to HOT News, and goodnight.
— LA Times-Washington Post
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From the pages of Help for “Bande-Mataram”
We whole-heartedly associate ourselves with the appeal issued by L. Lajpat Rai, founder of the local “Bande Mataram,” exhorting the Punjab public to help the proprietors of the paper in tiding over the crisis that has been brought about as a result of Mr Justice Martineau’s judgement awarding a decree of Rs 13,000 against it. Newspapers in this Province have never been particularly prosperous and if they are compelled to pay such heavy penalties for doing their duty out of their current revenue, very few of them will survive. The “Bande Mataram” has, during the four years or so of its existence, made considerable sacrifices in money as well as men, in the cause of India’s struggle for freedom and we hope that the Punjabees will not permit it to sink.
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Realise the power of the Word. In it is the might of the Universe, the strength of true realisation. This word is AUM. Say to yourself again and again through the hours of light and darkness, through every day of your life. — Bhagvad Gita The great Omnipresent Spirit loves all equally, whether thy be pious or sinners. The pious love him equally but the sinners ignore him. So they never come to know of his love. — Sanatana Dharma That woman alone is beautiful who adorns her forehead with the jewel of love. — Guru Nanak
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