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EC gets tough Good sense prevails |
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Death of Milosevic
End of communism
Hitler... yes or no?
Tackling unemployment in Himachal Pradesh
Japan cracks down on students who refuse to sing Delhi Durbar
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EC gets tough ON the face of it, the Election Commission’s decision to transfer Chennai Police Commissioner R. Nataraj for having violated the model code of conduct cannot be faulted. In an interview to a newspaper, he has hailed Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa as the “Best Chief Minister”. He also claimed that law and order was “best maintained in the state under her leadership”. The commission felt that Mr Nataraj has acted in a highly partisan manner, showing his political preferences towards the AIADMK leadership. As a result, he could not help ensure free and fair elections in the Greater Chennai area consisting of 20 Assembly constituencies. The commission has ordered that he should be shifted to a “non-elective post”. What led to this development was a complaint filed by Union Environment and Forest Minister and DMK leader A. Raja against Mr Nataraj for having acted in a partisan manner. Going a step further, the commission has also directed both the Centre and the state not to announce any new scheme or project as the code of conduct for elections is in force. Having announced elections in four states and one Union Territory, the commission has taken up the challenge of ensuring free and fair elections in right earnest. It has taken several measures to weed out bogus voters in the electoral rolls, introduce photo identity cards for voters and prevent rigging. In West Bengal, it has ordered the creation of a monitoring cell to keep vigil on politicians. Political parties in general and ministers in particular are now virtually under surveillance. The state’s Chief Electoral Officer can monitor cases of violation suo motu and take action after informing the commission. Significantly, in Kerala, the commission has dashed the UDF government’s plan to finalise the agreement on the Smart City project that promised employment to 33,300 people. The government had to back out following the commission’s warning that it will view the step seriously. The pro-active role of the commission to prevent the misuse of official machinery and ensure impartial elections in all the states is welcome. How else will it succeed in its endeavour if it does not get tough with those bent on violating the code of conduct?
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Good sense prevails EVEN those who find the idea of fatwa reprehensible will have little objection to the four fatwas Muslim clerics have issued against terrorists causing disrepute to Islam. What has provoked them is the self-styled
Lashkar-e-Qahar (Army of the Subduer) claiming credit for the recent attack on a temple in Varanasi. They are particularly upset about the use of
“Qahar”, which is one of the many names by which the Prophet is called. Their righteous indignation is understandable as the outfit has claimed responsibility for one of the most despicable acts of terrorism – killing innocent people praying in a temple. There are several other groups like the Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of Mohammed) and the Lashkare-e-Taiba (Army of the Righteous), which misuse His name and cause disrepute to the religion and its practitioners. The latest fatwas seek not only to condemn such outfits but also distance Islam from them. The concept of peace is central to Islamic tenets and as such there can be no Islamic sanction for any killing of innocent people. Yet in the name of jihad – which, again, is a much-misused religious term – even the most inhuman acts are sought to be justified. As a result, some people, unfortunately, consider Islam synonymous with terrorism, though there are no extant links between the two. Unfortunately, efforts to rally people against those who misuse the religion for their political and nefarious ends have so far been so half-hearted that the terrorists have got away with even the most questionable acts. Seen against this none-too-pleasing backdrop, it is heartening that the Muslim clergy has felt the need to distance itself from the terrorists. They have learnt the hard way that when they have such self-proclaimed “allies”, they don’t need any enemies. The way the Muslims of India responded to the Varanasi blasts is indeed commendable. Everybody who is somebody in the community condemned it in the strongest possible terms. Not only that, the Muslims stood shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the people in demonstrating to the killers that they are one in facing the threat posed by the terrorists. More than anything else, it is the good sense of the people that provides hope to the nation in its fight against terrorism and strengthens the values that should guide a plural and secular society.
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Death of Milosevic THE death in custody of Slobodan Milosevic — which is shrouded in mystery — closes a chapter in Serbian history. The completion of the trial proceedings of the 64-year-old leader of rump Yugoslavia, officially called Serbia and Montenegro, at the UN War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague, Netherlands, could have helped in getting an authoritative account of the Balkan crisis. A number of legal luminaries had been engaged for four years in weighing evidence to prove his guilt on 66 counts, but the trial has been ordered closed now. The controversy about his death is unlikely to end easily. He will be known not only for his pogroms, but also for reducing Josip Broz Toto’s Yugoslavia to its present form — a loose federation of Serbia and Montenegro. Some time ago even Montenegro had threatened to declare independence, but somehow an agreement was reached to save whatever was left of Yugoslavia. The policies Milosevic, a civil engineer-turned politician, pursued during his 13-year misrule and the Serbians’ inability to understand the ethnic aspirations of others virtually destroyed Yugoslavia bit by bit. His attempt for “Greater Serbia” led to the reopening of the old rifts in Yugoslavian society, which had disappeared during Marshal Tito’s rule. The result was a civil war in the early 1990s and the declaration of independence by Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia. It was Tito’s skilful handling of the Yugoslavian republics which had kept them together as the Land of the South Slavs. Serbia was the dominant part of this multi-ethnic union, but the aspirations of the other constituents were not ignored. The world remembers Tito’s Yugoslavia for its significant role in the Non-Aligned Movement, which remained a force to be reckoned with till a few years ago. For Yugoslavia, the distance it has travelled from Tito to Milosevic has been marked by continuing violence, strife and dismemberment.
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Accident counts for much in companionship as in marriage. — Henry Brooks Adams
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End of communism ON the morning of February 25, 1956, a short, bald, thick-set man rose to address an unscheduled meeting of high-ranking members of the Soviet communist party in Moscow. They were in town to attend the party’s 20th congress. The meeting was closed to delegates from the 55 fraternal communist parties who had come to the Soviet capital to attend the congress, the first since Stalin’s death three years earlier. “Comrades,” began Nikita Khrushchev, the party’s first secretary, as he started reading his 20,000-word speech. “After Stalin’s death, the central committee of the party began to implement a policy of explaining, that it is impermissible and foreign to the spirit of Marxism and Leninism to elevate one person, to transform him into a superman possessing supernatural characteristics akin to those of a god”. When John Reed witnessed in the same city the 10 days that shook the world in 1917, he didn’t know that only 39 years later, Khrushchev’s four-hour speech would shake the communist world to its very roots. Although it would take another three decades before communism would finally collapse with the fall of the Berlin wall, 1956 marked the beginning of the end. It robbed the doctrine of the claim of being a superior model of politics. And the reason for its fall from grace was Khrushchev’s enumeration of Stalin’s innumerable crimes, which stunned communists all over the world, persuading a leading figure among them, the Yugoslav dissident Milovan Djilas, to describe the Bolshevik dictator as “the greatest criminal in history”. In his speech, Khrushchev underlined the “grave abuse of power” by Stalin, whose regime was characterised by “mass arrests and deportations of thousands and thousands of people and executions without trial or normal investigation”. Stalin’s charges of conspiracy by counter-revolutionaries were, as Khrushchev said, “absurd, wild and contrary to common sense”. Moreover, innocent people were made to confess their crimes by “torture, reducing them to unconsciousness, depriving them of judgment and taking away their human dignity”. It wasn’t only the innocent who suffered. Of the 139 Central Committee members elected in 1934, to the 17th party congress 98 were shot. Later, out of 1,966 delegates, 1,108 were arrested. Almost all of them either died in prison or in the Siberian concentration camps. To extract their confessions, Stalin’s instruction to the secret police was: “beat, beat, and once again, beat !”. What was noteworthy, however, about Khrushchev’s speech was not the revelations, which had long been suspected at least outside the Soviet Union, but the fact that it remained “secret” till 1988, the year before the fall of the Berlin wall. The communists never officially admitted its existence. Yet, William Taubman says in his biography of Khrushchev that it was read out in factories, farms, government offices and even high schools. The eastern European communist leaders were told of the speech within hours of its completion when it was read out to them very slowly by Soviet emissaries so that they could take notes. Little wonder that one of the copies reached the CIA via the Israeli intelligence in early April. In late May, the U.S. State Department gave a copy to the New York Times, which published it on June 4, 1956. But when Western reporters asked Khrushchev about its authenticity, he jocularly referred them to Allen Dulles, the CIA Director. It was not until 1961, however, that Stalin’s body was removed from the Red Square because Khrushchev said that it was “inappropriate” to keep it on Lenin’s side in view of the “serious violations by Stalin of Lenin’s precepts, abuse of power, mass repressions and other activities in the period of the personality cult”. Veteran CPM leader Promode Dasgupta later said that he had asked the Soviets during a visit to Moscow whether they had removed the body because they were afraid of ghosts. He may not have been too far wrong because Khrushchev writes in his memoirs that “even after his (Stalin’s) massive crimes were exposed and his guilt indisputably proved, there are those who still quake before Stalin’s dirty underwear, who stand at attention and salute it, never questioning that all the deaths caused by Stalin were historically inevitable and relatively insignificant compared to the greatness of our leader, the Dear Father of the Soviet People, the Genius and Master”. Considering that portraits of the “mustachioed god” — Pablo Neruda’s description — still adorn the offices of the Indian communist parties, it is obvious that there are people “who stand at attention and salute it”. Among those who still salute it is the Marxist maverick, Ashok Mitra, who says that America wouldn’t have dared to attack Vietnam or Iraq had Stalin been around ! But, Ajoy Ghosh, general secretary of the undivided CPI, had acknowledged soon after Khrushchev’s speech that “some of our comrades say that the whole moral basis on which they stood is shaken”. Khrushchev’s condemnation of Stalin did not mean the rejection of Stalinism although Lavrenti Beria was the last leading political figure to be shot. Others, including Khrushchev, died of old age. Why he took this enormous political risk, as Gorbachev said, is something of a mystery. But the answer perhaps lies in what William Taubman has written in a recent New York Times article: “Unlike most of his comrades in Stalin’s inner circle, Khrushchev somehow retained his humanity. He never forgave Stalin for making him an accomplice in terrible crimes. The secret speech was in part motivated by a sense of guilt at his own complicity”. As early as 1940, when Khrushchev was fully Stalin’s henchman, he told a childhood friend who lamented Stalin’s purges: “Don’t blame me for that.” He went on, using a vulgar pun on Stalin’s name, to say that he would some day “settle” with the dictator “in full”. He kept his word. When Khrushchev himself was being ousted in the mid-sixties, he told his only remaining friend of the time, Anastas Mikoyan: “I’ve done the main thing. Could anyone have dreamed of telling Stalin that he didn’t suit us any more and suggesting he retire ? Not even a wet spot would have remained where he had been standing. Now everything is different. The fear is gone and we can talk as equals. That’s my contribution”. There is an echo of Marlon Brando’s muttering of the word, “horror”, towards the end of the Vietnam film classic Apocalypse Now in Khrushchev’s lament that what he regretted “most of all (was) the blood. My arms are up to the elbows in blood. That’s the most terrible thing that lies in my soul”. Khrushchev’s achievement was to confirm what earlier dissenters had written in the book, “The God that Failed”. In essence, it signalled the victory of capitalism. As Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm concedes, “Marx and Engels wisely refrained from describing what communist society would be like. But most of what little they said about what individual life would be like under it now seems to be the result, without communism, of that social production of potentially unlimited plenty, and that miraculous technological progress, which they expected in some indeterminate future, but which is taken for granted
today”.
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Hitler... yes or no?
Democracy, though called a government of the people, by the people and for the people, has many dimensions in our country. If it has given us political consistency and stability during the last six decades, we are well aware of many of its ugly facets also. Right from the day of Independence, the discussion goes on whether we are fit for such a liberal form of government or not. I was invited to preside over a declamation contest at Dayanand Medical College, Ludhiana. Accepting this honour was easy but the very subject — do we need a Hitler in India? – sent shudders down my spine. It was an opportunity for me to peep into the young minds, the would-be doctors, about what they think of the state of affairs in their country. The results were as startling as the topic itself. Some of the participants who spoke against Hitler were confined to counting the greatness of our ancient culture, the cult of nonviolence and the virtues of assimilating multiple religions and faiths in our country. But the participants who gave the oration in favour of Hitler were more aggressive and assertive like their ‘’idol’’ and cited strong reasons as to why their faith in the present setup was dwindling. The degrading politics and the disposition of our politicians came under sharp criticism and attack. It appeared that these two have lost much of their credibility, respect and standing. The unbridled corruption where persons in the highest echelons of power are caught taking bribes, their attempts to divide society on the basis of caste and religion and the lessening of accountability and fear of law had evoked the ire of young medicos. Everybody knows that Hitler represented the monstrous face of a rule and regime under whose headship humanity has seen its nadir. Many years ago, just to win an argument, Giani Zail Singh as Home Minister had glorified Hitler in the Lok Sabha. But if the present generation is more forthright and is disillusioned with the politicians and thinks politics as the first and last asylum of the discredited, certainly it is not its fault. As speaker after speaker was putting forth his or her views, I sat there in a reflective mood. There seemed to be nothing more left for me to speak. Winding up the discussion, I had to make them recall that Hitler, though dead six decades ago, had left Hitlerism alive in the world. But in the Indian context, seeing in him the remedy of all our political ailments is something like finding a cure which is worse than the disease. While leaving the venue, I was happy on one account that at least I had met young and surging minds who might need political corrections but were not politically
indifferent.
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Tackling unemployment in Himachal Pradesh WITH unemployment figures reaching a whopping 8.59 lakh making a provision of jobs for the educated youth has become a major challenge for the Himachal Pradesh government. The problem is compounded by the fact that the literacy rate is increasing at a higher pace than the inflow of jobs. The state’s literacy rate, which stood at 31.96 per cent in 1971, increased to 77.13 per cent in 2001. The state has witnessed an upsurge in the industrial growth after the announcement of the 2003 central industrial package by former Prime Minister A.B.Vajpayee. Though the state government claims to have attracted investment worth Rs 17,500 crore, promising employment opportunities to about 2.5 lakh youth, the actual employment procured till now is very small. Officials in the Industries Department say that as many as 2,126 industrial units have come up in production till January 31, 2006. As many as 22,361 youth had been employed in the industries. They include 17,931 Himachalis which comprise 80.18 per cent of the total number. The absence of technically trained manpower has acted as a major constraint for employing local youth. With the state lacking pharmacists, textile engineers, boiler attendants, pharmacy operators, etc., industrialists find fulfilling the 70 per cent condition an arduous task. The worst sufferers are pharmaceutical firms and textile units. Though around 307 pharmaceutical firms have sought registration with the Industries Department, less than 100 have initiated production till now. The unavailability of adequate M.Pharma, B.Pharma, D.Pharma and boiler attendants has forced them to hire the lesser qualified staff which affects their operations, confides an HRD manager of a top pharma firm. Similarly, though as many as 73 textile units have got themselves registered in the Baddi-Barotiwala area, barely a few could initiate operations. Mr Sachit Jain, executive director, Vardman Group says, “The government should consider opening professional colleges catering to textile engineering trade in Himachal . With the shortage of skilled manpower in the textile and pharmaceutical sectors new units are attracting experienced staff from the older units to fulfil the 70 per cent mandate. This is adversely affecting the older units.” Labour Commissioner Kashmir Chand, while agreeing to the unavailability of adequate technically qualified youth for the pharma and textile sectors said, “Certain units had deliberately projected higher qualifications for making recruitment while seeking an NOC, but later lesser qualified staff had been employed, thus deviating from the laid down policy. This was not only an infringement of the Compulsory Notification of Vacancies Act, but such attempts also mislead the government, which will be severely dealt with”. Some firms like Dr Reddy’s Laboratories and Nicholas Piramel have, however, worked up a unique way to meet this shortage. “We have selected about 65 students having a science background at the plus two level from various colleges. They are now being trained at Chandigarh and will soon be absorbed for various jobs within the firm for the first two years . Specific responsibilities will then be entrusted to them depending on their performance and competence,” says Sanjeev Sharma, a senior manager of the firm. The senior staff comprising experienced pharmacy experts have, however, been brought from the Hyderabad office to handle crucial responsibilities. Mr Manohar Tekta, a senior manager from Nicholas Piramal, adds that, “The employment exchanges are unable to cater to the demand for experienced candidates. Those who get registered at the time of obtaining their degrees do not bother to update their profile with experience. Nor do the candidates who procure jobs tend to strike off their registration. Hence, interview calls are sent to a large number of candidates, though only a few are found eligible.” Mr A.R. Singh, President of the Baddi-Barotiwala Nalagarh Industries Association, who has been running his unit since 1988, says, “ Instead of enforcing this 70 per cent condition in one go, the government should formulate a policy to fulfil it within a stipulated period. This would provide time to the industry to train youth according to its requirements and even 100 per cent Himachalis can be absorbed .” The Labour Department, which is supposed to ensure adherence to the state’s employment policy, is grappling with its own problems. Despite rapid industrialisation, the crucial posts of Joint Labour Commissioner, Deputy Labour Commissioner, Labour Officer and Labour Inspector have been lying vacant for the past several years. The Labour Commissioner, Mr Kashmir Chand, while ruing the lack of staff, said, “The government was seized of the problem and it was contemplating to appoint five labour implementation officers in the prime industrial areas. These officials would be responsible for ensuring implementation of the labour laws and employment to Himachalis. With as many as 381 posts lying vacant, a comprehensive plan to strengthen the department by making direct recruitment had been drawn up and sent to the government.” The need of the hour is to open short-term courses for training youth in specific industrial trades. Investors can provide in-house training. If the government departments and investors work in tandem, a solution can be worked out which can ensure that the industry not only sustains after the incentive period, but also contributes to the overall growth of the economy.
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Japan cracks down on students who refuse to sing Tokyo’s education authorities have ordered head teachers to make sure students stand to attention and sing the national anthem. The move follows a rash of protests by students and teachers since Japan made standing for the anthem compulsory in 1999 in an attempt to encourage patriotism. The directive, which was issued by the city’s board of education to heads of public primary and secondary schools, says students should show respect for the Kimigao, a hymn to the emperor that means “his majesty’s reign,” and for the “rising sun” flag, the hinomaru. “Principals must thoroughly ensure all school personnel give appropriate instructions to all students based on official curriculum guidelines,” a board official said earlier this week. Hundreds of teachers across Japan have been disciplined in the past six years for refusing to obey the law by remaining seated, wearing peace ribbons or feigning sickness to avoid school ceremonies. Many teachers in this still strongly pacifist country bitterly resent being forced to stand to attention for symbols they associate with Japan’s militarist past. More than 300 public schoolteachers in the capital are suing the Tokyo educational board to reverse the directive, which they say is unconstitutional. “If Germany did this they would call it what it is: Nazism,” said one of the teachers, Eishun Nagai. Ministry of Education guidelines specify that teachers who ignore orders to stand and sing will be punished. Officials in Tokyo, which has taken the hardest line on the issue under the nationalist governor, Shintaro Ishihara, have been dispatched to school ceremonies to ensure the flag is displayed prominently and the anthem sung with sufficient gusto. In one case, a music teacher, Sato Miwako, sued the government after she was suspended for refusing to play the anthem on her piano. The teacher, a committed Christian, called the 1999 directive “unbelievable” and said when she heard she had to play the song “it was as if my life was being crushed”. In 2004, a retired teacher, Katsuhisa Fujita, was arrested after he ignored staff protests to stop hectoring parents to stay seated for the anthem during a graduation ceremony. Tokyo alone has handed out warnings, suspensions, pay cuts and sackings to more than 300 education staff for anthem-related offences since 2003. The number of protesters has plummeted in the wake of the tougher measures; just 50 people were disciplined last year and the figure is expected to fall further this year. Parents are also increasingly inclined to stand. Two pacifists, Yoshihisa and Midori Yoshida, were the only parents to stay seated during their son Yu’s primary school graduation ceremony last month. “None of the teachers and pupils, except us, refused to stand up,” said Yoshihisa Midori. “But we are very satisfied and proud of my son.” The anthem and flag law was introduced by the government of Keizo Obuchi in an attempt to restore symbols tainted by their wartime past to the centre of national life. But it immediately ran into opposition from the teaching profession. Tokyo issued the latest directive after learning that some schools were still dragging their feet.
— The Independent
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Delhi Durbar West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has not been able to forget or forgive US Ambassador David Mulford for his protest letter. When the question about Mulford’s controversial letter to him last month objecting to his description of US President George Bush as “leader of a most organised pack of killers” was raised at a press conference in the national Capital, Bhattacarjee retorted it was below his dignity to reply to such a question. He went on to clarify that the CPM wants India to have normal diplomatic ties with the US. “I have great regard for American scientists, universities and intellectuals, but we hate Pentagon and war-mongers,’’ the CM reaffirmed.
Work for juniors Unlike many of his colleagues, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee has not been found wanting in allocating work to the two junior ministers — Rao Inderjit Singh and M.M. Palamraju. Even as Rao Inderjit Singh has been given charge of defence production and service matters, Palamraju will oversee welfare and resettlement of ex-servicemen as well as defence appeal committees for pensions. This is in sharp contrast to other senior ministers who have been found wanting in allocating work to their juniors.
Nitish Kumar woos industry Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar never loses an opportunity to draw attention to the legacy left behind by the 15 years of “misrule” by Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal. At the same time, he insists that he is not in the habit of crying over the past. At an Assocham seminar he told industrialists that sky was the limit if they wanted to invest in Bihar. He maintained he was determined to improve the law and order situation regardless of whether or not they invested in Bihar.
BSP silent on N-deal Political circles have been at a loss to pinpoint why Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj party has remained silent about the agreement between India and the US on cooperating in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Mayawati has neither come in support of the deal nor raised her voice against it. Though preoccupation with developments in Uttar Pradesh has been cited as a reason for keeping mum on the Indo-US agreement, it is apparent Mayawati does not want to waste her energies on mundane stuff like the Indo-US nuclear agreement.
Lobbying for RS seat Though Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad has not resigned his Rajya Sabha seat yet, Congressmen from the state have already begun lobbying for the impending vacancy. There are reports that the Chief Minister may be interested in getting his wife nominated to the Upper House. Instead of opting for the easier route through the Legislative Council, the Chief Minister is seeking election to the state assembly in an apparent bid to silence those who have been saying that he has come to the top post in the state without winning an election from there. Contributed by Tripti Nath, S. Satyanarayanan, R. Suryamurthy and Prashant Sood
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From the pages of New shackles for India
Mr C. Rajagopalachari is not the only leading Indian who thinks that the proposals adumbrated by Sir Samuel Hoare contain new shackles in the name of safeguards conceived in total disregard of the solemn promise made in March, 1931, that no safeguards would be thought of except in the interest of India. Mr Srinivas Sastri, Mr Chintamani and Sir C. Setalvad and other eminent Liberals fully share this opinion. The extension of the power of issuing Ordinances to the Governor is one of the most important of these new shackles, while the whole tendency of the special powers vested in the Governor-General and the Governors is to invest them with even more autocratic and dictatorial powers than they now possess. Unless these proposals undergo a substantial alteration, we have not the smallest hesitation in saying that they will be unacceptable even to the least progressive section of Indian opinion.
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What harm has the hair done, you shave them a hundred times? Why not shave the mind that’s filled with poisonous thoughts? — Kabir Surely Allah commands you to make over trusts to those worthy of them. — Islam When you see a tree, do you doubt the existence of its root? Then why do you doubt the primary cause of all life? — The Upanishads
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