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Caste no bar On
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Saving our unborn
daughters
RTI will improve
governance Diversities
— Delhi Letter
Profile
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On Record
Guru
Ramani Ranjan Jena’s life
reads like one man’s struggle of a massive quest: at the heart of this
struggle lies his desire to serve the cause of Odissi and carry it forward. He
can truly be called a torchbearer of the tradition whether it is from his days
as a child performing from village to village in a jatrika company or as an
exponent of the art teaching at Kalakshetra in Chennai. Jena has seen it all
and put on stage some of the most versatile dancers of Odissi in our time —
Malvika Sarukkai, Rohini Dandavate, Dr Tara Michael, Miki Nonaka...the list is
endless. The Sunday Tribune caught up with the Nritya exponent in Delhi for a
discussion about his tremendous success in advancing the cause of Odissi. Q: Your earlier life was quite
a struggle. Could you share some of this with our readers? A: It was,
certainly, a massive struggle. I was born and brought up in a small village,
Udambar, in Balasore district of Orissa. At that time, there were no facilities
whatsoever. Ours was a simple, peasant family though music was in our blood. My
father and brothers served as palas or village sacred singers. They sang
very melodiously and could play many instruments like the tabla, pakhawaja,
violin etc. I was a good singer right from my childhood. I joined a jatrika
party (a village drama company) and started singing for them. Guru Ramaswamiji
taught me music at this point. We were presenting our programmes from village
to village. I had joined this jatrika party when I was hardly six years. When I
was eight, I had quite a name in the district. Q: Who were the guiding
influences in your life at this time? A: Well, certainly Guru Gayadhar
Panda and Ramaswami were my teachers at this time both for music and dance. I
learnt harmonium, tabla and dholak and acting. When I was 12, I had mastery in
this field. I was performing, teaching and directing in different jatrikas. I
switched to a new theatre party called Annapurna and devoted more time to
dancing. I played the main role as a dancer; at times I even played woman’s
role. Q: You played a woman’s role? A: This was not uncommon at
that time. Women players were hard to come by and a few young boys often filled
in. Once a female dancer fell ill and I had to play her part...this was a big
success. Q: What happened next? A: I got a humble job at Bhadrak as
an Odissi teacher at Manmohan Sangeet Parishad. While I was teaching here, a
music conference was organised. I got an opportunity to meet Guru Kelucharan
Mahapatra. He advised me to proceed to Cuttack and learn dance under his
tutelage. I resigned from my post and accompanied him to Cuttack. One of my
friends arranged me accommodation. However, Guruji was suffering from TB and I
was nursing him. I really did seva sitting day and night by his bedside. After
his recovery, he started teaching me at the Kala Vikas Kendra. I was trained
here for a period of six years. Those days, I had no money. For the first three
years, I was not allowed to teach. At times, I slept after having just a glass
of water. Q: The going was, certainly, tough. Share something more with us
during this period? A: I took intensive training in the dance under three
Gurus — Guru Raghunath Dutto, Guru Mayadhar Raut and Guru Kelucharan
Mahapatra. But it was really Mahapatra’s style that I concentrated on and
imbibed. After three years, Guruji gave me permission to start teaching as I
had no means to support myself. But my training continued. I took my Masters
degree from the Kalavikas Kendra. Then, Mahapatraji sent me to Mumbai to teach
at the Kala Vikas Kendra. It was at this time that Menaka Thakkar came to me
for training. I was teaching many students and I also composed new ballets like
Ramanandini, Basant and Gopinath Kheerochara among others. Q:
When did you start teaching at Kalakshetra and how was that period? A: After
my stint in Mumbai, I joined Chennai’s Kalakshetra. There I stayed for 12
years. This was a very stable and good period in my life. I performed and
toured extensively, taught classes at Kalakshetra and took private tuitions as
well. After Chennai, I returned to Balasore with a view to replicating the
Kalakshetra model. I started the Kamala Kala Pittha there. It was a major
struggle in setting this up. However, it has been a very satisfying experience
teaching in Orissa. We organised ballets, performances and even tours for the
school. Q: What made you set up your presence in Delhi now? A: Well,
that was a natural step and essential for our institute. We felt the need to
maintain a presence in Delhi and have regular performances which led to
establishing our presence at the Triveni Kala Sangam. We must promote the cause
of Odissi.
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Saving our unborn daughters The
disproportionate male-female ratio in Punjab has been the cumulative effect of the doctors’ greed, the social degradation of females (specially in rural Punjab), and the authorities’ indifference towards this problem. The malady has to be traced back to the 1980s when the ultrasound machines were a rarity in Punjab. The doctors indulging in sex determination of the unborn child had found a way to ensure that female foetus was identified and killed in the mother’s womb. A needle was put in the sac surrounding the foetus and a few drops of the fluid around the foetus (amniotic fluid) were collected and studied for the chromosomal pattern. If the pattern turned out to be of a female child, the innocent unborn was aborted. This process, called amniocentesis, required very little investment on the part of the hospital, and with a little bit of training any gynaecologist could easily do it. Some hospitals proudly advertised it in the media and through hoardings all over rural Punjab and along the major highways. There were no laws governing such abortions. Meanwhile, any doctor could buy ultrasound machines. With little training, a doctor could tell the sex of the unborn child. The process did not require even the needle that was needed in amniocentesis. A few more doctors followed suit. Surprisingly, however, the government and the society at large looked the other way. The PNDT Act, 1994, gave teeth to the district civil surgeons. But again due to the states’ casual attitude, the Act remained on paper. It was only after some NGOs’ intervention that the states realised the problem. Ultrasound machines were registered under the Act. An amendment in 2002 empowered the government to book erring doctors. By and large, the doctors across the state have stopped doing these tests and abortions. However, the societal mindset is yet to change. Son-fixation is the root cause of the malady. With qualified doctors shunning the sex determination tests and related abortions due to the fear of law, the patients turned towards quacks who, in collusion with some doctors, found ways to do illegal tests and abortions. Religious babas give all kinds of prasad and threads for the birth of sons. They make quick money as the infamous Patran episode proves. As termination of the unborn daughter has now become very difficult, sporadic cases of abandoning and even killing the newborn female babies are coming to light. If this is not tackled with a firm hand, things will go out of hand. And those who want to get rid of their female offspring will find ways to do so. The government, the medical fraternity, religious leaders and NGOs should educate people about the problem and the status of girl child in society. We must give equal rights to women in respect of property inheritance to save our unborn daughters. The writer is Secretary, PNDT Cell, Indian Medical Association (Punjab),
Bathinda |
RTI will improve governance September
28 was observed as the fourth International Right to Know Day. People across the world stood up for their fundamental right to know what their governments are doing in their name. The occasion provided a good opportunity to reflect on the progress of India’s Right to Information Act over the last year and, in particular, how the government has responded to the opportunity to transform the bureaucratic culture of secrecy that has plagued India’s governance since Independence. Though the RTI Act was greeted with a great flurry of requests for information, the government was growing increasingly anxious and fearful about the impact the Act was having — slow erosion of its long monopoly on information. President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, on giving his assent to the Act, requested that all communication emanating from Rashtrapati Bhavan and between the President and the Prime Minister be excluded from disclosure to the public, an exemption that is not in keeping with the spirit of the Act. Later, the Government of India’s Department of Training and Personnel, the nodal agency in charge of overseeing the effective implementation of the Act by all departments, stated in a website posting that file notings, which record the deliberative process that officials take when making government decisions and developing policy, were excluded from the purview of the Act. This posting dealt a huge blow to hopes that the government would implement the Act in the way it was originally envisioned — with a spirit towards creating transparency and accountability of the government. In July 2006, the government formulated without any public consultation a set of seven amendments to the Act, which once more set out to exempt access to file notings. It was only through intense lobbying and campaigning of civil society groups that the government eventually backed down on its plans to pass the amendments during the monsoon session of Parliament. The government’s efforts to reduce the effectiveness of the Act have been extremely disheartening. It was only through sustained civil society vigilance that the government was prevented from consigning the Act to the scrap heap of ineffective, unimplemented national RTI bills. Furthermore, it also seems that the government’s anxieties have all but made it forget why India needed an RTI Act in the first place. The Fourth international Right to Know Day gave us an opportunity to reiterate the significant potential of the Act to transform the poor quality of governance in the country and make India truly worthy of its position as the world’s largest democracy. The main thrust of the law is to change the culture of secrecy and aloofness that has long plagued India’s monolithic and opaque bureaucracy. The RTI Act promises to reverse this culture of secrecy and unaccountability by recognising that the government only holds information on behalf of its owners — the citizens. It requires public authorities to disclose all information about their activities proactively and maintain all information they keep in a manner that facilitates the people’s right to information. Indeed, by breaking down this culture of secrecy, the law will also open channels of communication between the citizen and the government. Currently, communication between the government and people is one-way traffic, where citizens are susceptible to government manipulation of information which is often used to suit government interests by, for example, gaining the required mandate during an election. Without access to reliable information on government activities — rather than political propaganda — it is difficult for citizens to make informed choices at the ballot box. However, the RTI Act can provide citizens with a vital tool to inform themselves about a government’s record in office. In this way, it can empower ordinary people to make more informed electoral decisions, giving them an opportunity to participate more effectively in governance and policy formulation. Furthermore, in a country where governments have long pledged to banish poverty, governments, in collusion with donors, have often drawn up anti-poverty strategies without sufficient input from the poverty-stricken groups for whom these strategies have been formulated. This has frequently led to policy failures and limited the country’s progress with development. The Act has the potential to empower the poor and other vulnerable groups of society to demand access to information concerning pro-poor policies and ensure that their basic needs are met. The Act has the potential to crack down on corruption on a nationwide basis. Indeed, Section 21 specifically notes that though certain bodies are exempted from the Act, they are still obliged to release information if it pertains to corruption or human rights issues. Meanwhile, Chapter 1 of the Act ensures that any body “owned, controlled, or substantially financed” by the government and information from any private body that can be accessed by a public authority is covered by the Act. This means that many of the state-owned companies and public sector units that have developed a reputation for corrupt practices fall under the Act’s jurisdiction. Thus, working at the local level in helping to expose corruption among government agencies, the Act has the potential to crack down on larger-scale, commercially oriented corruption that has for years blighted the country’s economic reform and development processes. Nurturing a transparent and corruption-free environment through effective implementation of the RTI law can help India build up private and foreign investor confidence in the economy, encourage long-term private investment and thereby bolster growth and development. India possesses one of the world’s most active and wide-ranging media sectors. Equipped with the RTI Act, the media can fulfil its role as a watchdog of government activities more effectively and is less vulnerable to government attempts to undermine its credibility. Crucially, the media’s use of the RTI Act can help bolster civil society advocacy efforts and provide another channel of communication between the government and the people. In sum, India has a real chance to break the shackles of poor governance that have hindered its development since Independence and left the majority of its population disillusioned with successive governments’ promises to lift them out of poverty. In this respect, the government must now wake up and realise the extent to which its resistance to the Act is placing India’s development future at stake. Though the passage of the RTI Act was a legal watershed, without the government’s full backing for the law’s full and effective implementation, fulfilling the right to information for Indian citizens can never
happen. The writer is with the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, New Delhi
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Diversities — Delhi Letter The
big question now is whether Mohammad Afzal ought to be put to death or saved from the gallows. I got in touch with the well known lawyer ND Pancholi, who is one of those lawyers who has been regularly meeting Afzal. Along with a team of senior advocates, he is currently preparing a mercy petition on his behalf. Reacting sharply to the death sentence, ND Pancholi set out the facts which are likely to form the main points in the petition: “I feel it is important to know certain facts regarding this case – Afzal did not have the assistance of any lawyer at the trial stage. The lawyers sought by him were not provided by the Court. Amicus Curie advocates were given by the court, some of whom withdrew from the case and the one who remained was there only for the name sake. “The court asked Afzal to cross examine the witnesses, which he did, but this is a task which can be performed by a lawyer and no litigant can be expected to cross examine the witnesses against him. In absence of a proper advocate, he was not able to demolish the evidence fabricated by the police. The Supreme Court and High Court have held that the police version of the arrest of the accused was not believable, i.e., the time and day of the arrest of the accused as claimed by the police was false. “The Supreme Court has admitted that there is no direct evidence against Afzal but certain circumstances if taken together can give a safe presumption that he was involved in the conspiracy to attack Parliament, though he himself did not participate in the attack. The three main accused, i.e., Mohd. Azhar, Gazi Baba and Tariq are stated to be in Pakistan. Three were given death penalty i.e. Geelani, Shaukat and Afzal. Afsan Guru (wife of Shaukat) was given ten years imprisonment. In the High Court Geelani and Afsan Guru were acquitted. In the Supreme Court the death sentence of Shaukat was commuted to ten years imprisonment. In such a situation, giving death penalty to one accused on assumption of circumstantial evidence is not justified.” Pancholi adds: “In America, with regard to of 9/11, one accused, Zakaria Mosvi, has been given life imprisonment because he was not directly involved. Similarly, in the Mahatma Gandhi assassination case, Nathuram Godse was given the death penalty but his brother was given a life sentence because he was not directly involved. The same is the case with Afzal, as he was not directly involved. ” October is anyway rather well connected with books, what with the Frankfurt International Book fair in the background or foreground. Here, books are making their presence felt as in the preceding months. Harper Collins launched Sagarika Ghosh’s novel - Blind faith. This is her second novel after The Gin Drinkers. Then, former lawyer turned writer Ramneek Wig’s book Win Over Cancer also hit the stands. And as the very title spells out, it carries details of Wig’s battle with cancer. Wig was diagnosed with cancer when he was in his mid-twenties and now after seven years he says that he has survived not just with the help of the medical treatment but also because of the positive attitude he had developed during that phase. “When you hear you have been diagnosed with cancer the first reaction is of disbelief, followed by feeling dejected and that typical denial phase. Then there’s depression and aggression. I went through these phases but finally realized the importance of developing a positive attitude for with that alone you can beat cancer” Whilst there seems to be much and sudden focus on the police and their ways, it is important to read Omar Khalidi’s book Khaki and Ethnic Violence. As the sub-title makes clear, it focuses on the Army, Police and Paramilitary Forces during riots and pogroms. Khalidi notes that “most of the intelligence agencies and paramilitary forces in India do not mirror the diversity of the national population. For example, in 1993, the Union Minister of State for Home confirmed that there has not been a single Muslim amongst RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) and IB ( Intelligence Bureau ) personnel. Much the same is the story in the paramilitary forces. Festive air The India International Centre has laid out a festival of arts from October 6 to 12. And it seems a well packed affair – with classical dances, mushairas, exhibitions, Hindustani classical vocal concerts, cuisine and more. What’s caught attention is the scheduled ‘ladies mushaira’ titled Uski
Awaz! |
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Profile Koda’s aspiration in the “gentlemen’s game” remained unfulfilled but he did hit a six in the weird game known as politics. He became the first independent MLA to head a state government and that too at the age of 36. The most dazed man at the feat was Madhu’s father, Rasik Koda. For long years the old man had nurtured a dream; he wanted to see his toddler son, when he grows up, in the uniform of a policeman and become a “daroga” (sub-inspector). The dream remained a flight of the imagination as Madhu, defying his father, entered politics, having joined the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, BJP’s youth wing, in early 1990s. Curly-haired Madhu, having a penchant for jeans and jackets, and even attending assembly sessions dressed as a cow-boy, created history of sorts. He became the Chief Minister with the support of 41 MLAs belonging to different political parties and groups. Some call it a “miracle of democracy” and wonder how long his government would survive. Born in a farmer’s family in a forlorn village of Jharkhand region of undivided Bihar, Madhu had his early education in a village school surrounded by deep forests and hills. Later, he did his matriculation from the district school and his graduation from Utkal University in Orissa through a correspondence course. His family continues to live in relative penury in his ancestral village. He occasionally sends Rs.200-300 to his father for day-to-day expenditure. Madhu was married in 2004 to a local girl—an old sweet heart— but he failed to keep the wedlock afloat and his wife deserted him within four months of the matrimony. Known as a sympathizer of the RSS, Madhu did not show much promise in early years and his political career remained a litany of failures. Even though he actively participated in the movement for a separate state of Jharkhand, he did not make a mark. The BJP fielded him in the 1995 assembly elections but he was defeated. He was given yet another chance in the 2000 elections following bifurcation of Bihar and, for the first time, success smiled on him. He became a minister of state in the Babulal Marandi government but his performance, say his colleagues, was dismal and bogged down in controversies. That was the reason that the BJP denied him a ticket in the 2005 poll. He chose to become a rebel, contested as an independent and won, and thus began his lone journey to the top slot. Nobody had thought that this “single-man army”, a political novice, would rock the boat of the BJP in Jharkhand. Madhu came to limelight after his victory as an independent candidate. He was a much sought-after member in the state assembly after the BJP–Janata Dal (U) combine got a fractured mandate in the last elections, having won only 36 seats in the 81-member house. To keep his government going, former CM, Arjun Munda, had to keep independents in good humour. Though Madhu had rebelled, he was made a minister and given the portfolio of mines and geology. He raised the banner of revolt against Arjun Munda, along with three other independent MLAs, who were also made ministers. The four resigned from the Council of Ministers, turning the Munda Government into a minority one. The move evidently had the support of UPA leaders even though the Congress would have preferred a spell of President’s rule and then a mid-term poll. It was the Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav, who insisted that Madhu should be made the Chief Minister and “all of us should support him”. Evidently, Madhu’s bargaining skills proved to be superior to that of other independent MLAs who had joined hands to topple the 18-month-old Munda government. Madhu had also developed a good equation with industrialists during his tenure as minister in the BJP-led government. Reports say that the village born Koda has developed a taste for a good life; loves to shop in Delhi and Gurgaon malls and often flies to Bangkok. The oft repeated question asked in political circles is—how long would his government last? Possibly, not for long. A mid-term poll appears inevitable in
Jharkhand. |
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