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Tactical victory After Kargil Ignorant and
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Guardians of
Constitution
Everything
according to Karma
Interventions
abroad Hu Jintao for
“harmonious society” Chatterati
The remaking of
Genghis Khan
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After Kargil The
last word on Kargil has clearly not been said. While we can allow ourselves some grim smiles at General Musharraf’s forced ruminations, any internal war of words of the “it is his fault” kind is more worrisome. Former Air Chief Marshal A.Y. Tipnis’s reported statements regarding the Army’s failures in assessing the ground situation early and in proper intelligence sharing may prima facie have been made in the right spirit – of drawing the proper lessons from Kargil and ensuring that India is not caught napping again. Then Chief of Army Staff General V.P. Malik, too, in a book, had dwelt on the question of introduction of air power into the conflict and had suggested some reluctance on Tipnis part. Senior IAF officers have already offered rebuttals, and a direct one from the then Air Chief was to be expected at some point. If these public exchanges contribute to a greater understanding of operational matters in the military realm and the pressures on critical decision making, they are fine. All concerned, however, should exercise restraint in order to ensure that it does not get reduced to individual blame-passing. Then External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh, in his own book, has also stated that the use of the Air Force had not received political assent at an early stage. Apart from the inherently escalatory nature of doing so, the narrow funnels in the sector and the difficulty in determining the contours of the LoC from the air were factors. With greater inter-service synergy and better intelligence, the war may well have been prosecuted in a different way. Finally, of course, it was the combination of everyone’s efforts that pushed the Pakistanis back. General Malik duly acknowledged this in his book, even including for praise the Navy’s role in creating strategic pressure by mobilising its own assets. Post-Kargil, much has already been said, and some measures taken, about “jointness” among the three forces. Hopefully, some of those systems are already well in place, and decision-making in future will be less
conflictual. |
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Ignorant and insensitive AN 11-year-old boy was seen as a threat to other passengers and not allowed to board a flight from Bangalore to Chennai. His fault, Ahed suffers from autism, a developmental disability due to which the affected persons have difficulty in communicating—verbally or otherwise. Ahed was with his parents who tried to explain the situation to the security personnel but they were met with a wall of ignorance, indifference and insensitivity. There are an estimated 17 lakh autistic persons in India and many go through the kind of problems Ahed had to face at the airport. Instead of providing special facilities to those who are differently abled, we, as a nation, are guilty of not even ensuring basic protection from harassment and insensitivity to the over two-crore Indians who have one disability or another. It was only recently that some awareness about the need to have ramps for those who have difficulty in walking was created. Yet most public buildings, including railway stations, do not have them. Even the Constitution does not explicitly state that persons with disability deserve to be protected as a group. Various kinds of provisions and reservations that are made for them are not worth the paper they are proclaimed on, given the negative mindset and prejudice in the Indian society. Small wonder that a polio-hit tribal girl was denied admission to a medical college, that mentally challenged individuals are kept in chains and that women with disabilities face the additional danger of being raped. The Rehabilitation Council of India has some proposals to ameliorate their condition, others have more, but concrete steps have to be taken to ensure that minds handicapped with prejudice recognise the differently abled and help to integrate them into the mainstream. It is not fair to blame the government alone. Prejudice exists in most of us. Unless the prejudice is shaken off, children like Ahed will continue to suffer in this country.
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Care and diligence bring luck.
— Thomas Fuller |
Guardians of Constitution
To
appreciate judicial activism one shall have to consider the power of judicial review vested in the higher judiciary — the Supreme Court and the High Courts as also the general role of the judicial institutions. The essence of judicial review is a constitutional fundamental. It is an essential component of the rule of law, which is a basic feature of the Indian Constitution. Its growth is the inevitable response of the judiciary to ensure proper check on the exercise of public power. Every State action needs to be tested on the anvil of rule of law and that exercise is performed when an occasion arises by reason of a doubt raised in that behalf by the courts. Judicial review has a more technical significance particularly in countries having written constitutions. In such countries it means that courts have the power of testing the validity of the legislative as well as other governmental actions. The necessity of empowering the courts to declare a statute unconstitutional arises not because the judiciary is to be made supreme but only because a system of checks and balances between the legislature and the executive on the one hand and the judiciary on the other hand provides the means by which mistakes committed by one are corrected by the other and vice versa. The function of the judiciary is not to set itself in opposition to the policy and politics of the majority rule, but to test the validity and constitutionality of the actions of the State. The judicial institutions have a sacrosanct role to play not only for resolving inter-se disputes but also to act as a balancing mechanism between the conflicting pulls and pressures operating in a society. Courts of law are the products of the Constitution and the instrumentalities for fulfilling the ideals of the State enshrined therein. Their function is to administer justice according to the law and in doing so, they must respond to the hopes and aspirations of the people because “We the people”, in no uncertain terms, have committed ourselves to secure justice — social, economic and political — besides equality and dignity to all. Finding that the citizens of this country had been denied access to justice for long long years and to them seeking judicial redress in respect of a legal injury or a legal wrong by reason of their poverty and disability to approach the court for enforcement of their rights was illusory, the judiciary forged a potent weapon by way of Public Interest Litigation (PIL). The Supreme Court ruled that where judicial redress is sought in respect of a legal injury or a legal wrong for the benefit of the underprivileged and the downtrodden, any member of the public, acting bona fide, can maintain an action for judicial redress. The weapon was forged for the benefit of weaker sections of society and those who as a class cannot agitate their legal problems by themselves, through public spirited persons to enable the courts to use this weapon effectively for the benefit of the deprived segments of society. A thrust was given to Public Interest Litigation by Supreme Court in S.P. Gupta’s case by liberalizing the concept of locus standi to make access to the courts easy. The higher judiciary, thus, started operating on a wider canvass of judicial review. It is this expanded role and more particularly the expansion of the jurisdictional limits of the courts exercising judicial review which has been given the title of “Judicial Activism” by those who are critical of this expanded role of the judiciary. The main thrust of the criticism is that the judiciary by its directives to the administration is usurping the functions of the legislatures and of executive and is running the country and, according to some, ruining it. According to the critics, the judiciary in this country has become active in expansion of judicial review into non-traditional areas, which earlier were considered beyond judicial review. What these critics of the judiciary, however, overlook is that it is the tardiness of legislatures and the indifference of the executive to address itself to the complaints of the citizens about violations of their human rights which provides the necessity for judicial intervention. In cases where the executive refuses to carry out the legislative will or ignores or thwarts it, it is surely legitimate for courts to step in and ensure compliance with the legislative mandate. When the court is apprised of and is satisfied about gross violations of basic human rights it cannot fold its hands in despair and look the other way. The judiciary can neither prevaricate nor procrastinate. It must respond to the knock of the oppressed and the downtrodden for justice by adopting certain operational principles within the parameters of the Constitution and pass appropriate directions in order to render full and effective relief. If the judiciary was also to shut its door to the citizen who finds the legislature as not responding and executive indifferent, the citizen would take to the streets and that would be bad both for the rule of law and democratic functioning of the State. Courts have come to realise and accept that judicial response to human rights cannot be blunted by legal bigatory. Courts no longer feel bound by the rigid rule of locus standi where the question involved is injury to public interest. Notwithstanding the criticism, the role of courts has received acceptability not only by the people but sometimes even by other wings of the State. What may appear to be non-traditional at the time of performance of such a task by the judiciary, when considered in its proper perspective, may turn to be really the process of development of the law to respond to the needs of society. Judicial activism in India encompasses an area of legislative vacuum in the field of human rights. It reinforces the strength of democracy and reaffirms the faith of the common man in the rule of law. The judiciary, however, should act only as an alarm-clock but not as a time-keeper. After giving the alarm call it must ensure to see that the executive performs its duties in the manner envisaged by the Constitution. Judicial activism, which is the search for the spirit of law, has been profitably used for the benefit of powerless minorities, such as bonded labour, prison inmates, undertrial prisoners, sex workers and such other powerless minority groups as are crusading for protection of human rights of women and children or seeking redressal against government lawlessness, or relief against developmental policies which benefit the haves at the cost of the have-nots. The judiciary has been rendering judgements which are in tune and temper with the legislative intent while keeping pace with time and jealously protecting and developing the dimensions of the fundamental human rights of the citizens so as to make them meaningful and realistic. Judicial activism, however, is not an unguided missile. It has to be controlled and properly channelised. Courts have to function within established parameters and constitutional bounds. Decision should have a jurisprudential base with clearly discernible principles. Limits of jurisdiction cannot be pushed back so as to make them irrelevant. Courts have to be careful to see that they do not overstep their limits because to them is assigned the sacred duty of guarding the
Constitution.
The writer, a former Chief Justice of India, is Chairperson, National Human Rights Commission. The
article is based on a lecture he delivered recently at the Army Institute of Law, Mohali.
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Everything according to Karma Bhagwan! Why are you still awake in the middle of the night? You should be sleeping,” said the better half. God was quiet for a moment and then said: “A new problem has come up. People in the world below have been given the right to ask for information about anything they think is not fair.” “How does it matter to you? You are supreme and answerable to none,” said the better half. “That is true. But it was the same in the world below. All officers enjoyed power and they always thought that they were supreme. Now they are also not sleeping,” said God. “They are human beings. They can manipulate and twist the facts and reply in a vague manner,” said the better half. God was not satisfied. “I have got crores of queries from India. I will have to satisfy the whole lot,” he said. The next morning, all gods held a closed-door meeting. Seeing confusion on their faces, the better halves butted in: “Everything is done here according to the Karma. You ask for files and then answer the queries,”. The files were called for. The first applicant said: “Why was I not made rich like Dhiru Bhai Ambani? Dhiru Bhai and I worked together at a petrol pump. You made him worth Rs 60,000 crore and me not worth even Rs 6000”. God said: Everything is done according to Karma. It is not only your past but the present as well. You shape your destiny according to what you are doing today.” The next application was from the 12 Asians, who had been forced to get down from the aeroplane and were tortured by the Amsterdam police. It read: “What was our fault? We were coming back with our families and we were treated like criminals.” Chitra Gupt said: “Sir, I have not received the details so far. I personally feel they should thank God that truth prevailed and they were deported honourably. Had it been some other country, false cases could have been registered against them, showing RDX powder in their possession.” The next application was from a woman: “Why did you create women? Right from birth to old age we are victimised. We are the sufferers whether it is suicide, rape or bride burning. Why did you make us a picture of love and hate? Men can’t live without us. Still they beat us. We are killed even before birth and our bodies are thrown in wells, rivers, lakes and even in the dirtiest corners. Don’t you think it was a blunder to create us?” It was a direct challenge to their power of creation. Finding no immediate answer, God said: “We are adjourning the meeting for a week.” The following week the meeting started in a very tense atmosphere. Divinity had been challenged. The answer to this was left to The Creator. He said: “We created woman for the continuation of the Srishti (world). Man was not given full power to create. To accomplish it, the woman was essential. The man must bow to the woman. We created the woman as a ‘Devi’, a symbol of energy, success and happiness. By being inhuman to the woman the man is behaving like an old wood cutter, who was cutting the same branch on which he was sitting. The man is hastening his end.” “Oh God, aise toh sub kuch khatam ho jaiga”, I said to God. “Kya khatam ho jaiga?”, shouted my wife breaking my dream
sequence.
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Interventions abroad Since
independence, the Government of India has had to exercise a military option several times in support of its policy objectives. The army was ordered to forcibly integrate Goa, Hyderabad and Junagadh into the Indian Union as part of the nation building process. The Indian armed forces created the new nation of Bangladesh after the Pakistan army rejected the democratic process and conducted a systematic genocide in East Pakistan. India intervened in the Maldives and Sri Lanka at the behest of the governments of these countries and was ready to do so in Mauritius when the threat passed. Now analysts are discussing the emergence of a resurgent India that will be a dominant power in Southern Asia. Though it will be a gradual and long drawn process, it is quite likely that a cooperative international security framework will eventually emerge from the ashes of Gulf War II. Stemming from the need for contingency planning, for limited power projection in general and in support of its forces deployed for United Nations (UN) peacekeeping duties in particular, India will need to raise and maintain a small expeditionary force to participate in international coalitions sanctioned by the UN Security Council. This force must be in a permanent state of quick-reaction readiness The aim of such operations will be to further India’s national security and foreign policy objectives, to support international non-proliferation and counter-proliferation efforts, and to join the international community to act decisively against banned insurgent outfits like the LTTE in Sri Lanka or even the so-called rogue regimes. International counter-proliferation initiatives, such as the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) and the Container Security Initiative (CSI) cannot succeed in the Southern Asian and the Indian Ocean region without Indian participation as a member or as a partner providing outside support. As an aspiring regional power, India must also consider its responsibilities towards undertaking humanitarian military interventions when these are morally justified. Other requirements that are difficult to visualise accurately today but would further India’s foreign policy objectives or enhance national security interests in future, will also justify the acquisition of expeditionary intervention capabilities. When the Taliban first came to power in Afghanistan, a perplexing question often raised was “What would India do if it ever becomes necessary to launch a military operation to rescue the Indian ambassador or members of his staff from Kabul?” Would India ask for American or Russian help? How would they respond? Or, would India have no option but to leave the embassy staff to the mercy of terrorist Jihadis? That contingency fortunately did not arise but another one did. Indian Airlines’ flight IC-814 was hijacked to Kandahar airfield and parked there for several days in the cold month of December 1999 and the nation was forced to look on with helpless rage, as virtually no military options worth considering were available. Hopefully the ignominious surrender to the Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists prompted some soul searching and some air assault capabilities will soon be put in place. The late General K. Sundarji, former COAS, had often spoken of converting one existing infantry division to an air assault division by about the year 2000. Though the idea was certainly not ahead of its time, the shoestring budgets of the 1990s did not allow the army to practically implement the concept. Now the time has come to translate his vision into reality. Besides being necessary for out-of-area contingencies, air assault capability is a significant force multiplier in conventional conflict. Despite what the peaceniks may say, substantial air assault capability is not only essential for furthering India’s national interests, it is now inescapable. The present requirement is of a minimum of one air assault brigade group with integral heli-lift capability for offensive employment on India’s periphery. This capability should be in place by the end of the 11th Plan period (2007-12). This brigade should be capable of short-notice deployment in India’s extended neighbourhood by air and sea. Comprising three specially trained air assault battalions, integral firepower component and combat service support and logistics support units, the brigade group should be based on MI-17 equivalent transport helicopters. It should have the guaranteed firepower and support of two to three flights of attack and reconnaissance helicopters. The air assault brigade group should be armed, equipped and trained to secure threatened islands, seize an air head and capture a value objective in depth such as a bridge that is critical to furthering operations deep inside enemy territory. It should also be equipped and trained to operate as part of international coalition forces for speedy military interventions. To make it effective, it will have to be provided air and sealift capability and a high volume of close air support till its deployment area comes within reach of the artillery component of ground forces. Since the raising of such a potent brigade group will be a highly expensive proposition, its components will need to be very carefully structured to get value for money. A brigade group of this nature will provide immense strategic reach and flexibility to military planners and the Cabinet Committee on Security in the prevailing era of strategic uncertainty. Simultaneously, efforts should commence to raise a division-size rapid reaction force, of which the first air assault brigade group should be a part, by the end of the 12th Plan period 2012-17. The second brigade group of the Rapid Reaction Division (RRD) should have amphibious capability with the necessary transportation assets being acquired and held by the Indian Navy, including landing and logistics ships. The amphibious brigade should be self-contained for 30 days of sustained intervention operations. The third brigade of the RRD should be lightly equipped for offensive and defensive employment in the plains and mountains as well as jungle and desert terrain. The author is Senior Fellow, Centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi. |
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Hu Jintao for “harmonious society” BEIJING – In advance of a key Communist Party meeting this weekend, Chinese President Hu Jintao is working to burnish the party’s image of harmony, even if it’s taken some bloodletting to drive the point home. The purge late last month of Shanghai party boss Chen Liangyu on corruption charges, quickly followed by the fall of two prominent party officials in Henan province, shocked China’s political establishment and served as a warning to those in lower party ranks that Hu means business. The moves further consolidated his power and stressed his underdog-oriented policies heading into the fourth year of an expected 10-year administration. Hu has stressed harmony as a salve for growing tension over the rich-poor gap and endemic corruption – even as the party and China’s security apparatus have not been hesitant to back up their words with force, intimidation and censorship when appeals for calm are ignored by rioting farmers, the media or social activists. It comes as no surprise, then, that “harmonious society” will be the theme of this year’s Central Committee meeting, which starts Sunday and lasts through Wednesday. About 350 party elite will be in attendance. On a stage before China’s 70 million party members and vast non-party population, Hu hopes to further demarcate his policies from those of predecessor Jiang Zemin, who placed greater emphasis on economic winners. The meeting also aims to bind lower-tier state and party workers to the leadership after a large number of recent promotions and extensive government reshuffling. And it will emphasize anti-corruption themes, the environment and the building of a social safety net in a bid to reach out directly to an increasingly cynical public. Chinese presidents in recent decades have tended to spend their first five-year term consolidating power and their second making their policy mark. It’s a laborious process, analogous to a U.S. president inheriting his predecessor’s Cabinet and then spending years nudging out the old guard through attrition, transfers, intrigue and strategic use of scandals. Hu’s recent power plays are in line with this timetable. Chen was an ally of Jiang’s who in recent years defied Beijing’s call to discourage real estate speculation and stem other policies favoring the well-heeled. Governing China, with its vast size, complex problems and economic and social churn, would challenge any politician, and Hu has exceeded generally modest expectations. His identification with the poor and underprivileged plays well, particularly outside the big cities, as does his personal modesty. He’s avoided major mistakes. And his quiet competence is generally admired by a nation on the move. Few expect too many new ideas during Hu’s 2007-2012 second term given his relatively cautious style. There likely will be a continued emphasis on rural education, welfare issues, unemployment funds and allocating resources from the coastal region to interior areas. But some see a few potentially interesting shadow plays in the wings, including gradual moves to strengthen rule of law and improve human rights. These reflect the concerns of a growing middle class and an awareness of China’s checkered international reputation as it prepares to host the Olympics. By arrangement with
LA-Times–Washington Post |
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Chatterati For Vinod Tripathi, general secretary of the Lucknow University Students Union, joining MA in Yogic Sciences was more about prolonging his student politics than about salvation-seeking. He had no clue that yoga could be a nuisance in his political career, until he was interviewed for a post in the National Student’s Union of India (NSUI). “Show me Vajrasana,” asked a Congress neta. Then he was asked to demonstrate yogic postures. He could not respond so he was asked to be a good student of his subject first and then come back. Aspirants for posts at NSUI need more than street smartness. The high command wants a new generation which is ideologically sound and versatile – doing well in academics and politics. The standard questions include: who is the founder of the Congress, when the Congress was formed, who was the first woman president of the party, who authored Vande Mataram, and so on. The mandatory component of the test is singing Vande Mataram or Jana Gana Mana, and the flag song of the Congress, Jhanda Uncha Rahe Hamara. Well, candidates are not too happy after being hit by the surprise interview. The first-ever ideological test threw up several moments of fun for the interview board – one candidate said he could sing Vande Mataram only in a group; another said Nehru was the first president of the Congress. Warned of the impending encounter, a girl messaged her friend for the entire text of Vande Mataram. More Gandhigiri When the Prime Minister was in South Africa where Gandhi started his Satyagraha, Sonia Gandhi was in Ramlila grounds, a doting grand mother watching Ravana being set on fire, with her grand children in her lap. But the one who gained maximum media coverage was Munna Bhai Sanjay Dutt. Not that he himself was very eloquent on Mahatma’s preaching. Even eunuchs celebrated Gandhi Jayanti in a unique manner by offering flowers at the statue of the Father of the Nation and pledging that they would no longer harass common people. They have been a major source of embarrassment at functions and marriages, where they resort to indecent behaviour and extort money.
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The remaking of Genghis Khan
A
statue of former Prime Minister Winston Churchill stands outside the British Embassy in Washington DC. Mohandas Gandhi is honored near the Indian Embassy. Now the Embassy of Mongolia and the region’s rapidly growing Mongolian community would like to add their national hero to the list of monuments and memorials in the U.S. capital: Genghis Khan. For centuries, in the Western world, that name has been synonymous with a distinctly negative image: bloodthirsty warrior, brutal conqueror, barbarian on horseback. Lately, Genghis Khan’s reputation has been improving, thanks to a deeper look since 1990 at Mongol history, when the country’s communist regime collapsed. Jack Weatherford, an anthropology professor at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., did much to revamp Genghis Khan’s reputation in the West with his 2004 best seller, “Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World.” “He is probably one of the greatest leaders in world history, and there is so much we can learn from him today, but it’s our ignorance that stops us,” Weatherford said in an interview. Washington is hosting the Smithsonian’s first Mongolian Festival, celebrating the 800th anniversary of the formation of the Mongolian state in 1206, a move that later created the largest contiguous empire in world history, stretching from Korea to Hungary. Genghis Khan is credited with a host of reforms and progressive actions. He was an early champion of religious tolerance and women’s rights, allowing women to speak in public and express opinions. He also was an early supporter of diplomacy, offering protection to envoys from other lands. Genghis Khan ruled the Turko-Mongol people in the 13th century. His conquests were unprecedented in their scale of death and destruction. An estimated 15 million people died in the Mongols’ five-year invasion of central Asia. Geneticists have discovered that one in every 200 men alive today is a relative of Genghis Khan: More than 16 million men in central Asia were found to have the same Y chromosome as the Mongol leader. By arrangement with
LA-Times–Washington Post |
Never allow the enemy’s kin to enter your army. He may pretend devotion to your cause but when you need him most, he may let you down. — The Mahabharata God has not called me to be successful. He called me to be faithful. — Mother Teresa Inexpressible is the story of Love, it cannot be revealed by mere words. Like the dumb who on eating sweet-meats can only smile but not speak of its
sweetness. — Kabir A man who does not speak may not be wise, A man who chatters
incessantly may not be wise. Wisdom lies in knowing when to speak and when to be silent. — The Buddha Forgetting God even for an instant is a great affliction of the mind. —
Guru Nanak
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