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When fence is a farce CBI and Tehelka Performance counts |
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Back to basics
Unlikely role model
Reddy has unleashed a vendetta culture: Naidu Secret arrests rampant in Pakistan DELHI DURBAR
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When fence is a farce PAKISTAN'S decision to fence the “most critical patches” along its 27000-km border with Afghanistan is officially aimed at convincing the world that Islamabad is doing all it can to stamp out the Taliban and Al-Qaida terrorism, continuing to pose a serious threat to peace and stability in the region. But the truth lies somewhere else. Fencing is just a façade to hide its otherwise well-known intentions. Pakistan’s Interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah has stated that it will be a selective fencing, leaving unaffected the “designated crossing points”. The deceptive plea is that the Pashtun people living on both sides of the Durand Line cannot be denied the right of travel to either side as they have been exercising it for generations. Pakistan has not given up its long-cherished desire for acquiring “strategic depth”. The open crossing points will obviously be used to facilitate the entry of trained Taliban activists into Afghanistan in the garb of ordinary tribals. As reports suggest, Islamabad has already been doing this, but now it may be a more organised activity. There is no link between what Pakistan has been saying and doing. The agreements reached with the tribal elders in Waziristan provide enough proof of this. Since then there has been a spurt in Taliban-related incidents of violence in Afghanistan, forcing President Hamid Karzai to accuse Pakistan of nursing an ambition of “enslaving” the Afghans. Afghanistan’s Taliban problem has acquired alarming dimensions once again. This could not be possible without Pakistan’s help, which is unlikely to end unless the world community (read the US and Britain) succeeds in getting all the terrorist training arrangements in the tribal areas and elsewhere in Pakistan dismantled forever. In desperation, perhaps, the Karzai government seems to be inclined to associate with it the Taliban elements claiming to have abandoned the path of violence. If this comes about it will be a victory for Pakistan, quietly working for the rehabilitation of what it calls the “reformed” Taliban. Mr Karzai must be aware of this, but he appears to be helpless. His worries may multiply once the US-led multinational forces, showing signs of fatigue, begin pulling out of Afghanistan. The world, however, cannot afford to ignore the emerging ugly reality. |
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CBI and Tehelka WHILE the Army authorities have been moving against some of its officers involved in the Tehelka scam, the CBI has been slow in bringing the culprits to book. The CBI chargesheet against former Samata Party president Jaya Jaitly and two others for allegedly taking bribes to influence then Defence Minister George Fernandes has come after over five years of the incident. Ms Jaitly, Major-Gen S.P. Murugai (retired) and Samata Party leader Gopal Pacherwal have been charged with criminal conspiracy and accepting bribe in a sting operation by the Tehelka website. Ms Jaitly has reportedly accepted a bribe of Rs 2 lakh to help clear the purchase of thermal imagers for the armed forces. According to the CBI, in a video clip filmed by a hidden camera, Ms Jaitly was purportedly shown telling them that she would put on a word to the “Sahib’s office” if the firm was not considered. The bribe was handed over to Mr Pacherwal at Ms Jaitly’s instance. While the chargesheet against Ms Jaitly was expected, although belated, there is a strong case for the CBI stepping up the gear in investigation. The CBI has done little to expedite the probe and nail down the main accused in the scandal — the then BJP president, Bangaru Laxman, who was caught on the camera while accepting a bundle of currency notes from the Tehelka reporter. It had chargesheeted him only on July 18, that too, after 15 months of investigation! It has also wasted precious time in getting the authenticity of the tapes in question scrutinised. Equally important is the CBI’s slow pace of investigation into various other cases. It has registered an FIR against Mr George Fernandes, Ms Jaya Jaitly and former Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Sushil Kumar for alleged corruption in the Rs 1,150-crore Barak missile system deal. The CBI has accused Ms Jaitly of accepting a bribe of Rs 2 crore in this deal. The case should be investigated fast and the guilty punished. As it is, the CBI’s credibility is at its lowest ebb following its dubious role in the Taj Corridor scandal involving former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati, the Telgi fake stamp scam and the fodder scandal involving none else than Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav.
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Performance counts THE idea of an external “performance audit” of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has been gaining currency, given the abysmal delays and poor results of its expensive projects. While the DRDO has been resisting such an audit, it would do better to accept the idea. After all, if it can shake itself out of the current morass, it would be serving itself and the nation. Reports suggest that the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence, in its report to be tabled in the coming budget session, intends to make a recommendation for just such an audit. The goal is to subject the organisation to a thorough appraisal by an external panel of experts. A “scientific audit” of the kind proposed would evaluate the DRDO’s performance as a research and development organisation, entrusted with developing modern weapons platforms in land, sea and air. While the DRDO has had some successes, there have been serious and costly failures. The Arjun Main Battle Tank, the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft, the Trishul missile system and numerous other small and medium-scale projects are floundering at different stages of development and even induction. The Kaveri engine for the LCA is another sad story, with the DRDO’s Gas Turbine Research Establishment (GTRE) again on the lookout for foreign partners to see the 17-year project through to culmination. The GTRE has the dubious distinction of never having put an engine in the air in its decades of existence. This sorry state of affairs should not be allowed to continue. While the armed forces have the option of tested and tried imports to home-grown alternatives, many a service chief has repeatedly stressed the need for a strong, indigenous capability. Continued reliance on imports for crucial weapons will always be a strategic liability. A strong research and development base that can deliver the goods as and when required is essential for any modern fighting force. The DRDO should welcome the scrutiny of an independent appraisal as the first step towards overhauling itself for a mere productive future. |
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There are only two styles of portrait painting; the serious and the smirk.
— Charles Dickens |
Back to basics
NO one need be surprised by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s return to hard Hindutva as its sheet anchor. This is the logical end of the bitter debate in the saffron camp following its “unexpected” defeat in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. For, the ranks had then asserted that the BJP had suffered because, to retain the support of its allies, it had “compromised” on its “basic agenda”. Even so, the stridency with which the party, at its conclave at Lucknow, reverted to belligerent Hindutva as its creed, was doubtless remarkable. The presidential address of Mr. Rajnath Singh, a former UP Chief Minister, who will head the BJP for the next three years, was particularly provocative, in parts inflammatory. Another former Chief Minister of the state, Mr. Kalyan Singh, outdid him. Interestingly, Mr. Rajnath Singh tried vigorously to revive the issue of the Ram Mandir, calling it the “essence of Hindutva”, but leaving an escape hatch for himself even in the midst of his overblown rhetoric. Realising that the mandir issue is no longer a horse worth flogging, he pleaded that the construction of the Ram Mandir at the disputed site would be possible only if his party had a clear-cut majority in Parliament on its own. Even he must know that in the current coalition era this would not be possible. Ayodhya may well have been a sideshow at Lucknow, but the main thrust of the BJP strategy is clear enough. In the fast approaching contest in the key state of UP first and then in the 2009 Lok Sabha poll, the party is determined to pillory the Manmohan Singh government for its “appeasement of Muslims”, “vote bank politics” and “propensity” to cave in to Pakistani pressure on the Jammu and Kashmir issue. Every BJP leader worth the name spoke of the “road to Delhi lying through Lucknow”. Though the saffron party claims that it opposes the Left-backed Congress policy of “pampering of and pandering to Muslims” because it is divisive and would create two different classes of citizens, it is really the BJP’s campaign that seems designed to widen the existing communal gulf. There was a lot of Muslim bashing at the Lucknow conclave, often in intemperate language that was nothing, however, compared with what BJP activists are propagating across the state. A CD they are distributing widely is known to be hate-filled. Things have come to such a sorry pass that someone of Mr Advani’s stature talks about the Left-backed Congress policy possibly leading to “second partition”. Have six decades of the success of democracy and pluralism in this country, however flawed, made no difference since 1947? Misguided and misleading the BJP’s propaganda surely is, but it must be recognised that failings of the secular parties are playing straight into its hands. For instance, the Havana formulation that Pakistan, too, is a “victim” of terrorism, has not gone down well with the public. Also, the opponents of “appeasement” are exploiting secular parties’ proclivity to brush under the carpet the problem of jihadi terrorists getting support from an obviously minuscule section of Muslims. Mr Rajnath Singh did so at Lucknow relentlessly and the party would go on doing so. For their part, the secular parties are falling between two stools. On the one hand, the BJP badgers them for being “soft on terrorism”; on the other, the Muslim minority feels, not without reason, that for the crimes of a few, the entire community is being viewed with unacceptable suspicion and subjected to selective harassment. Intimately connected with the return to hard Hindutva is the restoration of the hegemony over the BJP of the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh, better known as the RSS. During the six years of power, Mr. Vajpayee, to uphold the primacy and dignity of the Indian State, had skilfully distanced himself from the RSS, to the fury of its unelected and obscurantist leaders at Nagpur. Mr. Rajnath Singh has taken the earliest opportunity to see to it that only RSS parcharaks run the party organisation henceforth. Nor is it surprising that the RSS chief, Mr. K. S. Sudershan, has been hammering home that the only answer to the challenges India faces —- “Islamic terrorism”, “Christian proselytising”, “consumerism”, born of globalisation et al —- is “consolidation of the Hindu society”. And this brings me to the pertinent point that if victory in the assembly elections in UP is indeed the steppingstone to the return to 7 Race Course Road in New Delhi, then the principal Opposition party as well as Mr Sudershan may be barking up the wrong tree. How does anyone consolidate the Hindu society when caste divisions have established a vice-like grip on Indian politics, diversities are bewildering, and regional variations of the political pattern glaring? In any case, when almost all parties are bending over backwards to offer reservations and other benefits to the OBCs, including the “creamy layer”, and the conflict between the OBC elite and the most backward among these castes is on the increase, all talk of Hindu consolidation becomes arid. Remarkably, those having access to the UP Chief Minister, Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav, during the three-day BJP session in the state capital, found that he was relaxed despite the growing criticism of what Mr Vajpayee called “Mulayam’s jungle raj”. In fact, the Chief Minister is happy that the BJP is stooping “very low” in its anti-Muslim, anti-secular drive. For, he thinks, this would consolidate the Yadav-Muslim alliance, his power base. The BJP can surely stir up communal sentiment. But it has also to reckon with those in the Hindu society that do not look upon the Sachar report on the Muslims’ miserable plight in the same light as do the Hindutva hotheads. Furthermore, Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav is not the only opponent the BJP has to contend with during the grim struggle in UP. There is also Ms Mayawati, towering Dalit leader in the state who also seems to have won over Brahmins. In this respect, Mr. Rajnath Singh seems far more sanguine than the man who has been Deputy Prime Minister and hopes to be Prime Minister after the 2009 poll. For, the party president said, during his oration, that the BJP alone could and would “erase” Muslim appeasement from the Indian scene. But he had one condition for this. The people of India would have to give the BJP 10 continuous years in power. The five-year period was not enough for this
task.
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Unlikely role model
THE only time I became someone’s role model was when I visited a school in Vadodara as a young DCP to educate children in traffic rules. In the interaction after my talk, diverting from the main subject, I asked them a few questions to know their mind. One question was what would they want to become when they grew up. Their replies convinced me that they had their heads, if not the hearts, at the right place except one boy, who warmed the cockles of my heart by saying that he wanted to become a police officer like me. I recall it now, after 15 years, to comfort myself when coming to terms with the cruelest season of life — the middle age. I wonder what made Daniel Dafoe say, “Middle age is youth without levity and old age without decay.” My own experience is that at this age for most good things of life you are either too old or too young. And for a police officer it is worse. First, your body, which you wrecked recklessly chasing criminals, begins to rebel at the slightest overstrain. Next are your children. For, it is time to harvest the bitter crop of discontent that you sowed in the name of discipline at home. It doesn’t help that some of the criminals that you chased have come to occupy prominent positions in society. And because now you have become senior in rank, the jokes that you used to cut on your seniors begin to rebound on you. You stop enjoying the Bollywood films, which portray the senior cop as a villain — the very personification of a rotten system that the hero, a rookie idealist, tries to shake up. Even more depressing are the sympathetic vibes that you get from your physician to hair-dresser and to the trainer at the gym. The cobbler tells you that the belt cannot take any more holes and the tailor, who is tired of redoing your tunic, makes you recall T.S. Eliot’s lines, “..I grow old.I grow old/ I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.” What could be more flattering at this stage than the thought that you could be rubbing shoulders with the high and mighty to be someone’s icon? So, the news about a recent survey on the role models of NRIs left me incredulous. For, at the 5th rank, sandwiched between Sonia Gandhi and Amitabh Bachchan, almost apologetically, stood a most unlikely role model — father. Oh, how heartwarming, how flattering it would have been but for this little problem that I do not have an NRI son or
daughter.
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Reddy has unleashed a vendetta culture: Naidu TDP chief Nara Chandrababu Naidu can easily be described as the most press-friendly Chief Minister the state of Andhra Pradesh has ever had. Even the most vocal critics of his nearly nine-year rule never had any problems in interacting with him. No wonder his party is in the forefront in condemning the Rajasekhara Reddy government’s campaign against the Eenadu Group. The former Chief Minister spoke to The Tribune: Q. What is TDP’s stand on the ongoing
Eenadu-Reddy tussle? A. This is clearly a motivated and malicious attack on the freedom of the press. The Reddy government is intolerant of any opposition or criticism, and the ongoing witch hunt against
Eenadu is part of a culture of vendetta. Q. The ruling Congress says the issue of Margadarsi Financiers and Eenadu press freedom should be de-linked. A. This is only a clever ruse to intimidate the media house into submission. The Congress Ministers, legislators as well as leaders openly accused the paper and its news channel of being anti-Congress. They made these allegations in and outside the Assembly. In fact, during the Congress-inspired debate on Margadarsi in the Assembly, the party MLAs said that there was a clear connection between
Eenadu and Margadarsi. That this government is vengeful was always evident from its actions. Whenever an issue crops up, the Reddy government has been targeting those who criticise its role, unleashing a series of counter-attacks and personal attacks, instead of trying to make amends. They resorted to these heinous methods against all opposition leaders and legislators, and against the press. To cite an example, as many as 110 TDP leaders and activists were killed after Congress took over the reins in 2004. The entire administrative machinery was deployed to attack the financial interests of the opponents by tax raids and police cases. The state had never witnessed such undemocratic acts against the opposition parties as well as dissenting media. Q. Chief Minister Rajasekhara Reddy maintains that they were only acting in the interest of the depositors. A. Far from it. In the case of
Eenadu, the government is clearly sparing no efforts to tarnish the image of the group in a bid to intimidate the major media company in the state. In its attempt to hound the promoter of the group Ramoji Rao, the government has been acting in such a way as to be detrimental to the interests of lakhs of depositors of the group company, Margadarsi. The selective targeting of people critical of the government is evident from its mala fide actions. Depositors of many co-operative banks which failed to pay back the money have been demanding action against the defaulters, and the Chief Minister’s close relative is one of them. Instead of coming to the rescue of these hapless depositors, the Congress government is trying to step in where there was no need for any intervention. In Margadarsi case, not a single depositor complained against the company. Besides, the RBI is seized of the matter. The government evidently wants a run on the company so that a chaotic situation can be created. Even a bank of the stature of ICICI found it difficult to cope, when rumours against it were sought to be spread some time ago. By repeatedly raising a bogey against the company and by instituting a CID inquiry into its alleged irregularities, the government wants to create confusion among the depositors. Q. The Congress says
Eenadu is a mouth piece of the Telugu Desam, and is against the Congress. A. How come the same paper wrote so much against our government when we were in power? How is it that Reddy relished the detailed coverage of his pada yatra when they published sympathetic accounts of the boils on his legs during the so-called yatra? As long as the media falls in line, Reddy has no problem. But if any one dares to point a finger, he will chase them. Even Indira Gandhi, probably, was not so intolerant. During my own nine-year rule, so many papers were arraigned against us. At least three newspapers, which belonged to Congress leaders, including an MP, continuously published nasty reports about my government. We had never so much as protested against the writings, because we always believed in press freedom. But this government is led by a leader with a factionist background, who does not care for such democratic principles. Q. The government says that all are equal before law, and the media houses cannot claim any exemption for their non-media businesses. A. Indeed, all are equal before law, including the Chief Minister. He himself admitted on the floor of the House that he violated a number of important legislations governing land reforms by keeping 310 acres in his illegal possession. According to our information, his family owns more than 3,000 acres, most of it government and forest land. But instead of applying the law and prosecuting the Chief Minister, the government says he is the modern Vinoba Bhave. Reddy has gone one step ahead and actually brought in a legislation bailing himself out. The amendment was atrocious because it not only absolves the Chief Minister of any wrong doing, but actually empowers the government to selectively target opponents on land ownership issues. The government has already moved in this direction by issuing notices to Ramoji Film City. This is nothing but retributive politics. There is no law, no procedure that has any sanctity. This government is bent on subverting all principles of democracy.
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Secret arrests rampant in Pakistan RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — In the 17 months since Ahmed Masood Janjua disappeared, his wife, Amina, has been running his business, raising their three children and suing the Pakistani government over its secret imprisonment of hundreds of men. Including, she says, her husband. Since September, Amina Masood and scores of wives, mothers and children of secretly arrested men have rallied outside offices of the army-led government, waving portraits of their loved ones and demanding President Pervez Musharraf have them freed. They’ve brought unusual pressure to bear on an army used to managing its activities and finances without the annoyance of public oversight. And with strong support from a usually weak supreme court, they have forced the military to free as many as 13 men from a list of 41 “disappeared.” Musharraf’s government is secretly holding hundreds of men in prisons run by its intelligence services or at military bases, say Pakistani human rights groups. While many disappearances appear linked to the government’s fight against some violent Islamist groups, others are tied to ethnic conflicts or, apparently, criticism of the army. While the United States’ declared policy is to push for democracy in Pakistan, Amnesty International and other human rights advocates say the Bush administration ignores secret arrests of men who may be suspects in its “global war on terror.” Washington’s silence is strengthening a culture of impunity under Pakistan’s military rule, human rights groups say. The U.S. Embassy declined to comment. The current State Department human rights report on Pakistan says “there were no politically motivated disappearances” in 2005 but adds: “security forces held prisoners incommunicado and refused to provide information on their whereabouts, particularly in terrorism and national security cases.” It does not discuss the scale of that problem. Masood, 40, works in a modest office at the College of Information Technology. Signing paperwork and answering a chirping cell phone one recent morning, her face alternately beamed and fretted, framed by a tightly pinned head scarf. Janjua vanished with a companion as they left for tabligh — a periodic trip many Muslims make to visit mosques and preach the virtues of religious observance. The family learned that someone powerful was behind his disappearance the way many families do: When “we reported it to the police and they refused to register the case, we understood that it must involve the agencies,” his wife said. For Pakistanis, “the agencies” means a clutch of secret intelligence departments, the largest of which is the military’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate. Since she began her street protests in August, distraught families have sought her out to add the names of missing loved ones to her list. While her supreme court case concerns 41 men, Amina says her list is closer to 100. By arrangement with
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DELHI
DURBAR FORMER
BJP party president M Venkaiah Naidu is famous for throwing lavish and typically Andhra lunches or dinner to mediapersons every year. Former union minister and Delhi BJP leader Vijay Goel also makes it a point to treat mediapersons with traditional delicacies from Old Delhi. However, this year round, these two leaders have faced stiff competition from two of their colleagues. BJP Rajya Sabha MP from Rajasthan, Ramdass Aggarwal, bowled the scribes over by throwing a lavish, traditional Rajasthani dinner last week and BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar followed him with a traditional Maharashtra lunch. And another special is awaited in the new year, when party Vice President Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi is going to treat journalists and his party colleagues to Rampuri food. BJP reshuffle awaited After the installation of Rajnath Singh as full time president of the BJP at the Lucknow session of the party’s National Council, the party headquarter at 11 Ashok Road is agog with speculation about the new team that is going to be announced in the first week of the new year. It is almost certain that the General Secretary (Organisation) Sanjay Joshi is going to pack his bags and exit from the headquarters, and a much more senior RSS pracharak from Uttar Pradesh is going to replace him. The big question being lobbed at every scribe these days is who among the other General Secretaries is going to be retained. A little bird tells us that a high profile General Secretary is going to be promoted as Vice-President. Who among the Muslim faces is going to be in the new team is another exercise in speculation. The battle is between Uttar Pradesh’s Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Bihar’s Syed Shahnawaz Hussain, who is leaving no stone unturned to beat his arch rival. Hussain, who was a protege of fiery Sanyasin Uma Bharti, was very active in Lucknow to wash this tag off his collar, so that he could be installed as the General Secretary. The battle for the media department has also intensified as a RSS favourite is keen to replace media coordinators Sidharth Nath Singh and Nalin Kohli. Stories are being planted against them to poison the new chief’s mind.
Comradely internships While the outside support to the Manmohan Singh government provided a window of opportunity for the Left parties to project forth their viewpoint and make the world take notice, it is now time for the Communists to influence the mindset of the corporate world. CPM member Sitaram Yechury’s lecture to the IIM-Ahmedabad graduates has inspired the students, with six of them intending to do their summer internship at the party headquarters in the Capital. How significant is the Left world view for the generation-next corporate leaders? A senior CPM leader said familiarisation with their way of functioning might provide a window into Leftist mindsets elsewhere also. Left-of-Centre governments have recently taken over in many countries — from Brazil to Bolivia — with significant business prospects. A stint at the Marxist headquarters will be a good addition to the resume. Is the party also ready for Harvard interns?
Rahul’s moves in UP Congressmen are quietly elated that Rahul Gandhi is silently but surely beginning to step out of his Amethi constituency in Uttar Pradesh. Some Congressmen are keeping their fingers crossed, now that Rahul has launched the campaign for the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, where the new assembly has to be constituted by May next year. A bird tells us that Rahul has been meeting Congress leaders from each constituency in Uttar Pradesh and is believed to have covered more than 60 constituencies so far. There is speculation in the party that he is preparing a dossier on the candidates. Meanwhile, RJD supremo and Union Railway minister Lalu Prasad Yadav has demanded that the Congress should nominate Rahul as its Chief Ministrial nominee in Uttar Pradesh. Lalu is never short of displaying his political one-upmanship while keeping the Congress leadership pleased. Contributed by
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