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Victory in wasteland One call = one postcard |
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Death in custody Only severe punishment can curb it Every time a police officer guilty of custodial crimes is punished severely, it sends an unmistakable message to others of his ilk that taking law into one’s own hands can be dangerous. Unfortunately, this happens in the rarest of cases. Often, the worst that happens to a guilty officer is a transfer to the police lines or to a less lucrative police station.
Removing Punjab’s DGP
Mystery of missing black bucks
Governments are behind globalisation’s dark side How a Tribune report created a storm in Kerala Delhi Durbar
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Victory in wasteland UP Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav has proved that he still enjoys majority support in the State Assembly. He needed just 197 votes but got 223, in the bargain. Obviously, some Opposition members voted in his favour, though they had collectively decided to boycott the vote on the confidence motion he moved a bit surreptitiously. Even when the Rashtriya Lok Dal of Mr Ajit Singh withdrew its ministers from the government and the Congress withdrew its support to the government, there was no doubt about his ability to mobilise his herd. But the vote does not mean much in terms of refurbishing his image, which has suffered a major dent in recent months. It is only a prelude to the biggest battle that awaits him when the state goes to polls later this year. The vote may give the Chief Minister a bit of confidence to recommend dissolution of the House and holding of elections before the Opposition is able to find a fresh issue like the sugarcane price to kick up a controversy. In such an event, the Governor will have no option but to act on his advice, which will advance the elections by a few weeks. Whatever be the allegations of the Opposition that the ruling Samajwadi Party had misused power to rig the recent municipal elections, they will have to reconcile themselves to Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav remaining in power till at least the elections are over. This does not mean that they do not have any ammunition against him. In fact, the Nithari killings in which nearly two dozen children were sexually assaulted and killed over a period of time are a pointer to the failure of the law and order machinery in the state. Ministers are accused of involvement in the “disappearance” of a socialite lady but they remain glued to power. While many states have been concentrating on development, people find that UP is the best place to move away from. Except mouthing platitudes about social equity and secularism, nothing is being done to improve the living conditions of the people. For them, it makes no difference that the Samajwadi Party has won the vote of confidence for the umpteenth time. Their lot is worse than before. |
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One call = one postcard THE Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has, much to the relief of frequent travellers who use mobile telephones, reduced the roaming charges up to 56 per cent. Besides, short messages can be received free and roaming rentals have been done away with altogether. While the consumers rejoice, the service providers have not taken the unexpected announcement in the right spirit and estimate the expected revenue loss at Rs 800 to 900 crore. Unjustifiably, they have threatened to raise the local call charges in retaliation. If the threat is translated into action, it would adversely affect ordinary consumers while the benefit has gone largely to those in an upper income bracket. But the TRAI is not unduly worried. TRAI Chairman Nripendra Mishra claims that only 10 per cent of the revenues of the telecom companies comes from roaming and the tariff reduction decision is based on the cost data provided by the companies themselves. The mobile phone operators also stand a slim chance of winning on appeal against the TRAI order as the Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal is unlikely go against a pro-consumer decision. BSNL will not join the protesters as its roaming rates are already low. The TRAI decision is part of the “One India” campaign initiated by Communications Minister Dayanidhi Maran to cut tariffs. Instead of grumbling over the revenue loss, the telecom operators should gladly offer the consumers better services at lower costs which would take only a small part of the huge profits they make. There are 147 million mobile phone users in the country and six million new users are added to the list every month. The reach of the telephone is still limited in a country of over one billion. The vast majority of rural Indians will be able to afford a telephone only if the charges are further slashed. Make a mobile call as cheap as a postcard. |
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Death in custody Every time a police officer guilty of custodial crimes is punished severely, it sends an unmistakable message to others of his ilk that taking law into one’s own hands can be dangerous. Unfortunately, this happens in the rarest of cases. Often, the worst that happens to a guilty officer is a transfer to the police lines or to a less lucrative police station. That is why India continues to account for about the highest number of custodial deaths in the civilised world. The only silver lining in the dark clouds is that slowly, inexorably, courts have started asserting themselves like never before. A Delhi court has sentenced a police inspector to seven-year rigorous imprisonment for killing a 30-year-old man in a police station in 1990. The Preet Vihar police station SHO was reportedly inebriated when he broke the spinal cord of 30-year-old Subhash. The same court had sentenced an ACP-rank police officer to death last November for a similar crime. The point to mull over is as to why it should take 17 long years to punish such a person. Apparently, the system treats even heinous crimes as routine and the adage “justice delayed is justice denied” comes into operation. Often the police force tends to stand by those from its own ranks. Most of the victims of lesser crimes do not have the means to wage such a long struggle and prefer to suffer in silence. To improve things, punishment should be exemplary, and quick. The court has observed that quantum of punishment in cases involving public officers should be commensurate with the status of the offender, by imposing greater penalty on a person from whom higher standards were expected. Indeed, this should be the norm not only for those indulging in custodial crimes but all public officers committing excesses. Since the big fish invariably manage to get away, the public has lost faith in the system. |
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I think no virtue goes with size. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Removing Punjab’s DGP
THE removal of Punjab's Director-General of Police at the directive of the Election Commission is not the first instance of its kind. Nor will it be the last. The commission had to issue similar marching orders to the DGP in Haryana and the Commissioner of Police of Chennai in Tamil Nadu during the assembly polls in those states, too. In Bihar, there was a much larger shunting of police officers for the same reason -- unethical and unlawful partisanship for the ruling party. Remarkably, the Election Commission has excluded Punjab's ex-DGP from all election-related duties. What can be more shameful than this? To hold elections that are, by and large, fair and impartial is one of the few shining achievements of this country. But how long can this situation last if those at the highest levels of the police, entrusted with the task of ensuring the rule of law, merrily undermine even the people's right to elect their representatives without fear or favour? Self-seeking bureaucrats also act likewise, but in manipulating elections police officers are more "useful". Just as the fish begins to rot from head downwards, so seems to be the case with the Indian police. However, crass partisanship for the ruling party, especially the state's chief minister, is only one part of the problem. The degeneration of the police is comprehensive and the rot is depressingly deep. On a famous occasion decades ago Vinoba Bhave had told a gathering near the Chambal ravines, "The police might save you from the dacoits, but who will protect you from the police"? How prophetic those words have proved to be. It is difficult to imagine anything more sickening than the kidnapping, rape and slaughter of Nithari children. It took a CBI inquiry -- ordered after prolonged resistance by the U.P. Chief Minister, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav -- to expose the culpability of the state's police in shielding the monsters that allegedly committed this unspeakable crime. The refusal to record first information reports (FIRs) is a nationwide malaise, if only because this "reduces" the incidence of crime. In Nithari, the police criminally coerced into silence the poor parents of the children that had gone missing. In the nation's Capital itself, the murderer of Jessica Lal could initially go scot-free because of papa's influence and the deliberate distortion of the investigation by the Delhi police. A police inspector of Delhi has been convicted of custodial death that occurred 17 long years ago. Another, still in service, was only suspended several months ago after being caught on the camera demanding a bribe of Rs. 26,000 to release the body of a luckless victim of an accident. No one knows what has happened to him. Sadly, for every culpable policeman leisurely punished, the grave lapses of a dozen are overlooked. What Amnesty International has to say about the incidence of that ineradicable evil, corruption, is hair-raising. Sixty-two per cent of Indian citizens have had "personal experience" of having to bribe the police. No less shocking is the disappearance in Orissa of Bitti Mohanty, convicted of raping a German tourist in Rajasthan. His father is a police officer of DGP rank in Bhubaneswar. There is more than prima facie evidence of his use of his clout to get his son paroled from Jaipur jail. The list of such outrageous examples can be extended ad infinitum. However, the other side of the coin should not be overlooked. The working and living conditions of the policemen at the lowest level are often appalling. Many of them are usually overworked, thanks to obsessive VIP security. If most of them are corrupt, a huge proportion of them have had to pay bribes for recruitment to the service and for subsequent promotions. In Punjab, it was found, for instance, that an inspector aspiring to become a deputy superintendent of police had to pay to the leading lights of the State Public Service Commission a bribe of over Rs 2 lakh. Wouldn't he recover this amount by misusing his powers? The situation in other states is no better. The key question is: how has the country sunk to such despairing depths where the police are concerned, and why no corrective measures are being taken? The answer is obvious. It is the relentless and remorseless politicisation of the police, even more cynically than other institutions of the Indian republic have been drawn into the vortex of polarised politics that is at the root of the problem. In every civilised democracy, the police are the servants of the law. In India, they are willing serfs of the politicians in power who find the arrangement supremely satisfying. As Shakespeare said of the quality of mercy, this crass collusion is double blessed. It blesses both sides. In Britain, for example, the police arrested a close adviser of the Prime Minister early one morning without any reference to any political authority. More, the officer in charge of Leister Square police station in London summoned Mr And Mrs Blair because their son was involved in some mischief. They went. Only the other day, the British police went to 10 Downing Street to question the Prime Minister about honours being "sold" to big donors. Is it conceivable that even the highest police officer here would dare question even a deputy minister or a minor functionary of the PMO? Can there be anything more ridiculous than that even 60 years after Independence, the Indian Police Act of 1861 remains in force? Reports of all the Police Commissions on reforming the system have been virtually consigned to the dustbin. More than 10 chief ministers have formed a virtual trade union to oppose as "unacceptable" the Supreme Court's directive to confer some autonomy on the police force. Ironically, the strongest opposition to the apex court's order comes from Mr Karunanidhi in Tamil Nadu who was personally treated savagely by the police when he was out of power and Ms Jayalalithaa ruled the roost. The bitter truth is that the current reprehensible state of affairs suits all politicians. Every political party, when in power, makes the best of it. When in opposition, it screams against the misuse and abuse of the police. You can bet your last rupee that the two sides would never join hands to bring about police reforms for which there is crying need. In short, democratic the Indian system is. But civilised it is
not.
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Mystery of missing black bucks
AT 17 sq kilometres, the Point Calamere wildlife Sanctuary is among the smallest in the country. Situated along the sea-shore, mid way between Chennai and Kanyakumari, it had its origin as the country’s foremost winter-water-bird “ringing station” set up by the late Salim Ali, some four decades ago. Over a period of time it also became home to black buck, Cheetal and wild boar. In the absence of natural predators, the ungulates increased exponentially. For instance in 1967 the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) had placed the black buck alone at “an approximate figure of 750”. But by 1989, their head count had mysteriously plummeted to 490. The BNHS ruled out epidemic and even poaching as the cause of decline. Poaching was considered improbable because the sanctuary was small and the watch-and-ward infrastructure was both adequate and so well motivated that poachers could not go un-noticed. The mystery deepened but remained unravelled till I recently chanced to recount in the Hornbill (a BNHS Quarterly) the account which now follows. Not many in the country knew how perilously close we were to losing all the black buck of Point Calamere but for the fruitous presence of the proverbial “right man at the right spot and at the right moment.” At that point in time, that man happened to be the then Indian Army Chief, the late General Sundarji. In early 1987, one of the trustees of the World Wide Fund for Nature Conservation INDIA, contacted me over the telephone to state that the LTTE cadres had set up encampments inside the Point Calamere sanctuary. That probably at the point of the gun they had neutralised the watch-and-ward staff and were now wantonly shooting all animals, especially the black buck. Could I help prevent the massacre? As luck would have it, I was to take a brief to the Chief that very afternoon and knowing his indulgent nature, I was hopeful that he would react to the crisis positively. Having done with the brief, I shared the grim news from Point Calamere with the Chief. Without a moment’s hesitation, he told me to accompany him to a meeting late that evening. Once there, he led me to a gentleman and said “He is your man” and walked away to take his seat at the meeting table. The meeting got delayed and the Chief turning to me said, “Baljit, if you have conveyed your concerns, you may hand the brief to me and go home and relax with your wife over a drink.” Four days later “my man” gave me the news that the LTTE cadres were indeed shooting black buck but not for venison. Rather, the black buck running at full stretch over the pale sandy beech presented the perfect, regulation bulls-eye target for honing the skills of their sharp-shooters! My heart sank at this. In the next breath, he told me that he had a firm assurance from the LTTE that henceforth they would neither target the black buck nor other wildlife in the Sanctuary. Indeed, they kept their word. And the black buck numbers gradually began rising once
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Governments are behind globalisation’s dark side THE world social forum – and the anti-globalisation movement that it represents – convened in Nairobi, Kenya, last week, and if you hear or read anything about its proceedings, it will be surprising. What started as an annual event in Chile six years ago – building on the extraordinary visibility of the Seattle anti-globalisation protests in 1999 – has become a nonevent for most of the world’s media. The forum has made itself nearly irrelevant to the future of the global economy because it, among other things, has aimed at the wrong targets – capitalists, corporate power and such international institutions as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The anti-globalisation activists in Nairobi who want to slow down or even reverse the tides of globalisation have a point: The post-Cold War world is an increasingly dangerous place, in part because of the dark side of globalisation. New diseases roam across national borders; trade in drugs and women flourishes; pollutants spread to less-policed jurisdictions; deadly weapons find their way easily into the hands of anyone with hard currency. And yet the underlying flows that make up globalisation – the mobility of ideas, capital, technology and labor – are nothing new. Although container ships and the Internet have speeded up commerce, goods and services have been moving across geographic borders for centuries. So what has lately increased the perils of globalisation? Rather than capitalists and corporate power, national governments are to blame. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are creations of national governments and are ruled by them. Corporations are legal fictions, made responsible to their shareholders (not to some vague notions of social good), and are born of and depend on the laws that governments make to empower them. Globalisation’s reputed villains respond to the incentives and constraints that national governments create for them. The end of the Cold War was supposed to bring peace and prosperity to the globe. Many in the Clinton administration, for instance, shared Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history” vision – a future world of trade and commerce in which the biggest conflicts would be waged over things like interest rates and cellphone standards. President Clinton’s first national security adviser, Anthony Lake, coined the term “enlargement” to replace “containment,” arguing that the spread of democracy around the world inevitably would bring peace on top of that prosperity. Instead, the end of the Cold War and globalisation ushered in a period of U.S. dominance that has not turned out to be the same thing as peace and prosperity for most of the world. For the first time, rapid globalisation has been superimposed on a unipolar world. And the past 15 years have shown that this is a dangerous mixture. A global economy needs some set of global rules. But as long as there is no single world government, global governance and the international economy depend on what national governments do, through the policies they craft individually and the bargains they make together. The US Congress, for instance, sets labor standards for factories inside the United States, and it can add conditions in trade agreements that seek to impose similar standards on foreign factories that make goods we import. The problem with a unipolar world is that too much of this weight falls on U.S. shoulders. It’s a classic example of what economists call a “public goods” problem. Public goods are shared things, like global rules and regulations, that benefit everyone but that no single government can provide, in part because they are expensive to create, sustain and enforce. So in a world without a single global government, we tend to have less of them than we really need, and the results are precisely what anti-globalisation activists protest against. Much of the world looks to powerful states to provide such public goods as environmental regulations or control of the illicit sex trade in human beings that would tilt globalisation toward more positive results. But now, that means looking mostly to the United States. And even in its most powerful days, the U.S. reach was necessarily limited by budget deficits and political will. In a real sense, the dark side of globalisation is not the result of globalisation at all. It is the dark side of U.S. predominance. If there is any good news about the relative decline of U.S. power, it is that it opens the door for other powerful states to join in the game of global governance. The greatest beneficiary of globalisation after the U.S. has been China, a country with a burgeoning economy, growing political influence and distinct interests in parts of the world – most important, Africa – where the U.S. is barely engaged. If China and the U.S. work together to develop rules for the next phase of globalisation, the world 10 years from now could be not only a richer but also a safer, cleaner, more just and hopeful place to live. But if they work at cross-purposes, then corporate power will do what corporate power does best – generate profit at the expense of most other values. If members of the World Social Forum want to become relevant and curb the dark sides of globalisation, they will have to face up to the reality of great-power politics. This means turning their focus away from capitalists and corporations and toward Washington and Beijing.
Steven Weber is professor of political science and director of the Institute of International Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Ely Ratner is a doctoral candidate in political science and a research fellow at the institute. By arrangement with
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How a Tribune report created a storm in Kerala A
REPORT in The Tribune has created a political storm in Kerala. The newspaper reported on January 3 that Kerala Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan had in a letter to President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam pleaded that the then Chief Justice of the State Justice V.K. Bali should not be overlooked while making appointments to the Supreme Court. The letter had pointed out that Justice Bali was senior to Justice H.S. Bedi, former Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court who was elevated to the Supreme Court, when they were both judges of the Punjab and Haryana High Court at Chandigarh. The Chief Minister described Mr Justice Bali as an “honest” and “upright” judge. The report remained dormant till the Malayalam daily, Malayala Manorama, picked up the story and splashed it on Page 1 on January 22 with due attribution to The Tribune. News channels like Asianet and Kairali and other newspapers followed up the report quoting The Tribune’s New Delhi-based Legal Correspondent S.S. Negi, who stood by the report. A day later, Malayala Manorama carried a detailed report, again, on Page 1, under the heading “VS step leads to controversy”. It said, “The report that Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan had written a letter to request the President that High Court Chief Justice V.K. Bali be appointed a judge of the Supreme Court has become a major controversy. The Chief Minister refused to react to the (The Tribune) report, which he did not deny. Sources close to the Chief Minister admitted that he had made such a recommendation to the President. The Tribune Correspondent S.S. Negi said, he stood by the report. “Opinions differ on whether the Chief Minister’s action amounted to violation of the oath he had taken or not. Ministers take oath as prescribed in the Third Schedule of the Constitution. The question is whether it was proper for a Chief Minister, who had taken the oath that he would do right to all manner of people in accordance with the Constitution without fear or favour, affection or ill-will, to recommend a person for a very high post in the country. “On the contrary, there is an opinion that it was not wrong on the Chief Minister’s part to bring to the notice of the President the sentiments of the people of the state. Of course, the issue raises the question whether the executive can interfere in the affairs of the judiciary. While appointing the chief justice and judges of a high court, the opinion of the state government concerned is sought. However, in this case, it was the Chief Minister who took the initiative. “There is no such precedent in the State, though similar cases have happened in North India. It was on December 19 that the Chief Minister had written the letter to the President. The news appeared in The Tribune on January 3. Rashtrapatri Bhavan has not denied the report. There are indications that the President had referred the Chief Minister’s letter to the Law Ministry for appropriate action. “Party (CPM) sources say that the Chief Minister had sent a similar letter to the then Chief Justice of India, Justice Y.K. Sabharwal. The letter has ignited a new crisis in the CPM. In the Lavlin deal and private college cases, Justice Bali had given verdicts against the government. The report that Achuthanandan had written to the President that Justice Bali was competent in all respects to become a judge of the Supreme Court came when the CPM mouthpiece and its student and youth wings were busy criticising the judge. “It is certain that the precedent the Chief Minister has set without discussing the matter in either the party or the Cabinet would be used against him by his opponents in the party. CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat has unofficially sought the comments of both the Chief Minister and the party leadership. Those close to the Chief Minister insist that there was nothing extraordinary about the letter he had written. He was merely giving his opinion about a judge who was retiring from the High Court and who could be considered for the Supreme Court”. Other than kicking up a controversy, the Chief Minister’s letter had no effect. Former Kerala Chief Minister K. Karunakaran has also come out in the open against Achuthanandan. He said writing the letter was an act of indiscretion. Meanwhile, Justice Bali has retired from the Kerala High Court. He could have continued in service for another three years, if he was elevated to the Supreme Court. |
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Delhi Durbar THE show of strength for Socialist leader and Samata Party founder George Fernandes seems to have rattled Janata Dal (United) president Sharad Yadav. At a press conference early this week, Yadav said that he had not taken any notice of the convention held in the capital on Sunday to garner support for the revival of the Samata Party. Asked why the JD(U) removed party National General Secretary Shiv Kumar if observations about Bihar and the JD(U) made at the convention did not matter to them, Yadav chose not to reply. People in the Samata party however feel that it is comical that the JD(U) felt the need to remove Shiv Kumar, when he had already left the party. They said that it shows the JD(U) leadership lacks understanding about a party organisation and how it should be run. Middle-class Bihar’s resilience Bihar has detiorated in every aspect during the past two decades, including education, but this has not affected youth from the expanding middle class. Instead, these students have surged ahead and made their mark in every field – be it medicine, engineering, IT, civil services, journalism or the legal profession. This is the assessment of noted lawyer and BJP leader Arun Jaitley, after observing the pattern of social equations and distribution of human resources on caste lines. He had made a study of the social fabric when he campaigned for the party during the last two assembly elections as its chief poll coordinator. The most important aspect that emerged from his study during his tour to virtually every nook and corner of Bihar is the great resilience of Biharis, particularly the middle class parents, who spent more than 50 per cent of their earnings on their children’s education, by sending them to the best possible institutions outside the state. Notorious D-5, a tourist attraction D-5, the gruesome Nithari house where Moninder Singh and Surinder Koli allegedly killed young children and casually disposed off their dismembered bodies, has now become a tourist attraction of sorts. In the beginning, when the news broke, residents from adjoining NOIDA would visit the spot, stand in front of the house and gape at it, wondering how anything so ghastly could take place in the middle of their modern-day civilisation. Lately, visitors have started coming in from areas outside NOIDA as well. Auto-drivers and rickshaw pullers are familiar with their way to the house and do not have to be told anything except the number of the house –
D-5.
Contributed by Tripti Nath, S.S. Negi and Vibha Sharma |
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