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It’s 9.2 per cent now Mission mode |
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Silence of the lambs No place for Parzania in Modi’s Gujarat Violence does not always appear in the familiar and imagined form of masked men descending with guns and knives to slaughter their victims. There is also silent violence deadlier for the way it creeps up on society, blinds people about reality and snuffs out freedom.
Perversion of Satyagraha
Bajra for breakfast
Taxing exercise Dissent in Iran over nuke posture Delhi Durbar
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It’s 9.2 per cent now India’s growth story is getting too good to believe. To many, it is giving anxious moments. Sceptics point to the negatives, what can go wrong, who has got left behind. Economists have started wondering whether the economy is getting overheated. The believers are just celebrating. Being unused to continuing global applause, the leadership seems at a loss to handle the compliments. The system has coped admirably well with the protracted bull run and there is no stink yet of any scam or manipulation of stock prices. The Tatas’ Corus deal has lifted the Indian mood. There are dampeners, no doubt. The Central Statistical Organisation’s rosy picture of the GDP set to grow at 9.2 per cent this fiscal also reveals a dark shade lurking behind. Agricultural growth will slip to 2.7 per cent from last year’s level of 6 per cent. That means 60 per cent of the population is not participating in the stock market’s celebrations. Discontent is rather growing in villages and protests over SEZs are just an indication of social unrest. That is a cause for serious concern. Those left out not only do not see their incomes rising, but also have to cope with the blow of the current upsurge in the prices of essential commodities. The government recognises this, but there seems no short-term solutions. Bottlenecks to growth are also very much there and are mostly internal: inadequate infrastructure, lack of skilled manpower for the emerging growth areas and political compulsions of the Left-supported UPA government. Congress President Sonia Gandhi has electoral battles to win and she applies her veto power to policies found inconvenient to sections of voters. The RBI’s recent monetary steps have raised the cost of capital and it may affect industrial growth. The question that needs countrywide debate now is: how to sustain and escalate the present momentum of growth while making it more inclusive. |
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Mission mode With the 13th test of the Indo-Russian cruise missile Brahmos, where the nine-metre missile was manoeuvred in an s-shaped curve at supersonic speed, one of India’s most successful joint ventures in the military realm has gained added sheen. Ever since its first successful flight, there had been the usual inhibitions and scepticism, but the DRDO and its Russian partners have kept at it, and the missile has won over many. It took a while, but the Navy began induction last year, and it was also cleared for modification as an air armament on the multi-role fighter Su-30 MKI. The S-curve test, the fourth test of the Army version, is testimony to the control over guidance and propulsion gained by the engineers on the project. With its versatility, precision and supersonic speed of more than twice the speed of sound, it can be a potent weapon in our forces’ armoury. Any target acquired within its range of 300 kilometres can be “engaged” with a speed that will leave little chance of escape. That, at least, is the promise and potential of the weapon, and it should be exploited fully. The DRDO’s Russian partners are talking about the sale of thousands of missiles to potential friendly customers around the world, and that may well be a realisable goal. Once it is established that the missile is good, the entire weight of the defence bureaucracy, the defence public sector units involved in its manufacture, not to mention possible private partners, should be used shore up its success. Many a good design and development effort has been squandered at the production and marketing stage, and this should not be allowed to happen. It should receive the right kind of support in terms of hard orders in sufficient numbers, and all partners should ensure that quality never becomes an issue, either with our own forces or with foreign customers. |
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Silence of the lambs Violence does not always appear in the familiar and imagined form of masked men descending with guns and knives to slaughter their victims. There is also silent violence deadlier for the way it creeps up on society, blinds people about reality and snuffs out freedom. Such violence is not witnessed, merely intimated. Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s Gujarat, where hundreds of Muslims were killed in 2002, has not given up intimidating people and their expressions, but merely refined the practice. Which explains the celebration of a “vibrant” Gujarat even as theatres across the state have been practically forced by the Bajrang Dal against the screening of Rahul Dholakia’s film Parzania. It is astonishing that in a democratic country that the simple expression of telling a story - for a film is nothing but a story - should be denied, and denied precisely because it is relevant to the condition of Gujarat. The screening of Parzania — which tells the story of a young Parsi boy lost during the Gujarat carnage of 2002 — in state has not been banned, because there was no need to do so. The Bajrang Dal let it be known that theatres and multiplexes showing the film would be doing so at their own peril; and theatre owners being businessmen obviously did not want to see their theatres attacked, if not burnt down by fascist hordes. Director-producer Dholakia deserves credit for refusing to seek the VHP’s nod for releasing the film in Gujarat as suggested by the exhibitors. It is heartening that sections of Bollywood have rallied to the cause of the film and threatened to stop releasing Hindi films in Gujarat if Parzania’s screening is not allowed in the state. Bollywood may be about money, but it also represents the right to expression in its myriad forms. A few leading figures have come together and are enlisting the support of others to fight for not merely the release of one film but the rule of law and freedom of expression. Their efforts deserve the support of all right-thinking people who value constitutional freedoms. |
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Is it progress if a cannibal uses knife and fork? — Stanislaw Lec
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Perversion of Satyagraha
WAY back in the early 1980s when Richard Attenborough’s film Gandhi became a worldwide sensation, this country’s premier cartoonist, R.K. Laxman, drew a memorable cartoon, in which he depicted two Congressmen telling each other, “I am told, it is a real life story”. Since then ignorance of, and indifference to, what the Mahatma stood for has multiplied manifold. Ritual homage to him on October 2 and January 30 or on some other special occasion makes no difference. The Dalai Lama has aptly summed up the situation by saying that “India has magnanimously exported Mahatma Gandhi to the outside world without keeping him for itself”. Of late, however, Gandhi has been much in the news, beginning with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to South Africa, especially to the railway station where the young attorney was famously thrown out of a first class compartment. Then came the much-hyped movie on Gandhigiri. It is a measure of Bollywood's formidable influence, magnified by 24-hour TV channels that the Mahatma often has to take the second place after Munnabhai. And now the celebration of the centenary of Satyagraha, organized by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, has evoked great brouhaha. Critics have attacked her primarily for trying to “monopolise” the Mahatma’s legacy in service of her family and party. She has drawn flak also because she held the two-day international seminar at a “five-star venue” and amidst such tight security that there was no room for even the few surviving Gandhians, to say nothing of the people at large. This will continue to be the talk of the town until the assembly elections in four states are over, but it has little to do with my basic point that is about Satyagraha and what Gandhi's self-proclaimed followers have done to it. Most people recognise, of course, that the relevance of Gandhi’s message, especially his abhorrence of violence, is enduring. The present-day world --- ravaged by war, conflict and terrorism --- needs to be reminded of this constantly. No harm, therefore, in asking the United Nations to observe October 2, the great soul’s birthday, as Nonviolence Day. But, with all due respect, it is hard to understand how Gandhi's unique weapon of Satyagraha can be used against terrorists --- as suggested by some learned speakers --- any more than it could be against Hitler and Japanese militarists. More importantly, the Mahatma devised Satyagraha as an instrument to be used against a foreign imperial power whose legitimacy he denied totally, as he told Judge Robert Broomfield who tried him for sedition in March 1922 at Ahmedabad. What was a legitimate weapon against a mighty empire cannot be legitimate in independent and democratic India where citizens can change governments by of the power of their vote and all governmental actions and legislative decisions are open to review by an independent judiciary. Of course, there is room even in a democracy for extra-parliamentary agitation provided it remains within democratic parameters. Sadly, the reality is that the “Satyagraha” that has become ubiquitous in this country almost always and almost immediately leads to violence, often virulent. The goings-on at Singur and Nandigram in West Bengal over the acquisition of agricultural land for industrial purposes is only the latest but not the last instance of the prevalent political culture. Indeed, a sort of Satyagraha has become routine over the whole range of issues, major, petty and even senseless. Students demanding increased marks in examinations, opponents of hydroelectric or irrigation dams, traders and landlords insisting that no unauthorised structure should be demolished or sealed and so on take to the streets to unleash mindless violence. It does not even occur to them that the Mahatma had called off the entire civil disobedience movement at the first sign of violence at Chauri Chaura. He had gone so far as to say that his inability to foresee what would happen was a “Himalayan Blunder”. Gandhi used to resort to time-bound fasts to “purify” himself or for a cause he considered important enough. On some occasions he undertook indefinite fasts or “fasts unto death”. When he did so for the first time, Jawaharlal Nehru was “shocked” by what he described as “primitive and irrational tactics”. But his reverence for his mentor prevented him from going public. In any case, the country remained calm and only prayed whenever Gandhi fasted. What happens during the fasts undertaken by the likes of Ms Mamata Banerjee, Ms Medha Patkar and Mr Anna Hazare, to mention only a few from a long list, is nothing short of an affront to the Father of the Nation. It follows, therefore, that the best tribute we can pay to the man to whom succeeding generations owe so much is to cry halt to the deliberate and persistent perversion of Satyagraha, which is as rampant as its is disgraceful. At the Satyagraha Seminar, the Congress president took care to point out that India went nuclear only because of the “compulsions” of circumstance. This, curiously, has become an excuse for a whole lot of do-gooders and boy-scouts to demand that, to honour Gandhi, India should at least “give up” its nuclear weapons forthwith. Why? Because, according to them, these weapons are “symbols of violence”. In heaven’s name, aren’t tanks, fighter aircraft, conventional missiles, grenades and even AK-47 rifles? So why not give them up, too? Few statesmen in the world hated nuclear weapons more passionately than did Nehru. But since before joining the Interim Government as its head in September 1946, he took the categorical stand that as long as other nations used nuclear technology for military purposes he could not forswear nuclear weapons. Nor could he bind the future generations and future Parliaments to his policy of using nuclear technology for only peaceful purposes. He also saw to it that Indian nuclear scientists embarked on an autonomous programme to developing the entire range of this new technology. Even today, when India’s status as a nuclear weapon power is finding more and more acceptance, Indian policy is to continue striving for total and global nuclear disarmament. Should this become possible, this country will be happy to abandon its modest nuclear arsenal. Unfortunately, major nuclear powers, sitting atop nuclear stockpiles, believe complete elimination of these weapons to be a “pipe dream”. Under the circumstances, to use words that Nye Bevan once employed about Britain, India cannot be “naked” in the face of nuclear threats to its security and
survival.
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Bajra for breakfast
Early
morning shivers and a second smug-session of sleep called jhur-jhuri in our colloquial Haryanvi, while lying curled up in the quilt, during the childhood spent in the village, had nothing to do with the severity of the winters. But rather bajra-millet, if you so like it in English. Yes, this delicacy was always the culprit, particularly in its typical characteristic of being the staple of the palate of most of us the village dwellers. Country people, particularly in the semi-arid zones in North India bordering Rajasthan, eat millet or bajra very fondly. In winters, we invariably ate the bajra-khichri in the evening with ghee or butter. The ghee used to be what they pridefully called desi or sanadh-ka; meaning thereby-certified to be pure. And the butter too had a distinct salty taste and it was called neoni for this reason. The saltiness in neoni’s taste developed due to the daylong heating up of the milk in a kadhoni (an earthen cauldron) and its later overnight fermenting into curd with was churned to take neoni out of it, the following day. The evening helpings of bajra-khichri kept the body cozy and warm enough from “inside” but the scene would definitely change at dawn when we would actually feel a near-freezing sensation. The mornings saw everyone of us making a dash to the kitchen which had soot deposits on its walls and there was no chimney. The bajra-khichri container was under attack from all sides. Everyone had his or her preferred texture of the stuff whether it was paste-lump or the upper-crust or the inside wall burnt crisp. We would then wait for the milk to arrive from the gher — the cattle yard. With added milk, bajra-khichri tasted heavenly. We did not use spoons to eat our stuff; nor perhaps would we have preferred to use any cutlery for a culinary item: like bajra-khichri which is best partaken of with hands. The nimble fingers did a wonderful job in “keep mixing the right amount of milk with khichri on each catch and making it go down the throat”. And down and down. Making even the intestines colder and colder with each such slippage. Thus cold bajra-khichri, cold milk, cold fingers, cold throat, cold guts, cold abdomen and above all cold weather made us shiver once again and run for our quilts. The return journey from the soot-filled kitchen to the quilts had always had us sipping our bajra-khichri-milk soaked fingers, making slurps sound louder and louder, much to the annoyance of father. The hardcores amongst us sat for a slightly longer time, licking the bowl with an inwardly curled tongue and savouring the taste, perhaps for the next cold wintry morning to dawn on us. Next thing to do in those winter vacations? Well, we would either sit in the sun for long, or if it was a cloudy morning, then make some bonfire and laze a little
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Taxing exercise Union budgets usually have a pro-corporate, pro-urban, pro-employee and pro-government approach in which the ordinary citizen does not get a just share. Finance ministers invite select groups for pre-Budget consultations and open themselves to influence. It is the media response of such interests that makes a budget a success or otherwise. When Dr Manmohan Singh presented his first Budget as Finance Minister ushering in the historic shift in economic policy, he called for a safety net for the vulnerable sections of society. It is yet to be put in place. The enormity of the challenge and the scarcity of funds need not be cited as an excuse. Another commendable step he talked of taking but never actually did was to do away with or cut down the number of government drivers and instead give the bureaucrats and other officials easy loans to buy and drive their own cars. Ways to cut corruption and misuse of government machinery are known, but the status-quoists do not allow their implementation. The Prime Minister understands the system, has initiated some commendable administrative reforms and does not need to be told what is wrong, but seems helpless to set things right. Politics prevails over his economics. Under Leftist pressure and pushing her own political agenda, Congress President Sonia Gandhi has forced the government to freeze, first the policy on SEZs, now foreign investment in retail. The Finance Minister complains of lack of political space to implement reforms. The PM and his team of original reformers need to assert themselves. At least they can straighten out the twisted government machinery. The delivery system is really bad. Administrative flab and government extravagance, both at the Central and state levels, need heavy slashing. The Centre and the states almost bankrupted themselves by implementing the fifth pay commission report because they did not cut the staff strength as desired by the panel. With another round of pay commissions, the blunder is set to be repeated. High levels of taxes are imposed to fund an inefficient, non-transparent and corrupt government. Commercial income is often clubbed with agricultural income to evade taxes. If a lowly paid employee is subjected to a tax, why should the rich farmer not pay income tax? It requires political will to take on the mighty landlord. Over all, the tax rate should come down and the net be spread further to cover those who still do not pay any income tax despite known sources of high profits. Ideally, income should be spared of tax and consumption should be taxed. Subsidies do not reach the needy. Instead of subsidising farm inputs, pay cash to farmers. The outdated and much misused public distribution system can be wound up and the poor can be given food stamps. The mid-day meal though has been a success in some states, there have been reports of substandard and insect-infested food being served to children. Besides, teachers’ time is wasted in preparing meals. The needy schoolchildren can be given cash or food stamps – as in Brazil – provided they have been vaccinated. Green taxes are all talked about, yet there is no lobby to push them. The underlying principle behind green taxes is: the polluter must pay. Raise taxes on air, water and noise pollution. Instead the government gives them concessions. Car-makers are given duty concessions and buyers cheap loans. Industries foul the rivers without paying the price. Despite rising profits, companies avoid taxes by resorting to litigation. The complex tax system helps them find loopholes. A staggering amount of Rs 85,000 crore had accumulated as tax arrears until 2003-04 and the lazy Income Tax Department conveniently categorised it as “non-recoverable”. Instead of making serious efforts to realise the arrears, the IT department wants the sum to be waived. Notorious litigants should be blacklisted instead of being rewarded with budgetary benefits. If defaulters and evaders are stiffly punished, companies as also individual taxpayers may get a lesson in obeying the law. Sick PSUs are a drain on resources, yet these have not been privatised despite a boom in the stock markets. Indian companies are buying firms abroad, but those with the government are not for sale. Some eggheads still do not understand the simple fact of life: it is not the government’s business to be in business. The Centre can do more to discipline the non-performing, non-reforming states through a carrot-and-stick policy. If the PM openly speaks against free power to farmers, his own party’s government in Punjab does not listen to him. The PM is telling the country advantages of nuclear power following a deal with the US, the CM in Punjab is dead against power from a nuclear plant in his state. States are reluctant to push power reforms despite the passing of the Electricity Act. Wars, conflicts on border and insurgency extract a heavy price, both in terms of human life and resources. Peace everywhere has to be a priority. Genuine efforts in this direction will lead to the shifting of funds from defence and policing to development not only within the country but also in the neighbourhood. The Finance Minister will have to make a departure from the usual exercise of budgeting to push the country’s growth in the desired direction. Not many will mind paying taxes if money is properly utilised for protecting agriculture, the environment, the water sources, the wildlife and the forests. Political consensus favours higher spending on health, education and infrastructure. These are the nation’s undisputed priority areas. If “Incredible India” has to show the beautiful face of the country, the government should spend more to take care of the general landscape: remove urban filth, set up clean toilets, beautify streets and roads, remove encroachments, rehabilitate beggars and come down heavily on all that is an affront to a dignified life. |
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Dissent in Iran over nuke posture TEHRAN, Iran – Iran’s leadership is facing mounting public unease and the seeds of mutiny in the parliament over the combative nature of its nuclear diplomacy. For the first time since Iran resumed its uranium enrichment activities, there is broad, open criticism of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s defiance of the Bush administration and United Nations Security Council. Warnings have emerged that the public may not be prepared to support the Islamic regime through a war. The criticism and public wariness arise at a time when the Bush administration has moved ships to the Persian Gulf, and both Washington and Israel refuse to rule out a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. The mounting dissent, however, does not appear to have chipped away at Iran’s determination to maintain an active nuclear program, according to politicians, diplomats and political analysts here in the Iranian capital. But those observers say it opens the door to a face-saving compromise and signals that a broad range of Iranians hope to avoid an all-out confrontation. “If (Ahmadinejad) wants to start a new war, from where does he think he’s going to produce the army?” asked Mohammad Atrianfar, a well-known political commentator allied with former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, who has sought to work behind the scenes in recent weeks to ease the nuclear confrontation. “We are not agreeing with his radical, extreme policies,” Atrianfar said. “It is because of the propagandist speech of Ahmadinejad all over the world that we’re in the situation we’re in.” The UN Security Council voted on December 23 to ban the sale to Iran of materials that can be used in uranium enrichment, reprocessing of nuclear material, and production of ballistic missiles. Ahmadinejad, however, has declared the resolution “a torn paper.” But some experts here believe passage of the sanctions, with the assent of China and Russia, took the country’s top leadership by surprise. “They were counting on it not getting that far, or that it wouldn’t be unanimous,” said a Western diplomat based in Tehran. “Many advisers weren’t telling (Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei) it would get this far. The fact that it was unanimous and they couldn’t count on Russia and China was a bit of a shock. Hence this debate on where they’re going to go next.” Parliament responded by calling in foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki to discuss whether Iran’s defiant discourse was giving Washington ammunition to argue for escalating the sanctions once a 60-day deadline to halt enrichment expires this month. The combative exchange was broadcast on state radio. “He’s making some adventures in foreign relationships that don’t benefit our country,” Akbar A’alami, the reformist lawmaker who led the charge in parliament, said in an interview. “The nuclear issue and the right of Iran to have nuclear power is a matter of national pride. But we cannot limit this issue to one person like Mr. Ahmadinejad.” Although Ahmadinejad attracts concerted attention in the West, his power as Iran’s president has considerable limits. The deciding power in the country is held by the top Islamic clerics, led by Khamenei, who has ultimate authority of the armed forces. Analysts here say it is significant that Khamenei, who has been a strong backer of the nuclear program, has not silenced Ahmadinejad’s critics. Indeed, Jamhouri Eslamic, a newspaper once owned by Khamenei that still often reflects his views, has voiced criticism of its own: “Turning the nuclear issue into a propaganda slogan gives the impression that you, for the sake of covering up flaws in the government, are exaggerating its importance.” But it remains unknown which side Khamenei will choose and whether he will try to rein in the public dissent. The average public, meanwhile, appears aghast at the idea that a nation that spent eight years at war with neighboring Iraq could be in for another conflict. The unrest does not mean that Iranians are rejecting the country’s nuclear power drive entirely. Even those Iranian politicians who have criticized Ahmadinejad seem to share the view that Iran is entitled to peaceful nuclear power. While blessed with one of the world’s largest reservoirs of oil and natural gas, Iran spends billions of dollars a year importing gasoline. Many analysts believe it faces the prospect of reduced oil exports in the future if it does not find a solution to its domestic energy dilemma.
By arrangement with
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Delhi Durbar For once, Aishwarya Rai’s globally acknowledged beauty was overshadowed by the charisma of none other than superstar Amitabh Bachchan at a recent evening hosted by the French Embassy. The occasion was memorable for several reasons – the most important being that the French government was conferring its highest national distinction Legion d’honneur on Bachchan. Another was that it was Aishwarya’s first public appearance in Delhi with her fiance Abhishek and his family. Amitabh accepted the honour and French Ambassador Dominque Girard’s compliments to him with studied humility. What instantly endeared Amitabh to the French community was his use of daily French phrases as merci (Thank you) and bientot (see you soon).
Peasant movement The SEZ controversy in Singur and Nandigram might be causing headaches to the Left Front government in West Bengal but that is not deterring the Marxist historians from studying the issue from the historical perspective. Sumit Sarkar, noted historian, and a group of academicians and other workers, recently went to the two hot spots in West Bengal to prepare an interim report. “We historians have been researching and writing about the peasant movement. This protest in Singur and Nandigram is a peasant movement,” he observed. That perhaps nails the CPM’s claim that the protests were by outsiders and instigated by political parties.
Cold to the issue The threat of climate change is being taken very seriously, with 133 countries sending close to 300 delegates for the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) meeting in Paris. However, there was only a token presence from India, which is expected to face some real climate-related problems like change in monsoon patterns and rise in sea levels in the not-so-distant future. Besides the head of the IPCC itself, R K Pachauri, the only other representative from India was an official from the Indian embassy in Paris. And the person, though a senior official from the embassy, was not even a climate-change expert. In comparison there were ten climate-change specialists from China. This is perhaps a measure of the interest in the findings of the IPCC and how much it is expected to impact policy and policy-makers both globally and in India.
Train woes If one goes by the arguments witnessed in railway stations and the actual conditions on even premier trains, the claims of Lalu Prasad Yadav having turned around the Railways ring hollow. Passengers are not impressed by lectures given at management schools if they are confronted by late-running trains, including various Shatabdis, dirty food trays, and dirty bathrooms. So much for the Railway Ministry declaring 2006 as the “Year of Passenger Services with a Smile.”
Contributed by Tripti Nath, R Suryamurthy and Vibha Sharma
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