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Democracy of ‘decent people’ Profile |
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Wit of the week
Haryana must prepare a roadmap on children
On Record High time to industrialise Punjab
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Democracy of ‘decent people’
IT may be a bit unfair to compare Nobel Laureate Mohammad Yunus with Bollywood’s Preity Zinta. The two refer to different constituencies while talking of democracy. The similarities between what they symbolise, however, are more striking. Yunus, the eminent Bangladeshi economist, has made news of a different kind by entering politics. Priety, always telegenic, too, caught media attention of a different quality with her recent campaign for middle-class participation in the political process. The more basic similarity between the messages from the duo is that both call for a kind of politics to end all politics. It is a call that considers itself to be really above and against politics and politicians. It is a class that does not care to conceal the fact that it considers itself also above the common people, the plebian masses, especially when it comes to exercise of franchise. The single major dissimilarity between the two messages is that Preity, as a true representative of her class, cares even less to conceal this prejudice. In an article in a Mumbai newspaper, asking her social peers to vote in the civic elections, she made the caustic comment that, in the country’s financial capital, “the paupers have real political clout”. She sneered: “Slum-dwellers constitute half of Mumbai’s 12 million citizens, and they are faithful voters. That makes them an important bloc for local politicians.” The paper chimed in: “The highest percentage of those who vote are from the slums. And they do it for paltry sums…even a bowl of chicken soup…suffices!” This is a conspiuous exhibition of contempt for the poor who sell their votes for the aforementioned democracy-distorting dish, and not for non-material incentives like concessions in income tax and, even more importantly, corporate levies. Yunus, who glories in the loans of his Grameen Bank to rural women, may not seem to identify himself with the yuppie class. But his is not really a very different audience and constituency from all those beautiful people the Bollywood stars were speaking for. They are “the decent people who won’t touch politics with a bargepole”, as an Indian newspaper comment on the political move of Yunus described them. Understanding but not approving of such squeamishness, the commentator was commending the example set by the economist next door and asking them to emulate it. This is a theme, to which we are treated with almost no variation, before and after every election. There is nothing really wrong with any section of the people desiring to play their due role in a democracy. It is hard not to be cynical, however, about the sudden resolves of these self-righteous saviours of democracy, who generally keep a safe distance from the polluting atmosphere of polling booths. The swashbuckling knights lose quite a bit of their armour’s shine when they make it clear that their candidature or voting is meant, above all, to counteract the baneful effects of the ballot of lesser breeds. Preity, bemoaning the “political clout” of “paupers”, is only proxying for those who would like to show the poor their political place, even if they cannot restore the far-off days when franchise was confined to the propertied. It would be wrong, however, to see all this merely as a matter of class prejudice. Equally involved in the repeated campaigns for a ballot of elite purity is a caste bias of increasing crudity. It is no accident that some of the major campaigns of the kind, spearheaded by that creamiest layer of Indians called IIT-ans or IIM-ans, follow Mandal-provoked and media-powered anti-reservation agitations. Not surprisingly, a Mumbai citizen activist said that the wards reserved for backward classes as well as the Scheduled Castes and Tribes were bound to have candidates of “poor calibre”, which could not be bettered by the voting of their social superiors alone. Where the intrinsic and inherited merit of the voters and the candidates alone matters, issues are evidently irrelevant. The only issue that figures conspicuously in the manifestos of those who promise to reform India’s politics merely by their refined presence and participation is corruption. And their solution to the problem of corruption, again, is a political role for the “decent people”, defined as sections that have kept disdainfully away from the democratic process so far. A clutch of IIT-ans, who contested the last Tamil Nadu Assembly elections, for example, did not even try or care to offer even a technological solution to the Cauvery issue. Similar was Yunus stand, as he announced his decision to form his party named Nagorik Shakti (Citizens’ power). Asked about the aims and objectives of the party, he said, “I will speak about those after the formation of the party”. He obviously believes that the duty of the people in the promised general election is to vote for a “decent” person and his party and leave its post-poll policies to him. Does that sound like a democracy? Awami League leader Sheikh Hasina has reacted to the Yunus thus: “I have been watching that character-assassination of politicians has become a good sport…Those who vilify politicians and vitiate the atmosphere later enter politics and become politicians themselves.” This may be dismissed as a predictable response from a politician to a “decent” person’s entry into politics. She follows this up, however, with a question which it may be folly for Bangladesh to ignore. “Whose interests are you serving by running politicians down?” she asks. Others in the country are asking the question, too. The left may link the micro-credit of Yunus with US imperialism and the far right may inveigh against it as un-Islamic. Across the political spectrum, however, his role in supporting the caretaker government of Iajuddin Ahmad (which made parliamentary elections in time impossible) and the current emergency regime of Fakkruddin Ahmad has elicited resentment. Some ask how, under an emergency law that bans all political activity, a new party has been allowed to be formed. Subjectively, of course, Yunus may not be seeking to subvert democracy. Objectively, however, his political intervention would seem indeed to serve the interests of the forces behind the emergency regime. In India, democracy is too deep-rooted by now for anyone to call for even an interregnum of military rule. But those campaigning for a democracy of, by, and for “the descent people” are not serving the cause of the people’s right to rule themselves. Whether glamorous Preity Zinta or the Grameen Bank’s professor, anyone pitting the “citizen” against the “slum dweller” and the “citizen” against the “politician” is not serving the cause either. Such formulations of false contradictions won’t help to correct flaws in which any functioning democracy abounds.
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Profile Kashmir is a land of beauty; its air breeds poetry. Renowned men of literature have written prolifically about the fire of Chinar, the saffron fields and the quiet flowing Jhelum, known locally as Vyath. This is how poet laureate Iqbal described Kashmir: Jis khaak ke zamir mein ho aatish-e-chinar Mumkin nahin ke sard ho woh khaak-e-aruman (The dust that has its conscience
The legendary Pandit Kalhana has written — “Kashmir…By the power of Spirit…yes. By the power of the sword…Never”. When one talks of Kashmiri literature, one can never forget celebrated Nanda Rishi. His immortal words were: “I broke my sword and fashioned a sickle”. Jnanpith Award winner, Rahman Rahi, falls in line with that great tradition of poetry in Kashmir. One wonders why the panel of selectors of Jnanpith did not spot this 82-year-old legend so far. Why this poet-writer of Kashmir is the first to win this prestigious award in a state whose air breathes poetry? Almost 50 years back, the Sahitya Akademi recognised the depth of his poems and bestowed him with its award. Rahi too was candid in his reaction when conveyed the news that he had won the prestigious award: “I am happy to hear about the award, but actually it is a tribute to Kashmiri language”. It is indeed true. So poignant are Rahi’s poems that many of them have been translated in English. Some excerpts are worth reproducing when one writes about this living prodigy. The first stanza of the poem titled, Linking From the Dark, reads thus: Yesternight, my sleep driven off and the thread of my fancies slit, I espied an eagle in the wild shadows of my mind: On its break, in the same old fashion, smouldered the blood of the dove Whose feathers were shed by hilltops into the atmosphere. Turning my head on the pillow, I sighted a deep, dark, chasm And rose and leaned my back against the wall, with the cool of the winter in the marrow of my breast. My lips froze dry as whispering reached me from outside the window. Those who have visited Srinagar know the importance of the ‘Zero Bridge’. In his composition Zero Bridge, Rahi virtually sings: This is the ‘Zero-Bridge’ away from the city and its hubbub, rapt in meditation of the tranquil mesa, a recluse, solitary, and stripped. Poised on the embankment are the same-sized poplars, as ready in a row for Id prayers; There, those silent and white house-boats are being laved in the light of the waning moon, in the eddies of the Vyath powdered silver glistens. In yet another verse, he turns philosophical: Whether my words have meaning tomorrow, Tomorrow’s critics will decide; But I’ll find the gushing waters eternal If they relieved me of present pain. The poem Shadow demonstrates simple yet powerful expression of feelings: Give up questioning your destiny and hope of eternity, if you can get hold of a few moments, enjoy them. Struggle quite early in life, devoid of the love of parents, might have ignited latent poetical streak in young Rahi’s life which blossomed later. Orphaned at an early age, he was brought up by his maternal uncle. He worked in the Public Works Department for a brief period in 1948. He has also worked as member of the editorial staff of the Urdu daily
Khidmat, the official organ of the then ruling National Conference Party. Around this time, he also joined the Progressive Writer’s Association of which he was elected General Secretary after few years, coinciding with his leaving journalism. He also edited a few issues of
Kwang Posh, the literary journal of the Progressive Writer’s Association. Eventually he joined the cultural wing of the undeclared Communist Party of Kashmir while pursuing his studies. He did his MA in Persian (in 1952) and English Literature (in 1962) from Jammu and Kashmir University. He was on the Board of Editors of the Urdu daily Aajkal, Delhi, from 1953 to 1955.n
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Wit of the week — Nobel Laureate Lech Walesa — Martin Scorsese who won the Best Director Oscar for the film What makes or what exactly is Indian-ness? Most of us feel that because of multiplicity, there is diversity in India. But we should not be taken in by this. Beneath this multiplicity lies bonds that are common to all Indians and unique only to them. A Malayali and a Punjabi are essentially the same. — Sudhir Kakar, author of The Indians: Portrait of a People I have quite a few short story ideas in my head, but being a marathon runner, not a sprinter, I feel more drawn to the novel form. Not wanting to get totally into the festival circuit, every now and then is fine, depending on where I am in the book cycle. But I love coming back to India. — Salman Rushdie at the — Captain Gorur R. Gopinath,
— Actress Jiah Khan who pairs opposite Amitabh Bachchan in Ram Gopal Varma’s Nishabd Tailpiece: Sleep concert is about using music as a medicament, an element of rest.You have to find a space where people are unecumbered and can feel relaxed...In the sleep concert, audience members, reclining on mattresses and pillows, are encouraged to lie back, listen in, and eventually nod off.n —Japanese pianist and sleep concert
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Haryana must prepare a roadmap on children The three-month reprieve from the apex court will come to an end in a fortnight. By this time the Haryana government must present a detailed roadmap to it, spelling out a time frame for decentralisation of management to local bodies including self-help groups (SHGs). The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) has been the flagship scheme that directly addresses children up to six years in addition to pregnant and lactating mothers as well as adolescent girls in the 11-18 age group through a network of Anganwadi centres (AWCs). The Supreme Court has been firm on the universalisation of ICDS since 2001. Its December 2006 direction is unmistakably to universalise ICDS, particularly in the eight orst offending states. This task has to be accomplished not later than 2008. Following a process-oriented approach in 1996, the Haryana State Plan of Action for the Child (H-SPAC) was unveiled. The state level commitments were translated into select district and block level PACs. A sharp social regression has never been an integral part of the economic growth processes anywhere but Haryana as it provides a typical empirical case. The 2007-08 state budget, therefore, must be in the vanguard to demonstrate that social regression can be reversed in Haryana. The process roadmap even up to the block level already exists in PACs. Investing in children is the safest investment for any society and the Finance Minister must recall this dictum in the coming weeks. Surely, provisional results for Haryana by the third National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) released recently can be explored in this context. NFHS-3 indicate that about 42 per cent children under three years are too thin for age (underweight) and 17 per cent children are too thin for height (wasted) and 36 per cent children are (stunted) too short for age. Sadly, in Haryana, a high-income growth state, nearly four out of 10 children under three years are stunted. The 0-6 children in Haryana constitute about 33 per cent of the total population (2001 census). What use is this high income if most children grow up stunted? Haryana should shudder to think about the boys’ future if the adverse juvenile sex ratio is factored into the NFHS-3 findings. All the children under three years must be directly addressed and targeted by AWCs. This is definitely not the question of food availability. The question staring us is the issue of access to nutritious food. Haryana has conceded in the Supreme Court that not all AWCs provide special nutrition programme. And the lame excuse is the expected budgetary shortfall of slightly over 75 per cent if all children in the 0-6 age group (2001 Census) were to be covered. Given the current rate of infiltration of fast food habits and FDI driven retail chains in many places of the state, the public agencies have a Herculean task ahead of them. These developments of globalisation bring along a sharper rural-urban divide as well as a severe forward-backward linkage issues particularly in sharing value addition pouring out from dubious market interventions. The main thrust in the state, however, should be the adolescent girls category. The Kishori Shakti Yojana (KSY) or other variants must be the bedrock for social progress in Haryana. The current plight is merely an accumulation of neglect since the mid-90s. They need to think out of the box for a lasting solution. Haryana has to rediscover the processes and broad indicators that emerged from the Integrated Women’s Empowerment and Development Project in Mahendargarh (Narnaul) district during the late nineties.Haryana’s future must be solidly based on their children. This is a non-negotiable element in any future growth scenario. The government must be proactive and show that it cares for the children.n
*****
The writer is Chair, Economics and Development Planning, Haryana Institute of Public Administration,
Gurgaon
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On Record
D.C. Pathak, a former Director of Intelligence Bureau and Chairman, Joint Intelligence Committee, is a guarded speaker. In an interview to The Sunday Tribune, he says that India and Pakistan should solve the problem of terrorism through dialogue and both should continue with the Joint Anti-Terror Mechanism (JTM). Pathak is currently advising the Government of India in various capacities on strategic and intelligence issues. He is a member of the National Security Advisory Board and a Task Force formed by the Government of India on National Security headed by Mr N.N. Vohra. He has a word of advice for President Pervez Musharraf: “Do something to remove democracy deficit in Pakistan”. Excerpts: Q: At the Indo-Pak Foreign Secretary-level talks in Islamabad (March 13-14), Pakistan reiterated that Jammu and Kashmir will remain out of the JTM’s ambit. Should the JTM continue even after this? A: India’s response to the issues connected with Indo-Pak relations has to be based on the strategic evaluation of what has changed and what has not. In recent years, particularly after the Kargil conflict of 1999, Pakistan would appear to have realised that it cannot achieve its objective in Kashmir through confrontation. The international community also favours a resolution of all outstanding matters between the two countries through the peaceful process of a dialogue. In a dialogue, both sides are free to define their points and counterpoints. The JTM is part of the dialogue process. It is an exercise in diplomacy and there is no reason to presume that an end of the road has been reached. Q: Is JTM not a conceptual paradox? Appointing a wolf to guard the livestock? Should India scrap the JTM? A:
The JTM does represent a new level of Indian initiative to frontally deal with the issue of cross-border terrorism whether its targets are in Jammu and Kashmir or in the rest of India. The whole world has seen the extensive loss of life and limb innocent civilians in India have suffered, in the recent terrorist attacks even as the peace process was being pursued. In view of the established record of the involvement of terrorist groups functioning from across the Indo-Pak border and across the LOC, Pakistan has the onus of defining the approach of the ruling establishment there to the so-called non-state perpetrators of terrorism. There is scope for India to pursue this matter. Q: Do you feel General Musharraf’s days are numbered? Is his grip on Pakistani polity loosening? Are the New York Times’ report that he is expendable for the US and the Chief Justice episode examples of this? A: Strategic analysts, unlike media, do not speculate; they go by credible information on what is happening on a particular front that they are studying. Pakistan’s ruling establishment is a part of the US-led world coalition against the global terror and the US, as far as one can see, expects President Pervez Musharraf to confront and deal with the Islamic radicals. These elements have support on the ground in their strongholds. There is an additional burden cast on Musharraf to do something to reduce the ‘democracy deficit’ in Pakistan. He is facing this two-fold challenge and the dynamics of the situation demand that he cannot be static. He has to deliver on the issues of containment of the sources of terrorist violence and some credible movement towards democratisation. No one event or episode can forecast the trend for the future. Musharraf has to show his commitment to a peaceful resolution of the problem in Kashmir. Q: Should India dump Musharraf? Can India do it? A:
Mature nations like India do not think in terms of ‘dumping’ this or that leader of another sovereign country. We should have no problem about bilaterally dealing with whosoever is at the helm of affairs in a country we are talking to. We are guided by our national interests and by the prospects of our being able to elicit helpful responses from the other side in the dialogue for peace. Q: What is the larger Indian national security scenario? A:
Our national security concerns require an inward attention. We have to deal with internal security issues like terrorism, naxalism and cross-culture disharmony with the states’ help and the resources that they can muster for safeguarding national security. In recent times, the world community has been on our side in appreciating our security concerns and we should build on
that.
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High time to industrialise Punjab Though Punjab is poised for Green Revolution II, successive state governments have neglected industry. The position was better during the pre-terrorism days (roughly before 1981) but has deteriorated since then. During terrorism, the urban areas were badly affected. Consequently, many industries, especially from the border districts, shifted to safer areas. Amritsar, Batala and other periphery areas, once industrially prosperous, are yet to return to their earlier pre-eminent position. Areas in the interior of Punjab, particularly the G. T. road belt and districts like Jalandhar, Ludhiana and other satellite towns have failed to develop industrially, compared with those in neighbouring Haryana (which has superseded Punjab in industry). Ludhiana, which has witnessed high industrial growth, particularly in engineering and textile (including hosiery), no other area has witnessed substantial growth. As we travel down to Ambala, Punjab’s presence in industry gradually mellows. The western areas are also less developed industrially. The overall picture does not show any encouraging sign. The special care taken in agriculture is missing in industry in the newly created districts. During the Amarinder Singh government, delegations often visited foreign countries to woo industrialists to Punjab, but nothing concrete has emerged. There was also no attractive policy to woo foreign investors. India has attracted an all-time high foreign direct investment, but Punjab hardly has any share in it. Such capital was invested in states having strong industrial roots. This shows how slow and unconcerned Punjab has been to industrialisation. Even in agri-industry, where the state has a natural advantage, it has failed to attract investment for installing world class plants. Ludhiana is Punjab’s industrial capital with small, medium and large industries. It does not have a car manufacturing plant. There is no headway even in information technology despite Punjab’s many technical institutes and a university. Small wonder, students find it difficult to get jobs here. The Parkash Singh Badal government should learn lessons from the past and create suitable environment for successful industrial growth in different channels like agri-industries, engineering units, information technology and others where opportunities exist. It must have a policy for long-term industrial development mainly through private investment. There is considerable scope for investment, especially by NRIs settled abroad. They will be happy to invest here provided there is an encouraging industrial policy. The facilities needed for long-term investment should be first created before we expect foreigners to put their money and technology here. A careful study should be made of other industrial states which have attracted heavy doses of foreign investment. Punjabi entrepreneurs settled in other states too would be happy to invest here if doors are opened to them in the real sense. The writer is Director, Centre for Indian Development Studies, Chandigarh
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Speak sweetly and politely and you will make all happy; this is just like a charm. Give up harsh words. — Kabir If you spend all time worrying about heaven, when will you think about your earthy duties? Performed well and lovingly, these duties assure your place on height. These will all reflect in your life's account. — The Buddha Truly in the creation of the heavens and earth, and the alternation of the night and day are signs for those of heart: — The Koran Good works are links forming a chain of love around the world. — Mother Teresa
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We failed when we tried to combat Communism with weapons, but when we took up Mahatma Gandhi’s tactics and strategy, we emerged winners! Truly, the whole world should be a disciple of Gandhi. Only non-violence can lead the world to a new world of lasting peace and enduring friendship.
As a filmmaker, you are naturally competitive. It doesn’t matter how your films are going to stack up against other people’s. You have to stop whining about it and just get to work. Because in the work is your existence.
I wanted to make every Indian fly, at least once! My story is the story of the new India, the India of possibilities. And it can be anybody’s success story. All that the country needs is the ability to dream and the will to sustain it.
I am more covered than most Hindi film actresses. It is not about lust in adulthood but about the freedom of an adult who has been through the teens, graduated to married life, had children, and now he loves the free will that this girl enjoys. So, he wants to be associated with that girl to enjoy that freedom.
The Supreme Court and the Prime Minister have lamented on the poor child development and welfare measures in many states including Haryana. According to the apex court, Haryana is among the top eight poor performing states. Last month, it hauled up the Centre and the states for tardy implementation of the Central scheme on maternity scheme.