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Diplomatic fraud End of a dream |
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Punjab gets going
PM’s predicament
At home around the world
Deve Gowda and sons Iraq may become the disaster that Vietnam never was Chatterati
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Diplomatic fraud ONE Babubhai Katara was bad enough. Now it appears he was not the only MP involved in smuggling out people to other countries with the help of their diplomatic passports. At least that is what Abdul Rasheed, the suspected kingpin in the human trafficking scam, has alleged. The Hyderabad-based Rasheed arrested last week following his surrender has told investigators the names of several MPs, MLAs and former ministers who were involved in the human trafficking scam. His allegation has yet to be substantiated, but it won’t be a surprise if what he says is true. Several politicians have already done many such unthinkable misdeeds in the past.
The racket obviously had an all-India sweep, spread as it was from Punjab to Andhra Pradesh to Gujarat. Interestingly, those like TRS MP and former union minister A. Narendra, who have been suspended from the party for their involvement, are accusing others like his party chief and MP K. Chandrasekhara Rao of smuggling people out of the country. What is all the more galling is that the rot is not confined to any single party. MPs of several parties like the BJP, the TDP and the TRS were involved in the criminal activity, misusing their diplomatic passports merrily. The list may get longer as the scandal unfolds. Since they come from such a wide spectrum, there are reasons to suspect that all dirty tricks may be employed to scuttle the investigation. The government has to stand firm at any cost. Expulsion is the smallest punishment that must be meted out to them. And things should not stop at that. They deserve higher penalty than an ordinary criminal. After all, VIPs claim and get special privileges day in and day out. These privileges are given to them to facilitate their work for the people and not to line their pockets. If they misuse such facilities in such a shameless manner, they definitely deserve higher punishment too. |
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End of a dream WHEN Nobel-laureate Mohammad Yunus announced his entry into Bangladesh politics in February this year, it was welcomed by one and all. Here was a person whose ability to deliver the goods could not be doubted. He had proved his credentials by pioneering the micro-credit programme that was dedicated to the welfare of the less privileged, the people on the margins of society. Bangladesh could not think of a better person to concentrate on the economic uplift of the masses. His withdrawal from politics without fighting even a single battle of the ballot is a very sad development. It is a major setback to politics in Bangladesh; in fact, the whole of South Asia. The explanation he has given in his third open letter to the people of Bangladesh — his earlier letters were published on February 11 and 22 this year — reflects his disappointment with those who had encouraged him to take a plunge into the sea of politics. He has found them “gradually losing their enthusiasm”. Who exactly these people are is not known. But his decision to abandon the idea of forming a political party became public after he met Chief Adviser to the interim administration Fakhruddin Ahmed. He also got upset when some people started describing his stillborn political organisation as “the King’s Party” because of the prevailing circumstances. The military-backed interim administration has, in the meantime, announced that it will hold elections by the end of 2008. But what will ultimately happen remains in the womb of time. The reasons it has given for taking such a long time to bring democracy back on the rails includes the preparation of electoral roles afresh and certain measures it may take to minimise the role of money and muscle power in politics. There are indications that it may do all it can to prevent the two prominent Begums — former Prime Ministers Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina Wajed —from contesting the coming polls. But it will be difficult to breathe fresh life into politics in Bangladesh without Prof Mohammad Yunus being in the reckoning. |
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Punjab gets going IT speaks of the quality of leadership at the Centre that regardless of the loss of power and formation of a non-Congress government in Punjab, the Manmohan Singh government has cleared Rs 3,035-crore worth road projects in the state. Given the rising number of vehicles, the existing roads already face immense traffic pressure and there is an urgent need to widen the highways. This is also in keeping with the Central policy thrust on infrastructure building. Poor roads and lack of immediate medical help result in frequent fatal accidents. The mushrooming of liquor vends along highways also contributes in no small way to deaths by accidents. Reliable road and air connectivity is the key to growth. Besides, Punjab will get 395 MW from the Centre’s electricity quota and 500 MW from Chhatisgarh. Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, who managed the power deal in Delhi, should know that these are temporary measures and the state needs an enduring solution to its recurrent problem. Hard decisions are required to implement reforms. Free power cannot be justified as it leads to wastage and over-exploitation of ground water. As the power situation gets messier, the regulator, surprisingly, has intervened to fix the tariffs. The leadership dithers and is undecided. One leader talks of having a nuclear power plant while another believes in partnership with Rajasthan. The power crisis, meanwhile, is deepening. Ad-hocism on the power front must end. Mr Badal has also asked for Rs 100 crore for rural education. The Planning Commission has reacted positively. It is good the Chief Minister has shown interest in education. Funds usually are not a problem. Central funds available under the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan actually lapsed as the previous government had failed to use them. Before that, funds meant for the rural water supply were not put to any use. It is the political will and administrative action that are required to improve the functioning of government schools, where teachers sub-let their jobs and the quality of education has deteriorated. Hopefully, the Akali government will try to retrieve the situation. |
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What we call evil is simply ignorance bumping its head in the dark.
— Henry Ford |
PM’s predicament
DAY in and day out Dr Manmohan Singh is charged by various sections of our political establishment, academia and media with subordinating India's foreign policy and security interests to US hegemony. It is alleged that our nuclear autonomy is being sacrificed to subserve US objectives. It is alleged that the Indian vote on Iran during a meeting of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency was cast under US pressure. There are suspicions that in spite of the improvement in Indo-Chinese relations following the announcement of moves for enhancement in the US-India relationship there is a covert anti-China agenda in the US strategy: public memory is proverbially short. Otherwise it will be country-wide knowledge that ill-informed and ideologically fundamentalist denunciation of the Prime Minister in office has been a permanent feature of our political landscape. Though ideologues and parochialists are proved wrong again and again, they still believe that either some people can be misled for all time or all people can be misdirected for some time. It should be a matter of some consolation for Dr. Manmohan Singh that he is in the good company of assertive prime ministers such as Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Let us recall that even from the days preceding Indian Independence Jawaharlal Nehru was denounced by some as the ``running dog of imperialists'' and his nonalignment was a sham. Others like C Rajagopalachari, Minoo Masani, J B Kripalani and N. G. Ranga used to criticise him for being soft on the communists and for India's vote on Hungary. Nath Pai derided him for appealing to the US for military aid after the Chinese attack in spite of his earlier aversion for such assistance. Subsequently, nonalignment became not only national consensus but some sections also tried to make it into an ideology. Today Jawaharlal Nehru has become an icon for many of his former critics. Indira Gandhi's Indo-Soviet treaty of 1971 was denounced as abandonment of the cherished nonalignment. Many deplored her move and predicted that India would become a Soviet satellite. Learned articles were written about the conspiracies to net India into the diabolic Brezhnev Asian security plan against China. When the advocates of "genuine nonalignment" assumed office they could not find any shortcomings in the nonalignment as was being practised. Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi did not go along with the US on its Afghan policy of fighting the Mujahideen war against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan but did not hesitate to sign technology agreements with the Reagan Administration. Nor did they make a song and dance on the US reneging on its contractual obligation to supply fuel for the Tarapur reactor. Quietly through effective diplomacy they arranged it from France with US approval. When Dr Manmohan Singh initiated his economic liberalisation programme as Finance Minister following India being pushed to near-bankruptcy in 1991, his strategy was opposed by sections of bureaucracy, the Bombay Club of industrialists, the left of Centre politicians, including quite a few in the Congress Party. With Narasimha Rao's support Dr Singh persisted and today most of his opponents of that time have got converted to economic liberalisation. Two developments distinguished Mr Vajpayee's Prime Ministership. He took the bold decision to conduct the nuclear tests and declare India a nuclear weapon power. Secondly, he publicly described the US as India's natural ally and invested heavily in improving Indo-US relationship. Both these steps did evoke opposition from ideological fundamentalists and parochialists. Mr Vajpayee realised that the world had changed and US policy was changing. In spite of the US opposition to our nuclear tests, we did not hesitate in initiating the discussions on the Next Steps to Strategic Partnership (NSSP) with a view to securing uranium fuel for our reactors and high technology in various areas, including space. The negotiations started during Mr Vajpayee period have led to the present enhancement of Indo-US relationship mostly due to the assumption of office by the Bush-Rice team. During the Vajpayee period Mr Brajesh Mishra nurtured relationships with Russia, the US and the European Union which became strategic partnerships. Partly credit should go to Mr Vajpayee and his team but mostly, as President Bush explained it in his Hyderabad House Press briefing on March 2, 2006, to the change in times and circumstances. As it happened when India became free or when the Indo-Soviet Treaty was signed, today many people are not able to keep up with the changing times and circumstances. Therefore, criticism of Dr. Manmohan Singh is nothing new or unexpected. In a democracy the Opposition is expected to offer constructive criticism based on a realistic assessment of facts. Indian history reveals that many of the criticisms in the past had been based on fundamentalist ideologies or parochial partisan interests derived from short-term considerations. Today's world is not that of the Cold War era of Tarapur fuel denial. This is an era where the international community is preparing itself to adapt to an entire regime (Nonproliferation Treaty regime) to accommodate India. This has the unreserved support of four of the five permanent members of the Security Council. This is being done to incorporate India's large potential market, to reduce greenhouse gas emission by a fast developing India, to liberate the country from technology apartheid so that it will serve as a major reservoir for outsourcing on high technology and to have a balance of power in Asia in an age of globalisation and balance of power in which a major conflict among the leading powers is considered extremely improbable. This is not a situation where past precedents are likely to be of much validity. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has talked about the emerging situation and the imperative need for India to take advantage of this favourable factor. Therefore, the risks India is taking in joining the international technological order, breaking the three decade-old nuclear apartheid, is a matter of sound statesman-like judgement, not to be left to technologists, ideologues and the precedent-bound media and the academia. Jawaharlal Nehru's nonalignment was not based on the then prevailing diplomatic wisdom. Indira Gandhi's Indo-Soviet Treaty was equally path-breaking and took India and the world by surprise. Mr Vajpayee's nuclear test, though a surprise, was popular but not his policy of making India and the US natural allies. The buck today stops on Dr Manmohan Singh's table. He will not be doing justice to his Prime Ministerial predecessors if he allows this decision to liberate India from technology apartheid to slip from his hands, to be exercised by others, totally unfamiliar with the emerging international balance of power
politics.
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At home around the world LAST week a midnight telephone call from the office of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, awakened me. The caller, a Nobel laureate, was condoling the sudden demise of Dr Skylark I.S. Chadha, who had expired before completing his dream in Sector 10, Chandigarh. After receiving his doctorate in International Project Management form His Majesty King of Sweden and Queen Sylvia in Royal palace Stockholm he served in the Swedish International Development Authority, World Bank, UNICEF, UNDP etc. supervising technology transfer projects in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. I had observed him at close quarters during his travels as well as at work. He took risks in pursuit of his job. His first narrow escape was when his private aircraft hit against peaks of Mount Kilimanjaro during one of his inspection trips. He had a passion to visit his ancestral home in Chakwal, Pakistan. Opportunity came when he was received at airport by a Pakistani minister while he headed an aid delegation to that country. He was escorted by official cars provided with guide and taken exactly to the place his parents lived, with dignity and honour rarely shown to normal visitors. Once he told me to accompany him from Stockholm to Gutenberg where his daughter studied. One wintry morning I quarried whether he had taken all personal items needed for the three-day trip. He said “yes, I am ready to move”. By chance I happened to peep into his tiny self-locking briefcase. I saw only credit cards, travel documents and car keys. When I expressed my surprise he explained that all over the world, at his lodging points he had his suites with his night dresses, undergarments, two sets of winter and summer clothing, pair of shoes and items of toiletry. That day I learnt a new lesson in world of travel. On April 29, his car with other cars entered his famous farmhouse carrying the sacred ashes on their way to Kiratpur Sahib for immersion. His two Alsatian pet dogs were roaming here and there looking for their master little realising that he would now never return! Dr Sky Chadha, true to Swedish practice, was very liberal with his staff. They loved him too. On that day of Antim Ardas I saw even juniormost staff members praying animatedly before the Holy Guru Granth Sahib praying for peace of the departed
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Deve Gowda and sons FORMER Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda’s “me and my sons” brand of politics has reached another high with the patriarch raising the pitch against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) five months before his son and Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy is scheduled to hand over the CM’s po,st to it. Even as this countdown begins, Gowda has opened up various possibilities to ensure he and his sons remain in the driver’s seat five months from now. Gowda had started talking about coalition ‘dharma’ nearly a month back while apparently meaning that the BJP was not following it. He followed it up with a statement recently that the JD (S) would only hand over power to the BJP in case it followed this ‘dharma’. When pressed to name the transgressions, he said Kumaraswamy should check the fate of grievances handed over by him to BJP ministers after receiving them in ‘janata darshans’ held by him. He also made it apparent that he was against doling of public money to ‘matts’ (religious institutions) as has been done by Chief Minister heir apparent and presently Deputy CM B.S. Yediyurappa. Though these don’t appear serious enough causes to cause a split, observers feel Gowda has a lot to feel angry about. For one thing, the BJP has used the opportunity of sharing power in the State for the first time to cement itself in the public psyche through a number of welfare schemes, announced unilaterally by Yediyurappa in his budget speech, without even discussing them in the cabinet. Besides this, the BJP has carried out a successful “Vikas yatra” in the State much to the chagrin of the JD(S). In such a scenario, observers feel Gowda is upping the ante to ensure Kumaraswamy continues as Chief Minister; or, if that is not possible, to ensure someone other than Yediyurappa becomes the BJP’s nominee for the Chief Minister’s post. If he is successful in this, his other son and senior minister H.D. Revanna, who appears to be the party candidate for Deputy CM in such a scenario, will be able to hold his own against a fresh BJP candidate. Observers feel that it is to keep the BJP jittery that Gowda has reopened his lines of communication with the Congress. He has already met Congress President Sonia Gandhi on the pretext of discussing the Cauvery water dispute award. Former Congress Chief Minister N. Dharam Singh, who was Gowda’s choice over S. M. Krishna two and a half years back when the Congress and the JD (S) aligned to form a government, seems to have bitten the bait and added to the confusion by hinting at a realignment of forces after the Uttar Pradesh elections. This suits Dharam Singh who is destined to be on the sidelines even if the party wins the next assembly elections with Pradesh Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and Siddaramaiah on the ascent. It also suits Gowda’s central ambitions, with the post of Vice President coming up for election. Though the Congress may not fall for the trap with both Kharge and Siddaramaiah calling any such move “political suicide”, it has rattled the State BJP. This is because the BJP knows Gowda would not flinch to ditch it in case that will help him to ensure continuation of Kumaraswamy’s rule in the State. Yediyurappa, who is likely to be most affected by any such political machination, is playing it safe. Instead of getting angry at the accusations being leveled at the party, he says he is ready to meet Gowda to iron out any differences. He has also agreed to make himself available for joint “janata darshans” besides mooting holding of a meeting of the coordination committee of both parties to discuss all issues threadbare. Yediyurappa is also keen to ensure the Ananth Kumar group in the State BJP does not take advantage of Gowda’s animosity to him to deny him the CM’s post. Gowda, who presently holds all the political cards in the State, has also ensured there is no challenge to his sons in the party even as leaders tussle for supremacy in both the BJP and the Congress. While two senior most leaders of the JD (S) Siddaramaiah and P.G.R. Sindhia were sidelined earlier, the party has also recently snubbed its senior most leader and Home Minister M.P. Prakash. When 64 year old Prakash recently announced he would like to take political sanyas no one cajoled him to relent. In fact ,Gowda openly said in workers’ meetings that Lingayat leader Mahima Patel, son of former Chief Minister J.H. Patel, could be encouraged to fill up the slot. With no challengers left in the party and an open season for bargaining, Gowda’s ‘son-rise’ politics is on the rise in Karnataka. |
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Iraq may become the disaster that Vietnam never was THE bloody nose, and the opprobrium, that the Americans earned in Vietnam made their armed intervention a benchmark for a political and military disaster. As the US sinks deeper into the mire in Iraq, comparisons are inevitably being made with what even most Americans perceive was a fiasco in “Nam”. George Bush himself is desperate to convince his countrymen that Iraq is not a replay of events in South East Asia. Despite their much vaunted think-tanks, Americans are not very strong on history. The fact is that Vietnam was, for them, not the unmitigated disaster it is made out to be; something that Iraq may well become. The US sent its army to what used to be known as Indo-China with a specific objective. And they achieved it. They did not go here to colonise the country. Neither did they set their sights on its subterranean resources, of which Vietnam has very little in any case. America sent its troops to that region in the 1950s when the domino theory was in vogue in the western world. The Viet Cong had routed the French forces and were on the verge of taking over the entire nation. It was feared that if one country fell to the communists, the others around it would follow one by one like dominoes. Thus, if Vietnam, and then Laos and Cambodia, fell, it was expected that Malaysia, Thailand, Burma, Philippines and Indonesia would follow, too, in quick succession. This was a time when the Communist bloc was one huge monolith and the apprehensions of the western powers were probably justified. Had the Americans been driven out in the 1960s, this is what is likely to have happened, with a chain reaction of consequences for the rest of the world. The Soviet bloc would have gained immeasurably in strength, in the Cold War. So, in the name of democracy and freedom, the US propped up a series of dummy regimes in South Vietnam. Eventually they lost the war, and face, but by the time the Reds took over the entire country, the communist bloc had ceased to be one united force. In fact, soon after liberation, Vietnam actually went to war briefly with China. Military intervention bought US very valuable time. When, in the end, they were thrown out of South East Asia, the threat of the falling dominoes had passed. In fact, Hanoi and Washington are getting along fine now. Comparing the two situations, Sunil Khilnani wrote in an essay in Outlook: “The aftermath of Iraq will not be like that of Viet Nam. In the latter case the US was lucky; its then rivals did not exploit their advantage, and the Asian capitalist boom arrived on cue to lift up the region; there will be no equivalent expansion in West Asia”. The communists ‘did not’ because they could not press home with their advantage in the changed circumstances after, first, the break-up of their transnational solidarity and, then, the collapse of the socialist ideology itself. That is not to deny the fact that America’s incursion into this region was high-handed and immoral, because the Vietnamese had every right to choose the system they wanted to live under. If they wanted to be communist, it was their business and the self-appointed champion of liberty and democracy had no right to kill hundreds of thousands of those valiant people to enforce its will on them. But that is not the point. It cannot be denied that in South East Asia, in the 1950s and ‘60s, America had a definite goal, which they achieved, although at a horrendous cost. Vietnam was messy, but history contained its fallout. The US is not going to be as lucky in Iraq. They are still looking for a reason to be there. By meddling in that country they ignored one of those great American aphorisms: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. They could have tightened the screws on Saddam Hussein, but let him stay on. He was, if nothing else, a bulwark against fundamentalism. As long as he was there, the likes of Al Qaida were kept out of Iraq. He may have been a tyrant, but many times more innocent civilians are being killed in Iraq under US control. And the country has become a fertile breeding ground for terrorists of different persuasions. In Viet Nam the Americans held out till as long as they could. Getting out was the easier option. In Iraq, they don’t know how to get out. And there is nothing to be gained by buying time, unless the US can win Arab hearts over issues like Palestine and, at the same time, persuade various Muslim sects to end their reciprocal bloodletting. Both seem unlikely at present. |
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Chatterati IN the fierce political battle in Uttar Pradesh, the rise of the next generation has begun. They are gradually taking over the reins and finding a firm foothold for themselves in the shifting sands of politics. Rahul Gandhi, Akhilesh Yadav, Jayant Choudhury, Rakesh Tikait, Pankaj Singh and Vibhakar Sashtri are campaigning and taking political decisions. MP Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav have also played a decisive role in ticket distribution. Though Rahul has yet to hone his oratory skills, his message is clear – he is here to stay. His remarks on the Babri demolition and division of Pakistan were, insiders claim, designed to attract a political debate and establish the fact that the young Congress MP has a mind of his own. Samajwadi MP Akhilesh Yadav is low profile yet independent, while enjoying his second term in Lok Sabha. He handles the youth wings of the Samajwadi Party. His accessibility and patient hearing to party workers, and his open-minded attitude are his main strengths. Another politician son who has had a “meteoric” rise in these elections is Rakesh Tikait, son of farmer leader Mahendra Singh Tikait. As president of the Bahujan Kisan Dal he forged an alliance with the Congress in western UP but also managed to split the Jat votes in the region, giving sleepless nights to arch rivals in the Rashtriya Lok Dal. He breathes fire in his speech and is being termed as a politician with immense potential. Pankaj Singh, the son of BJP president, Rajnath Singh, hit the headlines last month when he “politely refused” a party ticket, but is being projected as a Thakur leader in UP. The “humble son of a farmer”, however, insists he is an ordinary party worker and will carry out the instructions of party leaders. Obviously, this son has already mastered the most crucial lesson of politics-diplomacy. Hanging gardens You may have only heard about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, but you can actually see the new ‘Hanging Garden of Mumbai’ under construction, and that too at a blistering pace. This is the future residence of Reliance group chairman Mukesh Ambani in south Mumbai. Mr Ambani is expected to shift to his new residence when the 40-storeyed building would be completed. The Ambanis’ new residence will be with facilities comparable to any five-star hotel. The building will be green, literally so. The tower, when completed, will look like a vertical garden with creepers going all the way to the 40th floor reflecting Mukesh’s love for greenery. The top floors are designated as the core family residence with health club and swimming pool in the intervening floors. The bottom six floors will be dedicated to parking. Similarly, separate floors are being planned for the kitchen, laundry and other services. It will have a mini-auditorium where the Ambanis can watch movies along with friends. The complex will have both indoor and outdoor swimming pools besides a gym, a library (study) and other facilities. However, Mukesh’s dream of having a helipad on top of the building may not come true. The government is unlikely to give permission. |
God himself is the relisher, the relish, and the enjoyer as well. He himself is the bride and the spouse in bed with her. He is my Master who immersed in love, pervades everywhere. —Guru Nanak In the silence of the heart, God speaks and you have to listen. Then in the fullness of your heart, because it is full of God, full of love, full of compassion, full of faith, your mouth will speak. —Mother Teresa |
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