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Luckily peaceful Hits and misses |
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The mess in Bihar
The ailing armed forces
Invite from paradise
Maya ignores media A front-row seat for this Lebanese tragedy Defence Notes
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Luckily peaceful THE people of Punjab have heaved a sigh of relief over the peaceful conclusion of the daylong bandh. The bandobast made by the state and Central governments paid dividends and the people responded to it positively. It was the first time that Akal Takht gave a call for such a bandh, which was more in the political domain than in the spiritual. There can be differences of opinion on the advisability or otherwise of the highest religious authority of the Sikhs giving such a call. Bandhs and agitations are political programmes whereas spiritual leaders should be more concerned with the spiritual uplift of their followers. Now that the anger generated by the controversial advertisement released by Dera Sacha Sauda showing Dera Chief Gurmeet Singh Ram Rahim attired in the kind of garments that the 10th Sikh Guru wore, people really hope that there will be an amicable solution of the problem. The weeklong protests and counter-protests have caused considerable damage to the reputation of the state. Photographs of sabre-rattling mobs armed with swords and Dera followers with lathis that the world media has splashed on their front pages have shown the state in a bad light. Many would find it difficult to believe that Punjab, which can be the fastest growing state, has to go through this kind of experience. Be that as it may, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal cannot rest till the issue is resolved to the satisfaction of all peace-loving people. Demands that all the deras be closed in the state before a deadline deserve to be tackled in the light of the freedom the Constitution grants to the people to preach their religion and practise it in any manner they like provided it does not infringe on the rights of other people to do so. Hopefully, the back channel efforts to resolve the dispute will bear fruit in the next few days. The warning given by the BJP that the Chief Minister alone would be held responsible for any deterioration in law and order in the state shows that unless things are handled carefully, the situation can go out of hand and it can even destabilise the SAD-BJP government. The people in Punjab rightly fear that the present situation would embolden the militants, who have been lying low for the last decade or so, to come out of the woodworks to make mischief again. Committed as the government is to upholding the rule of law, it has to take decisive steps against such an eventuality. |
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Hits and misses Just
as there is midlife crisis in a man’s life, a government too feels the pain of going over the hump. Now that the UPA has completed three years, it must be looking behind with some fond memories soured by many bitter ones. Its report card has been mixed at best. Time has flown by with a lot left undone. As the shadow of the next general election lengthens, the chances of bolder decisions will get slimmer and slimmer with populist measures gaining ascendancy, particularly after the reverses the Congress suffered in Punjab, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, etc. The balance-sheet of the three years gone by may be very similar to its overall performance. The Manmohan Singh government has reasons to pat itself over the performance of the economy. After all, achieving 9.2 per cent growth rate is certainly impressive. The flip side is that the newly generated wealth is not spreading evenly. While the industry may have reasons to be pleased, the common man is still to benefit fully. For him, the harsh reality is the rising prices. The same holds true of the farmers too because agricultural growth is tardy. In foreign policy, the main focus of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been on the US, China and Pakistan. The nuclear deal with America can be the highpoint of his career, but it is still in the works. Till it is inked, many doubts will remain. India today commands more respect than it ever did and this has given it the confidence to deal with China in a more reassured manner. Pakistan has been blowing hot and cold as usual and the relations have improved only in atmospherics. Terrorist strikes reduce trust. It is in political management within the country that the government has slipped badly. Banana peels are not thrown by the Leftists alone. A Cabinet Minister, Mr Mani Shankar Aiyar, has become a vocal critic of his governments economic policy. There are differences within the Cabinet itself. Finanace Minister Chidambaram has been a favourite whipping boy. Criminals in the ministry and the numerous scandals involving men like Mr Shibu Soren dented the government’s reputation. The Naxalite problem was allowed to fester till it became too serious. Achievements are modest. Boasting about them can be dangerous, like the Shining India campaign. Will the next two years see greater attention being paid to the chunk of India that doesn’t shine? |
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The mess in Bihar AT a time when Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar boasts of putting the state on the fast track of development, the National Human Rights Commission’s concern about the increasing cases of human rights violation in the state is a blot on his government. During a three-day visit to Patna, the NHRC team led by Justice S. Rajendra Babu held a public court to hear victims belonging to four states — Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal. It said that though not top on the list, Bihar still has the dubious distinction of having the country’s most human rights violation cases. It directed the Bihar government to pay Rs 28.58 lakh as compensation to the victims. The NHRC’s findings present a sordid picture of human rights in the state. The government has failed to check trafficking, particularly involving women and children, as also custodial deaths. While the victims of trafficking end up as sex workers at brothels in Mumbai and New Delhi, children work as domestic help in inhuman conditions. Mr Nitish Kumar ought to explain why his government has failed to take remedial measures like creating adequate infrastructural facilities for tackling human trafficking. Though the Sashastra Seema Bal, in charge of guarding Nepal and Bhutan borders, has been warning the government about the menace, no action has been taken to curb trafficking through the Indo-Nepal border. The government would do well to heed the advice and check the menace. As regards custodial deaths, the less said the better. The police administration in Bihar is in a terrible mess. Undoubtedly, the system requires some bold checks and balances. Guilty policemen are seldom punished. Even if an inquiry is held, its findings are shelved. Unable to hand down prompt and exemplary punishment, the criminal justice system has failed to instil fear among the human rights violators. This problem exists in almost all the states and is not confined to Bihar. If the government keeps mum, the media, citizens and human rights groups should raise their voice so that it orders a probe and follows it up by prompt action against the guilty. An alert media and an awakened citizenry can help check the flagrant abuse of state authority and protect human rights. |
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Photography is truth. The cinema is truth 24 times per second.
— Jean-Luc Godard |
The ailing armed forces
The
increasing number of cases of suicide and “fragging” in the defence forces should be a cause for concern. Added to these are the deaths due to road accidents and cases of mental disorders and alcoholism. The figures of those who are periodically boarded out due to “mental disorders” such as “psychosis, neurosis, personality disorders, depression and alcoholism”are rather high. While the Army, understandably, leads in these figures, in absolute terms due to its larger strength compared to the Navy and the Air Force and the hazards of military service, the figures pertaining to the other two services are equally alarming. In reply to a question in Parliament, the Defence Minister stated that the figures relating to the year 2006 were the following: deaths due to road accidents — over 350; “fragging” and suicides -120; those boarded out due to mental disorders -558 (Army 508, Navy 15 and IAF 35). In addition to these, the number that died in counter-insurgency operations totals to a figure of 250 (those who sustained injuries could be many times this figure). He further informed the House that these figures have been on the increase and of the large deficiencies in the officer cadre of all the three services. The minister did not, perhaps on purpose, refer to the increasing number of court-marshals and the exodus from the Army and the Air Force. The Army’s internal assessment of causes for alcoholism are due to subsidised rates of liquor which appears to be the “triggering factor,” and excessive use of liquor in remote and lonely places, both by officers and troops. This line of argument is specious. Subsidised liquor rates and isolation have been with the Army since it moved into J and K in 1947 and later into the North-East. Surely, cheaper liquor and isolation alone cannot be a cause for alcoholism, else those in the foreign service and our scientists at the Arctic station would be alcoholics. The cases of mental disorders are attributed, in addition, to the hazards of counter-insurgency-operations, travails of military life and the breakdown of the social support system of families back home. While there is little that can be done to the break-up of the joint family system, an efficient, sympathetic and caring civil administration to deal with the problems of servicemen and their families can go a long way to give a measure of assurance of their well-being. It is the cumulative effect of prolonged periods of stay in far away and lonely places with an uncongenial climate, getting cut off from the outside world, for long periods and the added stress of dangers to life and limb, worries of families which tend to weaken the mental robustness of a soldier. The full impact of such a state has to be seen to be fully realised. In my brigade, the company commander at Walong (four days march from a road -head) was suffering from hallucinations, where he would imagine a woman climbing on his chest and trying to throttle him. Another officer, two days’ march beyond, at Kibtoo (on the Tibet border) had all the walls in his room covered with posters of women in the nude. The Army seems to find a way out of the mental stress syndrome by training a number of JCOs from the medical corps, unit JCOs and religious teachers to act as, “psychological health mentors.” In addition, the Army proposes to improve the aspects of man-management etc. Man-management is a function of command and failure when there is a shortfall in leadership. There is also a move to introduce the “buddy system.” It may be recalled that the “buddy system” was introduced in the U S army in Vietnam, where normal command channels had broken down. Therefore, the induction of this system in the Indian Army amounts to an admission of the breakdown of channels of command. In any case these measures will merely scratch the surface of the underlying malady. Consequently, one cannot help but venture to record that the prognosis of these maladies appears to be a casual assessment and seems to miss wood for the trees. Financial worries of running two establishments, poor emoluments, haunting prospects of supersession and denial of running pay band as a substitute and early retirement for officers, more so for the men, coupled with inadequate pension constantly plays on their minds. To this can be added the indifferent standards of intake. Taken together, these factors lead to poor leadership, suicides, “fragging” mental disorders and the like. It is really a case of double wammy. A case of poor intake and de-motivation during service. The issue of greater relevance, which seems to miss the attention of the military top brass, is the quality of intake of troops. The Indian soldier has been known for his immense mental and physical capacity to cope up with hardships, dangers and stress. He fought in the two world wars in foreign lands; in snow, desert and malaria-infested jungles of Burma. He was away from home for long periods and took some of the heaviest casualties of the two World Wars without demur. Those who led these men only a dozen or so years earlier would recall that at moments of great stress, during periods of perplexing situations and extreme dangers and on sensing the slightest traces of anxiety on the face of their officer, a soldier or an NCO would turn around and tell him, “Sahib, tussi fikar na karoo, usi chak dan ge”. (“Sir, you don’t worry, we will prevail.”) Is, therefore, the soldier of today of a lesser stock. Similarly, those joining the officer cadre are less leaders of men and more mere job-seekers. Entry into the officer cadre has become the last choice of those seeking government jobs. Those who do not find entry as constables in the police, Central Police Organisations ( CPOs) and the like, or any other government job, even of a peon, are now joining as sepoys in the Army. That is, perhaps, where the malady lies and of which the top brass and the political executive are either oblivious or turning a Nelson’s eye. The remedy to these ills essentially lies in making service in the military really attractive, as is the case in almost all democracies. There is need to realise that this profession is a special calling and the man behind the gun matters as much as the gun. Lessening the burden of military expenses lies in compulsory lateral induction through a statutory provision into other related services. Not only will such a step attract suitable candidates but also reduce overall expenditure on the military, CPOs, etc. Those opting for short service commission should, after a term of five years, be assured entry and free education in appropriate professional colleges for a period of three years with a suitable monthly stipend. But such bold measures require a vision and political will, which, regrettably, is nowhere to be
seen.
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Invite from paradise
Come
here this summer,” phones Farooq shawlwala from Kashmir. “You will stay and break bread with me,” he assures me again and again. He knows that my ancestral house in Srinagar has been gutted. It was 17 years ago, when my uncle and aunt along with many more clutched their gold and costly winter wear and took the road to Delhi. When the framed gods and goddesses fell from speeding trucks headed to the plains on weeping streets. Neither the fleeing nor those who heeded to the muezzin’s call for the eviction of “kafirs” picked up the remains of the perennial faith. Not a single neighbour said: “Don’t leave. We will protect you.” Perhaps they had become sick of our self-pride and our education. Farooq knows that I don’t have a permanent address. Grandparents had sinned less, so they died in the home they made; among sons, grandsons, daughters and daughters-in-law. Father and uncle had immersed their ashes in the Ganges. Their souls went to the heaven as their ashes polluted the river. I was born in the valley when yellow, red and green chinar leaves fell in clusters. Women in flowered head scarves collected those in piles and set them on fire, sprinkled water on them as they burnt, sending ribbons of smoke through the bare branches. Is it the burden of corpse of love in the coffin of words that is driving the wedge of home-loss in my present? As a child I returned from the deathbed in Bihar; had a heart attack in Chandigarh. Why haven’t I moved on? Coming back to your invite, dear Farooq , I find it hard to convince myself to visit my hometown as a tourist. I find it amazing that tourists from India and abroad are visiting the valley even as militants haven’t stopped targeting them. Some of them paid with their lives to see the “paradise on earth” and others wrote home its beauty to nourish the picture-postcard myth. Sitting in the blistering heat of Delhi I am not able to see any beauty in the distress sale of houses built with life’s savings or burnt down houses for which compensation has been claimed by the owners in the plains. Howsoever hard I try, I can’t turn away from the desolation called Kashmir. I trust you. I am sure you will save me even at the risk of your life. But can you? Poet Azad has said it long ago about weak hearts like me: Soothsayers, don’t dish out sad forecasts. Messengers of God show up no more. With risks man writes his fate. Those who don’t take, are no
game. |
Maya ignores media The
BSP’s Mayawati has demonstrated in the landmark Assembly UP poll how unconventional wisdom could sway voters in the days of hi-tech expensive campaigns. In the process certain myths like the media, money and muscle power determine a poll outcome were underscored. While the other parties in UP were busy for a media hype directly and indirectly, the BSP was busy at the grassroots level and, in fact, kept itself away from the news media. Mayawati did not care what other contenders were saying on television and in newspapers. She also did not waste money on advertisements and visibility in the news media. Rather she had gone for a localised and personalised campaign infusing confidence in cadres and motivating workers and appealing those who were not known as BSP voters. That is how the BSP was able to mobilise its voters when the overall turnout in all the seven phases was all-time low. Unlike others, Mayawati had no populist promises and she had no poll manifesto either to worry about media publicity. She kept the media at bay because she had no problem of disconnect with different sections of people. In fact, she showed how instant rapport could be built with those who were not part of her base until then. She has also not wasted her time on commissioning pre-poll surveys or exit polls and had not gone for so many animated discussions on surveys. All this enabled her to have a proactive campaign from the very outset. Mayawati seems to have realised early enough the folly of getting into the riddles of news media, their weightage and priorities. She understood the concerns of voters better irrespective of their community. While the BJP, the SP and the Congress were caught in controversies of their own making during the campaign, the BSP was busy in voter mobilisation work. Of about Rs.700 crore spent (as per the CMS estimate) by political parties and their candidates in the just-concluded UP Assembly poll, the BSP’s share was the minimum - around 10 per cent. The SP, on the other hand, spent four times more. The BJP and the Congress spent about 35 per cent. This is despite the Election Commission’s initiatives to restrain expenditure. Mayawati had hardly spent on media publicity, including television commercials, poll surveys and extravagant shows, which together constitute nearly 40 per cent of all poll campaign expenditure. Nor did the BSP spend to procure votes. She also has not depended on outside leaders to campaign for her candidates as the other parties did. BSP cadres and leaders concentrated on their own pockets and constituencies. In UP the campaign expenditure was higher than ever before mostly because of the staggered seven-phase poll. In fact, what political parties had spent in this poll in UP was as much as what the government’s expenditure was for the general election in the country. No wonder the Chief Election Commissioner was disappointed over the “failure to curb the excessive use of money and eliminate money power”. As to “muscle power” in the poll campaign, although the BSP too had its share in deploying those having pending criminal cases as its candidates, a majority of its candidates were “new”. One MLA with a criminal background has been made a minister. The composition of the BSP candidates was such that it helped depolarise voters on communal lines. Thirtyeight per cent of all SP candidates had a criminal background, according to the UP Election Watch. In fact, in the final phase 58 per cent of the SP candidates had such a background against 32 per cent of the BSP candidates. In fact, no party in this poll could keep away from those having a criminal background. A couple of those candidates did their campaign from the jail, making threatening calls. A prominent SP candidate used a cell phone from the jail in the neighbouring state to address public meetings in the constituency (he has won!). The UP Election Watch did bring out promptly for every round of the poll the criminal background of candidates. Vulnerability mapping and constituency-specific measures taken by the Election Commission to minimise voter intimidation and proxy voting have helped in ensuring a relatively violence-free election despite the longest-ever poll battle. Nevertheless, in the ultimate analysis if every party follows the course as the BSP did in the UP poll, the electoral process in India would be far more dispassionate and democratic. Elections would be much less caste and communal based and much less money power driven and more concerned about the basic issues of people. The writer is the founder Chairman of the Centre for Media Studies. |
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A front-row seat for this Lebanese tragedy There
is something obscene about watching the siege of Nahr el-Bared. The old Palestinian camp - home to 30,000 lost souls who will never go "home" - basks in the Mediterranean sunlight beyond a cluster of orange orchards. Soldiers of the Lebanese army, having retaken their positions on the main road north, idle their time aboard their old personnel carriers. And we - we representatives of the world's press - sit equally idly atop a half-built apartment block, basking in the little garden or sipping cups of scalding tea beside the satellite dishes where the titans of television stride by in their blue space suits and helmets. And then comes the crackle-crackle of rifle fire and a shoal of bullets drifts out of the camp. A Lebanese army tank fires a shell in return and we feel the faint shock wave from the camp. How many are dead? We don't know. How many are wounded? The Red Cross cannot yet enter to find out. We are back at another of those tragic Lebanese stage shows: the siege of Palestinians. Only this time, of course, we have Sunni Muslim fighters in the camp, in many cases shooting at Sunni Muslim soldiers who are standing in a Sunni Muslim village. It was a Lebanese colleague who seemed to put his finger on it all. "Syria is showing that Lebanon doesn't have to be Christians versus Muslims or Shia versus Sunnis," he said. "It can be Sunnis versus Sunnis. And the Lebanese army can't storm into Nahr el-Bared. That would be a step far greater than this government can take." And there is the rub. To get at the Sunni Fatah al-Islam, the army has to enter the camp. So the group remains, as potent as it was on Sunday when it staged its mini-revolution in Tripoli and ended up with its dead fighters burning in blazing apartment blocks and 23 dead soldiers and policemen on the streets. And yes, it is difficult not to feel Syria's hands these days. Fouad Siniora's government, surrounded in its little "green zone" in central Beirut, is being drained of power. The army is more and more running Lebanon, ever more tested because it, too, of course, contains Lebanon's Sunnis and Shia and Maronites and Druze. What fractures, what greater strains can be put on this little country as Siniora still pleads for a UN tribunal to try those who murdered ex-prime minister Rafik Hariri in 2005? We read through the list of army dead. Most of the names appear to be Sunni. And we glance up to the fleecy clouds and across the mountain range to where the Syrian border lies scarcely 10 miles away. Not difficult to reach Nahr el-Barad from the frontier. Not difficult to resupply. The geography makes a kind of political sense up here. And just up the road is the Syrian frontier post. The soldiers are polite, courteous with journalists. This must be one of the few countries in the world where soldiers treat journalists as old friends, where they blithely allow them to broadcast from in front of their positions, borrowing their newspapers, sharing cigarettes, chatting, believing that we have our job to do. But more and more we are wondering if we are not cataloguing the sad disintegration of this country. The Lebanese army is on the streets of Beirut to defend Siniora, on the streets of Sidon to prevent sectarian disturbances, on the roads of southern Lebanon watching the Israeli frontier and now, up here in the far north, besieging the poor and the beaten Palestinians of Nahr el-Bared and the dangerous little groupuscule which may - or may not - be taking its orders from Damascus. The journey back to Beirut is now littered with checkpoints and even the capital has become dangerous once more. In Ashrafieh in the early hours, a bomb explosion - we could hear it all over the city - killed a Christian woman. No suspects, of course. There never are. Posters still demand the truth of Hariri's murder. Other posters demand the truth of an earlier prime ministerial murder, that of Rashid Karami. Several, just the down the road from our little roof proudly carry the portrait of Saddam Hussein. "Martyr of 'Al-Adha'," they proclaim, marking the date of his execution. So even Iraq's collapse now touches us all here in our Sunni village where the Sunni dictator of Iraq is honoured rather than loathed. By arrangement with
The Independent |
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Defence Notes The
government has been urged to take a serious view of the disturbing trend of brain drain from the Army and take steps to check it. The issue was raised in Parliament by Ms Maya Singh of the BJP recently. “India is a very big country, but the size of its Army was small. Moreover, those in the services were leaving it, creating a situation not conducive to the country’s security. The matter demanded urgent attention,’’ she had said. It was disturbing that officials who were ranked top ten in the Indian Military Academy examination were among those who have deserted the forces in favour of the private sector, she pointed out.
Making engines To overcome any last-minute hitches in the development of the country’s first indigenous aircraft engine, the government is proposing to allow Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) to become partner with renowned aircraft engine developers. The government has already allowed the Defence Research Development Organisation’s gas turbine division to seek foreign collaboration for the development of the indigenous Kaveri aero engine. To gain a foothold in the aero engine technology proposals were under study for co-development of f-125 engines with US Honeywell and with Rolls Royce for Adour MK821 and 250-C40B engines.
Jobs for ex-soldiers Former soldiers have picked up arms again, this time to fight the rising menace of Naxalite violence in Bihar. Raised last year, the Bihar Auxiliary Force recruited 5,000 ex-servicemen in November and December. The “young” force, consisting of veteran soldiers, proved its mettle when they foiled a Maoist raid on a bank under Riga police station in Sitamari district near the Nepal border. The Rajasthan government has also hired about 1,200 ex-servicemen as forest guards. The desert-state was stunned two years ago when a Wildlife Institute of India survey confirmed that a poaching mafia had robbed the Sariska reserve of its entire tiger population of about 16-18. In Haryana, ex-servicemen have been found useful for meter-reading jobs by private agencies contracted by the Haryana power utilities and for undertaking a “below poverty line” head count in the state.
Military games The Military World Games Organising Committee has given the broadcast/telecast rights of the Fourth Military World Games to be held in Hyderabad and Mumbai later this year exclusively to Prasar Bharati. An MoU to this effect was signed earlier last week. Over 6,000 sportspersons from 100 countries are going to participate in the games being organised in Asia for the first time. Prasar Bharati will pay 50 per cent of the net surplus earned by it through the exclusive telecast of the games to the committee. |
To a student whose heart is full of love, Who has conquered his senses and passions, the teacher will reveal the Lord of Love. |
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