The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

EDITORIALS

Just deserts for Telgi
What about the politicians involved?

ABDUL KARIM TELGI, believed to be the country’s biggest fraudster, rightly deserved the severest punishment in the fake stamp paper scandal - 13-year jail term and a fine of Rs 102 crore given by a special court in Pune. This is a national record because no one has so far been fined so heavily. Interestingly, Special Judge Chitra K. Bhedi said, this was the “minimum punishment” imposed on Telgi in the wake of his repentance, ill-health and for having pleaded guilty to the charges like the 43 other accused in the scam. But then, what is surprising is Telgi’s reluctance to name powerful politicians, bureaucrats and others who were believed to be associated with the scam. Earlier too, he had twice applied to the court offering to “spill the beans” and then backtracked. Telgi’s arrest had shaken Maharashtra’s political and bureaucratic circles and led to the resignation of Chagan Bhujbal as Deputy Chief Minister. Top officers were removed or arrested for suspected involvement.

Telgi claims to have bribed many politicians, cutting across party lines, as he ran his scam across a dozen states, swindling the exchequer of thousands of crores of rupees. It will be a travesty of justice if only Telgi is sentenced and fined in various states and the big fish go scot-free. There are reports that the politicians, who shielded and gained from him, were never interrogated despite their names cropping up repeatedly during the investigation.

Telgi’s sentence comes close on the heels of the discharge of three top officers, including R.S. Sharma, former Mumbai Police Commissioner, for the prosecution’s failure to furnish evidence to substantiate the charge that they stalled the investigation. Sharma, who spent 11 months in judicial custody before the Supreme Court granted him bail in 2004, has blamed his colleague, an Additional DGP, who he superseded, for fixing him. All this suggests that there are wheels within wheels and the scam warrants a thorough and comprehensive probe. Telgi is yet to be tried in 24 more cases in Kolkata, Pune, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Hyderabad. The ends of justice will be met only when all those — the big fish in particular —involved in the scandal are brought to book.

Victims of fear
Needed awareness about AIDS

AWARENESS about AIDS in Kerala does not seem to have grown since the days when an AIDS victim and his family were hounded out of their ancestral village. The latest victims of such ignorance are a group of five students in a private school in Kottayam district. The students are HIV positive, a status they inherited from one of their parents. The school was compelled to accommodate the students. But a problem arose when parents of other students protested against their continuance in the school. Faced with such hostility, the school had to ask the students concerned to leave. A civil society organisation came forward to educate the five children in its precincts. And now, the Kerala High Court has stepped in by sending a notice to the school management and the parent-teacher association.

At the root of the problem is the lack of awareness about AIDS. One is reminded of the hysterical reaction when a Malayalam daily reported the first full-blown case of AIDS about two and a half decades ago. Instead of grappling with the situation, the attempt at that time was to go on a denial mode. Despite all the propaganda the world over about AIDS, the average Malayali does not know that HIV virus can spread only through unprotected sex, sharing of needles and blood transfusion. Yet, many seem to believe that it can spread through shaking of hands, kissing and cohabiting with HIV positive people. It is the fear of parents that their own children would be exposed to the scourge if they mix with HIV positive children that they protested against the admission of the children concerned.

What is true about Kerala is true about other states also. Even the medical practitioners, who are supposed to know about AIDS, are ignorant about it as underscored by reports that HIV positive patients are thrown out of many hospitals once their status is detected. What is forgotten is that a majority of HIV positive people, particularly women and children, are innocent. They deserve sympathy. This is possible only if there is a concerted campaign to spread awareness among the general public, more so when India has the second largest number of HIV positive people in the world.

Majestic heritage
Red Fort takes its rightful place

THE Red Fort is a fitting addition to the list of UNESCO-designated World Heritage Sites in India. The sprawling palace-fort complex, with its medley of architectural styles spanning centuries and different cultures, its Mughal history and opulence, and the stately niche it has occupied during the Raj and after Independence, have served to lend it a unique mystique in the Indian mind. It has always been more than just another monument, and as both the actual and symbolic seat of power in New Delhi, it has been fought over with passion and sacrifice. The Army had occupied it for a long time, and political leaders have always hoped that its regal magic will rub off on them when they climb up to address the nation.

The Internet age has spawned an amusing, sometimes infuriating, culture of “voting” which has sought to seek the popular mandate in deciding everything from the best curry to the movie star of the millennium to the “new” wonders of the world. This, unfortunately, trivialises what can otherwise be an edifying exercise in identifying the treasures that human society has created or inherited. Thankfully, since 1972, the UN World Heritage listing has carried credibility and meaning. Today that list includes 851 “properties” as UNESCO rather quaintly calls them, including 660 cultural and 160 natural sites. UNESCO also maintains a list of ‘World Heritage Sites in Danger’.

Within India, the maintenance of monuments of historical and cultural value and the conservation of natural sites such as our national parks, is still grossly wanting. Many a site with a hoary past languishes in dust and neglect, exposed to the elements. While sites on the tourist map fare better, many of these hidden gems deserve to be picked out, dusted off, and presented to the public - if we do not make the effort, they will be lost forever.

ARTICLE

Pratibha chosen for loyalty
Congress will need her in 2009
by Kuldip Nayar

BUT for the strong opposition of the Congress and the Left, India would have had Dr Abdul Kalam as the next President. It would have been a response to the popular demand. And for the first time since Independence, the assertion of the nation’s ethos of pluralism would have been rewarded. Ms Pratibha Patil, adopted by the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), supported by the Left, is a good person - simple, austere but too loyal to the Congress. Compared to Dr Kalam, she does not have the stature or the sweep that the President of India is expected to have.

If a situation like the Emergency - June 25 was its 32nd anniversary - arises once again, she would sign the proclamation as quickly as the then President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed did at the bidding of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, even before the Cabinet met to take the decision.

But the greater problem is Ms Pratibha Patel’s obiter dicta. First, she said that women in Rajasthan had to have a purdha because of Mughal oppression. Then she said that she had a unique experience when she had a chat with a dead god man of Brahma Kumaris at Mount Abu in Rajasthan. Any other person in her place would have been ripped apart by the Left. But they have rationalised her observations. To have such a person as the country’s President is scary.

Then there are charges of favouring her relations on loans amounting to Rs 17 crore from a cooperative bank she founded. There are strictures by the Reserve Bank of India. Except for criticising the selection, what can one do? The Left did not apply its mind and swallowed the claim of the Congress, more so of its president Sonia Gandhi, hook, line and sinker.

With Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat throwing his hat in the ring, the entire context has changed. It is politicised now. The contest - the BJP and some regional parties on his side and the Congress-cum-Left backing Ms Pratibha Patil - would be a sad spectacle that may divide the nation. All this could have been avoided.

President Kalam stayed in the field for some time. But then he had to intervene to stop the trivialising of the highest office in the country. He was willing to be a unanimous choice. But when he found that political parties were using the President’s office to serve their own end, he said, “Enough is enough,” and withdrew his name. It was in bad taste. But in a country where power politics has taken over, this is bound to happen.

Something has gone wrong with the Congress. It used to rise to the occasion and put the party considerations behind when the national interest required so. Today the party is only adding up the pluses and minuses to assess what benefits it the most.

The office of President falling vacant this July was one opportunity when the Congress could have got together all the parties behind one person. The office is too big to be made a point of controversy and contest. The Congress tried to seek the consensus only after announcing Ms Pratibha Patil’s candidature.

The surprising role is that of the Left, which is sensitive to such points. Dr Kalam was the obvious choice. His five-year term was there for all to see and judge how non-partisan he had been in taking a tough stand when it was required. Presuming that the Congress did not know whether Dr Kalam could be a unanimous choice, it could have waited one more day before the air was clear. The party not only picked up Ms Pratibha Patil long before the opposition parties began serious discussions on the name, but it also made it clear that it was not prepared to consider any other option.

The fact of the matter is that the Congress wanted its own candidate because its eyes were fixed on the 2009 parliamentary elections, which would not give any single party a clear majority. The role of the President would then become important because he or she has to invite a party to form the government.

The President’s own judgement would count and he or she did not have to pick the largest party as long as it could get a vote of confidence in the Lok Sabha. In fact, the Congress president had zeroed in on Ms Pratibha Patil even before the meeting because she is unflinchingly loyal.

What the Congress did after Ms Pratibha Patil’s selection was unfortunate. The highest office was pulled down from the pedestal of prestige by ministers like Sharad Pawar and Lalu Prasad Yadav, who hardly have the reputation worth the name. All that they were trying to prove was their loyalty to Ms Sonia Gandhi. It is sad that Ms Jayanthi Natarajan, the spokesperson, was talking about Dr Kalam as if even a sniff of opposition to the Congress candidate was a crime.

Knowing well that humility is not the quality of the party any longer, I am thinking of the days when Dr Rajendra Prasad differed on the Hindu Code Bill with Jawaharlal Nehru and still got a second term. Nobody in the Congress used any unkind word for Dr Rajendra Prasad even when Nehru openly opposed his name. The Congress culture was different those days.

Some in the Opposition have been even worse. Releasing a cassette about some incident from the hoary past of Ms Pratibha Patil was in bad taste. She might well be the next President and the head of the Indian nation. Why have we, as a country, not yet learnt that every office should not be politicised and every opponent should not be hauled over the coals?

It is going to be tough for Mr Shekhawat, who will oppose Pratibha Patil. Although an independent candidate, his links with the BJP and the RSS would come in his way. Still his own prestige may influence some MPs and MLAs from the Congress and other constituents of the UPA to cross the party line and vote for him. There is no party whip on voting. Mrs Indira Gandhi set the precedent of conscience vote when she opposed the Congress official candidate Sanjiva Reddy to help the election of V.V. Giri. He too was an independent candidate.

The way Ms Sonia Gandhi patronises Ms Pratibha Patil conveys to the Congressmen that she would not forgive anyone who goes against the party candidate. What Ms Sonia Gandhi should realise is the discontent against Ms Pratibha Patil. The stalwarts apart, the ordinary Congress MP or MLA feels that an unknown candidate has been foisted on them. Their belief is that the office of President has been devalued. Their disappointment has deepened after some charges of corruption against Ms Pratibha Patil have come to the surface. The situation is the first of its kind.

MIDDLE

Madan, the mutineer
by A.J. Philip

IT was my third meeting with him. I knew it was the life support system at the intensive care unit that was keeping him alive. Even as he gasped for breath, his face remained as glowing as when I met him three years ago.

It was at a party his son-in-law, Dr G.S. Dhillon of Dalhousie Public School, organised that I gravitated towards him. The heavily built Madan Singh sat under a garden umbrella with a large hat on his head. He wore a striped suit and clutched at a beer glass.

My colleague Sanjeev Singh Bariana introduced me to him. “Oh you are a journalist! I too was once a journalist”, he began in his stentorian voice. Suddenly, the age gap between us vanished.

I asked him how he became a journalist and where did he work. “That is a long story, young man,” he said as he pulled his chair closer to mine.

“You know, I was suddenly jobless. And that, too, in a city like Bombay”, he continued.

“How did you lose your job?” I interjected.

“That is another story”, said Mr Madan Singh. “I was a Petty Officer in the Indian Royal Navy. We Indians were a little upset about the way we were treated. So we protested and the British threw us out of the Navy”.

Mr Madan Singh believes in understatement. I had to scratch my head to figure out that he was referring to the great Naval Mutiny of 1946, which hastened the British decision to quit India.

“Are you talking about the Naval Mutiny?” I had to ask.

“Oh you have heard about the mutiny?” he asked a counter question. Before I could respond, he added, “Young people do not know about such incidents”.

“That is because people like you do not write about it”. Caught on the wrong foot, he chided me for going slow on my beer. He did not even mention the fact that he was one of the ringleaders of the mutiny.

Dismissed from the Navy, Mr Madan Singh approached S. Sadanand of the Free Press Journal for a job. They hit it off well and he became a reporter. “My job involved covering public functions of national leaders. I enjoyed the job, although it was tough making both ends meet. Sadanand was a great man but not a great paymaster”.

Less than a year later, he quit the job and went about feathering his own nest by doing business all over the world. In due course he married and sired two sons and a daughter, who were at his bedside when he died on Thursday evening.

Mr Madan Singh wanted to know from me about one of his colleagues in the Navy, C.P. Ramachandran, who took to journalism and never gave it up till he breathed his last.

It shocked him to know that CP, the quintessential Assistant Editor of the Hindustan Times, was no more. It pleased Mr Madan Singh when I told him about my visit to Parali in Palakkad district to meet CP, long after his retirement.

“As I was busy in my business I could not keep track of CP although I knew he was doing well in journalism,” he said. Regret was palpable in his words.

“I hope to meet you again to do a story for our Sunday Magazine,” I told him.

“You may not find me fit enough for a magazine story but we can always meet over a bottle of beer”. That was the mutineer, whom the Indian Navy honoured by naming a ship INS Madan Singh, who made understatement the core of his personality.

OPED

World is becoming a ‘planet of slums’
by Daniel Howden

The number of people living in slums in India has more than doubled in the past two decades, according to recent government figures. – Reuters photo

The combined forces of population growth and urbanisation are creating a planet of slums, where the urban population will have doubled by 2030, according to a report released by the United Nations recently.

The shantytowns that choke the cities of Africa and Asia are experiencing unstoppable growth, expanding by more than a million people every week, according to the “state of the world’s population” report.

The UN’s findings echo recent predictions that 2008 will see a watershed in human history as the balance of the world’s population tips from rural to urban. Many of the new urbanites will be poor and the shelters into which they move, or are born, will be slums.

“The growth of cities will be the single largest influence on development in the 21st century,” the report states. It maintains that over the next 30 years, the population of African and Asian cities will double, adding 1.7 billion people - more than the current populations of the US and China combined.

In this new world the majority of these legions of urban poor will be under 25, unemployed and vulnerable to fundamentalism, Christian and Islamic.

Population expert Mike Davis, described this emerging underclass in his influential recent work ‘Planet of Slums’ as: “A billion-strong global proletariat ejected from the formal economy, with Islam and Pentecostalism as songs for the dispossessed.” While some critics have accused Mr Davis of scaremongering the UN’s findings appear to back many of his basic assertions.

Demographer George Martin, the author of the latest report, said: “The urbanisation is jolting mentalities and subjecting them to new influences. This is a historical situation. And now one of the ways for reorganise themselves in this urban world is to associate themselves with new or strong, fundamentalist religion.”

The rise of radical Islam, from the outskirts of Jakarta to the slums of Egypt is well documented but Africa is also experiencing a religious shift with Pentecostalism winning new converts across the continent, from Uganda to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The doom-mongering Christian cult has spawned suicide cults in Kenya, and attracted impoverished believers who see the apocalyptic preachings mirrored in their daily lives.

In Latin America, identified by the UN as the other engine of urban growth, the once impervious Catholic Church is battling for hearts and minds with radical evangelical churches. This switch was evidenced by Pope Benedict’s recent trip to the world’s most populous Catholic country, Brazil.

Urbanisation is inevitable the report warns, and calls on planners to accept that the poor have the right to a place in the city and properly managed this influx can be positive, it argues. No country in the industrial age has managed economic growth without urbanisation.

“It’s pointless trying to control urban growth by stopping migration,” says Martin. “We have to change mindsets and take a different stance. We’re at a crossroads and can still make decisions which will make cities sustainable.”

Until now the response of national and municipal governments to ballooning growth has been to discourage newcomers but this is now a failed policy, the report argues. “It has resulted in less housing for the poor and increased slum growth. It also limits opportunities for the urban poor to improve their lives and to contribute fully to their communities and neighbourhoods.” Mr Martin argues for a more positive approach to unstoppable urbanisation, saying that by providing land for housing with at least some services and planning in advance to promote sustainability, progress can be achieved.

Slums have been part of human communities since Mesopotamia but our modern concept of segregated slums for the poor comes from the Industrial revolution. The difference is a question of scale with today’s slum dwellers being more than a few scattered people on the outskirts of cities to one-in-three of all city dwellers, a billion people, or one-sixth of the world’s population.

Over 90 percent of this underclass today are in the developing world with South Asia having the largest share, followed by Eastern Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. In sub-Saharan Africa growth has become synonymous with slums and 72 percent of the region’s population now live in slum conditions.

By arrangement with The Independent

China in an accommodating mood
by Richard Holbrooke

BEIJING – Three seemingly unrelated events may not constitute a trend. But they certainly deserve attention when they shed light on the relationship between the United States and China, which is fast becoming the most important bilateral connection in the world.

The first is the much-heralded breakthrough in US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill’s negotiations with North Korea. After more than a year in which the six-party talks were suspended, North Korea returned to the table and agreed to disable its main nuclear reactor under the eyes of international inspectors.

This would not have happened without a change in Chinese policy toward North Korea. Two years ago, Beijing publicly criticised Washington’s “lack of cooperation.” But after North Korea detonated a nuclear device October 9, Beijing started applying invisible but substantial pressure on North Korea, realising belatedly that another nuclear neighbor was not in its interest.

Once China’s strategic interest was aligned with America’s, it still took skillful bilateral diplomacy to make progress. There is a long road ahead, but this is a welcome diplomatic achievement for an administration that has had very few.

A second recent change in Chinese foreign policy is in Darfur. While still falling far short of what is needed to stop the killing, in some ways this is more remarkable, since Darfur is 7,000 miles away, in Africa, where China has been accused of protecting some of the worst regimes in the world in return for advantageous access to oil and mineral resources.

China certainly has leverage – it is Sudan’s leading trading partner and the largest market for Sudanese oil. But Beijing had long resisted Western pressure to force Sudan to admit a United Nations peacekeeping force into Darfur, despite a 14-0 Security Council vote (China abstaining) authorising such a force.

Finally, when a growing international furor threatened to rebrand the 2008 Beijing Games as “the genocide Olympics,” China did something quite unusual – it appointed a special envoy and began to apply pressure on Sudan, although, as always, in its unique style. “In our own way and through various means and various channels,” said China’s envoy, Liu Guijin, “we used very direct language to persuade them to understand they have to be more flexible.” In Chinaspeak, “very direct language” is about as tough as it gets.

Last week there were some faint signs of movement: Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, told U.N. officials he would agree to U.N. peacekeepers. It is too early to tell if this will actually happen or if it will stop the slaughter in Darfur. But it is clear that the change in China’s position also changed the equation for the Sudanese thugs.

A third event has so far escaped public attention. After years of unsuccessfully trying to engage the military dictatorship in Burma in a dialogue on its political repression, American representatives finally met with Burmese officials this week to discuss the status of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and opposition leader who has been under harsh house arrest or other restrictions since the early 1990s.

It’s especially significant that these talks took place in Beijing and were arranged by the Chinese, although China will not be a publicly active participant. While these talks are unlikely to be productive, after years of nothing on Burma, perhaps they will be the beginning of a process in which China can play a role similar to that in North Korea.

North Korea, Darfur, perhaps Burma. Does this signal a change in Chinese foreign policy? Is there a possibility of greater Sino-American cooperation on other issues of mutual concern? The US and China have vast differences in many areas and profoundly different views on some fundamental issues such as human rights, Tibet and trade. But there are many areas in which common interests can create opportunities.

This was the concept in 1971 when Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger opened the modern-era relationship over a shared concern about the Soviet Union, and in 1978 when Jimmy Carter established full diplomatic relations with China.

Today we have a different set of issues, but they are no less pressing. If the two countries can work together on North Korea, why not on Iran? And what about energy and the environment? After all, the US and China are the world’s two biggest polluters; surely they common interests there.

Which brings me to the G-8. These annual summit photo-ops have little value. The eight nations can no longer call themselves the world’s leading democracies when Russia is a member and India is not, or the leading industrial powers when Canada and Italy are members and China is not. G-8 communiques on energy, climate change, AIDS, and poverty will remain empty and meaningless without China and India.

The writer was US assistant secretary of state for East Asia.

By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post

Inside Pakistan
Extremists remain unchallenged
by Syed Nooruzzaman

Controlling religious extremism is the major challenge before Pakistan today. The problem is threatening to engulf the entire country at a time when it is preparing to hold the crucial general election next year.

According The News (June 25), “As of late, the overall picture is looking more ominous and troubling than it has been in recent memory. Self-styled guardians of the Islamic faith have popped up in various parts of the country, restricted not only to the lawless tribal belt and the NWFP, but also appear in the federal capital where the notorious burqa-clad Hafsa brigade is making headlines with one audacious move after another. There is a movement against everything considered un-Islamic, from videos to barbers. There is an unmistakable sense of emboldening of the extremist segment of society.”

The issue came up for a detailed discussion at Pakistan’s National Security Council meeting held recently. As an editorial in Daily Times (June 27) had it: “Strong words were spoken against the madarsas and their role as nurseries of terrorism and suicide-bombing, and a list of rebellious seminaries was prepared, as if the government is now going to gather enough spine to apply the law to them.”

Security personnel have reportedly surrounded Islamabad’s Lal Masjid and the madarsas under its control. But the government cannot take on their management in view of the likely consequences.

Threat to ties with China

The unending Lal Masjid episode is not only affecting the image of Pakistan and Islam abroad, but also Islamabad’s relations with Bejing. China has expressed its outrage at the incident involving the abduction of Chinese nationals, including women, by madarsa vigilante groups.

During his recent visit to Beijing, Pakistan’s Federal Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao felt embarrassed when the Chinese authorities told him tersely that the Pakistan government should make better security arrangements for the Chinese nationals in Islamabad and elsewhere. Chinese Minister for Public Security Zhou Yongkang Zhou called “the Lal Masjid mob ‘terrorists’ who targeted the Chinese, and asked Pakistan to punish the ‘criminals’,” according to Daily Times.

“It is easy to predict what Islamabad will do. It will shove China in the box called collateral damage and ‘protect’ the outlaws of Lal Masjid because there are too many people ‘inside’ the establishment who want the clerics to win the ‘battle of pieties’. The government has so far done more to ‘complete’ the Lal Masjid crusade against video shops than it has protected the inhabitants of Islamabad against violence and kidnapping,” adds the Times.

As pointed out by Dawn, “Regrettably, this is not the first time that Chinese experts working in Pakistan have been harmed. In October 2004, two of the Chinese workers at the Gomal Zam dam site in South Waziristan were kidnapped by the Abdullah Mahsud group. The subsequent commando action secured the release of one of the two Chinese engineers while the other one was killed. Last year three Chinese were killed and 13 injured in an ambush in Hub while in 2004 three Chinese were killed in a bomb blast at Gwadar.”

Bhutto in Ayub’s eyes

General Ayub Khan prevented the growth of democracy in Pakistan during the early days of its existence, but he is also credited with having provided stability to it after capturing power through a military coup. The late Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who rose to become Prime Minister, owed a great deal to the General. The military dictator first made Bhutto his Commerce Minister and then Foreign Minister.

But what was the General’s opinion about Bhutto after the former passed on power to General Yehya Khan? The answer to the question can be found in the diaries the General wrote, which have now been brought out in book form. An interesting quote from the diaries, on Bhutto’s personality, has been given by F.S. Aijazuddin in his article Dawn (June 21): “The damage done by Bhutto (to Pakistan) is deliberate, incalculable and unforgivable. He is the past master of disruption and agitation. He has shaken the roots of the country by simply posing as a socialist and a friend of the have-nots. And this is believed by an enormous amount of people despite the knowledge that he dresses and lives like a millionaire, drinks like a fish day and night, misbehaves with women, is a mimic, a clown and a liar, unfaithful and thoroughly disloyal.”

But why has the Pakistan government published the diaries now? The intention may be to discredit civilian politicians, including Bhutto, whose daughter Benazir may be the most formidable challenger to Musharraf during the coming elections.