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Need for vigilance Kashmir militants are down but not out ALL is well that ends well. National Conference leader and MP Omar Abdullah escaped unhurt when a grenade exploded near a house in Kupwara district where the MP was at that time. He does not consider it a breach of security. Nor does the IG of police consider it a sign of deteriorating law and order. Both of them may indeed be right but that does not explain why and how the grenade exploded in the area. Surely, it was not the prank of a child.
Caught between Big Two
Bus business
Ending the Iraq war – with mixed metaphors! Chandra Shekhar: a potential unfulfilled Protect innocents abroad
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Blood in the mosque THE inevitable has happened. Despite all his efforts to avoid storming of Islamabad’s Lal Masjid by the army, Pakistan President Gen Pervez Musharraf had to take this ultimate step on Tuesday morning. The militant students and the law-defying cleric, Abdur Rashid Ghazi, should have known that, beyond a point, no government would allow them to take the law into their own hands. Shamefully, they used children and girl students as a shield to hold on to their position in Lal Masjid. But will the General now be able to heave a sigh of relief? Has he taken a big gamble, or the Operation Silence is part of a major game plan that may be known in the days to come? The military assault, which began a week ago, has, predictably, led to protests in certain tribal areas in the NWFP. The protesting tribesmen, including Taliban activists, have threatened to launch a drive to oust the Musharraf regime. Repercussions in the tribal areas are on the expected lines, as most of the madarsa students came from the NWFP. Significantly, in the rest of Pakistan, the military action has not evoked the kind of reaction many had feared. It shows that extremism, whether religious or political, does not have many takers in the country. The operation against Lal Masjid also shows that when it comes to brass tacks those who claim to be brave are cowards like the Lal Masjid cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz, who tried to escape in burqa when he was on the verge of being arrested by the police What will be more significant to watch is the General’s next course of action. For the time being, his Lal Masjid operation appears to have eclipsed the judicial crisis and the opposition campaign against his plan to get re-elected as President. The General knows how to turn an adversity into an opportunity. He should go the whole hog to stamp out terrorism from Pakistan. Ordinary Pakistanis are already sick of extremism. People in general may appreciate his resoluteness in taking on militancy as the reaction to the Lal Masjid operation in Islamabad indicates. The crackdown on the Lal Masjid should mark the beginning, not the end, of his war against terrorism in Pakistan.
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Wise decision AS the date of the proposed Sikh conference at Ratia in Haryana was drawing near, there was considerable anxiety among all responsible people, considering that there was a distinct possibility of a confrontation developing between the Sikhs and the followers of Dera Sachcha Sauda, which, too, was to hold its “naam charcha” on July 11. Now that both sides have decided to postpone their programmes, the sense of relief is palpable. An eyeball-to-eyeball conflict was bound to aggravate matters and that would have expanded the area of tension to Haryana. Wiser counsel has prevailed at the last minute and this welcome development has brightened the chances of defusing the crisis at some later stage. Even those opposed to the postponement must be aware that going ahead with the conference would have only brought about more bad blood. Akal Takht Jathedar Joginder Singh Vedanti has said that the step has been taken for the sake of peace and tranquillity. That indeed should be the bottomline. A confrontation would not be of any use to either side. Only the enemies of the nation and those opposed to communal harmony will be the beneficiaries. What, perhaps, facilitated the mature reaction was the personal interest taken by the Prime Minister to ensure that the two chief ministers do not let the matter go out of hand. The immediate crisis may have blown over but there is a need for abundant caution. The chief ministers of Punjab and Haryana should be in constant touch with each other to ensure that law and order is maintained at all costs. There are any number of mischief mongers who want to destabilise the situation by hook or by crook. All responsible leaders should rise above petty politics to defeat their nefarious designs. The Great Gurus were apostles of patience and peace. Now is the time to put their teachings into practice. |
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Need for vigilance ALL is well that ends well. National Conference leader and MP Omar Abdullah escaped unhurt when a grenade exploded near a house in Kupwara district where the MP was at that time. He does not consider it a breach of security. Nor does the IG of police consider it a sign of deteriorating law and order. Both of them may indeed be right but that does not explain why and how the grenade exploded in the area. Surely, it was not the prank of a child. It was definitely targeted at somebody. It is for the police to find out who were behind the attack and who their target was. Until then, suspicion will remain. After all, it is not the first time that Omar Abdullah was targeted by militants. In October 2004 he and his father Farooq Abdullah had a narrow escape when a bomb exploded while they were condoling the killing of a party colleague. There can be no denying that there has been some improvement in the law and order situation in Jammu and Kashmir thanks to a host of factors, including lesser infiltration of militants from across the border, success of the political process in the state and the confidence-building measures India and Pakistan have been taking. Even so, the recent incidents of violence, particularly against the security forces suggest that militancy has only been lying low and not eliminated. There is a measure of disillusion among the people, as underscored by Omar Abdullah, over the slow progress in the peace process. Nobody in his senses expects a dramatic turnaround in the situation, given the religio-political dimensions of the Kashmir problem. But that does not mean that there can be an interminable wait for progress. A reassuring development is the increasing political activity in the state. Political parties no longer fight shy of holding public meetings even in areas that were once considered inaccessible to mainstream parties. This is all the more reason for the security forces to be extra-vigilant about militant activities in the state, be it a grenade attack against Omar Abdullah or an ambush of a military convoy. |
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O leave this barren spot to me! Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree.
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Caught between Big Two
Relations
between Russia and the US have always been of the deepest concern to India. Its own relations with each of them have been among the foremost priorities of India’s foreign policy, and its purposes are best served when the bilateral relations between the two are so good that India can pursue its own ends with each of them without causing any offence to the other. Now India needs to worry because the relations between the two have been hit where it hurts the most: in the security concerns of each about the military intentions of the other. Therefore, India cannot but be anxious over the latest military dispute between the two, which on the face of it is both intractable and extremely dangerous. In the name of defending Europe against Iranian nuclear missiles, America is setting up missile bases in areas of eastern Europe which are directly opposite what Russia says are its key areas for defending European Russia. Therefore, Russia wants America to desist, and has warned that if it does not then Russia will train its missiles on targets in Europe, an indirect reference to the proposed American missile bases in Poland and the Czech Republic. Two summit meetings between the Big Two have come and gone in quick succession, with results on the issue of missile bases which, to say the very least, are unclear. India needs to fasten its gaze on them. There were similarities between the first summit, in Germany, and the next in America. At the former, as soon as discussion turned to military matters, it was President Bush who set the pace by pressing the case for American missile bases in the Czech Republic and in Poland, while Mr Putin preferred to remain quieter. But right at the end Mr Putin turned the tables, in fact “stunned President Bush” as some reports put it, by unfolding to reporters his plan to offer missile bases to America on a Russian project in Azerbaijan, in Central Asia. Nearly the same thing happened at the second summit. At the joint Press meeting later by the two Presidents it was President Bush who held forth, with his light banter and attempts at humour, managing for a time to give the impression that, as he intended, he had managed to keep the summit at a less than earnest and almost at a casual level. The purpose of this pretence could have been to show that he had not allowed Mr Putin to use the summit for putting forward any serious alternative to America’s own plans for missile bases in eastern Europe. During much of the briefing by President Bush, President Putin intervened only briefly, and mostly when invited to do so. But right at the end Mr Putin seized upon a question in Russian, and then, very firmly and at length, step by step and argument by argument, he elaborated upon his own views and plans, presumably as he laid them out at the second summit, clearly implying that nothing had happened at the second summit which would divert him materially from the missile scheme with which he had “stunned” the first summit. The only additional disclosure he made was that he could offer bases for American missiles in Russia itself, and not only in non-Russian Central Asia. Did the main summit then go less well than expected and no better than the first one, in Germany? That depends upon what should have been expected, and there were many attendant circumstances which should have lowered the level of expectations. First, what the rest of the world possibly did not know till later but the participants must have known from the start, President Putin had not travelled to America for the sake of that summit. He had stopped over on his way to Guatemala for lending his presence in support of a Russian bid for the proposed summer Olympics at Sochi. But as reports from Guatemala said later, he got his way there, and was helped by the favourable Press he had received after both summits. The gains he made are reflected in two television round-ups, one American, the second British, and neither suspected of pro-Russian bias. US News and World Report said on July 5 the second summit was the “last and best chance to reverse the slide in the relationship with Moscow”, and President Putin went further “in suggesting (future) discussions at a joint NATO-Russian group.” It is obvious that America would be represented there, but the stronger European representation in the group might give Russia a better hearing when the discussion turns to what Europe would face if Russia and America started hurling missiles at each other’s European bases. The BBC in its own round-up said, “Putin can be regarded as having come on top … His suggestion that a new radar facility could be built in southern Russia — alongside a proposal to modernise a radio station in Azerbaijan — would raise cooperation between the two nations on security to the highest ever level.” If the alternative or additional bases proposed by Russia can be shown to be as effective as what the US offers against Iran, their appeal for Europe would be obvious in the light of the assertion by Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov that Iran will not be able to make its own missiles for 15 years. The implications will ring louder in European ears than the recent allegations against Mr Putin by Mr Bush that he has reversed the progress of “democracy” in Russia. Most European countries, and all the more so those in Eastern Europe, are familiar with the kind of democracy the US promoted in Russia under President Yeltsin, what that did to the Russian presence in the world, and what happened after Mr Putin came in and picked up the pieces. The issue is important for India for many reasons. Nearest home is the progress India and Pakistan have been making of late, jointly as well as separately, in their efforts to bring Iranian oil to India, and the indirect as well as direct effect this will have on the bilateral as well as trilateral cooperation between all three or any two of these countries, and the benefit of that for the economic and political welfare of all three countries. Secondly, India is going through a very delicate stage of its negotiations with the Bush administration on India’s nuclear energy and nuclear security needs. For this it wants that the administration should be able to carry the US public with it. Anything which further lowers the domestic standing of President Bush does not help the Indian case in the US Congress, and little good is being done to that by the controversies in America over the issue of missile bases in Europe. Thirdly, India also has to look over its shoulders at Moscow on the give and take it may have to do in its negotiations with the US, and that is better done if the relations between America and Russia do not descend to “the lowest level since the days of the Cold War”, to quote a phrase which has been used frequently in recent days regarding the present equation between Russia and the
US.
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Bus business
Travelling in a roadways bus is not the most comfortable of journeys, but it can be very entertaining and illuminating at times — thanks to those “hop on, hop off” salesmen. They get barely a few minutes to peddle their wares, but that’s enough time for them to make a passenger or two go for an impulse purchase. The bus is their stage, its occupants their captive audience. A salesman who rings your doorbell can be told to buzz off, but you can’t mete out such treatment to these guys. The best approach is to sit back and enjoy the free “show”. One of them takes out a contraption from a bag and informs the people that it’s a user-friendly device for squeezing juice out of any citrus fruit. Then he takes out an orange and shows you how to do it. The juice flows into a small container, while the seeds are made to feel as unwelcome as ticketless travellers. The demo over, he tells you that this “unique” product’s market price is Rs 50, but the magnanimous manufacturer has kept it as low as Rs 20. Someone points out that these juicers neither work properly nor last long, only to see his own wife buy it gladly. Pocketing the money, the salesman alights from the bus with a spring in his step, leaving the couple bickering. Another one steps aboard with a pocketbook of desi remedies. Acting like an expert quack, he “reveals” a couple of them absolutely free, recommending one concoction for earache and another for toothache. He claims to know the treatment for impotence as well, but is prudent (or prudish) enough not to disclose it in public. The way medical bills burn holes in people’s pockets these days, one can’t blame them for being tempted into trying out this dirt-cheap digest of “magical” cures — at their own risk, of course. The offers seem too good to be true: A set of four magazines for Rs 10 (though the issues are several months old); five pens for Rs 5 (never mind their quality, or lack of it). For all those exasperated by inflation, this is deflation at its (deceptive) best. Even then, there are some typically penny-wise-pound-foolish fellows who don’t mind haggling over a few rupees just to get a better bargain. In this age of multi-media promotional campaigns, the “bus hoppers” rely solely on the gift of the gab to attract customers. Day after day, bus after bus, it’s the same wording, same intonation, same gestures. They have no choice but to repeat themselves incessantly to earn their livelihood. Come to think of it, that’s also true of most of us, isn’t
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Ending the Iraq war – with mixed metaphors! WASHINGTON – Some wars end in peace treaties or surrender ceremonies. The Iraq war appears destined to end in a noxious mixture of metaphors. “This deck of cards is crashing down, and it’s landing heavily on the heads of the soldiers and the Marines,” Democrat Senator Jim Webb said in announcing legislation this week that would hasten a withdrawal from Iraq. Did he mean a house of cards? And, if so, would it really land that heavily? But there was no time to dwell on the house of cards. Another Democrat, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, at the same news conference, gave his view on another proposal to end the war. “Is it going to be something that has some teeth in it?” he asked. “If it is, certainly I’ll put my arms around it.” Suit yourself, Senator, but you should consult the Senate’s attending physician before putting your arms around something with teeth in it. There’s a whole new ballgame on Capitol Hill. After falling behind in previous efforts to end the war, lawmakers are getting back on their bicycles, moving down the field and preparing to hit it out of the park. Of course, it’s never wise to count your chickens before the fat lady sings, so hold your horses. But opponents of the war, if they play their cards right, should be able to stick a fork in it soon. Returning on Monday from a Fourth of July recess, antiwar lawmakers renewed their effort to remove troops from Iraq – and for the first time, it appears that they may actually prevail, thanks to defections in recent days by a trio of prominent Republican senators. A plan to shorten deployments to Iraq, once derided as the “slow bleed” plan, now appears to have enough support to pass. A softer proposal to call for a redeployment of U.S. troops by next year could have the support of half the Republicans in the chamber. Whatever the outcome, signs are that the White House will soon be forced to negotiate an end to the conflict. “The only way this president will ever change his Iraq policy will be when he looks east down Pennsylvania Avenue and realizes he has lost the support of his own party,” said Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. “We’re seeing that happen, and I predict we’re going to see a lot more of it in the coming weeks.” But why use plain language when a metaphor will do? “The president continues to dig us into a deeper and deeper hole,” Biden continued, calling for pressure on Bush “to stop digging and to start to work our way out of this war.” The prospect of an end to the Iraq war – or at least the beginning of the end – lured reporters to stand three deep in the aisles of the Senate television gallery on Monday to hear Reid and Webb. Reid prefaced his remarks by assuring everyone that the red marks on the side of his face were the work of a dermatologist, not the White House. “I didn’t get in a fight or anything,” he said, then sought to start one. “For those Senate Republicans who are saying the right things on Iraq, they must put their words into action by voting with us to change course,” he said, praising the “Republican defections.” Fox News’s Major Garrett asked Reid what he expected to accomplish in the coming debate. “We will find in the next couple of weeks whether the Republicans who have said publicly they think the present course should change are willing to vote with us,” the senator answered. “We invite them to come with us. We put our arms around them.” He did not say anything about their teeth. Webb, whose proposal would shorten troop deployments, admitted that he had only one Republican co-sponsor, Nebraska’s Chuck Hagel. But, he added, “we have a lot of indications from offices that we’ve been talking to that we’re going to get Republican votes.” Reid clearly wasn’t expecting much cooperation. Among his first acts on the Senate floor after returning from July recess was to warn colleagues that he might shorten their August recess. “Keep your August travel plans flexible,” he advised. Asked if he saw any evidence that the White House is reconsidering its Iraq approach, he answered bluntly: “None at this stage.” Others dared to predict a different result. “It will become clear this week that there is growing and bipartisan interest here in the United States Senate to set a specific deadline to force the Iraqis to make the decisions for themselves about how they will govern their nation,” Ron Wyden, Democrat., forecast on the floor. Webb, moving downstairs from the television studio to the Senate floor, agreed with Wyden but sought to improve on his colleague’s imagery. He praised those “on the other side of the aisle who are equally interested in forging a new road to the future.” Road forgers, however, should watch for falling cards. “We are now in the fifth year of ground combat operations in Iraq,” Webb repeated on the Senate floor, “and this deck of cards is coming crashing down.”
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Chandra Shekhar: a potential unfulfilled I had the privilege of serving as Principal Secretary to Chandra Shekhar during his all-too-brief tenure as Prime Minister. It was the beginning of a remarkable experience with a remarkable man. I soon found that Chandra Shekhar was not only a man with whom it was a pleasure to work, but one who could teach even a seasoned bureaucrat much about the art of governance. He had a tremendous grasp of issues, and the ability and the confidence to find a pragmatic solution to even the most complex problems. We have perhaps forgotten the tenuous situation at the moment Chandra Shekhar assumed office. The situation in the Punjab was grave, and the problems resulting from Mandalization were spinning out of control. The new Prime Minister not only succeeded in dousing the flames and defusing the tensions, but soon began to demonstrate a deft hand in foreign affairs as well. In both foreign and domestic affairs, he consulted his professional advisors at great length, but took major decisions – and the responsibility for them – himself. He once told me that if he were to go by either what the media was writing or what the MEA was thinking, no solution to the problems with Pakistan would ever be possible. His own approach combined a willingness to listen to all points of view, a pragmatism that was independent of ideology, maturity, and a basic sense of decency. Except when it came to his total commitment to secularism, Chandra Shekhar kept an open mind on all issues. On the problems in Punjab, for instance, he felt that as Prime Minister it was his duty to try to understand all points of view. In fact, at one point he offered safe transit from Pakistan to several Sikh militant leaders, and held discussions in Delhi with them. True to his word, these leaders, who had been actively working against India, were allowed to go back to Pakistan. His ability to negotiate solutions was to a large extent, I think, based on his talent for developing personal relationships. He had an excellent equation with Nawaz Sharif, for instance, and they were constantly in touch during tense moments. The rapport can perhaps be gauged from just one incident to which I was a witness. After some Swedish engineers had been kidnapped by militants in Kashmir, the Swedish Ambassador came to see Chandra Shekhar, requesting his help in the matter, but was told that, regretfully, there was very little that could be done from this side. After the Ambassador left, however, the Prime Minister remarked that it was unfortunate that innocent people should suffer. On the spur of the moment, he decided to call Nawaz Sharif on the hotline. The conversation was in Urdu, but this is what transpired. Chandra Shekhar began by asking “Bhaijan, what mischief are you up to over there?” Nawaz Sharif, taken aback, asked what wrong he had done. Chandra Shekhar said that the kidnapping of Swedish engineers was just not right, and Nawaz Sharif protested that the Pakistan government was not involved. Chandra Shekhar retorted that both of them were well aware of the ground realities. He added that it was not his intention to go to the press, but that on humanitarian grounds, the engineers should be released. For good measure, and still in good humour, he said he was not going to take no for an answer. The engineers were, in fact, released the next day, and not a word came out in the press. I happened to mention this to the Swedish Ambassador several years later, and he asked whether he had my permission to report it to his government. I told him to do so by all means, as I felt that in some quarter at least, credit should go where it was due. It is more unfortunate that he was not allowed to fulfill his potential. If he has been permitted a longer term, he might very well have been able to avoid many of the problems that have since arisen. I am quite sure that he would have averted the Babri Masjid situation, and I suspect that he would have successfully initiated a peace dialogue with Pakistan, and been able to carry it forward to a great degree. During Chandra Shekhar’s last days in office, increasing pressure was put on him, and unfair and inaccurate charges flung about. Warned that this would lead to his resignation, a senior Congress leader scoffed that no one would give up the Prime Ministership. The remark indicated a singular lack of knowledge of this man’s essential character. His dignified and moving resignation, which was a surprise even to those of us who had been with him just a few moments earlier, was surely one of the finest moments witnessed by our Parliament. Those of us who were fortunate to have worked with him will remember him with respect, gratitude and personal affection.
The writer is Chairman, Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage. He was Chandra Shekhar’s Principal Secretary in the
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Protect innocents abroad I happened to hear recently a conversation between the paanwallah and an obviously regular customer. The customer was proudly narrating the success story of his teenager nephew who had gone to Australia after his plus two to do hotel management. The nephew was doing extremely well. His photograph had appeared in the local newspaper. The principal was very happy with the lad. To loosely translate the uncle’s phrase, “the principle was in the boy’s grip”. The principle was in fact so happy that he had presented the teenager boy with a webcam. Now if the bright student had been presented with a set of books or recommended for a summer job or apprenticeship at a prestigious address, it would have been understandable. But, of all things, a webcam? My mind raced back to more than a year ago when, during a brief sojourn in US, I chanced upon televised proceedings of a House of Representatives Committee on Sexual exploitation of children over Internet. The testimony was given by a teenager boy, named Justin Berry as a follow-up of a story that had previously appeared in the New York Times, entitled “Through his webcam, a boy joins a sordid online world”. In his testimony , Justin said that “My experience is not as isolated as you might hope…”. At the age of 13 , Justin connected his web camera to his personal computer and posted his pictures on the net. He was soon contacted by men who chatted with him through instant messages while they watched his image on the net. One afternoon he received a proposal from a man . He would pay Justin fifty dollars if Justin took off his shirt in front of the camera for three minutes. Justin accepted the offer. One thing led to another, and soon Justin was drawn into an internet child pornography racket , where he performed “for an audience of about 1500 people who paid him, over the years, hundreds of thousands of dollars”. The justification Justin gave for posing bare-chested is significant. “I figured, I took off my shirt for nothing, so, I was kind of like, what is the difference?” In this age of consumerism, impersonal nature of technology and the relative ease with which one’s conscience can be neutralised, what young people do in the privacy of their rooms, they would not mind doing in front of their PCs. Will it end there, or will it become messier? Only time can tell. Western laws on pornography and obscenity are far more liberal than ours. Their concern is protecting the minors. What adults do is their business. When our children go abroad, do they have our permission to do whatever is legal there, or would we like them to adhere to home values? In Australia, a webcam would probably cost less than a book. May be a gift of a webcam is innocent. But there is no harm in being careful. |
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