O P I N I O N S

EDITORIALS

Deal of promise
Energy sector to get boost
INDIA has got the best nuclear deal possible with the US. The India-US 123 Agreement’s text, made public on Friday, takes care of the promises made to Parliament by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. India’s biggest concern that under no circumstances should the country’s nuclear programme get adversely affected has been given due respect.

Tiger trial
Set up a wildlife service
TIGER conservationists have been shouting themselves hoarse for a couple of years now, and it was apparent ever since the Centre started dithering on the findings of its own tiger task force, that the news is quite bad. Last year, a fresh census was commissioned. It now appears that the figure of just 1500 tigers left in the wild is not overly pessimistic, but a simple reflection of the facts on the ground.

• Thought for the day

ARTICLE

Pakistan’s enemy within
Threats from military, extremism, corrupt feudal order
by B.G. Verghese
The Pakistan Supreme Court has rebuffed General Musharraf’s ploy further to bend the constitution to his own purposes. He had no option but to accept the verdict with “grace and dignity”, especially with the Lal Masjid declaring jihad against the State, though one Maulana tried sneaking away in a burqa and high heels, a “uniform” that says something about the hypocrisy of his ilk.

MIDDLE

News on Swiss rolls
by Rajnish Wattas
If you are looking for Swiss cool with Italian passion, then Lugano in Switzerland is the place. The food is Italian, the local wine a good merlot and the women beautiful. I discovered another fascinating tradition there. Visiting a cafeteria, I noticed a number of wooden rollers in a basket. People coming in picked up a roller and left it on the way back.

OPED

It’s not torture, it’s sex
by A.S. Hamrah
When a group of 50 high school students visiting the White House in Washington DC in June handed US President George W. Bush a letter urging him to stop the torture of suspected terrorists, the president took their letter, read it, then told the students that “the United States does not torture.”

Chatterati
Shuffling along
by Devi Cherian
Congressmen are awaiting the pending AICC reshuffle and the cabinet expansion along with the reshuffle of portfolios. There is immense insecurity among the party people, especially as the downslide of the government has begun.

Address local concerns at Koodankulam
by Manju Menon and M.V. Ramana
On June 2, an Environmental Public Hearing was held on the proposal to further expand the nuclear power complex being constructed in Koodankulam in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu. Security arrangements were uncharacteristically tight but the reason soon became apparent.

EDITORIALS

Deal of promise
Energy sector to get boost

INDIA has got the best nuclear deal possible with the US. The India-US 123 Agreement’s text, made public on Friday, takes care of the promises made to Parliament by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. India’s biggest concern that under no circumstances should the country’s nuclear programme get adversely affected has been given due respect. The agreement is silent on what course the US will take if India is forced to go in for a fresh nuclear test. But the US Atomic Energy Act, 1954, is there for Washington to deal with such an eventuality. The US will invoke the Act, abrogate the deal and exercise its right to ask for the withdrawal of the nuclear fuel and technology supplied to India. But nothing will happen abruptly. India is unlikely to be a loser as the US may also take a positive view of such a development.

From any angle we look at the deal, the gains for India are tremendous. There will be an end to the nuclear denial regime that came into effect with India’s first nuclear tests in 1974. The nuclear apartheid practised against India prevented the expansion of the country’s nuclear energy sector to meet the fast growing power requirement. India is expected to invest around $150 billion to boost its civil nuclear power programme with the help of the US companies engaged in this area. But the UK, France, Russia, Australia and some other members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), too, are waiting for the day when there will be no curbs on nuclear trade with India.

The last major hurdle that remains to be crossed for making the deal operational is the final approval of the US Congress. That stage will come when an India-specific safeguards agreement is signed with the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group clears the historic deal. This is not an insurmountable problem. As Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, the chief US negotiator, has asserted, the civil nuclear cooperation agreement between India and the US does not violate the Hyde Act, enacted in view of the concerns raised by the American non-proliferation lobbies. Thus, the deal may get the US Congress’ nod easily, leading to the dawn of a new era in Indo-US relations.

Tiger trial
Set up a wildlife service

TIGER conservationists have been shouting themselves hoarse for a couple of years now, and it was apparent ever since the Centre started dithering on the findings of its own tiger task force, that the news is quite bad. Last year, a fresh census was commissioned. It now appears that the figure of just 1500 tigers left in the wild is not overly pessimistic, but a simple reflection of the facts on the ground. Considering that the official figure in 2001 was 3642 tigers, it means we have been losing a tiger a day over the last five years. While reserves like Sariska have been wiped clean of their tiger population, others continue to be in danger, not just from poachers, but from the increasing pressure of development.

The Prime Minister’s call for state governments to create “a development agency” for each tiger reserve in the country, tasked with involving the local population in all conservation efforts, is an important step towards saving the tiger. The debate has been cast in terms of an irreconcilable people-wildlife conflict, and this is most unfortunate. Many wildlife enthusiasts are genuinely worried about what the implementation of the tribal land rights Act would do to our reserve forests. While there is no doubt that the forest people are better at conserving forests as a precious, renewable resource, the ability of tigers to “coexist” is in doubt. Protected parks will still need to be at the core of a conservation strategy.

But whatever we do will be inadequate if we persist with the current wildlife administration service that we have in place. It is ill-equipped, poorly staffed, and poorly trained. There is no accountability and little understanding of what is required to conserve forests and wildlife. A specially trained wildlife service is an idea that conservationists espouse, and however much the forest bureaucracy might resist it, this is an idea whose time has come. The Prime Minster, as the head of the National Wildlife Board, should set this as his goal.

Stamp of duty
Celebrities should pay their dues

MONEY and visibility make them celebrities and being celebrities help them make more money and get more visibility. Although the business of a celebrity is just that — to be a celebrity — these society ‘models’ seize any and every chance to claim how all their exertions are in the service of the country. So, Amitabh Bachchan becomes a humble farmer in Uttar Pradesh to serve the country and when the humble acquisition of farm land is exposed, he “donates” the patch (which was never his in the first place) to the people of UP. Ditto for Sachin Tendulkar, who welcomes all the kudos — and the money that follows from endorsements. But point out that he has failed to deliver in a match and he gets indignant about how his contribution to the country is not appreciated.

Yet, this is not the full story of how these stars never miss an opportunity to cut corners and fail to pay their dues. It took a gangster-turned- politician, Arun Gawli of the Akhil Bharatiya Sena, to make the Maharashtra government reveal that celebrities owe Rs 13.32 crore in stamp duty. Mr Gawli’s question brought forth a written reply from state revenue minister Narayan Rane in the Assembly that the defaulters were mostly Bollywood figures. Of course, Tendulkar is no less of a star in the firmament of celebrities.

Just a few months ago a building firm’s manager in Ghaziabad was arrested for evading stamp duty and the offices of the builder were sealed. In June, four Punjab revenue officials were suspended for their involvement in stamp duty evasion. Why should celebrities not be subjected to the same treatment as others? The government is soft on them and officials often facilitate their evasion of not only stamp duty but also customs and excise duties and even income tax. It is high time the authorities stopped pampering celebrities. In fact, they should be good examples of a dutiful citizen, and if they are not, they should be made examples of, if only to deter others from defaulting on their dues.

Thought for the day

There’s nothing surer, / The rich get rich and the poor get children. — Gus Kahn

ARTICLE

Pakistan’s enemy within
Threats from military, extremism, corrupt feudal order
by B.G. Verghese

The Pakistan Supreme Court has rebuffed General Musharraf’s ploy further to bend the constitution to his own purposes. He had no option but to accept the verdict with “grace and dignity”, especially with the Lal Masjid declaring jihad against the State, though one Maulana tried sneaking away in a burqa and high heels, a “uniform” that says something about the hypocrisy of his ilk.

The court ruling was greeted with cries of “Musharraf must go”, which some would interpret as signalling the Army to return to barracks. Others, like the US, fear a nuclearisd mullah alternative. Yet the Americans are more than convinced that Osama bin Laden continues to shelter in Pakistan’s tribal territory and have hinted at taking him out if the evidence hardens, notwithstanding Islamabad’s angry protestations.

The courts and lawyers have done well. But whatever happened to academia, the trade unions, NGOs, civil society and even the political parties? Most spoke sotto voce, if at all, barring the PPP to some extent, except that Benazir seeks a self-serving deal with the General. Sections of the media did not buckle under threats. Bravo!

Will the Army make way for a genuine democratic restoration? There is a deep yearning for democracy among growing sections in Pakistan who 60 years after independence worry about constitutional fragility, lack of federalism, controlled freedoms, circumscribed minority and gender rights, rampant feudalism and inequality, regional imbalances, ungovernable tribal tracts - and no restorative mechanism barring a military that is not necessarily socio-economically modernising but compromised and bent on perpetuating its power, much of it hidden.

Apart from the military’s nexus with the Taliban and religious right at various times, the dimensions and menace of this hidden power is revealed in Ayesha Siddiqa’s just published “Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy”(Oxford, Karachi. 2007). It is an astonishing story about the licensed loot of a nation by a military-bureaucratic-industrial-landed-feudal complex held together by the power of the gun and sustained by an ideology that needs an external enemy and a “cause” that bolsters the Army and would be seriously inconvenienced by democracy.

A military-industrial complex, or Milbus, is not unknown to democracies but has flowered in military-backed regimes as in Indonesia, Turkey, Thailand and Pakistan some of who have incorporated institutional control over state power through national security councils. Milbus is intended to underpin the lifetime welfare of military personnel for services rendered on an ascending scale of gratification according to rank in terms of jobs, civil appointments, land, housing, shareholdings, privileged access to contracts, subsidies, loans and so forth. It constitutes the internal economy of a corporatised Pakistan military operating without any accountability through an involuntary system of civil-military collusion in which the military calls the shots in an environment where the Defence Budget is beyond any parliamentary scrutiny or questioning. This hidden economy is reportedly among the sources of funding off-budget defence requirements.

The octopus-like Milbus in Pakistan, operating under myriad names, has a mailed fist in every pie. The military owns 10 per cent of all state lands from which land grants (mostly irrigated) range from 32 acres per NCO to 240 acres for Maj-Generals and above. Over 2.3 million acres were so distributed between 1965 and 2003 at enormous profit for the individuals. Serving jawans guard and work these “military farms” such as Gen Musharraf’s in Bahawalpur. The top brass get access roads and water, and are designated “numberdars” with revenue powers.

The armed forces today control the largest chunk of urban land in Pakistan with plot sizes varying from 496 sq yds for captains to 800 sq yds for generals. Cantonment lands have been commercialised and privatised for malls and industries — and more can be acquired for “public purposes”. Ayesha Siddiqa estimates the value of such privatised military properties in the Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta cantonments as worth $ 8620 million, the “net worth” of an average general/admiral/air marshal being $172,000 to 860,000 or considerably more at current market prices. General Musharraf’s “disclosed landed assets” are reported worth $10.34 million.

Milbus is into a range of industries, mining, oil and gas, electricity, transportation, construction, infrastructure, banking and insurance, travel, the IT sector, real estate development, education, broadcasting, shipping, ship breaking, dredging, aviation, leasing, retail business, etc. Banking facilitates money laundering and Milbus, managed through a number of foundations and “welfare” institutions run by the three Services, is outside the purview of the National Accountability Bureau. Interlocking interests and favoured contracting have created a tight network of military-led economic cartels serving the elites. Economic efficiencies are low with losses involuntarily underwritten by the State.

Milbus has created a predatory economy based on the “Indian threat” and a related national security dogma. The external threat, reinforced by the Talibanisation of society, is used to justify the economic and ideological militarisation of the State and has become the enemy of democratisation and modernisation, with Punjab’s military dominance fuelling deep regional tensions. Pakistan’s real enemy is within — a rampant military, religious extremism and a corrupt feudal order. This evil partnership must be relentlessly exposed and ended and dictatorship denied external props if democracy is to be secured.

MIDDLE

News on Swiss rolls
by Rajnish Wattas

If you are looking for Swiss cool with Italian passion, then Lugano in Switzerland is the place. The food is Italian, the local wine a good merlot and the women beautiful.

I discovered another fascinating tradition there. Visiting a cafeteria, I noticed a number of wooden rollers in a basket. People coming in picked up a roller and left it on the way back. Initially, I thought they were umbrellas; but that didn’t make sense as they were not taken away. Then one day I espied the room adjoining the bar corner. At breakfast time, people were buried in an assortment of newspapers, savouring their coffee. In the evenings, femme fatales in high boots and high fashion -came in with their small poodles, pretended to read the papers; while all the time waiting for their date!

The groups of older men of course puffed away at their cigars or pipes introspectively, while poring over the papers. The wooden scrolls are ornamental rollers, almost works of art, into which the newspapers are clamped and fixed, with no possibility of the pages getting scattered. Here was a gracious, beautiful way of savouring one’s newspaper in solitude.

On returning home, as a newspaper addict buying four papers every day, I’ve been mulling over organising the paper clutter in my house in a similar way. The numbers of papers in the house over the years increased in direct proportion to the assertion of reading rights by children and pandering to the preferences of the dear wife and the cook. And then there have been the seductive schemes of the media managers, marketing newspapers along with free irons, Swiss knifes, radios and torches.

The irons are perhaps to straighten out your rain-drenched copy in the monsoons; the knifes to peal potatoes while reading; radios to know the real news; and torches to remind you that newspapers are the torch lights of the nation. But the abundance of papers in the house has only added to paper chase; as invariably every member feels that there is some gossip his paper is missing out, which the other isreporting.

The only way to stop people from pulling away your copy while you are in the middle of cracking the Sudoku or learning about your lucky colour of the day; is to clamp it down under a firm ruler or at least a roller. No wonder, I’m busy designing scrolls copied from the Swiss cafes, for disciplining the news anarchy prevailing in the house. Hopefully, one fine day I’ll wake up to a beautiful morning, sit in the veranda, savour a crisp morning paper languorously with a steaming cuppa in hand. And have news on a ‘Swiss roll’.

OPED

It’s not torture, it’s sex
by A.S. Hamrah

When a group of 50 high school students visiting the White House in Washington DC in June handed US President George W. Bush a letter urging him to stop the torture of suspected terrorists, the president took their letter, read it, then told the students that “the United States does not torture.”

By the time a president has alienated even high school overachievers, the cat is out of the bag; it is now general knowledge that the United States of America tortures people. We know that torture rarely, if ever, works. So what are US government officials getting out of it?

Right before his recent colonoscopy, Bush announced that he had issued an executive order banning cruel and inhumane treatment in interrogations of suspected terrorists. This clarified interrogation guidelines he had issued last fall banning techniques that “shock the conscience.”

While the guidelines appear to be a step toward more concrete protection of human rights, the administration’s constant rejiggering of the border between interrogation and torture reveals something else: a Sadean interest in the refinement of torture, a desire to define what is and is not “beyond the bounds of human decency,” as the order puts it.

The claim that there is an element of sexual perversity in the government’s interest in prisoner abuse may seem broad, but consider how officials discuss it. And when it comes to pictures documenting torture, they react in ways that should be as interesting to psychoanalysts as they are to constitutional lawyers, civil libertarians or investigative reporters.

In April, former CIA Director George Tenet appeared on “60 Minutes,” telling interviewer Scott Pelley – between swigs from a tiny bottle of Evian and his insistent, repetitive bark that “we don’t torture people” – that the reason he has never personally seen the evidence of the interrogation techniques he refuses to talk about is because he is “not a voyeur.”

Tenet’s reference to voyeurism – which the dictionary defines as “the practice of obtaining sexual gratification by looking at sexual objects or acts, especially secretly” – would seem to imply that these unmentionable techniques are sexual in nature and therefore inappropriate. But Tenet can never know if that’s the case because he, not being a voyeur, claims never to have seen them. So why bring up voyeurism at all?

A quote from an unidentified lieutenant general in Seymour Hersh’s article, “The General’s Report,” in the June 25 issue of The New Yorker exposes a similar unwillingness to confront scenes of torture. “I don’t want to get involved by looking” at photographs and videos of torture, the officer told Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba during the torture investigation at Abu Ghraib, “because what do you do with that information, once you know what they show?”

When babies cover their eyes, they assume the world has disappeared because they can’t see it; they think they’re invisible, too, and that the world can’t see them. Donald Rumsfeld, in Hersh’s article, comes off like an innocent child rubbing his eyes and waking in a world he never made. “My God! Did I authorize putting a bra and underwear on this guy’s head and telling him all his buddies knew he was a homosexual?” asks the former Defense secretary. Heck, was it all just a dream?

Maybe the reason members of the Bush administration are reluctant to look at evidence of torture is that if they did, they would be forced to admit that, for them, what happened at Abu Ghraib really wasn’t torture. For them, evidently, it was sex, and that’s why they won’t watch.

It’s not like government officials have never come right out and said that. In 2004, Republican Christopher Shays, bridged the gap between the painful and the erotic by dismissing the Abu Ghraib abuses as a mere “sex ring”: “I’ve seen what happened at Abu Ghraib, and Abu Ghraib was not torture. It was outrageous, outrageous involvement of National Guard troops who were involved in a sex ring.” When asked to clarify, Shays backtracked and dug himself in deeper at the same time. “It was torture because sexual abuse is torture This is more about pornography than torture.”

Last winter, when an Australian TV network released photos and videos from Abu Ghraib, a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, speaking for the coalition forces, called the report “unnecessarily provocative.” He didn’t say the images were wrong or criminal.

Instead of just banning torture outright, as the high school students asked him to do, Bush’s new executive order, which purports to be an “interpretation of the Geneva Convention Common Article 3,” reduces torture to a series of deviant acts. It dwells on “sexually indecent acts undertaken for the purpose of humiliation, forcing the individual to perform sexual acts or to pose sexually, threatening the individual with sexual mutilation.”

It’s the exact kind of list you’d expect to find from the kind of people who go on TV and announce to the public that they’re not voyeurs. Now that they’ve defined torture so carefully, it should be much easier for them not to look at it.

By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post

Chatterati
Shuffling along
by Devi Cherian

Congressmen are awaiting the pending AICC reshuffle and the cabinet expansion along with the reshuffle of portfolios. There is immense insecurity among the party people, especially as the downslide of the government has begun.

The babalog are impatiently waiting for their leader, Rahul Gandhi, to emerge after the UP debacle. The grapevine indicated that the babalog may be made secretaries and not included in the cabinet. They will be asked to go to their states and take charge of strengthening the organisation from the grassroots level. The infighting in the Congress does not help matters.

Concentrating on Gujarat seems to be the top agenda now. The Congress seems upbeat there, as they are banking on the anti-incumbency factor. The same goes for Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Sachin Pilot and Jyotiraditya Scindia are now concentrating more on getting their men in place in their home states.

Very soon the younger generation will have to take over. But before that, a lot of dedication, hard work and sincerity have to be part of the formula. Dynasty does not count any more. The public today has many choices. Competition is tough, and new, articulate guys are being lapped up by the media and given vast exposure.

So what if indeed there is a reshuffle in the AICC or the cabinet? The real question is, how much power will the men who matter actually yield.

Well, if the Congress is in a state of near collapse, the BJP cannot be in a worse state than it is. Vajpayee is shown respect but does his word count? Advani and Rajnath’s teams are at loggerheads. Dissidents in states are increasing. Spokespersons cannot communicate properly. BJP President Rajnath Singh has to take every step cautiously.

The Modis and the Jaitleys will snigger at his every move. The General Secretaries are looking incompetent. The BJP seems to be going the same way as the Congress – different camps and different bosses. The RSS, Swadeshi Morcha, the Uma Bhartis and Gurumurthys are enough to create hassles for the smooth running of the BJP.

Magic Maya

In between all this confusion we now have a UNPA. The regional parties are a disgruntled lot. The lost souls of today dream of coming back tomorrow, with, maybe, a Prime Minister of their own. Who? God knows! Jayalalithaa, Sharad Pawar, Mulayam or Karat? Well, for the time being, they are happy mingling and attending press conferences.

They could not reach a consensus on voting for the President or abstaining. It is really a joke. As it is, the Indian public is at a loss as to what is happening in politics today. But one thing for sure we all know, is that there is one lady who has everything in control and is most probably going to be a winner in the end – Maya Behanji. So, the Congress, the BJP, the NDA, the UNPA and the UPA better get their act together before it is too late. Maya will literally sweep the country in her favour sooner than we realise.

Address local concerns at Koodankulam
by Manju Menon and M.V. Ramana

On June 2, an Environmental Public Hearing was held on the proposal to further expand the nuclear power complex being constructed in Koodankulam in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu. Security arrangements were uncharacteristically tight but the reason soon became apparent. Rather than using the opportunity to hear local people’s views on the project, the administration tried to use the event to have the Nuclear Power Corporation (NPC) advertise the safety of its reactors.

Pro-nuclear propaganda was not new to the assembled gathering of locals. For several days before the hearing, indeed for years, through community meetings and the media, they had heard NPC’s version of the project and its benefits. Yet, the thousands that had gathered at the Public Hearing wanted no more of that – and they made it clear to the administration.

For them, this hearing simply marked the culmination of several years of opposition to the project. They maintain that this move of the Government of India to locate a plant that relies on nuclear technology on the coast of Tamil Nadu, places at risk the lives of tens of thousands of fisherfolk and coastal communities, adversely affects their economic survival and livelihoods and the marine and coastal resources and ecosystem.

The Koodankulam project deal between India and the Soviet Union was signed on November 20, 1988. Less than a month later, there was a massive rally at Tirunelveli organised by many groups such as ‘Samathuva Samudaya Iyakkam’ (Social Equality Movement) of Rev. Y. David. Matters came to a head on May 1, 1989, during a demonstration in Kanyakumari involving over 10,000 participants, organised by the National Fish workers Union, when the police opened fire and disconnected the public address system.

The incident only served to antagonise the agitated locals further. Many more demonstrations and meetings were held thereafter. The agitation ceased only with the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the project seemed to have been buried without a sound.

The opposition resurfaced soon after the project was revived in 1998. In November 2001, Dr. S.P. Udayakumar from Nagercoil and his friends founded a broad umbrella organisation called People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE). Their main focus was public education.

This is no ignorant and instigated population. However, the knowledge available with the locals could not be put to any formal use. When the Koodankulam 1 and 2 Project was first finalised, there was no mandatory obligation for the project proponents to prepare an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) or for the government to hear people’s opinions on or objections to proposed projects.

The earliest official chance for the local population to be heard came in October last year when the first Public Hearing was organised. Little did the organisers expect that hundreds of people would come and register their opposition to the project. The hearing was aborted.

One expression of this concern by the authorities has been attempts at intimidation. Activists like Dr. Lal Mohan, Dr. Udayakumar, and Y. David have been constantly receiving phone calls from the police and the Intelligence Bureau. In April this year, Ravi and other activists from Koodankulam village were taken into police custody on false charges of having caused damage to the NPC bus that was plying on the roads on March, 31 – the day the state government had declared a bandh in response to the Supreme Court’s anti-reservation order.

Even on June 2, the day of the most recent hearing, the Collector and the State Pollution Control Board (SPCB) representative, who constituted the panel to hear people’s views, were unwilling to take their concerns seriously. Anton Gomes, Gilbert Rodrigo, Henri Tiphagne, George Gomes, Jiva and other local activists pointed out that that the circulated EIA report was in English, thus precluding the vast majority from comprehending the document or participating meaningfully. Others pointed out various flaws in the EIA document.

After about an hour and a half of such vigorous and almost unanimous opposition to the project, the Collector abruptly declared the meeting closed by stating that NPC had answered all the doubts raised. The only formal occasion for the government to learn about the people’s views about the project had, in effect, been sabotaged.

Being unwilling to hear the reasons for the opposition and even more unwilling to address them amounts to a violation of the very principles of democracy. The struggle against Koodankulam is yet another episode in the larger struggle for justice, meaningful democracy, and truly sustainable development.

— Charkha Features