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No right of rejection Empty schools Towards bankruptcy |
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Judicial lapses
Rice to the occasion
General Musharraf’s
self-inflicted crisis Art was always close to Sanjay Dutt’s life Delhi Durbar
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No right of rejection JUSTICE
B.N. Srikrishna hit the nail on the head when he said that it should be mandatory for the government to act upon the report of a judicial commission appointed by it. In other words, the government should not sit on the recommendations of such a commission. Justice Srikrishna seems to have relied on his own personal experience as the one-man commission which inquired into the 1992-93 Mumbai riots when he made this demand in a newspaper interview. He spent five long years to complete his inquiry during which time he pored over thousands of pages of affidavits and legal documents and cross-examined hundreds of witnesses. At the end of it, he found clear evidence of complicity against as many as 31 police officers and several political leaders. By common consent, the Srikrishna Commission report was one of the most exhaustive reports. The judge did not spare anyone. He called a spade a spade, no matter what position one held in the government or in public life. It is difficult to imagine a more forthright and impartial report. Yet, successive governments in Maharashtra have been glossing over the report while those whom it has severely indicted have been getting periodic promotions in service or enjoying the limelight. In the meanwhile, thousands of people who lost their relations or were pauperised by the riots have been crying for justice. Unless the Supreme Court intervenes like it did in the Best Bakery case in Gujarat, it is unlikely that justice will ever be done in the Mumbai riots cases. For most governments, appointing an inquiry commission is one sure way of dousing flames in a given situation. Often, the purpose is not to find the truth and punish the guilty. During the last 60 years of Independence, dozens of such commissions have been appointed to hoodwink the public. In many cases, their reports were consigned to the dustbin. Justice Srikrishna has a pertinent point to make. During the five years he inquired into the Mumbai riots, he could have, instead, disposed of at least 20,000 cases. He mentions several countries like South Africa and Australia where it is obligatory for the government to implement the recommendations of inquiry commissions. Justice demands that his advice is taken seriously so that no government dares to waste public money on commissions of inquiry. |
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Empty schools WHILE we have always bemoaned the dreary state of government sector school education in the country, it is shocking that 32,000 schools, more than half of them primary schools, do not have a single student. Apparently, they don’t have any teachers worth the name in the first place. That they continue to be called schools at all is a pointer to the fact that some basic infrastructure exists, perhaps a building and a blackboard. That the system has not been able to staff this shell with the first pre-requisite, a single, reasonably competent teacher, is a telling comment on the unforgivable neglect that this sector continues to face. The sufferers are millions of children from rural and disadvantaged backgrounds, who have been denied access to a basic right. In his budget earlier this year, the finance minister had promised funds for 5,00,000 new classrooms and 1,50,000 more teachers. Whether the process of creating them has been put into place is anybody’s guess. That such a large number of classrooms and teachers are required itself shows that the problem is more widespread than the 32,000 schools identified in the report by the National University of Educational Planning and Administration. Teaching quality and facilities are abysmal in most schools, in spite of the fact that the government spends more per child than private schools do. The government increased spending on education by more than 30 per cent this year, with the allocation for education going up to more than Rs 24,000 crore. Almost a third of this, more than Rs 10,000 crore, is for the much touted Sarva Siksha Abhiyan scheme, which aims at universal school enrolment and a near-perfect retention rate. Launched in 2001, it has had some notional success, with the number of children outside school coming down to a crore. But the state of affairs clearly indicates that the totted-up scores are misleading and much more needs to be done. There should be no place for empty schools and left-out children in a shining India. |
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Towards bankruptcy THAT Punjab has been in a financial mess is known. But few, perhaps, expected the deterioration so fast and so soon. Media reports indicate the government has stopped making payments of TA/DA bills and discontinued provident fund withdrawals. Only salaries of employees are paid. Next year the government requires an additional sum of Rs 1,500 crore to implement the pay commission’s interim report. The crisis has deepened due to a 30-per cent decline in stamp duty collections and a 20-per cent fall in small savings. So common is tax evasion that one MNC pays more tax to the government than the entire industry in Ludhiana. The successive governments in Punjab have survived on borrowed money. The last Badal government had left behind Rs 32,000 crore as debt. The Amarinder Singh government too borrowed heavily and pushed the state debt to Rs 53,000 crore. Having done that, it is not proper for Captain Amarinder Singh to point the accusing finger at the Badal government. Taxes are opposed, but few understand and object to loans. Besides, competitive populism has driven successive governments in Punjab to avoid imposing fresh taxes or user-charges on utilities. Instead, power and water are supplied free to a large section of society. Now the ‘dal-wheat’ scheme will cost the exchequer Rs 527 crore. Politics prevails over economics. Some hard decisions are required which the Badal government, given its reputation for freebies, is unlikely to take. It should scrap the post of parliamentary secretary, cut down the strength of IAS/IPS officers to the sanctioned number, wind up or sell off all loss-making state enterprises, limit official trips abroad and slash VIP security. Effective governance is the main requisite. A smaller state like Haryana has a higher revenue collection than Punjab. If ongoing projects are held up on flimsy grounds and the Dera issue is allowed to vitiate the peaceful environment, why would anyone invest in Punjab? |
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Crime isn’t a disease, it’s a symptom. Cops are like a doctor that gives you aspirin for a brain tumour.
— Raymond Chandler |
Judicial lapses As
in Gujarat earlier, the Supreme Court has had to intervene in a criminal case in yet another state ruled by the BJP. Following complaints that the law was not being allowed to follow its own course in the case of the murder of Prof. H. S. Sabharwal in Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh, the court has expressed concern that the matter might turn out to be “another Best Bakery case” in which the accused were acquitted by a trial court in Gujarat after the witnesses turned hostile. “What action have you taken”, asked the court while staying the hearing of the Ujjain case, “against those police officers who resiled from their earlier statements? Would not the trial be a mockery if your police officers turn hostile? Our anxiety is that every police officer will be given a clean chit. We have seen what has happened in the Best Bakery case”. As is known, the Supreme Court had to order the staging of trials in Maharashtra in the Best Bakery and several other cases because it didn’t think that a fair judicial process was possible in Gujarat. The same apprehension is being expressed in Madhya Pradesh although Professor Sabharwal’s death, following an assault on him by students and outsiders, took place in the presence of a large contingent of the police and hundreds of onlookers and in full view of television cameras. Yet, the public prosecutors have been unable to pin the blame on anyone because of the witnesses changing their testimony, evidently under political pressure. That the accused belong to the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarathi Parishad, the BJP’s student wing, is not without significance in this context. This palpable failure of the criminal justice system is a sad commentary on the concerned states. Ideally, all such cases should be settled within a state with no need for the Supreme Court to intervene. The judges in the High Court and at lower levels should be competent enough to ensure that the law of the land is not violated in any way. For instance, the cases relating to the 2002 Gujarat riots should have been resolved within the state to the satisfaction of the human rights organisations. It is a mystery why they weren’t because, unlike the police and the bureaucracy, the judiciary is supposed to be isolated from political currents, however strong and vicious. Yet, as in Ujjain, the long arm of the law in Gujarat was apparently not long enough because of its susceptibility to manipulations by the lawyers of the accused. The apex court had to step in more than once, therefore, with words that are hardly complimentary. It noted that “when the investigating agency helps the accused, the witnesses are threatened to depose falsely and the prosecutor acts in a manner as if he was defending the accused, and the court was acting merely as an onlooker and there is no fair trial at all, justice becomes the victim”. Under these dubious circumstances, “it would have been proper for the high court to accept the prayer for additional evidence and/or a retrial”. Since none of this was done, the Supreme Court felt that the judiciary in Gujarat lacked a “judicious approach and objective consideration, as is expected of a court”. Since the same fallacies are seemingly also being committed in Madhya Pradesh, it may not be besides the point to wonder whether the atmosphere in a BJP-ruled state is not vitiated in such a way that it impairs the acts of governance in all its multiple facets. That the administration in Gujarat was suborned during and after the riots is by now well known. The police mostly stood by during the outbreak except where it was led by conscientious officers, and the inaction of the force was evidently in response to directives from the political bosses. After the riots, the police failed either to locate the culprits or find sufficient evidence to nail them. And even when the police did put up before the courts a few witnesses courageous enough to testify against the rioters, knowing full well that the latter have powerful political backing, it was not surprising when many of the witnesses developed cold feet and retracted their earlier statements. The government’s complicity was noted by the Supreme Court. It said, “The role of the state government leaves much to be desired … Those who are responsible for protecting life and properties and ensuring that investigation is fair and proper seem to have shown no real anxiety … The modern-day ‘Neros’ were looking elsewhere when Best Bakery and innocent children and helpless women were burning, and were probably deliberating how the perpetrators of the crime can be saved or protected. Law and justice become flies in the hands of these ‘wanton boys’”. There can be no stronger indictment of a government. However, it will not be fair to blame the saffron states alone. The judiciary has apparently come under a cloud in Tamil Nadu as well considering that the Supreme Court has asked the state government whether a case involving Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi’s eldest son, M.K.Azhagiri, should not be transferred for hearing in Karnataka. The apex court’s intervention followed a complaint by one of the witnesses that a fair trial cannot be expected in Madurai where Azhagiri wields considerable influence. The case relates to the murder of a DMK politician who was supposed to be close to M.K.Stalin, the Chief Minister’s younger son and heir apparent, whose relations with Azhagiri are not of the best. One can understand, therefore, why former President A.P.J.Abdul Kalam said before relinquishing office that the “shortage of leadership with nobility” was compelling the people to look to the “judiciary with its excellence and impeccable integrity” for the redressal of their grievances. However, a caveat may have to be entered at this point because it is now virtually only the Supreme Court which can be credited with excellence and integrity since the judicial system in the states hasn’t always been up to the mark. It is obvious, however, that if the latter fails to deliver justice, especially in cases involving powerful politicians, the burden on the Supreme Court will become too great, thereby perhaps impairing its function as well. The reluctance of the state governments to implement the apex court’s directive on insulating the police from the politicians is understandable in this context. Like the British before them, today’s ruling class of all political hues also believes in using the police, the coercive arm of the state, to serve them first before turning their attention to the ordinary people. The politician-bureaucrat-criminal nexus, as noted by the N.N.Vohra committee, is the bane of Indian politics today. This clandestine link has been of immense benefit to the criminals, who have realised that the police cannot touch them if they provide the politicians with muscle power at the time of riots or elections. The resultant corruption bred in the police also enables influential people with money to bend the law in their favour. Only the Supreme Court seems to stand at present as a bulwark against injustice because of the “shortage of leadership with nobility” not only among politicians, but also among the civil servants. It is time the high courts and the lower courts also played a more active role in preserving the law in letter and spirit.
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Rice to the occasion
Rice-sowing
in the rural setting was once much more than a “celebration event.” We eagerly waited for the rainy season, to be in our village, to witness the paddy transplantation, which besides being an agriculture chore, had a sporty punch of frolicking and fun. Folklore, folk jest, rustic splashes, muddy meshing, slipping and sliding, howling and hurling — all this made what till today, despite my migrating to an urban environment, is a long cherished memory of an era gone by. The dwarf varieties of rice, with big yields, were not known then.We grew only the Basmati rice, known the entire world over, for its aroma and taste. The plant grew to the size of a human being. If you could not be seen wading through the Basmati crop close to maturity, rural folks would greet you for an expected bumper harvest. The nursery had to be prepared a month in advance, with extra attention being paid to keep the plot filled with water. When in mid-July, the transplantation would begin, the surrogate fields awaited arrival of the one foot long shoots, to allow their embryonic life with them. Children mostly were given the task of carrying the “guchhi” — a bunch . Women did the actual transplant, while singing folk songs, and gossiping, and even feeding their infants. Men had by the day, generally, already played their part, in preparing the fields but some were there to level up the elevations, in all the muddy slush. White variety of the avians were there cleansing mud on their white feathers. They would squeak shrieks on finding worms and always followed in tow, the men ploughing through. These implements were indigenous ones — state-of-the-art types — run with bullocks. Once in a while, one of the bullocks would get stuck, enlivening the atmosphere with everyone present taking a loud and fun-poking dig, at the ‘fallen bull’. Caterpillar like insects, with a set of more than a score legs, slithering one upon the other, would be seen around in great numbers. Shivers of malarial fever, catching up with one or more of those working, was a common sight. The remedy too was simple. Just lie down at a dry place and allow the shivers fulsomely. An hour into the bouts and one was back to work. There couldn’t be an early break for food, except for those who had come to the fields before the sunrise, to channelise the water source. Jumbo sized bread, onion, green chili, pickle and lassi made the meal. Mangoes, or cooked vegetables, mostly saag, made it really a “sumptuous meal”. Nowadays when I visit my village, I always see the Bihari labour working in the paddy fields. Gone is the “celebration event”. Even Basmati doesn’t taste so good and has lost its aroma. Thanks to Americans who ‘attempted’ a patent! Or the Biharis who have been ‘transplanted’ by us only! And a spray of country liquor on the paddy plants may turn the fields into vineyards soon. Hurray! Hail the new order. |
General Musharraf’s
self-inflicted crisis ISLAMABAD — General Pervez Musharraf is a man accustomed to getting his way, and for nearly eight years as this country’s formidably powerful ruler, he almost always has. But on March 9, his fortunes abruptly changed when the country’s chief justice refused to resign under government pressure. Musharraf has gone on to endure a spectacular series of disappointments that have left him isolated from his friends and dependent on his enemies if he wants to stay in office. With his country in turmoil, caught between democracy and autocracy, between radical Islam and secular moderation, the nation’s president and army chief is locked in a struggle just to survive. Critics – and, increasingly, supporters – say Musharraf has only himself to blame. His habit of postponing tough decisions, they say, has finally caught up with him. There is an invigorated insurgency by al-Qaida and Taliban militants have vowed to oust Musharraf in favor of a hard-line theocracy. He faces an energetic pro-democracy movement that is itching for the chance to send Musharraf and his fellow generals back to their barracks. And from the US, he faces growing doubts that he is up to the task of eliminating alleged terrorist havens on Pakistani soil. The conflicting pressures are taking their toll. In four months, Musharraf’s approval rating in Pakistan dropped 20 points, down to 34 percent as of early July, according to an opinion poll released last week by the International Republican Institute, a US government-funded nonprofit that promotes democracy around the world. It was the first time that the percentage of Pakistani respondents approving of Musharraf had fallen below half. The former commando prides himself on an ability to escape difficult circumstances, and it is possible he will find a way to emerge this time as well. At the moment, his hope for salvation comes from an unexpected source. He traveled to the United Arab Emirates recently to meet with a longtime nemesis, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and those close to him say agreeing to share power with her might be his best option for political survival. Even that is fraught with risk. Musharraf, who came to power in a military coup in 1999, is up for re-election by Parliament this fall, and if the deal with Bhutto collapses at the last minute, it is unclear whether he will have the necessary support to win another term. If the deal does go through, he faces the prospect of trying to govern with a woman he has decried as “corrupt” and representative of the “sham democracy” that preceded his tenure. For her part, Bhutto has repeatedly called Musharraf “a military dictator” and has said she will not ink any deal unless he resigns as army chief. Musharraf’s supporters say he probably will have to, even though his status in the army is seen as his primary source of influence. “I would expect that around New Year’s Day, you’ll see General Pervez Musharraf transformed into Mr. Pervez Musharraf, with a designer suit rather than the khaki uniform he has worn for the past 43 years,” said Mushahid Hussain, a top leader in Musharraf’s party. In some ways, Hussain said, Musharraf is a victim of his own success. He has presided over a period of greater prosperity for an emerging middle class. He has also allowed a proliferation of media outlets. The reinstated Chief Justice Iftikar Chaudhry is now in position to block Musharraf’s plans – including his bid to win a new term from a Parliament that was elected five years ago in balloting marred by irregularities. “Lawfully, he can do it. But morally, the Parliament’s at the end of its term,” said Ishaq Khan Khakwani, a government minister and member of Musharraf’s party. “How can it elect him again?” Khakwani said he suggested to Musharraf a year ago that he hold parliamentary elections in March 2007, and then win a fresh term from the new legislature. With Musharraf’s popularity running high, Khakwani argued, he would emerge even stronger. But the president was in no mood for the idea, several government insiders said, because he worried new elections could dilute his power. “He made a mistake,” Khakwani said. Delays have also hurt Musharraf in his battle against rising militancy in Pakistan, critics say. His handling of the standoff at the pro-Taliban Red Mosque in Islamabad seemed to illustrate the problem: Through months of provocations by the mosque’s radical clerics, Musharraf watched and waited. By the time he decided to take action, they had built up a fearsome arsenal and were prepared for a fight. The end of the standoff brought a wave of attacks that claimed more than 200 lives. It also coincided with the breakdown of a cease-fire in North Waziristan that had once been the centerpiece of Musharraf’s strategy for containing the Taliban threat. Although the 10-month-old deal officially died in July, observers of the tribal region along the border with Afghanistan had long said it wasn’t working. U.S. officials also have grown increasingly concerned that the area is being used as a sanctuary for al-Qaida fighters. Still, Musharraf clung to the deal. “If you say one lie, you have to say 10 more to cover that first one,” said retired Brig. Mehmood Shah, for years a top official in the tribal areas. “They called it a good agreement, and they went all the way to Washington to say so. They could not then turn around and say that it wasn’t.” By arrangement with
LA Times-Washington Post |
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Art was always close to Sanjay Dutt’s life
When
Judge Pramod Kode read Sanjay Dutt’s verdict of six years rigorous imprisonment, he noted that Dutt had an aura of criminality about him with his self-acknowledged close relationship with gangsters like Anees and Dawood Ibrahim, even attending a party hosted by Dawood in Dubai. Kode reflected on the character of the accused as being important while deciding on a jail term. He put in words what people already knew: the imminent and unfortunate blending of Dutt’s on and off screen persona. While Dutt began his meteoric film career with a personable image of a romantic in early hits like Rocky, Main Awara Hoon and Johnny I Love You, somewhere in the mid-1990s the movies he starred in (and his own personality) began to metamorphose from the comic-lover to something darker. The gun became the coveted and phallic symbol of the outsider, a symbol to which Dutt was particularly drawn. If one watches Dutt in films like Khauff, Baaghi, Jung and Vaastav one can notice a swagger, an indefinable something that makes him look just all too comfortable brandishing a weapon. We are drawn to this image of Dutt precisely because it appears so real. Kode’s verdict proves that it was real. An insistently imposing screen presence, Dutt has come to be a scarily persuasive villain. Though we have seen the softer side of the do-gooder gangster in Munnabhai and Hum Kisi Se Kum Nahin, it is the angry, tightly coiled, look of Kaante, Plan and Dus that audiences have come As the years went by, the differences between the real criminal and one he played on screen became less and less discernible. Besides illegal gun possession, he was investigated for alleged money-laundering deals between the Mumbai underworld and Bollywood and was caught in a taped conversation with gangsters accused of kidnapping, extortion and murder. A superstar onscreen did not translate to sympathetic audiences willing to forgive and forget. In a poll conducted by a national newspaper, the majority of Indians felt that Kode’s verdict was neither unfair nor wrong. While there was some ambivalence, 43 per cent of Indians agreed with the six-year prison term. There is a scene in Mahesh Manjrekar’s Hathyar where Dutt, with his liverish looks, takes a slug and tosses it into a vodka bottle and watches it float in the alcohol. He plays Rohit Shivalkar, nicknamed “Boxer Bhai”, a gangster caught up in street violence endemic to the chawls of South Mumbai. He is distraught when his wife, who, fed up with his violent ways, finally leaves him. The chromatically reduced palette of the film echoes the stark inner and outer worlds of Dutt, an alcoholic hit man on an uninterrupted bender. For Dutt, the chilling vodka bottle and the slug aren’t just a morning pick-me-up, it’s also a way of life and his closest companions. Today both Boxer Bhai and Sanjay Dutt sit in a dark cell in prison. |
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Delhi Durbar When
the Centre recently convened a meeting to chalk out programmes for the 150th anniversary of the First War of Independence, it did not bargain for the competing claims of different states for hosting the events. State representatives felt so strongly that a miffed Punjab public relations minister Bikram Singh Majithia went so far as to dismiss the meeting as a mere “gap-filling exercise”. He also put out a strongly-worded press statement in which he pointed out that various commemmorative events were discussed much “to the discomfort of Union ministers Ambika Soni and Arjun Singh” He wanted the programme to include some more “revolutionary” events like the Gadar movement, Jaito Morcha and Simon-go-back agitation.Almost on cue, the then Haryana education minister Phool Chand Mullana complained that his state’s contribution to the freedom movement had not been adequately highlighted and that the first freedom struggle movement had actually started from Ambala Cantonment.
Power centre Who are the three most powerful persons in the UPA government besides Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi? CPM general secretary Prakash Karat and Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel are the obvious names which come to mind instantly. But there’s a third person, who is not in the public eye, but wields as much power as the others. It is none other than Pulok Chatterjee, additional secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office and Sonia Gandhi’s former secretary. The official grapevine has it that Chatterjee virtually runs the show in the PMO and that he is responsible for virtually all key appointments in the government. It is said that little-known tourism secretary Christy Fernandez’s appointment as the new President’s secretary was Chatterjee’s doing, as was the appointment of former defence secretary Shekhar Dutt as deputy national security advisor.
Absent Pranab When the Congress Working Committee was convened last week to discuss the Indo-US civil nuclear energy agreement, it took everybody by surprise since it was being held in the absence of external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee, who was out of the country. Not only did the issue under discussion pertain to his ministry but it is Mukherjee, with his amazing memory of facts and figures, who invariably ends up doing all the explaining even when the agenda has nothing to do with his ministry It has now come out that Ahmed Patel, the Congress president’s political secretary, had asked Mukherjee if he could defer his trip to Bhutan by a day to enable him to attend the CWC meeting. The minister, however, said it would not be possible for him to rejig his schedule since his meetings in Thimpu had been fixed well in advance. In any case, Mukherjee said, the PM was there to respond to any questions. Contributed by Prashant Sood and Anita Katyal |
Look at these rituals “when the fire is lit. |
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