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Back to
streets General
promise |
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Dhoni’s
charge
Military
rule in neighbourhood
Laughter
challenge
Left
behind: the ‘Dalit Muslim’ The
world is losing its treasure of languages Migrants
have enriched Punjab
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Back to streets AT the best of times, democracy has been a difficult, if not endangered, project in Nepal. In perilous times, as at present, the votaries of democracy appear to be driven more by their differences than what they have in common. The current crisis facing Nepal has been precipitated with the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist resigning from the interim government headed by Prime Minister G P Koirala. The four Maoist ministers, who joined the Seven-Party Alliance government in April, as a sequel to the signing of a comprehensive peace agreement, have handed in their papers and revived the war cry to take the battle to the streets. The threat to disrupt the November 22 elections to the constituent assembly would appear to vindicate the Cassandras who have always doubted the Maoists’ commitment, and willingness, to join the mainstream of multiparty democracy. However, it is too early to conclude that the Maoists are out of the electoral race or that they have parted ways with the SPA. First, Mr Koirala has not accepted the resignations of the Maoist ministers. Second, the Maoist supremo, Prachanda, did not turn up to address the post-resignation rally, suggesting that there is scope for negotiations. Third, the SPA and the Maoists have agreed to talk and the SPA government has said that it has no problem in accepting 20 of the 22 demands made by the Maoists as a precondition for continuing in the government. The two conditions that are unacceptable are that Nepal should be declared a republic before the elections, and that it should opt for a proportional electoral system. The latter would mean postponement of the elections, and insistence on this would make the Maoist motives more suspect. When the Maoists signed the peace agreement, they accepted that the future of the monarchy would be decided by the constituent assembly. And, since then, all the seven ruling parties have pledged themselves to abolish the monarchy and making Nepal a republic. Given this background, it is hard to see what compulsions prevailed on the Maoists to opt out of the government now and revive the uncertainty over the elections that would have paved the way for a republican form of government.
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General promise WHAT President General Pervez Musharraf promised to the Pakistan Supreme Court on Tuesday was, perhaps, the best course he could think of to perpetuate his rule for another five years. He says he will relinquish the post of army chief after getting re-elected as President. His term ends on November 15. The Election Commission has obediently amended the law to enable him to contest the presidential poll, to be held before October 15. The General’s well-known plan is to use the present National and Provincial Assemblies to secure his position despite his eligibility having been challenged in the apex court. Since the ruling PML (Q) is not in a position to ensure his re-election, it seems Ms Benazir Bhutto has quietly given her party’s support as part of an undeclared deal with the General. He has stated that he will take the oath of office as a civilian. But who will believe the General? He had reached an accord with the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) to doff his uniform before December 31, 2004, and made a televised declaration to this effect on December 25, 2003. He got the 17th Amendment (incorporating the so-called Legal Framework Order) to the constitution passed with the MMA’s help. But a month before he had to honour his promise, he changed his mind and got a law enacted to remain as President as well as army chief. The All Parties’ Democratic Movement is, therefore, justified in threatening to invalidate the electoral college by asking its members to resign from the present assemblies, irrespective of the Supreme Court’s verdict. Legal luminary Aitzaz Ahsan is right in saying that the General today finds himself in a blind alley. It will be difficult for him to bypass the court ruling on any pretext if it debars him from contesting the election. In that situation he may try to continue as army chief while having his wife Sehba elected as President with the help of Ms Bhutto’s party. But this, too, is not as easy as it appears. What is certain is that Pakistan is heading towards uncertainty, which will not be good for peace in South Asia.
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Dhoni’s charge MAHENDRA SINGH DHONI finds himself propelled to the one-day captaincy, following Rahul Dravid’s hasty exit. The whole sequence of events has a sense of breathlessness to it, which reflects the continued state of flux that Indian cricket is in. As the captain of the Indian Twenty20 team that is having quite a rough time in South Africa in the ongoing world cup, he was the obvious choice for the top ODI job. Given the nature of the games that are coming up, both at home and abroad, things will only get tougher. Dhoni has already shown he has the talent and the temperament to succeed at the highest level, and he will have to master the unforgiving art of captaincy with the same urgency he displays while chasing down a big total. Dilip Vengsarkar, the Chairman of Selectors, has denied that Sachin Tendulkar was in any way “offered” the job of captaining either the one-day or Test sides. Sachin’s period at the helm was not particularly successful or memorable, and to make him captain again, after all these years, would have been a sad reflection on the reserve strength we have been able to create. As it is, Dhoni finds himself leading a team with three former captains, all of them in the 10,000-plus runs club. Dravid has talked about the shelf-life of a captain steadily coming down over the years, but Australia, the best team in the world, does not seem to have any such problems. Dhoni thus finds himself leading the Indian one-day side with a team that is still unsettled. And the game itself is going through changes, with the Twenty20 format evidently finding favour with fans. On the positive side, there are talented youngsters in the team, and batsmen like Karthik, Gambhir and Uthappa would be looking to prove they can fill the huge space that Sachin, Sourav and Rahul will vacate at some point. Dhoni will have to find a way to enjoy the captaincy, even as he ensures that his own game does not become a casualty.
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Men must be taught as if you taught them not,/ And things unknown proposed as things forgot. — Alexander Pope
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Military rule in neighbourhood
Non-interference
in the internal affairs of other countries was a cardinal part of Jawaharlal Nehru’s five principles of peaceful coexistence. But after the end of the Cold War the western world led by the United States has been very selective about its demands for democracy across the world. Authoritarian rulers, ranging from Gen Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan to President Ilham Aliyev in Azerbaijan, have been treated with kid gloves, while others and notably the military rulers of Myanmar have been made virtual punching bags for sermons and sanctions in the name of democracy. While military rule in Pakistan is acknowledged as a fact of life, what is often forgotten is that the countries to our east either have one-party rule like China or have experienced frequent military coups. Three countries — Bangladesh, Myanmar and Thailand — with whom we share land and maritime frontiers, play a crucial role in our Look East policy. Thailand has periodically faced military coups, with the latest takeover on September 20, 2006, when Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was overthrown. Bangladesh has a turbulent history of military rule with a state of emergency declared on January 12, 2007, and Lt-General Moeenuddin Ahmed backing a new Interim Government set up the next day. Military coups in Bangladesh are so endemic that Lt-General Ziaur Rehman faced 21 such attempts during his five-year rule before he was assassinated on the 22nd attempt. India has wisely refrained from commenting on the military takeover in Thailand, given the stature of the universally respected monarch there. Even on Bangladesh, India’s comments have largely reflected genuine concern that in the political vacuum that now prevails, fundamentalist parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami and their affiliated jihadi organisations would fill the corridors of power. Ever since the military takeover in Myanmar in 1988 that country has been the target of western anger. The ruling junta believes, rightly or wrongly, that Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters are being propped up primarily to promote British and American interests. After considerable deliberations, New Delhi’s policies towards Myanmar have been driven by two considerations — the need to cooperate in dealing with insurgencies along the border and to balance China’s growing influence in Myanmar. The Myanmar government, in turn, has been cooperative on issues of border management. Myanmar has also shown its readiness to cooperate with India in developing hydroelectric projects, communications links and in oil and gas exploration. But recent western policies of seeking to impose sanctions on Myanmar have unfortunately driven that country even closer to China. In September 2006, the US led an effort to include the situation in Myanmar on the agenda of the UN Security Council in the face of Chinese and Russian reservations. In January 2007, Russia and China vetoed a US-sponsored resolution seeking to end repression and release political prisoners in Myanmar. While Belgium, France, the UK, Ghana, Italy, Peru and Slovakia backed the US, South Africa joined Russia and China to vote against the resolution with Indonesia, Qatar and Congo abstaining. Chinese Ambassador Weng Guangya described the resolution as interference in Myanmar’s internal affairs, and Russia’s Vitaly Churkin said that such issues were better handled by the Human Rights Council than the Security Council. Myanmar’s ASEAN neighbours, however, are split on the entire issue. No consensus on the issue was possible at the ASEAN Summit in the Philippines in January 2007. The Chinese veto in the UN Security Council has had important economic and security implications for India. Yielding to Chinese pressures following its veto, the Myanmar government decided that the gas produced in its offshore fields, in which the ONGC and GAIL have a 30 per cent stake, should be sold to China and not India. New Delhi must take its share of blame for this development because of its harebrained proposal to build a pipeline through Bangladesh. It failed to take off owing to entirely predictable but unacceptable Bangladeshi preconditions, leading to an inordinate delay in our coming up with a sensible proposal for transportation of the gas. In the meantime, China also utilised its political leverage to get exploration rights for gas and oil in the sensitive Rakhine (Arakan) province of Myanmar adjacent to its borders with India. Moreover, an agreement has been reached for two major pipeline projects to carry gas and oil from Myanmar to the landlocked Chinese province of Yunan. These projects will lead to the development of two strategically located ports in Myanmar —Sittwe and Kyaukpyu. We are gong to see for the first time Chinese presence close to our land borders, east of the Irrawady river, and major port facilities on our eastern doorstep. It will be China rather than India which will be exploring the estimated reserves of 13.4 to 47.3 trillion cubic feet of gas in Myanmar, astride the Bay of Bengal. China’s strategy of chaining a “string of pearls” to surround India is now becoming clear. Shortly after the visit of former Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji to Islamabad in 2001 General Musharraf told a Pakistani journalist at the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs that in the event of a conflict, or escalating tensions with India, Pakistan would not hesitate to provide naval facilities to China at Gwadar port located at the mouth of the Persian Gulf in Balochistan, built with Chinese assistance. (China has since agreed to provide Pakistan four naval frigates.) China has also sought to develop port facilities in Hambantota in Sri Lanka and in the Maldives and Seychelles. A Chinese admiral remarked sarcastically over a decade ago: “The Indian Ocean is not India’s Ocean.” China appears determined to build the requisite infrastructure to develop its naval presence surrounding India to reinforce its sustained diplomacy to preempt Indian efforts to gain access to new sources of oil and gas. China’s skilful diplomacy in Myanmar, which has resulted in the installation of radars in the Cocos Islands off the Andaman Coast, capable of monitoring Indian fleet movements and missile tests, and its determination to develop Sittwe and Kyaukpyu are all a part of this strategy of containment of India. Complementing the strategy is its “soft power” to use its “Trojan Horses” within India to advocate its cause and gloss over issues like China’s claims to Arunachal Pradesh, its nuclear and missile proliferation to Pakistan and its efforts to frustrate Indian diplomacy in Nepal by joining Pakistan to provide weapons to the then embattled and unpopular monarch in the kingdom. Do we have the unity, will and vision to meet this
challenge?
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Laughter challenge
Perfectionist. That is how I would describe my wife in one word. She wants everything first-rate. Alas, choosing the man in her life she was a little careless. Her folly she realised early. And ever since has lost no opportunity to refashion me into an improved version — mind, body and soul. Some time back, reading about a survey on what women look in men, she found that sense of humour topped the list. Suddenly, she awakened to yet another imperfection in me. “How often do you laugh in a day?” She asked “Well, I never count. “I said. “You know children laugh about 350 times in a day. You must laugh at least 100 times!” Now that was too much. On her prodding, I already had to solve one sudoku and one crossword daily to keep my grey cells from greying. I said, “But what do I laugh at?” “Well, to begin with just look at your face in the mirror!” she said laughingly. A poor joke that was. But the message was home. I decided to pep up my humour. Since then, my life became a never-ending quest for humour. Surprisingly, I discovered it easily. Here, there and everywhere. Hey, one has to give just a little twist to the situation to laugh, I realised. One day, after a meeting with subordinate officers, in which I found it difficult to keep my cool, I said, “I must say that if I were you, I would refuse to work with a boss like me.” The laughter it drew was truly genuine. And we all parted on a pleasant note. Another day, I told my PA, “Please keep the phone free. I am expecting a call from myself”, and laughed at his puzzlement. Next, I targeted my driver. Once, when he opened the car-door for me to get down, I quickly got out from the other side suppressing my laugh and leaving him red-faced. Thus fortifying myself with humour pills, I decided to show my funny side to my wife. One evening, as she brought tea and was adding sugar, I said, “Make it three spoonfuls!” She was a bit surprised but did as I had told her. But as soon as she added the sugar I picked up the other cup — the one with sugar free pills meant for her, and began to sip merrily. For a pregnant moment she was nonplussed. Then seeing how hard I was trying to suppress a laugh, she started laughing. And well, I passed the
test.
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Left behind: the ‘Dalit Muslim’ It
is more likely than not that in protecting and expanding their respective slices of the cake, the upper as well as the lower strata among Muslims will draw their own respective conclusions from the experiences of the corresponding strata among Hindus. It is true that the Muslims are less stratified than Hindus by distinctions like caste. But “caste” by other names is present among Muslims as well, all the more in the huge expanse of the Gangetic basin which is home to a large proportion of them. Therefore, non-Muslim precedents have value for them as well. A beginning by the lowest among the Hindus had been made easier for them by Gandhi. But when they began to aspire for more, they were hit on the head by something harder than customs, and that then became the biggest issue in the internal politics of the Hindus. In this fight the lower caste Hindus have been protected mostly, and increasingly, by their ability to muster their numbers as voters, behind candidates known to have either caste or ideological affinities with them. In this way they have been able to increase their clout in the affairs of state by means clearly available to all Indians under the Constitution. What influence will this precedent have on the future political behaviour of the lower strata among the Muslims? They join the better off Muslims, naturally, in pressing the claims of the community as a whole. But what comes to “the whole” in proportion to their numbers does not proportionately reach the poorer Muslims because the richer can get to it quicker. How will the rich and the poor among Muslims negotiate this gap between the two? Informal affiliations do exist among and between some groups of Muslims, and to some extent they play their part in shaping their electoral preferences. But first of all, they exist rather less among the poorer Muslims than among the corresponding strata of Hindus. Secondly, they are more overshadowed at present by the greater self-awareness among all Muslims as Muslims, and thirdly, it is unable to compete with the greater self-awareness among the better off Muslims. The position has been rather different among the Hindus for a long time, because the poorer Hindus have more than caught up with the better off Hindus in political self-awareness. Which section of Muslims will pick up which one of the many implications of this difference? The role of all these three factors is very different among the Hindus, where one caste is pitted against another caste and each sharpens its political claws against the other. Of course it would be better for all Hindus and all Muslims, and therefore for all Indians and the country as a whole, if caste cleavages disappeared, and indeed they are doing so gradually. But one is looking at the issue in terms of probabilities in a nearer future. In the real world a part is being played by another factor, which unfortunately is also working more against the poorer strata among Muslims than against either the upper strata of Muslims or against the lower strata of non-Muslims. The upper strata of all communities are of course much less dependent upon job reservations for their wellbeing than are those in lower strata. Such reservations, therefore, are themselves reserved only for the lowest strata. Among them too, however, they are reserved by criteria which exclude the Muslims. It is not difficult to understand and accept the logic behind the exclusion, but it has an unfortunate consequence for the poorest among Muslims. According to this logic a public job cannot be reserved for a poor man only because he is poor, and not even if he is poor because he has been jobless for long through no fault on his part. It can be reserved for him only if he has remained jobless as a result of long discrimination against his community by the state or by dominant sections of society. The latter in fact is what “casteism” by the state or society had done to the lowest Hindu castes, and because of which compensatory job reservations were brought in for candidates belonging to the adversely affected communities. But Islam denies that there is any such casteism among Muslims. Nor is there sufficient evidence of discrimination by the state against them. It is in these circumstances that an interesting new phrase, “Dalit Muslims”, gained currency in recent years. It sought to extend to poorer Muslims remedial prescriptions which were initially meant for “Dalits” as such, which is the most comprehensive word for the “downtrodden” of all sections of Indian people and society, by-passing divisions of religion and caste. But it seems to have found only limited, if any, acceptance in the political discourse among or by the Muslims, as voiced from platforms which are more widely recognised as, and certainly claim to be, the authentic political voice of Muslims. It remains focused upon the demands or expectations of the Muslims as such, reaffirming their position that Muslims are not concerned with any internal differences of this kind among Muslims. At the same time the Constitution does not allow for job reservations for anyone on the basis of his religious denomination. One suggestion that has been made is if job reservations or other compensatory benefits of development could not be awarded to “Muslims” as such, then areas which had a high concentration of Muslims who are “backward” (a term permitted in the Constitution) should be identified, and given preference for locating the state’s development programmes. But that would focus the voters’ attention more on “areas” than on “communities”. Therefore that did not appeal to the political purpose of various parties which were in power at the centre and in the states, their purpose being to attract the electoral attention of particular “communities”, especially the “minorities.” And so the suggestion could not find favour and the future of “Dalit Muslims” remains as it was.
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The world is losing its treasure of languages Every
fortnight, another language dies; some 40 per cent of the world’s languages are thought to be at risk. Now a new study has identified those that are most endangered. Linguists believe half the languages in the world will be extinct by the end of the century. The 80 major languages such as English, Russian and Mandarin are spoken by about 80 per cent of the global population, while the 3,500 linguistic minnows have just 0.2 per cent of the world keeping them alive. “The pace of language extinction we’re seeing, it’s really unprecedented in human history,” said Dr David Harrison, author of the book When Languages Die. “And it’s happening faster than the extinction of flora and fauna. More than 40 per cent of the world’s languages could be considered endangered compared to 8 per cent of plants and 18 per cent of mammals.” When dolphins or eagles become extinct, people can get sentimental and mourn their passing but the death of a language is an unnoticed event, despite the fact it’s happening more frequently, with one language being killed off every fortnight. Globalisation and migration are the main culprits. Economic pressures force people to move from their village to the cities, local languages are coming under threat from the lingua franca of the workplace. Children also play a key role in killing of a language, such as a child growing up speaking Mayan and Spanish soon figuring out that Spanish is better because it’s spoken in school and on television. A study by Dr Harrison and Greg Anderson, the director of the Living Tongues Institute, has identified five hotspots for endangered languages around the world n Northern Australia, Central South America, Oklahoma and the south-west USA, the Northwest Pacific Plateau and Eastern Siberia. Losing languages means losing cultural insights. The often-quoted examples of Eskimos having many words for snow, or Africans having many of words for rice are perhaps overly-familiar. But did you know that the 200 or so people who speak Toratá* on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi have a word for waking up and finding something’s changed? Open your eyes and find you’ve fallen out of bed in the night? Matuwuhou! Or find yourself herding reindeer with Todzhu people of Siberia and want to point out a particularly charming, five-year-old castrated reindeer that can be ridden? The word you’re looking for is chary. And the loss of languages also often means a loss of identity. Serge Sagna, a Senegalese PhD student at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, who returned to his village recently to study its Bandial language, can personally testify to that. “My identity is completely bound up in my language. It reflects a whole history without which we cannot move forward.” But perhaps more important than the individual words and cultural diversity are the vast chunks of human knowledge that accompany languages to the grave. “We live in the information age, where information and knowledge are supposed to be of value, and we’re running the risk of jettisoning millennia of knowledge,” Dr Harrison said. “Most of what we know about endangered species is encoded in languages that have never been written down. So in saving languages we may be able to help save species and eco-systems,” The 4,000 speakers of Brzail’s Kayapo tongue differentiate between 56 folk species of bees, based on anything from flight patterns to the quality of honey. The Kallawaya herbalist healers living in Bolivia, have gone one step further. For the past 500 years, they have encrypted their knowledge of thousands of medicinal plants in a secret language handed down in the practitioner families from father to son. It’s patenting by language, as it were. “Kallawaya is an excellent example of a language that could be patented for both its form and content, for the economic well-being of the community that invented it, and for protection against predatory pharmaceutical corporations that seek to exploit that knowledge without recompense,” says Dr Harrison. In Australia, Doris Edgar is one of the last three remaining speakers of Yawuru. Ms Edgar, in her 80s, visits schools in the town of Broome, imparting to eager pupils the Yawuru names of local plants and their traditional uses. Dr Anderson reckons it takes three to four years to adequately document a language at a cost of up to £ 200,000. “We have people and communities that desire our help to save their language, what we lack are the funds to do that,” he said. By arrangement with
The Independent
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Migrants have enriched Punjab The
influx of migrant labourers to Punjab is a subject of intense interest and debate both within and without the state. Economists talk about the contribution of the labourers in the state’s growth. Politicians view them as huge vote banks and an easy crowd to arrange for rallies. Sociologists, acknowledging migration is a natural phenomenon, talk about its negative effects on the demographic scene. Hardliners call it a negative side-effect of industrialisation, damaging to Punjab’s culture and tradition. Some signboards pasted by them on highways call upon people to “throw them out” and with far-fetched imagination they have suggested that it is a plot “weaved by the Centre to keep Punjabis a minority in their own state.” Very few, however, are aware that the flow of migrants to Punjab is not a recent phenomenon. True, industrialisation and paddy cultivation have given it a massive fillip in the past decade but people from down-trodden states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh were always making a beeline to Punjab – a land of opportunities for them. During research conducted by this writer on migration under the aegis of the Prem Bhatia Memorial Trust young journalist scholarship, it was found that Punjab has been the El Dorado for the natives of the poor states as long as a century ago. Rauni Jhuggian village on Patiala-Nabha road is a living testimony to that. Over a century ago, labourers came here for road construction work besides looking for openings in horticulture. Today, concrete houses have come up in place of huts. The present generation is as Punjabi as the natives. The sarpanch of the village, is Ram Kali whose husband Mangu Ram Passey was the first sarpanch of the village in 1993 when it was separated from Rauni village. His great grandfather Sant Ram who belonged to Unao district in Uttar Pradesh was the first to come to Punjab in the early 20th century. Their successive generations were born and brought up here and followed the profession of gardening, which was a natural vocation for them. It is a common knowledge that more than 90 per cent of gardeners in Punjab on government or private posts were and still are descendants of these migrants. They have completely gelled with the Punjabi population. They speak more fluent Punjabi than the locals. This is not an isolated village. Scores of such places exist in Amritsar district. Of late, labourers have completely taken over the villages in the outskirts of Ludhiana, especially those around the Industrial area. Despite 60 years of Independence, development and employment opportunities continue to bypass Bihar and UP. People have land but no irrigation and power. They have mines but no employment. It is ironic that the same people travel thousands of kilometres to work day and night in Punjab, while their fields remain unattended or under cultivated due to lack of infrastructure. They do not get employment for the whole month like in Punjab. Over 70 per cent of the 300 respondents revealed they earned between Rs 1000- 2000 a month in Bihar whereas they easily earn more than Rs 3500 in Punjab. Then there are a wide range of jobs available for men, women, children and aged parents too in Punjab – ironing, working in houses, shops, baby sitting, cooking, cleaning cars, masonry are a few of the over 20 such vocations. Bihar is rich in mineral resources, yet the full potential of industrialisation is yet to be explored. Bihar coal and other products are shipped to other states where factories are located. The industrialists are shying of setting up units there due to the prevalent law and order problems and the rampant corruption in the government work. Migration will be checked only if the ground situation changes in Bihar. Is it bad for Punjab? No, Punjab definitely gains from this huge human resource. The effect on demography cannot be ignored at the same time. Despite outcries here and there it has accepted and incorporated the migrants in the culture. Industrial growth due to migrants is an accepted fact, so is their contribution in agriculture. The advantage is not limited to these two fields only. There are many farmers, small land holders and politicians, especially municipal councilors, who are minting money by making vehras (a place with a high number of small size rooms) for migrants. Here labourers live in shifts, meaning in the same room two to three groups of labourers stay. The owner gets rent from all. Many have discarded poultry farms and converted it into
vehras.
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