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Left on the deal Dizzy Sensex |
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Rain of sixers
CDS a pipedream
Bat and books
Regional Indian languages are languishing Centre should attend to Punjab farmers’ woes Delhi Durbar
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Left on the deal
POLITICS is the art of the possible. By now, it should, therefore, have been possible for the Left parties and the UPA government to sort out their differences on the India-US nuclear deal. Far from that, there does not seem to be any common ground between the two on this vexed issue. In the process, more than a month has already been wasted in operationalising the deal, which is a time-consuming process involving many countries. The Left parties’ latest stance that the deal should be put on hold for at least six months till Parliament is able to debate it and suggest measures to counter fears that it would affect India’s sovereignty vis-à-vis nuclear affairs has the tone of an ultimatum. In deference to them, the government has been going slow on the deal to the point that some people even believe that it has already capitulated. India’s decision not to attend the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group meeting called by the US specifically to address the need to enforce the India-US nuclear deal cannot but be seen as bowing to the Leftist demand. Of course, India’s participation in the NSG meeting is not essential as it is not a Group member. US Ambassador to India David Mulford has only reminded the prime minister’s special envoy on the nuclear deal Shyam Saran that time is of the essence in the implementation of the deal. Even without his nudging, it should have dawned on the Left parties that their blind anti-Americanism should not come in the way of the deal that will help India in many ways. It is a pity the Left leaders stuck to their stand during the two rounds of talks they had with the government, which Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee euphemistically described as “constructive”. While CPM general secretary Prakash Karat remains vociferous in his criticism of the deal, there are dissenting voices even in his own party. West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has not only argued that India needs nuclear energy to meet its growing needs, he has also spoken against “blind anti-Americanism”. As we have mentioned in these columns, the reason why the BJP is opposed to the deal is not the same as why the CPM is opposed to it. To put it differently, the Left parties are ploughing a lonely furrow insofar as the nuclear deal is concerned. It is time they reviewed their stance and allowed the government to get on with the job. To assume that a country of India’s size and strength would become subservient to the US, as the Left leaders seem to believe, is to underestimate the innate strength of its people.
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Dizzy Sensex
ON Wednesday, the benchmark Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensitive Index surged 654 points to race past the 16,000 mark. In absolute terms this is the biggest one-day rise of the Sensex. The charge of the bulls in the markets is attributed to the US Federal Reserve cutting the interest rate by 50 basis points. This, in turn, boosted Asian markets and the Sensex, too, made dizzy gains. Surprisingly, Dow Jones and Nasdaq did not rise as much on Wednesday in keeping with the trend in Asian markets. Although the bulls are on a binge and the immediate trigger — the US rate cut — is obvious, what is baffling is why the news should be a cause for the Indian market to rally. The rate cut was compelled by the sub-prime crisis and the need to ease tight credit — for generating liquidity — in anticipation of slow growth, if not recession, in the US. Therefore, the cut in the interest rate signifies a confirmation of the rising concern over slower growth. Yet, this very confirmation has served to boost markets worldwide, only because credit would come at a lesser price. Clearly, it is doubtful if such a surge is indicative of a trend sustainable over the medium and long-term. In fact, stock markets are essentially about the short-term driven more by sentiment than hard sense. Every time the Sensex spurts, those who stand to gain by talking the market up cite the “India growth story”, corporate earnings and economic reforms. In short, it is all bull, as it is now when the bad news — rising price of crude oil, inflation and political uncertainty — is conveniently ignored. The bears are forever waiting in the wings, and this is a fact that investors should bear in mind before being swept away by the tide of optimism. Provisional figures reveal that Wednesday’s rally was led by FIIs and that domestic funds, brokers and retail investors were actually net sellers. There is a lesson in this for the small investor: better to be cautious at a time like this than sorry when the market falls, as many expect it would happen when the necessary correction comes.
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Rain of sixers
FOR the Indian cricket fan starved of true heroics from their beloved heroes, it was a night and an over to talk about and relive for a long time to come. Yuvraj Singh has played many a match-winning innings in his swashbuckling style but there was no inkling of what was to come as he stretched and warmed up in the Twenty20 “dug-out” by the boundary line, waiting for his turn to contribute to a burgeoning Indian total against the English in a must-win match. In he goes at 155 for three, with everyone wondering whether the fine start by Gautam Gambhir and Virendra Sehwag would be squandered without reaching 200. And then it begins. 12 balls of clean, confident, brutal hitting that scattered the English field, rattled their captain, and pulverised the bowling of young Stuart Broad. Two fours of Andrew Flintoff and a verbal duel set things up nicely. Yuvraj is steaming when he faces Broad, and then the cricket ball is everywhere, raining down on spectators, going into orbit over fireworks exploding in the night sky, one or two even sailing out of the stadium as if propelled by unearthly forces. England have mid-over conferences, and a tense exchange between captain and bowler, only to see more disappear. Spectators and commentators go delirious with excitement -- the “hard hat” advice will be taken very seriously now, and at least those with kids will definitely carry helmets to a Twenty20 match. Fifty of 12 balls, the fastest ever. India reach 218, with England coming close at 200, indicating how critical Yuvi’s final tally of 58 of 16 balls was. For maximum satisfaction from a sporting performance, there is nothing like individual glory creating crucial team victories. Balle balle
Yuvraj.
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When I behold, upon the nights starred face/Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance. — John Keats
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CDS a pipedream
IN the last week of August something interesting, if also curious, happened in New Delhi. One morning a newspaper carried an article by former Navy Chief Admiral Arun Prakash, making a strong case for an early appointment of the Chief of the Defence Staff to promote much-needed integration of the defence forces and their collective inclusion in the Ministry of Defence of which the service headquarters are at present “attached offices”. There was widespread interest because the plea had come from the former head of the Navy who had also been chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee. For, usually the Navy and the Air Force are rather chary of the idea, if only because they fear that the Army, as the much larger force than the other two combined, would dominate the integrated set-up. Consequently, there was much surprise and some hilarity the next day when all newspapers quoted the serving Army Chief, Gen J. J. Singh, who is due to retire at the end of this month, to the effect that the time was no yet ripe to think of having a CDS. Even on the need for inter-service Theatre Comman-ders — on which, unlike on the issue of the CDS, there is consensus — the General thought that five to 10 years were required to sort out the matter. This naturally caused dismay to those who believe, with justification, that, except for a few changes, some of them cosmetic, the Indian armed forces remain largely as they were at the end of World War II. There is also a feeling that since the institution of the Chief of Defence Staff or its equivalent functions smoothly in mature democracies like the United States and Britain, the virtually visceral opposition to it in this country makes no sense. Especially because modern warfare requires concerted and coordinated use of land, air and sea power, not three separate wars being fought by three services. The critics’ retort is that neither the US nor Britain has to defend the homeland from foreign invasion or foreign inspired terrorism. All this, one might say, is a rehash of the long-lasting perfervid debate. The controversy has gone on since at least the end of the fifties, and go on it will because the Indian politico-bureaucratic culture is to defer uncomfortable decisions, especially on matters military. Let the record speak for itself. There have so far been only two occasions when it seemed that all concerned might agree on grasping the nettle and making the institution of the CDS a reality. The first was in the beginning of 1987 when Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was his own Defence Minister but the MoD was virtually run by his minister of state, Arun Singh. The Chiefs of all three services at that time fully supported Arun Singh’s preference for the CDS system. But around the same time, relations between the Prime Minister and his MoS, who had been friends since their school days, began to sour. The opponents of the move, particularly those within the Intelligence establishment, had little difficulty in persuading Rajiv Gandhi to ignore Arun Singh’s recommendation. Thirteen years were to pass before the appointment of the CDS became a possibility, indeed a probability. In some circles enthusiasm ran so high that TV channels started speculating that the then Naval Chief, Admiral Sushil Kumar, had been chosen for the coveted job primarily to dispel the apprehension that the Army would want to grab it. This was in the background of the report of the Kargil Committee, headed by the eminent security analyst K. Subrahmanyam, recommending the appointment of the CDS. The Group of Ministers presided over by L. K. Advani, unanimously endorsed the suggestion. The GoM consisted of all members of the Cabinet Committee on Security, except Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. This is what had fuelled the media’s speculation and hype. No wonder then that when the government’s final decision on the GoM’s report was announced, there was consternation. For the government had accepted all its recommendations, with the solitary exception of that relating to the CDS. How and why did this happen? For one thing, even while the GoM was formulating its recommendations, the Prime Minister was worried about the extraordinary vehemence of the opposition to the idea by the Air Force. So strong was the sentiment within the IAF that as many as eight retired Air Chief Marshals voiced their collective opposition to the idea of the CDS. This was no surprise in view of the legacy of Gen J.N. Chaudhuri and Field-Marshal Sam Manekshaw that Air Chief Marshal Pratap Lal had called the “Supremo syndrome”. Before holding back the decision on the CDS, Atalji had consulted former Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao and former President R. Venkataraman. Both of them had served as Defence Ministers and both advised against any “hasty” decision. Many half-jokingly called this the “Brahminical consensus”. Yet to hold over a decision is, by definition, a short-term matter. In fact, it is no secret that Vajpayee was determined to clinch the issue one way or the other before the year was out. Yet nothing happened during the rest of histenure, and the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, has shoved the issue from the back burner to deep freeze for reasons best known to it. The Congress, it seems, loves indecision even more than the BJP does. No one can forget that during his days as Prime Minister, Narasimha Rao had invested indecision with a whole lot of virtues. He had indeed argued that not to take a decision was in itself a decision. Today the government is in the throes of an awful row with the Left Front that supports it “from outside” over the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal and the country is under the impression that a mid-term poll is round the corner. If so, no one in the ruling alliance would have the time or inclination to take up issues that are controversial and of no great interest to the voters. My short point, therefore, is that, in Indian conditions, there is going to be no CDS in Delhi for a hell of a long time. So, the futile debate on the subject that exudes more heat than light is best abandoned. Meanwhile, the Integrated Defence Staff can go soldiering on. But it is like trying to build an arch without the capping
stone.
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Bat and books
One man’s batting score is another’s background score. This could aptly sum up the scenario of many summers ago, when as a young girl I used the backyard of our Sector 2 bungalow in Chandigarh as a sort of outdoor revision site during college exams. Bang behind our compound, across the road, was another backyard in Sector 11 that was a hub of action those days. While my back lawn saw a tryst with books, the one across kept a date with bat and ball. For out there, a father-son duo would get busy with cricket practice that would sometimes stretch late into summery nights. When my exams came, I’d pace up and down, brushing up chapter after chapter, while the little boy across the street was busy imbibing early lessons in the game. Their dimly lit compound doubled up as a makeshift sporting arena that witnessed coaching classes of another kind. Both were mutually exclusive activities, of course, with no common ground. It was when my shots at theory got punctuated with the sounds of the cricket practicals nearby that an unseen auditory connection formed. At first, it was a case of an unsettling (background) score. The shouts and cheers emanating from yonder initially distracted, what with me struggling with economic players like Marshall and Marx. Heck! Here, I would be grappling with the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility, and there, they’d be giving full-throated vent to sporting emotions. Enough to spur my diminishing attention and cognitive futility. But once these mega-decibel imports into my nocturnal readings were accepted as a backdrop, they became part of the game. Rather, their occasional absence made the heart grow fonder, even in the case of a non-sports buff like me. The ears would unknowingly strain for the hits and the hurrahs of the lad. However, not all sound bytes wafting hither were about slamming a score. Sometimes, it was doors slamming. This happened, as a geographically-advantaged yours truly could observe, when the child did some running, not between the wickets, but in one door and out another to escape fatherly reprimand. Today, that same boy, Yuvraj Singh, has run into the hall of fame with his performance in the Twenty 20 World Cup. And that nightly echo of the willow striking leather at a stone’s throw from our erstwhile backyard has found a record-breaking resonance at
Durban.
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Regional Indian languages are languishing
Yet New Delhi has its legal obligations towards regional languages or mother tongues. They too have to progress for the communities to retain their identity. Here the Union government has failed. The states which are primarily responsible for developing their languages have no funds. Even where there is no paucity of money, there is lack of imagination to give a fillip to mother tongues. What is clear is that by making Hindi and English important, the Union government has made regional languages unimportant. Since New Delhi’s attention is focused on the link as well as the Union language, the impression that has got round is that only Hindi and English matter. Naturally, these two languages would engage the students’ attention the most. Something else is happening: English is pushing Hindi to the background because the knowledge of English has come to enhance a job-seeker’s value in the market. Most outsourcing is in English. Mother tongues are becoming less and less important and they are taken for granted. English has even entered homes which were once exclusively for mother tongues. Parents now to speak to their children in English because this is the language which they find counts. Consequently, the place or importance of mother tongue has shrunk considerably. I am not so much worried over the earning prospects as I am about the adverse effect it is having on state culture. The mother tongue, not English, shapes and sustains it. Once the mother tongue languishes, the culture embedded in it automatically fades away. Already children are more familiar with the Western thought and living than with their indigenous culture. In fact, it is in fashion to be ‘phoren.’ Every state in India faces the onslaught on its culture and traditions. But it is more so in Punjab where people are relatively better off and where the obsession to go abroad is so excessive that even the knowledge of Punjabi is looked down upon. The change into European dress is considered prestigious. In fact, the entire demeanour is becoming westernised even in Punjab’s countryside. English has become a must, however bad the speaker’s pronunciation or grammar. I am terrified to imagine the scenario after 50 years. With parents insisting on speaking English at home and with the children’s eyes fixed on England, the US or Canada, Punjabi may lessen in appeal still further. The space may get restricted and the language may not be used at homes after two to three decades. What happens to the Punjabi culture can well be imagined when the number of people speaking would dwindle. Indeed, the Punjabis are a victim of history. The partition of India has divided the Punjabis in two halves, one on this side and the other on the Pakistan side. The Pakistan government has made Urdu as Punjab’s official language; the Punjabi does not have any official status. On the Indian side of Punjab, Punjabi is compulsory but the differences between Hindus and Sikhs have harmed their mother tongue the most. Hindus preferred to retain Hindi as their mother tongue in the Census although they spoke Punjabi. Politics too played its role. The demand for the Punjabi Suba, however justified when the states were reorganised on the basis of language, alienated the areas where Punjabi was spoken but did not have the Sikhs in majority. The Akali politics at that time was to have Punjab demarcated in such a way that the state would have Sikhs in a majority. Punjab lost Himachal Pradesh in the process. What was once an integral part of Punjab and where Punjabi was spoken became a separate state. It was yet another blow to Punjabi. I recall making a last-ditch effort along with Sadhu Singh Hamdard of the daily Ajit to save Punjab from parting ways with Haryana. Bhagwat Dayal Sharma was then its leader. We were not able to convince him to stay with Punjab. But he agreed that he would not oppose any proposal the Congress high command advocated. I went to K. Kamaraj, then the party president. He accepted my proposal on Punjab on the condition that I would obtain the consent of Sant Fateh Singh, then commanding the affairs of Akalis. My proposal was to retain Punjab as it was because I found people speaking Punjabi right up to Sonepat. The state official language would be Punjabi in Gurmukhi script. Delhi would be expanded to embrace Gurgaon and some territories beyond. I met Sant Fateh Singh at the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Sadhu Singh accompanied me to Amritsar but was reluctant to go to the Sant. When I explained to him my proposal, he rejected it straightaway. His reasoning was that the Punjabi Suba had to have the population of those “who believed in the philosophy of the Suba.” When I asked if he meant the Sikhs, the Sant did not comment. Haryana was constituted and the Punjabi-speaking area was reduced to a mere 13 districts. Looking back, even the agitation for the Gurmukhi script was misplaced. True, Punjabi had Gurmukhi as its script for decades. But then the Hindus were willing to accept Punjabi provided they had the option to write it in Devnagiri script. The Akalis refused to compromise on the point of script. Today when the Punjabi-speaking population is shrinking, the question is different. If the choice is between the language and the script, it is better to have the language. With Pakistani Punjabis using Shahmuki as the script, the scope of Gurmukhi reduces still further. The crisis before the Punjabis all over the world is how to save the language. It does not matter whichever the script one uses so long as he or she is writing Punjabi. Efforts should also be directed towards making people speak Punjabi in their homes. The manner in which they are jettisoning their mother tongue makes the future of Punjabi ominous. Having skyscrapers, big dams, science laboratories or huge fields make no sense if, in the process, we lose our heritage.
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Centre should attend to Punjab farmers’ woes THE contribution made by Punjab’s farmers to make the country self-sufficient in food cannot be overemphasised. It is a known fact that the country was dependent on countries like America for the import of wheat. And America was using food as a diplomatic weapon against developing countries like India. However, Punjab’s farmers as well as agricultural scientists changed the scenario in the 1960s by laying the firm foundation for a green revolution. As a result, the country not only became food surplus but it had to export large stocks of wheat to empty its go-downs, in order to stack fresh stocks, a few years ago. The contribution of wheat made by Punjab to the national pool was 92.40 lakh tonnes in 2004-05. And it was 55 per cent of the total wheat procured by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) from wheat-growing states like Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pardesh. In 2005-06, Punjab’s contribution of wheat to the national pool was 90.10 lakh tonnes and it was 46.70 per cent of the total wheat procured by the FCI. Even in 2006-07, when the country faced a crisis on the wheat front and placed orders for imports, Punjab’s contribution to the national pool was 69.46 lakh tonnes. That was 75.30 per cent of the total wheat procured for the central pool by the FCI. For the past several decades, Punjab’s contribution to the central pool in form of wheat and rice has been in the range of 60 per cent. But Punjab’s farmers, who are facing a big crisis for the past few years due to various factors related to their profession, have not got adequate support from the Union Government to overcome their fiscal crises. It is a fact that several hundred farmers have committed suicide because of debts in the state. Productivity in agriculture sector has become stagnant. Agriculture for small and marginal farmers has become unsustainable and unprofitable. The per capita availability of land in the state has gone down because of increase in population. The per capita income in agriculture sector has declined from Rs. 12,375 in 2001 to Rs 11,587 in 2004, according to the Punjab Farmers Commission. The debt burden against farmers is now in the range of Rs 30,000 crore. The National Sample Survey Organisation found in 2003 that every farmer’s household in India, on an average, owe Rs 12,585 as loan, with Punjab farmers topping the list having an average debt of Rs 41,576 followed by Kerala (Rs 33,907) and Haryana (Rs 26,007). “In the last five years, production of food grains in Punjab has increased by only two per cent against 8.6 per cent rise in its population. The contribution of the agricultural sector to the state’s GDP has declined from 46.13 per cent in 1993-94 to 37.07 per cent in 2004-05”, reveals a government document. Nearly 85 per cent of the total land in the state is under agriculture, compared to the national average of 41 per cent. Farmers have been forced to over use their land by increasing cropping intensity, which has now gone up to 190 per cent. No special relief or package has been announced by the Union Government for Punjab’s farmers so far. Several proposals have been submitted to secure relief but none of those proposals has materialised. Punjab’s special contribution to national food security deserves a special package from the Union Government and Punjab should not be tied up with other states in this regard. Because of the indifferent attitude of the Union Government towards Punjab farmers, the country’s food security has once again come under threat. There are only a few states like Punjab and Haryana which contribute to the country’s food security. Most of the others states grow commercial crops. This year, again, order to import wheat has been placed. And allegations have also been made that the national exchequer will suffer a loss of Rs 1,400 crore because of the wrong handling of import of wheat. Procurement of wheat from the international market will cost Rs 1600 per quintal at this stage. The biggest blunder committed by the Union Government is that it has not given due credit to farmers for the development of the country. The political establishment, especially the ruling elite, has been busy singing songs in praise of corporate houses, which provide finances for election campaigns of political big shots, and giving all credit to them for the development of the country. It has no time for
farmers.
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Delhi Durbar WHY did some Congress leaders suggest that Culture Minister Ambika Soni should have resigned owning moral responsibility for the fiasco over the controversial ASI affidavit on the Sethusamudram project? The demand for her resignation apparently came even before Soni, who was abroad for a few days, had presented her case. A few party leaders then took positions for and against the suggestion of resignation pushing the Congress into an unprecedented controversy. It was not till Monday afternoon that party president Sonia Gandhi stepped in to check further damage but there was no hint that leaders who had gone public with their views had been pulled up. No senior party leader pointed to the role of the Law Ministry though Soni had made it clear that the affidavit was prepared by the Assistant Solicitor General before it came to the ASI. There were several theories doing the rounds for the gartutious remarks of leaders with some partymen attributing these to existing personal equations. Soni, who in the not-so-distant past was considered very powerful because of her proximity to 10 Janpath, is no longer seen to be among those calling the shots in the party. The Sethusamudram episode may have been seen by her detractors as a chance to put her in a spot.
Real estate downswing The stringent monetary policy adopted by the RBI has taken effect with demand for both housing and commercial space dropping significantly. With some of the real estate players, especially medium and small developers, facing “a desperate situation”, various industry associations have speeded up their efforts to mount pressure on the government for softening the interest rate regime. A classic example of this was an open call given by none other than billionaire Kushal Pal Singh, Chairman of India’s biggest property developer by market value, DLF Ltd, from ASSOCHAM’s forum, for reduction in interest rates. Singh, who has served on RBI’s Board for five years, said he completely disagreed with the present monetary policy pursued by the central bank. He insisted that any negative impact on the real estate sector will have direct impact on GDP growth.
Mamata’s tilt Is the firebrand Mamata Banerjee tilting towards the Congress? The Trinamool Congress leader is keeping a low profile and is somewhat guarded with members of the fourth estate. Rather than shooting from the hip as is her won’t, she has been highly circumspect in her utterances lately. Clearly, Banerjee is trying hard to play down her connections with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. She realises she does not have much scope for enlarging her base in the Communist bastion of West Bengal which is also her home state by having a dalliance with the NDA. She believes joining hands with the Congress might be a far better option and does not want to say or do anything out of turn which might raise the hackles of the Congress high
command.
Contributed by Prashant Sood, S. Satyanarayanan and R. Suryamurthy
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INDIA’s language policy appears to have settled down to something firm: English as the link language and Hindi as the Union language. Some problems keep cropping up here and there. But they either blow over or find a solution within the limits of law or set precedents. My worry is about the other Indian languages. Some 16 of them have been listed in the constitution. They have a clear stamp of neglect. Understandably, the Union government has to devote its attention to Hindi and English to sustain their reach and honour the settlement between the Hindi-speaking and non-Hindi speaking population.