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Shocking! New cars, old roads |
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Responsible policing
Conduct of judges
Hair today, gone tomorrow
In the dragon’s shadow Belittling women to boost ratings Inside Pakistan
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Shocking! The
CBI’s application before a Delhi court to close the case against former union minister Jagdish Tytler in the 1984 riots case would have been baffling had it been the first instance where the investigating agency tried to come to the rescue of a beleaguered politician. But the CBI has a long history of being “politically correct” in its dealings, even if that generates a lot of question marks about its impartiality and professionalism. Its clean chit to Mr Tytler too has raised heckles all over the country, all the more so in Punjab. It sought to close the case against him after the main eyewitness Surinder Singh, a head granthi of a gurdwara, resiled from his earlier statement and sworn deposition in an affidavit before the Justice Nanawati Commission. He stated that he did not himself see Mr Tytler leading the anti-Sikh mobs but heard it from others. This kind of setbacks have become routine in the 23-year-old case, with the result that except for a few foot soldiers, hardly anyone has been convicted. The worst carnage in free India’s history where hundreds of innocent citizens were killed in the capital of India has been sought to be underplayed and the victims denied justice. Evidence that was prepared was either so weak or garbled that it could not stand in court. But in the Tytler case, the Delhi court has declined to close the case without hearing the version of the complainant and victims. The Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee has averred that Tytler’s role was not confined to only one case but there were allegations against him of involvement in the “conspiracy” to kill Sikhs. Whatever the court judgement may be, the CBI has not covered itself in glory by turning like a weathercock depending on which way the political wind is blowing. |
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New cars, old roads With
car sales in Europe remaining stagnant and declining in the US and Japan, major manufacturers are turning to the emerging markets like India, China and Russia. New models are being rolled out with latest technologies and greater efficiency in fuel use. The Indian consumer is sensitive to the price and mileage. The Government of India has now decided to introduce fuel efficiency standards in two years and all vehicles will be required to meet them otherwise the manufacturers could be penalised. This will definitely promote fuel-efficient cars, but that may not comfort the environmentalists much. As middle class incomes are rising and more households owning cars, the congestion on roads is set to get worse. This also means more traffic hazards and road accidents. The level of air pollution too will go up. Government policies are contributing to the increased air pollution by subsidising diesel. Though the subsidy is meant for farmers and perhaps truck owners, luxury car-makers too are coming out with diesel models, which are becoming very popular. The taxpayer’s money is used to help the well-to-do car owners and damage the environment. The sharp rise in the number of cars is partly due to the absence of an efficient, reliable public transport system. To ease traffic chaos and restore order on Indian roads, the government will have to improve public transport. Funds are a problem. Apart from collecting road tax and a cess on petrol, the government now proposes to increase the registration charges for cars and two-wheelers to finance the expansion of public transport. Ideally, green taxes should be levied based on the principle: Let the polluter pay and the bigger the polluter, the higher the tax. Besides, separate lanes should be set up to encourage cycling and walking. |
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Responsible policing Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh’s vision of a more accountable police force with a “culture of excellence” is the most stirring call yet towards genuine police reforms, something that the country badly needs. The distance between ordinary citizens and the men in khaki is enormous. The police, even in the better administered states, seems to exist in a shadowy world dominated by dubious forces. Criminal elements, whether in the streets, in the corridors of government power, or in the halls of wealth and prestige, seem to exist in close consort. The credibility of the criminal justice system as a whole is low. As the Prime Minister remarked, however, at the Conference of Directors-General and Inspectors-General of Police, citizens yearn for a secure environment and want a police force capable of providing it. The “petty nuisances, harassment, threats of violence, child abuse, the menace of eve-teasing,” apart from large-scale plunder and physical harm, are an everyday reality. As he aptly put it, citizens should be able to approach a policeman with the same assurance with which they would see a doctor. Today, however, a visit to a police station can be a frustrating or even traumatic experience, and an average policeman is anything but friendly and understanding, much less interested in solving anyone’s problems. In a landmark order, the Supreme Court last September urged the government to speedily implement police reforms on which wideconsensus has been built over several years. In August this year, it rejected the self-serving petitions of many state governments seeking a review of the order. State governments jealously guard their provenance over law and order and are leery of reforms which they believe will undermine it. What will primarily be undermined, however, is the criminal nexus, and the pressure to break it must be maintained. This is not the first time that the Prime Minister has spoken about better policing and internal security. Merely exhorting police officers and men to challenge the system will not have any effect. The union and state governments must make a concerted effort for change. |
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Friends are needed both for joy and for sorrow. — Samuel Paterson |
Conduct of judges THE Indian judiciary was till recently at war with Parliament on who was supreme. The confrontation is far from over. In the meanwhile, the judiciary has now thrown down the gauntlet to the media, another pillar on which the edifice of democracy rests. Four journalists, including a cartoonist, have been sentenced to four months each for “lowering the dignity” of the Supreme Court in the eyes of the common man. The charge against the journalists was that they had committed contempt of court by reporting how the sons of former Chief Justice of India V.K. Sabharwal had “benefited” from the orders he passed on sealing commercial establishments in New Delhi and how the sons had “operated” from the official residence of the Chief Justice. The judgement has set two precedents which may be difficult to follow. One, the proceedings were initiated for the contempt committed against a retired judge. The court said that the report tended to “erode the confidence” of the general public in the institution itself. I do not want to go into the merits of the case – the sealing of commercial establishments and the functioning from the official residence of the Chief Justice. But what I want to point out is that it is the first time that there were contempt proceedings for writing against the judge who had retired. True, he was the Chief Justice of India but judges after retirement ceased to enjoy any hierarchical status. I presume, from now on, every retired judge will be entitled to the immunity. It is a tough proposition because there are hundreds of judges of high courts and the Supreme Court living all over the country. Anything said or written about them anywhere, allegedly casting aspersions, can land the person concerned in jail if brought to the notice of the court as happened in the case of four journalists. The second precedent set is that the truth is no more the defence. Not long ago, the contempt law was amended to allow the person held for contempt to prove that what he had written or said was factually correct. All the four journalists – and the paper carrying the report – have said that they stood by what they wrote. Apparently, the court did not take this into account because it sentenced them to imprisonment. I fail to figure out how the truth has not been considered as the defence despite the amended contempt law? The judiciary should appreciate the media’s dilemma. Should it tell when it discovers something wrong? This is a difficult decision to make because while doing so it runs the risk of annoying somebody somewhere. In the case of the government, the tendency to hide and to feel horrified once the truth is uncovered is greater than in any individual. This is reportedly so because, to use the official jargon, repercussions are wider. What are they? Who assesses them? How real are they? These questions are never answered. The judiciary which protects the freedom of speech, guaranteed by the Constitution, cannot take a posture which amounts to muzzling the press. If the four journalists have gone wrong, they should be punished. If they are correct, the action taken against them is not justified. That they reported against the retired Chief Justice does not change the situation. In democracy where faith stirs people’s response, the truth cannot and should not be curbed. In any case, Justice Sabharwal’s role cannot be left unchecked. Two former Chief Justices of India have already demanded a probe. They have gone to the extent of saying that Sabharwal’s entire tenure of 15 months should be looked into to restore “the faith of the common man in the judiciary.” They are not hapless journalists. They are two former Chief Justices of India. The problem that India faces is that there is no law to initiate an inquiry into the conduct of judges. But this is no concern of the common man. Parliament or the government has to find an answer. There has to be accountability. The Constitution provides only impeachment, a course which is not easy to traverse. I do not want the institution like the judiciary to lose respect in the eyes of the public. Bar associations and such other organisations in the country must take up the matter and restore the dignity of the court, as the lawyers in Pakistan have done by getting the wrongly dismissed Chief Justice reinstated. While occupying the office, Chief Justice Sabharwal said that the Supreme Court is supreme. True, but it is not infallible. The judiciary too is accountable. It cannot and should not cross the Lakshman rekha, the limits. Justice Sabharwal should himself volunteer an inquiry into the allegations made. The Supreme Court can itself appoint a committee to do so and if it does not any outsider, let the committee be of judges. But the matter cannot rest at where it is now. The court, no doubt, is a court of law. But it is also a court of justice. It means the court is primarily concerned with the meaning of the law but it is also concerned with the fate of individuals who encounter the law. What is the fault of the four journalists except that they dared to uncover certain actions of the former Chief Justice? Look at the other side of the coin; a retired Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court has become a target of contempt proceedings. S.S. Sodhi quit the judiciary 12 years ago. A petition has been filed against him for his book, “The other side of Justice,” which tells how he followed the then Chief Justice Venkatachellaiah’s instructions to “manage the most difficult court” that had gone off the rails. The then Chief Justice sent later Fali Nariman, a lawyer, to find out firsthand why courts struck work virtually throughout UP. Nariman testified that Sodhi was a firm and dignified judge. Even a cursory reading of the book leaves you with the impression that Sodhi is not a person who would tolerate any nonsense. His book is bold and thought provoking. This has to be read to be felt. The transparency of the author comes out clearly. He has attributed motives to some of the judges who while on the bench “tried to use the judicial process to settle scores” with the then High Court Registrar. Some judges have characterised the remarks as “prejudicial and partisan.” This is a natural reaction to Sodhi’s speaking frankly. But where is the contempt? He told the truth and that is his defence. I wish the Delhi High Court had torn a page from his book before sentencing the journalists to
imprisonment.
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Hair today, gone tomorrow
I
saw it with a pang of sadness. The improvised, well, one can use the word “encroached upon the pavement” barber shop, where I had been having the periodical haircuts, had been felled by a municipal bulldozer. Most of the instruments of action, including the second World War vintage clippers, seemed to have all gone. The owner of the joint and my friend, philosopher and guide, was squatting on the pavement, gathering what could be collected from the rubble. He was particularly peeved at the loss of two German clippers he had been using for the last 60 years or so. “Only the Germans knew how to make steel and machines. The English finglish and the Amarikans, they did not know how to make masheens’, he informed me. “And babuji, do you know where they got that expertise? From Atharva Veda. They smuggled out the only copy available and obtained all the scientific knowledge”. He was dead serious. But I had to have a haircut, though the process could be hardly called that. It was more in the nature of identifying the few scattered strands that still sprouted out of the scalp. The doctors had diagnosed the condition as Alopecia Totalis, but out of vanity I still visited my trusted barber of the Germanic clipper fixation. When I was roaming about my local market centre in the evening, I saw a big signboard. It read “Total Solution”, and in smaller print described the goings on as a saloon with all facilities. I walked in and was immediately received by a manager in a three-piece suit. “Do you have an appointment sir”, he asked. I did not have any and, in any case, wondered whether for having a haircut one was necessary. I had all along walked to my barber’s shop any time, any day. “Let me see what I can do”, he said and disappeared. After about 10 minutes he appeared and announced that I was lucky, as a client had phoned in, postponing his visit. “Come in, sir,” he said. I followed. It was a big air-conditioned room, and gadgetry, that could have done any hospital proud, was shining all over. When he asked me whether I would have a facial, manicure or pedicure, I was startled. I thought that was for the movie stars. When I asked for a plain vanilla haircut, he was not exactly happy. He announced that it would take him twice the time a haircut took on normal persons. “Why”, I asked. “Sir, first I will have to search for the hair, hold them and then cut them”. He was not joking. After half an hour he declared that the deed was, indeed, done. When I came out and asked for the bill, I was taken aback. It was 15 times the amount I paid to my barber of the Germanic clippers! I cursed the bulldozer that had brought my hair service centre down and considered whether alopecia totalis should proceed to its logical end without any further mechanical interference. Imagine my delight, when two days later, in the morning, the door bell rang and I saw my dear barber telling me that he had rebuilt the shop, and, from the rubble managed to retrieve both his clippers! “They are all right babuji. After all it is German steel”, he said with great pride and delight. I nearly danced with
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In the dragon’s shadow
The
debate on the US-India nuclear deal in India has taken on mythical proportions. While dissecting each and every clause of the Hyde Act or the 123 pact may be a good academic exercise, the deal was never about mere nuclear technicalities. It is not supposed to be an end in itself for either the US or India. Global balance of power is in flux at the moment. The US and India are both trying to adjust to the emerging strategic realities and the nuclear deal is an attempt to craft a partnership that can serve the interests of both states in the coming years. If one goes by this logic then surely it will be the strategic geopolitical realities that will determine the future trajectory of the US-India nuclear engagement. Neither the Hyde Act nor the current version of the 123 agreement will be able to constrain the policy options for India and the US. The most crucial factor in this will be China and its nuclear posture. Defying long-standing conventional wisdom in the US that China lacks the wherewithal to formulate a long-term national policy on nuclear weapons, some recent reports on China’s nuclear forces present convincing evidence about China’s gradual move away from its “minimal deterrent” nuclear posture. Even a cursory reading of world politics would suggest that as a nation’s capabilities rise, so does its ambitions to play a larger role in global affairs. For long, China watchers have been arguing that China’s minimal deterrence nuclear posture goes against this thinking and therefore, the argument went, China seems not very interested in challenging the US global dominance. It is now being argued that the Chinese political and military leadership is gradually revising its nuclear posture and even preparing for the possibility of using nuclear weapons in a pre-emptive counter attack if the need arose. And China has now revealed to the world its Shang class of nuclear-powered attack submarines that will give China power projection ability in the Indian Ocean. Some time back Beijing had disclosed that its defence spending in the forthcoming year would rise by nearly 18 percent, to almost $45 billion, the biggest increase since 2002 when military spending rose by $19.4 percent. China’s massive rates of economic growth in the last decade and a half do give it enough resources to spend on its military modernisation. China has announced double digit military spending increases nearly every year since the early 1990s and its defence expenditure has increased by an average of about 15 per cent a year from 1990 to 2005. Moreover, the US, whose global supremacy China wants to counter eventually, is projected to spend $620 billion on defence in 2008, a sum that’s more than what world’s ten largest military powers collectively spend on defence. In its latest report to the US Congress, the Pentagon focuses on China’s ongoing military build-up, that, while aimed at preventing Taiwan's independence, is also expanding to include other regional military goals, including securing the flow of oil from overseas. It also claims that Beijing's investment in military modernization -- which may have reached $125 billion last year, or nearly triple the official $45 billion declared by Beijing -- has produced military systems that enable the PRC to project force well beyond its shores. Earlier this year China successfully tested an anti-satellite missile and then decided not to reveal any information about it to the outside world. And about three months back, the People’s Liberation Army began deploying the country’s first state-of-the-art jet fighter, the J-10. It is clear that China’s primary military objective is to build a force that would prevail in any conflict with Taiwan and also is capable of creating a deterrent to American military intervention. Defending its recent increase, China argues that it would go towards increasing salaries and benefits for soldiers and to the overall modernisation and technological upgrades. One of the lessons China’s military has seemingly learnt from recent wars is that technological sophistication is the sine qua non for effective military operations in the contemporary strategic environment. Since 2003, the world’s biggest standing army has been gradually shrinking and has been reduced to 2.3 million soldiers, with spending now focused on better training and advanced state-of-the-art weaponry. China intends to reach the strategic goal of building ‘informationised’ armed forces being capable of winning ‘informationised’ wars by the mid-21st century. While China’s white paper on national defence released last year made it clear that moving from infantry to high-tech naval and aerial warfare is a major goal of Chinese military modernisation, it failed to provide any details on the new ships, warplanes, missiles, submarines, and other equipments that have increased Chinese lethal power manifold in the last decade. It is this lack of transparency that worries the rest of the world including India and the US. India’s nuclear trajectory will be determined by the China’s nuclear posture and there is every reason to expect the US to be supportive of India’s emergence as a counterweight to China in the Asia-Pacific. There is little incentive for the US to try to cap the Indian nuclear arsenal and circumscribe Indian technology development, as some in India have alleged. The US national security strategy makes it plain that it will not allow any other power to challenge American preponderance in the international system. China’s strategy of challenging US primacy in the Asia-Pacific is equally clear. Unfortunately, it is India’s security strategy that one is not sure about. The debate on the nuclear deal is talking place in an intellectual vacuum and unless Indian policy-makers articulate a coherent national security strategy, all this debate will be of little help to India in meeting the strategic challenges of the future. The writer teaches at King’s College London. |
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Belittling women to boost ratings Sometime
back, the media went to town when a Chandigarh-based landlord was found taking a CCTV-aided sneak peak into the private moments of his female paying guests. But of late, the media itself, specifically the electronic media, has been acting no better. If the former makes for an individual Peeping Tom, media lenses have become the public peepholes that are bringing people’s greenrooms or bedrooms into our living rooms. If it’s not a peek into the personal domain of public figures they’re beaming, it’s senseless private trivia they’re busy baring. Take a recent episode of a reality dance show on the tube, Nach Baliye 3. Imagine, bang on primetime, the channel featured a full-fledged slugfest on – guess what? – the very personal anatomical deconstruction of a participant. Hardly uplifting for the standards of TV journalism or the cause of women, this. Earlier, the cosmetic enlargement of the said celebrity, Rakhi Sawant, made news on some channels. And recently, the discarding of her surgically acquired props was dished out as a highlight of this dance show, what with a rival taunting her that now no man would look at her deglamorised figure. Elsewhere, voyeuristic lenses have been chasing another starlet, Shamita Shetty, who was spotted in a Britney Spears-act of dressing down. Sure, all this props up the TRPs. But it drops all sense of propriety and women’s dignity to abysmal levels. Firstly, at the risk of sounding like a morality maven, the question that comes to mind is: Is this mindless aping of western paparazzi and TV formats really suited to Indian sensibilities? Isn’t it uncovering too much in the name of coverage? Secondly, apart from facilitating and legitimising the collective mental disrobing of the woman concerned, isn’t this footage an affront to the countless women watching such a show, many with male family members? And look at the timing. On the one hand, a section of the mass media has scored a goal for women’s empowerment through reel action in Chak De India. And, on real ground, the likes of Sunita Williams are taking women’s achievement to new frontiers. On the other hand, a part of the electronic media, namely ‘Tamasha TV’, is reducing women to a matter of statistics rather than performance scores. Instead of deconstructing their accomplishments, it’s more busy deconstructing their assets. Quite a retrograde episode in women’s progress, for the electronic media itself is reinforcing frivolous benchmarks for judging them. In place of giving such extensive footage to the cosmetic changes of the fair sex, wouldn’t it serve the cause of women better by creating awareness about concerns that impact a wider population, say, the cancer of the breast? Agreed, the makeovers of Page Three people are common knowledge and grist for continuous media comment . And controversy is the spice that drives ‘Tamasha TV’ and trivialisation its staple. Yes, most celebrities reveal more than they conceal for the eyeballs it garners them, but even the most bare-all-dare-all among them deserve that their personal details not be bared beyond a point on camera. In all this blurring of personal and public boundaries a line must be drawn somewhere. Otherwise, our electronic media – that’s supposed to be the eyes and ears of the people – will hardly rate any better than the population of voyeurs proliferating on the Net, mobile networks or our neighbourhoods. |
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Inside Pakistan
Her two other major demands include the General doffing his uniform before contesting the elections and a change in the law to make her eligible for becoming Prime Minister for a third time. Ms Bhutto has reportedly agreed to clinch the deal with the General despite her earlier stand that she will never enter into any kind of agreement with a military dictator. The constitutional problem that comes in the way of her attempt to become Prime Minister may be taken up later. This, according to The News, shows “how heavily the possibility of having to face the court cases pending against her and her spouse was weighing down on her mind…” The way her party was working for the deal showed “desperateness” on her side. However, as The Nation (October 4) says, “there is a perception that while the amnesty will provide relief to Ms Bhutto, it will mainly benefit scores of legislators belonging to the ruling coalition, particularly the ones who had left their parties to join the government under the NAB’s (National Accountability Bureau’s) pressure. As Mian Nawaz Sharif has been convicted on what the PML (N) considers trumped-up charges, the immunity will not apply to him.” But this is not unprecedented. “Deal-making is a part of the politics in Pakistan”, as Daily Times has commented (October 4). The paper points out that “If Ms Bhutto is ‘let off the hook’, she will join Mr Nawaz Sharif, who had his criminal cases pardoned after making a deal for leaving the country in 2000, and the MQM, which is a partner in the government in Sindh, and the MMA, whose leader Fazlur Rehman was made the Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly and given two provincial governments in exchange for the 17th amendment” to perpetuate General Musharraf’s rule.
A weakened Musharraf “Musharraf is much weaker today than what he was when he began” his innings as the ruler of Pakistan, says Ejaz Haider, in the Daily Times (Oct 4). Yet on October 2 he promoted Lt-Gen Ashfaque Kiyani, former Director-General of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) network, as Vice-Chief of Army Staff, with a view to ensuring “the transition from the army chief to a civilian president by November 15 if he wins the presidential election”, as Haider adds. This is in accordance with the commitment he has made to the Pakistan Supreme Court. General Musharraf appears helpless under the circumstances. Despite the fact that in Pakistan’s power structure, real power lies with the army chief, General Musharraf has announced his successor, General Kiyani, one of his loyalists. But this is the best option available to General Musharraf after the grievous mistakes he has been making for some time. In an article in Dawn (Oct 4) M. P. Bhandara, a member of the National Assembly, says that the General has “erred badly since March this year”. These mistakes, according to Bhandara, included “sacking of the Chief Justice followed by temporising on Lal Masjid (why was the law not enforced when lathi-wielding burqa-clad women took over a children’s library?), the events of May 12 in Karachi and, finally, permitting a foreign power to midwife the evolution of political events” in Pakistan. “Perhaps, the most grievous error was for General Musharraf to have broken faith. He had promised to doff his uniform by December 31, 2004. Had he done so, this ugly September (and October) in the Supreme Court could have been avoided”, the writer points out.
Troubled frontier “While the battle for Islamabad rages, nothing seems to be going on in terms of seeking a solution to the trouble in the tribal region, where insurgency has acquired the portents of a civil war. If at all some negotiations took place, these were primarily in terms of seeking release of hostages taken by militants or government troops, and the interlocutors are low-level local leaders or officials having no mandate to make any worthwhile commitments”, laments Business Recorder of October 4. Militants appear to be having the upper hand despite heavy troop deployment in particularly North and South Waziristans and the Bannu Frontier region. In the on-going fighting between militants and Pakistani troops, the tribal population is the biggest sufferer, but Islamabad seems to have no time to take their problem seriously. As Ron Synovitz says in an article in The Frontier Post, quoting Ahmad Rashid, Pakistani author of the book “Taliban”, Islamabad is doing “quite a lot to catch Arabs and Al-Qaeda (militants), but “not catching the Taliban”. This is a strange scenario. |
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