 |
|
What Ajmer
teaches Chinese
charges Partners
in progress |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Disturbing
trends
Spoon-feeding
Scepticism,
fire and visionary power The
global challenge of cyberwar Inside
Pakistan
|
What Ajmer teaches THE merchants of death have struck again. This time at the heart of the Sufi tradition and humanism. When the bomb went off at one of the most sacred of all Muslim places of pilgrimage in India, the shrine of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti at Ajmer, killing two and injuring many, the target was the composite culture of India. After all, the shrine is held in reverence by Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs alike. The timing of the attack — when Id is round the corner and Diwali is not far away — makes it clear that it was part of a diabolical plan to vitiate the festive atmosphere. The modus operandi is similar to the one unravelled when a mosque in Hyderabad was the target of attack a few months earlier. In both cases, innocent people taking part in prayers were targeted. Terrorists do not deserve any mercy, the least of all those who plant bombs in centres of worship. The government must do everything possible to unravel the mystery of the attack and punish all those who masterminded it. It would be in the fitness of things to treat it as a trailer and take necessary steps to prevent such incidents as the nation gets into the festive spirit when larger groups of people congregate in smaller areas. The attacks earlier at the Akshardham temple in Gujarat and the Sankat Mochan temple in Uttar Pradesh prove that the more sacred a place is, the more attractive it is to the terrorists. Implicit in it is the need to strengthen security at all vulnerable points. It is a pity that despite so many attacks, the enforcers of law and order and intelligence agencies do not have a clue of what kind of forces are behind such acts. Eight months have passed since the Samjhauta Express was attacked but the police has not been able to arrest the culprits. Such laxity in investigation encourages the killers to plan more and more attacks. Terrorists thrive on their ability to spring a surprise on the authorities. Having gained the experience of a large number of terrorist attacks, the authorities concerned should have by now been able to come up with an effective counter-strategy. For all the security checks those who travel to the US have to undergo, it is a fact that five years after 9/11 no terrorist incident has happened there. For once, why can’t we also learn from the US by practising zero-tolerance towards terrorism in every respect? That is the lesson the nation needs to learn from Ajmer. |
|
Chinese charges Surprisingly, China has accused India of violating an agreement for peace and tranquillity in the border region at a time when the two countries are engaged in finding a solution to their border problem and developing closer relations. China has demanded removal of two bunkers at the border in Sikkim, saying that “the facilities” built by India are on the “Chinese side” of the border. Only recently National Security Adviser M. K. Narayanan had visited China for another round of border talks. Congress chief and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi is scheduled to make a goodwill visit to Beijing on October 20 and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee will be there on October 24 to finalise the agenda for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to China soon. Beijing’s accusation should be viewed in the backdrop of these high-profile visits when India may raise its concerns, including the reported Chinese border incursions in Bhutan, which depends on India for defending its borders. The Sikkim bunker issue may have been raked up to keep India quiet with regard to the amassing of a whole division of the Chinese army in the Tawang region (Arunachal Pradesh). Likewise, the border violation in Bhutan by China is believed to be linked to the Chinese desire for settling the boundary delineation issue with Thimphu without taking into account Indian concerns. Whatever the Chinese intentions, it is not prudent on the part of Beijing to level charges against a neighbour like India, which is doing all it can to ensure peace and stability in the region and promote friendly and peaceful relations with its northern neighbour. Harmonious relations between these two great powers are essential for making the 21st century as the Asian century. Together they can prove to be the new engines of growth for the world. Happily, acrimony in their relations has given way to continuous engagement for resolving their long-pending border problem. Nothing should be done to vitiate the healthy environment that prevails today. No country should ignore the feelings of the other. After all, we are living in an era of cooperative internationalism. |
|
Partners in progress
A better deal now announced for the farmers whose land is involuntarily acquired for setting up an industry or other projects, was long overdue. In fact, the absence of such a sympathetic policy had led to extreme social tension in various places like Nandigram. The government has finally woken up to the harsh reality that it has to strike a balance between the need for land for development activities and protecting the interests of farmers, landowners, tenants and the landless and those dependent on it. Till now, they were simply ordered to pack their bags and go. Nobody understood the pain of uprooting. Yes, they were given some compensation but that was no substitute for becoming a stranger to a land which was their hearth and home for long. In most cases, the compensation was far too meagre to be worthwhile. And since most people were ignorant of proper investment procedures, they and their compensation money were soon parted, leading to ugly sights like fairly well-to-do farmers being reduced to plying rickshaws after a few years. The new resettlement and rehabilitation policy strives to make them partners in progress by offering land-for-land compensation and preference to displaced families for jobs in projects coming on their acquired land. It will be applicable to SEZs also. The package is in keeping with the “aam admi” priority which the UPA government aims to project as election time draws near. What is heartening is that it provides for attractive offers for the displaced, including houses even for the landless, 20 per cent of compensation in the form of shares in the proposed project, which can go up to 50 per cent, and preference in employment. Most important is the provision of life-time monthly pension for vulnerable sections like the old, the destitute and the disabled. If only the policy is implemented in the spirit in which it has been formulated, it will go a long way in assuaging the hurt feelings of the dispossessed. |
|
The best mirror is an old friend. —
George Herbert |
Disturbing trends Several
disparate events over the past couple of weeks must cause disquiet over what appears to be a gravely disturbing trend. The nation needs to get its priorities right. The Supreme Court was scathing in condemning the DMK’s Tamil Nadu bandh in support of speedy implementation of the Sethusamaudram project in defiance of its order banning any such action. Bandhs were banned by the Kerala High Court in 1997, a judgement endorsed a year later by the Supreme Court. Bandhs had become endemic as a result of political rather than industrial action, with governments virtually ordering public transport off the road and closing schools and offices, thereby setting off a chain reaction resulting in total work stoppages. These events were seldom spontaneous, but invariably coercive, violent and destructive if anyone dared disobey the call. The distinction judicially drawn between a hartal (allegedly a general strike) and a bandh was and essentially remains a distinction without a difference. General strikes are called by unions and may include peaceful picketing; but in the Indian context these niceties have been all too often ignored in favour of confrontation and the mailed fist. The democratic right to strike is conceded and must be upheld; but so too must be the right to work, life and livelihood. For thousands of poor daily
labourers, deprivation of the right to work during the day means that their families go to bed hungry at night. The economic and social costs of (forced) closures is enormous and hurts the poor most. So rights and freedoms have to be balanced and matters cannot be settled by muscle power or false ideology. If the TN bandh was uncalled for, the Supreme Court’s obiter that it might direct the Centre to place the State under President’s rule was equally misplaced. Mr Karunanidhi’s claim that he was personally on a Gandhian fast but back at work as chief minister as the bandh faded with the passage of the sun, was a charade. The court rightly ruled that everybody is accountable. So too are judges and so it is therefore sad that just a few days earlier the Delhi High Court sentenced four Midday journalists for contempt for scandalising the former Chief Justice in a matter in which the accused were willing to argue truth as a
defence. Freedom of speech and expression is in many ways the “mother freedom” as the Gujarat High Court discovered during the Emergency when its order striking down the censorship guidelines as ultra vires was itself censored so that a declared illegality continued to triumph. The much delayed but deserved sentences by a Patna trial court against Anand Mohan, a Bihar MP and mafia don, his wife and two MLAs for direct complicity in the foul murder of the then Gopalganj district magistrate in 1994 is yet another case of people misusing influence, power and wealth to defy and even derail the law. Though justice has been done, delayed process has often become the rule, inviting public anger and “direct action”. Addressing DGs of Police last week, the Prime Minister warned against “vigilante justice”, referring to recent lynchings in Vaishali and
Bhagalpur. The courts too have warned of untoward consequences flowing from judicial delays and long pending case files. Yet months after the Supreme Court’s “deadline” for governments to act on the inordinately delayed but now updated police reform package, most states and the Union Territories are yet to act. If the Centre had given a bold lead in Delhi, Chandigarh and
Pondicherry, the example may spurred action elsewhere. But here again there has been foot-dragging all round on wholly unconvincing grounds as the political class simply does not wish to give up control over the law-enforcement machinery, including the intelligence and investigatory services, failing back on archaic official secrecy laws which should have been repealed with the enactment of the RTI Act. The latest victim of this mischief is
Maj-Gen (Retd) V.K. Singh who has been charged with violating official secrecy in a book published earlier this year. This case undermines whistleblower protection and tends to extend immunity to wrongdoers and corrupt persons on exaggerated grounds of national security, a catch-all mantra that precludes transparency, accountability and public learning. The failure to legislate parliamentary or other oversight (as advocated by the L.P. Singh Committee decades ago) has created a state within a state that has been misused by the powers that be or could run amuck. The stubborn unwillingness to give up the repeatedly abused requirement of official/ministerial sanction to prosecute officials and ministers charged with corruption has given open license to corruption with impunity. Politics has triumphed over national interest. Finally, the latest case of political chicanery witnessed in the unholy divorce between the two erstwhile coalition partners in Karnataka, the
JD(S) and the BJP, shows how low values have fallen, despite the high-sounding reasons advanced so eloquently by both sides. This, amidst the mounting allegations of amassing disproportionate assets against the erstwhile reigning Deve Gowda family, a tale no different from similar rags to riches stories from other capitals.
|
Spoon-feeding
Love
for cutlery is too girly a thing to happen to a man. At least, that is what I thought until the day I found myself in a land where using spoons seemed to be a forbidden thing and food-smeared hands were no repulsion. A variant of community meals, “dham” is always a much-awaited occasion in Himachal Pradesh, where I had a short stint of two years. Weddings in the lower hills region are preceded by “dhams” where every acquaintance in the city is invited, even if the actual ceremony is reserved for select guests. Since “dhams” don’t come with the usual set of formalities, most people actually look forward to a stuffed afternoon without having to dress up in one’s colourful best for it. Unlike wedding ceremony, the guests don’t need to hang around with a drink, forced into long conversations as they anxiously wait for dinner to be served. And the best part is that with hundreds of invitees, reciprocating for the hospitality with “shagun” becomes optional. I remember how a friend of mine would disappear during afternoons and would later spend the evening running his hands on his tummy, taking pride in the fact that he savoured as many as three “dhams”. “Can’t help it, it’s peak of marriage season and why offend anybody by not showing up.” Asked about having lunch thrice over, he would shrug, “Dham is all about eating, isn’t it?” It truly is. In the traditional “dham”, an attempt is made to tantalise the taste buds of the invitees with as many as seven different dishes, including a dessert and a sour curry. Lined up on the floor with “pattals” or plates made of dry leaves, the guests are served with a virtual mountain of rice, which is then covered with dish after dish until no one can tell the last from the previous. Everything else seemed fine, except for the fact that “dhams” are organised in “no spoon” zones. So, for the first few months I kept avoiding invitations of “dhams” and preferred going to marriage ceremonies instead. An excuse by a fellow Punjabi friend that he cannot sit cross-legged on the floor came handy. However, one afternoon, “dham” had the better of me at a political function I had gone to cover 40 km from the city. My friends advised me to have lunch as the function would carry on till late evening and there would be no time to even eat out once the key speakers are on the dais. I was left with no option but to join them in partaking a spoon-less dham. Finding loads of foodstuff on my plate in no time, I could sense trouble. The only option was tearing a portion of the paper plate to make up for the spoon. After the whispering and giggling in the hall had subsided, one of my friends got up and brought a folded leaf so that I could properly carry food to my mouth. The next day my friends gifted me a shining stainless steel spoon, with the advice that I should always carry it in my car. Just like gifts bought from tourist places that eventually become reminders of good times, this piece of cutlery would always remind me of dear friends and a unique culture far away. |
Scepticism, fire and visionary power Lessing follows Harold Pinter (2005) and V.S. Naipaul (2001) as the third British Nobel laureate in literature since the millennium. Her surprise award (beating quoted odds of 50-1) confirms the Academy’s shift over the past 15 years towards globally celebrated writers, often from the English-speaking world. It took Lessing years of struggle and experiment to collect her winning hand. Her parents, an invalid bank clerk and a nurse, moved from (then) Persia to Southern Rhodesia in 1925 to farm maize. The African upbringing explored in her 1950 debut The Grass in Singing and through her semi-autobiographical Children of Violence series (1952-1969) introduced her to abiding themes of private anguish and social injustice n and the links between the two. Shaped both by avid childhood reading, from Dickens and Dostoyevsky to DH Lawrence, and her father’s bitter tales of the First World War, she dropped out of school and joined left-wing circles in colonial Salisbury. Married at 19, she had two children but left them and her first husband, Frank Wisdom; she later married a Communist colleague, Gottfried Lessing, with whom she had another child. Mother and son moved to London in 1949. Lessing moved through and out of Marxist militancy, an engagement charted through her heroine Martha Quest in novels such as A Ripple from the Storm (1958). Dunmore recommends them as “a long and complex journey with the character, but also with the author”. Meanwhile, fictional depictions of the colonial racism in Lessing’s own background led to her banning from Rhodesia and South Africa as a “prohibited alien”. Then, in 1962, The Golden Notebook thrust her into the front line of the nascent feminist movement. The novel presents its tormented heroine Anna Wulf as a woman driven towards insanity by the contradictory pressures of her role. To the writer Sarah Dunant, the novel is “such an incredible evocation of the madness as well as the power of creativity. She simply went somewhere where I had never been before, and with a fierce, unflinching intelligence.” The interaction of social turmoil and personal suffering drove Lessing’s major novels of the 1970s: Briefing for a Descent into Hell, The Summer Before the Dark, and Memoirs of a Survivor, which Roberts loved for a “first-person, down-on-the-ground human sympathy” not always found in Lessing’s other work. Then, to the consternation of many admirers, the imagination already evident in these books pushed Lessing into a five-volume science-fiction: Canopus in Argus (1979-1983). Other feminist novelists – from Margaret Atwood to Jeanette Winterson – would later follow, while Lessing’s turn towards fable also expressed her immersion in Sufi mysticism. Yet at the time she partly lost one readership without firmly locating another one. To Dunant: “There was a whole lot of us to whom she was a goddess, and when she went extra-terrestrial, we didn’t quite know what to do.” The science-fiction novels observe human folly from a distance that led disciples to fear that she had abandoned them when, as Dunant remembers, “we seemed to be fighting a lot of battles here on earth”. But for Dunmore, the split between Lessing’s naturalistic and fantastic sides may be more apparent than real: “I don’t think that there’s a hard line at all. She was always a writer who explored the inner world n so good on breakdown, on mental illness, on elation or depression.” In any case, Lessing did come back to earth. She published The Diary of a Good Neighbour under the pseudonym of “Jane Somers”, to experience the condescension meted out to newcomers. “It was interesting to be a beginning writer again because I found how patronising reviewers can be,” she said. Then, with The Good Terrorist in 1985, she roared back into the mainstream with a novel of chaotic revolutionaries and the woman who serves their cause. Fiercely individual, impatient of all labels and categories, Lessing has always gone her own way. Despite her renown as a pioneer of women’s fiction, she later broke ranks with “self-indulgent” feminism, just as she had with Communism. This empathy with the outsider refused all prescriptive limits. Her semi-allegorical novel The Fifth Child (1988) and its sequel, Ben, In The World, focus on a disturbed boy, an alien in his family, and his painful journey towards a kind of peace. The plight of children, and an increasingly “green” concern with the fate of the Earth, fused in the futuristic African landscapes of her epic 1999 novel Mara and Dann, and its 2005 sequel. Earlier this year, Lessing also published a passionate introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. She wrote in defence of the writer demonised by many of the very feminists who once lionised her: D H Lawrence. “What we do have from him,” she argues, “is a report on the sex war of his time, and no one has done it better.” Except, perhaps, Doris Lessing in her time. And, as with Lawrence, her unblinking dramatisation of conflict, cruelty and devastation extends from sexual and family relationships through the state of politics to the state of the planet. “The furious energy of his talent, his power,” she writes on Lawrence, “set him above his contemporaries, on whom he had an extraordinary influence.” Change the pronoun and the judgement stands. By arrangement with
The Independent |
|
The global challenge of cyberwar Estonia
claimed to be under attack last spring, but not by guns or bombs. This assault came in the form of data requests from more than a million computers. It overwhelmed the Baltic nation’s computer networks, crashing e-mail for its parliament, taking down emergency phone lines and freezing online services of government offices, banks, universities and hospitals. Estonia accused Russia of conducting a cyberwar in retaliation for a decision to move a Soviet-era war memorial. The Russian government denied involvement. Likewise, when hackers somewhere in China infiltrated a U.S. Defense Department network in September , Chinese officials denied its army had any role. (British, French, German and New Zealand officials have complained of similar China-based hacking.) Though no one accused China of acts of war, both events revealed how the Internet is reshaping warfare. The Internet creates real risks for societies dependent on information networks. In an experimental cyberattack in March , researchers at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory managed to make a generator self-destruct. C omputer attacks don’t just threaten other computers but the larger infrastructure. Viruses could become as dangerous as missiles. At the same time, cyberattacks have the potential to minimize the costs of conflict in lives and dollars. Instead of demolishing an electrical grid, cyberattacks offer militaries the option of disabling it temporarily. Although hotly debated in the ‘90s, discussions of cyberwar’s risks and potential had gone dormant since 9/11. But the Estonia event quickly put cybersecurity back on NATO’s agenda. And after the Defense Department breach, President Bush conceded the vulnerability of U.S. systems to cyberattack and the government’s need to develop defenses against them. For more than a century, nations have devised rules of international law, such as the Geneva Convention, which seek to avoid war or minimise human suffering when conflicts occur. And as new technologies emerge, nations have weighed whether to draft new rules, such as treaties restricting biological, chemical and laser weapons. Governments and scholars so far, however, have resisted calls to craft new rules of international law to govern attacks on or by computers. Conventional wisdom suggests that the laws we have extend by analogy to cover cyberspace. And they do. But serious “translation” problems make them ill-suited to the task. For example, the U.N. Charter clearly prohibits states from using force except in self-defense or with U.N. authorization. So does that ban Russia from computer attacks on Estonia? Or is it a “use of force” only if the target is physically harmed? Or only if it leads to death and destruction? Or simply whenever the target is critical to a nation’s security? Similar uncertainties surround rules on neutrality and civilian distinction. Such uncertainty can unintentionally escalate conflicts if participants have different interpretations of what’s permissible. Or states might shy away from cyberattacks entirely if they don’t know what’s allowed – even in cases in which those attacks might cause less harm than the bombs they’ll use instead. Existing laws of war also focus primarily on conflicts between nations. But 9/11 and the ongoing asymmetrical warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan underscore how insufficient that approach is. Cyberwar undoubtedly will attract groups like al-Qaida; the technology is inexpensive, easy to use and can be deployed from almost anywhere. When the laws of war don’t apply – even by analogy – a complex set of other international and foreign laws kicks in. For example, assume the hackers in the Estonia case were indeed operating from Russia but had no ties to the government or military. Under existing rules, Estonia should respond by asking Russia to police its own territory. To counter-attack would violate Russia’s sovereignty. With new rules, however, nations could agree to waive sovereignty concerns and permit a direct response in certain cases, such as cyberattacks by terrorists that all nations might want thwarted. The status quo presents dangers that countries need to stop ignoring. We need new rules of international law so military commanders can operate with greater certainty in cyberspace, and can use new cybertools in ways that reduce the collateral costs of conflict. War has entered the Information Age, and it’s time for international law to get a needed update. By arrangement with
LA Times-Washington Post |
|
Inside Pakistan Whether
Taliban supremo Mullah Omar is dead or on the run is not known, but an equally ruthless extremist is making waves in two tribal agencies, North and South Waziristan, in the NWFP. He is Baitullah Mahsud, whose men have given sleepless nights to the Pakistan army for a long time. Mahsud’s men kidnapped 260 soldiers on August 30, whose whereabouts are not known. Later on, 50 more soldiers were held hostage, but contact with them was lost on Monday after a large-scale fighting between the militants and Pakistani troops. “After four days of fierce fighting, which started on October 6, some 250 people, including 205 militants and 45 Pakistan security personnel, were killed. These were the deadliest clashes since Pakistan’s involvement in the US-led war on terror”, writes retired Air Marshal Ayaz Ahmed Khan in The Nation (October 11). The army is giving the impression of being engaged in a fight to finish. It has refused an offer to convene a jirga by Mahsud and his Taliban commanders to bring about a ceasefire. Perhaps, as a result of the mounting pressure from the US – which recently declared both parts of Waziristan as a “safe haven” for Al-Qaeda and the Taliban – the Pakistan army has declared an all-out war against the militants, who have been proving to be stronger than the troops.
MMA struggles The drive to prevent General Pervez Musharraf from getting re-elected as President by the outgoing national and provincial assemblies seems to have affected the Opposition ranks more than the ruling coalition. The infighting in the alliance of religious parties, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), has taken a turn for the worse following its failure to get the NWFP Assembly dissolved before the presidential election on October 6. This could have made the electoral college ineligible to go ahead with the poll, which the General has won, unless the Supreme Court’s much-awaited verdict goes against him on October 17. The assembly got dissolved but too late – on October 10 – to rock the boats of the General, “thanks to the infighting involving the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) and the Jamaat-i-Islami, the two main components of the MMA,” according to an editorial in Business Recorder (October 11). “JUI chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman was bitter over the APDM (All Parties’ Democratic Movement) members’ resignations that had upset (NWFP Chief Minister) Durrani’s applecart. He (the Maulana) sees ‘no future’ for the Nawaz Sharif-headed APDM, he said in an interview, adding that his party was part of the Opposition conglomerate in its individual capacity, and not as a constituent of the MMA, and would like to review its partnership in the light of the new situation”, Business Recorder added. “The (MMA) crisis has not come at once; it was building up over the years and has now reached a point where the clerics will have to either reshape it or let it die…. Maulana Fazlur Rehman clearly wants to vent his anger against (Jamaat-i-Islami chief) Qazi Husain Ahmed over the APDM and will surely say goodbye to it, which will leave Nawaz Sharif, Qazi Sahib and Imran Khan as its residual leaders, strong on rhetoric but thin on political presence”, as Daily Times pointed out on October 10.
In the name of necessity Pakistan today appears to be solely guided by the “Doctrine of Necessity”. The judiciary is not the only institution which has been functioning in accordance with this strange doctrine. Most other institutions also find it “useful”. The doctrine has led to the demise of the cause of accountability in a country which was being espoused till the other day by a powerful institution called the National Accountability Bureau. President Musharraf, who talked of accountability more than any other leader after he grabbed power in a bloodless military coup in 1999, has “found it necessary under the ‘Doctrine of Necessity’ to swallow his pride as well as his principled stand against his bitter foe – the PPP. On the other hand, Ms Benazir Bhutto, who has been agitating to come to power once with America’s blessings, had no other choice under the ‘Doctrine of Necessity’ but to enter into a dialogue with a military dictator whom she never accepted as the Head of State”, says Burhanuddin Hasan, a former Director of PTV, in his article in The News of October 11. But, as Firozuddin Ahmed Faridi points out in his article in The Nation, October 11, the question of ensuring accountability has hardly been on the agenda of the rulers ever since the birth of Pakistan. |
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
Doris
Lessing