O P I N I O N S

EDITORIALS

Blow for empowerment
Enforce SC order on marriage registration
THE Supreme Court has rightly directed all the states and Union Territories to implement its 2006 order on compulsory registration of all marriages. A Bench consisting of Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice P. Sathasivam ruled on Thursday that those states which have not yet implemented its earlier order will have to comply with it within three months. The measure is a progressive social reform and will empower women. A marriage certificate, as a document of proof, will protect women who have been at the receiving end when some husbands become unreasonable.

Gujarat killings
Guilty must be punished
THE sting operations conducted by the Tehelka newsweekly have exposed the oft-repeated claim that the mass killings in Gujarat were a spontaneous reaction to the Godhra massacre. The sum and substance of the findings gleaned from secretly-videographed interviews with several persons who are accused of participating in the mayhem of 2002 is that the anti-Muslim violence was well-planned in which the government had also played a sinister role.

Towards transparency
SEBI curbs on shady investors
ON Thursday SEBI approved investment reforms, which had caused an upheaval in the stock markets when first unveiled. It decided to discontinue the issuing of participatory notes (P-notes) by the sub-accounts of foreign institutional investors (FIIs). The existing P-notes will have to be exhausted in 18 months.

• Thought for the day

ARTICLE

A nation in trouble
No one to replace army rule in Bangladesh
by Harsh V. Pant
Recent media reports indicate that India plans to get tougher with Bangladesh as it seems to have failed to take effective steps against terrorist groups operating from Bangladeshi territory. However, there is a much larger problem brewing in Bangladesh, something that India can ignore only at its peril. Bangladesh is preparing for elections possibly in October 2008 but public discontent with the rule of a military-backed caretaker government that will simmer for another year could upset the process.

MIDDLE

Media bashing
by Shastri Ramachandaran
IT is a very thin line that separates a media bash from media bashing. In fact, there is no telling when a scheduled press conference can turn into bashing, as journalists learnt to their great discomfort in Ludhiana on Thursday.

OPED

Criminals dominate UP politics
by Shahira Naim
A verdict delivered in Dehradun on Wednesday has caused a rude awakening amongst the mafia-don-turned-politician breed of leaders across Uttar Pradesh.
If the long arm of law could catch up with a politician like Amarmani Tripathi, who had successive governments eating out of his hand, then obviously many other
such actors in UP’s political arena don’t require a sixth sense to grasp that getting
a ‘clean chit from the peoples’ court’ no longer makes them invincible in the eyes
of law.

The perils of shunning the flag
by Rupert Cornwell
A mystery surrounds the current interminable, US Presidential campaign. What has happened to Barack Obama? He was the candidate with everything n youthful, gifted, charismatic, with a message of national unity, who had even had the prescience to speak out beforehand against the disastrous and now highly unpopular war in Iraq.

Inside Pakistan
Poll panel lacks credibility
by Syed Nooruzzaman
While the Government of Pakistan has begun the process of evolving a code of conduct for the coming elections, questions are being raised about the competence of the Election Commission to hold free and fair polls. Opposition parties are not happy with the conduct of the Chief Election Commissioner. This is not surprising because of the commission’s reportedly pro-General Musharraf role in the past.

EDITORIALS

Blow for empowerment
Enforce SC order on marriage registration

THE Supreme Court has rightly directed all the states and Union Territories to implement its 2006 order on compulsory registration of all marriages. A Bench consisting of Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice P. Sathasivam ruled on Thursday that those states which have not yet implemented its earlier order will have to comply with it within three months. The measure is a progressive social reform and will empower women. A marriage certificate, as a document of proof, will protect women who have been at the receiving end when some husbands become unreasonable.

Women will get an opportunity to exercise their rights properly and unscrupulous persons cannot play with their lives at their whim. The apex court’s order covers all religions across the length and breadth of the country. It removes the confusion over the court’s earlier order since a host of laws govern marriages in the country. The latest order will now cover marriages under the Special Marriage Act, the Parsi Marriage Act, the Christian Marriage Act, the Foreign Marriage Act and the personal laws governing the Muslims.

Compulsory registration of marriages, besides helping women, will benefit society as a whole in many ways. It can check child marriages and ensure a minimum age of marriage, prevent marriages without the consent of parties, check bigamy and polygamy, enable women to claim their right to live in the matrimonial home and seek maintenance from the husbands. It is noteworthy that while passing its order on February 14, 2006, the Supreme Court had endorsed the recommendations of the National Commission for Women.

Significantly, the Bench has ruled that while framing the rules for compulsory registration of marriages for all religions, the state governments should provide for “consequences of non-registration” in the rules. This is a reflection of the court’s resolve to push through the forward-looking measure. There should be no problem about its strict compliance because there is a refreshing change among the minorities about the advantages of getting the marriages registered. The state government and local authorities will have to ensure that there are no complaints of harassment about getting marriage certificates.

Gujarat killings
Guilty must be punished

THE sting operations conducted by the Tehelka newsweekly have exposed the oft-repeated claim that the mass killings in Gujarat were a spontaneous reaction to the Godhra massacre. The sum and substance of the findings gleaned from secretly-videographed interviews with several persons who are accused of participating in the mayhem of 2002 is that the anti-Muslim violence was well-planned in which the government had also played a sinister role.

Tehelka has sought to prove that Chief Minister Narendra Modi not only knew the plan to use the burning of a coach of Sabarmati Express at Godhra as an excuse to teach the Muslims a lesson but also gave the foot soldiers of Hindutva three full days to indulge in vendetta killings. What Tehelka has done is to give what was so far in the realm of speculation a touch of authenticity as those who speak boastfully about their involvement are Sangh Parivar leaders, including an honourable MLA.

The BJP has predictably rubbished Tehelka’s findings as part of the Congress Party’s campaign against Mr Modi little realising that the Gujarat government’s conduct either during or after the riots had not been above board. If the Supreme Court had not intervened, all the riot cases would have gone the way of the Best Bakery case in which all the accused were set free. The blanket exoneration —in 35 minutes — forced the apex court to order retrial of the case outside the state. The BJP’s credibility on the riots depends on how far the party is prepared to go to punish the guilty, which include its own leaders, government officials and policemen. To claim that it is obsessed with development of the state and has no time to look back is to escape from its responsibilities for one of the most traumatic experiences the nation has gone through since Independence.

Sting operations have, of late, lost much of their credibility. But their usefulness in exposing in wider public interest certain influential people cannot be ignored and that is what Tehelka has done in this particular case. Of course, everybody knew that Mr Modi’s claim, quoting Newton, that every action had an equal and opposite reaction, was humbug. The discerning could not have overlooked the fact that while there was no reaction whatsoever in several towns in Madhya Pradesh like Ratlam and Indore which are closer to Godhra, the worst-kind of reaction occurred far away in Ahmedabad. Tehelka has proved that if the Gujarat government was sincere, much of the killings could have been averted.

Towards transparency
SEBI curbs on shady investors

ON Thursday SEBI approved investment reforms, which had caused an upheaval in the stock markets when first unveiled. It decided to discontinue the issuing of participatory notes (P-notes) by the sub-accounts of foreign institutional investors (FIIs). The existing P-notes will have to be exhausted in 18 months.

P-notes are instruments issued by FIIs or investment banks to foreign investors who want to buy Indian shares without getting themselves registered with SEBI. Their identity and source of funds remain undisclosed. The Tarapore committee wants P-notes to be eased out. The stocks fell 9 per cent on October 18 on fears that SEBI was going to do that. The Finance Minister is against a ban on P-notes, which, if implemented, could shake up the stock markets.

Registration norms for foreign investors and hedge funds have been eased. Procedural complications and delays alone do not scare them. They avoid paying taxes by staying unregistered. Further, curbs have been imposed on P-note subscriptions to initial public offers (IPOs) of companies.

This will hit corporate fund mop-up efforts and issue pricing in the short run. While shutting the door on some shady investors, SEBI has allowed a new category of funds to register themselves as FIIs. These include pension funds, university funds and endowment charitable trusts. The flow of foreign capital will, therefore, continue as long as the Indian growth story is intact.

With these changes, some transparency in the system will be achieved. But the recent developments indicate the process could have been better planned. SEBI should have realised that the P-notes are a very sensitive issue, which had brought down the stock markets in the past too.

Any sudden intervention by the regulator, which can have a bearing on investor sentiment, should be avoided, especially when the stock markets are at dizzy heights. The SEBI move had panicked investors. Some suffered losses and other smart ones made quick gains. SEBI’s new directions remove any confusion that had been caused by the earlier decision on P-notes.

Thought for the day

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.
— Albert Einstein

ARTICLE

A nation in trouble
No one to replace army rule in Bangladesh
by Harsh V. Pant

Recent media reports indicate that India plans to get tougher with Bangladesh as it seems to have failed to take effective steps against terrorist groups operating from Bangladeshi territory. However, there is a much larger problem brewing in Bangladesh, something that India can ignore only at its peril. Bangladesh is preparing for elections possibly in October 2008 but public discontent with the rule of a military-backed caretaker government that will simmer for another year could upset the process.

And in the meantime, the caretaker government’s questionable reforms are weakening the country’s already fragile democratic foundation and unwittingly paving the way for radical Islamists to play a major role in politics.

National elections scheduled for January this year were postponed indefinitely and a state of emergency declared by President Iajuddin Ahmed with the backing of the country’s military.

Despite warnings from the international community that any move toward military rule would have adverse consequences for Bangladesh, the army-backed administration has tightened its grip over the country.

It has declared its ambition to uproot corruption and violence in electoral politics as well as to effectively tackle Islamist militancy. This has led to the arrest of several high-ranking politicians on charges of graft and the execution of a few high-profile Islamist militants.

In its purported drive to root out corruption, the two most high-profile targets have been former prime ministers — Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Sheikh Hasina Wajed of the Awami League. The UN Special rapporteur for human trafficking, Sigma Huda, was also arrested on charges of extortion and has been convicted and sentenced to three years of imprisonment.

The government has made it clear that elections will be held only after certain reforms that will change the way both political parties in Bangladesh operate. This includes changes in their organisational structure and most important, perhaps, in their leadership.

Though the military-backed caretaker government claims that these reforms have the support of the people of Bangladesh, some argue that this is an assault on the institutional underpinnings of the country’s democracy. The military wants to ensure that it retains its primacy in the political landscape and some critics contend it is doing its best to weaken the political parties.

Though ordinary Bangladeshis initially welcomed the installation of the military-backed caretaker government, there is now growing resentment with its failure to better manage the economy and to re-establish democratic governance.

There is also a danger that as the caretaker government weakens the mainstream political parties, the radical Islamist organisations could gain more salience. Jamait-e-Islami, for example, is emerging as a potent political force in Bangladesh’s polity where other mainstream political parties are getting discredited.

The drive for corruption is also losing its legitimacy as too many arrests are being made without the due process of law.

According to Human Rights Watch, as many as 20,000 people have been jailed on corruption charges in the past few months.

There is a danger of Bangladesh becoming another Pakistan where the military came to office promising a fight against corruption and went on to rule the country almost permanently.

The summer saw students challenging the might of the government and the government responding by imposing an indefinite curfew and closing down all educational institutions. This was the most serious threat to army rule.

Though this threat subsided after a few weeks, it revealed the tensions that continue to simmer below the surface.

It is true that over the past few years, politics in Bangladesh had become overtly personalised, revolving around the personalities of its two main leaders, the BNP’s Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina of the League. The two were so busy criticising and trying to undermine each other that they had little time to debate serious issues of governance.

The political struggle between Zia’s right-of-centre BNP and Wajed’s left-leaning Awami League had turned into a zero-sum game in which the biggest loser was Bangladesh itself. Shunning the give and take of democratic politics, the two parties seemed to keep their country perpetually on the verge of chaos, alternating between state repression and crippling national strikes aimed at toppling the government in power.

The increased polarisation between the two mainstream political parties opened up “political space” for extremist Islamic parties that have been using their new-found relevance as leverage to place their radical agenda at the forefront. The growth of radical Islam in Bangladesh owes a lot to the failure of parliamentary democracy and the weakening of civil society over the past few years.

Still, by weakening the main institutions that have sustained whatever remains of democracy in Bangladesh, the present government is further weakening the chances of the restoration of effective democracy. With the nation’s democratic institutions in shambles, there is nothing to replace the military-backed regime, rendering the religious organisations the main actors. This can have serious consequences for Bangladesh as well as for the entire region.

Already Harkat ul Jihadi Islami (HuJI), Bangladesh, is under India’s radar for a host of recent terrorist acts. India has a huge stake in what kind of political institutions evolve in Bangladesh in the next few years and so it is expected that India is effectively leveraging its influence in Bangladesh so as to help in its political transition to a stable democracy. This is as important for India’s national security interests as it is for the right of Bangladeshi citizens to have good governance.

The writer teaches at King’s College, London.

MIDDLE

Media bashing
by Shastri Ramachandaran

IT is a very thin line that separates a media bash from media bashing. In fact, there is no telling when a scheduled press conference can turn into bashing, as journalists learnt to their great discomfort in Ludhiana on Thursday.

The “occasion” was to announce the surprise “postponement” of the international wrestling events to be held in Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Patiala. The organisers knew that the news of the fixtures being put off would go down badly. So, they beat a hasty retreat from the scene and left the media folks to face the wrath of the wrestlers from abroad who had come with great expectations. It appears that the organisers had not got the necessary clearances for staging the events, although there could be other, unstated, reasons.

The wrestlers — 15 of them, including four women — went ballistic when they heard that they had come all the way from their respective countries for an event that was not to be. One of them, Nikita from Russia, more than turned the tables against the media; he literally picked up a table and threw it at the journalists.

Caught unawares, and at the receiving end for a change, the mediapersons ran helter skelter. Forget the story — it would have made for a good reality show on televison — the journalists were desperate to save their skin, and possessions like spectacles, mobiles and cameras.

The only thing worse than tangling with a wrestler is being in the presence of an angry wrestler who has come on a long-haul flight to find that he has been done out of a stage for the promised contest. The predictable outcome is media wrestling in the literal sense of the term.

It may be a different matter that this media wrestling was for real, not the stage-managed clash of heaving bulks of flesh that one sees on television. But it takes a spectator to observe that this was for real; it was not fun and games either for the wrestlers or those they wrestled with.

The media people, many would say, deserve a good bashing. In this instance, clearly it was not deserved. It would be incitement, to suggest that the organisers of Universal Wrestling Stars should have been the punching bags on the occasion; for it is they who brought in the wrestlers and they should have wrestled with the problem of coping with the ire of these imported pehelwans.

Put differently, since he who pays the piper calls the tune, he should be the one to face the music even if the accompaniments to the unexpected action that erupted off-stage were not very musical.

It is a relief that the organisers will be around to put up a fight another day, and leave the country to now proceed with a policy debate on what the fracas means for India-Russian relations. Was this simply a tactical blunder or is it a strategic failure with long-term consequences for India, Russia and all those smaller countries in between? Is it in anticipation of this clash that top Russian politicos gave a wide berth to Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Defence Minister A K Antony when they were in Moscow recently?

We will never know the answers unless the media can stand up to the heavyweights in the ring.

OPED

Criminals dominate UP politics
by Shahira Naim

A verdict delivered in Dehradun on Wednesday has caused a rude awakening amongst the mafia-don-turned-politician breed of leaders across Uttar Pradesh.
If the long arm of law could catch up with a politician like Amarmani Tripathi, who had successive governments eating out of his hand, then obviously many other
such actors in UP’s political arena don’t require a sixth sense to grasp that getting
a ‘clean chit from the peoples’ court’ no longer makes them invincible in the eyes
of law.

Big names in UP’s crime world had made it to the fifteenth Vidhan Sabha this May. Besides Amarmani Tripathi there are DP Yadav, Raja Bhaiyya, Madan Bhaiyya, Mukhtar Ansari, Akhilesh Singh, Dhananjay Singh, Sushil Singh, and Vijay Singh (who has since resigned).

They had all won with huge margins ranging from 17000 to 53000 votes. The highest margin was in favour of the dreaded Raja of Kunda, Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiyya. Most of them had retained their traditional seats. Some like Ansari, Tripathi and Akhilesh Singh had even managed to win from behind bars.

This happened despite criminalisation of politics being the central issue of a citizen’s campaign during the UP assembly elections this year. The initiative called UP Election Watch had collected and analysed 5940 affidavits filed by the candidates during the seven- phase election.

It had found 882 candidates (14.84 per cent) having pending criminal cases against them. Among the contestants, 97 were accused of murder, 204 of attempt to murder, 142 of cheating, 63 of dacoity and 51 of kidnapping.

While no party was found free of blemishes, Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi party topped the list in terms of percentage of candidates with criminal cases (38 per cent). The others are not far behind: BSP (32 per cent), BJP and its alliance partner Apna Dal (29 per cent), Congress (22 per cent) and RLD (14 per cent).

This is significant as it illustrates that despite the Election Commission tightening the noose against unfair means during the election, the political parties heavily banked on such candidates in the belief that their having pending criminal cases against them adds to their winnability factor.

The election results, however threw up some surprises. The number of candidates from major political parties who lost “despite” having criminal charges was astounding. Notwithstanding exceptions like Raja Bhaiyya, Amarmani Tripathi and Mukhtar Ansari most candidates with criminal records did not make it to the Vidhan Sabha.

Out of the 882 candidates with criminal records 155 (38.46 per cent) were elected. BSP candidate Pavan Pandey, who had the highest number of 63 criminal cases against him, lost. Among the losers was SP’s Ashraf who is the younger brother of SP MP Atiq Mohammad, the main accused in the killing of BSP MLA Raju Pal. In fact Pal’s widow Puja Pal defeated her husband’s alleged killer.

Dreaded dacoit Shiv Kumar, the SP candidate from Patti in Pratapgarh, also did not win the voters trust. His openly siding with BSP’s main rival definitely cost his brother Dadua’s life within weeks of the BSP assuming power. Piyaria Devi, mother of the surviving dacoit, Thokia, also lost.

Other notable losers were the six-time winner and aging don of Purvanchal Hari Shankar Tiwari who many years ago had Amarmani Tripathi as his bodyguard. Strangely, this minister in Mulayam’s outgoing government stated in his affidavit that his criminal record had been lost!

Similarly, Raja Bhaiyya’s sharpshooter and once Man Friday Thakur Prakash Singh, the Apna Dal candidate with 45 cases, also lost to his former mentor.

However, it still cannot be said that this time round the UP voters rejected the tainted ones by voting decisively in favour of clean candidates! This probably calls for a more in-depth analysis of the winnability factor in each constituency.

What can be noted is that the 15th UP assembly has 38.46 per cent members having pending criminal cases in comparison to 51.11 per cent in the previous house. If this was a glimmer of hope towards decriminalisation of electoral politics what followed completely dashed all such expectations to the ground.

Of the 41 ministers sworn in 22 (54 per cent) have pending criminal cases against them. Of the 16 cabinet ministers, 10 (62 per cent), have cases pending against them. In fact, Anand Sen, son of BSP MP Mitrasen Yadav, could not even take his oath of office as he was still lodged in jail!

In the days that followed Mayawati did send several messages across to prove that she would not tolerate criminals. Amidst the media eye she got her own MP Umakant Yadav arrested at her residence for seeking refuse there after intimidating some people in his constituency.

When Vijay Singh, the SP MLA from Farukhabad, having murder charges against him, quit his party and seat to join BSP, she refused to oblige leaving him high and dry till the Congress came to his rescue and gave him a ticket during the by election for the vacant seat.

Her administration is relentlessly pursuing the Raju Pal murder case in which the Allahabad mafia represented by brothers Atiq and Ashraf has been declared absconders and are being hunted like dogs. Their legal and illegal property has not only been confiscated but also demolished in full public view sending a strong message across the state.

And what is this message? Even if the electorate were slowly getting disillusioned with criminals in public life such people would continue to wield considerable clout as long as they remain on the right side of power and close to the power center.

The perils of shunning the flag
by Rupert Cornwell

A mystery surrounds the current interminable, US Presidential campaign. What has happened to Barack Obama? He was the candidate with everything n youthful, gifted, charismatic, with a message of national unity, who had even had the prescience to speak out beforehand against the disastrous and now highly unpopular war in Iraq.

And yet Hillary Clinton’s lead in the race for the Democratic nomination grows by the week. Obama is too inexperienced, some say. He doesn’t have a coherent message, it is argued. Others believe that he has simply been outmanoeuvred at every turn by Hillary’s battle-tested and ruthless team. But there may be another reason. Perhaps it’s because he’s stopped wearing his American flag pin and has subconsciously been cast by the electorate into that dark pit reserved for those deemed unpatriotic.

You know the pins I mean – the little stars and stripes badge worn unfailingly by George Bush and his top officials. They came into vogue after 9/11 as, reasonably enough, a symbol of of national solidarity after the trauma of the terrorist attacks. At one point, in the first flush of the Blair-Bush alliance, you could even find double pins, combining the British and American flags. These never caught on. Outside of international sporting contests, the British were wary of flaunting their patriotism long before Bush became one of the least-loved politicians on the planet.

Not so the Americans. For Bush and many other politicians, the tiny flag became part of their uniform, along with the dark suit, crisp white shirt and precisely knotted tie. For foreigners, the pin might have been a statement of the blindingly obvious n everyone knows only too well that Bush is American and that, as President, he defends what he sees as the American national interest. But it also became tacit emblem of the Bush doctrine in the “war on terror” unleashed by 9/11. Either you’re with us or against us. Wear the pin, and there can be no doubt where you stand.

Then one day on the campaign trail in Iowa this month, a sharp-eyed reporter noticed Obama was not wearing his pin and asked why. The candidate could have brushed the question aside with a smile or a joke, making the point that he had no need to prove his patriotism. Instead Obama committed the classic political “gaffe.” He gave an honest and frank answer to a question.

“You know, the truth is that right after 9/11 I had a pin. But shortly after 9/11, particularly as we’re talking about the Iraq war, that [the pin] became a substitute, I think, for true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to national security. I’ve decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest. Instead I’m gonna try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism.”

Ah, the naivety of truth-telling. Predictably, right-wing commentators went purple. “Why do we wear pins? Because our country’s under attack,” opined Sean Hannity on Fox News. (I thought it was Iraq – and perhaps soon Iran – that’s under attack, but never mind). But moderates, too, wondered whether Obama was implying his “true patriotism,” as demonstrated by his opposition to the war, was superior to the patriotism of ordinary Joes who wore the pin, or drove their gas guzzling cars with American flags streaming in the wind?

Only in America, surely, could you have a debate like this. But in US politics, patriotism is not only the cheapest card to play. It is by far the most effective. Lapel pins are one thing. But since 9/11 the Bush administration has wrapped itself in the flag, as it rode roughshod over the constitution to extend its executive power and steamroller the Democrats into submission.

Not until November 2006, when voters handed control of Congress back to the Democrats, did the worm start to turn. But despite the mess in Iraq, the basic strategy still works. Witness the continuing Democratic cave-ins on Capitol Hill, on torture, warrantless wiretapping, and continued funding for the war. Democratic leaders huff and puff. But the White House then accuses opponents of being “unpatriotic,” and invariably gets what it wants.

No-one has grasped the lesson more thoroughly than Hillary, as she seeks to quell doubts she has the right stuff for commander-in-chief. After voting for the Iraq war in 2002, she recently backed a Senate resolution on Iran that some fear will be interpreted by the White House as carte blanche for the use of military force against Tehran. Lest we forget, she often wears the flag pin.

And the patriotism card, having served Bush so admirably, could decide the Republican race as well. Quite possibly, it will carry twice-divorced and scandal-tinged Rudy Giuliani to the nomination in 2008 – even though he is pro-choice on abortion and supports gay rights and gun control, to the dismay of social conservatives so important in Republican primaries. But the man who was mayor of New York at the time of 9/11 talks tougher than anyone on terrorists, national security and Iran. Needless to say, he’s never seen without a flag pin either.

The odd thing is that, in my experience, Americans in most other ways are not “my country right or wrong” patriots. They are understandably proud of America’s astounding achievements. But they acknowledge that some things are done better abroad. They readily admit the failings of the US health care system. They worry about the growing gulf between rich and poor, and are appalled by instances of racial injustice.

Even 9/11 didn’t produce a sea change in their feelings. A 1999 Gallup poll for instance found that 21 per cent of Americans saw themselves as “extremely patriotic”. In January 2002, just four months after the attacks, the figure had risen only marginally, to 24 per cent.

But America’s flag is different. No country reveres it as much and no country displays it as much. No other country has an elaborate etiquette entirely devoted to its flag. No sporting event is complete without it even though all participants are American.

Obama was right on Iraq then. He is right now to insist that the last thing the country needs is unquestioning assent to the foreign policy of its leaders, and that dissent is an ingredient of “true patriotism”. But his frankness could help cost him the nomination.

By arrangement with The Independent

Inside Pakistan
Poll panel lacks credibility
by Syed Nooruzzaman

While the Government of Pakistan has begun the process of evolving a code of conduct for the coming elections, questions are being raised about the competence of the Election Commission to hold free and fair polls. Opposition parties are not happy with the conduct of the Chief Election Commissioner. This is not surprising because of the commission’s reportedly pro-General Musharraf role in the past.

Business Recorder says, “Its inability to prepare the electoral rolls – forcing it to undertake further enumeration of voters to the extent of enlisting a few more millions – has only sharpened public focus on the need to make the ECP a full-time business. It has become a national joke that the staff seconded by the commission for election duties is never paid in time and defraying the transport expenditure incurred in ferrying the staff and material for election duties remains a running from-pillar-to-post errand.”

How to ensure that the Election Commission functions as a truly independent institution is not the only problem related to the task of establishing people’s rule in Pakistan. Who will head the interim government to be set up soon is an equally, if not more, important issue.

The Pervez Musharraf camp is in favour of National Security Council General Secretary Tariq Aziz to be given this crucial position, whereas Ms Benazir Bhutto’s PPP wants the party’s senior vice-chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim to be the chief of the interim set-up. One can guess easily why they are trying to impose their own pliable lieutenants.

Threat to democracy

The culture of extremism prospering in Pakistan for a long time is posing the gravest threat to the efforts for the restoration of democracy there. The two cannot coexist. “Democracy will bear fruit only when extremism is eradicated root and branch”, as Tanvir Hussain points out in his article in The Frontier Post (Oct 25).

He says, “Misinterpretation of the religious doctrine is a major cause for extremism. Fanatics falsely justify the perpetration of unjust injuries inflicted on innocent people in the name of religion.” The latest incident to cite in this connection is the October 25 militant attack in the Swat tribal area.

The learned writer mentions two other major factors for the spread of extremism in Pakistan: widespread illiteracy and Uncle Sam’s “hegemonic designs”.

What this left-leaning thinker says through the columns of a well-known leftist daily may be discussed widely in the run-up to the elections. Unending killings by extremists show that these elements will do all they can to prevent the smooth conduct of elections.

In Swat, “while it is too early to lay responsibility, it is likely that militants allied to the Taliban are behind the attack”, as The News commented in an editorial. The extremist threat to democracy cannot be eliminated so long as the Taliban remains a potent force in Pakistan.

Ban on rallies?

Will the coming elections be held with a ban on political rallies? The government in Islamabad may impose such restrictions if ruling PML (Q) chief Chaudhary Shujaat Husain succeeds in having his way. This brainwave of Chaudhary Shujaat has come in the wake of the October 18 suicide bombings in Karachi. Perhaps, he thinks that allowing political parties to hold rallies is not possible under the circumstances as politicians will then become “sitting ducks for terrorists”.

But, as Daily Times (Oct 23) says in an editorial, this is a “quite complex” matter and requires “deconstruction”. Why is it that “PML (Q) leader Chaudhary Shujaat alone has recommended a ban?… How would it profit the PML-Q to have no rallies? It is possible that Chaudhary Sahib was still ‘serially’ thinking about doing something akin to an emergency that he has been recommending? If the rallies are banned because they expose the parties to terrorism, what about the polls themselves when the voters could be bombed in their thousands?”

Chaudhary Shujaat has given another twist to what happened on October 18. According to Urdu daily Jang, he has alleged that “the PPP leadership itself was involved” in the gruesome incident. He calls it a “conspiracy” by the PPP. The PML (Q) leader has been quoted to have said that “without doubt, political gatherings are part of the electoral exercise. I had talked of only not holding rallies”.

PPP leader Benazir Bhutto is opposed to any restriction on organising political rallies, but appears scared of taking the risk of addressing such gatherings the way politicians are used to doing. That is why she has reportedly said that she will take the advantage of modern technology and deliver her speeches while sitting at home, perhaps the way Mohajir Qaumi Movement leader Altaf Husain does from London.