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Emergency must go Seven-day blunder |
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Chaos at
airports
Democracy as a sop
Soldierly
spirit
A judge of men and
matters Asian countries eye
space ambitiously Delhi Durbar
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Emergency must go Pakistan
President Pervez Musharraf’s rebuff on revoking the emergency to United States deputy secretary of state John Negroponte was only to be expected, but that is no reason to accept the General’s obduracy and leave the issue at that. The people and political parties in Pakistan are daily demonstrating with their protests that they will not be cowed by General Musharraf’s heavy-handed crackdown. And, it is in recognition of the popular resistance to the emergency and the consequent political repression that the international community is trying to persuade the General to ease up on his dictatorial ways. The US message to General Musharraf — to lift the emergency, release all political prisoners, quit as army chief, stop suppression of the media and call off the persecution of democratic leaders and activists — is the strongest so far. But, far from easing up on his dictatorial ways, Pakistan’s military ruler is tightening the screws, particularly on the media, which he finds extremely inconvenient. General Musharraf, who has gagged the media in Pakistan, wants to ensure that the television channels do not broadcast from elsewhere, too. As a result, Geo TV, Pakistan’s premier private news channel, which has been blacked out since November 3, was taken off the air by the authorities in Dubai as well. The United Arab Emirates authorities, reportedly at the behest of General Musharraf, have ordered Geo TV and ARY One to stop uplinking their news programmes from Dubai. The closure of these channels in Dubai, which has drawn fresh protests, shows that General Musharraf will also seek allies abroad to silence his critics. It would be a grave miscalculation on the part of General Musharraf to assume that Washington will retreat because he has ignored the warning conveyed through Mr Negroponte. The US has much in its strategic and diplomatic arsenal, which it can yet deploy to make Pakistan’s military ruler roll back the repressive measures he has unleashed. Washington must use this leverage and lean harder on the General to make him lift the emergency and create conditions that are conducive for democratic politics and free and fair elections. The longer the US treats General Musharraf with kid gloves, the harder will his iron fist be felt in Pakistan.
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Seven-day blunder Karnataka
Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa’s submission of resignation to Governor Rameshwar Thakur even before the State Assembly took up the motion of confidence on Monday does not come as a surprise. The fate of the seven-day-old BJP government was sealed after the Janata Dal (Secular) leadership issued a whip to its members to vote against the motion. Ever since the JD (S) decided not to transfer power to the BJP in tune with the power-sharing agreement on October 2, the alliance between the two allies had gone for a full toss. The former Prime Minister and the JD (S) supremo, Mr H.D. Deve Gowda has been the root cause of the trouble. He was trying for his son, Mr Kumaraswamy’s continuance as the Chief Minister even beyond his 20-month tenure. And when the BJP refused, he demolished the alliance. The state came under President’s rule. However, fears of a vertical split in his party forced Mr Deve Gowda to review his stand. The brief JD(S)-BJP re-marriage after the separation was not a smooth affair. After considerable delay, President’s rule was revoked on November 8 and the Governor appointed Mr Yeddyurappa as the Chief Minister. However, Mr Deve Gowda’s demand for a 12-point MoU to be signed by the BJP in exchange for his party’s support to the government proved to be the last straw. The BJP was in no mood to sign on the dotted line. Had it done so, that too, on “stamp paper”, Mr Yeddyurappa would have become a dummy, with Mr Kumaraswamy calling the shots as a super Chief Minister. Mr Yeddyurappa’s defeat is bound to show the BJP top brass in poor light. Instead of sticking to their earlier stand for the dissolution of the State Assembly and fresh elections, the BJP leaders were no less opportunistic and fell a prey to Mr Deve Gowda’s machinations. Given their infamous track record (remember how the Gowdas ditched the Congress-led Dharam Singh government earlier?), how could the BJP trust Mr Deve Gowda and take Mr Kumaraswamy’s word of support for granted? This is a blunder the BJP should have avoided. Mr Deve Gowda’s only aim has been to perpetuate his family rule in Karnataka. Fresh election alone can rescue the state from its present political uncertainty and the sooner it is held the better.
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Chaos at airports The
harrowing experience of hundreds of passengers at Delhi’s IGI Airport due to the delayed flights of Air India at the weekend brings into focus, once again, all that is wrong with the national carrier and the inadequacy of the Capital’s international airport to handle the growing air traffic. A plane developing a snag once in a while is understandable, but the unfortunate fact is the national carrier is saddled with an ageing, trouble-prone fleet, which can even endanger precious lives. The total disregard shown by the Air India staff towards the trapped passengers’ basic needs like drinking water is unpardonable. As incomes have risen and fares declined, more and more Indians now choose to travel by air. More airlines and planes have taken off, but the metropolitan airports have not been expanded accordingly. Due to congestion, planes keep hovering over airports before they can get a green signal to land. This causes unnecessary wastage of fuel, which is already becoming costlier and denting the profitability of airlines. Incidents of ‘air miss’ too have become more frequent. Passenger safety is at risk despite the planes being equipped with a transport collision avoidance system because pilots and technical staff, being in short supply, are often overworked. Aviation is growing furiously at 40 per cent annually and the necessary infrastructure has to come up at a faster pace to meet the growing needs. Lack of logistics has hit cargo services and held back exports, especially of perishables. It may take quite some years before the work of modernisation of the existing airports and establishment of new airports in non-metorpolitan towns is completed. There has been a marked improvement in air services with the encouragement provided to foreign carriers and the emergence of private sector domestic airlines, but the passenger too has become more demanding. If Air India is to survive competition, it will have to shed its lethargy and become service-oriented.
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There is but one God, the Supreme Being. His name is Eternal Truth. — Guru Nanak
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Democracy as a sop Somewhat
unwittingly, President General Pervez Musharraf asserted in Islamabad in justifying his imposition of emergency that he had given his country “the essence of democracy”. At a stroke he illuminated the root cause of the crisis he and Pakistan have been undergoing, the latter almost since its inception. Pakistan has not been able to evolve a suitable system of governance, having lost its founder’s guiding hand soon after it was created. A chain of generals who captured power for longer and shorter
periods sought to impose their own concepts of democracy. We had Field Marshal Ayub Khan evolving his “guided democracy”. General Zia-ul-Haq was enamoured of the Turkish model, as indeed is General Musharraf, of the Army giving itself a key constitutional role in governance, particularly through a National Security Council. The common element in all these projections is the ingrained belief of the Army leaders that democracy is something which can be given as gifts or sops to the people provided they behaved. What can be given in this fashion can logically be taken back from errant children. It is a feudal or paternalistic concept of governance. To give credit to General Musharraf, he was a cut above his military predecessors. During his tenure, private television channels came into being and the print media, it appeared, flowered as never before. The General, it seemed, had broad shoulders and could take the hardest knocks a hard-hitting media — until early this year. In his quest for retaining the presidency under a constitutional façade, he sacked the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. This was true to form for a military ruler; Pakistani judiciary had traditionally folded up in the face of Army power. What was unusual was Chaudhry’s refusal to go quietly, charged as he was with misdemeanour. In reality, he had been showing too much independence for the Army’s good and was unreliable as far as rubber-stamping a fresh term for President Musharraf was concerned. Again, the unexpected happened. Lawyers, traditionally the least revolutionary profession, rose up in revolt and Chaudhry became the lightening rod for a popular movement against President Musharraf. Indeed, he was the unlikely hero of growing members in civil society showering adulation on him as he criss-crossed the country as a new knight in shining armour. The script had decidedly gone wrong from President Musharraf’s point of view and he revealed his hand. Private channels were prevented from reporting on Chaudhry’s triumphant journeys, Geo TV studios were vandalised. President Musharraf was still conscious of his image as a liberal general; he apologised. And the courts and lawyers functioned with a new enthusiasm born of an important battle having been won. The General accepted the reinstatement of the Chief Justice with apparent good grace and Pakistan, it seemed, was finally taking the high road. The fly in the ointment was President Musharraf’s re-election. Initially, the Supreme Court had let the flawed process of the President’s election in uniform through legislatures in the last gasp of their terms proceed with a caveat of a review. But as the process proceeded, with increasing signs of an adverse verdict, General Musharraf acted. He imposed an emergency in his capacity as chief of army staff, dismissed the Chief Justice and the other judges who were not pliant enough, banned private channels and clamped strict censorship of the print media. General Musharraf complained at great length to Islamabad’s diplomatic corps how wronged he was at the hands of the judiciary. He was probably sincere in expressing his grievance. Never before in
Pakistan’s long years of military rule had the judiciary behaved fearlessly and justly. Coups were justified or glossed over and judges were careful not to upset the military authorities beyond token gestures. Yet Justice Chaudhry had the temerity to threaten to create a constitutional crisis by vetoing the validity of the General’s election. Which brings up back to the kind of democracy Pakistan should have
even as Turkey, the Pakistan Army’s model, has moved away from being an Army which is the state to a more democratic dispensation. All signs indicate that General Musharraf’s “essence of democracy” is inadequate to satisfy his people. The General still displays his chutzpah in justifying his actions and has President George Bush’s ear in the latter’s “war on terror”, but he must know that his career as Pakistan’s ruler is coming perilously close to an end. If the US administration must give up Musharraf and the little arrangement it had made for a marriage of convenience with Benazir Bhutto, it will, in all likelihood, seek his designated Army successor, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, as its new saviour. But the problem of Pakistan’s polity remains unresolved. One of President Musharraf’s less edifying legacies is the encouragement of the religious parties at the expense of the two main parties. And even as religious extremism has grown, the country is suffering from extremist elements the authorities had encouraged as instruments of their policy in Afghanistan and India venting their fury on their own benefactors. Equally clearly, Pakistan’s civil society has matured, as was dramatically shown by the lawyers’ agitation and the support civil rights activists traditionally fighting lone battles received from civil society. American priorities are clear: Washington wants Pakistan to fight its “war on terror”, whatever the domestic dispensation might be. But this will no longer satisfy the increasingly restive and articulate middle classes who provide the
sinews of the country’s progress and development. It is true that Pakistan does not have attractive civilian options. Benazir compromised herself by striking a deal with General Musharraf under American auspices only to find her popularity eroding fast. The other former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, behaved with greater dignity but had also preferred to live in exile until recently, rather than face the music at home. And the stints of these two were hardly distinguished in terms of good corruption-free governance. In fact, General Musharraf had argued while selling his “essence of democracy” to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York last year, “For too long, our so-called democratic governments have been rife with corruption and have been trampling on civil liberties”. Recent events prove that the answer is not General Musharraf’s “essence of
democracy”.
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Soldierly spirit In
the late seventies I was commanding my battalion in a remote area in Tuensang district of Nagaland. Placed under my command was a company of the BSF, composed of personnel of the erstwhile Revolutionary Government of Nagaland who had earlier surrendered to the Indian Army. Their company commander was Zekiya Sema, a quiet and bucolic man of severe demeanour further enhanced by his beetle eyebrows. He carried himself with dignity and soldierly élan. While we all wore our crumpled fatigues, he was always clad in immaculate khakis and wore a ceremonial peaked cap that he never removed even while sitting down. A revolver in a well-polished cerise holster always dangled by his side. He was reticent and invariably guarded his words. However, since he lived on a hill just by, I visited him often and he gradually warmed up and unfolded the arcana of his exploits of yore. He had been in many an encounter and was reputed to be the chef-d’oeuvre in the art of ambushing. He had a bullet and shrapnel still embedded in his leg as proof. Our lingua franca was Nagamese — a hybrid mix of Assamese and Naga language. He told me that a Dogra Battalion commanded by Lt Col Babbar had been deployed in the area where his underground outfit operated. Both were diehard adversaries and had thrown an open challenge that they would “get” the other. One day, on learning that Babbar would be visiting one of his forward posts, Zekiya planned to lay an ambush. He and his men lay there in wait, fully ready for the kill. However, due to a last-minute change, Babbar did not accompany the party that day. Zekiya felt so disappointed that he did not execute the ambush and let the “innocent” soldiers pass through unharmed. Col Babbar, an officer with a reputation for outstanding professionalism and punctiliousness in the Army, was at the time commanding the Dogra Regimental Centre. Since I had known him personally I wrote him a letter mentioning about Zekiya and the incident of the aborted ambush. I received a prompt reply. In the envelope, he had enclosed a sentimental letter addressed to his old rival. Since Zekiya could not read, I explained the contents to him. As I proceeded I could see him trying to control his emotions. When I came to the last part where Babbar had said, “I hold you in the same high regard that one soldier always holds another after the war”, Zekiya instinctively rose from his seat and
saluted.
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A judge of men and matters
Judges, by upbringing and training, are proficient in judging cases, but there are some who are also proficient in judging men and matters. R.S. Pathak was one of the few who had both accomplishments – having acquired them from long years of experience on the Bench. When he became the Chief Justice of India he had a grand vision of the institution of which he was the head — that it should consist only of men and women of the highest integrity and competence. He put integrity first. As the Chief Justice of India he used to visit high courts so that he could hear first hand from the local Bar and Bench about some possible candidate for elevation to the Supreme Court. On such visits he kept his “ear-to-the-ground” (so to speak) making his own personal assessment: but keeping his views to himself. During one such visit to a particular state high court he saw and heard people speak highly of a relatively junior judge in Karnataka – only fourth in rank and seniority. Pathak made a mental note of what he heard, and returning to Delhi recommended M.N. Venkatachaliah to be a judge of the apex court. The decision proved a momentous one because in course of time the same judge ultimately assumed office as Chief Justice of India. At a party in Neeti Bagh in Delhi many years later Raghu Pathak told an assembly of lawyers gathered there – and he said this proudly — “It is I who gave you all Venkatachaliah”. Though never himself boastful but always self-effacing, he only burst out with this sentiment because he loved the institution. He once told me that a judge in the highest court must always approach his task with dedication, honour and humility so that when he left the court on retirement he had the satisfaction of having added one more brick to the great edifice! I had first seen Justice Pathak in my early years at the Bar when I was briefed to go to Allahabad (one of my first trips to another High Court). My case was in a particular court, but did not reach till the next day. So I sat watching the proceedings in the adjoining courtroom where a Full Bench of three judges had assembled. A very handsome and youthful Justice R.S. Pathak presided, with Justice Beg sitting on his right as the junior Judge. I was greatly impressed by Justice Pathak’s grasp of the case and his imperturbable demeanour - Justice Beg was later transported as Chief Justice of Himachal Pradesh and taken thereafter to the Supreme Court becoming the CJI. Pathak, though Beg’s senior, followed Beg as Chief Justice of Himachal and later (only much later) became a judge of the Supreme Court: a somewhat strange dispensation which continues to this day and perturbs many judges in the high courts. But it has always been so. Appointments to the Supreme Court are not by way of seniority but by selection. Before 1993 the selection was by the Central Government (really the Law Minister) after consultation with the Chief Justice of India. After 1993 (due to a controversial judgement of a Constitution Bench of the court) the selection has been made by the Chief Justice of India along with his senior colleagues after consultation with the Central Government (the judges’ decision being final). It is only in India that judges of the highest court are selected by judges of the highest court: an anomaly which Lord Cooke of Thorndon (a judge in the House of Lords) amusingly emphasised in a speech delivered in Delhi with the cheeky title: “Where angels fear to tread….” I do recall how keen R.S. Pathak always was to get the best judge appointed to the highest court. As CJI, he wrote a personal letter to the late Justice Bakhtavar Lentin, then Judge in the Bombay High Court, to join him in Delhi, but unfortunately for the Supreme Court, Lentin declined, since others who were his juniors in the all-India reckoning had been earlier elevated at the instance of the CJIs during the pre-Pathak era. The Pathaks (husband and gracious wife) had been known to us for many years and much loved in the Nariman household. I also knew his late father G.S. Pathak but only when he retired as Vice-President and came back to practise at the Bar. Fortunately for me, G.S. Pathak joined our table in the Bar Library and regaled us with a fund of stories of the “giants” in the High Court of Allahabad – men like Motilal Nehru, Tej Bahadur Sapru etc. We from Bombay had our own heroes at the Bar and on the Bench, Chief Justice M.C. Chagla being the leading favourite (he still is). One endearing quality of the late G.S. Pathak was that he recounted his stories with great relish, and when it happened to be (as it frequently was) an amusing one, he would first laugh a great deal himself, putting the listener in the right receptive mood! It was a unique but most pleasant experience listening to stories of great lawyers of the past. R.S. was like his father in many ways. Both were men of the highest rectitude, both believed that the legal profession (which comprises both judges and lawyers) was a noble profession: those with soiled hands were best left out. As a judge and then as the Chief Justice, he was transparent and fair to all. If goodness runs in families (they attribute it to the genes these days!) it certainly ran thick in the case of the Pathak family. We were always proud to say that we knew them. Then again we as lawyers were proud to have R.S. Pathak as our Chief Justice – a man always courteous, and polite but firm. When he went to the World Court to fill in the remainder of the second term of Judge Nagendra Singh, we all felt prouder still. Sitting at The Hague Pathak soon made a name for himself; the justices there liked him and benefited from his wisdom: they have told me so. Whenever I went to conferences abroad Stephen Schwebel – a conference going judge — always spoke highly of R.S. Pathak, remembering him fondly. Amongst the judges of the world he was greatly respected. I have had the privilege of continuously practising in the Supreme Court of India since 1972 before a succession of as many as 24 Chief Justices. During this period, I can unhesitatingly say that among the finest Chief Justices we have had – he was one of them. The Chief Justices who stood head and shoulders over the rest – leaders of the Court – were: Chief Justice S.M. Sikri, Chief Justice R.S. Pathak, Chief Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah and Chief Justice J.S. Verma. All incumbents of this high office, present and future, would do well to aspire to and reach the noble heights that these four dignitaries attained. Justice R.S. Pathak – having lived a full life – is no more. But he will remain alive in the hearts of all those who loved and respected him. May his noble soul rest in peace.
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Asian countries eye space ambitiously The
oversized ambitions, secretive military culture and still-impoverished population underpinning China's space program are on full display at the Xichang space center, the site of last month's moon probe launch. Two beefy People's Liberation Army soldiers stop foreigners from entering the "world-famous" launch center and museum in Sichuan province, even though all the information on display is available on the Internet and China's technology lags that of its Western counterparts. Not far away, still within the secure area, two water buffalo lumber along, nudged by a farmer who likely earns less than $10 a month. "I think China should spend more on space even if we still have a lot of poor people," said Yang Jixiang, a Xichang driver. "It shows our country is emerging and becoming richer. I fully expect one day we'll match the U.S." Even as China's economic footprints expand on Earth, its growing space ambitions are turning heads aloft, prompting hand-wringing in Washington and a competitive response from neighbors. The launch of China's lunar probe mission came a month after Japan's Kaguya launch. India, ever wary of its ambitious neighbor to the north, is expected to follow suit early next year. On other fronts, India in April successfully tested a ballistic missile capable of delivering nuclear warheads to much of Asia and the Middle East. In February, Japan completed a network of four spy satellites able to eyeball the globe. South Korea also has stepped up its ambitions, including a planned kimchi-in-space experiment, even as Malaysian astronauts ponder how a good orbiting Muslim should fast till sundown and pray five times a day when the sun is rising every 90 minutes. Starry-eyed as they may be over the potential economic windfall, the Asian nations' space dreams also are driven by growing wealth and national pride, analysts say, particularly in the case of India and China, which see these programs as a way to signal they've arrived. "I'm not sure I'd call it a passing of the baton because I'm not sure the West is on the way down," said Jonathan McDowell, space program historian and astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "But it's very clear Asia is on the way up." The accelerating pace being set by China signals how far it's come since 1970, when scientists warned that too many Mao badges aboard the nation's first East Is Red satellite would impair orbiting. Four years after the Asian giant became the third nation after the U.S. and Soviet Union to launch its own manned space flight, China last month announced a new, more powerful rocket. And in January, a Chinese missile successfully destroyed an aging weather satellite. The U.S. and European Union remain wary, however, particularly after January's satellite-killer test and the large amount of space debris it generated. China has countered that all militaries are secretive, space debris is a global problem and Moscow and Washington conducted many similar tests over the years. A closer look at Asia's space balance sheet finds China the clear leader in manned space flight. Beijing also boasts the most extensive infrastructure, with three launch sites in place and a just-announced combined pad and theme park on the drawing board in southern Hainan island. Also working in China's favor, said Clay Moltz of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., is solid government backing, its pick of the nation's scientists and close, if far from transparent, links with the military. Japan is ahead of China in areas such as deep-space probes and robotics and enjoys a more focused, high-tech approach. But it suffers from relatively limited budgetary and popular support and almost no help from the military. Japan's space program has clawed back from management problems and several embarrassing failures, most recently in November 2003, when a rocket had to be destroyed after a booster failed 10 minutes into the flight. "Some referred to it as the world's most expensive fireworks display," said James Lewis, a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "At least you got a bang and a flash." Japan now has a relatively reliable launch system, but the program has had trouble attracting engineers given competition from other industries and a low pool of candidates because of the nation's low birthrate. India, meanwhile, has a strong grounding in earth sciences and engineering, an ambitious vision and programs that dovetail well with national development plans. But its program may not garner the budget needed to compete longer term with China, some analysts said. "China's resources are 10 times more than us," said Dipankar Banerjee, director of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies in New Delhi. "Compared to the Chinese, we still have a long way to go." China and India also see a robust space program as an essential step on the road to recognition as a global power. "The space program is viewed as an essential prerequisite for India to be counted amongst the developed nations of the world," said Ranjit Singh Nagra, a military expert. By arrangement with
LA Times-Washington Post
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Delhi Durbar Even as it showed signs of flexibility on the stand-off relating to the Indo-US nuclear deal, the Left was keen to keep the matters entirely in its control. So while there were indications before the November 16 UPA-Left committee talks that the communist parties were willing to consider the government proposal to start the dialogue with the IAEA, they were in no mood to relent on the core issue of operationalisation of the deal. Some CPI leaders consulted experts to ascertain if the government holding talks with the IAEA without initialling or signing any document would in anyway negate their opposition to the deal. The leaders gave indications that the flexibility shown by them was a result of the persistent efforts by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and was meant to provide an honourable exit for the government.
BJP’s woes Some senior leaders of the BJP are not happy with certain recent events presenting an unsavoury picture at a time when it is facing crucial elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. Among such events listed by a senior leader and MP are the much-hyped “opium-laced brew” reportedly offered by Jaswant Singh to his guests and Chief Minister Vasundhra Raje giving an impression the she was just waiting for an opportunity to strike at him, Keshubhai Patel continuing with his banner of revolt against Narendra Modi and Prem Kumar Dhumal cold-shouldering Shanta Kumar in Himachal Pradesh ahead of the polls.
Trusted and wanted Himachal Pradesh Revenue Minister Sat Mahajan is a sought-after man in Congress circles despite his decision not to contest the assembly polls. The octogenarian leader is seen as a balancing force in the state Congerss where the views of Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and PCC chief Viplove Thakur sometimes differ. Mahajan has the trust of both the PCC chief and the Chief Minister and is part of all vital committees of the party related to the elections in the state. Though several party leaders urged him to contest one more time, Mahajan decided to leave electoral politics to pave the way for his son getting the ticket. He apparently feels that it is better to quit when you are wanted.
PoW norms To a touching appeal by Palampur-based N.K. Kalia on the inhuman killing of his son, Lt Saurabh Kalia, hundreds of citizens across the country have responded and called the International Human Rights Organisation to take note of the Pakistan army flouting international Prisoners of War norms. After the government had failed to do much dimplomatically to take up the issue in international fora, Dr Kalia in an appeal on the net sought his countrymen's support to raise the issue with the
IHRO. Contributed by Prashant Sood, S. Satyanarayanan and S.S. Negi
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