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Anger in
Assam Bribe
under duress |
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Defaulting
MLAs
Towards knowledge
society
Argument
on Wagah
Assault on liberalism The road map at
Annapolis Inside Pakistan
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Anger in Assam THAT man is capable of reckless, barbaric violence has never been in doubt. But the sight of strapping young men stripping and kicking hapless women and dragging them through the streets of Guwahati must shock and disgust the most inured and cynical of us. And that the civic administration and law and order machinery stood by impotent, even as media cameras clicked away, can only add to the sense of collective shame. There is no doubt that a violent section of Adivasi agitators broke away from a rally meant to press their case for inclusion in the Scheduled Tribes (ST) list, and went on the rampage destroying property and attacking people. But the retaliation that was launched by the enraged locals, where women and children had to bear the brunt of the violence, is testimony to the depravity that a cowardly mob is capable of. As for the politics, it is no different from the push and pull of social tensions, the jockeying for power and privilege, and the interplay of vested interests. that characterise such tumult elsewhere in the country. The Adivasis of Assam may not be a homogenous community, uniformly in need of the benefits that will accrue from the ST status. The poorest and most marginalised of them do certainly need a leg up. But when it is a question of limited job placements and seats in schools and colleges, the reservation tussle is a zero-sum game. The Gujjar agitation in Rajasthan is still fresh in memory. Other communities, who may or may not be in the reservations loop themselves, end up feeling threatened, and passions are unleashed. When political interests dominate, conditions only get worse. All interested parties, including the All Assam Adivasi Students Association (AAASA), not to mention the state government, must share the blame for what is happening. Adivasi retaliation is also taking place, and more lives are being lost in the continued violence. An all out effort must be made to end it. The incidents are also a pointer to the seething caste-and-privilege turmoil undermining true progress in Indian society. Even after decades of Independence, we are not close to even a basic framework towards resolving it.
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Bribe under duress THE Delhi Special Judge has sentenced a National Human Rights Commission employee to two years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 20,000 for offering bribe to an SPG officer. While we are not aware of the merits of this case, the law should make a clear distinction between a person offering money under coercion and another doing the same out of his own free will for gaining undue and pecuniary advantage. In other words, there cannot be an omnibus condemnation of bribe-giving. In every case, the prosecution should examine the circumstances under which an accused has paid bribe. The law should be lenient to those who pay bribe under threat, coercion and intimidation. They are actually victims of bribery. These days one cannot get any work done without greasing the palms of the officials concerned. However, will it be fair to punish a person on the ground that he had given some money to the staff to get his PF, pension or travelling allowance arrears cleared without which he would have gone from pillar to post? What about those giving tips to the postman for having delivered a money order, to the railway ticket collector for a sleeper berth at the last minute or even for securing the expeditious release of a friend’s body from a hospital mortuary? The law should be such that punishment should be given only to those who are really guilty of the crime of offering bribes for seeking undue favours and not otherwise. Corruption is indeed deep-rooted in our society. It has polluted the system so much that one finds it easier to get a job done by giving some tips to the staff, rather than going round and round, wasting one’s money, time and energy. In any case, corruption must be checked because it poses a danger to the quality of governance and threatens the very foundation of democracy.
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Defaulting MLAs THESE days when criminals are calling the shots in politics, a breach of a rule like the non-payment of a loan may no longer be viewed as a serious offence. One could overlook it if it was an isolated case of one or two MLAs not being able to repay loans for reasons beyond their control. However, when just in one state some 40 ministers and MLAs, sitting as well as former, decide not to pay back loans, the matter becomes serious. It is not that their personal fortunes have suffered a setback or the sources of their income have dried up. The Punjab treasury may be in perpetual turmoil, but the personal fortunes of state politicians always maintain an upward graph. The Punjab MLAs have refused to return the house and car loans, ranging from Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 16 lakh, given at a very low rate of interest of 6 per cent. Ordinary citizens have to pay almost double the rate of interest, and if they default, musclemen of banks humiliate them in public and forcibly take away their vehicles. Such harsh norms of recovery cannot be applied to ministers and MLAs, which is understandable. The loans have been advanced not by banks, but by the state government. The MLAs seem to think that whatever belongs to the government belongs to them too. Why should they be asked to pay electricity bills, the rent for official accommodation or return the loans? That is why, like the Punjab State Electricity Board, the Punjab Accountant-General’s office seems helpless in recovering dues from defaulters. The A-G’s office has sought the help of the Punjab Chief Secretary, but what can the top bureaucrat do in the absence of a law-enforcement mechanism? The top political leadership in the state believes more in giving away whatever belongs to the government than in taking back.
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With the birth of each child, you lose two novels. — Candia McWilliam
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Towards knowledge society It
is an irony that after six decades of Independence and after the institution of so many committees and commissions, the education system still remains a colonial legacy. This, however, does not mean that there is need to throw the baby along with the bath water. With all its imperfections, the education system in India can be credited with creating the reservoir of human resources. One area in which India has the competitive advantage is English. Even the standard of school education with its emphasis on mathematics and other core subjects, which lays a very good foundation in elementary education, is perceived to be better than abroad. Availing and benefiting from the same education system, many students who are the product of the system shine in many universities and institutions abroad. The need for reform is certainly there. One area which the education system should address is to develop skill rather than pedantic knowledge, especially in the stream of social sciences. At a time when India’s economy is being transformed and geared towards creating an enabling environment for self-employed enterprises, as job opportunities, particularly in the government sector, are shrinking, it is imperative that education should aim at skill development rather than creating degree holders at the tertiary level. The quality of higher education in India needs much to be desired. It is a sad commentary that some three years ago, according to a study done by Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Institute of Higher Education, only the IIT (Khargpur), the IISC (Bangalore) and the University of Calcutta figured out in the list of 100 world-class universities and institutions with a cutting edge. It is also a matter of concern that some time ago according to a study done by McKinsey, only one-third of the engineering and management graduates passing out from the Indian universities and other institutions are employable. According to a latest study done by Times Higher Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) Word University Ranking, this rating has further fallen. It is a small consolation that only the IITs in Delhi and Mumbai find mention among the world’s top 50 technology institutions with the former at 37 and latter at 33, behind China’s Tsinghua University placed at 16. According to yet another study done by TeamLease Services, a human resource and staffing agency, 90 per cent of our college and school output has only bookish knowledge and are unemployable. It is also reported that 75 per cent of all colleges and 56 per cent of the universities in India had never been accredited by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC). These concerns assume critical importance at a time when the Sixth Pay Commission and the corresponding Pay Commission for a revision of the pay structure of the university and college teachers have been set up. The Engineering and Medical Colleges particularly have not been able to attract best talents because the salary offered by these institutions is not lucrative enough. It is high time the salaries offered to those teaching in these institutions are hiked. Perhaps the salary offered to college lecturers in a non-decrypt college in a remote town may not be attractive for somebody joining the faculty in the IIT, the IIM, the AIIMS or the NIT. Similarly, the faculty members of Central universities should be paid better than their counterparts at under-graduate colleges. Correspondingly, however, this raises the expectation from them. The faculty members should be leaders and pioneers in the frontier of knowledge and should be in a position to break new grounds. The core areas of research and development should be beefed up with better investment and there should be initiatives and efforts on the part of the universities and institutions to raise resources from the corporate sector and industrial houses as well. In addition to the applied aspects of knowledge, there should also be emphasis on conceptual and theoretical aspects. Pure science and even social sciences should also be given due weightage in the scheme of things. The standard of research in our universities is also far from satisfactory by international standards. A majority of researches in our universities are nothing more than the compilation of data culled out either from the libraries or laboratories. Research should aim at three objectives: it should develop a new thesis, contradict an existing thesis, or supplement it. Unfortunately, the research outputs in our universities to a large extent, with a few exceptions, do not meet these objectives. Higher education should aim at achieving excellence in the domain of science, technology, and humanities which calls for dedication and rigour. Simply mechanical stipulation of having a PhD or publications are not enough. The question is: PhD of what quality and what is the standard of publications? An article published in a reputed and referred journal like the Nature or the Economic and Political Weekly in India or even a prestigious mainstream newspaper carries more credibility than a book published by the an obscure publisher. The selection for academic positions should also be purely on merit based on objective evaluation and not on extraneous considerations or on the basis of what is called “patron-client” relationship where a pet student of a professor in the Selection Committee gets selected ignoring the claims of a candidate of superior merit. There should be merit and not mediocrity if excellence is to be achieved. At a time when there is a mushrooming growth of engineering colleges and business schools, it is imperative that a integrated social science module is simultaneously developed and introduced alongside the mainstream curriculum. Whether one is an engineering graduate or management graduate, a social perspective is required to have a holistic view. A proper understanding of the political and social processes, the operational dynamics of our economy will help any engineering or management graduate to better grapple with challenges in his vocation or profession. When projects like POSCO or SEZs are set up, it is imperative that those entrusted with the execution have a holistic view of the socio-economic and political backdrop. Yet another urgent requirement of our liberal education is that alternative approaches should not only be encouraged but also inculcated. Any social scientist worth his salt should be a social critique. This is in the larger and greater interest of society and polity that there should be an informed debate in the spectrum so as to arrive at a consensus. No wonder then that even in the US, Noam Chomsky, one of the worst critics of America, is one of the revered cult and occupies an exalted position in the university set-up at the NIT; so also Joseph E. Sitglitz, the American Nobel Laureate economist, who came down heavily on the IMF for the agency’s policy prescription which exuberated the Asian financial crisis a few years
ago.
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Argument on Wagah While
driving past Amritsar to Wagah, we had thought we would experience all that should be different. People, soil, food, dwellings, crops, language, etc. Also, we’d thought everything should look, as between worst enemies, torn and divided: culture, community, ancestry, history and religion. But that was not to be. We had heard about the drill at Wagah and the sentiments attached to the event. A colleague in my office had once told me, “One is very enthused and enough prepared to die for the country at that moment, Sir”. The Indian side shouts “Vande-Matram, Bharat Mata ki Jai and Hindustan Zindabad”. The other side says, “Pakistan Zindabad, Paaindabad. Lowering of the flags on both sides is followed by a common drill in which the Border Security Force men and Pakistani Rangers “outstep” each other with overt and aggressive, macho display of strength. Well we reached the Wagah border with barbed fencing leading from both sides. The strong iron-gates were painted in tricolor scheme on “our” side and green & white on “theirs”. Crowds of people having patriotic blood flowing through their veins had gathered on both sides. Each half was charitable but only to itself in shouting slogans. It was here that I felt there existed two countries, two people, two communities, two entities. But still carried away by my fondness and respect for our mutual bonhomie with Pakistan, the tales of which I had heard from my father and grandfather, I began cheering even the “other side” when they sought response to their sloganory exhortations. Suddenly then, I felt a tapping on my shoulder by “someone”. I turned back and looked someone with whom an argument ensued reflexively. “Why are you cheering them?” “There is nothing wrong in that” “Are you one of those?” “And are you someone different?” “Don’t know they’re separate now?” “Do rivers stop entering this side?” “Political rhetoric is long dead” “So will be peace-willing generations!” “Khushwants, Nayyars, Asma Jahangirs?” “Yes. Precisely. So let’s cheer each other.” “Don’t you hear they swear by Allah?” “Large number among us also does that.” “They’re under seize and are tensed.” “That’s why they deserve our cheers!” “Emotional fool! Go your way” Having been thus rubbished, I realised that “someone” was none else than my own flawed self. But what I had been looking in that crowd, even after the event of retreat drill, was the face of a child called Noor. Remember she had a successful heart surgery in Hindustan some years back. I am sure the likes of her would be the new generation in Pakistan. The Retreat left me more hopeful. Emotional fool. Did you say that? No. Now it is “someone” again at it. Damn him and hail
peace!
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Assault on liberalism Yet every political party wants her: some want her to stay, others want her to go. But want her they do. After all she has her uses – as a political football. Rarely has the plight of an individual so instructively indicted all parties, across the political spectrum, as being hostage to communalist politics. The case of Taslima Nasreen has also exposed that India’s foreign policy, particularly in the neighbourhood, is driven not by interests or principles but by sectarian compulsions at home. To deal with the latter first, India has always been hospitable to those who have sought political, cultural and humanitarian refuge on its soil. In fact, more than providing mere refuge, India and Indians have taken pride in supporting those from neighbouring countries who have come here for a variety of reasons – ranging from political persecution and threat to life to cultural repression and continuation of struggles for democracy in their native land. Many of the movements for democracy and self-determination in the neighbourhood have drawn – and continue to draw – both inspiration and support from India. From Burma and Bangladesh in the east to Afghanistan in the west, from Nepal and Bhutan in the north to Sri Lanka and Maldives in the south, regardless of New Delhi’s stated position towards the regime of the day, people in India have rallied to the cause of freedom and democracy in these countries. The handling of the Tibetan cause is noteworthy, for New Delhi – to its credit – has enabled virtually a republic for a people deprived of their state; and, at the same time, not upset the balance of bilateral relations with China. Where New Delhi did not aid and abet these trans-border alliances, it tacitly encouraged the exiles with their struggles and aspirations while seemingly adopting a hands-off approach. This gives India the leverage to influence developments in neighbouring countries and intervene at critical moments of a struggle for democratic rights. However, the results of such intervention, from Sri Lanka in the 1980s to Nepal in recent times, are disparate, the outcome being predictably at variance with the intent of policy. Although neighbours have been let down, too, as when Indira Gandhi struck a deal with Nepal’s King Birendra to hand over B P Koirala, and thereby cut the inspirational head of the Nepali Congress’ struggle from the body of its activists, generally India and Indian soil has been supportive. Despite B.P. Koirala being treated as a “diplomatic liability” in the mid-1970s, Nepalese of all political hues have always drawn sustenance from India for their democracy movements at home. The Maoists, in spite of their anti-India rhetoric, made the most of this hospitality from every circle – official, political, corporate, and, of course, the illicit arms industry in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. In the case of Sri Lankan Tamils, too, despite the suicidal risks, Indian political hospitality has been unwavering. New Delhi would have done well without the costs and consequences of hosting the Tamil separatists, especially the LTTE. But the “terrorists” enjoy the support of powerful sections in Tamil Nadu. So much so, that when an LTTE functionary is killed Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi pens an elegy because of the “Tamil blood” in his veins. The killings of so many Tamils in so many conflicts in Tamil Nadu in his five decades as a legislator did not bring forth a comparable outpouring. What of his Indian blood? Coalition dharma demands that New Delhi desist from raising the question. So, why is Taslima being kicked around like a football, from Kolkata to Jaipur to New Delhi when India is a free country for Nepal’s Maoists and Sri Lanka’s Tamils (and their supporters)? Freedom of expression is a constitutional right, and Taslima is entitled to it as much as Mr Karunanidhi. She had to flee Bangladesh in 1994 to escape the fatwa of the fundamentalists. She has not said or written anything to offend Indian democratic values during her long stay in Kolkata, which she considers a “second home”. All it took for Taslima to be bundled out of Kolkata, “on security grounds”, was a Muslim outfit’s demand that her visa be revoked. The violence over Nandigram which gripped Kolkata has nothing to do with Taslima and her writings or actions. It has a lot to do with a communalised polity and the strivings of so-called secularist forces to pander to the Muslim vote bank. The Left Front does not want to alienate further the Muslims who have turned against it over the Nandigram issue. Thus, an issue involving freedom of expression is allowed to be communalised out of crude opportunism. Perhaps, it is even useful to divert attention from the real, unresolved issues in Nandigram. Since the Left is assumed to be a beacon of secularism, other “progressive” formations have followed the CPM’s lead. The UPA’s effete posture of benign indifference, reflected in the Union Government’s silence, is being exploited by the BJP and the UNPA. After the attack on Taslima during her visit to Hyderabad, the Congress party is on the defensive. It does not want to provoke the ire of Muslim organisations, and the Left, on the Taslima issue. The UNPA, notably Farooq Abdullah, has come down hard on Taslima, asking her to either apologise for her writings or leave the country. The BJP has promised to focus on Taslima in its election campaign in Gujarat (and Himachal Pradesh); and, the party wants her to be treated as a political refugee in India with the right to live with dignity and security. This should be cheering news for Muslims in Narendra Modi’s state where the 2002 massacres reduced a community of citizens to “refugees” with neither dignity nor security. With communalist forces raising ‘secularist’ demands and progressive alliances neglecting the constitutional rights of a minority in deference to its fundamentalist fringe, the devil is no longer in the detail. It is the big picture casting an ominous shadow at home and on Indian policy abroad. Taslima, like M.F. Husain, reminds us that the right to expression can extract a heavy price – that very right.
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The road map at Annapolis If
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice want to set the Annapolis conference to music, I have a suggestion: the chorus from Sugarland’s latest country music hit: “Everybody’s dreamin’ big, but everybody’s just gettin’ by.” The meeting in Annapolis, Maryland, which got under way Tuesday, is shaping up to be a case study of what happens when you call a peace conference with high expectations and then reality intrudes. Yet Annapolis can still be consequential – if Israelis and Palestinians take bigger risks and the Bush administration takes a more forceful, hands-on role than we’ve seen to date. I’ve planned my fair share of negotiations, conferences and summits, so I know a little about success in this department and quite a lot about failure. Such events are usually good for two things: opening a process, as in Madrid (October 1991), which launched unprecedented Arab-Israeli negotiations; or closing a process, as was the case with the Wye River Summit (October 1998), which produced an agreement on security for Israelis and gradual withdrawal from the West Bank for Palestinians. Annapolis initially was intended to produce something in between: a set of understandings about how the core issues – Jerusalem, borders and refugees – would be resolved. Quickly confronted with big gaps and tight political constraints, however, the United States had to downsize its ambitions. Still, there is opportunity. The Israeli prime minister and the Palestinian Authority president have demonstrated that they like each other and can do business together. Few people know that, in the last three months, Olmert and Abbas have had more serious discussions about the core issues than any – repeat, any – Israeli prime minister and Palestinian Authority president have ever had. Throw in Rice’s determination and the enormous amount of work previously accomplished on the core issues, and they just might get somewhere. True success, however, will depend on the weeks or months of negotiations that will follow Annapolis. Israelis and Palestinians will have tough choices to make, but so will the US in its role as facilitator and broker. Getting it in writing: Hollywood mogul Samuel Goldwyn once quipped that an oral agreement isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. The same is true for peace talks. For now, the Israelis and Palestinians should be encouraged to exchange ideas and concepts and to own their negotiating process. But if gaps remain, and they surely will, the US will have to do more than offer up suggestions. It must help the two sides draft a formal written agreement. Even if talks don’t reach that stage, the administration should think seriously about putting out its own ideas on the core issues in 2008 – much as President Clinton did in December 2000 – to reaffirm the desirability and feasibility of reaching a final agreement. Driving the road map: The 1993 Oslo accords failed partly because neither Israelis nor Palestinians could fulfill their obligations. At Annapolis, the parties may agree (yet again) to implement phase one of the 2003 “road map for peace,” including freezing settlements, stopping terrorism, seizing weapons and facilitating freedom of movement and economic activity for Palestinians. If so, the US needs to monitor each side’s progress and be prepared to get critical and to impose costs if either side falls short. Only the US, using toughness and reassurance, can drive this process. Recognising Palestinian realities: No Israeli-Palestinian peace can be implemented without a unified Palestinian polity that controls all the guns. Why would Israel make nation-threatening concessions to a Palestinian partner that doesn’t? The big question is when and under what terms the Palestinians will reconcile. No matter how they do it, the US needs to stay out of the way. The US should focus on empowering Abbas by brokering a final agreement and improving the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank and, if possible, Gaza. Then Abbas can negotiate with Hamas from a position of strength. Abbas’ goal is to draw Hamas’ pragmatists (if there are any) into the political process minus their guns and extremism. Whether this will work is unclear, but it’s worth a try. If the US doesn’t want to engage Hamas, fine. But it shouldn’t interfere with the efforts of those who do. President Bush inherited a worse hand on Arab-Israeli peacemaking than any of his predecessors. Annapolis offers an opportunity to turn that around. It will take effort and resolve, but by the end of his term, the president could leave behind a serious Israeli-Palestinian negotiating process, even an agreement. He may not see a Palestinian state on his watch, but he may be responsible for preserving the option of a two-state solution. The writer is a former US West Asia negotiator By arrangement with
LA Times-Washington Post
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Inside Pakistan Has
former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif come back to Pakistan as a result of a deal involving Gen Pervez Musharraf and Saudi King Abdullah? Nothing clearly is known about it, but most newspapers have hinted at an undeclared deal. The General was reportedly opposed to the homecoming of Mr Sharif and his other family members, including his younger brother Shahbaz Sharif, a former Chief Minister of Punjab, before the January 8 elections. King Abdullah, however, succeeded in persuading the General to relent during the Pakistan President’s recent Riyadh visit. The General, in turn, has been assured that Mr Nawaz Sharif will not do anything that comes in the way of holding the polls. The PML (N) leader told a BBC interviewer before his return to Lahore that the Saudi government “feels very strongly that I have a duty to perform in Pakistan and a role to play.” But what that “duty” and “role” are will be clear in the days to come. According to Daily Times, “It is said that the General got the assurance that the Sharifs will stay away from political agitation and not take part in the 2008 elections.” Perhaps, that is why Mr Nawaz Sharif says he will never serve in a dispensation headed by General Musharraf. His filing of nomination papers for contesting the polls may be only for the heck of it. As The News says, “regardless of developments over the coming days, and the matter of whether or not the PML (N) decides to contest polls, the fact is that the return of the Sharifs has significantly changed the political scenario in the country. This is most particularly true in Punjab…giving the government a new bargaining chip that can be used to keep the PPP in check….”
Poll boycott not so easy The All Parties Democratic Movement (APDM) has decided to boycott the January 8 elections, but will it be able to stick to its decision? Many analysts believe that no major opposition party may afford to keep itself away from the poll arena. Mr Nawaz Sharif’s PML (N), which leads the APDM, is likely to participate in the elections despite he himself abstaining from it. A Dawn (November 25) report quotes Attorney-General Malik Mohammad Qayyum as saying that Mr Nawaz Sharif was “a convict – and the sentence is still applicable – when he was banished to Saudi Arabia in December 2000”. But Begum Kulsoom Nawaz and Mr Shahbaz Sharif have no such disqualification. Since Ms Benazir Bhutto’s PPP is contesting the polls, the PML (N), too, will do so, as Mr Nawaz Sharif says. A major constituent of the APDM, Maulana Faz ur-Reman’s JUI-F, has asked its members not to bother about the opposition alliance’s boycott call. Maulana Fazl has accused the APDM leadership of not consulting him before announcing its decision, according to a report in The News. The truth is that the wily Maulana has quietly developed cordial relations with General Musharraf. He was criticised for indirectly helping the General to win the Presidential election. Now again he does not want to do anything that can upset the General’s applecart.
Shaukat Aziz insulted Former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz’s decision not to contest the coming elections has come because most of his Cabinet colleagues have been opposed to giving him a major role in the future government if his party, the PML (Q), succeeds in forming one. This is the result of his own style of functioning. He was popular in army circles, but despised among his party colleagues. “It is on record that only 10 days ago, on November 16, which was Shaukat Aziz’s last day in office, a government spokesman had emphatically stated that former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had been offered tickets from eight constituencies and he had agreed to contest elections from two constituencies. The spokesman had made this statement after it was reported in the national press that only two out of the 70 Cabinet ministers had wished that Aziz should get his top job back, while 68 ministers of his Cabinet just stayed mum,” as pointed out by The Frontier Post in an editorial on November 27. He realised that under the circumstances he would not be able to win from any constituency. Daily Times commented, “He has tried to put a nice face on what could be sheer disenchantment with the political set-up in which he was included by General Pervez Musharraf. Being a deft opportunist, he could be leaving because he thought his ambition would henceforward be thwarted.”
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