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Shed the old for the new Railway safety claims false |
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Right to kidnap
A Tribune Debate
Dark horses
I stuck my neck out for Pakistan, says an angry Musharraf Chatterati
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Shed the old for the new Extreme
vigilance and readiness to fight threats to the country are the best ways to defend India. But it is disquieting to hear the view that “India lacks the wherewithal for modern warfare” from no less a voice than the Chairman of the National Security Advisory Board. Not only that, Mr Maharajkrishna Rasgotra has lamented the lack of a joint military doctrine, as a consequence of which each wing of the armed forces “tended to fight its own war.” It is not a secret that the armed forces have suffered due to avoidable delays in modernisation. Traditional weapons platforms, like artillery, fighter aircraft and submarines, have to be upgraded in terms of better performance and in numbers. This has not proceeded apace. Also, the forces have made advances in the use of new technologies. Information technologies have revolutionised warfare to the extent that targets can be obtained, information passed on to weapons platforms, and firepower delivered to destroy them, all in real-time or near-real-time. Information warfare and network-centric warfare is the name of the game. While the proponents of the so-called Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) may be tech-savvy enthusiasts, there is no doubt that war has indeed changed, and militaries cannot afford to be caught napping. And India will continue to face different types of challenges, from insurgency and low-intensity conflict to future wars whose origin and course cannot be easily predicted. Mr Rasgotra’s points on a number of issues, from allocating more money to the need for indigenous strength, not to mention the long-pending suggestion for a National Defence University, are all well taken. While India’s armed forces are indeed aware of the challenges, they should be more proactive in planning and looking ahead, and the ministry should support them in their efforts at change. Set ways of thinking and old prejudices about inter-service cooperation must be shed. The recommendations of the Group of Ministers after Kargil must be taken seriously. India needs a lean, mean, fighting machine, equipped with the latest technology and nimble on its feet. We hope those who decide are listening.
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Railway safety claims false THE loss of 16 lives, including those of seven school students, in a train-bus collision on Friday evokes a sense of dismay and outrage. How could a railway gatekeeper show such criminal negligence? How could a bus driver be so careless and irresponsible? Accidents at unmanned railway crossings are painfully common and understandable, but the one near Moga was totally man-made and certainly avoidable. The Railways cannot escape its responsibility. Unfortunately, cases of gatemen at railway crossings breaking the rules to give passage to vehicles are not uncommon in Punjab and many other states. This shows lack of negligence and supervision by the Railways. All the schoolchildren who died in the accident belonged to Nawan Chuharchak village. How the villagers got united in their moment of grief and helped the injured reach hospital in time deserves appreciation. This is the fifth major railway mishap in Punjab in recent years. After every mishap a set pattern is followed: an inquiry is ordered, compensation announced and then all is forgotten. Last year on November 23 four college students had died also in Moga district, again in a bus-train collision. A Punjab minister had announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh each, but, according to reports, the affected families are yet to get the money. Hopefully, the families of the latest mishap victims will not meet the same fate. There has been a 44 per cent increase in incidents of train collision, according to a report of the Commission of Railway Safety released in July last year. Mistakes by railway employees were responsible for 50.85 per cent of the train accidents. Employees seem to be taking it easy. Last month two tipsy train drivers caused an accident in Sangrur district, killing one person and injuring eight others. Maximum accidents take place at unmanned crossings. In a recent case when the Supreme Court asked why railway crossings were not supervised, the Railways cited lack of funds as a reason. It is strange that even after making a profit of over Rs 20,000 crore last year, the Railways is reluctant to spend more on public safety.
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Right to kidnap LIFE couldn’t get better. With the United States as allegedly the world’s only indispensable power, it couldn’t be otherwise. Washington has told Britain, which has not yet been territorially annexed by the US, that it has the right to “kidnap” British citizens if they are suspected of crimes in America. And, the only better news is that this can be done without recourse to formal extradition procedures. For those, like Britain, who want it to be spelled out in full: It is acceptable under American law to kidnap people if they are wanted for offences in America. If you kidnap a person outside the US and bring him there, the court has no jurisdiction to refuse – it goes back to bounty hunting days in 1860s. Now, only those prone to nitpicking will ask whether the US has not arrived in the 21st century. Of course, it has. But, bountiful though the land is, it does not want to disown the legacy it has inherited from a hoary past. Especially with President George Bush being from Texas, and with John Wayne no longer around shooting from the lip, the world needs to know who calls the shots. This development opens up a whole new vista of employment in bounty hunting. All that dutiful and loyal (to the US) Britons have to do is track down and capture outlaws for handing over to the US; and collect their reward. It will be only a matter of time before the rest of the world follows the British example. One welcome result of this will be that the world can rid itself of the gigantic bureaucratic machinery, which thrives in every country drafting silly stuff like extradition treaties. In fact, even the judiciary can be done away with in every country except the US. If American law and justice prevail worldwide, where is the need for every country to have its own judiciary? Mr Tony Blair would never have objected to the new international law ordained by President George Bush. Mr Gordon Brown would equally be keen to look the other way to keep trans-Atlantic relations as cosy as in his predecessor’s years in power.
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Worry is interest paid on trouble before it falls due. — American proverb
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A Tribune Debate TWO Judges of the Supreme Court, after deciding a particular case before them, have indulged in some loud introspection and self-criticism. “Judges must have modesty and humility and not behave like Emperors”, they said. “Judges must know their limits and must not try to run the government”, they also said, and added: “there is a broad separation of powers under the Constitution and each organ of the State must have respect for the others and must not encroach into each others’ domains”. That Judges must have modesty and humility, that they must know their limits, and that they must not behave like emperors is sound advice. But as to whether they must not try to “run the government” because of the theory of separation of powers between the legislature, the executive and the judiciary, is a matter on which there could be a different opinion. Permit me to express it. First, as the Supreme Court authoritatively said in Ram Jawaya’s case way back in 1955, the strict doctrine of separation of powers does not apply to our written constitution. As to the Judges attempting to “run the government”, our Constitution expects that elected representatives will enact laws which would enable the executive to run the government — and running the government means providing law and order to its citizens, giving them the wherewithal to live a decent and honourable life such as making provision for their social security, health, education, the environment and the rest; and taking administrative decisions fairly and without bias. When elected bodies and governments perform these strictly governmental functions there can be no reason and no occasion for interference by the courts. But it is when they don’t so perform, or perform badly, that an occasion arises for invocation of Article 14 (the Equality Clause) and Article 21 (the Life and Liberty Clause) — contained in Part-III of the Fundamental Rights Chapter of our Constitution. When these Articles are invoked by individuals or groups, the Judges who grant relief are not “running the government”; they are remedying acts of non-governance or misgovernance. Article 21 says that “no person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law”: literally this only means that no one can be put to death without a proper trial according to law, and that no one can be deprived of his freedom except in accordance with the law. But this is only a narrow textual interpretation of Article 21. Over the years, the Judges have read far more into the Article — and after they did so, Members of Parliament in their constituent capacity have accepted the court’s generous interpretation of Article 21, and have declared that this Article, above all other Articles in the Constitution, can never be suspended, even during an emergency! The wide and liberal interpretation of Article 21 has thus received legislative approval. Over the years, in one notable decision after another, the following rights have been declared by the Supreme Court to be encompassed within the four corners of Article 21: the right to go abroad; the right to privacy; the right against solitary confinement; the right to legal aid; the right to speedy trial; the right against custodial violence; the right to medical assistance in an emergency; the right to shelter; the right of workers to safe working conditions and to medical aid; the right to social justice and economic empowerment; the right to pollution-free water and air; the right to a reasonable residence; the right of citizens to food, clothing, decent environment and even protection of the cultural heritage; the right of every child to full development; the right of residents of hilly areas, to access to roads; the right to education; the right to live in a clean city with noise pollution at minimum levels — in other words, the right of every inhabitant to live his or her life with dignity. A large number of Directive Principles of State Policy set out in Part-IV of our Constitution, which are declared by the Constitution to be not enforceable in any court (but nonetheless fundamental to the governance of the country) have now been made enforceable by courts through the wide and liberal interpretation of Article 21 — a feat of judicial “engineering” unmatched in any other part of the world. But you cannot have engineering without tools. And the tools have been provided by the Founding Fathers in Article 32 and Article 226 — they empower the Supreme Court and the High Courts to issue “Writs, Orders and Directions” not only for the enforcement of the fundamental rights but also “for any other purpose.” The width of these articles was emphasised in a Constitution Bench decision of the court rendered in 1955. The court said: “We can make any order, or issue any writ in the nature of certiorari in all appropriate cases and in appropriate manner, so long as we keep to the broad and fundamental principles that regulate the exercise of jurisdiction in the matter of granting such writs in English law.” In English law Chief Justice Coke proclaimed way back in 1615, that the power of courts was not only to correct errors and misdemeanours but all manner of misgovernment — “so that no wrong or injury, neither private not public, can be done, but that it shall be (here) reformed or punished by due course of law”. These are the powers vested in our higher judiciary. That sometimes some men and women who sit on the Bench are not conscious of the limits of such power, or do not have the sensitivity to exercise judicial restraint when called for, only means that those (few) men (and women) are not equal to the supremely difficult task of judging entrusted to them under the Constitution: it only indicates that perhaps it is time we adopted a better method of selection of Judges for our higher judiciary. As to who can approach courts for relief under Articles 32 and 226 — obviously, persons who are “prejudicially affected” by acts or omissions of any governmental or other authority — sometimes even by “strangers”. Constitutional historian H. M. Seervai has given an example of public spirited individuals being granted locus to move the courts — with beneficial results to public administration — in Piloo Mody vs. State of Maharashtra (1975) the petitioner, a public-spirited citizen, impugned the action of the state government in granting leases of valuable plots of land at Backbay Reclamation, Bombay, at a gross undervalue. The result of the litigation was to help secure to the state exchequer a crore of rupees more: a very substantial sum in those days. It was this and later cases that gave impetus to the concept of PIL (Public Interest Litigation), since then frequently used (but nowadays frequently misused). It is the misuse that requires correction, not by abolishing PILs, but by laying down norms and framing strict guidelines for ensuring that such PILs are not improperly motivated. No. We don’t need Judges who behave like emperors. What we do need is those “whom the lust of office does not kill;/whom the spoils of office cannot buy;/who possess opinions and a will;/who have honour; and will not lie;/who can stand before a demagogue./And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking/Tall men (and women), sun-crowned, who live above the fog/ In public duty and in private thinking.” As part of The Tribune debate, an article by P.P. Rao, senior advocate, Supreme Court, will appear on Wednesday.
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Dark horses OUR erstwhile British masters saw the world in only two colours — black and white. We, however, always insisted that we were neither white nor black — we were, in fact, brown. With the changing times and with Mr Brown as the British Prime Minister, our point of view would perhaps be appreciated better now. Like all of us Indians, our family people were also always wheatish. However, wheat also comes in different colours — light, as the Madhya Pradesh varieties and dark, as the Mexican strains. Now, it is quite a coincidence that in our every generation, there was a male who, though accomplished and handsome personality-wise, was distinctly of a darker texture. It is yet another coincidence that these dark horses of every generation came good, better than others. Let me begin with my great grandfather, Sh Gurmukh Rai, who was a nephew of Diwan Mahi Mal of the princely state of Nabha. He died young. So, I do not have any idea how he looked. In any case, he was an adopted child of our family. True to our family tradition, my grandfather was of a darker complexion compared to his two elder brothers. Our grandmother being an exceptionally fair lady most of her children were also fair complexioned. But, she also managed to keep the family tradition alive in the person of my uncle. He certainly looked a shade darker while standing by the side of my father, though he was conceptually more accomplished and did much better in his career. He was quite conscious of his colour and often confided in his “bhabhi”, my mother, that nobody seemed to be taking notice of him though he had quite entered the marriage zone. Bhabhis those days were half mothers and half friends to their “devars” and considered it their natural duty to find brides for them. Finally, however, my uncle did not have to avail the services of my mother to bring a beautiful “aunty” to our home. The darker lot of the next generations were my immediate younger brother and my younger son, affectionately nick-named as “Kalia” and “Kalua” respectively. Both of them went on to become the pride of the family in their later lives. We looked like living up to our tradition when my younger grandson had to be delivered prematurely through a caesarean intervention due to the precarious condition of our “bahu”, herself a doctor. We first prayed for her life. When she was alright we wondered if God would be kind enough to save our child also. Once we got the report that he had survived, our worry was that he may be mentally retarded. My son wrote that he was mentally alert and fine though he had a darker look. We heaved a sigh of relief and wrote back: “one ‘Kalua’ per generation was perfectly acceptable to us”. Surprisingly, the boy went fair complexioned as he put on some weight. To add to this, he turned out to be an exceptionally smart fellow with ability to take others for a ride. We are happy that he may not have the colour of Krishna, but he does have some of his political
acumen.
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I stuck my neck out for Pakistan, says an angry Musharraf In an interview with Newsweek-Washington Post’s the Pakistani president insisted he will ensure a free and fair election in January. But he refused to say whether he would endorse a constitutional amendment to allow former prime minister Benazir Bhutto to serve a third term. This interview took place before the emergency was lifted in Pakistan. Q. Is there a difference now that you have shed your uniform and relinquished your post of army chief of staff? A. On a personal note, I loved my uniform. From the national point of view, I don’t think there is a difference. I think the overall situation will be better and stronger. The army is being managed by a chief of staff dedicated to the job, and I will be president of Pakistan, and if the two are totally in harmony, the situation is better. Q. You will appoint the heads of the army? A. I will appoint the chief. The security services report to the president and the prime minister. ... The ISI (military intelligence service) reports to the political leaders. Q. Once there is a prime minister, how do you see power being shared? A. The prime minister runs the government. Then there is a National Security Council chaired by the president that meets to review situations. But this is only a consultative body. There is no sharing of responsibility, really. Q. Will regulations recently imposed on the press be lifted? A. There are no restrictions on the press. Q. Wasn’t there a code of conduct (mandating “responsible journalism”)? A. We issued a code of conduct and asked them to sign it. It’s as good as you have in your own country. All the channels except one accepted it, and all except one are open. The print media were not closed at all. Q. In the U.S., there is no code of conduct for journalists – they are free to write what they want. A.
If you see our press and electronic media, there is no problem criticizing the government. ... The problem was that they were distorting realities and creating despondencies in the people of Pakistan by showing pictures of dead bodies and interviewing terrorists – not showing the law enforcement authorities in a good light but showing the terrorists in a better light. Thus they encouraged terrorism and discouraged the law enforcers. They were undermining the good work of the government, were entirely one-sided, and some responsibility had to be brought in. Q. In the U.S., it would be unacceptable to have a code of conduct. Don’t you think you should lift that when you end the state of emergency? A. No, the code of conduct is there in most countries of the world. Why should we compare the United States to Pakistan? Q. Will the judges be restored to their prior positions? A. No, not at all. What judges? Why should they be restored? New judges are there. They will never be restored. Q. People in the West will have a hard time understanding that. A. Let them not understand. They should come to Pakistan and understand Pakistan. Q. Since you say you are restoring the constitution, why not also restore the courts? A. No, there is no restoration of courts required – the courts are already there. Q. But these judges are handpicked by you. A. We took action. The judges had to take oaths, and those that took the oaths are there. Those that did not are gone. This action was validated by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. ... There was something seriously wrong with the chief justice of Pakistan. On March 9th, there were charges against him of corruption; (he was accused of) interfering (with) the judgments of judges on other courts; he was accused of interfering in the executive by taking actions on issues from traffic control to privatization. Q. Do you feel you stuck your neck out for the United States after September 11 and the United States has not stood by you? A. No, I don’t. I stuck out my neck for Pakistan. I didn’t stick out my neck for anyone else. It happened to be in the interest of the world and the U.S. ... The problem with the West and your media is your obsession with democracy, civil liberties, human rights. You think your definition of all these things is (correct). Who has built democratic institutions in Pakistan? I have done it in the last eight years. We empowered the people and the women of Pakistan. We allowed freedom of expression. Q. Then why are you now clamping down on the media? You seem far more angry now than ever before. A. I think you are right. (Laughs) Why don’t you understand? Am I a madman? Have I suddenly changed? Am I a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Q. People make mistakes. A.
I don’t make such mistakes. I take considered views. I don’t sleep at night and suddenly dream of something and issue orders in the morning. I discuss, I debate issues and then take decisions. Here was the situation when I had to take action on 3rd November (when Musharraf declared the state of emergency). The Western media was undermining what (we) are doing. Your media keeps criticising the army and the ISI – not understanding what their real contribution is to fighting terrorism. If the media is doing something which is totally demoralizing the nation, (resulting in a) government which is almost nonfunctional, the economy taking a downturn, despair and despondency in the nation ... terrorism rising in the settled districts, then ... Q. Mr President, terrorism is not rising because of the media. Terrorism is rising because the U.S. went into Afghanistan, bombed the Taliban, and they ran into your country. A. No, let me give you the answer. You take this Red Mosque incident (in which pro-Taliban clerics at an Islamabad mosque instigated an armed standoff with the government in July). We took action. What did the media do about it? They showed those who took action as villains and brought those madwomen who were there on television and made heroes of them. It should have been converted into a great positive. ... Instead, it was as if we had done something terrible. Q. Can Pakistan contain the threat from the extreme Islamists? A. We are combating it, and I think we are on the winning side. The issue is in the FATA – that is, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. There are two of them in north and south Waziristan and a third one in Bajaur. Q. Is that the area where you think Osama bin Laden is hiding? A. No, these are settled districts. He could be in Bajaur – this is the tribal agency bordering Kunar province, where there were no coalition forces in the past. On the Afghan side – that’s in Afghanistan. Q. So you can go from one side to the other? A. That’s a possibility. Q. Does your intelligence service know where bin Laden is? A. Nobody knows. Q. Has President Bush been supportive? A.
The president has been extremely supportive. I have nothing against President Bush. I think he has been most supportive; he has been a very sincere friend. I must say he understands fully the Pakistan environment. He understands why I had to act and what I’m facing. He totally and completely understands. Q. You think he understands why you imposed the state of emergency? A. Yes, he understands the emergency. He understands what we were suffering and that an action had to be taken. Q. Why are there more extremists now than when you came to office? Is it because of the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan? Is it because there’s a growing anti-American feeling? A. There is an anti-American feeling, and certainly U.S. actions in Afghanistan have an impact on it. On a larger scale, I would say the impact of whatever is happening to the entire Muslim world, starting with Palestine. Q. You mean plus the lack of any progress on the Israeli-Palestinian issue? A. Yes, you see all turmoil today is in the Muslim world. Iraq, Lebanon – when the Israelis came into Lebanon – and Afghanistan, of course. Q. Do you feel you could work with Benazir Bhutto? A. When you talk of working with her, you imply she is going to be the prime minister. Why do you imply that? I keep telling everyone we haven’t had the elections. Q. If she gets enough votes, do you think you could work with her? A. Yes, of course. Q. If she gets enough votes in the Congress to allow her to serve a third term, would you allow the ban (on anyone serving for three terms as prime minister) to be lifted? A. We’ll have to decide on that once they win the vote. ... Q. But didn’t you promise the U.S. last summer that you’d lift the ban on that? A. No, I haven’t given any such promises. We did talk about it, but there were many things that we talked about which have been violated ... Q. And you feel you could work with her? A. I think so. I am not such an unpleasant person. Q. Some say that you want the prime minister to come from your own party. A. We are going to have fair and transparent elections. Q. Is that really true? A. Why do you think it is untrue? Q. Mrs. Bhutto charges that there are going to be ghost polling stations – that the voting is going to be rigged. A. That is what she is used to, and that is what maybe she has been doing, so let her not treat everyone like herself. ... I am not like her. I don’t believe in these things. Where’s her sense of democracy when 57 percent of the Parliament vote for me, and she says she is not prepared to work with me, whether in uniform or out of uniform? Q. What do you think about President Bush saying that U.S. troops would operate unilaterally in Pakistan against al-Qaida if necessary? A. That will not be acceptable to Pakistan. The people of Pakistan will not accept any foreign involvement here, and I do not think it is required. We have intelligence cooperation. ... Q. Why can’t U.S. intelligence people see A.Q. Khan (the nuclear scientist who confessed to operating a network that supplied nuclear materials and know-how to Libya, Iran and North Korea)? A. No, it would be interference in our country. Would you like Pakistani intelligence to interfere in the U.S.? The problem with the West is that you want the developing world to do everything that you wish and desire. ... Are we that incapable, are we that small? This is not a banana republic.
By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post
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Chatterati THE “A” factor in Sonia’s life is the talk of
political circles in Delhi. She, like Rajiv, is surrounded by people with their names starting with A. Arun Nehru, Arun Singh and Amitabh Bachchan, were all very close to the Gandhi couple. If Amar Singh has been a constant source of tension to Sonia, Ashok Ghelot and Ajit Jogi lost their states. Ajit Jogi’s antics have always embarrassed her. Arjun Singh created the political atmosphere for Sonia to get into politics but has now caused great discomfort to the government by announcing 50 per cent reservation for Muslims in Aligarh Muslim University. Ahmed Patel is considered to be her closest aide. And her trouble shooter. Ambika Soni is considered to be Sonia’s shadow once again. Arun Shourie and Atal Behari Vajpayee have been responsible for a lot of turmoil in the lives of Rajiv and Sonia. So the “A” factor is a major part of the Gandhis’ lives, it seems. It just cannot be ignored one way or the other. Tinsel campaigners The tinsel town campaigners of the two major parties, Priya Dutt, Hema Malini Shatrugan etc are all flop shows in Gujarat. Chief Ministers of various states flew off without having got barely enough crowds to justify the cost and effort in getting them. Advani is trying desperately to show that he is a son of Gujarat. Arun Jaitley is making the right noises, with which he has been able, at the least, to get the election commissioner to issue a show cause notice to Sonia on her remarks against Narendra Modi. But in the end, the main players are Modi and Sonia. Modi’s only opponent is Sonia and not any state Congress politician, it seems. Advani being announced as the BJP’s Prime Minister candidate is no surprise. This announcement was made to assure the Gujaratis that the son of Gujarat will, may be, head the country someday. It also was to stop, at least for sometime, the bickering going on in the second rung leadership of the BJP. But one would have expected more dignified campaigning by the leaders of both the major parties. Ghostbusters’ school Ever heard of a “Bhoot ki Pathshala”? This unique school for tackling spirits actually exists in Nagwa village of Uttar
Pradesh, and if you are keen to drive away “bhoots”, you can enroll yourself for a crash course. The school starts by educating students in remedies for snake and scorpion bites, before beginning other lessons. This is because this is the rainy season and since classes are held in the open, there are ample chances of one getting bitten by snakes and scorpions. Women are strictly prohibited from venturing anywhere near the school. The fee is a closely guarded secret and the classes are held for almost 18 hours a day. Extreme backwardness in the region gives rise to such beliefs. Even to settle trivial scores with their
neighbours, the villagers resort to witchcraft.
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ISLAMABAD – An angry President Pervez Musharraf has defended imposing a state of emergency on Pakistan and blamed the Western media for many of his problems – from increased attacks by Islamic extremists to lawyers who have taken to the streets to protest his suspension of the constitution and firing of the country’s chief justice.