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Another
Bhutto Red
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Tasks
before Dhumal
Assassination of
Benazir
Vanvas
from valley
The BPL list fiasco
in Haryana More losses than
gains in foreign policy Delhi Durbar
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Another Bhutto THE name “Bhutto” has its own attraction in Pakistan’s murky politics. That is one reason why slain PPP leader Benazir Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, has preferred his son, Bilawal, to be known as Bilawal Bhutto Zardari henceforth, to take over the reins of the largest party of Pakistan. This is not exactly what Benazir wanted at this point of time if her will is to be believed. Since her son is just 19, she willed her husband to be given the responsibility of heading the PPP after her death, which she feared under the circumstances. But when the succession question was to be decided on Sunday, Mr Zardari proposed the name of Bilawal, though he will soon proceed to Oxford to complete his studies. Mr Zardari must have realised that only his son was qualified to wear the mantle left by his wife. Retaining the Bhutto name with the PPP was Mr Zardari’s masterstroke. For all practical purposes, he will play the leadership role as a co-chairperson of the PPP, but the appeal to the voters will be made in the name of a third generation Bhutto. He himself has an image problem. He acquired the sobriquet “Mr Ten Per Cent” because he allegedly sought kickbacks for clearing most of the projects, particularly during Benazir’ second term as Prime Minister. It will be difficult for the PPP’s opponents to criticise it as a party headed by a person facing corruption charges. The party also cannot be accused of promoting dynastic rule as its senior Vice-President, Mr Makhdoom Amin Fahim, has been declared as its prime ministerial candidate. It is a different matter that he may be quietly forced to withdraw from the prime ministerial race in favour of Mr Zardari if the PPP is in a position to form its government. The PPP appears to be well placed to capture power if the elections are held as scheduled — on January 10. The party has a countrywide following with Sindh being its stronghold. It seems to have added to its appeal considerably owing to the sympathy wave generated by the assassination. President Pervez Musharraf, who is accused of not providing enough security to Benazir, may go in for postponement of the elections to deny the advantages the PPP has today. But such a course cannot be in the interest of stability in Pakistan.
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Red corridor PRIME MINISTER Manmohan Singh has repeatedly described Left-extremism and the Naxalite threat as one of the most serious security challenges to the country. Meeting the challenge effectively will require more than the numerous meetings and workshops that have been held, as attacks have continued unabated. The most recent meeting of the chief ministers should result in some progress on the ground, as Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal have agreed to share information and coordinate operations against the militants. This is a long overdue step, as a national threat such as this one cannot be contained by being bogged down in petty, jurisdictional constraints. In fact, all states along the ‘Tirupati to Pashupati Red Corridor’, from the Nepalese border of Bihar down to Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, covering Chhattisgarh, Orissa, and any state having Naxalite-affected districts, should be roped in to form a concerted front against the menace. Many Naxalite attacks, including those in the South, are carried out by out-of-state “cadre”, who strike and vanish back into the forests of a neighbouring state. Sharing of information and joint operations become vital if such attacks have to be contained and their hideouts located and busted. It has become de rigueur to mention that the underlying social causes sustaining the Naxalite movement have to be effectively addressed. But mere lip service will not do, and there must be an extra push in the affected districts to wean away support. But this can be done only if those resorting to or contemplating violence are firmly checked. The Maoists have successfully mobilised masses of people in many areas, and their actions are avowedly part of a strategy of “people’s war” towards a comprehensive “revolution”. This vision, however misguided or even fantastic, is a realistic goal in their eyes, and the sporadic bursts of violence may get out of hand if the movement is not put down. A coordinated national effort towards this end is the only answer.
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Tasks before Dhumal COMING to power on its own steam in Himachal Pradesh must be a heady feeling for the BJP. To give vent to this excitement, even the oath-taking ceremony of Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal took place at the historic Ridge in Shimla, an unprecedented change of venue, which earned the ire of former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, who decided to stay away. But once the euphoria cools down, it will be back to hard work and fulfilling the aspirations of the people who handed it such a big victory. Expectations are sky high indeed, and that can be scary for any government. The main point that it raised during the hectic campaign was that of corruption by the outgoing government, alleging that even the then Chief Minister was involved. How to investigate all those cases without appearing to be vindictive will be a ticklish immediate problem. If that is difficult, providing a clean, transparent and efficient government of its own will be even harder. And then, the BJP is also committed to tackling unemployment, inflation, regional disparities and industrialisation. The state badly needs better roads, education and health infrastructure. Himachal Pradesh is a state where government jobs are the biggest source of employment. It is these public servants who make or mar a government. The Dhumal government is committed to implementing the 6th Pay Commission report. That will put considerable strain on the exchequer. The previous stint that Mr Dhumal has had may help but only to a limited extent. All this will have to be done while simultaneously keeping factionalism in the party on a tight leash. This time, Mr Shanta Kumar’s loyalists pulled along well with those of Mr Dhumal. This working relationship will have to be maintained, despite the vagaries of ministry formation and regional pulls and pressures. There are misgivings, too, about the BJP’s election manifesto promise to effectively implement the anti-conversion law. There are apprehensions in some quarters that this may be a Hindutva agenda by another name. The BJP will have to steer clear of the trap.
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Love your enemy — but don’t put a gun in his hand. — American proverb
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Assassination of Benazir I
first met Benazir Bhutto in the Washington setting of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in the early eighties. As a senior associate of the Endowment, I was privy to a gathering barred to the Press in which Benazir was making her American pitch. She gave me a most gracious brush-off after I had introduced myself ("Oh, you are from our part of the world"). Her task was to further her political prospects by networking with the rich and the influential of a country that has had a dominant influence virtually since independence. Years later, in the nineties in the grand setting of the Prime Minister's office in Parliament House in Islamabad and at her official residence and later in her cramped Parliament office while in opposition, I conducted formal interviews with her. She was charming and articulate, an adept practitioner of projecting her views and vision with an insistence that began to grate the more often one heard her spiel. Perhaps subconsciously, I was comparing her with her father Zulfiqar Ali. My meetings with Z.A. took place against the setting of Queen Elizabeth's visit to Lahore in the beginning of the sixties and later the same decade in Jakarta during the Afro-Asian conference, with India and Pakistan ranged on opposite sides. Zulfiqar Ali was a most attractive politician whose social graces were enhanced by political vision. He conceived of Pakistan in a larger context of an Afro-Asia fighting an historic battle against the colonisers. True, Zulfiqar Ali was often opportunistic, but despite the compromises he made with Ayub Khan, the mentor he turned against to build his own political career, he gave his people hope for the future. His roti, kapada aur makan (bread, clothing and home) slogan was unashamedly populist, as was Indira Gandhi's gharibi hatao (abolish poverty) call, but he did seem to be committed to a more equitable society, in spite of his feudal background. He brought about his own downfall by cooking up election results and pandering to fundamentalist social mores. General Zia-ul-Haq was waiting in the wings to profit from the PPP's falling out with other political parties and sought safety in setting up his execution through a trumped-up case. There were common traits between the father and daughter. They both had self-belief in their capacity to lead and in taking their country towards a better future. They were both charming and sophisticated who could be very different people on the political platform, adopting grand populist themes and shouting declamatory rhetoric. The similarities ended when it came to vision and the realm of ideas. Benazir always gave me the impression of saying the right things for political effect, rather than out of conviction. Her decision to assent to an arranged marriage was predicated on her belief that a single unmarried woman leader would be unacceptable to Pakistan. As it is, she broke fresh ground by becoming the first prime minister in a Muslim country in modern times. Her hunger for power was similarly dictated by her belief in her destiny to lead. Her final compromise was to do a deal with the military ruler in order to re-enter her country's political scene. It was opportunism that perhaps led to her death, assuming that a militant outfit, rather than a rogue element of the country's security services, committed the deed. Knowing how central the anti-terrorism theme was to America's interests in and around her country, Benazir had raised the pitch for fighting terrorism to a crescendo, screaming her attacks on terrorists at the Rawalpindi meeting shortly before an assassin took aim. Benazir's assassination also represents a central dilemma of Pakistani politics. How does the country move away from a military-run dispensation? After her ouster from her second stint as prime minister, Benazir complained that she was not privy to the country's nuclear programme or to moves made in Kashmir. Her fellow politician, also twice ousted from the prime ministerial office, complained even more loudly after General Musharraf's coup that he was not in the loop on the Army's dubious adventure on Kargil although he had later to carry the can. It has been the ambition of several generals who seized power in Pakistan to embed the Army in the policy-making process, whatever be the civilian dispensation that ostensibly governs the country. The classic Turkish model, itself in the process of evolution, has served as a starting point for General Zia-ul-Haq and President Musharraf. Pakistani generals have always considered the concept of a national security council dominated by the Army as the key to a future polity. And the succession of ruling generals from Ayub Khan to Musharraf has distrusted the Bhuttos - father and daughter - because of their ability to pull at the heartstrings of the people of Pakistan. Until the Chaudhry phenomenon, generals have found it easier to subdue and co-opt the judiciary but have found it difficult to cope with the Bhutto brand of politics. As a rule, generals have proved no match for the political appeal of the Bhuttos. Admittedly, Benazir returned to Pakistan on General Misharraf's terms, but she took little time to demonstrate that she could keep her distance from the Army by appealing to the people over its head. If the General received his pound of flesh by getting the PPP's help in his dubious re-election to the presidency, Benazir was making it clear that she was creating her own levers of power. Indeed, she had come this far by persuading Washington that she was as good, if not a better, ally in the "war on terror" as the General. Like her father, Benazir has been forced to leave the scene with a host of unanswered questions. If she intended to strengthen the moderate forces, as opposed to the militants and an increasingly politicised Army, the lawyers' agitation showed her the way. Here was something to build on - a unique instance of the legal fraternity casting itself in the role of revolutionaries. In fact, in announcing the imposition of the emergency, General Musharraf spent much time on denouncing the judges for their insolence in exercising their judgment independently. How dare they he suggested. Benazir had a premonition about the tragedy that was to befall her. How far she is justified in pointing an accusing finger at General Musharraf remains to be
determined.
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Vanvas from valley Last
night I dreamt of being in paradise again - lying on a bed of white daisies under an imposing chinar tree. Fourteen long years have passed since I experienced the soft sifting sunshine on my face. Yet, the soothing touch is fresh in my memory like myriad other childhood memories. Every spring, year after year, my soul has ached for the replay of those memories. Nowhere else in India, are the four seasons as well defined as in Kashmir. At the end of winter, nature seems to take a fresh breath and wake up from her deep slumber from beneath the white quilt of snow. With the advent of spring, the whole valley shakes off its winter garments and dresses up in the radiant colours of spring. The faded brown grass turns a verdant hue, a surprising variety of flower blossoms and leaves emerge, snow fed steams rush with a gurgling sound and the lakes reflect clear blue skies and pristine snow capped mountains. Pussy willow, forsythia and colchicum are the earliest harbingers of spring in the fabled vale. Golden puffs along thin stems of willows stand gleaming by the side of Dal lake. Poplars and mighty chinars break into delicate green leaf. The slopes of Hari Parbat and Badami Bagh turn a lovely pink with the fragile blossoms of almond. The fields turn a sheet of gold with “sarson” (mustard) in bloom. Even the once desolate graveyards cloak themselves with an abundance of yellow crocus flowers, followed by blooming purple, blue and white irises, called “mazaar posh” or the flowers of the graveyards by the locals. In my childhood years, hundreds of picnickers flocked to Badamvari at the foot of Hari Parbat in Srinagar - the hillock which boasted of being the citadel of age old Kashmiri secularism for its is blessed by the most revered of Muslim, Hindu and Sikh shrines, namely Mukhdum Sahib’s Ziarat, Sharika Devi Temple and the Chhati Padshahi Gurudwara. A gentle perfume-laden waft would shower pretty pink petals of the almond blossom on the people sitting underneath and one would be reminded of the lines by Herrick: “Fair pledges of a faithful tree Why do ye fall so fast?” Our epics Ramayan and Mahabarata speak of a 14-year “Vanvas” for Sri Ram and another long absence from home for the Pandavas. Is there some hope for us too to return to our Valley and enjoy the springs of our childhood? I would like to hope that the longing will come to a happy end for as they say, “ If winter comes, can spring be far
behind?”
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The BPL list fiasco in Haryana
While
the news these days from the states of Gujarat and Himachal Pardesh is regarding elections and voter lists, Haryana is in the news for a different kind of list – the BPL list. This is the list of households officially considered to be poor, i.e., below the poverty line. The Haryana government had recently announced a scheme to allot residential plots to the poor, and the controversy is partly due to that. But the BPL lists are due since 2002. As these lists are expected to be updated every 5 years, 2007 should have seen the preparation of fresh lists rather then preparation of the lists due in 2002. Not that Haryana is alone in this. The present BPL survey is apparently the fourth attempt at finalisation of the 2002 BPL lists. This too is only for rural areas and the urban draft lists are yet to be out. For Haryana, the poverty lines for the year 2004-05 are Rs. 414.76 per capita per month for rural areas and Rs 504.49 per capita per month for urban areas. (Corresponding figures for Punjab are Rs 410.38 and Rs 466.16. For HP these are Rs. 394.28 and Rs 504.49 respectively.) Families spending less than this amount per person per month in 2004-5 are to be officially considered to be poor. In this age of right to information and transparency, one would have expected that this cut off figure would be widely known and regularly updated, yet this is not so. Unfortunately, as a large part of our population, in fact more than 90 per cent, earn their living from the informal sector, reliable income estimates for individual households are not available. Therefore, alternate criteria are used for identification of poor households. In the previous exercise, each household was marked on 13 aspects -- but the recent BPL lists are based on five aspects only. Information about these criteria have not been disseminated properly. Lack of wider consultation in working out criteria for identification of poor has led to an anomalous situation. Regarding housing, one sub-category is ‘pucca’ house with built up area of 100 square yards. This gets 5 marks. There is no category for ‘pucca’ house with less than 100 square yards built up area. Thus some body with even a single room accommodation with ‘pucca’ walls could end up getting five marks. With a lower score having better chances for counting amongst BPL, this would mean such family is on its way out of reckoning. Does the state government surmise that a half built structure under Indira Awass Yojna is sufficient to remove poverty? This is not the place to analyse the survey criterion in detail but one can not help giving one more example. If a family member has a ‘paid job’, of what ever nature, the family gets 10 marks and is certainly out of reckoning for BPL status as in some districts the cut off score for inclusion in BPL list is even less than this. Perhaps those designing the survey do not know that the same NSSO survey that forms the basis of state level poverty estimates, also has a category called ‘working poor’, i.e. those who are ‘gainfully employed’ yet poor. So, a paid job per se does not make one non-poor. With such clumsy criterion, formulated without wider consultations, no wonder people are crying foul. The survey left a lot to the discretion of survey team and local authorities like Patwari and Sarpanch. Moreover, at state level, a number of poor for each district has been decided independently of survey results! Therefore, different cut off scores have been decided for different districts. Surprisingly, the number of rural poor is among the highest in Panchkula, Ambala etc while Mewat, Mahendergarh and Rewari have lesser proportion of population below the poverty line. It does provide some food for thought. There is a provision of calling a Gram Sabha meeting for approval of these lists or rather for all village level developmental activity, but actual Gram Sabha meetings, as against notional meetings held in office records, are exceptions. Alternative is for individuals to file objections with the SDM/ Tehsildar, which is to be done within 30 days of approval by the Gram Sabha. When one does not know when the Gram Sabha met, how will one know when the 30 day limit expires? Any how, people are filing objections. But these objections are being received by the offices without any receipt or diary number. When properly received letters can go missing, one can very well visualise the fate of these objections at the hands of the bureaucracy that is responsible for the mess in the first place. There is another dimension to this process of filing objections to the BPL list. There is a provision for filing objections against unjustified inclusion in the BPL list too. But how does a poor marginalised person file objections against the powerful of the village whose names have been included even though they are not poor? Any one who has some knowledge about villages would know that it is almost next to impossible for individuals to do so. One could say that why worry about getting someone’s name dropped; be positive and seek to add the names of deserving ones. However, there is a catch here. Total number of poor persons and households for each state has been fixed by the Central Govt on the basis of NSSO data, which the state government has divided between different districts. It is with in these limits that poor have to be identified. So, unless non-deserving ones are excluded, deserving ones can not be added. Who is to bell the cat? One can not expect really poor and marginalised sections to individually complain against inclusion of specific persons. Therefore, practically no one is filing specific objections against wrongful inclusions. Will those with tremendous capacity for mobilising huge crowd for their rallies, mobilise their cadre to ensure that only the deserving ones get on the BPL lists? Lastly, one often comes across an argument that there are really no poor in Haryana. “What holds for UP/Bihar etc does not hold for Haryana” sounds convincing but is not true. It needs to be understood that it is NSSO data that shows that 14% of Haryana population (about 32 lakh people) do live on income which does not suffice to meet basic nutritional requirement of 2400/2100 calories per person per day. Moreover, Haryana Govt has no say or influence in collection of this data. So, it must be accepted that at least 14% or one out of seven in Haryana are really poor. As Gram Sabha meetings in Haryana were to be held in December 7 and 19, so objections are to be filed before January 7 and 19, 2008. Will the government political parties and civil society in Haryana rise to the occasion and see to it that really poor are at least acknowledged to be so? That would still leave one nagging question. Is it not shameful for one of the richest state of the ‘fastest growing’ economy in the world, that people queue up to be counted as poor and it can not even count these for years together, forget about getting them out of poverty? The writer is Professor, Department of Economics, M.D. University, Rohtak
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More losses than gains in foreign policy THE Indian foreign policy establishment should has no reason to have fond memories of the year just gone by. Upsetting news kept pouring from Pakistan through the whole year – regrouping of Al Qaida-Taliban cadres in Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas, the Lal Masjid flare-up and the December 27 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Despite the domestic turmoil in Pakistan, New Delhi and Islamabad continued with their peace process and completed the fourth round of the Composite Dialogue. Maldives, a SAARC country totally alien to terrorism, had its first-ever bomb blast on September 29, which injured 12 foreign tourists. The caretaker government of Bangladesh did precious little towards restoring truly friendly ties with India and remained bogged down with the business of dealing with the two Begums – Khaleda Zia of the BNP and Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League. India watched passively the intensified conflict in Sri Lanka as the LTTE launched successful air attacks on government military bases and troops took the Tigers head on in the last quarter. The year was capped by Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa’s claim on December 30 that LTTE supreme Velupillai Prabhakaran might have died in the November 26 air raid on his bunker. Nepal went through a year of political turmoil even as India kept itself engaged with the government of Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala and all the dramatis personae in the Seven-Party Alliance, particularly the Maoists. Bhutan experienced some anxious moments when the Chinese troops advanced to the Dolam Plateau near the India-Bhutan-China trijunction. The development forced the Indian Army to relocate a division of troops to North Bengal from Jammu. Besides, the Chinese constructed five highways, four airports and a railway line in Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), which is much more than what is needed by the 27 lakh people residing there. Most of these constructions were done in 2007. Many of the newly built roads brush past areas close to the Line of Actual Control.These include Shigatse, Gyantse, Yatung and Chumbi valley – all within 500km of Sikkim. The development has enormous strategic significance for India as it indicates that the Chinese troops can enter Indian territory through Sikkim in three hours flat, if they so wish. Sino-Indian relations moved ahead quietly, though there were no concrete deliverables in the year 2007 on the thorny issue of their boundary dispute.Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is due to visit China in the second week of January 2008. The Indo-US nuclear deal – the jewel in the UPA government’s foreign policy crown – made news but for all the wrong reasons. Threats and counter-threats, clarifications and counter-clarifications, were exchanged between the Congress and the Left parties. The latter lived up to their image of blind critics of the United States. The year 2008 will decide which of the two will survive - the Manmohan Singh government or the nuclear deal. Relations with Russia hit an all-time low, primarily because of the Indo-US nuclear deal and Moscow’s perception that New Delhi’s Washington tilt was complete and thus a zero sum game. The Russian coldness was amply demonstrated when External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee was snubbed by his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. Mukherjee did not get an appointment with Lavrov during his visit to Moscow in October even though Lavrov was in town. Mukherjee was also frisked at the Moscow airport when he was on his way back home. The Indo-Russian agreement on cooperation in peaceful uses in atomic energy was ready but could not be signed during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Russia (November 11-12). The Russian chill, though hotly denied by New Delhi, came despite two summit meetings between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Vladimir Putin in the year - one in January in New Delhi when Putin was also the Chief Guest at Republic Day Parade and the other in Moscow during Manmohan Singh’s visit. Moreover, Russia is the only country with which India has a formal mechanism of an Inter-Governmental Commission for military-technical cooperation, which meets annually under the chairmanship of the two defence ministers. To the credit of the two countries’ diplomatic establishments, however, New Delhi and Moscow stayed engaged and continued with their ongoing dialogue and exchange of views on various issues of mutual interest. External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee met his Russian counterpart on October 24 in Harbin (China) on the sidelines of India-Russia-China Trilateral Foreign Ministers Meeting and on August 1 in Manila on the sidelines of ARF/ EAS meetings. Minister A.K. Antony also visited Russia on October 17-19 for the 7th Session of the Inter-Governmental Commission on Military Technical Cooperation, which was co-Chaired by Russian Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov. During the visit, the two countries signed an Inter-Governmental Agreement on Cooperation in the Development and Production of Multi-Role Fighter Aircraft.
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Delhi Durbar Chinese journalists in the Capital suddenly find themselves under a scanner these days. The Indian embassy in Beijing has apparently taken umbrage to the “negative” news stories they are putting out about India and have conveyed their unhappiness to their Chinese counterparts who, in turn, have passed on the message to their journalists here. The Indian embassy has lately become over-sensitive about India’s coverage in the Chinese media as it wants India to be portrayed in a more positive light in the run-up to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Beijing in January.
Mahajan in memorium The late BJP leader Pramod Mahajan’s friends have got together to honour his memory by organising a national badminton tournament. Few people know that Mahajan was a badminton enthusiast and took time off from his demanding schedule as Cabinet Minister to play a game or two His close friends, BJP loyalist Sidhanshu Mittal, cricketer-turned politican Kirti Azad and international badminton player Vikram Bhasin, who set up a Pramod Majan Club two years ago, assemble every evening at the Safdarjang Lane residence of senior BJP leader Kalraj Mishra to practice their game. The tournament being held at the Siri Fort sports complex between January 1 and 6, has already got a enthusiastic response from 200 shuttlers. Octogenarian leader and former law minister Ram Jethmalani, known for his indefatigable spirit, had played in the state championship held in the Capital two months ago.
Fuel hike? Everyone wants their New Year to be better than the previous one. However, there could be a mild fuel shock awaiting the common man early 2008 as the Congress-led UPA government is planning to hike the prices of petrol and diesel. The Centre had deferred a decision on the fuel price hike because of the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh elections but it cannot afford to wait any longer as the international crude price is hovering around USD 90 a barrel. This has resulted in heavy losses to public sector oil companies. The harried common man is, however, drawing solace from the speculation that finance minister P. Chidambaram will be presenting a “soft” budget this time.
Call me, instead Union commerce minister Kamal Nath is apparently giving his junior ministers – Jairam Ramesh and Ashwani Kumar – a tough time. Not only is he stingy about giving them work but he makes sure that all invitations from organisations like CII and FICCI are directed to him. Every time, these business chambers want a minister of state from the commerce ministry to speak at any of their progammes, Kamal Nath invariably puts a spoke in it and lets it be known that it would be preferable if they were to invite him instead. Contributed by Anita Katyal, Tripti Nath, S Satyanarayanan and Prashant Sood
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