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Dial Scotland Yard An artist’s freedom |
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AIDS and forces
Identifying Benazir’s assassins
A cardload of troubles
Washington’s shadow over Pakistan Paste a poster, go to jail Delhi Durbar
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Dial Scotland Yard President
Pervez Musharraf’s decision to involve Scotland Yard in the investigation to find out the killers and conspirators behind PPP leader Benazir Bhutto’s assassination should have come earlier, mainly because all sorts of theories — some wild, some not so wild — are floating across Pakistan and in the rest of the world. Scotland Yard is admired the world over for its efficiency and professionalism and has apparently been chosen to clear his administration from the finger-pointing going on. For President Musharraf, whose government has not been able to protect Benazir Bhutto, credibility is at stake. So, Scotland Yard has a difficult assignment on hand, as the outcome of its enquiry can have serious ramifications for Pakistan. But why Benazir’s husband, Mr Asif Ali Zardari, has rejected the involvement of Scotland Yard in the probe is intriguing? He wants a UN-sponsored commission to inquire into his wife’s assassination. President Musharraf is trying to cool down the tempers of the Pakistanis, particularly the people in Sindh, who accuse him of providing inadequate security to their leader with an ulterior motive. He wants to make the people believe that he has nothing to hide and is sincerely endeavouring to identify Benazir’s killers. Mr Zardari, who has taken hold of the PPP, does not believe either Mr Musharraf or Scotland Yard. The postponement of the elections to February 18 is also being linked to President Musharraf’s efforts to weaken the sympathy wave working in favour of the PPP. It may have its impact on the people’s electoral choice, but only to some extent. Delaying the polls only for a few days will not help Mr Musharraf or his party. In fact, it all depends on the quality of the elections. The question is whether the February polls will be fair and free or rigged and managed.
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An artist’s freedom SEVEN months ago when the Sangh Parivar activists vandalised an exhibition of paintings in the fine arts faculty of M.S. University, Baroda, it caused concern not so much for what they did but for the meek surrender of the university authorities. Not only was Chandramohan, the student whose paintings irked the vandals, allowed to be arrested and sent to jail but Shivaji Panikkar, the acting dean of the faculty was also suspended. The vice-chancellor, who should have stood up for academic and artistic freedom, found it expedient to close the exhibition. A three-member committee headed by Prof Y.K. Alagh appointed by the Chancellor has asked for revocation of the suspension of both. Not only that, it also questioned the argument that the paintings were obscene because they were not meant for public display. We had in these columns pointed out that the charge against Chandramohan that he had violated the laws about obscenity was not valid as the paintings were meant for peer evaluation and not for public viewing. Rather, it was the Sangh Parivar activists who trespassed into the university and vandalised the canvasses. Instead of taking deterrent action against them, the police arrested the student and sent him to jail. Worse, senior political leaders like Arun Jaitley of the BJP defended the police action by elaborating on the paintings to portray them in the darkest of hues. It did not occur to them that abstract paintings are open to varied interpretations and what appear sacrilegious for some may be the most celebratory for some others. It is not in Baroda alone that artistic freedom has been under attack. A few days ago, an exhibition of M.F. Husain’s paintings in New Delhi’s India International Centre was attacked, not because any of the paintings on show was obscene but because the protestors did not like him. Thanks to their machinations, Husain is forced to live in exile. The fate that has befallen Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen who is virtually under house arrest and is unable to return to Kolkata where she would like to live is not different. Ironically, the ones who do not want Husain to return to India are the ones who are offering sanctuary to Taslima. Unfortunately, they see politics in arts and artists. Why not let the artists and writers of all hues and beliefs enjoy their freedom? India has survived on tolerance and liberal spirit that bind the nation.
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AIDS and forces THE AIDS scourge is bad for any segment of society. It is all the more dangerous in the case of the forces which have to defend the nation. According to reports, forces are getting at least one HIV/AIDS patient every day. Ever since the first HIV case in the armed forces was discovered in a soldier returning from a UN mission abroad in 1992, the number has grown and stands somewhere near 6,180 today in a force of 12-lakh plus. If it is any consolation, the Armed Forces Medical Services (AFMS) tells us that the number of fresh cases is coming down. From detection of around 500 new cases every year, only 340 such fresh cases were recorded in the year 2007. This reduction is being attributed to an intensive AIDS control programme, which includes an education and communication drive. The infection rate in the armed forces is claimed to be lower than in the civilians. But that is not much of a consolation. The situation is feared to be worse among central police and paramilitary forces A study by three experts under the aegis of the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), which has been reported by the Tribune, talks of lack of proper record keeping and reliable data. These organisations were just not properly equipped to handle the serious problem. What is worse, the attitude towards those afflicted with the dreaded disease was anything but sympathetic. The study found that there was almost a complete isolation of the HIV infected and their families. They generally stayed outside the paramilitary community, and anonymously. No wonder, many of them went to quacks or private practitioners in the absence of drugs or reimbursement of medical expenses. Such mindset will only lead to proliferation of the problem. The AIDS spreads its net mainly because it is treated as a stigma. The paramilitary forces must make sure that the victims are not seen as a slur on their community but as sufferers of circumstances badly in need of loving care not only by society, but also by the forces themselves.
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I have only one firm belief about the American political system, and that is this: God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat. — P. J. O’Rourke
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Identifying Benazir’s assassins
Benazir Bhutto’s
assassination by a suicide bomber at a party rally in Rawalpindi simultaneously shows up the strength of Pakistan’s anti-democratic forces, including the military, the extremists, and the clergy, and also their determination to ensure that democracy does not take off in their country. That determination is somewhat mystifying. For the disunity among Pakistan’s political parties, and the mutual dislike between Benazir and Nawaz Sharif, her main political rival, made it unlikely that either would have won a majority in any election or had been able to summon up the goodwill and good sense to unite against Pakistan’s military governors, who would have remained the real rulers of that country, no matter what political constellation might have emerged after the polls. Any post-electoral democracy would have been fragile. The generals would only have needed to wag a finger and tell the world — especially the ignorant Bush administration, which had been hectoring them about making Pakistan safe for democracy — “we told you so. The politicians can’t manage anything. Forget about democracy and human rights. Only the military can save Pakistan, and help you fight global terrorism.” Washington would probably have swallowed that, shed the burden of democracy-promotion, and thanked Pakistan’s generals for their help against the evil of terrorism. But which anti-democratic forces are behind her assassination? And why? The two main anti-democratic forces in Pakistan are its ruling military-intelligence combine and terrorists. And the military and intelligence have nurtured and sustained the extremists against Pakistan’s neighbours, Afghanistan and India. Even the uninformed Bush government, which thought that Pakistan could become democratic if General Musharraf replaced his uniform with civvies, has been told of the links between the military and extremism. These links can be explained by the fact that Pakistan’s religious definition has induced all its rulers, since its birth in August 1947, to derive legitimacy from religion. The embrace between the state and Islamic clerics has been strong and constant. Benazir Bhutto herself succumbed to that embrace as Prime Minister in the 1990s, if only to steal the thunder of her political and military rivals and to establish her credentials as the “best” Muslim. Indeed, the Taliban, created by General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, was sustained by her government. And military rulers have always found alliances with religious extremists indispensable to shoring up their political standing and power. That raises the question whether Benazir’s assassins acted of their own volition, or with the connivance of sections of Pakistan’s military and intelligence. Only they know. Attempts on President Musharraf’s life in 2003 and 2007 raised the question whether the military had lost control over extremists. Those attempts reinforced Washington’s belief that Mr Musharraf was a reliable anti-terrorist warrior. But there was never any evidence that he and his military colleagues, or the intelligence, had given up extremist-training as a method of political and strategic choice. So, if lax security enabled the suicide bomber to kill Benazir, was this laxness unintentional or deliberate? Again, no one knows. This is because the secret play between the military, intelligence, clerics and terrorists has been performed under a purdah of guns. Perhaps, a momentary digression to Afghanistan could throw some light on the problem, as Taliban thuggery has increased over the last two years. Would the Taliban have been able to sustain terrorist operations without training and sustenance from the Pakistani side? No. Never. In fact, the UN, NATO and even American officials see Pakistan’s hand behind the rising Taliban violence in Afghanistan. That being the case, there is every reason to believe that Benazir’s killing resulted from the enduring alignment between Pakistan’s military, intelligence and extremists. Her grieving partymen have pointed a finger at President Musharraf. He himself has urged Pakistanis to remain calm so that the “nefarious designs of terrorists can be defeated”. The point remains that whether as a military supremo or a strongman apparently steering his country towards democracy at America’s behest (something of a joke considering the Bush administration’s own demonstrated indifference to human rights), President Musharraf can only act in concert with his colleagues in the intelligence set-up and the military. Dictatorship in Pakistan has never been, and can never be, a one-man show. So, blame the military and intelligence, if you like, for Benazir’s assassination. Blame the suicide bombers, who may have spun out of the military’s control — or acted under its instructions and with connivance. Even if Benazir’s killers acted on their own, the chances are that their disgusting mission was facilitated by military-intelligence services governing with the benefit of
clergy.
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A cardload of troubles
Opening
the meeting the District Election Officer started reeling out data, regarding distribution of “epics”, for the consumption of the election observers. Did I hear correctly? I blinked. Which epics are they distributing and for what? I wondered. Sensing my mild bewilderment a colleague hissed, “It’s the Election Photo Identity Cards he is talking about”. Well, like or not, cards have acquired an epical importance in our daily lives. “You can go a long way with a smile. You can go a lot farther with a smile and a gun”, said Al Capone in the 1930s. Well, civilisation has come a long way since then. Today, cards are more powerful than a gun. Insert one and before you could say, “khul ja sim sim”, you are past the hurdle. How one misses the careless days of yore when one had to carry just one card, the I-card! It announced you in a definitive way. But today, one’s identity is not a uniform whole. It is a mosaic of disparate bits each represented by a distinct piece of plastic. And to claim each of your rights and privileges you have to show the specific tag. The number of cards one has to juggle through, today, is enough to make one feel one card short of a full deck. When I counted last, I had more than a dozen, which included office I-card, a credit card, debit cards, demat account card, frequent flyer’s card, club membership card, Income tax PAN card, driving licence, health insurance card, the EPIC what not. As if that weren’t enough, my wife has made me custodian of her sundry cards. Not that her handbag is any lighter. It has a stack of cards that proclaim her as the privileged customer in different departmental stores — her calling cards for shopping sops. To add to one’s woes, you have the visiting cards, some of which are simply indestructible. All this adds up to a whole lot of troubles in any time of the year but this season is particularly card-stressing. For, the marriage season peaks around this time and each invite is an invitation to stress. Then, there are the seasons’ greeting cards from bare acquaintances. Politeness demands that one spends the early days of the New Year typing out inane replies to all. And as one finishes that it’s time to worry about replacing the cards that have expired at the year end. Doctors aren’t telling the whole truth when they blame smoking, obesity and other such things for heart problems. Aren’t cards enough of a cardiovascular
hazard?
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Washington’s shadow over Pakistan IN the vein of Charles Dickens, one can say: these are history-making times, these are history times. With the torrent of events let lose by the dastardly assassination of Benazir Bhutto, Washington would certainly like to tear up the history of its relations with Pakistan, and the shadow it casts on India-Pakistan relations. It has been an inglorious past that Washington seeks to forget. But like a ghost, the shadow clings on. Supporting military dictators in Pakistan was Washington’s fief that throttled democracy and Pakistan’s secular growth, making Pakistani rulers cling to the American mantle. Accentuating the Indo-Pakistan cleavage was its diplomatic forte for which the Kashmir dispute came in handy. When a drunken General in Pakistan hastened the Indo-Pak war in 1971, US President Nixon ordered American policy to be tilted towards Pakistan even though the pro-Pakistan tilt brought disaster to that country, and led the East and West
wings to break up. The monster of the Taliban and the build-up of religious fundamentalism was a joint creation of the ISI and American policy makers. Asked whether encouraging the Taliban would not mean supporting religious fundamentalism, American Deputy Secretary of State Robins answered: “But they are our fundamentalists.” The same fundamentalists are now seeking to destroy the American bastions of power world over. The nadir of American policy was its nuclear approach, turning a blind eye, in fact, tacitly encouraging the build-up of a Pakistani nuclear clout. The West European nuclear industry was the principal contributor to the build-up of Pakistan’s nuclear weapon facility at Kahuta through clandestine multi-million dollar contracts. To this was added the nuclear black market’s murky deals – all this right under the nose of the CIA and 12 Western intelligence agencies. Now, Washington’s inner sanctum of policy making is ruing their earlier nuclear follies. Classified documents have revealed that Washington has been spending millions of dollars to secure Pakistan’s nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of jihadis, their sworn enemies. They rely entirely on General Parvez Musharraf. After the dastardly assassination of Benazir Bhutto, Washington can’t be assured that Pakistan’s political scene would not entirety spin out of hand. It is not easy for Washington to rewrite history and retrace their monumental follies even if their newfound love for democracy in Pakistan continues. The onus is on Pakistan leaders themselves. They must stop relying entirely on America. The silver lining is that the moderate segment of Pakistan’s political spectrum and its leaders shun the Taliban and have been shocked by the havoc wreaked in Pakistan by the jihadis. If a reversal of current grim trends in the Pakistan scenario is to be sought, it will be necessary for all moderate leaders – and these cannot exclude Musharraf – to come together forsaking their political prejudices. Equally important, Pakistan politicians must forsake their anti-Indian likes. Some hopeful signs in this regard have emerged. Nawaz Sharif, despite his party’s ties with Islamists, has been making no secret of his desire to build bridges with India. Benazir – exercising an impact even after death – was known to have advocated ending the arms race with India, and regretted some of the policies she pursued during her last tenure as
Prime Minister. Now, Gen. Musharraf too has changed. He advocates a reasonable solution to the Kashmir issue and wants to reverse the chapter of Indo-Pak hostility. If Pakistan political leaders want to stop an implosion of their country, they should come together in a common front. This includes Musharraf, for he alone can sway the army, which is still the most potent force in Pakistan. Moreover, the army has to be rescued from the hands of Al Quaida elements that have penetrated its middle-rank officers. Musharraf alone can achieve this. Pakistan politicians should comprehend this delicate, and
critical, situation. India, on its part, should play an active role based on a consensus within this country, including the Congress and the BJP. If Pakistan can be rescued from the hands of jihadis, and a moderate, modernistic Pakistan emerges, the Indian subcontinent can realise its destiny in today’s world. That can be possible only if Pakistan is saved from self-destruction and from the hands of
jihadis.
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Paste a poster, go to jail The proposed Act is said to be an improved version of the earlier Act in operation in the state, which was considered lenient. Now, any defacement will be a cognisable offence, which means you can be arrested without even getting into the formality of preparing a warrant. The Delhi Government had adopted the West Bengal Prevention of Defacement of Property Act 1976 to penalise those people who were found to be engaged in ‘defacing public property’. It duly arrested around 2,802 people during a short span of two years (2001-2003) while 1,925 people were punished for wall writing, putting posters, stickers and banners. Looking at the stringent provisions in the proposed Act and the way in which a mere act of putting posters would be bracketed as ‘cognisable offence’, one can easily see a spurt in the number of people getting arrested or punished. Interestingly, the period during which this draft Bill was put before the House for discussion, one came across another decision of the government that talked of the government’s move to allow putting ads behind auto-rickshaws. The government expects that it could see a quantum jump in its revenue. A few months back, the local Municipal Corporation had also decided to allow putting of ads on the radio taxies to increase the size of its coffers. Any layperson could comprehend the rationale behind the contrary approach adopted by the people in power. While on the one hand, it seeks to penalise those people under the spacious plea of ‘defacement of public property’, it has no qualms of any sort about propaganda, if you are in a position to pay for it. It is clear that only moneybags or big corporate houses would be able to avail this opportunity of putting across their message by paying for it and a large majority of the working population of the city who has to struggle hard to make both ends meet would be denied any such opportunity. In the changed ambience, where one is finding ‘criminalisation’ of the right to freedom of expression granted by the Constitution, it would be increasingly difficult to express one’s disenchantment with the state of affairs. One cannot expect ordinary people would ever find themselves in a position to express their stand vis-a-vis the custodians of democracy. Few years back, thousands of people working in different factories in Delhi were asked to either shift to new places of work or get ready to leave the job altogether, as the powers that be had decided to close the factories supposedly to ‘control pollution’. One also saw the well-planned drive by city authorities to demolish slums and ‘decongest the cities’. A senior judge had no qualms in comparing slum dwellers with pickpockets denying them any alternate accommodation claiming that it would be ‘rewarding the pickpockets’. Imagine a similar situation where the people on the margins of society want to express their discontent about the state of affairs. How do they do it if they are denied even the opportunity of putting posters? Do they have any way out before them than getting ready to get arrested and pay a hefty fine for daring to put a handmade poster? Anybody can see that the situation that seems to be emerging cannot be said to be a sign of healthy democracy, which is considered to be a ‘rule of the people, by the people and for the people’. How can it be called a ‘real democracy’, if its citizen are even denied the opportunity to exercise their political rights. Everybody knows that the concept of citizenship has evolved down the ages and being a citizen of any country imbues you with political rights. And if we limit the idea of political rights to mere right to vote occasionally, then one is making a travesty of the definition. The key thing to be noted in this debate is that under the present phase of neo-liberalism – where market forces have been given a free play and the state seems to be withdrawing from key sectors of running the government – the very move to ‘criminalise’ right to freedom of expression is a sign of the hollowing out of the idea of citizenship. It is evident that by putting someone in jail for putting posters would not only deny the citizen the right to freedom of expression, it would deny her/him the ‘ethical and moral duties’ of a citizen. Questioning the manner in which ‘public is being differentiated into a hierarchy of individuals’ under a neo-liberal regime and also substituting ‘citizen with consumer’, leading Political Scientist Colin Leys raises few valid questions in his forthcoming book Total Capitalism. ‘But can we have democracy without society – without a modicum of equality of status and condition, secured by universal public services, and a significant degree of social solidarity based on this? It seems unlikely.’ To save itself from the charges of ‘throttling the right to freedom of expression’, the Delhi Government plans to develop around 150 notice boards (5 ft long and 15 ft broad) spread over Delhi whose population is moving rapidly to touch the 1.25 crore mark. Anyone can comprehend that it is a mere formality. To conclude, all these moves are a part of a wider game plan of ‘beautification of the city’ to prepare itself for the Commonwealth Games to be held in 2010. There could be no doubt that they may help ‘beautify’ the city outwardly by removing ‘unwanted/ illegal structures’, but it would also help reveal the larger anomalies inherent in the society and the party.
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Delhi Durbar TO be or not to be. Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunshi appears to be faced with this proverbial dilemma. The Minister, who is a quintessential organisation man, has been very keen to take over the reins of the party’s West Bengal unit. Apparently, he has succeeded in his mission and the Congress leadership is veering around to the view that Dasmunshi is the best man to fight the Left parties. However, the Minister finds himself in a fix after Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Bannerji formed a separate anti-Left 16-party front. This is a clear signal from the fiery leader that if anybody wants to fight the Marxists in West Bengal, they will have to do so under her leadership, as she is the main opposition leader in the state. Naturally, Dasmunshi is not happy with the turn of events as he is far too senior to work under Bannerji. Doordarshan faux pas When Pratibha Patil took residence up in Rashtrapati Bhavan last year, it turned out to be a headline-grabbing event because of the controversy in the run-up to her election and also because she was the country’s first woman President. And yet, there was no mention of this historical development when a year-end recap of the major events of 2007 was undertaken. And guess who heads the list of “offenders”: none other than Doordarshan, the country’s public
broadcaster.
Industry friendly Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all? If the feedback from the corporate world is anything to go by, then commerce minister Kamal Nath beats finance minister P.Chidambaram hands down as a more poplar and “industry-friendly” minister. While there is general agreement that Chidambaram is extremely competent and knowledgeable, it is his attitude and his refusal to listen to the other
viewpoint which has riled large sections in the private industry. Kamal Nath, who is also rated as an exceptionally efficient and energetic minister, on the other hand, is always willing to
give a patient hearing to the other side and is always ready to take up cudgels on their behalf. Contributed by Prashant Sood, Tripti Nath and
S. Satyanarayanan.
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THE Delhi Prevention of Property Defacement Act 2007, introduced in the Delhi Assembly recently, makes a depressing reading. According to its provisions, a mere act of putting posters on the walls or writing anything with chalk, paint or any other material can make you liable for a punishment of one year in jail. Additionally, you can be asked to pay a fine of Rs 50,000.