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Saviours or killers? RPF men turn into beasts THE previous Saturday, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav held a meeting with Home Minister Shivraj Patil to discuss security on trains. The very next day, two RPF constables pushed a nine-year-old boy from a running train and he lost a leg due to the nasty fall. Mr Yadav should honestly mull over the question as to how to protect people from this so-called Protection Force.
Governance is the issue
Yelp of a pup
Underground in Myanmar Malana, going back in time Life deep down
in the Moscow Metro
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Sharing a vision THE “Shared Vision” document signed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and the statements made during Dr Singh’s three-day visit to Beijing highlight the mutual realisation that there is no better alternative to enhancing cooperation between the two big neighbours. Mr Wen’s stress on the point that India and China were “partners, not rivals” conveys the required sentiment and desire. The pledge “to promote bilateral cooperation in civil nuclear energy” shows that China is coming round to the view that India is genuinely looking for ways to meet the increasing energy requirement of its fast growing economy and that there is nothing sinister in the Indo-US nuclear deal. This is also indicative of a possible positive role by China when the Nuclear Suppliers Group takes up India’s case for giving its nod for nuclear fuel supplies. China’s support for “India’s aspirations to play a greater role in the United Nations, including the Security Council”, is significant. This shows the realisation in Beijing that India has been denied its rightful place in the UN system. The two countries must cooperate to serve as the engines of growth for the 21st century, destined to be the Asian century. They have to forget the balance of power factor which only breeds suspicion and animosity. India and China, no doubt, have a lingering boundary dispute, but they may no longer allow it to come in the way of their “Shared Vision” for mutual prosperity. They have to work together to ensure that peace and tranquillity prevail along the common border. India and China have to learn a lot from each other. If India has to learn from China in areas like infrastructure development and alleviation of poverty, as Dr Manmohan Singh stressed in Beijing, China can gain considerably from India’s success stories in information technology, telecommunications, etc. But they have to find a way to remove their misconceptions and prejudices. Dr Manmohan Singh’s idea of promoting people-to-people contacts can prove to be the best way to achieve this objective. The two countries must take steps to promote dialogue at the non-governmental level — between intellectuals, art and culture enthusiasts, media people and others interested in knowing the developments in the two countries. The time has come to bridge the “knowledge gap” with a view to creating an atmosphere of goodwill and trust, essential for achieving the objectives incorporated in the “Vision” document.
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Trading with
Beijing Although India and China signed as many as 11 pacts during Dr Manmohan Singh’s first visit to Beijing as Prime Minister, the existing trade imbalance is unlikely to end in the near future. India’s trade deficit is worrisomely high at $9 billion. It was, therefore, natural for Dr Manmohan Singh to call for a level-playing field and ask for Chinese action on non-tariff barriers, intellectual property rights and market-related currency exchange rates. Commerce Minister Kamal Nath too joined the Prime Minister to demand greater access to the Chinese market to sell Indian fruits and vegetables, aviation, pharmaceutical and entertainment products. China has reportedly agreed to send “buying missions” to India more frequently to diversify imports. Indo-China trade has grown fast — faster than expectations. When Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited India in 2005, the two countries had projected bilateral trade to reach $20 billion by 2008 and $30 billion by 2010. Last year alone the bilateral trade value touched $38.7 billion. The revised trade figure now put out by the two countries is $60 billion by 2010. Given the two Asian giants’ large populations and massive growth, another surprise on the trade front cannot be ruled out. There is already talk of the possibility of China replacing the US as India’s top trading partner. The furious trade growth, however, has left India seriously concerned at the widening deficit. Indian businesses are actually scared of more Chinese goods swamping the Indian market should New Delhi agree to grant “market economy status” to China, which means allowing Chinese products at their prices. Eighty countries, excluding the US, Europe and Japan, have granted MES status to China. India has so far resisted the Chinese demand. India excels in services like banking and telecommunications, but China is not open to these. China leads in manufacturing and its cheap products are outselling rivals. The 11 pacts signed in Beijing only focus on railways, housing and cooperation in geo-sciences and land resource management. |
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Saviours or killers? THE previous Saturday, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav held a meeting with Home Minister Shivraj Patil to discuss security on trains. The very next day, two RPF constables pushed a nine-year-old boy from a running train and he lost a leg due to the nasty fall. Mr Yadav should honestly mull over the question as to how to protect people from this so-called Protection Force. The only fault of Raju Kumar selling “gutka” on the train was that he refused to give a satchet to these uniformed men free of cost. That was excuse enough for them to shed all vestiges of humanity and turn into savage beasts. Incidentally, this incident took place on Vaishali Express near Hajipur in Mr Yadav’s home state. This is not the first incident of its kind on the Railways. Only last week, a CRPF jawan had pushed a pantry car staff out of a running train near Mughalsarai. In September last year, a physically challenged passenger was thrown out of a running train by a ticket examiner near Shahjahanpur. Go a bit further back in time and you can recall many other incidents equally shocking. Then there are numerous other atrocities perpetrated by these uniformed men which may not be as extreme as throwing a passenger out of a running train but are equally traumatic for those who have to suffer them. Many poor labourers returning to their villages in UP and Bihar from Punjab talk of being robbed of their hard-earned money by some of these men who bring a bad name to the entire RPF. Similarly, they also charge money to allow persons with general category tickets to sit in the alleys of reserved compartments. Somebody must drum it into their heads that being a protection force does not mean that they have the licence to charge “protection money” or to push anybody from a running train. |
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Our torments also may in length of time/Become our elements. — John Milton
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Governance is the issue
THE New Year marks another chapter for the nation. 2007 saw missed opportunities and shame: the impasse over the 123 Agreement, avoidable controversies over SEZs, the Nithari killings, spreading naxalism, failure to effect critical police reforms, resurgent communal and caste politics, loss of steam by the Congress-UPA alliance on account of Leftist electoral blackmail and negative vote bank politics all round. The poor, in whose name many of these games are played, gained nothing. Media hype derailed rational thinking. India lost. The year-end saw the Gujarat elections. Mr Modi certainly won; but it was not such a famous victory. Though the Congress lost Himachal too, the BJP is being excessively optimistic about racing back to power in Delhi. The Congress campaign in Gujarat was mistaken while Rahul Gandhi proved a damp squib, demonstrating that political leadership is neither inherited nor a gift of sycophancy. Mr Modi made development his plank; the Congress belittled this and, rather late in the day, refocussed attention on the 2002 carnage. That missile misfired. The Congress’s vote bank politics has hollowed out its secular credentials as witnessed by its mealy mouthed response to the Tehelka tapes which it chose not to pursue for fear of consolidating the Hindutva vote. “Maut ka saudagar” was not an inapt characterisation but referred to a past event which is history, like the larger 1984 riots. It failed to comprehend the continuing and chilling process of systematic denial of justice to the 2002 victims to this day — compensation incompletely paid, continuing internal displacement, tardy prosecutions, intimidation of complainants, witnesses and legal aid teams, continuing encounter killings (as admitted in the Assembly and now before the Supreme Court as a PIL), ghettoisation by retaining hardened inter-community residential “borders” and the refusal by Hindu landlords to let out accommodation to Muslim tenants. In his second broadcast over Doordarshan after the carnage Mr Modi had warned “if you want peace, don’t ask for justice.” His administration has implemented that policy — and that is the gravemen of the charge of hate mongering and communalism that lies at Mr Modi’s door. The Congress was equally mistaken in challenging Mr Modi’s claims regarding development, or at best attributing it to historical trends and Central policies. Gujarat has done very well in terms of economic development while agriculture has benefited from five good monsoons in succession. It is its social development indices pertaining to education and health that have been disappointing. Social development builds futures; economic (material) growth offers more immediate rewards for an entrepreneurial, aspiring and upwardly mobile society. So, the development missile also misfired. Yet, the carnage of 2002 was not forgotten. Its locus in central Gujarat and in the adivasi belt saw the BJP lose a considerable number of seats. The facile media-political assertion that the national polls are likely to reflect the aggregation of state elections and that, therefore, Gujarat plus Himachal plus other states that the BJP might win will deliver it power at the Centre in 2008-09 is fallacious. The discerning Indian voter differentiates between local/state issues and national governance. The lessons are many. Mr Modi is not set to march on Delhi personally or ideologically. He enjoys office in Gujarat and is not going to abandon this to face the double uncertainty of the BJP coming to power at the Centre and eclipsing ambitious rivals at the national level. Nor is Mr Advani waiting to take sanyas. The BJP has not parted company with the RSS or the VHP though the Parivar has family differences. Yet the Modi victory in Gujarat does not necessarily mean a coming Hindutva wave. Hindutva hawks and right-of-centre BJP liberals are in contention but most party strategists realise that an inclusive coalition is more likely a winning ticket than an exclusivist Hindutva platform that repels likely anti-Congress partners in another NDA-type alliance. India’s diversity is too heterogeneous to be straitjacketed. The Congress for its part should not be paralysed by fear of elections and fail to press forward with reforms and to govern as it did over much of 2007. Populism as an election strategy is bad enough; allowing governance to be swamped by populism while in office is worse. The Congress was stymied by the Left as well as by its UPA partners and party members who feared a backlash should a mid-term poll be “imposed” on the people. However, the mandate of office is to govern and not mark time. There are many promises the Congress must keep. It failed to hike petroleum prices pending the Gujarat poll but cannot now afford a populist budget if it is serious about implementing the 11th Plan. Nor can it keep pandering to current or potential allies by going soft on Christian bashing in Orissa, back pedalling on the Sachar reforms, allowing the Goa government to subvert on-going SEZ programmes, and letting Ms Mayawati off the hook with an amazing inquiry report that says her disproportionate assets were largely gifted to her by party admirers. Fortunately, these admirers have received income tax notices to explain from where they made those generous gifts. Good governance wins elections and respect. Let 2008 be a year of good
governance.
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Yelp of a pup I have had many a shave with death, but never one as perfect as yesterday. Honks of vehicles deafened me. Their beams pierced the pupils. I was speeding away from thoughts of home. The idea of home involuntarily surfaces on the uneven globe of brain. Vanity has distanced me from the parents; torn me away from my wife and children and left me without steam to go on. To forget the pain of guilt, I don’t turn to god for redemption. Instead, I drown the pain in alcohol, blow it away in smoke and even work. The pain, obstinate like me, refuses to subside. Like other riders, I bypassed accident sites. For I have no time to help ones like me, whose thoughts run faster than their vehicles. Like them, I have no time to summon an ambulance or take accident victims to hospital. I have no time to chase a vehicle which speeds away after mowing down pavement dwellers. For me they are teeming millions who are out to devour my sunshine, air, land and water. As I lay fractured in body and soul, enmeshed in the mangled vehicle, calling out my long dead mother on a cold winter night, the young and old whiz past me. Like me they are in haste to reach somewhere. My pupils are dilating; breathing has become difficult. I am no longer feeling the traffic beams or the cacophony of horns. Perhaps my pulse is slowing. I can faintly hear the cell phone ring, but can’t reach it. Could it be my paramour? It can’t be her. Only two days ago, I had rebuked her for calling me in late hours. She had called from the US. Can it be my sister or brother? Why should they call, that too at this odd hour. It has been years since I remembered them. It could be my daughter. She rings up now and then. I am unable to reach the phone as both my arms are fractured. May be before it is too late the night patrol extricates me from the wreck and takes me to hospital. Could it be that doctors are not on strike and they attend on me and give me a lease of life? May be the help doesn’t arrive at all and I die. The police will inform an enthusiastic crime reporter that a 53-year old died in a road mishap last night. He lost control of his vehicle while saving a pup crossing the road.
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Underground in Myanmar
YANGON, Myanmar – During 45 years of military rule, Myanmar’s generals drilled fear and suspicion so deeply into the minds of their people that when their opponents tried to harness the rage seething on the streets last fall, no one knew whom to trust. The generals quickly took advantage, crushing the pro-democracy demonstrations, killing at least 15 people and jailing thousands. It was a brutally simple strategy that had worked before. But this time may be different. An information revolution has come slowly to this poor, isolated country, and the military government may have inadvertently handed its enemies the keys to organizing a more effective underground movement. Opposition activists and exiled leaders had tried before to tap into the growing discontent, but constant surveillance kept them off balance and on the run. There seemed little chance of getting organized until more than 2,000 protesters, arrested and jammed into crowded jail cells, met one another and overcame their distrust. Now most of them are on the streets again, carefully building a network for what they call a new revolution. Their digital tools are e-mail and text messages, which are more powerful than a megaphone, and cell-phone cameras that are so common that thousands of people are potential journalists. The country’s current turmoil is rooted in the military rulers’ mismanagement, which has reduced a country rich in natural resources to an economic basket case surrounded by neighbors enjoying rapid growth. While the generals and their cronies enriched themselves on oil and natural gas exports, they ended subsidies for their people in August, sharply increasing fuel prices overnight and compounding inflation. Anger rose with prices, and what began as small, isolated protests exploded into a full-blown crisis in September. Many who joined the street protests were ordinary people moved by the courage of marching Buddhist monks to take their own stand against the government. The peaceful demonstrators were easy targets for the military. The government acknowledged killing 15 protesters; the United Nations says at least 31 died. Many others suddenly found themselves behind bars, where they could either try to sleep on the crowded concrete floor or get to know other protesters. Most spent only a few days in jail, long enough to overcome distrust, make new contacts with the underground, and organize more cells that now communicate through coded messages, Internet drop boxes and old-fashioned couriers. “Nobody knew what they were doing in the revolution. There was no organization,” said a small businessman who joined the street protests out of frustration with mismanagement of the economy. “But when people were in jail, they got to meet each other. They could exchange e-mail addresses, cell-phone numbers and make plans,” added the entrepreneur, who spoke on condition of anonymity because police are still arresting and torturing dissidents. They walked out of jail with a new determination to tap into the growing sense that the generals are losing their grip, pro-democracy activists and their leaders inside and outside Myanmar said in interviews. In the aftermath of the September protests, the businessman said he took charge of a cell of young pro-democracy activists who are trying to keep information on the movement flowing to the outside world. During the uprising, video, photographs and blog reports posted on the Internet played a key role in breaking the wall of silence surrounding Myanmar, which is also known as Burma. The government has restored Internet links that it severed in the fall, and although access to some popular e-mail services is still blocked, many people here are savvy enough to breach the Web barricades, using proxy servers and other devices. Secret couriers, who run messages among exiled opposition leaders and supporters in Myanmar, could smuggle video and photos into Thailand to be sent across the Internet from there. Despite the chinks in the government’s defenses, it still has a vast army of spies and routinely taps telephones. Speaking at dinner on the edge of a quiet, dark restaurant, the activist businessman frequently looked over his shoulder to make sure no one was eavesdropping. A Western diplomat said the generals hobbled their own intelligence operations by turning against former prime minister and intelligence chief Gen. Khin Nyunt, who is now under house arrest. He was sentenced in 2005 to 44 years in prison for corruption in what was widely seen here as a power play by the government’s leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe. Meantime, the military leaders have staked their future on a well-tested strategy: While attacking protesters, they tried to appease international outrage with promises to talk with the opposition. When world attention quickly shifted to new crises, the generals tightened their grip again. “Everybody keeps saying it’s a process, but ‘a process’ means something is going on. Here, it’s stopped.” Ibrahim Gambari, the U.N.’s special envoy to Myanmar, is due back soon. But he has won few concessions from the generals on previous visits, so people here have little faith that he can persuade the military to start serious negotiations with Suu Kyi. The government is still holding more than 800 political prisoners after releasing about 1,400 rounded up after the September protests, Western diplomats estimated. It is still hunting for people it accuses of undermining the stability and security of the nation. Tourism, which the United Nations says is an increasingly important source of jobs and foreign currency for Myanmar, has been hit hard by images seen around the world of soldiers beating and shooting protesters. Suu Kyi has asked tourists to avoid her country until democracy prevails.
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Malana, going back in time JUDGING by today’s spread of rural villages, Malana in the Kullu Valley would be a mere hamlet. It has been written about by anthropologists as the world’s oldest surviving democracy and by travel commentators as the “hippies” most favoured destination for its carefully nurtured wild cannabis growth which provided them the ultimate “high”. On the fateful January 05, 2007, almost the entire Malana dwellings were reduced to cinders. The outside world has assigned the tragedy to an accidental fire but the Malana inhabitants will know better once their village council completes the occult rituals to their Devta, Jamlu. I had my first and only peek at Malana in May 1961 when appointed the liaison officer with the Derbyshire Himalayan Expedition to the Indra-Asan peak. I had graduated with distinction from the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, Darjeeling in April and so was promptly ordered to join up with the Expedition at the Pathankot railway station, lest they transgress the ‘Inner-line’. As Himalayan peaks go, Indra-Asan at about 20,400 ft ASL and its upper-most six hundred feet a near verticle rock face would at best be graded a moderate summit. Nevertheless, Bob Pettigrew the leader was taking no chances. He and I set out for Manali immediately, while the team would hire a bus and follow a day later. Despite the “express” bus, it was a two days journey to Manali with a night at Mandi! Over those two days in the bus, Bob and I studied the map of the mountain range which separates Kullu from the Lahaul Valley. Indra-Asan was the heighest summit on this range and the best approach to the tentative Base Camp appeared from Kullu along the true right bank of the Parbati river. What the map supplied by the Royal Geographical Society, London did not elaborate was the dot marked Malana. At about 9,000 ft ASL where Parbati became a narrow but fiercely rushing torrent, the foot path turned a sharp left – there, under a rock over-hang, we were confronted by four, lean and handsome men with Grecian, chiseled features. They wore off-white, loose gowns of coarse home-spun wool, reaching to the knee-caps. A thick, black woolen rope, tightly looped around the gown at the waists, tended to give a wide spread to their chests and a skirt-like flare below the waist. They stood astride the only track which unknown to us led to Malana. They ignored my pro-offered hand but fixed Khem Chand, our guide from Manali, with their hostile stare. After what seemed an eternity and when Khem Chand mentioned and gestured that we were enroute to Indra-Asan, they softened their stance. After another session of sign-language and lip reading (as their dialect was unknown to the world) Khem Chand announced that we were forbidden from entering Malana or photographing it or its inhabitants or even by passing it along with Parbati river. However, we could go to the Malana “Thaach” (a grazing meadow and our likely Base-camp) near the snout of the Parbati glacier, approaching it direct from Manali up the steep Chandrakani Pass (about 11,000 ft ASL), infrequently negotiated in the 1900s by the Ibex and Brown-Bear trophy hunters. Laden ponies had never before crossed the Chanderkani-Joat but we simply were left with no other choice. To make matters worse, the late snow had left huge accumulation on the approaches. The pony-loads were broken down and carried in four transshipments across the pass. Our spirits lifted as Khem Chand pointed to the Malana “Thaach” in the distance and what looked an easy descent. Once again, as we set out and rounded a spur, from where unknowingly we would have set eyes on Malana and thus breeched Jamlu Devta’s divinity, we were stopped by a posse of about twenty, gesticulating, Malana stalwarts armed with stout staves. There was no opportunity for any negotiations. A few of them peremptorily caught the lead ponies by their neck-ropes and led them up and along the ridge crest, keeping Malana hidden from our vision all along. And then a nerve-wracking descent to the Thaach. They sat at a discreet distance as the Base Camp was pitched, maintained vigil the whole night and refused our offer of tea and food. Leaving one sentry for vigil, the remainder escorted the unladen ponies back across the Chanderkani-Joat, keeping Malana inviolate. At that very moment in time, a European lady anthropologist from Cambridge had somehow charmed them by her innocence and was permitted to pitch a tent on the outskirts of Malana for close to a year. Yet on one occasion, when I encountered one of them again and asked for water to drink he grudgingly agreed. But first he climbed on a ledge directly above me, and poured the water (of course) gently, down into my cupped hands. The idea being that his body and utensil had made no other-worldly physical contact in keeping with their unwritten code of living. |
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Life deep down in the Moscow Metro MOSCOW — The old woman’s back was so hunched she couldn’t get her chin off her chest. Wrapped in layers of ratty sweaters, she stood against a tile wall, one hand extended. Elderly Russians are everywhere in the subway tunnels beneath Moscow, begging for pocket change. Still, looking at her, I felt a stab of melancholy. Then four mean-looking teenagers in scarred leather jackets rushed past her. They muttered to one another, turned back and surrounded her. My stomach clenched in panic. But then I realised what I was seeing. These kids, who slouched and stank of cigarettes and beer, were digging furiously through their pockets, handing the old woman every coin they could scrape together. Since moving to Moscow last year, I’ve been schooled in the stark realities of Russian society by daily rides to language classes and the office on the Metro. The sprawl of tracks and tunnels seems to offer a direct line into Moscow’s soul – a place of faded elegance and hopeless cynicism, debauchery and destitution, barely contained brutality and touches of kindness. There is something in these halls that tells a story about Russia itself, a monument to communist days, when underground palaces, glittering in chandeliers, decked in mosaics and frescoes and Stalin-era sculpture, were built for the common commuters. Now they are shabby and cramped, the bulbs burning out in the chandeliers, the halls a miserable jam of too many frazzled bodies. Up above, wild Moscow rages along, lawless and mad, cold and rich. Down below, the trains are roaring through the dark, miss this one and the next will be right behind it. The Metro is where you’ll find the people who are just scraping by in the shadow of oil wealth and the ones who already have fallen through the cracks. It’s the haunt of stray dogs and lovesick teenagers, homeless alcoholics and wounded veterans, tourists and bone-weary commuters. The sight of a stray dog startled me early one morning. He was limping confusedly on three legs in the tangle of the turnstiles. His front paw dangled. It appeared to be split in two, dripping blood, as if somebody had stomped on it. He was glancing around desperately, as though he was looking for help. When I looked up again the dog had melted into the forest of legs. When I first got to Moscow, it was the heat of summer and the press of bodies on the Metro almost turned me into a teetotalist. I couldn’t bear the stink of the drunks on the trains, sweating out vodka, their clammy skin clinging to mine like plastic. Empty bottles of beer rolled and clattered underfoot. Then I would see young men spring gallantly to their feet to offer their seats to old women, or the way Russians buried their noses in books as the trains screamed through the tunnels, and decide it wasn’t such a bad place after all. One day I was riding out to the university for a Russian class. The Metro car was almost empty. I sat staring at a young woman across the way. She must have been up all night. Her hair had been styled, she looked delicate and well dressed. Her head sagged on her neck as if she were nodding on heroin. Her eyes, heavy with last night’s makeup, drooped shut. Her chin dropped to her chest. She crashed onto the floor, and the jolt woke her long enough for her to haul herself back onto the bench, where she promptly fell back into her dreams. The stout young mother at her side scooped up her little boy and moved across the aisle, lips set in disapproval. The young woman fell onto the floor again, this time landing on the feet of the old man at her side. He shook his foot free, irritably. She resumed her place on the bench. By now everybody in the carriage was staring at the girl, but impassively. A pair of tough-looking men were watching her like wolves. Anybody could have scooped her off the subway car, taken her away, done anything. I glanced at the men again. They were whispering to one another, laughing a little, running their eyes over her slumped body. Then my stop came up, so I stood and got off. In the end, I was just another face in the crowd, watching, and then moving along.
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