EDITORIALS

Drug mafia at work
Break nexus between politicians, police and smugglers

That some politicians indulge in drug peddling on the sly is not considered exactly big news in Punjab. But the Rs 23-crore heroin consignment with which a youth Akali Dal leader has been caught in Amritsar is large enough to take anyone’s breath away. There is a strong nexus among politicians, smugglers and policemen, which allows the illegal activity to flourish. To that extent, the arrest is a rare exception, which may raise some hope that even politicians are not beyond the reach of the law. This tip of the iceberg gives sufficient idea about the reach and the size of the network in operation. The heroin reportedly came from Pakistan and was to go to Canada. Apparently, the racket was in operation for quite some time.

The ruling Akali Dal has tried to wash its hands off the smuggler, but the fact remains that it is a big embarrassment for the party. The only way it can make the stain less pronounced is by launching an all-out drive against the menace, without making any exception for any influential person, howsoever high and mighty. The nexus of the drug mafia, police and politicians continues to function effectively irrespective of who governs the state, the Akali Dal-BJP combine or the Congress party.

The problem in Punjab is that drug addiction has become so very common that it has gained some kind of social acceptance. Even to be engaged in drug smuggling is not considered a stigma. Rather, it is treated a sign of courage, considering that it fetches huge returns. If the politicians don’t engage in it, they at least condone it. All this has done incalculable harm to the state. A whole generation of youth (almost 50 per cent of the youth in Punjab is said to be on opium or other stuff) is lost to the addiction. Capt Amarinder Singh’s government ignored the problem. Let it not be said that the Badal government is equally reluctant to launch a crusade against this social evil, which is also a crime against humanity.

Beacons for MPs
House panel’s move seems illogical

On the face of it, the recommendation of a parliamentary committee for allowing 795 members of Parliament the use of red beacon on their vehicles is lopsided and irrational. Veteran parliamentarian and Janata Dal (United) MP George Fernandes has rightly expressed his reservation about it and appealed to the committee for wiser counsel. In a letter to the committee chairman, Mr J.P. Aggarwal, MP (Rajya Sabha), Mr Fernandes differed with the move and reminded the members “to keep the common man before their eyes and carry on with their activities”. Unfortunately, though our honourable members want all facilities to bolster their image and status, they seem to be least bothered about their duties and responsibilities towards the people. It is common knowledge how they behave in Parliament and disrupt the proceedings time and again. Will red beacons help improve their performance? No. If anything, these pseudo status symbols will only make them more status conscious and further alienate them from the common masses.

Of late, there has been a mad scramble for red beacons – from politicians to bureaucrats to even SGPC members in Punjab. While the chief ministers distribute these to some sections as political favours, the prospective beneficiaries angle for them for an enhanced status in society. This has actually led to the gradual dilution of the very purpose of such a facility. Beacons are anachronistic, a relic of the feudal past and hence out of sync with the modern times. They serve no worthwhile purpose. Instead, they hinder the smooth flow of traffic and cause inconvenience to the people.

How does a beacon help an MP, MLA or a bureaucrat in carrying out his/her duties? It is understandable if a District Magistrate, a head of the police force or a functionary on election duty uses it. In such cases, beacons give them the right of smooth passage to help expedite official work. Certainly, this cannot be the case with every other official or representative. Committee chairman J.P. Aggarwal equating the proposal for beacons with the other perks enjoyed by the MPs such as free rail travel by First Class AC, daily allowance, rent-free accommodation and so on is totally unconvincing and does not stand the test of scrutiny. Clearly, MPs are expected to concentrate more on their performance as representatives of the people rather than angle for such pseudo symbols.

Agni’s lead
Key missile in the strategic command

With a range of 700 to 900 kilometres and the ability to deliver a nuclear warhead, Agni-I is a key missile now fully at the disposal of India’s newly-created Strategic Forces Command. Though called Agni-I, it is essentially a single-stage version of the Agni-II, developed earlier. The need for a short-range ballistic missile with a range greater than the 250 kilometres of the Prithvi, had to be addressed seriously after the Kargil war. Agni-I can be launched both from road and rail mobile launchers. Though DRDO has flight tested it on several occasions, the first test where it was launched by the Army’s own units, was conducted only last October.

As these tests are obviously meant to further the induction, operationalisation and familiarisation of the missile in the hands of its ultimate user, both DRDO and the Army should be looking to expedite the process, and reduce the time between tests. Dealing with strategic weapons is a critical challenge. There will be several issues with regard to the safe and speedy handling of the warhead, its mating with the missile, set-up, targeting and launch, besides transmission of orders down the chain of command. The Strategic Forces Command should be able to exude the necessary confidence that comes with enough number of drills and a reliable armoury deployed in sufficient quantities. That will lend credence to India’s deterrence posture – nuclear weapons, after all, are to be considered most successful when they are never actually used.

Agni-III has had successful initial tests, and the design of Agni-IV is reported to be well along. A test of the ‘Sagarika’ submarine launched ballistic missile has also been conducted. Along with tests of advanced interceptor missiles, which can interdict incoming ballistic missiles, India’s ‘second-strike’ capability is steadily gaining credibility. Slow pace has been a bugbear however, and riding on these laudable successes and the experience it has now built up, DRDO should seriously hasten the process of development, induction and operationalisation.

Thought for the day

I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs. — Frederick Douglass

ARTICLE

Pawar’s bouncer
Logic of jointly contesting the election
by S. Nihal Singh

Perhaps buoyed by his Meghalaya win against Ms Sonia Gandhi’s Congress (INC), Mr Sharad Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has fired the first salvo in the pattern of contests that are likely to emerge in the general election. He has suggested what would have been a heresay not long ago, that the Congress should contest the election under the banner of the United Progressive Alliance, rather than under it own steam.

Mr Pawar has killed two birds with one stone. He has proclaimed that the coalition era is here to stay, despite the wishes of the INC, and he has ensured that far from any thought of ultimately merging with the parent party, the NCP is ready to exploit the greater clout a joint contest will give it and the other constituents in case of victory.

The Bharatiya Janata Party, on the other hand, has been assiduous in ensuring that constituents of the National Democratic Alliance it leads stay together. Ms Mamta Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress is being wooed again as is the formidable Ms Jayalalithaa of the AIADMK. Both these leaders are adrift and need the support of a larger organisation.

The Congress will have to give serious thought to Mr Pawar’s suggestion because it would otherwise face the prospect of the constituents going their separate ways. Tensions between the INC and the NCP in Maharashtra and Goa, two states in which they have combined, come to the surface from time to time, with the INC nearly losing Goa, but both sides have had to compromise to stay in power.

If Mr Pawar is visualising election strategies, others have not remained idle. The NDA is husbanding its resources, with Mr Narendra Modi lunching with Ms Jayalalithaa to build fellow feeling. The Maharashtra first theme song, sung first by Mr Raj Thackeray and then joined in by Mr Bal Thackeray, is a hiccup for the BJP. But other factors, highlighted by feverish preparations in important party-ruled states going for assembly elections are aimed at creating an impression of self-confidence.

The BJP was careful in seeking the endorsement of the NDA for the new status accorded to Mr L.K. Advani as Prime Minister-in-waiting. Indeed, there is a new bounce in Mr Advani’s step and the high-profile launch of his memoir in New Delhi was, in effect, a proclamation of his arrival. A second step Mr Advani has taken is the virtual anointment of Mr Narendra Modi as his virtual successor in the party. He, if not the party, has decided that the stain of the Gujarat riots is no handicap in Mr Modi’s ability to round up the votes, despite the American decision to deny him a visa.

The Left parties, in their corner, are making increasing noises about a Third Alternative, rather than a Third Front, knowing full well that it is a barren road. All they have to lean on is the curious collection of regional satraps, each more interested in parochial politics than the larger national picture. As it is, Ms Jayalalithaa has been giving the UNPA anxious moments by flirting with the BJP and Mr Chandrababu Naidu is no longer the master of what he surveys on his home turf - being out of power has its disadvantages.

As of now, the Left has decided to support the UNPA on issues that gel with its policies. It is all very well to repeat the mantra of a non-Congress non-BJP combine. But the Left leaders know better than others that if they find the Congress wavering on ideological and economic issues on occasion, an alliance with regional leaders of narrow outlook will be even more problematic. The Left then is, in essence, marking time hoping that there will be greater clarity on issues and the timing of the election in the not too distant future.

But the most difficult decision falls on the Congress, not merely because Mr Pawar has bowled a bouncer but because the party has to decide its future policy and tactic. The logic of jointly contesting the election is that the Congress will have to make room for constituents, inviting tensions at the state and local levels and the party will need to alter its method of doing business.

The so-called Congress culture as it has evolved is that its leader and his or her progeny decide their speaking and touring engagements, with the party quickly falling in line. For instance, it has been decided that Mr Rahul Gandhi should tour a number of states to cut his political teeth and his mother has already taken to addressing election rallies, whether labelled as farmers’ gatherings or otherwise. The logic that has prevailed in the Congress is that the leader can do no wrong as long as he or she delivers the votes.

If the UPA constituents were to contest the general election together, election strategies and campaigns will need to be coordinated and other parties given sufficient room to promote their candidates. Mr Pawar knows that he is in a strong position because he brings the Congress a share of votes it needs. He feels he has arrived, since the days he split with the Congress, because he can determine to an extent the fortunes of the parent party.

How Ms Sonia Gandhi copes with the problem will become apparent after a time, whatever instant reactions Congressmen might choose to give. For one thing, it will depend upon how the political apprenticeship of Mr Rahul Gandhi fares. The outcome will depend not merely on his diligence in learning the trade but in the public perception of how he is doing. Politics is the art of communicating with people and his rhetorical skills are not particularly well honed.

There is also a new element in the election scenario: Ms Mayawati’s loud declaration that her ultimate aim is to occupy the Prime Minister’s chair in Delhi. She is making both the Congress and the BJP nervous because her supporters cut across state borders and she has the ability to spoil the more established parties’ chances even if she does not secure immediate success in states other than her stronghold of Uttar Pradesh.

Mr Pawar can sit back and enjoy the fun as other parties and leaders adjust to his challenge to Ms Sonia Gandhi.

MIDDLE

Sleep well
by Shriniwas Joshi

Returning home after a stroll on The Mall, I found that my slightly rectangular bedside table containing books, dictionary and thesaurus and that of my wife’s square one having glossies had exchanged places.

I shouted, “Have I to sleep on the other side of the bed?” “No, you will continue sleeping where you used to”, came the voice from the kitchen. “But what about my books?” I asked. “You will not read these. I will,” was the direction.

“Have you read The Great Mughal by William Dalrymple?” I purposely asked this question taunting on her claim that, henceforth, she would be reading the books. “No, not as yet”, she said. “Why? You ought to, it was published in 2006.” Reacting to this, she asked, “Have you read Ramcharitmanas?” “No”, I said. “You ought to, it was completed in the year 1584” and then added, “I have read it complete thrice and I read Sunderkand daily.”

She then gave me the information that of all the English books published in 1859, only five, Darwin’s “Origin of Species,” Dickens’ “Tale of two Cities,” Eliot’s “Adam Bede,” Mill’s “Essay on Liberty,” and Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King” were found in the shelves of the libraries hundred years after, hinting at the huge attrition rate of books other than the scriptural ones.

“I dare not challenge your calculation on this rate but generally wives coax husbands to read and write, not deprive them from reading. Nathaniel Hawthorne, losing the government position, was dejected and desperate. It was his wife who set pen and ink on the table and sweet-talked him to write a book. Result was ‘The Scarlet Letter’, so I see no reason in removing all the books from my bedside table,” I was getting a little agitated.

She is a very “reasoned” person and softly unfolded her view, “At this age, an insomniac you would be a source of constant anxiety to me. I want you to sleep well and not count those bleating sheep the whole night. Likewise, I also want beauty sleep for myself.”

“But reading and sleeping have no co-relation!” I was exasperated. “That’s the catch, my dear. There is, there is. A study published in Science Daily based on a survey on 40,000 persons shows that a better read woman gets a good shut eye at night while man who reads suffers from sleeplessness. So, Read less and Sleep well is ultimate Rx for you,” lex non scripta was announced.

OPED

Monitor farm waivers
Rich farmers should not exploit write-offs
by Suman Sahai

Reuters photo

The farm loan waiver is the least the government can do to begin the process of healing the farm sector. It must be clearly understood that as against mismanaged industries in private hands that are routinely bailed out by huge debt write offs, the farmers have not created the farm crisis because they shirk work or cannot manage farms.

The current agrarian crisis is the result of insensitive and exploitative policies crafted by successive generations of bureaucrats and politicians in this country. That farmers continue to produce food under the austere and adverse conditions that we have created for them is nothing short of a miracle.

Post waiver, rectifications have been proposed which should be acted upon to better focus this relief and undoubtedly this will happen when Parliamentary Standing Committees meet to discuss the budget.

There is for instance, recognition of the fact that a blanket limit of two-hectare land holding to qualify for relief would not be fair. Larger land holdings in rain fed areas should be entitled for relief since productivity is much lower under rainfed conditions compared to irrigated areas. Two hectares in Punjab is not the same as two hectares in Jharkhand.

The other issue is how to help the large numbers of farmers who are indebted to private moneylenders. Kerala has developed a model by setting up a Farmer Debt Relief Commission with powers to find solutions that can be implemented. This kind of exercise would best be undertaken at the state level. State Agriculture Departments, Agriculture Universities, Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI), and NGOs should be brought together to help identify indebted farmers. The debt with private moneylenders should be negotiated and a compromise formula worked out to make a final settlement.

But the key concern, as the process of providing debt relief gets underway, will be to monitor the allocation of funds. Great vigilance needs to be exercised to ensure that the write offs are not being exploited by fat cat farmers growing grapes and sugar in Maharashtra!

A monitoring and oversight committee of citizens, with a sentinel function should be set up immediately to watch where the money of the loan waiver is going. Keeping in mind the high levels of corruption and the routine siphoning off of government funds by people who were never intended to be beneficiaries, there must be a tremendous effort to ensure that the ‘business as usual’ method of functioning does not pour the waiver into illegitimate pockets. One of the best monitoring mechanisms is transparency. All banks should be required to publish in the local newspapers and national dailies, details of the farmers whose loans are being written off.

Apart from monitoring the debt relief operation, the real challenge will be how to utilize the 60, 000 crore waiver in the most effective manner. The farmers’ problems will not be solved with just writing off their loans. The waiver will only enable the farmer to become credit worthy again.

Creative intervention should link these farmers to the many agriculture schemes that have been promulgated to provide a boost for agriculture productivity. The Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana with a budget of Rs 25,000 crore is only one scheme that is earmarked for agriculture, in this case, specifically to bridge the yield gap between the actual genetic potential of the crop variety and what the farmer gets.

In the case of millets for instance, the yield gap between the potential of varieties in the field and what the farmer gets, is almost 300 percent. Here, output could be trebled with proper farm management.

There are many other schemes, like the National Food Security Mission, the National Horticulture Mission and the National Fisheries Development Board. All of which have allocations of several thousand crores that can be used to raise farm productivity.

Careful intervention and proper guidance is crucial at this time to ensure that loans are used to increase productivity and the cycle of debt is not repeated. Farmers should be given easy access to critical agriculture inputs needed for productive agriculture. These could be good quality seed, fertiliser and pesticide.

The new loans can be used to create water bodies to provide irrigation for a second crop in single crop rainfed areas. Where appropriate, the new credit can be used to acquire livestock or develop poultry or fisheries for additional off farm incomes.

The crux is that the debt relief must be guided in a way that the farmer is enabled to become productive again. If this can be made to happen, this investment in agriculture will alleviate the agrarian distress and lead to increase in food production and a more assured basis for the country’s food security and sovereignty.

History’s lessons: Ireland and the ghost of empire
by Robert Fisk

In November 1974, I was racing to Dublin from Belfast at more than 100mph. I wanted to look at the last link with Padraig Pearse, the very last symbol of the leadership of the 1916 rebellion against British rule in Ireland, the battle that created the 20th-century blood sacrifice of Irish republicanism.

Within an hour, I was sitting in the 12th-century Cathedral of St Patrick in Dublin, staring across the aisle at the tall, blind figure of Eamon de Valera. But it was the flags hanging above Dev’s head that I kept looking at.

They were the colours of the long-forgotten Irish regiments of the British Army, the banners of those units – disbanded in 1920 – that fought for the Crown and whose own veterans of the 1914-18 war had been cruelly ignored in the newly independent country of their birth.

But St Patrick’s was a Protestant cathedral and the clergymen read the funeral service in impeccable English accents. And the flags – like so much of Ireland’s ambiguous history, Dev was blind to their presence – suggested that Ireland might never shake free from the ghost of empire.

I guess I only realised the great, historic change in Ireland when the country first acknowledged that ambivalent, dangerous past: while Irishmen like Dev were fighting and dying for the Republic in Easter 1916, tens of thousands more were fighting and dying to protect Catholic France and to free little Catholic Belgium from the Kaiser’s, largely Protestant, Germany, alongside the Protestant 36th Ulster Division.

In the early 1970s – when I was Northern Ireland correspondent of The Times – I wrote about the old Irish-British regiments. But my article elicited not a scintilla of interest at a time when the Provisional IRA claimed to be following the blood sacrifice of Dublin in 1916, when Protestant paramilitaries claimed to be following the blood sacrifice of the Somme in 1916 and when the British, believing Northern Ireland was an “integral” part of the United Kingdom, made a claim that now sounds wearily familiar in our post-Iraq ears: that a British retreat from Belfast would mean – yes – civil war.

This Easter, the 92nd anniversary of the Rising, it is intriguing to look at the parallels that connect Ireland and the Middle East. The “Black and Tans”, whom Churchill supported when they took their revenge on Irish civilians in 1920, were later sent – again with Churchill’s support – to Palestine, where they became the “British Gendarmerie” and continued their reprisals against Arab and Jewish civilians to considerable effect.

Decades later, John Hume (Ireland’s only living statesman) wrote in The Jerusalem Post that Israel and “Palestine” should take a page out of Ireland’s Good Friday Agreement. It was all about compromise, he said.

He was wrong. Israel’s settlements on Palestinian Arab land in the occupied territories were as illegal as the Protestant settlements and the dispossession of the Catholics in 16th-century Ireland. A closer historical symbol was Fallujah. Not long after the US 82nd Airborne killed 14 Iraqi civilians during a protest in 2003, the people of Derry wanted to twin with Fallujah.

Had not the British Parachute Regiment killed 14 Irish civilians in Derry (13 on “Bloody Sunday”, another died of wounds) in 1972? The offer was never taken up – but the message was valid enough: we must deal with injustice before we look for “compromise”.

The relatives of the Bloody Sunday dead received a multi-million-pound inquiry. The relatives of the Fallujah dead were twice put under US siege until their city was almost destroyed.

Yet if Ireland is now truly at peace, I suspect it is not just for the simple reasons: the overwhelming self-awareness among the killers, the realisation by all (including the Brits) that there could be no military victory, and the emergence of the “Celtic Tiger” south of the border. I think Ireland’s “differentness” also has something to do with it, not least its traditional neutrality.

Though the Allies boycotted Eire’s initial request to join the UN, her neutrality allowed her to play a noble (and costly) role in later UN operations.

Ireland joined Nato’s “Partnership for Peace” without a promised referendum, and its army now wears uniforms that are almost indistinguishable from the British variety. “Neutrality” was becoming an embarrassing word, until Iraq taught us just how dangerous alliances could be. Irish men and women must count themselves lucky that they stayed out of the “war on terror”, as they did from the 1939-45 conflict.

Under the UN banner, the Irish army has now served in almost as many countries as the British Empire ruled. So much for the flags in St Patrick’s Cathedral.

By arrangement with The Independent

Delhi Durbar
Political statement

The grand function held in the Capital last week for the release of BJP’s PM-in-waiting L.K. Advani’s memoirs was not just any other book launch. The programme, attended by leading personalities from the world of politics, the corporate sector and Bollywood, was clearly meant to be a political statement. It essentially set the stage for the next general elections for the BJP under Advani’s leadership.

The function also provided an insight into the changing personal equations within the sangh parivar. On the one hand, the presence of RSS boss Mohan Bhagwat at the function was a clear signal that Advani and the BJP’s ideological mentor have eventually buried their differences over the Jinnah episode. On the other hand, the seating arrangements – BJP president Rajnath Singh was not seated on the dais while Jaswant Singh was – showed up the strained relations between Rajnath and Advani.

As for Advani’s book, it started creating waves even before it was officially released. BJP insiders maintain Advani has chosen to omit several episodes which should have found a place in the book. For instance, they said Advani has skimmed over events which resulted in the marginalisation of the promising ideologue K.N. Govindacharya.

Similarly, there is no reference to the incident when saffron sanyasin Uma Bharati had accused him in full media glare of protecting some party colleagues who were planting stories about her in the press.

The book is an unabashed attempt at self-promotion as Advani has written at length about his achievements and how he has shaped the country’s history.

Dutt dilemma

While Congress leaders ( with the exception of law minister H.R. Bharadwaj) kept away from Advani’s book launch function, the party was embarrassed by the presence of actor Sanjay Dutt at the programme. After all, Dutt belongs to a high-profile Congress khandaan which has been known for its secular credentials, as also its proximity to the Nehru-Gandhi family.

Pushed on the defensive, Congress leaders were busy- explaining how the late Sunil Dutt and Advani had very good personal relations and that the BJP leader had helped him out when Sanjay Dutt was arrested under TADA. Needless to say, there were no takers for this laboured explanation.

Internecine tensions

It is not a full-fledged war but there are distinct signs of underlying tensions between the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha members of the Congress. Even four years after the UPA was formed, the party’s Lok Sabha members, who were responsible for bringing the Congress to power, are still bitter about their colleagues from the Upper House grabbing all key positions in the government and in the party.

Often termed as a class problem, Lok Sabha members complain that Rajya Sabha members invariably look down upon them and are even disdainful of their aspirations of getting better ministerial portfolios or party positions.

Contributed by Satish Misra, Vibha Sharma and Anita Katyal