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Save these trees,
Mr Badal Rejecting
regionalism |
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Burney deserved
better
Importance of being
Maya
The lost art
Dateline
Washington Fearless campaigner
murdered for opposing Mugabe Delhi
Durbar
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Rejecting regionalism With
the Congress and the TDP gaining at the expense of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) in the byelections in Andhra Pradesh, voters have sent out the clear message that they value substance over symbolism, and that parties cannot rely on just a show of regionalism. While the TRS still maintains its lead in the region, the fact is that TRS MLAs and MPs had resigned en masse, solely on the issue of making Telangana a separate state, and have come out the worse for it. The TRS feels that the UPA had not honoured its promise to carve out a Telangana state, and byelections had to be held in 18 assembly constituencies and four Lok Sabha constituencies after the resignations. The TRS now has only seven MLAs from the region, while the Congress has picked up six and the TDP five. The TRS retained only two LS seats, with the other two again going to the Congress and the TDP. Where the TRS retained its seats, victory margins have narrowed. The voter is often wiser than the politician, and the support to Telangana was obviously conditional on its becoming a vehicle for development of the region. Smaller states are indeed easier to manage efficiently, and a separate state may well benefit the region. But more important for the voter is what can be delivered in terms of infrastructure, jobs and public utilities. They saw the TRS politicians being too fixated on the mere symbol of a separate state, rather than on deliverable public good. While the TRS went out of its way to project the election as a Telangana referendum, the Congress stressed development issues. The Congress will be particularly happy with its gains, given the fact that the party contested on its own, and won seats in a region that has shunned it for many years. Of course, even the Congress and the TDP took care to support the Telangana demand. They set out to undermine the credibility of the TRS as the entity that could bring statehood to the region, and reaped the gains. The regional card will always be played by local parties, and the BJP’s Yeddyurappa did so too in neighbouring Karnataka, by raking up the Kaveri issue. The BJP did win in Karnataka, but all parties are on notice – the regional plank, if it is not backed up with substance, can be rejected by the voter. |
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Burney deserved better IT is unbelievable that Pakistan’s human rights activist Ansar Burrney, tirelessly working for the release of Indian prisoners languishing in Pakistani jails, was treated as an unwelcome visitor on arrival at Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi, last Friday. He had come from London via Dubai by an Emirates Airways flight and was forced to fly back to Dubai in the same plane. No one in the babudom has exactly stated what his crime was. He had come to participate in a conference on terrorism held by a Delhi-based organisation. A prominent lawyer, who has been a minister dealing with human rights, Burney had earlier come to India in April for the first time and faced no problems. Whether he wrongly wrote his port of embarkation or there was “inadequate documentation” cannot justify the unfair treatment given to him. He definitely deserved better. The apology issued by the Home Ministry cannot undo the damage caused to India’s interests. Even if he was “denied entry” and “not deported on account of inadequate documentation”, as the Home Ministry statement says, the officials responsible for the shabby treatment to Burney must be hauled up for not taking the matter seriously. The embarrassment caused to the country could have been prevented if the senior officials at the airport had brought the matter to the notice of the higher-ups in the government. But they handled it as a routine matter, which it was not. Burney says that the incident will have no impact on his mission to end the plight of prisoners in Pakistani jails, particularly those from India. Let us hope that he will continue his drive for securing mercy for Indian convict Sarabjit Singh, whose hanging has been postponed for an indefinite period. It was mainly because of Burney’s efforts that Kashmir Singh, who had been on death row for a long time in Pakistan, could come back home. Burney must be made to feel that he is always welcome to India and what he experienced last week in Delhi was only an unfortunate aberration. |
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A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman’s birthday, but never remembers her age.
— Robert Frost |
Importance of being Maya
Few
politicians are as controversial and exciting in India today as Ms Mayawati. And she now has a new feather in her cap by inspiring an intrepid journalist to write a critical but supportive political biography of hers in an Indian version of Boswell recording the deeds of Dr Johnson*. The result is impressive because the story itself is out of the ordinary, and Ajoy Bose has tempered his enthusiasm with a dose of realism, if not scepticism. Ms Mayawati's triumph in emerging as the leader of her Bahujan Samaj Party with a majority in Uttar Pradesh in the last assembly elections has transformed her and her party into a major player in the country's fragmented political scenario. Will she be able to replicate her Dalit core base allied with the Brahmins elsewhere in the country? Indeed, her victory in UP is more than a simple electoral triumph because it is the "Dalit ki beti" who has engineered this triumph and that has wider and deeper connotations in a segmented Indian society that still places Dalits at a great social and economic disadvantage. It is misleading to suggest that Ms Mayawati has copied the traditional Congress mantra of the Brahmin-Muslim-lower castes combine. She has, in fact, inverted the pyramid by starting with the Dalits, acquiring the support of other lower castes and, ultimately sections of Brahmins. In the UP context, this was a shrewd move because the democratic process that had empowered the Other Backward Castes (OBC) had turned them into the new tyrants in the countryside, with Brahmins as much at the receiving end in terms of being bullied and intimidated as the low castes. Ms Mayawati was telling them that they had her protection. The inspiration of using the Dalits as the core constituency to achieve political power was Ms Mayawati's mentor's, Kanshi Ram, who also had the foresight to pick a determined Dalit school teacher preparing for the Indian Administrative Service examination as the route of her own and her family's salvation. Kanshi Ram did not live to see his protégé's ultimate triumph in UP, but he had steered her away from agitation politics, as was the wont of traditional Maharashtra Dalit groups, methodically to build up the Dalit constituency with the objective of capturing power. Ajoy Bose brings out the other distinctiveness of the BSP phenomenon, of there being virtually no party hierarchy, of Ms Mayawati's accent on the nuts and bolts of winning elections, and, above all, of giving Dalits dignity and empowerment by the very act of a Dalit being at the top of the political heap. During her several stints as UP Chief Minister, she did improve the plight of Dalits through posting of Dalit administrative and police officials in majority Dalit areas and by granting land rights, but she did not attempt a major social transformation. The author ends his account with a speculative final chapter on her prospect of becoming the country's Prime Minister, an ambition she has not fought shy of acknowledging. Even with India's fragmented political state, it is stretching the realm of probability to suggest that she could be a contender for prime ministerial stakes next year. Rather, it is more likely that with her hold over UP, the country's most populous state, she could play a key role in influencing a future coalition at the Centre rather in the manner of the Left parties vis-à-vis the present United Progressive Alliance government. Regrettably, the author keeps referring to UP as the largest state throughout the volume; that distinction belongs to Madhya Pradesh, even after losing Chhattisgarh. Ms Mayawati's problem is to replicate the alchemy she has been able to work in UP in other, even neighbouring, states. The BJP's record in Punjab, despite its high proportion of Dalit votes, has been dismal and, after Kanshi Ram's death it is a one-person party with little prospect of other Mayawatis being allowed to emerge in the states with their own authority. What the BSP can accomplish is to increase its percentage of votes in the next general election to eat into the votes of other parties, particularly the Congress. Bose has not fought shy of discussing Ms Mayawati's rags to riches story, how she and her immediate relatives have been able to accumulate so much wealth and property. But he tempers his criticism with reciting the prevailing political mores and makes the interesting political point that her fondness for houses and diamonds and gold is a matter of pride, rather than a blot, for her core followers because they derive vicarious pleasure in seeing a "Dalit ki beti" prosper. The symbolism of a string of Brahmin ministers, legislators and bureaucrats paying obeisance to her in public — a standard event at her swearing-in and birthday parties — is not lost on her followers. Her propensity to erect statues of the revered Ambedkar and Kanshi Ram and herself the author explains as her way of psychologically empowering the Dalits. A political biography on a politician midway through her or his career is not without its risks. Political trajectories can alter and veer off course. There cannot thus be a definitive biography of Ms Mayawati at this stage. But Ajoy Bose has filled a void on a politician who has perhaps changed the course of Indian politics. It is easy to concur with the author's conclusion that it is the triumph of Indian democracy that "a woman belonging to the most crushed community known to mankind has risen through the heat and dust of elections to rule two hundred million people". In addition to her bejewelled persona, Ms Mayawati has gained the reputation of being the Iron Lady. Her propensity to transfer senior and junior bureaucrats at the drop of a hat she shares with a long line of her predecessors. But on assuming power as a majority party under her own steam, she has become less caste-biased in her appointments, except in the context of assuring Dalits' and minorities' sense of security, than previously. In fact, her chief adviser is a Brahmin and another key aide a Jat. But the author does not fight shy of enumerating the level of her opportunism on the Gujarat pogrom: "Nevertheless, the manner in which Mayawati pushed the communal flames of Gujarat out of her vision to single-mindedly pursue power is chilling". Despite Bose's optimistic assessment of Ms Mayawati's chances of becoming the country's Prime Minister, it is a commendable effort, one he can be proud
of.
*Behenji — A Political Biography of Mayawati by Ajoy Bose; pp 277; Penguin/Viking; price Rs 499.
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The lost art The
waft of freshness billowing out of the air-conditioner was just not enough to bring down the temperature in the curtained chamber saturated with steaming and sweltering people - all dressed up in contrastingly cool white kurta-pajamas. Was it the oppressive heat generated by the ruthless sun trying to find its way through the slits and crevices in the blinds; or had the beads of perspiration, dotting the brow, something to do with the heated legal arguments in the courtroom? The recollection is not very vivid. For, almost eight years have lapsed since then. Those were the days of political mayhem in Punjab, brought about by two political bigwigs - one at the helm of affairs; other eager to grab the reins before age caught up with him. Oh yes, they were fighting it out, not in the people’s court; but before the Benches. Even before the old issues turned stale, you had fresh petitions filed every other day, challenging the validity of one action, or another. Well, it’s extremely difficult to judge the way the scales tilt in a court case before the verdict is actually keyed in; and signed. For, the Judges, more often than not, make diametrically opposite observations in the open courtrooms to bring to the fore the reality obscure between the printed lines, full of legal jargon, in the petitions. But this case appeared to be different. The petitioners before the court thought they were on firm legal ground. They had the law by their side; and the chances of their failure to succeed against the powers that be were negligible; at least this is what the legal eagles had told them. So, the verdict left them astounded. The detailed judgement was to follow. But those two words, “not allowed”, pronounced in the court after lengthy debate were enough to tell them they had lost another legal battle. No wonder, dejection and frustration were writ large on their sweating visages. The petitioners and their supporters wanted a postmortem for finding out where they went wrong. So all eyes turned naturally to Gurdarshan Singh Grewal — Punjab’s former Advocate-General-cum-counsel in so many cases filed against the ruling party. His equanimity turned out to be as surprising as the verdict to them. In complete control, his hands were steady; and quietude was visible on his face. In a deliberately slow and steady voice, he murmured: “When we were young, we would argue for days together among ourselves and senior lawyers after losing a court case. But now, we bow before My Lords and say obliged, if the case goes our way; highly obliged if it does not.” What he said after this might well be a lesson for advocates raising their voices to drown the sound of justice in the courtrooms (Only recently, the Punjab and Haryana High Court witnessed a verbal spat between a Judge and a senior advocate). As everyone strained their ears to catch the near whisper, he added: “Over the years, I have learnt the art of
losing”. |
Dateline
Washington Now, 16 years later, Rae, a member of the Democratic National Committee, may play a real part in picking the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. At 21, he is the party’s youngest superdelegate – a group of 796 people who cast their vote at the party’s convention. Superdelegates – made up of governors, senators, members of the House of Representatives and various other Democratic Party officials or members – are also known as “unpledged” delegates and are free to choose a candidate of their choice. Usually the party’s nominee is evident well before the summer convention. But this year, the tight race between Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama means that neither candidate may have the 2,025 delegates needed to win the nomination any time soon. After much consideration and even more wooing by both candidates and their supporters Rae decided to support Obama because he believes the Illinois senator is best positioned to win a general election. “With his strength in bringing out new voters and brining out independents, I think Obama is the best candidate to lead the country forward,” Rae, who is studying history and politics at Marquette University in Milwaukee, told The Tribune. “I think he is in a really great position to spark change and bring a new era to American politics.” Rae views being a superdelegate as an “exciting and unique” opportunity. “On one had it’s exciting to know, especially only being 21 years old, that I have the potential to shape the party’s future. It’s also kind of daunting that there is a rare possibility that in the end my decision could basically decide the party’s nominee,” he said. Critics have lambasted as undemocratic the process in which the Democratic nominee may be decided by a handful of superdelegates. Some prominent superdelegates like Donna Brazile, Al Gore’s presidential campaign manager in 2000 and an Obama supporter, have threatened to quit the party if the choice comes down to the superdelegates. Rae was elected to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in 2004, at age 17, making him the youngest DNC member in the United States. All members of the committee are automatically made superdelegates. “He’s been very active in both the state and national parties ever since,” said Rachel Strauch-Nelson, Communications Director at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. “He serves on the state administrative committee, is active in the College Democrats, and he worked to create the DNC’s Youth Council – he is still very active today in getting youth involved with the party,” she added. Clinton and Obama avidly courted Rae. Bill Clinton, a man whom Rae once felt was best suited to lead the country, called him asking for his vote for Clinton; as did former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright. He also met Chelsea Clinton over a meal. The Obama camp was just as persistent. He received a call from Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat who himself ran for president in 2004, and also met Obama and his wife Michelle. Rae based his decision on what kind of support the candidates were attracting. He wanted to know how many people were turning up for rallies. He contends there are really no “key differences” between Obama and Clinton. “They are both so ideologically similar. I think that is one of the reasons why we have seen neither candidate pull ahead so far,” he said. The only difference he could think of is the candidates’ different styles in politics and the different movements behind them. Neither of Rae’s parents is involved in politics. Nor have they ever donated money to or volunteered with a political campaign. His father is a supervisor at a factory in Rice Lake, Wisconsin, while his mother works as a receptionist at a clinic in the town of 8,000. Rae is unaffected by the attention. “First and foremost I will always be a college student,” he said. “I try to go about my day as a normal college
student who in between classes gives an interview.” Underneath his political veneer, Rae is an average 21-year-old who loves watching movies and hanging out with friends. Does he eventually intend to make a career in politics? He says he hasn’t thought that far ahead. |
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Fearless campaigner murdered for opposing Mugabe Tonderai
Ndira will not be campaigning when Zimbabwe votes again. He will not rally his neighbourhood, as he did two months ago, for one last push against an unwanted regime. Instead, he is buried in an unmarked grave in the Warren Hills cemetery in Harare. A week on from his funeral, only his brother knows for sure which of the mounds is his. He will not leave a marker because he believes state agents are still not finished with the murdered activist. They would like to dig up his brother’s remains to remove the incriminating evidence. Mr Ndira’s body was only found by accident in one of the capital’s morgues a fortnight ago. His eyes had been gouged out and his tongue cut off. The 30-year-old was so badly beaten his father had trouble identifying him. A distinctive ring confirmed the identity of a man compared by some to South Africa’s murdered rights activist, Steve Biko. Mr Ndira, a lifelong campaigner for political change, had been arrested more than 30 times but kept up his opposition to the government that has led Zimbabweans to the lowest life expectancy in the world. His remains – a crushed skull, a bullet wound through the chest and blood-stained shorts – are a depressing metaphor for Zimbabwe in the aftermath of a stolen election. On 27 June, this bankrupt and terrorised country will go back to the polls. A wave of abductions, punishment beatings and murders of opposition activists is under way in an attempt to turn the outcome on its head and prolong the rule of President Robert Mugabe. This effort has entered a new phase and, while the bodies of the disappeared are starting to turn up in the mortuaries, more are being abducted all the time. At least 50 have died, 1,500 have been treated in hospital, 25,000 have been driven from their homes and countless more have lost their livelihoods. David Coltart, an opposition senator, says violence in rural areas where the ruling Zanu-PF party did badly in the March poll, mainly in the north and north-east, has intensified. Speaking in London, the human rights lawyer said an estimated 25,000 people had been displaced in the past three weeks and the authorities had begun targeting individuals in the “second and third tier” of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. It was in this phase that Mr Ndira met his fate. His circumstances echo those of scores of others victimised in a state-sponsored campaign to beat the MDC into submission. A veteran of numerous arrests and internments, beatings and torture, Mr Ndira was accustomed to keeping on the move and staying one step ahead of the state security apparatus. Two weeks ago, suffering from exhaustion, he returned home to Mabvuku township outside Harare. Before dawn, say his family and other witness, a group of about 10 men, some masked and carrying Kalashnikov AK-47 rifles, appeared at his doorstep and demanded to see him. His wife called out to him and he asked the visitors to call back later. Instead, they burst into the activist’s home and beat him in front of his two young children, before dragging him outside and into a truck, bloodied and still in his underwear. In the weeks that followed his abduction, his family made frantic efforts to obtain any details about what happened to him. What took place can only be surmised by the unidentified, broken body that was found in a field in Goromonzi, 20 miles outside the capital, and taken to the mortuary at Harare’s Parirenyatwa hospital. Mr Ndira was reportedly identified only after someone recognised the mutilated corpse from its tall and thin frame and guessed the rest. It was a fate that would not have surprised the man himself. Interviewed by the BBC’s Panorama programme in 2002, Mr Ndira said: “We are prepared to die. It is just the same, we are still dying in Zimbabwe. We are dying by hunger, by diseases, everything, so there is nothing to fear.” Fear is exactly what the Mugabe regime is counting on as it looks to overturn a first-round defeat that saw 56 per cent of the country voting against the only president they have known since independence, and saw his party lose its majority in the lower house of parliament. The octogenarian leader, who famously boasted that he has a “degree in violence”, is relying on state security personnel backed up by paid militias to prevent a similar result in the run-off ballot. The outcome of the first round was withheld for more than five weeks before the government conceded that Mr Tsvangirai had beaten Mr Mugabe by six points, though falling just short of an overall majority. Despite this, he believes Mr Tsvangirai still has an “excellent
chance”. By arrangement with The Independent |
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Delhi Durbar For
years now, CPM Politburo member Sitaram Yechury, considered by many as the poster boy of the party, has been a permanent fixture at all party press conferences and briefings, unless he was out of town. This practice was started by former general secretary of the party Harkishan Singh Surjeet and
continued by the present incumbent Prakash Karat. But, of late, Prakash has been coming alone to address the media. In fact, on May 23, when the Left Front constituents addressed a joint press conference, the three other constituents had two leaders each on the podium. But Prakash was the lone representative of the CPM. The grapevine has it that the two “young Turks” of the CPM are not exactly on the best of terms, though this is denied vehemently by the party. The official explanation is that the two have different beats because of the division of work between them. Needless to say, nobody really buys this explanation. Campaign dilemmas As elections draw closer, incumbent governments go into overdrive to publicise their achievements. The NDA government had gone to town with its famous “India Shining” campaign in the run-up to the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. The Congress-led UPA government and the Shiela Dikshit-led Delhi government are now headed in the same direction. The Centre is putting out special advertisements on almost all television channels showcasing the UPA government’s development work, which, they claim are changing the face of rural India. Taking a cue from the Centre, the Delhi government has also undertaken a publicity campaign to highlight its achievements, which include the Metro rail project. This has left everybody asking whether the UPA government will face the same fate as the NDA regime. Raje’s detractors While Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje has been preoccupied with the snowballing Gujjar agitation, her detractors in the BJP have also been equally busy. Realising that Raje is under pressure these days, a group of state BJP leaders rushed to Delhi last week and camped here for several days to press for the chief minister’s removal. Among those who were at the forefront of the “Vasundhara hatao” campaign included senior state minister Lalit Chaturvedi and BJP Rajasthan unit president and RSS insider Om Mathur whose appointment had been resisted by Raje. The whole drama was directed through remote control by none other than the venerable former external affairs minister Jaswant Singh, whose antipathy towards Vasundhra Raje is all too well known. Contributed by Faraz Ahmad, Girja Shankar Kaura and Satish Misra |
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Corrections and clarifications
* * * * * * Despite our earnest endeavour to keep The Tribune error-free, some errors do creep in at times. We are always eager to correct them. We request our readers to write or e-mail to us whenever they find any error. We will carry corrections and clarifications, wherever necessary, every Tuesday. Readers in such cases can write to Mr Amar Chandel, Deputy Editor, The Tribune, Chandigarh, with the words “Corrections” on the envelope. His e-mail ID is:
amarchandel@tribunemail.com. — H.K. Dua, Editor-in-Chief
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