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Impeach the Judge
Hope on Singur |
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Police brutality
N-deal a tonic for Congress
An occupational skill
The Kashmir question
When Confucius makes sense
Delhi Durbar
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Impeach the Judge
Reports of Supreme Court Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan’s communication to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recommending the impeachment of Calcutta High Court Judge Justice Soumitra Sen for misconduct once again bring to the fore the question how to weed out the rotten apples from the judiciary. The CJI has sought action after an inquiry by a three-judge committee. Moreover, the judge has been relieved of court work for the last one year. The errand judge, prior to his elevation as a judge, was a lawyer and receiver in a lawsuit between the Steel Authority of India Limited and the Shipping Corporation of India. In 1993, he allegedly misappropriated Rs 32 lakh. Though he was asked to keep custody of the proceeds of the sale of firebricks, he deposited the money in his personal bank account. This was not only an act of indiscretion but also brazen abuse of his position. The people are entitled to know how a judicial officer of this kind of record was elevated as a judge of the Calcutta High Court. While answers to this question will not be easy to come, the CJI has made a definitive move recommending Justice Sen’s impeachment by Parliament. Union Law Minister H.R. Bharadwaj said on Monday that the Centre will approach Parliament to impeach Justice Sen. Since it is a question of sheer corruption, all parties in Parliament, cutting across party lines, should support the motion of impeachment of the delinquent judge. According to Article 124 (4) of the Constitution, a High Court (or Supreme Court) judge shall not be removed from his office except by an order of the President passed after an address by each House of Parliament supported by a majority of two-thirds of members present and voting. Consequently, it enjoins a special responsibility on all the MPs to rise to the occasion. The charge against Justice Sen is so serious that the severest punishment has become essential. The CJI’s move, when backed by Parliament, should send a shiver down the spine of all those in the judiciary for whom integrity is not an important value. If Justice Sen is found guilty by Parliament and impeached, it will be breaking a barrier as this will be the first such case when a judge is shown the door for conduct unbecoming of his calling. Parliament must take up the move in the next session in October. Justice V. Ramaswami of the Supreme Court, found responsible for misbehaviour, could not be impeached in 1993 as the motion fell through in Parliament.
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Hope on Singur
AT this point of time, it can only be hoped that the truce the West Bengal government and the Trinamool Congress have reached over the issue of land transfer to the Tatas in Singur will prevail. It was thanks more to West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi than to the two disputants that the agreement was reached. As reports suggest, it was a touch-and-go kind of situation with Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee throwing familiar tantrums during the talks. In doing so, she conformed to her image as a maverick rabble-rouser. The success of the agreement depends, again, on how good she is in keeping her promise that no disruption will be caused to the work in the Tata premises. The harrowing time the Tatas had ever since they evinced interest in acquiring 1000 acres in Singur district for their Rs 1-lakh Nano car project was mainly because of Ms Banerjee, who saw it more as a Left Front project than as a private sector venture that could herald industrialisation of the state and bring in jobs for the people. It is not that all the 1000 acres needed for the project were forcibly acquired. Many of the farmers willingly and gladly offered their land in return for the prevalent market price and offers of jobs in the Tata factory. However, her party instigated owners of about 400 acres of land to demand return of their land by giving them false hopes that the land would later fetch a better price. But the Tatas’ announcement that they would rather shift the company to other locations than succumb to pressures suddenly changed the situation. For once, the agitating farmers realised that if the Tatas implemented their threat, their hopes of getting a better price for their land would remain as distant as Ms Banerjee’s hope of becoming the Chief Minister of West Bengal. The return of the land, under the agreement, would mean that the ancillary industries for which it was acquired will have to negotiate directly with the farmers. Small wonder that the Tatas have decided to adopt a wait-and-watch policy before resuming work in Singur. Now, the Governor has the onerous job of convincing the Tatas that the agreement was the best they could have arrived at under the circumstances. |
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Police brutality
The revulsion caused over the death of Raj Rani, a guest teacher, in alleged police firing during a protest near Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s home in Rohtak on Sunday is fully justified. The police has a long, inglorious record of displaying vulgar force bordering on brutality whenever it is asked to engage in any kind of crowd management. In this particular incident, it has claimed that the death did not occur due to police firing but because somebody from the protesters’ side fired from a country-made pistol. The post-mortem report and the magisterial enquiry that has been ordered will bring out the truth. What is all the more shocking is that when she fell down after receiving the bullet injury, no attempt was made to rush her to hospital. The police personnel swung lathis at her colleagues when they tried to go near her. A woman teacher received several lathi blows and is now recuperating in another hospital. While eyewitnesses insist that they took her for treatment in a maxi-cab after the cops left the spot, the authorities claim that she was rushed to the PGIMS in a government ambulance. But what the men in khaki just cannot deny is that they used excessive force on all the protesting teachers which led to serious injuries to scores of them. They severely beat up protesters by chasing them in streets, pulling them out of shops and houses where they had taken shelter to protect themselves. The police did not even spare common citizens and many of them were injured. They mete out such inhuman treatment even when tackling blind protesters. It is high time somebody told them in no uncertain terms they cannot treat protesting citizens as enemies. What the police brass must realise is that such disconnect with the citizenry would only make the job of policing more difficult. When the force is seen as inimical to even ordinary citizens, there is no question of anyone coming forward to cooperate with the policemen. This kind of public support is not only desirable but also mandatory if the police is to discharge its duty with any semblance of efficiency. But when will these men in khaki learn the basics? |
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It’s better to be looked over than overlooked. — Mae West
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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
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N-deal a tonic for Congress While the Congress party is relishing a famous victory over the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers’ Group waiver, political pundits are putting their heads together to discover how it will affect political fortunes in the coming series of elections. In a sense, the nuclear deal is not a bread and butter issue like rising prices for the layman, but in a unique way it is resonating in popular consciousness and is bound to affect political parties’ standing. For one thing, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s standing has grown. For a man famously described by the Bharatiya Janata Party leader, Mr L.K. Advani, as the country’s weakest Prime Minister in history, he has succeeded in outmanoeuvring both the BJP and the Communists. The Congress denied the BJP a victory for a second time — the first being the 2004 general election — by frustrating its efforts to bring down the coalition government. The Left parties were strung along until their vociferous opposition to the nuclear deal was endangering the prospect of pushing it through the two essential multilateral processes required for the US Congress to take a final call. Over the four years and more the Left has been supporting the government, it was exercising power without responsibility and was enjoying its place in the sun at the centre of political power. The other parties grasped the nuclear deal for their own purposes. Regional parties perennially searching for a Third Front which refuses to coalesce and secure power as an entity had their own reasons to rubbish the deal in the hope of adding Muslim votes. They have tried to colour the deal as being anti-Muslim in terms of the strategic partnership with the US it underlines. In Uttar Pradesh, Ms Mayawati was forced to oppose it simply because her rival, the Samajwadi Party, was supporting the Manmohan Singh government. For others in search of a leader after Mr Mulayam Singh had walked out of the hoped-for Third Front, Ms Mayawati proved to be an irresistible magnet, the leader of a resurgent Bahujan Samaj Party successfully converting the Dalit vote bank into an attractive proposition for forward castes and for some Muslims. Projecting her as a future Prime Minister was unwise because every regional leader wants that status. For the BJP, the NSG waiver in Vienna proved particularly damaging because no one believes that its opposition to the deal is anything but hypocritical. It was the BJP-led government that deliberately began the process of bringing India and the US closer in the strategic sector. Indeed, the long series of conversations in various world capitals between Mr Jaswant Singh and Mr Strobe Talbott became something of a Laurel and Hardy show. But these meetings, without reaching a conclusion, underlined the first sustained strategic dialogue between the two countries. It was a conjunction of stars that led the Manmohan Singh government, rather than the preceding BJP-led government, to success. President George W. Bush and his neoconservative advisers were building a new strategic architecture with a wary eye on the growing strength of China and wanted India on its side. There was the famous statement of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wanting to help India achieve the status of a major power and the overarching device was the Indo-US nuclear deal. These moves crystallised into the July 2005 Indo-US nuclear deal, but instead of taking credit for having initiated the process, the BJP went into an opposition mode. Non-partisan experts have criticised the deal for its flaws while it has been my belief that it was essential to build a consensus on such a landmark foreign policy initiative and defer the deal if necessary. But the BJP’s opposition was opportunistic because it felt it could get greater political mileage by flaunting its super-nationalist credentials. Two factors seem to have influenced Mr Manmohan Singh in going ahead with the deal, despite his failure in building a consensus. First, the domestic political scene became too contentious for a reasoned dialogue with opposition parties. Second, it was the Prime Minister’s belief that President Bush was offering a unique window of opportunity which was not likely to recur for decades. A strategic alignment with caveats suited India because it promised to catapult India into a new ball game. The BJP, in a bind because it cannot alter its opposition to the deal, believes as it does that emotional and evocative Hindutva issues such as the Amarnath yatra and rising inflation are far more important in electoral terms than the arcane subject of a nuclear deal. If it loses votes among sections of the urban middle class disaffected by the party’s volte-face, it would more than make up by harping on religious and pocketbook issues among a wider base. In any event, the BJP faces the daunting task of retaining such important states as Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh slated for elections before the year is out. It will be contesting as the incumbent party and its record is patchy, particularly in the latter state. Besides, the Prime Minister’s success in Vienna has placed it on the defensive, with the result that its campaigns will be shriller. The Congress will understandably seek to connect the nuclear deal with greater and uninterrupted power supply for the villager as well as the urban resident. Ms Sonia Gandhi has articulated it on occasion and Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav, with his grasp over the common man’s idiom, invariably refers to the nuclear deal in these terms. For the more articulate classes, there is an inevitable appeal in the prospect of India achieving greater glory in the world. The deal has, indeed, come as a tonic for the Congress. Delhi rumour mills are already working overtime in suggesting that the government will seek to cash in on the nuclear deal climbing its most difficult hurdle in Vienna by calling the general election before the end of the year. It is now for the party mandarins to energise the cadres to fight coherent battles whenever elections are
held.
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An occupational skill It will be odious to compare politicians to teachers because both sections of society would take umbrage at the comparison. Teachers would feel insulted because politicians are generally perceived to be venal, while the politicians would feel humiliated because they regard the teachers as being economically and socially inferior. But there is one occupational skill that they both share: their prodigious memory for names. There was a small-time politician in my home town, who often called upon my mother to canvass for him among her wide circle of patients and former patients. I came face to face with him after 30 years at a function in Vigyan Bhavan. Without a moment’s hesitation he said, “Are you still
in Lucknow?” Speaking from my own experience I can vouchsafe for the fact that teachers too share this phenomenal ability. I had been teaching in school for six months. There was an inter-school soccer match in progress. Two junior school boys were knocking around a soccer ball on the tongue of land
that abutted the main field, close to where I was sitting. Inevitably they kicked the ball on to the main field, threatening to disrupt the match. I called out to them by name and said if they did not stop I would “dhap” them. The person sitting next to me asked if the boys were related to me, sons of friends perhaps. I looked closely at the boys and shook my head in negation. “How do you know their names since you have nothing to do with the junior school?” Over the next few days I realised that not only did I know the name of every child in the school, but all the other
teachers too shared this ability. How? It is because we see the children in every sphere of their lives. We identify the boy who broke his leg, the girl who forgot her lines in the house play, the two children who fainted
during a Parade practice etc. It is an essential skill for us as
teachers and we learn to hone it to perfection. My ability to remember names, like my ability to remember so much else in my life, is slipping away from me. I was bemoaning this loss to a guest, implying, perhaps, that it was time for me to hang up my gloves. I told her of my meeting with a former star pupil a few days ago. I remembered her as Simar well enough, but all through the meeting, I was troubled by the fact that I could not remember if she was “Simarpreet” or “Simarjeet”. As I finished telling the story, a boy dashed fast and instinctivelyI called out to him: “Anand – tie your shoe lace. You will fall.”. “How do you know his name?” my guest asked. I looked again at the boy. “He is the boy —” I saw a fleeting who smile flit across her face and
abandoned.
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The Kashmir question
The situation in Jammu and Kashmir over the Amarnath Yatra land needs to be defused. The transfer of land to Shri Amarnath Shrine Board was a deliberate, provocative and insensitive action by the former Governor, Lt-Gen S.K. Sinha (retd). The Amarnath Sangharsh Samiti has now come round to accept that the land will be used only for the two-month period of yatra, but the ownership of land will remain with the state. The Board members will be the subjects of Jammu and Kashmir. (As a measure of goodwill, let Mehbooba Mufti, Omar Abdullah or Mirza Beig be one of the members). Of course, the larger question of Jammu’s regional disparity with Kashmir will have to be worked out. But that cannot and should not be made an immediate issue. Otherwise, it will muddy the situation. These sensitive questions must necessarily be taken up with the package of the whole of Jammu and Kashmir question. Many friends of this writer in Jammu naively believe that the question of Jammu region needs to be solved before the question of Jammu and Kashmir is taken up. This liner of thinking is narrow as it overlooks the larger question of Jammu and Kashmir with international ramifications. Jammu is not shouting ‘Azadi’ — the slogan which is now being raised unfortunately in Kashmir after over a decade and which we thought was a thing of the past. It is this alienated mentality which should be conscientiously understood and remedied before a workable solution of different regions of Jammu and Kashmir can be worked out. In this context, it is necessary to appreciate certain parameters from which the Government of India cannot withdraw; similarly, the people of the Valley cannot be asked to forget the tragedies, the struggles, the emotional upswing since 1990. For quite sometime, India and Pakistan have sensibly accepted that there can be no change of Jammu and Kashmir territory in each of their respective countries. However, there is no reason why the Line of Control should not be made as soft rather than ephemeral. (Mr Zardari of Pakistan has recently suggested this). The Srinagar- Muzaffarabad bus service was the initial step. Thus, when there was blockade on the highway for fruit merchants of Srinagar, some mischievous elements revived the slogan of ‘Azadi’. The continuance of curfew is a great hurdle in restoring normalcy. The government’s uncalled for jamming of local news and information has been retaliated by cable operators in shutting off national news and views. As a result, the void between the Valley and the rest of India is being widened. The government must not stifle news and views even if they are somewhat extreme because the sunlight of information is the best disinfectant to false news. Recently some romantic novelist and journalist suggested that if the Kashmir Valley wants to go out of India it should be allowed to do so. Such is his lack of knowledge of history that an important BJP leader was extolling at a public function about an opinion poll showing that only 28 per cent of people in India voted for Kashmir being allowed to go out of the Indian Union. One had to marvel at his ignorance of history to remind him and to bring him back to sobriety that even at the worst of period (1990) hardly 1 per cent of people in the rest of India would have subscribed to this view. Moreover, it must be remembered that this 28 per cent is not out of sympathy for the tiny minority of separatists in Jammu and Kashmir. It is an attitude of mindset which calculates in terms of money and expense being spent by Indian State — hardly an ideal to follow. The genuine sentiments for autonomy in the Valley must be honoured. This mandates that India cannot underplay the sentiments and aspirations of the state, especially of the Jammu and Kashmir Valley. Consequently, it is incumbent for all parties in India to commit before the public their agreement that only subjects such as defence, foreign affairs, currency, communication as per the Instrument of Accession will be Central subjects. The rest will be with the state. Article 370 being there, the Centre will have no jurisdiction over any other subject unless the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly so permits by a resolution. The Central Government should withdraw all Central legislations which the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly had authorised it earlier. (This would not be a great surrender because these are normal legislations like the Municipal Act and the Industrial Act which the state government itself will have to provide for proper governance). This exclusive autonomous power to legislate has already been given to certain areas in Assam and Meghalaya decades ago by a constitutional amendment. This writer knows that all these details can be fully worked out only after the next general elections, but the dialogue and favourable atmosphere must begin immediately. There are reports that the situation in Jammu is unfortunately being communalised. The government’s distribution of arms for self-protection to both communities has the risk of being misused. This needs to be immediately looked into by the authorities concerned. The writer is a former Chief Justice of Delhi and Sikkim High Courts |
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When Confucius makes sense Here’s an exciting thing – I’ve discovered Confucius. A bit late in the day, given that he is of the Sixth century BC, but what’s two and a half thousand years in the history of wisdom? I’m a confirmed Confucian now, anyway, though I can claim only second-hand knowledge of him, courtesy of Daniel Bell, a Canadian sociologist teaching in Beijing. And my knowledge of Daniel Bell is a bit circumscribed too, having only spoken to him down the line in a recording studio while making a programme for the World Service. I was there, since you ask, publicising my new novel, of which you can expect to hear more in future columns. But it is not set in China, that much I can tell you. Monica Gray, a professor of planetary and space sciences, was also in attendance, carrying around with her a small particle of rock, very much like the grit I wake up with in my eye after a heavy night’s drinking, the difference being that her rock was from somewhere in outer space while the mote in my eye is crystallised shiraz. I found myself envying Monica because she has an asteroid named after her. Among the elements of Confucianism that attracted me in Daniel Bell’s account were a) its Conservatism: a world-view which irons out the flaws of Liberal Democracy, that’s to say its Liberal Democracy, but is not to be confused with Cameronism, a world-view that irons out world-views; b) its insistence that respect be shown to elderly men; and c) its reservations in the matter of educating the young to exercise critical judgement before they have the requisite knowledge and sagacity to exercise critical judgement with. This latter goes against the grain with most Western educators for whom the exercise of the critical faculties is the very essence of a liberal education. Question everything before you know anything, we believe in the West. Knowledge exists only in your responses to it, therefore nothing “is” until your opinion grudges it into being. I held to this pedagogical principle myself once upon a time. “I have no interest in your regurgitating what you have gleaned from authoritative sources,” I would tell a student, holding up his essay as though his dog had not only brought it in but written it. “I want you to demonstrate your capacity for critical thought. I know what others think. Only you can tell me what you think.” And then when he told me what he thought, I wished he hadn’t, so ill-informed, belligerent, and inconsequential was it. I never solved the problem of inviting critical judgement from students whose critical judgements weren’t worth inviting. I thought I was just unlucky in the students it fell to me to teach. But Confucius’ point is that no one under 40 is ready to deliver what I asked for. And since I was under 40 at the time myself it is no doubt Confucianly true that I was not ready to ask for it. How do you distinguish intellectual possession requisite to the slow formation of critical judgement from plagiarism? And is it quite the case, anyway, that you can possess knowledge, of a poem or the work of a philosopher, say, that does not entail evaluation of some sort? How Confucianism sorts these thorny issues out I will report when my studies are further advanced. Confucius he also say, in the meantime, “I have yet to meet anybody who is fonder of virtue than of sex.” This makes it a trifle tricky for him to proceed with his other proposition that the over-40s are likely to make sounder moral judgements because they are less enslaved to sexual desire. But perhaps he means that while everybody remains fonder of sex than they do of virtue, the fondness of the over-40s is tempered by repetition and fatigue. Help me here, Confucius. What’s sex addiction? The question is not designed to solicit salacious detail, I simply wonder how you can tell sex addiction apart from living, of which a sizeable component is today, as it must have been in sixth century China, sex. Questioned by The Washington Post, an organisation called the Mayo Clinic, cites rampant promiscuity, an over-interest in pornography, the use of sex to escape stress or depression, and difficulty with emotional intimacy. You see my problem. Who ever didn’t use sex to escape stress or depression? And since sex can often leave you even more stressed and depressed than it finds you, who was ever free of the cycle which the Mayo Clinic calls addiction? And who, come to that, finds emotional intimacy easy? Isn’t it meant to be difficult? Isn’t that what adds value to it? And don’t we call those who can’t stop drifting into emotional intimacy promiscuous, which sets up a nice little circle of sex addiction, from which none of us – neither the imperturbable nor the vexed – can ever claim to be free. It’s life. But then no doubt there are clinics out there which treat addiction to that. My new novel, as it happens, is about addiction. By arrangement with
The Independent |
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Delhi Durbar It was an endless wait for the “good news” from Vienna for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his top aides at the PMO on Friday night. The PM’s team including National Security Adviser M.K.Narayanan and Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar were in constant touch with the Indian diplomatic team in Vienna. It was monitoring the developments on the India-specific waiver and then passing on every bit of information to the PM. Insiders say, Dr Manmohan Singh virtually spent a sleepless night when the deal appeared to be falling through despite the tough negotiations at the two-day meet of the Nuclear Supplies Group. As it happened, everything worked out well in the end. And the PM was expectedly a relieved man. “A load is finally off my head,” he told his colleagues who were with him when the news came in.
Amar & Bachchans
Since Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh suddenly discovered the great virtues of the Nehru-Gandhi family, following a rapprochement between the Congress and SP, there is speculation about his relations with the Bachchans whom he often describes as family members. It is all too well-known about the once-cosy relationship between the Bachchans and the Nehru-Gandhi family. This cold war acquired a political colour when Amar Singh used Jaya Bachchan as a medium to articulate his party’s hostility towards Congress president Sonia Gandhi. But now that Amar Singh has made up with the Gandhis, he refuses to say anything on this issue.
The real Ratan
Whether it is flying the F-16, launching the Nano or facing opposition from political parties, Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata always makes news. Not surprisingly, he was the cynosure of all eyes at an automobile industry event in the Capital last week. He refused to be drawn into any controversy about Singur. Other stalwarts just looked on as the “doyen” softly side-stepped difficult questions. One admiring industry member remarking, “Tata is the real Ratan of Indian industry”.
Babus as munims
As the differences widen between the officers of the armed forces and their civilian counterparts, acerbic comments are flying thick and fast. A joke in the defence circles is that the IAS babus behave like those typical “munims” portrayed in Bollywood movies of yesteryears. In this case, it is being said, the “munims” had fudged the accounts to lower the status of defence forces and were now busy comparing the salaries of the armed forces with civilians who were anyway in the lower grade in the last pay commission. Contributed by Ashok Tuteja, Faraz Ahmad, Girja Shankar Kaura and Ajay Banerjee
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