The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

RBI’s U-turn
From inflation to stocks

Turning proactive, the RBI and SEBI have offered sweeteners to Indian firms and foreign investors facing the heat emanating from the American financial meltdown. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) are offloading their Indian stock-holdings to meet their commitments elsewhere. The massive outflow of dollars has caused a cash crunch, which has forced the RBI to effect a significant 0.5 per cent CRR cut, thus releasing Rs 20,000 crore in the system. The RBI has abandoned the inflation battle for the moment as the falling oil and other commodity prices are expected to take care of that. Instead, it has shifted the focus to bolster stock markets and economic growth.

However, there may not be any immediate relief until FIIs are finished with their selling spree. The RBI, which is to meet later this month for a quarterly monetary policy review, has not thought it fit to wait for that to reverse the policy of raising the cash-reserve ratio (the percentage of money the banks have to keep with the apex bank), which had been aimed at controlling price rise by soaking liquidity. The series of rate hikes by the RBI, raising the cost of capital, had hit corporate growth, provoking worries of a slowdown. This, along with the subprime shakeup, has contributed to the relentless FII pullout from India.

To woo FIIs back to the Indian stock markets, SEBI has removed all curbs on foreign investment through participatory notes. The P-note curbs were imposed last October to stop the inflow of money into the stock markets from questionable, less transparent sources. SEBI has now reopened the back door, facilitating the re-entry of FIIs’ dubious clients. There is little hope of any foreign investor knocking at the door in the near future. However, it goes to the credit of the two regulators that India’s financial system has withstood the turmoil in global financial institutions and money markets.

Terror in Lanka
Political solution is the way out

With the military conflict between the Sri Lankan armed forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) escalating to unprecedented intensity, it was only to be expected that the separatist guerrillas would strike in an unexpected quarter. That the LTTE is suspected to have done in Anuradhapura, where a suicide bomber blew himself up as the new building of the United National Party was being inaugurated on Monday. The terrorist attack, which reportedly carries the signature of the Tamil Tigers, has killed at least 27 people including former Sri Lankan army chief General Janaka Perera. Perera has been on the hit list of the LTTE for many years for leading successful military campaigns against them. However, the timing of the terrorist strike — when the LTTE is locked in a desperate battle to save its own headquarters in Killinochi — was unexpected.

The suicide attack only serves to underscore that no matter how intense the government’s military campaign to drive the LTTE into a corner, such a war cannot end the Tamil-Sinhala conflict; and, that the only way out of the situation which is claiming both Sinhala and Tamil lives is to resolutely pursue a political solution. Although suggestions of a negotiated solution may sound incongruous when the two forces are pitted in a do-or-die battle, there can be no denying that any other way is fraught with risks.

The Sri Lankan armed forces, as the government has been proclaiming, may be on the verge of capturing the LTTE headquarters. Far from healing the ethnic divide, such a military victory will only worsen the alienation of the Tamils. The Tamil minority is already ghettoised by the government’s discriminatory politics and policies. The ethnic profiling and persecution of Tamils in Colombo has only created more anger. In its war against the LTTE, the government appears to be making no distinction between Tamils as citizens and the Tamil Tigers. And, such an approach combined with the pursuit of a military solution serves the LTTE’s objective of keeping up its separatist struggle and making sure that the government cannot work for a solution. India has to watch the Sri Lankan situation, but New Delhi would not know how it can help tackle it — except by reiterating that it stands for a united Sri Lanka.

Thought for the Day

A man with a hundred desires sleeps uneasy. — The Upanishads

ARTICLE

Military-civil ties
Both must be nurtured and honoured
by Premvir Das

In no form of government, authoritarian, totalitarian, least of all in democratic dispensations, can the military even think of having a position which is not subordinate to the civilian authority. This was so in the erstwhile Soviet Union, Communist China, and dozens of countries where authoritarian regimes are in place. Only in countries under military rule; Pakistan until recently, and Myanmar, to name two, have the armed forces enjoyed status and importance ahead of the civilians and, thankfully, we are not in that category.

Thus, any discussion on military-civil relationship must be fixated on that fundamental premise. Having said that, the definition of the term ‘civilian authority’ needs discussion. There are first the political leaders e.g. ministers and the like. They come and go with elections. Then there is the civilian bureaucracy; it has permanence. There is a belief in the military that civilian authority means the political leaders alone.

There is some merit in this assumption; the difficulty is that, right or wrong, this leadership can not function without the advice and support of the bureaucracy i.e. the civil servants. They are a fact of life, a very real and effective one, and they cannot be wished away. They also have a structure and a hierarchy and it is they who manage and run the administration. Their position must be recognised.

Until 1952, the Service Chiefs were placed over the Cabinet Secretary in protocol. They, therefore, only attended meetings chaired by the Ministers. Once this position was altered, they could be called in by this seniormost civil servant to his office.

At around the same time, Brigadiers ranked with Joint Secretaries were effectively demoted as that equivalence was changed to Major Generals. Repeated changes and modifications in the Warrant of Precedence saw military positions degrade continuously as more and more civilian functionaries overtook them. This was not without good reason; the Attorney General of India, the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Chief Election Commissioner and many others of that ilk could hardly be placed in positions below those occupied by Service Chiefs. This erosion in equivalence went down the ranks with the civilian bureaucracy showing an anxiety, not uncommon in turf battles, to put the military in its place, so to speak.

Representations from the Services protesting this degradation were made from time to time but the political leadership, dependent on the advice of their officers, or possibly, for their own reasons, took little notice. This is the background in which the recent protestations should be seen. The thesis of the Sixth Pay Commission that pay equivalence would determine status and the depressed scales recommended by it for the military exacerbated an already festering sore.

It is interesting to see how things function in some other democracies, the USA and the UK, to name only two. In the former, the seniormost military man, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, is part of the National Security Council (NSC) chaired by the President alongside the Vice President, and the Secretaries (Ministers) of State, Defence, Homeland Security and Treasury. George Marshall, Alexander Haig and Colin Powell, all military men, rose to become Secretaries of State.

In the UK, the system is slightly different. There is no NSC; the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) attends meetings on national security chaired by the Prime Minister along with the Ministers; the Permanent Under Secretary (Defence Secretary) in the Ministry of Defence, as and when necessary. Yet, in either system, Service Chiefs routinely attend meetings called by the senior civil servant in the Ministry and the reverse is equally true.

In India, we do not have a Chief of Defence Staff and the Service Chiefs are not members of the National Security Council; nor are they members of the Cabinet Committee on Security, only being ‘in attendance’ for such meetings as they are invited to. Not having a CDS has another side-effect and one utterly unhealthy; the Defence Secretary assumes that role, whether willingly or not is not material. The situation is tailor made for discord.

The political leadership, with a background of governance in states, is much more comfortable with its civil service advisers than with those from Service Headquarters so, whether they like it or not, those in the military hierarchy have no option but knock at the doors of the officials. This is where lopsided equivalence and consequent heartburn come in.

Where does one go from here, is the question. India is not going to become a military dictatorship anytime soon so any thoughts of dramatically altered equations are clearly sand castles. The bureaucracy is also not going to disappear; the civil servant is as much part of civilian authority as his political master. They are different in form but they are part of the whole.

Wisdom, for the armed forces, lies in recognising this reality. The civilian masters must, on their part, understand the needs and motivations of the military. It cannot be argued, as was done viciously two decades ago, that governance is not the business of those in uniform.

The armed forces are as much a part of it as the civilian machinery. Both must operate in synergy to ensure that the objectives set by the political leadership are met. Both must be conscious of the special position of each and not do anything to degrade the other. The two are powerful weapons of the State; both must be nurtured and honoured, including by each other. If this message is sinking in, the messy brouhaha of the last few months would have been worth it.

The writer is a former Director General, Defence Planning Staff

MIDDLE

Watching an active volcano
by Trilochan Singh Trewn

A bell push simultaneous with a hard knock on my cabin door by duty signalman very early morning awakened me. He handed over a copy of a message informing that Mr H.M. Patel, former Cabinet Secretary, and Mr Chaturvedi, Chief Conservator of Forests, were embarking on board my ship for an official cruise of Andaman and Nicobar islands. My ship, the Rohilkhand was made available for this purpose at Visakhapatnam.

It was exciting news as I had not been to this archipelago before assuming duties of Chief Engineer of this ship. The two dignitaries were allocated cabins adjacent to mine. The trip was to include visits to Port Blair, Car Nicobar, Great Nicobar and Barren Islands where India’s only active volcano was located. I have never witnessed a live volcano before.

Soon after arriving at Port Blair, we were shown the legendary Cellular Jail. Next day we went looking for various rare forest products like marble wood, pad-auk and stain wood in the forest museum. During lunch- time, an aged Conservator of Forests narrated how while planning new settlements in the islands, herds of deer were inducted from mainland India to maintain ecology. When these herds got larger they started destroying crops. It was decided to import some tigers to keep deer population in control.

Tigers started attacking villagers. Shikaris were then invited to check tiger menace. This was interesting and cleared way for a ‘no objection’ for presentation of taxidermated tiger skins to official visitors.

Next day glassbottom special boats were arranged to visit Cinque coral island where multicoloured beautiful species of coral reefs could be seen in clear water. Fast moving aquarium type fishes added to fantasy. Scuba diving display was also arranged. Though this group of islands was also known as Kalapani, one could sea a coin dropped in clear seawater descending down to seabed!

Following day our ship anchored off to Barren Islands which was having the only active volcano of India. We were cautioned against possible debris from the crater. A live volcano was a rare sight on Indian soil. No camping on the 3-km wide island was allowed. The large volcano crater rises abruptly from sea. The 150 fathoms deep crater of volcano had become suddenly active after remaining dormant for last 177 years.

Recently it has been erupting suddenly without prior indication. On that day it was just emitting intense heat. Many lives were lost during last flareup.

Our next itinerary was southern most part of India in Great Nicobar called Indira Point. The two dignitaries very gracefully admitted that only during the cruise they had realised that Indira point was southern most place of India and not Kanyakumari of Tamil Nadu. On completion of cruise, a beautiful coloured photograph of the active volcano was presented to Mr Patel.

OPED

Iraq’s death chamber
Secret executions being carried out
by Robert Fisk

Like all wars, the dark, untold stories of the Iraqi conflict drain from its shattered landscape like the filthy waters of the Tigris. And still the revelations come. The Independent has learnt that secret executions are being carried out in the prisons run by Nouri al-Maliki’s “democratic” government.

The hangings are carried out regularly – from a wooden gallows in a small, cramped cell – in Saddam Hussein’s old intelligence headquarters at Kazimiyah. There is no public record of these killings in what is now called Baghdad’s “high-security detention facility” but most of the victims – there have been hundreds since America introduced “democracy” to Iraq – are said to be insurgents, given the same summary justice they mete out to their own captives.

The secrets of Iraq’s death chambers lie mostly hidden from foreign eyes but a few brave Western souls have come forward to tell of this prison horror. The accounts provide only a glimpse into the Iraqi story, at times tantalisingly cut short, at others gloomily predictable. Those who tell it are as depressed as they are filled with hopelessness.

“Most of the executions are of supposed insurgents of one kind or another,” a Westerner who has seen the execution chamber at Kazimiyah told me. “But hanging isn’t easy.” As always, the devil is in the detail.

“There’s a cell with a bar below the ceiling with a rope over it and a bench on which the victim stands with his hands tied,” a former British official, told me last week. “I’ve been in the cell, though it was always empty. But not long before I visited, they’d taken this guy there to hang him. They made him stand on the bench, put the rope round his neck and pushed him off. But he jumped on to the floor. He could stand up. So they shortened the length of the rope and got him back on the bench and pushed him off again. It didn’t work.”

There’s nothing new in savage executions in West Asia – in the Lebanese city of Sidon 10 years ago, a policeman had to hang on to the legs of a condemned man to throttle him after he failed to die on the noose – but in Baghdad, cruel death seems a speciality.

“They started digging into the floor beneath the bench so that the guy would drop far enough to snap his neck,” the official said. “They dug up the tiles and the cement underneath. But that didn’t work. He could still stand up when they pushed him off the bench. So they just took him to a corner of the cell and shot him in the head.”

The condemned prisoners in Kazimiyah, a Shia district of Baghdad, are said to include rapists and murderers as well as insurgents. One prisoner, a Chechen, managed to escape from the jail with another man after a gun was smuggled to them. They shot two guards dead.

The authorities had to call in the Americans to help them recapture the two. The Americans killed one and shot the Chechen in the leg. He refused medical assistance so his wound went gangrenous.

In the end, the Iraqis had to operate and took all the bones out of his leg. By the time he met one Western visitor to the prison, “he was walking around on crutches with his boneless right leg slung over his shoulder”.

In many cases, it seems, the Iraqis neither keep nor release any record of the true names of their captives or of the hanged prisoners. For years the Americans – in charge of the notorious Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad – did not know the identity of their prisoners.

Here, for example, is new testimony given to The Independent by a former Western official to the Anglo-US Iraq Survey Group, which searched for the infamous but mythical weapons of mass destruction: “We would go to the interrogation rooms at Abu Ghraib and ask for a particular prisoner. After about 40 minutes, the Americans brought in this hooded guy, shuffling along, shackled hands and feet.

*The death penalty in Iraq was suspended after Saddam Hussein was deposed in 2003. It was reinstated by the interim government in August 2004.

*The United Nations, the European Union and international human rights organisations all spoke out against the reintroduction.

*At the time, the government claimed the death penalty was a necessary measure until the country had stabilised. Amnesty International claims that “the extent of violence in Iraq has increased rather than diminished, clearly indicating that the death penalty has not proved to be an effective deterrent.”

*Saddam, left, his half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and Iraq’s former chief judge Awad Hamed al-Bandar were hanged at the end of 2006 for their part in the killings of 148 people in the mainly Shia town of Dujail in 1982. Illicit videos of all three executions later became public. Saddam’s body could be seen on a hospital trolley, his head twisted at 90 degrees. Barzan – Iraq’s former intelligence chief –was decapitated by the noose. Officials said it was an accident.

*According to Amnesty, there were at least 33 executions reported in Iraq last year. About 200 people were estimated to have been sentenced to death.

— By arrangement with The Independent

When Sikhs bolstered French honour
by Lt Gen (retd) Baljit Singh

Whenever the controversy centred around the Sikhs and their turbans resurfaces in France, my memory invariably reaches out to a slice of history from 1915 as recorded in the chronicles of World War I. For 10 turbaned Sikh soldiers using six spare turbans, wriggled and dragged two boxes of mortar bombs and two of machine-gun bullets, under withering German shelling and automatic fire, in the mid-day sun for about 25 minutes, till at last just one box of bombs was eventually delivered to their beleaguered colleagues.

Nine Sikh soldiers perished as they crawled and dragged the cargo through the rain of shells and bullets. The tenth was struck dead as he momentarily stood up to unknot the turban from around the box of bombs to deliver it to his comrades.

There was an eleventh. He was shell-shocked and stood stock-still, his uniform riddled with bullet holes. One Sikh soldier in the nearby trench reflexably reached out and pulled Lieut John Smyth down to the ground. He emerged the sole survivor of the heroic mission.

At the core of this sacrifice of the 10 bravest of the brave, lay the ultimate objective that the strip of French soil, measuring some 300 by 250 yards, recaptured from the Germans two nights ago, must be held at all cost. And so indeed it was!

That was May 18, 1915, when soldiers of 15 Sikh battalion in the vicinity of Richebourgh L’Avoue were holding a section of a trench with the apt name “Glory Hole”, on the outskirts of Ferme du Bois.

The German Army had signalled the First World War in mid-1914 with brilliantly executed opening moves. Within days they brushed aside (literally) the defences of the Franco-German border with a kind of nonchalance born of utter disdain for their adversary.

The British were quick to comprehend the long-term impact of a military defeat in Europe on their colonial empire. So the standing Army in India was immediately constituted into the First Indian Corps with the Lahore and Meerut Divisions on its order-of-battle, as they set sail to France.

Now 15 Sikh battalion (Jalandhar Brigade, Lahore Division) was among the very first to set foot on French soil. As they were basically trained to fight on the NW provinces, they were to undergo one month’s reorientation training in France.

However, by the middle of October 1914 the allied defences at Ypres were in such grave danger of crumbling that on October 24, 15 Sikh sans reorientation training, was inducted into a gap near Rue Tilleloi.

They barely had four hours of night to dig defences and paid very heavily for this inadequacy. Over the next two days, three Sikh junior commissioned officers were wounded and 261 Sikh soldiers killed, wounded or missing. But the honour of France was upheld in the best tradition of soldiering.

Reduced to half their strength to about 240, 15 Sikh continued to hold ground manfully which the British and French battalions did with nearly 800 soldiers each!

In May, 1915, the battalion was “rested” for one month. But not fully because on May 16, they were ordered to hold this 300 by 250 yards salient into the German defence line with one company in consert with another of the Highland Infantry (HLI) on their flank. The rest of the battalion was retained as “reserve”.

Under intense German pressure, by the evening of May 17 they had exhausted all mortar bombs and machine gun bullets. One officer and 20 men of HLI attempted to replenish ammunition from the rear but all were shot down before they traversed half the distance. 15 Sikh company’s two similar attempts met the same fate.

This was the stage when Lt Col Johnny Hill, Officer Commanding, 15 Sikh, told Lieut Smyth to pick 10 volunteers and go forward to recoup ammunition. When Smyth asked 10 men to come forward to join him, every man present stepped out at once and Smyth confessed that “this is what cured me of Blue Funk.” He simply picked the 10 in front of him.

What followed next was magnificently chronicled in the book “Deeds that Thrill the Empire” (Hutchison & Co):

“There are no finer fighting men in our Indian Army than the Sikhs... And there are no finer officers in the world than the men who lead them...

Ultimately the question which begs an answer: “Why did Whitehall hold back from this little band of ten dark-skinned heroes the Victoria Cross?” Why VC for Smyth but the Indian Distinguished Service Medal for the ten?

Will France consider bestowing, posthumously, the French Legion of Honour on the ten valourous and turbaned Sikh soldiers now?

Gurkhas win right to settle in Britain
by Kim Sengupta

For generations, they have shown great courage and loyalty, fighting for Britain in countless wars. The Gurkhas celebrated on September 30 one of their most famous victories in a legal battle that has given them the right to settle in the UK.

The landmark ruling by the High Court was an official recognition of the unswerving service that the fearless Nepalese soldiers had given to Britain, often at great personal cost. This, said the judge, Mr Justice Blake, earned them an “unquestionable moral debt of honour” from the British people.

The judge’s decision was greeted with a roar of approval by Gurkhas and their supporters packed into the court. Minutes later, a cheer went up from several hundred others, including British ex-servicemen, who had gathered outside with flags flying and bagpipes playing.

A Government ruling that denied Gurkhas who retired from the Army before 1997 an automatic right to live in the UK was discriminatory, illegal and needed urgent revision, the judge said.

His decision came at the end of a judicial review of Home Office policy in a test case brought by five veterans and the widow of another. Their solicitor, Martin Howe, said:

“This is a victory that restores honour and dignity to deserving soldiers who faithfully served in Her Majesty’s armed forces. It is a victory for common sense, a victory for fairness and a victory for the British sense of what is right.”

Under current rules, former Gurkha soldiers who retired before 1997, when the Brigade of Gurkhas moved its base from Hong Kong to Hampshire when the city reverted to Chinese control, have to demonstrate “strong ties” with Britain to obtain permission to settle.

The five veterans who brought the legal action L/Cpl Gyanendra Rai, Deo Prakash Limbu, Cpl Chakra Limbu, L/Cpl Birendra Shrestha and Bhim Gurung all applied to settle in the UK but were refused entry by staff at the British embassy in Kathmandu and the high commissions in Hong Kong and Macau.

The Gurkhas in the test case represented about 2,000 more who were turned away, despite having fought for Britain in the Second World War, Malaya and the Gulf.

Veterans such as Lachhiman Gurung, 91, and Tul Bahadur Pun, 86, who both received Victoria Crosses for bravery and who attended yesterday’s hearing in their wheelchairs, should in future find it easier to convince officials that they have ties binding them to Britain.

The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, said: “I have always been clear that where there is a compelling case, soldiers and their families should be considered for settlement. The judge has agreed that our cut-off date of 1997 is fair. However, in light of the court’s ruling we will revise and publish new guidance. We will honour our commitment to the Gurkhas by reviewing all cases by the end of the year.”

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, added: “I have always felt that if someone is prepared to die for this country, then they should have the right to live in this country. The key thing now is to look at the ruling in detail.”

— By arrangement with The Independent