The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Another bad M
Court halts Mayawati’s anti-progress move

THE Allahabad High Court has helped the cause of economic development of UP by staying the politically motivated order of state Chief Minister Mayawati cancelling land allotment for a major rail coach factory near Lalganj in Rae Bareli district. The people of the state must be heaving a sigh of relief. The order was issued three days before the Rs 1689.25 crore Central project was to be inaugurated by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday. The project is expected to provide jobs to over 10,000 people. Ms Mayawati was believed to have reacted in this negative manner after Ms Sonia Gandhi last month extended her support to the agitating farmers of Ms Mayawati’s ancestral village, Badalpur, who have been opposing the acquisition of land for a development project for some time. Both had allowed their political interests to take precedence over the state’s economic interests.

The Chief Minister’s decision in particular had no justification. Any step that comes in the way of UP’s economic development deserves to be condemned. Ms Mayawati is known for weighing every scheme in terms of political gains. Earlier she had refused to allocate land for the Union Chemical and Fertiliser Ministry’s National Institute for Pharmaceutical Education and Research planned to be set up in UP. Last year Ms Mayawati had asked the Centre to scrap Reliance Industries’ Special Economic Zone project in Noida because “a road was passing through the plots” identified for the purpose. However, her real worry was that these schemes could bring political dividends to the Congress and other UPA constituents.

The BSP leader’s opposition to these Central projects is, however, surprising in view of the fact that she has been accusing the Centre of ignoring the economic interests of UP. In July last year she had met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to impress upon him to focus on the need for Central investment in the state. She had demanded a Rs 80,000 crore development package for UP’s two backward regions — Bundelkhand and Purvanchal. Her style of functioning shows that she will never welcome investment in UP if it does not suit her politically. This is anti-progress politics and may evoke people’s ire in the coming elections.

Water warnings
Safe, adequate supply is an imperative

WARNING bells have once again started ringing. Delhi has reported alarmingly high levels of toxic lead in its ground water. The hazardous consequences of the high toxicity on the health of Delhi’s residents are unimaginable. Contamination of water is not confined to the capital alone. Forget the cities, it is a problem even in the rural areas. The condition has worsened since 1982 when it was reported that 70 per cent of available water in India was polluted. In terms of quality of water, India is at the 120th position out of 122 countries.

This is despite spending an estimated Rs 1105 billion on improving the water quality. Millions of working days and hundreds of crores of rupees are lost due to water-borne diseases each year. The per capita availability of water has been consistently falling. Excessive fluoride, iron, arsenic and salinity in water affect the health of about 44 million Indians. So firm steps have to be taken to improve the quality of water. A cue can be taken from community efforts initiated by men like Sant Balbir Singh Seechewal. The Water, Women, and Work Millennium Campaign at Banaskantha in Gujarat involving rural women and local efforts of other villages such as Konkan are examples worth emulating. While water purification turns into an industry, there is a pressing requirement to conserve water the traditional way. The revival of sources like surface wells and ponds must complement creation of rainwater harvesting structures. Technology must gain further fillip in desalination, drinking and industrial water supply, wastewater treatment and drip irrigation.

To grapple with the water reality, India has already committed itself to the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. Unless remedial action is taken, India will be a water-stressed nation by the year 2020. For the rest of the world the assertion ‘future wars will be fought over water’ may be a truism but water feuds have already been taking place in many states in India.

Thought for the Day

The writer’s only responsibility is to his art. — William Faulkner

ARTICLE

Singur: a different view
Tatas’ decision not appreciable
by Ramaswamy R. Iyer

MUCH has been written about the unfortunate Singur/Nano story. Here is an attempt to offer a somewhat different perspective.

Departing from the two opposite views (a) that the Tata exit from Singur is a loss for West Bengal and even for the country, and (b) that it is a victory for the people over the corporates, may one suggest that what we have here is neither tragedy nor triumph but a mess. All the parties involved must share the responsibility for that mess.

One has serious reservations about the Nano project. However, leaving the merits of that project aside, let us assume that this is a case of a desirable industrial project.

West Bengal, like other state governments, wants industry to come to the state and industry needs land. But it is not easy to find non-agricultural land. Even if we do, all transfer of land from other uses to industrial projects will involve varying degrees of displacement of people and the loss of their existing livelihoods, and this needs careful, imaginative and humane handling. It can be done; it has been done. Why then did this particular case become a fiasco?

Unlike most commentaries on the episode (including those of Mr Ratan Tata), this one proceeds on the basis that all parties - the West Bengal government, the Tatas and Ms Mamata Bannerjee - acted in good faith and honourably. Granting that, the outcome in this case can be attributed to a combination of factors: (a) a lack of understanding and foresight on the part of the state government; (b) obduracy on the part of Ms Mamata Bannerjee up to a point, though she gave it up and reached an understanding with the government; and (c) unimaginativeness, insensitivity and inflexibility on the part of the Tatas. The justification for that comment on the Tatas will become clear as we proceed.

What lessons can be learnt from this story? The first is that in finding a location for an industrial project, different options should be considered, and that option which involves the least disruption of the existing lives and livelihoods must be chosen. In this case, was there no alternative to Singur? Did the state government advise the Tatas to consider other options? Did the Tatas seriously explore other possibilities before settling on Singur as the only acceptable site?

Secondly, no industry can be established or function effectively in a hostile environment. Good sense lies in ensuring harmonious relations with the people of the area right from the earliest stages. The House of Tatas prides itself on its sense of corporate social responsibility and enlightened approach. What efforts did it make ab initio to establish cordial relations with the local people?

Thirdly, it was not necessary for the West Bengal government to have acquired land under the Land Acquisition Act 1894 (LAA) for the Tata project. The practice of acquiring land under the LAA for projects, whether in the public sector or in the private sector, must simply be abandoned. The term “public purpose” in the LAA should be strictly defined to mean only ordinary governmental purposes such as the building of government schools, dispensaries, hospitals, public libraries, essential government offices, and the like.

For all other purposes, land must be purchased by the body requiring it, and not acquired by the government under the LAA. (The government’s role should be that of protecting the interests of the farmers and other land-owners in the unequal negotiations with the rich and the powerful, and not that of facilitating the task of the latter by acquiring land for them using sovereign powers.)

As a matter of fact, there is currently a Bill awaiting enactment for the amendment of the LAA which goes part of the way towards the objective stated above, but it provides that if 70 per cent of the needed land is purchased by a company, the balance 30 per cent may be acquired by the government for that company under the LAA. The logic of this compromise is not entirely clear. The 30 per cent provision needs to be done away with. The LAA route should simply not be available for projects public or private projects.

Fourthly, the people who make their land available for an industrial project should not be required to be content with a one-time “compensation”. They should be entitled to a share in the income and wealth that the project is expected to generate. In the Singur case, if the Tata project had come up, land values would have risen, and the company would have made profits. The farmers whose lands were acquired for the project should have been offered a share in such future gains. Did the Tatas at any time make any such offer to the land-losing farmers? Did they try to make the proposition more attractive to the farmers? Speaking subject to correction, the answer seems to be “No”.

Even when the Governor of West Bengal was trying to find a way out of the stalemate, the Tatas evidently did not participate in the talks, perhaps on the ground that the matter was between the state government and the Opposition, and that they (the Tatas) did not want to be involved in it. If so, that was a myopic view. They went further and rejected the agreement arrived at between the Trinamool Congress and the government.

Even at that late stage they could have offered a generous benefit-sharing formula which would have transformed the situation. They could have made it clear that they wanted to treat the farmers as friends and partners and not as enemies. Instead, they preferred to announce that they were quitting Singur. It is very difficult to appreciate the rationale of their action.

MIDDLE

Payal, the performer
by Aditi Tandon

She had the most adorable smile I had ever seen — a smile that gave meaning to life, and made adversity appear small. Well, almost. But somewhere behind those tiny, little lips that could break into smiles every now and then was a desperate prayer for help no one could ever hear. It was too deep, perhaps, to surface in the heartless din of the Capital.

Payal wanted someone to stop by her some day, and say that what she was doing was not right; that she deserved a better deal. Road berms after all can’t be termed ideal workplaces for children, that too when they are located in places as jammed as the Capital’s Connaught Place. But realities are stranger than fiction. So it was in Payal’s case.

For as long as she could remember, the little one had entertained people, as they halted at junctions while the traffic light signalled red. In the fraction of a few seconds, Payal had several tasks to accomplish. She had to first arrest the fleeting attention of people pretending to be busy even in parked vehicles. That done, she had to ensure that her two-member orchestra was in time for roadside performances.

If it was, the drum beats had to sound just right — loud enough to match the roaring chaos of metro traffic; soft enough to prevent harm to the audience’s ears. Everything in order, the nine-year-old had to then begin making her moves, each one her best, each one the right one lest fleeting attentions were lost. Her prop in the process was her body, which she would swirl and bend in a daring show of flexibility and skin, while onlookers filled their time, some even asking for repeat performances for the “sheer fun of it”.

In between these painful antics, the child would take her body through a tiny ring, before rolling it several times over along the pavement; and all this for a petty sum of Rs 5, sometimes less.

Payal obviously didn’t know much about the laws of the land, or the fact that the government was getting huge foreign funds in her name and in the name of those like her. She had once, in her innocence, said to me, “I wish some day a red-beacon vehicle stopped by my side to watch my performance. I am told big people sit in such vehicles. They will pay me more. May be then I will have enough money for my family and also for school …”

No one ever stopped by to see Payal, the exhibitionist, or to hear her pray. People in red-beacon vehicles were busy making laws, so busy that they missed the one child they could have instantly helped had they wanted. She kept slogging her way through days and months and years while they remained blissfully ignorant of her existence, and that of millions like her.

If only they had cared to look around the five kilometre radius of their posh offices, they would know how the poor children of India were now substituting for animals. The law of the land bars the display of animals, on grounds of cruelty.

But no such standards exist for children. Their exhibition is fine unless, of course, interrupted by death. Payal’s ended some days ago. Her smile, says her mother, was in place — as sweet in death as it was in life.

OPED

Turmoil in South Africa
Immigrants see few options
by Karin Brulliard

AKASIA (South Africa): Mohammed Rage lived here among the dusty tents outside the nation’s capital for one month. At 48, the Somali shopkeeper was considered an elder among hundreds of immigrants who sought refuge in this government-run encampment after brutal attacks against foreigners spread through South Africa’s slums in the spring.

This week, a photo of Rage’s dead body, splayed over splotches of blood on a white mortuary table, was offered by those he left behind as proof that they could not leave, even though the camp was being shut. He had returned to his looted shop in June, they said, and got shot in the chest.

“I am afraid that everywhere I go, I will be killed,” said Rage’s son, Abdullah Mohammed Rage, 24, clutching the photo as government-deployed security workers used crowbars to tear down nearby tents made of blankets and wooden planks. “In South Africa, there is no place safe.”

Five months have passed since more than 60 people were killed in anti-foreigner beatings and burnings that shocked a nation that touts diversity. Thousands of immigrants moved to about 10 refugee-style camps that seemed incongruous in Africa’s most developed country. In recent weeks, the government has torn most down, saying the neighborhoods are safe again.

But aid workers and immigrants who fled to this spot north of Pretoria — mostly Somalis, Ethiopians and Congolese — disagree. They say the camps’ endurance and continued reports of violence underscore how little the South African government has done to tackle a long-standing hostility toward immigrants that reached a tipping point in the spring.

Although government leaders condemned the attacks and quickly set up camps, they have mostly left it to civic groups to distribute aid and grants to help the displaced get back on their feet. Some critics say the immigrants’ plight has fallen to the wayside as the ruling African National Congress struggles with internal turmoil and courts voters in the townships that lashed out at immigrants.

Others say government leaders simply seem paralyzed by what a spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which lent 2,000 tents, called a “sense of shame.”

“There hasn’t been a comprehensive investigation or commission of inquiry into the violence. ... It appears that very little has changed,” said Duncan Breen, an advocacy officer for the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa, which went to court to try to keep the camps open until the government made a plan to reintegrate the displaced. “That actually leads all of us to worry that violence could break out again.”

Simon Zwane, a spokesman for the provincial government, which ran six camps near Johannesburg and Pretoria that are now shuttered, said the government has held seminars to “encourage tolerance” in some communities.

Intermittent violence has continued against foreigners, particularly Somalis, many of whom are legal refugees and run shops in townships. On Oct. 3, a Somali woman and her three children were stabbed and bludgeoned to death in Eastern Cape province, prompting the United Nations’ top human rights official, Navanethem Pillay, to condemn “a dangerous pattern of targeted attacks on foreigners.”

As the Akasia camp was dismantled on a recent afternoon, the dirt lot began to resemble a junkyard, with mattresses and piles of clothing. The hundreds of immigrants there said they were not budging.

“People here have seen the worst of South Africa,” said a Congolese woman with a baby strapped to her back. “It is better they kill us here than we go back and they kill us.”

Despite its wrenching poverty, South Africa is among Africa’s richest countries and a magnet for immigrants, who number 3 million to 5 million. They have come as mineworkers, refugees from conflicts and, in the case of millions of Zimbabweans, illegal immigrants escaping economic ruin at home.

Most of those killed in May were Zimbabwean and Mozambican, but by some accounts as many as one-third were South African.

The attacks prompted soul-searching in a nation whose liberation leaders were given refuge throughout Africa during the apartheid era. Many South Africans criticiSed the government as failing to help the downtrodden, who view immigrants as competition for jobs. Others saw the violence as a symbol of ousted president Thabo Mbeki’s failed strategy with Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, which they say led to an influx of immigrants from that country.

Some, including Mbeki and ANC leader Jacob Zuma, said the brutality was not xenophobic — as it has been widely labeled — but rather, as Zuma put it, “thuggery and criminality.”

But surveys over the past decade by the Southern African Migration Project have found that hostility toward outsiders is higher in South Africa than in most nations where comparable data exist. In a recent report, the project said warnings by researchers and elected officials about the potential for violence were mostly ignored, leading to a “perfect xenophobic storm” this year.

— By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post

Politicisation of apolitical shows
by Scott Collins

HOLLYWOOD: When Sherri Shepherd and her cohorts on ABC’s The View start screaming at one another about the Weather Underground, a 1960s radical-left group that bombed the Pentagon, it appears as if something strange has leaked into the American water supply.

Once upon a time, except for the occasional drive-by comment during acceptance speeches at the Emmys or the odd plug for a pet cause, TV entertainers would seldom be heard voicing explicit political opinion over the airwaves. Now, you can’t get on-air talent to button up about the overheated presidential race.

Robert Schmuhl, a Notre Dame professor who’s written widely on politics and the media, points out that in the past, politicians would use entertainment shows more or less as a photo op — for example, Bill Clinton trying to connect with young voters by playing the saxophone on Arsenio Hall’s show in 1992.

“This year, it is much more pronounced,” Schmuhl said. “The interest in the campaign is probably the driving force behind it. The contrasts are so sharp, the characters are so vivid, that all of this lends itself to appearing on entertainment as well as public-affairs programming.”

Another driving force, of course, is the bottom line. Comedy Central’s The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report have proved there’s gold in political lampoons. Producers of The View made a conscious and widely reported decision to go political this season, and since then, ratings have gone up. In a divided America, partisanship has become another spectator sport.

Yet as hard as it may be to believe, this kind of civic opinion-mongering was not tolerated on entertainment programs until fairly recently. The Fairness Doctrine mandated by the Federal Communications Comm-ission required broadcasters to offer equitable and balanced viewpoints on controversial issues.

The policy may have sounded reasonable in the abstract, but in practice it proved an enormous pain in the rear end. As a result, most programming executives took the path of least resistance and made sure political discussion stayed strictly inside the bounds of news and public-affairs programs. Getting political was by no means illegal, but it was frowned upon.

Recall that Tommy Smothers — who picked up a special award at last month’s Emmy telecast — and his brother Dick famously got their popular variety program axed by CBS in 1969 after battling the censors over tart sketches on the Vietnam War and other political topics.

The pendulum swung the other way when the FCC abolished the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, which paved the way for talk radio, an explosion of cable-news shows such as Bill O’Reilly’s and now the creeping politicisation of typically apolitical shows, such as The View and Late Show With David Letterman. Liberals have been so aggrieved by talk radio that some Democrats have advocated reinstating the doctrine, although so far to little avail. Democrats would do well to remember that outside of talk radio, many of the opinions expressed on broadcast outlets are favorable to liberal causes and politicians, as evidenced by comments made this season by Oprah Winfrey and Letterman.

Shepherd got into a screaming match with co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck — the show’s token pro-John McCain foil — over Barack Obama’s ties to former Weatherman Bill Ayers and McCain’s divorce from his first wife.

Saturday Night Live has seized the spotlight with Tina Fey’s goofs on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, so much so that Palin may make a campaign stop on NBC’s sketch show later this month. And Winfrey, our age’s most powerful broadcasting personality, has been a virtual endorsement machine for Obama.

And yet for all this, entertainment programs still seem guided by irrational double standards when it comes to direct political expression. (As for sublimated political expression, sometimes it glides by with relatively little scrutiny, such as on Fox’s terrorism thriller 24, while other times it explodes into controversy, as on the ABC miniseries The Path to 9/11).

Letterman, whose politics used to be mostly inscrutable, spent half a recent show trashing McCain for skipping a scheduled interview. (Sunday, CBS announced that McCain would appear on the show Thursday.) A subsequent Letterman program featured an unusually direct attack on the White House: a lengthy montage of clips from President Bush’s speeches, with a loud buzzer at the end of every statement the program deemed wrong or deceptive.

— By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post

Delhi Durbar
Jayaprada’s woes

Rampur Lok Sabha member Jayaprada may find it a bit difficult to retain her seat. Jayaprada, a Telugu and Hindi film actress, won easily in the 2004 elections on the Samajwadi Party ticket. This time round, she faces challenges from several quarters. Since the Rampur ‘Nawab’ family has traditionally retained the Rampur seat on behalf of the Congress and Begum Noor Bano has represented it, the Congress has staked its claim over the constituency in the seat sharing negotiations with the SP.

Amar Singh has rejected the Congress claim. But the Rampur Assembly seat is represented by another important SP leader, Mohammad Azam Khan. Last time Azam Khan worked hard against the Begum. But now Azam is not on the best of terms with Amar Singh which may rub off on Jayaprada.

Moreover, Noor Bano’s son Kazim Ali Khan originally a SP MLA, resigned and joined the BSP. So there is also the fear of BSP putting a spanner in Jayaprada’s works. Apparently, having realized the gravity of the situation, Amar Singh carried Jayaprada along to Jamia Nagar recently to endear her to the Muslim voters. One wonders how far this will help the actress.

Taking a backseat

The launch of the Delhi edition of a long standing Madhya Pradesh-based Hindi daily recently reflected a marked transformation from what such functions end up as. On the stage were the editor of the paper, Olympic medal winner Sushil Kumar and noted lyricists Gulzar and Javed Akhtar. Among the audience were prominent politicians like Mulayam Singh Yadav, Amar Singh, Rajnath Singh, Arjun Singh, Digvijay Singh, Sharda Yadav, Sheila Dixit, Moti Lal Vora and Sushma Swaraj.

A visibly surprised Gulzar, finding the politcos in the audience, remarked where is the Manch (stage)! He went on to lament in his poetic style that he was fed up seeing khoon se latpath akhbaaron ke paane (newspapers full of reporting on crime) and hoped the new Hindi newspaper will change the reporting trend.

Lighter moments

The scene at Court No. 2, Supreme Court, was no different recently. Senior advocates argued for and against former Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh who has been expelled from the Punjab Vidhan Sabha. Suddenly an advocate, to prove a point, said: “My Lord, I may say I have been murdered by (someone called) A.” One Judges was quick to respond: “Once you are murdered, how can you say anything?”

Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam, in his professorial flourish, explaining the constitutional position in such situations. The hearing ended in two hours with the Bench issuing its interim order, cooling the tempers. As we came out of the court, the weather too had changed.

Contributed by Ajay Banerjee, Faraz Ahmad and R. Sedhuraman

Corrections and clarifications

n The front-page lead headline, “Britain banks in crisis talks with govt and regulators” (Oct 13) should have been “British banks…”

n “Sister Alphonsa becomes first Indian woman saint” (Oct 13). She is, in fact, the first Indian to be conferred the status of a saint.

n In the news-item, “Family threatens to end life” (Oct 7), the correct expression is “no arrest had been made so far” instead of “no case had been registered so far”. FIR means First Information Report which stands already registered.

n In the news-item, “BJP mulls alliance with INLD, Janhit Congress” (Oct 8, Page 4), the last paragraph says, “During the last parliamentary election, the Congress had only fought five seats and left the remaining five to the INLD under an electoral alliance”. Reference to the “Congress” is wrong. It should have been the “BJP”.

n The news-item, “Cook commits suicide” (Oct 6) gives reference to a police station in Sector 9, Karnal. It is not a police station but a police post. There is a police station in Civil Lines, Karnal, though.

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 word “Corrections” on the envelope. His e-mail ID is amarchandel@tribunemail.com.

H.K. Dua,
Editor-in-Chief