The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Farmers in distress
Central relief has limited impact

There seems to be no end to debt-ridden small farmers’ misery. The latest report of the National Crime Records Bureau says 16,632 farmers ended their lives across the country in 2007 with Maharashtra leading the states. The Centre’s poverty-alleviation measures, including increased budgetary allocations for irrigation and institutional credit, have helped farmers, but only to a limited extent. The bureau has recorded a reduction in farmer suicides in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, besides Maharashtra. However, the number of suicides has gone up in Karnataka, Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura.

Though Punjab and Haryana do not figure in the bureau’s suicide figures carried in the media, it does not mean the situation is not grim here. Patwaris in Punjab are reportedly under government pressure to “understate” suicide cases. An NGO has put the number of Punjab farmers’ suicides at 40,000 in the past 18 years. The Bharatiya Kisan Union claims that 15 farmers were driven to death in a single village, Kot Shamir, in Bathinda district in the past 16 years. In the absence of reliable and adequate data about farmers’ distress, Punjab and Haryana have not got any relief from the Centre.

In the current dismal economic situation the government focus is on industrial revival. Farmers have got a debt waiver but that has benefited only a section. As global commodity prices have come down, farmers cannot anymore expect a raise in the minimum support prices. At the same time, in the run-up to the general election, the government cannot afford to cut the MSPs. The thrust of government efforts should be to enhance farm productivity, provide insurance cover against crop failures, easy and affordable credit and state subsidies for the needy only. The industrial bailout and the staff pay hikes have depleted the Central treasury. After a similar pay increase for their staff, states too will have little to spare for farmers. That is a pity.

Cars and emissions
Curbs on private vehicles can check pollution

Car owners’ dream run might end soon. If the National Action Plan on Climate Change is accepted, private vehicle users will be compelled to desist from clogging the roads. The action plan suggests a steep hike in parking fees, congestion charges, no- entry zones, banning parking on arterial roads, reduction of diesel vehicles, et al. The steps, which also make car owners accountable for parking space in residential areas, should prove with the people in general, but not car owners.

Indeed, pollution and congestion are a matter of grave concern. Compared to the West, in India the number of cars per thousand is far less. But with its burgeoning middle class and potential car users, the country can no longer take comfort in the fact that it is polluting at a slower rate than the West. In Delhi alone, over two lakh vehicles are added ever year. In the six Indian metros, the number of registered vehicles has increased four times its population growth rate. The threat to the environment is evident in global warming indicators. The air pollution in nearly half of India’s main cities is already at a critical level.

But it remains to be seen whether India, which is all set to create the world’s cheapest car, has the political will to implement the radical suggestions which will certainly rub car owners as well as the manufacturers the wrong way. How ever, the nation cannot remain a mute spectator to the environmental hazards compounded by rising fuel consumption and increased emissions. Besides, building an efficient public transport system, people have to be made aware of the threat to the environment and consequently their own health. A hike in parking fees and other related steps may help in containing air pollution to some extent.

Thought for the Day

Success in journalism can be a form of failure. Freedom comes from lack of possessions. — Graham Greene

ARTICLE

Divisions in CPM
Ideology may be pushed to the back burner
by S. Nihal Singh

Have the Marxists represented by the CPM reached the end of the road in their efforts to go beyond their regional bailiwicks? The furiousness with which the party is seeking to cobble alliances with a bewildering variety of parties — ideology has been placed on the back burner — is amazing. First, the CPM leader, Mr Prakash Karat, was serenading Ms Mayawati, despite her caste base, with at least some among the Left parties projecting her as a future Prime Minister.

And, in a reversal of roles, Mr Karat chose to sup with Ms Jayalalithaa of the AIADMK to further his party’s electoral prospects. Thereby, he was suggesting that the string of corruption charges against her were of no consequence nor was her dalliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party. And the new combine in the making was topped with Mr Charababu Naidu of the Telegu Desam, a party that supported the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance not so long ago. And there is the Janata Dal (Secular), the father and son team, seeking to banish its isolation by joining whatever is going.

The Third Front — for a time Mr Karat preferred to use the phrase third alternative — is thus again in the flowering stage, with a twist. Never before has the CPM scaled the heights of opportunism it is attempting now. The no-Congress, no-BJP mantra of a third force has been in the political lexicon for long, but the CPM’s willingness to woo one and all to secure a few more seats at the national level is sad.

How has the CPM come to this pass? For the first time since it put its stamp on West Bengal, its support base in the state is eroding. Ms Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress gave the CPM a dose of its own medicine in Singur through the traditional method of bandhs and no-go areas. Singur was a prestigious project for Mr Buddhadev Bhattacharjee, who had rightly assessed that the future lay in providing jobs through industrialisation with the help of private entrepreneurs.

The CPM suffered from a dose of overconfidence because it assumed that unwilling farmers could be “persuaded” to part with their land through blandishments, threats and letting party thugs get to work on the recalcitrants through the traditional methods of rape, pillage and, in the ultimate analysis, murder. It was the CPM’s misfortune that the unwilling farmers chose to fight back because they had the support of Ms Banerjee.

Second, the considerable population of Muslims, who have provided solid support to the CPM, is having second thoughts because some of them are the affected party in Singur and most are disillusioned to an extent by the findings of the Sachar committee, which showed how poorly West Bengal performed in relation to even states like Gujarat in giving employment to Muslims. Besides, the tussle between traditionalists and modernists in the party has yet to be resolved although Mr Karat did give support to his party Chief Minister in West Bengal.

Besides, at least some of the CPM leaders are on short fuse, as was apparent from the vulgar remarks of the Kerala Chief Minister, Mr V.S. Achuthanandan, on being denied entry to the house of Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan’s parents to condole his son’s death fighting the Mumbai terrorists. Mr Achuthanandan had earlier been involved in a tussle with his state party chief, which led to the central party’s admonition and punishment to impose discipline.

The CPM must rank as one of the few communist parties in the world still steeped in Stalin’s lore. Stalin’s portrait finds pride of place in CPM offices and some of the ideas routinely disseminated by the Marxists give the impression that they had not heard of communism’s downfall as a state creed in the Soviet Union and elsewhere in Europe. Even China, which mouths Marxist slogans, is now a version of an authoritarian capitalist society. Only North Korea, it would seem, keeps Indian Marxists company.

The only conclusion one can draw from the Marxists’ political opportunism is that having spent four years in exercising influence at the Centre by providing outside support to the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance until withdrawing it, the party wants to continue being a power factor in New Delhi on the back of a Third Front by gathering more seats in the Lok Sabha election. The CPM has not forgotten the fact that it is thanks to the Left parties’ best ever performance the last time around that they were in a position to bargain with the Congress.

Present trends suggest that the Left would collectively get some 35 seats, which would be insufficient to strike a good bargain with the emerging single largest party. Any regional link up with any party of local influence is, therefore, in order in the CPM’s book. The Marxists’ dilemma now is to sell its new line to its cadres and constituents. One problem, of course, is whether to project Ms Mayawati or Ms Jayalalithaa as the future Prime Minister.

Any sane political analyst knows that it is an outside chance for a combination of other parties and Independents to obtain more seats than the two conglomerates around the Congress or the BJP. The contest, therefore, is among the other parties in how to acquire greater strength in the Lok Sabha, with a view to influencing events and policies. The CPM is in danger of losing its virginity in the process.

Not surprisingly, there are tensions within the CPM on the future course of action. Mr Karat is pitted against Mr Bhattacharjee and there are other divisions between the hardliners and the pragmatists. Judging by his recent acts in wooing disparate parties and leaders, Mr Karat seems to have turned a pragmatist for election purposes. At the same time, he holds on to his rigid ideological views, which appear quaint at the beginning of the 21st century. Despite being phenomenally successful in West Bengal and achieving a measure of success in Tripura and Kerala, the CPM has failed to project itself as a national party. It gained national recognition for the influence it exerted on the Congress-led coalition at the Centre and is again seeking an influential niche in Delhi.

MIDDLE

The nature of man
by Robin Gupta

Recently I turned 60 and having completed 36 years in the “heaven born” service, I decided to celebrate the occasion with a garden party. While making arrangements and sifting through old papers, I came across a poem, “Birthday” that I had composed in 1983.

“Of my total aloneness I am now convinced and about this I no longer harbour hope or doubt. This is a birthday gift for which I am in gratitude./Long distance calls and flowers mean nothing to me./They intrude into my world of ephemeral beings whose movements are facilitated by truth,/ Loud greetings distract me as I pause at this milestone and consider the ones already crossed. And those that lie ahead./

In my alienation from this world of events I anticipate nothing, I fear no one and expect naught./ Within this limitation I remain free./ Each act of kindness is alarming, and cakes and their creamy layers are nauseous, not the substance of which life is made of./ It is rare for anyone to do anything for another in a sustained manner without a transactional texture to the entire arrangement./

Hence, all pretences should be dropped and sunshine should remove the shrouds placed over reality./ We need not present ourselves wrapped in momentary sentiment rooted in the shortcomings of society./

I do not know about human yearning and how far it wishes to ascend./ Is it merely up the boundary wall or endless, like mine, into the firmament sometimes, at others into the depth of the ocean./ Allow me the liberty of walking up the slope alone, guided by wild flowers that burn out their resistance so easily./Afford me the liberty of ascending the mountain slope alone so that I do not seek aid from any quarter./ Permit me to recall that I climb to pass time, to pass along and not to reach any height.”

Twentyfive years have passed and now with a silvered head I wonder at this strong reaction to a happy event. Intuitively, I have been determining the actuating force of human action all along. While Thomas Hobbes believes that man is basically selfish and concerned with self-preservation and materialistic desire motivates all actions and man’s life, therefore, is “solitary, poor nasty, brutish and short” Rousseau holds that human nature is basically good, that man is innocent and it is society that binds him in chains. To arrive at and equipoise between the two, I recalled a conversation from the Brothers Karamazov:-

“...... I have a longing to live on, and I am doing so, even in the teeth of logic. I may not believe in the order of things, yet the sticky young leaves that unfold in the spring are dear to me, as is the blue sky; I hold some people dear, whom can you, believe it? — One loves without knowing why.”

Indeed, the image of Gandhi, on a winter morning floating down the river his shawl to a poor woman washing her clothes at some distance powerfully registers. And I suppose, it must follow that:-

“In the midst of death, life persists./ In the midst of untruth, truth persists./ In the midst of darkness, light persists.”

And we should hope and offer thanks for the survival of the human spirit.

OPED

It is the army that owns Pakistan
by Prem Prakash

It won’t be long before a large group of people march to Wagah on the India-Pakistan border carrying lit candles in their hands, seeking friendship with that country. Makes for great pictures, gives them all the publicity, but where does it take the relations between India and Pakistan?

It is high time that we learn to be realistic about our neighbour. There is far too much talk about the cultural affinity between India and Pakistan and the fact that we were one country at one time.

Yes, we were one at one time. They sought separation and got it. It is a different matter that they do not know what to do with the country that they got.

The founders of Pakistan failed to give that country a stable constitution. The present rulers have totally forgotten what their founder Mohammad Jinnah wanted the country to be like.

The country has become a fiefdom of its army ever since Gen. Ayub Khan staged a coup in 1958. It is not a country that has an army, but it is an army that owns the country.

The army in Pakistan can continue to control and own that country so long as it can project that it faces a threat from India. Take away that threat perception and the Pakistan army will lose all its clout.

This is clear like daylight to anyone who wishes to see it, yet there are people in India who keep making noises about “people-to-people relations”, “one culture” and so on as though the other side is waiting with open arms to befriend Indians.

Whatever cultural affinity existed between the two people has been destroyed. Pakistan today is an altogether a different kind of nation and people.

There may be a miniscule minority having values similar to the Indian middle class, but the large majority of the ruling class has been converted to ‘Wahabi’ Islam. Efforts have been made to indoctrinate Muslims in India as well.

The Pakistan army, which took over the country in the sixties, sought to legitimise itself by telling its people that India is its greatest enemy, and legitimately the ‘Moslems’ should have been ruling in the Red Fort. School books were rewritten and officers and soldiers in the armed forces were indoctrinated with that message.

So, how does India deal with a country with such a fragmented polity? One answer would be to deal with the army. Here again, it is a no-win scenario. Why should Pakistan’s army befriend India and destroy its legitimacy and necessity for that country?

Therefore, let us take a hard look. First, it is just too bad that we have a neighbour like Pakistan, which is hostile. The first and foremost thing to be done is to secure your own house.

The recent terror attack in Mumbai has exposed the fact that India has neither fully secured its land frontiers nor its coastline. We need to get that done.

The whole idea of these trains and buses travelling between the two countries needs a fresh look. We need to study the rise in the number of terror attacks on India ever since these so-called “people-to-people” contacts became too open. There has been a quantitative rise in these attacks as the enemy has been able to use these services for frequent incognito visits.

Yes, let trade relations grow, but strictly on a reciprocal basis. We have serious differences with China, yet trade between the two countries is multiplying. Surely we can do some thing similar with Pakistan if that is workable.

If the government in Pakistan is seen as trying to respond to Indian concerns following the Mumbai commando attack by elements from that country, it is because of international pressure on Pakistan, which is today on the brink of bankruptcy.

If Pakistan fails to get the second instalment of funds from the IMF this month, it won’t have funds in its treasury to pay for the salaries of its staff, and that perhaps includes the army as well.

Let us also not forget that the army there has received well over US $10 billion from the US to fund the so-called war against terror. Further income from this source could dry up too.

Let us deal with Pakistan realistically and without nostalgia. Let us deal with them as a country that is home to the world’s most wanted terrorists, a country that created the “mujahadeen” and “Taliban” as pawns to extend its reach into neighbouring territories.

Let us also remember that it was the so-called “Taliban” who overran Afghanistan, three years after the withdrawal of the Soviet troops. They publicly hanged the President of Afghanistan Najibullah.

Even since the murder of President Najibullah, Pakistan has pushed Afghanistan into the stone age with the help of the “Taliban”. Pakistan has always wanted to create a strategic depth for itself. Afghanistan had to lose its individuality.

India must be realistic about the situation that exists on the ground. Yes, we want a civilian government in Pakistan. Yes, we want the army of that country and its ISI to be brought under civilian control. But, then Americans too have their interests in the region. They want the Pakistan army to fight their war on terror.

For India, the choice is clear. We have had enough of this nonsense of one-way goodwill. It is time to deal with Pakistan as it is. Let us not expect that they will respond to any of our demands about closing down the terror camps or handing over the criminals wanted by India. We have to evolve our own options.

The world today respects the rich and powerful. India today is seen as an emerging power.

Let us strengthen our borders and our coastlines so that the enemy dare not attempt to come in again. Ignore your adversaries and isolate them for what they are doing to the world. Stop the candle light marches to the Wagah border, to shake hands with a neighbour who still dreams of marching into India. — ANI

Kyoto pact is worthless
by Dominic Lawson

The EU has managed to claim success while increasing emissions by 13 per cent.

Seldom has a politician’s call to action been so rapidly answered. Mr Ed Miliband gives a newspaper interview in which he demands “popular mobilisation” to force the world’s governments to push through an agreement to limit carbon emissions. Within hours, members of the Plane Stupid campaign occupy the runway at Stansted Airport, causing arriving planes to circle for hours before being diverted. Well done, Ed!

In fact the Secretary of State for the Environment’s demand for a “countervailing force” to be applied to the carbon foot-draggers was anticipated: last week, “climate protesters” broke into one of Britain’s biggest power stations, managing to cut almost two per cent of the nation’s power supplies.

I imagine that the Secretary of State for Energy will be having stern words with Ed Miliband. This, though, would mean Mr Miliband shouting at himself, like a lunatic on a street-corner, since he is the Secretary of State for Energy, as well. Who says we don’t have joined-up government?

Both of these “mobilisations” were presumably designed, à la Miliband, to put pressure on the world’s environment ministers to come up with the outlines of a treaty to succeed the Kyoto Accord, which expires in 2012. The truth, however, is that Kyoto, as a means to reduce carbon emissions, has been like Monty Python’s parrot, long dead, despite all the protestations to the contrary by its salesmen.

You don’t have to be a “climate change sceptic” to assert this unwelcome fact. Professor Gwyn Prins, Director of the LSE’s Mackinder Centre for the Study of Long Wave Events, has been advocating measures to reduce what he sees as man-made climate change since 1986.

He was a lead author on the Third and Fourth Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and on the Advisory Board of Friends of the Earth UK.

For some years now, Prof Prins has been warning that the Kyoto approach is hopelessly flawed – and his unpopularity in the environment ministries of Europe has grown, precisely as his criticisms of their approach have been vindicated.

His basic critique was originally outlined in a paper entitled “The Wrong Trousers” (after the Wallace and Gromit film): “The Kyoto Protocol seeks to square a circle. It seeks to articulate a market-driven trading mechanism, with a top-down detailed specification of how it will work. It is an example of a form of output target-setting that seeks to prevail by institutional fiat, based on over-confident assertion of fragile knowledge, through the sanction of tax and associated punishment. It has been applied to an entirely novel, indeed, a fabricated market.”

This fabricated market in carbon has at its heart the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism. This is how the EU, which had an obligation under Kyoto to reduce its emissions by two per cent by 2012, has managed to claim success while actually increasing its emissions by 13 per cent. By purchasing so called “offsets” from countries such as China, Britain, for example, proclaims itself a “leader in the fight against climate change”.

Most of this is entirely fraudulent, in the sense that the Chinese have been paid billions to destroy particular atmospheric pollutants, such as CFC-23, which have actually been manufactured in order to be destroyed – and for no other purpose. This is hardly surprising: if something is accorded a price (especially a fixed one) then companies will queue up to produce it.

The EU is inordinately proud of its Emissions Trading Scheme – which it calls “the world’s first carbon market” – and it is this scheme which has created the creative accounting scam known as “offsets”.

Now that the EU is attempting to set up a scheme which will make its industries buy carbon allocations via an auction, rather than simply receiving them free of charge, reality is finally intruding on the madness.

Angela Merkel, as environment minister in Helmut Kohl’s administration, was noted for her promotion of policies solely designed to reduce Germany’s carbon emissions. As Chancellor, however, she has become better acquainted with the arguments of her country’s industrial base.

Thus recently in Berlin Merkel declared: “We must ensure that our energy-intensive industry, which is driven by exports, is of course excluded from the emissions quotas. We cannot stand by while jobs in the chemicals, steel and other industries move to regions of the world where climate protection is less stringent than here.”

— By arrangement with The Independent

Delhi Durbar
Problem with deputies

The North Block has a rather peculiar problem since P Chidambaram shifted from the Finance Ministry to the Home Ministry following the Mumbai terror attack. Chidambaram is all at sea as far as Hindi is concerned. But he is saddled with two ministers of state — Sriprakash Jaiswal from UP and Shakeel Ahmad from Bihar — who just about manage to speak English.

However, these two gentlemen uncomfortable are with Chidambaram’s Harvard accent. Chidambaram too fails to comprehend when they address him.

Earlier as Finance Minister, he had two ministers of state — Palani Manickam, who speaks Tamil, and Pavan Kumar Bansal, who is at home with different varieties of English.

So at the last meeting Chidambaram held in the Home Ministry, both he and his two ministers of state had difficulty comprehending each other. Since then he has been subtly suggesting to the powers that be if he could have another set of deputies to assist him.

‘We are 105’

While projecting a united front against terrorism the other day, L.K. Advani, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, was at his philosophical best.

He chose to explain the coming together of political parties in the terror war in a language he knows best.

Leading the charge against Pakistan in Parliament, Advani recalled how the Pandavas had ducked their differences with Kauravas to help the latter take on the Gandharvas, the dangerous enemy.

“When the ‘Gandharvas’ attacked the kingdom, ‘Yudhishtir’ ordered the ‘Pandavas’ to stand by their cousins in the larger interest of society. At that time, the ‘Gandharvas’ had to confront not 100 ‘Kauravas’ and five Pandavas, but a united front of 105 warriors.

“Today, we too are in the same situation.” Advani remarked. But just when he was proclaiming unity in the House, and citing the famous Sanskrit phrase: “Vayam Panchadhikam Shatam” (we are 105), came an incorrigible voice from the treasury benches: “That is okay, but who are the Kauravas here?”

‘Pravasi Divas’

The government is worried about the Mumbai terror attack casting a shadow over the coming Pravasi Bhartiya Divas celebrations in Chennai next month.

Officials in the Overseas Indian Affairs Ministry are in constant touch with delegates who had confirmed their participation in the annual event before the tragic incident.

“We can only hope that the delegates will come in full strength ,’’ said a senior official. Some 1,500 delegates had confirmed their participation but now the government is not too sure of the number. The officials in the ministry are trying to reach the delegates on the telephone.

Contributed by Faraz Ahmad, Aditi Tandon and Ashok Tuteja

Corrections and clarifications

Anuradha Bali, former assistant advocate-general, was erroneously mentioned as former advocate-general in the page-1 story, “Bhajan disowns lovelorn son” on December 9.

The headline on page 2 on December 10 should have been “Aerostat radar to detect ‘rogue’ aircraft”. It should not have gone as “aircrafts”.

There was a mistake in the headline on page 6 on December 10. It should have been “Congress in no hurry to act against rebels”.

In the news item about Sachin Bhatia published on page 7 on November 28, the officer’s rank should have read “Captain” and not “Flight Captain”.

The headline “Independents may play spoilsport” became “poilsport” due to Printer’s devil on December 12 (page 6)

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