The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

DGPs, stand up!
Cops should serve only the people

IN their own ways, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister P Chidambram have underlined the need for modernising the police force in such a way that the new-age policemen can be equal to the challenges posed by internal as well as external forces. While addressing a conference in Delhi of Directors-General and Inspectors-General of Police organised by the Intelligence Bureau, Dr Manmohan Singh favoured a new-age policeman who is well-trained, more professional and suitably empowered, Mr Chidambaram did some plain-speaking while underlining the fact that policemen have been reduced to a football, being kicked from one post to another.

The Home Minister pointed out that the policemen too have allowed themselves to be used by the ruling establishment in many states. The IPS officers have the protection of the Constitution and yet they allow themselves to be kicked around by the politicians for their convenience. This happens because the officers are themselves hankering after cushy posts, favourable transfers and quick promotions. In many states the relationship between the politicians and the police top brass is too cozy for comfort of citizens whose interests the police is to protect.

There are some pliable police officers who become subservient because they want to have a share of the extracurricular gains that come with the misuse of authority. It is no secret that certain thanas are so “lucrative” that they are virtually auctioned off to the highest bidder. In such a situation, politicians, moneybags and corrupt police officers join hands to rob the government and the public alike. Apparently, the Centre wants to break the unholy nexus.

The operation to replace the spine of the police force has to start from the top. The IPS officers are the best placed to call the bluff of the politicians who want to treat policemen for their ends. If they show the necessary grit, morality and integrity, the message will seep down to SHOs and other ranks. That will ensure that the police actually does what it is meant to do — serve the public — instead of the high and mighty.

Modi can brag
Gujarat elections have lessons for Congress

THE BJP victory in five of the seven by-elections to the Gujarat assembly, results of which were declared on Monday, is a reminder to the Congress of its organizational weaknesses in the state. The Congress had evidently turned complacent after the Lok Sabha elections pointed towards its revival.

Its selection of candidates was flawed with close relatives of MPs cornering tickets regardless of their chances of winning. In some cases, like Dehgam and Sami Harij, the candidate was not even a resident of the area. That the five seats the BJP won were all wrested from the Congress and that one of these was with the Congress for the last 50 years shows how the party surrendered goodwill through poor projection and wrong selection of candidates.

For the BJP, which was down and out after the setback in the Lok Sabha polls coupled with the loss of power in the Junagarh municipal corporation and the Congress resurgence in elections to local cooperative societies, this has come as a morale booster. Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who had not campaigned during these by-polls ostensibly fearing that a debacle could cost him his image, is now back to his boastful ways.

While parties in power normally do well in by-elections because of the tremendous resources at their command, the BJP performance should galvanize the Congress party into positive action. As for the BJP, it would be judged not by its rhetoric on “upholding the dignity and self-respect of the 5.5 crore people of Gujarat” as Mr Modi is so fond of saying but by its record in office.

This record has been sullied by the non-inclusive and non-secular agenda of the Modi government. The state BJP needs to change its mindset on this account. Maybe, it would be asking too much from the state party built around the Modi mould.

Thought for the Day

Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. — William Shakespeare

ARTICLE

In search of justice
Many long-held assumptions questioned
by B. G. Verghese

Amartya Sen is as much a social philosopher as an economist who is passionate about exploring ideas. Justice, a key idea that has engaged men through the ages, is proclaimed as a core value in modern constitutions. Together with Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, the Indian Constitution promises to secure to all its citizens “Justice, social, political and economic”. This is more broadly enshrined in the list of Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles of State Policy.

Children, Sen notes in his book, The Idea of Justice«, are quick to perceive injustice in the attitudes and actions of others towards them. Great men have led great movements for justice — Gandhi, Mandela, Martin Luther King among them. But what is justice? This is not easily defined. Yet, while most may not be able to define injustice, they do recognise it when they see or experience it.

Is then justice merely a subjective sentiment? If this were so, it would vary from person to person, circumstance to circumstance and from time to time. Among modern thinkers, it was John Rawls who in his “A Theory of Justice” described justice as fairness. Sen acknowledges this as a great insight to which all who followed are indebted, but argues that this statement is incomplete in itself.

The idea of democracy is founded on justice and applies to all spheres of activity, whether political, economic, social, law, the environment and war. It is based on a system of institutions that entails participation and public reasoning through discussion. Such a notion of justice is not to be associated exclusively with Europe and America and the Age of Enlightenment as is often stated but was manifest in older civilisations as in India and China. The Buddha sought enlightenment after seeing and sensing injustice in violence and inequality, as did the Emperor Asoka who was devastated by the bloody cost of his military “victory” over Kalinga.

This theme is expanded in the contrasting concepts of niti (just institutions) and nyaya (just outcomes) that is at the heart of the great discourse between Krishna and Arjun in the Gita. Krishna speaks of duty as dharma and finally persuades Arjun to steel himself for battle against his kinsmen. But, surveying the tragic carnage in the gory aftermath, he is aghast and filled with remorse and questioning at the outcome. Was this truly a victory?

Reading the Gita in translation, T.S. Eliot is cited as echoing Krishna thus in verse: “And do not think of the fruit of action. Fare forward. Not fare well, but fare forward, voyagers”. Today we are given to hearing about just wars and war crimes trials that often represent victors’ justice. J. Robert Oppenheimer, too, is quoted after the first atomic test explosion at Los Alamos as asking: How can good come from killing so many people? And why must I do my duty only as a physicist, ignoring all other results, including the miseries and deaths that would follow from my own actions? The inference Sen draws is that the larger moral dimension cannot be ignored and that it is as necessary to “fare well” as to “fare forward” as outcomes or “social realisations” matter.

Therefore, the argument runs, one must proceed beyond Rawlsian just institutions to just processes, a principle embodied in social contract theory which has evolved into the more modern principle of social choice. Liberty is important but so are rights to food, health and so on. Further, people and communities are differently abled and so any consideration of a just society must encompass different capabilities. But then how does one judge due process and social choices?

Here Sen falls back on Adam Smith’s invisible hand or “impartial spectator” who, if he is not to be parochial, must represent “the eyes of mankind”, adding a more universal and impartial or collegial and multicultural dimension to justice and concepts of fairness that invoke responsibility.

Justice must also measure not just individual but group capabilities and destructive attributes. Thus, sustainable development is necessary. Yet safeguarding the environment is not the same as preserving nature in its pristine form. The destruction of the small pox virus, for example, did us all a world of good. Therefore, development can enrich the environment and inter-generational equity is clearly inseparable from justice.

Poverty and famine are scourges. But here, too, responses to them will differ in accordance with varying disabilities and capabilities and factors like gender and health. Democracy is a bulwark against famine as the flow of information and social pressures compel remedial action, unlike in dictatorships.

Freedom of expression and a free Press foster public reasoning while the right to information strengthens democracy by promoting accountability. Development can remove deprivation, but does economics make for happiness as the utilitarians suggested by emphasising satisfaction of wants and welfare? Although the West is richer than the developing world, is it necessarily happier?

The American Declaration of Independence speaks of certain inalienable God-given rights and, in a listing, includes the “pursuit of happiness” as one among many objectives. Bhutan has gone further in arguing that Gross Domestic Product is not as important as Gross National Happiness which it conceives as a bundle of values such as faith, culture, way of life, the environment, contentment and so on.

The question that Sen needs to ask is whether it is not necessary to go along with Gandhi’s theorem that there is enough for everybody’s need but not for everybody’s greed. If this be so, then ostentatious lifestyles are as much to be deplored as abject poverty and that at this time of climate change, global equity and justice demand that excessive lifestyles be questioned and, indeed, moderated and not be accepted as a historical given.

While democracy provides opportunity to foster justice, Sen believes that India for one has to go beyond the form and translate electoral niti into democratic nyaya. Democracy must certainly ensure minority rights. Human rights embrace values that should be upheld.

But Sen argues that human rights are ethical and not legal propositions until and unless they are legislated. While this may be so, one cannot ignore the fact that natural justice is often pleaded even without legislative backing. Rights and duties are linked in an ethical structure and, therefore, freedoms too must be grounded in rights and not merely in interests.

Rights, too, are evolving and have gone beyond what was stated in the American Declaration of Independence and at the time of the French Revolution. The UN Convention of Civil and Political Rights and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights are newer additions and the list keeps growing as notions of global justice and injustice emerge.

Amartya Sen navigates us though very difficult conceptual waters with the help of his own deep philosophic insights. The result is a book that expands the idea of justice and questions many long-held assumptions and illusions.

« The Idea of Justice by Amartya Sen, Penguin, 468 pages, Rs 699

MIDDLE

Of grandparents
by Shriniwas Joshi

A TEACHER had asked an eight-year-old child to write a few lines on his grandparents. Here is what he wrote: “My grandparents are two; one is man and the other is woman. They live in railway station. When we need them, my Pa goes and brings them in his car and when the work is done, my Pa leaves them there. They do not have their small children so they love us and play with me and my sister.

“The man grandparent tells me about the town where he grew up. I pity him because when he was growing up, his town had one mobike in which an English doctor used to ride and he would waste time by waiting to watch him. I think it was an uncivilised town where there were no fans and refrigerators and pizza, pasta, chow-mein etc. were not sold. The poor fellow ate the first pastry when he was 20 years old.

“My woman grandparent is a good doctor. When I feel sick, she goes to the kitchen and brings a few spices and asks me to eat those with warm water. I get cured. When my Ma comes back from her office, I tell her the miracle that my woman grandparent had done, she taunts, ‘That old lady and her mumbo-jumbo!’ I do not give marks to Ma for it.

“My woman grandparent is a storehouse of stories on Ram, Krishna, Hanuman, Ganesh and all gods and goddesses and she can tell the stories hundred times without getting annoyed. My Ma is so busy in her office and then getting our home-work done that she has no time to tell us nice stories that my woman grandparent tells.

“God has given removable parts to my grandparents – the woman has removable teeth and the man has removable hair on the head. They look different at nights and different during the days. They prefer to wear such clothes that remain attached to their bodies by tying threads instead of using buttons, zips and elastic.

“When we go out with them, they are never in a hurry and if there is a butterfly sitting on a flower, they will go on watching it with us till we ask them to move ahead. Like very good children, they obey us. When walking in the bazaar, they hold our fingers all the time so that they not get lost and buy chocolates and ice-creams for us. They relish eating these with us.

“Sometimes Ma and Pa get angry on them, ‘You may eat whatever you want to but children eating ice-creams when their examinations are so close, especially when they are prone to colds and coughs. It is not done.’ My grandparents, without uttering a word, simply smile. My man grandparent had told me, once, that a smile was a lighting system of the face, a cooling system of the head and a regulating system of the heart. Perhaps that’s why they reply in smile to Ma and Pa when the weather in the family goes dark and hot.

“My man grandparent is naughty too. When he bends to kiss me, he, sometimes, produces a trumpet like short sound from his stomach and blames it on the doggy. How I wish that God makes them as young from outside as they are from inside!”

OPED

Man who fought hunger
Dr Borlaug was a leader with a mission
by Dr Manjit S. Kang, Vice Chancellor, PAU

ACUTELY aware of hunger and poverty around the globe, Dr. Norman Ernest Borlaug dedicated himself to a life of service to humanity. He was trained like most other scientists, receiving a Ph.D. in plant pathology in 1942 from the University of Minnesota under the tutelage of Dr. E. C. Stakman; yet, he was different.

He was a scientist and a leader with a mission. His mission is reflected in a lecture that he delivered at the American Society of Agronomy meetings in New Orleans, Louisiana, in November 2007. There, he exhorted the scientists to “think more boldly and humanely about the Third World and to see what each of you can do to help.”

This was perhaps his last professional speech. He himself was bold and humane. He envisioned a world without hunger and poverty. He spent almost his entire career helping developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

In the 1960s, Dr. Borlaug worked in the Rockefeller Foundation’s wheat breeding program in Mexico. He distributed seeds of some dwarf varieties of wheat developed there to Indian scientists.

While the Mexican varieties yielded much higher than those grown then in India, the red color of these varieties was not to the liking of the Indian consumer. Scientists at Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) hybridized these high-yielding Mexican varieties with local varieties and developed new high yielding varieties that also had the acceptable amber colored grain.

Dr. D.S. Athwal was the leader of the wheat-breeding program at PAU. ‘Kalyan’ a wheat variety developed by Athwal and named after his village ‘Kalyanpur’ is an example. Dr. Borlaug would visit PAU to check on how his wheat was doing and would get very excited to see the excellent progress that the PAU scientists had made.

Dr. Borlaug complimented PAU’s wheat research program in a letter dated March 13, 1996, to Dr. G.S. Nanda, the then head of the wheat research section at PAU. He wrote, “The breeding program is diverse and dynamic and, undoubtedly, will continue to produce varieties which will be highly productive, disease-resistant and of good quality. I was also very much impressed by the agronomic research and plant pathology work, which is an integral part of the wheat research program at your Institute.”

Dr. Borlaug further wrote, “When I left Ludhiana for New Delhi, we travelled by train and I was immensely pleased to see the extensive fields of beautiful wheat, as far as the eye could reach, over virtually all parts of southern Punjab and also equally good into northern Haryana. When I began to collaborate with Indian scientists in 1963, I never imagined that I would live to see such fantastic change in yield and production of wheat which I have been privileged to see on this occasion. Congratulations!”

Leon F. Hesser writes about what happened in India in the Preface of his 2006 book, entitled ‘The Man Who Fed the World: Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Norman Borlaug and His Battle to End World Hunger’. There, Hesser wrote, “A comparable program using Borlaug’s seeds and associated technology in India where starvation had turned to famine in parts of the country in the mid-1960s, resulted in a ‘wheat revolution’ that, together with similar efforts for rice, brought the country to self-sufficiency in wheat in 1972 and in all cereals by 1974.”

As the diffusion of new wheat and rice technology spread rapidly across Asia in the late 1960s, William Gaud, the USAID Administrator, dubbed this phenomenon “Green Revolution” in a talk given in March 1968. He said, “These and other developments in the field of agriculture contain the makings of a new revolution. It is not a violent Red Revolution like that of the Soviets, nor is it a White Revolution like that of the Shah of Iran. I call it the Green Revolution.” Thus began the ‘Green Revolution’.

Recognising his contribution, PAU bestowed upon Dr. Borlaug an honorary degree of Doctor of Science in March 1969. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1970. Jimmy Carter, Former U.S. President, sums up Dr. Borlaug’s contributions, “My good friend Norman Borlaug has accomplished more than any one individual in history in the battle to end world hunger.”

Mr. Carter further wrote, “Norman Borlaug’s scientific achievements have saved hundreds of millions of lives and earned him the distinction as one of the 100 most influential individuals of the 20th century.”

India awarded him “Padma Vibhushan” – the second highest civilian honour given by the Government of India. He was also given a ‘Congressional Gold Medal’ in 2007 by the U.S. Congress – the highest honor for a civilian.

Dr. Borlaug recognised water as being important in future. He wrote, “In order to expand food production for a growing world population within the parameters of likely water availability, the inevitable conclusion is that humankind in the 21st century will need to bring about a “Blue Revolution” to complement the “Green Revolution” of the 20th century. In the new Blue Revolution, water-use productivity must be wedded to land-use productivity.” He suggested conservation agriculture to preserve and protect natural resources, such as soil and water.

Dr. Borlaug was benevolent and caring. Knowing that there was no Nobel Prize for Agriculture per se, he established, in 1986, the ‘World Food Prize’ to recognise individuals who have improved the quality, quantity, or availability of food around the world.

The first Indian scientist to receive this coveted Prize was Dr. M.S. Swaminathan (1987) followed by Dr. Verghese Kurien (1989), Dr. Gurdev Khush (1995), B.R. Barwale (1998), Dr. Surinder K. Vasal (2000) and Dr. Modadugu Gupta (2005).

Dr. Borlaug was a staunch proponent of biotechnology. The following statement reflects his strong support for this modern science, “The majority of agricultural scientists including myself anticipate great benefits from biotechnology in the coming decades to help meet our future needs for food and fiber. Indeed, the commercial adoption by farmers of transgenic crops has been one of the most rapid cases of technology diffusion in the history of agriculture.…. The more pertinent question today is whether farmers and ranchers will be permitted to use this new technology? While the affluent nations can certainly afford to adopt ultra low-risk positions, and pay more for food produced by the so-called “organic” methods, the one billion chronically undernourished people of the low income, food-deficit nations cannot.”

In “Ending World Hunger: The Promise of Biotechnology and the Threat of Antiscience Zealotry,” Dr. Borlaug wrote about his wish – his dream – if you will, “I would like to share one dream that I hope scientists will achieve in the not-too-distant future. Rice is the only cereal that has immunity to the Puccinia spp. of rust. Imagine the benefits if the genes for rust immunity in rice could be transferred into wheat, barley, oats, maize, millet, and sorghum. The world could finally be free of the scourge of the rusts, which have led to so many famines over human history.” He was a perpetual mentor to agricultural scientists!

In a 2002 journal article, Dr. Borlaug spoke of unchecked population growth. He wrote, “…With the global population currently increasing by one billion each decade, meeting future food demand is becoming evermore challenging and worrisome.” He warned, “The rise and fall of ancient civilizations in the Middle East and Meso-America were directly tied to agricultural successes and failures, and it behooves us to remember that this axiom still remains valid today.”

If we wish to have continued successes, we must invest in agricultural research and development. We should put our money where our mouth is! This is what Dr. Borlaug would want to stave off hunger and poverty. Complacency or the status quo cannot be the answer to keep Dr. Borlaug’s legacy alive. The best way we can honour him now is by continuing his fight against hunger and poverty with vigour.

Fernandes was real economy traveller
by Ramamohan Rao

MUCH has been written about the directions by the Government of India to the ministers and Congress members of Parliament to travel economy class during their tour within the country or abroad. Much also has been made about the ‘directions’ communicated to Minister of External Affairs S.M. Krishna and Minister of State Shashi Tharoor to shift from their rooms in five-star hotels even though they were paying for the rental personally.

A Cabinet minister who refused to travel first class out of conviction was George Fernandes, the former Defence Minister. I witnessed it as an Information Consultant in the Defence Ministry. In fact, it caused me some embarrassment as I was booked in the Indian Airlines flight in the first class which was my entitlement and to my surprise I saw Defence Minister George Fernandes travelling in the economy class from Delhi to Mumbai.

I quietly went to a person travelling in the economy class to take my seat in the first class and travelled in the economy class. Later, whenever I travelled with George Fernandes, I took care to ensure that my booking was done in the economy class.

Last week, I heard Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari saying that he was ready to travel even in the cargo compartment. I recalled that I had to travel in the cargo compartment of a IL-76 of the Indian Air Force from Guwahati to Delhi in 2004 along with George Fernandes. The plane was not pressurised and not one word could be heard by me during the two-hour long flight though I was in the bucket seat along with the Defence Minister.

George Fernandes had visited Tawang a day earlier, saw a monastery and a war memorial there, did a survey of the posts keeping watch on the Chinese border. On return when we were told that the Indian Airlines flight was cancelled, he chose to travel by the IL76 cargo aircraft, which was on a routine flight, as he had to proceed on an engagement from Delhi.

Incidentally, during his period as Defence Minister, George Fernandes chose to visit the Siachen Glacier to see how the jawans were living there. When he saw that they were not adequately clothed as there were some ‘budgetary problems’, he told the Defence Ministry that the officers concerned should pay a visit to the outposts in Siachen.

In no time, the jawans got their clothes and snowmobiles in Siachen. From then onwards George Fernandes visited Siachen every three months, as the turnover period there used to be three months and he wanted to meet every contingent doing a tenure of duty there. He had visited Siachen 18 times as the Defence Minister.

He insisted on personally going through the conditions in which the soldiers, sailors and airmen lived and worked. He travelled in a Light Combat Aircraft developed by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) after subjecting himself to the physical tests that every pilot has to pass through.

It is also not the first time that Cabinet ministers have been staying in five-star hotels. I recall a former Prime Minister booking scores of rooms in the Maurya to accommodate his family who had come along with him when he was sworn in. They stayed there for weeks and special food was prepared for them to ensure that they felt at home.

One recalls the days when Jawaharlal Nehru as the Prime Minister had an office in South Block with two personal secretaries who took all the dictations and maintained his office. Today, the number of personal secretaries working for a Cabinet minister is around a score, leave alone the Prime Minister’s Office. — ANI

The writer is a former Principal Information Officer, Government of India