The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Inviting the Taliban
Much depends on whether it plays ball in Kabul

THE keenly awaited London conference on Afghanistan has come out with a plan to lure away all those Taliban elements who are prepared to shun the path of violence. The idea is that most of those who constitute the Taliban, excluding its core leadership like Mullah Omar, consider the on-going insurgency as a means to make money. They can agree to lay down arms if they have an employment opportunity and a share in the power structure. Though the communiqué issued on the conclusion of the 63-nation meeting on Friday did not describe the London prescription for Afghanistan as a plan to buy peace, it clearly is aimed at purchasing the troublemakers, whatever their price. After all, the Taliban activists are paid between $10 and $30 per day for fighting for the Taliban masterminds. There is a five-year time-frame for achieving the objective and within this period the Afghan security forces will be enabled to take control of the situation in the troubled country.

President Hamid Karzai, who has proposed a “national council for peace, reconciliation and reintegration”, has already been working on the US-backed idea of inducting in the government middle-level and lower-level leaders of the Taliban with a view to isolating Mullah Omar and others who constitute the top rung of the extremist movement. The London conference has approved of this power-sharing plan, as the US and its Western allies are no longer interested in remaining militarily engaged in Afghanistan. Interestingly, it is not only they who have been showing signs of tiredness. Reports have it that a large section of the Taliban is also suffering from the same syndrome. Perhaps, Mr Karzai has got feelers from the extremist camp to look for a remedy which has nothing to do with the use of force.

The Afghanistan President has begun the process of holding a “peace jirga” soon, which may facilitate a process of reconciliation. India has been wishing him all success in his search for peace, though there is no guarantee that the Taliban’s anti-India mindset will change after the extremists become a part of the political dispensation. The extremists may realise the significance of India’s contribution to the rebuilding of Afghanistan once they are taken away from the influence of Pakistan. Much will, however, depend on how Pakistan looks at the Afghanistan situation.

Arrogance of power
Our babus and netas must learn to behave

THE manner in which Lucknow Collector and District Magistrate Amit Ghosh slapped a junior government employee the other day needs to be strongly condemned. The action, which is totally unacceptable, demonstrates the typical arrogance of power among the new breed of the ruling elite. There are conflicting versions on the incident. It is not clear whether the officer asked the employee to show his identity card first or vice versa. However, being the head of the district, the District Magistrate cannot be arrogant and slap a junior. If he was intolerant of the striking employees, there were better ways of handling the situation rather than losing cool. Not surprisingly, his misconduct, caught on camera, affected public services across Uttar Pradesh. The employees have demanded the suspension of Mr Ghosh and DIG Prem Prakash. The state government has ordered a probe.

The ends of justice will be met only if action is initiated against the District Magistrate for his misbehaviour. The punishment will act as a deterrent and officers of his ilk will learn to behave. Disturbingly, incidents of ministers, politicians and bureaucrats slapping the staff are not uncommon these days. And such things are happening only because of their having an exaggerated notion of themselves as a class apart and above the rule of law.

Clearly, these worthies have no fear of law. They will certainly fall in line if at least one of them is brought to book. Former UP Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav had insulted Mainpuri District Magistrate Ministhy Dileep for her drive against illegal arms dealers. However, all that the Election Commission had done was to censure him. No action has been taken against former Union Minister Akhilesh Prasad Singh who assaulted a Patna airport officer after he was disallowed to board a flight to Kolkata as he reported late. Congress MP Manda Jagannath slapped a Grameen Bank manager and abused him but no action has been taken against him. It is time our babus and netas learnt to behave.

Thought for the Day

Pathos, piety, courage — they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value.

— E. M. Forster

ARTICLE

Challenge before Rajapaksa
Sri Lankan ethnic issue must be resolved
by S.D. Muni

SRI Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s electoral gamble has paid off handsomely. By cutting short his first term by two years, he has ensured a six-year second term for himself, a victory with 57.8 per cent votes cast.

What basically carried him through this gamble were his determination to militarily eliminate the LTTE and his control over the State apparatus. The war on the LTTE was fought under his leadership against heavy odds and international pressures. His campaign effectively drove home the point that despite his opponent and erstwhile Army Chief Gen Sarath Fonseka’s claims for an equal share in crushing the LTTE, victory primarily belonged to him. In democracies, critical initiatives are the territory of the political leadership, not of the army generals or bureaucrats. The Tamil voters also seem to have endorsed this point, though negatively, by impressively voting against him in the LTTE-dominated North and East regions.

President Rajapaksa’s incumbency gave him the critical control over the official machinery. The State had numbed the critical media long back during the fight against the LTTE. Private websites monitoring the Sri Lanka elections were blocked hours before the vote counting started. The Election Commission publicly conceded that the State media and State officials were disobeying its directives. The independent election monitors illustrated several examples of the abuse of State authority in promoting Mr Rajapaksa’s candidacy.

An election held in the post-LTTE terrorism context was not completely free from violence. Most of the violence was blamed on the official side. The pre-dawn series of blasts in the Jaffna region on the polling day definitely scared the pro-Fonseka Tamil voters to come out in full strength. Many of the Tamil Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the war zone remained without their voting cards and transport arrangements to vote. The recorded voter turnout in the North was below 20 per cent and in the East below 50 per cent, much lower than the national average of more than 70 per cent polling. General Fonseka has rejected the poll outcome on the basis of these factors.

However, no large-scale irregularities were reported in the voting that was watched by nearly 10,000 observers, including international groups. Even without the misuse of the State machinery, President Rajapaksa would have perhaps carried the day. The challenge to him was inherently weak. He was opposed by a coalition of contradictions. Bereft of leadership confidence, this coalition had to seek a non-political army General who was an ally of Mr Rajapaksa in the in-humanitarian war against the LTTE.

The liberal United National Party (UNP) joined hands with the leftist and Sinhala extremist Janatha Vimukti Peramuna (JVP). The known LTTE ally, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), joined them just to defeat the Rajapaksa regime. President Rajapaksa, through his crafty political moves, had already eroded the strength of the JVP and the UNP as evident during the Provincial Council elections of 2009. These elections had established Mr Rajapaksa’s mastery over the Sinhala political psyche and dynamics.

General Fonseka, the main opposition candidate, proved to be a political novice, moved essentially by his power ambitions and personal rivalry with his erstwhile bosses, the Rajapaksa brothers. The General could not present any credible socio-economic and political programme. His mindset towards the Tamil minority was also not much to speak of, having publicly caricatured them earlier as second class citizens. Accordingly, his promise of greater democracy by changing the presidential system and his assurances of giving justice to the Tamils sounded hollow.

The possibility of many North and East Tamils abstaining from voting due to their trust deficit with General Fonseka cannot be ruled out. His sole emphasis on otherwise valid issues of corruption, nepotism and family oligarchy of the Rajapaksa family did not cut much ice with the Sinhala voters for whom he had nothing much to offer. The support he eventually received came only from the committed but truncated constituencies of the three opposition parties supporting him.

Mr Rajapaksa also succeeded in conveying the message effectively that electing a Western supported candidate like General Fonseka would be an affront to Sri Lankan patriotism. On the polling day, everyone was surprised to know that General Fonseka had not even cared to get himself registered as a legitimate voter. His hometown constituency of Ambalangoda decisively voted against him.

President Rajapaksa fought against the opposition’s call for “change”. It would, therefore, be unfair to expect any major transformation in Sri Lanka’s Presidential system or its prevailing ethnic balance between the Sinhalese and the Tamils. The President’s primary aim was to consolidate his regime and political grip over the island. This will be done ruthlessly and with considerable fanfare on the strength of secured popular endorsement.

The next move in the process of this consolidation is to control Parliament, and for this parliamentary elections are expected to be held soon before the opposition can get over its demoralisation. The Executive Presidency will be consolidated at the cost of freedom and prosperity of the common Sri Lankans. The way the defeated candidate, General Fonseka, and the dissenting national and international media is being hounded out, points in that direction. The economy will surely grow, taking the advantage of peace and political stability. In the name of post-war reconstruction and rehabilitation, international assistance will be mobilised but most of the benefits of the rejuvenated economy will flow to the entrenched interests.

The crying need for Sri Lanka is to resolve the ethnic issue politically and constitutionally. This is an opportunity as well as a challenge for the President in his second and last term. But the political imperatives of his victory and the consolidation of his regime do not suggest any sympathy for the Tamils, who were out to defeat him. It would be unrealistic to hope for anything more than cosmetic relief to the Tamil grievances.

Will this revive Tamil resistance in a different shape and size remains to be seen? It may also be prudent on the President’s part to mend his relations with the “international community”, but he cannot give in to their demands on trial for “humanitarian crimes” and a political package for the Tamils. Relations with China and India will dominate Sri Lanka’s foreign policy but mostly on the Rajapaksa regime’s priorities.

The writer is Visiting Research Professor, ISAS, Singapore

MIDDLE

In the image of colonisers
by Asif Jalal

AT the Centre of Excellence for Stability Police Units, in Italy, the Director, Emilio Borghini, a Major-General rank officer, walked alone across the campus with his handbag, had no man for running errands, drove his vehicle himself and visited the classrooms without inviting anybody’s attention.

For we the police officers from India on a course at this academy, it was very strange that a senior officer was moving around without a show of his position.

During an interaction with the officers at the academy, I tried explaining the term peon. They could not understand; I thought I was not able to pronounce the word correctly. When I explained the duties of a peon, I attracted a roar of laughter.

I said a peon’s work may be to serve you a glass of water. They asked, “From where?” I said, “Water may be on the table in the room where you are sitting.” Everything looked amusing and alien to them while we in India had more than ten thousand peons and orderlies on government roll.

At the academy we saw that even a small ranked employee was free from the fear and awe of the office. Even a cleaner did not have a psyche that he was second to the topmost in the academy. He could call anybody with first name and would chat with his superior as if he was having a conversation with his peer.

The structure and mindset which the British created in our country to rule and subjugate, we continued with them after Independence.

Our spaced-out offices, trees and board in the office campus, long corridors where you walk 20 meters to reach the officer, then a peon at the door to further delay you — all are to convey that the occupant of the office is unapproachable. By the time you reach the officer, your confidence is broken and you feel that the person inside is too superior to you. He is not there to serve but to lord over you.

Here in India we have craze for administrative, police service in the public to imitate the image of the colonial master, to have an ambassador with a red beacon, an army of orderlies and unaccounted power to awe. It is not to love and serve but to rule the people.

Sometime back I was on an autorickshaw at the IIT crossing, Delhi. A customs service officer in an SUV was next to my auto. He threatened my autowallah with dire consequences, because he had overtaken the officer. He also told the autowallah: “Main customs ka hoon, tu samajhta kya hai.”

With the institutions, we have also copied the mindset and attitude of the colonisers.

OPED

ASEAN favours India to counter China
by Kamlendra Kanwar

India’s relations with ASEAN have been on the mend for some years now but it has been a slow and rough ride on this path after New Delhi erred gravely in not building linkages at an appropriate time when the Chinese were active in wooing regional groupings.

Clearly, the Chinese stole a march over us by gaining a foothold not only in ASEAN but also in the Asia Pacific Economic Forum (APEC). Now, with greater consciousness of the strategic imperatives, India realises that it needs to match the Chinese in influence across the world and there could be no better way to do this than gaining entry into such trading blocs in which the Chinese already have a firm foothold.

Happily, member-states of ASEAN and APEC in general are more favourably inclined today towards India than they ever were. There is a growing feeling that India could be an effective counterpoise to China which is looked upon with a degree of suspicion for its big brotherly attitude.

An example of how the past was uninspiring was an incident in the early 1980s when India sought an invitation to an ASEAN meeting in Kuala Lumpur. When the invite finally came after intense Malaysian lobbying, the then External Affairs Minister, Narasimha Rao, cancelled his trip at the last minute, citing personal reasons. The slighted Malaysian government took a long time to forgive India for this misdemeanour. The Malaysian media also took India to task for first lobbying and then dropping out of the crucial summit at the last minute.

Ironically, it was during Narasimha Rao’s prime ministership that India took the initiative to adopt a ‘Look East’ policy in the early 1990s, making partial amends for his lapse. The foundation that Rao laid was built upon by the Atal Behari Vajpayee government subsequently when Mr Vajpayee visited Japan and generated goodwill there and in Southeast Asia.

Clearly, India has come into reckoning in recent times with it being the second fastest-growing economy in a world bitten by the recessionary bug. The substantial Indian market looks attractive with nearly 300 million people constituting India’s middle class splurging on new gadgetry and consumer goods.

With that as the backdrop, the just-concluded visit of Malaysian Prime Minister Abdul Razak to India was a refreshing departure from the blow hot blow cold relationship that characterized relations between the two countries under his predecessor Abdullah Badawi and before him Dr Mahathir Mohammad.

The Malaysian government had for years spurned Indian attempts at getting them to sign an extradition treaty, but this time around Prime Minister Razak signed without any ado. The deal was signed on the very first day of his New Delhi visit.

With India having clinched a comprehensive economic cooperation agreement with Singapore recently clearing the way for substantial Indo-Singapore economic links, the Malaysians are leaving no stone unturned to sign a similar pact with India soon.

The change in attitude towards India is best illustrated by the Free Trade Agreement which ASEAN and India signed finally in October 2009 after years of dragging of feet.

The Asean FTA was launched in October 2003 and was to be completed by July 2005. But in April 2005, Congress party president Sonia Gandhi wrote a letter to the Prime Minister cautioning against opening up the agricultural and manufacturing sectors through FTAs, and advising more effective domestic policy measures to protect and strengthen the growers and manufacturers in these sectors.

This put a spanner in the works and the Indian government grew lukewarm to the idea. Malaysia and Indonesia too had their share of roadblocks.

It was an index of the times that at the First East Asia Summit in December 2005, the Malaysian host, Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, poked fun at India’s FTA negative list of 1,414 products! This country had to bear the taunt that its negative list was longer than the list of what it exported.

However, in recent months, there has been a dramatic change in India’s attitude. On August 7, 2009 India signed an FTA with South Korea. A similar agreement with Japan was concluded in December. In September, India concluded the joint study for pacts with Indonesia and Australia. It is also in talks for a separate FTA with New Zealand and has signed a Comprehensive Economic Co-operation Agreement with Singapore.

The Indo-ASEAN FTA itself is a story worth recounting. After nearly six years in hibernation, it was signed two months in advance of its scheduled date in August 2009 not only to counter Chinese domination of the powerful trading bloc but also to ward off pressure from the Indian domestic lobby by springing a surprise on it.

Already, India had achieved a breakthrough of sorts by having the participation in ASEAN made sharper by getting the trading body to enlarge its scope from ASEAN+3 (including China) to ASEAN+6 (including India).

India is keen to get foreign investments of US$ 30 billion for the country’s energy sector. The Malaysians see an opportunity in it for partnering with the Indian side in tapping this sector. The liberalization of the civil aviation sector is also an important development for increasing cargo and passenger traffic between the two countries. The Malaysians are keen too to take advantage of India’s expertise to develop a space programme of their own. Consequently, there is growing realization of each other’s usefulness. It is small wonder then that trade between the two countries has touched a record level of US$10.5 billion in 2008.

A study by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry reveals that trade between Indian and ASEAN could touch the $100 billion (Rs 4.6 lakh crore) mark over the next five years from the targeted level of $50 billion in 2010.

“While the share of the European Union (EU) and North America in India’s exports has been constantly declining, the share of ASEAN has been on the rise. Similarly, the shares of both EU and North America in India’s imports have been eroded in the last decade, but that of ASEAN recorded an increase,” the study points out.

India’s lack of thrust at a crucial stage can legitimately be blamed for this country not being a member of APEC, an economic grouping whose members account for approximately 40 per cent of the world’s population, 54 per cent of the world’s GDP and about 44 per cent of world trade. China, on the other hand, foresaw the Asia-Pacific forum’s importance and became its member in its early stages.

With a 10-year moratorium on new members due to end this year, there is a fair chance that India would gain entry, after all. Being already a member of the East Asia Summit and the G-20, this would add another dimension to India’s growing economic integration with the rest of the world.

That India’s economic relations with the European Union are also on the upswing is also a sign of the times. Success, as the saying goes, has many fathers.

All in all, the future truly holds interesting portents for India. But there is little room for complacency and slackening up. Already, India is paying the price for waking up too late while arch-rival China was busy sewing up economic alliances. It is imperative now that the momentum be maintained or further speeded up.

Obama’s reforms hardly radical
by Andreas Whittam Smith

WHEN is a bank too big to fail? This conundrum lies at the heart of an intense debate about how to regulate the financial sector. As a matter of fact, as with all good conundrums, there is no answer. You cannot say that banks above a certain size are too big to fail and that the smaller ones can be let go if they get into trouble. For Northern Rock was a tiny financial institution and yet its collapse would have had dire consequences.

That is why Alistair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer, has rejected President Obama’s proposals to reduce the range of activities in which large banks can engage. Mr Darling argues that such measures would not have prevented the crisis. “You could end up dividing institutions and making them separate but that isn’t the point. The point is the connectivity between them in relation to their financial transactions.”

But is connectivity really a better test? Each unit in the financial system is connected to every other unit, whether they are banks or not. It is like the party game in which one is asked how many steps are you away from, say, knowing the Pope. That is an easy one for me: I know the Archbishop of Canterbury and he knows the Pope. And Clint Eastwood? That would be harder.

But I know a person who is likely to know somebody who in turn will know Clint Eastwood. The point is how few are the connections that are needed to reach almost anybody. The same goes for the financial markets. So connectivity cannot be the criterion because it would mean that every financial unit that gets into trouble, including non-banks such as money market funds, would have to be rescued.

As there is no useable answer to the question who is too big to fail, we should pose the problem in a different way. What is the special characteristic of banks and non-banks alike when they are classified as too big, or too connected, or whatever, and thus must to be rescued when they get into trouble?

It is that they are enjoying a guarantee from their national governments for which they pay nothing but yet confers on them the inestimable advantage that their solvency is protected in all circumstances.

Whatever wild, reckless or stupid things that, for instance, Barclays Bank might do, there will still be a Barclays Bank, more or less the same as it is today, employing the same staff and managed by the same executives minus a few incompetents. For the rest of industry, that is emphatically not the case.

Banks are given this guarantee because many of their activities are in effect a utility, like the supply of gas and electricity. We can no more do without the means of money transmission and access to credit than we could get along without the availability of power at the touch of a switch.

Seen in this way, the problems with the present arrangements are manifest. They make no distinction between utility banking services – what is called narrow banking – and the rest. Moreover the all-enveloping nature of the guarantee encourages reckless behaviour. It also defrauds the taxpayer who receives no benefit – rather the reverse – from acting as a lender of last resort as well as a supplier of capital when all else fails.

That is why I favour a much more radical policy than President Obama has proposed. I believe we should split banking between “utility” and the rest and put each under separate ownership. We should then guarantee the former but not the latter, as was done in the US immediately following the Great Crash.

In Britain, the Tories go some of the way. In reaction to President Obama they said they would seek to separate retail banking from investment banking at the “riskiest end” of the market. The Liberal Democrats pointed out that they, and Vince Cable specifically, have been calling for “narrow banking” since the crisis began.

It also looks as if the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, is in the same camp. In evidence to the Treasury Select Committee earlier this week, he told MPs that what the Obama proposals did was to “make very clear that radical reform is on the table and that is the most important thing”.

Looking deeply at the structure of the financial sector and asking radical questions about the structure is the right way to conduct the debate. “Tinkering” with capital and liquidity rules might not be enough to limit systemic risk. The UK might even have to consider unilateral action in the absence of an international consensus. In every respect, the Governor is right.

— By arrangement with The Independent

Chatterati
In trouble over price rise
by Devi Cherian

THE BJP, the Samajwadi Party, the RJD and the BSP have joined hands and are now planning separate agitations against price rise. While the Congress appears to be trying to put Sharad Pawar in the dock, the astute NCP leader has reached out to the SP and the RJD to insulate him against a Congress attack. While Mayawati has demanded the removal of Pawar, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Lalu are busy blaming the Centre. They also have their own personal reasons too.

Lalu is miffed with Rahul Gandhi for dumping the Congress-RJD alliance in the state. He blames the faulty policies of the Congress for the soaring prices. Mulayam Singh is indebted to Pawar for not admitting Amar Singh into the NCP. But even then Pawar’s woes are unlikely to end soon.

Price rise is one of the main issues to be discussed at the Congress Working Committee meet scheduled for the first week of February. Some Congress fellows are lobbying to shift Pawar from the portfolios of agriculture, food, civil supplies, consumer affairs and public distribution.

Some want his portfolios to go the NDA way. Under the BJP-led NDA, food and consumer affairs formed separate ministries. Congress insiders, however, feel it would be difficult for the Prime Minister to clip Pawar’s wings as he is a key coalition partner. Any such move could spell trouble for the Congress-NCP government in Maharashtra. The Congress is in a catch-22 situation. It cannot touch Pawar and the “aam admi” is questioning the credentials of the Manmohan Singh government.

Amar Singh’s low-key birthday

Amar Singh celebrated his birthday along with his friends Amitabh Bachchan and Anil Ambani, not on a large scale this year. No show of power, money or Bollywood. No press too. But Amar’s birthday was not without controversy.

Amar Singh has left the Samajwadi Party claiming that his weak health does not go well with politics. They say there is much more to it than what meets the eye. Amar Singh is now mobilising Thakurs. With Sanjay Dutt also out now from the Samajwadi Party, one is left wondering about the two Jayas. They were a part of Amar Singh’s brigade. Will they follow their leader and resign or will Amar and Mulayam make up once again?

Amar Singh does not have a choice as no political party has opened its doors for him. Other parties in UP are trying to gain maximum from this Samajwadi infighting.

Incorrigible Shashi Tharoor

Congress leaders often remain tight-lipped as any wrong word uttered could cost them their chairs. Shashi Tharoor, of course, is a class apart. He has made a name for himself by tweeting. Good or bad publicity is must for a politician.

Many serious Congress men like P. Chidambaram are not impressed by Tharoor and his tweeting habits. When Tharoor allegedly criticised Jawaharlal Nehru’s foreign policy, someone is said to have asked P. Chidambaram, “Do you tweet, sir?” Pat came the reply: “No, I bleat.”

Even after Tharoor was ticked off by the Congress president and the Prime Minister, he keeps twittering and putting himself and his party in embarrassing situations. Spokesmen of the party are hard put to cover up for him.