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New high in India-Russia ties
Equality for women |
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No free power
Dialogue with Pakistan
Ides of March
Khap panchayats are
violating human rights Politicians can’t complain about privacy
Chatterati
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New high in India-Russia ties
India
and Russia remain as close friends as they have always been despite the fact that the post-Cold War world scenario has changed considerably. They have some common concerns and terrorism is one of them. This was highlighted during Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s two-day visit to New Delhi that concluded on Friday. They have similar views on terrorism which could be noticed when Mr Putin said that there was no lessening of the threat to peace in South Asia and the rest of the world from the terrorists operating from the Af-Pak region irrespective of the military drive against them. Like India, Russia does not feel comfortable with the idea of inducting some of the Taliban factions in the Afghanistan government on any pretext. He also expressed concern at the continuing activities of the Pakistan-based terrorist groups. Of all the agreements signed between India and Russia in the presence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Mr Putin, two are of special significance. One is the agreement on cooperation for nuclear energy generation for peaceful purposes and the other relates to the purchase of the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier. India’s efforts to generate substantial nuclear power will get a major boost with Russia agreeing to build at least 16 nuclear reactors in the coming few years. Russia has been among the first few countries which offered to help India with nuclear fuel and high technology after the conclusion of the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal, which led to the powerful Nuclear Suppliers Group allowing nuclear trade with India. The Gorshkov deal has been possible with India agreeing to buy the refurbished aircraft carrier for as much as $2.33 billion, which is much higher than what was the initial price quoted. But, then, Russia will also be supplying 29 MiG 29K fighter planes for the Indian Navy. These accords were signed besides a number of other defence-related agreements to strengthen their strategic relations. India and Russia, as traditional friends, can play a more effective role on the world stage if they continue to cooperate with each other in every area possible. |
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Equality for women The Delhi High Court set the ball rolling for gender equality in the Army and the Air Force when it upheld the petition filed by 50 retired and serving women officers who were denied Permanent Commission. The historic ruling, however, came with the caveat that it would be applicable to all women officers recruited before May, 2006, when the government changed its policy of offering PC to Short Service Commissioned officers across the gender divide. However, now that the door has been opened, it appears only a matter of time before women are granted their due.
The Division Bench comprising Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice Mool Chand Garg rightly observed that the women officers were not asking for charity but wanted enforcement of their constitutional right. If male officers can be granted Permanent Commission while performing the same tasks, the court observed, there is no reason why equally capable women cannot be granted Permanent Commission. The court significantly rejected the submission that it had no jurisdiction over the matter and that Permanent Commission could not be granted with retrospective effect and to retired officers as well. Most of the women who had approached the court for relief were recruited in the legal and education branches of the two Services. Denying Permanent Commission to them makes little sense. It is strange that the Services should on the one hand lament the shortage of officers while on the other they appear unwilling to utilise trained and experienced women officers who are available and who have served for 14 to 15 years. The armed forces have stubbornly been resisting offering Permanent Commission to women. An inter-services study, quoted extensively in the media, had arrived at the conclusion that time was not yet ripe to offer women Permanent Commission. It had placed reliance on the perception that women routinely seek preferential treatment like soft postings and frequent leave besides often bypassing the chain of command. These are, however, issues for which male supervisors must be held responsible and they cannot be held as a ground to deny women an equal opportunity. It is regrettable indeed that the judiciary had to intervene to end gender discrimination in the Services. It will be even more regrettable if, as some reports in the media suggest, the two Services decide to appeal against the order to the Supreme Court.
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No free power
Free
power for farmers in Punjab has been a sop that has played havoc not only with the health of the PSEB but also with the supply of electricity. Things are so bad in some places that farmers themselves demand that they should get regular supply even if it comes at a cost. But free power has become such an emotive issue that most leaders find it difficult to withdraw the facility. Even the Punjab government has been forced to take this “bold” step because its financial condition has become precarious. Around 10.8 lakh agricultural consumers will get power bills in April and they will be charged with effect from January 21. The move is in keeping with the decision of the Resource Mobilisation Committee comprising Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal and Local Bodies Minister Manoranjan Kalia. The decision to make farmers pay for the electricity will, hopefully, not only improve the financial condition of the PSEB but would also help prevent the alarming decline of water table in the state. Careless running of tube wells had led to the situation where farmers had to sink the tube wells deeper and deeper to draw water. The government’s repeated pleas to desist from extensive farming of paddy had also been falling on deaf ears. Interestingly, the bills to be paid by the farmers to the PSEB are to be reimbursed by the government to a large extent. Now that the government has decided to bill farmers for power, it has also steeled itself not to roll back the hike in power tariff on commercial, industrial and domestic consumers. After the Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission had ordered an 8.4 per cent rise last year for different consumer sections, the BJP had demanded the benefit of subsidised power for consumers other than farmers. The ruling Shiromani Akali Dal had given some assurances also in this regard. Now it seems unlikely that those will be
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It is a beauteous evening, calm and free;/The holy time is quiet as a nun/Breathless with adoration. — William Wordsworth
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Dialogue with Pakistan Simply because some people repeatedly and with apparent conviction state that the Foreign Secretary-level talks were resumed by India under American pressure does not make it a fact. India had taken the initiative for the talks firstly because the Prime Minister is genuinely committed to going more than the proverbial extra mile to give Pakistan an opportunity to be satisfied about our desire for friendly relations, and, secondly, because the refusal to talk was being counter-productive in diplomatic terms. The talks, no doubt, served an important diplomatic purpose. Our side went into the talks without any illusion on expectations of a breakthrough on issues of concern to us. It would be safe to assume that the Pakistan side had a similar assessment of the prospects of success or otherwise from their perspective. Thus, neither side was really disappointed with the way the talks went. In the ultimate analysis, it came down to public relations part of it, with each side giving its own interpretation of what had transpired. The Indian Foreign Secretary was restrained in her Press briefing. For once, Pakistan made a hash of it this time. The Indian media, which usually fawns over every Pakistani visitor, was not willing to buy the Pakistani line as touted by the Pakistan Foreign Secretary. The fact that he met the Kashmiri separatist leaders also evoked negative reaction in India, though why our government allowed them to meet Mr Bashir is another matter. Having demonstrated its goodwill and fulfilled its diplomatic duty, the government should not be in a hurry to repeat the exercise. Media reports indicate that the meeting was suggested by us and agreed to reluctantly, and as a gesture of goodwill on Pakistan’s part. The Indian public would feel humiliated if we were to desire or agree to another round of talks in view of the shrill rhetoric in Pakistan during the past few days on water and the co-opting by the regime of Hafiz Saeed in his hate campaign, going to the extent of calling for a war against India. The artificial deadline of the SAARC meeting in early April should not be allowed to influence the decision. Following the London conference of Afghanistan and Pakistan’s totally understandable sense of triumphalism, we should expect even more strident rhetoric from Pakistan as witnessed by their Interior Minister invoking Balochistan. We should be grateful to Mr Karzai for being so candid during his visit to his “brothers” in Pakistan, and for making clear where India stands in his calculations. He has also helpfully revealed that he holds India equally responsible for using Afghan territory for waging proxy war against Pakistan. Of course, “statesman-like” analysts and others would say that we must not overreact to what Mr Karzai has said, etc. That would be in line with our refusal to face realities and continuing with our illusions. The London conference and its aftermath should remove the cobwebs in our thinking, since it is now established that Pakistan is the “indispensable” player in Afghanistan. India’s problem is that while we do know who wields effective power in Pakistan, we cannot get to them. Engaging the civilian leaders might be unavoidable for the sake of form and protocol, but even they know that it is not going to be of any help in solving anything. The US Secretary of State, the British Foreign Secretary and others spend hours in meetings with General Kayani. But there simply is no tradition of our leaders discussing serious issues with Pakistan’s military, except, of course, when they come into the open and assume the office of President. Equally, there is no precedent of our military meeting their Pakistani counterparts except, perhaps, socially over a glass of scotch, the preferred drink of the military in the subcontinent. This dilemma causes absence of any real or effective dialogue between the two countries. The other aspect of the problem is: what should we talk about? The answer is obvious. We shall talk of what is of utmost concern to us today, namely terrorism, and they will talk about Kashmir. We must not let them bring in water except in the context of the Indus water mechanisms. The tendency to be defensive about any reference to Kashmir is difficult to understand. Our sensitivity to the mere mention of the “K” word by anyone has reached a point where all it takes for a foreign visitor to earn our gratitude is to avoid mentioning it! General Musharraf became a hero in India when he said that he will not invoke the UN resolutions on Kashmir. We need to bring some maturity in our approach to the Kashmir question insofar as its being mentioned by either Pakistani or other foreign personalities is concerned. It is strange that the aggressor should put the aggressed on the back foot! By displaying the knee-jerk reaction every time Pakistan mentions Kashmir, we are only encouraging them to do so, since nothing would please their ego more than showing us in a negative light. Negotiating with General Musharraf on Kashmir made some sense since he was both the de facto and de jure boss of Pakistan. If media reports are to be believed, an 80 per cent agreement had been reached until General Musharraf ran into problems with his judiciary. However, one should be a bit cautious about this channel. It is clear that if at all any deal is reached in these back-channel negotiations, it will certainly mean a net gain for Pakistan. Even if the mechanisms being talked about were only consultative, they will, legally, confer on Pakistan a right — a right they have longed to acquire for long — to have a say in the affairs of the valley. It will be an open invitation to the ISI to spread its net far and wide not only in Kashmir but also in the rest of India. It is difficult to assess if Pakistan’s military will have any reservation about engaging in discussions with Indian civilian leaders, but our leaders certainly will. What then is the wayout, if any? Can we think of the unthinkable and start a new “back channel” with the Pakistan military? Will even that lead to any useful outcome, given the Pakistan military’s paranoia about India? The situation does not lend itself to answer, let alone easy
ones.
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Ides of March
FINALLY arrives the Ides of March. It instantly reminds me of the headmaster of Lawrence School, Praveen Vasisht, who rarely misses an opportunity to contact each of his students, before their embarking for a prolonged winter break in December, year after year. As a typical Shakespearean soothsayer, he exhorts the budding Sanawarians to beware of Ides of March, and marshal all their energies for the ensuing final examinations, lest they are trapped and defeated like Julius Caesar. As I stood next to my son and daughter, preparing to leave for home, there descended the mystic soothsayer-incarnate, inspiring them to maintain their academic rhythm and to “never give in” to wayward temptations, nor to fall prey to sloppiness. How the relevance of Ides of March has changed over the centuries, I kept wondering. The Ides of March owes its genesis to a Latin phrase, Idus Martias, which was originally used for the 15th day of March, May, July and October. In modern times, it is best known as the day when Caesar was assassinated in 44 B.C. It, however, acquired acceptance down the lane as a symbol of caution, with Shakespeare using the coinage to beware Julius Caesar of Ides of March. The term Idus etymologically means “half division” of a month. It is also referred to as the “day of full moon”, considered auspicious by the Romans. A toga run is still organised on this day, at the same venue where Caesar was felled, with men wearing flowing ornamental garments. An annual spring event of horses is also organised around the same weekend. Beyond the Pacific, even in the US, an annual dinner is held commemorating the historic day because it is also the day when General Washington quelled a mutiny, way back in 1783. While Ides of March, synonymous for 15th day of March in the Roman calendar, used to be a gala day, dedicated to Mars, it has lost its festivity over the years, courtesy the ever-increasing weight of satchels the poor students have to lug like mules. While a massive military parade was usually held then to venerate the annual event, the children can now be seen “parading” to money-minting tutors, trying to swallow more than what they can chew. They find themselves lost in the tides of Ides, braving annual examination, seeking admission in institutes of their choice and bidding good-bye to parents in quest of pastures away from home. Even the parents are forced to “parade”, seeking admission for their young babies in schools of repute. Countless novels and plays have been woven on the historicity of the day. Even Mother Nature acknowledges the import of the day as the harbinger of spring, with trees wearing new lush-green foliage and colourful roses blooming all over. The weather starts turning warm thereafter, heralding the onset of harvesting of wheat. When Ides of March comes, can Baisakhi be far behind? Since it also coincides with our budget time, the Ides of March provides us an opportunity to script a new epoch with
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Khap panchayats are violating human rights
Haryana’s
khap panchayats have been in the news since the dawn of the 25th century for wrong reasons. The frequent instances of violation of human rights by them have been often reported in national and international media. Their nefarious activities are a blot on the fair name of Haryana which has a proud record in the field of economic development. Though Haryana was constituted on November 1, 1966, it has become one of the most developed states of the Indian Union within a short span. Earlier, it had remained a backward region of Punjab owing to its continual neglect by the ruling elite of that state. Consequently, Haryana has failed to check the khaps’ menace. Significantly, The Tribune has been playing an important role by highlighting their violation of human rights through its news reports, editorials and features. Examples galore, the khap panchayats have been violating human rights of the individuals. This is evident from some of their ridiculous decisions. Preventing the marriages of boys and girls of the same clan (gotra) on the ground that the intra-gotra marriages are prohibited under the customs of the Jats as they are presumed to be brothers and sisters. Therefore, the khap panchayats do not accept the provisions of the Hindu Marriage Act which only prohibits marriages among the siblings. They sometimes prohibit the marriages of the boys and girls from different gotras in their villages even from the outside villages if the members of their gotras happen to live there on the plea that there exists bhaichara (brotherhood) among these. They even do not allow marriages in the same village even if they happen to belong to different gotras on the pretext that it is against the custom of accepting all the inmates of the village as brothers and sisters. The violations of the norms have led the khaps to expel the couples and their families from the villages, force them to sell their land and property, humiliating the fathers of the bride and the bridegroom in the public by forcing shoes in their mouths. They can also impose a fine on the violation of these norms and order economic and social boycott of those families. They have even ordered the execution of the couples or the bridegrooms. Such orders have often been implemented in spite of getting security on the directions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court and even in the presence of the police. There has been an instance in which a khap panchayat ordered the burning of the houses of the Scheduled Castes at Gohana because a criminal belonging to a Balmiki family had murdered a Jat youth. They also prevent the police from taking action against those accused of atrocities on the Scheduled Castes. This happened in Jhajjar when some Scheduled Caste persons were murdered on the misunderstanding that they had slaughtered cows. This also happened after the carnage at Gohana. This raises the question: why do the khaps indulge in such blatant violation of human rights? They do so for preserving their outdated traditions and customs which are now being violated often by those boys and girls under the influence of modernisation, their education and on account of films and TV serials. They consider the violations of gotra norms as a threat to their caste identity of which they are very proud of. This, they feel, has already been threatened by the breakdown of the Jajmani system that has liberated the Scheduled Castes and the Backward Castes from the bondage of the landowning castes. They also feel compelled to resort to such behaviour as the enactment of the Constitution (Seventy-Third Amendment) Act, 1992, has eroded their authority by creating panchayati raj institutions having reservation of one-third membership and offices for women and one-fifth for the Scheduled Castes since the 1995 panchayat elections. Hence they do not want to lose any opportunity of asserting their authority. The neo-feudal mindset of the khap leaders has made it difficult for them to tolerate the affluence that a small section of the Scheduled Castes and the Backward Castes has been able to achieve by taking advantage of reservation and political linkages and through their entry into the non-traditional occupations. They fear that they will not only become their equals but also their superiors and hence they try to assert their authority through such decisions. Another reason for the khap leaders’ assertion is the threat to their authority by educated boys and girls, decline of their hold on younger members in their families and the challenge to their authority by the elected representatives of the panchayati raj institutions. The violation of the gotra norms and instances of the conflict between the landowning castes and the Scheduled Castes are opportunities for them to restore their self-esteem. Sometimes, their decisions are also influenced by ulterior motives. People use the khaps for settling personal scores, their family feuds, their defeat in the panchayat elections and to give vent to their jealousy with the prosperity of the better off families and also by their desire to grab their land and property by expelling such families from the village. All this proves that the khap panchayats have been violating human rights of the individuals from their own caste and clan as also of others for various reasons. There is a need for devising appropriate strategies for rooting out this menace. It requires great political will on the part of the state government. The panchayati raj institutions too will have to be strengthened because the khap panchayats’ strength lies in the weakness of democracy at the grassroots. This also needs active intervention by the civil society. Worthy in this context is the bold initiative of Mr Shamsher Singh Surjewala, a veteran Congress leader. Let us hope that leaders of other political parties will follow the lead taken by
him. The writer, formerly Professor of Political Science, Kurukshetra University, is presently Consultant, Haryana Institute of Rural Development, Nilokheri
(Karnal)
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Politicians can’t complain about privacy Please not, Mrs Cameron! Or Samantha, or Sam, as you perhaps would like us to call you. This is shaping up as the most vapid and dispiriting election party leaders struggle unsuccessfully to make sense of the grave crises facing the nation while abusing their opponents. But if there’s one thing that could make it worse still it would be a match-up of the spouses. Sarah Brown has already been enlisted to describe her hubby in excruciating terms, “I know he’s not a saint. He’s messy. He’s noisy,” but still, “he wakes up every morning and goes to bed every evening, thinking about the things that matter”, and in turn Samantha Cameron is being wheeled on. ”You’re going to see a lot more of her,” her husband threatens, “so Britain get ready!” She herself has told us that she “can honestly say that I don’t think in all that time he has ever let me down” (a claim almost no normal consort of any kind would make in honesty). Apart from being vulgar, trivial, degrading and altogether naff, this parade of other halves illustrates what Auden used to say: the trouble with nowadays is that people have forgotten the difference between their friends and strangers. In the process, as those politicians seem not to have realised, they have completely forfeited any right to privacy. This abnegation had begun with the husbands. In one television interview, Cameron was asked by Jonathan Ross, “Did you or did you not have a wank thinking ‘Margaret Thatcher’?” In fact our politicians did not formerly face such questions, or endure such ordeals, and they now have no one but themselves to blame. Nor were their wives once enlisted in this horrible business, Sarah Brown was in the audience for that interview, and their new role is, to say the least, an ironical reflection on what we are supposed to think of as the triumph of feminism. Far from parading their spouses, prime ministers often kept them out of the way. Mrs Disraeli was an amiable featherhead (she could “never remember which came first, the Greeks or the Romans”); Mrs Lloyd George was a put-upon lady who sat at home in Wales while her husband lived almost openly with his secretary-cum-mistress in Downing Street, although that would later be poignantly reversed in the case of the Macmillans: Lady Dorothy’s decades-long liaison with Robert Boothby was known to all Harold’s colleagues. As the excellent biography by Mary Soames, her daughter, has shown, Clementine Churchill was a most formidable woman in her own right. But she played small part in public life — an exception, and another irony, was her wartime work for Red Cross Aid to Russia, popularly known as “Mrs Churchill's Fund” and confined herself to giving her husband private support and good, frank advice in private. Nearer our time, Denis Thatcher was in his way an admirable prime ministerial consort. He occasionally played up to the part Private Eye had written for him, replying when asked what he did with his time, “Well, when I’m not pissed, I play a lot of golf”, but otherwise stuck to his father’s maxim: “It’s better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it and remove all doubt.” If there's a real culprit it is, as so often, Tony Blair. He left Downing Street with a tirade against the “feral media”, which must rank very high in the annals of brass neck or chutzpah. For the past 12 years it had often looked as if the only purpose of New Labour was to manipulate that media.He and his gruesome wife like to denounce an intrusive press, while asking for the privacy or their family life to be respected. But then, look back at all the photo-ops of Tony and his boys playing football, and every other way in which he exploited his image as husband and father. Not long ago a celebrated novelist complained to me about the media, and the way they forgot their own supposedly rigid policy of not publishing recognisable images of children. I reminded him of the occasion on which a smirking Blair had come out into Downing Street to announce the birth of his youngest child. When Cherie Blair had a miscarriage, no one but family and friends need have known, had not Alastair Campbell leaked the news to take the heat off another story. Politicians simply deserve everything they get. They have not only forgotten the difference between friends and strangers. If they are going to invade their own privacy in such grotesquely intimate fashion, they should expect no mercy at all. Although the present party leaders may not be quite as bad as that, they are very much mistaken in thinking that we want to be taken into their domestic lives. Why, many more displays of cloying conjugal affection, and the British electorate will be pining for a national leader like Sarkozy or Berlusconi.n — By arrangement with
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Chatterati The
new BJP President is a talented man, hailing from Mumbai. Obviously, he has a soft corner for Bollywood. At the BJP meet at Indore, Nitin Gadkari tried to create a new harmony among everyone present by starting a sort of ‘Antakshri’ on the stage. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan and some ministers also sang. Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani are both big Bollywood fans. Atalji is a great poet and has written many books on poetry, but Advani started writing his biographies which created controversies. Bollywood lyrics at the conclave has not gone well with many in the party. The new president, everyone now thinks, is quite clueless about the sentiments of the Aam Admi. Apparently, his song was well chosen keeping in mind his origins and his unknown destination – Zindagi, Kaisi hai paheli haaye, kabhi to hansaaye, kabhi yeh rulaaye (from the Hindi blockbuster Anand). No one ever expected Mr Gadkari to take over as the BJP National President. Obviously, this is a paheli not only for him but for others too. While he is laughing all the way, the other senior leaders who were in line for the post are crying. Whatever else happened at the Indore conclave, Gadkari’s singing along with his colleagues overshadowed all other resolutions passed. This is a new sing-song twist to mind-storming conclaves. Modi pulling
Bollywood stars Amitabh Bachchan became the ambassador for Gujarat some time back. Of course, we have Rekha who has followed him there. Can she be far behind? May be, he thinks his own charisma is fading. Now, the grapevine is Rekha will be walking the ramp to promote Patan Patola saris. It seems Modi is also pulling all Bollywood biggies to promote his state. Patola are traditional double ikat silk produced in Gujarat. Patan is the only place in India where these expensive saris are produced. However, the designing of Patola saris is a dying art and the artisans are hoping that Rekha will once more make them fashionable. Modi has roped in Lata Mangeshkar to sing Jai Jai Garvi Gujarat when the state celebrates 50 years of its formation on May 1. Other celebrities will also appear in the video version that will be modelled on Mile Sur Mera Tumhara. Gehlot sets an example Mostly all well-off families of India invite ministers to opulent weddings to show their influence. Mixing politicians and bureaucrats is the big thing. But a Chief Minister is the icing on the cake. However, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot made it clear recently that he was not amused by all this. He is the first Chief Minister who, while addressing a gathering of Gandhians in Jaipur, said how upset and ashamed he felt when people came to his house with wedding cards which cost Rs 2000 each. They also spend Rs 1000 a plate in the feast “when we have no money to help poor”. After all, it was Gehlot who allowed only 11 baraatis in his own wedding and also held a simple marriage function for his daughter. If he attended such weddings, he would also become as shameless as those who conduct them, he said. We can be pretty sure that nobody will be sending him wedding invites for a while. All other politicians should follow suit. It is always the leaders who can set examples. And Gehlot has always led a simple life and yet performed
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