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Paradox of Punjab
Itching for trouble
Death holes |
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Pak support for LeT
Milk of kindness
The changing face of campus politics
Parents take a second look
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Paradox of Punjab
Reports
that Maoists have established their base in Punjab come as little surprise. Ever since the Naxalbari insurrection, the northern state is known to have sheltered the extremists. Even when the state was more prosperous and peaceful, it provided sanctuaries and funds to the outlaws. The state itself has also faced the Naxal threat earlier, even before the Green Revolution. It is ironical but not surprising, therefore, that a similar threat should now confront the state after the Green Revolution has tapered off. It could indicate, at least superficially, that benefits of the Green Revolution were not distributed evenly. The widespread drug addiction among the youth and the scramble to go abroad and do manual work are also symptomatic of the unrest in society. It is also significant that posters sympathetic to the Maoists were sighted in the Malwa belt of the state, where the CPI ( Maoist) is reported to have established not one but two zonal committees to oversee its activities. Malwa is, of course, poorer in terms of development and infrastructure than Doaba and Majha, the two remaining belts of Punjab. Disparities and inequality are sharper in this region despite both the incumbent and previous Chief Ministers of the state hailing from the region. Landless peasants, industrial workers, the jobless and the marginal farmers have traditionally complained of injustice and suffered the market economy, which promotes the survival of the fittest. But market economies require a level playing field and rule of law. However, in most parts of the country, the rich and the powerful have subverted the system to their own advantage and, in doing so, denied the disadvantaged even their due. It is this strong sense of being wronged that has strengthened the hands of the Maoists in states like Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. Punjab, therefore, needs to draw lessons from these states and ensure both equality and justice for the people. Popular unrest in the state is evident as farmers, workers and teachers, besides the jobless, have begun hitting the streets with monotonous regularity. It is important to ensure that the grievances of these sections are redressed quickly and the Maoists denied a chance to capitalise on the unrest. While the Maoists are unlikely to find the going easy in the border state, pro-active politics can help avoid a violent denouement.
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Itching for trouble GIVEN his age and experience, and having seen Punjab go through much turmoil over the river waters issue, one thought Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal would have learnt some lessons and would avoid playing petty and divisive politics. But that is not so. By demanding river waters royalty from Haryana, he is raking up a fresh controversy which may serve no purpose. People get easily carried away by an emotive issue like water without understanding the political game behind it. Instead of burying the mischief with dignified silence, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda too has chosen to play the game of one-up-manship. “Where is Punjab producing water? How can you stop (the water)?” he posed counter-questions. That’s fair enough. But then he let made a thoughtless remark: “Can I stop vehicles going to Punjab?” The potential for mischief is obvious. Ideally, the leadership in both states should have refrained from raising a fresh controversy in public as the Supreme Court is expected to take up the inter-state dispute over river waters next month. It is in courts that the two states should settle all contentious issues. If Mr Badal thinks there is merit in his argument, he should have filed a case for royalty in court. Talking casually over such sensitive matters at press conferences does not behove a leader of his stature. Capt Amarinder Singh, as Chief Minister, controversially terminated the inter-state agreements over river waters. Mr Badal’s party supported the move and even went a step further by making a poll promise of abrogating Clause 5 of the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act which guaranteed that water would keep flowing to the neighbouring states. He has conveniently, and rightly, forgotten the promise. Scoring political points will not help. The two chief ministers should rather focus on conserving water and replenishing the fast-depleting water resources in their respective states.
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Death holes WHEN five-year-old Prince fell in a borewell in the Shahabad area of Haryana in 2006, the collective conscience of the nation remained riveted on the massive operation till he was rescued. It was expected that a shame-faced India would do everything to make sure that no child ever faces a similar man-made ordeal. Yet, nothing much has changed on the ground, with the result that 20 children have died after falling into abandoned borewells in the last two years itself. The latest victim is three-year-old Dilnaz of Gurdaspur (Punjab). All this has happened despite the fact that in February this year, the Supreme Court had asked all the states to cap all discarded and abandoned borewells in their territories and to properly fence all working wells to prevent small children from falling into them. Even the Centre, in its affidavit, had said that the District Collector/ District Magistrate/ Sarpanch should take legal action by initiating criminal or civil proceedings against those responsible for any accident. Apparently, all these well-meaning measures remained confined to official files only. Now that the issue is back in the news again, the Centre has shot off letters to the state Chief Ministers, asking them to frame guidelines for managing such structures. If all goes as routine, it will take months, if not years, for the guidelines to be formulated, which might again be forgotten. What needs to be done is obvious; what matters is the implementation of the guidelines. The Supreme Court has already said that information on all open borewells would be maintained in the respective district collectorate and block development office of the state, and district commissioners would be held responsible if abandoned ditches are not suitably filled up. If only such instructions are strictly followed, hapless children like Dilnaz would not have to sacrifice their lives.
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You only have power over people as long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you have robbed a man of everything he is no longer in your power — he’s free again. — Alexander Solzhenitsyn
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Pak support for LeT BARELY a week before the departure of the Union Home Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, for Islamabad to attend a conference of SAARC Home Ministers, where he is also scheduled to have a meeting with his Pakistani counterpart, Mr Rehman Malik, New Delhi presented the Pakistan High Commission yet another “dossier” on the 26/11 carnage in Mumbai by the Lashkar-e-Taiyaba. Even as the “dossier” was being handed over, Hafiz Mohammed Saeed convened a well- attended public meeting in Lahore, ostensibly to express solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza. The meeting was attended, among others, by senior functionaries of Islamic parties like the Jamat-e-Islami. The dignitaries on the dais were seated with their feet planted firmly on the national flags of India, the United States and Israel. Not surprisingly, there was much raving and ranting about “Hindu-Jewish conspiracies” against Muslim nations, with Saeed proclaiming: “Mossad instructors are training Indian troops to crush the liberation movement in Kashmir”. This was entirely in keeping with Saeed’s constant homilies that “Hindus, Jews and Christians are enemies of Islam” and that it was his aim to “unfurl the green flag of Islam in New Delhi, Tel Aviv and Washington”. The Punjab provincial government in Pakistan is now known to have provided Rs 82 million as financial assistance to Hafiz Saeed’s Jamat-ud-Dawa, an organisation banned by the UN Security Council, shortly after the 26/11 terrorist strike in Mumbai. This should not cause any surprise, as the Chief Minister of Punjab is none other than Shahbaz Sharif, the brother of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Nawaz and his father Mian Mohammed Sharif have been long-time patrons of the Lashkar-e-Taiyaba. Nawaz Sharif’s party, the Pakistan Muslim league (N), was founded with the patronage of Gen Zia-ul-Haq and was funded by the ISI for its election campaign in 1991. It was during the second tenure of Nawaz Sharif as Prime Minister that the Lashkar emerged as the most formidable terrorist organisation in Pakistan, enjoying the patronage of both the ruling party and the ISI. It is well known that provincial minister Rana Sanaullah serves as the conduit between the PML (N) and militant groups in Pakistan’s Punjab province. Benazir Bhutto once described this nexus as the “Military, mullah and madarsa complex”! The U.N. Commission that investigated the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has been scathing in its references to the ISI-militant nexus in Pakistan. The commission has noted: “Ms Bhutto faced threats from a number of sources; these included Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, local jihadi groups and potentially from elements in the Pakistan establishment (a euphemism for the Pakistan military establishment). The investigators have been hampered by intelligence agencies and other government officials.” The report also notes: “The Sunni groups are largely based in Punjab. Members of these groups aided the Taliban in Afghanistan at the behest of the ISI and later cultivated ties with Al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban groups. The Pakistani military and the ISI also supported some of these groups in the Kashmir insurgency after 1989. The bulk of the anti-Indian activity remains the work of groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiyaba (LeT), which has close ties with the ISI”. Given this nexus between the ISI and influential sections of the political establishment on the one hand, and the LeT on the other, it would be naive to assume that Mr Chidambaram’s visit is going to lead to any progress on ending Pakistan’s support for the Lashkar. The LeT has not confined itself to terrorist attacks against targets in India. After the Mumbai carnage, it extended its activities to Afghanistan also. On June 15, the New York Times reported: “Officially, Pakistan says it no longer supports or finances the group. But the Lashkar-e-Taiyaba’s expanded activities in Afghanistan, particularly against Indian targets, prompt suspicions that it has become one of Pakistan’s proxies to counteract India’s influence in the country.” The report adds: “They provide yet another indicator of the extent to which Pakistani militants are working to shape the outcome of the Afghan war as the July 2011 deadline approaches, to begin withdrawing American troops.” In a recent testimony to the US Congress, the LeT is described as having ambitions “beyond India”. Harvard scholar Nick Waldman and a team from the London School of Economics (LSE) have published a damning report on the Pakistan military establishment’s role in Afghanistan. The report states that a joint US, NATO and Afghan intelligence assessment in 2006 concluded that the ISI not only provided a vital sanctuary for the Taliban, but also paid and pressurised them to fight Americans in Pakistan. The ISI set up medical facilities for wounded Taliban cadres and even arranged for covering fire for infiltration across the Durand Line, separating Pakistan and Afghanistan. Moreover, the report outlines Pakistan’s political rationale for backing the Afghan Taliban. Ever since Afghanistan was founded in 1747 by Ahmed Shah Abdali, who was a Durrani Pashtun, members of the Durrani clan have constituted the leadership of the country. President Hamid Karzai is a Durrani Pashtun. The LSE report notes: “The Pakistan government is said to have a long-term bias against the Durrani tribes due to their record of support for the idea of Pashtunistan”, thereby asserting their claims to traditional Afghan lands which were annexed by the British in 1893. The LSE report thus explains why the ISI supports Mullah Omar, who is not a Durrani Pashtun, but is a Ghilzai from Kandahar. The report states that the ISI had infiltrated and controlled the ruling council of the Taliban, popularly known as the Quetta Shura. It also explains why the ISI recently arrested Mullah Omar’s Deputy, Mullah Baradar, who is a Durrani Pashtun. Mullah Baradar was reportedly negotiating a deal with President Karzai without informing the ISI. New Delhi would be well advised to focus attention on the fact that virtually no Pashtun, either in Pakistan or Afghanistan, recognises the Durand Line as the international border between the two neighbours. Pakistan should be made to realise that playing the “Pashtun card,” as it is presently doing, can be a double-edged sword. There are some in the United States who recognise this. But there are also others like General Petraeus who rationalise the ISI’s links with the Taliban by glibly claiming: “You have to have contact with the bad guys to get intelligence on the bad guys.” Only God can help the US if its forces are fighting the Taliban on the basis of such convoluted logic of its
Generals!
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Milk of kindness Paulo Coelho
says “…… it is important to remind oneself of the forgotten word kindness”. A village on the Rajasthan border wrote its own chapter of kindness. Its womenfolk changed the destiny of a small boy Mohan. His body, just a bundle of bones, covered in scanty flesh, had dim chances of growth. There was no hope for his survival. Time ticked by. Devoutly religious, the boy’s parents first rang the temples bells to invoke God’s benediction, prayed at ‘dargahs’ and gurdwaras, and sought blessings of ‘pirs’ and sadhus. Village life is generally driven by faith and tradition. Villagers seek relief for their maladies in the geographic bounds of their rural habitat. Rarely do their instincts impel them to reach out to the urban professionals. In his childhood, my younger brother suffered a fracture in one of his arms from a fall from the roof while flying a kite. It was the ‘village orthopaedician’ of hereditary wisdom who was preferred and approached. He put two round pieces of baked mud tightly on the broken spot. Miraculously, the fracture healed, but it has left a scar forever. Daily being lifted by his arms or carried on his father’s shoulders, Mohan’s sight tormented his loving parents no end. Faith healing failed. Allopathy was also of no avail. Mohan hardly registered any improvement, but remarkably his life and soul remained on his side. This time the parents went beyond the environs of their own village to a ‘vaid’. A wizened old person, highly endowed with native wisdom, gave one glance to the emaciated child, and pronounced his verdict, “Insufficient mothers’ milk. If his mother does not have it, go to others.” His father told his peers about the vaid’s prescription. In an instant and rare decision of collective kindness, the village elders ordained that the child would be fed by the village women who were feeding their own babes. Most willingly, the young mothers took Mohan as one of their own and gave him of their milk to his hearts’ content. Slowly Mohan’s physique started to bloom and his looks transformed. Close to his hundred years, the angelic ‘vaid’ has lived to see this miracle. After completing his school education, Mohan moved to college and then to university and finally to occupying a prestigious post in the government. The person who was unable to walk to school jogs today as a robust youth. Handsome Mohan, humbled by the kindness of his village folks, proudly declares that the elixir they gave him runs through his veins and he belongs to all of them and not just to his parents. Recalling Mohan’s story, the following lines of Roseane Murray’s poem aptly come to mind: “The soul is invisible The angel is invisible…… With kindness…….. You can guess where the angel is You can change the world” Truly, the story holds the truth: the milk of kindness is the mother of all
mothers.
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While the Lyngdoh committee has partly managed to rid student elections of malpractices and professional politicians, these are still unreasonably expensive. Student interest in elections taper off by the time they graduate. Politics still stinks. A look at contemporary student politics
The changing face of campus politics Campus politics is a caricature of the mainstream political process, with students veering away and national parties influencing the
candidature. Nonetheless, student leaders feel that greater participation of students in politics can be ensured by espousing issues close to their heart. Whenever relevant issues have been raised, the DU campus has witnessed an impressive turnout, notwithstanding the fact that most students come from non-political backgrounds and eschew
university elections. The Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) elections are by far the most exhausting and expensive student union elections in the country, but the elections have never attracted more than 50 per cent students for polling. University politics is considered to be a launching pad for entering the national political arena. The DUSU presidentship is a kind of ticket to enter Delhi
politics. Over the years, the NSUI (Congress) and the ABVP (BJP) have monopolised the DUSU and the campaigns are marked with visits of councillors, MLAs and MPs. The presence of the SFI (CPM) is not potent in Delhi University, but it has succeeded in inspiring an impressive number of students to participate in its marches and
agitations. “We have had some of our biggest marches on the north campus whenever fundamentalists have tried to attack individuals or departments,” Robert Rehman Raman, state president of the SFI, says, adding that students’ cynicism is only a reflection
of the perception of broader politics where mainstream parties have failed to win the faith of the common man. It has also been observed that while first year students participate in the elections with enthusiasm, by the time they graduate to the third year, they lose interest and withdraw from even the minimum engagement. In a “highly politicised” campus like the JNU, which has produced some key Left leaders, students from non-political backgrounds aggressively stress their ideological preferences. “In the JNU, students from rural non-political backgrounds take part in political activity with more enthusiasm than those from cities,” Shephalika Singh, vice-president of the JNU Students Union from AISA (CPI-ML), says. The implementation of the Lyngdoh Committee recommendations has changed the face of campus politics in central universities. While its enforcement has managed to “somewhat” curb the use of money and muscle power in the DU, it has put an indefinite ban on the JNU elections. For the last two years, no student elections have been held there. “The Lyngdoh committee has identified
the problems in student politics, but has not been able to give the right solutions,” Robert Rehman Raman. Ironically, Lyngdoh has put a ban on the JNU elections, which he appreciated in his observations as “fair and democratic”, Sandeep Singh, president of the JNUSU, claims. However, one thing that Lyngdoh has succeeded in doing is to keep “professional” politicians from enrolling in offbeat courses and devote themselves to student union activities, as the case had been in the past.
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Parents take a second look Q: You are one of the younger ministers of the UPA. What in your opinion is the youth’s view of politics? A:
Historically, in the last two or three decades, the view the youth held about politics has not been positive. But I would say that this has not been a homogenous trend because various sections of society have viewed politics and politicians differently. Of late, there has been a positive change in the way younger people have started looking at politics and politicians and primarily that has happened because of infusion of younger people in leadership positions like those of chairmen, sarpanch, pradhan, corporator, MLA or an MP and also because of the way Rahul Gandhi championed the cause of the youth, inviting and infusing young blood into the party and giving it an opportunity to participate in the nation building process and doing it democratically on the basis of an individual’s skills, capacity, diligence and interest in doing service. He has changed the entire criteria of people being inducted on the basis of recommendations, nominations or connections. “I know so and so, you know me” – this mantra of joining politics doesn’t work in the Congress anymore. There is a refreshing change in not just the Congress, but also to a large extent the preconceived notions of the youth have been positively influenced. This required tremendous courage. Q: What do you think deters the youth so far from participating more actively in politics? A:
I think a lot of people were not very clear. They had a lot of ideas, lot of creativity, lot of imagination and they wanted to contribute in nation building, but didn’t know how to do it. They didn’t have the platform to do it. They would often asks us “how do we contribute to public life, how do we contribute to building our nation” and politics was seen as something that was difficult to enter, difficult to sustain and that’s why people had an aversion to joining politics. But that’s beginning to change. Rahul Gandhi has been interacting with young students and professionals, listening to them, making sure that their views and thoughts are inculcated into the thinking of the party. I think that gives a sense of relationship, a sense of belonging, a sense of participation to the youth. That is a new phenomenon that has been ushered in. There was also a problem of access. Today that is no longer an issue since you can communicate through an SMS or an email. Q: You think young people could also look at politics as a career option? A: Certainly, but politics is more than a profession. It is a way of life and I think not everybody should be or can be a politician. You have to be involved in the political process. You have to be sufficiently interested in your surroundings, in the local and national issues. Make your representatives accountable, ask them the right questions. Don’t expect every young man or woman to be a 24-hour politician. But you can take keen interest, and can participate by way of voting. You can raise your voice, vouch for certain things and demand certain others. That keen interest is far more important than joining politics as a 24-hour politician. That’s what makes our democracy more dynamic, more alive. Q: Why do you think parents have consistently been opposed to their children joining politics at the university level? A:
The uncertainty of politics. It does pose many questions and as I said, the disenchantment with the political system has been high in our country and that’s why this skepticism. I must say the apprehensions of parents are not completely misplaced, but now we are trying to initiate some reforms that will clean up our politics. The parents would much rather their children choose a more stable profession, but I think that mindset is slowly changing as they see more and more young professionals becoming MLAs, MPs and ministers. That would make them take a second look at the whole thing.
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Youngsters
Sachin Pilot