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A Tribune Special
Soccer: A cultural and sociological window for Latinos |
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CBI on info ‘misuse’
On Record
Profile
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A Tribune Special
Surprisingly, Saudi Arabia, where women’s freedom and rights are severely curtailed, is 59 in the Human Development Index (HDI) ratings with a HDI value of 0.843. However, India, where women enjoy equal rights under the Constitution is 134 with a HDI value of 0.612. The HDI rating ignores Saudi Arabia’s support to religious fundamentalism and terrorism, explicit and implicit. Surely, there are a host of virtually universally accepted values, concepts and rights defined in documents such as the UN Charter of Human Rights. The present measure of HDI which is based only on a few parameters such as education, life expectancy and income, is not only insufficient but misleading. We need a more accurate measure of human development. It must take into account at least the following factors: The extent of functional democracy in the country’s governance; the extent of de jure commitment to secularism; the extent of de facto commitment to secularism; the extent of separation of religion and affairs of the state; the extent of pluralism in society; de facto commitment to UN Declaration of Human Rights; the level of crime; major/ minor crime based on caste, creed, minority status; the extent of organisation in traffic (a measure of civic sense); right to information; freedom of media; freedom of speech; extent of successful and productive involvement of government in school education; higher education; primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare; Independence and effectiveness of the judiciary; ant sectors of life such as freedom of movement and employment. Other factors worthy of consideration are: Female education index in comparison to male education index; maternal and child health (in comparison to best in the world); percentage of undernourished or malnourished children below 18 years women; percentage of children below 18 years engaged in earning a livelihood for themselves or their family; percentage of population with 12 and 10 years of school education; percentage of population that can read a newspaper, write a letter or do simple sums; the extent of commercialisation of school and higher education and health services; general awareness; opportunities for sports, creative endeavour and education; leisure-time activities; total readership of Indian language newspapers as percentage of total population. Some other factors which could also be considered are the average life expectancy; the level of cleanliness in villages, towns and top 10 cities (population-wise); health and nutrition; incidence of diseases like malaria, TB, leprosy; access to health care; income distribution (as percentage of the total GOP); employment; housing; the extent of conservation of water; access to potable water, electricity, cooking fuel; firewood in rural areas; environmental concerns; prevention of waste; extent of pollution; awareness of need for positive action in response to the problem of climate change; sanitation; telephone; television; radio; travel; transport; and scientific temper. The list is by no means exhaustive; it is only indicative. It should be made reasonably exhaustive (with provision for periodical revision) through public debate. Criteria (as objective as possible) of ‘measurement’ against each item would need to be worked out. Differential weightage would need to be given to various items, depending on their value relative to others. We can, perhaps, allot the highest marks – say 1,000 – for the first item (the extent of democracy in governance). (Other items that would qualify to be allotted the same marks will, no doubt, include equally of sexes.) Under this head, as an example, we would surely need to consider issues such as:
lIs there a system of election for all those who are involved in governance, of which the right to legislate is an important part? l lTo what level does decision-making in governance percolate? In some cases we would need to do research. For example, consider the percentage of adults over 50 with depleted immune response. In the US, according to scientific work published from the National Institute of Aging in Baltimore, adults over 50 generally have a depleted immune response which is a measure of the ability to fight disease. Though this writer doesn’t believe hard data exists to support this view, this writer has no doubt this will not be true of India. This implies that the level of infection by disease-causing agents that an Indian above 50 can deal with, without suffering from the disease, will be much higher than that for an American over 50. This is probably on account of our being exposed to low levels of infection all through our life; these levels don’t cause disease but lead to a robust immunity which the Americans may lack on account of their living in a semi-sterile environment from day 1 – something for which, perhaps, Nature hasn’t designed us. To confirm this important point, the Indian Council of Medical Research should, perhaps, look at the immune status of our countrymen who are above 50. If the above prediction is verified, India would score much higher than the US on this important point which would be an example of Indians being far more capable of coping with an adverse environment than Americans: surely a significant factor for assessing human development? On the other hand, if it turns out that women in more than 50 per cent of the households in India spend hours everyday collecting firewood and water for cooking, drinking and washing, our country would score high negative points in relation to, probably, all other countries in the world. If the above exercise is undertaken both at the national and international level, we can arrive at a rational mechanism for measuring human development index in two years time. Such an exercise will give all countries valuable information about each other and new opportunities to learn from each other’s experiences. A lot of information required for the items listed above can be collected during national census and other surveys by appropriately augmenting their terms of reference. It should not be difficult to set up a mechanism for updating the data every
year. The writer is a former Vice-Chairman, National Knowledge Commission and Member, National Security Advisory Board, Government of India |
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Soccer: A cultural and sociological window for Latinos
Such is the passion for the game that Latinos often see Nirvana in football. The die-hard fans follow the team wherever the matches are played. For example, Argentine teams have their own barra brava, a group of most dedicated fans who not only follow their teams but also entertain the crowd with drums and trumpets. R. Viswanathan, India’s Ambassador to Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, has this to say, “In South America, marital infidelity is forgiven, not football disloyalty…Even marriages and friendships are built or broken on the issue of loyalty to the team.” Passion and football are one and the same in Latin America. A game it may be, but like it or not, its traditions, eccentricities and caprices have made it the most successful game ever invented by humans. Football is interwoven into the fabric of Latin American society and culture. It is admired universally for the skill, passion and flair. But in Latin America, football is unadulterated joy. When the World Cup or Copa Americana is on, in most Latin American homes organised religion and organised football could be seen vying for supremacy. When the going is not in their favour, many invoke their God —the religious ones their Gods and football fanatics their heroes and stars for deliverance. Latin Americans say they worship football which helps them escape from the harsh social conditions of their country. Talk to a Brazilian, the discussion often shifts to football. More so now when Brazil has won the privilege to host the World Cup Football in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016. “We Brazilians cool ourselves off by watching football just as religious worshippers cool off with hymns and other rituals” is a familiar refrain. There have been 18 FIFA World Cup tournaments since the inaugural in 1930. Nine have been won by Latin Americans and nine by Europe till now. Brazil is the only non-European country to ever win in Europe. What is so unique about the Latin American football? While European teams are taken to be a lot more strategic, they are also defensive and perhaps less entertaining. Latin American football is lot more open and fun, with more free-style moves. Football in Latin America is the working class’s ballet. As Italian journalist Thomas Mazzoni once wrote, “English football, well-played, is like a symphony orchestra; well-played, Brazilian football is like an extremely hot jazz band.” Diego Maradona, recognised by FIFA in 2000 as the greatest player of all time, is worshipped in Argentina for more than his footballing talent. Some would say he is bigger than football. If Sachin Tendulkar is god of cricket, Maradona is god of football. No other sporting figure perhaps has the kind of fan following that Maradona has. Some of his fans have set up what they claim the “Church of Maradona” with its own credo and prayers. How does one explain this obsession? In Latin America there is a culture of love for the underdogs. Maradona belonged to what is commonly known as descamisados, the shirtless people. Born to a poor family in Corrientes, a shanty town on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Maradona’s rise was epochal. Such was his power that each time, the little, malnourished boy from Corrientes touched the ball, he incarnated the little man fighting great powers. In 1986 when Maradona scored the goals against England, it was as if Argentina took revenge for its humiliating defeat in the 1982 Falklands war. Maradona’s autobiography, Yo Soy El Diego (I am Diego), published in 2000, became a national bestseller. Maradona’s politics is no less flamboyant. He loves Fidel Castro and sports a Che Guevara tattoo. He is lately enamoured of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. After meeting Chavez, he said, “I like women, but I left in love with Chavez”. In 2005, when George Bush came visiting Argentina, he organised a march of protesters in Buenos Aires against what he called the “human garbage” Bush. Incidentally, Hugo Chavez too travelled all the way to Buenos Aires to join the protest against Bush. There is also football nationalism in Latin America, the only region which fought a war over football. The two tiny Central American states —Honduras and El Salvador — fought a 100-hour-long football war in 1969. It was caused by Honduras’ drubbing at the hands of El Salvador during the qualifying match for the 1970 World Cup in Mexico. Football does inspire strong emotions — primitive and tribal. Tennis, basket ball or badminton don’t create such frenzy. British author Arthur Koestler has therefore called it “football nationalism.” Latin Americans often use soccer as a cultural and sociological window. Latin America represents a strange and complex world where politics and football are intertwined, where tragedy and comedy co-exist, and where truth can perhaps be stranger and more compelling than fiction. Historically, a product of conquest and colonisation, of authoritarian European monarchies and indigenous theocracies, Latin America was compelled to invent and re-invent its own story continuously. Only till a few decades ago, the Latins direly characterised themselves as “the people who never win.” In fact, great Mexican philosopher Leopoldo Zea wrote typically of the pessimism that seemed to infuse Latin America from its very birth: “We carry our defects in our blood.” Here is a continent whose culture, religion and language were virtually destroyed. What remains today is a hybrid culture transplanted from every corner of the earth embodying a desperate need for identity. For long, Latin identity was expressed mainly in music, literature and crafts. There was good reason for this. During the conquest the only books that were allowed were either religious or scientific. Hence football nationalism and football as identity are so ingrained. One analyst has even talked of an independent republic of football. Uruguayans boast till date, “Other countries have their history; we have our football.” The writer is Associate Director,
Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi |
CBI on info ‘misuse’
Reportedly, this is the latest allegation to come out of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) which has had to process over 4,000 cases last year. Some grey beards have tut tutted in agreement with the notion of ‘misuse’. The quote attributed to the CBI says “people facing criminal charges are seeking details of their cases from probe agencies through the Right to Information (RTI) Act, and using it to bolster their defence”. This requires everyone to gasp in horror at the new fangled ways in which bad people are escaping the law through RTI ‘misuse’. There are two notions implicit in the statement: one that folks embroiled in criminal cases must necessarily be guilty and two, that by using access to information rights they are now doing something entirely illegitimate to escape the law. These notions must be disabused. The legal process has a fine logic which is not widely appreciated. First, a fundamental principle under our law — and one which is fast getting lost in the public’s psyche — is that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. The burden of proving every element of that guilt lies with the prosecution. Unlike Bollywood films where some bizarre fact inevitably comes to light at the last moment or some long lost witness suddenly comes rushes into court shouting Rook jaayoh rook jaayoh, Mee Laard there are no surprise tactics allowed at court. The prosecution must marshal all its facts at an early stage of the case and make them known in detail. This is for several reasons: one, as mentioned is the rule that a fair trial requires the accused to know what case he has to answer so he can mount his defence properly. The other is to ensure that there is a real case to answer and the law is not being used to victimise people unnecessarily. The preliminary decision of assessing if all the elements of the crime are made out lies with the judge and not with the prosecution. So the judge needs to know the clear facts and circumstances on which the prosecution is basing its case as well. Finally, by making sure that there is sufficient information to ground that the person in question may have committed the crime being tried, the exchequer does not waste money, nor the court its time, nor the state its energies on running cases that are thin or baseless and wont in the end, come to anything. It is much to its credit that the CBI can say it provides information sought 95 per cent of the time. This in itself is proof that the information asked for is unexceptional and has to be given under the law. In truth, if systems ran as smoothly as they should the information would be given automatically as part of the process of bringing a person to trial rather than having to be specifically cajoled out through RTI applications. What should really be in question is why it takes so much effort to get what is rightfully required to mount a sound defence. By contrast to the CBI, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and the Intelligence Bureau (IB) — agencies excluded from making any disclosures under the Right to Information Act except where the matter relates to human rights violation or corruption — have recently refused to reveal how many cases of sexual harassment they have had to face in the last decade. It could be argued that this non-disclosure amounts to ‘misuse’. True, the statute does not oblige them to answer all requests. But it does not prevent them from giving innocuous information either. Giving the information would only have indicated how well or poorly staff is protected by the agencies internal sexual harassment policies and whether in fact there are vigorous standards in place. Taking shelter of a statutory exclusion intended for quite another purpose just feeds doubt and suspicion. In reality, giving information almost always helps get to the truth of the matter. Though allegations of ‘misuse’ are flying around, there is no evidence to show that more people are getting off because more information is being given. One could argue that perhaps trials are becoming more just because everyone knows what’s going on. Even if as a result of having more information folks are getting off, it would only be indicative that the police/prosecution case was shaky to begin with and that more must be done to better equip investigating agencies with skills, manpower and infrastructure and hold the prosecution more accountable for mounting half-baked prosecutions. Implying that the root cause of bad folks getting off at law somehow lies in the use of the right to information is barking up the wrong tree.n The writer is Director, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative,New Delhi |
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On Record
Dr Asko
Parpola, Professor Emeritus of Indology at the Institute of World Cultures, University of Helsinki, is a leading authority on the Indus Civilisation and its script. On the basis of sustained work on the Indus script, he has concluded that the script, which is yet to be deciphered, encodes a proto-Dravidian script close to old Tamil. As a Sanskrit scholar, his fields of specialisation include the Sama Veda and Vedic rituals. During a visit to Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, recently to attend the World Classical Tamil Conference, he shared some of his views with The Tribune. Excerpts: Q: The Indus script shows only short signs on seals and tablets. Do you think it is a writing system? A: The Indus signs are generally available on seals and tablets. It was presumed that the seals and tablets had short Indus texts because they were meant for trade and commerce. However, a three-metre long inscription on wood inlaid with stone crystals was found at Dholavira in Gujarat. The Indus script is a writing system because it is highly standardised and the signs are as a rule written in regular lines. There are hundreds of sign sequences which recur in the same order, often at many different sites. The preserved texts are mostly seal stones, and seals in other cultures usually have writing recording the name or title of the seal owner. The Indus people were acquainted with cuneiform writing through their trade contacts with Mesopotamia. Q: Is the short form of the script an obstacle for deciphering it? A: The main impediment is the absence of a key as the Rosetta stone, which contained the same text in different scripts and languages. There is no script closely similar of the same origin which could give clues to the sound values of the Indus signs. There is much controversy about its type and the language underlying it. Apart from the likelihood that the Greater Indus Valley was probably called Meluhha in Sumerian, there is no historical information concerning the Indus Civilisation. As you know, it was the names and genealogies of the Persian kings, known from Greek historians and the Bible, which opened up the cuneiform script. Q: Some Indian scholars feel that the Indus Civilisation is Aryan and connected with the Rig Veda. You are a Vedic scholar, besides specialising in the Indus script too. What is your response to this? A: Rigvedic hymns often speak of horses and horse-drawn chariots, and the horse sacrifice, Ashvamedha, is among the most prestigious Vedic rites. The only wild native known from the finds of the Indus Civilisation and depicted in its art and script is the wild ass. The domesticated horse is absent from South Asia until the second millennium BC. Finds from Pirak and Swat from 1600 BC show it was introduced from Central Asia after the Indus Civilisation. Q: If the Harappan language is related to Dravidian languages, there must be some traces of it in north India? A: Twenty-six Dravidian languages were now mainly spoken in central and southern parts of India. However, one Dravidian language, Brahui, had been spoken in Baluchistan of Pakistan for at least 1,000 years. Loanwords from the Dravidian family had been identified from Indo-Aryan texts composed in northwestern India around 1100-600 BC. Besides, Indo-Aryan had several structural features that had long been interpreted as borrowings from Dravidian. Historical linguistics thus suggests that the Harappans probably spoke a Dravidian language. Q: You have found the key to deciphering the Indus script? Will it be easy to decipher the script in future? A: There are still serious difficulties in the decipherment of the script. One is the schematic shape of many signs which makes it difficult to recognise their pictorial meaning with certainty. Possibilities of proposing likely readings and their effective checking are severely limited by our defective knowledge of Proto-Dravidian vocabulary, compounds and
phraseology. |
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Profile One of eight children of a not well-to-do school master, he had a flair for poetry and Shankrit dramas. No one in Dhananjayan’s family had ever danced professionally, but his father had staged amateur dramatic performances based largely on mythological themes with a makeshift troupe he had gathered primarily from among his relatives. Dhananjayan has acted in his father’s plays and grew up seeing his father and other kin travel from village to village during school vacations, performing as they moved on. As a youth, Dhananjayan watched but did not train with two Kathakali troupe located in Payyanur-Kodoth Kathakali Sangam, a 150-year-old organisation sponsored by a big landlord. While teaching at Kalakshetra in the 1950s, noted artist Chandu Panicker was assigned by Rukmini Devi the responsibility of finding young male dancers willing to come to Kalakshetra to learn Kathakali and Bharatanatyam. In 1953, when Dhananjayan’s father happened to meet Chandu Panicker in a train, he expressed difficulty in feeding such a large family of his meagre school teacher’s salary and offered one of his sons to Panicker. Dhananjayan had taken a particular interest in Sanskrit literature during his primary school days and had been writing poetry from the age of eight. Having sensed a unique sparkle in Dhananjayan and a propensity for creative ideas, his father decided purely on instinct to choose him out of four sons to send to Kalakshetra. A week later of his father’s meeting Panicker, Dhananjayan was on his way to Kalakshetra where he spent the next 15 years of his life. Dhananjayan’s father had requested that if his 14-year-old son did not meet Rukmini’s qualifications, he should be sent back. Fortunately, not only was he accepted, he was also given a scholarship to study at Kalakshetra where the rigors of his education and way of life prepared him to meet the challenges of life as a dancer. Initially, his dance training and education at Kalakshetra was his only contact with the outside world. Much of his inspirations, dedication and attitude to life were fashioned here. Shanta Dhananjayan, a post-graduate diploma holder with distinction in Bharatnatyam has also learnt Kathakali and Carnatic music at Kalakshetra. She was a leading dancer from 1955 to 1968. Born on August 12, 1943 in a well-to-do Indian family in Malaysia, Shanta was a child prodigy. Though Shanta was born in Malaysia, she traces her ancestry to Kerala from where her family migrated to Malaysia. Her father was an accountant with the BBC. By the time she was three, her parents were convinced that Shanta would be a dancer. They found in her an inborn response to dance and joy of movement and decided to send her to India for her education. After a brief period in Kerala, her parents wanted to send her to Shantiniketan, which was then a great centre of arts. With the encouragement of her uncle Achuta Menon, they sent her to Kalakshetra as an eight-year old girl in June 1952. When Guru Chandu Panicker was taking two boys — Balgopal and Dhananjayan — to meet Rukmini Devi, Dhananjayan saw the young Shanta for the first time at the Theosophical Society Gardens. She was the first girl Dhananjayan was introduced to when he, a village boy, who knew nothing except Malayalam, arrived at Kalakshetra. Shanta was a serious girl totally devoted to her dance and she secretly made up her mind at the age of 12 to be the life-partner of Dhananjayan. Thus, the team of two formidable dancers was formed and it is still going strong though Dhananjayan is 71 and Shanta
67. |
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