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VIP land grabbers
Straws in the wind |
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Killings at Lahore Suicide bombings take a dangerous turn Suicide bombings by terrorist outfits in Pakistan are now threatening to destroy the social fabric in Pakistan. This is clear from Thursday night’s attack at the Data Gunj Bakhsh shrine in Lahore, resulting in the death of at least 44 persons. One of the most popular Islamic shrines, the complex that has come up in memory of a ninth century sufi saint, Syed Abul Hasan Ali Hajvery, popularly called Data Gunj Bakhsh, attracts a large number of devotees from different parts of South Asia.
Unfair to military personnel
The game of life
Naxal resurgence
Need to strike at the root cause
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VIP land grabbers WHEN Le Corbusier planned Chandigarh, he had ordained that no other city should come up anywhere in its vicinity. He would have never imagined that Panchkula and Mohali would be developed within metres of the dream city. As if that was not bad enough, much of the open space in its periphery has been grabbed by land sharks. Agricultural land has already been converted into lavish farmhouses and illegal colonies. Those who are supposed to stop such illegal activity have turned a blind eye because the land grabbers stand far higher than them in the hierarchy. Whether it is Punjab politicians, including Cabinet ministers and MLAs, or IAS and PCS officers, almost everybody who is somebody indulged in the land loot. Thanks to the media focus, this systematic robbery is being looked into by the judiciary. Many uncomfortable truths are tumbling out. Some 145 IAS officers and 180 PCS officers are among those who grabbed land on the periphery. An ordinary person doing so is bad enough. When those who form the steel frame of the administration do so, the crime is far more serious. What makes it even worse is the fact that many of them have not even been able to explain where they got the money to make these acquisitions. One hopes that the inquiry by Punjab DGP (Railways) Chander Shekhar will reach its logical conclusion. Besides the VIP land grabbers, the periphery was also ruined by nearly 350 illegal colonisers from 1984 to 2010. They floated societies at Zirakpur, Kansal, Karoran, Mohali, Dera Bassi, Lalru, Dhakoli, Bishanpura, Baltana, Himmatgarh and Sohana, etc, as if they had no fear of the law. Apparently, they were certain that the police would not “interfere”. Such lawlessness could not take place without the tacit approval of higher-ups. Only if all wrongdoers are deprived of their illegal properties and are also fined heavily would the future land grabbers think twice before emulating them.
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Straws in the wind
Chhattisgarh
DGP Vishwa Ranjan’s acerbic quip, “...cannot teach the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) to walk…” has rightly provoked widespread criticism. The statement, coming as it did immediately after 27 CRPF men were killed by the Maoists in Chhattisgarh recently, was not only in poor taste but also demoralising for the force. It reflected poorly on the DGP’s own ability to coordinate any future operation with the CRPF. The public statement, quoted out of context according to the DGP, served to highlight, however, the lack of cohesion and coordination between the state police and the Central forces placed at their disposal. It also indicated their mutual lack of confidence in each other and even a certain degree of contempt. The CRPF is not only better equipped and arguably better trained but it is also better paid and, even more importantly, compensated better in the case of loss of life. Under these circumstances, it is easy to see why the relatively poor state police is bitter over criticism that somehow it is responsible for the mistakes made by the CRPF and the deviations made by its men from the standard operating procedures. The statement, however, is symptomatic of a deeper malaise and indicates a disturbing trend. Different arms of the government appear increasingly out of sync with each other, and mutual acrimony and distrust seem to have clouded the process of due deliberation within the government. The governments, both at the Centre and in the states, have seemingly lost their ability to work together and take collective action. That is why one finds the Union Minister of State for Health, Dinesh Trivedi, fulminating against the bureaucracy and blaming the babus of his own department for being a hindrance rather than help. A Punjab police officer of the rank of DGP, Chander Shekhar, similarly is reported to have submitted before the Punjab and Haryana High Court that the district police officials, notably the SSPs, are not only slow in acting against the land and building mafia but that they are simply not doing enough. These stray statements unfortunately reflect poorly on governance and leadership. Ministers and senior officers are expected to exercise their authority and come up with solutions. But when they themselves start complaining, blaming others and come up with alibis, something somewhere is not quite right.
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Killings at Lahore
Suicide
bombings by terrorist outfits in Pakistan are now threatening to destroy the social fabric in Pakistan. This is clear from Thursday night’s attack at the Data Gunj Bakhsh shrine in Lahore, resulting in the death of at least 44 persons. One of the most popular Islamic shrines, the complex that has come up in memory of a ninth century sufi saint, Syed Abul Hasan Ali Hajvery, popularly called Data Gunj Bakhsh, attracts a large number of devotees from different parts of South Asia. It is a mela-like scene every Thursday with qawwali sessions and the devout paying homage to the sufi saint, who lies buried there. The Muslims who visit such shrines are Sunnis owing allegiance to the Barelvi school of Islamic thought. But all this is considered un-Islamic (“shirk” and “biddat”) by the Wahabi school to which Al-Qaida, the Taliban, the Lashkar-e-Taiyaba and many other extremist movements belong. The denial of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) that has nothing to do with the dance of death at the Lahore shrine is unbelievable. If the TTP is not involved directly, the gruesome killings can be the handiwork of one of its associates like the Punjabi Taliban. This is not for the first time that a sufi saint’s shrine has been targeted by the extremists in Pakistan. Suicide bombers have earlier attacked two such places of worship — the shrines of Rehman Baba and Mian Umar Baba — in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province (earlier the NWFP). Besides this, Sunni groups have been killing the devout in Shia and Ahmedi mosques, and Shias killing people in Sunni mosques. The sectarian conflict is not new to Pakistan. Such killings have, however, increased for a few years with suicide bombings replacing the Kalashnikov culture. Those spreading sectarian hatred find it easier to lure youngsters to join their destructive projects. Therefore, it is not surprising that one of the three suicide bombers who hit the Lahore shrine was an 18-year-old young man. This is a new face of terrorism in Pakistan. The culture of religious intolerance provides an ideal atmosphere to terrorist movements to strengthen themselves. The infection can spread to other parts of South Asia if it is not stopped at this stage.
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I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I know); Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who. — Rudyard Kipling
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Unfair to military personnel
Governments, they say, are impersonal and yet a democracy is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. We take pride in saying that we are the world’s largest democracy. Yet, the people’s voice is largely not heard because the political leadership and the bureaucrats who advise them are so bound by rules and regulations (of their own making unfortunately) that unless they are nudged, nay shoved violently, it is difficult to change their somnambulant state. Unfortunately, the military fraternity of both serving and retired categories seems to be experiencing the brunt of it, especially since early 2008, when the continuing and tragic saga of the Sixth Pay Commission commenced. While the commission has been hogging the headlines, there are many other important issues that also need to be highlighted so that the people, who after all are supposedly the real rulers of the country, are aware of them. This piece is about a few inter-linked yet vastly different issues that are making military personnel very angry and justifiably so. The first is the case of the “rank pay”, where despite an elaborate and clear ruling by the Supreme Court, the authorities, ill advised by the bureaucracy, have filed another appeal! This is a farce of monumental proportions being played against a large number of affected military officers. As a case of bureaucratic pusillanimity and procrastination, this does take the cake. Let me briefly narrate the essentials. In 1986, the recommendations of the Fourth Pay Commission included the grant of “rank pay” to all defence officers of the rank up to brigadier and equivalent. However, while implementing the same, equivalent amounts were reduced from the pay, by an omission or by design (both perceptions exist)! No military person noticed this at that time. This may be hard to believe but the prevailing culture at that time was that most military personnel were fairly blasé about their pay and allowances. It was in fact considered infra dig to get in to mundane issues like entitlements, as it was a firm belief that the authorities will always look after one’s interests. It is now clear that we were really naive. The authorities in the corridors of South and North Blocks, however, had little time for such niceties! Having learnt bitter lessons after the Sixth Pay Commission, the military has now become wiser, but at the huge cost of losing confidence, trust and fair play in the government (read bureaucracy). Reverting to the “rank pay” case, the issue came to light only when retired Major Dhannapalan discovered it, approached the Kerala High Court for redress and fought it with the unrelenting Ministry of Defence (MoD) in both the High Court and the Supreme Court, till he won the case in 2005, after nine years. However, while implementing the judgment, the MoD gave benefits only to the officer. The representations of a large number of similarly affected officers were ignored. This resulted in a flood of writ petitions, as the affected officers had no other option but to seek justice from the courts. Finally, despite the vehement opposition by the MoD, the Supreme Court ruled on March 8, 2010, that the benefit of the judgment must be extended to all eligible military officers and also awarded 6 per cent interest on the amount due to the officers. While the affected officers were still doing their calculations, the empire struck back with an appeal against the ruling. Why is the MoD deliberately trying to deny justice to a large number of military officers? Is it a delaying tactic designed to cheat the military personnel and stall the implementation of the judgment, or a case of losing face or the fear of being penalised for a deliberate act of commission, or a combination of all three? Whatever be the motivation, the military personnel are livid on being denied their legitimate emoluments. This also begs the larger question of the government being the single biggest litigant, keeping the courts busy and in the process preventing them from dispensing justice to more needy persons. I fail to understand the logic of the government contesting every order the Supreme Court has passed in favour of defence forces. It did so for umpteen years in the case of fixation of pension of Major-Generals. In the case of a disabled officer, Capt CS Sidhu, the Supreme Court was constrained to remark that the government treated its soldiers worse than beggars! Dr V. Moily, Minister of Law and Justice, has recently announced the National Litigation Policy, which aims to reduce average pendency time from 15 years to three years. The policy emphasises that the government must cease to be a compulsive litigant. The Law Minister may keep making announcements and publishing policies, but will the stalwarts in the MoD as well as other ministries listen? In the meantime, the large numbers of affected military personnel continue to be deprived of their legitimate emoluments. Let me now highlight the second and a more recent issue, relating to jobs for military personnel after their retirement. In 2004, the Directorate-General of Resettlement, as part of its drive for securing jobs for retired officers and soldiers, had persuaded the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) to accept retired military personnel for running toll plazas on highways. Being disciplined and honest, they are doing a superb job and have already increased collections at the ex-servicemen-run toll plazas from the earlier 15 to 80 per cent. There are over 25,000 military veterans running NHAI-owned toll plazas, while another 10,000 provide logistical support. Now, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has decided to auction all the toll plazas to the highest bidder. The motive is undoubtedly monetary, while efficient running or jobs for the needy veterans do not seem to have any place in the thinking of the government! As a sop, the NHAI has stated that the toll plazas in Jammu and Kashmir, northeastern states or other disturbed areas would continue to be kept for the military veterans sponsored by the Director-General of Resettlement. How nice, but no toll plaza exists in these areas! While the government is keen to employ military veterans to do all the difficult fighting against the Maoists, including the highly dangerous clearance of mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs), when it comes to giving them their dues in terms of their legitimate emoluments or jobs as part of their rehabilitation, it baulks at and panders to power and money brokers. Is this our version of
democracy?
The writer is a former Vice-Chief of the Army.
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The game of life LIFE is so much like the game of
football where merely reaching the goal is not enough, but scoring the goal matters at the end.
Like in a game of football, in real life we keep on making moves. We look for space to move ahead with least resistance. We get good support from friends and associates and keep on moving ahead. We come across so much resistance from the opponents. They keep on countering our moves at every step. They try to snatch our initiative. Yet we try to dodge and dribble past them. The game has to be fair lest we commit a foul to the advantage of opponents. For scoring the goal we need to be at the right place at the right time and make the right kick into the net. Yet again it is not necessary that playing the game well will guarantee us a goal. It only brightens our prospects of a score. Sometimes it so happens that a team playing the game so well does not score a winning goal while an ordinary one manages to do so. Like in football, there are self goals in real life also. The game of football teaches us that in any case we have to work hard and struggle and we can’t wait for the ball to reach us on its own. We have to struggle hard like the passionate football player who tries to overcome all the resistance to reach the goalpost with the hope that he will kick the ball into the net. Reaching the goal is certainly in our hands and scoring the goal is certainly a matter of chance. Reaching the goalpost has no shortcuts. Long passes usually don’t work. We have to move ahead along with the ball or with the short passes and the support of others against so much resistance at every step. We have to play hard with dedication to reach our goal. Like in football, many of us are remembered more for the missed goals and missed
opportunities.
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Naxal resurgence
Across
India the police and paramilitary forces of the country, despite many obvious differences, share one thing in common. Every time a policeman in uniform steps out of the parade ground after finishing his training, he takes an oath to serve the country till his death. Not all of us abide by this oath faithfully, but enough of us do. And, of late, far too many of us have been called upon to fulfil this oath. The spectacle of mutilated bodies of the 26 personnel killed in the ambush at Narayanpur on June 29 is a grim reminder both of this sacred oath and of the ruthless intentions of our Maoist adversary. By any standards, the massacre of 76 security personnel at Chintalnag, Dantewada on April 6 was a disaster. The IED blast on May 16, also in Dantewada, that killed 31 civilians and security personnel was another setback. This has been followed now by the ambush in Narayanpur. As a serving policeman, one mourns and salutes their sacrifice. But these successive blows have led to a serious loss of perspective. How easily we forget that it is this very same CRPF that has successfully fought and contained various insurgencies across the country fighting side by side with the state police and the Indian Army. The bottom line is, this is a war, and there will be casualties. Don't fight a war if you are not prepared to take casualties. Eloquent and charismatic advocates of Maoists' aims and tactics such as Arundhati Roy would do well to remember that a Maoist utopia would have no space even for them to express their vitriol in the manner they do against our admittedly flawed democracy. Our citizen activists feel that they are on the side of the underdog, the poor, the exploited and the dispossessed villagers, mostly tribals, inhabiting the vast chunks of the red corridor, who are daring to face up to the greed of corporates and the might of the Indian state. This is a simplistic narrative successfully and seductively advanced by the propaganda machinery of the Maoists. It simply ignores the vast amounts of human suffering that Marxist movements have inflicted on mankind in the 20th century alone. It is a measure of the shallowness of our intellectual class that so many of them have fallen hook, line, and sinker for an ideology that has been so recently and so repeatedly discredited by history. There is no question that our state and Central security forces have the wherewithal to take on the Maoists. First of all, the intellectual respectability given to Maoist ideology in our universities and in our media needs to be painstakingly exposed. This is after all a battle to be fought with hearts and minds as much as it is to be fought with guns and bullets. Those who are covert activists of the Maoists need to face the long arm of the law and their misguided sympathizers in different parts of our civil society need to be carefully identified and confronted with the truth. The idea that social or economic inequality justifies violence against the state and civil society is morally and intellectually indefensible and those who advance it must be held accountable for aiding and abetting violence. While in the aftermath of Dantewada much has been talked about tactics at the platoon and company level, but very little discussion has taken place about cutting off the financial wellspring that sustains this insurgency. Each year the Maoists are known to collect hundreds of crores as extortion money (some estimates place it at thousands of crores each year) and use it to fund their armed struggle as well as their well-publicized efforts to supplant the institutions of the Indian state. This money trail needs to be identified and choked off to ensure that the financial power that is the life blood of this insurgency is drained away. We must take heart from our success stories in Andhra Pradesh and Punjab. The two common factors in all these experiences were first that the state police played a crucial role in fighting insurgencies. For all its glaring deficiencies we must not forget that a police station is a basic unit of grassroots governance and internal security. A counter insurgency strategy that overlooks this basic reality and relies mainly on massive induction of central forces, without strengthening the state police forces, not just for fighting militancy, but for better delivery of the essential governance objectives of maintaining law and order and prevention and detection of crime, is unlikely to deliver the required results. The second common factor was that effective systems were put in place for effective co-ordination between the state and Central agencies. The Indian Army, the para-military and the state police fought shoulder to shoulder in Punjab and continue to do so in J & K and there is no reason why the systems in place there cannot be adapted for combating the Maoist menace. With due respect to the wisdom of our Air Chief, given the difficult terrain, some thought will have to be given to the sustained use of aerial assets at least in a surveillance and support role. It is ironical that while thousands of crores can be earmarked for developmental schemes for the Maoist-affected areas - knowing full well that in the absence of credible law and order, the delivery systems in these areas have collapsed and much of this money would flow into Maoist coffers anyway - we are still not prepared to make serious and sustained investment into improving our grassroots police infrastructure. Along with strengthening the physical infrastructure, we need legal protection for our forces that are deployed in these areas so that one does not see a spate of suicides by frustrated and abandoned policemen once the back of the insurgency is broken. The Indian Army has the protection of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, and although it may be politically incorrect to defend it, the fact remains that it provides legal basis to bona fide use of force by our Armed Forces. Why shouldn't our Central para-military Forces (CPMFs) and State Police forces be provided a similar protection when they operate in an environment that is just as hostile and deadly? We need more reassurance and legal backing to support the difficult choices we have to make. Despite the media hype, this is not Home Minister P Chidambaram's war. This is the nation's war. Lack of a policy consensus on this critical issue amongst our elected representatives and civil society along with the reluctance to publicly support and inspire our brave jawans, are deeply disturbing. Ultimately, civil society must realize that the freedom they cherish is ultimately guaranteed by the oath taken by our 1.4 million military and 2.4 million police and para-military forces across this country. The Maoists understand this well and, hence, they target us ruthlessly. This oath is sacred to us but it does not represent a blank cheque so that civil society can demonize and vilify us while the Maoists murder and mutilate us at will.
The author is SSP Dehradun. These are his personal views.
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Need to strike at the root cause The Naxalite movement is more than four decades old but the political challenge it poses now was never witnessed in the past. According to the figures from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) there is a steep rise in the number of violence related deaths from sheer 50 in the year 2000 to 1,134 by 2009, a rise of more than 22 times. According to another estimate the death toll has crossed 6,000 during the last two decades. Nearly 35% of the districts of India are affected by the Naxalite movement, some of them so severely that even administration fears to tread deeper into those areas. The epicentre of the armed resistance has shifted from Andhra Pradesh to Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and parts of West Bengal. Most of the tribal dominated parts of India are undergoing a phase of severe social, economic and political turbulence, thanks to the high tide of globalisation. The figures gathered from the MHA shows that there are 36 'insurgent' or 'terrorist' groups/ 'parties' in Assam, 41 in Manipur, 30 in Tripura and 13 in Mizoram. That is why the entire North East, dominated by tribes, remains a hot spot for militancy. These resistance groups perceive themselves as revolutionary, socialist or nationalist and prefer to be called as Army, Force or Front. Displacement of tribal population for mining purposes, restrictions on access to forest resources and poor governance are the reasons often quoted for the armed uprising. While these reasons are valid and quite important, they are also excuses to divert attention from the larger and more fundamental issue of framework of development. India has failed to honour the idea of Swaraj (self rule) of Gandhiji that is a complete alternative philosophy of development sans destruction. Gandhiji provided an eco-friendly radical alternative to the western civilisation by advocating restricted mechanisation of the labour process and a peasant centric development far removed from the excesses of the liberal market. He also suggested the means of achieving the above Nature-centric model of development by taking recourse to Satyagraha and Non-violence, and not guns. Though there does not seem to be stark differences between Gandhiji and Naxalites on the people-friendly approach to development, the political and strategic means followed by Naxalites are largely drawn from the experience of China, particularly the victory of 'Long March' over the strong one million Kuomintang soldiers of Chiang Kai-shek. It is worth remembering here that the striking power of Indian state is many folds more than of Chinese Kuomintang of 1940s. The failure of the Indian state to follow the people friendly path of development as advocated by Gandhiji is the source of all the political troubles that has now taken a violent turn. There is no easy and simple answer to the question that why the tribal people have picked up guns against their 'own' government. Suffice to say that tribals are forced to pay the cost of Indian liberal economic development disproportionately whereby the displacement from their home and hearth is not sufficiently compensated. Indian state is still reluctant to take tribes into confidence before their mineral rich lands are acquired to pass on to the multinational companies (MNCs) for pittance. Moreover, it is not simply the question of compensation in economic terms, the cost of social and cultural capital is far more than the economic loss. There is no justification in evictioning tribes from their age old lands and forbidding them to avail 'fruits' of forest. And all this is being done in the name of pulling up tribes into the whirlpool of civilisation. If the greed of MNCs for natural mineral resources continues at the present pace, to a great anguish of Ganghiji, tribal culture would soon be found locked behind the show cases of museums. The world is paying cost of 'civilisation' by losing forests, fresh air and water, diversity of flora and fauna, and above all a humane touch. People are emptied out of their essential being only to be stuffed with ever increasing lust for consumer goods. Tribals, under the leadership of Naxalites, are fighting last leg battle against the onslaught of globalisation whereby they are being forced to be faceless 'wage slaves'. The challenge of sustainability of high growth rate apart, why we wish to uproot tribes when we are not sure to provide them any better life in the unruly urban settings. The way the world is passing through the pangs of development and concomitant boomeranging effects nobody can guarantee that the quality of life after displacement of tribal people would be better than what they have today. There is an urgent need to strike a balance between man, nature and development. Tribal uprising, under the leadership of Naxalites, is a clear expression of malaise in the model of development and governance. It is not the brute statistics of economic growth that matters, the quality of life of men in the street is the real index of prosperity and happiness. This cannot be achieved through gun battles. The resurgence of Naxalite politics during the last two decades is a source of serious concern, not because it is posing a threat to the Indian state, rather because it exposes the exclusionary practices of Indian state that is making it hollow from within. It is time to introspect why 70 per cent Indians are still reeling below global poverty standards. Muffling voice by imposing ban on armed resistance is only going to aggravate the alienation of people at the margin. The ideal response of the state to violence should be to encourage dialogue, work out inclusive growth and sustainable development. The author is Director, Centre for Study of Social Exclusion Arts Block VII, Panjab University, Chandigarh
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THE recent alarm sounded by the Punjab Police that Naxalism is extending its wings to south Punjab raises several questions. Why marginalised peasants, particularly tribes, are in a mood of rebellion? Are they simply expressing their disenchantment with the system or are they designing to pose a threat to the Indian state? How Indian state proposes to handle Naxalite menace? How far imposing ban on CPI (Maoist) has helped to curtail 'terrorist' threat? These questions beg response from across different sections of society.