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Dabbling in politics
Real calamity |
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Women as bishops
Perils of caste census
The sleeper and the shouter
Looking Back
Looking AHEAD
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Dabbling in politics
While
nobody can question Karnataka Governor Hans Raj Bharadwaj’s concern over the alleged involvement of some ministers in illegal mining in his state, the manner in which he is going about it is questionable and is a clear transgression of the provisions of the Constitution that do not envisage an activist Governor. Under the Constitution, a Governor can play an independent role only on two occasions: in determining who should be invited to explore the possibility of forming a government in the case of a hung verdict in the Assembly elections; and when a government loses the majority support of the State Assembly and is reduced to a minority. The manner in which Mr Bharadwaj has been functioning in Karnataka in the past one year raises doubts about his intentions. Apart from dabbling in state politics, he has been creating hurdles in the functioning of the government at every step and even on matters relating to holding elections to the Bangalore City Corporation, something that the Constitution doesn’t allow him to do. True, the Governor has not named the two controversial ministers — Tourism Minister G. Janardhan Reddy and Revenue Minister G. Karunakara Reddy — while asking Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa to take action against them. However, he violated the Lakshman Rekha when he questioned their legitimacy and continuance in the Cabinet. Consider the synchronisation of his controversial statement soon after his meeting with President Pratibha Patil on Wednesday and the indefinite sit-in by the Congress and Janata Dal (S) MLAs in the State Assembly demanding a CBI probe on the two ministers. Not surprisingly, the BJP dubbed the Governor a “Congress agent” working to “dislodge” the Yeddyurappa government. While there is no reason why the Chief Minister should not act firmly against those involved in illegal mining (particularly in the backdrop of Lok Ayukta Santosh Hegde’s strong disapproval of the same) and take effective steps to stem the rot, the Governor, on his part, would do well to observe the constitutional niceties and decorum and leave the matter of day-to-day governance to the duly elected government. The bane of most Governors increasingly playing partisan politics in the states will continue as long as the Centre appoints active politicians of the ruling party or its allies to the Raj Bhavans. Indeed, several expert committees have recommended that this malaise can be checked only if apolitical persons of high integrity and calibre are appointed as Governors. One can understand Mr Bharadwaj’s penchant to hit headlines, but this has no constitutional sanction.
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Real calamity
AS soon as Punjab and Haryana were hit by floods, vociferous demands were sent out to the Centre to come to their aid to cope with the crisis and to pay the farmers for the damage to their crops. Somebody conveniently forgot that the two states already had calamity relief funds worth Rs 3,467 crore lying unused. Now the Union Ministry of Home Affairs has reminded the chief ministers of the two states that while Punjab has with it Rs 2,316 crore, Haryana is sitting pretty on Rs 1,151 crore. It is this money which should have been utilised immediately for restoration and repair works and for providing relief to the affected people. Instead, the onus was shifted to the Centre mechanically. Ironically, Haryana asked the Prime Minister to release Rs 1,022.94 crore for flood relief on the same day — Tuesday — that the Home Ministry reminded it about the unused money. It is paradoxical that the calamity relief money is lying unused while the public is suffering. Even more cruel is the fact that while thousands of crores of rupees will be made available after the floods, even one-tenth of that sum was not used beforehand to prevent them. For instance, the drainage department of Punjab had asked for Rs 125 crore to carry out flood control measures before the onset of monsoons, but only Rs 10 crore had been sanctioned. Isn’t it a state’s responsibility to ensure that a calamity is averted in the first place? The situation in Punjab and Haryana took a turn for the worse because flood control measures were grossly inadequate. Drains were not strengthened or cleaned. With canals breaching the banks at several places, large areas were inundated. This tendency of closing the stable door after the horses have bolted has gone on for too long. Somebody should have pity on the plight of the people left homeless and helpless by the flood fury. |
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Women as bishops
A
position of authority in marriage, society and government has generally been denied to women, and this is also true of various religious institutions in the world. Thus, generally speaking, women do not have formal positions in church leadership, especially those that require some form of ordination. The Catholic, Eastern Orthodox Churches, and even the conservative Protestants maintain that only men can be ordained as clergy. The traditional model of male-authority and female-submission has been challenged in every sphere of life and it would be unrealistic to expect that even these bastions of male supremacy would not be affected by it. An egalitarian approach is expected from denominations that keep pace with the changing society, and in fact, slowly but ever so surely, women have been making inroads into the ranks of ecclesiastical leadership. Florence Li Tim-Oi became the first Anglican woman ordained to the priesthood by an English bishop. The year was 1944, and the place Hong Kong. Her appointment created such a controversy that she stopped acting as a priest. However, renounce her priesthood she did not. It was 50 years later that the Church of England announced, after much deliberation, that women could be ordained as deacons and priests, but not as bishops. Today, there are more than 5,000 women priests, and many are eligible to be bishops, except that their gender bars them from being so. The Church of England’s position in general has been supportive of having women bishops since a few years, but it has had to bow to the traditionalists and it is unfortunate that the General Synod, or parliament of the church became a battle ground between traditionalists and reformers over this question. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Most Rev. Rowan Williams, has not been able to assert his authority at this critical time, the divisions have sharpened. While reform is never easy, especially in institutions that value tradition, the dynamics of change in society make it imperative. The Church of England must firmly keep the door open for women to reach high positions of responsibility and leadership. |
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Those who do not find time for exercise will have to find time for illness.
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Perils of caste census THE RSS, with a repulsive and parochial ideology, has taken the BJP to task for having supported the proposal to have caste enumeration in the 2011 census. The party has once again been caught on the wrong foot to placate the Yadav opinion. It has gone to farthest limit to please them in the past. Had there been no Mandal, there would have been no kamandal. Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee made the observation after returning from Rashtrapati Bhavan in 1990. He had gone to the President to give a letter on the withdrawal of support to the V.P. Singh government. The BJP was furious over the stoppage of L.K. Advani’s Rath Yatra at Samastipur in Bihar. Lalu Prasad Yadav, then the state chief minister, was V.P. Singh’s ally. It was apparent that Lalu Yadav had not acted on his own, but at V.P. Singh’s instance. The dilemma before the BJP was that if it did not proceed with the yatra to expand the base among the Hindus, it would further lose the support that the implementation of the Mandal Commission’s recommendations had cost it among the Dalits. V.P. Singh was the villain of the piece in the eyes of the party because he had accepted the report on reservations for Other Backward Classes (OBC). The country saw the fall of the V.P. Singh government and a large-scale violence planned and instigated by the Sangh Parivar. However, the worst fallout was in the form of retaliation by the upper castes to the V.P. Singh government. It had given a quota of 27 per cent reservations in employment and education to the OBCs through an ordinance, which was made a constitutional amendment Act subsequently. The BJP did not oppose it at that time because of the substantial OBC electorate. The entire country erupted into a kind of civil war. But people ultimately settled to live with the additional reservations. (The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes enjoyed a quota of 23 per cent). It took the nation many years to achieve an equilibrium of sorts. Reservations in educational institutions still irritate the upper castes but they have got reconciled to the Supreme Court’s limit of 50 per cent in reservations. Many years after the downfall of V.P. Singh, this writer asked him that if he had any agenda after the reservations under the Mandal Commission. He said he did not have. When I pointed out to him that he was blamed for the large-scale violence in the country, the former Prime Minister said: “True, I broke my leg, but I at least scored the goal.” Probably, the Yadav leaders have given an undertaking to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi that they (Yadavs) would support the Women’s Reservation Bill if the government were to accept their demand to have caste enumerated in the census. But the ruling party has been deterred by the anger of the upper castes and has appointed the Group of Ministers (GoM) to recommend a solution. The latest is that there is a sharp division in the GoM and the government is back to the original proposition of finding a consensus on the caste issue. It is not the first time that Sonia Gandhi, given to immediate pressures, has faltered in her decision. She did so when she announced the formation of Telengana at midnight. But she realised the mistake and formed a committee under Justice B.N. Krishna to make recommendations on the division or the status quo in Andhra Pradesh. Sonia Gandhi’s initial mistake to have caste in the census saw the same change of mind — first the announcement to have caste census and then to appoint the GoM to consider whether it should be recorded. The Congress or, for that matter, the BJP which has supported the caste census does not realise the harm the political parties are doing to the polity for electoral considerations. There was no need to rake up the issue when Sharad Yadav, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Lalu Prasad Yadav, representing the creamy layer of the OBCs, came to articulate the issue to expand their political base. A firm ‘no’ would have nipped their ploy in the bud. Incidentally, all the three Yadav leaders claim to be the followers of Dr Ram Manohar Lohia and Gandhian Jayaprakash Narayan who urged the nation to become a “casteless society.” Even during the Independence movement, the slogan was to have a country without creed and caste after winning freedom. Whatever the compulsions of the Yadav leaders, the Congress and the BJP should not have played into their hands. They can still take a moral stand on an issue and insist on non-partisan mature thinking on the part of political parties. They cannot play with fire and then expect that the conflagration would be limited. The caste census may once again give an opportunity to fanatics of every colour to peddle their agenda. The British had a question in every census till 1941 to find out religion and caste. But theirs was a policy of “divide and rule.” When Jawaharlal Nehru became India’s first Prime Minister, he had even the column of caste in application forms and such other government records deleted. The question on caste was never asked after 1951. To introduce caste is to renew all the ills of primitive and fractured society. The khap panchayats seen in Haryana will appear all over the country. It is horrible to find Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda agreeing with the khaps to ban the inter-gotra marriage. Thank God, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has rejected the pernicious practice. Yadav leaders’ argument that the caste census would help them know how many poor are among the OBCs. Why not count the poor? Travails do not lessen if the poor belong to the upper caste. It is time India began the economic consideration as the criterion for reservations. Otherwise, we shall be perpetuating bias, prejudice and hatred, something not desirable in a country which is wedded to establishing an |
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The sleeper and the shouter
IT is a story of two persons who live at an earshot distance from me and they, when not in the company of Bacchus, are helpful and sweet-talkers. But when pot-valiant, they are satellite-like roaming on the sky. They started with a little of liquor plus soda, then graduated to a little of soda plus liquor and finally to no soda, only liquor or the bottled dynamite. The doctor, during their recent medical check-up, told them that they suffered from the same disease - excess of water. They blamed it on “the damned ice-cubes” and have since then kicked the glasses out to hit the bottle directly. In their extreme state of bliss, they generally miss the road and slip towards the jungle. The result of this state and stage is that their teeth are missing and there are quite a few scars on their faces but like Rana Sanga they believe in ‘never say die’ and because both of them are theatre artists, their motto is ‘the show must go on.’ The show must go on. Yes, one of them goes poetical after sucking the bottle and recites a few couplets of his favourite Shiv Batalvi, “Chup di awaaz suno, Khandhar di chat sundi hai” (Listen to the sound of silence, the roof of a ruined building hears it). He goes philosophical and quotes Sartre, “I am no longer sure of anything. If I satiate my desires, I sin but I deliver myself from them; if I refuse to satisfy them, they infect the whole soul.” He, then, follows Bhagwadgita’s words, “niraharsya dehinh’ (no food for the body) and sleeps like a log with his dog. His wife once said, “You can tell a man who boozes by the company he chooses”. The dog then got up and slowly walked away and till that date refused to sleep with him. His nocturnal rest often extends to noon too. What a waste of a grasping brain, agile body and senses as sharp as that of anybody! The other, equally good fellow, when full of Dutch courage, behaves like the Admiral of the Red. Have you heard the story of the rat who took a few sips of hard liquor from a peg and then standing on his hind legs with chest blown up shouted, “Where is the cat? Call her here”. This person, when inebriated, cares a fig for his bosses and the world, shouts cuss-words on them and hums the dialogues stolen from the blockbuster films of Amitabh Bachchan. He also goes spiritual and has a belief that Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan has sung the hymns of Vedas because both the Vedas and Nusrat’s Sufi songs are invocations taking one to the presence of the divine thus purifying one’s inner-self. He, when in company of ‘lalpari’, which he often is, plays the CD in full volume and in a song where Nusrat sings, “Allah-hoo”, he, after him, shouts “Shambhoo” in the same tune and tenor. They are learned, no doubt, but a quote says, ‘be in the company of a sober cannibal than a drunken learned.’ Do they know
it?
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Looking Back The quality of football could have been a lot better in the just-concluded World Cup in South Africa. But the spirit of sports once again proved the skeptics wrong James Lawton IT seems so odd, now that it is over and the streets did not run with blood and the stadiums did not fall down, that so many said, so vociferously, that it would. South Africa has over the last few weeks done what it has been required to do since it emerged from one of the most viciously imbalanced societies the world is ever likely to see with a resolve not to seek revenge but to try to make a more hopeful future. It just got along, made the best of things and put on a smile that has generally been as bright as the first glimpses of the winter sun which, now that the big show is over, will continue to shine down on the workers crowded into the back of the pick-up vans and trucks going to the factories and the farms. The privilege has not been so much South Africa’s but that of all those who have travelled across its vast and thrilling landscape. Some visitors came with their fears, hermetically sealed, but there were those with open eyes - and hearts - who did not flinch at spending time in a society which had been so persistently alleged to constitute the most severe threat to their safety and peace of mind they were ever likely to face this side of going to war. Their reward, they have repeatedly told you in airports from here to Cape Town and Port Elizabeth and in towns like Rustenburg and Bloemfontein, which may never again feel quite so at the centre of the world, is that they have had the adventures of their lives, experiences which have carried them to a new level of understanding of how other people live with at least a small degree of optimism despite disadvantages which make their own seem, relatively, so slight. No, South Africa didn’t drag football into a bloodbath or an orgy of predatory crime. It reminded us of its power to create not just profit but also joy. Among the visitors, the distinguished American actor Morgan Freeman - whose uncanny portrayal of Nelson Mandela in the film Invictus, the story of the unifying force of South Africa’s victory in the 1995 rugby World Cup here, has led to a warm friendship with the great man - has been particularly delighted by the dramatic extension of the message of his work. “Once again,” he said over dinner in a Johannesburg restaurant filled with the different languages of the world, “I’ve seen here the power of sport to unite and lift people.” Once Freeman refused to participate in a “month of black history” and told the leading American TV presenter Mike Wallace, “If you stop referring to me as a black man I will not think of you as a white man.” Here, like so many others, he has again celebrated the power of sport, in this case the world’s most popular game, to support his point. South Africa returns to its most grinding problems of unemployment and unacceptably high crime rates - and the fear that when the rest of the world goes about its business, hostility towards millions of immigrant workers will flare into violence in the townships - but it will do so with the confidence that for a month in the most intense of spotlights it was able to hold up and show its best face. There will be no prosecutions against the great footballers who failed to deliver the best of their talent and character here - but maybe some serious reflection on the fact that too many of them seemed insufficiently stirred by the challenge of playing in football’s greatest tournament. Some inside the game fear that it is the inevitable consequence of huge financial rewards and a sense that it is no longer at the World Cup but in such important club competitions as the Champions League that the key players shape their future prospects. The world’s most talented footballer, Lionel Messi, was left in tears by his failure to lift up Argentina, but no one played harder or with more desperation to succeed. Spain, inspired by the brilliance of Andres Iniesta and Xavi Hernandez made their statement of values and the Dutch, who brought down Brazil, conjured the memory of some of their greatest days as a small but superbly gifted nation with the performances of Wesley Sneijder and Arjen Robben. But if we want to put a face to this it has to be, most appropriately, the brave and tortured African one of Ghana’s Asamoah Gyan, a hero and a villain who still had the nerve to step up to successfully take a shoot-out penalty against Uruguay despite having missed the one that would have carried Africa into their first World Cup semi-final. That spoke of Africa’s belief in itself, which, whatever happened at Soccer City, is always going to be the best legacy of an unforgettable World Cup.
The Independent
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Looking AHEAD “IT is hard to imagine that in 2014 our reality will be better,” wrote Andre Kfouri in Lance, Brazil’s sports daily, in a dispatch from South Africa. For all of Brazil’s growing economic strength and international importance, staging a World Cup presents huge challenges. Some, as Kfouri outlined, are similar to South Africa. But there are also extra ones, the consequence of staging it in a country the size of a continent. How will teams and fans get around such a large country ? : “I’ve always said that the 2014 World Cup faces three major problems,” said Ricardo Teixeira, the long-term president of the CBF (Brazil’s FA) at an event last week to launch the tournament logo. “The first is airports, the second is airports and the third is airports.” Brazil is more than seven-times bigger than South Africa. Air travel will be a necessity, but the 2014 hosts currently lack the capacity to move World Cup-sized crowds around the country. With huge variations in temperatures in the north and south, teams could find themselves playing in searing heat in one game and in freezing rain the next. Manaus, Fortaleza and Natal are likely to have temperatures well over 30 degrees in June and July. But Porto Alegre and Curitiba in the south may well be under 10 degrees, and could even be at freezing point. Teams based in one region for their group matches may suffer when the knock-out stage takes them to another. Will it be an administrative nightmare ?: For all the obstacles of nature, the biggest impediment to the smooth running of the 2014 World Cup is man-made: the political structure of Brazilian football. For South Africa, staging the World Cup was rooted in the anti-apartheid struggle. But for all its progress, the movement in Brazil is very different. Its football administrators could not be further removed from activists. They represent the old, semi-feudal Brazil. Federal Deputy Paulo Rattes wrote a Congressional report on 2014 planning. “What struck me about South Africa,” he said, “was that there was participation from society and political leaders.” “In Brazil, meanwhile, “it is a black box that no one enters, only Ricardo Teixeira and his friends.” Teixeira has been in power since 1989. His power base is formed by the presidents of the football federations in the 27 states that comprise this giant country, some of whom have been in power far longer than him. Teixeira’s need to keep his power base onside has already affected the organisation of the tournament. Many state presidents wanted 2014 games to be staged in their domain, so the CBF successfully lobbied Fifa to have 12 host cities, rather than the original plan of between eight and 10. All this took time. The formal announcement that Brazil would stage the World Cup came in October 2007, but it was clear Brazil would be awarded the tournament as far back as March 2003. Yet, the host cities were not named until the end of last May. This delay has already left insufficient time for a number of transport infrastructure projects. Is there any good news ?: Though all of Brazil ended up crying over the final defeat to Uruguay, the 1950 World Cup played an important role in developing the game. The tournament helped to decentralise the game and paved the way for a national championship launched in 1971. The 2014 World Cup can have a similar impact, dragging Brazilian football into the 21st century.
The Independent |
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aside The Inuit settlement of Kusuluk had 300 people and was surrounded by mountains and icebergs, with just one shop, that sold chewing gum, soap and rifles. But they do play football there. Indeed, in the course of just one afternoon, I saw six Inuit children wearing Manchester United bobble hats, and two adults wearing Man United shirts. There was no bar in the village, so watching matches with others was difficult, though a large crowd did gather in front of the community hall not long before the final match, suggesting they might be erecting a giant screen for a fan zone. But it turned out someone had captured a seal. The one place where you could watch the final collectively was in the small hotel, with two Greenlandic girls supporting Netherlands, and some 70-year-old American tourists. Pam disagreed with the locals, because, “The Netherlands is lousy, honey. I got sent to the Red Light District there once, I had an awful time, believe me, so I’m backing Spain. Is the score zero-zero?” But Helen was shrieking for the Netherlands, especially when Robben broke through with only the goalkeeper to beat and fluffed his chance. “Oh my God, oh my God, so close,” she howled, with such a yelp that the locals must have thought we’d caught a seal for ourselves. Then a few seconds later, she screamed even louder, “Oh my God, he’s done it again, the same guy.” “That was the replay,” I told her. The commentary was in Danish, except the commentator preferred to say nothing, at one point staying silent for four minutes. Was he dead? Or stoned, or moonlighting for a Latvian channel and nipping between the two? When Iniesta scored, Helen stormed out of the room, growling, “No one speak to me for a week,” though if she saw it later on the news she’d have thought they’d lost all over again. But in the village no one was quite so upset.
The Independent |
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Now we know better. We know it wasn’t the South African hosts, a nation of astonishing forbearance and courage, who were so much being tested but those who came with their preconceptions, and not least some of the celebrity footballers who are paid in a few days more than the average township dweller in South Africa could hope to find in a lifetime.
Kfouri drew two conclusions. “The first is obvious; if South Africa can stage a World Cup, so can Brazil.” The second - “the tournament seems to be passing through a period of adaptation so that no one gets a fright in four years.” 
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