The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Assault on freedom
Media pays the price for independence

While increasing attacks on media houses in the country point towards growing intolerance in society, they also reflect the growing power and penetration of the media, specially the electronic media. Television channels have increasingly come under attack by political parties and when several thousand people ‘suspected’ to be supporters of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ( RSS) vandalised last week parts of a building that housed the offices of the TV Today network in New Delhi, it came as no surprise. The channel had drawn the ire of the Sangh sympathisers by running tapes of a secret meeting in which RSS leaders were allegedly heard discussing plans to carry out terror attacks against meetings of Muslims. The sensational sting operation unnerved and incensed the Sangh supporters so much that they gave vent to their ire and risked getting exposed by launching a reckless attack on the media house. The police, as usual, were caught by surprise and were outnumbered but security guards were smart enough to have immobilised the lifts and downed the shutters to prevent the mob from reaching the fourth-floor office of the network.

Media houses and journalists are vulnerable to attacks everywhere because they deal with not just inconvenient facts but also views and opinion which cannot satisfy everyone. They derive their moral authority from being ‘friends of society’ and by upholding public interest. Like other institutions, the media can and do make mistakes and often err in their judgment. But that is surely no reason to subject them to violence and vandalism. There are perfectly legitimate ways of getting one’s views across and refute the facts or interpretation presented in the media. It is a relatively routine and easy exercise for political parties and organisations to contradict the content. But it is only when the evidence of their culpability becomes so glaring so as to render their denials meaningless that they indulge in violence. This year alone, estimates the Committee to Protect Journalists, there have been at least 11 attacks on journalists and media houses and eight cases of bans or restrictions imposed by the government or political groups.

The assault on the freedom of the Press deserves to be condemned even as there is little doubt that such attacks are going to become sharper and more frequent. With the media expanding, becoming more professional and as they dare to expose people in high places, the media will have to be ready to pay the price for freedom.

The politics over Belgaum
Chavan should stop playing with fire

It is truly regrettable that emotive issues that have the potential to sway gullible masses are increasingly being used by political parties to satisfy their narrow political agendas without a thought to the damage that is being done to the social fabric in the country. Caste and regional divides are being created and furthered in quest of votes. The issue of Belgaum and its neighbourhood being part of Karnataka despite the majority of residents being Marathi-speaking was settled decades ago, or so it seemed. But it is back, with political parties in Maharashtra vying with one another to make strong statements staking claims over those areas on linguistic grounds.

Ironically, the dispute between Maharashtra and Karnataka over Belgaum got revived after the Centre’s affidavit in the Supreme Court that the area could not become a part of Maharashtra just because most of the people there spoke Marathi. The affidavit put the Congress-NCP government in Maharashtra in a spot. With the Shiv Sena waiting to grab an opportunity to project itself all over again as a champion of Maharashtrian rights, Chief Minister Ashok Chavan was quick to play the Marathi card in competitive populism. His demand that the Centre declare the 865 Marathi-majority villages of Belgaum a Union Territory will only exacerbate tensions without helping resolve the issue. Tension had already built up before Mr Chavan’s statement with Maharashtra buses being targeted in Karnataka and likewise Karnataka buses facing mob attacks in Maharashtra forcing the authorities to stop inter-state services for 48 hours.

Maharashtra had only just recovered from the controversy over US author James Laine’s controversial biography on Shivaji in the wake of the Supreme Court rejecting the Chavan government’s plea to re-impose a ban on it. The lifting of the ban had provoked Raj Thackeray of the MNS to dare anyone to sell the book in the state. Such chauvinistic expressions that fuel tensions must be curbed with a heavy hand. In the case of the Belgaum controversy, the issue is before the Supreme Court. It is time the Centre reined in Ashok Chavan and told him sternly to await the verdict.

Thought for the Day

Life is just one damned thing after another. — Elbert Hubbard

ARTICLE

The fiasco in Islamabad
Factors behind Qureshi’s provocative behaviour
by K. Subrahmanyam

A majority of the people in India and Pakistan look at India-Pakistan relationship as a zero-sum game and, therefore, they will be looking at the just concluded Islamabad talks as a victory for one side and a setback for the other. Viewed objectively and rationally, this is a totally wrong approach. This view originates from the basically erroneous Pakistani perception that India is an existential threat to Pakistan. The reality was asserted more than once during External Affairs Minister S. M. Krishna’s Press conference that India considers that it is in its interest to have a stable, prosperous and peaceful Pakistan. On the other hand, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said, “Pakistan has always wanted friendly, cooperative and good neighborly relations with India. We’ve started a process to achieve this objective.”

Implied in Pakistani formulation is the perception that India is not a friendly, cooperative and good neighbourly country, and Islamabad is initiating steps to bring about such a development. Given these different perceptions, for Pakistan the relations with India is a zero sum game, but it is not so for India. While India considers the Pakistani strategy of using terrorism as a state policy a self-destructive one, it does not have any animosity towards that country. It is obvious from the results of the Islamabad talks that Pakistan, as of now, is not prepared to give up terrorism as a state policy. Viewed in this background, the Islamabad talks were a tactical setback for India but a disastrous image-projection for Pakistan.

This came out clearly in Qureshi’s outburst against the Indian Home Secretary, who had referred to David Coleman Headley’s disclosures about the involvement of Pakistan’s ISI in the planning and execution of the 26/11 attack on Mumbai during a Press interaction. These disclosures were made during his interrogation under the supervision of the FBI and had been included in the dossier handed over to the Pakistani Minister of Interior by the Indian Home Minister weeks ago. Qureshi chose to equate this with the outbursts of LeT chief Hafiz Saeed and asserted that both he and Krishna considered such disclosure of the Indian Home Secretary was uncalled for.

Krishna did not choose to rebut this during his Islamabad Press conference, and Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao subsequently explained that this might nave been due to the pell-mell prevailing at that time. Subsequently, Krishna made it clear that he stood by the Home Secretary.

More revealing of the Pakistani state of mind was the subsequent Press conference held by Qureshi on the morning of July 16 for the Pakistani media even as Krishna was yet to take off from Chaklala airport. He accused Krishna of not being fully prepared for the negotiations and making frequent telephone calls to Delhi for instructions, a charge totally denied by Krishna. This was a deliberate attempt at insulting Krishna. Some observers in India are of the view that Qureshi might have been directed by the Army and ISI leadership to hold such a Press conference and insult Krishna to provoke India to sever the present engagement with Pakistan so that it could be made a justification for future terrorist attacks. India has not walked into that trap, and the authorities in New Delhi continue to maintain that there is no alternative to engagement with the nuclear neighbour in spite of its provocative behaviour.

Qureshi maintains that Krishna told the Pakistanis that his negotiating mandate was limited to terrorism only and he was not prepared to discuss the Pakistani concerns. The Indian side maintains that Pakistan concerns were discussed and progress was made on many issues. Qureshi contradicted himself when he said at the joint Press conference that further negotiations on Kashmir would be on the progress achieved during the last three years, and asserting in the second Press conference that Pakistan’s concerns were not addressed. Nor all the extra time taken in the conference, making the Press wait for six hours, lends credibility to Qureshi’s assertion that India’s negotiating mandate was restricted to terrorism only.

The reason for Pakistan’s provocative behaviour is to be traced to their perception of the situation in the Af-Pak area and the validity of that perception. The Pakistan Army appears to have convinced itself that it has outsmarted the Americans and has succeeded in persuading Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai to dismiss his anti-Taliban Interior Minister and Chief of Intelligence and enter into secret negotiations with pro-Pakistan elements in the Taliban. By allowing the use of Pakistani territory as safe haven by the Haqqani faction, they have increased US and NATO casualties in Afghanistan. They have also dodged the US pressure to take action against any of the terrorist organisations other than the Pakistani Taliban .

Therefore, they seem to be in a triumphant mood. It is very much like their over-confidence in June 1999 during the Kargil operation, in August-September 1971 in the aftermath of Sino-US rapprochement with China, during the 1971 East Bengal crisis and in August 1965 in the wake of Operation Gibraltar. The clever tacticians of the ISI and Pakistani Army Headquarters always have tended to ignore strategic aspects. Such an approach ended in disasters on three previous occasions. It looks as though they are likely to repeat past blunder, risking Pakistani integrity and internal security.

The Pakistan Army’s calculations are based on a totally erroneous perception, no doubt, widely prevalent even outside Pakistan that the US will withdraw from Afghanistan, starting in the middle of 2011. President Obama has made it clear a number of times that he has no intention of abandoning Afghanistan, and there will only be a beginning of a drawdown in mid-2011. Now Ambassador Blackwill has unveiled his plan of reordering the force deployment in Afghanistan to vacate Pashtun areas and concentrate on non-Pashtun areas and use air power to decimate the terrorist elements in Pashtun Afghanistan as well as Af-Pak tribal territory.

When the US vacates Pashtun Afghanistan there are distinct possibilities of the Afghan Taliban uniting with the Pakistani Taliban and establishing the long-cherished Pashtunistan. Secondly, there are reports in Pakistan of different jihadi groups combining to form a common network. In that event there is a high probability of that network with hundreds of conditioned suicide bombers at their disposal turning their anger against the Pakistan Army and State for their collaboration with the US. Such collaboration is absolutely essential to save Pakistan from bankruptcy.

If the Pakistan Army is not blundering again they will have a lot to worry about the future moves of the US in Af-Pak area, the future behaviour of the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban and the threat emanating from the ego-maniacal terrorist leaders with deadly arsenals of hundreds of conditioned suicide bombers. Since India has no animosity against the people of Pakistan and considers it in its interest to have a stable and prosperous Pakistan, it has every reason to be concerned about the reckless adventurism of their Army.

MIDDLE

“As per the rules”
by Raj Kadyan

In the Army, rules are considered the proverbial elephant in the room. The enforcer institution, the Controller of Defence Accounts (CDA), is known for rule rigidity. There are numerous supporting anecdotes. Here is another.

We were raising a divisional headquarters. Funds being scarce, an effort was on to tap every source. Considering its wartime strength of officers, a divisional headquarters is authorised to run three messes, and an initial grant is meant for each. Being in a family station, with few dining-in members, it was decided to run only one mess during the raising period. However, since we could be mobilised at short notice, the mess equipment for the other two had to be purchased in advance. We accordingly sent our claim. The CDA returned the claim, contending that they could sanction the grant only for the single mess that was functional at the time.

Soon, I had to visit the CDA office to attend a training exercise. Our General Officer Commanding (GOC) asked me to visit the CDA and “sort the issue” out, a diktat invariably given when one wants the results with uncertain means.

I landed at the CDA office fully armed with uncertainty. I explained that in the few hours we may get for mobilisation, and then it would be impractical to buy the wares needed to start a mess. He acknowledged the problem but expressed his inability as the demand was not “as per the rules”. I stressed that the request was in line with authorisation and that there would be no loss to the State. “What you are seeking is a grant that would be used some time in future”, he explained in kindergarten language and I nodded.

“In that case”, he added with his in-between-the-lines perspicacity, “It amounts to a loan, and ‘as per the rules’ a loan is not authorised”. From his side, it was QED. As one who had only a peripheral knowledge of finances, I saw no harm even if it were called a loan. But his take was different.

“You miss the point”, he said. “Your station is on the border between ‘my’ Command and another Command. Supposing they were to transfer the station out to the other Command tomorrow, I will lose the amount.”

I admired his institutional loyalty, but it did not help in the context. “What would you recommend we could do?” I asked trying to make him part of the problem. It worked. “In that case…” the tussle between the rule and rationality was visibly showing on his face. He seemed wanting to help but was fettered by the rule-book. Avoiding my eye, he suggested we say that we were actually running three messes.

We had another “difficulty” in the person of the GOC who was a stickler for punctiliousness. I recalled his opening address to the officers where he had spelt out his philosophy, “We will not break any rule”, he had said firmly, “but we can bend them”. We had sat there admiringly without understanding what it meant except that some wriggle room existed.

“We will”, I told the CDA, recalling the GOC’s words.

The mess secretary was instructed to send three separate claims. However, this time there was a fresh observation. “How can there be one mess secretary for three messes?” the CDA enquired. Our falsehood had not been imaginatively crafted. The GOC had luckily not specified any limit to rule bending. We exploited the elasticity in his directions and got the grants.

Mission success was reported to the GOC. “Well done” was all he said and avoided any discussion on the means adopted; good leaders seldom do.

OPED BEHAVIOUR

Kill ‘honour-killing’ the Gandhian way
K.C.Yadav

There should be, surely, no place for a thing like ‘honour-killing’ or any killing for that matter in our society. The crime is against the guiding principles of life that we have been following and living since time immemorial – Ahimsa satyavachanam sarva-bhutanu kampanam I shama danam yathashakti garhasyo dharma uttamah (non-violence, truth, kindness towards all living beings, restraint of senses and donation to the needy are the best virtues of a grihastha) (Mahabharata). The so-called ‘honour killings’ damn our history and deface our heritage.

There is a definite law that takes care of such crimes – murder (IPC, Section 302). But the problem with laws is that ‘these are made’, as wiseheads say, ‘to exact punishment after a crime has been committed’. The government also have the same limitation. ‘They do not say: ‘You must do such and such a thing’, says Gandhiji, ‘but they say: ‘If you do not do it, we will punish you’ (Hind Swaraj). Contextually speaking, a law with preventive provisions and the concerned civil society’s support are, by all means, need of the hour.

Our cosmopolitan elite and the media, in particular the electronic media,who should have, ordinarily, helped us in understanding both the matters, are, unfortunately, doing the opposite. Whenever I watch their ‘public debates’ on such issues on the electronic media the famous lines of Charles Churchill (not Wiston) invariably come to my mind : ‘So loud each tongue/so empty was each head/So much they talked/so very little said’.

Worse, they not only go rhetoric, but also mislead. The question is ‘honour killing’. They outfocus it. An egg is rotten, kill the hen – this is what they are saying. They condemn villages, their people, their institutions and culture. They hurl choicest abuses on them. For what ? The villages do not preach ‘honour killings’. No dharmashastra on which their customs are based, no tradition that they respect approves of this ghastly thing. Fire sometimes burns our hands, hearths and homes, should we, and can we, vanish it from our life? It is careless handling of things that, cause accidents. ‘Things’ are, per se, useful.

But instead of advocating their proper use, the uninformed critics want every ‘old’ thing to go, yielding place to ‘new’. It is none of their concerns that if our villages go, if our culture and civilization go, our Indianness will also go. What will remain with us ? ‘A modern India’ ! No, a copy of the West, which Gandhiji has asked us to dislike and detest, no matter whether it is the third rate or the first rate copy (Hind Swaraj).

So, shouldn’t we, a question may arise, change with the times ? Gandhiji has also explained this point very aptly : ‘We may utilize the new spirit (of modernism) that is born in us for purging ourselves of evils’. But we must not leave what is good and useful in our culture. In fact, ‘it behoves every lover of India’, he says, ‘to cling to the old Indian civilization even as child clings to the mother’s breast’.

Haryana has gone exactly the way Gandhiji has shown. It is a modern state now in every sense of the term. But, at the same time, it has not lost its soul – its customs and traditions, its history and culture. That’s why the state is an eye-shore to the vested interest and its people and leadership are their favourite whipping horse. The truth, however, is that the state is not a bad but a brilliant case. It is not a disappointment but hope. It is modern, but not ready to give up its useful heritage.

This is exactly what the Father of the Nation would have liked our people to do. Mark his great words : ‘It is a charge against India that her people are so uncivilized, ignorant and stolid, that it is not possible to induce them to adopt any changes. It is a charge really against our merit. What we have tested and found true on the anvil of experience, we dare not change. Many thrust their advice upon India, and she remains steady. This is her beauty : it is the sheet-anchor of our hope’ (Hind Swaraj).

Why, one might ask, our cosmopolitan elite and the media still treat the villages and their culture in such a biased and contemptuous manner ? The answer is simple. This is age of Globalization. The world is heading towards becoming a ‘globalized village’ (rather bazaar). In the new world, the old rules like ‘live and let other live’ have changed or are changing fast. The new rules are : ‘You are either with us or enemy. Our ancient ‘little republics’, the constitutionally favoured villages (Article 40 seems to do that), with their heavy baggage of customs and culture, history and heritage, seem to stand away from the bazaar. There are two options with them (read enemies) – yield or go. They buy none. Hence their criticism and scolding by the cosmopolitan elite and the media, who are a part of the bazaar in some way or other.

A recent edit of an English daily from the capital may be a good (?) example of how they handle problems and sensationalize and complicate them. It is on the question of ‘honour killing’. But its title is : ‘Dealing with Khaps: New law welcome, but not enough’ (The Pioneer, June 24). There is no mention of the real subject (‘honour-killing’) in the headline. For a clearer picture, the edit has to be read in full. But for the sake of space, I take only its small bit, which will, I hope, be enough to bring home the truth, where an appeal is made to the Government to pass a new law right at once, without a moment’s loss, otherwise the khap panchayats (of a handful of villages) will ‘drag India (whole of it) back to the dark ages’. Are they really so powerful ? Is India so light ? Is dragging back the hands of time so easy ? The problem is of ‘honour killing’. The edit’s main concern seems to create more problems of bigger magnitude rather than to solve it.

The Government should see through the game or whatever it is, and, using Gandhiji’s wisdom and way, understand the problem in all its dimensions and solve it with the statesman-like deftness, by bringing in an effective legislation and taking other necessary steps.

Himsa in any form is a sin and a crime, and when it is used against the weak, the helpless and one’s own progeny and the dependent, it is worse than that. It must go.

The writer is a former Professor of History, Kurukshetra University, Haryana.

It’s the last hurrah for khaps
Geetanjali Gayatri

A khap panchayat in progress at Jind Tribune file photo: Ravi Kumar

It’s practically the flame’s last attempt at life. Facing imminent death in the face of strong winds, it performs one last dance, flickering desperately to dodge the winds before plunging into the darkness of obscurity. The fate of the khaps, today, seems no different from that of the obstinate flame which finally has to bow out.

Today, the so-called guardians of tradition and culture are aghast. The winds of change are building up into a storm, entering their bastions through creeks and openings, doors and windows, promising a more liberal approach to life.

All this fuss about protecting khaps and their identity, unmindful of the notoriety they have earned for themselves, could virtually end up as their “last dance”, an attempt at surviving the storm threatening to blow them out and blow them away.

For, while most of Haryana’s educated youth and urban population have already disassociated themselves from the khaps and distanced themselves from their “bloody” verdicts, some even edging around the preposterous, in the villages, too, the khap base has shrunk from being a homogenous unit of communities to being the fiefdom of a handful few—-these being the economically influential or politically ambitious “wanna-bes”.

And, there are indicators of change all around. That the khaps, today, are a divided house is no secret. The cracks have been amply and ably displayed at their meetings every now and then. Then, there are villagers, especially women folk, who are beginning to leave their homes to watch plays with “their” issues at heart. Like those staged by members of the Jann Natya Manch.

“The village women no longer want to be mute spectators. After our performances, the most recent being a play titled ‘Yeh Duniya Karwat Badlegi’, they voice their concerns on sensitive subjects like khaps verdicts and honour killings which are extensively portrayed. We have been threatened against staging our plays but we take it in our stride and go right ahead,” explains Naresh Prerna of the Manch.

A teacher in Bawailpur (Hisar), Rohtas, explains that respect has nothing to do with the influence, whatever little is left of it, khap members wield in the villages. “People who desire a political identity but know they can’t make it big are the ones who generally become the face of the villagers at such fora and rake up sensitive issues and non-issues to keep themselves alive. Of course, the fanatics are there too to guide the “mob mentality”. The mob is where their power comes from and that’s what the common man fears most,” he holds.

Though, historically, the khaps came into being as protectors of their castes and tribes in the face of “foreign invasion”, they, most certainly, have lost course and direction. “There’s nothing wrong with the concept. The people associated with it and its working are the problem. Today, there seem more leaders than parties anywhere you go. Obviously, they draw their strength from the miscreants in the system. They, in turn, create fear to carry the public with them,” Santosh, a social worker from Nakadia village in Jhajjar, says.

While there are the “bad elements” that have found their way into the khaps, there are some “reasonable” people too who believe that the khaps must embrace change to survive. The president of Bhiwani’s Sheoran khap (8), Rattan Singh, opines, “People think highly of the khaps. However, in the recent past, the khaps have lost respect for the actions of the ‘bad elements’. Though I personally stand by the demand that same-gotra marriages should be banned, I also believe that if these do happen, nobody has the right to go about snuffing out lives. Also, the Jats alone cannot head the khaps. These must be inclusive like they were in the past when all communities were part of the decision-making process. Political interference, too, is proving to be our undoing.”

The shrinking public support, uncompromising stand and gory verdicts are leading the khaps nowhere. The storm has arrived, the flame’s flickering. It can pass over if hands unite to cup the flame. They are asking for a little more tolerance. How the khaps deal with the storm and the condition of protective hands is their decision. It’s a choice between survival and oblivion.