The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

‘No’ to Vedanta project
Lessons to learn for states and industries

Union Environment and Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh’s rejection of clearance to the Vedanta Alumina’s $1.7-billion bauxite-mining project at Lanjigarh in Orissa’s Kalahandi district is perfectly in order. He has upheld the rule of law by withdrawing the Stage I forest clearance, given in 2008, and rejecting the Stage II clearance that the promoters had applied for. The decisions follow the recommendations of the Forest Advisory Committee that found serious violation of the Environment Protection Act, the Forest Conservation Act and the Forest Rights Act. The Dongriya Kondh tribals are bound to heave a sigh of relief because they have been opposing the project, apprehending that bauxite mining would not only destroy the Niyamgiri hills, which they worship, but also dry up about a dozen perennial streams. What is of serious concern is the manner in which the Vedanta Alumina and state government officials have colluded to forge records to show that they had obtained the consent of the tribal groups and village councils.

Moreover, without environment clearance, how did the company manage to go ahead with its capacity expansion plan (from one million to six million tonnes a year)? The Kalahandi District Collector, the State Forest Secretary and the Orissa Mining Corporation Chairman will have to explain how and why did the project occupy 26.123 hectares of forest land in blatant violation of the laws? The company claims to have obtained the Supreme Court’s “in-principle clearance” in 2008. However, Mr Ramesh, citing the Attorney-General’s opinion, has justifiably maintained that he was free to reject the final clearance to the project based on the new information received by the Union Government.

The Centre’s decision holds out a lesson for all state governments and industrialists. The issue in question should not be strictly viewed as one of development versus conservation. While industrialisation is necessary for growth, the industry as also the state governments need to be fair and transparent in their dealings and follow the due processes of law. Nobody has the right to trample upon the laws enacted by Parliament to protect the rights of the tribals and indigenous people. In the backdrop of Vedanta, it would be interesting to watch whether the Polavaram project in Andhra Pradesh, the brainchild of the late Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, would pass the Centre’s test. It is feared that this project will submerge 300 villages and displace 1.7 lakh primitive tribals (the Konda Reddis and the Koyas).

Green’s red signal
Combat immigration fraud, show compassion

THE UK minister for immigration, Damian Green’s comment that the huge influx of immigrants into Britain in recent times is leading to “social unease” in some sections of the British society is blunt, as it also reflects a certain shade of racism that seems to be prevalent in recession-hit Britain. It is the job of the British government to ensure equitable race relations in such a way such that all sections of society, including immigrants and visitors, feel safe and secure, and handle those who feel “unease” at increasing immigration. However, he is right in asking the government to help unearth and punish unscrupulous agents who are aiding people in illegal migration to Britain. The UK has been tightening its immigration policies and as a result of this, around 100 immigrants are deported to India every month.

Britain has raised the bar for the skill sets it wants and thus highly-skilled people and good students are welcome, others are not. While the police in both nations is cooperating, resulting in increasing number of detection of cases of fraud, there have been reports about people with genuine credentials being denied immigration on weak grounds.

Green has gone out of the way to meet various officials and address the concerns of Indians regarding immigration. A substantial numbers of Indian immigrants have made the UK their home in the last century or so, and today their contribution to British society is well documented, and often appreciated. The Government of India must ensure full cooperation with the British government in cracking down on unscrupulous “travel agents” who tarnish the image of the nation, exploit gullible people, even as they break the law. Thousands of Punjabis, especially those from Doaba, have made Britain their home. Even as Britain tightens its laws it should ensure that the UK Border Agency adopts a compassionate attitude towards genuine cases, especially those regarding family unification, education and career enhancement.

Thought for the Day

Everything is funny as long as it happens to somebody else. — Will Rogers

ARTICLE

Neighbourhood blues
Need for high-powered group on policy making
by S.D. Muni

IN his address to the nation from the Red Fort on the 64th anniversary of India’s Independence, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh mentioned about India’s difficulties with the neighbours and named Pakistan for its consistent failure in denying the use of its territory for terrorist operations against India. While Pakistan is a category by itself, and so is China, Indian policy is facing difficulties in relation to almost all other neighbours.

In Afghanistan, India has spent more than $1.3 billion in capacity building and infrastructure projects, but President Karzai is coming under increasing pressures, mainly from Pakistan, to curtail India’s help and constructive role. In Nepal, Indian policy and the Indian Embassy are most unpopular and being blamed for interfering to micro-manage its internal political equations. The result is a persisting political stalemate in the Prime Ministerial elections.

In Sri Lanka, President Rajapaksa continues to ignore India’s concern for a lasting ethnic resolution while encouraging China to expand its presence and stakes. In the Maldives, it was not India but Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa who came forward to mediate in the internal conflict between President Nassim and Parliament. Only subsequently Ibrahim Hussain Zaki, Nassim’s close associate, was invited to Delhi to size up the situation.

Bangladesh has been unhappy with the slow movement on the Indian side for implementing the assurances given to Prime Minister Hasina Wajed on trade, transit and developmental issues during her official visit to Delhi in January 2010. In the case of Bhutan, there are no apparent contentious issues with India, but unexpressed unease persists on pending border settlement with China. The Myanmar junta is, of course, happy with India’s endorsement of their moves to hold a farcical elections in coming November, but this policy of India has come under close scrutiny of the international community.

The Indian establishment is, no doubt, aware of its difficulties in the neighbourhood. That’s why, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee was sent on August 7 to assuage Dhaka’s feelings of neglect and disappointment. There he declared India’s largest ever offer of a $1 billion soft loan for infrastructure projects. Around the same time, on August 4-6, Shyam Saran visited Nepal as the Prime Minister’s special envoy to see if the Nepali political class could be persuaded to evolve a consensus for installing a stable government and writing the Constitution. His mission failed to produce the desired results and was dubbed as an uninvited interference in Nepal’s internal affairs.

A couple of months back, National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon visited Beijing to see if China could be dissuaded from helping Pakistan build a civil nuclear programme, and also persuaded on expediting border negotiations with India. China, of late, has lowered its anti-India media noises and gestures, but there are no signs of its making any expected move on Pakistan or border issue.

Behind the confusion in India’s neighbourhood policy is its failure to cope with the growing Chinese assertiveness and the internal political dynamics in each of these countries. China’s assertiveness in South Asia, in some ways, is a defensive move as it finds itself vulnerable in Tibet, Xinjiang and the Indian Ocean. But China has deep pockets, cultural distance and a suave diplomacy to create and cultivate constituencies in India’s neighbouring countries. China has also been cashing on India’s lapses in these countries and the more India bungles there, the more China gains.

Take for instance Nepal. China had no hesitation in arming King Gyanendra to crush the Maoists and the people’s resistance against monarchy. But as soon as the monarchy was thrown out, the Chinese quickly moved to establish a workable rapport with the mainstream parties like the Nepali Congress and the Communists (UML), as also with the Maoists whom the Beijing had earlier accused of misusing the name of their great leader Mao-tse Tung.

As against this, India which earned unprecedented goodwill with the victory of the people’s movement in April 2006, has managed to become politically the most controversial country. In the case of Sri Lanka, China used its military assistance to President Rajapaksa in his anti-LTTE war to penetrate India’s traditional strategic space in the Tamil-dominated areas of the island’s north and east, in the name of reconstruction and rehabilitation of the war-torn region. It was also India’s indifference and reluctance towards the Hambantota port project initially that enabled China to get into this project, which happens to be located in Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese-dominated south and on the strategic edge of Indian Ocean trade traffic.

India’s neighbouring countries have passed through the waves of political turbulence during the past five years or so in the process of their transition to different degrees and forms of democracy. Even Myanmar is now moving towards an elected government. India associated itself in this turbulence with the popular aspirations and forces of change as the turbulence precipitated crises of stability and order. But this association and identification with the popular forces was not sustained and soon allowed to be vitiated in search of short-term interests and policy options conceived by a handful of critically placed mandarins in South Block. The result has been the erosion of gains as is starkly evident in Nepal.

In countries like Sri Lanka, short-term interests were allowed to put India’s principal and traditional interests in ethnic resolution on the back-burner and this has brought about a sense of alienation between India and the Tamils of Sri Lanka. Even in the case of Bangladesh, Delhi became complacent with the Awami League’s massive victory, ignoring the hard reality of Bangladeshi politics, where any ruling party and its leader have to trade cautiously in carrying forward a policy of constructive engagement with India. This slackness in consolidating India’s identification with the forces of change in the neighbourhood are creating difficulties for India’s day-to-day policy and sharpening long-term challenges for it in carrying the neighbourhood along. India’s policy makers know very well that until they have a firm handle on neighbourhood policy, India’s aspirations to play a meaningful and constructive role in Asia and the world cannot be realised.

A politically vibrant neighbourhood needs careful nursing at a time of challenging globalisation. Neither the Foreign Ministry nor the Prime Minister’s Office has adequate institutional memory, intellectual expertise and time to sensitively handle the contemporary and emerging challenges in the neighbourhood. There is need to have a small but high-powered advisory group, on the lines of the Economic Advisory Committee for the Prime Minister, to assist the policy establishments in making right choices and implementing constructive initiatives.

The fire-fighting mode and chess-board style of neighbourhood policy when one works through pliant individuals and institutions as pawns may not carry us very far in future. India has to maintain synergy between its own critical long-term interests and the rising aspirations of the people of the neighbouring countries. For this Delhi needs to do serious home work on its policy choices.

The writer is Visiting Research Professor, Institute of South Asian Studies, Singapore.

MIDDLE

The dark shades of life
by V.K. Kapoor

The concealed terrain within our skins is both fascinating and frightening. In my visit to the jails, I saw the submerged part of human nature. The part which never sees the sun.

I saw eyes without hope. The torments of the dolphins pleading for help, caught in the propeller of circumstances. There is a smell of sorrow, smudged rages, dead brain cells, vulnerable somersault of hope and despair, and foul innards of accumulated yesterdays and fearful tomorrows poisoned by putrid moments.

There was an air of innocent vulnerability about a young man. The dialogue was in Punjabi. I asked him what brought him to the jail. 302 (murder), he replied. Whom did you murder? He smiled wickedly, and said: “Saheli maar ditti” (I murdered my girl friend). Why? She went away with somebody else. I told him he could have found some other. He laughed innocently and said: “Garmi kha gaya, chunni naal gala ghutt ditta” (I lost temper and strangulated her with her chunni). One has to pay heavily for these mad moments in life.

Passion has two ends — delightful and deranged. This I found in the women’s barrack. There were three lady doctors. One had murdered her husband in a swanky hotel after a fight. She was undergoing life imprisonment.

The second doctor had her lover assassinated when he refused to marry her. Infidelity is nature’s way. Revenge is a passionate emotion. Revenge is also a kind of wild justice.

The third doctor told me that her husband had committed suicide, but in his dying declaration, he said that she had poured kerosene on him, and set him on fire. The lady was calm and composed.

I remembered my small encounter with Bandit Queen Phoolan Devi. I was coming out of Parliament. The guard saluted me, and then he saluted again. I looked back and found Phoolan Devi who was an MP coming. I stepped aside and said: “Behen jee pehle aap”. She looked at me cynically. I have never seen a more dangerous look. Then she said sardonically: “Lo ab ye sale police wale bhi mujhe Behan Jee kehte hain.” It was her intense hatred which led to the massacre at Behmai when she said “Aaj yahan koi suhagan nahi bachegee” (No husband will remain alive).

What really shook me was a heart surgeon of a prominent hospital who in collusion with a chemist was putting sub-standard stents in the hearts of his trusting patients. There is no limit to greed.

I remember another young man, whom I helped in doing Masters in English Literature in jail. I asked him why he was doing MA in English Literature. He told me that the girl whom he loved asked him to do so. I told him she must be a good girl. How did I know that she was a good girl, he asked me with suspicion. I told him that since she was giving him good advice, she was a good girl. He relaxed and smiled.

I found that most of the prison inmates found solace in God and religion. The storm in its very nature is transient. The effort of nature as that of the human heart is to return to repose, for God is peace. Time is the true healer of pain. Either the pain disappears when it runs its course or a person learns to live with it.

Whenever, I came out of the jail, I thanked God that I went there only as a visitor. Nietzsche said: “There is a secret garden in all of us, which is another way of saying that we are all volcanoes that will have their hour of explosion”.

OPED-tribute

She spoke of loving, caring and sharing
On the 100th anniversary of Mother Teresa's birth, her biographer, Navin Chawla, writes about the life and healing touch of the Nobel Peace Prize winner who was "the most powerful woman in the world".

MY first meeting with Mother Teresa, in 1975, left the experience indelibly printed on my mind. That morning I had accompanied Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor, with whom I was then attached, to her home for the destitute. I was taken aback when I came face to face with her. She was smaller than I had imagined, dressed in a spotless, hand-woven sari that was neatly darned in several places. Her back even then was bent. I noticed that her feet were twisted and her hands were gnarled, testimony to her arduous life in the streets and slums.

Mother Teresa (August 26, 1910 - September 5 , 1997)
Sketch: Sandeep Joshi

Her words moved me profoundly. She spoke of simple things, of loving, caring and sharing. She seemed at many levels a very ordinary woman. Yet she was a powerful communicator and reached straight into the heart of those who were listening to her. Within a short while I realised that she was no different from those she served, for she and her Sisters seemed to be as poor as those surrounding us.

Her coming to India itself was a mystery, a word I use in its mystical sense. Born in 1910 in Skopje, Yugoslavia. Agnes as she was then known, was raised in relatively frugal circumstances by a fiercely Catholic mother, the youngest of three children. As a young girl, her imagination was stirred by stories of Yugoslav Jesuit priests who worked in distant Bengal. At the age of 14, barely a teenager, she asked her mother for permission to join the Church and work in India. At 18, she had her way and when she bade her mother goodbye, she was never to see her again.

She had said to me, as she had said to others before, that it was a lesser wrench for her to leave mother’s home than it was for her to leave the Loreto Convent in Entally. In her 20 years as a Loreto nun, first a teacher and later Principal, she developed the discipline of an Order; in its most simplistic sense, her life was regulated by the ringing of the school bell. Here there was order and security, but also some exposure to the disadvantaged, as many of her wards were orphans and children of poor parents, with whom she could speak in Bengali with ease.

She was happy in her work, but restless too. The world she glimpsed from her classroom window was made up of slums and abject poverty: it seemed to be the real world, and she slowly sensed that her vocation belonged there. She began to attempt this almost impossible transition from convent to street, but with her vows intact: a Catholic nun within the Church order, yet outside of it. In these many divides of life, she resorted to prayer that deepened her faith. I often found that she faced dilemmas by first a retreat to prayer, and then renewed attempts, until the object was achieved or otherwise. Two years later, surprisingly but perhaps not, the Vatican made its first exception of this kind.

The biography I wrote on Mother was an accident. I had known her for a number of years and helped her with her concerns in Delhi. In all that time it never struck me to write a book. One day when we were in conversation she said something enormously funny and we both laughed. It was then that I remarked that none of the books that I had read about her had brought out that side of her personality. Perhaps I should write a book, I said. She was not inclined to agree: “So many books have already been written.” I blurted out: “Why, Mother, does one have to be a Catholic, can’t a bureaucrat and a Hindu write?” I immediately regretted my words and fell into an embarrassed silence. However, she took that seriously and said: “All right, but don’t write about me, write about the work.”

Although she herself remained fiercely Catholic, her brand of religion was not exclusive. Convinced that each person she ministered to was Christ in suffering, she reached out to people of all faiths. The very faith that sustained her infuriated her detractors who saw her as a symbol of a right-wing conspiracy and, worse, the principal mouthpiece of the Vatican’s well-known views against abortion. Interestingly, such criticism went largely unnoticed in India, where she was widely revered.

As her biographer, I confronted her with accusations in some quarters that she accepted money for her work from some rather dubious sources. Her answer was concise: “I have never asked anybody for money. I take no salary, no government grant, no church assistance, nothing. But everyone has a right to give. I have no right to judge anybody. God alone has that right.” The Missionaries of Charity remains perhaps the only global charitable organisation that explicitly forbids fund-raising.

I once called her the most powerful woman in the world. She replied: “Where? If I was, I would bring peace to the world.” I asked her why she did not use her undeniable influence to lessen war. She replied: “War is the fruit of politics. If I get stuck in politics, I will stop loving. Because I will have to stand by one, not by all.”

The large bequests and donations were gratefully received and immediately ploughed into wherever the need was most pressing, from leprosy stations spread across Asia and Africa to homes for orphans and disabled children all over the world. Yet, it was the “sacrifice money” that she never forgot — the Calcutta beggar who emptied his day’s earnings of a few coins into her hands; the young Hindu couple who loved each other so much yet refused a marriage feast so that they could offer her the money they thus saved.

When Mother Teresa was alive, I had expressed concern to her whether the organisation she had built from scratch had not overly grown and whether it would be difficult to sustain after she passed on. I had seen several other organisations begin to wither away soon after their charismatic founders became either physically debilitated or died. Why would this Order be any different, I asked? The first time I posed this question to her, she merely smiled and pointed her fingers heavenwards. The second time I asked, she set my question aside with a smile saying, “Let me go first.” On my persistence, some weeks later, she finally answered, “You have been to so many of our ‘homes’ (branches) in India and abroad. Everywhere the Sisters wear the same saris, eat the same kind of food, do the same work, but Mother Teresa is not everywhere, yet the work goes on.” Then she added, “As long as we remain committed to the poorest of the poor and don’t end up serving the rich, the work will prosper.”

The last time I met Mother Teresa was in Delhi a few months before she died. She was on her way back from America to her beloved Calcutta and stopped for a few hours to change planes. She spoke then of simple things, of loving, caring and sharing. She held my hand in hers and said, “You must always work for the poor and the good of all people. You must continue to touch the poor.”

She was also criticised for conversion. Yet in all the 23 years I knew her she never even whispered such a suggestion. However, I asked her if she did convert. Her answer was direct. “I convert,” she said. “I convert you to be a better Hindu, a better Muslim, a better Protestant, a better Sikh. Once you have found God, it is up to you to do with Him as you wish.” She believed that conversion was God’s work, not hers.

What would happen to her mission when she passed away, I asked her. She laughed and said, “Let me go first.” I asked again and this time she replied: “You have been to so many of our ‘homes’ (missions) in India and abroad. Everywhere the Sisters wear the same saris, eat the same kind of food, do the same work. But Mother Teresa is not everywhere. Yet the work goes on.” Then she added: “As long as we remain committed to the poorest of the poor and do not end up serving the rich, the work will prosper.”

The very last time that I met Mother Teresa was in July of 1997, two months before she died. Because she passed through Delhi unexpectedly, very few people knew of her transit, which is why I was able to spend several hours with her. During those hours, she recapitulated simple things: loving, caring, and sharing. She reminded me of my promise that I would not leave government service, as I had wanted to do some years earlier. She reminded me that I must work for the poor and the good of all people. “You must continue to touch the poor,” were among her last words to me in private. This was a part of the legacy she left to me.

The writer is former Chief Election Commissioner of India and
author of the authorised biography of Mother Teresa.

Desire to serve
Bina Deogun

I first met Mother at a ‘Bandage Rolling’ session in 1959, but only came under her sway in 1979 when I heard her explain what she meant by a ‘giving of yourself’. Prior to this, ‘giving’ had only meant a donation of some sort.

Her explanation unleashed something in me — a something I had not even known existed. It was as if a tap was turned on and I was being flooded with a deep desire to serve. I became conscious of a new development, a totally new dimension within me. But what could I do? Was I capable of being any real help? Like many in my strata of society, I too was rendered helpless by a retinue of domestic servants and pampering parents.

I need not have worried. There was plenty to be done at the Missionaries of Charity and over the years I found myself doing all sorts of work. My friends, Rani, Kamma, Bapsi and I pitched in wherever help was needed — stitching, knitting, teaching children, accompanying the Sisters on medication rounds and even addressing school children.

There was a sense of fulfilment and a warm glow within. I am no seamstress, yet after every baby frock that I stitched I felt that I had just finished my ‘pooja’. This feeling is not easy to describe — you have to experience it, but I’m sure the thousand who have worked with Mother will know exactly what I mean.

I met her many times over the years and on one occasion I told her: “Mother I am not from a business family and when the sisters desperately need a big amount urgently I feel inadequate and helpless and don’t know who to turn to.”

“Oh child you have not understood the Lord, you don’t have to go anywhere for help, it will come to you and through you His poor will be helped. Just surrender yourself to God and God will help you to do His work”.

This is exactly what happened. There were numerous occasions when the needs of the Home were barely brought to our notice and lo and behold some donor would appear on the scene with a desire to donate the exact thing that the home was asking for! At first I put it down to a mere coincidence, but as the years went by I began to change my mind. Strange things began to happen and many a time the amounts being offered would be exactly the amount needed for a particular job. What this is — I leave you to decide. As for me I know now that ‘more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of’.

Her rules were simple, no charge for any service rendered, no appeasement of the rich and the mighty, and no fund raising events. Caste creed or colour played no role in her life. Her Sisters were busy administering to the sick and the wounded and had no time to ask the sick their names, leave alone their religion or caste!

The beauty of it all is that when people give anything to her they are giving to her poor and are really not bothered about which sect or creed it will go to, whether it will go to the Hindus, the Sikhs, Muslims or Christians. In her home for the aged there was a woman who had been abandoned by her family but she knew the Vashishta Yoga well and she used to sing the Hanuman Chalisa for those who cared to listen. Why then do some say she cares only for the Christians?

Decades earlier, Mother Teresa may have belonged to India, but today all national barriers have been surmounted and the poor all over the world claim her. Though my head tells me that she came to reduce the misery and the suffering throughout the world, my heart tells me that she only came to bring joy to me and my family, for such was the power of her communication — she took us in her fold. She was not only concerned for her ‘lillies of the field’ — the poor, but was just as concerned for the needy — the needy in spirit. The word covers anyone who has less than you mentally, materially and emotionally.

I pledge to honour her teaching and to continue to give of myself to those who have less than me. This way I can pay homage and express my gratitude to the great soul, who, though penniless herself, conquered the hearts of all and, who, though short in stature, stood tallest amongst mankind — to Mother Teresa, God’s Gift to India.