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Victory
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India’s
election to UNSC Triumph
of human spirit
Misperceptions
on J&K
Confessions
of a reformed smoker
Cleanliness
and culture in India
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India’s election to UNSC
India’s election to a non-permanent seat in the U.N. Security Council after a gap of 19 years affords a welcome opportunity to this country to push the case for reforms in the United Nations which are long overdue. With Kazakhstan having pulled out from the race and there being no other contender for the Asia seat, the election was a mere formality. But the magnitude of the endorsement—187 of the 190 members voted for India — gives cause for elation. Yet, it would be naïve to assume that this would be a stepping stone to permanent membership for which India has been striving. Significantly, non-permanent members do not enjoy the crucial veto power and they do not have much say in matters that could affect international affairs and future of the planet. The five permanent members have been zealously guarding their turf, reluctant to admit any other country. While Britain and France have announced unequivocal support for India’s permanent membership, the Russians have offered only conditional support and the US and China are either refusing to accept India’s claim or keeping silent on it. India indeed has a job on its hand to build up international pressure on the expansion of the Security Council. The timing for a new thrust could hardly be more propitious than it is today with the Security Council set to witness the simultaneous presence of all BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) and IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa) countries and three of the four G4 nations (India, Brazil and Germany). With India’s two-year term as a non-permanent member slated to begin in January next, there is a huge challenge ahead for Indian diplomacy. To prove its credentials as a world leader, India will be required to articulate its stand on major issues with telltale effectiveness. It will also need to take a more proactive leadership stand in regard to flashpoints in its neighbourhood. This is India’s chance to make its presence felt and to lead the way for basic reforms in the Security Council, including the question of the veto held by the five permanent members, the size of an enlarged Council and its working methods.
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Triumph of human spirit
Church
bells tolled, sirens blared and millions in the world had a smile on their faces as miner Florencio Avalos resufraced after 69 days of living underground. He was the first of the 33 miners who had been trapped 2,000 feet below the ground in a mine in Copiapo, Chile, to be winched up in a rescue capsule, and like clockwork, other miners followed. TV and Internet audiences across the globe remained glued, witnessing a human drama that surpassed anything the world had known in the recent past. What had the potential to turn into a tragic story became a moment of pride for Chile. A cave-in on August 5 had left the miners trapped in a small copper-and-gold mine. The tremendous effort of the Chilean government, led by President Sebastian Pinera and Mining Minister Laurence Golborne, was fruitful, first in locating the miners and then in coordinating an international rescue effort, which led to recovering them from the jaws of death. On their part, the miners responded to the disciplined leadership of Luis Urzua, their shift in-charge, who took measures necessary for their survival, including rationing of food. Contact with the outside world, established 17 days after the cave-in, too had a vital role to play in boosting their morale as well as providing them with material and emotional support. Mining incidents are, unfortunately, not rare. The dramatic rescue has also brought the spotlight on mine safety. In Chile, the President sacked the head of the national mining regulatory body and promised reforms. The world that is watching the rescue operation from comfortable perches in front of the TV screens should also learn lessons, however uncomfortable, about ensuring mine safety. That would be a true celebration of the triumph of human spirit seen in the dramatic Chilean rescue effort.
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One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim. — Henry Brooks Adams
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Misperceptions on J&K While
glibly alluding to the “rights of Kashmiris,” few people appear to remember that Jammu and Kashmir is a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-religious state made up not just of “Kashmiris”. Roughly 45 per cent of its people are not Kashmiris, who live in the Kashmir valley, but are Dogras, Punjabis, Paharis, Bakarwals, Gujjars, Buddhist Ladakhis and Balti Shias in Kargil. Paradoxically, the Kashmir valley, where one now hears calls for “azadi”, had been ruled ruthlessly for over 700 years by Mongols, Afghans, Mughals, Sikhs and Dogras before the people there experienced democratic freedoms under India’s Constitution. Moreover, while communal harmony has prevailed in the multi-religious Jammu and Ladakh regions, it is from the valley alone, which boasts of a proud history of secular “Kashmiriyat”, that 400,000 members of the minority community have been forced to flee from their homes by a Pakistani-sponsored “jihad,” backed covertly by a motley conglomerate of separatists calling itself the All-Party Hurriyat Conference. And, right now, we are faced with a situation wherein a section of the people from barely five of the 22 districts in the state is holding the entire country to ransom. New Delhi’s handling of these developments has been marked by incredible naiveté involving attempts to alternately divide or appease the Hurriyat, whose charter explicitly proclaims its aim to promote “the build-up of a society based on Islamic values,” in keeping with “the Muslim majority character of the state”. The charter’s primary aim is described as a “struggle to secure for the people of Jammu and Kashmir the exercise of the right of self-determination in accordance with the UN Charter and the resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council. However, the exercise of the right of self-determination shall also include the right to independence”. Every major outfit in the Hurriyat, which has splintered and split periodically, is associated with terrorist groups across the LoC ranging from the Al-Umar Mujahideen, which backs the “moderate” Mirwaiz Omar Farooq, to the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen linked to the “radical” Hurriyat leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani. While the secular Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front led by Yasin Malik was the favourite of the ISI in the early years of militancy, the leadership shifted from Geelani to the Mirwaiz when President Musharraf was at daggers drawn with Geelani’s mentor, Qazi Husain Ahmed, the Amir of Pakistan’s Jamaat-e-Islami. Now that General Kayani is at peace with the Jamaat, the Mirwaiz plays a second fiddle to Geelani. The puppets may be in the valley, but the puppeteers are in Rawalpindi! With the PDP emerging as a viable alternative to the National Conference, both parties have sought to match the rhetoric of the Pakistan-backed separatists by demanding a return to the position that prevailed in 1953, before the provisions of the Indian Constitution were made applicable to the State. Some of our misguided “liberals” advocate the conceding of “maximum autonomy”. They forget that what is being asked for by a section of the people of the state, exclusively from the valley, with little or no support from people in the Jammu and Ladakh regions, is a framework wherein the permit system for the entry of people from other parts of India into Kashmir could be revived, the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, the Election Commission and the Auditor-General of India will no longer extend to the state, and duties could be imposed on goods imported into Kashmir from the rest of the country. Jammu and Kashmir will then become the only part of the country where the provisions of Article 356 and 357 of the Constitution will not be applicable and the Governor will be appointed not by the Union Government but by the state legislature. Just before the Mirza Afzal Beg-G Parthasarathi Accord was signed on August 23, 1974, Sheikh Abdullah told Indira Gandhi’s representative: “I hope I have made it clear to you that I can assume office only on the basis of the position as it existed in 1953.” Mrs Gandhi merely agreed to discuss this with Sheikh Abdullah, who assumed office soon thereafter. The recent demonstrations in parts of the Kashmir valley have had no resonance elsewhere in the state. They are being orchestrated to pick up momentum and reach full throttle when President Obama is in India. The salient demand has been the revocation of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, being strangely espoused at a time when the Army is no longer deployed for internal security anywhere in the valley. The Hurriyat leaders and their mentors across the LoC know that with the Army out of the security equation, the writ of the Indian State can be challenged with impunity. The autonomy being demanded by the Hurriyat is seen in Jammu and Ladakh as an instrument to achieve permanent hegemony of the valley population and fulfil the Hurriyats’s aspirations for a “society based on Islamic values”. Any initiative to reach out to people across Jammu and Kashmir must be premised on the basis that there has to be a consensus in all regions of the state. While demanding “azadi” for “Kashmiris” and echoing the Pakistani line, the Hurriyat has been remarkably reticent on what is happening in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Surely, those demanding “azadi” should be asked whether their “demand” also covers the people of Gilgit and Baltistan. The resolution passed by the European Parliament on May 24, 2007, slams the domination of officials appointed by Islamabad in the affairs of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and notes that the 1974 POK Constitution “forbids any political activity that is not in accordance with the doctrine of Jammu and Kashmir as part of Pakistan”. The European Parliament resolution notes that while the “Gilgit- Baltistan region enjoys no form of democratic representation whatsoever,” the State of “Jammu and Kashmir (administered by India) enjoys a unique status under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, granting it greater autonomy than other states of the Indian Union”. These are surely the facts that India needs to drive home aggressively to people in the Kashmir valley and to the international community rather than being continually defensive about deliberately engineered violence in the valley. The broad understanding reached during “back channel” discussions between India and Pakistan between 2005 and 2007 reportedly involved an end to cross-border terrorism and equivalent autonomy on both sides of the Line of Control, with the LoC no longer being a barrier to the free movement of goods, services, investment and people. Despite the antics of General Ashfaque Parvez Kayani and Syed Ali Shah Geelani, this is a vision India must aggressively articulate and
promote.
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Confessions of a reformed smoker When
I saw the oral cancer of a patient spreading to his eye, it shook me from inside and I silently knelt in prayer: “thank God I don’t smoke any more.” Just out of school with unexpected high scores, I became the envy of the neighbourhood and kinship. After a flood of offers from premier institutes, I decided to join DAV College Jalandhar, the best option in 1961.Amidst the rigours of studies, I tried to ape one senior, who was otherwise very affable and friendly, to try to puff on a cigarette. Though it led to a fit of coughing, my bad luck made me to ignore the discomfort and I became an occasional smoker. Once in medical college, the casual remark of a gorgeous batchmate about her penchant for smokers egged me on with my devastating relationship with Lady Nicotine. Going through the pathology and medicine books on the deleterious effects of smoking did not seem to help me much . Though I did not marry that batch-mate, my first tiff with my fateful wife of 41 years concerned a cigarette. The habit got on to me progressively, making me a nervous wreck about the time I was father of two beautiful angelic daughters. Though they never expressed in strong words their abhorrence of tobacco smell in the house, their disdain of the man with a cigarette in the hand or on the lips was always obvious. On our 26th wedding anniversary when my sweetheart asked very lovingly about the present I was supposed to give her on the occasion, I suddenly blurted: “How about smoke-free environs in the house”. She was visibly thrilled. That did it ! For the next full one year I lived through the pangs of an ex-smoker going through scrawny moments. But a sudden onset of angina impressed on me for good a stamp of a “reformed smoker”. Lying in the ICU of Apollo Hospital in 1996 after a double heart bypass surgery, making me poorer by couple of lakhs of scarce rupees, I envisaged myself in the role of a preacher against the evils of smoking. Though heart disease was unheard of in my family for generations I am aware of the doctors’ verdict attributing cigarette as the cause of early cataract in both eyes and heart disease at considerably young age.That made me more resolute of my crusade against the wickedness of smoking. Once out of convalescence, I gave a string of lectures and interviews in schools, colleges and on every possible platform about the ill effects of smoking. American Department of Health came forward in a big way to supply suitable literature and help books on quitting smoking. I am humbled with the results that several of my friends and associates are now ex-smokers like me. With the gruesome days past me, I continue to go on a bicycle for 15-20 km every day, with the profound hope of going past a fruitful life of at least 85 years, enjoying the bliss of prolific years of life and adding life to years. My adherence to yogic sadhana, pranayaam and tryst with Rajyoga are big sources of deliverance for me and my family. I am glad that I made the right choice at the right moment. And I am proud of it. So are my wife,my two daughters and my four grand
children.
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Cleanliness and culture in India
We
are all embarrassed by Mr Lalit Bhanot's reaction to criticisms of the foreign news media last month on the unsanitary conditions in the Commonwealth Games Village. He remarked, I am sure without thinking, that our perceptions of cleanliness differ from that of the foreigners who he implied had higher standards. He did get upbraided by his superiors for his remark, but I would contend that instead of brushing the incident aside, we should use it to confront the truth and introspect deeply. This incident reminds me of the embarrassment produced by the American, Katherine Mayo's 1927 book Mother India that microscopically examined our unhygienic conditions and attributed them to our customs and habits. Gandhi observed that the book is "the report of a drain inspector sent out with the one purpose of opening and examining the drains of the country to be reported upon, or to give a graphic description of the stench exuded by the opened drains". Yet, he urged every Indian to read it. Of all our political leaders it was only Gandhi who had the courage to take a deep interest in changing our attitudes to garbage and sewerage. Identifying himself with the Shudra varna, he was ever willing to spend time on cleaning toilets and disposing of excrement. It is now time to follow Gandhi and do everything possible to prove Mr Bhanot wrong and set the standard for cleanliness and hygiene to the whole world. To attain this objective, instead of going on to the denial mode and chastise Mr Bhanot for the embarrassment he has caused we should feel embarrassed at the open display of our ugly habits, sights and smells. If we travel by train almost anywhere in India we are bound to be greeted in the mornings by sights of people lining the railway track engaged in the business of defecation. We say dogs pee whenever they come to a pole but why do Indian males feel the urge to urinate in public whenever they wish. Is that our way of marking territory? Our public buildings, railway stations, government offices, shopping arcades and even hospitals are often not spared from pan juice spittle. We are immune to garbage piled up in street corners and overflowing from garbage bins literally converting its surrounding area into an unhealthy swamp. To make matters worse, we seem to be paying for our double-digit growth in terms of scattered plastic garbage and chemical wastes that resist biodegradation and choke rivers, ponds and drains. To some extent, we can pass the buck for such unedifying sights, sounds and smells to our deeply flawed institutions of governance starting from the municipality to the government in New Delhi. Corruption, inefficiency and callousness by officials are the usual complaints offered by the victims of such public apathy. Although our official figures
state that access to sanitary facilities has jumped to nearly 70 per cent
of the population from an appallingly low less than 3 per cent a decade ago, we still have a long way to go.
Our access to basic civic amenities such as clean water, public toilets, garbage bins and a proper sewerage system is woefully inadequate in spite of the fact
that large government allocations are made in every budget to extend such facilities. It is pointless to merely the blame the system. Our silence and indifference to such issues are taken as tacit approval of the state of affairs by the authorities concerned. We have to change many of our habits and customs no doubt, but most important among them is this habit of remaining passive to our unclean and unhygienic surroundings. Some anthropologists and sociologists think that we tend to be indifferent and passive to ugly sights and smells because of our cultural conditioning. A distinguished Indian sociologist who is adept at quickly scanning the social scene to offer catchy insights suggests that because Hindus consider bodily emanations as highly polluting, they need the low- ranking castes of sweepers to do the job. He, therefore, argues that caste rules prohibit us from cleaning our own toilets. To do so is to get downgraded castewise. Another anthropologist, an Australian, offers an Indian law of pollution that resembles one of the laws of thermodynamics. Just as matter cannot be destroyed, Indians believe that dirt cannot be eliminated; it can only be transferred from one place to another or from one person to another. It follows from this principle that to keep one's self and one's home clean, it does not matter if the garbage is thrown out and the environment gets dirty. So, according to him, because Indians think that bodily eliminations can only be passed, somebody has to be polluted. The person who absorbs pollution will necessarily have a low social status as reflected in his caste's rank. The problem with such anthropological explanations is that they consider culture as static and frozen. True, some of the principles of caste, especially the ones authored by Brahmins who assigned to themselves a high state of purity to propagate such theories. But, Indian culture is more intricate and complex. Such principles have been challenged, not just in recent times but even in the medieval period by many Bhakti saints, including Ramanuja and Basava in the south and Guru Nanak and Kabir in the north of India. And in any case, however deeply rooted a particular habit or attitude may be in our culture, we are also capable of changing our attitudes and habits as circumstances change. This is also true of the West as well. It is reported that as late as the 19th century sanitary conditions in vast parts of Europe were appallingly unclean. Besides, the cold climate of Europe compounded sanitary problems in ways unimaginable to people in the tropics. Let us not forget that the Thames in England was notorious as a highly polluted river in the 1950s and 60s. It is well known that the institution of the bath is a relatively recent European import from the East. Hence, if we attribute unclean habits and unsanitary conditions entirely to culture we need to account for how European cultures that were relatively indifferent to considerations of purity and pollution have now become the standard-bearers of personal and public hygiene. In India too we are beginning to see some new trends. It is a well known fact that in 1994 the city of Surat in Gujarat acquired notoriety as the epicentre of plague epidemic. But subsequently, thanks to the efforts of its civic officials, Surat was scrubbed clean and its ugly garbage dumps disappeared. In Ahmedabad today, because of the efforts of NGOs and the municipality, slums have been provided with sewer lines, water and electricity connections. Hence, the slums of Ahmedabad are relatively cleaner and more liveable today than the slums of New Delhi. The city of Hyderabad, including even the congested parts of the city, is spanking clean because the
services of sweeping, garbage collection and its disposal was handed over to a private enterprise by the previous government. The city of Chennai also sets
a standard for urban cleanliness in India because of action taken by civic authorities to clean the
river Cooam. I also find that the efforts of Sulabh Shauchalaya have improved urban sanitation wherever they have built their paid toilets. Hence, instead of considering ourselves as being overwhelmingly conditioned by our
culture, we should take collective initiatives to clean our urban environments. This is also a way of continuing the Gandhian tradition of social reform. The writer is a former Professor of Sociology, JNU, Delhi
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