O P I N I O N S

PERSPECTIVE

A Tribune Special
Crisis of political culture
A radical and qualitative change in the leadership of ideas and values is the biggest investment for Haryana, says Rajbir Parashar
WITH the much-hyped potential of industrialisation and economic growth in the National Capital Region of Haryana coming at the centrestage of policymaking, somewhere around and amidst us all there is a massive turning point in the history of modern, contemporary Haryana.

Roar of lionesses: Women’s empowerment 
in Africa
by Ash Narain Roy
Until the lions have their own historians, so goes an old proverb, histories of the hunt will glorify the hunter. In the poor and democratically fragile, if not failing, continent like Africa, we increasingly hear the lions’ stories, but now the lionesses have begun to roar. As is common knowledge, while the male lion’s mane incites our admiration, it is actually the lionesses in a pride that bring in food and ensure survival of the species. Women in Africa have begun to change history.

OPED

No bull in a China shop
Of NRI divorces and anti-suit injunctions
by Anil Malhotra
Hindu marriages made in heaven and solemnised in India are now wantonly dissolved abroad. This is sad but true. A prelude follows. Over 30 million overseas Indians are domiciled in 130 countries abroad. The parallel adjudication of their matrimonial disputes in the courts simultaneously in India and abroad activates a new inter se marital discord.

On Record
Kashmiris need to be given their space: Kak
by Rajeev Khanna
Noted filmmaker Sanjay Kak was in the Lake City of Nainital recently to participate in the Second Nainital Film Festival. The event had concluded with his much-acclaimed film Jashn-e-Azadi which talks about how the people of Kashmir perceive the mere concept of Azadi and what independence means to them. After the screening of the 138-minute film, Sanjay Kak talked to The Tribune in Nainital.

Profile
Norphel’s formula to tackle water crisis in Ladakh
by Harihar Swarup
Chewang Norphel is known in the Ladakh region as “Ice Man”, some call him “Glacier Man of India”. Chosen for Jamnalal Bajaj Award this year, 74-year-old Norphel has come up with a solution that won’t exactly save the ancient glaciers, but it could stave off a looming irrigation crisis.

PERSPECTIVE

A Tribune Special
Crisis of political culture
A radical and qualitative change in the leadership of ideas and values is the biggest investment for Haryana, says Rajbir Parashar

WITH the much-hyped potential of industrialisation and economic growth in the National Capital Region of Haryana coming at the centrestage of policymaking, somewhere around and amidst us all there is a massive turning point in the history of modern, contemporary Haryana.

The present historical juncture offers an occasion to survey the ‘overt’ as well as the undercurrent tones, formative and transformative factors of Haryana politics and culture.

For this, one has to go beyond the rhetoric of statistical or real strides in progress or individual successes or failures in managing political number games — the seductive parameters that reveal only half-truths. The most complex spot of Haryana politics and culture is the challenge to resolve its social and cultural contradictions with the best possible tools evolved by our nation as a democracy.

This challenge is multi-layered and its manifestations are pluralised in the recent historical experience, to name a few — Dulina, Harsola, Gohana and Mirchpur eruptions against the Dalits in Haryana. The murder of Manoj and Babli has already become a permanent point of reference to the incessant “honour killings” in the state. On questions of social democracy and individual freedom, Haryana continues to be a divided self, facing its internal cultural ruptures.

The apparent responsibility for this crisis lies with the political elite. Across party lines, the politicians of Haryana have yet to prove that they are not merely poor scraps of what our freedom struggle produced as the “democratic capital” in this region. The political idiom as reinvented by this political elite from time to time is two-faced — one formal and public and the other that really determines the pragmatics of political mobilisation and routes to power.

The one used in the public domain requires a verbal affirmation to the constitutional democracy and liberal commitments that legitimise any political party in the country. And the other, the undercurrent idiom is the real and result-oriented one. It is broadly Jat and non-Jat in its popular manifestation and the dominant parties consciously preserve it as the main contradiction of Haryana society. It is the most subtle, yet the crudest, facet which continues to be the consensual ground from which the ruling elite derives its life and sustenance, its ‘contesting’ and mutually harmless character.

The youth of Haryana — of all castes and all regions — is the real causality of this power game. Extra-constitutional formations and aspirations like khap panchayats are the real gainers in terms of maintaining social hegemony and perpetuating their retrograde agenda, even mustering competitive voices of support for amendment to the Hindu Marriage Act or ban on same gotra marriage from eminent leaders of dominant political parties of the state.

The health of social democracy in Haryana is best exposed in the working of the khap panchayats in the state. They are its self-styled modes of discontinuity with its liberal and modern hungers and are examples of self-revenge — a relationship of hatred towards the ‘other’ — the law of the land as ‘modern’ and ‘democratic’ presence in its indigenous traditions. 
Khaps are cultural formations naturalised by innocence or sheer respect for tradition but becoming ruthless avengers on the sons and daughters of Haryana. To them, their caste, gotra and khap have a universal continuity with the elemental Puritanism. They, the chieftains of khaps, are watchmen of a moral order of nothing and everything.

They are bent upon extracting and safeguarding a cultural future out of social laws which are already overspent and over consumed. The same gotra issue is but a strategy of perpetuating the game of hide and seek — cultural hide and seek.

Haryana as whole is participating in it. This game is being played in the open/ blatant space of a ‘silence’ — a silence in league with its spectators from all strata, caste and regions of the state. Only sometimes, the spectacle of female foeticide makes the mood somber and self-reflective because adequate ‘brides’ are not around for their sons.

Without succumbing to the popular description of Haryana politics and culture as rigidly caste-based or khap-centric, it is also useful to look at how the ideology of the ruling elite is seized by the Arya Samaj ethics as the only philosophy capable of redeeming its cultural anxieties.

Decades back, the Haryana that under the influence of Arya Samaj concentrated its social-economic energy to draw its sons and daughters towards education and some sort of Enlightenment, is now standing against it. At least it is divided over what to make of the education that conspires to induce self-choice and individual freedom as permanent features of individual behavior and social values in its cultural ethos. This self-choice and individual freedom, though presently practiced by women and Dalitsonly in limited terms, is now being perceived as an aberration.

This also necessitates a reference to the rise of the Bhupinder Singh Hooda phenomenon with an unmistakable family background of a genuine linkage with the Arya Samaj movement. The Chief Minister of Haryana has largely emerged as a shrewd blending of the late Devi Lal’s ‘well intentioned’ politics and the developmental zeal of Bansi Lal, but his will power and vision to counter and check the hegemonic aspirations at the socio-cultural level have yet to crystallise.

However, the fact that politicians are easy to blame, to segregate and target as short-sighted, opportunist, parochial or whatsoever we like to say, does not exempt the educated middle class of Haryana from its hitherto failures and historical responsibility in the times to come. The teachers, lawyers, doctors, advocates and other sections of intellectual class have to initiate a critical relationship with the political culture of the state or the socio-cultural reality that shapes its politics.

These ‘enlightened’ sections have yet to display and use the substance of education and ‘enlightenment’ for the larger good of society. A radical and qualitative change in the leadership of ideas and values is the biggest investment for Haryana.

Instead of practicing docility, silence and servitude to the discourse of power and hegemony, the educated sections have to play the role of a catalyst in evolving a vision of cultural transformation. And it has to be done not for any particular village, region or caste but the future of composite Haryana — the promising and youthful Haryana emerging out of the carnival of the Commonwealth Games.n

The writer is Associate Professor, Post-Graduate Department of English, RKSD College, Kaithal, Haryana

Roar of lionesses: Women’s empowerment in Africa
by Ash Narain Roy

Until the lions have their own historians, so goes an old proverb, histories of the hunt will glorify the hunter. In the poor and democratically fragile, if not failing, continent like Africa, we increasingly hear the lions’ stories, but now the lionesses have begun to roar. As is common knowledge, while the male lion’s mane incites our admiration, it is actually the lionesses in a pride that bring in food and ensure survival of the species. Women in Africa have begun to change history.

After Rwanda witnessed the genocide in 1994 that killed about 800,000 people, as much as 20 per cent of the country’s population, the country was left with 75 per cent of female population. The government turned the tragedy into an opportunity by bringing about extensive legal reforms and putting in place regulations and institutions to empower women. Rwanda thus became the first country in the world with a female majority in Parliament. Today, Rwanda has 56 per cent women in Parliament followed by Sweden (47 per cent). South Africa now occupies third position in the global ranking of women in Parliament (45 per cent). After the change in constitution in 2005, the proportion of women in Burundi’s government has risen from zero to 30 per cent.

Women’s success stories are by no means confined to Africa. Political empowerment of women in India through the panchayati raj institutions has begun to change the political landscape as also the governance agenda. The progress is no less significant in Latin America. Bolivia, with a predominant indigenous population, has created a new paradigm. President Evo Morales has reserved 50 per cent Cabinet posts for women. It has never happened anywhere in the world. His cabinet has 10 men and 10 women, three of them indigenous.

Latin America’s unsavoury reputation for machismo has undergone a dramatic change. Former Chilean President Michele Bachelet’s slogan “more women, more democracy, more justice” is no more an empty slogan. Women’s presence in provincial assemblies and local councils has gone up dramatically. About a quarter of all local council members are women, more than double the percentage a decade ago.

Of course, Africa’s case is still peculiar. Women leaders, activists and feminists have used various platforms to discuss women’s citizenship, strategies for inclusive growth as also to fight the culture that entrenches gender inequality.

The African Feminist Forum (AFF) was launched in November 2006, when a group of 120 African feminist activists from 16 countries met in Accra.  They carved out a place for themselves in social movement history, founding the first-ever Africa regional platform of self-identified feminist activists, strategising around an agenda of social, political and economic transformation beyond NGO projects and international development goals. Since then, sister forums have been founded in Uganda, Senegal and Nigeria while activists in Tanzania have included Forum goals into an existing national feminist platform. The multiplier effect lies in these national forums, which extend the reach of the Forum across the region.

The struggle for women’s rights remains a critical concern of our times. UN agencies, global financial institutions and civil society organisations have started to recognise that gender equality and women’s rights remain not only a moral imperative but a pragmatic priority for development and peace. Curiously, as the equality agenda gains mainstream prominence, the terms on which it was first tabled — ‘feminism’ and its target ‘patriarchy’ — appear to have been demoted to footnote status, if mentioned at all.

The African continent has, certainly, made groundbreaking moves towards women’s equality. The Rwandan case is, of course, most instructive. African regional human rights bodies have created a mechanism that sets an international legal precedent on access to safe abortions, and includes protections around women in conflict and HIV/AIDS. Liberia was home to the first all-women peacekeeping force thanks to the efforts of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf‘s government. And yet, by many counts gender inequality remains a critical issue. Women and girls are still facing violence and humiliation. In many places African societies continue to be defined by patriarchal power relations. 

There is a lot that women in India and elsewhere can learn from the experiences of African women. Let us not forget women had directly challenged President Charles Taylor and rebel leaders in Liberia to agree to peace talks. Women also pushed for the African Union to develop its Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa and to retain progressive and precedent setting language around reproductive rights.

No less significantly, it was women whose robust critique of religious fundamentalisms has helped challenge the introduction of homophobic legislation in Uganda and Nigeria. They were the ones who led the call for fair treatment of the alleged victim in the rape trial of then South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma. Women have risked their lives to document abuses by rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo and campaigned against slavery in Mauritania. The list of achievements is long.

Africa faces huge challenges of governance. There have been notable progress in many fields including in the area of human rights. But deficits are equally huge. While democracy from ‘above’ may be stalled or in some cases receding in African states, democracy from ‘below’ is certainly flourishing and expanding. More and more women forums are demanding not just a democracy of the ballot box, but a democracy of the heart; a genuine willingness to make space for everyone’s participation in society. At the local government level, some countries have made a good beginning. Two years ago, Equatorial Guinea held its first free municipal elections which international observers described as largely free and fair. Mozambique too held its first ever municipal elections that year.

That the quota can work wonders is best illustrated by the experience of Lesotho. It has provision for 30 per cent quota for women in local government bodies, but the number of women representatives has gone up to 58 per cent. Namibia has 42 per cent women in local government. Many African countries are actively promoting ‘50/50’ movement. Tanzania has 33 per cent women on its local councils. Sierra Lone, Kenya, Uganda and Senegal have also made rapid strides in this respect. The new Kenyan government has reserved 30 per cent of all public employment opportunities for women.

The goal of transforming patriarchal power relations, ending violence against women, and constructing egalitarian societies may well sound Utopian. However, in a region marked as much by disparities and political violence as by visionary change, these transformative goals become very much a strategic necessity. The launching of the African Women’s Decade (2010-2020) in Nairobi with the theme, “grassroots approach to gender equality and women’s empowerment” is a step in the right direction.

The writer is Associate Director, Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi

OPED

No bull in a China shop
Of NRI divorces and anti-suit injunctions
by Anil Malhotra

Hindu marriages made in heaven and solemnised in India are now wantonly dissolved abroad. This is sad but true. A prelude follows. Over 30 million overseas Indians are domiciled in 130 countries abroad. The parallel adjudication of their matrimonial disputes in the courts simultaneously in India and abroad activates a new inter se marital discord.

This clash of jurisdictional battles also germinates a conflict amongst the authority of courts. Foreign courts often impose penal sanctions oblivious of prior directions of the existing Indian courts of superior hierarchy. Rules of Private International Law offer little resolution. Spouses, children and extended families bear the brunt of multi-faceted parallel directives of courts of different overseas territories.

The Supreme Court in Neerja Saraph vs Jayant Saraph (1994) proposed feasibility of enacting a legislation to ensure that no marriage between an NRI and an Indian which has taken place in India may be annulled by a foreign court. Earlier in Y. Narasimha Rao vs Y. Venkata Lakshmi (1991), the apex court spelt out guidelines for recognition of foreign court matrimonial judgments to decide when Hindu marriages solemnised in India were said to be dissolved by unenforceable foreign decrees.

The Bombay High Court in Sondur Rajini vs. Sondur Gopal (2006) ruled that a foreign domicile of parties will not take away the jurisdiction of Indian courts to decide the annulment of their ceremonial Hindu marriage solemnised when they were domiciled in India.

In Navin Chander vs Leena (2006), the matrimonial dispute of a ceremonial marriage of Hindus celebrated in the US, was held by the Bombay High Court to be amenable for adjudication by the family court, Pune. The Delhi High Court in Veena Kalia vs Jatinder Kalia (1996), ruled that an ex-parte decree of divorce of a foreign court being a nullity, would not bar a subsequent petition for divorce in India even though maintenance had been accepted under the foreign judgment.

In Harmeeta Singh vs Rajat Taneja (2003), the Delhi High Court temporarily restraining the foreign court divorce proceedings held that even if the Hindu marriage is dissolved in the US, it would still have to be confirmed by an Indian Court. In Moina vs Amardeep (1996), a foreign domicile was held by the Delhi High Court to be no deterrent to a divorce petition preferred in India to dissolve a Hindu marriage celebrated here. These authoritative and laudable verdicts clearly reflect that Indian courts rightly have a prerogative to adjudicate matrimonial disputes falling in their domain.

In this backdrop, a new dimension of matrimonial litigation is coming in practice in the matrimonial arena in the shape of anti-injunction suits. A petition preferred in India for restraining an opposing spouse from pursuing or continuing with a complaint for matrimonial relief in a foreign court would be such an anti-injunction suit. Lack of jurisdiction, both regarding the corpus of the Hindu marriage and the physical presence of an Indian spouse in the territory abroad, are the grounds of such suits in India. However, even the reverse application now finds popular practice.

An extreme view finds enunciation in a judgment rendered on September 20, 2010, in an anti-injunction suit. The Federal Magistrates Court of Australia at Canberra restrained the wife from taking any action, as also for causing, allowing or assisting any other person, to pursue a complaint in India against the husband under the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961. Both parties were Australian citizens married according to Sikh rites in India. By Australian consent orders, settlement of maintenance, property and child custody were resolved. The Canberra Court found that on evidence presented, Ms Singh had not established that a dowry was either requested or paid as alleged. Accordingly, the court held “that the injunction acts only in relation to Ms Singh, and does not, either in terms or otherwise, purport to affect the administration of justice in India”. The judgment was said to be based on considerations of equity and justice.

Consequently, the thought proposed for conscious deliberation which reverberates in the minds of those who live on home soil is the dire need for evolving an Indian jurisprudence in matrimonial litigation to deal with anti-injunction suits in India. If an American court imposes a fine of US $ 1 lakh a day for not complying with a US court child custody order contrary to an Indian court order or a divorce petition on grounds of irretrievable breakdown of marriage is proceeded with the US despite a pending Indian divorce litigation, such oppressive litigation must be restrained by the dictates of equity, good conscience and comity of courts. Such unconscionable acts are estoppel by conduct. If foreign courts can evolve principles, similar thinking must develop at home too.

A foreign court matrimonial order may at times invade the privacy of the home and leave the hapless Indian spouse to abject surrender without a remedy. Surely, law must come to the rescue of the victims. The yeoman verdicts of Indian courts are a big crutch.

However, the need for a preventive remedy is stronger than a powerful cure at the end. What can be prevented must be stopped. What should not be suffered should not be endured. Anti-suit injunctions in matrimonial matters in fit cases must deter oppressive foreign court orders without technicalities. The majesty of Indian law must prevail.

The writer, Advocate, Punjab and Haryana High Court, is the author of “India, NRIs and the Law”. He can be reached at anilmalhotra1960@gmail.com

On Record
Kashmiris need to be given their space: Kak
by Rajeev Khanna

Sanjay Kak

Noted filmmaker Sanjay Kak was in the Lake City of Nainital recently to participate in the Second Nainital Film Festival. The event had concluded with his much-acclaimed film Jashn-e-Azadi which talks about how the people of Kashmir perceive the mere concept of Azadi and what independence means to them. After the screening of the 138-minute film, Sanjay Kak talked to The Tribune in Nainital.

Excerpts:

Q: Your movie traces the developments in Kashmir from early nineties. Violence and killings continue in the state. Where is it going?

A: The very politics of the land has changed. What people talk today is not what they were talking two decades back. Where it is going cannot be said but much depends on how much space they are given. Once there was the Ikhwanis’ movement when even some brothers turned against their brothers.

Q: The film tells people what they generally don’t get to hear. What has been the purpose?

A: My aim was to generate a reaction and thought in society. Things will not change overnight but the thought process should begin. The people should think and talk about what Kashmiris are looking at. The issue should not be seen through the concept of the nation state.

Q: You are critical of the Army presence in the valley. Has it not done good?

A: I am not for militarisation of the region. When the government claims that there are a few hundred militants in the valley today, where is the need of the Army? Besides, the Army is not trained though it claims otherwise to deal with civilian issues.

Q: But don’t you see the need for the Army at times?

A: This is an argument given by the state and the Army. It cannot help resolve issues that are primarily civilian in nature. They are not trained for the task.

Q: What are the Kashmiris looking at?

A: It cannot be said what exactly they want. But I am in favour of giving them proper democratic space. Five years down the line they might want to be with India. The Kashmiris need to be given the democratic space to decide upon their future. The youth is agitated and they are without a leader to give them direction. They don’t endorse Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s line of thought. The reason why he commands respect is that people believe that he is the only person who has not sold out himself. Otherwise, politics has been very unhealthy there.

Q: Isn’t there another way of looking at Kashmir? First it was divided into the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and Indian Kashmir. Then the state has been referred to in terms of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. The references are on communal lines. Don’t we have to look at these perspectives?

A: It is a question that broadens the scope of the issue many times. It is history how Islam came to Kashmir, how the Muslims and Pandits lived in complete harmony and how Kashmiriyat had evolved. I have a thought process which might sound Utopian but I believe in it. Why cannot Kashmir be an independent identity with both India and Pakistan supporting it? It can be like the area between the German and Italian border for which the two countries had fought for several years but eventually resolved the problem. Today it is a major zone for trading between the two nations. It is quite possible that there are very few takers for my idea, but it is my thought.

Q: What is the youth talking about?

A: The youth today cannot use the SMS service while it has access to the Internet and Facebook. It is one reason that I signed into the facebook to understand their thought process. The middle class youth like elsewhere comes into the political processes in very small numbers. In Kashmir it is the same youth that has the exposure of Internet and cyber cafes that is coming onto the streets these days. My experience with the youth at a recent interaction was interesting. The voices tell a lot. It was interesting to see them wanting to discuss the issue of trade unionism.

Q: Is the scene not similar to some other parts like the North East?

A: Whenever I have screened my film for the youth, particularly in Delhi, I have had people from Nagaland and Manipur coming up to me and saying that the movie is great but why is it that such a movie has not been made on their state.

Profile
Norphel’s formula to tackle water crisis in Ladakh
by Harihar Swarup

Chewang Norphel

Chewang Norphel is known in the Ladakh region as “Ice Man”, some call him “Glacier Man of India”. Chosen for Jamnalal Bajaj Award this year, 74-year-old Norphel has come up with a solution that won’t exactly save the ancient glaciers, but it could stave off a looming irrigation crisis.

He has created artificial glaciers, frozen pools of glacier run-off perched above the farmers’ fields, which thaw just in time for the start of growing season in April — two months before water from the distant natural glaciers arrive. The slanted pool melt into irrigation channels over the next six weeks, watering crops for villages of roughly 500 families and, as a bonus, recharging the valley’s natural springs.

A civil engineer, Norphel’s innovation has been hailed as an elegantly simple and cheap solution to a devastating problem. One artificial glacier costs $7,000, compared to $34,000 for a cement water reservoir. Only local materials are needed and villagers themselves can build and maintain them.

The seven glaciers he has built as head of a local non-profit managing the watershed programme for Jammu and Kashmir have won him widespread attention. Engineers from other mountainous regions in India and Afghanistan have visited him to learn his technique.

A village targeted by Norphel is the Buddhist hamlet of Sakti, tucked in the mountain of Ladakh Range that stretches above the Indus River. His first glacier was built in 2001. People grabbed up more land to cultivate, planting groves of willow and saplings between fields.

Norphel has already built 10 glaciers. His idea is simple yet striking. Using a few hundred metres of iron pipes, stone embankment and a whole lot of ingenuity, he diverts water from a stream into the man-made channel. The channel has some 70 outlets through which water drips down the mountain slope. The water remains concealed under the glacier until April when the mercury starts rising, just the time farmers need water for their fields.

It is a blessing in the cold desert of Ladakh. Here farmers harvest just one crop of wheat, barley or peas a year and rely most on glacier melt because it seldom rains in this desert. The cropping window too is also a short six months after which severe winter sets in. Norphels’ technique now gives them a head-start in the supply of water. His largest glacier is the one at village Phuktsey, which is 1,000 feet long, 500 feet wide and 4 ft in depth. It can supply water for the entire village of 700 people.

Norphel suggests that artificial glaciers be built as a substitute for dams. He believes that dams are an enormous financial burden and they bring about environmental and social hazards. Artificial glaciers are easy to built. First channelise glacier water into a depression lying in the shadow area of a mountain, hidden from sunlight. Then place half-inch-wide iron pipes at the edge of the depressions.
A civil engineering by training, Norphel retired from government service in 1995. A year later he joined the Leh Nutrition Project, a non-governmental organisation, as project manager for the watershed development. He realised that all the problems in the region were related to water. In most areas, it was scare. In others, it was being wasted.

He feels that the best way to deal with this is the construction of clean efficient channels. The channels he makes bring water from distant areas with minimal losses.

Coming from a middle class family of Leh, Norphel went to Amar Singh College in Srinagar as a student of science and completed diploma course in civil engineering from Lucknow in 1960. In June, the same year, he joined the rural development department of Jammu and Kashmir and was posted in Ladakh as a civil engineer. He is fluent in English and Hindi.

There is not a village where he has not made a road, a culvert, a bridge, a building or an irrigation system. His job required making of zinks (small tanks fed by run-off from melting glaciers). While travelling far and wide in Ladakh, he developed interest in water. He realised that all the problems of the region were related to water.