The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

	Give EC more teeth Proposal for interim ban on criminals just Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi has rightly reiterated the need to ban criminals from contesting elections. The Centre would do well to act upon this pressing electoral reform which has been talked of since 1998. Dr Quraishi says that when a person in jail during the pendency of trial cannot exercise his franchise, which is a statutory right, he should be barred from contesting an election too. In the present system, a person can be barred from contesting an election only if he/she is convicted by a court of law. The Election Commission has recommended to the Centre that if an undertrial is facing serious criminal charges like murder, rape and extortion, where punishment on conviction may exceed five years of imprisonment or more, he should be barred from contesting an election during the pendency of trial. The Centre has not implemented this recommendation, perhaps, because of the political parties’ perception that some of the charges framed against politicians are politically motivated. However, there is a general impression that if criminals are kept at bay during elections, it would help cleanse the political establishment of the influence of criminal elements and protect the sanctity of Parliament and state legislatures. The Election Commission’s recommendation is just, reasonable and meets the ends of justice because it has suggested an interim ban on undertrials during the pendency of trial. The commission’s other recommendation for vesting in it the power of disqualification of MPs and MLAs under the Third Schedule (and not with the Speakers) also merits due consideration. It is common knowledge how the Speakers of Karnataka, Goa, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh Assemblies had misused their power of disqualification to bail out the ruling party in these states. The commission should also be given the power of deregistering fake political parties. Clearly, when it has the power of registering a political party, it should also have the power to deregister a fake one. Today, a small group of persons, by making a simple declaration under Section 29A (5) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, can be registered as a political party. This has resulted in mushrooming of non-serious political parties which, in turn, are causing a huge burden on the commission in electoral management. Moreover, once a party gets registered, it cannot be de-registered. Parliament should add a clause to Section 29A of the RP Act authorising the commission to regulate the registration and de-registration of political parties.
	Deposing before PAC Question mark over summons to Service Chiefs IN an unusual development, the Army and Air Force chiefs along with the Navy vice chief (who represented the Navy chief since the latter is on a scheduled official visit overseas) deposed before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to present their views on a recent Comptroller and Auditor-General report. The report had severely criticised the Services over the functioning of their unit-run canteens, the lack of transparency in the accounting methods, and the issue of supply of dry rations to troops. The decision that the Service chiefs would depose before the parliamentary committee came after the PAC sought answers from the Ministry of Defence, which in turn wrote to the Service chiefs. This marks a significant departure from the existing practice of only the defence secretary and other senior bureaucrats deposing before parliamentary committees. The armed forces have largely been kept insulated from parliamentary oversight committees since the country’s political executive and the defence ministry’s bureaucrats maintain complete civilian control and supremacy over the armed forces. But the question arises whether the Service chiefs have been nudged into deposing before the PAC more out of expediency and convenience of the bureaucrat-dominated defence ministry, or whether this is an isolated incident, or, still, whether this is a sign of change in which the Service chiefs will, while being held directly accountable, henceforth also be assigned greater authority and responsibility. Unlike advanced democracies such as the United States and the United Kingdom where the Services form part of the decision making process and are thus institutionally required to testify before their respective senate and parliamentary committees, the Indian Service chiefs are treated as department heads with limited financial powers and severely curtailed decision making powers. Yesterday’s development has rekindled the debate on civil-military relations in the country and on the way the defence ministry is structured. If Service chiefs are to be held accountable to parliamentary committees, then they must also be assigned the requisite authority and powers. It is equally important that the defence ministry is re-structured in a way whereby officers of the armed forces are made part of the decision making process, made aware of the intricacies of civil government functioning, and consequently, be institutionally held accountable.
	Thought for the Day There are three ingredients in the good life: learning, earning and yearning. — Christopher Morley
	Corrections and clarifications In the headline “MJ’s doctor to stand trial in manslaughter” (Page 13, January 13) the correct usage would have been ‘for manslaughter’ or ‘in manslaughter case’. In the headline “India, US ties not anti-Pak:Biden” (Page 13, January 13) the appropriate way would have been “Indo-US ties…”. In regard to the headline “India refuses to share probe info with Pak” (Page 1, January 12), India has indicated that it cannot share the probe details just yet. In the headline “Road rage kills hotelier in Delhi’s Khan market” (Page 22, January 12) the person killed was not a hotelier but a restaurant manager. Despite our earnest endeavour to keep The Tribune error-free, some errors do creep in at times. We are always eager to correct them. This column appears twice a week — every Tuesday and Friday. We request our readers to write or e-mail to us whenever they find any error. Readers in such cases can write to Mr Kamlendra Kanwar, Senior Associate Editor, The Tribune, Chandigarh, with the word “Corrections” on the envelope. His e-mail ID is kanwar@tribunemail.com. Raj Chengappa Editor-in-Chief

ARTICLE

Fresh debate on Emergency
Congress should apologise to the nation
by Kuldip Nayar

Even if history is a mere record of important events that happened to a country, it has to be accurate and dispassionate. The official account of the 125-year-old Congress achievements is neither honest nor factual. The Indian nation may forget what the party leaders have said but it can never forget what they did.

The biggest blemish on the Congress is the suspension of the constitution during the 1975-1977 Emergency. I am a witness to the events of those days when the party gagged the Press, smothered effective dissent and detained more than one lakh people without trial. I expected the Congress to seek an apology from the nation for its illegal, authoritarian rule. Instead, the official history of the party has the cheek to say that people welcomed the Emergency when it was imposed. There was so much regret over losing the democratic way of functioning that the nation was initially in a state of shock and then of stupor, unable to realise the full implications of the government’s actions.

And how can the party deflect the blame to Sanjay Gandhi? No doubt, he ran the government. But his acts had the approval of his mother, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. R.K.Dhawan, then an aide to both Sanjay Gandhi and Mrs Gandhi, has correctly commented on the Congress history — he is a member of the party’s working committee — that Mrs Gandhi possessed such a strong personality that the responsibility should not be put on Sanjay Gandhi.

It is known to everyone that Mrs Gandhi imposed the Emergency because she did not want to be out of power. The Allahabad High Court had unseated her for six years on the charge of misusing official machinery for election purposes. The Congress does not even refer to the judgment in the book it has published. In the recent days one more fact that is now in the public domain is that she did not even sign the letter which advised the President to impose the Emergency due to internal disturbances and insecure conditions obtaining in the country. Even her contention of insecurity has been found incorrect by the Shah Commission which went into the whole gamut of the Emergency.

The commission says: “There was no threat to the well-being of the nation from sources external or internal. The conclusion appears in the absence of any evidence given by Smt Indira Gandhi or anyone else, that the one and the only motivating force for tendering the extraordinary advise to the President to declare an ‘internal emergency’ was the intense political activity generated in the ruling party and the opposition, by the decision of the Allahabad High Court declaring the election of the Prime Minister of the day invalid on the ground of corrupt election practices. There is no reason to think that if the democratic conventions were followed, the whole political upsurge would in the normal course have not subsided. But Smt Gandhi, in her anxiety to continue in power, brought about instead a situation which directly contributed to her continuance in power and also generated forces which sacrificed the interest of many to serve the ambitions of a few…”

As coincidence has it, the two-judge bench of the Supreme Court has admitted that the 1976 judgment endorsing Indira Gandhi’s emergency role violated the fundamental rights of a large number of people. The bench has considered the 4-1 judgment “erroneous”. Obviously, the pronouncement by the two cannot supersede the verdict given by the five-judge bench. But it is time the government prepared an appeal for review. Law Minister Veerappa Moily, supposed to be a man of principles, owes it to the nation to have the 1976 judgment quashed to see that nobody, however high and mighty, can play with our democratic traditions in the future.

It was impossible to believe that a detention order tainted by mala fide could not be challenged during the Emergency. Justice H.R. Khanna courageously differed with the majority judgment. He ruled that “even during the Emergency the state has got no power to deprive a person of his life or personal liberty without the authority of law. That is the essential postulate and basic assumption of the rule of law in every civilised society.” Mrs Gandhi did not make him the Chief Justice of India when his turn came. The Congress history doesn’t mention this.

No doubt, the ruling Congress is under pressure because too many scams of corruption have come to light, one after the other. But initiating a debate on the Emergency, however important, is not going to divert the nation’s attention to anything else. The government has to accept the fact that there is no alternative to a probe by the Joint Parliamentary Committee which might unmask the faces which have hidden their identity so far in the 2G spectrum scandal.

In any case, no other demand has had the entire Opposition, from right to left, united since Independence. The more the government resists it, the greater is the doubt of its credentials. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s appeal to the people on New Year’s Day not to be cynical and gloomy has had little effect because the country is convinced that the government is hiding something big, something sensational.

The deterioration in public life, in the Congress as well as in other parties and groups, is matched by growing disruptive tendencies, rooted in factors like province, religion, caste and language. People are forgetting major issues and getting excited over minor matters and thereby harming the country’s unity, strength and progress. There is need for new thinking, not in terms of slogans and dogmas but of idealism related to both modern conditions and human values.

I vainly looked for such an approach in the history that the Congress has brought out. It is a pity that a party with an experience of 125 years has not risen above petty politics and has not depicted the past as it has taken place. The party has lost a golden opportunity to assure the people that its actions were neither in the interest of the Congress nor the nation as a whole.

MIDDLE

No tiffin today!
by H. Kishie Singh

IN the past half a year, indifferent health has made sure that I have visited just about every clinic in Chandigarh for every type of test.

One day I got to the clinic for tests. It was early morning, the doctor was standing in the corridor trying to catch the sun as it made a valiant effort to peep through the heavy clouds.

The clinic was being cleaned and set up for the day’s onslaught. The doctor invited me in and offered me a coffee. As we were having coffee there was a tick-tock of high heels on the marble floor and a smart young lady, on high heels, painted toe nails, chiffon Patiala salwar, short kurta, designer bag slung over her shoulder glides in. She had a shiny round tin container in her hand.

“I’ve brought this for a stool test”, she said.

The doctor asked her to sit down and summoned his assistant. “Stool test”, he said nonchalantly. The assistant picked up the container.

He stuck a sticky label on it and asked the lovely apparition her name and cell phone number. The name I remember and cursed myself for my poor memory of not being able to remember a 10-digits cell phone number.

“That will be Rs 200. Please call after 4 O’clock. The report will be ready”, said the doctor’s assistant.

Just as we were finishing our coffee, the assistant walked in with a huge smile on his face.

“Madam! I can’t carry out a stool test. The container you brought had gajjar-ka-halwa!”

The Pretty Young Thing threw a fit. Except frothing at the mouth, all the other symptoms of extreme panic were there.

The face had turned tomato red, eyeballs rolled, hands trembling she grabbed her fancy shoulder bag. Zip – open one side –zip close it.

Zip – open another cavity – zip- close it !

“Oh my God!” moaned the P.Y.T. “Oh my God!” I can’t find my phone!

Doctor! please! please! may I use your phone? This is urgent. Oh God! it’s a disaster!

“What wrong?” asked the doctor. “What’s the problem?” The doctor was really concerned and why not? One of his patients was throwing a fit in his office, in front of his eyes.

“What’s wrong, beta”, said the doctor in a soothing, fatherly voice.

“Wrong? Wrong? You want to know what is wrong?” stammered the P.Y.T.”I must inform my husband there no gajjar-ka-halwa in his tiffin!” I was really glad that I can’t remember 10-digit phone numbers!

OPED — neighbour

Self-appointed messiahs
General Musharraf (retd) claims that the state`s security needs should be given precedence over democracy. In fact, there is no contradiction between the two. They are mutually reinforcing, for a state is far stronger when its rulers enjoy a popular mandate.
Tariq Fatemi

THERE is no denying that the current government has been a deep disappointment, even to its devoted supporters, not merely because of its inefficiency but more for its failure to show any interest in governance.

Resultantly, not only is the economy on the point of collapse and national institutions crumbling, but the very fabric of the state appears to be tearing apart. As if this was not enough, the self-appointed guardians of our morals and beliefs have now taken it upon themselves to cleanse society of those that do not conform to their warped concepts.

The suffering of the masses is so extensive that it is prompting many to question the very wisdom and viability of democratic institutions. Even more frightening is that this sense of despair could once again encourage `adventurers` and self-appointed messiahs to fish in troubled waters, as was evident from General Musharraf`s article published recently in Dawn.

As an effort to refurbish his credentials, his argument failed dismally. He comes across as still living in the past, convinced of his infallibility and confident of his indispensability. The fact that he had to flee the country on account of country-wide protests appears not to have registered.

Mr Musharraf refuses to accept that his decade-long authoritarian rule primarily accounts for the many ills currently afflicting this country. Not one major project can be credited to him, nor one worthwhile policy that he could bequeath to his successors.

Though he was the fourth in the line of Generals who violated their oaths as soldiers, he has the distinction of having done this more than once. Having overthrown an elected government, sent parliament packing and causing some political leaders to go into exile, he created an edifice based on duplicity. When it began to collapse, he once again violated the constitution and its laws, muzzling the media, locking up members of civil society and attempting to sack the chief justice.

Mr Musharraf claims that "democracy is an obsession with the West". He ignores reality in not recognising that it is an "obsession" with humans the world over, irrespective of their colour or creed. What else would explain the unceasing struggle, at enormous cost, in the hamlets of Africa and the fair fields of South America?

Closer to home, is it not "obsession" with democracy that has sustained the heroic struggle of the Burmese people, led by a seemingly fragile widow, Aung San Suu Kyi?

The general seeks justification for what he referred to as "tailoring democracy" by bringing up the "existential threat" that he felt Pakistan faces from India and the "centrifugal forces" acting against national security from within. Yet as regards to standing up to the Indian threat, the track record of authoritarian regimes is abysmal. The first military ruler, who had the brilliance to gift to Pakistan a democracy "suited to the genius of the people", initiated a war that sowed the seeds of separatism in the eastern wing. The second ignominiously lost half the country, while the third was unaware of the loss of strategic Siachen, so consumed was he by his passion to make us all good Muslims.

Mr Musharraf, meanwhile, launched the unauthorised adventure in Kargil which not only cost the lives of thousands of soldiers but also left Pakistan ostracised by the international community. With just one phone call, he succumbed to a foreign power`s onerous demands, oblivious to the country`s long-term interests. Most disastrous of all was his continued mollycoddling of extremists and militants.

Though it may have been the American preacher, Theodore Parker, who defined democracy as "a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people", (later made famous by Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address in 1863), the idea of an elected and accountable government is almost as old as mankind itself. Whereas in the animal kingdom, leadership is determined by raw power, humans seek some say in determining who should govern them. It may also be true that democracy can be slow, inefficient, and occasionally even corrupt, but as Winston Churchill remarked that it may be "the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time".

The general claims that the state`s security needs should be given precedence over democracy. In fact, there is no contradiction between the two. They are mutually reinforcing, for a state is far stronger when its rulers enjoy a popular mandate.

Mr Musharraf would have been well-served had he recalled that the most dangerous moment in the life of the young American Republic came in March 1783, when the officers of the Revolutionary Army, profoundly unhappy with their elected representatives, gathered to discuss seizing power.

It was the country`s good fortune that its then Commander-in Chief, Gen Washington, used all his powers of pressure and persuasion to dissuade the angry officers, urging them to "give one more distinguished proof of unexampled patriotism and patient virtue, rising superior to the pressure of the most complicated sufferings".

A multi-ethnic and multi- linguistic state such as Pakistan cannot afford even a unitary system of government, far less an authoritarian regime. In fact, experiments with systems in which power and privilege are maintained by an individual or a class in perpetuity would be utterly disastrous. At such a time as this, when extremism and militancy are striking at the very roots of this country, it is only a democratic polity, responsive to the people and sensitive to their interests, that can create domestic consensus and tolerance. And these are essential to prevent this land from what appears to be its head-long plunge into anarchy.

By arrangement with Dawn

Window on pakistan
Fear stalks Pak after Taseer's killing
Syed Nooruzzaman

Pakistan's assassinated Governor Salman Taseer's outspokenness led to the polarisation of society between those who wanted the controversial blasphemy law to be changed and the others who stood for its retention as it was. After his cold-blooded killing the situation has worsened. The atmosphere is so surcharged, as can be understood from newspaper reports, that few people can open their mouth even to argue that it should be amended to ensure that it is not misused to punish an innocent person.

PPP leader Sherry Rehman, who has been declared as "wajibul-qatl" (fit to be killed) by the imam (prayer leader) of a Karachi mosque, is the next person who may be targeted by a religiously surcharged person. But today she, too, avoids speaking the language she used to express her viewpoint before the gunning down of Salman Taseer by one of his own bodyguards. Legal luminary Aitzaz Ahsan and many other prominent lawyers have spoken in favour of retaining the controversial law in its present form.

All segments of Pakistani society appear to be in the grip of a fear rarely seen before. President Asif Ali Zardari, who favoured the killed Governor even when the latter's unguarded utterances were eroding the support base of the PPP not only in Punjab but other provinces also, did not attend the burial ceremony of Taseer, as pointed out by various newspapers. Interior Minister Rehman Malik, in desperation, issued a statement that he himself would shoot a person who dared to indulge in an act of blasphemy, forgetting the fact that this amounted to taking the law into his own hands.

As The Nation commented, Salman Taseer's party "distanced itself further and further away from him". This was "reflected in the President's deafening silence after the Governor gave a statement saying he was sure beyond a doubt that the convicted Asiya Bibi would be granted presidential pardon from her sentence". Mr Zardari could not gather courage to speak a word to deny or acknowledge what Taseer had said. Even if there was such a move, Taseer's over-enthusiastic statement would have worked against it.

Those who stand for the rule of law to prevail, whatever the circumstances, are the most worried lot today. It is feared that the hero-worship of Mumtaz Qadri, who killed the Governor, would give birth to more such elements, leaving no scope for a debate on a sensitive issue like the blasphemy law.

However, many newspapers criticised the Interior Minister of Pakistan for his avoidable statement. The News said, "As a man in a position of responsibility, he should surely be speaking for the rule of law, for the judicial process and for fair enquiry rather than promoting vigilante justice."

A former diplomat, Saeed Qureshi, in an article made a very meaningful observation. "Religious extremism" seems to have "resurfaced with new vigour and vitality". In his opinion, "In the foreseeable future, no government in Pakistan will be in a position to amend the Zia-enacted blasphemy law…."

Under the circumstances, there is no hope for Asiya Bibi to get Presidential pardon. Her troubles began in June 2009 in her village, Ittan Wali, in Punjab. She was picking berries along with some local women when an argument ensued among them, leading to disastrous results. Her husband, Ashiq Masih, and their five children must be ruing the day the verbal duel occurred.