The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Lop-sided growth
Women lag in education

The enrolment of girls in colleges and universities countrywide is low at 41 per cent and abysmally lower in professional courses at 18 per cent, according to official data. This may be partly because girls prefer arts to science and technical courses, and partly because they do not get as much financial support and encouragement from parents as boys do due to social prejudices.

They do not have equal access to engineering and management institutions, especially if these are located away from their home towns. Though some states have made education up to the college level free for girls, it is still inaccessible for various reasons, including social and financial. Since a daughter’s marriage is an expensive affair, parents with modest means tend to accord lower priority to her education.

The HRD Ministry’s figures on girls’ enrolment should not be surprising, given the inadequate government spending on education and a less-than-desirable literacy rate in general and of women in particular. Given the high incidence of crime against women, it is not considered safe in small-town and rural India to allow young women to venture out to pursue higher studies, especially when employment prospects are uncertain and the importance of education itself is not understood.

The trend, however, is changing. Defying odds, more and more girls are coming forward to pursue higher education. The female literacy rate has received a quantum jump between 2001 and 2011. According to the provisional 2011 census figures, the male-female literacy gap is at or below 10 per cent in Kerala and Chandigarh and above 20 per cent in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. The regional imbalance has to be corrected if gender equality in education is to be achieved. Education not only lifts women’s economic and social status, it also increases their access to healthcare, reduces maternal mortality rates and leads to an overall development of the family, society and the country as Mao Zedong famously proclaimed, “women hold up half the sky”.

Resorting to hospitality
Peace brings hope of better times

Kashmir has a long history of hospitality towards outsiders, and indeed, the Valley’s economy is heavily dependent on tourism. The past two decades of turbulence, however, have hit the industry hard. The opening of a luxury resort in Srinagar is therefore, indeed a cause for celebration.

Even more important than the event itself, is that it is seen as a vote of confidence by one of the most famous names in Indian hospitality industry, which is looking at Kashmir as a tourist destination again.

Winds of change are blowing in the Valley, as can be seen from Hurriyat chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s statement welcoming the displaced Pandits back to Kashmir. The moderates had been shaken by the murder of Jamiat-e-Ahli Hadees chief Maulana Showkat Ahmad Shah, a respected religious cleric. Such was the extent of public anger that for the first time in the recent past, slogans were shouted by the people against the murder, which was even condemned by hardliners, like the JKLF chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik. By themselves small, these events are being seen as harbingers of hope in Kashmir, by people who seek a return of normalcy in the Valley, where recently people turned out in large numbers to vote for the panchayat elections held for the first time in a decade.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and his father, Farooq Abdullah, Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy, are right in stressing the importance of the tourism industry in providing jobs and economic opportunities to Kashmiris. For too long, politics has played havoc with the economy and basic development of Kashmir. Events like opening a tourist resort or improving infrastructure help Kashmiris feel that normalcy could, indeed, be restored to the state, which many still think of as a paradise on earth.

Thought for the Day

Life is like a beautiful melody, only the lyrics are messed up. — Anonymous

ARTICLE

Waging war on corruption
Time for new strategies
by B. G. Verghese

The controversy over Anna Hazare and the Jan Lokpal Bill lingers. Everybody, big and small, abhors corruption and wants it stamped out. How this is to be done and the ambit of reform required remain open questions. This is why excessive reliance on a single instrument like the Lokpal may be investing more in faith than prudence. Corruption constitutes a web and must be attacked from many sides.

The grant of genuine autonomy to the CBI and the Central Vigilance Commissioner (and their state counterparts), together with independent powers of prosecution without the crippling requirement to secure official permission to proceed against senior officials and ministers under the so-called “single directive”, would constitute a major step forward as this could keep errant bureaucrats and politicians in check. The danger of frivolous complaints and smear campaigns against upright public officials can be obviated by swift and condign punishment of those making false allegations. The Lokpal and Lok Ayuktas could oversee such a system and ensure the necessary checks and balances.

Other elements cry out for correction. Electoral funding has become a primary engine of corruption. Though many honourable politicians seek elected office in order to serve, for others political power has become the road to pelf, influence and control over the processes of governance and their use as a negotiable instrument. Corporate houses often insure by funding those who might control the levers of power. The mafia does so as an investment in future deliverables and to win the protection and patronage. Intimate links forged between politics and crime has also resulted in the criminalisation of politics and the politicisation of crime, eating away the roots of the criminal justice system.

Illustratively, the just concluded Tamil Nadu polls were marked by attempts to buy votes with cash and liquor and promises of mixers, grinders, laptops and what not. Crores of rupees were seized in suspicious circumstances. Eighteen per cent of the candidates had criminal records and 35 per cent were crorepatis. In other states, candidates’ self-declared assets have witnessed quantum jumps with little explanation for such large accretions. Several in this category do not appear to hold PAN cards. The Central Election Commission has cracked the whip and tightened the model code of conduct, causing some parties to protest “emergency rule”!

Where does the answer lie? Most are agreed on electoral reform. But this by itself will not suffice without political party reform. The Constitution, strangely, sets out the framework of elections without reference to political parties. The Representation of the People Act too only refers to parties in the context of recognising “national” and “regional” parties on the basis of their voting performance. But what is a “party”?

Surely, it is time to include a new Article 326-A in the Constitution to provide that candidates seeking to represent the people in Parliament and the state legislatures shall, to the largest extent possible, be drawn from “registered political parties”. Such a provision would provide the basis for legislation defining political parties and for their regulation with regard to maintaining a register of members, the terms and conditions of membership, internal elections, public audit of their accounts and cognate matters.

State funding of elections might only entail an addition to funds currently available from other sources, unless offered in kind for such things as printing and paper, hiring or preparation of meeting venues, petrol/diesel coupons and postage. For the rest, corporate funding should be allowed subject to an overall ceiling per company, detailed disclosure in the balance sheet and a specific ceiling in relation to the company’s turnover. No donation from any private agency, association or friends should exceed a given figure and, other than for petty amounts, must be accompanied by a copy of a certificate of payment with a PAN card number addressed to the newly established income tax expenditure cell of the CEC.

Violations should be visited with harsh penalties not excluding disqualification from holding elective office by candidates for six years for corrupt practice and a fine for defaulting donors. Stringent action could prove salutary although lawbreakers are usually one step ahead of the law.

Repeated elections at different times add to electoral expenditure and administrative disruption. Could we consider the holding of simultaneous Lok Sabha and state assembly elections on a fixed date every five years with the proviso that each legislature will serve its full term? Should a government be defeated or resign in the interim, an alternative ministry shall be formed, if necessary under an agreed leader elected by the House.

Panchayati raj and nagar palika elections could follow a different five-year electoral cycle. One option could be that the sum total of some four million local body representatives form an electoral college indirectly to elect members of the state assemblies who then become members of an enlarged electoral college to elect members of the Lok Sabha. Election costs could come down dramatically, with a new pattern of electioneering as well. Opposition to indirect elections mainly stem from the belief that a smaller body can be bribed or manipulated more easily. Is this an insuperable problem? Perhaps not. An added advantage could be that indirect elections could enable the country to follow an indigenous system of primaries so that electoral paratroopers do not descend on unlikely constituencies with rash IOUs of prospective service. Bogus candidates would be largely eliminated.

Barring of candidates with pending criminal charges, expanded legislatures to match the growth of population, the additional members being elected on a partial list system with 25 to 33 per cent overall reservation for women, and barring defectors from holding any office in the life of the House plus one year thereafter are some among other matters that could be considered.

Police reforms, as amply debated, and a vast expansion of the judicial cadre at all levels, with nyaya panchatats and honorary magistrates at the bottom are also vitally necessary.

There is a time for debate and a time for action. This is a time for action. Let the government properly take the lead. Let 10 or 20 true and good MPs from mixed parties also draft single clause Private Member’s Bills and Resolutions and introduce them in Parliament to flag priority concerns. The nation will back them.n

MIDDLE

Naam mein kya rakha hai!
by Justice S.D. Anand

THERE can be two schools of thought. One adopting the stance of ‘What’s in a name’; while the other advocating the ‘Carrying forward’ of the name in perpetuity in terms of the Hindu mythology.

The latter school of thought would appear to have actuated the foundational idea of a Raj Babbar-Smita Patil starrer wherein the hero, a whistleblower, changes identity (including name) and residence frequently to avoid the wrath of the villain therein. Ultimately, he announces that he had had enough of the ‘witness protection’ and decides to take on the ‘sinner’ the whole hog and annihilates the evil.

During yesteryears, some of the names given to children were plainly ‘horrible’. No offence obviously meant to the elders because they, we are told in every household, had their own reasons for that. There were instances where the family awaited the birth of a male progeny even after the addition of around half a dozen or even more of female children. There were instances too where, for certain inexplicable reasons, the progeny would not survive. Families desirous of having an issue, of whatever sex, were also aplenty. There was a feeling that giving of an unusual or abnormal name to the child would ‘propitiate’ the creator and save the family from evil influences.

That feeling actuated people to name a child as Khote Lal or Budhu Mal or Ganda Mal. In the name indicated first of all, the most charitable meaning could be that the reference was to purity (or impurity). It was not actually so. The reference was to the beast of burden which the bearer of that name would always be. He would carry the burden not only as long as he breathed but till perpetuity because his descendants would not have locus standi to act in retrospectivity. They could only render full-throated curses to the perpetrator of the ‘crime’.

Wives wedded to the holders of those names could take it out on their spouses just by addressing them by their first name. That could be the most innocuous form of spousal reprisal.

Those enrolled as voters in village like “Gholoon Sankhiya”, “Diwana”, “Pasina Kalan” (the locational placement of the first being on Chandigarh-Ambala Highway and that of the other two either in the district of Karnal or Panipat but surely on Chandigarh-Delhi National Highway) also have nothing intellectual to boast about the village name. While the second and third could have at least a fantasized romantic background, the first could be inferred to have stemmed from the ‘clarion’ call of a tortured daughter-in-law to a mom in law (a la Lalita Pawar) or vice versa. Even otherwise, the very mention of the name ‘stirs’ thoughts of poisonous connotation.

OPED governance

Anna Hazare can't stop 'Shri 420'
A society which sanctifies, legitimises, respects and honours the sheer possession of wealth and all its attributes without questioning its source and means used to acquire it will never see the back of corruption in spite of dozens of Anna Hazares
Surendra Kumar

Anna Hazare's fast and its fallout might turn out to be the most significant watershed in India's parliamentary democracy in the last 50 years, though its concrete results may not match the hyped euphoria or the highly exaggerated expectations. A fortnight ago none anticipated such a massive and lightening support for Hazare's fast, not even Anna himself! He publicly admitted so with his disarming humility and candour.

Similarly, very few expected the government to cave in so soon and so completely. One ought to go beneath the surface to understand these developments.

Nationwide, positive and spontaneous response to Anna Hazare's fast on the issue of Jan Lok Pal Bill underlines how distrustful people have become of the current leadership and how desperately they are looking for a saviour. With his unimpeachable integrity, honesty, sincerity -- rare commodities in today's Indian polity -- untainted by any scandals, simple and selfless Anna becomes the beacon of hope for millions of Indians cutting across the differences of age, gender, language, region and religion. He is suddenly catapulted into the role of an unlikely hero to fill the leadership void in India today.

The Central Government is already besieged by scams, struggling to cope with frequent strictures by the Supreme Court and forced to climb down and accept the Opposition's demand on the JPC issue. The Prime Minister is under attack from various quarters, particularly for the appointment of TJ Thomas as the CVC, and ISRO's attempts to sell 70 MHZ of scarce S band wavelength for 20 years to Devas. There is a growing perception that the government is either unwilling, or worse, unable to take the fight against corruption to its logical conclusion. Haunted by the memories of the past when it suffered a massive electoral debacle in 1989 on account of allegations of corruption against Rajiv Gandhi in the infamous Bofors case, the government is obviously nervous and insecure.

TEMPORARY PEACE

It doesn't want to see Anna Hazare and his anti-corruption campaign remain in headlines and burst in breaking news everyday, especially when the elections are taking place in some states. So to smother the fire before it becomes uncontrollable, the government took the only prudent option available, i.e., accept Anna's demand and try to take the moral high ground that it has nothing to hide and is, in fact, with Anna on the same page in the fight against corruption. In a way, it has bought temporary peace by embracing the dictum: If you can't beat them, join them.

Again, like in Tunisia and Egypt, the burst of support for Hazare was technology driven and media orchestrated. Facebook, SMS, Twitters, Internet connected millions of people in India and abroad in no time and generated unprecedented support for an issue which has been in the news for months and which affects us all in our lives one way or other.

The minute by minute coverage of Anna and other fasting individuals, show of support from Bollywood stars, writers authors and public figures like Swami Ram Dev, Lord Meghnad Desai, Kiran Bedi and others transformed the fast into a gripping TV realty show, which kept viewers glued to their TV sets for hours. Irrespective of the long-term outcome of this protest, the Internet and new means of communications and the media are going to play an increasingly vital role in bringing national issues to the forefront .So, it is a wake-up call; the political parties and politicians can ignore this phenomenon only at their own peril.

The resounding success of Anna Hazare's fast proves that if a cause is good, intentions are noble, the driving motive is serving the masses and not personal gain, means used are open and transparent and the leader possesses impeccable integrity, people can be galvanised in an effective and totally non-violent manner. It augurs well for the maturity of our democracy.

ANNA NO MAGICIAN

Having said the above, it will be immature and naive to assume that like a magician, Anna can make corruption disappear from public life. Anna, with due respects, is no magician and corruption is too deep rooted and too well entrenched to be eradicated completely and in a very short time.

Swept by the euphoria generated by Anna's fast, one shouldn't offer simplistic, impractical, half-baked, half-cooked Readers Digest-type made-easy solutions and weaken the institutions which are the pillars of our democracy. Pakro, jail mein dalo aur phansi de do sounds a very catchy filmy line oblivious of all constitutional, social and political implications.

Yes, we must fight corruption; the guilty must be punished. We must also put in place an effective, impartial, time-bound justice delivery system. But we can't reduce this country of 1.21 billion people into a banana Republic, running kangaroo courts!

We must find a balance between the utmost need of stringent punishment to the guilty in the shortest possible time and upholding the rule of law and protecting an individual's fundamental rights as enshrined in our Constitution. An individual is innocent till he/she is convicted has been the bedrock all civilized societies.

One must also pause for a while and consider whether creating a Superman like Lok Pal with unbridled powers above the government, Parliament and the judiciary will serve national interests in the 21st century. Proper checks and balances must be applicable to the Lok Pal as well lest he should become the law unto himself. Levelling allegations of corruption must not be allowed to become a potent tool to settle scores and cause harassment or resort to blackmail.

Fighting corruption will need a multi-pronged approach sustained over a long period; there are no quick-fix solutions. Of course, arrest and imprisonment of politicians and other bigwigs will have a deterrent effect. But corruption will continue at various levels on account of ground realities.

The ice vendor near Jantar Mantar was happy to have witnessed brisk sale on account of the presence of protesters supporting Anna Hazare. He readily admitted that he had bribed the policeman on duty to be allowed to sell ice cream there as he does daily for selling his ice cream near New Delhi railway station. He bluntly told the journalist asking for his reaction that he can't wait till Anna's crusade stops corruption; he has to feed his family and can't see them go hungry!

Millions of Indians in small hamlets, villages, kasbas and towns like the ice cream vendor have to live with corruption in their daily lives. Alas, none gave voice to these silent sufferers at Jantar Mantar.

MORAL VALUES

Politicians, bureaucrats, doctors, engineers, defence personnel, judges, airline pilots, sports bodies' heads, media representatives, India Inc tycoons are part of the same society. Arresting and jailing allegedly corrupt people will certainly discourage proclivity to corruption but it won't stop corruption unless we attack the root cause of corruption, i.e., total decline of moral and ethical values in society.

Everyone seems to be interested in making a fast buck with total disregard to what is right and what is wrong. Restoration of moral and ethical values has to begin at home and needs to be strengthened at schools/ colleges/universities and encouraged, supported and protected by the government, corporate sectors, organised and unorganised employers and the civil society.

Lastly, a society which sanctifies, legitimises, respects and honours the sheer possession of wealth and all its attributes without questioning its source and means used to acquire it will never see the back of corruption in spite of dozens of Anna Hazares. More than half a century has passed but what Raj Kapoor showed in his classics "Shri 420" and "Jagte Raho" remains true and relevant even today.

The writer is a former Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs, and Dean, Foreign Service Institute, New Delhi