The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Maya tests the pitch
Clear bid to fish in regional politics

Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati’s visit to Chandigarh and her public meeting in which supporters from Punjab, Haryana, Himachal, Jammu and Kashmir and the Union Terrritory of Chandigarh were mobilized was clearly an attempt to test the waters in this region with an eye on the impending assembly elections in Punjab early next year. The irrepressible Dalit leader and U.P. Chief Minister is acutely aware that at 29 per cent, Punjab has the highest Scheduled Caste population in the country and that at its peak in the 1992 assembly elections which were boycotted by the mainstream Akali Dal, the BSP had won nine of the 105 seats it contested, polling 17.59 per cent of the total vote. In the last elections, the party failed to win a single seat of the 115 it contested in a total House strength of 117 and its vote share fell to 4.17 per cent. Mayawati apparently sees the potential to bounce back and though she asserted in her speech that the BSP would go it alone, there is more to her visit than meets the eye.

Significantly, in her speech to a mass gathering, Mayawati trained her guns at the Centre, whether it was for fuelling protests in Bhatta and Parsaul villages of Greater Noida or for various scams plaguing the country. She clearly perceives a new threat from Rahul Gandhi on her home turf and is pro-active in countering it. The BSP leader also had veiled digs at the BJP when it was in power at the Centre. But she did not take on the Akalis in Punjab. Evidently, the wily leader is keeping her options open for an informal understanding with the Akalis with the common goal of checkmating the Congress in Punjab.

If Mayawati is to fulfil her dream of becoming a force to reckon with nationally, she cannot but be acutely aware that she will have to spread her influence in the northern belt. The Chandigarh visit is a timely reminder that she means business.

Nepal’s peace process saved
Political parties come to terms with reality

Nepal’s political parties realised the gravity of the situation and finally agreed on Sunday to extend the term of the Constituent Assembly by three months so that the on-going constitution-making process could be completed. A failure to reach the agreement could have plunged the Himalayan nation into a fresh crisis, as the Assembly had failed to accomplish the task of constitution making by May 28, the deadline fixed some time ago. There was tension in every political camp till Saturday evening as no major party was showing signs of leaving the rigid path they had adopted for getting their viewpoint accepted. The Nepali Congress party’s 10-point charter of demands included the Jhal Nath Khanal government’s immediate resignation and handing over of the weapons of the Maoists to the authorities in the army cantonments. The Maoists were unrelenting from their stand that they would not accept anything less than a commitment in principle that their armed combatants would be inducted into the regular army.

The Maoists had made it clear that they would prefer to save their party instead of giving a new lease of life to the Constituent Assembly. The Madhesi parties’ declaration that they were in favour of fresh negotiations between the Nepali Congress and the Maoists led to all the camps leaving their rigid positions in the larger interest of Nepal. This was how the United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) reached a five-point agreement that led to the consensus emerging on extending the term of the Constituent Assembly.

The accord signed by the major political parties also has it that Prime Minister Khanal will resign to pave the way for the formation of a national unity government and the new constitution would be ready within three months to complete the fundamentals of the peace process like the holding of fresh elections. Now no more time should be wasted to normalise the situation in Nepal. The constitution writing process should be completed on a priority basis, as this is the key to all that has to be done to establish peace in the Himalayan nation. The issue of the entry of the Maoists’ armed cadres into the Nepal Army should be handled with much care.

Thought for the Day

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone. I can see all obstacles in my way. — Johnny Nash

ARTICLE

Arab Spring helping Palestinians
But Israel unwilling to change its policy
by S. Nihal Singh

Who is afraid of Palestinians going to the United Nations General Assembly in September to seek international recognition for a Palestinian state? President Barack Obama, for one; Israel, for another. The Palestinian Authority has won the approval of the Arab League for its “Plan B” in the face of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s intransigence in continuing to build illegal settlements on occupied land, contemptuously rebuffing President Obama’s call for a return to the 1967 borders with adjustments. And he got rolling standing ovations from a joint session of the US Congress in Washington for thumbing his nose at the US President.

There lies the rub, and the continuing tragedy of decades of Palestinian deprivation as Israel has been assiduously changing the “facts on the ground” by building more homes for Jews on the occupied West Bank and changing the demography of occupied East Jerusalem. President Obama, as his predecessors, remains a prisoner of powerful American Jewish interests who have traditionally shown their clout by supporting or opposing Congressional candidates in elections and challenging presidential candidates seeking election or re-election.

With candidates and parties already manoeuvring for the next presidential election, Mr Obama remains more in hock to the American Jewish lobby. He can only flap his wings ineffectively as he pretends to try to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians, with Mr Netanyahu mocking him in public on American turf. While the Palestinians will win almost universal approval for a Palestinian state in the UN General Assembly, the United States will be in the company of very few countries other than Israel voting ‘no’, powerless as Washington is in the face of an American power structure that revolves round the interests of the Jewish state, however outlandish the latter’s conduct might be. Even the persistent quintessential American mediator of disputes, Mr George Mitchell, has given up on continuing his peace bid.

The tallest leader of the Palestinians, Yasser Arafat, had unilaterally declared an independent Palestinian state in 1988 winning recognition from 100 countries. But despite the Oslo accords and the partial transfer of authority on the West Bank and bursts of hope, Ariel Sharon took back governance of transferred territory and smashed Arafat’s headquarters in Ramallah. Arafat was airlifted to a Paris hospital to die there. Sharon, before his stroke and permanent hospitalisation, was supreme, shedding the Gaza Strip in the process because it was not worth the trouble and imprisoning 1.5 million Palestinians there on land, in the air and on sea in collusion with Mr Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt.

President Obama began his presidency with brave words starting a peace process which held out no hope for peace and demanding Israel stop illegal building activity on occupied Palestinian land, only to eat his words. Mr Netanyahu, knowing his clout with the US Congress, said a blunt ‘no’, and the US President was left with no leg to stand on. Yet the future holds some hope for the Palestinians because the intransigence of Israel will further isolate it in the world and win the Palestinians more friends. Among the favourable factors for the Palestinians are the Arab Spring that has elevated the spirit of all Arabs, the successful Egyptian bringing together of the opposing Fatah and Hamas factions and the decision of the new interim Egyptian regime to ease the opening of the Gaza Strip’s border with Egypt at Rafah.

Not bound by the compulsions of a powerful Jewish lobby (although Germany still suffers from its past Nazi complex, Europe is more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and the European Union has given a new gift of 31 million euros for building institutions of state. The World Bank has already declared that if present progress continued on the West Bank, it was well positioned to make the transition to “the establishment of a state at any point in the near future”.

The passage of a resolution in the UN General Assembly recognizing the state of Palestine will not immediately change the position on the ground. Mr Netanyahu has drawn his own red lines: no return to the 1967 borders, no return of East Jerusalem to Palestine and no entry to the estimated five million Palestinian refugees spread among Arab countries and the world. President Obama offered his own compromise: the 1967 border “with swaps”, pushing to the future the prickly issues of Jerusalem and refugees, a sure recipe for failure, if there was any.

The Palestinians will certainly strengthen their hand by the passage of a new resolution for a Palestinian state with full UN membership within the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. That even a meek and patient Palestinian leader of the ilk of Mr Mahmoud Abbas has been forced to give up on the sterile and make-believe peace process speaks volumes for his disillusionment with an American-led process leading nowhere. The Palestinians are asking for nothing new, as former President Jimmy Carter succinctly brought out in a recent article in the New York Times. These parameters are well enshrined in UN resolutions.

We live in a less than perfect world and UN resolutions are often not fully implemented or not at all, but the brazenness with which Israeli leaders – Labour and Conservatives alike – have flouted the will of the international majority, thanks to the unstinted support it has received from the United States, has set a new benchmark in going against all canons of international justice and civilizational norms in the modern post-colonial world.

Many Israelis, particularly on the right, believe that they have got away with a lot. More than 500,000 Jews have been settled on colonised land. Arabs in occupied East Jerusalem are being evicted on one pretext or another to change the demographics of the future projected Palestinian land. The dream of a Greater Israel is closer to fulfilment that ever. But events over which Israel and the United States have no control are catching up with Tel Aviv.

The Arab Spring is giving Israelis sleepless nights. Egypt is refusing to be a co-jailor of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and, as recent incursions on occupied territory appropriated by Israel revealed on the day of catastrophe (Naqba), when Palestinians were chased from or had to flee their homes in 1948, it will be far from smooth sailing for Israel in its quest for Greater Israel. The tragedy is that the United States seems incapable of playing the role in should in bringing about an independent Palestinian state.

MIDDLE

Ageless mind
by Jagvir Goyal

Thirtytwo years back, when I was in the engineering institute, I eulogised Dharmendra. To me, he not only had a perfect personality but an ideal character also. Not only mine, he ruled the hearts of millions. He was always portrayed as an absolute gentleman who stuck to values, never hurt anybody, true at heart and a sober but passionate lover. Movies like Satyakaam, Aadmi aur Insaan, Aankhen, Lalkaar, Mera Gaon Mera Desh left a deep impact on my mind.

It never occurred to me that Dharmendra was not tall. Those were the times when height was not an attribute. Amitabh Bachchan was rejected by film industry as too tall to be a hero and had to struggle a lot. You don’t find flaws in a personality you admire and adore. Dharmendra always looked perfect to me and I would often try to follow his roles.

Another handsome actor who had caught my fancy was Dev Anand. He had an inimitable style of laughing, walking, talking and running. I would don a muffler in Dev Anand style and talk like him to my friends. My mould today imbibes a lot of what Dev Anand and Dharmendra presented on the silver screen during those days. Their images are frozen in my heart. During my visit to Leh last year, I stood over a snowclad mountain, wrapped a red muffler around my neck, leaned to my left in Dev Anand style and got myself photographed!

With the passage of time, the physical personalities of Dharmendra and Dev Anand have wilted. Their drooping faces, flaccid bodies, shrinking heights and stammering speeches, whenever they appear on the TV, make me sad. The frozen images, that my heart carries of them, are shattered every time I watch them trying to play young and act young.

With age, the body withers and you can’t hide your age. Why don’t the two, once so great actors, understand this simple truth and phenomenon? Why don’t they simply bask in the glory of their peak days and the charisma they once carried and live the balance years of life gracefully and peacefully? These questions have always intrigued me whenever I have watched Dharmendra or Dev Anand on the screen these days.

I got the answer to these questions when I read ‘Absolute Khushwant’, recently written and released by the author. Khushwant is unequivocal and blunt in the book and has revealed many a truth in an explicit manner. Even at 95, he has many a desire left and lives in fantasies! He has earned so much name and fame yet there are unfulfilled yearnings left in him!

Man never grows with age, I find. Watching himself in the mirror every day, he fails to notice the gradual alteration in his face, the new wrinkles and crinkles that the age adds to it, converting its vigorous and healthy look to a sagging and drooping mug. He lives under an illusion that he still carries a magnetic physique. As people acknowledge him, owing to his past achievements, his self-conviction is reinforced further.

The bodies retire, the brains don’t.

OPED THE ARTS

The 13th Finance Commission made a historic budget allocation to state governments for the restoration of their heritage. With an allocation of ` 100 crore, can Punjab restore the glory of Quila Mubarak, with its notorious history of bureaucratic solutions for matters related to culture and conservation?
Loss of Inheritance
Amita Baig

It’s only in the last few years the Government of India has finally woken up to the realisation that post independence the heritage of India has been gravely neglected. While the Archaeological Survey of India had its budget substantially increased in 2002, thus ensuring that the national heritage would never lack funds; state government budgets for culture remain pitiful, its limited resources largely allocated to paying salaries of administration and staff. Last year the 13th Finance Commission made a historic budget allocation to state governments for the restoration of their heritage. Ranging from Rs 175 crore to Madhya Pradesh, 10 crore to Tripura, and Rs 100 crore assigned to Punjab; these allocations were made against rapidly cobbled together ill conceived estimates. One only has to consider that the entire State of Jammu and Kashmir has an allocation of Rs 50 crore for just one site, Mubarak Mandi in Jammu.

The withering testimony of a lost grandeur — Entrance to the Durbar Hall.

Missing: Money, manpower

While this significant injection of funds for heritage must be welcomed and it’s not a minute too soon; the tragedy facing cultural institutions in India is that apart from meagre budget allocations, there has been absolutely no human resource development in the last decades. Systems established in the colonial era still prevail and recruitment policies are fossilised in the 19th century. Institutions, monuments and sites are in danger, not just for want of money but simply because there has been no investment in developing manpower to protect them. With no emphasis on skills upgrading or professionalisation, our culture and heritage remain at risk.

The heritage sites at the state level are most critically endangered as they face a total vacuum in professional manpower. The lack of emphasis in the development of expertise, the predominance of bureaucrats in making technical decisions and the absence of commitment to build a cadre of professional and technical skills in culture and heritage management is a crisis we face across the country. Funds are languishing, or worse, misused in the absence of suitable skills. The conservation and preservation of our heritage is a highly professional task and we need to recognise this gap. Visiting protected sites in various states one cannot help but be profoundly disturbed by the awareness of local people about not only the misuse of funds, but more critically, the damage caused by unimaginative use of funds for the monuments. Ironically, departments of culture remain unable or unwilling to grasp the gravity of the damage being inflicted as vast swathes of original fabric are replaced.

DECAYING FRESCOS

Inside Quila Andaroon
Inside Quila Andaroon

Built in 1763, Quila Mubarak, the rare and outstanding example of Sikh palace architecture is in a dilapidated state. World Monument Fund listed the Quila in the “ list of 100 most endangered monuments” in 2004. Since then INTACH( Indian National Trust for Arts and Cultural Heritage) and ASI ( Archaeological Survey of India) with the help of Punjab State Government and the Central Government, have taken up several restoration projects with funding from World Heritage Watch and other agencies, but the Quila continues to lose its heritage value due to decay and bureaucratic delays.

Quick fix conservation

So, back to the 13th Finance Commission; what will become of these resources? Will local caretakers turn into conservationists so that heritage sites not merely languish, but get further damaged as ad- hoc repairs, shortcuts and kickbacks vitiate the windfall of funding? In the rush to spend the money before it “lapses”, will cement replace lime mortar as a quick and easy option, and will the finely crafted pillars be substituted with crass machine cut stones? Are we always going to get it wrong?

While privatisation is the mantra of the time and public- private partnership the call to arms, there is one thing we need to be clear on: the cultural heritage of the nation or the state is the custodial responsibility of the government. Their mandate is to safeguard the heritage for future generations. And, in today’s climate of public information, governments can and must be called to account on its ability to safeguard our heritage for future generations.

Even the Archaeological Survey of India with its hugely increased budget has been unable or unwilling to restructure and upgrade its systems, update professional skills and invest in management. In this scenario can the states transform their approach? In the crossed wires which define Indian administration, and as fiats against recruitment prevail, the culture sector epitomises diminishing standards and failure to deliver; an area where the responsibility of the government is non negotiable. It is essential that structural reform in the culture sector must be undertaken at every level.

The precarious Quila

The problems are manifold. Quila Mubarak or the Sheesh Mahal in Patiala are alarming examples of the failure of government to recognise the magnitude of damage done through neglect and paucity of competent decision making. Over the last 20 years I have watched many initiatives to preserve Quila Mubarak flounder. This iconic heritage of Punjab was acquired by the state as “our” heritage and efforts to preserve it have continuously been vitiated by political compulsions or a bureaucracy mired in mediocrity. In the years that I have followed its fate, many reports have been generated, the only difference being that each condition assessment has further highlighted the gravity facing the building; funds have been allocated and lapsed, more than once. About ten years ago under immense pressure from conservationists, government offices were removed from the complex. Lying vacant and uncared for ever since, the building today is in a desperate state of decay.

Now under the 13th Finance Commission perhaps it will receive some funding, probably wholly inadequate to its needs. But what is far worse and must give us cause for concern, is, that Punjab’s finest heritage will be restored at the lowest tender bidding.

Today with this huge amount of money being injected we need to stop and consider very carefully how best to minimise waste, or indeed optimise the opportunity. Given the manpower void, professional consultants must step up and fill the gap until state departments get their act together and divert a significant amount of money towards developing technical training institutions and augment their capacities. The need of the hour clearly is setting up institutes for cultural resource training and management which will serve existing institutions, transforming not just how we preserve, but also nurture and manage our cultural resources. Perhaps, states should join forces and collaborate on technical training and thus manage their heritage in a more collaborative way. Until then government must have the humility to acknowledge that professional skills in India require to be engaged and that they are the most competent in the present scenario to undertake this task.

A live-in with heritage

States such as Punjab which are being guided by agencies like Infrastructure Leasing Finance& Services, the Asian Development Bank and a battery of consultants are attempting to moderate a paradigm shift to manage the often competing objectives of development and preservation. Here preservation is finally on the table with infrastructure and development and this is a huge transformation in perception. In planning documents and as a one- off for execution, this would appear to be a perfect model for others to emulate. A simultaneous thrust in education, training and building skills is critical, without which it cannot work. In realistic terms serious reform will mean restructuring state archaeology departments; changing recruitment rules and battling the many vested interests and turf wars to establish more result oriented organisations.

Equally, in the long term, the preservation of sites like Quila Mubarak will best be realised if we can give it a role and relevance in society. Will Quila Mubarak house a Cultural Resource Training Institute - an opportunity to study and work in a historic site? With this tranche of funding can we imbue these sites with energy and capture the imagination of generation next? Clearly the opportunity given to the states is rich with challenge to evaluate and restructure how we mediate the future of our heritage. We must have the courage to step out of the box and debate new solutions. While the Punjab Government has seen the merit of investing in a cultural policy document which should in due course address these lacunae and provide a balanced and professional foundation for the future of Punjab’s heritage, what will happen in the interim? It must have the vision and the integrity to shift the decision making process to professional advisors who will assess the work, guide decisions, monitor implementation and ensure that funds are optimally utilised not just for the finance commission, but for the future of our heritage.

Author of Forts and Palaces of India, Amita Baig is Heritage Management Consultant to the World Monuments Fund in India.