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Dealing with mercy petitions
The pull of politics |
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The forgotten community Kashmiri Pandits see glimmer of hope That Democratic congressman Frank Pallone recently introduced a resolution in the US House of Representatives, recognising the religious freedom and human rights violations of Kashmiri Pandits since 1989, is a welcome step.
Wars in mountains
Avenging theft
Oh for a draught of vintage wine
Drawing the line
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Dealing with mercy petitions
Nearly five years after the then President, APJ Abdul Kalam, forwarded to the Union Home Ministry a mercy petition by Parliament attack case convict Afzal Guru, the file has returned to the incumbent President, Mrs Pratibha Patil. By all accounts, the recommendation is to reject the clemency plea. Since the Afzal Guru case has had political connotations with the BJP clamouring for swift execution, the belated Home Ministry recommendation has rekindled the debate over whether it should take so much time for the government to deal with mercy petitions by convicts sentenced to death. The delay in decision-making on the mercy petitions is said to be largely due to the absence of any guidelines and timeframe to deal with such cases. It would be in the fitness of things if the process could be speeded up and if that involves laying down guidelines and spelling out a timeframe, so be it. Not only are the inordinate delays in decision-making bad insofar as they reinforce the view that the Indian state is too ‘soft’, it is also a fact that the delay is unfair to the convict because of the slow mental torture he is compelled to go through. It goes without saying that there needs to be a strong deterrent against all forms of heinous crime, especially acts of terror. A terrorist must be forced to think hard before perpetrating such attacks which amount to waging a war on the state. Capital punishment in India is rightly handed out in the rarest of rare cases and even after all levels of judicial scrutiny are complete, there is the final resort of a clemency plea to the President. While we support the need to follow the ‘rarest of rare’ principle and endorse the mercy plea provision, it is but fair that the decision on mercy petitions be within reasonable time limits. Surprisingly, even after the Home Ministry recommends rejection of a clemency plea, there is no time frame laid down for the President to announce the rejection. This too needs to be looked into.
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The pull of politics
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has given indications that his party proposes to field Mr P.S. Gill, DGP, and Mr D.S. Guru, Principal Secretary, in the coming assembly elections. Though the two officers have maintained silence on the issue, their conduct has come under scrutiny. The chief electoral officer has asked the deputy commissioners of Moga and Barnala, the districts in which the villages of Gill and Guru are located, to keep a watch on their activities. Accusing the two senior officers of reducing themselves to the level of “ticket-seeking Akali jathedars”, the state Congress chief, Capt Amarinder Singh, has sought action against them for violation of the service rules. It is not uncommon for IAS and IPS officers to harbour political ambitions. But as long as they are in government service they must stay neutral. If the lure of politics becomes irresistible, they must first put in their papers. They cannot be allowed to misuse the official position in the pursuit of their second career. Senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha quit the IAS in 1984 to enter politics. So did Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, who left the IFS in 1985 to contest the Bijnaur by-election. There are lesser known civil and police officers like RCP Singh, N.K. Singh and Nikhil Kumar, who have taken the plunge in politics. The officers trying a political career usually act on partisan lines, overlooking or abetting wrongdoings of their party leaders, acceding to unfair demands and using their position to fix political opponents. Service rule violations are common and taken lightly. The civil and police administration has got so politicised that the non-aligned are seen as misfits and often get sidelined or are shifted to the Centre. Officers get plum, punishment or post-retirement postings depending on their masters’ political fortunes. The politician-bureaucratic-policeman nexus thrives for mutual benefit and to public disadvantage. Good governance, naturally, suffers. |
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The forgotten community
That Democratic congressman Frank Pallone recently introduced a resolution in the US House of Representatives, recognising the religious freedom and human rights violations of Kashmiri Pandits since 1989, is a welcome step. The resolution may not translate into a significant political action anytime soon, but it certainly brings the much neglected issue of Kashmiri Pandits, who have been living the life of refugees in their own land, back into focus. The community of over three lakh Pandits who were forced to flee the valley, their ancestral homeland, due to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the early 1990s has become irrelevant for any political discourse in their own country. For, their cause does not carry enough appeal by way of violence or dramatic display of angst which might grab media attention to become worthy of political consideration. The non-violent protests of the Panum Kashmir, the lndo-American Kashmir Forum, the Ottawa-based lndo-Canadian Kashmir Forum, and the Indo-European Kashmir Forurn, based in London and Geneva, have been making noises once in a while with the support of some celebrities back home, but they go unheard due to the flaws of a democratic system, where numbers and not the seriousness of issues matter more. Before their exodus, the Pandits numbered around 4 lakh in the valley, living peacefully with the majority Muslims, who constitute about 95 per cent of the population. Today, their number has dwindled to only 4000, further reducing the pitch of their voice. An entire generation of Kashmiri Pandits is born and has come of age living in squalid camps in Jammu, Udhampur and Delhi, with families of five to six huddled into a room not even fit for cattle. A 1997 study based on inquiries at various camps revealed only 16 births took place compared to 49 deaths in about 300 families between 1990 and 1995, a period during which terrorist violence in J&K was at its peak. The trauma of the exodus caused higher incidence of stress-related conditions like insomnia, depression and hypertension and decreased birth rates due to premature menopause and hypo-function of the reproductive system among the refugees, who could not cope with emotional and psychological pressures of loss of identity and
rootlessness. |
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There are three ingredients in the good life: learning, earning and yearning.
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Wars in mountains
THE key geo-strategic challenges in South Asia emanate from the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan and on the Af-Pak border; unresolved territorial disputes between India and China, and India and Pakistan; and the almost unbridled march of radical extremism that is sweeping across the strategic landscape. In May 1998, India and Pakistan had crossed the nuclear Rubicon and declared themselves states armed with nuclear weapons. Though there has been little nuclear sabre-rattling, tensions are inherent in the possession of nuclear weapons by neighbours with a long history of conflict. While the probability of conventional conflict on the Indian subcontinent remains low, its possibility cannot be altogether ruled out. Therefore, there is an inescapable requirement for defence planners to analyse future threats and challenges carefully and build the required military capacities to defeat these if push comes to shove. In view of India’s unresolved territorial disputes with China and Pakistan in the mountainous Himalayan region, there is a very high probability that the next major land conflict on the Indian subcontinent will again break out in the mountains. As it is not in India’s interest to enlarge a conflict with Pakistan to the plains sector south of the river Ravi due to the possibility of escalation to nuclear exchanges, there is a fairly high probability that the next conflict, having broken out in the mountains, will remain confined to mountainous terrain. While the three Strike Corps are necessary for conventional deterrence and have served their purpose well, it is in India’s interest to enhance its military capability to fight and win future wars in the mountains. A strategic defensive posture runs the risk of losing some territory to the adversary if capabilities do not exist to be able to launch a deep ingress to stabilise the situation. The first requirement is to upgrade India’s military strategy of dissuasion against China to that of genuine conventional and nuclear deterrence and vigorous border management during peace-time. Genuine deterrence can come only from the ability to take the fight deep into the adversary’s territory through the launching of major offensive operations. To achieve this objective, it is necessary to raise and position one mountain Strike Corps each in J&K for offensive operations against China and Pakistan and in the Northeast for operations against China. In addition, as a Strike Corps can be employed only in one particular sector and cannot be easily redeployed in the mountains, it is necessary to give the defensive (holding) corps limited capability to launch offensive operations with integral resources. In the modern era, military strategists have invariably preferred Liddell Hart’s strategy of the indirect approach through a deep manoeuvre, rather than the heavy attrition that used to be routine on the battlefields of World War I to achieve a favourable decision. It is necessary to recognise that in the Indian context, manoeuvre is extremely limited in the mountains and India’s capability for vertical envelopment is rather low. In the plains too India’s Strike Corps cannot execute deep manoeuvres due to the risk of Pakistan’s nuclear red lines being threatened early during a campaign. As firepower is the other side of the coin, it is inescapably necessary to substantially upgrade capabilities of the armed forces to inflict punishment and indeed achieve victory through the orchestration of overwhelming firepower. Unless firepower capabilities are upgraded by an order of magnitude, India will have to be content with a stalemate. The firepower capabilities that must be enhanced include conventionally-armed SRBMs to attack high-value targets in depth. Air-to-ground and helicopter-to-ground attack capabilities need to be modernised, particularly those enabling deep ground penetration and accurate night strikes. In fact, the Indian Air Force should aim to dominate the air space and FGA strikes must paralyse the adversary’s ability to conduct cohesive ground operations. Artillery rockets, guns and mortars must also be modernised. Lighter and more mobile equipment is required so that these can be rapidly moved and deployed in neighbouring sectors. India’s holdings of precision-guided munitions (PGMs) continue to be low. In recent conflicts like the war in Iraq in 2003 and the ongoing Afghan conflict, PGMs have formed almost 80 per cent of the total ammunition used. Indian PGM holdings must go up progressively to at least 20 to 30 per cent in order to achieve high levels of operational efficiencies. India’s defence planners must recognise that it is firepower asymmetries that will help to achieve military decisions and ultimately break the adversary’s will to fight. Capabilities for heliborne assault, vertical envelopment and amphibious operations are inadequate for both conventional conflict and dealing effectively with contingencies that might arise while discharging India’s emerging regional responsibilities. Two rapid reaction-cum-air assault divisions (with an amphibious brigade each) need to be raised by the end of the 13th Defence Plan — by 2017-22. The expenditure on these divisions will be highly capital-intensive and will be subject to the defence budget being gradually raised to first 2.5 per cent and then 3 per cent of India’s GDP. A seamless intelligence-cum-targeting network must be established to fully synergise the strike capabilities of air and ground forces in real time. A good early warning network will enable the Army to reduce the number of troops that are permanently deployed for border management and will add to the reserves available for offensive operations. Infrastructural developments along the northern borders have failed to keep pace with the Army’s ability to fight forward and must be speeded up. During the long history of post-Independence conflicts with India’s neighbours and prolonged deployment for internal security, the Indian Army and its sister Services have held the nation together. Dark clouds can once again be seen on the horizon, but the efforts being made to weather the gathering storm are inadequate. The government must immediately initiate steps to build the capacities that are necessary for defeating future threats and challenges. It must take the opposition parties into confidence as a bipartisan approach must be followed in dealing with major national security issues. In fact, there is a requirement to establish a permanent National Security Commission mandated by an Act of Parliament to oversee the development of military and non-military capacities for national
security.
The writer is Director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi.
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Avenging theft
While setting foot for the UK, a senior member in our group cautioned, “Don’t go to wrong places for you will be in trouble!” The second piece of advice was in the form of a comment, but in a killing and chilling tone: “Some people have a compulsive habit of putting things in their pockets!” For us this was not only too much, but too demeaning too. Yet, we pocketed the advice. I hadn’t then realised that I myself would become the victim of a near-robbery in an alien land. I had a pouch ‘stolen’ from my not-so-inviting bag in Strathpeffer, Scotland. I noticed its loss when I needed to transfer the days’ photos, from the camera to the pen-drive, kept in the pouch which I couldn’t locate. I promptly announced a heist. “What else was there in the pouch?” asked my curious wife. To this very natural query of hers (though I was expecting a quick reprimand too for my being ‘carefully callous’!) I ‘reported’ as if before the police: “Some tie pins, coat lapels, two pen drives, a Seattle-Needle souvenir and some coins worth eight or ten pounds!” Post haste I blamed the theft on the house-keeper. With initial “tch-tchs’ of rubbishing my apprehensions of the involvement of the house-keeper, the investigation ensued: “But what would she need your cosmetic stuff for? Least the pen-drives!” I justified, “it had some change too!” “O, come on, they’re professional people. The hotel management trusts them. And do you think they are going to question the house-keeper for your silly stuff; and fire her?” Wife suggested I didn’t make a report. I decided to eat the proverbial humble pie. Next evening when we returned from Inverness, we found the house-keeper’s trolley in the corridor. I could not resist the temptation of ‘teaching her a lesson’ and straightaway rendered her haul of milk sachets poorer by a dozen, by a quick sleight of hand. Reaching the room, the wife said she needed some tea bags. While trying to arrange them, I encountered the house-keeper in the corridor who greeted me in her typically Scottish accent, similar to us Haryanvis’ style of speaking the Queen’s English. I asked her if she had some tea bags. “Yes, here we go!” She put some half-a-dozen on my palm and asked, “Do you need some milk too?” Well, I didn’t really, but something inside me made me forget all reasoning and honest intentions. “Yes!” I said and got almost a palmful. While returning to my room, I tried to recall with sadistic pleasure, the expression on the lassie’s face, on finding a shrunken pile of milk-sachets. Having wound up the Scotland trip, when we reached London from where we had initially started, I found my ‘missing’ pouch. I narrated to our host the story and my sick mentality to take revenge on the ‘stealer’. The host came up with a similar anecdote. He recalled the time when before migrating to the UK, he was cheated by a taxi-driver in New Delhi. He asked the latter for a match-box. Having lighted his cigarette, he removed half a dozen match-sticks, pocketed them, and returned the match-box. The senior member in our group was right. Some people have a tendency to put things in their pockets. And some other meeker ones can be a tad revengeful
too.
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Oh for a draught of vintage wine Hugh Macleod, the man behind GapingVoid – a creative cartoon and entrepreneurial wisdom blog once wrote, “I am my own fool’s paradise” and that is what Maharashtra’s new legal imposition and its close to whimsical belief in the effectiveness of the law suggests. One inconsistency being the legal age to drinking beer is still 21, so is it not a classified alcohol now? Teenage drinking is not uncommon and even condoned through forms of media and class structures. Such a law in the face of a relatively young and fast-changing Indian society seems ridiculous because its very effectiveness is threatened by the immaturity evinced by the officials in framing it. It’s really time for a rain check on India’s liberal and rational quotient. Regulations are important for structuring a society and reinforcing positive behaviour but only those can build a society that are grafted in people’s potential to abide by them. However, the current law passed by the Maharashtra government shows nothing but a scepticism in the discretion and cognisance of youth. It is incredulous that the same people who are legible to vote at the age of 18, marry, start a family, work or drive can not consume alcohol before turning 25! This being the most putative argument against the new law is also the crux of the antagonism vis-a-vis the law among the youth. Come to think of it, if there was a positive correlation between the age of drinking and responsible behavior then 25 would still be too young. Neither our biology or cognition is dispensed better or worse at 25 than at say 18 or 21 to handle alcohol. But there’s no biological evidence or statistical data to corroborate that 25 is the most appropriate age to ‘digest’ alcohol. So when the government already recognises 18 as the age when the transformation into an adulthood is complete than why such a step backward? One could argue that years 18-25 are developing years and kids of that age group have a propensity toward freaky frenzies, drunken bouts or even drunk driving and so need to be directed against it. But the question then is why even let them vote, drive or marry at such a young age when consequences of a misdemeanour in respective cases could be far more dire than those of consuming alcohol in those very years. There’s no guarantee of a noble mental switch at the age of 25 that will automatically make a young adult take discreet paths. On the contrary it’s vivid knowledge of desired behaviour, family and community environment and self-drive that affects core issues in a child’s course of life. Speaking of awareness, we all know how indispensable the amount collected as revenue is. The government coffers are not unknown to the fiscal benefits collected as revenue from sale of liquor and narcotics. So its definitely not the intent of the youth in mind that they’ve introduced such a legislation, if it was then they would might as well have banned the production/ distribution and consumption of alcohol altogether! Also, there’s no guarantee that putting a higher age limit to drinking will reduce inebriated hooliganism and drunken misgivings. There have been instances of individuals older than 25 being caught in a soup after their drunken bouts. And it does not come as a surprise to see a young lad of 20-something standing at a counter buying liquor, in fact most perceive it as normal; or part of growing up. Parents are opening up to the idea of their sons and daughters drinking and are in fact encouraging responsible behaviour by guiding them about drinking habits. Whether it’s conservatism or a step toward enhancing responsibility in youngsters, it will be decided in due course of time. For now, criminalising indulgence in alcohol before the age of 25 is perhaps not the best solution that the Maharashtra government has undertaken to discourage consumption of alcohol in young people. Now is the time to acknowledge the youth’s potential and involve them in constructing a better India. This step on the contrary will distance them. Further it will make them doubt the efficiency and implacability of laws based not rational and logic but perhaps on perfunctory call to duties and a bureaucratic egotism. The law is being opposed left, right and centre. In fact, actor Imran Khan has started a campaign to get the age reduced to 21. Let’s see how far will this bubble float. The drive to de-addict a state is admirable but the means are not when the popular attitude is ‘A man’s got to what a man’s got to do’; limit or no limit. It doesn’t mean we stop creating laws but that we create laws that don’t have to carry a stamp of prudish Puritanism or moral policing and are steadfast on their grounds of rationality and principle. And it is the rationality that decides the permanence of a regulation because whatever said and done, humanity still responds to the call of wisdom and intellect more than control. While you debate this out with the cynics over a glass of wine or whiskey; we leave the detractors with another trivia that could be used as a defensive stance against the raise in legal age. This time India has surpassed other conservative countries such as Pakistan, Brunei and Gambia which allow their non-Muslim population of 21 and above to enjoy some vintage and vodka. Conservative or not, Maharashtra can look forward to at least: Couples younger than 25 tying the knot to more sober wedding celebrations and politicians looking for detoxifying alternatives to distribute as freebies during elections!
The writer is Manager Copywriting at CueBlocks Technologies Private Limited, Chandigarh
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“Laws are supposed to bring order by bringing reforms and fresh ideas. Why just restrict law to alcohol when there are even more dangerous sources such as tobacco, non-prescriptive drugs, available with even a more addictive potential?.
“It seems the government’s measure of maturity has gone a bit tipsy. The law in question suggests that Indians are responsible enough to bring politicians to the highest power at the age of 18 but are not responsible to afford a dreg?”
“Alcohol consumption is something that is promoted by Bollywood, sportspersons so how can an individual be prevented from experimenting with it by enforcing unrealistic laws? The revenues that government generates from vending liquor is something that cannot be done away with. It will be good on papers but not effective against the pervasiveness of alcohol consumption at ages younger than 25.
“It is a mindless step highlighting not just lack of foresight on the part of our policy makers but also the sorry state of mindset where they do not want to invest quality brains, time, money and effort in devising measures to bring alcohol addiction under control. One should understand that not everybody who drinks alcohol is an alcoholic. Also, alcohol addiction at any age is unhealthy and fatal. By 18 an individual becomes old enough to take his/her own decisions which can be influenced positively. In a country like ours where no rule has proved to be efficient enough to bring about a desired change, this sort of a desperate measure will only increase illegal sale which will be even more detrimental to the health of our youth and economy, both.”
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Drawing the line THE
jury is still out on whether the revision of age-limit for alcohol consumption in Maharashtra is right or wrong. Whether it is moral policing, or responsible governance? There are different voices pouring in from all over, it’s a free for all and a certain actor too has joined the argument. He adds a little glamour quotient, certainly, but sense? That is a different issue. For starters, the limit might be a little on the impractical side, but wrong it is not. Impractical because it will be difficult to implement, like so many other laws, but it has a very strong social base behind it. We are growing up, evolving as a society. No doubt about that. But any decision has to be tested on a major social parameter. And with that in mind, the truth is that a big number of Indian parents would still be scandalised enough to know that their child consumes alcohol. There are enough instances of domestic violence reported, and the root cause so often turns out to be alcohol. It is not that every person who drinks turns into some violent creature, but alcohol does make you lose sense of right and wrong. Ask the women in Haryana, a state that saw Bansi Lal win an election as majority of women voters, vowed by his promise to ban alcohol, brought him to power. Secondly, pick up any middle-class family, and this will take a little generalisation into account, but the social structure in India still is pretty orthodox. A father will not take too kindly to his son coming home drunk. The women are not among high consumers of alcohol in middle class India, and they deal with their family chores all the time. Imagine a mother’s plight when she finds out that her son, who till yesterday was running after her for some extra pocket money, has turned up drunk? Their husbands drinking and creating that occasional ruckus is bad enough for most of them. It is a habit that the longer it is kept away from a person, the better it is. The point is not if 25 is the right age or not. Even the argument that if you can drive after turning 18, then why not drink too doesn’t hold good. When you are 25, most people, and again we are talking the average Indian here, would be expected to be married. A family life brings on more responsibility. People are more aware, not totally, but still more aware of their long-term responsibilities. It is just not the same when you are 21. The opposition is not totally unjustified. A place like Mumbai, or any other metropolitan city, has a different culture. But this is not about Mumbai. It is about the majority. And Maharashtra cannot be just Mumbai. Just like India cannot be just the metros.
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