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Mixed bag in byelections
Pre-poll sops |
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Uranium for India
Troubled Pakistan’s uncertain future
The changing idiom of life
The gender matrix of
Haryana
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Mixed bag in byelections
IF
there is a surprise result in the outcome of byelections for eight assembly seats in six states and one Lok Sabha seat in West Bengal it is in Haryana’s Ratia constituency where the Congress triumph after a 29-year hiatus has given the tottering Chief Minister, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, a shot in the arm. The ignominious showing of the party in the Hisar Lok Sabha byelection earlier had perched Hooda on a precipice with his detractors baying for his ouster. The scene has, however, changed dramatically with Hooda now riding high with the Ratia win having given the Congress a clear majority on its own in the 90-member assembly. That the Chief Minister camped in the constituency along with his entire team of ministers four days ahead of polling, bringing the State administration to a grinding halt, and made sure the constituency received uninterrupted power supply, is all part of how politics is played in our country. What ultimately matters is that his candidate won, beating history and the sympathy factor considering that the rival Indian National Lok Dal candidate was a widow of the member whose death necessitated the byelection. While the other byelection in Haryana was, true to expectation, won by BJP-Haryana Janhit Congress nominee Renuka Bishnoi from Adampur, a constituency that is virtually the pocket borough of the Bhajan Lal clan of which Renuka is a part, in Himachal the Congress wrested Nalagarh from the BJP while in the Congress stronghold of Renuka it was the BJP that paid the Congress back in the same coin. But it is in Karnataka that the BJP needs to sit up and take notice. That a BJP rebel loyal to the infamous Reddy brothers who are behind bars in the mining scam mauled the official BJP candidate should ring alarm bells for the ruling party in the state. The results elsewhere were along expected lines—the victors being the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha in Mandu, Jharkhand, the Biju Janata Dal in Umerkote, Odisha, and the Janata Dal (United) in Laukaha, Bihar. The South Kolkata Lok Sabha seat going to the Trinamool is also no cause for surprise considering that Mamata Banerjee is ruling the roost in West Bengal. With the battlelines drawn for elections in five states, the byelections have indeed thrown up no clear winners.
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Pre-poll sops
THE Punjab government has announced a number of decisions to woo sections of voters ahead of the assembly elections. The financial impact will be disastrous on the depleted state treasury and the power utilities, whose finances are already over-stretched. Given the chaotic urban growth of Punjab towns and cities, where illegal structures keep mushrooming in violation of the basic tenets of urban planning, the move to regularise haphazardly built housing colonies will create problems for the authorities in providing the basic civic amenities, encourage colonisers all over the state to violate norms of planned housing and defeat official efforts to rein in the land mafia, which is having a field day, backed by politicians, policemen and bureaucrats. The government has decided to give free electricity to five lakh landless families in the state in addition to farmers, members of the Scheduled Castes and families living below the poverty line. The exchequer will take a hit of Rs 150 crore a year. The government is notorious for not paying the power subsidy in time and often tries to adjust it against its loans or electricity duty. The financial condition of Punjab State Power Corporation Ltd is going from bad to worse. It has reportedly accumulated losses of Rs 10,000 crore. As a result, it is unable to provide quality power to the regular domestic and industrial consumers apart from farmers. Power reforms have come a cropper. Governments are within their right to help the needy. But subsidies must be for the deserving only. Why should it give free power to rich farmers, especially when the state is on the precipice of bankruptcy and surviving by selling land and taking loans? To be fair, the previous Congress government led by Capt Amarinder Singh was no less populist and added its share to the mounting state debt. Competitive populism and political profligacy have financially ruined the state and decelerated its over-all growth.
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Uranium for India
Australia has realised rather belatedly that it has been unfair in its dealings with India on the export of uranium. By lifting the ban imposed on uranium export to India, Canberra has admitted that there are safeguards available to ensure that it will be used only for peaceful purposes. Moreover, India has an impeccable record of not being involved in any nuclear proliferation activity despite not being a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The conduct of India as a responsible nuclear power helped in clinching the civilian nuclear deal with the US in 2005 and, as a result, the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) gave a waiver to India and allowed the NSG members to do nuclear trade with New Delhi. Interestingly, Australia was among the NSG members which voted in favour of India. The Indo-US nuclear deal led to the UK, France and Russia signing peaceful nuclear cooperation agreements with India, but Australia remained steadfast that New Delhi could not be sold Australian uranium because it had not signed the NPT. The Australians now apparently realise that as a result, Canberra was a major loser economically. The previous Conservative government in Australia had initiated negotiations for exporting uranium to India. But the situation changed with the installation of a Labour government in Canberra in 2007. The new government discontinued the nuclear trade-related talks in the mistaken belief that allowing the sale of uranium to India amounted to promoting nuclear proliferation. The credit for the policy change goes to Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who took the initiative to get the old policy reversed. Her decision will go a long way in strengthening relations between the two countries.
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If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. — John F. Kennedy
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Troubled Pakistan’s uncertain future A
visit to Pakistan lays bare the uncertain future facing this troubled country despite much bravado and whistling in the dark. The economy is in parlous condition with growth no more than 3 per cent, 12 per cent inflation, falling FDI, IMF support withdrawn and repayments due next March, public enterprises bleeding, power cuts, a gas shortage, unemployment, a continuing low HDI performance resulting in failure to meet several Millennium Development Goals. With the implementation of the 18th Amendment, a structural problem has arisen with increased revenues going to the provinces and “inflexible” expenditures remaining with the federal government. The “War on Terror”, howsoever calculated, is said to have cost the country $ 60-70 bn whereas US aid has been no more than $ 18 bn. The saving grace has been buoyancy in the rural economy with bumper production of wheat, cotton, sugar and milk and a transfer of income from the towns to the countryside. Defence expenditure accounts for 18 per cent of the revenue budget and internal security an additional 10 per cent. The tax-to-GDP ratio is low and collections lower. Poor governance, mismanagement and corruption are held responsible for this sorry state of affairs. The extensive 2010 and more limited 2011 floods devastated large swathes of the Indus basin. Independent surveys attribute this not merely to aberrant rainfall, deforestation and consequent heavy erosion in the upper catchments, but also to poor maintenance of barrage and canal infrastructure that gave way and have yet to be fully repaired. Despite all of this, opulent (urban) and feudal life-styles have not been affected. Pakistan continues to be afflicted by political turbulence and military assertiveness in governance. The Memogate crisis (following an alleged missive drafted by the former Pakistan Ambassador in Washington, Hussain Haqqani, at the instance of President Zardari and handed over to the US military by a controversial Pakistan-born US businessman, Mansoor Ijaz, pleading for US pressure on General Kayani to avert a coup after the inglorious and incomprehensible Osama bin Laden episode, in return for a more zealous Pakistani role in the War on Terror) incensed the Army and has given it greater ascendancy over the civil government. The Foreign Minister, Ms Hina Rabbani Khar, admitted that Memogate had provoked questions. The Army had “played a larger-than-life role in the history of Pakistan” and the assertion of civil power in the existing democratic set-up had to be an “evolutionary process”. It was at this delicate moment that US-NATO forces bombed a border post, killing 24 Pakistan military personnel. Outrage and fury marked nationwide demonstrations denouncing the Americans for deliberately and repeatedly violating Pakistan’s sovereignty with drone attacks along the AfPak border. The engagement lasted two hours with ascending ferocity despite US-ISAF commands being informed. The Americans aver they were given permission by Pakistan to engage a Taliban raiding party, but the Pakistanis assert they were provided the wrong coordinates. The other theory is that the Taliban decoyed the US into action by firing on its aircraft. Both sides have ordered inquiries, pending which Obama has refused to apologise, though senior US officials have regretted the loss of life. Many issues arise. US forces have not infrequently been responsible for “collateral damage”, while Pakistan has a long record of violating Indian (and Afghan) sovereignty through well-established cross-border strikes. Despite its protestations of innocence about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, the Pakistan Army had sheltered him under its eye in Abbottabad. Since the Army does not admit to singular incompetence, complicity alone explains what happened. As in Abbottabad, so in the Mohmand border post strike, the Pakistan Air Force or ground forces did not engage the intruders? Why not? In both cases the Pakistan military presumably thought discretion the better part of valour as it feared escalation would cost it dear. However, Pakistan has closed all US supply routes to Afghanistan and ordered the US to vacate the Shamsi air base in Balochistan from where it has mounted drone attacks on targets in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Curiously, but typically, the Shamsi base was leased to the UAE (for what ?) which had in turn sub-leased it to the US. So much for sovereignty! Pakistan has declared that it is reviewing its entire relationship with the US. It will huff and puff but is unlikely to break its military-strategic alliance with Washington. China is not willing, nor militarily able just yet to take on the US role of playing military godfather and banker to Pakistan. It is already getting all it wants strategically from Islamabad by providing it military supplies, nuclear reactors and assistance to upgrade and extend the Karakoram Highway, build the Neelum-Jhelum and Diamer-Bhasha dams and undertake mining projects in Gilgit-Baltistan. It has also proposed a trans-Karakoram rail link from Tibet and Xinjiang to Gwadar and an oil/gas pipeline along a similar alignment. With its economy on drip, Islamabad needs US aid as much as the US needs Pakistan’s cooperation to sustain an effective presence in Afghanistan. Therefore, the current stand-off is likely to be followed by a rapprochement, continuing US aid and more elbow room for Islamabad to position itself as top-dog in Afghanistan when US-ISAF militarily pull out in 2014. Pakistan is talking to its own Taliban as a first step. Its formal boycott of the Bonn conference on Afghanistan will not necessarily detract from that meeting. The fact is that the US is part of the problem rather than of the solution in Afghanistan. The best option would be to secure a truce in Afghanistan, regionalise a reconciliation and reconstruction programme for it (with Pakistan, Iran, India, China, Russia, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and others), with US-European and World Bank backing. The object should be to rebuild its infrastructure and economy and restore to a neutral Afghanistan its traditional role as a thriving crossroads and international commercial hub. Unfortunately, Pakistan is still caught in a hate-India identity crisis, reflected in its uncorrected school textbooks, and the fetishism it has developed about J&K. The last week of November saw the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) take schoolchildren from Faisalabad to Lahore to protest the US/NATO Mohmand air strike. The speeches spoke of plans to Talibanise Pakistan, wreak vengeance on “Christians and Americans” and wage jihad against the US and India. The decision to extend most-favoured nation treatment to India and promote trade and investment is greatly to be welcomed. But tolerance for JuD hate rallies suggest that, for some, this could be no more than a tactical move to tide over a difficult time. Hopefully, the opening of trade and investment will be truly transforming. Some weeks ago, the widow of Moshe Dayan, the Israeli hero of the 1967 war, wrote, “Zionism has run its course.” The same is true of the “Ideology of Pakistan”, born of a hollow and divisive two-nation theory. A recent article in Friday Times, Islamabad, commented, “By now everyone in Pakistan should at least suspect that being “not Indian” isn’t a strong enough foundation on which to build a country.” How
true.
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The changing idiom of life Beginning with the advent of the 20th century, romance between husband and wife was synonymous with sex and procreation, with the man having the cake and the icing too. Love and companionship were largely confined to the post-reproductive age. Although romance gradually started filtering in with education and social advancement of women, sex still remained a major determinant in such relationships. This reminds one of an old film, “Dhool ka Phool”, which exemplified how a nascent romantic relationship was soon overtaken and engulfed by sexual desire. Every mother then would want her daughter to view the movie to insulate her against the perils of deviant behaviour. As the years went by and gradually ushered in an era where romance and sex gelled, the man-woman relationship began to discover newer equations. However, that short-lived boon was soon to transform into a self-defined, barren relationship where both spouses began working, had time schedules and targets to be met and, more often than not, came home tired wearing their boss’s ire on their sleeve. They had neither the time nor the inclination to romanticise and, least of all, to have physical intimacy so that after a quick meal they were ready to hit the bed even before they could wish each other “good night”. Today relationships are more like a circus in which showmanship, opulence and a vulgar display of ill-gotten wealth gain pride of place. What we then have are stage performers actually displacing real-life two-in-ones. The “do jism, ek jaan” seem pretty practised in the art of “rising to the occasion” simultaneously, with the husband attending a cremation while the wife marks her presence at an “unavoidable” social do or vice versa. Our social fabric today has been sucked so deeply into the quicksand of an overwhelming moral decay that in the not-too-distant past, one was rather saddened to note at the demise of a retired civil service officer that many erstwhile officers and their spouses, who seemed to be apparently “more” in grief than family members of the dear departed at the cremation ground, had conveniently disappeared half-way through the last farewell to be able to attend a lunch hosted on the same day by a senior retired colleague. And this happens to be just one of the many instances one can easily remember to make a point. The need of the hour then is to arrest the ethical decay, and to reform, enrich and cleanse ourselves first if we wish to restore the fabric of our traditional value system. Only then will corruption in its various shades and manifestations gradually
disappear.
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The gender matrix of Haryana THE over 100 km stretch from Panipat to Jhajjar is dotted with private educational institutions — mostly engineering and management. Most of these are named after some philanthropic Chaudhary. Other signs of prosperity and progress — like boys riding expensive motorbikes, donning branded shades and jeans keep recurring on this road like a refrain from a popular song. What remains conspicuous is the absence of women. When they do make an appearance, their faces remain hidden behind a veil.
In this apparently prosperous land, the gender ecology lacks balance. In the 2011 census, Jhajjar dist had shown the lowest sex ration in the 0 to 6 age group — 774 girls for 1000 boys. In Barhana and Dimana villages of this district, the ratio was as low as 378 and 444 respectively. While progress and prosperity is defined by men here, women, though equally hard working, are relegated to a lower status in the social hierarchy. But, when it comes to their numbers, which is the major concern presently, the school ground at Deeghal seems to defy the concern. It is filled with girls. A theatre show is scheduled for the sake of the girl child here. A group of local women squat behind the girls on the floor, with their faces covered. Next to them is a group of well-dressed women, who are seated on chairs, these are teachers and ANM ( Auxialiary Nurse Midwife) workers from Jhajjar district. Menfolk sit on chairs, with their legs spread before them. On arrival, we are greeted on a self congratulatory note from the local Deputy Education Officer, who claims, “ Look, the girls outnumber boys! And they are so disciplined and well behaved, as always!” Do they have a choice, one wonders. If they had, the government would not need to interfere with the natural process of birth of the girls. Or, to organise theatre shows and bhajan mandlis to sensitise parents of the girl child to let her come into this world! Else, the skewed gender ecology would boomerang into social unrest. More girls go to school than boys Across the social hierarchy, you come across layers of self-denial when it concerns the gender issue. The ingenuity of some of these denials sounds amusing. “ The poor have more girls. They keep on having girls, till they get a son,” says D P Ahlawat, general secretary, Human Rights Emergency Helpline Association, Haryana, a mass membership organisation. And the poor also happen to be the lower caste people in this region. The fact cannot be denied, the school ground certainly shows more girls. But, there is the other side to the coin. Even among the poorer families, the boys are sent to English medium private schools, so, the government schools show higher enrolment of the girls compared to the boys, a fact oft-quoted by the government machinery to deny gender disparity. Jyoti, from Dhandal village, a 17 year old girl, who does not look a day older than13, is the oldest of four sisters, after them they have a brother who goes to a private school. Ditto goes for Naveen, 16, from Deeghal village, the only difference is, her brother is older. He also reminds her that the house belongs to him, she is just a guest there, she should soon leave for her ‘own’ home. And they have several friends with a similar sounding tale. Poverty is compounded by a desperate need for a son, placing girls at the receiving end of all kinds of denials, including a balanced diet. But what binds these girls together is a common thread of aspiration. “So many girls have won medals in Commonwealth Games from our state, we can also do much, given an opportunity,” says Jyoti, who proudly informs, two girls from her village are working for the Delhi Police. Naveen adds, she knows about the law which prohibits killing of the girl child, therefore they are born, but, they are not desirable, she adds casually, without a blink.
Clan loyalties override gender concerns A local woman, with a covered face, refuses to divulge her name, suspicious of our motives. But she relents to talk. She too has a point of view. “When you kill a girl, you kill many colours and joys.” It sounds like a tag-line from a government pamphlet. Then she adds, “But, most women are helpless, they don’t have a say in these matters.” ANM workers are more discreet, their talk is more generalised, they refuse to cite examples or names. “Everybody is related here, by caste or by clan. And the loyalties are strong. If a woman wants to have a boy, the ANM worker would help her in sex detection rather than report on her. How can she antagonise her own clan, her village, she too may like to have the test done, won’t she,” asks one of the ANM workers, seated on a chair. Sex detection clinics operate early morning, before the law machinery could wake up! Then, there are mobile vans equipped with ultras sound machines, meant to help people living in remote areas, but pressed in discreet service to help people with money to know the gender of the foetus. When it comes to reporting the culprits, even money fails to talk. In Narnaul district, the local administration had announced a cash reward of Rs 1 lakh for reporting cases of illegal sex detection in 2007 and 2008, but, not a single person came forward. When it comes to protecting the birth of a male child and eliminating a girl, loyalties are stronger than greed. And, as the CMO( Chief Medical Officer), Jhajjar, Dr Bharat Singh claims, “Everybody wants a son, the educated deny it in public, that’s the only difference.” Secondly, to get the culprit doctors, who practice sex detection discreetly one needs a pregnant woman to act as a decoy. “Everybody is so connected here, no woman or ANM worker would like to antagonise the doctor, whose help they would require later,” adds Dr Singh. In a rare case, where the culprit doctor was convicted under PNDT Act in the Divisional Court of Rohtak, in 2002, the decoy had turned hostile later, fearing repercussions.
But, fewer girls are born Landholdings are shrinking, but aspirations are growing, thanks to a growing economy and skyrocketing prices of the real estate. In this scenario, a girl child is a burden. So, young couples who get a male child as their first born, do not want a second child. “This is another reason why you think less girls are born in the region” adds Dr Singh. If the second child happens to be a male, the situation could still be balanced, but havoc falls when the second child also happens to be a girl. “It is these families that go in for sex detection, usually under social pressure, not out of joy,” says Kamlesh, an ANM worker. Dowry is not the lone issue that makes the girl child undesirable. Dowry is just one of the issues. More damaging is the fact, that if a man is not able to sire a son, he is looked down upon as some kind of an impotent, he is called a niputiya, which, roughly translated would mean, a man without an offspring. Obviously, in cultural transcription, it would mean that women are weak. Then, even among the educated classes, some myths prevail, which, an outsider may find absurd, among the locals, they are treated as unquestionable facts. “ Even in this small village of Deeghal you will find about sixty to seventy ex- army men, these families naturally have more sons, they are from martial races,” says K C Ahlawat, President, Human Rights Emergency Helpline Association, Block Beri.
The higher castes produce fewer of girls!
The CMO of Jhajjar district has done a survey that proves that the couples from the higher castes, who are well-bred and well-fed tend to produce more male offspring. To prove his hypothesis, he has also traced his own family line, which has further strengthened, what he had thought was just a hunch. The survey of the first born children in Bahrana village, where the sex ratio is the lowest in the country, showed that out of the 63 children born in a year, 40 were boys and 23 girls. “After all, no one, not even a Ravana will get the first child aborted, irrespective of the gender. So, perhaps, more boys are born naturally among higher castes, which have access to better food and lead a good life,” says the CMO. He regrets, he has no wherewithal to prove it scientifically, but insists there is truth in what he says. In fact, he wants a state level survey to be conducted to prove his hypothesis. Dr Shiv Kumar, CMO Karnal, says, he is aware of the survey conducted by Dr Bharat Singh, and perhaps this could be a trend among the Thakur community, but he can’t be sure about it. What he is sure of is the fact that in lower castes and in rural areas the sex ratio is not as big a problem as it is among the urban middle classes. More girls are born in the lower castes, he agrees. Pradeep Kumar, director, NRHM ( National Rural Health Mission), Haryana, is also sceptical about the survey. “ I did come to know about the survey conducted for the gender ratio among the higher castes, but, the sample is too small to come to any conclusion. If we find similar trends in other states, we might get a study done.”
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