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Lokpal Bill in limbo
Indo-Japanese ties |
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Polluted Punjab
Menace of biological weapons
Learning from a little one
Recent protests by Punjabi farmers against the Gobindpura land acquisition and spirited participation by women in these protests illustrates that 'women's issues' are not limited to practices that only impact them
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Lokpal Bill in limbo
It
is sad that the Rajya Sabha was adjourned sine die at midnight of December 29-30 without taking up the all-important voting on the Lokpal Bill after a marathon debate. While a generous share of the blame must lie at the door of the ruling dispensation, the opposition too, for all its drama, was lukewarm towards the Bill all the way. The Congress apparently decided to drag its feet in the Rajya Sabha when it saw the attitude of its allies — the Trinamool Congress, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party — preparing to vote the bill out. Significantly, after having acquiesced in the passing of the Bill in the Lok Sabha Trinamool had a litany of fresh objections to the inclusion of State Lokayuktas in the Bill. It is inconceivable for corruption to be checked if the states do not concur with a mechanism like a lokayukta to fight the menace. The BJP too brought up issues which it had not raised in the Lok Sabha. As a result, there were an unprecedented 187 amendments filed for adoption. The manner in which a member of the government-friendly RJD snatched a copy of the Bill and tore it in the well of the House made the whole drama look ominous. That the member was not handed out any punishment by the Chairman sets a bad precedent for the future. It is heartening that the government has subsequently promised to bring the Lokpal Bill to the Rajya Sabha again at the earliest. It would be apt if both the government and the opposition show greater spirit of accommodation when it comes up again and not allow this vital piece of legislation against corruption to get bogged down like the women’s reservation bill which is in limbo for long. Playing mere lip service to the Bill will not do. The feeling among people at large that politicians of all hues want to scuttle this Bill because it would come down hard on the corrupt among them will be further strengthened if the Bill is not carried through speedily. This would strike at the very roots of democracy. It is therefore imperative that Parliament reaffirms its credentials. However, the process of reining in corruption cannot be complete unless the states too are under the ambit of a meaningful legislation.
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Indo-Japanese ties
Japanese
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s just-concluded visit has yielded concrete gains for India in two major areas. During his meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh the Japanese Premier pledged $4.5 billion investment in the Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor project in the next five years. A similar corridor between Chennai and Bengaluru also figured in the talks. There are some 800 Japanese companies operating in India compared to 20,000 in China. Japan invests in India just one per cent of its total foreign investment. The scope for furthering relations between the two countries, therefore, is immense. The Japanese gesture is laudable as it comes at a time when much of Europe is on the brink of recession and the US too is struggling with its recovery. The second gain from Mr Noda’s visit is in the field of civil nuclear energy. In what is known as a “creative language” New Delhi assured Japan of its commitment to continue with its moratorium on nuclear testing. Being the only country in the world to have suffered a nuclear attack, Japan is sensitive on nuclear matters. Its move to end the deadlock on a nuclear deal with India, therefore, is significant. Japan has softened in view of India’s track record and its policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons. The talks on a civil nuclear cooperation had come under a cloud after the radiation panic in Fukushima when Tsunami hit a nuclear plant there. Now India can hope to learn lessons from Japan on maintaining nuclear safety. China seems concerned at the progress in Indo-Japanese cooperation. While welcoming the talks in New Delhi, the state media sees the development as part of a “containment strategy” targeting China. The bilateral cooperation, it feels, is becoming multilateral involving also the US and Australia in the “Arc of Freedom and Prosperity”. China’s rise is seen as a threat in many quarters but if regional cooperation is encouraged, Asia can easily withstand the impact of troubles emanating from the crisis in Western capitalism.
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Polluted Punjab
It
is, indeed, unfortunate that Punjab has been poisoned by the people who live off its land, and whose livelihood depends on industries that are located in the state. The intensively farmed state has a low forest cover, a meagre 5.1 per cent instead of the 33 per cent norm, and thus it would stand to reason that the state would be even more conscious about its responsibility, but this is not so. At the root of the problem is the fact that there has never been a focussed attempt to evaluate and address issues that allow the proliferation of pollution. The agricultural sector has a sorry record of overusing chemical fertilisers, insecticides, weedicides, etc., which have been contaminating the food chain, besides causing pollution. On the other hand, natural drains became convenient and extremely harmful dumping grounds for industrial waste. The issue was highlighted repeatedly in the media and some steps have been taken, but more needs to be done. There is a tremendous shortage of sewage plants, as a result of which riparian cities have turned downstream rivers into sewers. Of the plants that have been set up, only a few are functional. The government has taken a politically expedient road rather than take measures that would allow it to get the requisite funds from the Centre. It should have followed the required norms, imposed water and sewer charges for all sections of society, and other such measures. There is no doubt that the Punjab Pollution Control Board recently took a number of measures that cut into the pollution, especially from electroplating units, and even hospitals. However, the removal of a proactive head of the body sent out a wrong signal. The government did act firmly against farmers by not allowing paddy to be sowed before a specified time, thus preserving the much-depleted groundwater, but it has not been able to prevent them from burning the paddy stumps, which causes much air pollution. There were far more misses than hits on the pollution front in Punjab. Surely, the state deserves much more than a piecemeal approach towards such a serious problem.
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Love is more pleasant than marriage for the same reason that novels are more amusing than history. — Nicolas Chamfort
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Menace of biological weapons Wholly unsurprisingly, the recently concluded seventh five-yearly conference held in Geneva to review progress on implementing the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (1972) ended before the Christmas holidays with hardly any worthwhile results. The convention bans the development, production, stockpiling and use of biological materials for non-peaceful purposes. It has been ratified by 165 nations with another 12 states being its signatories. Review conferences are held every five years to assess the functioning of the convention and threats arising to its provisions. Why wholly unsurprisingly? Clearly, any attempt to proceed towards eliminating biological and toxin weapons and prohibiting their future manufacture cannot succeed without the United States coming on board since its bio-technological and pharmaceutical industry dominates the scene. However, the BTWC lacks any verification mechanism; hence trust must be reposed in the nations that are party to the convention to comply with its provisions. But this modality offends the pithy “Trust but Verify” principle enunciated by former President Reagan; it embodies a rule of prudence that all disarmament treaties and conventions must be credibly verifiable to ensure confidence that the State-signatories are in compliance. Unfortunately, the United States reached a unilateral decision in 2001 that it would not join a Verification Protocol that had been negotiated over six years between 1994 and 2000. The US objections derived from the assumptions that biological weapons were unique because their manufacture was easy to conceal within a legitimate bio-technological or pharmaceutical programme. Moreover, significant quantities of militarily useful biological agents could be produced in weeks, adding to the problems of detection and averting an attack. Any mechanism for on-site inspections of bio-technological and pharmaceutical plants would compromise commercial secrecy. Furthermore, on-site inspection of research establishments in the defence sector would be unacceptable on grounds of national security. In the event the draft Verification Protocol was abandoned. Instead, faith was reposed on voluntary efforts to ensure compliance with the convention by a system of declarations to enhance confidence that national compliance was being ensured to implement the BTWC’s provisions. Clearly, this was a half-hearted measure to verify the BTWC’s prohibitions. But it was the best outcome available due to the US anathema towards any more credible verification means. And, why were the results of the seventh Review Conference so disappointing? First, the participating states could only agree upon devising a new, revised annual reporting document for submission to promote confidence that their biological R & D activities had no military connotations. Secondly, it was recognised that there is urgency to ensure that all BTWC state parties submit their annual reports on these confidence-building measures. Evidently, compliance with this decision by the state parties has been tardy. Furthermore, it was agreed to achieve universal membership of the BTWC since significant countries have not yet joined it. Thirdly, proficient state parties were enjoined to provide technical assistance and training to states requesting such assistance to furnish their annual confidence-building measures reports. Fourthly, it was agreed that the modality of annual inter-sessional meetings be continued to permit experts and officials from the member-states to confer on issues of relevance to the BTWC relating to developments in science and technology, and further cooperation to implement the convention. Even the slightest reflection would inform that these decisions are quite banal, and fail to address the real issues confronting the BTWC. Genetic engineering, for instance, permits the development of new viruses that create attendant problems in diagnosing and treating diseases caused by these new variants. Undoubtedly, developing dangerous new pathogens and converting them into deliverable biological weapons is not a trivial task. But even if the new pathogen was only partially effective, it would generate widespread panic with disastrous economic consequences. These issues were not addressed at the Review Conference nor the potential dangers from non-state actors (read terrorists) gaining access to such disease agents. The al Qaeda, incidentally, has given a call for “brothers with degrees in microbiology or chemistry to develop a weapon of mass destruction.” Another danger arises from the bio-defence work proceeding in several countries, which are concerned with countering biological agents. Hence, they are known to develop new viruses and bacteria for testing countermeasures. The possibility of such new viruses escaping or being removed by motivated employees is always there. For instance, the SARS epidemic in China is suspected to have resulted after this virus was released from an experimental facility. Moreover, the anthrax spores that contaminated the US Senate building in 1999 had come from a US defence laboratory in Maryland. These growing threats of biological terrorism emanating from non-state actors and bio-defence laboratories were also not discussed in Geneva. Perhaps the greatest failure of the Review Conference was not to discuss growing tears that publication of legitimate research could enhance the danger from biological weapons. This issue gains traction from the controversy raging around two research establishments succeeding in mutating the H5N1 virus that causes avian influenza or bird flu. So far, it could only infect human beings in close contact with the affected birds. But, the mutated virus can spread from humans to humans, generating great angst of a uncontrollable pandemic being initiated. The question presently excoriating the scientific community and official agencies is whether this research should be allowed to be published in scientific journals. If no absolute prohibition is possible, should it be allowed to be published with suitable expurgations? Who will administer these expurgations? No simple answers are possible, but the issue is of seminal importance, Arguably, the most effective way to deter the menace of biological weapons is to lower the impact of an attack by effective isolation, quarantine and treatment of those infected to ensure their recovery, which might persuade terrorists that they would gain nothing but only earn opprobrium by using biological weapons. But this issue, and none of the questions noted above that are critical to implementing the BTWC seem to have engaged the attention of the participants in the Seventh BTWC Review
Conference.
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Learning from a little one In her calls to me every evening, the first question Maya, my five year-old granddaughter would ask (ever since she was three) is: “What were you doing when I was in school?” Then it will be followed by: “When I was in swimming?” and so on. I have to give out my complete itinerary for the previous 24 hours! On hearing, her crib would be: “All the time you either read or go for a party!” I may be reading a lot but I feel it is she who is learning a lot from a very young age and passing it on to me when my questions begin: “What did you do in school today?” It is from her that I heard the word “Tessellation” for the first time. In her own way, she would explain: draw a figure of a triangle, polygon etc and build on it a number of figures, for a whole page! After “Googling”, I learnt it is a pattern of plane figures that fills the plane with no overlaps and no gaps. Another day she would say, “Pooja (her teacher.... on first name basis!) gave me a presentation and I did it”. Wow, the first time I heard the word ‘presentation’ was when as a Major, 32 years old, I was on a Staff College course for a presentation of my plans as the ‘Enemy Division Commander’ for a telephone-battle. Another day: “Esme (another teacher) gave me a project; I finished it and then helped Shivam with his!” Well, I heard the term “Project” for the first time as a Capt at age 23 during a training course! Of course I would hear it repeatedly during MBA in Patiala decades later! Yet another day, Maya would say: “In Circle Time, Pooja read out the story of ‘James and the Giant Peach’ by Roald Dahl”; I had never heard of Circle Time, though in classes 1 and 2, we always sat in a circle for games such as “Grape Bunches and the Jackal”. Once when she was spending two days alone with me, she said she would make lime juice and named the ingredients. Thinking back, I realised that the earliest I did so was after my wife passed away. At least in brass polishing, I thought she couldn’t beat me as even in Junior-NCC, I had to ‘brasso’ my belt for the twice-a-week parades! But the little girl beat me two years ago, when she said: “The next time you want to polish brass cartridges/lamps etc, I will do; and don’t give me Brasso!” She explained sweetly the things I should keep ready! There is indeed a lot to learn from the Little
One!
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Recent protests by Punjabi farmers against the Gobindpura land acquisition and spirited participation by women in these protests illustrates that 'women's issues' are not limited to practices that only impact them
Amandeep Kaur explains, as a marker of her family's honour, how she had never even glanced towards a police station, a place for men, all her life. At least not until the summer of 2011. Her perspective changed when her village of Gobindpura, in southern Punjab, was declared the chosen site for a new thermal power project that required the acquisition of the villagers' ancestral farm lands. Her decision to participate in citizens' protest resulted in five arrests and detentions at the police station, several beatings, sexualised taunts and severe threats. Women's issues are human issues
Amandeep's story, captured in a November 2011 Youtube video that is gaining popularity, reminds us of the simple truth: women's rights are in fact, simply put, human rights. 'Women's rights' are often conveniently seen as 'special,' thus softer. A preoccupation with women's bodies sadly determines for some, which issues are labeled as 'women's issues' and generally often include rape, domestic violence, and reproductive oppression. Removing this 'special status' around women's rights is necessary since it comes with the patronising presumption that women are weak and need generous protection; the nature and scope of this protection determined by the 'protectors.' Removing the special status acknowledges that women, like all humans, have the right to freedom from vulnerabilities-to their bodies, their livelihoods, their day-to-day living. Those who stand up for this right are simply doing the right thing, and not engaging in some form of 'special,' generous charity. And women themselves are at the forefront of this rights-based work. Further, Amandeep's story illustrates that when women assert their rights, they also simultaneously impact other human right concerns that threaten our communities. It shows how rather than asking for 'special' treatment, women are standing up and sacrificing for the inclusive development and rights for all. In Amandeep's village, these rights-to work, to liberty and security of person, and indeed to life itself-were threatened by a power company and its nexus with the state forces. Poor rich gap impacts women The power company acquiring lands in Gobindpura, Poena Power, is no foreign agency, but rather a reported subsidiary of the Indian conglomerate Indiabulls. And just last month, India was rated as an 'extreme risk' country on the Women's and Girls' Right Index (WGRI), by the UK-based risk analysis company Maplecroft. Maplecroft warns global companies entering such 'extreme risk' emerging economies of the danger of possible complicity in "violations (against women) committed by state security forces or other actors." This might be especially relevant in the light of the late November changes to foreign direct investment and further opening of the Indian retail business sector to multinational companies. However, the struggle in Gobindpura illustrates how women's security is also at immediate risk because of the growing gulf between the poor and the rich within India, because of the insecurity faced by a majority of rural families. Braving imminent risks in the face of such insecurity, the villagers of Gobindpura protested through Summer 2011, almost at the same time as the growing Occupy Movement on the other side of the globe, but with even lesser media attention. "We are the 99 per cent" is the predominant slogan of the Occupy Movement in the US, as people have taken to occupying public spaces, starting with Wall Street, the symbol of American capitalism. The slogan represents the chasm in the US between the wealthiest one per cent and the rest of the population. The Gobindpura protestors were protesting similar inequality in wealth and power. While the Western protesters are occupying public spaces in protest, the Gobindpura farmers are protesting to reject the occupation of their private property. And Gobindpura's women and girls made the conscious decision of protesting alongside their men. For the lands at-risk were as much markers of their ancestry, identity, and livelihood as of their male counterparts.
Dare of women protesters Beginning in June 2011, women sat and marched in protest, in the face of the reality that many of the village men had already been arrested, thrown in jail, and tortured. The women were treated no differently. Their clothes were torn, their hair pulled, and they were caught in clouds of red, as cannons sprayed water mixed with red chilli pepper. As they were arrested and detained, police officers reportedly recommended to them that their only way out was to accept the compensation checks from the company. As the agitations in Gobindpura caught the attention of other farmer and labor unions, the village was cordoned off by police forces, denying any ingress and egress, who then proceeded to fortify their constant presence by several means, including converting the sole village health dispensary into a police camp. Given its pre-election season in Punjab, the Gobindpura issue was also ripe for selective attention from opposition political-parties-in-waiting, but in the face of government and corporate pressure, no real alternative existed for the villagers. Gobindpura is not a lone example of land acquisition or the agrarian neglect in Punjab; farmer unions and NGOs report over 50,000 debt-induced farmer suicides over the last two decades in what is often dubbed as the 'bread basket' of India. However, unlike other places that remain obscure, Gobindpura has now gained profile, and due to a confluence of political factors, some relief, whether in the form of alternate government jobs or negotiated higher settlement, seems more likely here. Nonetheless, for all the action in and around Gobindpura, the power company has begun construction of the plant, mostly unfazed. It was in an attempt to oppose this foisted and exclusionary development, that thought nothing of the poor and the vulnerable who were going to be uprooted by it, that the women of Gobindpura entered the larger male-dominated spheres with an intensity and at huge personal cost. Yet this bravery has largely gone unrecognised. Since the protestors lacked profile and were up against powerful forces, their behaviour seems to have been criminalised with little debate.
Re-evaluate women's rights The reaction to the Gobindpura women protestors has included violence and indifference. On top of the grotesque treatment meted out to them, there has been commentary chiding these women for not 'staying in their place'. This incident should force us to re-examine our assumptions about women's rights and empowerment in Punjab and beyond. Amandeep and her friends remind us once again that women ask for no special treatment, but only, as the Sikhs say, for "sarbat da bhalla," the welfare of all. For this, we must focus economic and social programmes that take everyone into consideration; inclusive development is an imperative and not an option.
The writer is a US-based lawyer who focuses on gender and minority issues in the United States and South Asia.
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