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Justice silenced
Dismal planning |
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Consent for sex
How to meet the Maoist challenge
‘Face to face’ with Lenin
Tale of two cities, and Rs 100 cr
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Justice silenced Two men have been killed and a woman shot in the shoulder in separate cases in Haryana in the past one week. They were all witnesses who were to depose in court, presumably against those who had them shot.
The week may have been an exception, but it is indeed common for witnesses to be killed in Haryana, a state struggling to rein in gangsters who seem to have no mercy or fear of law. While in most such cases the victims are those deposing against hardened criminals, it is not uncommon for witnesses to be shot in property disputes also, which indicates non-criminals are also getting people murdered through hired killers. This happens only when law does not scare even the common man. The effect of this on justice delivery is direct. People are not prepared to become witnesses in criminal cases, especially if the crime did not affect them directly. That spirals into the police getting de-motivated, as many a prize catch has slipped through their hands for want of a witness. Also, the criminal who has murdered one person ends up killing a witness too, and yet gets away with it. The only solace — if it can be called that — is that often gangsters are killed by their rivals when they appear in court. Threat to witnesses is what has undermined many high-profile corruption cases too. An amendment to the IPC has provided for punishment up to seven years for threatening someone to give false evidence. But that hardly works when a witness, fearing for his life, simply says he did not see anything. The Supreme Court, too, in a ruling conceded that not every witness can be given police protection. However, the world over witnesses against organised crime are given special protection, which is needed here too. And there need to be guidelines framed regarding threat assessment, not leaving it to the SHO concerned. The true answer, of course, lies in ensuring a general fear of law, so that people don’t take to crime in the first place.
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Dismal planning Haryana has a lot going in its favour: a GDP growth rate of 9.59 per cent and a high per capita income. Discussing the state’s annual plan on Monday, Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia of the Planning Commission named two more positives: satisfactory human development and an investor-friendly environment.
A 30 per cent hike in the annual plan size will see a sharp jump (101 per cent) in investment in science, technology and forestry. Throwing more money at projects is one thing, getting the desired outcome another. In this light, Haryana’s track record is not even average; it is dismal. Haryana’s investment of Rs 3,085 crore in corporations, rural banks, joint stock companies and cooperatives rose 109 per cent between 2006-07 and 2010-11, but returns fell from Rs 5.62 crore to Rs 2.48 crore, according to the latest report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG). Here is another example of financial mismanagement: the government spent Rs 5,776 crore on public sector undertakings (PSUs) in 2010-11 and suffered losses of Rs 6,170 crore – 93 per cent by the power utilities alone. No one has been held accountable. The losses were due to “deficiencies in financial management planning, project implementation, operation and monitoring”. Seven PSUs are non-operational and two shut down but not yet liquidated. If the sharp rise in the allocation for forestry gives the impression that Haryana is going green, here is a reality check: Despite spending Rs 539.58 crore on green projects, the state’s forest and tree cover has remained stagnant in the past five years. The CAG has blamed this on “lack of planning”. A sum of Rs 377 crore meant for giving maternity benefits, pension, advances for houses, medical aid, etc, to construction workers remained unspent. To ensure that money is rightly spent, each department is supposed to issue a utilisation certificate. In Haryana, utilisation certificates have not been issued for Rs 4,705 crore, raising doubts about the proper use of the taxpayer’s money. Before routinely clearing a plan the Planning Commission should go through the latest CAG reports to see the state’s financial (mis)management.
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Consent for sex If only the number game could solve the problems of sexual abuse of juveniles, it could be handled easily. After a year-long confusion that arose due to the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Bill- 2011, that defined consensual sex between the age group of 16 and 18 was not a crime, finally some kind of logical reasoning is established between the official age of maturity of youngters and the age of consensual sex.
On Thursday, the Union Cabinet approved an amendment to the Bill under which any sexual activity, even consensual, with a person below the age of 18 years would be considered an offence. This amendment may help cases like the Bombay High Court verdict that acquitted a teacher accused of raping a 16 year- old- girl, observing that she had consented to the act. A lower Sessions court had ordered imprisonment of the accused for six years for committing the crime in 2004. The high court verdict came a few days back, acquitting the accused based on the Bill of 2011. It happened because the law did not define an agreeable age gap between the two consensual partners. The amendment still leaves a lot of anomalies in our interpretation of several Acts and Bills that allow one man the licence to rape his 15-year-old wife because a married couple’s consent is an accepted matter while another can be prosecuted for consensual sex with his 17-year-old girlfriend. Now, since the marriage age and the age for consent for sex have finally come to be agreed upon as 18, one can see some relief. But by dropping the caveat for consensual sexual activity between the age of 16 and 18, the law had criminalised adolescent sex. In changing times, it is an accepted fact that teenagers engage in sexual activity. By making even consensual sex illegal between the age of 16 and 18, the law has empowered moral policing and will push up the number of illegal abortions because teenagers will tend to hide their sexual activity for fear of law. |
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I have no friends and no enemies — only competitors. — Aristotle Onassis
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How to meet the Maoist challenge The Maoist abduction spree that included two Italians and a local MLA in Odisha, and the Sukma Collector Menon from Chhattisgarh has left the government in a state of paralysis. The Italians were released after the government succumbed to the Maoist demands.
The MLA, too, has been released after a month with the state government conceding to release 24 of the Maoist cadres held in prison. Viewing the events, it is not the abduction of the MLA but that of the young collector from Chhattisgarh that has made the nation sit up. The Maoist extremism by some 20,000 men and women with their tactics of abduction appears to have sent the government of more than a billion people with paramilitary forces exceeding two millions in a state of quandary. Abduction tactics by the Maoists are not a new phenomenon. In a similar instance, the Collector of Koraput was abducted by the Maoists in February last year. He was released after the government had accepted a number of Maoist demands. In 2009, the Maoists raided an ill-prepared police post in West Bengal and looted the armoury, killing all policemen expect one officer who was abducted. Ironically, in this case also the government had conceded to the Maoists to secure the release of the abducted officer. The moot point is that have the state agencies involved in fighting the Maoist meance learnt any lessons from the past abductions? The Maoists have developed their strategy to keep the government and its forces cleverly disorganised by hampering the democratic process employing tactical tools like hostages and forcing the government to concede to their demands. The state has been losing space to the Maoists; the menace has spread into more than half of the nation's districts. The simple tactics of abduction has sent the government in a state of mental arthritis. From the day we exchanged hostages for the beleaguered passengers of IC- 814, we have time and again displayed our incompetence and ill-preparedness to fight such a menace requiring dynamism and vision in both strategy at the national level and innovative tactics at the operation level. In 1989, with the sudden eruption of insurgency in J&K and its subsequent shift to terrorism, the country witnessed a serious threat to the state. There were many cases of abduction that included Rubaiya Sayeed who was released after the government succumbed to the abductors' demands. Two young Army officers were captured, tortured, maimed and killed. Nine foreigners were abducted and killed by foreign terrorists and Charar-e- Sharif, the famous Sufi shrine, was set on fire by Pakistani terrorists. In the latter cases, the state did not give in to the terrorists' demands. Some of these incidents took place in highly inaccessible areas which were also treated as liberated zones like Abujhmad Forest. The security forces fought back to enforce the authority of the Union of India. How it was achieved should be a matter of interest to those operating in the Maoist-infested areas. The conditions that are imperative for militants' success in abduction are better intelligence, surprise in terms of time and place of action, ability to concentrate in disguise and melt away, and maintain a vice-like hold on the local population in the areas that are often inaccessible. The security forces and government officials who operate in Maoist areas have to understand their modus operandi and operate in concert to beat the insurgents in their game. To begin with, the areas on the fringes of Maoist strongholds should be dominated by strong, tactically sited pickets based on the "dynamic Grid System", held by well-trained and well-motivated security forces. The aim being to deny these areas to the insurgents, use them as launch pads, re-establish and extend government authority deeper into Abujhmad Forest and usher development. We cannot have a repeat of the Maoist attack of 2009 on the police posts. During this phase the innocent villagers must not be subjected to any harsh treatment and instead be protected from the wrath of the insurgents. Those apprehended be brought to justice quickly to ensure unstinted support of the local population. The judicial system would also have to gear up suitably. The civil officials reach is extended to inaccessible areas as the security forces reach deeper and reduce the insurgents' footprints. Collectors should coordinate intelligence that is the key to success against insurgents and send periodic advisories to all concerned. It should not be left to the intelligence agencies alone. Coordination with the neighbouring districts at both intra-state and inter-state levels is imperative. Their movement to the villages under areas dominated by insurgents and meeting with the local bodies should not be publicised - desirably organised in the garb of some other activity. The route to the meeting sites be unpredictable and changed routinely. Drivers and the majority of the staff be informed of the movement at the eleventh hour. The escort should be of approximately 10 well-trained armed personnel in two separate vehicles at a suitable distance ready to support each other and manoeuvre to beat any attack or attempt by insurgents to take hostage. On reaching the site, the escort must deploy tactically and be ready to foil any misdemeanour by the insurgents. When the abduction of Collectors from Sukma and Koraput is analysed, it becomes evident that they and their escorts had violated all the basic tenants of operating in an insurgency-hit area. The collectors were on a pre- publicised visit; the escort was ill-trained and had been taken off-guard. Even the collectors had no intelligence of likely abduction of any kind. It is like going in front of a tiger and being ignorant of the consequences. At the national level, the the National Security Adviser and others need to act and advise the government to have a well-defined strategy fight to the Maoist menace. Irrespective of the fact that whether it is a coalition government or otherwise, the nation's interest must come first always and every time. The police and the paramilitary forces must be given the requisite teeth and political backing to execute their assignment. The anti-hostage policy must be clearly spelt out, and the nation be ready to make sacrifices. Well-trained interlocutors be nominated in advance and pressed into service rather than waiting for the militants' diktat. There is a lesson in history- the freeing of hostages at Entebbe Airport, 2500 miles away from home in a daring raid by the Israel Special Forces, when the Israel Cabinet in a secret and difficult deliberation refused to give into the terrorist demands. During the raid, the operation commander- Yonatan Netanyahu, brother of subsequent Prime Minister Benjamims Netanyahu and three hostages lost their lives, a small price for the honour and safety of the nation. Alas, Indian politicians did not have a similar will and pride during the hijacking of IC-814. Had the Indian defence forces, capable of performing a similar feat, been given the resources and political backing, the country would not have suffered at the hands of terrorists. It is time we started employing our much-trained and extremely well-equipped NSG and SSG to execute rescue missions in the Maoist-infested areas and send a message to the insurgents that the national security and sovereignty are invaluable to us and at the same time the doors of negotiation and peaceful means of projecting their grievances are kept open.n
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‘Face to face’ with Lenin
The
world knows Lenin as the greatest revolutionary. He heralded the Bolshevik revolution in Russia when a salvo was fired from the ship Avrova, now harboured in St. Petersburg. My visit to Moscow provided me an exciting prospect of seeing Lenin ‘face to face’ in his Mausoleum. The imposing walls of Kremlin, the river Moscova frozen in patches, grand Red Square, Bolshoi Theatre a little distance away, Russian soldiers, wrapped in long winter coats — this is the ambience that surrounds the mausoleum. Wide roads of Moscow with stately buildings on either side all add to the unique position that this city enjoys as one of the best capitals in the world. For me it was a heroic effort to wait in the queue for the ticket. I got the real feel of Moscow winter and snow. The snow did not bother so much as the wind which pushed the chill to the bones. For a person not used to such a weather, both thinking and movement get immobilised. The mausoleum outside the Kremlin wall facing the Red Square is a featureless piece of architecture, totally “unadorned”, holding in its deep, dark, underground womb “one of the chosen company of world’s immortals”. Head without any cover, a cautious, noiseless walk down the dark layers of steps took me to the glass casket kept on a raised rectangular platform, high enough to afford the visitors a full view of Lenin’s body. The body is covered almost up to the chest in a thick satin cloth, leaving only his face, his hands and head visible. Is it because these were the parts of his persona that played the prime role in heralding the Bolshevik revolution and carrying it forward? A remarkably unlined face with shining Russian complexion made radiant by the light focused on it fixes your gaze on the visage of this “beloved comrade”. The face is exactly one has seen in Lenin’s pictures with a tuft of hair donning his chin, the silky growth that fringes his upper lip, his big eyes, known for being “penetrating and detecting the moods of the masses” were closed under sharp, well-formed eye-brows. His huge head, its broad front — a sculptor’s delight — holds you in awe of this great revolutionary. All the visible features engage you instantaneously: a sharp nose suggesting Lenin’s extraordinary intellect, hands so delicate and manicured suggest a man of sensitivity and refinement. His right hand looked as though half-clenched holding his thumb slightly inside under his fingers, conveying his inflexible determination to lead and liberate workers from the shackles of a miserable life and rid them of exploitation and poverty they had been suffering under the Tsars. The collars of his shirt appear well tailored. A spotted tie, the cuff ends and his jacket sleeves give the impression that he dressed well. What is missing — or not visible — is his inevitable waistcoat. In fact, what you get to see most is his huge bald head. Perhaps only such a head could hold the mighty turbulence and turmoil it went through before and during the revolution. The hair around his baldness is silky, scanty and brownish. Seeing only this bit of Lenin/there is no end to guessing what kind of a man he was. His friend Gorky describes him as a humane person. He was fond of playing chess, loved music and always laughed loudly. Here in a beautiful glass casket, a rare serenity resting on his face, it appeared to me that he was in deep thought or meditation over “what has happened to my revolution, what has happened to communism”!n
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Tale of two cities, and Rs 100 cr The
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, in a Tweet questioned the wisdom of the 140-year-old exercise of Durbar Move — shifting of the state secretariat between Jammu and Srinagar every six months. But can the state leadership do anything to address the simple point behind the remark — that it is a massive waste of money, Rs 100 core per year to be precise? Omar’s “loud thinking” has set off the debate. Some believe it is not possible to stop it altogether, but a partial solution lies in running Civil Secretariats simultaneously at both places. Others argue setting up separate state Assemblies in Kashmir and Jammu is the only viable alternative. But then, that itself will have far-reaching consequences, possibly division of the state. The Chief Minister’s father, Farooq Abdullah, who had made an attempt to settle the Secretariat at Srinagar permanently in October 1987, had to face a major agitation in Jammu till he reversed the decision within a month. Jagmohan, who was Governor at the time, wrote in his book “My Frozen Turbulence” that Farooq had acted in haste, which led to a feeling in Jammu that he wanted to appease the people of Kashmir for political gains. There is also disagreement on the genesis of the Durbar Move. Some claim it was started by the Dogra ruler of the state to escape the heat in Jammu during summers and the cold during winters. Others say it was started to defeat the “conspiracy” of the British Indian government to incite the Kashmiri Muslims against Dogra rule. On April 19, Omar Abdullah wrote on Twitter: “Do I think the ‘Durbar move’ is a waste of money? Yes, I do. Is there an alternative? I haven’t seen a viable alternative suggested.” He also termed the practice “escapist”. “I agree. We run away when people need us most and face the most difficulty. The Durbar move is escapist,” he tweeted.
THE DEBATE IN JAMMU
Three alternatives Noted historian and political analyst Hari Om says: “The practice was not started by the Maharaja to escape extreme weather. Dogra Maharaja Ranbir Singh started the practice in 1872 to defeat the conspiracy of the British Indian government.” Suggesting three “viable alternatives”, he says the need is to rectify the mistakes of 1872. “The state of J&K did not exist before 1846. It came into being after Dogra ruler Maharaja Gulab Singh signed the Treaty of Amritsar with the British in March 18, 1846. He bought Kashmir from the British by paying Rs 75 lakh.” He says it was Kashmir that was merged with the Jammu Kingdom. “The permanent capital of the Dogras was Jammu, which should thus be declared as the only capital of the state. Jammu also needs to be made the capital considering its location and historical, strategic and political importance.” Another alternative is to keep all records pertaining to the Jammu and Kashmir regions in their respective Civil Secretariat buildings. “Bifurcation of all administrative departments is possible by having secretariats function simultaneously at both places. While the ministers can shuttle between Jammu and Srinagar as and when required, the administrative heads, including commissioners and secretaries, could be divided and posted permanently in Jammu as well as Srinagar.” Splitting the state into three regions, each with its own capital, is the third alternative. “It won’t involve any extra expenditure, as the required infrastructure is available in all three regions,” Hari Om says. Meeting aspirations BJP state chief spokesperson Jitendra Singh claims the tradition was aimed at equally addressing the material and psychological aspirations of the different regions of the state. “We hope the Chief Minister does not indicate a Kashmir-centric mindset by stationing the Durbar permanently at Srinagar. If at all a permanent seat of government has to be decided, it should be Jammu, which is geographically, politically and strategically more suited,” he says, adding the “debate should be objective”. Two Assemblies Panthers Party working chairman Harsh Dev Singh believes the practice cannot be abandoned until separate legislative Assemblies are created for the two regions. “The need is to make the Secretariat available to people of both the regions round the year,” he says. “The Chief Minister has himself admitted that the practice not only is “expensive and unproductive” but also causes “insurmountable inconvenience” to the people of all three regions. “It involves the movement of all documents, notwithstanding the fact that some are not required in the other region. For the disposal of their cases, people have to wait for six months for the Durbar to return to their region,” he says, adding that the Chief Minister has only raised the issue without offering any solution. Symbol of secularism Civil Secretariat Employees Union president Rouf Bhat is for a “fruitful debate”. “The issue has a political and historical background, and it is directly related to the aspirations of the people of all three regions. The Secretariat is not just an institution, but a symbol of secularism, in which people of all regions, religions and caste serve. This is a major issue, which needs to be debated, taking in the views of people from all three regions,” he says.
In Kashmir, a matter of practical issues
People
in Kashmir look at the Durbar Move from various angles, including peace and development, but their foremost lament is the “lack of government attention” when it is in Jammu. It was a rather irksome exercise for the people during the early years of militancy, when the authorities had to take tough administrative and security measures to move the convoys. Looking at the men at work sprucing up the city to “welcome” the government, Ashwaq, a high-school student, asked: “Are the people in Kashmir animals?” Little attention is paid to the city during winters, when it faces problems of essential supplies, electricity, road connectivity and transport. When schools re-open in Kashmir in early March after the winter vacation, repair work on roads and parks begins, and close to the Durbar Move, the city gets a facelift. For the more than 7,000 Durbar Move employees — most of who spend their life between the two capital cities — there is little social or cultural life, as they remain restricted to their jobs. However, the majority of them don’t mind it, as those from Kashmir get to be in the warmer Jammu during winters, while the Jammu-based employees enjoy the summer months in the cool of Kashmir. An employee who has been associated with the Move for over 20 years (but did not want to be identified) said: “This is a good practice as people from all three regions of the state get to interact.” Abdul Khaliq, a shikarawalla at the Dal Lake, every year looks forward not only to tourist arrivals, but also the Durbar staff, who were his customers even during the peak militancy period. Mushtaq Ahmad, another Move employee, said: “There is a monetary benefit for those associated with tourism in Srinagar and Jammu.” Use technology Government officers say the practice is “obsolete” in view of the communication technology available. By adopting computer technology for official records, transfer of such huge amounts of files can be avoided, said a senior officer from Kashmir. Referring to problems faced by the people, another officer said: “The government should remain in Jammu during summers and in Kashmir during winters, which is when the masses need them there the most.” Besides Internet connectivity, what would help Kashmir particularly is physical and geographical connectivity, he added. When the Kashmir valley gets connected to the national railway network in the next five years and by road through another tunnel on the Srinagar-Jammu highway, the barriers would fall. Thenthe Durbar shift would become redundant. An e-governance system was initiated in the Civil Secretariat in the late 1990s, but that is yet to be completed. Implementing that — and bringing the administration closer to the people — would be the first step towards discontinuing the Durbar Move, which has helped sustain the conjoined status of a multi-cultural state.
PAYING FOR THE SHIFT
l
Annual cost of shifting files and staff
Rs
100 crore
BY ROAD
Around
200 vehicles — 150 trucks and 50
buses — are kept at the disposal of the Civil Secretariat for ferrying employees and official records. “As the Jammu-based employees prefer to go to Srinagar in the second week of May, they are provided
20 State Road Transport Corporation (SRTC) buses in the second shift,” according to J&K SRTC Managing Director J S Tondon. The corporation also provides a recovery van to accompany the cavalcade, besides four empty vehicles in case some break down, along with a team of mechanics. The traffic police deploy cranes along the Jammu-Srinagar highway to help in case a vehicle meets a mishap. Traffic on the road is made one way on the days the cavalcades move. While Kashmir-based employees and official records move from Jammu to Srinagar on April 28 and 29, Jammu-based Durbar Move employees are transported on May 5 and May 6.
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