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Quotas in promotions |
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Feel the burn
Missing children
The Siachen story
A towering experience
Enhanced vulnerability
Parliament's watch: Sweet reassurance or resonating dissent?
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Quotas in promotions
It
is sad that yet again the country is in the grip of quota politics with the Bahujan Samaj Party demanding a constitutional amendment to provide quotas for scheduled caste and scheduled tribe Government employees in promotions and its arch-rival the Samajwadi Party seeking to be one up on it by demanding that Other Backward Classes be included along with SCs and STs for quota purposes. The organizations representing caste combinations have jumped into the fray serving partisan interests. At one end of the spectrum is the Arakshan Bachao Sangharsh Samiti (ABSS) in Uttar Pradesh supporting the cause of the SCs and STs and on the other it is the Sarvajan Hitaya Sanrakshan Samiti (SHSS) which has written to the Prime Minister stating that any move to bring amendment in the Constitution to ensure quota in promotion would be resisted by the upper caste employees at every level. All this despite the fact that the Supreme Court had, through an order, struck down quotas in promotions provided for by the Mayawati government in U.P. The issue has cropped up at a time when the Presidential elections are round the corner and the Congress party is desperate to garner support of both BSP and SP for its yet-to-be-announced candidate. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s move in calling an all-party meeting on the issue on May 23 is evidently intended to dissociate his party from any exclusive responsibility on this sensitive issue. However, while vote bank politics is dictating the course that various parties are taking, there is no attempt to go into the merits of the issue of caste-based promotions in government jobs. Where will merit be in all this jockeying and how badly accountability will suffer in an environment in which caste, not merit, would be the defining criteria is something that is not engaging anyone’s attention. It is indeed high time that members of Parliament understand their responsibility of taking a well-considered stand on the issue based on national interest. Public-interest groups must also step in to debate the issue of caste-based promotions in all its aspects before the government moves to legislate.
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Feel the burn
Every
harvest season, pictures appear all over media of straw from the wheat or paddy crop being burnt. Due noises are made, in government as well as environmental quarters, and thereafter it is all quiet — till the next harvest. State governments have imposed a ban on the practice of burning straw, which sends up in smoke — by some estimates — Rs 200 crore worth of nutrients contained in paddy waste in Punjab alone. Besides, useful bacteria and other fauna in the soil are killed, which are hard to replace. Add to that the energy wasted from burning millions of tonnes of biomass in the open, also putting at risk life and property. With all reason going against burning straw, and tremendous benefits to be had from not doing it, why do farmers still do it? The foremost reason is the farmer is not convinced about this gain-loss equation; which means he has not been educated enough on the matter. So that should be the starting point for the authorities. Thereafter comes the convenience — or lack of it — of alternative methods of straw management. For one, it costs the farmer some amount, whereas burning is free. On the other hand, the benefits are intangible and not seen immediately. As the high court told Punjab last month, the government needs to take “proactive measures by providing solutions to farmers which are affordable and readily available”. The government also needs to take a policy decision on whether it wants the straw to be ploughed back into the soil, or used for running biomass-based power plants. Accordingly, an incentive scheme too may be considered. To supply power plants, a straw collection and compaction chain will have to be developed. The recovery from power generated could pay for that. For ploughing back, the farmers could be paid a small incentive amount. After all, crores would be saved in the form of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, for which the government otherwise pays subsidies. Having done all that, the stick too may finally be wielded.
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Missing children
About
44,000 children go missing every year, according to the National Human Rights Commission. Of these approximately 11,000 remain untraced. Unlike Saroo Brierley of Hobart, Australia, the 31- year- old, who traced his mother in a small town Khandwa, of Madhya Pradesh. Saroo was five when he went missing. He had inadvertently boarded a train that took 14 hours to reach Kolkata. Desolate and alone he took to begging and was picked by an orphanage. They put him up for adoption. He was adopted by an Australian couple, who provided him with best possible education. The only fact he remembered from his past was that to reach Kolkata, the place he came from took 14 hours of journey. By the speed of about 80 km per hour, that the Indian trains maintain, he drew a circle and zeroed in on Khandwa, the place he might have come from. The rest is history, written with the aid of Google Earth. Saroo’s interview on BBC went viral, igniting hope in the hearts of thousands of parents, who are optimistic that new tools of technology can find their loved ones who went missing. But, technology apart, when a child goes missing, even an FIR is not registered because no cognizable offence is committed. Instead, an entry is made into the General Station Diary. The case is handled casually by the local police. With each passing year the number of missing children is growing. It is indicative of several facts--they are trafficked to Gulf countries as camel jockeys, for organ trade and sex trade. Majority of children run away from home for petty reasons like failing an exam. They come to big cities, work as cheap labour, and fall into the trap of traffickers or criminals. Since most of them come from poor families, their case is not pursued seriously. If Saroo could use technology to find his home after 25 years, so could police. If only the will is there.
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Personality is everything in art and poetry. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The Siachen story
In
July 1982, under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s direction, I had restarted the India-Pakistan Foreign Secretary’s talks which had remained stalled for over two years. Before my departure for Islamabad the Prime Minister’s instructions to me were typically laconic: “Talk to them about everything they want to talk about, including Kashmir; what I want to know from you when you come back is whether there is a grain of sincerity in him”. President Zia-ul-Haq had been making noises about wanting peace with India. My very first meeting in Islamabad was with President Haq, who advised me to work out with his officials a Treaty of Peace and Friendship, including a No-war Pact. Over the next two and a half years we did successfully negotiate such a treaty, but at the last minute under American advice, Pakistan backed off from signing it. But I shall not dwell on that long story here. On return from Pakistan, I told Prime Minister Gandhi that while my talks with the officials had gone off well, I could not really vouch for much sincerity on Zia-ul-Haq’s part. For I had picked up information from other sources in Pakistan that many Kashmiris from both sides of the LOC were being trained by ISI agents for armed jihad in Kashmir at the end, in success or even failure, of the ongoing jihad in Afghanistan. In another visit to Pakistan in 1983, I had heard some vague talk about the Pakistan army’s plans to extend its reach to the Karakorram Pass and link up Pakistan-occupied Baltistan with Chinese Occupied Aksai Chin inside J&K’s Laddakh region. When I mentioned this to Prime Minister Gandhi she asked me to speak about this with some people in our Defence establishment, which I did. Our Army already had information about some such schemes being hatched in Pakistan and was monitoring developments. In early March 1984, I accompanied Prime Minister Gandhi to a meeting in the Defence Ministry’s high-security Map Room. There were no more than six or eight other persons there, including the Defence Minister and the Chief of Army Staff. On a large map were flagged the positions of the Pakistan army’s base – posts below the Saltoro Range, which constitutes the Siachen glacier’s western flank, and the routes the Pakistan army’s so-called “scientific” expeditions had been treading in the region for the last one year or two. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s two allies – China and the US — had been publishing maps showing the entire glaciated region up to the Karakorram Pass as territory under Pakistan’s control. This was a blatant violation of the Cease-Fire Line (CFL) Agreement of July 1949. Under that agreement the CFL from point NJ 9842 onwards was to run “north to the glaciers”, which would leave the larger part of the Siachen glacier and the region east of it in India. Perhaps, the US and China viewed this as a sort of consolatory recompense for Pakistan’s losses in 1971. Particularly vexing for us was the thought that our two difficult neighbours, already in illegal occupation of large chunks of J&K territory, would link up to surround Central Ladakh on three sides within our own territory. Such a juncture would give them dominance over the Shyok Valley and easy access to KhardungLa Pass, and from that vantage point their forces would threaten Leh, a mere half days’ march from the Pass. The myth about Siachen, the adjoining glaciated areas and the Karakorram Pass being of no strategic importance is a recent invention: now that the region is secure, such myth making comes easy. Things looked very different to us when a clear danger loomed on the horizon. So, the Army was given the order to move in and prevent the Pakistan army from occupying any part of the Saltoro Ridge or the Siachen glacier. The risks were carefully weighed; the Pakistan army’s plans to gain territory and strategic advantage in Ladakh, by stratagem or stealth, had to be forestalled and defeated, and if that led to war, so be it. The one post the Pakistan army had succeeded in occupying on the Saltoro Ridge was quickly removed, and ever since no Pakistani soldier has been allowed to set foot on the Siachen glacier: a reality which Pakistan’s army and governments have assiduously kept away from their people. I was asked to be at that critical meeting, because I was to go to Islamabad a few weeks later to continue with the ongoing treaty negotiations. Sure enough, General Zia-ul-Haq’s Chief of Staff, General Khalid Mahmud Arif, in a private meeting with me gently chided India saying that Siachen was Pakistan’s and what we were doing was not right! I suitably rebutted his claim; the matter was not raised with me again, and there was not the least hint of the ongoing negotiations being broken or stalled. General Arif and I have remained good friends and have been engaged, poste-retirement, in the search for India-Pakistan peace and reconciliation in a forum called the Neemrana Initiative. I am a firm believer in the mutual need of our two countries for peace, friendship and cooperation. I also think that in view of the Pakistan army’s changing perception of India, New Delhi should creatively respond to Islamabad’s positive gestures. I think it is time for military leaders of the two countries to meet from time to time to inform each other of their respective security perceptions. I also think Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should now pay his long over-due visit to Islamabad. Siachen does not appear to me as ripe for settlement just now, but a mutually satisfactory agreement on the Sir Creek is within easy reach. The visit should also be used to allay Pakistan’s suspicions and fears on water-related issues. Scrutiny of the records of discussions surrounding the demarcation of the ceasefire line in 1949 will show that leaving the glaciated region as a ‘No-Man’s Land’ or an ‘International Peace Park’, etc, was never in anybody’s thoughts; for invariably always such areas become playgrounds for adventurers, spies and trouble makers. It should also be remembered that the entire line that divides India and Pakistan in J&K has resulted from armed conflicts followed by ceasefires. That is what has happened in the Siachen region also. In due course as this reality finds recognition in Pakistan, demilitarization of the region should become possible. Meanwhile, if requested, we could even consider allowing genuine Pakistani scientific expeditions to the glacier. After the recent tragedy in which Pakistan lost 150 soldiers in an avalanche, if its army wishes to withdraw from these treacherous heights, they should feel free to do so. Prime Minister Singh can assure them that while the prevailing public opinion in India does not permit his government to agree to immediate withdrawal of the Indian Army from the Saltoro Ridge, it will not step beyond its present positions.n The writer was India’s Foreign Secretary from 1982 to 1985.
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A towering experience It
is difficult to think of France without the image of the Eiffel Tower running through one’s mind. The monument is the symbol of their national pride. A visit to the country is not complete without climbing the Tower. From where we lived in a fourth floor flat on Avenue Henri Martin, one could see the upper one-quarter of the Tower, barely a kilometre crow-fly distance away. The sight was fascinating. Every evening one could see almost an incessant flashing of camera bulbs as tourists captured images of a lit-up Paris. After spending some two months there, we decided to visit the monument. We bought the 49-Franc ticket and queued up at the West Pillar for the lift. In the stone-strewn square space below the tower there was the congested throng of people surging around. It was a medley crowd, representing different continents and cultures. Nearby, portrait artists did brisk business by drawing you in pencil at a goodly price. Despite the crowd, there prevailed a calming sense of orderliness. When our turn came we entered the glass lift. As it began to make the smooth, graceful ascent, a ‘towerful’ exhilaration gripped us. With the sight of surrounding buildings dwarfing below one’s feet, one hardly paid attention to the tourist guide’s monologue. “… Erected between 1887 and 1889…three hundred skyjacks put the tower together with two and a half million rivets for the 1889 World’s Fair held to commemorate the Revolution… faced stiff opposition from Paris’ artistic and literary elite… was almost torn down in 1909 but was spared for practical reasons as it proved an ideal platform for new-fangled transmitting antennae… The monologne continued, “Its weight is 7000 tonnes, the dead weight of four kg per cm2 that is 57 pounds per square inch, about that of a man sitting in a chair… forty tons of paint is used every seven years when it is repainted…it is 318 metres high, the figure can vary by up to 15 cm as the structure expands in warm weather and contracts when it is cold…now we are passing the second platform at a height of 115 metres…on my right you can see the famous restaurant Jules Verne…” Yes, I remember the dinner at the restaurant we had a few weeks later. A seat by the glass wall provided a breath-taking sight. Having taken a meal there stays in one’s memory for a long time; and it stays even longer in one’s cheque book. Having changed lifts, we finally reached the top. It was very windy. Directions and distances are marked to various world capitals, including Delhi. On the North-East we could see the famous Sacré-Coeur – Sacred Heart – church built to fulfil a vow taken by many Parisian Catholics after the disastrous Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. Below and to the east by the Right Bank is Samaritain, the oldest departmental store of the city. Barely 150 metres to the north-west is the residence of the Indian Ambassador. Then we saw the small glass-room. In its well-lit space two wax figures were in deep discussion — Mr Eiffel who designed the structure and Mr Edison who used it
for transmissions.
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Enhanced vulnerability
The
successful test of Agni V ballistic missile has the potential to develop a strategic balance with a domineering Dragon. The Chinese reaction was nuanced. Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin stressed that India and China are cooperative partners and not rivals. Next, Global Times, which reflects official views, sought to dilute the missile's China-specific aspects. Analyst Du Wenlong was quoted, “this missile can hit targets in Russia, Europe, Japan and Africa.” He further opined that India has understated the missile's 8000 km range clearly hinting at Australia, which would come within the increased range. Experts like Wu Xuelan, downplayed the technological achievement stating that India does not possess a homemade high-precision guidance system for long range missiles and New Delhi's dependence on foreign technology continues unabated. The successful test is not yet a strategic deterrent as repeatability and reliability are still to be demonstrated with at least three more technical tests. Thereafter, a production version would need testing by the Army and then sufficient numbers produced. Meanwhile, further refinements like Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicles (MIRV) and Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile capability would continue. In addition to such weapon systems, the following ingredients of credible deterrence are equally if not more important - particularly because of NFU imperatives.
Thus our strategic deterrence still requires at least another five years of development. Hence we would have to fall back on our conventional readiness. The Army is raising some defensive mountain divisions as well as a mountain strike corps. However, major weapon-systems; equipment and ammunition remain to be procured. As the Ministry of Defence's infamous leak about the abysmal state of the Army's arsenal reveals, defence readiness has been given short-shrift. A string of CAG's annual reports have year after year revealed the same mess, but even Parliament took no interest as MoD successfully pulled the wool over its eyes. Now however, the Defence Standing Committee is seized of the issue and hopefully there would be positive outcomes. The state of Air Force and Navy are equally bad with critical force-levels far below sanctioned levels. Hence, for our conventional readiness to come up to scratch would require much more than five years. However, it is to be hoped that in five years a minimal readiness is achieved. Regarding the lack of will and resolve, former Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal in an article following the Agni V launch, states, “we have dodged taking hard national security decisions by avoiding a military response to Pakistani provocations and robust political response to those from China.” Some examples which he gave are, “If Pakistan does a Mumbai, our answer is dialogue. If China questions our sovereignty over Arunachal or Kashmir, we look for a compromise formula...We bolster the image of Sinkiang's political boss by inviting him to India despite public upheaval there against Chinese.” To this can be added a string of shameful surrenders to terrorism beginning with Mufti Mohammad Sayeed exchanging five hard-core terrorists to secure Rubaiya Sayeed's release. Then the Kandahar hijacking during which three terrorists including Omar Saeed Sheikh and Masood Azhar were exchanged. These were followed by a string of abject capitulations to Maoists' demands in exchange for kidnapped Government officials and even Italian tourists. As regards Chinese intrusions, they continue unabated but our national security managers hide behind such banalities as “perceptions over the Line of Actual Control differ.” Indians in Ladakh, even well inside this line are forbidden to build any new structures. They have been told that the Government of India has to first seek Chinese permission for the construction! In conflict situations a risk-analysis of various courses is vital and an assessment of the adversary's likely reactions is its centre-piece. Hence, an adversary's assessment of whether India will react strongly or would meekly give in with a face-saving compromise, would depend on a number of factors but a key input would be past experience. Thus an important component of Chinese provocations - diplomatic and military - could be to assess our reactions. Hence, a policy of keeping India militarily weak and constantly responding with meek restraint actually enhances our vulnerability. It emboldens adversaries to undertake risky adventures in the belief that we would respond mildly, just like before. Such a policy could as well induce a miscalculation and precipitate a nuclear crisis. The current inadequacies of both conventional and nuclear postures, coupled with our distaste for hard decisions opens a five-year vulnerability window. This the Dragon can view as a window of opportunity to significantly degrade our tactical and strategic positions. Chinese response can adopt either of two main options:
How the Dragon actually responds will depend to a large extent on the leadership profile that emerges after the 18th National Congress of Chinese Communist Party later this year. However, India has no option but to minimise the vulnerability window as rapidly as possible. Parliament's Defence Standing Committee can play a stellar role in closing gaps in our military readiness. Meanwhile our national security set-up needs a revamp. We must induct persons with hands-on operational experience to stiffen our diplomatic and security responses. Both these measures are a must to keep India secure and allow it to prosper.
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Parliament's watch: Sweet reassurance or resonating dissent? Has the Indian Parliament finally decided to grapple with the defence nettle - by ensuring for itself, the readiness or otherwise, of the Indian Armed Forces to effectively deal with India's enemies? The Armed Forces chiefs were asked to appear before Parliament’s Standing Committee on Defence last month to elicit their views on defence preparedness. The matter is direct fallout of the Army Chief Gen VK Singh's letter of March 12 to the Prime Minister highlighting serious shortcoming in defence matters. Prior to Independence, the defence of the realm was the prerogative of the British Crown. As custodians of Indian Independence, and of democracy, the Indian Parliament should have rightfully claimed this right. The theory is: Parliaments holds the purse strings - if the Executive wants money, it comes to the Parliament; the raising or keeping of the standing armed forces be with the consent of the Parliament; Parliament has an important role in determining service discipline. However, historically and also by choice, the Parliamentarian had ceded this right to the Executive. It is unlike the Committee to suo motu take notice of such an affair, that too a leaked one! But for the hue and cry in the media and public attention at large, the Committee couldn't have done it without appearing unduly unpatriotic. The Standing Committee on Defence was first constituted on April 8, 1993. As per the Lok Sabha website, it has till August 2010, presented as many as 87 reports to Parliament. At that time, the standing committee system was touted as a path-breaking endeavour of Parliamentary surveillance over the administration. These committees would provide direction, guidance and inputs for broad policy formulations and in achievement of the long-term national perspective by the Executive. How seriously the musings of the committees are received and how sincerely are these deliberated by the two houses of the Parliament is a matter for a serious researcher to dwell upon. Many past and present members of the Committee swear by the noble intentions of the committee members but blame the Ministry of Defence of constantly stonewalling their effort at reforms. Yet others feel that precious little information is parted with for any meaningful inference. Still, many watchers of the standing committee doubt the dedication of the committee members to do their job - absenteeism is more than the norm. In actuality, the political executive of the government has always occupied the driving space in defence matters. In India, that translates into a civilian bureaucracy fronting for the political executive, with the minister being mostly untrained at matters military and often a first termer in the office who finds it expedient to let the defence secretary act for him in all matters except that of form and protocol. All governing organs of the state and institutions owe their origins to the Constitution and derive their powers from it. Unfortunately, the Parliamentarians never devolved a taste for serious governance except where it matters as a vote catching device. As a general rule, the impact of the Defence Advisory Committee on defence policy remains indeterminate, though in isolated cases it may be possible to identify influence of the Committee. Ironically, the Committee on Defence may this year once again start with discussing the country's air defence, the subject it was last at with, when its meeting was postponed in June 2003 because of inadequate response from the members - the immediate cause being the boycott of the then defence minister George Fernandes by the members of the opposition parties over the allegations of corruption brought against him in the Tehelka expose. Would the members in this round rise above their partisan interests? How does the Indian standing committee on defence compare with its counterparts in the UK and the USA? In the UK, the House of Commons Defence Committee (HCDC) was inaugurated in 1979. The HCDC is extremely active, generally meeting formally once a week to take evidence from ministers, civil servants, academics, servicemen and others. It maintains close interaction with foreign parliamentarians, military personnel and defence industrialists. The committee is empowered to appoint specialist advisors, including retired military officers, academics or scientific advisors. What is more, the HCDC is thoroughly engaged with the periodic British Strategic Defence Review (SDR) and its policy implications for UK’s strategy and its defence forces. Even so, the HCDC pales before the US Congressional committees. They can kill legislation, veto appointments, say 'No' to the president and take on the bureaucracy. The Indian defence waters have never been muddied this much before! What the parliamentary committee expects from this exercise? The defence minister has spoken! He has "dismissed all assertions about munitions shortage as 'rumours' and insisted that the situation was, in fact, far better than in previous years." Defence upgradation is a never ending process, relative to one’s adversaries. It is not a question of being ready once. It is an issue of forever preparing for more. For starters, the public representatives may want to solve the riddle that India's spends much less of her GDP on defence than the neighbours and yet hope to consistently punch above our weight. War Wastage Reserves (WWR) would be automatically taken care of. What is store for the Indian public - sweet words of reassurance or resonating voice of dissent! A maverick or an ambitious politician might yet sense this as a never before opportunity and raise the decibel and level of the debate to heights not seen earlier!
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