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Why investors are
leaving Indo-Pak visa
regime |
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Flight of the
Falcon
Case for
presidential form of govt
Of leadership
Memorial Day for
Indian Americans Gadar Movement:
Role of overseas Punjabis
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Indo-Pak visa regime
The
two-day Home Secretary-level talks between India and Pakistan concluded in Islamabad on Friday without the much-awaited agreement on visa liberalisation being signed. The two countries had taken the decision in principle to revise the visa policy during the April visit of President Asif Ali Zardari to New Delhi when he held discussions with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Pakistan sought the presence of Home Minister P. Chidambaram in Islamabad for at least a few hours for the accord signing, but this did not suit India. There was no indication that Pakistan would not be able to honour even its President’s word so long as the Pakistan Army’s nod was not there. If Pakistan could not decide to go ahead with the proposed visa agreement as approved by the top leaders of the two countries because of the Army factor, then it is a serious matter. Why should the Pakistan Army put a roadblock? If it feels slighted over the Siachen issue because of India’s refusal to accept the troop withdrawal suggestion it had made, there is no point in expressing its resentment through delaying an agreement which is in the interest of both countries. If fact, it is India which should have expressed its reservations over the visa issue as Pakistan is yet to punish the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, including its mastermind Hafiz Saeed of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa. The reason given by Pakistan that it wanted the visa agreement to be signed at the “political” level is not convincing when India’s Prime Minister and Pakistan’s President had put their stamp of approval on it. A liberalised visa regime is the need of the hour for both countries. It will not only promote people-to-people contacts, but also give a fillip to bilateral trade. Businessmen of the two countries would be the main beneficiaries as they would get a multiple-entry visa for one year with the facility of someone else on their behalf reporting to the police station concerned. It was also decided that the new visa regime would allow the exit of visitors from any point, not only from the point of entry as it is done till now. One hopes the much-needed new visa regime will become a reality soon. |
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Flight of the Falcon
Even
space is no longer a barrier to private enterprise, as proved by an unmanned, cargo-carrying supply ship that became the first privately owned craft to fly to the International Space Station (ISS). Ever since the space capsule Dragon blasted off atop the Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida, USA, on Tuesday, the demonstration flight has progressed satisfactorily and met various targets. With the success of this mission, the US finally has access to the ISS, something that it lost following the decommissioning of NASA’s space shuttle programme. Russia, Japan and Europe currently have supply ships that can reach the ISS. The Dragon space capsule has been manoeuvring flawlessly and has linked up with ISS. What is remarkable is that the effort has cost significantly less than estimated by NASA, a lesson about the efficiency of private enterprise as compared with government functioning. SpaceX and other companies like Orbital Science Corporation that are now venturing into the field of space have a long way to go before they attain the kind of scale and reliability demonstrated by government players, including NASA. However, the very fact that they have demonstrated the technical knowhow that allows them to conquer space is a significant milestone in man’s quest to explore far frontiers. Taking a commercial road to space is bound to have problems, the whole approach is different, redundancies may get reduced in the quest for efficiency, and this could have an impact on safety. However, there is no doubt that in an era of decreasing government spending, a government-business partnership is the only way of ensuring that space goals are met without the cost runs getting astronomical. Now, this is a lesson which the Indian space organisation too will do well to learn from.
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Remember when life’s path is steep to keep your mind even. — Horace
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Case for presidential form of govt EVEN the most optimist cannot escape the inference that India is destined to be a coalition-run country for many years to come. Its political landscape is so jig-jagged that no party can make a simple majority in the 543-member Lok Sabha, the Lower House. The Congress or the BJP, the two national parties which have been hovering around the 200-plus mark for a long time, may increase their tally by a few more members (or lose some) in the 2014 elections. Yet neither of the two looks like reaching the dream figure of 272 to rule the country by itself. The scenario evokes despondency because the functioning of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee governments of the BJP from May 16 to June 1 in 1996 and from March 19, 1998, to May 22, 2004, and that of the Congress from 2004 till today has shown that the party in power has to give in on too many critical points to ensure the support of the coalition partners to stay in power. The Congress has constituted the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), while the BJP heads the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The very word, alliance, suggests that it is a combination of parties which have chosen to stay with one or the other in its own interest. The give and take is inherent in such an arrangement. Inevitably, what emerges is not the best but a hotchpotch of different interests that may serve the purpose for the time being. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee was bold enough to admit the other day that the economic reforms would have to wait till after the 2014 elections because what the government wanted to do was not acceptable to its allies. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has repeatedly said that his government has to follow the “coalition dharma,” meaning thereby even giving up key projects for accommodating the wishes of its supporters. In other words, his is a lame-duck government which has no option other than dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s for the next two years. The status quo in the face of rising prices and the declining growth rate is not a healthy proposition. The nation has to think over the prospects coolly and responsibly. The country cannot make a rapid progress because the parliamentary system, with all its plus points, is too dependent on a majority which is illusionary under the circumstances. By shutting eyes to the realities, the facts cannot be denied or wished away. The parliamentary system in India has succeeded to sustain democracy but has failed to deliver the goods. The 60 years of the system, celebrated this week, have made members realise that the situation as it has developed entails disruptions and walkouts. Is this good for a country which should be in a hurry to dent dismal poverty. People should seriously consider the option to switch over to the presidential form of government. This too is democratic and transparent like in America and France. In this way, we will get the most acceptable face in the country because people from different parts of India would be voting directly for one person for a fixed tenure, say five years. He or she in turn would have all the attention and time to rule the country, not dependent on coalition or regional parties. The President would not have to buy the support of MPs as the Prime Ministers of both the Congress and the BJP have done. In the process, the nation would feel more coherent and united. There will be Parliament, the directly elected Lok Sabha and the indirectly elected Rajya Sabha-like the US Congress and the Senate. Powers of the Houses can be redefined in the Indian context. No doubt, there is a danger that the President might turn into a dictator. But there would be checks and balances lest he or she should hijack the system. India’s thinking on the presidential form is flawed because it had the experience of Indira Gandhi who even as the Prime Minister became authoritarian. After having suffered the rigours of the Emergency, Parliament has changed the Constitution and plugged the loopholes. Likewise, the nation would leave no leeway for a dictator to emerge once the presidential form is adopted. In fact, the presidential form of government was debated in the Constituent Assembly. Many members favoured while others wanted safeguards against a totalitarian government. But Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, stopped any further debate by arguing that India had become used to the British parliamentary system when they accepted the state assemblies and the central assembly before Independence. True, he did not face any difficulty in his 17-year rule. This was because one, he himself was a tall person, loved by the people for having been chosen by Mahatma Gandhi and, two, the Congress was in power in practically all the states. In any case, Parliament has already undergone a change because of the legislation which has made the domicile qualification for the Rajya Sabha members redundant. It was laid down that a Rajya Sabha member should ordinarily be a resident of the state which returns him or her through its assembly. One decade ago, both the Congress and the BJP hatched a conspiracy and substituted the word “state” with “India”. How does India make sense when the Rajya Sabha is the House of states? By dropping the domicile qualification, the two main political parties have opened the doors of the House to money bags. By doing so, the balance in the parliamentary system has been disturbed. The federal structure that the Constitution framers had in mind has been demolished. Even the report by Justice R.S. Sarkaria on the Centre-state relations has not been implemented. The Prime Minister is ruling the country in the way the head of a presidential system does, without owning the responsibility when his ill-thought policies fail to work. In democracy, it is important that people have faith in the system because otherwise the very basis of the state comes to be questioned. The reason why the parliamentary system is not working in India is the confusion of clear direction in the absence of a single majority party, or arriving at a consensus among different parties. The presidential system provides the alternative in a person who will lead and direct the
country.
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Of leadership Forty-eight
years ago, on May 27, an invitation to participate in a three-week conference (in June 1964) on "Leadership in Asia" at the Peradiniya campus of the University of Ceylon had me en route at lunch at Embassy restaurant in Connaught Place. Sudden drawing of shutters and emptying of the dining hall made me enquire about the reason. “Panditji is no more”, was the shocking reply given with the bill. The scheduled departure of the GT (Grand Trunk) Express, New Delhi-Egmore (Madras), was at 4 p.m., and I walked to it through a suddenly silent, deserted CP. A mix of sombre, animated bunches of people had replaced the usual shrilly hustle and bustle on the platform. The normal 40-hour journey took over 56 hours, for the train had to slow down and got delayed, leaving every halting station and many a wayside places by the tracks, by crowds brimming with manifest grief and bewilderment, eager for some solace through shared explanatory information. The theme of the conference at Peradiniya, decided over months earlier, suddenly acquired poignancy and purpose, which was reflected in the array of 30-odd participants: academics, diplomats, policy-making politicians, members of the Ceylonese Senate, and some very bright students from that country, and India. The post-colonial Asian scene then was transiting with scintillating leaders like Nehru, Nasser, Mao, Ho-Chi Minh and Sukarno. The shape of things to come naturally engaged thinking minds, and the deliberations at the conference attempted to address the emergent Asian scenario. The discussions were enriched by contributions and comments of prominent Ceylonese intellectuals like Hector Abhaywardene and Senator de Silva, as also by the special invitee, India's Minister of State for External Affairs, Mrs Lakshmi Menon, and some American Quaker academics present. The mood of the conference was not to debate any contemporary specifics in particular, but to focus generally on the qualities essential for leadership in an evolving, expanding environment tethered to and enmeshed still in legacies, habits and memories of a colonial past together with the freezing context of an enveloping Cold War, emanating fundamentally from the promotion of contrary ideologies and a strident web of ominous military pacts in an atomic age. It emerged that true, enduring leadership called for release from howsoever cherished shibboleths and a transcendence over the populist immediate, mired in or tainted with somewhat primordial urges and petty, exclusivist loyalties and considerations wrapped in seductive rhetoric. It would not be long before the shimmer of such hypocrisy is shorn by the scythe of time. There are no short-cuts to success or sincerity. The sooner the leadership of all hues these days realises this, the more proximate it will be to its proclamations. Nehru, with his manifestly profound sense of history, appreciated this and was in a fair measure able to lay the firm foundations of our
republic.
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Memorial Day for Indian Americans
On this day, all Indian Americans should remember and pay tribute to the Indians who went back from the US and other countries to fight for the freedom of their motherland. The centennial of the Gadar movement should be commemorated
In
the United States, the last Monday of May is observed annually as Memorial Day - a day of national awareness and reverence, honouring those Americans who died while defending the American nation and its values. Memorial Day parades and memorial services are held to remember, reflect and honour those who have given their all in service to their country. It was first observed on May 30, 1868 and became an official federal holiday in 1971. Many Indian Americans may not know the historical background of Memorial Day. However, like Americans, several Indians hold gatherings of family and friends for parties and barbecues. Most of the Indians in America may also not know their own day of reverence. Between 1913-15, as many as 6,000 overseas Indians went back to India to fight and free their motherland from British slavery. Some paid the ultimate price with their lives, hundereds were jailed, some for life. It is such a pity that there is no memorial day for them. Indian emigrants started coming to the United States in the beginning of the 20th century. Most of them were unskilled workers and found work in lumber mills or as farm hands. The employers preferred Indian workers as they worked hard and accepted lower wages. White labourers, fearing displacement from their jobs, demanded exclusionary laws against the cheap Indian workers. The festering hostility and pent-up frustrations of American workers manifested in violence against the Indian immigrants at several places. Americans pressured their elected officials to pass exclusionary and other laws against the Asians. As a result, in 1917, Asian emigration to the United States was stopped. At that time, higher education in the American universities was also a powerful magnet for young people. Several Indian students had joined various universities in the United States. However, upon graduation, they were not able to get jobs commensurate with their qualifications. They attributed American employers' discriminatory practices to their being nationals of a subjugated country. Har Dyal who had come from England and had been a faculty member at Stanford University for some time, was identified with nationalist activities in the United States. He inspired many students studying at the University of California at Berkeley and channelised their pro-Indian, anti-British sentiment for the independence of India. Dyal's fervour for India's freedom spread beyond the university campuses to Punjabi farmers and labourers who had already been victim of racial attacks, discrimination and repression from the host community. In May, 1913, at a meeting of some patriotic and enlightened Indians in Astoria, Oregon, Hindustan Association of the Pacific Coast was formed, with a major objective to liberate India from British colonialism. Sohan Singh Bhakna, a lumber mill worker in Oregon, was elected president, Har Dayal, as general secretary and Kanshi Ram as treasurer. Har Dayal provided leadership for the newly formed association and was the central figure and the force behind the new organisation. The headquarters of the association was established in San Francisco and named Yugantar (new age) Ashram. Later, a building was purchased with the funds raised from the community. The association began publishing a magazine, named Gadar after the 1857 Gadar Movement (mutiny) in India. Every issue of Gadar exposed the British imperialism and called upon the Indian people to unite and rise up against the British rule. It carried articles on the conditions of the people of India under British Rule and also on problems of racial attacks and discrimination against Indians in the USA and Canada. The publication Gadar, over a period of time, became well known among Indians and the Hindustan Association of the Pacific Coast itself became known as the Gadar party. Gadar literature was sent to Indian revolutionaries in India, Europe, Canada and several other countries. The magazine, being the principal patriotic literature, reached many people; even if one copy reached a fellow revolutionary anywhere, multiple copies were made for circulation. The British government used various means to stop the circulation of Gadar and other such publications, particularly in India. In August 1914, about a year after the formation of the Hindustan Association, World War I broke out in which Germany fought against England. The German government and the Gadarites had the British as common enemy. So, Germany offered the Gadarites financial aid to buy arms and ammunitions to expel the British from India, while the British Indian troops were busy fighting war at the front. The Gadarites started a vigorous campaign to exhort the overseas Indians to join the freedom movement and encouraged them to go to India to launch a revolution. They drew plans to infiltrate the Indian army and incite the soldiers to fight against the British Empire and free India from the shackles of British imperialism. With funding from the German government, several ships were chartered to carry arms and ammunition to India. About 6,000 overseas Indians hurried homeward to liberate their motherland. Unfortunately, the traitors of the movement leaked out the secret plan to the British spies. The ships carrying arms and ammunition never reached India. Many Gadarites and revolutionaries were taken captive upon reaching India. Forty-six Gadarites were hanged to death, over two hundred were imprisoned, 69 for life. In the United States too, several Gadarites and their German supporters, were prosecuted in the San Francisco Hindu German Conspiracy Trial (1917-18). Twenty-nine "Hindus" and Germans were convicted for varying terms of imprisonment for violating the American Neutrality Laws. The Gadarites had a flame of liberty lit in their hearts, and made sacrifices for the cause of freedom and liberty of their motherland. Although the movement did not achieve its stated objective, but it awakened the sleeping India and had a major impact on India's struggle for freedom. The heroism, courage and sacrifices of the Gadarites inspired many freedom fighters who eventually saw India freed in 1947 from the British imperialism. The Indian American community, at least on Memorial Day, should remember the sacrifices of Gadarites and pay tribute to them. The 100th anniversary of Gadar Movement is falling next year. All Indian Americans should seriously consider commemorating the centennial and pay a well-deserved tribute to Gadarites and Gadar martyrs. The writer is Chairman, Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin, New York, NY, USA.
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Gadar Movement: Role of overseas Punjabis A
faculty member at Stanford University for some time, Har Dyal inspired many Punjabi students and channelled their pro-Indian, anti-British sentiment for the Independence of India. He provided leadership for the newly formed association and was the force behind the new organisation. Several Punjabis enthusiastically became its members on that day or subsequently. They included Kesar Singh (Vice-President), Kartar Singh Sarabha (Editor, Punjabi Gadar), Baba Jawala Singh (Vice President), Baba Waisakha Singh, Pt. Kanshi Ram (Treasurer), and Harnam Singh Tundilat. The headquarters of Hindustan Association was established in San Francisco from where a magazine named Gadar was launched for free distribution. Gadar was printed in Urdu, Punjabi and some other languages. Kartar Singh Sarabha wrote the Punjabi text and also operated the machine to print the magazine. The British government became alarmed at the popularity of the Gadar movement and hired agents to penetrate the Gadar party. Under pressure from the British Indian Government, the US government arrested Har Dyal but later released him on bail on March 24, 1914. Har Dyal jumped the bail and went to Germany. The Hindustan Association was only a few months old, when in August, 1914, World War I broke out. Indians formed Berlin Indian Committee (also known as the Indian Revolutionary Society) in September, 1914 and successfully arranged financial aid from Germany. Several ships were commissioned to carry arms and ammunitions to India for the Gadarites but the British spies diverted them to elsewhere. On reaching India, Gadarite found no arms to start rebellion. Most of them, including Sohan Singh Bhakna, president, and Kesar Singh and Jawala Singh, vice-presidents, were taken captives while Kartar Singh Sarabha and some others were able to evade arrest. Sarabha who had gone to USA in 1912 at the age of 16 for higher education, came back in 1914 without any degree but with burning desire to liberate his motherland from British slavery. He, along with some other Gadarites, organised meetings to plan for the revolution, procure arms and arrange funds to carry out revolutionary activities. Many Gadarites tried to infiltrate into various units of the armed forces through their former colleagues and incited them to revolt and become part of the rebellious force to liberate India. However, most of the plans of the Gadarites either failed or were foiled by the British agents and by the end of February 1915, majority of the Gadarites were arrested. The heroism, courage and sacrifices of the Gadarites inspired many freedom fighters to continue their mission.
— I.S.
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