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Face in the mud
Grassroots win |
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Polythene-free India
Cabinet reshuffle, yes
Travel blues
Humanise police to empower society
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Face in the mud
BJP president Nitin Gadkari is fast losing friends within the party and outside. Pressure is building on him to quit since his continuance in the post is blunting the party’s strategy to take on the Congress on the issue of corruption. The BJP cheered when first Team Anna and then Arvind Kejriwal smeared Congress leaders, levelling wild allegations. It was then the Congress’s turn to watch with glee as India Against Corruption accused the BJP president of grabbing land in Maharashtra. As Public Works Minister, Gadkari reportedly showered favours on a construction firm, which invested large sums of money through fake companies in his firm, Purti Power and Sugar Ltd. The Mahesh Jethmalani resignation has further stoked the fires. Although Mahesh does not rank very high in the BJP hierarchy, his departure from the national executive has provided more ammunition to those gunning for Gadkari. Earlier, his father, Ram Jethmalani, had sought Gadkari’s resignation. Since the Jethmalanis are close to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, there is speculation that Mahesh’s resignation has a larger game plan behind it. Ram Jethmalani had recently demanded that Modi should be declared as the party’s prime ministerial candidate before the coming Lok Sabha elections. On his part, Gadkari is just adding to his own troubles. By comparing the intelligent quotients of Swami Vivekananda and gangster Dawood Ibrahim, he has annoyed more of his well-wishers. There are two options before Gadkari: either resign immediately to save the party he heads from further embarrassment or follow the more honourable path of completing his term, which ends on December 19. A second term for him appears unlikely. Since it is the RSS whose writ ultimately prevails in the BJP, Gadkari may well be allowed to choose the second option since the charges against him are yet to be proved. It is strange the main opposition party, which aspires to run national affairs, finds it hard to pick a leader of stature and impeccable credentials as its president. Earlier Bangaru Laxman had sullied the party’s image. Now it is Gadkari’s turn – or so it seems. |
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Grassroots win
The issue of threat to the life of panches and sarpanches in Jammu and Kashmir from militants has seen an encouraging development in the elected representatives of villages asserting their willingness to continue in their role. Their association has announced that they would not resign, as demanded by militant leaders across the LoC. Now that they have demonstrated their commitment to democracy, it becomes imperative for the government to make them feel they have its full support. The Chief Minister has said the state cannot provide security to all 33,000 panchayat members, but would address specific cases as per the threat perception. That is fair enough, as long as the panches do not feel there is politics at work. What is at stake is more than just civic work in the villages. There are believed to be around 40 militants on the prowl in three districts of the state. As the security forces apprehend, this number is sufficient to carry out strikes on a few unprotected targets. The risk of lives being lost remains, but the answer is to maintain the pressure on the militants by keeping them on the run. As for providing protection to the threatened panches, proposals on village defence committees need to be examined and extended government support, as it would go a long way in instilling confidence, if not actual security. Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin, operating from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, by issuing the threat to target panchayat members is only trying to win a psychological war. His men on this side can do only so much damage before being hunted down. The panches, in just telling him that they would not quit, have won half the battle besides their voters’ sympathy. They deserve applause for the brave stand, which comes in the face of two of their colleagues already having been shot. Any violence now would only weaken the militants’ case in the eyes of the villagers, who would not like to see their elected representatives — and hopes of development — shot. |
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Polythene-free India
Ever since plastic was created, it has facilitated human life in many ways. Yet over the years plastic, in the form of the ubiquitous polythene bag, has proved to be the environment’s nemesis and there has been a persistent clamour to ban it. While Bangladesh became the first country to ban plastic bags in its capital, India too has responded to the challenge posed by plastic bags. Unfortunately, while state governments have banned plastic bags, the country continues to be littered with these and other harmful kinds of plastic. Kurukshetra in Haryana where the ban has had little impact is a case in point. In fact, Haryana, where the ban on polythene bags came into force around three years ago, is not the only state where it is openly flouted. Other states too fare no better. In Chandigarh at many places like “apni mandis”, polythene bags remain in use, thus making a mockery of the ban. Contrary to what people think, plastic not only harms rivers, lakes and sewage systems but also affects human health. Plastic bags that find a way into garbage end up being eaten by cows and other animals, ultimately entering the food chain. The threat plastic poses to the environment is so colossal that a Supreme Court Bench dubbed the menace a bigger threat than that by the atom bomb. Yet both the consumers and the traders remain oblivious to the detrimental effects of such bags. No doubt, the answer to ensuring a plastic bag-free environment, besides complete enforcement of the ban, also lies in a strongly orchestrated awareness drive which can drive home its ill effects. Yet, at the same time, the solution will continue to elude India till it finds an alternative. Till consumers have bio-degradable substitutes, it would require Herculean efforts to dissuade them from using plastic bags. Sadly, as it happened in Jammu, the J&K state government’s first bio-plastic plant was nixed even before it could take off. Moreover, the ban has to be complete, extending to all kinds of plastic bags, as Delhi is intending to do. |
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Life is too short to work so hard. — Vivien Leigh |
Cabinet reshuffle, yes
The Cabinet reshuffle was on the whole positive, with younger faces moving up. But some deadwood remains. Opportunity was also lost to prune numbers. A council of 79 ministers remains far too large, with key sectors like energy balkanised under rival heads without adequate coordinating mechanisms in place. This is a lacuna in governance that needs to be made good. Ministers of State, unless with independent charge, are underemployed and could more appropriately be replaced by deputy ministers and parliamentary secretaries with genuine devolution as of yore and trained to assume higher responsibilities. Some commentators condoled with Jaipal Reddy for losing charge of the Oil Ministry in exchange for Science and Technology. That is a sad commentary on priorities and follows an appointee in a previous round refusing what he considered the petty portfolio of sanitation and drinking water. S&T is a vital sector and requires bold and imaginative leadership. The commitment to collective Cabinet responsibility has also steadily weakened to the point where Cabinet decisions are casually disowned by ministers and even senior ruling party functionaries. It will not do merely to grin and bear it. Discipline must be enforced so that a class of bureaucrats stop serving their ministers rather than the government. The defiant irresponsibility of the just retired Army Chief, demanding dissolution of Parliament and implicitly lending support to a call for a Parliament gherao on the issue of cane prices, is a by-product of his being allowed to run riot earlier while still in uniform. He had taken the government to the Supreme Court after thrice going back on his own assurance of acceptance of May 31, 1950, as his birth date (not 1951 as petitioned), a prior condition for promotion to the last three ranks he held. He then started playing politics by seemingly wooing a certain category of ex-servicemen over some months while on his farewell rounds and going on to unveil the statue of the former Prime Minister, Chandra Shekhar, at an unofficially organised function in Ballia. Charges and counter-charges by and against him on his watch remain under investigation. All the Defence Ministry/government has done is to sweep matters under the carpet despite the sorry standards being set by somebody who remains something of a military icon by virtue of his former rank. While a decision to establish the National Investment Board is still pending, Vedanta Aluminium Ltd, a billion dollar investment, recently announced closure of its million-tonne alumina refinery at Lanjigarh, in Odisha’s most backward Kalahandi district, pleading lack of bauxite ore. The decision was, however, temporarily rescinded following the receipt of some bauxite supplies. But in what quantum and for how long? With VAL’s captive Niyamgiri mining project next door earlier rejected on environmental and tribal rights objections that do not necessarily stand objective scrutiny, the Lanjigarh plant had to import ore of a less satisfactory quality from as far away as Gujarat at high cost. With even these supplies and Lanjigarh’s closure now threatened, the livelihood of some 7000-8000 persons, directly and indirectly benefited by the project and its supply and downstream chain of activities, is in jeopardy in an area where this is virtually the only development trigger and employment generator of any significance. The 121 families displaced from the refinery area have been resettled and 1745 others affected but not displaced have been compensated. By a Supreme Court directive,VAL is required to support a Lanjigarh Project Area Development Foundation over a 50-km radius of the plant by contributing five per cent of its gross profits or $ 2 m (Rs 10 crore) per annum, whichever is more. Going over and beyond this corporate social responsibility commitment, VAL has thus far spent over Rs 170 crore on a larger Lanjigarh project impact area, through a hospital, mobile health clinics and camps to treat malaria and HIV/AIDS, 36 child care centres and a nutritional service for 1000 pre-primary units. A senior secondary school has been built and a science degree college is coming up. Farm extension services have helped increase productivity and the introduction of new crops like organic cotton. Self-help groups have assisted Dongria Khond women to make and sell leaf-stitched plates. Immunisation, nutrition and school attendance standards have risen. Tubewells have been dug and energised and check dams constructed. In view of the plentitude of bauxite ore found in the Odisha and adjacent coastal Andhra belt, Vedanta planned to expand its capacity to six million tonnes. That was barred, as was the Niyamgiri mine, on grounds that are unfounded, exaggerated or capable of being remedied. Startlingly, not a single new mine has been licensed in the very rich and extensive Odisha-Andhra bauxite belt for over 30 years. Have the tribals benefited? Not at all. Probably Vedanta has done more in Lanjigarh in less than a decade than the Odisha government in, may be, half a century. If the refinery is indeed shut down, who will weep and work for the Dongria Khonds and other marginalised communities like them? What have those who clamour to safeguard tribal rights under full media glare done towards restitution of their constitutional guarantees under the Fifth Schedule which have been systematically nullified by the State over the past 60 years? How has that impacted on the environment, and human and forest rights? It has fostered Naxalism. The environment certainly needs to be protected; but mindless touch-me-not “environmentalism” can do much harm. Surely, something like a national investment board seems necessary to clear the decks for projects long-stalled by multi-clearance delays, retrospective application of rules and so on. Forty years ago, a hydro project in Kerala’s Silent Valley was stopped to preserve this rain forest and its bio-diversity. Now the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Committee under Dr Madhav Gadgil has recommended that a long longitudinal slice of the ghats, classified in three ecological sensitive zones running through six states, be declared a no-go area for similar reasons: no dams above 15 m, only small run of river hydel schemes if at all, decommissioning of older water projects, no major roads, new railway lines, townships or thermal plants. The existing plantations, it argues, should be phased out in five years. Two proposed hydel projects of 163 MW (Athirapally) and 200 MW (Gundia) capacity in Kerala and Karnataka stand vetoed. This seems excessive and gives little thought to employment and income factors, bio-diversity utilisation, downstream benefits and the consequences of such blanket bans that breed illicit mafia operations. Meanwhile, the battle for well-regulated and controlled experimentation with GM seeds continues with the PM’s Scientific Advisory Committee, the Department of Biotechnology and the Agriculture Ministry pleading for more informed scientific debate. The Supreme Court has declined to stop GM crop field trials, but in Rajasthan the government has just ordered closure of a GM mustard crop field trial currently under way. Due caution is unexceptionable; but closing the door on what could be better scientific and technological options to grow more food and fibre is to block national advancement. India’s record on all fronts is sliding. It is time to get
moving. |
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Travel blues
The other day while I was driving through a crowded, chaotic market, skilfully negotiating my way between roadside vendors and hawkers in the heart of Chandigarh, my friend pointed to a grimy roadways bus and commented that I could never have had an occasion to travel in one of those buses. “Ha!” I said “What do you know? During my travels all over the country as a young captain in the Army and, later too, I have travelled in every possible manner. And each trip was an experience.” I recall being taken for a dance at the Indian Military Academy (IMA), perched precariously on the spare wheel of my friend’s brother’s scooter! I, also, remember a day when my husband and I were returning from Gurgaon on our scooter. It was raining cats and dogs and the roads were flooded. Cars were stranded all over, and buses were negotiating their way with considerable difficulty. We stood on the roadside soaking wet, drenched to the skin. I was scared. It seemed as if the rain would never stop. Meanwhile, the water level just kept rising. Then, a ramshackle truck stopped and the driver asked if we needed a lift. My husband was skeptical but I was glad to clamber on to the truck, scraping my knees and arm. Some people helped to hoist our scooter on to the truck. There were three buffaloes lying on a mound of straw, some milkmen with huge cans, cycles and an assortment of clothes thrown haphazardly. I hung on to the side of the truck and mumbled my prayers. The truck moved through the water. Each time it went over a pothole, water splashed all over us. A bus ride from Shahjahanpur to Farrukhabad also cannot be forgotten. As we got on to the crowded bus, I noticed several passengers wearing smelly chadders, carrying guns! That was frightening. In J&K, going from Srinagar to Gulmarg, once we had to sit next to chicken coops, bleating lamb and smelly goats. From riding the scooter to driving my own car, to being driven in a staff car with security people, to criss-crossing the length and breadth of the country in airplanes — AVRO, AN 32 and majestic Boeings — and all types of helicopters (MI 17, MI 8, Chetaks, Cheetahs and the door-less naval helicopters) from flying over lush green fields, the arid sandy deserts, the turbulent seas, to skimming over high mountain snow-capped peaks, I have been through it all. Memories of a ride in the regal buggy while accompanying my husband when he went to review the passing-out parade at the IMA come to mind as also a flight in one of the Queen’s aircraft in the UK. Finally, it is wonderful to get back to driving my own car peacefully, being able to observe the world milling around me, when I can let out a triumphant cry as I slide into a vacant parking slot outwitting someone else; when I can chuckle over those funny couplets painted on the rear of a truck. There is a lot to be said about being in total control of
oneself! |
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Humanise police to empower society
The term 'empowered society' covers a wide spectrum ranging from women empowerment, RTI, RTS, sensitivity towards marginalized sections of society, child abuse, domestic violence, neglect of the elderly, environmental issues, to name just a few. The focus of my concern in this article is women empowerment and the urgent need to update police response. Although cultural and performing arts have been considered the traditional fields that women have excelled in if we were to go by widely held opinions on gender roles in society, women have taken up challenges, proven their worth in a host of other disciplines like the civil services, the corporate sector, science, medicine, engineering, architecture, academics and space exploration as well to boot, and have done exceedingly well even in hitherto well established male bastions. However, if we were to go by statistics, a majority of women in rural and semi rural areas continue to lead lives of drudgery collecting firewood, fetching water from distant sources, coping with domestic chores, bringing up a regular stream of children, struggling to make both ends meet and to top it all, putting up with drunkenness, violence and the husband's conjugal demands at the end of a weary day as well. In a nutshell, women who climb the social ladder and grab eyeballs through print, audio and visual media, form a miniscule minority of almost fifty percent of society and remain 'tokenized' or representative by and large, even today. Women spend as much time as men do to learn and train in their field of interest and to gain expertise responding much later to the ticking biological clock. Finding a comfort zone as empowered adults has been an uphill task for the 'second sex' who has been treated as sexualized object for long enough, despite several laws and constitutional safeguards. These checks and balances notwithstanding, resistance to women's mobility continues to be palpable on account of the vital gap between 'happening and acceptance', as a psychotherapist rightly puts it.
Break the code and pay The unvarnished truth is that changes in legislation have not been propelled by a corresponding change in the traditional mindset. Women who step out of hidebound, ossified roles and assert their own individuality become soft targets of attack not only through structural violence, but also harassment by men they often know, both within supposedly familiar domestic spaces and in the outside world wherein they venture. A lot of violence that women encounter on the streets, at the work place and within homes remains unknown or unreported, because many of them belong to the hapless and silent face of so called 'civil' society, a society that does not allow women to be comfortable even in their own skin and only conforms to the dictum-'Break the Code and Pay'! In perspective then, what we need to do is to take a holistic view of our constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression. If we were to stretch the word 'expression' to mean freedom to dress/undress as we deem fit, and I am not precluding males here, we must not forget that our fundamental rights are subject to reasonable restrictions as well. The recent alleged harassment of Geetika Sharma at the hands of a powerful politician, which led her to the extreme step of taking her own life, is a case in point. A somewhat similar episode epitomizes the end of Fiza nee Anuradha Bali. After a song and dance romp replete with all the essential ingredients of a celluloid potboiler-conversions, marriage, repentance, betrayal and a satellite 'talaq'- Fiza was dumped, to put it simly. Both Geetika and Fiza have been held culpable by themselves as well as the society in which they live. On the other hand however, the men who were reportedly more than complicit, have comfortably slipped back into their own spaces, thus highlighting the double standards of society.
Biological identity — a trap The attempts to understand women outside of their biological identities have been far and few. Even though rigid mindsets will not change overnight, concerted efforts and extensive programs on gender sensitization for both sexes need to become the order of the day. Equally important is the need for women to remind themselves that 'empowerment' is not to be interpreted as a no holds barred freedom or a retaliatory weapon against men who have had the freedom to do as they please. Again, some women misconceive the notion of empowerment as freedom from family, kinship, child bearing/rearing, often forgetting that these are important responsibilities without which the powerful edifice of organized societies would just crumble/ collapse. Both men and women have defined roles and would do well to exercise auto restraint and counterpoise as a safeguard against the pitfalls of diluting or neglecting the age-old values of family and kinship in the process of getting empowered and self-reliant.
The role of the police The role of the police in such a scenario would then lie in certain remedial measures and training modules at all levels suggested below: The accountability of the police is to law and to ensure that suitable mechanisms have been recommended. They have not been put in place due to lack of political will. This has resulted in police personnel changing hues with changing regimes. This brings to mind the case of a plum who once boasted that he converted himself into a banana just because a banana-lover came by! Unfortunately the banana-lover's tastes changed soon after and so he became an orange. When he said it was bitter the orange transformed into an apple but the man went in search of grapes instead! Finally, wailed the plum: "yielding to the opinion of so many people I have changed so many times that I no longer know who I Am! How I wish I had remained a plum and waited for a plum-lover"! In my opinion policemen and policewomen should never stoop down to gain recognition/acceptance. In the long run they will regret trading their greatest strengths, their uniqueness for momentary validation and gratification. The State Police as an Institutional setup is the creation and upholder of the law of the land. Officers who are the torch bearers have to set and live by example by resisting political pressure and become role models for the police force. The rot has to be stemmed by someone and that someone is no chimera but the police leadership. The writer is a former Director General of Police, Punjab
Social evolution and policing
Empowerment of society is an on-going process in the context of socio-economic and cultural evolution. The universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 coupled with the provisions of the directive principals of state policy enshrined in the Indian Constitution have led to enactment of a plethora of Legislations in the social and economic sectors aimed at empowering the weaker and marginalized sections of society. In the case of women special mention may be made of suppression of Immoral Traffic in women act, Dowry Prohibition Act, Prevention of Domestic Violence Act and amendments to relevant provisions of 'Rape'. Initiative to increase the representation of women in elected bodies from the grass-root level namely, Panchayats and local bodies, is a leap forward. Judicial pronouncements and administrative measures have supplemented and give fillip to the process of empowerment of society. The new millennium declared 2001 as the year of women empowerment. The sensitization of Indian police is way behind the progressive empowerment of society, for nearly half the population of the country that consists of women. The police in India was created as a coercive instrument to suppress dissent through enactment of Police Act in 1861 in the aftermath of 1857 uprising. The criminal procedure code (1898) gave vast powers of arrest and detention to the police. Consequently the police acquired a colonial-feudal mindset which gelled well with the feudal landed gentry. The middle class and free media which are the backbone of safeguarding democratic values were in an incipient stage. The prime concern of police was to control/investigate crime and maintain law and order. As a result the police did not consider 'sensitivity' towards weaker and disadvantaged sections of society as a 'core' policing area.  |
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