O P I N I O N S

EDITORIALS

The Gujarat battle
It is Modi versus the rest
From media reports it appears the BJP’s return to power in Gujarat is a foregone conclusion. The state goes to the polls in two phases on December 13 and 17 but the way Narendra Modi makes well-calculated attacks on the national leadership of the Congress, it does not seem he is fighting for a fourth consecutive term as Chief Minister.

Pollution raids
Follow-up action a must
IT is heartening to learn that the Punjab Pollution Control Board has conducted a raid at a sugar mill in Mukerian and collected samples of suspected untreated effluents being released by it into a natural drain. Distilleries, sugar and paper mills, and electroplating, dyeing and leather units are among the biggest contributors to industrial pollutants in the state’s environment.

Ignoring folk arts
Bollywood stars steal show and moolah
Kabaddi is not a gentleman’s game, invented by some stiff- upper- lip gora sahib. Coarse and rough, this rural sport does not even allow the players to wear footwear. By dint of force and physical manipulations, the opposing teams test each others’ grit by entering into the enemy’s den.

• Thought for the Day

ARTICLE

Caution! Vandals at work
Criticise the govt, but don’t punish the nation
by B.G. Verghese
The government may have committed mistakes, and if so, as Dr Manmohan Singh appealed, punish it but not the nation. The BJP, however, preferred to throw national interest to the winds once again and stalled Parliament for days on a total non-issue. This is political vandalism at its worst and no amount of sophistry on the part of the party leadership can obscure this depressing fact.

MIDDLE

Straight line, wavy line
by Raji P. Shrivastava
Vacuum. Embarrassed. I misspell these two words every single time. As a child, I wrote the letter ‘j’ curving towards the right and ‘h’ with the hump towards the left. I learnt later that this was called lateral inversion or mirror image creation. When, as a pre-schooler, I confused ‘b’ for ‘d’ each time, my mother bought four-line notebooks for me to practise writing in.

OPED — DEFENCE

Military cooperation can warm up ties with China
Relations with China are improving and confidence-building measures are in place, but India cannot afford to be complacent or let its guard down. A careful look at the existing national security apparatus and defence management at the strategic level is needed
Gen J.J. Singh (retd)
THE 1962 war was an unmitigated disaster which laid bare the ineptness in evolving our strategy as also the inability of our leadership -- political, military, intelligence agencies and the civil services -- to read the Chinese designs and intentions, and the lack of preparedness of the military and the nation to face the challenge posed by China's aggression.

EDITORIALS

The Gujarat battle
It is Modi versus the rest

From media reports it appears the BJP’s return to power in Gujarat is a foregone conclusion. The state goes to the polls in two phases on December 13 and 17 but the way Narendra Modi makes well-calculated attacks on the national leadership of the Congress, it does not seem he is fighting for a fourth consecutive term as Chief Minister. His eyes are on the Prime Minister’s chair and the assembly poll outcome will decide the next phase of his career. What those outside Gujarat hold strongly against Modi – his role in the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom – does not even figure as an issue for the state Congress, which released its manifesto on Tuesday. The Congress “charge sheet” alleges scams involving Rs 51,932 crore in the past nine years. Debunking Modi’s claim that there had been no riots in Gujarat after 2002, the Congress lists 20,434 instances of rioting.

The BJP manifesto promises low-cost rural and urban housing to counter the Congress’s popular “own-your-house” scheme, announced in August. With industrialists and urban Gujaratis already backing him, Modi is now targeting a “neo-middle class” comprising people who have just risen above the poverty line. He has promised to build 50 lakh new houses in the next five years at a cost of Rs 33,000 crore. More than development issues, the Gujarat election is about personalities and the Congress has none to match Modi. A divided house, the party has not even named its candidate for the Chief Minister’s post. The BJP faces a challenge in Saurashtra, where former Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel holds the sway. The region has 54 of the 182 assembly seats.

Among the star Congress campaigners was Sonia Gandhi, who raised the issues of non-appointment of Lokayukta in Gujarat, VAT on petroleum products and farmers’ suicides. She refrained from personal attacks – no reference to “maut ka saudagar”. Both parties have fielded candidates with criminal records. According to the National Election Watch, 22 per cent candidates have criminal cases pending against them. This is in the land of Gandhi.

Pollution raids
Follow-up action a must

IT is heartening to learn that the Punjab Pollution Control Board has conducted a raid at a sugar mill in Mukerian and collected samples of suspected untreated effluents being released by it into a natural drain. Distilleries, sugar and paper mills, and electroplating, dyeing and leather units are among the biggest contributors to industrial pollutants in the state’s environment. While smaller units in Ludhiana and Jalandhar have faced action on and off, distilleries and sugar and paper mills — which have major capital investment — often get away with ineffective ‘inquiries’. Villagers living around such units, mostly located in open areas close to drains, often accuse the authorities of not paying heed to their complaints regarding illegal release of effluents.

Punjab has been weak on taking action against industrial pollution. Most inquiries do not lead to prosecution, and even rarer are closures. The state has not been able to ensure that all effluents produced in the industrial towns of Ludhiana and Jalandhar are treated. In a push during the last tenure of the SAD-BJP government, a few treatment plants were set up, but the momentum died down soon for want of funds and will. The present installed treatment capacity is far less than required. Besides industrial, urban pollution in the form of untreated sewage is an even greater problem. Other than the large cities, few small towns have sewage treatment plants. All of this is killing the state’s rivers besides causing water-borne diseases as well as cancer.

While industry is responsible for most of the pollution nationally, in Punjab another major source is agriculture, something not conventionally associated with pollution. With nearly 85 per cent of its land under crops, the amount of pesticides and fertilisers released into the state’s environment makes it unsustainable for humans to survive in. The exact causes of the increased cancer incidence in southern Punjab are yet to be established, but what cannot be denied is that pollution is responsible, whatever the form. For want of awareness and lack of immediate effect on people’s daily lives, the issue of pollution has remained largely academic and never become political. Yet it is the moral duty of the elected leadership to pay attention to the mass killer that pollution is.

Ignoring folk arts
Bollywood stars steal show and moolah

Kabaddi is not a gentleman’s game, invented by some stiff- upper- lip gora sahib. Coarse and rough, this rural sport does not even allow the players to wear footwear. By dint of force and physical manipulations, the opposing teams test each others’ grit by entering into the enemy’s den. Therefore, at the opening ceremony of the World Cup Kabaddi Championship, Bathinda, it made better sense that folk musicians were invited to perform at 12 different venues. The folk singers and performers, who have been salvaging the lost glory of this sport by composing songs and cutting discs glorifying the game, were in for a rude shock, though.

The Bollywood stars, who were the focus of the inaugural ceremony were there to promote their forthcoming film. Adding insult to injury, the folk singers were paid only 5 per cent of the money paid to the film stars, whose contribution to promotion of kabaddi can be questioned. It is true that the state of Punjab is trying to take the sport of kabaddi to international level, for the visiting teams, folk arts would add more charm than Bollywood entertainment, which as such lacks earthy flavours associated to a sport event like kabaddi.

Even the government-sponsored organisation, primarily created to take care of India’s vast tradition of folk and tribal arts from seven zonal centres, has done little to promote folk arts and artists. In terms of money, too, so far folk artists get paid only Rs 400 a day, which is now under consideration to be raised to Rs 1000 per day. Despite recommendations of two different committees headed by U R Ananthamurthy (1994) and Mani Shankar Aiyar (2010), who recommended de-bureaucratisation and imaginative interventions in the management of these arts, little has been done so far. Calling Bollywood artists requires little effort, apart from paying huge sums of money. By choosing the latter option, a cash-strapped government sends strange signals to its people on its cultural preferences while claiming to promote a rural sport.

Thought for the Day

Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over.

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

ARTICLE

Caution! Vandals at work
Criticise the govt, but don’t punish the nation
by B.G. Verghese

The government may have committed mistakes, and if so, as Dr Manmohan Singh appealed, punish it but not the nation. The BJP, however, preferred to throw national interest to the winds once again and stalled Parliament for days on a total non-issue. This is political vandalism at its worst and no amount of sophistry on the part of the party leadership can obscure this depressing fact. The BJP has lost its way and stands both suspect and diminished. The Left and others went along with the charade but the real mischief was caused by the BJP.

The issue kept changing. First, it was opposition to the FDI in multi-brand retail as anti-farmer and small trader, anti-federal, economically ruinous and bowing to WalMart and Western capital in general. Then, when the federal issue was cured by making the legislation purely enabling and leaving the decision to introduce FDI retail or not to the states, the issue became failure to consult and fashion a consensus. This argument was totally destroyed with the revelation that the Commerce Minister and other officials had written to all CMs and Chief Secretaries and that a majority of states consulted had approved as had other stakeholders like farmer, consumer and industrial associations. This brought forth the charge that national leaders were not “consulted”, a stance akin to the Hurriyat or Anna/Kejriwal’s demand for veto powers — “my way or no way”.

On the government’s explaining that if implementation was solely in the hands of the states and the states were largely on board, what further consultation was required, the argument shifted to the proposition that any major executive policy decision requires parliamentary sanction through a debate ending in a vote, especially as the UPA is a “minority” government. The fact is that a motion of no-confidence was moved by the Trinamool Congress as the very first order of business of the winter session and received ludicrously little support, and certainly none from the BJP. So, what remained was the demand that the accepted principle of separation of powers, the executive’s prerogative to take policy decisions should be abrogated in favour of prior parliamentary approval by the Opposition. This right, if pressed and expanded, would rob the executive — Central and state — of basic power and responsibility to govern. The argument that there is a precedent in the matter insofar as Parliament debated the government’s decision to disinvest in BALCO, a PSU, is to make an inappropriate comparison. Even otherwise, two wrongs do not make a right.

In the Westminster model of democracy that India has adopted, being in a “minority” is irrelevant. The fundamental requirement is enjoyment of the confidence of the Lower House calculated on the basis of the number of members present and voting. Proving a mathematical majority of the total membership of the House is unnecessary.

The BJP has been proved wrong, frivolous and anti-democratic on every single count in its efforts at political sabotage through strong-arm tactics to block the proceedings of Parliament, aided by ideologues and sundry small groups out to squeeze concessions out of the government rather than uphold any great principle. This is sheer political blackmail and threatens to make India ungovernable and stall development, investment, employment and growth at a time of national economic peril and international economic crisis. The BJP’s disrupting Parliament virtually session after session, aided by the Left and others, has retarded India’s growth story. The real, and not just presumptive loss, entailed by these irresponsible capers must far outstrip the aggregate of all touted scam “losses” by a considerable factor. According to the Parliament Research Service, only 17 per cent of Parliament’s productive time has been spent on discussing and passing legislation. The pendency is alarming.

As a result of inter-party negotiations, the Centre agreed to voting on an FDI motion in the Lok Sabha, having mustered the required numbers in that House, but a non-voting motion in the Upper House, where the numbers are lacking. However, the Rajya Sabha protested against this differential treatment, compelling the government finally to accept voting motions in both Houses. This does not augur well and the best the government can now do is to declare that this should be treated as a one-time exception.

Meanwhile, the controversy over the CAG’s calculation of loss in the 2G matter continues. Former DG P&T in the CAG’s office R.P. Singh’s statement that he was left with no choice but to sign a document with calculations of losses up to Rs 1.76 crore that he was unable to accept has been sought to be debunked by reference to the record. Be this as it may, what is not controverted is that the JPC Chairman, Dr M.M. Joshi of the BJP, did phone CAG officials urging them to hurry with the 2-G report before the government had time to cover its tracks and suggesting a method of calculating the losses. The CAG very correctly told his officers to resist responding to these queries and is above reproach in this regard.

However, Dr Joshi has justified summoning CAG officials to his residence in his capacity as Chairman, JPC, and compared this with the PM summoning the Cabinet Secretary to his residence on a holiday to discuss some important matter. The analogy is inapt. The Cabinet Secretary is a key official in the executive hierarchy over which the PM presides. The CAG, on the other hand, heads an independent constitutional office which works with the PAC/JPC but is not subordinate to the latter. Dr Joshi clearly acted beyond his competence in seeking to advise CAG officials to hurry a report for collateral reasons and in advocating a particular line of action in the preparation of the report. Politics rather than principle was at work.

This own goal by a ranking BJP functionary was followed by another own goal with the BJP parliamentary leadership criticising the naming of a new CBI chief a few days before the incumbent officer retired on November 30. The reasoning was that a parliamentary select committee on the Lok Pal Bill, due to submit its report very shortly, was unanimous in recommending that this appointment be made by an independent selection panel. Followed the charge that the new appointment was hasty and intended to put a pliable officer in place before the new and more transparent procedure was activated.

The argument is fallacious. Sensitive appointments should not be kept vacant. Existing procedures were followed and, judging by the fate of other select committee reports, there is no knowing when the Lok pal select committee’s recommendations will be enacted. The BJP again put partisan politics over sound governance.

Similarly, the announcement that the Aadhaar scheme is being rolled out to facilitate direct cash transfers to beneficiaries of various government social programmes and prevent much red tape and leakage has also been greeted with disdain and scorn by critics and its timing called in question. Of course, there could be teething problems. But is that reason for masterly inactivity?

All this constitutes a sorry exhibition of total negativism and obstruction. Yes, do criticise the government where necessary, but do not punish the nation.

MIDDLE

Straight line, wavy line
by Raji P. Shrivastava

Vacuum. Embarrassed. I misspell these two words every single time. As a child, I wrote the letter ‘j’ curving towards the right and ‘h’ with the hump towards the left. I learnt later that this was called lateral inversion or mirror image creation. When, as a pre-schooler, I confused ‘b’ for ‘d’ each time, my mother bought four-line notebooks for me to practise writing in. The lovely Miss Louisa Fernandes told my parents that they mustn’t be too anxious, for “God has something special in store for every child.” My parents reposed their trust in Miss Fernandes and just made sure that I was corrected mildly each time I erred. The frustrating process lasted a whole year and the problem spontaneously resolved itself.

This is in stark contrast to our hyper-anxious times when a friend ran from class teacher to school counsellor to child psychologist and even researched dyslexia and autism when her child insisted that he would draw only straight lines instead of the homework-stipulated wavy lines. After medical consultations and counselling for the parents and grandparents with and without the child, the neurologist pronounced the child fine and the special-needs counsellor ruled, “You need to relax, Adbhut just dislikes wavy lines.” Adbhut told his parents at Pizza Hut after the verdict, “Maine to aapko pehle hi bola thaa, I like only straight lines !”

We name a child ‘Adbhut’ (unique) and then expect him to conform to every pencil stroke in school. Today Adbhut is a normal teenager who throws tantrums, has adolescence issues (acne, hormones, girls, etc) and loves to play football when he should be studying. He wants to be a musician and wonders why he has to pass examinations. How abnormal is that?

My sister had a very strange spelling streak as a child. She could not figure out when to stop the ‘na’ in ‘banana’. So, her version of the potassium-rich fruit would read, ‘banananana’. On the contrary, she was very decisive and confident in insisting that ‘remember’ had to be spelt ‘rember’. Seen from a child’s point of view, there is a certain delight in saying ‘na na’ to the squishy banana just as there is no reason why ‘remember’ should not faithfully rhyme with ‘member’. For such wonderful reasons is my sister Rema ‘rembered’ in the family today.

Spelling idiosyncrasies, distinctive letter formation and such other forms of assertion of individuality are common in childhood. The need to be different and the confidence to do things differently are frequently seen in a child, for age kills spontaneity most decisively. The pressure to conform curbs creativity and a certain contrariness that is the ‘normal’ hallmark of every human being.

A pity then that adults fall prey to weird fashion trends and end up buying the same kind of bag or shoes as their neighbours. Or, like the pavement graphic artist proclaimed after embellishing the forearms of a collegian crowd with an identical design, “I can make same-to-same Taveeti Tattu for Rs 50.” That’s twenty Tweety tattoos for you !

OPED — DEFENCE

Military cooperation can warm up ties with China
Relations with China are improving and confidence-building measures are in place, but India cannot afford to be complacent or let its guard down. A careful look at the existing national security apparatus and defence management at the strategic level is needed
Gen J.J. Singh (retd)

An Indian Navy Chetak helicopter approaches the deck of Chinese naval warship Ma’anshan during a recent joint exercise in the East China Sea. The memorandum of understanding on defence cooperation signed by India and China has taken military-to-military engagement to an unprecedented high since Independence

THE 1962 war was an unmitigated disaster which laid bare the ineptness in evolving our strategy as also the inability of our leadership -- political, military, intelligence agencies and the civil services -- to read the Chinese designs and intentions, and the lack of preparedness of the military and the nation to face the challenge posed by China's aggression. In his book ‘Prepare or Perish’, Gen KV Krishna Rao, a distinguished former army chief and later Governor of Jammu and Kashmir has stated that, the Indian government “deluded itself into believing that the Chinese would not resort to a war to settle the border problem”.

Enough has been written about the background, causes and lessons learnt from that war, but these issues again factor in today's deliberations and meaningful deductions drawn thereupon. Given their geo-strategic location, size, population, resources and potential, the relations between India and China assume the highest importance for peace, prosperity and stability of the region and the world at large. The challenges that impact the relations between the two nations are:

• An unresolved boundary along the Himalayas
• Chinese perception of a US-India strategy to contain China.
• The possibility of diversion of waters of rivers emanating from Tibet.
• A latent potential for unrest in Tibet, which comes to the surface from time to time.
• The political and economic dimensions of two rising powers of Asia -- rivalry or competition -- for markets and resources.

A comprehensive review of the boundary issue between India and China brings out, first, that India's northern boundary is essentially a product of environmental and historical factors operating over centuries, secondly, that although parts of the boundary had already become traditional even before the British rule, other sectors took their present shape under the impact of new threats from inner Asia in the 19th and early 20th century and the new concepts of security which the British brought with them, and thirdly, that the end product was by and large, the formulation of the principle of the highest crest line or watershed of the northern mountain system as the boundary for political purposes.

Reconciling differences

The Sino-Indian border issue needs to be addressed on a faster pace. For years both sides have been adopting fixed positions. The visit of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to China in 1988 was a landmark event, laying the foundation for a more vibrant bilateral relationship. It resulted in the signing of the Agreement on Maintaining Peace and Tranquility along the border in 1993, during the visit of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao. The two sides agree that a border settlement must be fair and equitable. The question arises as to how to reconcile the known differences within a reasonable timeframe.

During Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's visit to China in 2003, both countries forged a commitment at the highest level to move ahead purposefully and resolve the boundary question peacefully. The two sides agreed to appoint a special representative to explore from the political perspective of the overall bilateral relationship, the framework of a boundary settlement. Meanwhile, peace and tranquility would be maintained in the border areas by strengthening mechanisms on the ground. To resolve a complex problem like this, no straight forward or universally applicable principle can be rigidly applied. Geography does not follow cardinal directions or make available an unbroken chain of a mountain system to create an undisputable boundary. Although the Great Himalaya is a formidable barrier going in an arc, there are important rivers cutting across from Tibet to the Indian plains with attendant problems of defining the boundary in certain areas. Hence, any mutually acceptable solution will have to be an exercise carried out objectively and pragmatically, based on the agreement on political parameters and guiding principles signed in 2005.

A new equation is emerging in the balance of power in the world, with the centre of gravity shifting towards Asia. The cooperation in the field of defence has also grown phenomenally consequent to the highly significant Memorandum of Understanding on Defence Cooperation that was signed during the visit of then Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee to Beijing in 2006. Important aspects of this MoU were given concrete shape during my visit as the Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee with a tri-service delegation to China in May 2007. We were able to take our military to military engagement to an unprecedented high and we agreed to hold the first-ever defence dialogue and also settled upon the modalities of joint training. For army officers of our generation and our predecessors who had been through the 1962 showdown, this was something incredible. The same may have been the case on the Chinese side.

There are regular exchanges of officers undergoing training in both countries, goodwill visits and engagement of defence experts in various seminars and conferences. Besides this, military observers have been permitted by both sides to attend military exercises and manoeuvres. As part of the confidence building exercise for ensuring peace and tranquility on the border, troops of both countries hold sports and cultural meets regularly, particularly during national day celebrations and flag meetings at the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

In another dimension, we need to have a careful look at the existing structure of our national security apparatus and defence management at the strategic level. The institutionalisation of the military component of this apparatus in the decision-making loop is unexceptional. This would ensure that expert military advice is available to the national leadership and policy-makers, as is the case in other major democratic nations.

Military diplomacy

While formulating and conducting foreign policy, particularly in our fairly volatile neighbourhood and also in those countries where the military is all-powerful, military diplomacy and the views of the service chiefs would prove to be invaluable. Timely advice can help in the prevention of a security situation from snowballing out of control. In a few security related situations in the past, the armed forces were not quite aware of the big picture or were caught unprepared or without having the desired readiness levels when asked to execute a mission. Such instances are not in the best interests of the nation and hence, should be scrupulously avoided as far as possible. An integrated team with officials from the services and the ministries of defence, external affairs, finance and home makes good sense. Equally important is the need to have integrated teams within the army, navy and air force at the theatre commands and at the service HQs. Once this model has matured over a few years, we could have in place a Chief of Defence Staff by 2020, with the operational responsibility of the armed forces and the accountability that goes with it.

Well orchestrated military diplomacy can help in the achievement of our foreign policy goals and in addressing our national security concerns. I have been a great advocate of involving the armed forces during the evolution and formulation of our foreign policy with respect to our neighbouring countries. This will further our national interests, build mutual trust and confidence, and thereby engender peace and stability in the region. This is particularly true in the case of countries where the military has an over arching role in policy-making or governance.

Probability of a war

Hypothetically, in the eventuality of a localised border conflict that some experts articulate, would it be restricted to the border alone as was the case in 1962, or would it engulf the Tibetan theatre and beyond on both sides of the Himalayas and carry the risk of being blown into a larger conflagration between two nuclear powers? What would be the impact of employment of air power, missiles, space, psychological, cyber and electronic warfare? How would the issue of logistics, including stocking of weapons, ammunition, equipment, supplies and effects of high altitude and climate on the shelf life affect the conduct of operations? What measures are needed to ensure that we are not surprised again and our eyes and ears on land and in space are qualitatively state-of-the-art? These are some of the questions that deserve to be deliberated in greater detail.

Many theorists have been predicting a war between China and India. First it was supposed to have happened after the Beijing Olympics. Then it was forecast to for 2012 and now some talk of 2020. Many of these analysts haven't seen the Himalayan region on either side or merely undertaken whistle-stop tours in fair weather. To comprehend the true dimensions of fighting in this region, one has to see the conditions during winters when snow and blizzards make life impossible or in monsoons when it rains for days on end and small streams become raging torrents washing away bridges and parts of roads. These arm-chair strategists should understand that no modern war can be fought unless it is thought through in its entirety and more importantly only if the initiator is convinced that it can be won. Further, to start a nuclear war would be the height of folly.

However, we cannot afford to be complacent or let our guard down. In fact, we should continue to modernise and enhance the capabilities of our armed forces and improve border infrastructure, strengthen intelligence agencies and provide them state-of-the-art wherewithal for giving real-time intelligence and thereby enhance our capability to face the challenges of the future appropriately. We should not forget the truism that "strength begets respect".

Overall, barring the border war of 1962, relations between the two Asian giants have been generally friendly. At times there has been friction on the border issue, but mature and statesmanlike leadership on both sides has ensured that such problems are resolved peacefully through dialogue at the highest level. The landmark agreements of 1993, 1996, 2003 and signing of the Strategic and Cooperative Partnership for Peace and Prosperity during the visit of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in April 2005, are aimed at maintaining peace and tranquility on the borders while addressing the boundary question and enhancing mutual trust and understanding. China has become our largest trading partner with trade worth US$ 61.7 billion taking place in 2010. There is tremendous scope for enhancing bilateral relations and reaching a consensus on other vital global issues like maritime security climate, control, financial order and sustainable development. The military to military cooperation could form a pivot in our relations with China for enabling a secure and stable environment for the good of both nations and the region.

Excerpted from an address the former Chief of Army Staff and currently Governor of Arunachal Pradesh delivered at the Center for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi, in November, 2012