The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

One more govt goes
It’s usual political drama in Jharkhand

Jharkhand Chief Minister Arjun Munda submitted his resignation to the Governor on Tuesday, but his recommendation about the dissolution of the assembly has sparked a controversy. His aim is to thwart any bid for an alternative government by the coalition partner, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), led by Shibu Soren. The JMM, which announced support withdrawal on Monday, contends that since the government was reduced to minority, it could not dissolve the House. The BJP leadership claimed that since the letter of support withdrawal was not handed over personally to the Governor in time, the assembly dissolution was justified.

The political crisis erupted over power-sharing. The BJP has the support of 27 MLAs in the 82-member House. The JMM has 18 MLAs. The JMM says there was an agreement that after 28 months it would get the post of Chief Minister. The BJP denies any such pact. Now the focus shifts to Raj Bhavan. The Congress has 13 MLAs, the RJD five and five are Independents. Together they can help form a JMM government led by either Shibu Soren or his son, Hemant Soren, who was the Deputy Chief Minister in the outgoing government. The Congress has the option of imposing President’s rule and ruling the state indirectly rather than back an opportunistic party.

In the dirty politics of Jharkhand no one talks of principles or development. It is all about grabbing power. Jharkhand politicians are notorious for pulling down governments, often over trivial issues. Once in a power struggle an Independent MLA, Madhu Konda, emerged as the Chief Minister. He is now in jail facing corruption charges. The state has seen eight governments in its 12-year history. When Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar in November 2000, it was hoped that the tribal population would benefit and a government in Ranchi would do what the one in Patna did not, or could not. But development remains a distant dream. If elections become inevitable, people would have another chance to clean up the state’s messy political system.

No law to check it!
Rs 50 to destroy a face and life

Remember Sonali Mukherjee, 27, the acid attack victim, who has been appealing to the government to grant her euthanasia! Nine years back, when she was an under -graduate student, three boys from her neighbourhood, who used to tease her, threw acid on her. Though the court gave them nine years of imprisonment, they were set free on bail after three years. Sonali has been asking the government to either give her medical support for skin reconstructive surgery as well as tougher penalties on her three assailants, or let her die. Sonali’s is not an isolated case; hundreds of women lead a life of suffering, hiding from public eye for their shockingly mutilated faces. Many of them turn blind and deaf, facing physical and mental agony for which they need a proper rehabilitation plan.

Around 1,500 acid attacks are reported globally each year, with 80 per cent of them on women, according to a London-based charity, Acid Survivors Trust International. Though it is a gross under-estimation of the crime, as most victims are scared to speak out, especially in the Asian countries. There is no official statistics available for India, but a study conducted by Cornell University in January 2011 said there were 153 attacks reported in the media from 1999 to 2010. Most of these attacks, said the study, are acts of revenge, when a woman spurns sexual advances or rejects a marriage proposal, she is made to suffer for saying ‘no’ to a man.

In this context, the freeze mob protest, demanding special laws for punishing for acid attacks in Delhi by the students of Delhi University, J &K and other states on January 11, is a grim reminder that despite Cabinet-approved amendments in the criminal law- 2012, which proposed 10 years punishment for such crimes and a fine of Rs 10 lakh, Parliament has not passed the Bill. Also, the government has not found a way to stop selling of acid in the open market, which is available for as cheap as Rs 50 a bottle. Enough to destroy a life!

Thought for the Day

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. —Anne Frank

ARTICLE

Between Delhi and Tehran
Difficulties in maintaining a delicate balance
by Harsh V. Pant

In its first major diplomatic engagement of the New Year, India hosted Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary and Chief Nuclear Negotiator Saeed Jalili. He was in Delhi at the invitation of the National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon and met not only Menon but also Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid. Despite bilateral ties between Delhi and Tehran losing their past sheen, Jalili underscored that “there are very good relations between the two countries” and that the two nations remain “friends.” The visit was also significant because Jalili is considered as a potential successor to the present Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who completes his two terms in office this year.

The economic situation in Iran has deteriorated rapidly over the last few months. Because the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) has been having trouble maintaining its currency peg of 12, 260 rials to the US dollar, more and more Iranians are trying to trade their rials for foreign currency. This has led to a free-fall in the value of the rial. The western sanctions have blocked Iran international bank networks, making it difficult for Iranian businesses to borrow money at a time when the CBI is having difficulty meeting demands for dollars. As a consequence, Iran is facing its worst financial crisis since the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.

It has, therefore, become imperative for Iran to reach out to non-western nations to seek help. Russia, China and India are natural players in this context and so Jalili’s high profile visit to Delhi is important. Jalili tried to project Iran as a destination where countries like India can fill the vacuum by suggesting that international economic sanctions on Iran were not a “threat”, but an “opportunity”. Even Iranian health care system is close to collapse under the weight of sanctions and Tehran has reached out to India to help with life-saving drugs. India is now exporting one of its largest consignments of medicine ever to Iran.

Iran is also trying to make a case to Delhi that it could be a reliable provider of energy security to India even though the past experience of India has been rather problematic. But Jalili argued, “Iran’s capability is not just supplying oil and gas. Providing security of energy is one of the principles of Iran’s policy in this respect. We have the best capability (among all neighbouring countries) in providing energy security for the region.” Jalili made a case for the extension of gas pipeline with Pakistan to India underlining that Iran “has the capacity to provide security.” But India has been trying to reduce its dependence on Iranian oil for some time now and it is not entirely clear if there will be a change of heart of New Delhi because of Jalili’s visit though India recognises the benefits of using the Iranian territory as a transit route into Afghanistan and Central Asia.

In terms of energy security, actions by the United States and the European Union considerably impede India’s pursuit of resources in Iran, where India is the third largest recipient of exported oil. This is well-illustrated by the recent EU sanctions banning European companies from insuring tankers that carry Iranian energy resources anywhere in the world. With nearly all tanker insurance based in Western nations, Indian shipping companies are reportedly forced to rely on state insurance, which only covers tankers for $50 million as opposed to the estimated $1 billion in coverage typically offered by European agencies. Shippers, therefore, face great risk in transportation. Western efforts to undermine financial institutions in Iran have also complicated payments for Iranian oil exports. An executive order issued by the White House in November 2011 authorizes the U.S. Secretary of State to impose financial sanctions on any entity failing to satisfactorily curb support of the Iranian market according to US terms, thus pressuring countries such as India to reduce imports supporting the Iranian economy.

China, like India, has a massive demand for energy security. China is present in nearly every geographic area of importance to India’s energy security and Chinese state-owned companies have proved more willing and able to secure deals at any cost than Indian companies. This intricate challenge of remaining competitive with China and close to the United States is manifest in Iran. While New Delhi faces pressure from the West to curb its ties with Iran, Beijing continues to pursue close bilateral relations with Tehran under a firm policy of noninterference to ensure the security of its energy and strategic interests. Beijing was a highly significant factor in Iran’s acquisition of capabilities throughout the 1980s and early 1990s that helped initiate its nuclear programme. Although China curbed official support of Iran’s nuclear programme in 1997 under heavy US pressure, American officials suspect the continuation of informal support under the auspices of nongovernmental entities.

China continues to supply arms to Iran as well, and although the value of these transfers declined in the first decade of the 2000s, Chinese arms are still presumed to be supporting proxy militant groups in the Middle East via Iran, much to the dismay of Washington. China also functions as a diplomatic ally that can offer leverage to Iran within the International Atomic Energy Agency and the UN Security Council. Beijing is vocal in its support for diplomacy rather than force in dealing with Tehran and is adamant in denouncing unilateral or bilateral sanctions that prohibit economic interactions that would isolate Iran.

China thus retains significant value to Iran in a manner that would be difficult for India to emulate, particularly given its greater dependence on good relations with the United States and basic objections to Iran’s nuclear programme. Tehran and the P-5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) are set to resume talks later this month, although the place and date for the negotiations have not been finalized. The talks would be the first high-level negotiations over Iran's nuclear programme since the negotiations in Moscow in June, offering at least the prospect of a thaw in a standoff that has grown increasingly tense in recent months. A Washington-Tehran rapprochement will allow India greater strategic space to pursue its diplomatic interests and as the situation in Afghanistan continues to unravel, this will be useful in shaping the regional environment to India’s advantage.n

The writer teaches at King’s College, London.

MIDDLE

Long live dummies!
by Rajeev Gupta

Ashok, younger son of my neighbour, had not been going to his school for the past couple of weeks and when I enquired from his father, he informed me that he had taken dummy admission in a school in 10+2 and devotes his entire time on private tuition, preparing for medical entrance. He gave me a list of more than a dozen schools where dummies outnumbered the genuine ones. Going to school was a waste of time for him. What they taught in school had no relevance to the competitive tests.

"Does he not go to school at all?", I enquired.

"Only once a year to appear for the final examination", my friend calmly replied.

"What about his class practicals?"

"Dummies do not perform practicals. They are provided practical copies of their seniors and they just copy them. And schools charge more money from the dummies," he added. It was a win-win situation for both parties, I thought.

Thousands of young aspirants for medical colleges and IITs take dummy admissions in 10+2 in their home states and prepare for entrance tests in Kota, Delhi or Chandigarh.

Surprisingly, there are some government departments in the country where permanent employees have further sub-employed dummies to do their work and take a major chunk of their salaries while sitting at home. There are some state departments which have a minimum staff to handle work and they too employ dummies to assist in their official work. They pay them from their additional income. It is no secret that many rural teachers send dummies to take classes and they calmly sit at home.

A few days back I was completely stunned when one of my female relatives told me that she had taken a dummy admission in a BEd college in Punjab and she will be visiting the college for exams only. There are many engineering colleges where students do not do any practicals, but they only copy from their seniors’ practical note-books and do dummy practicals. It is getting common for ayurvedic and dental graduates to do dummy internship. They join some allopathic hospitals and dental clinics and get internship completion certificates from their parent institutes and obviously at a small price.

Only recently the Medical Council of India suspended more than 20 specialists for being shown as full-time teaching faculty in medical colleges when they were, in fact, dummies and were working full time at some other places.

Dummy candidates are well known to play a significant role in competitive entrance tests in the PGI and other medical institutes. Some of them succeeded in getting into the portals of these premier institutes. Recent scandalous exposure of the PG entrance test at the PGI, Chandigarh, has brought the emerging trend of dummy candidates to the focus. To everyone's utter surprise, the appearing candidates for MD/MS seats were simple arts graduates. And the so-called PGI screening system just failed to screen them.

There is hardly any area of our lives where entrepreneurship in the business of dummies is not prospering.

Even politics has not remained untouched. Dummy candidates play an important role in elections in our country. It is well known that political parties play a significant role in fielding many dummy candidates.

It is no longer a secret that dummies played a great role in the recent Punjab Assembly elections.

It is a common practice to use dummies in motorcades of heads of the countries when their armoured cars move on the roads and the details in which the head of the state is travelling are deliberately withheld from the public for his safety.

Businessmen are also known to file dummy quotations for clinching business deals.

OPED SOCIETY

From rage to outrage
Do modern-day Punjabi songs reflect the new social ethos of the urbane hip young generation or are demeaning and vulgar as these are being made out to be?
Nonika Singh

Just the other day he was the media's darling, being hailed as the Punjabi music's ultimate gift to Bollywood, more so after his song Angrezi Beat sold for a whopping Rs 70 lakhs and was featured in the movie Cocktail. Today Yo Yo Honey Singh is being projected not only as Punjabi music's monster boy but also much that is wrong with the country is being attributed to him.

Yo Yo Honey Singh

As a nation recovers from the outrage over the horrific gang rape it goes into multiple gears. One such gear takes it on the driveway to culture and stops right in front of the Punjabi rapper whose success is as phenomenal as the spleen being vented out against him.

A country prone to overreaction — are we jumping the gun, misdirecting our energies and throwing the baby along with the bath water? Do his songs to which the whole of India was, (is still) dancing to catch the pulse of times or are completely out of sync with Punjab's rich cultural heritage? More significantly what exactly is Punjab's cultural legacy in the first place which Honey and others of his tribe seem to have turned upside down.

Jazzy B

Miss Pooja

Of course, this is not the first time the rapper has come under fire. Singers in the region, particularly Jassi Jasraj, dubbed him King of Vulgarity long time ago. In a press conference he also stressed that it's songs like these that provoke crimes against women and violence in general.

Out of tune
While rapper Yo Yo Honey Singh has come under greater scrutiny, other singers too have faced flak for falling out of line and offending sensibilities.
Chardhi Jawani, The Party is Getting Hot — Jazzy B
Kabaddi da Player, Sardara Gate Kholda, Vyah Je Karvaye — Miss Pooja
Daaru Peendi Haan — Kelly Singh
Teri Maan DI Talaashi Leni — Amar Chamkeela
Daaru — Ashok Masti.
FIRE AND FURY: Singers like Yo Yo Honey Singh, Jazzy B and Miss Pooja (clockwise) might have become popular among the youth, today fingers are being pointed at their choice of lyrics that are often sleazy and cross the lines of decency

To be fair, vulgarity has not been invented with Honey alone. That's why allegations against the singer were initially dismissed as professional jealousy. Yet voices of dissent were persistent and aspersions continued to be cast not always without substance. Some of the lyrics like Dasde tera ki hai rate part of the superhit song Angrezi Beat are undeniably not in good taste. Today, of course, the singer has washed his hands off songs like Main balatkari and yet another lewd song proclaiming that it's all part of a smear campaign to scuttle his rising graph. Has Honey bashing become a fad? Is he the fall guy? So much so that people are reading in between the lines and even songs like Saadi maan nu putt nahi labne teinu yaar bathere are being considered offensive. Folk singer Pammi Bai fumes, "Who cares if Honey is getting Rs 70 lakhs or one crore. He is welcome to his success, provided he gets it in the right way, without distorting Punjabi culture."

Looking back at the growth of Punjabi music many like academician and scholar Dr Rajpal Singh feel that some kind of lacharpan has been an integral part of Punjabi music since times immemorial. He admits that every singer worth his salt except may be a Gurdas Maan or Pammi Bai has been tempted to flirt with double-meaning songs, full of sexual innuendoes, more so in the beginning of career. "After all," he says, 'nothing in life is black or white. If there is sacred there is profane too and some of the traditional boleeyan do evoke an explicit sexual imagery and have a direct intonation."

But those who use this as an excuse, folklore expert Dr Nahar Singh takes umbrage. He shoots off, "This is a defence of uncivilized fools who have no clue about Punjab's folk traditions. They forget that folklore has a context and a construct which has a social purpose and is not for market consumption. When Punjabi women sing sithianian they are doing it among themselves to express their suppressed feelings."

Dr Rajpal agrees with this argument and quips, "Indeed, in the Punjabi cultural milieu there are melas like the Jarg da mela in which songs cross all limits of decency. But then these melas are for a particular section where people who come to listen, know what they are in for and the singers take to the stage and deliver accordingly."

The problem today, according to Dr Nahar, is that these singers have misappropriated certain aspects of folk, vulgarised it even more and are selling it for commercial gains. Besides, he argues that boleeyan and tappe which are often cited to justify obscenity in today's Punjabi pop are merely the peripherals and not the main text of Punjabi culture. Sadly, he feels that often enough singers have taken the degenerate, discarded, inhuman and gender biased elements and not only blown these out of proportion but taken it right into the drawing rooms of people.

Celebrated poet Surjit Patar elucidates it thus, "Love, ishq, mohabbat and man-woman relationship have always been the subject of poetry right from Baba Farid's times. But poets of yore used words and metaphors to describe a woman's beauty that would elevate her and the idea of love. Today's lyrics have reduced woman to a mere body."

Indeed, today the world has changed beyond recognition and no longer can lyricists ignore the social changes around them. Many of these new-age songs are about the new-age woman who wears Prada and dons a Gucci bag and has new social mores too. Pammi Bai dittoes, "May be the foreign lands from which some of these singers are coming such references are minor issues." Why across the seven seas, in India too the average urban youngster can relate to, if not identify with the women theses songs are alluding to. Patar concedes, "Perhaps, what we consider offensive may not appear so to the youth of today who are lapping up such songs." Yet he questions, "Women have changed in myriad ways. Why is it that these songs don't reflect a woman's intellectual growth and her achievements too?"

In fact, he feels that ultimately all art must pass the Satyam Shivam Sundaram litmus test that is must be true, beautiful and should be for the welfare of mankind.

Even the young crop of singers like Amrinder Gill and Jeet Jagjit agree that lyrics do change with time but can't become a license for stretching the limits and pushing the envelope. Jagjit is vociferous, "Punjabi culture was never vulgar, is not today nor ever will be. Only a few singers bring it a bad name every once in a while." The charge of lacharpan (vulgarity) has stuck time and again.

Well-known Punjabi singer Dolly Guleria while calling for greater caution, "for today songs are not only heard but also seen and supported by videos the impact is manifold" agrees that after every decade few singers are accused of crossing the Laxman Rekha.

In public memory perhaps Amar Chamkeela and his songs are fresh more so for he was gunned down by terrorists for singing objectionable songs, he was certainly not the only one. Nor today is Honey Singh.

For many it's not a question of Honey Singh at all but of the purpose of art, music included.

Human mind, feels Patar, is capable of plumbing down to abominable depths and can rise to the glorious zenith. The crux is in which direction should Punjabi music take it? This is a question that the entire music fraternity, including Honey Singh and his tribe, need to delve into.

As Sufi singer Hans Raj Hans sums up poetically, "Zaalimon ke liye sou daar banaeye jaaye is se bhisd behtar hai kirdar banayey jaaye (create hundred noose for the guilty but even better is to build people's character)."

Can Punjabi music do it? It ought to…. is the common refrain. In short, Honey Singh's 'rise and fall' might be another story, it's time not only for the Punjabi music industry to look within but also the media that continues to focus on negativity. If only the good and the meaningful got the same media hype… perhaps the controversial and sensational would automatically die out.