|
|
|
|
|
House is for legislation
Land not for free
Venomous attack |
|
|
|
New entrants to national politics
Half a marathon
The Valley weighs its options
Circumstantial evidence that sealed Afzal’s fate
|
House is for legislation THE ‘regret’ expressed by the Home Minister, Sushilkumar Shinde, over his ‘saffron terror’ remark indicated the UPA government’s intention of doing its bit not to antagonise the Opposition, which otherwise had threatened to raise the issue forcefully during the Budget session of Parliament that started on Thursday. On its part, the Opposition has also made the right noises in saying it did not mean to disrupt the functioning of Parliament, something it did rather effectively during the last two sessions. There are plenty of issues, however, that will test the sincerity and floor management skills of the government, what with the helicopter ‘scam’, Afzal hanging, demand for PJ Kurien’s resignation, fresh complications in the 2G scam probe, etc, raising their head just ahead of the session. As the President’s address to the joint session of Parliament on the opening day of the session indicated, both Houses have their plate full with legislation of utmost national importance. The National Food Security Bill, the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Bill, the Whistleblowers’ Protection Bill, and the Citizens’ Right to Grievance Redress Bill are all to come up for approval, but will necessarily generate much heat. These being Bills of far-reaching consequence, there are expected to be points that every party will want to raise, and rightly so. But none of that should become a reason to jeopardise their passage. Besides, the primary purpose of this session, the Budget presentation, will test the government’s resolve too, for several tough measures would be required to get the economy going again. With a year to go for the Lok Sabha elections, it would be tough for the Opposition to let pass any opportunity to show the government down, or let it take the credit for major initiatives. However, the Opposition would be failing in its duty if it is not forthcoming with specific suggestions and objections on the various Bills, and simply tries to shout them down. On the government’s part, it would be imperative that it responds to the suggestions with speed so as not to let another session pass without securing for the country the fresh impetus it desperately needs. As the Prime Minister said a day ahead of the session, “Parliament is a forum for discussion... and all parties have an obligation to ensure it runs smoothly.”
|
|
Land not for free THE newly elected Congress government in Himachal Pradesh has decided to cancel the 99-year lease of 19 acres of land given by the previous BJP government to Swami Ramdev’s Patanjali Yogpeeth Trust at a throwaway price. The Congress’ case is simple: The lease was signed with Acharya Balkrishna, a Nepali national, who is a close associate of Baba Ramdev, and foreign nationals cannot be allotted land. The BJP had presented it as an initiative to promote Ayurveda research and production of medicines based on the traditional Indian science. It also expected employment generation from the production unit. The truth is somewhere in between, and closer to politics more than anything else. Baba Ramdev has made several pronouncements against the UPA government and the Congress in particular during his anti-corruption campaign over the past two years. That has by implication affiliated him with the BJP in the public mind. And that would explain the stands of the two parties. But the question of appropriateness of the allotment has to stand the test of public probity. For one, production activities of the Patanjali Yogpeeth have been commercial, and state sponsorship gives it — and thereby its products — a certain undeserved stamp of approval. As for the public purpose of promoting farming of medicinal plants, that could equally be done by promoting any private and commercial enterprise on purely business terms, just as the Yogpeeth was already dong in the state. Also, it was a trust already flush with funds, and needed no aid. Land is too precious a commodity today to be given away on whim. Before any such benefit is extended, a government must establish that there would be measurable and indisputable public benefit flowing from it. In any case, most governments today are facing the challenge of procuring land for public purposes; giving land out is something best avoided as future needs have to be kept in mind. It was way back in 1956 that the then Maharaja of Patiala, Yadavindra Singh, had gifted the land to create a facility for children. Maybe, the original intended purpose needs to be revisited meaningfully.
|
|
|
Venomous attack
Writers
and artists create a republic of their own. They see the world with their third eye, which often pushes away the frame of political correctness from their discourse. Such discourse is needed from time to time for the world to retain its sanity and its ability to laugh at itself. The stiff rules of civility that demand “I scratch your back and you scratch mine” need a breather from time to time. And this breather comes only from the wit of the cartoonists or the uncensored observations of thinkers. Kabeer had said, “Nindak niyare rakhiye”( it’s advisable to have a critic close by). In this context, Hilary Mantel’s comments on Kate Middleton’s persona are not unusual. Sir Vidiya, knighted by the British, had not minced words about some of the classics of English literature, even though unpalatable to them. But what surprises one is the immediate response that came from David Cameron, in defence of the Princess. He claimed the twice Booker winner author Mantel was “misguided and completely wrong” to describe the Duchess of Cambridge as a “plastic”, “machine-made princess”. He went on to eulogise the Princess adding, “…someone who's bright, who's engaging, who's a fantastic ambassador for Britain." The Prime Minister should leave this debate between a celebrated author and a princess. He is behaving like Mo Yan, the Chinese author, who was given the Nobel this year and who keeps himself blinkered from all unpalatable realities about his government, even in jokes. Those who decide to be in the public sphere should also be prepared to receive public opinion, which may not be favourable to their egos all the time. The agent of the writer has though urged the media to “Read the original article” in the London Review of Books lecture, delivered earlier this month, where Mantel had said, “Kate seems to have been selected for her role of princess because she was irreproachable: as painfully thin as anyone could wish, without quirks, without oddities, without the risk of the emergence of character.”
|
|
|
Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you. Never excuse yourself. — Henry Ward Beecher
|
New entrants to national politics THE Indian political party scene is getting more and more crowded as sundry new entrants enter the field. The Anna Haraze movement split because a section led by Arvind Kejriwal wished to enter the political field. And now we have word from the Baba Ramdev camp that he too wants to try his luck in politics without, of course, giving up his main career of being a guru, admittedly with a penchant for political theatre. Behind the new entrants’ enthusiasm to take the political road lies a simple truth, the realisation that power flows from the ballot box. Civil society agitation is legitimate and inspiring up to a point, whether it highlights the evil of corruption or the indignity and humiliation of women that are a consequence of our patriarchal society. But though Anna can set the nation abuzz with his large Delhi rallies and make the government sit up, enthusiasm ebbs and the very sense of momentary power compels participants to seek greater glory through the political route. Candidly, political power provides valuable protection for legal acts and often a cover for illegal activities until they are found out and become public issues. Identity politics is now an accepted fact of the Indian political system and particularly at the provincial level; many shady characters enter the political arena to protect their selfish causes. A debate on the virtues of harbouring members of state assemblies and Parliament charged with, but not convicted of, crimes rages without hope of an early resolution. India’s experience in parliamentary democracy has shown that ideology, even of the amorphous Gandhian variety or the once socialist kind, counts for less and less. The Congress as the mother party of Indian independence splintered, as was inevitable. Leaders formed parties ostensibly on ideological grounds or, increasingly, around caste formations. But even lateral movement of leaders did not breach the wall of the Jan Sangh, the forerunner of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which had proclaimed itself as the party with a difference. And movement of leaders among the Left parties was between the two main varieties and the many offshoots with elaborate names. It is now common to see the movement of Congress leaders to the BJP and the BJP leaders seeking the shelter of the Congress. Despite the Congress ideology of pitting secularism against what it describes as communalism (read Hindutva), the mother party seems to have veered towards a softer Hindutva version. In any case, opportunism, rather than ideology, is the order of the day. In the strict sense of the word, opportunism is also the motto of those seeking salvation in politics. Perhaps this is the prevailing trend in the world, with the Communist ideology, once such a strong international force, dying its natural death with the fall of the Soviet Union. Most of the devoted communists and ideologues India produced belong to a bygone era and there is an element of unreality about the familiar communist and Left slogans mouthed by our leaders and their followers today. The influx of new members into the political stream is to be welcomed as long as their ends are not purely self-serving. Democratic politics has space for all provided they participate in it to promote legitimate ends. Here lies the rub because money power and sectional interests often prevail in contests with more deserving candidates. The strength of a democracy is that in the end unscrupulous and shady elements meet their Waterloo, but the process can be long and frustrating. Taking the examples of Kejriwal’s Aam Admi Party (AAM) and Ramdev’s potential party, what can we expect of the two? In the former’s case, the platform is clear: it is to be a vigilante party with an accent on ferreting and rooting out corruption and corrupt practices and frame codes for clean and good government. It has other ambitions to bring about greater social equity, but its emphasis on big themes and major alleged wrongdoing by the rich and the powerful is to capitalise on the spectacular to secure public prominence and free publicity. Like the traditional popular tabloids, it seeks to shock to seek salience for itself. This tactic can only represent the first phase of the Aam Admi Party because tabloid scoops are proverbially transient, consumed and forgotten. And if the AAM makes a habit of projecting a scoop a day, it would begin to pall. In any event, Mr Kejriwal’s organisation is still very much a work in progress. One would hope that it would promote a more comprehensive set of policies that would lead to a more honest and inclusive society. Ramdev, of course, has still to spell out his political aims. For a time, he was basking in the glow of the Anna movement in its heyday and was hobnobbing with opposition parties such as the BJP. In essence, he is seeking to use his large following for his yoga and spiritual practices as vote banks in the hope that it will propel his chosen candidates to power. To an extent, he has a common base with the BJP but if he begins to poach in the latter field, there would inevitably be a conflict of interests. The BJP’s mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, is zealous in guarding its space and would not welcome an intruder. These are early days yet but the rush to be counted as political formations is on and the Election Commission will have an even more arduous task in policing parties going to polls. India once prided itself on separating religion from the state. But the distance between the two has been shrinking over the years and decades. If caste is increasingly the implied leitmotif of political parties, religion is an obvious factor in the existence of a number of parties. Once Ramdev enters the field, he would have added a new spiritual element to the mix. In a sense, the BJP’s Hindutva slogan has been treading on sensitive ground but it has sought to justify its plank - more or less depending on circumstances - on its concept of all residents of India being Hindus. Presumably, Baba Ramdev will propagate that his spiritualism is
universal.
|
||||||
Half a marathon Having
been quite physically fit lately, walking about 5 kilometres everyday between mornings and evenings and cycling about 15 kilometres during the week on an average, I decided last month to run the Half Marathon planned for last Sunday. I started to practice jogging and then running every day for a few weeks preceding, progressively enhancing my stamina. Having done that, as the day got closer, I realised that a longer period of practice was necessary to run the full 22 kilometres. So I decided to wait and practice for the next event scheduled for April to run the full stretch and participate in the 5-kilometre event this time. When I reached the venue, warming up while jogging from home, it was heartening to see a whole lot of bright young children waiting to start and also some people looking older than even myself already running the Half Marathon event. The whole stretch from the High Court roundabout to the lake and beyond was made out of bounds for all vehicles for the runners. One could feel the air so fresh, especially after the night-long rain. And then, suddenly, when the marathon runners were half way through, back and forth on the same stretch, a VIP arrived in his official car with light flashing on top, siren blaring and gypsies loaded with gunmen at the front and back, right in the middle of the race track, to be the chief guest. The participants were made to run helter-skelter and the whole rhythm was interrupted. What a disaster! If only he could have been made to come from inside the adjoining sector and made to walk for just 5 “metres” to cross the road, it would have been so much better. Anyway, a bit later, our run was flagged off and I managed to finish in good time, although nowhere close to the athletic youngsters. But all through I missed coming across anyone else running, that I even barely knew. I did make some new acquaintances along the way. I’ll be continuing to practice in the run-up to the Half Marathon in April. However, I do wish that next time the organisers have a mind not to let the VIP land up in the middle of the track to make it only “Half a
Marathon”.
|
||||||
The Valley weighs its options
Afzal Guru was hanged to death on the morning of February 9, ending the suspense over whether the Parliament attack convict would ever be executed. The man who was seen as a symbol of the terrorist assault on the Indian Parliament on December 13, 2001, invoked a debate, with certain quarters seeing “political selectivity” in his hanging, while others insisting “justice has been done”. Now that the execution has happened, the concern is over what direction will the Valley take next? Surrounding that, there are many unanswered questions that dominate the public discourse in Kashmir — the fact being that there is a tussle in both the mainstream and separatist camps in the state for the political space in the run-up to 2014 polls. Whatever be the sense in the rest of the country, the cloak of secrecy under which Afzal Guru was executed, without even informing his family that was just a phone call away, has raised serious questions. Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah is on record having said that he could have provided a state aircraft “to ferry the family to Delhi to meet Afzal Guru one last time.” Now the talk has turned to the demand that Afzal Guru’s body be exhumed from his present resting place in Delhi’s Tihar jail and handed over to his family. The demand is picking up, and political parties are seeking to benefit from it by insisting the government hand over the body. The hanging of a Kashmiri in Tihar jail — the second since February 1984, the first being that of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front founder Mohammad Maqbool Butt — has triggered a competition among political parties over gain much space in the 80 x 80 mile Kashmir Valley, geographically as well as politically. Kashmir’s leading political group, the National Conference (NC), ruling the state in alliance with the Congress, is in direct combat with its main rival, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Both the parties have started a war of words, targeting Delhi on one hand and on the other levelling charges against each other. While the NC has accused the PDP of “remaining quiet when Afzal Guru was first awarded the death sentence in 2002,” PDP president Mehbooba Mufti has levelled a counter-charge against the Chief Minister and working president of the ruling party, saying “Omar Abdullah cannot wash his hands of his role in the execution,” as he is the Chief Minister and partner in the UPA at the Centre. CM
anxious Omar Abdullah has voiced his apprehension that there would be severe “ramifications” from the hanging and the youth “would identify themselves with Afzal Guru”. While that is his worry in the long run, in the short term the concern is over the day-to-day law and order situation. However, he is confident of handling that with help from the police. A positive tone has also been set by Afzal Guru’s son Ghalib, who has expressed his desire to become a cardiologist. Looking at it in a wider term, he has spoken for his generation, which has its own aspirations: making it good in various professional fields. With every passing day, the political competition is getting fiercer. The tone and tenor that the NC and PDP have adopted in their acidic statements against each other has also led them to the separatist camp, which is no less competitive. Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who likes to see himself and his group as moderate — in comparison to the hard-line faction of the Conference headed by octogenarian Syed Ali Shah Geelani — has said the “hanging of Afzal Guru means end of dialogue”. This is his way of undermining the rival faction, which has issued a strike calendar to create a situation in the Valley that could resemble 2010, when a cycle of street protests started with the killing of a teenager, Tufail Mattoo, in June that year. But a question the Mirwaiz has left unanswered is where has been the dialogue since May 2006. He was only talking to Islamabad and his team members even met Hafiz Sayeed, the mastermind of 26/11. Finding a balm At the moment, the Valley has been swept with an overwhelming view that the execution of Afzal Guru was unjustified, while the government could have covered itself with glory by sparing the life of the Parliament attack convict. A halo of innocence has been built around him. If the body of Afzal Guru is handed over to his family, or there is some other mechanism through which the family and the authorities can find a middle ground, it could help assuage hurt feelings. There are fears in the common man’s mind about the future. Things could travel beyond the statistics this time, and there are three directions the situation could take: One, revert to the dark days of militancy and the Valley gets stuck in a life of endless restrictions. Two, people let the episode be where it is, and if anything further happens then a mass outpouring on the streets could follow to demonstrate they have been defeated neither psychologically nor physically. The third possible situation is people moving on with life, weighing the pros and cons of a good economy, a robust tourist season, so they may not suffer losses worth billions of rupees, as they have done in the past. Right now, the Valley is at sea with no clear direction. The tourism sector is feeling the heat, the economy is slowing down, the anger is refusing to die down, the crackdown on youngsters is fuelling anger, and leaders like the Mirwaiz are making extremist noises. What happens next would depend on how the government addresses the various concerns. That is important as it is being said that to remove the sense of alienation, the government has to give space to Kashmiris within the Indian Union, where they may not be asked to stop their car or picked up for questioning just because of their complexion and sharp features
that betray them as residents of Kashmir. Such treatment only alienates them further.
“UPA’s efforts have come undone”
“The UPA has undone all that it had to its credit to resolve the K issue, which is put on the back burner. India's mainland politics has no concerns for J&K sentiments. For the first time, mainstream and off-stream political parties of the J&K and Bharat are on the same page. While the future of temporary provision of (Article) 370 is uncertain, total calm is the need of the hour. Hopes for bridging the trust deficit are shattered.” “Afzal's body in Tihar Jail would prove to be more dangerous than was keeping him alive. Its political repercussions should be examined.” “In compliance with the jail manual and Omar Abdullah's request, Afzal's body should be given to the family, lest the matter takes an ugly turn. Let us not go to a point of no return.” — MM Ansari, former J&K interlocutor
|
|
Circumstantial evidence that sealed Afzal’s fate The trial court had sentenced him to death on December 18, 2002, which was upheld by the Delhi High Court on October 29, 2003, and the Supreme Court on August 4, 2005. Doubts have been cast on the logic behind awarding the penalty relying merely on circumstantial evidence and theories such as the “collective conscience of the society”.
His confessions While arriving at its conclusion for upholding the death penalty, the apex court had relied on Afzal's confessional statement recorded by the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Special Cell, and circumstantial evidence. In his statement, Afzal had said on the night of December 12, 2001, he along with two other accused — Shaukat Hussain Guru and SAR Gilani — had visited the hideout of the five terrorists in the Gandhi Vihar area of Delhi. “All five Pakistan militants were present. Mohammed (one of the five) gave Afzal a laptop, which was used to make fake Home Ministry car parking labels and Rs 10 lakh”. Afzal confessed Mohammed had told him they were going to conduct a suicide attack on Parliament the next day. On the day of the attack, Mohammed called Afzal, asking him to watch television and inform him about the presence of VVIPs in Parliament. Afzal knew who the deceased terrorists were and also identified their bodies. There were frequent telephonic contacts between Mohammed and him. Minutes before the attack, as many as three calls were made to Afzal by Mohammed from his cell. Mobile instruments were being freely exchanged among Afzal, Mohammed and the other terrorists. The laptop was recovered from a truck in which Afzal was travelling to Srinagar immediately after the attack. A cell phone recovered from one of the slain terrorists was purchased by Afzal. Analysis of telephone calls between Afzal and the terrorists “throw light on the close association” he had with them. Mohammed had called Afzal thrice at 10.43 am, 11.08 am and 11.25 am, just before the attack. Ammonium nitrate, silver powder and other items were procured with Afzal's assistance, including a red beacon fitted atop the car used by the terrorists, a mixer-grinder for making explosives, motorcycle, car and some dried fruit. “Afzal led the Investigating Officer to various places from where incriminatory articles found on the premises at Gandhi Vihar and Indira Vihar and at the scene of offence were purchased,” the court observed. “The circumstances, if considered together, as it ought to be, establish beyond reasonable doubt that Afzal was a party to the conspiracy,” judges P Venkatarama Reddi and PP Naolekar noted. The court said the case had no parallel in the history of Indian Republic and presented a spectacle of the rarest of rare cases.
What did him in
|
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | E-mail | |
