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Guest
Column The Ishrat Jahan incident is the story of an overzealous officer going overboard, unfettered by his headquarters, which was either in the dark or furtively encouraged him, if only, for truly professional and national security reasons. RK Raghavan THE CBI chargesheet in the Ishrat Jahan case is categorical that the encounter in which the 19-year-old Mumbai girl and three others died was fake. This was not a happening in the course of a genuine counter-terror operation, but was a deliberate liquidation in cold blood of four humans, one of whom was innocent of any terror links.
Touchstones
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Guest
Column
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Damned if you do, damned if you don’t The Ishrat Jahan incident is the story of an overzealous officer going overboard, unfettered by his headquarters, which was either in the dark or furtively encouraged him, if only, for truly professional and national security reasons. RK Raghavan
THE CBI chargesheet in the Ishrat Jahan case is categorical that the encounter in which the 19-year-old Mumbai girl and three others died was fake. This was not a happening in the course of a genuine counter-terror operation, but was a deliberate liquidation in cold blood of four humans, one of whom was innocent of any terror links. If the CBI has taken this stand in a court-monitored investigation, it had unimpeachable evidence to prove its case. No civilised person can condone the kind of savagery that is now alleged, even assuming that its perpetrators were acting only for a justifiable national cause, namely rooting out terrorism. Hardliners in the polity and those in the field who are discharging public order responsibilities will differ from those like me who espouse strict adherence to the law that does not countenance extra-judicial killings. The former would often cite Punjab and the style of policing that KPS Gill brought in decades ago to ensure the state did not become a victim to secessionist misadventure. We will be downright dishonest if we spurn Gill’s contribution to his state’s stability. The long-forgotten debate on human rights will receive a new lease of life now. But there seems a difference between the Gujarat happenings and those elsewhere. The impression is that right-thinking men and women in society are normally not unduly exercised over extermination of proven terror suspects. But when such excesses touch others who had been mere associates by accidents of birth or friendship and had not themselves been guilty of unleashing terror, it becomes a different ball game. Shorabuddin and Ishrat Jahan share this dubious distinction with terrorist killings reported from elsewhere in the country. Public opinion is enraged and judicial ire follows in cases where there is basis to believe that police weaponry had targeted innocents along with the deviant persons. It is a pity that policemen at the bottom of the hierarchy have no option but to fall in line with dishonest and politically surcharged superiors itching for promotions and honours. My heart goes out to the victims of police misdeeds and families of overzealous policemen who suffer for no fault of their own. Ishrat Jahan is also a landmark for exposing the hitherto undiscussed role of the IB in handling operations against terrorists. The episode has brought ignominy to an organisation that had been performing an unacknowledged, yet commendable role in keeping the terrorists at bay. Barring two or three failures of the 26/11 variety, it can boast of numerous triumphs that will remain out of the public domain. Rajendrakumar, Special Director in the IB, was a Joint Director in Gandhinagar. He played a significant role in the infamous operation. A part, if not the whole of what is now alleged against him, is possibly true. It does not however take away the fact that he is an outstanding sleuth with an impressive record. The more I read about him, the more I am convinced this was possibly an overzealous officer going overboard, unfettered by his headquarters, which was either in the dark or had furtively encouraged him, if only, for truly professional and national security reasons. There is not even a hint here that anybody in the IB had acted dishonestly or with a view to settling a personal score. On this premise Rajendrakumar can only be accused of recklessness. The CBI appears to have done its homework in marshalling the evidence against him. But then this is a criminal prosecution where one cannot go by presumptions. ‘Conclusive proof’ is needed. ‘Preponderance of probabilities’ is something that the trial court will not buy. Even after Rajendrakumar retires by this month-end, the CBI will need the MHA’s sanction to prosecute him because such prosecution will be under the IPC and not the Prevention of Corruption Act, which does not require a government nod after a delinquent officer retires. The MHA will have to think before approving the action against him because of its implications for IB morale. It could reject the CBI request. Such a decision is normally not justiciable. The CBI can be accused of being vindictive because if it withheld any evidence its investigation had unearthed, it could be hauled over the coals by a trial court. This is a case of being damned if you did, and damned if you did not. The whole case will ultimately turn on Rajendrakumar’s motive to be part of the alleged conspiracy. Did he have the mens rea? If not, he may just have to face departmental proceedings, which could end in his dismissal and denial of retirement benefits. For this to happen, it is likely that he will not be allowed to retire from the IPS at the end of the month when he turns 60. We need to know if his misfortunes are the result of his getting into a cosy relationship with the state government. This charge is made against him by those who don’t have any credibility, but have an axe to grind in an ambience surcharged with animosities. There is a lesson for all IB officers. If you can help it, never get mixed up in local politics! The writer is a former CBI Director who also served as Joint Director in the Intelligence Bureau, New Delhi.
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Touchstones
THERE was a time when small was considered good: modesty, self-denial, austerity were qualities to be practised with pride. We were told it was honorable to plough a lonely furrow even as the rest chased success and money. Fifty years down, we have almost completely reversed this form of public thinking and social behaviour. Forget the levels of consumption we have now reached, being small does not work even in commerce and economics. Unless you are big and getting bigger, neither success nor money may come your way. Times are changing and while we welcome the new, the young and the risk-takers, one cannot help reflecting on the changes that are slowly changing the world all around us and whether such change is for the best. The world’s premier publishing houses were set up brick by brick by men and women of vision and courage who wished to impact the minds of their readers to usher in a new way of thinking. Some were dedicated to academic and scholarly tomes, others promoted popular books such as detective fiction, some specialised in romance, while others ‘did’ plays and poetry. The list is long and the genres varied. The pulls of the market and commercial returns then hit this rather idealistic and cosy world and as editors and marketing hands changed loyalties to flit between rival firms, the lines between the publishing houses began to blur. Today, there is little that marks a Penguin paperback from say a HarperCollins book. To keep abreast of this trend, wily authors also experimented with different publishers and the old loyalty between an author and an editor became a thing of the past. With the rise of the backroom boys of marketing came the decline of the editorial staff. Choices were determined now by markets and the instinct of a commissioning editor had to have the backing of the market teams before a book was signed off. Editing itself is now farmed out to freelance editors who are paid by the number of pages they edit in the shortest time rather than by time spent in talking a writer through long, searching exchanges. While these developments have increased revenues and streamlined lists, they have also virtually destroyed that ineffable quality that made a publishing house unique. Rival publishing houses now stalk successful authors to woo them to their stable. Agents are almost more important than authors in this topsy-turvy world. Rare is the publisher who will fight to back a book, and even more rare the publisher who will publish low return volumes of poetry and drama, unless there is a buy-back deal. The new ‘hottest’ trends in publishing today are cook-books, mind-body-spirit quickies, soft porn titles masquerading as romance or mythological tales and racy biographies. I concede that these trends have produced some outstanding works but it is also true that in chasing account sheets and returns alone, we have lost respect for the written word per se. A quick return on a book means keeping abreast of a trend and beating a rival firm. No one has the time to wait for a lovingly crafted book by an author who likes to take his own sweet time producing one. Recently, Vikram Seth was asked to return the $1.5 million advance he had received for a sequel to A Suitable Boy. No doubt, other authors have received similar reminders. The trend from when Seth wrote his doorstopper bestseller has changed to slim, tight novels that would once have been called novellas. I shall not be surprised if some clever accountant did a feasibility study on the cost to company of another big, fat book and decided that the time had come to prune costs and shift to someone like Mohsin Hamid who writes really slim books and gives higher returns. Of course, this is an exaggeration but that is how the cookie crumbles now, it seems. So where shall the differently-abled writer go now? Well, there are e-books and small one-(wo)man publishing outfits that have sprouted like grass on the graves of the venerable old publishing firms. They are e-savvy and have enormous energy when promoting their authors. Many have made small fortunes out of unknown writers and arcane books. Then there are the intrepid self-promoters who employ PR firms and consultants to help them market their books and arrange promotional events to make a splash. Book reviews (like paid news) are arranged and Book Clubs and library sales rigged to make a book go places. However, there are still writers and editors (hopefully publishing houses as well) who follow the old rules. They swim upstream and stick their necks out and pull a JK Rowlings out of their hats. Long live their tribe! |
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Guest
Column
SOME years ago, when one of India’s well-known politicians was elected as the Chief Minister of a state, he was asked about the large number of ministers with criminal antecedents in his Cabinet. He replied, “I don’t care about their past.
They have been elected by the people. They have won elections and entered the Assembly, so they cannot be called criminals anymore.” Now he may be blamed for being blatant, but the truth is that this has been the attitude of most of our political parties. The famous words by Samuel Johnson on patriotism being “the last resort of a scoundrel” appear to have a resounding resonance in the India of today. Close to one-third members of the present Lok Sabha have pending criminal cases against them. As many as 75 of our Lok Sabha MPs have “serious criminal cases” against them. These include charges of murder, rape, abduction, kidnap and dacoity. The fact that there has been an increase of 27 per cent in the number of Lok Sabha MPs with criminal charges against them (compared to last Lok Sabha), clearly shows the current Parliament is not an aberration. Criminalisation in politics has grown rapidly and has reached alarming proportions. Under such circumstances, the two latest verdicts by the Supreme Court are to be welcomed. The Representation of People Act states that any MP or MLA should possess qualifications to cast a vote. The fact that people who are in prison are automatically disqualified from voting in elections, means a politician in lawful custody should lose his rights as a voter—and therefore lose the necessary qualification of being a representative. In the past we have seen that influential politicians with dire criminal charges continue to contest elections. In the rare circumstances that they are convicted, they apply for bail and participate in the electoral process, or worse, contest from jails! The court verdict will bring this to an end. The verdicts are all the more important because in the last few years, there has been a strange acceptance of corruption in politics. Some of our politicians and so-called intellectuals have been trying to rationalise it, giving unsavoury examples ranging from Silvio Berlusconi — who despite his terrible conduct continues to be re-elected — to Richard Nixon, whose condemnable conduct during the Watergate crisis was described by Henry Kissinger as “nothing more than hard ball politics”. Such ‘pragmatic wisdom’ is disgusting and in variance with the principles of the Constitution which calls for zero tolerance to corruption. The ‘Lakshman rekha’ of clean character in the eyes of the law as well in the eyes of the people cannot be shifted to suit individual conveniences. Last December, when a young lady was brutally gangraped in a moving bus in New Delhi, a prominent MP stood up and delivered a lachrymose spiel, urging policy-makers to take action and protect the daughters of India. Someone should have pointed it out to this speaker that the party he represented in Parliament had the dubious distinction of having given ticket to as many as half-a-dozen candidates that have rape allegations against them. The point is how can a legislator make a law against a crime when he/she himself is accused of it? It is a violation of the basic tenets of natural law. At a larger level, it is this acceptance of unscrupulousness in our politics that has paved way for various crime syndicates, unethical corporate cartels and mafia organisations to establish a nexus with lawmakers. This has brought in stacks of black money into the election process, making most of India’s elections a strange modern monarchy—where the election is rarely a contest among the meritorious. Unclean credentials in politics also explain the rising cynicism among the country’s young towards the political process. Disillusioned with a list of candidates that reads like a rogue’s gallery, they rarely find any incentive even to vote—forget about participating in a larger political reform process. This is tragic in a country where more than 50 per cent of the population is below 25 years of age. The Supreme Court intervention has come at the right time. One just hopes that the high courts and other provincial courts are alert to ensure that these verdicts are adhered to in the right spirit and are not used by powerful political bosses to settle their own scores. The way our police and administration are hand in glove with politicians, it won’t be very difficult for a ruling party to concoct fictitious cases against a candidate to pre-empt any challenge in the elections. But for that to happen, the judiciary needs to show the way. While it has done a yeoman’s service in independent India, it too has been tarnished by allegations of nepotism and corruption in certain cases. Unfortunately, the number of such instances is increasing. The extent is definitely not as bad as in the case of our legislature and executive, but then among the three, it is the judiciary which has to ensure that the implementation of the laws is proper. For that vital responsibility, it has to be above board, quiet like Pompeia, the legendary wife of Julius Caesar “who ought not to be even under suspicion”. The writer is the president of the People’s Party of Punjab.
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What brought on this rant is the recent news of a merger of two of the world’s most well-known publishing houses. Penguin and Random House have now a joint imprint and a management that will henceforth merge the two streams of publication. As an author with Penguin, I wondered what happens to small fry like us and whether our books will now get lost in the huge avalanche of books that will come as a result of this merger. I called a friend who works as a consultant with Penguin and was told that oldies like us will continue to be regarded as Penguin authors but that the management was now different. No doubt, future publishing lists will reflect the change that is inevitable.
