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Tough action Finding the right lane |
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Egypt is not back to square one
The excitement of being a golf lady
Namdeo Dhasal : A Poet Panther
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Tough action The
Government of Pakistan has finally reacted to a series of terrorist attacks across the country for which Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi had taken responsibility. Pakistani air force jets and helicopters have pounded various targets in North Waziristan, hitting at strongholds popular with Taliban and al-Qaida militants. Many people were killed. The action reflects the growing pressure on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to shed his policy of negotiating with militant organisations like the TTP, which had produced no significant results. It has, in fact, compromised his government's authority. Even within the short span of three weeks of the New Year, terrorists killed Shia pilgrims, shot the man who had led the fight against terrorism in Karachi and set off bombs in army garrisons. The devastating attack near the army's general headquarters in Rawalpindi may finally have triggered the retaliation. The army and the government have finally taken some visible action against terrorists. It is ironic that Pakistan, ever-critical of drone attacks by the US, found itself using the air force against terror bases. The TTP has been engaged in terrorist activities since 2007, often with impunity, but the latest action shows that it might have stepped on sensitive toes, and thus has to feel the jackboots of the army's retaliation. While this show of force may work in the short term, it is not the solution to the problem by itself. Tackling terrorism is a tough call. It needs leadership, a clear vision of what needs to be done and a will to carry it through. Various institutions that encourage terrorism need to be dismantled, the machinations of people who brainwash youngsters and make them martyrs need to be stymied. The security forces need to be given clear directions and empowered for the tough task at hand. It can all be done, but it remains to be seen if Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his army can rise to the challenge. |
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Finding the right lane Lane
driving is an important aspect of traffic management as well as road safety. The Punjab and Haryana High Court is rightly showing interest in implementing the concept in the two states. However, the idea is likely to be implemented only on limited roads, as very few have the required number of lanes. Even where the lanes exist, the sheer volume of traffic - in cities such as Ludhiana - can be such that all lanes run chock-a-block. Implementing the plan will require the participation of many agencies other than the police too. Lanes will have to be marked and drivers educated, especially those from outside the region. The larger issue of road safety requires a far wider effort as it involves matters of infrastructure along with the administrative and policing issues. The police are often held responsible for both traffic jams and casualties on roads. However, as demonstrated by the death of a family of four when a car plunged into the Rajasthan canal in Muktsar district on January 17 while avoiding a pothole, civil engineering and maintenance issues often prove fatal. In such cases, officers responsible for the particular stretch of the road should also be made liable for the accident. Simple road markings and warning lights at critical locations could mean the difference between life and death. And these measures don't have to wait for major budgetary allocations. Road safety is also directly related to the overall development level of the country. As far as fatal accidents are concerned, roads with medians make a world of difference as head-on traffic is avoided. Fatality rates are far higher on highways in the countryside than the high-traffic expressways, which are better built and administered. States also need to coordinate the implementation of various aspects of the Motor Vehicle Act as well as state or city-specific restrictions, which lead to confusion among visiting drivers. When everyone else fails, it is the driver who has to take charge of his and his passengers' safety. Drive safe.
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That man is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much. —Robert Louis Stevenson
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Commenting upon the Punjab Government's order of the forfeiture of the security and of the Press in the Zamindar case, the Leader (Allahabad) urges the repeal of the Press Act. Our contemporary says: We repeat that it is not the merits of the Zamindar's articles that are in question. We have never read them, and willingly presume that they are as bad as the Punjab Government thinks them to be. The relevant point, however, is that once the reign of discretion is substituted for the reign of law, once the opinion of the executive Government is made the last word on a matter, once regular judicial proceedings are abandoned in favour of arbitrary or capricious executive will, the security enjoyed by pressmen is gone, they exist only by sufferance and have to constantly feel that anything may happen the next day to restrain them in the due discharge of their duty as honest, loyal and independent citizens. Glut in the cloth market WITH regard to the glut in the Calcutta cloth market, which was reported last week, further details show that it confines to Manchester white piece-goods only and the loss is estimated at 70 lakhs. There is an overstock of nearly 70,000 bales with the big cloth merchants which are not disposed of owing, it is believed, to the impoverished condition of the people on account of famine in the U.P. and the stoppage of marriages among the Hindus during the last few months. About 150 dealers therefore have drawn up an agreement with a religious vow to stop purchases from Manchester for the next four months. It is further stated that grey goods are unaffected. Dealers in prints and woollen goods are not affected. This seems to indicate that the overstock is not due to famine alone but probably to the speculative methods adopted in forward contracts and overstocking foreign goods.
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Egypt is not back to square one Has
Egypt come full circle? Not so long ago, there was the promise of the Arab Spring - first Tunisia, then Egypt, with others to follow. The country's long-time President Hosni Mubarak was deposed and put on trial. And Egypt's first genuinely democratically elected President in its fabled long history, Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, was duly installed.
It was an unduly heavy burden on Mr Morsi; he was in fact the substitute choice, with the first being disqualified on a technicality. The surprise was that the Army, the main power base since the days of the Nasser coup in the 1950s, let the Brotherhood candidate win. But then things began to go wrong. Besieged by an extreme Muslim faction, with backroom boys managing and ensuring the Brotherhood's longevity, the Army was waiting for a popular upsurge to pull the plug. Last July, it did, and Egypt was in familiar territory, with the Army in full command, hiding behind a civilian façade. And it supervised the formulation of a new constitution to override the version of the Brotherhood formally sanctified though a referendum of sorts. And there was another referendum after a fashion, with dissenters unable to propagate their views. After a minority participation just slightly above the last time round, the referendum was overwhelmingly approved. And another General, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, is the new man on the white charger about to throw his hat into the ring - of course, by popular demand. Mr Mubarak is very much on familiar territory. His old trial has been quashed and he is being tried again together with his two sons. The question Egyptians and the world are asking is: Are we back to square one? If not, what has changed? The Muslim Brotherhood is again a proscribed organisation. In its turbulent history of 85 years, the Brotherhood has frequently been banned and has operated clandestinely. At other times, it was tacitly tolerated, but a constant in its activities has been the extensive social and feeding network it has maintained for the poor, also looking after them in other ways. Apart from its welfare activities, the ban will ensure that the Brotherhood will operate clandestinely. Contrary to the popular saying, history never quite repeats itself, and the Egyptian people and society, singed by the flames of the Arab Spring, will never be the same again, however hard the Army tries to restore its supremacy. Apart from the continuing activities of the Brotherhood, those who first rebelled against Mubarak and then against Morsi will not for long remain quiescent under Army rule. The Brotherhood thought it had bought time in leaving the Army alone to run the Defence Ministry and its vast economic empire, but it simply made too many mistakes to whet the appetite of the Army to return to the driver's seat. An important external factor is involved. Ever since Anwar el-Sadat sued for peace with Israel in exchange for the return of the conquered Sinai Peninsula in the 1967 war and the Americans extracted a peace treaty between Cairo and Israel, Egypt has been rewarded with billions of military and economic aid every year. As the most populous Arab country, it serves to protect Israel and looks after American geopolitical interests. The fall of Mubarak presented a dilemma for Washington, and it decided finally to side with the popular movement, much to the distress of Israel and other countries such as Saudi Arabia. The counter-coup of General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi was so welcome to the Saudis that they, together with some fellow members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, put together a tidy packet of $ 12 billion to pull Egypt out of its dire economic straits. Apart from the generous American military assistance, there have been extensive military-to-military cooperation and regular training programmes for Egyptian officers. Military interchanges between the two countries continue. Though maintaining the fiction of a coup not being a coup, the US never cut off military assistance to Egypt during the post-coup period, apart from trimming some symbolic programmes. The problem for the Egyptian Army and the likely new President is that, having tasted the power of mass upheavals, General Sisi is unlikely to enjoy untrammelled power for long, despite his minions' efforts to club him with the hero in public imagination, Gamel Abdel Nasser, in the posters they flaunt at public gatherings. Egypt's tragedy is that the historic pattern of Army rule after the overthrow of the King, often under a civilian façade, is an institution of diminishing returns. Apart from the proscribed Muslim Brotherhood, which will continue to work underground, the young will experience their disillusionment with military rule sooner, rather than later. A cycle of new agitations will then begin because, once having tasted freedom, for however brief a while, the young will not remain subdued for long. The old passion for Arab brotherhood, so heady a mixture in the early Nasser days, has waned considerably, and the young, buffeted by winds of freedom and liberty, are no longer consoled by slogans of Arab unity. They rooted for General Sisi to get rid of the regime of the first and only Muslim Brotherhood government. The Army leadership's challenges will mount as the young find their freedoms curtailed over time. It is, indeed, ironical that Mubarak, once an accused, will now be smiling to himself even as his former colleagues in the Army have begun a new chapter, which promises him a possible new life. He is already out of prison and is under house arrest. Indeed, the hordes of anti-Mubarak protesters that forced him to leave office, though historically recent, seem like a distant memory. General Sisi's expected assumption of the presidency underlines the circular nature of Egyptian politics. The moral of the story is that although real change in the Egyptian political structure has been stalled, it cannot go back to square one. The world is changing, and the information and technological revolution that has happened will not permit countries such as Egypt in the heart of the Arab world to stand still. The change, as and when it takes place, is unlikely to be tidy.
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The excitement of being a golf lady Contrary to my fears I found dozens of officers' wives residing on the campus, quite active and engaged in various social activities. The command frequently organised plays and dramas for recreation. Our spacious residence had also had a young newly married couple as our neighbour. The wife named Simi had British parents and was married when her Indian husband was undergoing his training in the United Kingdom. I had joined the Golf Club managed by the naval establishment in a track of green turf close to the lake. Some months after Simi's husband occupied the adjacent banglow, she too joined the club, although she had never played golf before. She hoped to learn the basics from me. Her husband joined too. One Sunday morning, accidentally during practice, she hit the ball towards a wrong direction which struck me directly on my left cheek. At that moment I was explaining Simi how to tee off at the commencement of the game. The golf ball hit me hard, resulting in a swollen face. I was immediately rushed to the base hospital. After first aid, it referred me to the military command hospital, Pune. Within two hours I was in the command military hospital and was admitted to the officers' family ward. My badly hurt left jaw as well as the left cheek was well attended to. Slowly word spread around that a lady golf player hurt while playing was admitted to hospital in the family ward. The evening passed by quietly and I had a peaceful sleep. I was informed by the ward nurses that I might be discharged after two days. However, the next morning at about 8 I noticed the Major General Commandant of the hospital, accompanied by his wife and three senior doctors, approaching my bed. From a distance of four metres the Commandant addressed me in a loud voice, saying "where is the golf lady? Welcome to this hospital, our best wishes for your speedy recovery." His wife, who was holding a bouquet of flowers, advanced and placed it on my bed. I was touched by this surprise gesture and thanked them. The Commandant then came forward, smiled and said softly, "Good lady will of course get well soon and leave this hospital, but I feel that it is for the first time in my hospital career that I have a chance to medicure a golf lady. Please do not ever discard your golf". He was a dedicated golf player. After a few months we met some Japanese golf lovers at a party. They showed interest in my golf episode. Very appropriately, they invited us to visit their ship and play mini golf on board the ship with no chance of injury! |
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Namdeo Dhasal : A Poet Panther when
by marshalling the suns burning in the blood, advances the poetry of Namdeo Dhasal, I become spellbound by experience of its revolutionary fervour. It has since long demolished all the bridges of compromise and vowed to destroy the established system in its entirety." This is the eloquent way eminent Marathi playwright the late Vijay Tendulkar had described the poetry of this great Panther who breathed his last on this January 15, after losing the battle with colorectal cancer. Poetry as tool Namdeo Dhasal considered poetry as a weapon to be used in the class struggle. For him, writing poetry was akin to initiating a political action. He had absolute clarity about his role and the use of the medium. For him, words were like real bullets and were not to be wasted like shots from a toy gun; but were to be used carefully. He knew very well what he is saying when he wrote the lines like “I am the venereal sore in the private part of language”. When in his poem “Man, you should explode,” he said, Man, you should drink human blood, eat spit roast human flesh, melt human fat and drink it Smash the bones of your critics' shanks on hard stone blocks to get their marrow, it took a time to understand the pain and anguish behind this cry. Born in 1949, in a village Pur-Kanersar near Pune, this only child who survived for his parents, moved with them to Mumbai in the year when Capitol Cinema outside VT station was showing Mother India. His father use to work as a porter for the butcher and found shelter in Dhor Chawl in Central Mumbai where city's oldest red-light area Kamathipura is located. Pain of people Here, 10-15 human beings used to live in every single room in hardly human conditions. In his early life in the village he had lived, seen and realised the stigma of being a Dalit; here in Mumbai he was with the people who were the most oppressed by the system. He grew up absorbing the pain of people around him who were pimps, sex workers, money lenders, drug addicts, petty criminals, contract killers, street urchins, gangsters, singers and mujra dancers, folk balladeers, tamasha artists, coolies, immigrant labourers, food vendors, and all sorts of people. His teacher in school was a master of old Marathi literature and he shared everything with Namdeo. He felt the deep impact of Dr Ambedkar and his teachings and in one of the poems he says: You didn't allow your followers to hero worship you. I have committed this crime after you were gone. I couldn't do without writing The poetry of your achievement-(From "Tujhe Bot Dharoon Chalalo Ahe Mee"). Life’s mission His sensibilities were also nurtured by memories of music from tamasha, which his close relatives were a part of and also religious traditions of the Varkari Sampradaya and Nath sects. Everyone and everything he saw, lived by and with, found voice in his poetry, obviously for achieving the mission of his life. And that life mission was to oppose all forms of exploitation. He considered his poetry as a product of spontaneous commitment to his mission. His first collection of poetry, Golpitha was published in 1972. Vijay Tendulkar described the world known as "Golpitha in the city of Mumbai, begins where the frontier of Mumbai's white-collar ends and no-man's land opens up. This collection is a landmark in Marathi poetry. He knew Mumbai inside out and captured shades of last grade of life in essence and presented it with a strong desire to overthrow this system in a language which was till then unknown. It shocked Marathi literature and its readers and dazzled the critics. His later collections of poetry are Moorkh Mhataryane Dongar Halvile ; Tujhi Iyatta Kanchi?; Mee Marle Sooryachya Rathache Ghode Saat; Tujhe Bot Dharun Chalalo Ahe Mee; Khel; Priyadarshini, Ya Sattet Jeev Ramat Nahi. He wrote two novels and was a regular columnist. His writings had an indelible impact on the Dalit movement and literature of the age. Namdeo was awarded the Padma Shri, the Soviet Land Nehru Award ans was the only writer to be conferred with the Special Sahitya Akademi Golden Jubilee Award as Life Time Achievement Award in 2004. In 2001, he was a special invitee at the Berlin literary festival. Politics of protest Namdeo was the co-founder of the mass movement Dalit Panther in 1972 as an inspiration from the American Black Panther Movement. This inspired thousands of Dalit youths across Maharashtra for continuous action and protest against the oppression that Dalits faced. He had a smile that could befriend anyone. His individual and collective life had been through such tremendous upheavals that he was once beaten and left for dead and suffering from myasthenia gravis since 1980; he felt that he could reach this far only because he had poetry to fall back upon. Though he addressed the rallies attended by half a million people at Shivaji Park he always wanted to be with people. He loved crowds and was always eager to hear that roar of consent from them. The renowned bilingual writer and critic late Dilip Chitre, who selected, introduced and translated Namdeo Dhasal's poems under the title “Namdeo Dhasal, Poet of the Underworld”, says that “He is not just the foremost among Marathi Dalit poets. He is arguably the foremost Marathi poet, one of the foremost poets of India and a poet of world stature. It seems to me that Namdeo is a great poet because he understands that great poetry integrates rather than divides humanity, becoming the anguished expression of the human condition in its own space and time”. Transcending narrow barriers Poets of Namdeo's stature are literary artists first: Their nationality, language, race and cast are transcended by their human achievement in voicing a new awareness of their creative identity as human beings." This voice can be heard in Allhu Akbar where Namdeo Dhasal writes: Sparrows of darkness clustered on the eyes are flying away I see the legs of homeless urchins in the graveyard/ Let's filter out the Shia and the Sunni dargahs inside ourselves Let's weep upon every grave/ Allhu Akbar” The eminent Marathi writer Vyankatesh Madgulkar, had once said about his own writings that if he had eaten four-day-old pieces of rotis wrapped in piece of cloth after dipping for loosening them in a stream of water, his language would carry their smell. If I have to name one poet, whose poetry carried that odour/ smell/ stench of pain, humiliation, suffering, agony, anguish and the anger, raw courage, desire and commitment to destroy the system which created this and everything related to it for unification of humanity, I will name Namdev Dhasal. Dhasal is survived by his wife, writer-poet Mallika Amar Shaikh, a son and countless admirers. Rest in peace Panther! — (The other two translations of his poems are from Golpitha, 1972, and all three have been translated into English by Dilip Chitre) — The writer can be contacted at
1.nilkanth@gmail.com
Dhasal’s works (Holding Your Finger I Walk On) Prose (Buddha Dharma: Some Leftover Questions)
Life course
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