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A well of
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AAP-BJP clashes Police failure, bias to the fore Almost every newspaper headline on Thursday said the same thing: "Kejriwal's detention sparks AAP-BJP clashes". The media, including TV channels, focused on three things: the detention of Arvind Kejriwal and attack on his car in Gujarat; AAP workers' protests outside the BJP offices in Delhi and elsewhere leading to violent clashes. In Delhi 13 AAP activists and 10 BJP supporters were injured. Jhansi, Kanpur and Allahabad also witnessed a similar backlash. This was the day when the Election Commission announced the Lok Sabha poll schedule. It is an ominous beginning. Violence in any form by anyone is unacceptable.
Irremediable
Indian inequalities
‘To
thine own self be true’
Women
claim rights in khap land
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AAP-BJP clashes Almost
every newspaper headline on Thursday said the same thing: "Kejriwal's detention sparks AAP-BJP clashes". The media, including TV channels, focused on three things: the detention of Arvind Kejriwal and attack on his car in Gujarat; AAP workers' protests outside the BJP offices in Delhi and elsewhere leading to violent clashes. In Delhi 13 AAP activists and 10 BJP supporters were injured. Jhansi, Kanpur and Allahabad also witnessed a similar backlash. This was the day when the Election Commission announced the Lok Sabha poll schedule. It is an ominous beginning. Violence in any form by anyone is unacceptable. Arvind Kejriwal's Gujarat visit would not have attracted the media attention that it did had the Gujarat police not detained his cavalcade. There were protests against his visit to Narendra Modi's home state and his car was attacked. Why was no police protection provided to the former Chief Minister of Delhi? Yet the detention and the attack gave AAP workers no right to resort to protests, that too violent, without prior permission of the authorities when the code of conduct had come into force. The police in Delhi, Lucknow and elsewhere waited for clashes to happen before taking action. Why were the workers allowed to gather outside the centrally located BJP office in Delhi? Finally, since the clashes involved workers of both parties, why did the police single out AAP workers for registering cases of rioting and damage to public property against them? Obviously, the police in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat have a lot to answer. In the war of words that followed Wednesday's developments BJP spokespersons were all full of sound and fury, while Arvind Kejriwal, a cool-headed master media strategist, apologised and asked his party workers to maintain calm. Narendra Modi, who is still the Chief Minister of Gujarat, has preferred to keep quiet. Perhaps, he does not want to involve himself in a slanging match with a challenger he calls too small to matter.
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Never a lip is curved with pain that can't be kissed into smiles again. — Bret Harte
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The famine policy and famine grant
One of the chief and lasting benefits conferred by the Government is the alleviation of suffering in times of famine and distress. The Local Governments and the Government of India are alike prompt in adopting measures to reduce distress and to ensure recuperation. They are prompt and liberal in granting suspensions of revenue and taqavi advances to cultivators. Thanks to the labours of successive Famine Commissions, the district officers are untiring in their efforts to study the actual situation and keep themselves fully informed of the extent and intensity of distress. They study the course of prices and the movement of population and recommended the starting test works, relief works and relief kitchens as occasion arises.
The import of gold
In his budget speech the Hon'ble Finance Member has given an interesting statement of the import of gold coins during the last five years and the amounts held at the end of each year in the currency reserve. The net imports of sovereigns and half sovereigns amounted to £9.213 millions in 1909-10 and £8.162 millions in 1910-11. In the next year they rose to £18.228 millions. In 1912-13 the imports fell to 15.236 million and in 1913 up to 31st member they were only 4.838 millions. The heavy fall is the combined effect of agitation in England against depletion of gold in the London money market and the state of trade in our own country. From the drop in the prices of certain commodities, e.g., cotton, we are reminded of what happened to Egypt in 1912. In that year Egypt had a magnificent crop and yet Egyptian securities fell. All enterprise was brought to a standstill. We have it on the authority of the Statist that as a consequence Egypt parted with almost the whole of the gold she obtained 12 months previously from London to either India or to Turkey and that the small amount that was left she returned to London.
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Irremediable Indian inequalities Of course, no one knows how long the revision of the rules would take, especially at election time, and how effective the revised regulations would be. Meanwhile, under the existing rules that require only a favourable report by the police and its approval by the Divisional Commissioner, privileged convicts would go on getting a bonanza of paroles and furloughs. While the hearing of the PIL on the parole issue was in progress, Sanjay Dutt intervened, through his lawyer, to plead: "I am not alone to be on parole". He was both profoundly wrong and partially right at the same time. He was utterly wrong because, according to the court's record, 600 applications for parole had been pending for various lengths of time while the film actor's parole was being extended from month to month. As if this wasn't enough the Nagpur Bench of the High Court was driven to making some justifiably sharp remarks on the subject. Another convict in the same case, imprisoned in Nagpur, had petitioned the court that his daughter had died some time ago but the authorities were neither giving him parole nor denying it, thus dragging their feet. "Is there no humane consideration in such matters", observed the judges, "or is such consideration reserved only for film stars?" And Sanjay Dutt is right only to the extent that in that he is not alone in enjoying the kind of parole privileges available to him. Others belonging to his class are doing equally well. For instance, a convicted murderer serving a life sentence in Delhi's Tihar jail, a son of a powerful politician, also manages to be out of prison either on parole or on medical grounds whenever he likes. He is often seen attending marriages or dining in five-star hotels. All protests against this state of affairs have been of no avail so far. It must be added that after his first trial this young man was set free. Only after huge protests in Delhi on behalf of the young lady he had shot dead a retrial was ordered. What an irony it is that at a time when even the richest and most powerful countries have woken up to the problem of great and growing inequalities and are trying to do something about it, the "Secular and Socialist" Republic of India - to borrow words from the amended Preamble of the Constitution -- is a glaring exception. Here the governing doctrine among the privileged classes is that inequalities are meant to be preserved, and indeed expanded further. Nothing should happen to "people like us" for any reason whatsoever, and to hell with the rest. They deserve whatever they get. To be sure there has been some criticism of the too frequent paroles to Dutt, but among the movers and shakers of Indian society his critics have been denounced, even abused roundly for being "insensitive". "Don't these idiots realise that Sanjay's wife is suffering from TB and needs his presence by her side?" said a socialite the other day. When asked whether the same consideration would apply to other convicts, she scornfully added: "They don't matter". The truth is that what is going on now is a relatively low-key repetition of the "our-poor-Sanju" lament that rent the sky exactly a year ago when the final judgment on the 1993 outrage was delivered by the Supreme Court 20 years after the ghastly blasts. There was a howl by not only movie moguls and Sanjay's fans but also from crème de la crème of Indian elite demanding that the "great actor" must not be sent to jail even for a day; the sentence - mandatory in the case of his offence, according to the apex court -- must be cancelled or commuted. In this cacophony, nothing else about the horrifying case was discussed, not even the inability of the Indian state to bring to book the mastermind of the massive slaughter and destruction of property, Dawood Ibrahim, who was merrily strutting around in Pakistan most of the time, while making short visits to Dubai. A former judge of the Supreme Court, then heading the Press Council, spent most of his time pleading for the remission of the punishment meted out to "Poor Sanju". He wrote letters to the Governor of Maharashtra and the Government of India demanding that under no circumstances should "Sanju" be sent to prison. Almost all the movie moguls of Bollywood and "Sanjay fans" joined the outcry. One particularly loud boss in Indian filmdom argued that he had "reprimanded Sanjay sharply" and that should be enough! The most ridiculous argument for the immediate grant of pardon to Dutt came from the high and mighty among the elite. The famous actor, they said, had become a symbol of "Gandhigiri". Therefore, he should be left free to continue playing this useful role. That was when some people were enraged enough to ask: "When Sanjay was visiting Dawood Ibrahim and his gang regularly and bringing in and storing deadly weapons for them, was he spreading the Mahatma's message?" They also underscored that of the weapons brought in for D-company's murderers, the actor had kept to himself three AK-56s. Having failed to get the sentence passed on Sanjay Dutt remitted, the movers and shakers are now busy ensuring that he stays out of jail for the maximum possible time by hook or by crook. Under these circumstances, please forget Article 14 of the Constitution that ensures every citizen complete equality.
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‘To thine own self be true’ While the best teachers were drawn from all the constituent colleges to teach in the class, tutorials were held in the colleges through which students were enrolled. I had taken admission through Hindu College. The tutor whom I was assigned was a young man who had just come from Oxford with a Doctorate. I was quite impressed by his command over the subject, be it prose, poetry or drama and his style of teaching. I spent 2-3 hours every week with him discussing various topics. Two years passed quickly. My result was out and I had done fairly well. I decided to call upon him, to thank him for the special interest taken by him in me and to finally take leave of him. After chatting for a few minutes, he asked me as to what were my plans. I told him that I had an offer of appointment as a lecturer in the college from where I had done my 'Honours'. He was immensely pleased and congratulated me. I said it was all due to his sincere help and guidance. With all humility, I asked him if he would like to give me any parting advice which might be of use to me in life. He paused for a minute, reflected and asked me if I had read my Shakespeare thoroughly. I was a little taken aback. Sensing my embarrassment, he said, "Now that you hold an M.A degree in your hands, I don't intend to test your knowledge''. I heaved a sigh of relief and said, "Sir, I have read Shakespeare but I cannot say how thoroughly it was". He asked, "Do you recollect what he had said in Hamlet by way of advice". I got the hint and said, "Yes sir, it was Lord Polonious who delivered a long sermon to Laertis in these words: To thine own self be true, And it must follow, as night the day, Thou can't not then be false to any man" He jumped in his chair with ecstasy and remarked, "Yes, this is what I wanted to hear and this is my parting advice to you." I thanked him once again and got up to take leave. He came to the gate to see me off, wished me good luck and while taking a turn repeated, "Be true to thyself". How, I wish I were his student once again at eighty, today. Alas! He is no more. No more in flesh and blood. But his spirit still remains in the form of a chair — Dr Sarup Singh Chair in Kurukshetra University. I bow to it.
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Women claim rights in khap land
Unacknowledged
and unnoticed, a heartening change is surfacing among rural women of Haryana. They are now quietly claiming their inheritance and share in the property for which the government had given them equal legal rights — at par with the males. The projected image of veiled women, walking three steps behind their men is on its way to get transformed. In this connection my recent field work threw up surprising results. The male oriented customary practices sanctified in law by the colonial government safeguarded the land and property in the patrilineal line of descent. After independence there was a total reversal to this practice. The Hindu Succession Act of 1956 legally established equality between males and females in inheritance and property. It evoked sharp resistance among men whose interests were affected. Women too appeared to resist the implementation of the enabling law, as the reigning ideology, culturally and morally had kept them excluded from inheriting property for a long period. With the passage of time there emerged an increasing visibility of cases wherein women demanded their share and in many instances also succeeded in getting it. Significantly these changes have occurred not only among women, the opinion among men has also been fractured on the issue, paving way for change in the cultural patterns, though not without public censure and protest and even violence in some cases. What triggers this change? This change is located in the changed political economy of today, the enormous increase of the land prices in Haryana has brought a rethink among women about claiming their share. The mammoth growth in the number of towns and a three folds increase in urban population since the creation of the state in 1966, accompanied with inclusion of 7 districts out of 19, containing 41.21 per cent of the total population of Haryana in the National Capital Region (NCR), is the basic factor triggering this change. These areas have seen massive escalation in land prices. Land around major NCR towns in Haryana, like Panipat, Sonipat, Rohtak, Bahadurgarh, Rewari, Gurgaon, and Faridabad, has enormous price tags due to demands of urban residential, commercial and industrial expansion. Also in NCR villages one acre of cultivable land in 2013-14, is estimated to approximate to a crore of rupees, if not more; the cost of this land was less than a thousand rupees in 1966. This land and income hunger is reinforced by the rising social expenditure, along with the growing demands of a new generation with a taste of urban life and consumerism. If not land, share money My recent field work showed how some women may still write off or feel compelled to write off their land rights but they are now demanding a share in the sale of the land which has brought huge economic returns in the NCR region. In village Baniara of Rohtak district, for example, which falls under the 'acquisition of land' plans of the Haryana government there has been an unprecedented rise in the price of land. These highly attractive commercial prices have reportedly elicited a response from females resulting in about 10 to 15 married women in this single village to stake their claim for their share in the money which their brothers/fathers have received from the sale of the land. Many women are known to have already received this money. However, there is a shroud of silence regarding this exchange as there continues to be social censure of all such demands. The concerned parties are wary of admitting that they have had to accommodate the demands of the female members of the family. There are other female claimants who are not willing to accept expensive gifts, jewellery etc, in lieu of their share, as being offered by their natal males. In fact, if refused, they are quite willing to move the court to claim their share. Apparently, there is resentment among girls born out of the growing awareness, education and enlightened self-interest for being deprived of their legal rights. One girl pertinently inquired: "Why should my father discriminate between me and my two brothers?" She complained that both her brothers were unemployed. Yet, they were still "enjoying themselves on this money." There are yet other women who ask for their share of land and wish to exercise their option of selling or retaining the land. A steadily growing class of women is claiming their share after several years of not claiming it and despite there being a male heir. In fact, in one case such a demand was made nearly forty years after the marriage and in another after twenty years. In many cases the women concerned initiate their rights only when they find it difficult to make two ends meet. But the brothers show their resentment by cutting off all relations with them. In some cases one sister claims her share, but the other one does not, showing a split of opinion among the females of the same family. Progressive moves In some instances the father divides the property equally between his son/s and daughter/s. Such cases are vehemently denounced by the male siblings, but they have had to accept this arrangement. In other cases the mothers have sided with their daughters and have even opted to stay with them. Such a move, even though against traditional norms, has had a very positive fallout effect on the status and value of females; from being considered a total burden they are now, in many cases, being looked upon more benevolently. Such a change has proved to be good for both the mother as well as the daughter. It leads to the mother being made comfortable and the daughter gaining access to the mother's share and her pension and other benefits. Such moves have of course further alienated the male siblings. In other cases, the divorced daughters are also no longer left on their own as earlier, but accommodated back by the parents into the fold of the natal family and become part takers in the family income. The rural society is also on its way to accept a significant breach in the time-honoured tradition of patrilocality by relocating the husband in the natal village of the wife, allowing and accepting the daughter and her husband to take over the ancestral property. Matriarch in patriarchy Property acquisition by women in some of these cases has meant a de-facto female-headed household. In a complete role reversal the entire agricultural work from sowing and harvesting onwards to the selection of crops and marketing, including that of household and animal husbandry, are being performed by them. This is especially visible in the growing nuclear families, or in cases where the husband may have migrated or is working out side the village or is stricken with some illness. This can only be termed as a major change -and a pro-woman one. These examples underline the changes regarding property rights surfacing not only among women but also among certain men, facilitating females claiming their rights. This attitude and action of the patriarch in sharing the property equally between his sons and daughter as well as the support and encouragement offered by the conjugal family to the daughter-in-law to claim her share indicates a split in the male opinion as well as in patriarchy itself-a factor that is likely to prove to be of tremendous asset to women in the years to come. This 'male support' against 'male opposition' has certainly strengthened women's hands, position and determination. There are of course also women who are moving on their own, without any support from the male members, showing more agency and independence. Such women are setting healthy precedents for others to follow. Disturbing sibling equation Importantly, the general information available in the villages suggests that in case of the death of the patriarch, the Patwari automatically registers the ancestral land in the name of the survivors, be it a girl or a boy. It is only after this first step that the girl legally writes off her property to her brother/s. In defiance to this traditional behaviour, the girls are now 'extremely reluctant' to transfer this land. The exact words used are: "latkaye rakhti hain" (they keep on dithering). Women are fully aware that such actions are 'driving a wedge between them and their brothers'. It is ironical that a sister to keep 'good relations' with her brother must relinquish her share of property or the famed brother-sister love is all but extinguished. The money available to a woman through direct inheritance or by the sale of land inherited by her is thoughtfully spent, underlining her economic acumen and initiative. It is invested well like in building a pucca house in place of a kachcha one, setting up a small business venture, often it goes towards the purchase of milch cattle for the sale of milk. The income generated is used for the entire family. The decision to spend this money lies in woman's hand, though she may have to somewhat struggle to hide or preserve this money, from a possible unemployed and alcoholic husband, for implementing her decisions. The claiming of her share changes the quality of her life and that of her family members for the better. It also leads to a woman assuming a position in which she is not a mere drag on house-hold resources, as generally considered, but an active contributor, having become an earner from a non-earner. As a contributor she exercises her freedom to take both individual and joint decisions. Recent research has also shown the lessening of domestic violence in such cases, as she comes into her own she can be seen as openly defying marital violence refusing to take it in her stride as she had done earlier. A well-known scholar of gender studies, the writer has authored several books including The Veiled Women: Shifting Gender Equations In Rural Haryana and Gender Discrimination in Land Ownership.
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ALL honour to the Bombay High Court for putting its foot down on the ease with which actor Sanjay Dutt, a convict for his role in the horrendous 1993 serial blasts in the western metropolis, has been able to get extension after extension of his parole, initially granted only for a month. The honourable judges have underscored that since going to Yerwada jail last year, he had spent 40 per cent of the time out of it because he was earlier allowed a month's furlough. Obviously, all this has happened simply because of his clout and influence while the parole applications of sons of a lesser God have been gathering dust in one government office or the other. No wonder the court directed the state government to set up a committee under the chairmanship of the Chief Secretary to revise the existing rules for parole and furlough so that all prisoners could be treated fairly and equitably.
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