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Seeking clarity
Cruelty in marriage |
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Calling freedom fighters ‘terrorists’
Goodbye to typewriter
Why Crimea is vital to Russia
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Seeking clarity All
227 passengers and 12 crew members are missing and there are still no answers about what exactly happened aboard one of the most reliable airliners, a Boeing 777, that was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on Saturday. It vanished over the Gulf of Thailand. In today's hyper-connected world, it is hard to imagine that a large commercial airliner could simply vanish from radar screens. It did and days later, it still remains elusive as a massive flotilla of naval and air vessels from nine nations search for the survivors, or signs
of the aircraft. In the absence of facts, many theories abound -bomb, mechanical failure, hijacking, pilot error-anything and everything is being speculated even as families of the passengers and crew members struggle to come to terms with their dismal uncertainties. Five of the passengers are Indian citizens. It is now clear that some of the passengers travelled on false passports, something that should be of concern to security agencies worldwide. Since this aircraft disappeared and could not be found, the case of an Air France jet flying from Brazil to France has often been cited. All 228 people on board that plane were lost. The Airbus 330 was lost in the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009. Its flight recorder was recovered two years later. Even as thousands of rescuers are focusing their effort at locating the Malaysia Airlines flight, there is growing realisation that the task could take longer than anticipated. The difficulty in finding the crash site would also give rise to renewed demands of better technological means that would allow aircraft to communicate their coordinates and crucial data on a regular basis with ground stations. Tragedies and the media attention that comes with them can bring about change. There is no doubt that such a change is needed to improve air
safety.
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Cruelty in marriage Reflective
of the mismatched evolution of genders in urban India, a 29-year-old woman was accused of cruelty by her husband for donning pants, going out of town for office work soon after marriage and refusing sex during honeymoon. These arguments given in support of divorce on the ground of cruelty were found convincing enough for her marriage to be dissolved by a family court, reflecting the confusion that prevails in judiciary about the interpretation of marriage laws. Fortunately, for her, the Bombay High Court turned the decision in her
favour, stating that only sustained unjustified and reprehensible conduct affecting physical and mental health of the other spouse could lead to mental cruelty. The Rajya Sabha passed the Marriage Amendment Bill in 2013, giving hope to a growing number of couples stuck in matrimonial discords due to legal difficulties. The liberal proposals of the Bill promised shifting the 'fault-based' approach to the grant of divorce under irretrievable breakdown of marriage. But it could not become an Act. With the number of pending divorce cases growing in courts, the legal machinery devised a way to reduce the sufferings of warring couples. A few lawyers are trained to work as mediators, who help couples reach a mutually acceptable solution within the present legal framework. Their approach is aimed at rehabilitating the couple, instead of punishing the 'faulty' partner. Due to the limitations of the law, the clause of cruelty is used to seek divorce. With the mediators' help couples are now persuaded for a mutual divorce if no reconciliation is possible to reduce bitterness and suffering for both sides. By manipulating the existing provisions, even the cooling off period is reduced. Then, the Domestic Violence Act has helped women in such cases. Since cruelty as a ground for divorce remains admissible despite its vagueness and varied interpretations, it will be in tune with the changing social reality to legalise
pre-nuptial agreements.
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I had to live in the desert before I could understand the full value of grass in a green ditch. — Ella Maillart
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THE second forecast estimates the area under wheat in British districts at 8,169,109 acres. This is 6 per cent more than in the first forecast issued last December and only 4 and 1 per cent less than in the second and final forecasts of last year. The increase over the first estimate is due to useful falls of rain on the 12th and 22nd of December. The largest increases occurred in the Rohtak, Kangra, Ferozepore, Lahore and Lyallpur districts. As compared with last year's final area of the Ambala division shows a decrease of 34 per cent and the Rawalpindi division an increase of 18 per cent, while the other divisions show lesser variations. The irrigated area is estimated to amount to 4,541,500 acres or 56 per cent of the total area. The season has been fairly favourable except in the Ambala division, where the rainfall since the end of November has been insignificant. Elsewhere showers in December and at the beginning of January and February kept the unirrigated crops from withering, and since the district reports were received excellent rain has fallen north of the Sutlej between the 13th and 21st of February. REPORT is received of a desperate fight that took place between four armed dacoits and a handful of police in the Jalaun district of the United Provinces. On the 27th February a dacoity took place in the Rampura circle and Sub Inspector Ramzan Ali was investigating the case. He got information that four of the dacoits were hiding in a house in a village, to which Ramzan Ali repaired with two constables and some chowkidars. They surrounded the houses where the dacoits had concealed themselves. The latter, seeing themselves trapped, rushed out with drawn swords and guns and fired at the police also shot the dacoits and pursued them. The result of it all was that Ramzan Ali is said to be in very serious condition. This heroic fight with armed dacoits is the most praiseworthy act of the police and deserves to be noticed by the public.
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Calling freedom fighters ‘terrorists’ Foreign rulers always claim that their regimen is benign and helps the subjects. The British are no exception. They say the same thing about their governance. But if their atrocities were to be enumerated the record would be brutal. The credit for not defaming the British for their 150-year rule goes to the Indians who have taken the past in their stride and have even joined the Commonwealth with the Queen as the symbol of unity. Still the British have never said or written a good word about India's generosity in not raking up the past. However, the British go on running down the movement for Independence and those who participated in it. It is heartening to find Pakistan allocating money to preserve the house in which Bhagat Singh lived when he was young. Indeed, all those who suffered at the hands of Britain before partition are heroes in all the three countries, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India. I wish they would recall their sacrifices to tell their people that they share the same history, the same heritage and the same agony at the hands of the British. One glaring example of British cruelty is that of the Jallianwala Bagh tragedy (April 13, 1919)-a milestone for the nationalists towards the journey to the destination of Independence. Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer, who was given control of Amritsar by Lt. Governor of Punjab Michael O'Dwyer, chose April 13, the day of harvest festival, Baisakhi, for his revenge. To vent their protest against the Rowlett Act, which gave the rulers the power to detain anyone without trial, some 20,000 people had collected in a garden, called Jallianwala Bagh, a stone's throw from the Golden Temple. Dyer set the police on the gathering like hunters unchaining their ferocious hounds to bring the pursued animal to bay. He purposely blocked the garden's only gate to prevent anyone from escaping from the place. Targeted by machine guns, men, women and children had no escape or respite from the bullets till the police exhausted their ammunition. As many as 1,650 rounds were fired. Scores of people jumped into the garden's only well, a mute witness to that barbarous massacre. Some 400 people died on the spot and more than 1,500 were injured. London too was horrified. It recalled Dyer who, appearing before an inquiry committee, said that he had done his duty. He expressed no regret. Nor was he admonished. Some in the British political hierarchy rationalised that he had saved Punjab from "anarchy." Then a few years later the British hanged hundreds in Balia, a town on the border of UP and Bihar, for having declared independence on the Quit India day, August 9, 1942. Bodies were dangled on trees for days to teach a lesson to the freedom fighters. The Indian revolutionaries were not deterred and recalled Bhagat Singh's execution. The rulers, who considered Mahatma Gandhi "an anarchist", could go to any limit to denigrate the freedom movement. The revolutionaries compared themselves with the insects which burnt themselves to keep the earthen lamps alight. Had they not done so, the thousands who went to jail or laid down their lives would not have got the inspiration their martyrdom evoked. Bhagat Singh, a prolific writer, had explained what killing meant to them: “We attach great sanctity to human life, we regard man's life as sacred…We would sooner lay down our lives in the service of humanity than injure anyone.” There was no revenge, no vendetta. “These actions (killings),” he said, “have their political significance in as much as they serve to create a mentality and an atmosphere which shall be very necessary to the final struggle. That is all.” Mahatma Gandhi, who was against the violent methods of revolutionaries, admired these martyrs when they were executed. He said: “Bhagat Singh and his comrades have been executed and have become martyrs. Their death seems to have been a personal loss to many. I join in the tributes paid to the memory of these young men. And yet I must warn the youth of the country against following their example. We should not utilize our energy, our spirit of sacrifice, our labours and our indomitable courage in the way they have utilized theirs. This country must not be liberated through bloodshed.” Mahatma Gandhi was against violence in any shape. During the non-cooperation movement in 1920, when more than 30,000 people went to jail, the agitation, which looked like defeating the British, was withdrawn. Students who had renounced their studies, lawyers their practice, doctors their clinics and civil servants their jobs and rallied behind the Mahatma from all over the country felt cheated. Foreign goods were boycotted. Piles of textiles were burnt in public to protest against imported cloth from Lancashire and Birmingham. Gandhiji wanted the British to "declare in clear terms a policy of absolute non-interference with all non-violent activities in the country." Indeed, non-cooperation was the biggest non-violent movement the Indians had ever launched against the British. Gandhiji's sudden withdrawal of the movement was because he did not approve of villagers from Chauri Chaura, near Gorakhpur in UP, turning violent. On February 12, 1921, they took out a procession past a local police station to protest against British rule. Towards the end, the process was jeered at by the police, provoking the people to retaliate. Angry policemen then started firing on them and went on doing so till their ammunition was exhausted. Three men were killed and many injured. Gandhiji withdrew the movement but did not utter a word to condemn the police. The British should not rub salt into our wounds. By denigrating our heroes like Bhagat Singh and Chandrasekhar Azad they only challenge the heritage of the freedom movement. They will be well advised not to do so.
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Goodbye to typewriter An opportunity came soon as my ship was required to sail for Maputo, capital of Mozambique. We regretfully noted that the Portuguese rulers had just vacated the town en masse handing over the administration to the local African people in a hurry. However, the changeover was orderly and there was no bloodbath. In its wisdom the new administration locked hundreds of vacated posh bungalows located facing the Indian ocean and kept them vacant rather than allowing them to be occupied by people in general. The new African owners of well-stocked departmental stores showed the required skills of management and currency control. Well-educated smart young African ladies started managing these as before. My eyes were looking for a good typewriter and I spotted one. The price quoted was just one US dollar per piece. I brought one to my ship as a cherished item for future personal use. My ship sailed for the port of Kobe, Japan, with a cargo of chrome ore. We spent two more months in the South Korea, China and Manila waters. According to the ship's schedule, she was to touch Mumbai after 20 days where my wife and I had to sign off for leave. We calculated that we were carrying excess personal baggage for which a heavy custom levy was most likely. It was the month of December and I was carrying my winter black uniform with stripes similar to those worn by customs officers. My wife suggested and took out my uniform coat with four sleeve stripes to be slung on my left arm. During the prevailing rush the customs officer glanced at my left arm smiled and wished me. He avoided looking at the hand baggage, took the passports from my hand, stamped those and we were clear. On arrival in Chandigarh, I looked at the portable typewriter. I had forgotten that it was more than a year when I had thought of buying one. My son showed me a laptop and the computer set up by him in his room. He showed no interest in my new typewriter. Finally, I had to gift it to my advocate friend to be used by his staff! Those days of typewriter were over! I had forgotten about this changeover when my grandson, aged 15, came to Chandigarh from the USA to stay with us. He was with me in the Sector 17 Estate Office when I went there to get an affidavit to be signed by a public notary. Suddenly, he stopped and started looking closely at the row of typewriters with immense curiosity. The use of carbon papers further amused him. No comments on his observations! He had not seen a typewriter before!
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Why Crimea is vital to Russia
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us conduct two thought experiments. First, hard as it is, let’s imagine Vladimir Putin is a committed democrat and Russia is a fully consolidated democracy. Given its history and geopolitics, the place of Kiev in Russia’s cultural and national identity, and the strategic importance of Crimea for Russia’s security, would a democratic Putin and Russia have reacted differently to the challenge to core interests posed by recent Ukrainian developments? Not a chance. Now imagine — this is less hard — that instead of the wimp Barack Obama as caricatured by the testosterone-fuelled right-wing American hawks, the US President was their hero Ronald Reagan or even Richard Nixon. Could/would they have confronted a heavily nuclear-armed Russia’s move to retake Crimea (“gifted” to Ukraine voluntarily by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1954) any differently? Nyet, nada, not a chance. We need not even guess on this one — NATO was equally impotent in Hungary 1956, and then again in Czechoslovakia in 1968. As Mahatma Gandhi warned, an eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind. However it turns out, this is not the West’s fight to lose. Which suggests we should take a deep breath and calm down. The crisis is a perfect illustration of the ancient dictum by Thucydides in the fifth century BC: The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must. It does not portend a new Cold War. Such talk is beyond foolish. There is zero prospect of Russia re-emerging as a global military challenger to the US anytime soon; posing an ideological challenge to democracy; or resurrecting the command model of socialist economics to counter today’s dominant market principles.
Russian reaction In terms of classical realism and balance-of-power politics, Ukraine’s actions were dangerously provocative to its great power neighbour; Russia’s reactions were entirely predictable in its core sphere of influence; and America’s impotence neither reflects its true power nor is an authentic test of credibility or will to act when its vital interests are under threat. Australia’s Tom Switzer makes the case in such classical realist terms (“Putin’s side of history,” The American Conservative, March 5), as well as the old war horse Henry Kissinger (“How the Ukraine crisis ends,” The Washington Post, March 6). Harvard University’s Stephen Walt writes: “tough-minded realism is a better guide to foreign policy than liberal idealism or neoconservative bluster” (“No contest,” Foreign Policy, March 3). As Kissinger remarked when the Argentine junta foolishly invaded the Falkland Islands in 1982, a great power does not retreat forever. Russia is a traditional European great power that was comprehensively defeated in the Cold War. The West has treated it as if it had been militarily defeated and conquered. Instead it reacts like a wounded great power when NATO expands its borders to the limits of Russia’s territory, betraying Moscow’s understandings on the terms of its acquiescence to Cold War defeat. Putin has described the dissolution of the Soviet Union as the last century’s greatest geopolitical disaster. We rubbed its nose repeatedly in the dirt of its historic Cold War defeat, blind to — nay, disdainful of — its interests and complaints. Now we act surprised that it carries a grievance and resentment, and reacts like any great power would when we engineer a coup in its front garden to oust a democratically elected leader because he is pro-Russian? Of course, great powers can no longer ride roughshod over other countries’ sovereign rights and a robust norm has developed against wars of aggression. But the West’s position is even weaker normatively in confronting Putin over his move into Crimea. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned Washington that the 2003 illegal Iraq invasion risked opening the Pandora’s box of unilateral aggressions. Some of us warned — in the pages of The International Herald Tribune, no less (“Let’s decide what kind of world we want,” April 17, 2003) — that the Iraq war risked moving the world from the rule of law to the law of the jungle. I then asked: “Saddam Hussein is insignificant. The real issue is: What sort of world do we wish to live in, who do we wish to be ruled by, and do we want to live by rules and laws or by the force of arms?” John Kerrey declares in the 21st century, you cannot just invade countries on a “completely trumped-up pretext.” This from the Secretary of State of a country that did exactly that without the excuse of vital security interests being under threat to a country on the other side of the world; and from a man who voted for that war (having voted against the fully justified Gulf War I and who more recently described the military coup in Egypt as a restoration of democracy). So much for satire. It’s tempting to say of him that he is preparing to mount the charge of the lightweight brigade.
How the West sees it When Washington and London warn that acts of aggression have costs and consequences, they should first hold a mirror to the recent history of their own countries: self-parody trumps self-righteousness. The US and NATO examples of unilateral use of force, generally at a considerable distance from home shores, are at least as many and often much more clearly aggressive rather than defensive, as the history of Russian acts of aggression against other countries. In terms of provocations, justifications, the killings unleashed, etc., US condemnations of Russia betray rank hypocrisy and double standards. Ukraine’s previous president was legitimately elected; the notorious “f… the EU” taped comment from Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland proved US interference in Ukraine’s internal politics to replace the elected president through street protests; the new government did pass measures stripping Ukrainian ethnic Russians of key minority rights; Crimea was part of Russia in the not too distant past; it is a strategic lifeline for a major power; etc. By contrast, no conceivable way was Iraq in 2003 a threat to vital US (or UK and Australian) interests and people. Worse, when Yugoslavia began to disintegrate after the Cold War, Europe insisted on the right of its provinces to self-determination and quickly recognised their independence. When Kosovo, part of Serbia since the Middle Ages, wanted to secede, NATO bombed Belgrade into submission. Crimea was part of Russia since the reign of Catherine the Great. By the logic of the Balkans in the 1990s, if Ukraine resists Crimea’s wish to reunite with Russia, NATO should be bombing Kiev into submission? Or perhaps Putin should go one better than an op-ed in The New York Times and quote Shakespeare’s Shylock to Obama: “The villainy you teach me, I will execute; and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.”
Threats of sanctions are also curious. Economic exchanges with Russia are not acts of charity but reflect market efficiency. Sanctions will introduce distortions and thereby impose costs on us also. Indians have a tendency to threaten self-harm (e.g. fast to death) if their demands de jour are not conceded; I did not realise the tactic was spreading to the West. Similarly, how exactly does it profit us if we suspend collaboration with Russia in jointly guarding the vessel that destroys Syria’s deadly chemical arsenal? “There is a pleasure sure in being mad, which none but madmen know.” If the test of policy is not how it starts but how it all ends, as Kissinger reminds us, the most critical factor for the Asia-Pacific is what lessons China reads into all this. It has already given hints that going by US precedents, a first-rate power uses international law to enforce compliance on others but dismisses legal restrictions on its own behaviour as of no consequence. The West has lost the capacity to lay down the law to all others, flout global rules whenever it suits its interests or whim, and dare everyone else to notice. The sooner we return to the belief that the world is better if all countries, even great powers, must be subject to the rule of law, the better. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, all parties should heed Kissinger’s sage advice. Neither side domestically or externally should seek to dominate the other faction, but act on historical perspective and strategic logic to compromise, share power, and let Ukraine be a bridge between two worlds. Westerners are always eager to offer themselves as mediators in conflicts around the world that they often aggravated as colonial rulers, from South Asia to the Middle East and across Africa. India rejects militarisation of disputes and conflicts, promotes political resolutions through diplomatic talks, works to soften the West’s interventionist impulse in the internal affairs of independent states, and is strongly opposed to infringements of territorial integrity and sovereignty (including NATO’s war in Kosovo in 1999 and Iraq in 2003). It also has a better record than any country, bar none, when it comes to functioning institutions of power sharing and accommodation and respect for electoral outcomes, so that all key groups in the country share a stake in the political order. For all these reasons, India is well placed to offer its good offices to help defuse East-West tensions in the Crimea. What it has traditionally lacked is the institutional capacity to connect national aspirations of great power status to global leadership in solving conflicts and other problems, including foreign ministers with the requisite vision and
skills. — The writer is professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University.
Fact file
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