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Stalwarts sally forth Shakti Mills rape |
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Leadership vacuum & moral bankruptcy
The orange rage of spring
Closer scrutiny on Service Chiefs’ selection
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Stalwarts sally forth The
fifth list of candidates announced by the Congress throws some old warhorses into the poll fray, pitching Captain Amarinder Singh against the BJP’s Arun Jaitley in Amritsar, the former Punjab Chief Minister’s reluctance to contest notwithstanding. By fielding Singh, the party has made an interesting choice, and put up a strong candidate. Although not a resident of Amritsar, the Congress candidate can be considered an outsider, a charge also levelled against Jaitley. The announcement of the selection of Ambika Soni for Anandpur Sahib comes even as the sitting MP Ravneet Singh Bittu had already begun his campaign. Soni will take on Prem Singh Chandumajra, a senior Akali leader. A perusal of the fifth list shows stiffening of resolve within the Congress. By fielding strong candidates, the party has finally signalled to its cadres that it will give a strong fight during the forthcoming elections. The strategy of putting up regional stalwarts against BJP heavyweights is a shrewd one, which may yield some result. Fielding a senior party leader like Soni, who has not fought in any Lok Sabha election, is a risky one, but one that may also pay dividends. In the last few days, we have seen a change in the attitude of Congressmen. From being on the back foot, they can now be seen ‘stiffening their sinews and conjuring up the blood’ for the impending electoral battle. There is no doubt that they face a tough fight, but the disarray in the ranks of all political parties indicates that it may well not be the one-sided show is was projected to be. Surely it would enable the people to select from the best candidates of each party, a choice that they may have been denied had not such candidates been fielded. Of course, each selection leaves behind its own heartburn and it is for the candidates to work at winning over their colleagues, and eventually the voters. The coming days will show how well they fare.
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Shakti Mills rape Four
men were given life sentence by a fast-track court for raping a telephone operator in the heart of Mumbai last year in July. Three of them were also found guilty of raping a 22-year-old photojournalist of an English magazine at the same deserted compound, just a month later. The sentence in the second case is expected on Monday. If this is the state of security of women in the city considered to be safest for women, how unsafe their existence must be in small towns and villages. Two facts further compound these worries — two of the convicts had criminal records and were under police scrutiny when they dared to commit the crime. Second, the telephone operator would never have reported her rape had it not been followed by the rape of the photojournalist, which triggered unprecedented outrage in public and the media and a rapid response from the Mumbai police. This is indicative of the magnitude of unreported cases of sexual crime even among educated women. It is the process a rape victim has to undergo at multiple levels—from a medical checkup to the filing of an FIR — that discourages them from taking legal recourse. Many rape convicts are repeat offenders. The conviction rate in the rape cases remains as low as 24 per cent, while three rapes are committed in India every hour. Under the new laws, life imprisonment is meant for the remaining natural life of the convict, which one hopes will work as a deterrent. Such cases are a serious indictment of the failure of the administrative and criminal justice system that emboldens criminals. This particular case was fast-tracked due to pressure from public outrage, but nearly 24,000 such cases are pending in the Supreme Court and higher courts, according to the law ministry. It’s time the issue of women’s security became part of the mainstream political agenda in the forthcoming elections and in shaping future government policy to ensure the dignity of women. Else, cases like the Shakti Mills rape case will continue to shame the country.
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Your inner peace is a choice, and it has nothing to do with what other people do or think. — Gerald Jampolsky
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We have already observed that the introduction of a Bill to make contempt of court a substantive offence and to take cognizance of every form of criticism of judicial proceedings and conduct of the men will become another instrument of terror to the press and the public. We note that the Statesman is by no means in a mood to welcome the Bill and it has pointed out some of the dangers of the proposal. With reference to the claim that modern opinion is in favour of treating contempt as a substantive offence, our Calcutta contemporary says, this is only true when the qualification is added that the case should be tried before a jury, and asks whether the Bill provides for trial by jury. “If not,” it says, “the extension of the doctrine of contempt is not in harmony with the modern spirit”. The Indian budget
ON Saturday last Sir William Meyer presented the budget for 1914-15. As we fully anticipated in our notice of the Financial Statement a few necessary alterations have been made both in the Revised budget for 1913-14 and in the estimates for 1914-15. It is now acknowledged that “Land Revenue is coming in better than we expected in Burma and the Punjab and also so far as the current year is concerned in the United Provinces.” However, the Revised budget has been revised a second time providing for an increase of £154,000 under Land Revenue, £33,000 under Opium and £27,000 under Miscellaneous Receipts. There have been further lapses aggregating £75,000 under Education, Medical and Civil Works. The net result is to raise the Imperial surplus by £159,000 and to reduce the Provincial deficit by £139,000. In the revised budget the Finance Member provided for a surplus of £1,328,000 in place of £1,326,000 estimated by his predecessor.
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Leadership vacuum & moral bankruptcy February 20, 2014. The atmosphere was highly charged in the Rajya Sabha. CPM leader Sitaram Yechury used the cricket metaphor match-fixing, describing the role of the Congress and BJP in the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh. The Noblest Game (the title of a book on cricket by Neville Cardus and John Arlott) entered the portals of Indian Parliament, though for wrong reasons. Sitaram Yechury’s stunningly apt two-word verdict on the “dark” deal between the Congress party and Bharatiya Janata Party said it all.
Match-fixing is the gift of IPL I (Indian Premier League) to IPL II (Indian Political League). The primary deals of the former are over while those of the latter are just under way. The glorious uncertainties of cricket and inglorious certainties of politics merge in the service of filthy lucre. The present crisis of our democracy is not entirely due to electoral politics. The turmoil in Parliament, and state legislatures, bandhs and fasts on roads and in streets and irritatingly noisy 24/7 verbal fights over the small screen are ugly manifestations of a larger malaise which does not augur well for the future. State and society in India are afflicted with leadership vacuum and moral bankruptcy at all levels. The decay has been pronounced during the last 10 years. Most ominous is the fact that both the major contenders for power in the 16th Lok Sabha, Congress and BJP have suddenly become functional allies in dealing with Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Kumar Reddy, the brave ex-chief ministers. The 16th General Election is likely to lead to the emergence of a new federal polity in which the authority of the scheming Congress High Command and fractious top leadership of BJP may become dysfunctional. All successful democracies have passed through crises. It is the self-enforcing equilibrium of the democratic system that helps in ensuring stability through course correction. In the West, inspiration has been drawn from Athens which had Socrates to teach the value of self-critical inquiry, Plato to identify self-restraint as the highest virtue and Aristotle to emphasise the necessity of moderation for both individual and societal development. Leadership in politics, it is said, requires vision, will, intellect and temperament. Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and BR Ambedkar, the four pillars of Indian polity, had all the qualities of great leadership which they honed to perfection through ceaseless endeavour and selfless pursuit of the goals they had set. The success of Indian democracy during its first 10 years, when it was hailed as a ‘role model,’ was due as much to Jawaharlal Nehru’s ability to build and nurture institutions at both state and national levels as to the role played by opposition in Parliament and the relentless criticism against the establishment in Press. By attending Parliament sessions regularly and interacting with the state chief ministers through correspondence, the Prime Minister enhanced the image of Indian parliamentary democracy. Respect for conventions and parliamentary practices was displayed by leaders as evidenced by the resignations of ministers like TT Krishnamachari, Lal Bahadur Shastri and a sulking VK Krishna Menon, owning up responsibility for “failures in the discharge of their duties”. There were, also, many flaws, most notorious of which was the manner in which Nehru and his daughter dismissed the EMS Namboodiripad government in Kerala. Ignoring corruption in high places, instead of nipping it in the bud, was a blunder the consequences of which we are facing today. Parliamentary democracy owed no less to the stalwart opposition leaders and relentless criticism of Nehru’s socialist policies and trust in China by editors like S. Mulgaonkar of the Hindustan Times and Rajaji through his articles in Swarajya and speeches at public meetings. Rajaji was literally the one-man army fighting the Prime Minister of India. Such was the moral authority of Jayaprakash Narayan that he singlehanded led the fight against Indira Gandhi when she clamped the Emergency and caused her fall in the 1977 General Election. Even Indira Gandhi heard with respect such public intellectuals as PN Haksar during the Bangladesh liberation and LK Jha in the formulation of economic policies. “Madam, you can afford to have a government doing nothing but not a public sector emulating it,” Jha was reported to have cautioned her. The seeds of cultural pluralism sown at the birth of Indian National Congress in 1885 began to grow in the years that followed, thanks to the leaders of four different faiths. If the founder of Indian National Congress A.O. Hume was an Englishman who shrewdly invited Hindu W.C. Bonnerjee to preside over the first session at Bombay, Parsee Dadabhai Naoroji, Muslim Budrudin Tyabji and Englishman George Yule were the presidents at the three annual sessions that followed. The Indian National Congress embodied the awakened spirit of India, characterised by a quest for social reconstruction. After the traumatic experience of 1857, a new India began to emerge. Rabindranath Tagore was born in 1861, Vivekananda in 1863, Mohandas Gandhi in 1869 and Sri Aurobindo in 1872 on August 15. After lying for long under a pall of gloom, India woke up to a new national consciousness blending the spiritual, social and political yearnings of the people. Vivekananda instilled in the dispirited Indian mind a new vigour and hope. It was but one step from Vivekananda to Gandhi, summed up a Western scholar. How much India owes to those noble English, Parsee, Muslims and Hindu leaders for building the edifice of cultural pluralism based on lasting secular values and ideals is not easy to evaluate. Nor should the nation hesitate to own responsibility for the gross injustice that has been done to the Parsi community, now getting extinct, which has enriched Indian politics and culture in more ways than one during the last 130 years and more. Americans claim “co-mingling of cultures” as the strength of the world’s oldest modern democracy. In India it has been practised for ages, right from Buddhist times, by great emperors like Asoka and Akbar, wrote Amartya Sen. Mahatma Gandhi elevated politics to the benchmark set by Plato and Aristotle. In the ends-and-means equation, the latter mattered more than the former. The political architecture designed by the great leaders of India was essentially moral in design and transparent in texture. There can be no compromise on cherished values of cultural pluralism and inclusive justice. All that is being tarred black through dark deeds in public and tarnished beyond repair. The entire political class and administrative system are responsible for it, including the highest functionaries, elected representatives and the custodians of law, order and justice. No less accountable are the people for choosing them and condoning their acts of omission and commission. Still India has the resilience enough to come out of the crisis, as it had done in the past. The time for action is now. Is it the darkest hour before dawn? The writer is a former Professor of Politics, Andhra University
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The orange rage of spring Much before Chandigarh came into existence, the land was a pastoral site with`A0 groves of native`A0 trees like mangoes, jamuns, kikars and taalis adorning a few hamlets. One tree, however,`A0that always `A0lit up the spring firmament with its fiery orange flowers was the ‘Flame of the Forest’. Called dhak, palash, tesu and by various other names in different parts of the country — come March and its otherwise dry and dusty foliage, undergoes a Cinderella-like transformation. Its riot of profuse orange and vermillion flowers bedeck the entire naked sculptural branches that have become bare, shorn off all leaves by the winter winds earlier.
Another pleasant surprise exists in the PGI campus itself. A sensitive doctor heading the construction of the newly constructed College of Nursing, saved a precious palash from the contractor’s axe, and turned it into an artistic backdrop for the Institute’s open-air theatre stage. In Sanskrit literature, the flower is used as a symbol of the arrival of spring and the colour of love. Jayadeva in the Gita Govindam compares its blossoms to the red nails of Kamadeva or Cupid, with which he wounds the hearts of lovers. Hopefully, the doctor-artists on the PGI stage find inspirations from such rich cultural heritage! The Santhal tribal women of Bengal still wear it in their hair as an adornment to attract attention. Even the poems and songs of Rabindranath Tagore, likened its bright orange flame-like flower to fire. In Santiniketan, where Tagore lived, this flower has become an indispensable part of the celebration of spring called the Basant Utsav. In fact, traditional Holi colours were made from tesu flowers and were also used for making natural dyes and colours employed for Indian miniature paintings. Some palash trees can still be spotted in the city forests of Nepli and Kansal. Another marker of these trees as being native to this region, is the presence of some specimens standing valiantly—ablaze in their unsung glory of foliage — along the Chandigarh-Pinjore highway and also on the road to Patiala Chandigarh which is world famous for its planned landscaping, perhaps could plant a special avenue of palash trees as a tribute to our natural and cultural heritage. The legendary ‘Flame of the Forest’ will not only paint the town vermillion in spring, with its orange but also reconnect it to its pristine roots.
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Closer scrutiny on Service Chiefs’ selection The
appointment of the new Chief of Army Staff, a process that draws a lot of interest, is still some months away. However, the resignation of Admiral DK Joshi as Chief of Naval Staff at least 18 months before his term was to end has put the government in a quandary: should it follow the seniority principle or dig deeper to select the next Navy Chief? Either way, there is bound to be a debate yet again on the manner of selecting Service Chiefs.
The immediate Naval appointment apart, the present system of appointment is based broadly on the principle of seniority among the top-ranking officers, though there is no written ruling to that effect. However, governments have deviated from this practice a few times and, in some cases, supersession and sidestepping of officers invited criticism. This includes the sidestepping of Lt Gen PS Bhagat by giving Gen GG Bewoor one year’s extension. Later, in 1983 when Lt Gen SK Sinha was overlooked to make Gen AS Vaidya the Chief, the move drew wide criticism. However, there have been times when the government invited criticism for ignoring certain officers who clearly stood out professionally. In 1961, for example, many thought that Lt Gen SPP Thorat – and not his senior, Gen PN Thapar – should have been appointed to the coveted post. One wonders, though, if this would have changed the course of the 1962 war with China. In the Navy and Air Force too, seniority has generally been upheld. However, there have been some supersessions, including that of Air Vice Marshal Shiv Dev Singh by Air Marshal OP Mehra in 1972, of Air Vice Marshal MM Singh by Air Marshal SK Mehra in 1988 and of Vice Admiral Tony Jain by Admiral L Ramdas in 1990. The government of course had an explanation in each case. In India, while making top-level appointments, two major bodies come into play in India – the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) of which the Prime Minister is the chairman, and the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS). In the case of the appointment of Service Chiefs, the file is moved by the Defence Secretary to the Government wherein the service dossiers of the officers being considered are enclosed. The Home Minister and Defence Minister must necessarily be members of the ACC. In the CCS, besides the PM, who is obviously the chairman, its members are ministers of Defence, Finance, Home and External Affairs. Thus for appointment of Service Chiefs, between the two bodies, the Minister of External Affairs is the only addition in the CCS. Unlike other senior posts, the appointments of the Service Chiefs are the only ones which require prior approval of the President, who is also the Commander-in-Chief, before they are announced. Adhering to the seniority principle ensures a smooth change-over. However, in the wake of numerous controversies involving the Service Chiefs, either when in service or after retirement, many security analysts suggest that an element of merit should be considered along with the principle of seniority. Many countries, including the USA, follow a system of deep selection. Although the exact system followed in appointment of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the USA is not known, General Hugh Shelton (retd) in his book Without Hesitation, provides an insight into the process. It indicates an intense scrutiny of the possible contenders at three or four levels. And this scrutiny is not just limited to the professional level but extends to officers’ private lives, including their financial and moral conduct. As in India, where for the appointment of the Army Chief (and likewise for the equivalent in the Navy and Air Force), all seven Army commanders besides the Vice Chief are considered, in the US, the selection of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is narrowed down to 13 officers. This is laid down in the Goldwater-Nichols Act. These include Vice-Chairman, a Service Chief, Commander of a Unified Command and the Commander of the Combatant Command. Of course, there is a proviso that if the President determines that it is in the national interest to do otherwise, he could go beyond these officers. An almost similar selection system is used for picking the Service Chiefs. For example, in 1970, for the post of Chief of Naval Operations, President Richard Nixon picked up the 49-year-old Admiral Elmo Zumwalt over 42 of his seniors. This discretion is used rarely and it reflects extraordinary circumstances and strong necessity. In one case, General Peter J Schoomaker was recalled from retirement and appointed Army Chief of Staff in 2003. The US model In the US, the first level of scrutiny, as explained by Gen Shelton, was by the office of the Secretary of Defence. The second level was by the Chief of Staff, Secretary of Defence, who checked on his willingness for the top job. This was followed by a meeting with the Secretary of Defence in the Pentagon, his Chief of Staff and Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defence for Policy – a man responsible for all US international security policy. During an informal luncheon meeting, strategies and policies were discussed. Among the issues discussed then was a possible exit strategy for the US in the Balkans, and shutting down of certain military bases. They talked about gays in the military, his position on the role of NATO, the need to transition to joint modes of warfare etc. This was followed by an interaction with President’s National Security Advisor before a one-to-one meeting with the President in the White House. In Gen Shelton’s case, the interaction with the President was about the fighting in Bosnia, the state of the Army and putting the capabilities of the Special Operations Command to better use. The questions were specific to the tactics of Delta Force, Navy SEALS and other top-tier Special Mission Units. The President even asked a specific question on what strategy he would recommend if he were to pinpoint the hiding place of terrorists responsible for the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing that targeted Americans in Saudi Arabia. After the President’s nod on the selection of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the appointee was required to appear before the Senate Armed Forces Committee where he was grilled on national and international security concerns and US involvement before the appointment was confirmed by the Senate. In the UK, the recommendation of the outgoing First Sea Lord on his successor in the Navy to the Government is usually approved. In India, there has been no such tradition of the incumbent Service Chiefs making a recommendation to the Government on their successor. At home in India, there are two or three issues that have come to be debated – indeed, hotly debated – in the selection of the top-level appointments in the Defence services. One, the extraordinary importance that has come to be attached to the date of birth and seniority in service determined at the time of the commission into service. Many feel that on the basis of their professional progression, the seniority of officers should be re-fixed at the rank of Brigadier. Of the officers promoted to the rank of Lt-Gen, only those who have at least three years of residual service get to command corps even though the normal tenure of Corps Commanders is just about one year. And among Corps Commanders, only those who have at least two years residual service make it to Army Commander. The second issue which is often raised pertains to the need to evaluate comparative merit among the top contenders for the job of Service Chiefs. Presently, only the Corps Commanders are evaluated by their Army Commanders on the basis of war games that are usually conducted at least once during the tenure. The Special Report usually enables the Corps Commanders to be elevated to the next higher rank of Army Commanders. Except in a few cases, usually all officers in that rank make it to the next rank, provided they have the requisite residual service. Appointment practices However, as Army Commanders, there is no evaluation that precedes the appointment of the senior most among them to the next rank - the four-star rank of Service Chief. Intelligence input is reportedly provided by the Intelligence Bureau to the government – which is perhaps incorrect as few IB officers would have adequate insight into either the professional capability or personal conduct of senior military officers. One recalls how perhaps it was this input of the former IB Director, BN Mullick, that went against Gen Thorat when he was being considered for the Army Chief’s post before the 1962 war. While the top job of the Service Chief definitely does not require any evaluation of Army Commanders in terms of operational tactics, those being considered ought to be assessed in terms of their view on organisational matters of the service, inter-service joint-manship, doctrinal issues, grand strategy vis-a-vis the security challenges facing the nation, and world view. Since countries like the US and the UK have different forms of government, their appointment practices can’t be adopted wholesale in India. But, for appointment of Service Chiefs, it would be in the fitness of things to have the CCS formally invite the top three or four officers for separate briefings on matters of strategy, the state of the services and their world view on the security environment. Obviously, the CCS would need to be adequately prepared to interact with these officers. This would help the CCS to assess the professional capabilities of the top officers who are in the running for the top job and, in case the senior-most officer appears to be out of sync with the threat perspective and security concerns, the government may like to put that officer through a deeper scrutiny. Also, this would give the selected person an idea of the security concerns of the government. While the Indian Parliament has nothing like the Senate Armed Forces Committee of the USA, it does have a Standing Committee on Defence, a rather large and labyrinthine body of about 36 members drawn from both Houses of Parliament. If this body were to play a role in the selection of the Service Chiefs it would have to be constituted differently. For example, its present chairman is Raj Babbar. While one has admiration for his acting skills, one wonders how well he fits into his Parliamentary role specific to defence. Perhaps a smaller body from within the Standing Committee on Defence, with a provision for coopting former Service Chiefs as special invitees, could be a part of the selection process. The commanders being considered could make brief presentations to the Committee on various aspects, which currently could include a way forward on the border disputes, possible strategy for insurgency-prone areas (including an exit strategy), modernisation of services and even ways to insulate the services from wide-spread corruption that plagues society generally. Even an interaction of the prospective Chief with the Commander-in-Chief (President) before the finalisation of the appointment could be considered. One of the positive spin-offs of this exercise would be the sharp focus it would provide to the officer who is ultimately promoted to Service Chief. He may not be required to take a call on many of the issues on which he has been examined, but he would have a crystal-clear understanding of the security and other concerns facing his men and less likely to pursue personal agendas during his tenure.
Supersessions in Defence * In 1983, Lt Gen SK Sinha was overlooked to make Gen AS Vaidya the Chief. *
Air Marshal OP Mehra superseded Air Vice Marshal Shiv Dev Singh in 1972. *
Air Vice Marshal MM Singh was superseded by Air Marshal SK Mehra in 1988. *
Admiral L Ramdas superseded Vice Admiral Tony Jain in 1990.
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When thelandscaping of the City was
undertaken after its inception, though much care was also taken to
preserve all its original plantation — with the passage of time,
many of these majestic old relics of the landscape are slowly dying.
However, in spring a few specimens of palash still standing
defiantly in their pristine glory, and show up with their ethereal
beauty in forgotten nooks and crannies of the city. One lone survivor
amidst treescapes of chakrassias is along the busy road that
connects the PEC University to the PGI. Its profuse flowering
litters the fast-traffic avenue with such a compelling riot of colours,
that even the speeding SUVs perhaps slow down a bit to salute the City’s
natural splendours!
