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BCCI clean-up Voters only after marriage |
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Declassify Henderson Brooks' report
When left is also right
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BCCI clean-up The
Supreme Court on Tuesday asked N. Srinivasan, the Board of Control for Cricket in India president, to resign his position so that a fair investigation into the IPL 2013 betting and spot-fixing scandal could be done. A two-member Bench observed: "It's nauseating that N. Srinivasan continued as BCCI chief… He should go if cricket has to be cleaned." This is the strongest censure Srinivasan's conflict-of-interest situation as the cricket administrator and the IPL team owner — which has lasted over six years — has attracted from a court of law so far. Last month Justice Mudgal, who investigated the spot-fixing and betting scandal, found Srinivasan's son-in-law, Gurunath Meiyappan, guilty of "betting and passing team information". Justice Mudgal's report also established beyond doubt that Meiyappan was an official of the IPL team, Chennai Super Kings (CSK), which is owned by Srinivasan. Srinivasan and Meiyappan had tried to mislead Justice Mudgal, representing to him that Meiyappan was just an "enthusiast" of CSK, not an official. Before Justice Mudgal's investigations, a probe committee appointed by the BCCI had cleared Srinivasan and Meiyappan of any wrongdoing. Referring to the report of that committee, the Supreme Court observed: "Can we say that the probe report was managed and if we say so, then what will be the consequences?" The BCCI lawyers, who agreed with the findings of the Mudgal report, wanted the Supreme Court to allow the BCCI to take action on its own. The Supreme Court did not allow that, considering that Srinivasan is still the all-powerful BCCI president. The Bench observed: "Why is Srinivasan sticking to his chair? If you don't step down, then we will pass the order." Srinivasan had refused to quit his position as BCCI president despite massive criticism and public outcry when the betting scandal was unearthed last year. He would have gained in credibility had he stepped down then, allowing a fair probe into the scandal. Now, with the Supreme Court stepping in, he has to go out in humiliation. He would do well to stay out.
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Voters only after marriage Girls
in the hinterland are conditioned to put up with a lot, including the denial of the right to vote. In Haryana, which boasts of unprecedented economic growth, social backwardness has become more pronounced due to pervasive gender inequality. In Jind district alone, out of 6.41 lakh women only 3.83 lakh are enrolled as voters. The number can go up substantially if parents get their unmarried daughters enrolled as voters. Unmarried women are treated like goods left in the custody of parents till their rightful owner - the husband - arrives to claim them. Therefore, all forms of social rights are postponed or denied till they acquire marital status. Women do not have the freedom to move around freely on bikes as their male counterparts do, dress up as they wish, or even talk to members of the opposite sex. Marrying a man of their liking may be a far-fetched dream. For many seeing a polling booth before marriage is also a distant reality. They are not enrolled as voters because they have to migrate to another place after marriage. The fact is eligible adults cannot be enrolled as voters at more than one place. But in case of shifting to a new residence either in the same Assembly constituency or in a different one after marriage, a simple form needs to be filled, Form 8A or Form 6 respectively, with proof of new residence. This can be done online or can be sent by post or delivered by hand at the office of the Electoral Registration Officer
(ERO). The Election Commission has simplified the procedures, even making these facilities available online, but it has failed to publicise them to the benefit of people. It should involve district and block-level officials and even schools to help people make use of these simple tools. Technology can enable girls to enrol online as voters, help them exercise their right to vote and make democracy a little more healthy.
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Thought for the Day
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. —
John Quincy Adams
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The Simla Municipality
THE rate-payers of Simla have a genuine grievance both against their disenfranchisement and against the existing anomalous constitution of the Municipal Committee. A largely signed memorial has been submitted to His Honour the Lieutenant Governor praying for the restoration of the right of electing their own representatives which they had enjoyed till 1908 when it was withdrawn. But the restoration of the elective system alone will not give satisfaction to the Simla Public. There are doubtless sections of the Simla “public” who are perfectly willing that even the present nominated Committee should be abolished in favour of the despotism of a solitary official even as there is a section of politicians in the higher spheres that speaks of “material law and no damned nonsense.” But it is not these who are able to feel the pulse of the rate-payers and judge the volume of discontent which now prevails among the non-official residents of the station. The Municipal Committee constituted as it is an anachronism. Delhi alleged sedition case
The preliminary examination in the Delhi alleged Sedition case was resumed on March 24 at Delhi before Mr. V. Connolly. Mr. D. Petrie, Additional Superintendent of police said that on February 16th he searched the houses of Awad Behari and Amir Chand. In the former a large number of proscribed leaflets, etc., were found and Awad Behari and Ram Lal were arrested under section 124 A., Indian Penal Code. In the house of Amir Chand forty copies of the proscribed 'Liberty' leaflet were found, also a Hindi pamphlet dealing with the use of poison for political purposes and another pamphlet headed "Love of Liberty" which advocated a general massacre of Europeans and especially the English. In a padlocked room witness found a biscuit tin wrapped in a copy of the Amrita Bazar Patrika and containing a quantity of cotton wool. The lid of the tin was carefully padded with newspapers. Under the cotton wool which bore some light yellow stains was a paper cylinder.
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Declassify Henderson Brooks' report
I
was a correspondent of The Times, published from London, when Neville Maxwell was its South Asia correspondent. He operated from New Delhi and we often discussed matters concerning India and other countries, particularly China. That he was anti-India would be an understatement. His hatred towards the country was patent in his dispatches. For example, he wrote after the second general election in 1957 that it was the last poll of the country because democracy was not suited to India's genius. I have not seen any of his writings to admit that his reading was incorrect. He reminded me at times of British die-hards who exploited India to make their country rich and indulged in unspeakable atrocities to keep us a colony. Both Maxwell and I often compared India's development with China's. Otherwise progressing democracy, he praised China's authoritarian regime. He honestly believed that it was India which attacked China and therefore titled his book as "India's war on China". The utility of the book was the reproduction of certain portions of the report by Henderson Brooks, appointed by the government to probe reasons for India's debacle in the 1962 war against China. He reportedly blamed New Delhi, particularly Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, for "shoving" India into a war against China when the former had not provided shoes to the soldiers who were moved from Kashmir to face the Chinese. I was then the Press Secretary to Home Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and knew his unhappiness over the building up of China's Premier Chou En-Lai by Nehru. The latter introduced him to the world figures and took him to Bandung at the first non-alignment conference. That Nehru was never the same after the defeat and died early because he felt personally betrayed. Although Sardar Patel had warned him through a letter not to trust China which would one day attack India, Nehru was obsessed by a Socialist country and he, to his grief, could not transform India into that mould. Maxwell has released part of the report by Henderson Brooks. I am inclined to believe that he has done so to give some mileage to the anti-Congress forces. That Nehru did not prepare the country and misjudged the Chinese designs is an open secret. I have had a long interview with Gen P.N. Thapar, the then Chief of the Army Staff. He had given in writing that India would face defeat if there was a war between India and China. General Thapar submitted a long note for the procurement of weapons and raising more troops. Nehru told him that the note was never put up to him. New Delhi went into the disputed areas to establish its claim. I remember the former Home Secretary, B.N. Jha, telling me that it was "a bright idea" of B.N. Mullick, the Director of Intelligence, to establish police posts "wherever we could," even behind the "Chinese lines", so as to "register our claim" on the territory. "But," then he said, "Mullick does not realise that these isolated posts with no support from the back will fall like ninepins as soon as the Chinese push forward. We are unnecessarily exposing the policemen to death. Frankly, this is the job of the Army, but since they have refused to man the posts until full logistic support is provided, we have placed the policemen." The posts run in a zigzag line; 41 of them were established, a few policemen here and a few of them there, sometimes like islands in the multitude of Chinese predators. The massive Chinese attack and our puny efforts to cope with it were now plain for all to see. The government decided to play down the news of reverses which was pouring in endlessly. It was treating it like the September 8 intrusion in NEFA (North-East Frontier Agency) which was officially described as the "appearance of some Chinese forces in the vicinity of one of our posts." I remember the first time I heard of the Sino-Indian border dispute was in the Union Home Ministry in early 1957. I was complaining to a senior official about the East Pakistan border bristling with dangers. He feigned ignorance. But his one remark, even though cryptic, was significant. He said: "Why Pakistan alone? You will have trouble with China very soon." He did not elucidate, but in reply to my insistent queries, he did add that there were vague reports of China building a road through Sinkiang. The Ministry of External Affairs had been informed of the reports many times. I still cannot understand why the government is keeping the Brooks' report as classified. The Defence Ministry's reasoning that the divulgence of the report would make public certain "tactics" which are still relevant. The tactics and even weapons employed in 1962 have no relevance today. A former Chief of the Army Staff, Gen V.P. Malik, has said that the 1962 operation is not relevant today. He has asked for the publication of the report. But the Congress-led government is under the wrong perception that Nehru's image would be damaged and so would be that of the ruling party. Now that excerpts of the report are already on the Internet, the government sounds churlish and undemocratic when it insists on keeping the report secret. New Delhi is happy to lock the gate after the animals have bolted. I vainly tried to get the report public. First, I approached the Defence Ministry, which said no. Ultimately, I tried to seek the report through the RTI (Right to Information). The matter went up to the top. But it rejected my plea. I have appealed to the High Court, which is sitting on the matter. After many years a brief reference came early last year when the judge remarked: "So you want all the country's secrets to be made public!" I wish there had been a decision on that. Unfortunately, there is none. The matter rests there and the government doggedly sticks to its archaic stand that the public has no right to know even after 52 years.
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When left is also right You're
a lefty?” is a question asked with such regularity and amazement that you are left wondering whether the dexterity of your hands is more an aberration rather than just a motor coordination that is wired differently. We have been called a lot of names: Bearers of misfortune: No shopkeeper is going to accept money from you if you hand it to him with your left hand. All brides are expected to cross the threshold of their new homes with their right foot. Try accepting 'prasad' with your left hand and see what happens. Clumsy: Try using a tin opener... you don't get them for lefties , so that leaves me yearning for a cheese sandwich...a desire that can only be satisfied when the right-minded folk are around who then prove their dexterity by opening the tin in a jiffy. Pouring out of a saucepan is no mean feat either. Even in cricket, left-handed players were not welcome earlier as their presence meant constant field changes. Bad table manners: I have now got used to strangers staring at me while I eat with a fork and knife because for all the righties who are so right, I hold the knife in my left and the fork in my right. This is right for me. You wouldn't want me trying it any other way.... who wants a piece of chicken flying across the table right? Imagine how difficult it is for lefties to write a paper while using one of those one-arm rest chairs that are designed solely for righties. In this right-handed world, I am perpetually confused between what's right and left. This is evident in my sense of directions. You see your left is actually my right... because well it's right for me, right? I have been known to give directions with so much confidence, only to have people call me back and say "you said turn right, but there is only a left". Well I was right..... for me the left is actually the right. I do the same thing while driving. I have reached a stage where if my dad is with me, he will say, "We need to turn left", and then in the blink of an eye he will correct it and say, "I mean the other left". That's when I know he wants me to turn the left that is his and not turn right that is actually left for me.
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Ajnala — a precursor to Jallianwala Bagh “There is a well at Cawnpore, but there is one also at Ajnala.” “Unconsciously the tragedy of Hollwell’s Black Hole had been re-enacted.” “The crime was Mutiny and had there even been no murders to darken the memory of these men the law was exact. The punishment was death.” The three quotations given above from the Deputy Commissioner, Amritsar, Fredrick Cooper’s account of the happenings at Ajnala in Amritsar district during the 1857 Mutiny foreshadows Brigadier General Reginald Dyer’s carnage at Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar in April 1919. What is more shocking is that in the former case a civilian Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar, invested with the responsibility and good sense of a magistrate, himself presided over a massacre adding a shameful chapter of primordial barbarity to the annals of British Indian history. Relying on the official figures of causalities attributed to the Ajnala incident, one can easily discern that these were as enormous as the ones inflicted in Jallianwala Bagh. In the words of Cooper himself, “Thus within 48 hours from the date of crime there fell by the law nearly 500 men.” He had the temerity to say, “By the law” — a matter of shame for a magistrate.
The spread of Sepoy Mutiny
The army of East India Company, in the words of Phillip Mason, was ‘a mercenary army’ joined by the natives for “livelihood” and “social position”. It was not out of any loyalty to the British or the commercial interests of the Company that they were fighting their own countrymen in various parts of India. The Sepoy Mutiny, as is widely known started from Barrackpore in Bengal with the revolt of 34th Regiment instigated by Mangal Pandey and spread from east to west like wildfire over the emotive issue of greased cartridges issued to the soldiers for the new muzzle-loading Enfield rifle which had recently replaced the “Brown Bess” hitherto in use in the Company’s army. To facilitate the loading of cartridges the ordnance factories used, apart from other material, tallow from beef and pork — abhorrent to the religious susceptibilities of both the Hindus and Muslims alike. Since the soldiers had to bite the grease on the cartridge before loading it they thought that this sacrilegious act would bring them, in the words of S.A. Abbot, “eternal perdition.”
Divide and rule at play
Since the East India Company mainly recruited soldiers from the upper castes of Oudh (recently annexed by the British), United Provinces and Bihar carrying the unwelcome sobriquet of poorbeahs, the Mutiny quite naturally infected the Punjab cantonments which they had occupied after their success in the two Anglo-Sikh Wars (1846-1849) The role of these troops in these wars was like a red rag to the Punjabi bull, specially the Sikhs who nursed a recent grouse against them for having captured the Lahore throne from them. The venue of the revolt of 26th Native Infantry and their escape route, ironically enough, lay through the Majha hinterland from where the soldiers of the Khalsa army were recruited for Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s formidable army, which after his death fought under the leadership of brave Generals like Sham Singh Attariwala. It was this hostility which was exploited by the British in quelling the Mutiny in Punjab. Major Edward John Lake sums up the situation in the following words “During the 1st Sutlej campaign when the Sikhs were engaged in a death struggle against us and attempted in vain to corrupt the poorbeah soldiers of our army who would have predicted that in 12 years the poorbeahs will become our deadliest enemies and the Sikhs our staunchest allies.” It was a welcome opportunity to use the British policy of “divide and rule”. Riding the crest of such a sentiment, the British Deputy Commissioner Fredrick Cooper, assisted by a Hindu tehsildar Pran Nath and 50 Sikh soldiers, conducted the massacre at Ajnala. The Muslim sowars of Tiwana horse helped in rounding up the deserters and herding them together at one place. In short, all the three Punjabi communities were pitted against the mutineers.
Cold blooded killings
The decision to inflict death penalty on the deserters was starkly dismissive of the fact that 26th Native Infantry — consisting of 940 soldiers and commanded by 11 Europeans had already been disarmed much earlier than their desertion from the Mean Meer cantonment of Lahore. The killing of Major Spencer, grievous injury to Lt Montague White and the killing of Sergeant Major with sharp cutting weapons was sought to provide justification for the extermination of more than 500 soldiers. That the whole tragedy was conducted by the District Magistrate makes the incident all the more savage and condemnable. The Mutiny records describe the conduct of mutineers as “treason” and an offence against the “state”. It appears strange how the East India Company could arrogate itself to the status of a legitimate sovereign “state.”
What is even more despicable and alien to human sense of justice is the fact that the mass execution was endorsed by Sir John Lawrence, Chief Commissioner of Punjab. A letter dated 2nd August. 1957 written by him reads as follows: My dear Cooper, The demi-official letter from Chief Judicial Commissioner of Punjab Robert Montgomery was equally laudatory. It read:- My dear Cooper, Since all the Trans-Sutlej and Cis-Sutlej princes were on the side of the British, one is not surprised by the following letter which Maharaja Randheer Singh of Kapurthala wrote on 4th August, 1957: My dear Cooper, Now that a lot of water has flowed down the bridge and India is a free country for the past 67 years the recovery of the remains of the massacre of Indian soldiers opens a sad chapter. The site of Ajnala massacre is an important discovery in the history of India and deserves to be commemorated on a secular basis without going into outdated religious and ethnic prejudices.
Where it stands now
It is a matter of satisfaction that some altruistic residents of Ajnala, under the guidance of a research scholar and conservationist Surinder Kochhar, took upon themselves the onerous task of demarcating the site of the well and undertaking extensive excavation to recover the evidence of a great tragedy. The recovered articles consist of skulls and bones, coins, medals and some pieces of jewellery. The coins recovered appear to be the savings of poor soldiers from their meagre salaries which they carried on their person. It may be worthwhile to undertake research in military archives in India and the U.K. to identify the names of the soldiers killed. Meanwhile, a commemorative gallery needs to be constructed to exhibit all the articles recovered from site. The well, from where this ghastly tragedy unfolded, does not have proper access. It should be connected through a wide road so that any visitor who wants to come to this site should also have access to the old tehsil, a portion of which was used to suffocate 45 mutineers, making it another Black Hole in the history of India. The public-spirited local citizens, who spent out of their own pockets to undertake excavation work, need to be rewarded for their sincere efforts.
Tragic facts
— The author is a retired Director General, Punjab Police
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