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The Shia-Sunni estrangement
India should try to bring about reconciliation
Kuldip Nayar
 War
in Iraq is a warning to people living in the Middle East or beyond that religious communities will come into conflict with one another if they push their ideology too radically and too hastily. A different point of view has to be accommodated, not eliminated. The recurring feud between the Shias and the Sunnis, the two Muslim sects, underlines the dictum of conciliation. The estrangement between the two is as entrenched as is the caste system among Hindus. What is happening in Iraq today is the fallout of an antagonism that stretches back many centuries. Regretfully, there has never been any serious attempt by the leaders of the two sects to sit across the table and sort out their differences which have given a bad name to Islam.Left to the radical Sunnis, the Shias would have been declared as non-Muslim as was done in the case of Ahmediyyas in Pakistan. But the superiority of the Shias in letters, arts and culture is a reality that cannot be clouded by prejudice or reproach. India, a pluralistic society, could have tried to cite the example of its own tradition of tolerance in bringing about reconciliation. But it has preferred to stay distant, lest it should be blamed for fanning the flames of enmity. It has witnessed clashes between Shias and Sunnis in Lucknow and elsewhere. Even though the government has been scrupulously neutral, both Shias and Sunnis have tended to blame it for taking sides. I wish New Delhi had done more in West Asia to bring about conciliation for two reasons-one, because it has a large Shia community and, two, because the hostility between Shias and Sunnis has grave repercussions for India. There was a time when New Delhi was a member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) due to a large Muslim population in the country. But it apparently withdrew because a secular India did not fit the mould. Washington could not hide its responsibility of pushing New Delhi out of the OIC. The Americans did not want a parallel organisation to influence events in West Asia in which they did not have a dominant role, albeit behind the scenes. Moscow has been lately taking sides openly and supporting the "progressive territories". What New Delhi does not realise is that if Iraq is not sorted out amicably, it can set into motion an unending battle between the Shias and the Sunnis at different places. And India will be sucked into a battle of attrition without it even wanting to do so. That necessitates a more active role than the government's stock statement that New Delhi is watching the situation, whether from the front door, back door or trap door (secret activity). Whatever the quantum of democracy in the region, India has introduced it not only to give voice to millions of Muslims in the area, but also to rebuff the West's propaganda that Islam and democracy are not compatible. Iraq's Saddam Hussein, even though a dictator, was influenced by New Delhi in giving limited rights to people. But for some reason, President Bush Senior had developed hatred against Saddam. The US was convinced that the Iraqi President was intent on developing nuclear weapons which, when happened, would make Saddam unassailable. Poor Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the Pakistan President who became the country's Prime Minister, had to pay the price for completing the same ambition of developing the world's first Islamic bomb. Today, the West is trying to placate Islamabad by giving it both military and economic aid. But Islamabad's suspicion that it has some ulterior motive to serve is responsible for the anti-US sentiment in the country. Had India and Pakistan been on better terms, they could have jointly influenced the events in West Asia and thwarted Washington's ambition to be an arbiter. In politics and in other fields the vacuum is filled sooner than later. Al Qaida, guiding the Taliban movement, has spanned the gap. The whole region faces the danger of fundamentalism spreading and even influencing youth as is happening in Pakistan, where young men are growing the beard to confirm their Islamic identity. This poses a threat to India in the sense that 15-16 crore Muslims in the country are beginning to draw their inspiration from what is happening in Afghanistan and northern parts of Pakistan. And since India has taken a turn ideologically to the right, as the parliamentary elections have shown, the distance between democratic India and the Al Qaida-inspired areas to its North will look unbridgeable as the days go by. Not only that, Hindu fundamentalism will become more assertive than it is today. The idea of India, a democratic, pluralistic and egalitarian society, will be endangered. Leaders and governments will mix religion with politics, something which has successfully been resisted all these years since Independence, even though Partition was on the basis of religion. That necessitates greater strengthening of secularism to stall fundamentalism, however limited it may be at this time. New Delhi's lack of initiative in West Asia to ensure better and democratic governance has weakened movements like the Arab Spring, which were against autocratic rule in most West Asian countries. The call by Anjuman-e-Haideri for volunteers to help defend the centres of Shia Islam in Iraq may invite a similar response among the Sunnis to get together to fight against the Shia consolidation. That may come later, but in the meanwhile the Shias' assertiveness for identity will set into motion a process which may strengthen religious appeals and their leaders. It is ironical that even the radical Hindus are volunteering themselves to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Shias who say they want to form a human chain to protect the holy shrines of Karbala and Najaf in Iraq. The Shias, always feeling as if they were the underdog, should take heart from the example of such Hindus and try to influence New Delhi to take more interest in the problem than it has done so far. New Delhi's say will help the Indians economically. There are two million of them occupying different jobs in the area. Tension may jeopardise their future. This has happened before when Israel was resisting pressure of the US and the UK not to settle the Jews at Golan Heights or such other areas. This is the time when India can become proactive and send a special envoy to bring about rapprochement among different leaders of both the Shias and the Sunis. Otherwise, the radicals might win, much to our regret.
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MIDDLE |
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‘Jab we met’
Mahesh Grover
 My bosom friend, normally a cheerful soul with a pleasant countenance walked in with a face long drawn.“What happened?” I asked. “I feel like a debased criminal; a soul without conscience”, he replied. “Ah! Has a member of your staff exposed your dark secrets?” I quizzed him jocularly. He groaned as if I had twisted a knife within him. Sensing a serious situation I said, “Spill the beans.” He began, “My children saw a TV programme ‘How I met your mother’ and so asked about my encounter with their Mom.” “So what is so disturbing about it?” I asked a tad impatiently. Continuing, he said, “What seemed to me a romance straight out of Hindi movies if not out of ‘Mills & Boons’ was not perceived by my son as such, though my daughter looked moony eyed and couldn't stop sighing”. “I told them that I saw their mother on the campus, and she looked so radiantly pretty that I followed her to seek an acquaintance”. “You stalked her!” exclaimed my son. “No! No! I exclaimed. We breathed Bollywood films and all actors made such overtures to their leading ladies before settling for a lasting relationship and one of them even touched her ‘mar mari’ hands while exchanging coy looks. All this was so romantic. Only the villains had exploitative relationships.” “Dad, you stalked her and don’t tell me you touched her hand, because that is molestation and outraging the modesty of a woman”, my son said with disdain. “I had honourable intentions”, I asserted. “And in any case, how do you make an overture to a lady unknown to you in an age of segregation and no communication while the Cupid is tormenting you with his arrows? I also wrote a letter to her expressing my feelings”. “Dad, that is sexual harassment”, cried my son. “No wonder, the art of writing love letters has given way to crude texting sans sensitivity”, I replied indignantly. My daughter came to my rescue to say how romantic it sounded, while my wife said, “He was cute and handsome but a ‘jhudoo’ (timid) and should have had the guts to be more forthright in his approach”. All this was lost on my son who stoically stood by his views. My distraught friend now looked up to me in askance and said, “Am I a debased human? I professed love to my lady in the way I understood and the beautiful moment of ‘Jab we met’ is etched in my unforgettable memory”. Having been an Agony Aunt to many, I gently said, “No, you are not at fault. Don’t shame the memory of the moment that sparked off a meaningful relationship. Human relations are fragile but today relationships exist at a subcutaneous level where no qualms are exhibited in having uninhibited relations liberated of all social and moral constraints but good intentions are slain by giving them a criminal hue. Boys will always make overtures to girls and telling them to stay away is like telling the bees to stop visiting the flowers which, if done, would result in a paradise lost and there would be no more recalls of the precious moments of ‘Jab we met’ but only experiences which we would like to forget.
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OPED
— Environment |
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Ushering the Evergreen Revolution
Dr. Manjit S. Kang
Once, more than 300 crops were grown in Punjab. But after the 1980s, only the wheat-rice system has dominated. A Tribune file photo |
Every
species has an ideal environment in which it can live and thrive. It takes thousands of years for a species to adapt to a particular environment. Recent studies at the University of Chicago's School of Medicine have established that genetic and physiological adaptations for life at high elevations in residents of Tibetan plateau originated around 30,000 years ago in people related to contemporary Sherpas. While Tibetans thrive at high altitudes, people from lowlands suffer from extreme altitude sickness there. An example from plants would be halophytes, that is , salt-loving plants. Sea water generally contains 40 grams per litre (g/l) of dissolved salts (mostly sodium chloride). Rice and beans can tolerate only around 1 to 3 g/l. On the other extreme, dwarf glasswort grows well at 70 g/l and is a promising halophyte for use as a crop. Barley and date palm can tolerate about 5 g/l (marginal halophytes).
Evergreen
Revolution
 “Evergreen Revolution”, means “to increase productivity in perpetuity without causing any ecological harm”.
It entails organic farming, conservation agriculture, precision agriculture, agro-forestry with fertiliser trees, integrated pest management, integrated nutrient management and protection of natural resources.
If farm ecology and economics go wrong, nothing else will go right in agriculture and sustainable agriculture cannot be achieved. |
The coastal area in Tamil Nadu has dozens of species of halophytes that can be used as cash crops (edible oils, medicines, vegetables, and cattle and fish feed). Once a species is removed from its zone of adaptation or its environment is changed anthropogenically or otherwise, the survival of that species will be threatened. Once the environment of one species is drastically disturbed, it not only affects that species but also has cascading effects on other species in the ecosystem. Green Revolution impact The ecosystem of Punjab prior to the Green Revolution contained more than 300 crop species and hundreds of species of trees and birds. Since the days of the Green Revolution (late 1960s and 1970s), Punjab has been called the “granary of India”. During the Green Revolution, wheat and rice production witnessed unprecedented increases. India achieved self-sufficiency in wheat production by 1972 and in rice and other cereals by 1974. Punjab's wheat production increased during 1965-1972 from 1.9 million tonnes to 5.6 million tonnes, which jumped further to 15.8 million tonnes in 2007-08. India's wheat production increased from 12 million tonnes in 1964 to 80 million tons in 2009, with a major contribution from Punjab. Punjab's rice production increased remarkably from 1.03 million tons in 1970-71 to 15.65 million tonnes in 2007-08. Thus, Punjab became a major contributor to India's food security. The state primarily adopted a monoculture of wheat-rice cropping system. While wheat was the main staple food in Punjab, rice cultivation was added in the 1940s and 1950s, primarily to make use of water-logged soils in some areas of Punjab. For various reasons (productive rice varieties and greater profits), rice cultivation picked up pace in Punjab, Haryana and western UP. Soon, rice replaced maize, pulses, cotton, groundnut, and several other crops. Crop diversification The monoculture of wheat-rice cropping system destroyed crop diversification. Once, more than 300 crops were grown in Punjab, but after the 1980s, only the wheat-rice system dominated. Because of the lack of a visionary long-term agricultural policy both at the state and central levels, the area under rice in Punjab, which was merely 230,000 hectares (ha) in 1960-61, jumped to 2.83 million ha by 2012. On hindsight, rice cultivation turned out to be an ecologically unsound practice, as reflected by the critical depletion of groundwater, degradation of soil health, nutrient deficiencies in crops, and of course, the loss of diversification. The number of tubewells in Punjab increased from 120,000 in 1970s to 1.3 million in 2010. With free power and water in Punjab, water wastage increased. In the mid-1960s, when Mexican dwarf wheat varieties were introduced in Punjab, the scientists of Punjab Agricultural University had to convince farmers through field demonstrations to use adequate quantities of inorganic fertilisers. Now, decades later, farmers overuse fertilisers and other agro-chemicals (herbicides, fungicides and insecticides). The excess chemicals end up polluting underground water and the soil, and eventually enter into the human and animal systems. Indiscriminate use of chemicals, such as DDT, 2,4-D, and 2,4,5-T, has been linked to health problems, including cancer, in Punjab villages. The latter two chemicals are teratogenic, that is, can cause developmental deformities. Because of loss of habitat and chemical usage, bird species like the house sparrow have nearly disappeared from Punjab. Nutrient deficiencies Soil organic matter has practically vanished because of the adoption of the wheat-rice system because neither crop adds much organic matter to the soil. After harvest, the crop residue of both crops is burned with impunity to quickly plant the next crop. Not only does burning of stubble lead to depletion of organic matter, but it also adds carbon to the environment, which is a major greenhouse gas and causes global warming. Nutrient deficiencies have been recorded as follows: Nitrogen deficiency in Muktsar and Hoshiarpur districts (20 per cent cropland), phosphorus deficiency in Patiala and Muktsar districts (20 per cent cropland), and potassium deficiency in Hoshiarpur district (35 per cent cropland). In Punjab, nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium ratio has changed for the worse from 4:2:1 to 20:5:9. This means that Punjab farmers do not use these three nutrients in a balanced manner. Such problems have occurred because of the lack of functional nutrient-testing laboratories at the district level. Water and air pollution Punjab faces a serious problem of chemical toxicity in water. According to Sant Balbir Singh Seechewal, who has revived many rivers, laws to control pollution are only on paper and no serious efforts are made to control water and air pollution. Toxic and dangerous chemicals, such as cyanide, which originate from some factories in Ludhiana and Phagwara, flow freely in river waters. Consumption of such water can cause various diseases. In 2009, a Bhabha Atomic Research Centre report revealed that in the Malwa area, a litre of water contained up to 244.2 microgram uranium when the World Health Organization considers 15 microgram per litre as the safe limit. During 2001 to November 2009, 1074 deaths in Muktsar and 211 deaths in Lambi constituency were attributed to cancer. The air pollution resulting from burning of stubble causes serious health problems every year. The smoke and particles generated by the burning of rice stubble (containing silica) cause breathing problems and diseases, such as asthma. In addition, by burning stubble, farmers burn away millions of dollars worth of precious nutrients and also destroy crop-friendly soil micro-organisms. Punjab has established several coal-fired thermal plants to generate electricity. Coal-fired thermal plants produce dangerous coal ash/fly-ash. All fly ash generally contains silicon dioxide (SiO2) and calcium oxide (CaO). It also contains oxides of aluminum and iron. Thermal power plants, in addition to being responsible for greenhouse-gas emissions, are a major source of local pollution and health damages. In India, 70 per cent of electricity is generated from coal. The toxic constituents of fly ash can dissolve in water and seep into the soil. Toxic substances can enter into rivers, streams and wetlands and into underground water aquifers that supply drinking water wells. In December 2012, Conservation Action Trust, Urban Emission, and Greenpeace India jointly published a document entitled, Coal Kills — An Assessment of Death and Disease Caused by India's Dirtiest Energy Source. The document pointed out that, in 2011-12, exposure to air pollution from Indian coal plants was responsible for 80,000 to 115,000 premature deaths and more than 20 million asthma cases. Health impacts, such as increased number of heart attacks, emergency room visits, hospital admissions and lost workdays, were also attributed to coal-based emissions. Annual cost associated with these health impacts was estimated to be Rs. 16,000 - 23,000 crore. The US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) has shown that living next to a coal-ash disposal site can increase one's risk of cancer or other diseases. For example, if one lives near an unlined wet ash pond and one gets his/her drinking water from a well, he/she would have a 1 in 50 chance of being afflicted with cancer from drinking arsenic-contaminated water. Arsenic is believed to be one of the most common and most dangerous pollutants from coal ash. Remediation In developed countries, such as Germany, 80 per cent of the fly ash generated is being utilised, whereas in India only 3 per cent is being used. If concerted efforts are made by both central and state governments to control fly ash, only then India would be able to tackle this serious environmental problem. According to Prof M.S. Swaminathan, if farm ecology and economics go wrong, nothing else will go right in agriculture, and sustainable agriculture cannot be achieved. Prof. Swaminathan has advanced the concept of “Evergreen Revolution”, which means “to increase productivity in perpetuity without causing any ecological harm”. Evergreen revolution would entail organic farming, conservation agriculture, precision agriculture, agro-forestry with fertiliser trees, integrated pest management, integrated nutrient management, and protection of natural resources. A healthy ecosystem provides humans these services: Mitigation of floods and droughts, services provided by soil (food), pollination, pest control, and seed dispersal. It must be protected and preserved. There should be a course taught on “Survival of Humankind” in colleges and universities. If humankind will protect the environment, the environment will protect humankind. Our slogan should be “Save Environment, Save Humanity!” — The writer is former Vice-Chancellor,
Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana
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