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United in words Illegal son preference |
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BJP gets the jolt it deserved
Who says grannies are obsolete?
What next for Imran Khan? Playing both sides: The general & his power games
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United in words The
US and its allies have vowed to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the ISIS, the terrorist organisation that now calls itself Islamic State. The US has got an endorsement from 40 countries for its campaign of air strikes and what it promises as a “comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy.” What is also obvious is that other countries have shown reluctance to commit their military resources to the operation, and thus boots on the ground are going to be a problem even in Iraq, let alone Syria, where their writ does not run. Syria-based IS fighters seized vast tracts of land in northern Iraq virtually unopposed by the Iraqi army. The government in Baghdad is weak, in spite of a new Prime Minister. However, Shia dominance of the country continues. A government often considered ineffective and corrupt marginalised the minorities and spread disaffection. It is no coincidence that a number of Sunnis who served in Sadaam Hussein's army have been actively involved with IS fighters. The IS is not a ‘Bedouin raiding party’, as was wrongly assumed initially. It is now an established presence with access to oil revenues estimated at over a million dollars a day, a vast arsenal of captured and purchased weapons and tens of thousands of fighters. It controls a land mass that straddles territory in Syria and Iraq and has the potential to redraw the maps of West Asia. Combating this well-funded and powerful terrorist organisation should be a priority with the governments of not only the Western powers, but also the Arab states in the region. They have the most to lose if the IS spreads further. What is sorely missing is a sense of urgency and unity to defeat a common enemy, whose barbaric practices have created revulsion around the world. Even as the Western powers promise intervention, it needs to be recognised that what people eventually want is a good government that rises above the Shia-Sunni divide. Only then will the extremist organisations that purport to speak for Islam be stopped in their tracks.
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Illegal son preference Dowry
has been banned for 50 years. Yet the tradition thrives across all social classes. Despite all sorts of legal and medical provisions against the pre-natal sex-determination test, son preference doesn't seem to diminish in India. Both these trends reflect low self-esteem of women in Indian society — rural and urban. Couples with daughters feel it's their legitimate right to have a son, and they are able to convince even medical professionals of this feeble logic. The Supreme Court has once again reminded the medical fraternity of the legal provisions against the criminal act of divulging the sex of the foetus to couples desirous of having a son. Son preference results in the elimination of daughters. A PIL petition has drawn attention of the court to the justification offered by some doctors in ‘helping’ parents with daughters to get a son. An application filed in August 2013 by Sabu Mathew George, who is a member of the National Inspection and Monitoring Committee (NIMC) set up under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act of 1994, alleged that pre-natal sex determination continues to be done by doctors, hand-in-glove with the conniving authorities. From Banglore to Gurgaon, female foeticide continues unchallenged. Not only laws are brushed aside for profitability, these are twisted under the façade of a human face, helping couples 'complete' their family. Ideally, the responsibility of maintaining sex ratio balance should not rest with the courts or doctors. Unfortunately, even the educated defy all logic for their illogical son preference; sex-determination clinics thrive in affluent urban areas. In a recent survey conducted by the Health Department, Maharashtra, 222 girls were found named Nakoshi(unwanted) in just one district. If this bias persists in 'progressive' Maharashtra, in Haryana girls are often given derogatory names like Bharpai, Bhateri (enough), Maafi (forgive), Mariya (deathly), Badho (excessive) — a reminder of their unwanted status for the rest of their lives. Therefore, the apex court has reminded the Centre and the states to file a comprehensive status report on the status of gender ratio.
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Thought for the Day
To begin, begin. — William Wordsworth
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War news and censorship ALLUDING to the difficulty which the literate persons in India experience in getting to know the full and accurate details of the war, the Patrika recalls to its mind the incidents of the great Mahabharata War which were faithfully narrated by Sanjaya to Dhritarashtra, the great blind King. Sanjaya is supposed to have seen everything that took place at a distance from his occult powers and hence the extraordinary vividness of his descriptions of the war in the Mahabharata. We cannot command occult powers nowadays so the Patrika writes: In the present war every one outside the theatre of war, — and especially every one in India, — is practically a "Dhritarashtra." Reuter acts as his "Sanjaya," but alas! How different are his powers from those of "Sanjaya" of old. In the first place, he or his agency does not get such a clear vision of the engagements as "Sanjaya" did. Then, what he gathers is subjected to a series of siftings, we mean censorships, before being wired out to India first by the military authorities on the spot, then by censors in England and finally by the censors in India.
Female education in the Punjab IT is to be regretted that while other provinces in India are establishing Government High Schools and Colleges for girls, no such attempt is yet made in the Punjab. There is not a single high school for girls established by the Government in all the Punjab. There are a few missionary and other schools but for obvious reasons people would prefer to send their girls to Government schools where efficiency and justice could be better guaranteed. In these days of popular appreciation of female education, we should like to see a progressive move made by the Punjab Government.
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BJP gets the jolt it deserved NORMALLY, no great importance is attached to by-elections in this country which should explain why no Prime Minister has ever canvassed during them. Interestingly, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son and party vice-president Rahul Gandhi have stuck to this routine even after losing power. During the most recent by-elections to 33 assembly and three parliamentary seats, the Congress' First Family chose to be abroad. It must have regretted this because it lost the opportunity to celebrate the jolt the Bharatiya Janata Party has suffered exactly four months after its spectacular success in the parliamentary poll under Narendra Modi’s leadership. Particularly prominent is the saffron party’s overwhelming defeat in the politically key state of Uttar Pradesh where it had won 71 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats on May 16. This time around it has surrendered eight of 11 assembly seats to the Samajwadi Party that rules the state even though the latter’s own record is conspicuously poor. Even more hurtful to the BJP is that the Congress that was virtually wiped out in the Lok Sabha elections has wrested from it three assembly seats each in the BJP’s bastions, Rajasthan and Mr Modi's Gujarat. In UP, however, the Congress has drawn a complete blank. Having slid in nine of the 10 states where by-elections were held, the BJP has a cause for comfort only in West Bengal, where it has wrested a seat from Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress. From the day the Modi government came to power, there have been 50 by-elections across the country. Of these the BJP and its allies have won only 18 and lost all others. The reason for this serious setback is crystal clear and it is writ large on the political landscape. Mr Modi may have spoken about development and good governance in the past. Those in charge of the by-elections or chief campaigners in the by-elections never used these expressions. Arrogantly confident of coming to power in this most populous state in 1917, the BJP adopted the wrong, disruptive and dangerous strategy of polarisation along religious lines. “Love jihad” was one of its favourite slogans. As time passed, the tone of the BJP's UP leaders — such as the president of the party’s state unit, Lakshamikant Bajpai, and the saffron-clad Yogi Adityanath, a five-time MP and the principal campaigner in the state — became more provocative and indeed poisonous. It is noteworthy that neither Prime Minister Modi, nor party president Amit Shah, nor any other senior leader did anything to restrain the Hindutva hotheads. On the contrary, their silence greatly encouraged those spewing venom. The situation is not without irony. At a time when Bajpai and Yogi Adityanath were shouting hoarse about “love jihad”, an oxymoron that is supposed to mean that Muslims were busy luring Hindu women to marry them and then convert to Islam, the country’s Home Minister and a former president of the BJP, Rajnath Singh, told a press conference that he didn't know what “love jihad” was. Exactly at that time, Sakshi Maharaj, another saffron-wearing BJP leader in UP, harangued his audience and the media not only about “love jihad” but also about “education in terrorism”. He thundered that madrasas were teaching “terrorism” to their pupils and “motivating” youth to lure women of other religions with “offers of cash awards — Rs 11 lakh for an affair with a Sikh girl, Rs 10 lakh with a Hindu girl and Rs 7 lakh for a Jain girl”. Not to be left behind, Usha Thakur, a BJP MLA in Madhya Pradesh who is also the vice-president of the party unit in the state, made another startling disclosure: At the prolonged Hindu festival of Garba, according to her, Muslims joined in large numbers. Consequently at the end of this festival every year, four and a half lakh Hindu women were converted to Islam. Yogi Adityanath reaffirmed that wherever in India the proportion of Muslims in the population was 35 per cent or more “non-Muslims could not be safe”. At this stage no less a person than Union Cabinet minister Maneka Gandhi intervened to declare that “profits made from the trade in slaughtered animals was financing terrorism” and to demand that the slaughter of all animals should be “banned completely”. If this strange and highly controversial statement went relatively unnoticed the reason is that by-election results had started coming and it was immediately obvious that the electorate in UP had rejected with contempt the BJP’s strategy to polarise and divide the country along religious lines. An accompanying development of significance is that the Election Commission took note of some of Yogi Adityanath’s “hate speeches” and “use of religion for electoral purposes”. He has been asked to explain why requisite action should not be taken against him. An earlier FIR against the BJP’s national president Amit Shah, issued by the UP police, was set aside by a district judge. The critically important need now is for the BJP to abandon its dangerously disastrous electoral strategy of polarisation that has already boomeranged. So Mr Modi must give priority to this for two reasons, and make up his mind on the subject because he alone can take crucial decisions. The first reason is that assembly elections are due in Maharashtra and Haryana very soon, and the saffron party would be courting huge trouble if it repeats in these two states what it did in UP. It should fully exploit the heavy anti-incumbency the Congress has piled up against itself in both these states. The second reason is that in view of the worsening of the overall situation, our duty is to promote communal harmony, not communal hatred.
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Who says grannies are obsolete? Technological advancement has enhanced creature comforts, thereby awakening what the Westerners call animal instincts: sex, sleep, hunger and self-assertion. They are accompanied by the irresistible allurement of “what stops me from having them myself anyhow”. Its power is so formidable that it has split the good old joint families into nuclear families-if only for the sake of gaining the personal liberty of having my way at any cost. Nani and Dadi have found their new value-a discovery no less valuable than Columbus' historic discovery of America! They are welcome out there in the “land of opportunities”, pampered and loved, even though superficially. Why? Because they look after their children's children with loving care; cook food; iron clothes; act as baby-sitters; and do house-keeping admirably well-leaving their working children stress-free. These grannies put to a profitable use their priceless Indian endowment of patience, perseverance and forbearance. They can work 24x7 without showing any signs of fatigue or boredom. Their energies are miraculously replenished by their grandchildren whom they spoil by passionate pampering and grandparental love's lovable licentiousness. The inseverable bond of affection thus generated between the grannies and the grandchildren makes the old Indian women indispensable. When viewed dispassionately, this novel phenomenon seems to render redundant what the Indian government is trying so hard to achieve: women empowerment. This grandiose goal the Indian grannies abroad have achieved in abundant measure, so much so that Nana and Dada are automatically out by their own feudal inertia. A doctor friend tells me that he cannot stay abroad more than three days whereas his wife visits their two daughters every so often for long periods of time. And he narrates this incident. Sensing that he was getting bored at home, his daughter dropped him at the mall for the day. He says that he aimlessly paced the world of glamour and glitter several times over like a wayward street dog but the evening just won’t come. He thus spent the last two hours at the entrance of the superstore desperately waiting to be picked up. When his daughter indeed arrived in the evening, he heaved a sigh of gargantuan relief. But before going home, his daughter picked up the family dinner from KFC-obviously because the drained-out working mother couldn't have cooked the dinner. And to appear gracious to her mother, she would ask her to relax with the deep-fried meals. Who says grannies are obsolete? Of course, you have got to be Nani or Dadi to enjoy the newfound privileges. While the Indian rupee may be struggling to hold its own against the monstrous might of the American dollar, the domestic grannies' worth is exponentially mounting. They have the innate power to combat economic inflation by the readymade emotional renovation that they provide for their children’s psychologically-dilapidated personalities. This is something that the American dollars are pitiably unable to achieve in any known way.
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What next for Imran Khan? IT has been more than a month since Imran Khan led his “independence” march to Islamabad. The evening crowd at D-Chowk is getting thinner. The speeches have become increasingly mundane and their harsh tenor betrays growing frustration. The hopes and promises have turned into desperation. Had it not been for Tahirul Qadri devotees camping on Constitution Avenue, the show would be much poorer. Still, there is no sign of the kaptaan giving up; he would rather take the fight to the bitter end. The risk is high and the options limited. What next for Imran Khan?
Indeed, unlike in cricket, there is no ultimate winner or loser in politics. There is no such thing as victory and defeat in this power game. One lives to fight another day. But mixing cricket with politics has surely not been a good idea. Imran Khan’s imperious self and gross miscalculations have proved to be his biggest undoing. He keeps raising the stakes while he could have easily won the day with the government conceding to the demand for electoral reforms and the re-auditing of votes. With his irrational actions and arrogance, Imran Khan now risks irreversibly damaging the political future of his party that has impacted the country’s politics so deeply, mobilising the educated urban middle class into a formidable political force. To be fair, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s campaign against corruption, dynastic politics and absence of rule of law has struck the right chord with the vast majority of the populace. It was the main reason for such a large number of the electorate reposing their trust in what they considered an alternative to the established parties that had failed the people. But what has always been lacking in Imran Khan is a clear vision of the change he promises. His rants have increasingly turned into empty rhetoric. Imran Khan’s views on critical political, social and economic issues are inconsistent with his slogan for change. His political outlook is much more conservative, seeking to take the country backward. His stance on militancy and the Taliban reflect a twisted worldview. He may have the charisma but he is certainly not the material that leaders of change are made of. His recent actions bear testimony to this fact. For sure, the PTI’s latest campaign has shaken both the government and the opposition parties out of their deep slumber in a situation where there’s growing public disenchantment with the present political order. The sit-in in front of Parliament House for more than a month is itself a unique feat in Pakistan’s political history. Consequently, parliament has been reactivated to bring political forces together to save the system. But the ongoing protests have also exposed the political immaturity and opportunism of the PTI leadership. The party seems to have based its entire strategy on the hope or maybe some kind of assurance of intervention by a third force to oust the Sharif government. Unsurprisingly, a feeling of triumph was palpable when the army chief entered the scene to play the role of arbiter. But the moment was short-lived. Perhaps, the PTI’s biggest miscalculation was the illusion that it could mobilise a tsunami with hundreds and thousands of people storming Islamabad. But it turned out to be a disappointing show with only a few thousand supporters joining the march that started from Lahore on Independence Day. In fact, the month-long sit-in in Islamabad has not had any impact on other parts of the country. Imran Khan’s appeal for countrywide protests received little response. There were only a few small gatherings of party loyalists in upscale districts of Karachi and Lahore. The appeal for civil disobedience and the call for non-payment of taxes and utility bills became a joke. Only a few party stalwarts refused to pay toll on the Peshawar-Islamabad road and some upper-class supporters were seen arguing with restaurant managements for charging GST on the bill. The decision to resign from the national and provincial assemblies barring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has proved to be the biggest blunder that has not only divided the party but also increased its political isolation. The party has been left with virtually no ally. It would have served the party’s cause much better had the PTI fought its battle for reforms inside parliament too. Instead, Imran Khan declared the entire parliament to be a “den of thieves”. Yet parliament demonstrated more maturity while standing behind the elected government; it also extended a lifeline to the PTI by supporting the demand for electoral reforms. It is also because of the urging of the opposition parties that the resignations of the PTI legislators have not yet been accepted. But that cannot be delayed for long. Sitting out of the assemblies would make it more difficult for the party to get the required legislation for electoral reforms passed. A consensus seems to have emerged on all issues raised by the PTI except for the demand for the prime minister’s resignation. The party could have claimed credit for that and worked to consolidate its position. But it was not to be. Imran Khan seems to be in a hurry to wrap up the present dispensation and force early elections. What he is trying to do is to create a state of anarchy. And it is certainly not so difficult given the collapse of the government’s authority anyway. A dysfunctional administration in the capital has already provided a free hand to the protesters. The latest incident when Imran Khan got his detained supporters released from police custody is a testimony to that. A growing power vacuum will surely invite extra-constitutional intervention and maybe that is what the PTI is pursuing. It is a dangerous game that may end in complete disaster. The solution of the crisis lies in democracy, however flawed it may be, and not outside the system. —
By arrangement with the Dawn
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Playing both sides: The general & his power games THERE are, really, only two possibilities: either there is a cabal or there isn't; either factionalism exists or it doesn't; either Raheel is in charge or he isn't. Those understanding the army's structure and working cannot imagine this. Everyone is allowed to discuss their opinions in a free and frank manner but the army chief's decision is considered final and troops follow his lead. No, the chief has said via ISPR, there is no cabal. Others may have opinions, but only he decides. Others may want; only Raheel decides what they — all of them, together — will have. The intervention won't quell rumour and conspiracy, but it was necessary. Because after the frenzy — the great frenzy in the political arena — the inevitable, and serious, questions would come. Sir, was it you? And if it wasn't you, what does that say about your army — and you? There are serious implications either way. Either Raheel is sneaky or Raheel is weak — neither a reputation a year-old chief will want to grow. One: there is no cabal. To anyone who knows anything about how the boys function, the idea is a risible one. Everyone — everyone — serves at the chief's pleasure. The army is not a debating club. You don't go behind the chief's back on something as big as this. Plus, the cabal is retiring in a few weeks. Everyone who reports to the soon-to-be retired cabal is appointed by the chief's office and all of them have records to protect and years of service to look forward to — why be more loyal to the soon-to-be defrocked and risk being cashiered? Ah, but the cabal can do this on its own. And of course Pasha wrapped up his service in Abu Dhabi recently. Again — that means a group of generals meeting among themselves on the side to plot politics. If that isn't a sacking offence, one that a chief can materialise with the stroke of a pen or even just the words “go home”, then we're in a lot more trouble than any of us thought. More on that trouble in a minute. If a cabal is a risible idea, why was it floated in the first place? Because the boys are yet again playing two sides: the constituency within and the public at large. Internally, the cabal theory is mocked because the boys know how the boys function. Externally, with the public, the cabal theory has been lapped up. See how the cabal theory has worked in the public arena. Raheel the good guy, only looking to put just and desirable pressure on a loose-cannon PM. The cabal the bad-bad guys or the bad-good guys. Hardliners, who, depending on your point of view, are the bad-bad guys looking to overturn the still-fragile democratic system and grab power or are the bad-good guys who have the guts to do what's necessary to save us all from a fake democracy. Any which way, the army wins. It's a peculiar breed of strategy that is as risky as it is high-stakes: the chief gets others to do his dirty work, blame shifts to them, he stays clean — until he doesn't. We've seen this template before: memogate. Then, Kayani's hand was being forced by — again, depending on your point of view — a righteous, ambitious or ballsy Pasha and the chief had to juggle opposing concerns: national security versus the democratic project. Now, it's Nawaz who's the national security threat and it's a bunch of no-name generals who are putting pressure on Raheel, and the chief is having to juggle the two. If he takes over, he's the reluctant dictator. If he doesn't take over, he's democracy's hero. It's sneaky, sneaky as hell, and can work — until folk pause and ask, err, is the army really riven by factionalism? And then folk start thinking through the implications of that factionalism. On to those implications. Two: there is a cabal. On India, on Afghanistan, on militancy, even the chief knows he can't do just anything he wants. The boys' core constituency is the boys themselves and certain truths are embedded within. You can't just order them to stop believing. Every chief knows this — which is why, Zia or Musharraf, Kayani or Kakar, Karamat or Raheel, certain things are not attempted. Because no chief wants to issue the order he knows may not be executed. Here's the problem though — on Nawaz, we're in a world far, far removed from core interests. Let's say that on every one of those things — India, Afghanistan, militancy, throw in the US and state restructuring too — Nawaz is at odds with the army. Fine. But what has Nawaz got away with? Wanting to do something is different to being able to do that something. And from here, post azadi and inquilab, what does Nawaz look like he'll ever be able to get away with, even if he survives? If factionalism is tolerated, if a cabal exists, on matters of dull politics, then who else may get what kind of loopy ideas in areas far, far more troubling? Pick any of the contradictions. The enemy is the militant, but religion is in the fabric of the army. The secular authority of your leader is inviolable, but a higher power is sacrosanct. Do what you're told, but believe in scripture. Cabals and factionalism in matters of dull politics, when, as the naval dockyard attack depressingly recalled, terrifyingly bigger fault lines remain largely unseen, unheard and unspoken of. You don't want a sneak, you don't want a weakling - we just really need Raheel to be in charge. —
By arrangement with the Dawn
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Inder Malhotra
With his irrational actions and arrogance, Imran Khan now risks irreversibly damaging the political future of his party that has impacted the country’s politics so deeply, mobilising the educated urban middle class into a formidable political force.
Cyril Almeida
Once
