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EDITORIAL Withdrawal of all unfilled vacancies from State Subordinate Services Selection Board (SSSRB) as regards appointment of teachers is full of dangerous ramifications. Remedy now conceived appears to compound the disease. This policy of direct recruitment bypassing SSSRB is full of many ponderables and makes the Government suspect as regards its intentions. True, there ...more It is a tragedy that State Government has failed to lift sugar from FCI godowns as it has no money to pay for it. As a result this subsidised sugar has not reached the targeted population for the last three months. Hapless consumers are thus compelled to make their buy from the open market where sugar is costlier by at least 25%. This makes mockery of the public distribution system which is ....more |
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By: M J Akbar India should carry out
subcritical tests Does morality lie with |
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EDITORIAL Withdrawal of all unfilled vacancies from State Subordinate Services Selection Board (SSSRB) as regards appointment of teachers is full of dangerous ramifications. Remedy now conceived appears to compound the disease. This policy of direct recruitment bypassing SSSRB is full of many ponderables and makes the Government suspect as regards its intentions. True, there have been inordinate delays in holding the interviews and selecting the candidates. This is however not confined to teachers alone. Other vacancies notified to SSSRB also remain exposed to long delays. It is equally true that selection process besides delays also suffers from lack of credibility in as much as most of the selections made by it are invariably challenged in Courts thereby keeping the selection lists on-hold. There also have been allegations of unfair practices particularly in marks allocations during interviews. It is obvious that one cannot give clean chit to the SSSRB and it does have many lacunae. But the remedy now put in force by the Government is worse. First, it would be treated as extension of all the malafide backdoor recruitments made during the last four years in particular. Enough has been written on this subject. There is hardly a department that has escaped from such back-door entries, albeit with extraneous considerations. In the process many of those thus selected who had willy-nilly paid for the jobs were thrown out after detailed enquiry. Such of the appointed candidates are caught in Catch-22 situation. Had they not greased the palms, they could have never got the job. After securing it, they suddenly lose the job when challenged at appropriate forums. They are thus twice poorer- no job and yet full payment made by them for getting the job. Second, there is that scandalous quota for MLAs/ministers for certain category of vacancies. It is an open secret that money exchanged hands freely. Third, it is now decided to fill all vacancies of the teachers through VLCs (Village Level Committees) and some sort of similar dispensation for urban centres on pattern similar to the one adopted for recruitment under Rehbar-e-Talim schemes. Even selections under this scheme have drawn massive flak and now similar pattern is sought to be introduced for all teachers vacancies. Fourth, it is an open invitation to corruption when Government opts for scrapping laid down system and replace it with ad-hoc one. It is certain that merit which already stands discounted will be given total short shrift. This is so because in the case of SSSRB proper guidelines were laid down in terms of qualifications and bonus marks for better qualified. To that extent one could see highly qualified candidates in teachers lists published from time to time. There could be room only in as far as interview marks are concerned. Net result is that highly qualified teachers are available to do full justice to the education as a whole. It has come to notice that teachers recruited under Rehbar-e-Taleem scheme are poorly educated. One shudders to think of similar low standards for open recruitment of teachers to fill all the vacancies. There is absolutely no doubt that only favourites and those in position to shell out will have clear edge over the meritorious ones. Another aspect relates to the fact that SSSRB is one body created for a specific purpose. It can be made answerable and fully accountable. Now there will be hundreds of VLCs and other committees having field day. Yet another aspect relates to other equally important vacancies notified to the SSSRB but remaining unfilled. There also delay element is quite pronounced. Will the Government recall those vacancies as well and fill up the same on pattern that is porous, suspect and fragile. It is apparent that the correct remedy lies in removing all the lacunae that affect SSSRB. If members are inefficient, they can be replaced with those who are sincere, honest and fast on delivery. If members are less, more can be added for faster delivery so that there is no alibi for delay. All vacancies notified to the SSSRB can be brought within stipulated time-frame irrespective of the number involved and the process through which they have to go through. Above all, SSSRB needs to be made fully autonomous with least political interference which is also source of inordinate delays. It would be in the fitness of things to suggest that with credibility of the powers that be already at its lowest ebb as regards direct, back-door and ad-hoc appointments, nothing should be done that would enlarge sources of corruption rather than curtailing them. Recalling already notified vacancies of teachers from SSSRB erodes credibility of not only the Selection Board but also the Government which probably has not done anything to make this body click in public esteem. No Government, least of all popular Government, should ever subscribe to the dictum, ''Make hay while the Sun shines''. With sub-standard teachers, the already abysmal educational standards would be further compromised. Surely, it is very unhealthy sign. If Government has no faith in its own created body like the SSSRB and first step to challenge its credibility has already been taken, it is just as well that SSSRB itself is scrapped. It would be then totally 'open' and 'transparent' affair. The Government would be well advised to abandon this type of adventurism. Instead, it should add more teeth to the SSSRB to make it efficient and faster on delivery. It is a tragedy that State Government has failed to lift sugar from FCI godowns as it has no money to pay for it. As a result this subsidised sugar has not reached the targeted population for the last three months. Hapless consumers are thus compelled to make their buy from the open market where sugar is costlier by at least 25%. This makes mockery of the public distribution system which is meant to ensure smooth, regular and adequate supply of rationed items. The Minister for Consumer Affairs Mr Shanta Ram bemoans that 35% of the foodgrains meant for supply to 33 crore people living below the poverty line are stolen enroute and money siphoned off. Translated into loss of money to the central exchequer it works out to Rs 300 crore. The question is why the Government lives with a system that refuses to subserve the interests of the consumers. Surely, such cheap foodgrains heavily subsidised are meant to improve nourishment and health of the poor. If siphoning off is admitted to the tune of 33% (actually in States like Bihar it is reported as high as 75%) then what is the use of having such a system. It is equally true that most of the blame lies on the State Governments that have to implement the policies including distribution of foodgrains under the Below Poverty Line schemes of Targeted Public Distribution System. The tragedy gets further compounded in as much as wheat prices have fallen in the open market and there is hardly any taker for it at ration outlets. Only the grains meant for BPL category are lifted and pilferred during transition from FCI godowns to various destinations. It has also been admitted by J&K Government that all is not well with the TPDS. Recently, Government agencies unearthed the racket of such subsidised wheat and sugar finding its way to godowns in Warehouse or Millers premises. Despite all such flaw at the State level, credit facility has been extended to J&K for lifting sugar stocks so that the essential commodity can reach the targeted population. One expects that this credit will be fully utilised and sugar lifted and moved to various destinations. |
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By: M J Akbar Moral of the week: a fax is cheaper than petrol. The facts did not matter. A fax did. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee staved off the first threat to his stable Government (he has a lot of experience in unstable Governments; this is his first experience with a stable one) by sending a fax to the leader presumptive of Bengal suggesting that he was willing to negotiate a price for blackmail, although a full ransom was unlikely. The official reason for the challenge by the Trinamul Congress was the rise in oil prices. The unofficial reason was political footsie. There is a difference between a sulk and a revolt. Since Mamata Banerjee was only sulking, she was more interested in her face than her stand. A sulk only affects the face, after all, not the posture. The Prime Minister, who is now an expert in the art of controlling friends and influencing oponents, found a face-saving formula, and Mamata Banerjee was happy to use BJP face cream to hide the blotches of a mismanaged political play. When she challenged her own Goverment over the administered rise in fuel prices, she was not doing so on behalf of the prople who would have to pay that higher price. She was only interested in her personal political fortunes. Since her personal fortunes are far more fickle than the economy of India, the deal was easily negotiated. Mamata Banerjee is not interested in India, which may be one reason why India is not interested in her -- as yet. However, she is committed to Bengal, although Bengal is not committed to her -- as yet. There is only one focus on her horizon. She wants to defeat the CPI (M) in West Bengal. In the Assembly elections scheduled for the spring of next year. She is not interested in defeating the left Front. If it were at all possible for her to make all the constituents of the Left Front apart from the CPI (M) partners of her alliance, she would happily do so. Her target is the CPI (M). So far her political arithmetic has suggested that she needs the BJP support to come anywhere near this point. She has no personal sympathy for the BJP philosophy; she is secular by choice, if not by conviction. She has chosen the BJP as a partner in a fluid environment, but there is a price to be paid. Muslim support, crucial in Bengal, remains sceptical about Mamata. She finds it expedient to position herself as a reluctant ally. There is nothing personal in such politics. Mamata Banerjee would happily replace the BJP with the Congres, particularly now that the Congress has acknowledged that it is a marginal force without her. But Mamata is not yet certain about the algebra of this transfer. She must be sure that she profits from any new equation. That is the nub. There is no shortage of fantasists in Delhi and they had began to salvate at the prospect of a revolt by Mamata. The familiar scenario was there. George Fernandes, who canot remain outside an aeroplane if he can help it, was scurrying around to appease the lady. and emissaries were prancing about with all the vigour they had once reserved for Ms Jayalalitha. But there was nothing real about the crisis.Mr Vajpayee's and the BJP 's, real problem is not Mamata Banerjee. It is internal. The BJP has become the most unpopular ruling party in recent memory. If the Government retains a bit more credibility than the part around which it is built, then the credit is solely that of the Prime Minister, Thanks to his personal rapport with the voters. But that is fast becoming a diminishing return. The first bits of evidence are in. The results of the local elections in Gujarat tell an eloquent story. The party is suffering from shell shock now, but the full extent of its misery will be evident only after the Uttar Pradesh elections next year, when it is mauled by Mulayam SinghYadav. That will leave the BJP with only Gujarat at the State level, and Gujarat is spiralling out its control. The Prime Minister's popularity, which cannot be a permanent fact, will not compensate for the decline of the organisation he represents. A year ago, the BJP was dreaming of sweeping Bihar today, it is in retreat everywhere. There are, obviously, good reasons for this. The most important of them is Government policy. It may seem heretical to say this, but the Prime Minister himself is the biggest reason for the decline in the BJP's fortunes. Economic transition is difficult anywhere in the world, no matter how rich a nation might be, for no electorate wants to pay the price of change. Sensible political leadership demands that transition be handled with care, particularly when the reality of liberalisation is so obviously weighted in favour of capital and capitalists, both domestic and multinational. When the poor feel left out of change, they ask why. They are not unreasonable; the rich are far more cussed than the poor, because they can afford their obstinacy. The poor fight for dreams; the rich fight for luxury. But in a democracy you cannot hope to retain the goodwill of the poor by being careless or indifferent to their concerns. A dialogue with them is absolutely essential. The last time the Prime Minister spoke to the nation was during the Kargil war. Since then he has been discussing the future of India with the rich. His supporters may consider this good economics, but this is poor politics. You cannot fob off the poor with phrases while presenting capital with opportunity and licence. The Government of Atal Behari Vajpayee can hand out thousands of crores to private sector magnates of the telecom industry but has no money to absorb the rising costs of essential commodities. Incidentally, this is not unique to India; Tony Blair in Britain has just seen has popularity collapse because he refused to protect the price of petrol. Second, time is the biggest enemy of any new Government. Familiarity breeds contempt; in politics it does so at an accelerated pace So far the BJP has gained from what might be called the TIAA factor; There is an Alternative factor. The desire to find an effective alternative to the Congress cushioned the BJP against any mistakes. But that protection is now wearing off as the BJP begins to look like any other ruling party. Glamour gets frayed in the fray, as it were; virginity picks up patches. As the BJP begins to look and act like the establishment, it also creates distance between itself and the people. That distance will be measured in votes. Third, the core constituency of the BJP is confused. The Hindutva Parivar, in addition, to becoming softened by power, is now uncertain about what the BJP stands for. The joke is that the RSS is moving around in Marutis now; the days of the bicycle are over. More important, the BJP president Bangaru Laxman, under the direct - and, naturally, laudable -- instructions from the Prime Minister is sounding like the president of a secular political party. This was not why the RSS was created 75 years ago. This is not why the Jana Sangh was formed nearly fifty years ago. And is this why the BJP was born in 1981 after it left the crushed Janata Party? Organisations like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which dreamt of a BJP Government, have no answers for cadres who ask when the Ram temple will be built in Ayodhya. Those who could have protected the BJP during this difficult phase are in no mood to do so. How then can it win anything except perhaps applause at the WTO and praise in Washington? The Mamata Banerjee are not waiting for a price rise; they are waiting to see what happens to the ground beneath their feet. This is where the BJP is slipping. |
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Does morality lie with the
beholder? I am often astonished at the degree of ambivalence that attends Indian attitudes on issues of sexuality in general, and the exposure of the female form in particular. The most innocuous advertisements, films, television programmes, books and magazines have attracted the passions of outraged censors-both official and self-appointed-and keep our courts busy with a slew of "obscenity" cases, frequently in the alleged "public interest". The latest of these related to a tedious parading of scantily clad women and men (though there seems to be little objection to the latter) on a television channel going by the name of Fashion TV or FTV. This, however, is only the most recent link in a long, recidivist chain which involves violent protests against "beauty contests", the wearing of "obscene" clothes-such as jeans-by girls in schools and colleges, and protests against the deleterious influence of a variety of Western imports. As with beauty, I believe, obscenity lies essentially in the eyes of the beholder. And I have found it to lie inordinately in the eyes and minds of the priests, the pandas, the mullahs, the moralists and the censors all over the world. It is they, who appear to be more obsessed with sexuality than even the most sexually active person could conceivably be. The Victorian discovery of "obscenity" in a piano's legs comes to mind, as does Anatole France's little metaphor in Penguin Island, where a shortsighted priest mistakenly baptises some penguins, and subsequently discovers that they are all "sinfully naked", and sets about to clothe them. (It is incidental but interesting that, once clothed, the uglier penguins looked better than the handsome ones). I think it is time to take a close, objective and fresh look at our attitudes here. This is important, not only so that we can bring about a little sense and order in our worldview, but also, as was recently brought home to me by an article in Pakistan's Dawn newspaper, from a geopolitical perspective. Ayaz Amir, in a rather passionate piece on Kashmir, titled 'Core issue, my goat', wrote about the "Size, numbers, the computers of Bangalore, a mythologised view of its past and the longlegged beauty contestants (ravishing, so many of them) who give India's rising middle class the illusion of first world rank and mobility..." It is my considered opinion that the seduction of India's cinema and fashion industry holds greater terrors for Pakistan-and certainly for the mad mullahs with guns there- than the force of India's arms. The fact is that our attitudes to sexuality are about very much more than sexuality. They are part of a worldview, a state of mind, a concept of the universe and humankind's place in it. And there is something fundamentally offensive in a morality that makes shame the dominant and integral experience of a woman's being. This is, unfortunately, the morality accepted and adopted by the overwhelming majority in India today. I would insist, however, that it is not a morality born of India's soil, but is, rather, an imposition-that came into the region with the violent influence of alien cultures, particular of the "people of the Book", both Islamic and Christian. Indeed, as one commentator has remarked, "Considering the amount of sexuality portrayed in Hinduism, it is hard to understand why Hindu societies today are less open about sex than some other religions which speak of sex as a sin." We need only to look to the paintings and frescos, not only in Ajanta and Elora, but in so many of our ancient temples, to see that no shame attached to the human form, or to the relationship between man and woman, in India's ancient civilisation. There is also an immense body of Sanskrit literature-of which my knowledge is admittedly minimal and episodic-that provides enough evidence of an enlightened attitude in this regard, though the texts grow progressively ambivalent, and eventually violently puritanical as the ideals of the original Vedic system are progressively compromised. Nevertheless, these attitudes have survived in many isolated pockets in the country, particularly in the tribal belts. I recall, many years ago, a tiring tour through shrub and forest on the Assam-Mizoram border, after which we arrived, exhausted, sweaty and full of dust, at the riverside, to catch a ferry across. As we waited, a young tribal couple walked up-quite as dusty and tired as we were. They proceeded then, to calmly disrobe at a little distance, entered the water to bathe, came out refreshed, dressed themselves and a little later got on to the ferry. There was, in all this, neither shame nor exhibitionism. It was quite simply the most convenient, natural and, frankly, sensible thing to do. It is interesting to note that it is precisely in the pockets where such attitudes prevail that women enjoy a much higher status and great security against masculine violence as compared to the other "civilised" (Semitised) parts of the country. There is, of course, little in common between such attitudes and the titillatory exhibitionism of many "liberated" women today. I doubt if the status of women or the cause of their "liberation" is measurably improved by pandering to the male fantasy. Indeed, the derivative feminism that we have accepted from the West is deeply flawed in its emphasis on promiscuity and some of the worst of the masculine vices. I believe that Western feminists and their Indian imitators have tended to consider the worst attributes of men as symbols of "emancipation", and to cultivate these in a denial of their own femininity, rather than to secure a realisation of any freedom. Many of the women who are deeply and widely admired by feminists have, in fact, succeeded through the adoption of the brutality, the vengefulness, and the violence that is characteristically associated with the most negative aspects of "manhood". Indeed, the degree of "liberation" of a Western woman is often estimated by the extent of her approximation, in attitudes and activities, of a man, and a deep rejection and denial of the essence of femininity lies at the heart of the Western feminist movement. Indian women must evolve their own measures for what constitutes their freedom. Such freedom cannot lie in the denial of their essential nature, but will be discovered in the development of its inherent dignity, strength and uniqueness; such freedom, moreover, must be entirely devoid of the shame that is imposed as the constant burden of womanhood today. Whether FTV, jeans and beauty competitions can develop the "inherent dignity, strength and uniqueness of women" is, of course, a question that demands separate evaluation. They do, however, progressively undermine the rigid, narrow and entirely oppressive identities that all religions today seek to inflict on half of humankind. As a final aside, I would like to add, that a majority of people of strong religious convictions in our part of the world reflect little truly religious consciousness, imagination, or humanity in their attitudes and practices. At the risk of giving offence, I will add that, among these, the Islamic clergy as a collectivity is perhaps the most stupid and oppressive group of people in the world today, and I believe that, eventually, it will be the women of Islam who will question and destroy their authority, and the reign of terror that some among them have unleashed in this pat of the world. INAV |
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