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EDITORIAL It is nice to hear that some preliminaries are in place for construction of alternate highway linking Jammu with Srinagar. Several alternatives have been proposed by the study carried out by Austrian Consultants M/s ILF Consultant Engineers. The high powered committee on construction of the alternate highway has deliberated on the preliminary study made by the consultants. It has been decided to carry out detailed techno-economic study particularly on the proposal that cuts the distance between the twin capitals by 67 Km and time taken for ...more Pressure continues to be built up American administration by one member after another to lift sanctions imposed on India in the wake of Pokhran II nuclear tests. They have argued that such sanctions are a deterrent to put Indo-American relations on fast track to subserve mutual economic and strategic interests. In fact, during run-up to presidential elections such review was committed. After the Bush Government ...more |
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World
should now wake By Avinash Shirodkar Spin
doctors of By Jayant Muralidharan Voting
at 18 gave By M J Akbar Hermit
and Heritage-II From B L Kak |
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EDITORIAL It is nice to hear that some preliminaries are in place for construction of alternate highway linking Jammu with Srinagar. Several alternatives have been proposed by the study carried out by Austrian Consultants M/s ILF Consultant Engineers. The high powered committee on construction of the alternate highway has deliberated on the preliminary study made by the consultants. It has been decided to carry out detailed techno-economic study particularly on the proposal that cuts the distance between the twin capitals by 67 Km and time taken for covering the distance by 40%. This is despite the fact that this particular study involves 25 km of tunnelling. The study now evisaged shall also cover likely cost and other technical aspects besides economic advantages that would accrue to the State in terms of recurring expenditure and cost of living. Once distance is shortened by 67 km it reflects lower costs for all goods exported from valley or imported into it. One can as well include advantages that accrue to the security forces. Logistic support would not only be easier but also cheaper. In fact, such alternate route has been repeatedly mentioned as indispensable on various considerations. But one really does not know why such an important project has not seen the light of the day for the last 54 years. Everybody knows its dire necessity and yet all proposals and concerns reflected thus far somehow get bogged down in frivolities. Some study had also been carried out by BEACON some years back suggesting alternate alignments for bypassing landslide prone stretch between Ramban and Banihal. But someone somewhere lacks the will to pursue the proposal further to give it concrete shape. Its necessity is felt only when highway gets blocked over a long period. Once it remained closed for good 15 days. Such prolonged closures of the only highway linking Valley with rest of the country not only affects economy of the State adversely but its strategic importance gets diluted. Once something is not appreciated, obviously it implies unconcern. In the same vein none appreciates the requirements of the valleyites. As soon as highway gets blocked, prices of essential commodities shoot up. During one of the long closure of highway, even petro-products had to be airlifted to Valley at huge cost to the exchequer. Thus, hapless citizens who are already exposed to economic distress during the 12 year long insurgency are made to pay heavy price just because no alternate route is there. Another aspect that is relevant is the gross neglect of roads and communication in this border State. It stands manifested from the fact that during the last 54 years of independence only 100 km of rail track is operational. The 50 km link to Udhampur is nowhere in sight as it continues to be subjected to inordinate delays with resultant cost escalation. While some headway is made for the Qazigund-Baramulla link in terms of land acquisition, the progress on the Udhampur-Qazigund section is zero. One really does not know what purpose would be served for only Qazigund-Baramulla rail link unless it is linked up with Udhampur-Jammu line. Then and then alone it can be construed as constructive investment and fruitful project. But jaundiced minds and squint eyes refuse to feel or see things in correct perspective. So it is the only wretched State where railway communication is as good as nil and where even strategic alternate highway remains elusive for decades. To be precise, even interior road networks have not been taken up in right earnest by the successive State rulers whose priorities have been hinging on personal benefits and self-aggrandisement. One expects that such road network linking all villages under the Prime Minister's latest plan will be completed within the stipulated framework to make every inaccessible village have motorable road. In this context one can also mention Srinagar-Leh 400 km road which remains snowbound for almost eight months in a year. There was the proposal to have tunnel at Zojilla pass for round the year transportation. One really does not know whether it is the State or the Centre or both who should take up this project in right earnest to serve not only the people of Cold Desert but also subserve strategic interests. One really does not know any area in the world, including Siberia, where road communication is available only for one-third of the year. For doing it, one can derive inspiration from the project cleared by Surface Transport Ministry to construct 9 km long tunnel at Rohtang Pass to have all weather road linking Manali with Leh. If Rohtang can be tunnelled, Zojilla cannot be ignored. All in all it is good that alternate highway is on the agenda of the State Government. It should be pursued more vigorously and monitored at every stage and not allowed to be killed in the embryo itself. God forbids, if something happens to Jawahar tunnel, it could be real dooms-day for the state in the absence of any alternate highway. From the preliminaries it should mature into a viable project within minimum time. Pressure continues to be built up American administration by one member after another to lift sanctions imposed on India in the wake of Pokhran II nuclear tests. They have argued that such sanctions are a deterrent to put Indo-American relations on fast track to subserve mutual economic and strategic interests. In fact, during run-up to presidential elections such review was committed. After the Bush Government formally took over on January 20 Secretary of State General Powell lost no time in ordering comprehensive review of sanctions. It is the stated policy of Bush that he wants India to play stabilising role in Asia and act as bulwark against hegemonic designs of some powers. He has also stated that CTBT is as good as dead and its signing or not signing will not come in the way of lifting sanctions. But things are moving at sluggish pace. It has been recognised that sanctions have hurt America much more than they hurt India. Indian economy has shown enough resilience to withstand such sanctions. In this context, one statement of George Bush is quite relevant. He says that his administration is going to work for very close relations with India but not at the cost of her traditional friend Pakistan. This equation is quite disturbing in as much as America continues to play soft as far as Pak support to global terrorism is concerned. It is precisely because of such equation still in vogue that one important Senator has reminded Bush that Pakistan is no more a strategic need of America. It was so during cold war period when Pakistan provided military bases to western military alliances like CENTO and SEATO. In return Pakistan received large quantities of weapon systems free of cost. Again, in its overzealousy to evict Russian forces from Afghanistan, Pakistan was used as the guerrilla base. With end of cold war, strategic perceptions have undergone sea-change. So the Senator wants that Bush administration treats India on a separate pedestal and not equate it with Pakistan. Lifting of sanctions is the first pre-requisite. |
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World should now wake to face Islamic terrorism By Avinash Shirodkar Central Intelligence Agency director George Tenet's testimony before the United States Senate Committee on Intelligence on February 7, amply reflects the tenuous state of affairs in a world increasingly held hostage by fundamentalist terrorist organisations and rogue missile-producing nations. Mr. Tenet's statement on current global threats should evoke concern in the world as he warns of a border conflict erupting between this country and Pakistan over Kashmir. He also reveals China's growing military clout and its brazen attempts to fuel Pakistan's missile ambitions. Mr. Tenet's assessment of Indo-Pakistan relations merits special mention. He argues that Pakistan could be tempted to use nuclear weapons to neutralise whatever superiority India has in terms of conventional weapons. This argument does carry weight as seen by Musharraf's calculated double speak on Kashmir Ceasefire in the past few weeks. Cornered by fundamentalists within the country, a crumbling economy and an increasing US pressure to talk peace with India, Musharraf could easily get provoked to use nuclear weapons even if on a limited scale. During the Kargil War when he was Pakistan's Army chief, he had sent signals to activate the nuclear command and control. Mr. Tenet's statement, therefore, should be taken seriously not only by India's strategic planners but the world community as well. Equally disturbing is China supplying missile products and technology to countries like Iraq, Iran, Libya and Pakistan. Mr. Tenet says despite commitments to the contrary. Beijing has been actively supporting Pakistan's missile development programme. Various Chinese firms have helped Islamabad's nuclear programmes in the past. The stamp of China's aid and assistance is manifest in Pakistan's two-stage Shaheen-II medium range ballistic missile at present undergoing final checks for its second test flight. If India and the United States are about to cooperate in combating international terrorism, exchange of "actionable intelligence" along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir will be a more efficacious first step than trying to dismantle the Taliban network. For India, Afghanistan is in many ways a bridge too far for the moment. Both former US President Bill Clinton and Russian President Vladimir Putin have laid stress on handling the Taliban brand of cross-border terrorism but an absence of a clear definition of Pakistan's role in creating that monster and letting it loose upon the world in expectations of rich dividends in terms of "strategic depth" and "sphere of influence" will foredoom action against Afghanistan. For another, Pakistan is the gateway to Afghanistan. It is both source of inspiration and source of military wherewithal for the Taliban regime in Kabul. It is not for nothing that the "Lion of Panjshir" Ahmed Shah Masood, Defence Minister of the Northern Alliance which is still battling the Taliban in a last-ditch struggle should so vehemently condemn Pakistan and its nefarious role. If there is any one measure that will have almost immediate and far-reaching effect on those who are practitioners of international terrorism with a global reach, it is an unambiguous identification of Pakistan as the progenitor of Islamic terrorism. Pakistan is the conduit to landlocked Afghanistan. Putting diplomatic and political pressure on Pakistan will, in the short term, pay greater dividends than trying, as did the US, "long-range, cruise-missile type" of campaigns against Osama bin Laden and his protectors in Afghanistan. Even without declaring Pakistan a "terrorist state" if the nexus between it, some West Asia oil sheikhdoms, and the Taliban is targeted it is possible to put curbs on the training programmes in camps inside Afghanistan. The CIA is believed to have agreed to unlock its dossiers of the Osama bin Laden operations. It will help in understanding the psychological makeup of the terrorist outfits that are associated with the Taliban. Those involved in the arcane world of spies and intelligence gathering in India cannot but be aware that some of the methodologies of assassinations and terrorism being credited to Osama bin Laden are actually updates of CIA manuals for assassins distributed among the "contras" of Central American banana republics like El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. The CIA also trained Osama bin Laden to fight the "evil empire" of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the early 1980s. Using "agit-prop" methods to counter the bin Laden phenomenon will have little immediate impact, particularly so as there is no contiguous landmass that will enable counter-terrorism forces like the US Delta Force, Britain's Strategic Air Services, Russia's Interior Ministry forces to hit at the training camps or try to get at the leadership. Indo-US cooperation against terrorism in essence implies tackling the aftermath of the CIA's counter-revolutionary operations using Islamists as the spearhead. It is ironic that both Ahmed Shah Masood of the Afghan Northern Alliance forces and bin Laden are both products of CIA training camps and are now pitted against each other. One way of countering the Taliban in Afghanistan is to reinforce and strengthen the Northern Alliance both diplomatically and politically. The military wherewithal to enable the still internationally recognized government of Afghanistan to fight the Taliban can come only from the CIA and other western intelligence agencies, Russia and China which has, through its participation in the Shanghai Five conclaves indicated its willingness to bolster the anti-terrorism campaign. India, as a victim of cross-LoC and cross-border terrorism can benefit from concerted action that identifies concentrations of terrorists, their infiltration routes, types of weapons available to the militants (recent seizures of high-calibre mortar launchers from terrorist hideouts in Jammu and Kashmir point to an escalation of firepower in the hands of the terrorists) help evolve tactics to counter them. The US will also have to revise its insistence on "both sides" respecting the "sanctity" of the Line of Control. This is nothing but equating the aggressor and the victim. Moreover, it does not make any such distinction in West Asia when it comes to Israel. At the political level too the talk of "self-determination" based on imported terrorism renders ineffectual any effort to counter those who use terror tactics to try and excise territory. This applies equally to Chinese Xinjiang, Russian Chechnya, Kosovo, Indonesia, and the Philippines - the wide arc of the globe where Osama bin Laden is credited with fomenting trouble. It is time for the world community to force Pakistan (the real progenitor) of Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan to implement UN Security Council Resolution No. 1333, which prohibits arms supply to the Taliban regime. The Taliban rulers are neither willing to close down the Jehadi training camps nor willing to extradite international terrorist Osama bin Laden. INAV |
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Voting at 18 gave minority Govts By M J Akbar Ever since Rajiv Gandhi made the eighteen-year-old into a voter in the general elections of 1989, there has been no majority Government in Delhi. Are these two facts related? Certainly in such matters is the virtue of an ass. But there is a growing feeling that there may be a link. The youngest band of voter defines himself or herself by rejecting the establishment, whatever it may be; this is the law of the first assertion. That group almost certainly tilted the balance against the Congress in 1989, preferring V P Singh; and since then has consistently led the way in mobilising against the Congress at the polling booth. In 1991, in the north, that voter went to the BJP fashioned by Lal Krishna Advani at his inspirational best in his Ram temple phase. It could have been predicted that achievement would become the death of inspiration; on December 6 Mr Advani got his temple but lost his young-temple vote. Since then the BJP has been refashioning itself, not without success, but the success has been one of intelligent strategy rather than passionate belief. The party has resolved this contradiction because it has been blessed by circumstance, but that is not a permanent resolution. The most important reason for the BJP's success is the failure of the Congress. After Rajiv Gandhi the Congress found two leaders who may have had their functional uses for a paty in decline but were incapable of adding a single vote. They did a good job of reducing the vote, however. Both Mr P V Narasimha Rao and Sitaram Kesri were particularly dead to the most energetic element of the electorate, that predictably unpredictable teenager and post-teener. Many of the middle-aged leaders in the Congress replaced Kesri with Mrs Sonia Gandhi because they believed that she would energise the young to return to the party. They learnt very quickly that you cannot bring the youth vote back simply by looking younger than Mr Rao or Kesri (in itself not too difficult to do). You have to also communicate a vision. At the moment the Congress behaves and talks like a party that wants a future for itself, not for the voter, and not for the young. No political party in the country has an agenda for the young, which is why the young have no commitment towards any political party. There is State feel about India's political leadership. Even the comparatively younger leaders seem to have been around for too long, and aged beyond their age. The problem is about more than personalities. We are in a phase of politics bereft of ideology. In the fifties the ideology of our national movement created the necessary commitment towards nationalism. When this palled at a range of Marxist options, from a confused Indian socialism to virulent Maoism dominated the thinking of the young in the sixties and seventies. It was both intellectual and inspirational, irrespective of your choice within the range. Dr Ram Manohar Lohia's thesis competed with that of Mao Zedony, with options along the way. George Fernandes was a hero not only to the working class but also to the young who never left his side even when voters distanced themselves from him. It was the young who led the fight against the emergency, and the political parties who reaped the windfall. In a sense that was the culmination of the mood of that age, and its success in 1977 was a vindication of all the movements that had exhausted the sixties and the seventies. I believe that the alienation of the young from Indian politics began with the disillusionment that followed 1977, when the Janata Party betrayed that profusion of hopes that spearheaded its ascension to power. Mrs Indira Gandhi returned in 1980, but she was no longer the leader who had lifted politics into another stratosphere in 1970 and 1971. The young never went back to the Congress with any enthusiasm after that. For a brief while, Rajiv Gandhi caught their imagination, but that was all too brief. V P Singh and L K Advani replaced him, splitting the sentiment between Mandal and Mandir: by the end of 1993 both had dissipated, both meandering into conventional politics, each with its burden of sorrow. The young have wandered away from any political party, though not cut of politics. The Marxists of Bengal are the only ones whose youth wing is not defunct, but they have not added significantly to such support. Those youngsters inclined towads political activity in Bengal are drifting towards Mamata Banerjee, a phase that will last till she fails to deliver, or her promise withers. One of the two will happen this year, if she wins, she will not be able to deliver. And if she loses to the Marxists again, her promise will sag. Five years is too long to wait in the life of the young; they are not so young at the end of it. Some politicians blame the young themselves for this abdication, criticising the hamburger and the discotheque for their depoliticisation. This is disingenuous, and I am not even going to ask who put the hamburger in front of the young maybe the cycles of history did. The more relevant fact is that political parties themselves have become non-ideologial. The only party with a political agenda is the BJP, and its extremists want a sectarian India. The young may be susceptible to passion, but that is generally a temorary fascination. What holds them is ideas and ideology. Since there are no ideas, there is nothing to hold them. Not even jobs. Take a random check among the young, and ask what they really dream about. A passport, an airline ticket, and at the end of the rainbow a green card in the United States or a residential permit in some developed country. They dream of leaving India, and if they feel especially patriotic they suggest they could come back. But you should see the leap in the step as they board the plane outward. India, as they might put it in their jargon is not a happening country. There is a powerful restlessness among the young that advertises their diminishing faith in our country's ability to catch up with the world that they see on their television screens. The underled among them from the desolate small towns of Bihar are pushing towards Delhi and Mumbai (once upon a time the destination was Kolkata); Delhi and Mumbai is their America Delhi and Mumbai are searching for the Silicon Valley and Europe. This unhappiness translates into a negative vote against whoever is in power. Can young anger be decisive? By itself, no. But it is never by itself. There is always a current running against any ruling party; the young add high voltage to this current. More Governments have been defeated since 1989 than any time before, even during the volatile late sixities, both at the State and the Central levles. There has not been single-party rule in Delhi since 1989. This reflects on the one hand, the continuously shrinking base of the Congress and, on the other, the inability of the BJP to occupy all the space vacated by the Congress. No party is large enough to absorb and assimilate the contradictions that have arisen in the electoral politics of India. Opinion polls are calculating that Congress could reach up to 200 seats in the next general elections. But do not look only at statistics. Take a look also at Pranab Mukherjee's face. The little that was left of the Congress in Bengal is heading straight into the waiting arms of Mamata Banerjee and her friends in the National Democratic Alliance, including the BJP. When asked about the "sacrifice" of principles in the alliance with the BJP, the leader of the departing forces, Saugata Roy asks plaintively how much more of his political life he will have to give over to principles that only succeed in marginalising him. He has spent his whole life in politics being defeated by the Marxists; he cannot waste the rest of it being defeated by Mamata Banerjee. The situation is worse for the Congress in Tamil Nadu. Jayalalitha has no use for Sonia Gandhi's party, not because of anything personal but because the Sonia Congress has melted away from the few patches in which it was visible. The story doing the rounds in Chennai is that when Pranab Mukherjee (against Poorman...) met Jayalalitha to discuss an alliance she asked him to name five constituencies from where the Congress could put up a credible candidate let alone witn a seat. Pranab Mukherjee turns red with embarrassment fairly quickly. He was purple when he left Jayalalitha's home in Chennai. (Jayalalitha is likely to shift home a little later this year, and move into the Chief Minister's residence.) The Congress is comatose in Bihar. Even Jagannath Mishra will not touch the party. It is experiencing a mild upward bounce in Uttar Pradesh, but nothing that will take it higher than Mulayam Singh Yadav or the BJP. It will have to prepped up by Mayawati to stay in the game, and that is tantamount to a helath warning. In Gujarat the Congress leadership has mismanaged the earthquake aftermath thoroughly, sounding either naive or opportunist. Maharashtra it can forget in the near future. Maybe it will be 1977 once again and all the Congress MPs will come from Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. The BJP is no better off; and we will know after the UP elections whether it is any worse off or not. Which about sums it up. Both the BJP and the Congress are thinking laterally, in terms of states, and in the traditional political geometry of castes and constituencies and communities. Someone needs to take a closer look at the demographics of emerging India, which is reshaping itself along other lines. Youth is also a religion. Someone should have faith in it. |
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Hermit and Heritage-II From B L Kak "Whatever the degree of an individual Kashmiri’s faith, the fact remains that the life of most Kashmiris is dominated by the presence of a saint somewhere at the back of his or her mind, whose aid is invoked whenever the uncertainties of life threaten". This finding, irrefutable as it is, has come from Prof. AN Dhar and Prof. Neerja Mattoo, the co-editors of the book: Bhagavaan Gopinathji: Our Spiritual Heritage. Indeed, this finding has been incorporated in the book’s introduction. Prof. Dhar and Prof. Neerja are not off the mark when they throw up yet another important finding: "Every spot associated with the presence of a rishi or a non-materialistically oriented person, is a place to revere, a shrine to which people flock. This is what has happened, very conspicuously indeed, in the case of Bhagavaan Gopinathji and his legacy". And his followers are not to blame for the way they created a space not confined to where he lived on earth in his physical form, but wherever they happen to meet to carry on the good work. That the Government of India had no option but to recognise Bhagavaan Gopinath’s spiritual stature as a saint became too evident to be missed when, not long ago, the Ministry of Communications issued a commemorative postal stamp on him. And by the time the important event had taken place in New Delhi, it had also been accepted that his fame had spread to countries abroad. This, according to Prof. Dhar and Prof. Neerja Mattoo, "is appropriate for a person who, even though he was physically located in a house at Srinagar, was believed to be everywhere in the world at once, in a perpetual state of bliss, and part of the cosmic consciousness-one among the Jagad Gurus". Admitting that terror and violence are rampant in many parts of the world, Prof. Dhar has, in his write-up titled ‘Our Spiritual Heritage: The Contribution of Saints and Mystic Poets’, stated that movements concerned with the spiritual well-being of mankind and moves aimed at the resolution of conflicts through dialogue and mutual understanding "are also gradually gaining momentum". The write-up has brought to the fore a few interesting points. First, Bhagavaan Gopinath was a living, human embodiment of the ‘universal consciousness’ that Swami Muktanand calls Shiva. Second, Bhagavaan Gopinath was extraordinary in several ways. While he had all the marks of a Kashmiri house-hold saint evident from the dress he wore and the agnihotra he performed as a daily ritual, he deviated from the norm in his unusual fondness for the chillum and his going without food for long periods. Third, in matters spiritual, Bhagavaan Gopinath was not just conventional, but had a mind of his own and the makings of a spiritual genius that culminated in his attaining the state of Sivahood. Fourth, Bhagavaan Gopinath was very fond of the Guru Gita as a spiritual text, which only confirms the importance he attached to the position and role of the Guru. Yet he is also reported to have expressed on one occasion that the earnest seeker could turn to the ‘teacher within’ and that a sloka of the Gita would perform the function of a Guru for him. In his article titled ‘Kashmir: Vedic God Surya and Bhagavaan Gopinath’, Mr SL Shali, well-known archaeologist of Kashmir, has said that the worship of Surya, the Vedic God, was prevalent from very times in Kashmir. Bhagavaan Gopinath’s adoration of the Sun, according to Mr Shali, was visualised on the 10th day ceremony of a deceased relative of his, Pandit Damodhar Parimoo. Mr Shali’s story runs thus: Like all others who participated in the ceremony, he (Bhagavaan Gopinath) too stood in the line till the son of the deceased went twice from one end to the other. During this process, Bhagavaanji did not look towards any of us, or even to the ground or the sides or talk to any one, not even the members of the household but gazed upwards towards the illuminating sun. His face had a blissful lustre and was free of fear, sorrow or attachment. He got infinite joy (‘ananda’) through the gracious rays of the sun. He had a devout and positive attitude towards the Vedic God, Surya, the embodiment of indescribable bliss and the means to the attainment of sahaja samadhi (natural super-consciousness). Even while moving around or talking with people, Bhagavaan Gopinath, Mr Shali has written, remained always absorbed in the serenity of his inner consciousness, realising thereby the blissful state of universal oneness. And the Kashmiri saint manifested, to quote Mr Shali, "greatness, supremacy, spiritual attainment and God-realisation through continued remembrance of the Sun-God". (To be continued) |
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