EDITORIAL
Debate
not demagoguery!
Politicking on
anything and everything is the bane of the
present day leadership in this country. Thus a
needed law like POTA became a point a politicking
here not discussion. The issue of Bangladeshi
refugees that rocked Assam for a full decade was
also lost to this same penchant of the demagogues
to make political meal of everything. Godhara
became a political ping-pong not a national
tragedy. Even terrorism, threatening the whole
nation, is a point for politicking not pondering.
In that rule of demagoguery disinvestment could
not be spared. It wasn’t. And politicians
both in the Government and on the opposition
benches are cooking whole political dishes over
the economic policy of the country. There is a
need for disinvestment as well as a debate on
disinvestment, but that is not an occasion for
wild denigration of the whole idea and scheme.
There is, probably. A media angle to the whole
thing, as the Prime Minister said the other day.
Somehow media, at least sections of it, have come
to see the world only as one huge conflict and
want to see victories and defeats in everything.
But there are no
victories there, nor any defeats there. Nation
building is a long process of hits and misses.
There are policies that serve a certain need,
answer the imperatives of a time and need
revision even reversion as the times change and
experience accumulates. Then, the economic theory
itself has undergone changes, many of them
tumultuous enough to overturn all the premises.
The interest, after all, is the betterment of the
people and that cannot be subservient to
theoretical positions or personal beliefs. Four
decades of controls-notoriously referred to as
the License Raj have taught that those policies
would not work. There, the leftists, rightists,
centralists and all the sides agree. USSR
primarily broke up on the economic point. Chinese
communists proved cleverer and changed the
socialist plank for capitalism before economic
pressures would have broken their regime across
the Himalayas. Within the country, the sorry
State of Affairs in the two communist ruled
States, Bengal and Kerala is enough to teach the
limits and restrictive natures of those regimes.
But of course, communism or at least its mantra
of state-ownership was not followed in these
States alone; it formed the basic policy all over
the nation. And, the States that have not yet got
over its easy though empty magic are hugely in
the red.
That was how, the
Economic Reforms though introduced by the
Congress Government have been followed by all the
successive Governments. Fortunately for the
analyst, all the political parties in the
country, including the communists, have held
power at the center during these last ten years.
And all of them followed the policy, of which
disinvestment is an accepted part, not
reluctantly but with fervor that only kept on
increasing. That is not because all of them were
sold to IMF and World Bank. It is because while a
politician can say anything so long as he/she is
out of power and, they do so without a care! -the
whole thing changes once the responsibility to
manage the country falls on the shoulders. There
the critics of WTO become staunch supporters of
Doha and all the other regimens and the leftist
Joytida goes to the hegemonist capitalists
seeking investments. Even Lalooji is, sometimes,
pinched by the need of doing something and dons a
suit, picks up some English and goes out to
entice Foreign Direct Investment.
Of course, capital
does not flow with coaxing. It comes, as of
nature. Policy, colour, or creed is no criteria
for the a-religious, a-philosophical money. It
goes where it can grow. It goes to where the
environment is conducive to its multiplication.
Thus the greatest amounts of FDI fly over the
open India to communist China because they have
created more capitalism-conducive conditions
there even though retaining a veneer of socialism
for the control of the Government and the people.
It doesn’t go to communist Bengal but stays
put in Gujarat and Maharashtra irrespective of
which party is in power in there, unconcerned
about what the people feel, so long as they are
for growth and prosperity. For growth and
prosperity you need efficiency and honesty, a
will to work and do things. You need facilities,
services and amenities; you need to deliver and
not merely make promises. You need electricity
that stays in the cables, phones that work,
municipalities that clean streets, roads that are
motorable and raw materials and components that
are fine, sound and available. And labor that can
work and can be made to work; who become partners
in growth not obstructions in production.
That is why the
talent of Indian colleges and universities runs
away to USA and Europe. They work there like
coolies and come back ‘princes’. You
may reject that way of life. It is not likeable
all through and has its own pitfalls. Some people
may even reject the whole model on balance saying
that the simple amenityless life that Indians
lived for ages is better. It may yet prove
better. But then the whole scheme has to be
rejected. It cannot be done halfway. Socialist
model tried to have the best of both the worlds;
it failed to secure either. This development can
be achieved only in the way of market economies
and that is the truth. There Government has to
get out and let the money do its thing-grow,
multiply and spread out as it would. The
Government has to disinvest and concentrate on
regulation. It has to be vigilant, it has to
monitor, but it has been proved that it cannot be
an efficient manager or producer. It has to leave
the services to the private sector and just
facilitate the works. The system would take care
of things. All may not be fine and pinky there.
It may not be iquitious. But that is how this
system works. There is nothing for politicking
there or earning votes and constituencies. It is
pure economic sense. And economics can’t be
married to politics, especially Indian
politicking.
|
 |
Men,
Matters and Memories
Police chiefs date with
Advani
By M L Kotru
Home
Minister Lal Krishan Ad-vani was barely
able to suppress his anger the other day
while addressing the police chiefs from
various States. He was annoyed by the
"special" treatment reportedly
given by the Ambala Jail authorities to
their former boss, the Haryana IGP
(Prisons) currently facing a murder
charge. Ravi Kant Sharma, as you know,
voluntarily brought to an end the
two-month-old futile search for him by
police forces of three States by
surrendering in an Ambala Court. The
court remanded him to police custody and
he spent exactly one night there before
Delhi cops reached gleefully to take
charge of the prized quarry. The
"special" treatment it would
appear occurred that might when
apparently he was given a better meal
than prisoners normally get (at Rs. 10 a
day for three meals), and a bedsheet to
sleep on.
One would
have gone with Advani and accepted the
merit of his accusation. But then our
politicians, Advani included, must not
overlook the special "favours"
they demand and get on rare occasion they
allow themselves to be cought on the
wrong side of law and are forced to spend
time in jail. Air conditioners, TV sets,
mobile phones and quality food from home,
or possibly from the nearest five star
restaurant become a must whenever a
political accused of high crime in
imprisoned, usually only for a few days.
Remember the fuss that was created by
Laloo over the kind of room and
facilities he must be given when sent to
jail on serious criminal charges, most of
these still pending in courts of law. And
after his release on bail Laloo hasn't
looked back; he has continued to rule
Bihar by proxy.
Mr Advani
himself did not do his own image any good
by rushing to Lucknow the other day to
join Mayawati's 'largest every rally in
UP". Was it his way of thanking the
UP Chief Minister for having declined to
issue the notification enabling a fresh
trial of saffronites like Advani, Murli
Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharati et al in the
Babri Masjid demolition case? One doesn't
expect such partisan conduct from a man
who prefers to be linkened to the Iron
Man Sardar Patel. Did Mr Advani spare a
thought for the countless citizens who
died in the stampade that followed the
famous Lucknow rally. Poor people drawn
to Lucknow by Mayawati's dark forces and
left thereafter to their own devices
after paying obeisance to the Deputy
Prime Minister and the UP Chief Minister,
what an ego trip it must have been for
the two to be Lionised by Lakhs!
A line
made famous by Finance Minister Jaswant
Singh in his previous incarnation as
Foreign Minister used to be
"Pakistan ki karni aur kathni mein
bahut antar hai". This same
yardstick can easily by applied to most
of our political masters - and from all
parties. Mr Advani did indeed play a
significant role in keeping the lid on a
potentially explosive situation in the
wake of the terrorist outrage at
Akhashardham temple in Ahmedabad. By
advising acting Chief Minister Narendra
Modi to keep his cool he prevented his
protege from letting loose the goons of
the VHP and Bajrang Dal. This positive
intervention by the Deputy Prime Minister
could also be twisted by the uncharitable
to argue that he could have intervened
even at the time of the post-Godhara
carnage. For don't we know that Modi is
the Deputy Prime Minister's handyman in
Gujarat? Don't we know how Modi's
sycophants have started calling the Chief
Minister "Chhota" Sardar,
Advani being the 'Bada' Sardar? I know I
will immediately be accused of having a
perverse mind. I must confess, though,
that the Home Minister role in the
post-Godhra and post-Akhshardham outrages
does reveal a certain mindset.
While on
Gujarat I must refer to last week's
observation by Prime Minister Vajpayee
that American pressure on Pakistan was
not working and that India would have to
fight terrorism on its own. Advani too
has been saying much the same and for
long. Only it appears the Government
doesn't quite know how to go about it.
Going alone would definitely mean
inviting the wrath of Gen Musharraf's
mentor George Bush. For any direct
assault on Pakistani terrorists would
involve crossing the border to hit
terrorist hideouts and that's not what
the Americans expect of India. They would
not want India to engage their
"stalwart ally" at a time when
the war against terrorism in Afghanistan
is not going exactly the way the
Americans would have wished and also when
they are about to embark on another silly
expedition to oust Saddam Hussain in
Iraq. It's another matter that a top
Taliban leader does in the meantime
menage to tell a Press conference on
Pakistani soil that both Mullah Umar and
Osama bin Laden are alive and kicking and
that the battle in Afghanistan is hardly
over. The Taliban man went on record to
say that 5,000 Taliban-Al Qaeda
operatives are still in Afghanistan and
waiting to strike.
Therefore,
before launching its solo operation
against terrorism, the Government in New
Delhi would do well to appreciate the
anatomy of the current phase of
terrorism. Let's also remember that apart
from giving us sweet homilies the US has
not really twisted Musharraf's arm to
stop cross-border terrorism. On the
contrary the level of terrorist activity
in Jammu and Kashmir has registered a
sharp upswing during the just ended poll
campaign in the State. That aside, in his
latest UN speech, Pakistani military
ruler, General Musharraf made a pointed
reference to Gujarat. After the attack on
the Swaminarain temple in Ahmedabad, BJP
leaders were quick to cite that reference
and blame Pakistan for the horrifying
attack on devotees inside the temple
complex. A week after the NSG killed the
two terrorists who took a heavy toll of
innocent lives, the Government has yet to
establish the identity of the two
assassins. The Government did not wait to
provide the proof of the terrorists being
Pakistanis.
Even if
the terrorists were local it would be
safe to assume that Pakistan was behind
the attack. What then would be Pakistan's
objective? Not merely of score brownie
points to offset the Kashmir elections,
as the BJP leaders fondly believe. The
Pakistanis in any case have not stopped
rubbishing the elections in the State,
even as Gen. Musharraf prepares to
unleash his own fraudulent elections on
his country. He even has the effrontry to
pick and choose which of the Pakistanis
shall or shall not use PTV for
electioneering. That's his kind of
democracy and his American patrons won't
object. It won't be the first nor the
last time that the Americans would be
sustaining a military dictator. They have
done so wherever and whenever it suits
their interests.
For my
purposes however as in Kashmir and in
Punjab in the '80s our Government has
offered to Pakistan a potential
separatist movement in Gujarat. No amount
of arms and funds can sustain a
separatist movement without local
volunteers - or call it local hospitality
if you will. The recent conduct of the
Modi Government in Gujarat should have
facilitated their efforts. Thus probably
was born the Tehreeke-e-Kisas, the
movement for revenge, in Gujarat. The
bitterness and sense of insecurity
generated among Muslims by the Modi
Government could not have led the
extremists fringe among the Muslims, not
alone if Gujarat but elsewhere in the
country as well anywhere other than the
waiting arms of terrorists. The
"revenge" we may soon learn is
a homegrown terrorist outfit. For it to
succeed assistance may come from
Pakistan, but terrorists will have to be
locals.
Gen.
Musharraf's confident reference to
Gujarat at the UN General Assembly
suggests that a sufficient foundation may
have been laid for the enterprise to be
launched. Gujarat, as it is, borders
Pakistan. The Government must in the
circumstances be prepared for the worst.
That surely does not mean letting loose
the VHP and the Bajrang Dal. It's quite
on the cards that the Tehreek Kissas will
strike again if only to confirm its
presence in Gujarat. Such attack(s) would
expected provoke riots and police
reprisals victimizing innocents. The
Muslims will be more alienated. More
would join the ranks of the Tehreek. If
such developments could really occur
Narendra Modi and the VHP and Bajrang Dal
would be unwittingly helping it succeed
by playing the politics of provocation.
The Government must find an answer to the
problem about to stare it in the face.
And the answer in Gujarat doesn't lie in
more violence.
|
MEN
AND MATTERS
‘Seven Sisters’
aren’t trouble-free
By B L Kak
‘Seven
Sisters’? Answer: Seven States make
the North-Eastern region of India. Hence,
the sobriquet: ‘Seven Sisters’.
The altered, or altering, scenario in
these seven States has put on alert the
powers-that-be in New Delhi. The
Government of India, in fact, is keen on
bringing the strategic region closer to
rest of the country.
If there
was any doubt about it, it was set at
rest by the department for development of
North-Eastern region just the other day
when it announced a special package to
ensure two things- one, to bring the
region closer to rest of the Indian Union
and, two, make governance more
transparent. Union Minister, Mr Arun
Shourie, who is head of the
North-D-Eastern development council, let
it be known that a series of initiatives
have been taken for coordinating major
developmental projects and funding them
through the non-lapsable central pool or
through the North-Eastern council.
On the
completion of the department for
development of North-Eastern regional
website, www.northeast@nic.in, was
launched by Mr Shourie. The site will
provide general information about the
region and list the ongoing projects and
their progress.The website will not
handle sensitive matters such as
insurgency, militancy and foreign funding
for anti-India activity in the region.
The
insurgency in several areas in the
northeastern region seems to have become
a lucrative career for a large number of
youngsters of proto-Mongoloid race. More
and more youngsters, cutting across sex
barriers, continue to join cash-rich
outlawed outfits for thrill-many among
them want to mint money and, hence, lead
a lavish style of life.
The banned
outfits, it is widely believed, maintain
close links with America’s CIA,
Pakistan’s ISI and some other spying
agencies. And the intelligence community
has already established that the banned
outfits have offices and publicity
centres in Europe, Asia and USA. NSCN
(IM) and NSCN (Khaplang) have their
offices in US, Britain and Canada, while
the ULFA is known to have its centres in
Bangladesh, Myanmar and Bhutan. If the
National Liberation Front of Tripura
succeeded in setting up its liaison
centres in Thailand, Singapore and
Bangladesh, the Bodo Liberation Tigers
has its offices in Bangladesh and Bhutan.
Hence, all the more reason for livewire
youngsters to aspire for ‘foreign
postings’.
The career
of insurgency, of course, involves risk,
pitfalls and dangers. But groups of
educated and livewire youngsters can even
bag ‘foreign postings’ as
insurgents once they turn to be
favourites of their trigger-happy bosses.
I was in Assam the other day. At
Guwahati, in the course of an informal
chat with some locals, I was told that
all deadly insurgent outfits continued to
be cash-rich. And according to one
estimate, the average monthly income of
United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA),
NSCN (IM) NSCN (Khaplang) and Bodo
Liberation Tigers (BLT) exceeds Rs 250
crores.
Money for
these and other extremist outfits is made
available through different sources and
channels-tea gardens, corporate business
houses and wholesale traders.
This
apart, the insurgent outfits also impose
levy on each and every good-laden vehicle
that enters the northeastern region and
leaves it for other States. It is now an
open secret that top leaders of various
insurgent outfits often visit certain
foreign countries along with their
families. As money is no consideration,
they book accommodation for themselves in
high-cost hotels and live in style. It is
generally felt almost everywhere in the
northeastern region that ULFA, NSCN (IM)
and NSCN (Khaplang) also receive
‘massive’ financial help from
different spying agencies as well as from
different non-Governmental and voluntary
agencies based in Europe.
Not long
ago, ULFA’s warlord, Pradip Gogoi,
told his interrogators at Calcutta and
Guwahati that almost all insurgent
outfits were extremely cash-rich. There
is ample evidence to suggest that when
insurgent leaders fall sick or their
family members are taken ill, they fly to
Mumbai, Bangalore, Calcutta and Chennai
for treatment in costly nursing homes and
private hospitals which are beyond the
reach of even higher income group people
in India. Mr TV Rajeswar, former Governor
of Sikkim and West Bengal, not long ago
claimed that ULFA and other insurgent
outfits had no dearth of money and their
levy-collection crossed some crores of
rupees per month.
The
capacity to collect money by the
insurgent outfits in the northeastern
region can be fathomed from the fact that
ULFA could collect a whopping Rs 15
crores in just one week in Nagon district
without any difficulty. Government
sleuths have already established that top
leaders of ULFA, NSCN (IM) NSCN
(Khaplang) and other outfits maintain fat
bank accounts in some foreign countries,
including Bangladesh, Myanmar and
Switzerland.
These
outfits are meant not only for the
sterner sex but also for softer sex.
Government sleuths have also discovered
that a large number of females with the
background of university education live
in various camps of insurgent groups.
These females are well trained in jungle
warfare, ambushing jobs and in carrying
out low- intensity skirmishes. Women
insurgents are said to receive imported
cosmetics and other luxury items. The
camp life inside jungles seems to be
alluring young females too.
There is
another side of the coin: Craze for
modeling traps girls from the
northeastern region. Operators lure them
by offers ‘of a glamorous career in
modeling before forcing them into flesh
trade. Recently, two dozen girls were
rescued from a red light area in Mumbai.
The incident unravelled an organized
racket involving trafficking of teenagers
from the northeastern States. The rescued
girls were college students or dropouts
who wanted to become glamorous models.
Of the 24
girls, 10 each were from Assam and
Meghalaya and four from Mizoram. The
rescuing of the girls could be just the
tip of the iceberg. Police in all States
in northeastern region have been alerted
to keep a vigil on people coming up with
advertisements in newspapers about
possible career options in modeling.
Equally
disturbing is the ongoing drug
trafficking and increase in the number of
intravenous drug users in the
northeastern States. India’s
unfenced border with Myanmar has
aggravated the situation. There is only
one border post along the 325-km-long
unfenced border with Myanmar along
Manipur. That should give one a fair idea
about the enormity of the problem of drug
trafficking in the region.
Manipur
borders Myanmar, which along Laos and
Thailand form the heroin producing Golden
Triangle. Shortage of guards along the
sensitive border has, to say the least,
obstructed checking the flow of drugs
like heroin, cannabis and marijuana from
the Golden Triangle region. According to
official figures, there could be more
than 2 lakh injecting drug users in the
northeastern region, majority of whom are
believed to be infected with AIDS. More
than half of the region’s drug users
are in Manipur alone.
|
KEO
: At crossroads of art, tech and dreams
By Arvinder Kaur
Come
December 2003, and a winged satellite
shall take flight, laden with precious
gifts destined for our future
generations. It shall return to its
native soil after a long journey of some
50,000 years in space. It will carry
along a fresco of messages, a
contemporary Library of Alexandria and
other gifts from earth for the future
generations.
This is no
science fiction, but Project KEO, a
satellite, which will soon take flight to
tell the people of tomorrow, who were the
people of today. At the crossroads of
art, science and technology, KEO is a
global project, a carrier of knowledge,
hopes, dreams, universality and
generosity. Everyone is invited to join
and participate in this project free of
cost.
KEO will
be injected into a circular or elliptical
orbit at an altitude of several thousands
of kilometers. Folded in the cap of a
rocket during the launch, KEO's wings
shall function once the satellite is in
orbit due to the sublimation of the small
napthalene spheres that shall melt under
the heat of the sun.
The wings
will then beat in rhythm of KEO's passage
under the earth's shadow and its exposure
to the sun rays. With a suitable optic
telescope, it will be possible to record
KEO's flight as it flutters its wings
over its orbit.
After a
couple of years in orbit, KEO's wings
will shed, leaving the core sphere to
continue its journey alone in space. With
each passing day, during its long voyage
around the earth, KEO's orbit will
gradually decay bringing the satellite
closer to its native land.
As KEO
approaches the end of its long journey,
its momentum will be checked by the dense
layers of the earth's atmosphere as it
descends below 120 kilometers in
altitude. It will then enter the final
and critical phase of its return flight.
Some 20
minutes before landing, KEO will announce
its arrival to our future descendants in
the form of a shooting star, emitting
sparks of a radiant light that will be
brighter than those of a natural star.
Some two
minutes before it lands on the soil,
KEO's titanium and tungsten shields will
disintegrate under the effect of heat
accumulated during its passage across the
layers of the dense atmosphere.
Its carbon
thermal shield will heat up to 2800 dgree
celcius. KEO will be equipped to resist
this phenomenon and will thus trigger off
an ionisation that shall release a steam
of minute and illuminated particles.
Our future
descendants will witness a flash of
artificial northern lights in the sky, a
strong glow, like the signal.. that will
be an indication of KEO's return.
The
project, conceived by a French artist cum
scientist Jean Marc Phillippe, in 1994,
has been studied for technical
feasibility and experiments conducted to
prove the durability of its memory
supports and all other engraved
information and the reports presented at
various international fora.
KEO's
partners in building and launching of the
capsule include Arianspace and Starsem,
Intespace, International Space University
and Sup'ero, while institutional
endorsement is being provided by European
Space Agency and UNESCO.
KEO is
being constructed with materials like
aluminium, tungsten, titanium, glass,
carbon, metallic foam that have the
capacity to resist the test of time and
extreme conditions in space.
It will
also have several protective shields
anti-meteoric and anti-human debris
shields, anti-cosmic ray shields, thermal
shields, anti-shock shields and shields
that guarantee against sinking.
When KEO
lands, some of the presents will be
easily distinguishable by the naked eye
to KEO discoverers while others will have
to be decoded for which specific
instructions are being engraved.
There will
be a glass plate engraved with portraits
of men, women and children. A sequence of
double helix DNA unique to Homo Sapiens
as we exist today will also be engraved.
There will
also be a diamond with four inclusions
made of tiny spheres of gold. The first
sphere will hold a drop of water from our
oceans, the second will contain a pinch
of fertile soil and the third will
enclose a sample of air, while the fourth
will protect a small drop of human blood,
chosen at random from among the different
human groups to symbolise the common
genetic signature.
Like a
universal Kaleidoscope, KEO, elected as
the ''Project of the 21st Century'' by
UNESCO is a collective and historic work
of art, unique in the history of man.
The name
KEO is the result of three successive
phenomes (k), (e) and (o). These are
three most frequently used phenomes
across the 100 most widely spoken
languages and thus represent a symbol of
unity between mankind.
Once KEO
is launched into space, a copy of the
entire assortmen of messages will be
preserved on earth. After having been
made anonymous, all the messages shall be
made freely available to all.
By reading
these messages, one can peek into the
thoughts, ideas, aspirations and dreams
of a village chief in Africa, of a young
girl in love, of a homeless vagabound, of
a wise old man in Japan, of a young
executive in Europe, of a child living in
slums........
PTI
Feature
|
|
|
Yours
Randomly,
The points stand
proved’..........
By Dr. R L Bhat
The election in
the Jammu and Kashmir State was not a referendum
or anything of the sort. It was not to throw up
any new decisions. It was-- rather is, because it
is still to be completed-- a routine affair at
the completion of the term of the Government. As
it is the boundaries, contours and integrities of
the nations of the world are not decided by the
ability of sections of people, under illegitimate
influences to cause mayhem and destruction. Till
the carnage of 9/11 these destructive forces hid
under the cloak of rights and freedom and
subverted a whole world's opinions as to their
true nature. And a world, given to playing pranks
on ideologies with strategies indulged these
forces. WTC showed the world the destructive
nature and potential of the terrorist
dispensations hiding under different covers. The
world now rejects all dalliance there. It may
countenance legitimate and nonviolent aspirations
but would have not any truck with the dark forces
whatever their alibis. Thus the terrorist facet
of the Kashmir 'tahreek' came to be
rejected by the wide world as unacceptable and
illegitimate.
That left
Hurriyat. Even, though the conglomeration was
born as a thinly veiled front of the terrorists,
that birth had occurred in an era when terrorism
was yet a 'calculation' in the world strategies,
if not the darling of the powers prone to playing
politics around the world. That front had
accordingly come to assume a status how so
tenuous. Even some well meaning nationalists
presumed that it spelled something different from
terrorism. Elections presented an opportunity,
both to the nationalists thus disposed, and the
Hurriyat half exposed to prove those premises.
International world too came to look at the
activities of the conglomerate and its response
with interest. Either because of their own
previous pronouncements, or the remnants of the
pre-9/11 policies still sticking to their side,
the world leaders wanted Hurriyat to gain a
semblance of standing, apart from being a
terrorist front. For America it may also have
been calculated as a concession to the
Musharrafian aid in Afghanistan. Hurriyat, for
reasons as wrong as those of its birth, was in
focus. And then the elections happened.
Powers pressed
Hurriyat to participate, if only to prove it had
even a bit of a constituency in the State. Two
interlocutors from the center, track II travelers
and then the Kashmir Committee, all came to coax
the conglomerate to enter the democratic fray.
International opinions clearly wanted it to take
to the electoral process. Even the Pakistan
Kashmir Committee tried to show the reluctant
horse the flowing river hoping it'd drink. The
election commission made 'free and fair' a
prestige point. Though the knowledgeable ones
know, analysts would always be divided as to
whether it was the innate weakness and the fear
of an electoral defeat or the HM supremo, issuing
directives from across the border that finally
decided the Hurriyat people who ultimately issued
the boycott call. Probably, that boycott was
initially meant to be nothing more than a refusal
to be a part of a democratic process. But it soon
became an election itself- boycott versus
participation. And the terrorists who had
dictated the stand came to assiduously press
their point the only way the know, with bullets.
And failed. In that failure they lose the
election, participation as well as the tenuous
legitimacy they lived by.
For it is not a
small thing to vote in an environment that is
seething with terror and death. This was an
election where a candidate in the just concluded
IIIrd phase did not himself vote for the fear of
being killed. Another spent the whole polling day
trying to get his family members to vote but
could not. Unless one wants to call the failure
of a candidate himself to vote or that of the
other not being able to coax his family members
to go to the polling station a boycott, the
election that has now been completed all over the
valley, was a resounding rejection of the boycott
and the boycotters, through and through. The odds
for voting were simply great. The risks huge.
Adding to the risks was the fact that the Indian
voter all over has little to expect from the
politicians. They make tall promises, always fail
to keep them and end in disappointing the
electorate. The last parliamentary election was
lack luster. The recent State elections, except
in the States where people were hell-bent on
throwing the Governments out, were listless. And,
the voting percentages have hovered around 50%.
The last by-election in the State to fill a
parliamentary seat in the politically active
Jammu constituency saw just a third of the
electorate voting.
In that backdrop
of terror and indifference, the voting
percentages of 44% in the valley alone in the
first phase was remarkable. Then, Hurriyat tried
its age-old hartal and succeeded in closeting the
people in Srinagar city to their homes. But it
worked only in six of the ten Srinagar seats and
none of the Budgam seats that went to polls in
the second phase. So, for the phase-III the
terrorists came out in large numbers and the
outfit turned its full heat on. The district
became a hub of terrorism. The lone woman
minister contesting from there was attacked four
times within a week. The vehicle of another woman
candidate was blow with an IED. And she too could
not vote for her own self. Political activists
were gunned down and security forces attacked
heavily. In their all-out effort to prevent
voters from going out, the terrorists proved the
second point that of their unholy presence, evil
intents and illegal infiltration. Of course, they
laid the dread thick over the district. So much
so that many predicted that there would be no
voting there. But, like the other districts and
phases, they were proved wrong by over 30% voting
in the district! Of course, the polling was
between sixty and seventy percent in Jammu and
Ladakh. But then, the Hurriyat has never claimed
even a token presence there!
|
|
|
