Daily Excelsior... Editorial

EDITORIAL

Quick on the completion of the elections in the more vocal areas of the state the default on the fine and flowery election promises has already begun with the electricity supply being reduced by a third of what it was before the season of wild promises began. The ‘causes’ are well known. The country as a whole is suffering from an energy deficit. That the electricity generation goes down with the onset of winter and reduction of discharge in the rivers. That the state is not able to get back even half of the revenues it spends on providing electricity. That it has a huge overdraft of debt on account of electricity. What the ‘causisters’ never tell is that all of these ‘causes’ are born of the Government's inefficiency, its not keeping the promise of good governance. Accordingly none of them is tenable. It was only days ago, when the four districts of Phase III were yet to go to polls that the politicians were making wild promises to the electorate. Now, the first item in the bagful of promises is providing day-to-day........more

The message from
Akshardham

By Maj Gen V K Madhok (Retd)

Recently, after the Akshardham massacre in Gujarat on Sep 25, 2002, Social Forecasters and Security Analysts have expressed their views on the tragedy. Some have blamed the.....more

Democratic poverty

Bharat Jhunjhunwala

There is no gainsaying that pros-perity comes by investment alone. The rikshawala who earns Rs 100 and consumes Rs 80 soon buys an autorickshaw.......more

Feast of lady
of the Rosary

By P K Joseph Dhar

October 7 is the Holy feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. This feast has a history of its own. After the victory of Lepanto, October 7, 1571......more

EDITORIAL

Promises already broken?

Here the supply of staple source of energy i.e. electricity, is primary. It is not only the backbone of industry and thereby all development which they are all promising to usher in, but also the basic amenity of living. It has also come to be taken as the measuring scale of the performance and non-performance of the Governments. For, this deficit is primarily due to the mismanagement of the distribution agencies and the promise-free politicians who never take the realities of the situation into consideration while promising amenities at the election time. Both of the things are within the power of the politicians. They can get real about the supply and distribution, their costs and deficiencies in the system. They can enforce efficiency and compliance if they want to. Unfortunately it is their wont to let the things drag on without putting in any correctives.The harsh critics say that they have a vested interest in letting the things go from bad to worse, that they encourage not curb inefficiency and sloth. Indeed, Governments have done little to correct the slide in administration. While the laxity in general administration is somehow camouflaged the mismanagement and deficiency in the supplies and facilities cannot be covered up. The mal-administration there translates directly in the reduced, iregular supplies and curtailed amenities.

In other words it is the people who have to pay for every lapse of the Government here. Thus in the reduced supplies of electricity the people of this state are paying for the inability or unwillingness of the political managers of the state to drum in efficiency and accountability in the whole scheme of power production, acquirement and distribution. Right from the fifty percent distribution loss to the faulty supply lines, inefficient apparatus to the rampant loot in accounting, it is the electricity agencies who are directly responsible. And there is no explaining away their conduct there; if they are not skimming off monies earned through this outright thievery, as is commonly alleged, they are incompetent to the core in being unable to manage the supplies. And the responsibility for the incompetencies reiging over the empire of inefficiencies is all with the political rulers.

It is well-known rule of democratic functioning that the politicians being the final repositories of power have the primary responsibility for all acts of governance. Equally well known is the fact that the politicians have taken recourse, to blaming any and everybody, save their own selves, for the ills they have plagued this state with. If it has not been New Delhi it is the bureaucracy that is the usual scapegoat. For some time past they have also begun to lay the blame at the door of the general public. But those excuses are no longer available. Even common people in the street know that the Government can shift and shunt any bureaucrat whenever it wishes, that it could induct anybody to aid it, and that it can devolve authority upon whose ever it wants to so empower. And those powers of the Government in this state by virtue of its special position are absolute. Accordingly, the responsibility for every default on management or governance or implementation cannot but be those of the politicians in power. And, all these are subsumed directly come under the promises of good governance that the politicians have been making to the electorate of this state.

So when we see one of the basic amenities like electric supply being curtailed just on the day the ‘need’ of the politicians, especially of those still in power, appears to have been fulfilled it becomes a pointer towards what sort of fulfillment the more flowery promises that have been made to the electorate of this state would see. But this cannot be. For, the time for excuses is past. The country today is moving towards a regime where efficiency alone would be tolerated. And the people in power would have to account for all the lapses that are committed in their rule. It is not the bureaucracy or the Delhi Government that springs the hardships upon the people of the state. It is the Government in power and its inability or unwillingness to administer the state and manage its affairs that is directly responsible for these failures. And, the wild promises they make. It certainly is not the people. The people, if at all responsible have been actually been lead there by the same politicians with their free-flowing promises. The politicians have to correct that or bear the consequences of those promises. For, they must deliver on the promises they keep making. Let nobody believe that their utterances would not be called to account, that they would not be asked to fulfill their promises, that there would be no countdown for them. That countdown has begun with this first promise broken with the old excuse.

The message from Akshardham

By Maj Gen V K Madhok (Retd)

Recently, after the Akshardham massacre in Gujarat on Sep 25, 2002, Social Forecasters and Security Analysts have expressed their views on the tragedy. Some have blamed the intelligence Services for their failure to forewarn the administration and castigated their performance. Others have expressed concern and focussed on the inability of Police to handle the situation while others have expressed deep concern about the misuse of Army and Police uniforms outside the Services. And want this practice to be banned by law. As terrorists and militants have made use of such unforms to infiltrate and carry out their missions. But then, these all are routine administrative measures. While the problem is far deeper then it appears on the surface. And the Nation would do well to reflect on it.

What is the crucial reason due to which such ghastly incidents have continued to take place repeatedly? Will the Government be able to handle and stop these? Is there a workable solution to put an end to such situations/what could be the impact on the country should India fall to resolve the problem?

The message which has emerged once again from the slaughter at Akshardham (loud and clear) is that our Polity, multifarious organisations and extra constitutional authorities like the VHP, RSS, Shiv Sena or militants etc all and disregarding the lessions of India's past history. They are not weighing the consequences of their impulsive actions. They refuse to acknowledge that the indiscriminate massacres, followed with revenge killings in Gujarat are merely a symptom that these will be repeated as we live in a world of action and reaction. That these will be followed by political rhetoric till India heads for disintegration the Russian way. That is the massive we should not ignore.

Our political leaders are forgetting that India's disease continues to be communal disharmony, hatred and jealousy. That is the cancer and the root cause of all problems. We are wasting all our emerge on it. Terrorists are only using the divide and selecting their targets with great precision. They need to be punished for it. But within India the minority communities are afraid-they are very angry and emotional from being left out. They feel unsafe. While the ruling party flaunts its saffron agenda with its 3rd rate policies without releasing that India will cease to exist if it gives up Secularism.

In the past, communal disharmony and religious diversity were used as tools to divide and govern India by our rulers. This can only be countered by National Integration and not continuously blaming Musharraf, Pakistan or the ISI. It is we the people, our chosen representatives and bureaucracy who are to be blamed for all this. And only we can put it right. Our forefathers were wise enough to recognise the signs and symptoms of religious animosity before sitting out to draft a first rate secular constitution, without releasing that this document would fall in the hands of 3rd rate politicians and would be amended 75 times in 55 years.

Finally, what needs to be done? Firstly, besides Kashmir, even in the rest of India, it is now the time for a battle for the hearts of the People and National Integration. The trust between communities and the Government must be restored. For which there are hundred different ways to do so. And Vajpayee would do well to make a start by announcing a National Integration Council (NIC) composed of representatives from the communities, directly under him to advise him before he reaps the whirlwind.

The NIC should be as important as the NSC. Because India faces serve Internal threats to the extent, that these can cripple the Central Government (Parliament attacks) or demoralise the armed forces (Kaluchak massacre). The NIC would need to meet atleast once a quarter and in different parts of the country. One of the important issue on its agenda would be the language problem which continues to bedevil communities as they cannot communicate the each other. Because the three language formula has been thrown to the winds.

NIC's next problem will be to bring about a change in the National attitude. Where the religion, Politics and governance and separated. Admission forms and applications will have no separate column for caste and creed. Only the word 'Indian' would suffice. The people will be educated and persuaded to concentrate on issues, options and workable solutions and to leave the religion at home for the individual or family uplift.

Democratic poverty

Bharat Jhunjhunwala

There is no gainsaying that pros-perity comes by investment alone. The rikshawala who earns Rs 100 and consumes Rs 80 soon buys an autorickshaw. One who consumes more lands himself into debt and looses his cycle rickshaw as well. But democracy makes it difficult to persuade the people to forego such consumption. Democracy, therefore, is synonymous with low growth and permanent poverty.

History tells us that the rich countries have made huge sacrifices in the past. The industrial revolution in England required huge investment in textile mills. The poor were deprived of even subsistence wages to release this money for investment. The workers were forced to work as long as 14 to 16 hours every day and whipped if they slowed down. They lived in ‘poor houses’ with virtually no sanitation and herded into small rooms like sheep and goats. This low consumption released the money for investment. This ‘exploitation’ was the foundation of the industrial revolution. Only after the country became rich that it adopted adult franchise. One daresay, that democracy would hardly have made it possible for England to make these initial investments.

United States of America imported slaves to work in the cotton fields of the South. The low wages paid to these slaves released the wealth for investment. Universal franchise was established only after adequate stock of capital had been created.

Russia rose from a ‘backward’ country to become the ‘great enemy’ within a span of thirty years under the tyrannical rule of Joseph Stalin. The people were asked to work for meager wages in collective farms and factories. The dissenters were mercilessly exterminated. This made it possible for Russia to make huge investments.

The United States helped topple democratically elected President Allende of Chile. The military junta suspended democracy. It also provided good governance. The result has been that non-democratic Chile has attained high rates of growth over the last two decades while democratic Argentina and Brazil move from one economic crisis to another and are ever looking for bailouts from the IMF and the US Government.

Pakistan’s economy has been on the upswing since Musharraf has suspended democracy. The stock markets are up as also is economic growth rates despite higher expenditures on military.

Our own country had attained unparalleled prosperity for nearly five thousand years. This was made possible by hypnotizing our poor—the sudra—into believing that their fate was to remain poor and serve the upper caste. This willing subservience of the poor released money for investment and trade. India became and stood as the global merchant par excellence for more than five millennia.

We must recognize the hard fact that economic growth necessarily requires sacrifice of consumption in favour of investment. It is not generally possible to persuade the masses to voluntarily forego this consumption. Thus democracy prevents economic growth. Most countries that now have long-established democracies have ‘exploited’ their people earlier. It is only after a critical level of capital is in place and further investment does not require such sacrifice that democracy has become viable.

This is not to say that authoritarian Governments are better. Iraq and North Korea would establish that authoritarian regimes can be as bad, or worse. But they can be better. China has attained high rates of growth in absence of democracy. Pakistan’s economy is looking upwards after General Musharraf suspended democracy. The growth rate is up and the stock market is in a bull run despite the heavy costs of Kargil and Afghan wars. The result of an authoritarian regime depends upon its character. A benevolent regime can possibly beget high rates of growth but a democracy almost certainly cannot.

Why is then that the rich countries want us to embrace democracy rather than benevolent authoritarianism? The reason is the democracy keeps us poor and amenable to exploitation by them. Voters demand that subsidized food grains and housing and free education be provided to them. As a result the developing countries to spend more of their income in consumption. People do get relief. But the country has little money left for investment. The final result is stable poverty.

The United Nations Development Programme has acknowledged as much in the last Human Development Report. It quotes a study by Tavares to the effect that democracy lowers income inequality but "it also lowers capital accumulation and raises Government consumption, lowering growth." Another study by Przeworski concludes that democracy appears to have no effect on economic growth. The Report points out that "while economic performance of dictatorships varies from terrible to excellent, democracies tend to cluster in the middle. The fastest-growing countries have typically been dictatorships." Thus, the UNDP concludes, "democracy appears to prevent the worst outcomes, even if does not guarantee the best ones."

That is precisely what suits the rich countries. It is beneficial for them if the poor countries remain poor and do not pursue a strong nationalist approach like that followed by Soviet Russia. Their objective is to establish social stability in the poor countries lest there be a global backlash against the rich countries. It also easier to buy the governments of the poor countries if they are democratic. The press in many such countries is controlled by the MNCs based in the rich countries. They can easily manipulate the local public opinion. The rich countries routinely ‘buy’ native NGOs by giving them huge grants to promote their preferred point of view. NGOs are, for example, given huge grants to oppose nuclear explosion by India and for creating support for the WTO. Public representatives too can be purchased. Foreign donors have planted trees on thousands of acres of private lands of Mps in the name of afforestation. These beneficiaries hardly have to guts to oppose their benefactors. Political parties in Nepal have floated hundreds of NGOs through which they receive foreign money. Corrupt bureaucrats will accept money from MNCs to promote their interests. We can see how the bureaucracy is seeking to increase the FDI in insurance presently despite solemn assurances given by the Government that this will not be done.

It could be argued that poor countries need not save themselves any more. They can ‘develop’ by taking foreign money in the form of aid and investment. But there is no such thing as a free lunch. The negative impact of such foreign money appears in the long run as it has done in Latin America. The nineties are being called a ‘Lost Decade’. Many are worried that this decade may follow that same route.

It is clear the present democracy does not deliver high growth. Democracy is more likely to ensure that we will never be able to challenge the economic might of the rich countries. There are two paths open to us. We can examine how to place limits on democratic process that prevents them from demanding consumption here and now. The alternative is to examine and revisit our ‘non-democratic’ methods of governance that have enabled us to have five thousand years of prosperity. This search, however, will start only when we realize that present democracy is a certificate that we shall remain stable and poor, no more.

Feast of lady of the Rosary

By P K Joseph Dhar

October 7 is the Holy feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. This feast has a history of its own. After the victory of Lepanto, October 7, 1571, which had been the day of assembly and prayer of the confraternities of the Rosary for some time, Saint Pius V who was-according to the chronicles-already sure of the victory of Lepanto before the news of it arrived, decreed that on every first Sunday of October Our Lady of Victory would be commemorated in simple rite. In 1573 the feast was given the solemnity of double rite by Gregory XIII, but with the name Blessed Virgin Mary of the Rosary. At first restricted to the Dominican Order and those Churches and oratories, which had a confraternity of the Rosary, it was gradually extended to entire dioceses on the occasion of the centenary of Lepanto and after the liberation of Vienna from the Turks in 1683. It was made a solemnity of major double rite for the whole Catholic Church by Clement XI after another great victory over the Turks at Peterwaradin in Croatia in August 1716. It was Saint Pius X who designated October 7 for what previously had been a moving feast. Currently on October 7, a simple memorial is celebrated dedicated to Bless Virgin Mary of the Rosary.

Perhaps it is worth recording that the feast's original name, Queen of Victory, has lived on for centuries, unofficially, in particular liturgies and places. And Blessed Barolo Longo brought the lay founder of the Shrine of Pompeii it back into use, at least in Italy.

The purpose of the Rosary is to make us consider life for what it is. Our life is always to be considered in its complete meaning. It is a test. This trial can be undergone in difficulties, fatigue and labours; it can be undergone in a vocation, a mission that Lord God has entrusted to each soul. It ends with pains and then with death. And finally one arrives at the eternal glory; Paradise. That Paradise is happiness, complete blessedness. It will entirely satisfy our desires and our faculties - intellectual faculties as well as sensitive, human, physical and corporal. This is the general thought of the Rosary, which makes us consider Fifteen Mysteries, divided into three series, the Joyful, the Sorrowful and the Glorious Mysteries.

Why do the Joyful Mysteries come before the Sorrowful Mysteries? The Joyful Mysteries tell us, remind us of the mystery of newness - The Angel's announcement, Mary's charity to her cousin Elezabeth, the birth of Jesus Christ, the Purification of Our Lady and the offering of Jesus Christ to the Father, the apparently insignificant life of Jesus of Nazareth. They are memories in which the hold that Jesus Christ has on us takes shape and body. To explain this point further I feel in meet to make a pointed mention of Pope Paul VI Apostolic Exhortation MARIALIS CULTUS, the most significant text on the Rosary in recent times: "Moving from the joyful greeting of the Angel -- the ordered and gradual infolding of the Rosary reflects the way proper in which the Word of God, by entering into human affairs out of merciful purpose, brought about the redemption.

In reality, these little parentheses tell a theological and spiritual truth (it is from joy that the hold that Jesus has on us takes body) which is also a precise historical truth about Rosary. Originally all the mysteries were contemplated as joys of Mary, varying in number from Five, Seven, Twenty or Fifteen - the three sets of Five were then to become traditional and were first mentioned in the meditations of the Cistercian Stephen, a Yorkshire abbot of the mid - 13th century, who put them in this order the birth of the Virgin; the life of the Virgin; the Annunciation; the Conception of Jesus; the Visitation; the birth of Jesus Christ, the coming of the Magi; the Presentation in the Temple, the finding of Jesus, the miracles of Jesus' preaching; the Cross, the joy of which ransoms the world; the Resurrection; the Ascension, Pentecost, the Assumption and glorification of the Virgin in Heaven.

The Rosary, in fact, derives from the conception absolutely traditional in the Church that the maternity of the Virgin Mary and the ordinary scenes of her life and that of Jesus are joys that exceed all other joys.

When the Angel brought the announcement to Mary, the paradisiacal joy of redemption sounded for the first time: "Hail, Many, full of grace." Through Mary it is this same joy that is vibrant among Christian people, who in thanks to the Virgin repeat the words that stunned her and in her wake all those who have become participants in that joy: "Hail, Mary, full of grace" The Hail Mary, that unto the 14th or perhaps 15th century consisted only of the Angel's greeting (Luke 1:28) linked to that of Elizabeth (Luke 1:42) is the simplest of greetings. The Holy Rosary is simply the mortification of the repetition of greetings to Virgin Mary (accompanied by bodily gestures, such as kneeling, for example) until they form a garden (in Latin rosarium) or a chaplet (in Latin sertum or corona), as if to ring or crown her with roses. Rosenkraz (crown of roses) is still the name of the Rosary in German, chapelet (small crown of flowers) in French. Indeed, what could be more fitting for the Annunciation of a new joy than the offer of a flower? And what is the flower of flowers if not the ROSE?

Greetings, joys or roses are equivalent expressions of gratitude in the primeval age of Rosary. It developed between the 12th and 13th centuries in the Cistercian and Dominican milieu in the Rhineland and Flanders. What counted was to hail Mary as the Angel did. As did that poor acrobat who did not know how to pray but who was equally pleasing to the Virgin Mary with his somersaults, as we are told in the collection so dear to the Middle Ages, Miracles of Norte-Dame. As did Gregory the Great centuries before as a monk in Rome, in front of an image that still bears the name Our Lady of Greetings (Sluto) and which is kept in the Basilica of the Doctor Saints Cosmas and Damian, sometimes because of it also known as Our Lady of Health (Salute) So pleasing to her was that greeting, we are told, that the virgin appeared to Gregory, by then too busy as Pope to engage in the little devotion, and softly chastised him: "Gregory, why do you no longer greet me, when you always used to as you passed?"

The Holy Rosary places before our eyes some happy events (Joyful mysteries), and it also makes us consider some sad events, sorrowful and painful. It makes us consider the weariness, which we must put up with here below, the sacrifices, which we must make, and then it presents us with the eternal happiness in heaven.

Life on earth is spent amid things, which please us, and things, which displease, us, but people who have the spirit of God sanctify both pleasant and unpleasant events and derive merit from everything. Others are happy and fervent only when everything goes according to their feelings, desires and views, only when the sky is serene. When there is storm, when there are delusions, when things go contrary to our views, we who see only a short way into things of God perhaps attempt to guide ourselves. And who knows where we will end up! We must let ourselves be guided attempt to Almighty, even through things not pleasing to our talent according to our views. Let we, therefore, say:

To Rosary instructs and vivifies faith.

The Rosary is guide to Christian life.

The Rosary obtains spiritual and material graces for the individual, for society and all humanity.