EDITORIAL
Hurriyat
alone, lost!
Twenty-five years
ago the NASA mission to Mars, Viking I sent back
a strange artifact, a face. The photograph had
all the features of a human-face, replete with
eyes and ears. Only it was two miles long when
translated into real dimensions. Though the NASA
sent out the picture out as a rock formation many
people took it for a ‘face’ or, at the
very least for a monument created by the Martian
civilization. More than two decades later the
‘face’ was deciphered as the rock
formation on the Martian surface. Something very
similar happened when the Hurriyat burst upon the
face of the Valley a decade ago. Like the
Mars-buffs, Kashmir buffs both within and outside
the Valley quickly took it to be the true face of
Valley. Just as the rock shadows had doubled up
for the eyes and ears of the Mars-face, the
twenty three parties that sat in the Hurriyat
council became so many props to foist the
conglomerate and give it a larger than reality
profile. And, the ambiguity that overlays Kashmir
made it more real than Valley itself. It may take
some more years, before the Hurriyat-face in
Kashmir is fully deciphered.
The process,
however, has begun with the recently concluded
election. There are many facets to be unveiled
before Hurriyat can be known for what it is. That
it is not a master of itself was shown when it
tamely followed the dictates not to participate
in the elections it had been insisting upon.
Before that it had become clear in the death of
Lone that it was not amenable to suggestions and
opinions even from within. While most of the
members of Hurriyat abstained from the polling
for the fear of showing how hollow their base was
it could not prevail upon the members of
Lone’s party, who had a base. They duly
contested the elections. While one won, two lost
by very narrow margins. Probably, they would have
been helped, had the Hurriyat not stood in their
way and prevented them from openly entering the
fray. But then the rest of the
‘parties’ would have been hopelessly
exposed as being without much support. With its
hand closed, the Hurriyat can still lay claim to
that ‘true representation of
Kashmiris’, though now there would be few
takers for it. For, the election has shown very
clearly how low their appeal is. It has also
brought in close focus the affinity with
terrorists that they would rather deny to keep
using the cloak of freedoms and democracy.
The aftermath of
the elections, by all reckoning shows that
Hurriyat is the sole loser here. It also appears
to have lost the will for careful analysis of the
recently concluded elections and the
‘losses’ and ‘gains’ it
entailed. Or, how else would its chairman have
posited that because ‘the BJP had lost in
the elections, India had lost and’ because
‘Farooq Abdullah’s party had lost the
state had lost’! The way he has
characterized the clear vote against terrorism
and agendas delivered by the people of this
state, is actually an affront to the people of
this state. It shows, how removed that
‘leadership’ is from the common people
and how singleminded they are in pursuing their
allotted tasks; in how great discordance they are
with the wishes and aspirations of the people
here. It also throws a wide cloud over whether
they really want to help in resolution of the
tangle. But, then, they never evinced much
interest in settlement of the issue, either.
Women
power
The lies that
statistics are, they lie through all their
interpretations. Thus while one woman among
eighty-six members would count as
disproportionately low representation for the
women in the new assembly, the fact that women
candidates contested nearly a third of the house
seats tells an entirely different tale. That, at
least four more women candidates came close to
winning memberships of the legislature, is yet
another way of seeing the elections as a glorious
rise of the women power in the state politics.
The fact that at least ten of the women
candidates who contested were independents is
something that should make every doubter sit back
and take stock of how that power is rising. Of
course, the fact of Mehbooba Mufti, who may any
day turn out a surprise candidate for Chief
Ministership, speaks of that power in its most
telling perspective. So does the fact that of the
three dastardly attacks mounted by the terrorists
on the candidates, two were on women candidates,
one of them the ex-minister. And that women
contested from some of the known bastions of
terrorists does not show any frailty in the fair
sex, or a slant at least so far as the people are
concerned.
Of course, there
are different ways of looking at things and some
people love to present pictures of attitudes that
somehow do not go with the landscape. Thirtyeight
years age, India had one woman ruling all the
men, women and youths. In the record books she
was preceded by another woman from Sri Lanka.
That was years before Britain threw up a woman
Prime Minister, while the USA is yet to give that
primacy in leadership to the fair sex. Does that
prove that we here, or those in Sri Lanka have
been more advanced or more egalitarian or
something? Mayawati has done in UP what her
mentor Kanshi Ram may not have been able to do.
So is Mamta in Bengal single handedly taking on
the State CM whom she opposes and the PM she
supports. Does it show that women of India have
become equal or more equal to the men folk ? Take
a side statistic. We have more than five lakh
doctors in the country. Are they fairly
represented in the legislatures or other public
bodies? The point is that this sort of working
statistics only proves what Bernard Shaw said
decades ago, that they are lies. They tell
nothing, and those who want to see nations,
peoples and societies as a two-plus-two-four
equation are not getting and nearer to
understanding the dynamics of life and society.
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Three
Cheers for democracy
By Fazal
Mehmood
Defying
threat in this hotbed of militancy, about
52 per cent of the electorate on October
8 voted in six constituencies of Doda
district capping the four-phased
elections to the 87-member Jammu and
Kashmir Assembly with an overall turnout
of 44 per cent. The third phase of voting
in the militancy affected districts of
Anantnag and Pulwama were marred by
violent incidents.
The two
districts had about 50 per cent of the
polling stations classified as
super-sensitive and the rest as sensitive
polling stations. Though several polling
booths saw less than 10 voters, a
substantial number of voters did brave
the threat of violence to came out to
cast their votes.
The
elections have been like a leopard’s
skin, according to the colorful
expression used by an election observer:
They have been showing spots of every
kind. There have been threats from the
militants relayed through posters;
allegations that the security forces
compelled villagers to vote; and, denials
by others that they were coerced in any
way.
Polling
days saw queues of enthusiastic voters as
well as empty polling booths; young men
who boycotted the polls and others who
asked what is the use of voting and also
violence directed at disrupting the
election process. It was an election in
which people were free to exercise their
intention to vote or not. Even those who
alleged that the security forces had
threatened them, could decide not to
vote.
It is
practically the first election in the
State where there is a tough contest
between the political parties, and the
voters see the possibility of a change in
Government or, failing that, a change in
the MLA.
The two
most vocal sections were those boycotting
the elections and the second group that
wanted to vote the National Conference
out of power. However, on polling days,
it was the committed National Conference
voter who came out to vote, braving the
jeers of the bands of young men lounging
on the street. Accompanying the desire to
end the "National Conference dynasty
rule" was also the feeling that
voting was futile since the candidates
were worthless.
The
National Conference does not appear
likely to have a smooth sail to a simple
majority, but it is widely believed that
low voting in a constituency means an NC
victory as it is the committed National
Conference supporter who defies the
prevailing mood to go and cast his or her
vote.
As the
single largest party, falling a few short
of majority, it will need to find
partners to form the government. It will
have to find allies in the Jammu region
where the majority of seats would go to
the Congress. National Conference
president Omar Abdullah said at a press
conference in Srinagar: "We will
cross the halfway mark. In the event the
NC falls short of the halfway mark, we
will not stake claim to form the
government."
In
Anantnag and Pulwama districts, voting
was a mixed bag of success – there
were pockets of relatively high voting
and areas of practically no turnout.
The trend
of higher voter turnout in the rural
areas and boycott in the townships was
repeated in both the districts.
In Pampore
constituency that had the lowest polling
at 7 per cent, the turnout different with
almost each polling station. If one
polling station has just two voters, a
polling station just a kilometer down the
road had 53 voters in the first two
hours. The voting patterns changed in
each locality.
In the
rural areas, people are concerned about
specific issues, such as the state of the
kachcha road leading to the village, or
that there is no piped water or taps in
the village, or that there is no power
for days on end.
The anger
against the National Conference was
directed largely at individual MLAs who
had grown arrogant and inaccessible in
the past six years. An angry old man
claimed that all the MLAs had made new
houses in Jammu. "They have made
large sums of money and will run away to
Jammu whenever they want. They do not
have any ties with their
constituency," he said. Unemployment
was a major issue linked with corruption.
A young man at Prithoo said that he had
done MSc but was unable to pay the going
rate of Rs. 2 lakh for a Government job.
So he was forced to take up work in a
private school teaching children in the
primary section.
In the
past few years, a strong desire for good
education has come up among all sections
of society. Jammu and Kashmir has free
and compulsory education, but literacy
levels are around 40 per cent. Among the
first targets of the militants in the
early period of violence were Government
schools. Militant groups destroyed over
400 Government school buildings. Today it
is a vacuum that the people feel acutely.
From the
shopkeeper to the taxi driver and the
farmer, all want their children to get
education. Many want it in English, and
private schools have mushroomed in
Srinagar as well as small towns.
Government schools provide free
education, but they do not function, so
the need for good schooling is felt
strongly. The DP Dhar Memorial Trust is
setting up a schools affiliated to the
Delhi Public School Society. It will be
the first CBSE school in the State and
has evoked a great deal of interest in
Srinagar for it would provide secondary
school education at par with the rest of
the country.
The
feeling of alienation that gave rise to
militancy in Kashmir still exists among
the younger generation, especially those
in the age group of 20-30 years who
aggressively favoured boycott of the
Assembly election. In other sections,
however, this has changed into anger and
dissatisfaction with the Farooq Abdullah
Government. They are now looking for a
dispensation that concentrates on the
issues that relate to the people. INAV
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Shadow-boxing
in Iraq
By Sharad Dixit
The Bush
Administration has finally indicated a
time frame for its proposed action
against Iraq. This is included in the
Draft Resolution to be tabled at the
Security Council. The Draft suggests
seven days for acceptance of the
Resolution by Iraq, followed by a period
of twenty-three days within which Iraq
must make complete disclosure of its
assets that could be used in non-
conventional warfare. Is the timing a
coincidence?
One is
tempted to relate the draft resolution to
the forthcoming elections in November.
The pictures of Afghanistan are fading
from the public mind in the US, to be
replaced by those of the Middle East, and
to some extent - Kashmir. The super-hero
image has to be sustained, especially in
the face of the wafer thin majority with
which Bush came to power.
New
crusades must therefore be launched. If
the ploy can be used in Germany, Holland,
Austria - even in Pakistan and India, to
refocus public attention on
immediate/desirable nationalistic
imperatives, why can’t the US do so?
The Iraqi
Government in the interim, is
aggressively and with maximum propaganda,
progressing its talks with Hans Blix and
his UNSCOM team. The talks are said to be
‘constructive and professional. Iraq
undoubtedly, would make concessions it
normally would not do, creating a
positive atmosphere and facilitating an
early completion of the present round.
This it would do, secure in the knowledge
that the US/UK would block the return of
the weapons inspectors unless the tough
new resolution is adopted.
The aim,
of course, is to accentuate the fissures
amongst the permanent members of the
Security Council. An immediate plea would
be that Iraq is complying - witness its
voluntary’ offer for the
re-admission of weapons inspectors on
September 16 and the successful, talks
with Blix. It is the US that is
intransigent. Forgotten is the fact that
the September offer to Kofi Annan was
unconditional. Why then the retraction
the moment a new resolution is mooted?
The cat
and mouse game would continue. Iraq would
object as it did earlier, to the terms of
return, the composition of the team, the
activities of team members, their
antecedents - perhaps even their shoe
size!
Then it
would link the return with the lifting of
sanctions - the fact that these relate
only to dual-purpose equipment that could
be put to military use is immaterial.
That there has been no embargo on oil
sales since 1999 would be ignored. That
the per-capita food available is over
2,500 K-Cal/day as a result of the
oil-for-food program alone is irrelevant.
This is more than that consumed by most
in the world.
The plight
of women, children and ‘innocent
civilians, would be highlighted. The fact
that many do not have easy access to
running water or private toilets would be
blown up. This may distress the developed
West, but frankly leaves a realistic
third world person cold.
The facts
that many new Palaces worth billions were
built by the early nineties, that Iraq
maintains one of the largest standing
armies in the world - a most expensive
non-productive organisation, that it
materially supports non-regular
combatants in the Middle-East and
elsewhere (it is said to compensate the
families of each Palestinian suicide
bomber with 15,000 dollars) - well, such
minor details are Iraq’s
‘prerogative’. They do however
raise questions as to governmental
priorities.
There are
two aspects to the West’s desire for
regime change in Iraq. The first is
humanitarian, the second - real. In
humanitarian terms, the regime is seen as
a cruel dictatorship. The record shows
that the Nation has been at war
continuously during the twenty-three
years of Saddam's reign. His first
targets were domestic Kurds. Genocide and
ethnic cleansing were attempted. This was
followed by the eight-year long war with
adjacent Iran, where all manner of
weapons including mass scale chemical
ones were used. Then came Kuwait and the
Gulf War that hasn’t yet ended.
The
regime’s terror tactics have been
ruthless. Four hundred foreigners from
developed nations were rounded up before
the Gulf War. Saddam threatened to strap
them to Iraqi tanks advancing into
battle. Legions have been written about
the Kuwaiti occupation. Terror was
adopted as State Policy - Tariq Aziz said
so on the public media.
A
non-combatant Israel was repeatedly
attacked using ballistic missiles,
luckily with minimal damage and no
retaliation. Many tankers were sunk in
the Gulf creating an ecological disaster.
Four hundred oil wells were set afire -
it took months to put them out. The
damage was so great that even Kashmir
received black rain. When the coalition
troops withdrew, the attacks on the Kurds
started again.
Tragically,
none of the foregoing is relevant. The
comity of nations is anarchic. Each state
is sovereign and recognises no authority
above its own. National interests reign
supreme. These in reality translate into
the interests of respective Governments,
which of course means the conglomerates
they front for.
Consequently
the U.S. embraced Saddam during his war
with Post-Shah Iran. Saddam became evil
only when his aspirations impinged on US
interests. France has ever been
pragmatic. It builds subs for Pak and
offers them to India. It sells Mirages to
both. It was Jacques Chirac who sold the
Osirak reactor to Iraq without
appropriate IAEA safeguards. Many
tripartite treaties between Iraq, France
and the IAEA were never ratified. The
reactor was mockingly referred to as
10-Chirac'. French monitors were
predictably barred from Iraq once the war
started. The same holds true for
Russia/USSR, China, Italy, and all major
exporters.
This is
all very well so long as the games remain
politico- diplomatic. The real problems
would start in the event that the
situation degenerates into a military
conflict. The results could be
catastrophic - and not merely for the
region. The oil markets would be
destabilised resulting in worldwide
chaos. Huge populations could be
displaced as migrant workers flee the
region and the domestic populace seeks to
evade the miseries of war and the
oppression of respective regimes. Some
regimes could even face revolt.
Afghanistan has shown that post war
dispersion is wide and dangerous. The
Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters have spread
across Asia, Europe, Africa, and perhaps
Australasia.
In 1990
Iraq miscalculated on two major counts.
It under- estimated the resolve of the
US/UN to pursue the military option’
and it misinterpreted Israeli deterrence.
It must not do so now. UN intentions
would be clearly signalled. Israel too
had made its stand clear when the US
first talked of military intervention.
She asked for notice to
‘appropriately prepare
herself’. The last time it was in
Israeli interest to remain quiescent.
This time it would not be so. Any
misadventure may result in a total and
devastating reaction.
Iraq’s
best strategy (though improbable) could
be the mending of bridges with the US.
This would not only raise Saddam's status
but also reduce fears of pre-emptive or
clandestine non-conventional attacks.
Collateral benefit - US stumped! Iraq
does not need WSMD presently. Their
possession indeed is dangerous. She
could, therefore, declare them totally.
The consequent realignment would be of
immeasurable benefit to Iraq in
particular and humanity in general - at
least for the present. The sacrifice of
some pride often produces
disproportionate benefits. PTI
Feature
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The
Myth of food surplus
By
Satyendra Pratap Singh
There is a
lot of euphoria about our "success
on the food front". Day-in-day out,
success stories are being trotted out
with statistical jugglery notwithstanding
the fact that the country has fallen
short of nearly 50-million tones in
achieving the Ninth Plan target.
The magic
of statistical formulations cuts both
ways, and tabulations can be contrived to
suit a particular point of view, or, an
angle. But for those who know the art of
statistical magic, India's position as a
food "surplus" nation is the
biggest deception being brandied about by
our planners and the Ministry of
Agriculture.
First of
all, the sense of urgency with which the
Green Revolution was launched has largely
disappeared from internal agricultural
development afforts. For about one-third
of the farmers, who never shared in the
agricultural advances of the Green
Revolution, the issue is one of economic
survival.
Significantly,
the Green Revolution didn't have any
great bearings on rice cultivation.
However, now efforts are underway to
bring innovative technology in increasing
rice yields, too. Experiments tried out
in some of the paddy growing states have
not produced the desired results, though
there is some improvement in per hectare
yields. This is a cause for concern.
The
questions, worth asking are: How much
success we could attribute to in-farm
technology for ushering in Green
Revolution in wheat production? And what
was the contribution of rains in helping
us reach the magic foodgrain production
figure of 250 million tones in 2001-02,
from the 1987 drought when the production
was 140.35 million tones?
In
essense, only for the last four years, we
have not resorted to imports of cereals,
though we continue to import on a massive
scale, edible oils, which is the next
item after crude oil causing strain on
our foreign exchange resources.
We are not
out of the woods yet, on the food front,
as the growth pattern of the last two
decades will indicate. A number of
impirical studies reveal that the phase
of rapid agricultural development,
particularly in respect of wheat, seems
to be over. It has been stagnating
between 60 to 70 million tones for many
years.
There was
self-congratulation on the achievement in
the '60s. But in '70s the process of
growth perceptibly slowed down. As
compared to 2.53 per cent compound rate
of production growth, between 1960-61 and
1991-2000, during the first seven years
of the '90s the rate had declined to 1.39
per cent.
In the
case of rice, the performance for the
corresponding periods is still poorer at
1.65 per cent and 0.85 per cent. These
figures show that India's agricultural
scientists led the government up the
garden path in believing that all was
well on the food front, and that early
years growth rates achieved could be
sustained.
Let us
look at the problem from a different
angle. The net availability of foodgrains
increased at the rate of 2.35 per cent
between 1950-51 and 1976-77. But if one
takes the 1970s separately it slumped
down to about 0.37 per cent. In fact, if
one were also to take into account the
rate of increase of per capita
availability, which was 1.91 per cent and
0.39 per cent annually on an average
during 1951-61 and 1961-71, respectively,
the rate becomes negative at 0.91 per
cent during 1971-76. Between 1975-76 and
1980-81 there was a further decline to
about 0.74 per cent. And the record for
1991-2001 (tentavely) is 0.56 per cent.
This is
one side of the declining trend and looks
quite ominous. The National Sample
Surveys on consumption expenditure also
show that foodgrian consumption had come
down by over 16 per cent during the same
period. This is more pronounced in
subsequent years right up to 2001.
Food
situation would appear still less
cheerful if year-to-year fluctuation is
taken into account, showing how
preponderance has been the will of the
rain-gods. This development
notwithstanding in-farm technology and
high-yielding varieties (HYV) do not
speak well about the breakthrough
supposed to have been achieved in
agricultural production with
"appropriate amount and
efficient" amount of rainfall.
Foodgrain
production in the country increased at a
compound annual rate of 2.4 per cent per
annum between triennia ended 1989-99 as
compared with the demographic growth rate
of 2.2 per cent per annum, according to a
study report issued by the Centre for
Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), Mumbai.
If the backlog of the deficit of the past
two decades is added, the growth rate in
terms of population upsurge has not kept
pace, making the country deficit to the
extent of nearly 56.57 million tonnes.
Hence what
we claim as "surplus" is
artificial and statistical jugglery
worked out by planners to beguile the
masses that we have reached the stage of
"food security zone".
The CMIE
state-wise analysis indicates that taking
foodgrain as a group, only five states -
Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Uttar
Pradesh and West Bengal - recorded
significant annual growth rates in
production, ranging from 3 per cent (West
Bengal) to 5.1 per cent (Uttar Pradesh).
These five states together accounted for
53.4 per cent and 36.2 per cent of the
country's total foodgrian production and
population respectively. Barring West
Bengal, the remaining four states have a
large marketable surplus of foodgrian and
constitute the bread-basket of India.
On the
other hand, five states - Gujarat,
Karnataka, Kerala, Maharshtra and Tamil
Nadu - showed negative growth rates in
foodgrain production, varying from 0.5
per cent (Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra) to
2.6 per cent (Gujarat).
These five
states together accounted for 18.9 per
cent and 29.9 per cent of the country's
total foodgrain production and population
respectively. Since these states have to
support a higher proportion of population
with a lower proportion of foodgrains
output, they had to depend on imports
from other states.
The
remaining seven states - Andhra Pradesh,
Assam, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, J&K,
Orissa and Rajasthan - recorded positive
growth rates in their foodgrain
production, ranging from 0.6 per cent
(Himachal Pradesh) to 2.6 per cent
(J&K). But these states too have to
support a higher proportion of population
with a lower proportion of foodgrain
production.
If we
analyse the nutritional standards the
minimum nutritional requirement in terms
of cereals on an average for a person is
685 grams, along with milk, eggs and
enough quantity of green vegetables so as
to constitute 2100 minimum calory intake.
How many people can really afford to have
the minium nutritional needs is anybody's
guess in view of roughly 33 per cent of
the population living below the poverty
line, who can't even afford to buy the
minimum cereal requirements.
In this
situation of artificial
"surplus", because those who
need food can't buy it as they lack
purchasing power, can we afford to be
complacent and indulge in
self-congratulation? And at what prices?
An
analysis of the performance of Indian
agriculture shows that the challenge of
the current decade is not only bigger but
also of a different kind. The past
generators of agricultural production
comprised mainly high-yielding varieties
of seeds, irrigation facilities,
fertiliser distribution and logistics and
input supply which successfully brought
about the foodgrain production to a level
of 200 million tonnes.
In order
to achieve a quantum jump of 250-260
million tonnes, it requires new
accelerators. For all this, the area
under crops will have to be increased
through on-farm moisture conservation in
order to sustain improved crop husbandry
and scientifically drawn cropping system.
Specific emphasis has to be given on the
production of rice and wheat in the
environmentally less endowed areas - the
eastern states.
In any
case, a viable mechanisms for an enduring
national nutritional security system
needs to be developed. Its essential
components should be : (i) food security
resulting in adequacy and stability of
good supplies and economic and physical
access to food; (ii) the minimum income
as to enable all the citisens to have
purchasing power. The right to food and
work should become correlated.
The
so-called "surplus" which we
have in foodgrians has arisen in the face
of widespread poverty, hunger and lack of
purchasing power. There is little
evidence of anti-poverty programme having
generated adequate increases in income at
the base-level. The county is still in
the danger zone of good insecurity. As we
know the food surplus nations are using
food as weapon to promote their foreign
policy options globally. In true sense of
the term, we should try to turn the
corner by adopting innovative
technologies to be self-reliant in this
vital field soon. INAV
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