EDITORIAL
PM
may as well go!
When Gulliver was
tied by the Lilliputians in strings, he played
along and let the Lilliputian strings endure by
lying on the ground, amused at what the tiny men
did with him. Or, that is popular impression
correct? It could as well have been that Gulliver
came to believe that the strings tying him down
were too stout to be broken, that the tiny men
swarming all around him were too numerous to be
shaken off. And, in that assumed impotence,
suffered himself to be lead as a prisoner by the
army of Lilliputians. India seems to have
accepted herself to be tied and bound and is lead
around by a tiny land presuming itself grand. The
ropes that tie the Indian giant are as fragile as
the Lilliputian strings on Gulliver’s body
were, the terrorists who seem to be swarming all
around are really small in numbers, and the Pak
bravado is as hollow as it is hostile. But
somehow India has convinced herself that she is
well tied down and cannot move nor free itself
from the restraint. She accordingly lies prone
and prostrate when in reality she is potent
enough to take on a much-hardened enemy.
But it is not the
potential but the presumption that leads the way.
And India keeps looking to far powers to free her
from this self imposed disability. Thus it was
that even after serious outrages, the Indian
response remained subdued. Thus it was that even
as the terrorists kept up their marauding
activities. India restrained her prowess. Thus it
was that while the terrorists proceeded from
Parliament to Akshardham, the full-deployed
forces did not budge one inch to stifle the
terrorists’ feeding lines. And after all the
exertions, the troops stand redeployed to their
barracks. Never mind that the Indian Government
through as senior an authority as the Deputy
Prime Minister, as vital a Minister as the
defense, ‘confirm’ that the terrorists
are still being sent in, that not only the
infiltrations but the support and succor to the
terrorists is continuing. For corroboration they
have the whole international media and all
foreign intelligence sources bearing their
assertions out. Yet all they settled for was a
pull back called redeployment. So why make so
much fuss over the Prime Minister’s visit to
Pakistan for the SAARC summit?
As it is the main
fare of the Indian nation for the past some years
has been brownie points in the international
forums. Of course, there is much good in the
comity of nations standing up to laud your
maturity and judgment. Impetuosity whether in men
or nations is not a desirable trait. And mature
people must conduct themselves with decorum, must
be ready to understand, must not rush like
foolhardy churls to conclusions or actions. India
has been well appreciated for standing for these
pious pats. It would not hurt to have a few more
of them rubbing the national back. It may take
out some of the sting of terror strikes and dull
the pain a little. And, as the intellectuals are
fond of saying, the nation it is too great and
strong to be cowed down by a handful of the
terrorists. So the SAARC summit can be held on
schedule and the Prime Minister can go to
Pakistan to participate. Indeed, no amount of
talking, visiting or even camaraderie can hurt so
long as one is keen on the objectives and able to
press the points. It is more hurtful when it is
thought that refusal to talk is equivalent to an
appropriate action. It is the worst when that
refusal is taken to be the ‘adequate
response’ itself
Where
is the police?
Sometime back we
had cautioned that much of the Jammu city is in
grip of the fear of violent thieves, who are
descend upon a house, subdue the inmates with
force and decamp with valuables and cash. Those
incidents have since multiplied and are being
reported from more areas. Most of the colonies
have taken to night patrolling to secure their
neighborhoods against the thieves. The residents
themselves organize these night patrols, and do
the rounds armed with lathis and khukhris always
a dozen-strong men per party as the thieves are
said to come in groups of ten to twelve men. Many
theories are doing the rounds. Some say these are
labourers, who double up as thieves at night.
Others posit that they are men of the
kachha-baniyan or kala-kachhe gangs who have
descended upon the city. At the very least the
people are highly tense. In Gole Gujral camp the
other day, people chased supposed
‘miscreants’ and fired many rounds upon
them as a result of which some of the residents
themselves were injured while they found no trace
of the ‘thieves’.
Amid all this high
tension, there is no trace of police, save at the
routine terrorist check posts. This is a strange
situation, if not apathy. The fear may all turn
out to be a hoax, but it the duty of the police
to investigate it and show that it a baseless
fear. If it is a real threat, as it appears to
be, it again is the duty of the police force to
secure the colonies, patrol the areas and
reassure the people that the law and order agency
is on the job and that they can sleep in relative
security. They in fact, must launch a full
operation to nab the criminals, who have thus
thrown the whole city into a quandary. It may not
take many patrol parties to cover this small
city.
As it is, a part
of the police force is already on patrol duty in
view of the terrorist threat and a little
supplementation of that force would do. But those
patrols must be mounted to assure the citizens
that they are not on their own in this threat to
their safety and security. The city is already
highly terrorist sensitive. In view of the coming
durbar move, the terrorist threat would become
more acute. If petty criminals can move so freely
in the city as these thieves appear to be doing,
is this city reasonably secure from terrorists?
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‘Proxy’
war planned in 1987
Pak uses
PTDs in J&K: Gen. Rao
By B L
Kak
Pakistan
is using programme time devices (PTDs)
quite extensively in Jammu and Kashmir.
Falling within the category of
sophisticated devices, PTDs are put with
explosives.
The
PTDs, according to former Chief of Army
Staff and Governor of Jammu and Kashmir,
Gen. KV Krishna Rao, could be set from
seven and a half minutes to 170 days. The
fact that Pakistan, he says, had started
using such sophisticated devices as PTDs
really came to light in the first quarter
of 1995, when some IEDs (improvised
explosive devices) were recovered from
the Jammu-Pathankot railway track.
Since
then, Gen. Krishna Rao has recorded in
his latest book titled ‘In the
Service of the Nation:
Reminiscences’, further
technological advances have been made and
a device which can be set for 365 days is
now available. Detection of the device by
the equipment then available was also a
problem and had to be resolved.
Gen.
Krishna Rao, who was then the J&K
Governor, approached his
"friend", Dr APJ Abdul Kalam,
then scientific advisor to the Defence
Minister, to find an answer. "We
found that Pakistan had been using such
devices quite extensively in Jammu and
Kashmir". Naturally, the forces
became much more alert to this",
Gen. Rao has revealed.
Gen.
Krishna Rao has a number of irrefutable
findings. Finding number one: The
sequence of events starting with the
dismissal of the Farooq Abdullah
Government and leading up to the
elections in March 1987 in which massive
rigging was alleged, led to a continued
disturbed situation in Jammu and Kashmir.
Finding
number two: Pakistan evolved its new
strategy around September 1987. In the
early stages of the trouble, this was not
known to the Indian authorities. The
J&K police did a reasonably good job
in the early stages. It did not, however,
mean that everyone who infiltrated back
into the State was picked up. In the
Jammu region, the Punjab terrorists were
not only using the border for crossing
over to Pakitan, but also staging some
incidents.
Finding
number three: It was suspected that some
of the Ministers, MLAs and officials in
J&K were either involved with or had
sympathies with the secessionists. Others
were just plain indifferent. The police
appeared to have succumbed to threats.
Its top brass gave the impression of
being unprofessional, extremely weak and
even timid. Without the necessary
motivation and inspiration, the rank and
file preferred to avoid trouble, rather
than meet the challenge posed by the
terrorists. There was even the suspicion
that some of them were in league with the
terrorists.
Gen.
Krishna Rao regretted that some elements
of the local press (in J&K) had been
playing havoc in the State, by eulogizing
the terrorists and denigrating the State
Government. "Unfortunately, even
some elements of the national press were
not lagging behind", his book says
and adds: "Some sections of the
media gave the impression that everyone
in Kashmir wanted to join Pakistan, which
was far from the truth".
Finding
number four: In the early 1990s, the
Government employees resorted to strikes
every now and then, on instigation by the
militants. Some of them were known to
have gone across to Pakistan and returned
after months or even years... Many of the
administrators were politicized and some
even came under the influence of the
Jamaat-e-Islami...Some of the more
pro-Pakistan officials were believed to
have said to their colleagues from other
parts of India that they would need
passports and visas to come to Kashmir in
future, as ‘azadi’ was round
the corner!
Gen.
Krishna Rao’s finding number five:
The State police dealt with militancy in
its initial stages reasonably well.
However, those who showed initiative,
courage and competence were sidelined and
even cases were launched against them or
deliberate leaks made to militants about
them. As the militants gained strength,
the police felt unmatched. Its leadership
was weak and some of the officers were
involved with the militants. In the
absence of proper training, many got
through who were under the influence of
Jamaat-e-Islami. Allegations of rampant
corruption in recruitment as well as in
the functioning of the police were
legion. Even some of the CID personnel
were involved with the militants.
In the
early stages of Governor’s rule, it
was alleged that no protection was
provided to political leaders, who, Gen.
Rao’s book says, were obvious
targets of the militants. "As many
of them were eliminated, the rest moved
to Jammu or Delhi or other places. Only a
handful remained in the Valley at risk to
their lives. Those who migrated (an
obvious reference to Kashmiri Pandits)
would not come to the Valley for years,
losing all contacts with the
people", Gen. Raa has noted.
Finding
number six: The local media was mostly
subverted. Those who tried to assert
their independence were under grave
threat. Some such media personalities
were eliminated by the militants. Thus,
people were fed constantly by news that
was emanating from the local media,
particularly in Urdu, which was more or
less controlled by the militants. Even
some sections of the national media
started glamourizing the militants and
denigrating the Government on every
possible occasion.
Finding
number seven: Some of the journalists
were, unfortunately, immature and
inexperienced. There appeared to be
competition to get the interviews of the
militant leaders, for which certain
compromises were apparently made.
However,
it must be said to the credit of the
national media, as explained by Gen.
Krishna Rao, that overall they gave a
"realistic assessment" of the
ground situation. In this connection,
Gen. Rao has made a pointed reference to
the State’s largest circulated
English publication, Daily Excelsior, and
noted that the publication, under Mr SD
Rohmetra, despite "serious threats
to his life", functioned effectively
too.
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Pakistan
poll meets Generals's wishes
By
Allabaksh
The
Pakistani dictator has the enviable luck
of getting what he wants-- albeit by
fooling the world. The US-led powers in
the affluent and powerful world think he
has taken an important step towards
steering Pakistan back to democracy when
he has actually ''trampled upon''
democracy in his country (says Ms Benazir
Bhutto). But for the noises made Bhutto
and some other Pakistani leaders, Western
leaders like George W. Bush of the USA
might have been unreservedly lavish in
praising the General for holding ''free
and fair'' election.
The just
concluded elections in Pakistan were
naturally ''free and fair'' because the
General had done the ''rigging'' ahead of
the actual polls, debarring serious
potential rivals and making sure that he
remained the ultimate arbiter of all
matters in Pakistan. He will take
Pakistan on a path of ''true'' democracy
in which he will have the power to
dismiss elected bodies and veto decisions
taken by elected members.
No matter
how the rest of the world views the
post-poll scenario in Pakistan, the
General has little to worry about the
election results. He might have wished it
but he knew it well that the ''King's
party''-- Pakistan Muslim League
(Quaid-e-Azam)- would not have swept the
polls. By all accounts he was hoping for
a hung parliament and that is what got,
getting enough room to install a puppet
government with the help of the group of
six religious/fundamentalist parties
which had bandied together for the polls.
He can have a ''loyal'' government that
will also implement his agenda of rabid
anti-Indian policies and extending
protection to religious fanatics and
Taliban forces which may not feel the
need to live ''clandestinely'' in his
country.
The cover
of having to accommodate in the
government ''religious'' parties, which
have less to do with religion and more
with extremism, gives Musharraf an alibi
to feign ''helplessness'' in fighting
terrorism. But he will no admit that the
large-scale entry of religious extremists
and other fanatics in Pakistan's national
and state assemblies was facilitated by
his half-hearted attempts to fight
terrorism.
He will
find it easy now to shed any fig leave
that he was forced to wear after 9/11 as
he pushes his terrorists into India on
their ''holy'' mission of death and
destruction. He will claim that the
emergence of religious parties has
reduced his capacity to contain the
anti-US forces which can be expected to
operate more openly in the two Pakistan
states that border Afghanistan- NWFP and
Baluchistan. The post-election situation
in Pakistan, which is witnessing the
mainline moderate parties being pushed
into a corner, will also help him realise
his dream of life-long Presidency.
It was
clear from the beginning that the
measures he was taking to curb
fundamentalism in his country were fake
and a mere eyewash. After the ''General's
election'' in Pakistan when these very
elements are becoming part of the ruling
class in his country he has lesser
reasons to bottle up the genie of
religious fanatics. He may continue for
some time the pretension of fighting
Islamic fundamentalists only to please
his US masters. But if the US agreed to
take a serious look at his full track
record-- Kargil and ending cross-border
terrorism- his claims will stand exposed.
Some
Americans have begun to publicly express
concern over the results thrown up by
Pakistan's so-called ''free and fair''
polls which have propelled pro-Taliban,
anti-American forces into the front line
of Pakistani politics. The official line
in the US is, however, cautious because
the Bush administration is still very
much enamoured of Musharraf for providing
it an opening after 9/11 to show to the
world that the US can give a few
knock-out purchase to those (Taliban) who
challenge the US might.
But with
the assuredness of Gen Parvez Musharraf
at the helm of affairs in Pakistan, the
religious fanatics and fundamentalists
will henceforth only go from strength to
strength, as they had found him willingly
succumbing to their pressure just after
he had taken a U-turn to join the US-led
''war'' against terrorism as a frontline
state. He withdrew nearly every stern
measure he had announced to ''curb''
fundamentalists.
The
Pakistani fundamentalists in power will
certainly like to see the government in
Islamabad show less subservience to the
US. But an uninhibited anti-US stand by
any Pakistani government is impossible
given the extent to which Pakistan is
dependent upon the US greenbacks and
F-16s for its very survival. At the same
time it cannot be ruled out that a stage
may soon be reached when the US will be
forced to view Pakistan as an
untrustworthy ally. But the US as of now
continues to fool itself by believing
that Musharraf will prevent that stage
from arriving.
The US
''optimism'' may grow from the fact that
the real fury of all the fundamental and
extremists in Pakistan has always been
directed not at the US but at India, a
country that is geographically of less
interest to the USA than Pakistan. The
anti-American feelings in Pakistan are
not so strongly expressed because the
stress in the official policies is
against India. The fiery anti-US
demonstrators of Pakistan, flashed on TV
screens just after the attack on
Afghanistan by US forces, disappeared as
mysteriously as they had appeared on the
streets. They went in retreat because the
Musharraf government asked them to:
Pakistanis are happier burning the Indian
flag and effigies of Indian leaders.
India is
in no need to commiserate with the US
over the fresh developments in Pakistan.
The US has refused to see certain
realities in the pursuit of its agenda in
the sub-continent which is to have a
pliant government in Islamabad capable of
containing India (with generous US help)
and stop Afghanistan from falling out of
the orbit of US influence.
The strong
presence of the ''jehad'' and
ultra-nationalists forces in Pakistan
assemblies has come in the wake of an
all-time high anti-India pitch in
Pakistan, swiftly raised by the wily
General since he staged the coup in
October 1999 on the farcical plea that
the then Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif,
who had appointed him Chief of Staff, was
planning to jail him- after ordering the
Pakistan Airlines plane in which
Musharraf was travelling from Colombo to
land in India!
The bulk
of the religious groups and fanatics in
Pakistan have been compulsively
anti-Indian because Pakistanis are
encouraged to think that such a course
strengthens the nationhood of Pakistan.
The anti-American or anti-West sentiments
that prevail in Pakistan probably enjoy a
fair degree of covert support from the
government. But the anti-Indian feelings
are fanned openly by the establishment
and the upper crust of Pakstani society
by constantly raising the boge of Indian
''hegemony'' and the perceived
''wickedness'' of the Kafirs of India.
The US and
the rest of the Western world have never
felt the need to rid Pakistan of its
self-created paranoia, and therefore,
these countries did not pay much
attention to the growth of irrational
hate policies of Pakistan. Pakistan also
discovered that it can play up its India
phobia before the rich West to seek a
constant flow of arms and cash. The US
help in raising the Taliban and helping
prop up Osama bin Laden are too well
known.
With its
army motivated to religious wars,
Pakistan gladly took over the charge of
the Taliban from the US with, of course,
a greater passion as it saw in the
Taliban militia a great opportunity to
get at India. It is a myth created by the
Pakistanis and lapped up by the US that
Pakistan has a ''secular'' element in its
armed forces. The ''moderates'' in the
Pakistan defence forces are something
like the ''moderates'' in the Sangh
Parivar who put up a ''secular'' front
only when the occasion demands it.
Gen
Musharraf is part of an army which showed
its true colours of intolerance at the
time of the Bangladesh war in 1971 and
its more hawkish, anti-Indian tone since
the humiliation it suffered in that war.
Pakistan's ISI, which is a part of its
Army, has been the greatest source of
strength for the Taliban and other
similar forces. And the US has known it
all along. The US need not express
surprise over the large gains made by the
religious fanatics in Pakistani polls.
Even after
9/11, the US refused to see the fuller
dimensions of the menace that the
Pakistan-backed religious fundamentalism
has become. Washington is living in a
make-believe world when it sees the
Pakistani-sponsored terrorism as being
benign to American interests. The US
concern over incursions by these
terrorists into Indian territories is
confined to issuing statements- generally
at India's insistence- to denounce
''cross - border terrorism''. The US has
shown marked hesitation to persuade its
client in Islamabad from taking up the US
''advice'' on ending ''cross-border
terrorism''.
If,
however, the US is still worried to see
religious extremists take control of
Pakistani administration, they should be
doing some more plain talking to their
favourite General in Islamabad. Shedding
crocodile tears over the polls results in
Pakistan will not do.
(Syndicate
Features)
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Globalisation:
Challenges and opportunities
By Dr
Navin Chandra Joshi
The word
"globalisation" has been in
vogue for quite some time but it has
generally not been understood properly.
An impression has been gaining ground
that many an economic ill are due to
globalisation. Also, it is felt that
increased cross border trade will
adversely affect Indian economy.
Moreover, Indian companies fear that they
are going to be easy targets for takeover
by foreign companies. There may be an
element of truth in these perceptions but
not all of them may be real.
It is also
true that liberalisation of trade and
investment increased capital flows and
the resultant competition also lead to
higher economic growth. Evidence suggests
that open economies have prospered better
than those economies which have adopter
protective practices, as in the case of
many of the South East Asian economies.
Therefore,
India should rise to avail itself of the
opportunities of globalisation. Indian
business cannot perpetually live behind
protective barriers. It is necessary to
push Indian companies into global
competition and break their lethargy. To
withdraw from globalisation would be an
opportunity lost.
No wonder
then, however, a first class
infrastructure network has to be provided
for Indian industry and business so that
they become effectively competitive in
the global market. Alongwith that, some
laws pertaining to labour and production
need to be changed while some new have to
be introduced keeping in view the global
standards that need to be achieved.
Surely, by leading these and other
problems unattended, it cannot be
expected that Indian industry and
business will be able to rise to meet the
global challenges.
Of no less
concern is the fact that huge global
corporations enjoys sufficient financial
clout to erode the regulatory powers of
nations and ride roughshod over the
rights of individuals to determine their
future. Whereas the postcolonialism had
held out the promise of an egalitarian
world order and globalisation was
supposed to deliver economic equality
among nations, the reality is to be
contrary. In the postglobalisation world
in which we live today, inequality is on
the increase.
It is said
globalisation's driving idea is free
market capitalism. Like the cold war,
globalisation also has its own set of
economic rules which revolve around
opening deregulation and privatisation of
economic activities. In the era of
globalisation, we are all connected as we
reach for the internet but nobody is
totally in charge. If the defining
perspective of cold war was division, it
was integration for globalisation. Once a
country makes the leap into the system of
globalisation, it's elites try to locate
themselves in a global context.
The
experience of ongoing globalisation makes
it imperative to rewrite the rules in
order to make them work for people and
not just for profits. The latest UNDP
Human Development Report (HDR) has put
human concerns at the Centre of the
globalisation debast to end the
polarisation. The report has referred to
India's consistent efforts to improve the
overall development opportunities for its
people even as the country was
integrating rapidly with the global
economy. It is good that the HDR has been
focussing international debate on people
and attempting measurement of people's
progress beyond the per capita income.
In other
words, the overall well-being of an
individual and the global interdependence
of the people is unanimously agreed as a
solution to the dangerous polarisation
between people and countries benefitting
from the system and those as mere passive
recipients of its effects. Rightly,
therefore, the report does not look at
globalisation either as an unqualified
panacea or as a wholesale malignancy.
What it seeks to unfold is the problem of
reconciling the pursuit of economic
efficiency and global competitiveness
with the dictates of equity and enhanced
human security. How can this
harmonisation operate? The report gives
three prerequisites to humane process of
globalisation.
First,
stronger policies to protect and promote
human development -- literacy, education,
training, preventive health, gender
justice and so forth; second, more
international cooperation in human
development areas; and third, a
participative process of development
integrating Governments, NGOs and
business entities.
It is true
that while the present-day world does not
give us any option except to join the
process of globalisation, we should,
along with other developing countries,
find ways and means of devising policies
and programmes which really help the poor
nations and the poor among these nations.
We should fight for a more just and
equitable world order and develop the
strength and unity to resist imposition
of unequal treaties and discriminatory
trade policies. India signed the WTO
accord but the Indian industry as well as
trade circles are not fully aware even
today of the commitments made by the
country.
As a
development paradigm, globalisation is
now widely accepted and it's basic
tenants are hardly disputed. The
developing countries have shown a greater
urge to globalise their economies, mostly
on their own. A measure of this is the
fact that 100 out of 135 members of the
World Trade Organisation (WTO) are from
the developing world and more are waiting
to join this supra-national body. There
are, however, doubts as to whether
globalisation, in its present form, will
fulfill this expectation.
A review
of the globalisation process and its
working during the 90s would support the
sceptics. The shortcomings have been that
so far there has been a limited spread
and reach of globalisation. It has been
confined to only the industrialised
countries and a limited number of
developing (mainly fast-moving newly
industralising) counties. The rest of the
countries (all developing) have not been
able to access the globalisation process
for a variety of reasons, but primarily
because of aggressive pursuit of
regionalism and growing market access
barriers.
The main
driving forces of present-day
globalisation are the market and the
return on investment. Only countries with
high growth and good prospects or
attractive returns have been drawn within
the fold of global trade and investment
flows. Developing countries attract only
30 per cent of global investment flows,
but just 20 countries in the developing
world attract over 85 per cent of total
foreign direct investment flows and 94
per cent of portfolio investment.
Globalisation has thus eluded the rest of
the developing countries inspite of
drastic liberalisation of their economic
policies.
Moreover,
as a result of globalisation, there has
large concentration of activities within
certain geographical confines like those
of the Asia - Pacific Economic
Cooperation Forum (APEC) and the European
Union (EU) and this has widened the
disparity between the rich and the poor
countries. The income-gap between the top
20 per cent of the world's population in
the highest-income countries and bottom
20 per cent has increased to 75:1. While
the former accounts for 87 per cent of
world's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the
latter accounts for only one per cent.
And there is no guarantee that more
liberalisation by the developing
countries will help to narrow this gap.
As part of
trade reforms, the tariff and non-tariff
barriers have been lowered gradually.
India's agreement with the wto norms has
resulted in the country removing the
quantitative restrictions on various
items and from April last year free
import of various items have been
allowed.
The
financial sector reforms been
particularly significant and banks are
now reorienting their strategy to compete
with international players. The insurance
sector has been opened up only recently
and the forces of competition are already
coming into play. Industrial licensing
has been more or less abolished and the
role of private capital has been enhanced
in various sectors.
Also, in
India's corporate sector some kind of
discontinuity is visible as global
competition is knocking at their doors.
Foreign investments are sometimes looked
upon with suspicion and yet they seem to
be crucial for modernisation. Now time
has come when we should aim at making
Indian companies as global companies with
the vast pool of trained manpower and
skills available with the vast pool of
trained manpower and skills available in
the country. The objective should be to
build Indian brands and products which
are recognised throughout the world.
Nevertheless,
all this calls for restructuring on a
scale which has been untried till now in
so far as the economy and corporate
sector are concerned. The level of
performance would need to be sustained by
constant innovation, cost reduction and
better quality. It has to be recognised
that as a consequence of globalisation,
free roaming across the global economy by
muntinationals has encouraged many
developing nations to liberalise at great
speed. Therefore, mega mergers and
acquisitions have eroded competition and
developed monopolistic tendencies,
vitiating all fruitful results of a
global environment.
PTI
Feature
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