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EDITORIAL While India can rightly pride in former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi selected as the Lady of Millennium, Laloo can rightly bid for place in Guiness Record Book for his daughter Misa's wedding as the Marriage of the Millennium (1000 years). It deserves to be rated as such for several reasons. First, the list of invitees and the number of invitations. There were no less than 30,000 cards sent to various destinations. Those who attended numbered well over 10,000. What is discernible from all other marriages of VVIP wards relates to the wide variety of invitees. Laloo and Rabri Devi left nothing to chance and personally extended invitations to Rashtrapati Narayanan and Prime Minister Vajpayee. They also saw to it that foes or friends are treated alike and they all must bless the newly weds. Amongst the stalwarts who have opposed him tooth and nail and belong to the same erstwhile fraternity of Janata Parivar include Nitish Kumar, Ram Vilas Paswan and Sharad Yadav. It is indeed nice of them to show their magnanimity as regards 'social engineering'. The very next day they fired salvo after salvo at Laloo and Rabri Devi Government in Bihar. The variety of invitees included film stars. At least two of them turned up to shower ther blisses on the young couple namely Bihari Babu and Raj Babbar although invitees included thespian Dalip Kumar and famous Director Mahesh Bhatt besides all who have eked .....more |
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SPOTLIGHT Kashyap Bandhu's Ansariana: The logic
that makes corruption rule They did not live to Leaderless colleges Looking back a hundred
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EDITORIAL While India can rightly pride in former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi selected as the Lady of Millennium, Laloo can rightly bid for place in Guiness Record Book for his daughter Misa's wedding as the Marriage of the Millennium (1000 years). It deserves to be rated as such for several reasons. First, the list of invitees and the number of invitations. There were no less than 30,000 cards sent to various destinations. Those who attended numbered well over 10,000. What is discernible from all other marriages of VVIP wards relates to the wide variety of invitees. Laloo and Rabri Devi left nothing to chance and personally extended invitations to Rashtrapati Narayanan and Prime Minister Vajpayee. They also saw to it that foes or friends are treated alike and they all must bless the newly weds. Amongst the stalwarts who have opposed him tooth and nail and belong to the same erstwhile fraternity of Janata Parivar include Nitish Kumar, Ram Vilas Paswan and Sharad Yadav. It is indeed nice of them to show their magnanimity as regards 'social engineering'. The very next day they fired salvo after salvo at Laloo and Rabri Devi Government in Bihar. The variety of invitees included film stars. At least two of them turned up to shower ther blisses on the young couple namely Bihari Babu and Raj Babbar although invitees included thespian Dalip Kumar and famous Director Mahesh Bhatt besides all who have eked out distinct niche in the cine world. But by far the greatest glamour was added by the presence of Harkishen Singh Surjeet and Devi Lal, both ailing but yet finding the proposition quite tempting. Despite age they remain ever ambitious to mark their presence on the political scene. It is quite another thing that this time it was a social scenario. Second visible aspect relates to an open appeal to all the garibs of Bihar to attend garib daughter wedding. No wonder it posed serious problems for those manning the security as crowds freely mingled with the special invitees many of whom happen to be 'threatened species'. Here one has to pause for a while to ponder how much garib Laloo happens to be. With 1000 crore fodder scam and many more worth thousands of crores for which chargesheets have been framed, none can regard Laloo as garib. If it were so he would have never attempted hops to Delhi and other destinations for personally delivering invitation cards to hundreds of VVIPs. Courier service would have saved him lakhs of rupees. Catering to 30,000 invitees mean expenditure in crores. Garibs do not celebrate marriages in this fashion more so because Bihar State is the most impoverished and remained backward during Laloo's long stint as Chief Minister. Third discernible aspect relates to Misa herself. She was named as such when Indira Gandhi promulgated draconian law known as Maintenance of Internal Security Act. She was indeed born when MISA has sent thousands of people to jails Laloo Prasad included. At least on that score Laloo's acumen needs appreciation. Another noteworthy feature relates to her having qualified as a doctor from Patna Medical College. The point to be noted is that she has been declared first, a proposition which her colleagues and political opponents refuse to believe. No wonder many protests have been organised since every right thinking person in Patna think that first position was virtually forced of the Medical College. But then Laloo is so well known for his manipulatory skills. Lastly, if it is to be believed as the Marriage of the Millennium as described in the print media, some sort of comparison is inevitable. It is recent history when Jaya Lalitha celebrated the marriage of her foster son. She would thus hate to be relegated to second or third position in terms of extravaganza. She is known to have spent around 10 crore on the marriage. Recently, Mulayam made it a pretty big affair during his son's marriage which also deserved to be considered for the top slot of the millennium. Laloo outscores all contemporaries and surpassed even royal weddings and those of business tycoons. To that extent Laloo can indeed be declared richest man of Bihar if not that of the country. No wonder Income Tax people have sought full details of expenditure incurred on marriage not only from Laloo but also from bridegroom's parents and he is put on notice to pay 40 lacs within 15 days or face attachment of his properties. |
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SPOTLIGHT The Congress president, Ms Sonia Gandhi, has just been warned that the outcome of the Assembly elections in Bihar, Orissa, Haryana and Manipur will have a direct bearing on her leadership. The warning has come at a time when the Congress has no hopes of winning these elections. Reason: Congress lacks a clear electoral strategy. And at a time when grassroot workers have been found to be having faith in her and her leadership even after the defeat in the 1999 parliamentary polls, Ms Sonia Gandhi has also been warned that the picture could change after the Assembly elections if she failed to click with the electorate. Significantly, at the same time, while a large section of the party is for the implementation of one-man-one-post formula in the organisation, differences have arisen between her loyalists and the rest of the partymen over Ms Sonia Gandhi holding three key positions, namely, Congress president, Leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. Differences were reported after loyalists of the Nehru-Gandhi family insisted that one-man-one-post principle should not apply to Ms Sonia Gandhi. She has tasted, and so far enjoyed, the influence of being the party president, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and chairperson of the CPP. Hence, all the more reason for her to ensure that she was able to retain all these three key posts. The presence of the Congress in the Indian polity, as explained by the BJP general secretary, Mr Venkaiah Naidu, is a must for a healthy democracy and healthy Opposition. Despite its recent decline, the Congress is still a well-knit political organisation. Its influence extends to all parts of the country. When other parties overtake it, in terms of either influence or control over the State, or electoral performance, its well-wishers are both intrigued and perturbed. Intrigued because other national mainstream parties are not ideologically or organisationally superior. And perturbed because the Congress has been steadily losing ground throughout the country. It was quite decent of Mr Venkaiah Naidu, therefore, to suggest that the Congress should take corrective steps in keeping with the Antony Committee’s report on the causes for the party’s 1999 electoral debacle. Such is the widespread hope among other parties also because the eclipse of the Congress from the political scene of India would usher in sectarian forces and ideology which could well threaten the nation’s secular and democratic fabric and lead to the communalisation of the polity. Ms Sonia Gandhi has been told by some of her party MPs that the party would experience difficult days after March 2000, if effective measures were not taken immediately to rectify a series of mistakes and revitalise the party across the country. The Congress leadership has virtually refused to de-mystify the Antony Committee’s findings, disappointing the party’s rank and file in the process. There has been a strong element of evasion by the Congress Working Committee (CWC) in its consideration of the report. The causes for the electoral debacle, which the Committee is reported to have probed and commented on, are obviously not for public knowledge. The Antony Committee’s role was, according to Mr Pranab Mukherjee, merely diagnostic. But when neither the diagnosis nor the cure is made known to the rank and file, who after all constitute the party’s backbone, how will the party apply the correctives ? The CWC accepted 18 of the 20 recommendations, but these are extremely disappointing since they contain nothing path-breaking. They represent a mere reiteration of ideas articulated on numerous occasions in the past, ideas which hav e remained unimplemented all along. Any student of political scene is apt to wonder whether it required a high-power committee to suggest correctives like secret balloting, early finalisation of election candidates, the trimming of unwieldy district and pradesh committees, and the holding of pre-election training camps. The CWC’s decision to delink the report from the crucial exercise of restructuring the party and streamlining it has virtually made nonsense of the Antony Committee’s labours. This, in effect, has sanctified the widely prevalent ad hocism in the party. Nonetheless, the CWC has taken a holistic view of the need for a thorough revamp of the party. Implied in Mr Pranab Mukherjee’s statement that senior leaders went deeply into some of the causes which led to the debacle is the fact that the CWC made no attempt to push organisational weaknesses under the carpet as they tended to do in the past. |
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Ansariana: The logic
that makes corruption rule You must have heard of Gains Law. It is one of the best known (and proven) laws of economics. Stated simple it says: bad money drives good money out (of circulation). 'Good' and 'bad' monies are remnants from an earlier era when Reserve Banks printing signed currency-notes were not universal, nor were the states anxious to support their legal tenders i.e. currency notes. Money was real, in bits of gold and silver which you had to strike and sound to ensure that it was not counterfiet. Imitation coinage of baser metal ran in circulation, not uncommonly put out by the State treasury itself. People hoarded the genuine coins and tried to pass on bad ones at every opportunity. While the good money went out of circulation into peoples' pots and purses, bad money kept rolling in the market. Money has become uniform today though you can see soiled notes being pushed into circulation while the people prefer to retain the shiny ones in their possession. Gains law hints at a basic dishonesty of the people. Born, of course, of the exigency and compulsion of times and a need for security! Today, while gains law has become somewhat irrelevant to economics, it has turned awfully true for the people at large as the bad ones keep driving out the good ones. Not that the society cherishes the people of honesty and integrity and keeps them safe like the medieval people hoarding gold coins did. It is in the other, more literal sense of the law, that good people are physically bounded out by the bad ones as the latter appropriate all channels of human concourse as well as survival. Advancement, too. The world, at least the India of today, is simply not conducive to the old (and outmoded?) practices of honesty and integrity. Now it must be clarified that one is not equating the right hon'ble Moulvi Iftikhar Ansari with bad money, nor casting any doubt on his honesty and integrity. For all one knows the law of this land may soon vindicate his truth and condemn every person who may dare to question his credentials. The law is actually a past master at acquitting people of discomfiting accusations, having been at it for these past several decades. Ita acquitted scores of worthies implicated in the Hawala scam, including even Sharad Yadav who actually accepted (and still accepts) that he had taken the money. The law declared that he hadn't, and that was that. Sharad was proved wrong ---- he had not taken the money even if he said he had taken it, spent it, put it in his account. That is the rule of law; law is always right, law is above everybody including confessing bribe-takers. That is why it is said that law is supreme in India. It is also independent, as you can see. Yes, no blame lies with Ansari Saheb unless the law decides so, and nobody is casting any blame there. Indeed, it'll be proved in the course of this write-up that the worthy minister has done only right to 'the all manner of people'. That is what is meant by the term Ansariana. It, in fact refers to the thousands of the people around who lives with corruption and make it impossible for the saintly ministers to live austere lives even if they wished to. Take, for instance, an ordinary works supervisor. He gets a cut from the funds that the minister sanctions to bring, say much drinking water to his constituency. The next cut goes to the section officer, then the engineer, and the whole army of succeeding engineers towering over him; all get fixed, unvariable cuts from the same funds. The beauty of the scheme is that the peole too get a cut in stolen pipes, over-assessed compensations for the lands acquired, and free flow of drinking water for irrigating agricultural lands. Now, they wouldn't a minister claim a share from the funds that he sanctioned in the first place? It would be logical for the CM, even the Planning Commission to claim a share of the cuts as the money actually comes from their efforts and endowments. Perhaps they are too removed from the scene; perhaps they too come and claim it. Why, somebody, after all, does pay for the gushtabas.' Of course, the works people spend 80% of the planned funds. But there are plenty more where that 80% comes from. The developmental funds, welfare and health allocations, salaries and contingencies, all to be spent, all subject to cuts and shares. The respective ministers have as much a right to them as the petty cashier or accounts clerk. Would the VLW and the BDO alone be entitled to the cuts from monies spent in the name of development? No, the minister has an equal, if not a greater entitlement to this largesse. And claims it rightly. Ditto for the others. It is common knowledge that a patwari charges in thousands for issuing a 'farada'. Can a tehsildar be justly barred from his due share on this 'earning'. Or, the chain of commissioners? Or, the minister, who places all these share-croppers at the suited places. It would be an incompetent head who cannot force his cut on this income. The same would, of course, apply to the police. Would any offender 'earn' his living without the help from this body of men. Would they not be entitled to a share, then? The constable on the beat collects cuts from both the breakers and non-breakers of law. Only an incapable SHO would be unaware of this earning; only an incompetent one would let the constable gobble the whole of it: only inefficient hierarchy would let the two of them corner all of it; only a foolish minister would starve while letting his subordinates fatten themselves. And then, there is the question of status and stature. Status demands that the higher you are in the chain, the better you must live. Stature demands that the taking of the upper ranks must be greater, worthier of their standing. That is the simple social dictat. The minister can't accept rupees, he must take lacs, a commissioner tens of thousands, those below him thousands and so on. That take actually determines the respect commanded by a particular functionary, in the social standing. Thereupon also hinges maintenance of order. Suppose a minister refused his share, wouldn't a patwari, a works supervisor, a clerk and a constable accumulate more than is good for him or the system. When the king of jungle takes a lions share it is not impinging upon the other animals but saving them from an un-necessary dyspepsia. It is also ensuring proper order. The lion is duty bound to take a bigger share. Else, the hyena may get bloated with extra meat and end up either bursting or challenging the lion none of which can be said to good for it. That is the logic of Ansariana, the rule that facilitates life in a jungle. It fosters order, measures efficiency, establishes competence and guarantees a fund of a capability in the men and women who have taken the burden of ruling this jungle of a state. Austere ministers are an abnormality in a corrupt society: they are a threat to the proper functioning of the system of corruption. So are austere people, austere functionaries, because they break the chain that feeds the whole. That whole includes every body: the common householder who cheats on electricity and water, the employee who steals on every opportunity, the trader who deceives on cue, the ordinary poor who lay a claim to the goodies of the state without earning it. The flip side of it is that this state could do without this shameful scheme. |
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They did not live to see
21st century! It is a strange paradox and an irony too that most of the stalwarts in different fields who shaped the destiny of the 20th century India are no longer alive to witness the culmination of the 20th century. If the weak inherit the Earth, as goes the proverb, it is the mediocres who have survived to inherit the 21st century. This peculiar situation could partly also be the result of the observation made by certain social scientists that the generation of Indians born in the latter half of 19th century who survived into the first half of 20th century and the generation of Indians born in the early decades of 20th century who fell short of surviving into the 21st century were blessed with distinctly superior attributes when compared with the generation of Indians who were born around the middle or latter half of 20th century and are still alive and around. To support the above thesis, names of several universally acclaimed Indian personalities from different fields are cited as example. For instance, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Rabindranath Tagore, Swami Vivekanand, Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, Sir C V Raman, Dr Zakir Hussain, Subhash Chandra Bose, C. Rajagopalchari, Sarojini Naidu, Dr B C Roy, and G D Birla --- to name only a few, were all born in 19th century and lived upto the first half of 20th century. Indira Gandhi Homi Bhabha, JRD Tata, Satyajit Roy, Raj Kapoor and Mohammad Rafi, for example, were born in the early decades of 20th century but departed before the conclusion of 20th century. However, among the few notable exceptions to this rule are Lata Mangeshkar, Pandit Ravi Shanker, Dilip Kumar, R K Narayan and R K Laxman. When one thinks of the eminent personalities who narrowly missed the record of having witnessed three centuries, two names instantly come to mind. Statesman-politician Morarji Desai and internationally acclaimed author Nirad C Choudhri, both of whom were born at the end of the 19th century, lived quite exuberantly throughout the 20th century and seemed quite confident of living into the 21st century just when they were exhausted of their mortal years of earthly existence. On the other hand, the youthful Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who was the first in the ruling hierarchy to give a call for ushering India into 21st century, died a premature death ten years short of the 21st century. The contemporary generation which is going to inherit the 21st century has its share of internationally known celebrities like sports stars Vishwanathan and Sachin Tendulkar, litterateur Vikram Seth, scientist Abdul Kalam and economist Manmohan Singh but, by and large as also collectively, they come out to be a very poor match in comparison with the 20th century's earlier two generations cited above. As a streak of saving grace, however, India is set to be led into the 21st century by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, a veteran who has rubbed shoulders with the 20th century's three consecutive generations of leadership from Jawaharlal Nehru to Rajiv Gandhi. It would be a subject of research for social scientists and historians to study why the generation that inherited the 20th century India remains apparently unmatched by the generation which was born in the second half of 20th century or the generation which is going to inherit the 21st century India. Is this so because an over-populated, over-crowded India of today is drastically drained of the legacy, the human quality control and the civilization resources which had groomed the earlier generation? Has the technological or hi-tech advancement rapidly achieved by today's India taken the toll of more basic and far more lasting cultural ethos that shaped the aptitudes and attributes of the earlier generation? Have the ruthless commercialisation and the rampant neo-rich trends in today's India got the better of more viable cerebral pursuits? Be that as it may, while most of the great men and great women who enriched the history of 20th century India did not live to see the dawn of year 2000, it is the common man whom providence has blessed with the privilege to survive through changing times and changing eras --- and yet, remain the same unvanquished common man. The poet speaks prophetically on behalf of Umapathy when he says: "Humen Taarikh Mein Naamon Se Na Likha Jaye, Har Ek Daur Ne Mukhtalif Naam Diya Hai Humko". |
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Leaderless colleges It irks me to visualize the present scenario of college management and education in J&K. Being an insider and intruder in certain fields I have first hand information of certain interesting and shocking aspects compelling me to do some hard and loud thinking. A general propaganda on all the well lines is being overtly and covertly being circulated but the ground without any exaggeration is slipping under our feet. We are heading towards a future about which we are neither clear nor want to be clear. Barring a few exceptions the present scene of college education is none too rosy. In many colleges the usual stock and store, sports and library verifications have not been properly done for years together (certificate of yearwise authendication is available in majority of cases), attendance records have been fiddled with, internal assessment system has been reduced to a mockery, inflated bills have been produced and passed, norms governing tenders have been flouted, daily attendance of some functionaries has been given a good bye and even causal leave records of gazetted officers are being casually maintained and reported to the superior officers. Superficially all that glitters is not gold. It does not mean that I have only a jaundiced version of things. In certain quarters some good work has been done but the pace of work has been incommensurate with the fleeting moments of time. Why have we gone wrong ? Where have we gone wrong? What ails us ? Why all this ails us ? Who will help us ? Is there any hope ? - these are mind boggling questions and remedies in many cases are eluding us. The intellectual decay in majority of cases that has set in colleges is the root cause of all evil. We have faltered and fumbled and rarely gird up our lions to face the realities. The lack lusture leadership, the ghost of economic crunch raised by teachers, intercollegiate rivalries, quarrels for narrow partisan and worldly considerations are another side of the coin. A person who musters the courage to call spade a spade on these issues is considered a crank. Our society though bursting at the seams because of a million pressures will at least never forgive the education whether he likes it or not. The only silver lining is the genuine and strong leadership. The concepts of accountability and transparency are still not digestible to us. Rarely do we find amongst us men of real perception and fortnight pragmatists. It is wrong to think that only seniors can lead the community or only length of service connotes all the wisdom of sages and ages. Why are not there psychological and personality tests for leaders in the colleges ? Why is there so much obsession with seniority and younger lot being treated with disdain ? The time has come to ponder over and do something about these matters. In my opinion there should be rigorous tests for leaders in education and some grilling at the time of interviews. People who have practically done nothing much during their long service career many a time are directed to lead, guide and instruct but most of time they are either, misfits or misguide us. Our Govt. also knuckles under pressures - political as well as of other varities to accommodate its darlings. These questions are unsavoury and unpalatable but unless we do something there is no hope. During the last fifty years we have done a precious little. Let us not fritter the next 50 year in the fond hope - that some heavenly agency will work miracles. Arise, awake and march - intellectual, administrative and educational sluggishness is breeding arnongster who shall ultimately tear us to pieces. In a nutshell we need working principals in our degree colleges.
Looking back a hundred
years The year 2000 AD is around the corner. It is not yet the next century, but it is going to be the last year of this century. What happened in these 99 years. A quick look at 1899 will tell us what happened in this land of ours called India, that is Bharat. In 1899, we already had, thanks to the British, the steam railway. It was no longer a devil to be afraid of, but a mode of transportation. Telegraph and telephone already made their appearance and the automobile was making a hesitant entry into the presidency cities of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. The country was passing through a revolutionary change despite occasional hiccups, but otherwise progressing though rather unevenly. The famine of the 1897 had left its scars on the countryside and for the first time there was instead of an increase, a reduction in the population, perhaps for the first time. People had started taking to learning the English language on a fairly substantial scale, the catalyst being availability of jobs for those who knew English. Into this melting pot of post-mutiny India, stepped a man whom destiny had moulded to rule India as a combination of a strict bureaucrat and a benevolent despot. He was Lord George Nathaniel Curzon, Marquess of Kedleston who landed at Karachi in 1899 and gave a churning to this country that has given him a place in history. Curzon was an arch imperialist, who had a firm belief about the White Man's Burden to rule India and give good governance to Indians within the parameters of what he believed was due to them and was 'good for them'. In retrospect, one would think that not only were the British destined to rule, but also that divine approval came from God, who certainly had to be an Englishman to communicate with his chosen ones like Curzon in King's English. In the history of British India, there were a handful of people who ruled her and got a place in histroy. Clive, Warren Hastings, Bentick, Dulhousie, Canning, Curzon, Wavell and Mountbatten were the chosen ones who changed history, but hardly any one of them had prepared themselves for India as Curzon. His passion for India as a pivot of British dominance of Asia was a life long affair. He prepared himself for his position in India by hard study, travel and considerable writing on the subject. He truly believed that he was ordained by the Lord to set things right in India. The country was recovering from a devastating famine and people were despondent. Food shortages, disease and unemployment greeted him as he took over as the Governor General and Viceroy in 1899. The British bureaucracy after the jolt of the mutiny in 1857, had recovered and reverted to its slothful indifference now under the Crown. He encountered a great deal of opposition from the officialdom. But, Curzon who had studied at Oxford and been an MP in 1886, had become Under Secretary of State for India in 1891 and Under Secretary for Foreign affairs in 1895 was already an India hand. He practically administered a shock injection by which the watchword was efficiency. He ruled as a benevolent despot with the maximum of efficiency and justice in administration. ''He was the apogee of an era, epitomized in the pomp circumstance of a Durbar staged for King Edward VII in 1903''. He was, physically, a tall handsome man who loved to wear the Imperial regalia on State occasions and truly believed in the divine, dispensation given to him to rule India. Once he got underway in 1899, things began to change. Premium was placed on good governance. The Indian Police Service was overhauled and upgraded and centralised; the Indian Railways were placed under a Railway Board oversaw the laying of new track of 9500 km. He created a Department of Commerce and Industry to oversee the commercial aspect of the growing Indian Economy. Though an imperialist who believed in keeping the Indians in their place, he welcomed the setting up of Jamshedji Tata's first steel mill at Jamshedpur. Land reforms were his immediate priority and he passed a law which protected cultivators from eviction for debt so that, the land would not fall into the hands of the money lender. He got an act passed for Indian universities with uniform rules for the whole of India. His tenure falls into two distinct part. The first one from 1899 to 1903, when the Durbar was held and subsequently upto 1905, when he partitioned the huge Bengal Presidency. Until then he was very popular with the Indians, hile the British bureaucracy shone in reflected glory. But, though the partition of Bengal was ostensibly for administrative reasons, the Indians opposed him tooth and nail. ''The British in India loved him, the Indians hated him'. Apart from setting up farm credit societies, he set up irrigation works and founded the Agricultural Research Institute at Pusa which happily enough is still with us. His love of Indian art and architecture led to laws protecting historical monuments and to the appointment of Sir John Marshall as Director General of Archaeology. It was after this that the ancient sites of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa were discovered. The partition of Bengal carried out, despite strongest opposition from the nationalists, whose leaders included both Hindus and Muslims roused a fierce, spirit of resistence among them. The partition created a new state of East Bengal and Assam in which Muslims were in majority. It was seen by leaders like Surendranath Banerjea, Bepin Chandra Pal, A Rasul, Aswini Kumar Datta and Arabindo Ghose as an effort to divide Indians on religious lines especially since the opposition to British rule came from the educated segment of the Hindus. What Curzon did created the schism that eventually led to the partition of India. Ironically, his exit and resignation did not come about for the partition of Bengal about which he was thinking and planning since 1899, but due to his differences with Lord Kitchener, the Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army whose proposal to abolish the post of the Army member of Viceroy's Executive Council and replacement by the Commander-in-Chief in Council was supported by Whitehall. Curzon felt that despite all the reforms he had initiated both in the Army and the Civilian sector, this decision by the British Government expressed no confidence in him. Hence, he resigned and returned to England in 1905 to remain in wilderness for nearly ten years after which he again joined the Government in 1915 and became the Foreign Secretary, but was denied the opportunity eventually of becoming the Prime Minister of England. Apart from the partition of Bengal, the introduction of separate electorate for Muslims by his successor Lord Minto created further distance between Hindus and Muslims. This, as an entry in Lady Minto's diary states, ''nothing less than the pulling back of 62 millions of people (Muslims) from joining the ranks of seditious opposition (Hindus)'' amply proves it. This was in October 1906, less than a year after Curzon resigned. The partition was eventually, after a great deal of agitation, repealed in 1911, when the capital was shifted from Calcutta to Delhi. It was again in 1906, perhaps as a result of the partition of Bengal that the Muslim League was founded. The British officialdom was jubilant. The most important interpretation of this move was given by Ramsay MacDonald, later Prime Minister of England thus :''the Mahomedan leaders are inspired by certain Anglo-Indian (ICS) Officials and these officials have pulled wires at Simla and in London and of malive aforethought sowed discord between Hindu and Mahomedan communities by showing the Muslims special favour''. This was the result of the partition of Bengal and in one sense Curzon was the author of the idea and objective of Muslim separatism in India. Of course, at that time, the objective was to 'divide and rule'. When the partition plan was being discussed in 1947, the Muslim League had not only laid claim to East Bengal, but also to Assam. After 14 years of existence as the Eastern wing of Pakistan it became Bangla Desh in 1971. So, the original surgical incision made into the map of India by Curzon has survived and will go beyond this century into the next. When we dwell on the past 100 years of which 52 have been spent as an independent country, we have to remember how far we have come, the mistakes we have made and the unfinished task that remains to be done in the next century. Meanwhile, Lord Curzon the Imperial Viceroy of India remains a stong yet tragic figure in our history. Inspite of the good that he did, he could not get the credit for it because of one harmful decision that he took the repurcussions of which can still be seen. So here is to 1899. It began well for Curzon and India though it ended badly. Let us remember the good things. |
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