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EDITORIAL Pak dictator General Musharaff once again indulges in nuclear blackmail tactics for annexation of Kashmir at any cost. It seems nuclear power status has gone in Pak's head and the rulers cannot see anything beyond that. It is easier to declare Kashmir as a 'nuclear flashpoint' in Asia than really do it....more Another gory accident has taken place at Chhanni Himmat level crossing. In the process, car is smashed and innocent woman is killed besides causing injuries to five more. This has happened despite the promise held in the wake earlier accident which consumed the precious lives of small ....more |
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HERE AND THERE Green pharmacies: China cracks down |
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EDITORIAL Pak dictator General Musharaff once again indulges in nuclear blackmail tactics for annexation of Kashmir at any cost. It seems nuclear power status has gone in Pak's head and the rulers cannot see anything beyond that. It is easier to declare Kashmir as a 'nuclear flashpoint' in Asia than really do it. In fact, what he says has been also uttered by her mentor America in the post-Pokhran period. It is one thing to possess nuclear weapons and the delivery system. It is quite another to use them. Ever since World War II which saw dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, nuclear arsenals have largely been in focus more as a deterrent and blackmailing tactics than anything else. It will be quite interesting to note that the erstwhile Super Power Soviet Union and USA also blackmailed each other many a time during the lengthy cold war period. First Secretary of the Communist Party of Soviet Union Late Mr Kruschef held this threat during invasion of Suez Canal by Britain and France jointly. It was to thwart the capture that Kruschef had issued the warning to cease the aggression within 24 hours or face the missiles with nuclear warheads flying over Paris and London. This did click and Ango-French misadventure ended in a fiasco. Similar threat was also held by USA when its Armada had moved into Bay of Bengal in the wake of Chinese agression on our country in 1962. It worked again and Chinese hastily went back to Macmohan Line. One can as well mention the latest threat held by Russian President Yeltsin while in Beijing last week when he bluntly told America that they should never forget that Russia has vast nuclear arsenals and missile systems in place at any given time. To that extent Russia just cannot be browbeaten on Chechenya vis-a-vis stoppage of operations against its terrorist held province of Chechenya. Now that a small country like Pakistan with population of just 13 crore repeatedly tries to attract the attention of major powers by declaring Kashmir as the 'nuclear flashpoint' it can only be construed as empty threats. For instance there are other nuclear nations who just keep their arsenals but do not engage in such tomfoolery. General Musharaff considers usage of such weapons against India as kid-play. For one thing, India has already declared that it has counter-nuclear-attack plan in place to meet, absorb and instantly retaliate any first strike by Pakistan. For another thing, India is committed not to go for first-nuclear-strike against nuclear nations and no-strike at all against non-nuclear nations. It is thus wide open for world powers to discipline Pakistan rulers for engaging in such type of threats because India would never be the first to use. If Pakistan do possess enough of bombs and the delivery system, they should only pride in its prized possessions. God fobidding, if it ever dares launch nuclear misadventure, Pakistan is sure to be erased from world map. General Musharaff shall also be well-advised to go through what Pak-based JKLF chief says. He bluntly tells Pak rulers that they could never get entire Kashmir. If they were honest they should not have withdrawn from Kargil and done real good things for the people of Jammu & Kashmir rather than indulge in reckless blood spillage of the most innocent citizens. His other contention also deserves mention. Amanullah says that Pakistan has miserably failed to convince the world of its being well-wisher of Kashmiris. He goes unto add that Pakistan's present paralysed economy and diplomatic muscle, her lack of self-confidence and internal strife ridicule General Musharaff's dream of getting Jammu & Kashmir. When Pakistan could not annex it in three regular wars, the Kargil misadventure and the ongoing proxy war when it was in far strong position, how she can do it now when even her traditional friends and mentors fail to support, not even lip sympathy. His message is particularly relevant for the Hurriyat amalgam which has been dancing to the tunes of Pakistan and helping her to have some sort of breakthrough. Amanullah's plain-speaking is as well applicable to whatever is left of the JKLF this side of the LoC. Much more than that, international community is prone to take note of the fact that Pakistan has miserably failed to convince the world of being well-wiser of Kashmiris. Musharaff is again off the mark when he contends that he is under acute pressure from international community to engage in dialogue with India to resolve Kashmir issue. This means left to himself General Musharaff has nothing to talk. Rightly so because internal conditions in Pakistan are such that have priority over war-like games and black-mailing tactics. During his recent visit to Iran, he was clearly told by Indian-President to stop ethnic killing of Shias (Iran is Shiite while majority of Pakistanis are Sunnies). IMF has put him on notice to carry out their diktat of economic reforms before being eligible for any aid. Its traditional mentor USA has made it amply clear that relations with Pakistan can never be the same until democratic order is restored. Britain has warned him not to hang Nawaz Sharif. These tantamount to putting Pak rulers on notice. Above all people are Pakistan after initially welcoming army take-over are inclined to be disillusioned with very bad economy. And General Musharaff should never forget the fate that other military dictators in Pakistan met. It thus follows that India's stand hardens vis-a-vis talking to military regime unless it gives proof of its sincerity by stopping cross border terrorism in J&K. Declaring Kashmir as the 'nuclear flash-point' is at best construed as black-mailing tactics to mislead disenchanted people of Pakistan as also provoke the super power to do something to get India across the table. Another gory accident has taken place at Chhanni Himmat level crossing. In the process, car is smashed and innocent woman is killed besides causing injuries to five more. This has happened despite the promise held in the wake earlier accident which consumed the precious lives of small kids in the same area. This shows unconcern of the railways as also state government. Chhanni Himmat is a residential colony and to that extent no level crossing can be left unmanned. The trains come at great speed. In any case brakes cannot be applied abruptly. True, there are thousands of such unmanned crossings all over the country and many serious accidents have taken place. One really does not know why railways cannot own the responsibility of taking care of such unmanned level crossings. In Jammu & Kashmir state the problem is not that acute because total operational track is around 70 km between Madhopur to Jammu. To that extent it remains the most neglected state in India in terms of railways system. Another track from Jammu to Udhampur taken up some 13 years back yet remains incomplete. At least to make good for such neglect of J&K State the few unmanned crossings on this 70 km track should be manned to show sincerity of the central government towards the people of this state. Chief Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah should write to Railway Minister Mamta Banerjee for taking appropriate measures so that such accidents do not recur. |
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HERE AND
THERE While the world is preparing to usher in the new millen-nium and trying to forecast what kind of changes it would bring about, there is an attempt to resurrect the humble potato. The tuber, shunned by the health-conscious as "mere starch", is set to be promoted as a complete food in the near future. Not only does it contain precious proteins and vitamins, it has the potential to meet the growing food needs of the developing world, is the refrain of potato-loving scientists and agro-economists. How will you react to the jump from potato to a particular politician’s room in Parliament House? The person, under reference, is none other than Ms Sonia Gandhi, who likes eating potato dishes. Under Mr Sharad Pawar, the Opposition leader’s room on the ground floor of Parliament House was singularly devoid of any frills. The décor was nothing to write home about. On one side of the spacious room was a large table with a number of straight-backed chairs where Mr Pawar received callers. An ordinary sofa set placed on another side set the tone for informal interaction with friends and colleagues and a long row of cushioned seats at the rear was where visitors waited. This functional set-up was just not akay for Ms Sonia Gandhi. And so the room is being redone to reflect the occupant’s personality. Naturally, Ms Sunita Kohli, interior designer who did Jawahar Bhavan, is incharge of the renovation work. Possibly because she knows how the ‘foreigner’ tag hurts the Congress president, this long-time family friend plans to impart a decidedly Indian touch to the room by placing quasi-antique pieces at strategic places. A hunt for suitable furniture has taken the graceful lady to the basement of Parliament House where old and discarded chairs and tables are stacked. Even though a first-timer in parliament, Ms Sonia Gandhi was not among the 20-odd women MPs who responded to an invitation from the Guild of Service for a felicitation. It was a disappointed Ms Mohini Giri, chairperson of Guild of Service, who watched the women reel off statistical information about their individual electoral performance and wax eloquent about their respective party ideology and programme. No one made a single point about what these people’s representatives, as a group, would do for the cause of women. Possibilities in this regard were hinted at by Ms Shabana Azmi, a late comer, who neither heard what others said before her, nor wanted to hear what they had to say about what she herself said. Wonder what the chief of National Commission for Women, who is so happy that a never-before number of women were returned to the Lok Sabha, thinks would be their contribution to improving the lot of their disadvantaged sisters ! Mr Hemanand Biswal’s elevation as Chief Minister of Orissa has upset many a superstitious Congress leader. After all, it was the same Mr Biswal who led the party to its worst-ever defeat in the State Assembly polls 10 years ago. The comparison does not end there; when he was sworn in on December 7, 1989, as against December 6, 1999, Congress came back with just 10 seats in the 147-member Assembly. With the people still struggling to regain a semblance of normalcy in their cyclone-ravaged lives, the results cannot be much different, the soothsayers feel. They even point out that Mr Biswal, who was able to retain his own Assembly seat then, was rejected by the electorate during the latest Lok Sabha polls. Instead of the Congress, the voters would rather choose either Mr Chandrababu Naidu, Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, or Mr Jyoti Basu, West Bengal Chief Minister. Why ? Both Mr Naidu and Mr Basu reached the cyclone-hit areas with relief material in good time, they say with a sad shake of the head. |
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China cracks down on
dissidents The Chinese Communist authorities have cracked down on the country's small but persistent dissident movement with greater firmness since late last year. Hundreds of dissidents, mostly students, were arrested on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the May 4 Movement in China. The arrests were made just a week after some 10,000 followers of a Chinese mystical cult took the authorities by surprise as they gathered outside Zhongnanhai, the Chinese leadership compound in Beijing, and demonstrated quietly for the recognition of their movement. The pattern of these arrests has been widely attributed to the government's fear of 'unrest and turmoil' in view of the anniversaries of major events falling this year. Among the anniversaries are 50 years of the Chinese Communist Revolution, the 40th year of the suppression of Tibetan Uprising in 1959, the 20th anniversary of suppression of the Democratic Wall Movement in 1979 and to the most emotional commemoration of all the 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Demonstrations and the ensuing Beijing massacre of June 3-5. May 4 Movement was one of the seminal moments in modern Chinese history when students spontaneously demonstrated, first in Beijing and then across the country in favour of nationalism and democracy. It erupted when China's hopes of getting back former German concessions (German occupied Chinese territory surrendered to Allied forces) were dashed at the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919 as these were all given to Japan. US President Woodrow Wilson went to Versailles proclaiming the need for open covenants. What provoked the student unrest was the news that Britain, France, Italy and US had all made secret wartime agreement with Japan, agreeing that it would have the concessions which Germany would lose. The final blow was the disclosure that the then weak Chinese government had itself made a secret deal with Japan, conceding effective control of Shandong Province, where there had been German concessions in return for a small loan. The biting irony was that Shandong, the North-East province affected by all this diplomatic backstabbing, had sent 100,000 Chinese to France in the later stages of the War to dig trenches for the allies fighting against Germany. Many Chinese died during the war. The May 4 Movement had one achievement-- after the demonstrations no Chinese leader dared to sign the peace treaty with Germany. It may be recalled that one of the first posters to appear on the walls of Beijing University at the start of China's extraordinary spring of 1989, proclaimed, 'The Age of the Emperor has Ended'. It was, indeed, a revolutionary idea, shared by millions who took to the streets in the weeks that followed; the idea that China and its rulers could escape their past. The old men who, weeks later, would send tanks into Tiananmen Square against students did so to defend not just Communism, but a conception of power as old as China. Unwittingly or not, China's Communist leaders have always measured themselves against their Imperial predecessors. ''What was so remarkable about Ch' in Sinhuang?'' Mao Zedong once asked, referring to China's first emperor two millenia ago.'' He executed 460 scholars. We executed 46,000 of them. This is what I answer to some democrats.'' Deng Xiaoping and his cronies would give the same answer. To protect his empire, Ch'in burnt books and buried intellectuals alive. To repel enemies from outside, he built the Great Wall. His achievement, like his own body, was proclaimed immortal. It was a myth that not even his own death could challenge. When he died in 201 B.C., while visiting outlying regions of his empire, the imperial retinue continued on its journey as if nothing had happened. Those who rejected the charade were killed. The coffin was carried in a litter escorted by the emperor's favourite eunuchs. They presented food and official reports as usual and issued imperial commands from the covered litter. But, there was a problem. It was summer and the litter began to smell. To disguise the stench the escort was told to load a cart with salted fish. Thus, the imperial myth survived intact; the truth hidden by the stench of rotting fish. The same thing occurred in the aftermath of Tiananmen massacre. ''There was no tragedy in Tiananmen.. There is no change in China's basic policy.. there was no bloodbath.. The open door remains open.'' These bizarre reassuring phrases tripped easily off the official tongue, as easily as did the bogus imperial commands from the eunuchs accompanying Ch'in's mouldering corpse. Those who dared to suggest otherwise had been silenced. Newspapers had been emasculated, editors sacked and journalists arrested. Foreign radio broadcasts were jammed, intellectuals had been hunted down, students told to think less and learn more from the 'grassroots', which meant a year in the military camp. Ordinary people who spoke out were branded as 'rumour-mongers' and packed-off to jail. ''Seek the truth from facts'', Deng told his subjects, but as Tiananmen proved, only the party had the right to decide what those facts were. ''Truthfulness'', he decreed, ''means precisely upholding the party's ideological lines.'' Therefore, abiding by the party line without a murmur was the supreme human right and all other 'so-called rights were just bourgeois fanfare. Like the couriers who loaded the emperor's litter with rotting fish, the clutch of geriatric revolutionaries who orchestrated the Tiananmen bloodshed on June 3-4, 1989 could never admit that their vision of China was flawed, that the guiding myths of the previous 40-years were wrong. ''The key point,'' Deng told the army soon after the crackdown,'' is that they wanted to overthrow 'our' state and 'our party'. So, 'undermining our state and our party' could never be right-- it was 'a treason of the most sinister kind'. To put up with such subversive activities in the name of 'human rights' is a crime we cannot commit,'' said Jiang Zemin, then a newly-installed party functionary and now the President of China. Events in Eastern Europe suggest Deng and Jiang were perfectly right. Power in a totalitarian system is either absolute or worthless. No matter how reasonable the students' demands for talks and recognition as 'an independent voice' might have seemed to some, Deng and his sidekicks felt that any compromise, not to speak of conceding the demands, could only mean defeat; 'one retreat can only lead to another'-- as Mao taught them. Just as China's court could not abandon the emperor's claim to immortality, Deng & Co could not abandon the party's claim to absolute power, 'to have done so was neither democracy nor human rights, but pure and simple treason'. Deng and his followers could, of course, feel the mood of the students. One poster that appeared on the walls of Beijing University quoted from Stephen Vincent Benet's 'Nightmare at Noon', ''Liberty, equality and fraternity to none will we sell, refuse or deny, right or justice. We hold these truths to be self-evident.'' This was too hot a curry for the party leaders to stomach. The insouciance with which China's propaganda machine had concealed, distorted, and even erased the events of April, May and June, reflected more than a flare for the techniques of Orwellian deception. It also helped explain why China's 'democratic revolution' failed whereas others in Eastern Europe succeeded; and why Chinese leaders decided to use force, while others--- even those who initially applauded the Tiananmen assault, such as Egon Krenz-- chose compromise. It has been rightly said, ''Where others might have seen innocents in their teens and twenties thronging Tiananmen Square, Deng and his followers saw old enemies in new guises returning to pursue the unfinished anti-socialist battles of decades ago.'' PTI Feature |
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