. |
. |
EDITORIAL True to their tradition, Jammuites have accorded rousing reception to the ebulient and young Omar Farooq who has visited winter capital for the first time after his induction in the Central Cabinet. Although elected from Srinagar, Jammuites rightly pride in his elevation to the Central Cabinet so that states interests are duly looked after by the Centre. Since he is in the coveted slot as Minister of State for Industry and Commerce high hopes......more Finding of yet another tunnel providing infiltration and ex-filtration route for terrorists and weapons on Punjab border with Pakistan hides more than what it reveals. First, this tunnel happens to be more sophisticated and longer than the ones found earlier on Indo-Pak border in Punjab. The first one was found in March 1997 which was 116 feet long while the second one detected in January last year that...more |
|
Kashmir Underground – IV Farooq and his gimmicks Sharief and the sham
score!...... A who-cares India |
 |
||
EDITORIAL True to their tradition, Jammuites have accorded rousing reception to the ebulient and young Omar Farooq who has visited winter capital for the first time after his induction in the Central Cabinet. Although elected from Srinagar, Jammuites rightly pride in his elevation to the Central Cabinet so that states interests are duly looked after by the Centre. Since he is in the coveted slot as Minister of State for Industry and Commerce high hopes are pinned on him for filling up the large void that exists on the industrial map of the state which has remained exposed to consistent apathy ever since dawn of independence. Even as miniscule states have got their rightful development in terms of infrastructurals and industry, a sensitive border State like Jammu & Kashmir has been consistently subjected to more politicking than getting down to brass tacks for helping it grow in real terms. It is this neglect and wrong priorities that have landed the state in present dire straits both in terms of security as also development. For one thing there is a long list of treating state shabbily. Just one instance is enough to bring home the point how apathetic has been the attitude of successive rulers. It is indeed a very sad commentry on the powers that be that during the last 52 years State has less than 100 km of operational railway track. The 50 odd km extension from Jammu to Udhampur has taken more than 13 years and still its completion is nowhere in sight. This explains lack of interest in the Central power apparatus and equally lack of initiative by the successive state rulers. The people of Jammu in particularly have pinned their hopes on the young and dynamic Omar who by any reckoning speaks the truth and do not hold any false promise. This stands duly manifested when he outrightly ruled out any freezing of power tariff for the next five years for industrial units. He did not say that he would look into it. But there are other areas that hold the olive branch for industry. There is the immediate prospect of locating Software Technology Park in Srinagar and Export Promotion and Industrial Park in Jammu for which requisite funds are being made available by the Centre. He also mentions leather based industrial units which have large potential in the State besides tapping the hydel power for which counter guarantees are awaited from the Centre. Debt relief and subsidy on capital investment besides removal of nine-ton restriction on goods carrier shall receive his active attention. All this is fine and one expects that things would start moving in right earnest in terms of not only industrial package for the state but also economic package as a whole the modalities of which are still being discussed by the secretary-level expert committee. At this stage it is quite apt to seek Omar's positive response as regards hopes and expectations of the state in general and Jammu region in particular. The rousing reception must not be misconstrued as the one arranged by National Conference but by the Jammuites who find in him a ray of hope for fair deal to alleviate their sufferings. It is not as much the enhanced power tariff that has hurt the people of Jammu most but the long hours of darkness to which the citizens have been exposed despite prompt payment of higher tariff revised twice in less than six months i.e. from 1st December 1998 and again from 1st April 1999. There is another one already mentioned falling due from April next. This obviously entails a social, moral and business obligation to at least ensure smooth, uninterrupted and adequate power supply to consumers of all hues. This ought to be the job of any popular government. Omar should see that the factors that have led to such unprecedented treat for Jammuites are removed forthwith. The people also expect that his presence in the Central cabinet should result in setting up of some central sector major projects as the State has been discriminated all along. Since private industrialists shy away from the State and tend to move to safer pastures of Haryana, Punjab, UP as admitted by Omar Farooq, the next best thing is to set up central sector projects to generate enough of employment opportunities and effectively bring the region on the industrial map of India. Of course, an honest beginning can be made in peaceful region and gradually percolate to the insurgency infested regions proportionate to return of normalcy. Let is be amply clear that none would like to dump money in risky environments. The password ought to be action-oriented programme rather than promises. The plain and truthful speaker in him should see that promises start getting translated into implementation. Rousing reception in Jammu ought to be construed in this light and any other interpretation is deceptive. Jammu has to be put on fast track industrial development and removal of other grievances that continue to accumulate year after year. Finding of yet another tunnel providing infiltration and ex-filtration route for terrorists and weapons on Punjab border with Pakistan hides more than what it reveals. First, this tunnel happens to be more sophisticated and longer than the ones found earlier on Indo-Pak border in Punjab. The first one was found in March 1997 which was 116 feet long while the second one detected in January last year that had a length of 182 feet. Unlike J&K borders, Punjab borders are fully fenced with electrified fencing to make them pilfer- proof. This tunnelling business do ensures that infiltration goes on unabated. The latest find indicates that all is not well even on the fenced borders. Second, there is the usual alibi of wild growth of elephant grass. The factual position is that besides fencing there are BOPs duly flood-lighted which could detect any abnormal activity on the other side of the border so close to fencing. At least it should have been detected on this side of fencing. The forces are also provided with other sophisticated equipment for detection like high power binoculars. Obviously, it cannot be the handiwork of a single person but collective job of more than a dozen persons spread over many days labour. Yet none heard any noise nor detected any movement. Third, after the discovery of first tunnel in 1997, all wild growth should have been cleared on our side of the fencing. Why it has not been done needs to be probed and responsibility fixed. But for this growth opening of the tunnel this side of fencing could have been easily detected. Fourth, this is the third find. How many more tunnels are there all along Indo-Pak borders, particularly at stretches that are soft. If they can do it in highly fenced area, nothing can come their way in having such entry and exit tunnels in unfenced borders of Jammu & Kashmir. That explains why even red alerts and extraordinary vigil fails to yield tangible results. That explains why rate of infiltration continues to be more than rate of elimination. Fifth, Punjab Police claims regrouping or attempts at regrouping of several ultras in the State including infiltration of fresh ones. Some of them have been nabbed as well. Has the Punjab Police informed their BSF counterparts asto how such infiltrators reached Punjab and which was their entry point? It means there is either lack of coordination or mutual distrust. It is time such tunnelling business is detected and plugged. Otherwise, it means total connivance and serious lapse. |
||
|
||
Kashmir
Underground – IV The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) has more presence outside Kashmir Valley than inside. This finding is from none other than former Director-General of Information and Public Relations, J&K Government, Mr Sati Sahni. In his latest book on Kashmir, Mr Sahni has confirmed the fact that the JKLF split in September 1995 and the majority of activists disowned Mr Aman Ullah Khan, one of the founders of the organisation. Kashmir faction’s chief, Mr Mohammed Yasin Malik, expelled Pakistan-based Khan. In retaliation, Mr Aman Ullah Khan expelled Mr Malik and his sxupporters. Mr Khan’s faction in Kashmir was then headed by Mr Shabir Ahmed Sidiqi. This group concentrated itself around Hazratbal shrine in Srinagar but in an encounter in March 1996, the faction’s top functionaries were killed. Mr Sahni’s book says that while Mr Aman Ullah Khan, who had his schooling in the Handwara Government high school and later came to Srinagar to study in SP College in 1950, is a non Kashmiri-speaking politician and has been outside Kashmir Valley since 1952, on entering SP College he soon got involved with anti-Indian activities and became a member of the undercover subversive group which was engaged in clandestine distribution of pro-Pakistan literature. On being discovered he was warned to disassociate. Fearing arrest he crossed over to Pakistan through Jammu-Sialkot sector in 1952. He managed to secure admission in Edwards College at Peshawar. According to the book, Mr Aman Ullah Khan was deeply involved with political struggle in Gilgit-Baltistan region agaoinst Pakistan Government for basic civil rights from 1957 to 1976. He was jailed a number of times. In 1962 from Karachi he started publication of "Voice of Kashmir". Later when he shifted to UK in 1976, the journal was published as "Voice of Kashmir International" as a monthly from Birmingham. Earlier in May 1974, at Mirpur in PoK, the 5th annual convention of PoK Plebiscite Front was held. To attend this convention, Dr Farooq Abdullah had specially flown from Britain. Mr Khan was his host, the book recalled. The book also recalled that while Mr Khan visited the US for first time in September 1979, he established first office of JKLF in US in New York in October 1979. Fifteen months he spent in British jails of Bedford, Liston and Brixton from September 1985. He was released on December 15, 1986, externed from Britain, and flown to Karachi. Next five years or so he spent in Pakistan and PoK putting the act together. The book says that he interacted with ISI and other authorities in Pakistan. He made an arrangement for youth to be motivated in Kashmir Valley, to be brought across to PoK for training and being provided with arms, ammunition, subversive literature and money before being sent back to Kashmir with proper directions. If the book is any guide, the JKLF received a big jolt with the death of Gen. Zia-ul-Haq. According to the book, after Ms Benazir Bhutto came to power in December 1988, a number of terrorist organisations as rivals of JKLF were raised creating much confusion. Mr Aman Ullah Khan asserted that most of these groups were fundamentalist in thinking and committed to working for merger with Pakistan, while his JKLF "is secular and wants an independent Kashmir". Mr Sati Sahni cannot be faulted for his finding: Mr Aman Ullah Khan had never taken kindly to the All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC). After Syed Ali Shah Geelani became its chairman, Mr Khan became more critical. In August 1998, Mr Khan accused the APHC of damaging the Kashmiri cause in order to please its masters. In a statement at Rawalpindi on August 10, 1998, Mr Khan said that APHC had no right, whatsoever, to claim to be the true representative of Kashmiri people since it denies to them their inherent right to independence. While referring to certain important events before and during Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee’s bus journey to Lahore on February 21, 1999, the book said that JKLF activists’ protest demondtrations notwithstanding, Mr Aman Ullah Khan selcomed the Vajpayee-Nawaz Sharief meeting. Nonetheless, Mr Khan, the book added, was aggrieved that India was more hostile to him than to Islamic fundamentalist groups. He claimed in a media interview that JKLF had no dearth of arms. "Pakistan is a good manufacturer of arms. If you have the money, you can buy anything you want". Mr Khan further volunteered: "Money is no problem. We have members everywhere – some of them quite prosperous. Remember, Jeddah airport was built entirely by Kashmiri labour – we have eight branches in Saudi Arabia alone. Many contributions come in". Mr Sati Sahni’s yet another thought-provoking finding: It is well-neigh impossible to pinpoint a date or even the year of beginning of militancy in Kashmir. But one thing is clear that it was neither 1989 nor 1987 as many believe. It could be 1984 or 1980, 1975 or 1964, 1953 or 1947, but it could be even earlier. Use of violence and force to change order of things in Jammu and Kashmir certainly took birth the same day as Pakistan. Mr Sahni has put himself
on record to say: "There is no doubt that with
carving out of the new Dominion of Pakistan there was a
sizeable part of population of Jammu and Kashmir which
desired to become part of Pakistan. Because of Pakistani
aggression and the ultra-nationalist National Conference
administration under the leadership of Sheikh Mohammed
Abdullah, the elements that were pro-Pakistani either
went over to Pakistan or went underground". |
||
|
|
Sharief and the sham
score!...... A general who was no longer a general, became a dictator to secure Pakistan against a devious democracy; a US observer is attending the trial of the ill-egally deposed Prime Minister to ensure adherance to legality; a Commonwealth, presided over by the last remaining vestige of medieval royalities, has taken the baton to declare democarcy over Pakistan. And, Pakistan itself is supremely indifferent to declarations, demonstrations, democracy or dictatorship. What do you call it: the contradiction called Pakistan an showing itself in all its confounded glory, a surrealism, or a sham? But has the scene been any different. Ever? Take Nawaz Sharief. No, you can't take him, for the army has already taken him and is marching him to the gallows on the double, observers foreign and domestic notwithstanding. It is a strange turn for the protege of an earlier dictator, who had marched an earlier PM to the same post. Sharief never, during his decade long public career, condemned Zia's hanging of Bhutto. Democracy was throttled then and Sharief was born: democracy has been throttled now and Sharief finds himself shorn of power, position and, possibly, life too. But then democracy has always been a sham amid the notion called Pakistan. In the interrugnums when it was not throttled, that is. It must be said that Sharief did not send his adversaries to death. He marched them to oblivian in a democratic manner that had sham scribbled all over it. And a fair share of them he had: the leader of opposition shooed out with a legal sham, the Supreme Court chief shown the door in a judicial sham, the President shunted out in a sham show, the army chief shammed into a resignation. The courts of which Sharief is now terribly suspicious, are the ones he had created, for the very purpose of shaming the process of law. Only he had not contemplated his own self standing trial there. The whole erstwhile opposition had been up in arms against them, but failed even to get an acknowledging nod from him. Of course, now there is no opposition, no dissenters, no ruling party. There are only people and they don't care two hoots who does the hanging or who is hanged. Nor how! Yes, while the Indians, Americans, Brits and Bangladeshis, even the tribes from deep African recesses, are exercised over the state of democracy in Pakistan, the Pakistanis themselves seem to have heaved a sigh of relief. The patent sham that Musharaf is spooling out has aroused, not resentment but a modicum of acceptance in Pakistan. There is even an expectation that the general may succeed where the administrators, intellectuals and politicians miserably failed. Now what exactly do the Pakistanis want the general to succeed at? Is it restoration of democracy? Refurbishing the economy? Ushering in development? Or, caging Kashmir and crushing India? At whatever cost, with whatever result. That, you may say, is quite a sham in itself. Yes, is quite a sham in itself. Yes, it is. Though the time and space have foisted a democratic dispensation of Pakistan, it is difficult to sustain the belief that democracy is an aspiration there. The culture of democracy is not a natural predilection for man. It is a cultivated taste that comes of a profund realisation, a prolonged practice, a revolutionary reaction. American democracy originated in a reaction against the British colonialism, as did the Indian one. It was a realisation of freedom and suppressions, Pakistani notion was born as a reaction to a reviled stereotype of Indianness. It continues to be a reaction, not against repressions, nor for the freedom and rights but is geared for attainments that have nothing to do with law, justice or reason as democracy understands them. Their perception of rights and wrongs is not rooted in a democratic design. That was the sham which Sharief understood to which he played. Sharief was the product of this confused concept of Pak nationalism, he perfected the art of packaging it a democratic pack. Remember his dramatic restoration to the PMship by the supreme court, and the equally dramatic storming of the same court when it sought to arraign him, two years later. But, by then he had packed so many contradiction in, that the sleek pack fell apart and spilled everything out. Kargil, Lahore, Laden, Karachi, Afghanistan, missiles, military, million and billions, estates and properties, even improprieties came tumbling out and have deluged him in a collective cascade. Pakistanis who understand better are suitably mute. But not the wide world. It is appealed not for the Pakistanis but their PM, their 'democracy'. It has begun to portray Sharief as a crusader come lately, for the cause of democracy. Democracy? In a country that does not know (or need?) democracy? By a person who had little use for democracy except exploiting it to plot his self onto the chair. With a system that fills a score-board with shams and survives upon it? Why, that may be the biggest sham of all. |
|
A who-cares India insults
Orissa Is a phrase more important than human life ? The curious argument over whether the cyclone in Orissa is a national calamity or not bespeaks an insensitivity that would be unbelievable were it not true, and unparadonable if anyone cared. The greatest enemy of governments is common sense. Common sense suggests that what has happened in Orissa should be declared an international calamity, rather merely a national one. Nature has no geography, which is why nations set aside the enmity of centuries in order to salvage life and restore comfort from the consequences of sudden terror. An earthquake persuades Turkey and Greece to set aside thousands of years of hatred, and become neighbours who lend a hand instead of neighbours who bear arms. But apparently, we in India take a sniffy attitude towards help from abroad, implying that it is an unwarranted sneer at our self-reliance. Other nations whittle their national ego in such circumstances; ours tends to inflate. There has to be a reason for such absurdity. There is. Governments have ego, the people do not. Those who rule do not suffer in natural disasters. The people do. Governments place ego before need. If the people of Orissa were involved in a decision as to whether they should ask for international help in their plight, we know what their answer would have been. Perhaps governments should be forced into five days of hunger. Hunger tends to shrink egos at a very rapid pace. Political parties are of course different from one another; governments tend to become the same. There is little difference between the thinking of a BJP-led government in Delhi and the Congress government in Bhubaneswar when hopeless explanations are devised to explain gross, unpardonable, irresponsible neglect. Delhi's bureaucrats are arguing that problems cannot be solved by creating labels like ''national calamity'', but by management skills and mobilisation of resources. I know we mere journalists are far more ignorant of such weighty matters, but perhaps the obvious is also obvious to hacks. The question is simple. How do you create focus and determination behind a rescue effort, how do you prevent the Orissa operation from turning it into the shambles. It has become? Weeks after the cyclone the central government appoints a task force headed by Mr George Fernandes. At his first press conference after being given the responsibility, a hapless Mr Fernandes reveals that he has little knowledge of the dimensions of his task. Yet another elected government has become a victim of the process of governance; paper has become more important than the people. If the Union government deserves criticism, then there are no words to describe the criminal incompetence of the state government in Orissa. The chief minister, Mr Giridhar Gamang, explained that his government had run away, so he could do nothing in the affected areas. His civil servants were afraid of being lynched by the people, he said, throwing more light on his skillsets. The Congress high command parted Mr Gamang on the back for such exemplary courage and asked him to continue- at least until the people lynched him in the next Assembly elections. The least that the Congress could have done was to replace Mr Giridhar Gamang, who has done more numerology exercises to save his chair than chaired relief management meetings. It is probably not his fault that he is thoroughly incompetent; we cannot all define the ability levels that the Almighty provides us with at birth. But who can justify the protection that Mr Gamang is receiving from his party high command as he continues bungling on a colossal scale? That favourite excuse has been trotted out by Congress leaders in Delhi: the press, this terrible press has been exaggerating. Assembly elections are due in a few months. If Mr Gamang remains chief minister, Mrs Sonia Gandhi will not have to worry any more about his future. The people will decide it for her. We are living in a who-cares India. The only thing that politicians care about is politics. Tradecraft is being used by the manipulators to pass the blame. The Congress is trying to whip up support by blaming Prime Minister Vajpayee for not declaring the cyclone a national calamity, and suggesting-falsely- that some unimaginable degree of relief would have turned up if the central government had done so. The BJP and Biju Janata Dal have all ten fingers pointed straight at the face of the Congress chief minister. What neither party really understands is that the people are livid with both the State and the Centre. Just in case the BJP-BJD or the Congress shrugs this off with their familiar cynicism, they should check what the people of Orissa think of a government in their neighbourhood, that of Chandrababu Naidu. His administration provided almost instant help for the cyclone and flood ravaged districts than that of their own state. Here is a serious proposal for Mr Chandrababu Naidu. Within the next few days he should start a political party called Utkal Desam, and set up candidates in every constituency of the state in the Assembly elections. He could be pleasantly surprised by the results. Even as I write, that peculiar indifference that the fortunate have towards the poor seems to have overtaken us. Now that the ghastly pictures of death, brought to you with some courage by that very special breed of photojournalists, have been exhausted, the story has disappeared from the media, and consequently from attention. That brief burst of concern during which help was mobilised from the people is over. The sheer scale of the tragedy is buried in the silence of poverty and the power of the sea: Orissa one of our poorest states, is paying the price of poverty. Nature is not partial to the rich or the poor; cyclones and hurricanes hit America too. Washington declares a national emergency each time water enters the living room, and that is perhaps why every Indian with an education dreams of escaping in the direction of a Washington green card. What is the difference between a rich and a poor country? The value of life. If an American government did not show care for the life of an American, it would not remain a government for much longer. In India life has no value, India does not care. Statistics are used to hide facts. The truth about the death toll is suppressed, rather than revealed. A secret note circulated in the Prime Minister's Office put the casualty figure in Orissa at over 25,000 dead when the official figure was still below 10,000. The question is simple, why was the PMO note secret? Nature was guilty of this tragedy, not any government: why behave as if the number of dead is a national embarrassment? The difference in crisis management defines the gap between a rich nation and a poor one; and in an uneven country like ours, the gap between a rich state and a poor one. Maharashtra used its resources, its confidence and its clout to handle the Latur earthquake. Orissa is helpless. The Orissa cyclone has reiterated not only India's poverty but also the imbalance in the wealth of our provinces. Orissa's poverty is the poverty of mismanagement, exploitation, neglect and indifference. This is what poverty means. Poverty is manmade; or more specifically, government-made. Poverty means the absence of infrastructure; the absence of roads, and hospitals, and vehicles and boats through which emergency supplies can be sent to every Indian defeated by the awesome fury of nature. Poverty means years of misgovernance; roads that were never built, money for development that was stolen, corruption that corroded the wealth of the nation even as it fattened the wealth of a parasite ruling class. One hears that nature has
not yet spent herself on the eastern coast; that there is
another cyclone brewing over the oceans. If there is a
God in charge of nature, then here is an option for the
Almighty to consider. Can the next forty-foot high tidal
wave leap across and smash into the few square miles of
bungalows in Delhi and Bhubaneswar in which the ruling
class lives? |
|
|
