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Mulayam Singh Yadav, Samajwadi Party supremo has rightly taken to task Jyoti Basu and CPI (M) for duplicity, deceit and hypocrisy as regards formation of Third Front. To be precise CPI (M) has been trying to kill many birds with one stone and that stone happens to be anti-BJPism. That itself indicates negative approach .....more India is slated to accord top priority to create Comprehensive Convention against international terrorism during the ensuing UN General Assembly session beginning next week. Uptill now UN response to spread of global terrorism has remained lukewarm or ambiguous. Although it expresses anti-terrorism themes but in practice it does nothing to take on terrorist sponsor nations. This is perhaps the greatest factor...more |
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Men, Matters, Memories .....Rest is all unwell. Growing threat to MEN AND MATTERS |
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EDITORIAL Mulayam Singh Yadav, Samajwadi Party supremo has rightly taken to task Jyoti Basu and CPI (M) for duplicity, deceit and hypocrisy as regards formation of Third Front. To be precise CPI (M) has been trying to kill many birds with one stone and that stone happens to be anti-BJPism. That itself indicates negative approach even when it comes to national issues besides putting question mark on CPI(M) faith in Indian democracy and the Constitution. Our democracy is very clear and it has survived all these five decades simply because it leaves no scope for chauvinistic, dictatorial and anti-nationalism. It is ruled by the principle of simple majority even if it be by a solitary vote. No wonder Vajpayee Government was defeated on the floor of the house by one vote leading to the ongoing mid-term poll. But as long as democratically elected Government is in place and it works within the contours of our Constitution, neither CPI (M) nor any other party in Opposition has any right to question intelligence of Indian voters. In the process they undermine their own credibility. When you want to oppose duly elected Government it must be based on issues rather than the one-point programme of anti-BJPism. In this context one is tempted to refer to this very one-point programmes of keeping BJP out that resulted in the formation of United Front minority Government backed from outside by CPM and Congress. It is recent history how it fell apart as the most non-performing Government which was ousted by none other than the Congress and the CPM through their intrigues based on strange notions and typical perceptions quite unrelated to democratic tenets. To be precise mention of Third Front is nothing but revival of the dead United Front. This time round the theme is the same - to keep the BJP out and defeat it at any cost even if it implies total compromise of the principles and manifestos of the parties. For instance only last week Jyoti Basu and Surjeet Singh mentioned keeping distance from the Congress but supporting it where its own candidates are not there or they are too weak. The sole objective is to defeat BJP and thus prevent it from remaining in power. Jyoti Basu also says now that he is willing to become Prime Minister but Congress says no to it because they want Sonia and Sonia alone to be in the pilot's seat. In this context Mulayam Singh's statement assumes added significance when he says that he endeavoured hard to create pre-electoral third-front and that it was CPM which rejected it ourightly because it leaned heavily towards supporting Congress Government. And now the same CPM when snubbed by Congress that it would not accept Jyoti Basu as PM talks of post-electoral Third-Front which is sheer hypocrisy. Now let us see what this so-called Third Front would be like. There is already a front between NCP and SP. Telugu Desam walks out of United Front and throws its lot behind BJP led NDA. Likewise DMK is no more part of erstwhile United Front but very much with NDA. Proful Mohanta's Assam outfit is behind BJP. This leaves only leftist parties which together had 50 seats in the 12th Lok Sabha. CPM's hypocrisy manifests abundantly when it opposes Congress in W Bengal and Kerala but supports it in other States. This has been strongly resented by LDF in Kerala and other partners of leftist front in W. Bengal. Further, Congress tied up with RJD in Bihar, Vaghela in Gujarat, Jayalalitha in Tamil Nadu and Ajit Singh in UP. Again, Congress as per Panchmarhi session retreats from its position that it would bid for power to form Government on its own. Now it is amenable to coalition culture with such unpredictable entities as Jaya, Vaghela, Ajit Singh and Laloo who are known for ditching and rank opportunism. And if it still falls short of numbers, it won't mind having support of leftist bandwagon. One can imagine the type stability Congress can give to the country with these types of well established destabilisers. It is the prediction of all exit polls carried during the first two rounds of Lok Sabha election that both Congress and BJP gain at the cost of erstwhile UF or the so-called Third Front still in the embryo stage. The voters have definitely opted for two principle contenders i.e. Congress and BJP led coalitions, be they pre-electoral or post-electoral. This is definite polarisation. It is high time CPM ceases self-deception and hypocrisy by being neither here nor there. Such bandwagons can only have nuisance value in any democratic set-up. In the light of the stand taken by Mulayam Singh which is now more anti-Congress and less anti-BJP, formation of third front or its role in the new Government formation next month appears to be much less than what it was in the 12th Lok Sabha. To that extent Third-Front remains non-starter as much today as it was pre-electorally and would be so post electorally. India is slated to accord top priority to create Comprehensive Convention against international terrorism during the ensuing UN General Assembly session beginning next week. Uptill now UN response to spread of global terrorism has remained lukewarm or ambiguous. Although it expresses anti-terrorism themes but in practice it does nothing to take on terrorist sponsor nations. This is perhaps the greatest factor that has resulted in spread of global terrorism so much so that at least three largest permanent members of Security Council are directly affected by such terrorism. American embassies have been blasted in Kenya and Tanzania and persistent threats from Osama bin Laden's brand of terrorists to hit American interests worldwide had led to closure of no less than 72 embassies/consulates. Russia is in the thick of such terrorism with virtual loss of Chechenya which has not taken even Dagistan within its ambit. Not only that. Two major blasts in multi-storey buildings have been caused and more could be on the anvil. Russia has openly held Pakistan trained Islamic fundamentalists responsible for sponsorship and participation in terrorist acts in Russia and its provinces. China which is a military ally of Pakistan and having very wide cooperation has also been directly affected by Pak sponsored terrorism in its Xinjiang province and many towns falling enroute Karakoram road which has since been closed by China for fear of influx of more terrorists from Pakistan. Last month one Pakistani fundamentalist preaching and organising secessionism in the province was sent to gallows by China. When three permanent members of Security Council are directly affected by global terrorism sponsored by Pakistan besides the largest democracy of India and even some Muslim countries, United Nations must own total responsibility for evolving mechanism that would punish the sponsor nations and give freedom to individual countries to finish menace of terrorism and its breeding centres with single minded pursuit. Even former Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto has spoken very strongly against fundamentalist Nawaz Sharif whose actions in Kargil and other places has caused Pakistan much worse humiliation than even faced by it during 1971 war. One expects UN General Assembly to be more authentic and forceful as regards tackling global terrorism. |
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Men,
Matters, Memories It's with a bagful of feelings that I returned to Delhi this week after spending a week in the Valley, most of it in Srinagar with a one-day trip to Baramulla thrown in. Of good feelings first. It felt good to be back in one's favourite Srinagar hotel, the Broadway, currently in the process of reopening after a lapse of nine years. Broadway had been home away from home to visiting journalists through the 70s and 80s. What made it particularly attractive to journalists was its 24 hour telex service which was quite a boon given the erratic working of the government telegraph office. Broadway was forced to pull down its shutters in 1990 when militancy turned ugly. I remember a January day in 1990 when more than a score of us, Indian and foreign journalists, were under virtual siege at the hotel reduced to Dal-Roti routine. After nine years it felt good to see the hotel management trying to get its act together, swimming pool, bars, restaurants and what have you. But the good feeling evaporated the moment you stepped out. The streets were deserted, very few people around and fewer still vehicles. The elections to Srinagar constituency had been held two day earlier but the secessionist Hurriyat Conference had given a fresh call for a hartal to coincide with the elections in Udhampur and elsewhere. Did'nt make sense, to have a hartal in Srinagar while polling was on in far away Udhampur where the call went nearly unheard. Next day Srinagar was alive and kicking once again. The local papers were full of threats issued by assorted militant groups, warning people against participating in polling due on September 18, claiming that the militants had jotted down the vehicle numbers of people who had been seen around during the first phase of poll. They claimed to have been recorded the names of people seen actively participating in the process. There were calls by worthies of the Hurriyat Conference repeating the dire warnings. If this was not intimidation, I wouldn't know what else is. If it was not subversion of the democratic process, of the principles by which our democracy lives, and mercifully, survives, I don't know what it was. If there was a government in place and supposedly functioning I simply could not understand why it was not acting against those who issued the threats and those who made it their business to publicise these under big, bold headlines. Of course, we did have headlines like "BJP candidate in Anantnag killed", "Maqbool Dar escapes assassination bid", "Farooq's brother escapes attempt on life", "Mufti Sayeed and Mehbooba Mufti have a miraculous escape". Another story informed us about how Yasin Malik of Hurriyat hijacked the venue of a candidate's election meeting and converted it into a pro-boycott rally. Further down the road a wan-looking Mehbooba Mufti complained how her repeated complaints about rigging were ignored by polling officers, how her agents were thrown out of several booths, how she had given a list of Matadors used by her ruling party opponent to bring in burqa - clad women and even outsiders, including many Bihari and Oriya labourers, to the Polliing Officers and Rashtriya Rifles men and how these very Matadors had reappeared again at nearby booths. There were others who were very fortright in stating that they were totally disinclined to participate in the poll. Their wrath was directed against the State government. May be I spoke to the "wrong people" but even at the Chief Minister's favourite haunt, the Srinagar Golf Club, I overheard conversations which spoke very poorly of the State government and its record of performance. The boycott call given by the militants and the Hurriyat was definitely a deterrent, the argument ran, but there was very little that could be said in favour of the State administration or any other single issue that might have enthused the people. On the contrary, the ruling party was alleged to have selectively connived with the boycottwallahs hoping that low turnout would suit its purposes better. Let some of the figures available speak for themselves : at 182 polling stations spread over the two districts, 180 recorded less than ten votes each. In the heavily congested midtown Habbakadal area of Srinagar the overall polling was 0.5 per cent with no one turning up at 52 booths. "It's not just apathy or fear of the militants or the utter disillusionment with the state government that kept people indoors. There were many who would have voted if only security arrangements had inspired confidence", says a political activist of a bygone era whom I encountered in Lal Chowk. The "boycottists" were given a free run of the place. Frankly, low turnout should not come as a surprise to anyone who has watched the Kashmir scene for the last two decades. There was a time when Farooq Abdullah was truly the darling of the Kashmiri Muslim masses, annointed in their presence by the Sher-e-Kashmir as his political heir. The subsequent election saw him making almost a clean sweep of all the seats. That was also the election that saw some members of the former Muslim United Front getting elected to the State Assembly. Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Geelani and Abdul Ghani Lone, it is good to remember, were members of the State legislature than and for several terms before that. Then came Farooq's problems with New Delhi, his being toppled in a midnight coup, an operation presided over by none other than Jagmohan, the BJP's candidate from the New Delhi constituency. Came the fatal Rajiv-Abdullah accord and the latter's desperation to win the election at all costs. He won the elections but lost the confidence of the people. And worse still, the patently rigged outcome of the election sent many Kashmiri youth into the waiting arms of the Pakistanis. Many of these youths are now leading militants and the disillusioned politicians have long since joined hands to form the secessionist Hurriyat Conference. This reminds me of the day, soon after that infamous election, when Abdul Ghani Lone walked into my office in New Delhi to give a blow by blow account - largely truthful - of how his certain victory from the Handwara assembly constituency in Kupwara district had been converted into a defeat. Lone, you might care to remember, had served as a Minister in an earlier government and was not always a secessionist. Yes, many of today's secessionist were committed to the State's union with India. The problem with the present State government is that it appears to have lost touch with the ground reality in the State. It's one thing to be celebrating the victory achieved by our armed forces in Kargil and quite another when you are told that many in the valley were hoping for an Indian defeat, waiting for the life-line to Ladakh to be captured by the Pakistanis. You don't gain people's confidence with gimmicks like attracting film producers to shoot in the "happy valley", even offering them financial inducements to come over. Nor does a successful Amarnath Yatra, carried out under the tightest security arrangements possible, make up for normalcy. Similarly, normalcy does not mean allowing a five star hotel to open a casino in Srinagar. The idea obviously is to provide an alternative to the rich and famous to gamble away their fortunes not in Kathmandu but in Srinagar but how does it help the educated unemployed or the poor peasantry. The ground reality is, that the level of confidence in the State government among the people is shockingly low. The present poll campaign - or the absence of it - only proves that it has fallen even further. What the State needs is a responsive government not a high flying leadership that has lost contact with the people. To end on a good note. My co-passenger on the flight out of Srinagar was a senior Kashmir (Muslim) airline commander visiting his home State after a lapse of some years. "Good lord", said he, "the Srinagar skyline has completely changed". "Did you see the fabulous new houses that dot the city now. Did you see the ‘palaces’ standing on either side of the old and new airport roads ? Did you notice that mud and thatch roofing is nowhere on view; you have shimmering metal (tin) roofing now... how come we are still cribbing...." That too, is an aspect of today's Kashmiri life. Only that the rich have become richer and a new class of the rich from amongst the political and bureaucratic class has fattened itself on "fishes and loaves of office". Corruption and nepotism are very much a part of the Kashmir landscape and one must learn to accept it. Make hay while the sun shines, as the wise old Kashmiri peasant would say. |
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Growing threat to urban
centres There is no way of knowing if Adam and Eve had any toilet facility in the Garden of Eden. But after consuming the 'forbidden apple', a physical process would have triggered off because consumption and excretion are two basic biological functions without which the growth of humans as species would not have been possible. There are records, edicts, written materials, artefacts, etc. to show that man has been concerned with sanitation in the past. As a matter of fact, all great civilisations had very developed sanitation systems, including, Indus, Greek, Roman and Mesopotamia. No other ancient civilisation gave so much attention to sanitation and cleanliness as the Herappans did. The quality of the domestic toilets, bathrooms and drains was remarkable and the drainage system of Harappa almost unique. No wonder the most important public place of Mohenjodaro is the Great Bath. An example of impressive brickwork, it is suggested that the Great Bath served ritual bathing, which was so vital to any religious ceremony in India. Unfortunately, this 'sparkling' aspect of our civilisation got lost in the maze of centuries that followed. But what is happening in India today? People build houses but not toilets, indicating skewed attitudinal and cultural preferences. Official agencies do not give sufficient stress on sanitation, most specially toilet facilities, while building houses. The snag in sanitation programmes is also technological. The sewarage system is very costly and not sustainable. There is neither enough water in rivers to flush out city effluents, nor enough money to set up sewage treatment plants. Even France has been able to treat only 40 per cent of Paris sewage; the remaining waste flows into the Sein river, untreated. The challenge of a clean, healthy and safer city life is of critical importance in view of rapid and massive urbanisation of unprecedented proportions around the globe. Two-thirds of the world's urban population is now concentrated in developing countries. These city centres are bursting at the seams. Maladies like grinding poverty, unemployment, inadequate healthcare and insanitary shelter, and the consequent increase in urban crime will continue to torment the cities unless we embark on well though-out social development initiatives. By viewing our cities from human and cultural perspective, we may be able to formulate pragmatic goals, which can inspire and mobilize the commitment and energy of all people. It can be achieved by fostering solidarity among various sections of urban society, to support life rather than threaten it. It is time we turned our attention to the people who inhabit our towns and cities reeling under heartrending poverty. Poverty is perhaps the worst polluter of all, manifest in the slums and shanty towns which dominate the city scape and in the mass of beggars, petty hawkers and casual workers struggling to eke out a living. The cities have plenty of wealth, but the poor who live in them have no share in it. The poor provide service to the city, they clean the houses of the rich and cook for them, they provide labour for factories and shops, they are the main carriers of the goods, and yet they continue to be poor. The urban poor, without doubt, have become an essential concomitant of the development path of our cities. Imagine the state of a city without the loaders, the scavengers and the street cleaners. We cannot imagine life of the urban rich in India without the domestic helpers who toil to keep the houses and apartments spick and span but are not allowed to live with their masters. The rich families do not allow their servants, even female ones, to use their bathrooms. City planners and administrators never tire of talking about bettering the human condition -- what most of us refer to as 'development' - and yet very little is being done for the very people to whom development matters the most. An emphasis upon social services for the urban poor and linking of social development with infrastructure is the crying need of the moment to save the urban situation from further deterioration and disintegration. The importance of active involvement of community programmes cannot be overemphasised. Culture and habitat are inextricably linked to each other. They provide us the key to understand human society. The relationship between culture and habitat is complex and multi-farious which we have to understand if we are really serious to find pragmatic and enduring solutions to various urban problems. This is particularly relevant for Indian conditions. Urban habitat in India is changing and a new culture appears to be emerging, yet the cultural legacy of the past refuses to die out. Urban vision for better and safer future must synthesise our distinctive culture with the infrastructure and social development. The term 'slums' is used in Indian context to describe different types of neighbourhoods or bastis: officially notified city slums; industrial housing slums; and squatter settlements. Each neighbourhood has undergone a particular process of growth and decay, and has a way of life distincty shaped by its own history, age and socio-economic conditions. Most slum-dwellers develop a community life and comply with prevailing social norms. Many slums have local panchayats or informal councils formed to resolve specific issues. However, most interactions are informal and are strongly influenced by kinship, caste, language, religion and regional bond. Acute lack of infrastructure development and basic civic amenities characterise all Indian cities. The 1981 Census reported that 37 per cent of households in urban India had no electricity, 25 per cent no access to safe drinking water and 42 per cent no toilet facilities. Older city slums, however, generally have better basic facilities and services than the newer squater settlements. Most often, the worst-affected victims of these insanitary environments are children, who are particularly susceptible to water-borne contaminants. Haphazard city planning over the years and myopic approaches to new challenges have further compounded the problems. However, adequte infrastructural facilities alone cannot guarantee a peaceful and safe city. New York's susceptibility to volatility and violence is a case in point. One of the most prosperous and advanced cities, why does peace and harmony remain a mirage for New York? Why does the city provide breeding ground for crime and foster a mafia culture? The answer lies perhaps, to a great extent, in the loss of community life and social values and cut-throat competition to steal a material march over others. Mindless materialism and crass consumerism will give birth to numerous, and often violent, social ills if we do not make a conscious efforts to foster a spirit of harmonious living. Unless we search our soul and sensitize our mind towards plights and predicament of our troubled neighbours, we cannot shape a better future. |
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MEN AND MATTERS The first two phases of voting are over. The subsequent instalments are to spread over, and will continue through September and the first week of October. However, ene lement of weariness and mental fatigue has already crept into the campaign which is increasingly becoming erratic and devoid of an identifiable focus. This is largely because the Election Commission has fixed the schedule in such a way that several weeks separate the first and final phases. Thanks to such an extended prelude, one has no idea of the total number of candidates fielded by various parties, no idea of issues which have come to the fore and no idea of whether national issues, regional issues or local issues are dominating the election scene. The major parties appear to have already exhausted their respective talking points even before the second phase of polling took place. This is possibly the first election in many years which has not yielded a national picture of the pre-poll situation. This type of cannibalisation of the duration of the election process could impact on the nature and content of the federal concept written into our Constitution. Instead of reducing the total span of the process from the earlier three phases to two – or even one – the Election Commission has extended it and made the 1999 poll into a five-phase exercise. The Commission has no doubt its own difficulties, and in the aim of keeping the polls free and fair, it has to agree to a variety of options. One reason for the long intervals between polling is the imperative of providing adequate security cover for the election staff, the candidates and their agents and the voters themselves. Whatever the Commission’s compulsions for necessitating the longest run-up to the polls ever, the end result could be the relegation of important national issues to the background and the emergence of regional issues to the forefront. In the States, politics is, no doubt, built on regional issues, and State leaders would like to exploit these issues for their political advancement. This is not to say that regional aspirations should not be met or promoted. The growth and development of the regions depend upon the articulation and acceptance of regional aspirations. But, as witnessed during the last three decades, the fading away of national issues and concentration on regional and localised issues does have a long-term impact on national cohesion. The inordinately lengthy election process this time may well lead to a distortion of the national perspective and place undue importance on the regional factors in our polity. This brings us directly to the identification of the issues around which the 1999 polls are being fought. Personalities do influence the outcome to a large extent. And this is the basis on which the Congress and the BJP are building their campaigns—the Congress focussing on Ms Sonia Gandhi and the BJP (and its NDA allies) on Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee. To an outsider, it would seem that the 1999 poll has been reduced to a clash of personalities. This is the reason why the election rhetoric of the two major contestants is revolving around the two figures. This is the position now. And thanks to Ms Sonia Gandhi and Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee occupying the centrestage of the campaign, the issues have got blurred, and one is unable to identify precisely the main issue for the 1999 polls. But once the elections are over and the votes are counted, a study of the verdict in detail would identify for us the issues to which the voters responded and rendered their mandate. What is the issue in the polls ? Is it Kargil ? Is it debarring foreign-born persons from occupying high offices ? Is it systematic change from parliamentary democracy to presidential form ? Is it restructuring the Constitution and fixing the tenure of the Lok Sabha ? Is it one-party majority rule or a multi-party coalition ? Or is it stability and avoidance of frequent elections ? Stability is the common plank of the Congress and the National Democratic Alliance. The Congress is clamouring for stability. The BJP is offering strong assurances of stability. Stability is also the running theme in the manifestos of the two principal contestants. The Congress document says: "The Congress pledges to provide to India a stable Government, and experienced Government". The NDA document says: "It wants to fulfil the resolve of the Indian people to give themselves a stable, strong and progressive Government". While the two parties have agreed on the objective or the final destination, there are differences on how each wants to travel towards that destination. Kit is these differences which have now erupted into the open. This is providing the talking point to the two parties. Unfortunately, thanks to its own inconsistencies, the Congress is now at the receiving end of criticism. The Hindutva campaign has lost steam and cannot be depended upon to bring votes. Two, the BJP cannot on its own bag a majority in gthe Lok Sabha. So, making a virtue of necessity, the BJP has been mobilising allies. Today, it claims to have formed an omnibus alliance comprising as many as 22 parties and is all set to undertake a coalition experiment once again. Why the Congress should have developed an allergy towards coalitions is not clear. Equally, it is also not clear why the Congress continues to pin hopes on the return of one-party majority rule at the Centre even though all the available evidence offers a contrary picture. As a political force, the Congress has been on the decline from 1989. It failed to improve its position substantially between 1991 and 1998. It emerged as the single largest party in 1998, but this was no great achievement for a party which has run majority Governments at the Centre and has been the party of Government in India in the post-independence decades. When the general assumption was that the Congress had set its face firmly against coalitions, Ms Sonia Gandhi’s comment that the party was not averse to coalitions and that would consider forming a coalition Government in case elections returned a hung Parliament provided grist to the BJP anti-Congress mills which have been grinding fast and furiously since then. Either taken aback by the reaction or counselled to do a row-back by her advisers, Ms Sonia Gandhi has retracted on her earlier statement, and she has reverted to the position that the Congress is against coalitions. |
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