Daily Excelsior... Editorial

EDITORIAL

Geelani fails to keep
date with Iftaar Party
Men, Matters & Memories

By M L Kotru

The five column top of the page headline left me slightly numb. Not only because it seemed wholly unwarranted but also because it appeared in a daily which I consider among the.......more

Only four ex-servicemen
got employment
Men and Matters

By B.L. Kak

Believe it or not, it is estab lished, beyond doubt, that only four ex-servicemen were provided employment in. ......more

‘Aluu kaa patthaa’
India!...
Yours Randomly,

By Dr. R. L. Bhat

EDITORIAL

Shahtoosh controversy

Shahtoosh means the king of wools but no more are the shawls allowed to be made of this extraordinarily soft, fine and warm material. The totally justified reason for a ban on shahtoosh shawls is that their wool is obtained from the lower part of the under-neck of ‘chiru’, a rare Tibetan antelope which lives at an altitude of 14,000 feet or more. As it is stripped of its prized possession, the animal more often than not dies a premature death. Wild life enthusiasts have effectively campaigned to prevent this slaughter of an already perishing specie. With its one and half metre width, the shahtoosh shawls are known to pass through a ring and also, therefore, are known as ‘ring shawls’. Little surprising, therefore, that the rich and the affluent have just grabbed them in the past. Their mere presence in the wardrobes has been considered a luxury and status symbol. Presently, there is a ban — both on national and international level — on the production and sale of these shawls. Prior to the ban also, it has not been easy to make them. It is an open secret that there has been an acute scarcity of raw material. It has been a difficult exercise to get hold of ‘chiru’ even covertly. Two reasons are responsible for this: one, its fast dwindling population and, the other, its inaccessible habitat with its movement to still higher reaches. Moreover, the area of ‘chiru’s’ habitation has been prone to high tension for a long time due to the presence of armies of at least three countries in the same region. In the recent years, there have been reports that quite a few shawl traders in the State have wanted the permission to sell their old stocks of shahtoosh shawls. Nobody has, however, admitted that he is still involved in the time-consuming process of making such products. To explain why the antelope should be brought all the way from beyond the Ladakh heights to Kashmir is stating the obvious. Over the centuries, the people of Kashmir have perfected the art of producing plain and embroidered shawls. Sheer artistry of their work has captivated the entire world. Mostly they have been making pashmina and ‘raffal’ shawls. One has not heard of the superfine shahtoosh variety being manufactured of late.

Therefore, a report that a maximum of 15,000 people are still involved in the shahtoosh production process in the Valley has come as a surprise. That most of them are concentrated in and around downtown Srinagar should only add to the suspense about the source of their raw material. The report has been jointly prepared by the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) on the basis of a ‘door-to-door’ survey covering as many as 45,000 persons in Kashmir. Titled, ‘Beyond the ban’, a copy of the report has been handed over to the Union Textiles Ministry, which should be in a position now to ascertain the facts. The women constitute the overwhelming majority of those engaged in separation of shahtoosh from the rough raw material and actual spinning. The men control the lucrative aspects of this business. The report suggests that viable alternatives should be provided to those engaged in producing shahtoosh shawls if the ‘chiru’ is to be saved.

On its part, the J&K Government would also do well to look into the actual position. Since both the organisations have often been in the news for their concern for animal welfare, it may be perhaps wrong to conclude that they have not been able to make a distinction between shahtoosh and pashmina in their report. They apparently know what they are talking about is clear from their suggestion that the Kashmiri shawl workers should stick to their skills in producing hand-crafted pashmina shawls which ‘is far superior to any machine-made or partially hand-crafted product made anywhere in the world and strangely enough sold as Kashmir pashmina’. Does it not sound equally strange that shahtoosh work should be taking place right under the nose of the State Government? The concerned authorities should wake up. It is not only an illegal practice but also counter-productive as the growing worldwide anti-shahtoosh campaign would leave no takers for these shawls how richly made or embroidered they may be.

The Mahatma of our times

He is Mahatma Gandhi of our times. You have guessed it correctly. His name is Mr Dilip Singh Judeo. It is on the lips of everybody. He has made an exit as Union Minister for Forests and Environment. Having been caught on tape in the act of receiving cash, his continuation in the Government would have been a liability for Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Technically, he has sent in his resignation. The dispatch with which it has been accepted leaves little doubt that he had done so after he got the message from the concerned quarters itself. Call it the inexperience of the Bharatiya Janata Party leaders in power or their faith in doing things publicly, this is the second time that they have had to cut a sorry figure. Of all leaders, the party chief, Mr Bangaru Laxman, had to lose his job in the first instance. He was shown on camera as receiving Rs 1 lakh in cash. In fairness to Mr Laxman, he had made no attempt to assume a saintly profile. But, Mr Judeo is made of a different mettle. He does not belong to the weaker sections of society to which his former party chief did. He is the scion of a royal family. He wants us to think that if Mahatma Gandhi could take money from the Birlas during the freedom struggle, why the poor he should be singled out for humiliation. He has a great social service to do by reconverting those who get converted to another religion. For this, he needs an army of people. How will he find the ‘provisions’ for these people? Just because some one foots the bill, he is being put in the dock. Was the Mahatma not doing some thing similar?

Such logic is galling. The Mahatma was no minister. In fact, when the time had come for him to have a taste of power, he just had not risen to the bait. His priority, instead, had been to prevent communal violence in the country. As long as he was alive, he would convert people to non-violence by the sheer force of his personality and convictions. Now that he is no more, he still continues to do so by the rich legacy he has left behind, the only Indian in the modern times who has become a role model for the millions across the world. He was the one-man army. In the case of Mr Judeo, the initial indications have been that he was paid to help in getting mining contracts for some people in Orissa and his home state of Chhattisgarh. Strangely, he has also sought to compare himself with Chandrashekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh. Perhaps he wants to say that he is also a crusader as the two of the greatest freedom-fighters had been. He does not, obviously, remember that both of them had chosen to sacrifice their lives in the service of their motherland at a young age. Not for them were the wordily pleasures. It is a pity that their brave actions are not available on camera to inspire the new generation. Instead, we are condemned to see our leaders in cash-on-camera cameos.

Geelani fails to keep date with Iftaar Party
Men, Matters & Memories

By M L Kotru

The five column top of the page headline left me slightly numb. Not only because it seemed wholly unwarranted but also because it appeared in a daily which I consider among the more readable. ''Geelani to attend Pak envoy's Iftaar'', screamed the headline. The unknowing might well have wondered who on earth this Geelani was; or, what significance does it have, really, if a certain Geelani attends or not a party at the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi.

Syed Ali Shah Geelani to be fair to him is a known pro-Pakistani in the Kashmir valley, with his influence confined to one district of the State. If he is invited to a do at the Pak Hicom it is his business. After all he has always been in direct contact with Pak mission in Delhi, and has continued to be a beneficiary of Pakistani munificence.

The Pakistani mission had its own reasons to make it known that Geelani was attending. It wanted to showcase him as the genuine leader of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, to whose leadership he has been laying claim after he was ousted from it. And ''genuine leader'' in the current Pakistani parlance means he is the sole representative of Kashmiri Muslims in the Valley, something which he even remotely is not.

The 22-party conglomerate answering to the name the Hurriyat is by no means the sole representative of Valley Kashmiri Muslims. If anything it has limited pockets of influence. Had it been half genuine it would not have spurned last year's election to the State Assembly. Its performance in that poll would have enabled it to ''call'' the Indian and the mainstream State parties' bluff.

In the event Geelani never made it to the Pak mission's Iftaar Party. Some second rung cohorts of his had reached one day before Geelani was to leave for Delhi. The God's willed otherwise, the day Geelani wanted to travel; bad weather did not alow his flight to take off. Geelani, I am surprised, has not blamed New Delhi for having induced the weather Gods to intercede, to make his journey impossible. Such a reaction would have been very natural to his mindset. I am not sure but he may already have made the accusation in the court of his Pak mentors in Delhi and Islamabad.

Which again brings me to the point is Geelani really that crucial to the resolution of the Kashmir issue. Maulvi Omar Farouq, the Mirwaiz of Kashmir, Maulvi Abbas Ansari, the current chairman of the Hurriyat and Abdul Ghani Bhat, the former chairman are as relevant to any dialogue between New Delhi and the separatists as any number of Geelanis put together. Geelani is, as a matter of fact, irrelevant in the context of the forthcoming talks in as much as he is committed to Kashmir becoming a part of Pakistan. That happens to be his leitmotif. His Pakistani blinkers won't let him see anything other than Pakistan.

And, to go by the Deputy Prime Minister, L K Advani's view of the talks he does not see himself offering Kashmir to Pakistan during his discussions with separatists. His brief is not at all in accord with the Geelani view of the issue. He is talking of a more relaxed relationship between Srinagar and New Delhi- and within the existing constitutional framework. So Advani will have very little to talk about with a man who flaunts his pro-Pakistan credentials at the drob of his Karakuli.

The Kashmir Chief Minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, whose persistence has been singularly responsible for New Delhi to depute its no 2 man, the Deputy Prime Minister, to talk to the separatists, will need all his skills of persuasion now to ensure that the upcoming talks between the Hurriyat, led by Maulvi Abbas Ansari, and L K Advani move in the right direction. The Chief Minister did well in telling a Pakistani journalist at a Press do in London to ask his Government to allow his countrymen to visit Kashmir and see for themselves how democracy works in the Indian half of the divided State. The subcontinental journalists- and I count myself one among them normally carry a chip on their shoulder while diagnosing the ailments that afflict the other country (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh as the case may be). With my own chip on, the Mufti, without being offensive, appeared to have told his Pakistani inquisitor in London that he better take a look at his own country and Pak occupied Kashmir before questioning the democratic credentials of Mufti's Government or of democracy as practised in India as a whole. A free and fair election in Jammu and Kashmir has provided international legitimacy to the elected Government now headed by the Mufti.

The separatists of the Hurriyat conference missed the bus when they refused to participate in the poll. Some did participate under cover and others opted out under pressure Mufti's healing touch and ballot-not-bullet did the rest. The APHC was left high and dry with the Mufti's People's Democratic Party completing the discomfiture by stealing the conglomerate's principal propaganda ploys including alleged excesses by Security Forces and by his vociferous pleadings for dialogue with all, including the separatists.

Predictally, Geelani responding to his masters' urgings, broke away, claiming that supported by some minor groupings and second-rung leaders of some other parties, he was the Hurriyat. His assumption may be patently wrong but it does put leaders like Mirwaiz Farouq, Maulvi Abbas Ansari and Abdul Ghani Bhatt in a slightly embarrassing position. Geelani's tirades against the threesome and Sajjad and Bilal Lone, sons of the assassinated Abdul Ghani Lone, accusing them of having betrayed Kashmiri Muslims, will make their task a little more difficult in the proposed talks with L K Advani.

The Deputy Prime Minister would in the circumstances have to play his hand deftly. The need of the hour would indeed be - if Advani is to go ahead with the talks- for him not to be seen creating conditions that prevent the Hurriyat from coming upfront. Given the stand enunciated by Advani before the talks, his dialogue may be a non-starter. It would be a pity, though, if the Abbas- led Hurriyat is allowed to become a victim of the charges levelled against them by Geelani and his new outfit which the Pakistanis tell us is the legitimate Hurriyat.

The Pakistani reaction to the rift in the APHC is on predictable lines. It would have been surprising if Pakistan had acted otherwise. But it is for Advani to make the going a little easier for the 'asli' Hurriyat led by Ansari. Such an approach would create its own dynamics in the State. I don't know how deeply, if at all, the Deputy Prime Minister is going to involve the Mufti in his mission. May be, Mufti whose brainchild the proposed dialogue has been can help set the ball in motion. N N Vohra is always there to tie up the loose ends.

Only four ex-servicemen got employment
Men and Matters

By B.L. Kak

Believe it or not, it is estab lished, beyond doubt, that only four ex-servicemen were provided employment in 2001. This fact has been brought to the fore by Parliament's standing committee on defence.

The 44-member committee is headed by the BJP member of Lok Sabha, Madan Lal Khurana. Besides Khurana, the panel has 29 Lok Sabha members. The number of Rajya Sabha members is just 15, including Dr Farooq Abdullah representing the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference.

The parliamentary panel, during its extensive research work, has also brought to the fore yet another fact : Overall employment provided to ex-servicemen came down from 14, 262 in 1997 to 6,975 in 2001. Considering the fact that nearly 60,000 servicemen are released every year, it is least expected that the Government provides employment to about eleven per cent of the ex-servicemen.

The standing committee's 112-page report has recorded its displeasure on this score : ''The performance of the Central Government and Ministries under it has been particularly pathetic, as only four ex-servicemen were provided employment in 2001''. The ordnance factories which are directly under the administrative and operational control of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) have not as divulged by the committee, filled up ''even a single vacancy of ex-servicemen in the last five years''. Similarly, no employment has been provided to ex-servicemen in Central paramilitary forces in 2001.

While highlighting what it termed as ''all round a failure'' of the Government to provide employment to ex-servicemen, the parliamentary panel has called for corrective measures in the shortest possible time. The panel's specific recommendation: Ministry of Defence should immediately formulate a national policy for resettlement of ex-servicemen on the basis of the report of the proposed study group.

Trained, motivated and disciplined manpower released from active service every year at a very young age can be a boon for industries in public, private and cooperative sectors. The number of ex-servicemen is increasing with the passage of time. About 20,51,000 ex-servicemen and about 3,50,000 widows of the service personnel are registered with various zila sainik boards in the country, at present.

If the standing committee's report is any guide, the number of ex-servicemen registered for employment with zila sainik boards is well over five lakhs. The Directorate-General of Resettlement (DGR) was set up to deal with the growing needs of the ex-servicemen for proper settlement and welfare. ''Unfortunately, the DGR has been unable to cope up with the increasing requirements of ever-growing population of ex-servicemen, since the organisation (DGR) does not have adequate financial and management expertise'', the committee has noted.

Disability pension for the servicemen: Rs 2,600 per month for the commissioned officer and Rs 1,550 for the jawan. The committee's recommendation : Government should work out some formulae to provide pension-cum-disability pension equal to last pay drawn to the 100 per cent disable service personnel as in the case of family pensioners where the widow is granted liberalised family pension equale to the reckonable emoluments last drawn by the deceased. The same formula should also be worked out suitably in the cases where disability is above 50 per cent.

The Army Group Insurance (AGI) introduced a contributory group insurance scheme with effect from April 1, 1991. The scheme provided an insurance cover of Rs 3.75 lakhs for personnel below officer rank and Rs 8 lakhs for officers. The insurance cover is extended after retirement with pension for a period of 15 years or till the age of 70 years, whichever is earlier, on payment of nominal one-time lumpsum premium. The Air Force group insurance scheme also runs on the same lines. The Navy does not have an identical scheme.

On the other hand, Parliament's standing committee on external affairs has made public its unwillingness to accept and justify the explanation of the External Affairs Ministry on the expenditure being incurred on foreign travels of different categories of officials and dignitaries. No wonder, the committee's recommendation : The MEA (Ministry of External Affairs) should maintain a comprehensive account of expenditure on foreign travels separately in respect of each category of officials and dignitaries under these heads from the 2002-2003 financial year.

Lok Sabha member, Krishna Bose is the chairperson of the committee. It consists of 30 Lok Sabha members, including Krishna Bose, and 12 members of Rajya Sabha, including Dr Karan Singh. The Government has admitted that the expenditure under 'Foreign Travel Expenses' head of the Ministry of External Affairs has shown an increase in the last few years.

The Government's reply to the committee's queries made it plain : ''All the visits were necessary to achieve our foreign policy objectives and goals. For example, to make the world community aware of the Pakistan-sponsored cross-border terrorism in the State of Jammu and Kashmir, the Government at the highest level had decided to send seven groups of prominent MPs and distinguished non-officials to some important countries of the world in the year 2001-2002 on which an estimated expenditure of Rs 10017993 was incurred''.

The standing committee's 71-page report has referred to the lobbying firm engaged in the United States for the purpose of presenting India's viewpoint and confirmed that the Ministry of External Affairs has insisted that there is ''no factual basis to the notion that the lobbying firms hired by Pakistan are more influential and effective than those hired by India''. The committee has opined that the Government of India has not been able to garner the desired level of support either financially or politically.

Hence, the committee's recommendation : A suitable strategy should be devised to counter anti-India propaganda abroad on the one hand and, on the other hand, to project India's potential strength.

Embassy of India, Washington DC, currently engages one lobbying firm, Messrs Verner Liipfert. According to the External Affairs Ministry, the firm is rated one of the best and 'most influential' lobbing firms in Washington. A survey conducted by 'Fortune' magazine ranked the firm first among the ten firms having the 'most power and access in the business'.

‘Aluu kaa patthaa’ India!...
Yours Randomly,

By Dr. R. L. Bhat

‘The Indian Government’ chief minister of this state doth often quoth dissociating himself from obligation to answer for wrongs, if any, here. Lately, he has ‘said’ it from London. India has failed, proclaims any and every lay man piqued by the recent price rise, corruption or terrorism. India has to behave like a mature society, pontificates your ivory tower intellectual looking from his high perch at anything from riots in Gujarat to the farce in Bihar. India is a goner, tells us the journalist, spooking his nose at the mess in black and white on his editing table. Each one of them has a ‘she’ part though that gender is not so emphatically shaking her head at being part of the Indian milieu, society and nation. Each one of them may be justly frustrated. Each one of them may actually be angered by the mess that he/she sees around. Each one may want to correct it.

Each one of them resolutely believes that he/she has no part in making of all this; that he/she has a right to expect India to get okay by itself; that he has gained a claim to righteous angst after having done his/her duty to the nation with this plain speaking. But where is this India that one chief minister is shadow boxing at, where the intellectual is laying the blame, where the layman is absolving himself, where the journalist is trying to be an uninvolved critic? Doesn’t that India lie within each one of these people? Isn’t the Chief Minister of this state a rightful and proud citizen of this country India that is Bharat? Isn’t the nose-squirting intellectual, journalist, layman the one who make up the milieu they are dismissing, squirting their noses at, dismissing out of hand and proclaiming an all-round failure? What is India apart from these men and women, and all others too, who may not be so very explicit or clever in throwing the blame at rest of India.

Indeed, all the clevers in this land seem to be engaged in a he/she/they versus Rest of India contest with all their energies marshalled for defeating, dismissing, denigrating discarding the Rest of India. But who wins if Rest of India loses? Who lives if this fine dream of India that is Bharat, vanishes? Where do they all stand if there be no India? If nothing the dream of India has given each one of them severally and together the right to speak, the space to do, the scope to rant and rule. Above all it is the reason to be. That being is life. That is the greatest gift of a nation. A nation is what its people, severally and together ‘are’, ‘do’ and hope ‘to be’. Dissociating yourself from the nation and its process, its rights and obligations, its failures and shortcomings may be a clever ploy but is it an honest way? Is it honorable to wring your hands and imprecate ‘Aluu kaa patthaa’ India, absolving yourselves from any blame, obligation or duty? Where would the man-woman, included-breathe, he who calls no nation his own land? Would he be true to his soul; would he have a soul within? Doesn’t he abuse-implicitly, unacknowledgedly-his own being every time he swears ‘Aluu kaa patthaa’ India? Of course, he/she does it every time the imprecation is uttered, but the question is why is this not realized, why is this patent truth not seen? Why no amends are made? The only reason one can guess is that there are loyalties not linked to this whole milieu-this land and culture, ethos and space called India. Nor is it impossible to have such associations.

The communists had such extra territorial loyalties as long as the commintern-dream was still on the horizon. Indeed, it was one ‘strategy’ in that scheme to trash local, regional even national claims and character and to create sufficient ruins on which to build ‘a new order’ for the society and the world. They, of course, could not build anything new-the Russian and Chinese experiments proved to be more decadent than any bourgeoisie efforts had ever been-but they left enough ruins in their wake. Upon these ruins stand the confused men and masses denigrating everything they survey. They were told that it is not necessary in the least to tell their selves that this was their ‘own native land’. The theory said that the natives as well as the land would all vanish and leave them free. Strangely none asked ‘free like Trotsky’, native-less like countless peoples in the central Asia or landless like the Uigars of Xingjian for that matter. Let us leave them to sort those truths and their untruths. Suffice it to say that nation, identity, ethos and culture never vanish; they can only be vanquished by other cultures. And that only the broad-definitions of culture work, for we are all humans who must group together and live in wholes.

That is why European units after a two-thousand year journey through dissension are gathering in EC as are diverse peoples from East Asia to Africa forming Unions, Associations and Organizations to coalesce into working wholes. Those entities give life. Democracy makes those entities livable, workable wholes that allow the human beings full expression of aspirations, faculties and capabilities. That Self Actualization has been called the ultimate motive for humans. It is restricted in bits-and-parts arrangements; it is frustrated in unifocal arrays. India thankfully takes this nation away from these disabilities and allows space and scope. That, of course, is the privilege and the point of being Indians. But that India has to be acknowledged. It has to be accepted and strengthened not dismissed offhand because of personal piques or party calculations, or intellectual considerations. Failed India means failure of each one of us; dismissing India means dismissing ourselves. For none lives if India dies-neither the rights activists, nor the spry-nosed critics, nor the common men and women. Just look around to know how restrictive, how frustrating, how terrifying that can be!