First
President of India
By R K
Bhatnagar
Long
before the Gandhian era had set in the
country a true Gandhian was born on
December 3, 1884 in a small village in
North Bihar. Jawaharlal Nehru, life long
associate of Rajendra Prasad both in the
struggle for independence and later in
the Government after attaining
independence described him as
"Bharat - while truth looking at you
through his eyes." "The Father
of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi speaking of
him said" There is atleast one man
who would not hesitate to take the cup of
poison from my hands." Such was this
man of extra ordinary qualities.
Dr
Rajendra Prasad with a peasant background
had a brilliant academic Career. He
obtained First class First in all the
examinations he took. He joined the legal
profession in Calcutta as junior lawyer
to Khan Bahadur Shamsul Huda. He also
joined the Congress and was soon elected
to the AICC. Impressed by his brilliance,
he was offered a teaching assignment in
Law College in Calcutta. But he plunged
wholeheartedly in freedom struggle and
the service of the people. He was earning
as much as Rupees four thousand every
month when he gave up legal practice in
1920 at the call of Mahatma Gandhi.
He was in
jail when on 15 January, 1934 the
devastating earthquake occurred in Bihar.
He was released two days later. Though
ailing, he immediately undertook the task
of raising funds and organizing relief.
The fund sponsored by him swelled to over
Viceroy's fund, despite his great
influence, resources and prestige. Never
in the history of India a single
individual had organised relief to
earthquake victims on such a grand scale
in an efficient and effective manner. His
early promise was sustained by the record
of his services to the country and
occupied positions of importance. As a
matter of fact, name and office ran after
him. He became the President of the
Congress twice before independence. Later
he was elected the President of the
Constituent Assembly.
According
to one of his colleagues his stewardship
of the Constituent Assembly was
exemplary. He guided controlled, but did
so with such infinite patience, skill,
grace and firmness that none had any
sense of grievance but all felt that the
discussions were held in full, free and
frank and felt nothing to be desired.
During the very first meeting of the
Constituent Assembly, he had announced
that though the Assembly worked under
limitations it would outgrow those and
function as a sovereign body recognizing
no outside authority. The proceedings of
the Constituent Assembly towards its
closing meetings read like pages from a
book of tributes and indicates how loved
and respected he was by each section of
the House. His qualities of man and
matters came to fore.
His
elevation to the Presidentship in 1950
came as a matter of course with some
doubts in some quarters. Could a person
who was temperamentally peasant, who
lived and dressed like one, impress as
the Head of the State of a big country
like India.
Dr.
Rajendra Prasad lived a life of utter
simplicity. His performance as President
in Rashtrapati Bhavan received admiration
of one and all. The former President R.
Venkataraman writing about him in
"My Presidential Years" said
that "Dr. Rajendra Prasad continued
the practice of the Viceroys and visited
Simla for one month every year. Not only
this he started the practice of sojourn
in Hyderabad to give an opportunity to
the people in the South to meet him. Dr
Rajendra Prasad never mixed religion with
public life. He embodied the true Hindu
concept of life. On the wall of his study
and his bedroom in Rashtrapati Bhavan had
his favourite couplet from Tulsi Ramayana
Reading.
"Hariyai
na himat. Visariyai Na Hari Ko Nam.
Jahi
Vidhee Rakhiyai Rama Vahi Vidhee
Rahiyee."
The
English rendering said. "Have
courage and do not lose touch with God,
whatever role, he allots to you that you
must fulfill. He walked humbly with God
on the path that Destiny had shown him.
During his visits to the holy places like
Varanasi he bathed like a common man.
Without any hitch, he could sit down on
the floor with people and at times share
their food. He was common man's President
indeed.
His
devotion to duty was unparallel. Way back
in 1947, he could not attend the funeral
of his son's wife, because his presence
was required at Patna to curb communal
riots. He puts his grief aside and tried
to stop further killing of innocent
people. Similarly (Jan. 25, 1960) his
devoted sister, Bhagwati Devi, who has
been both a sister and mother to him
passed away. He sat near her death bed,
numb with grief. After a couple of hours,
the following day, on January 26 he went
to Janpath to take the Republic Day
Salute, Private grief gave way to public
duty. Returning at noon, he took the dead
body of his sister to the banks of the
river Jamuna in Delhi for the last rites
of cremation. In the evening, he was
present again for the "At Home"
hosted by him at Mughal Gardens. He
acknowledged greetings from
Vice-President Dr Radha Krishnan, PM
Jawaharlal Nehru and diplomats with a
smile.
After
completing two terms of the President, Dr
Rajendra Prasad moved to Patna in Sadaqat
Ashram. His last days were days of agony.
The Chinese aggression shattered him
completely. He had apprehended the
danger. He had thought of its
possibility. But "perhaps those who
thought otherwise knew were also shaken
away by the naked aggression. His will
was weakening. In a letter to one devoted
to him, he wrote a month before his
demise on February 28, 1963 with the word
Ram Ram on his lips. He said "I have
a feeling that the end is near end of the
energy to do, end of existence. It was
needed a very well served journey via
British Viceroy's Jail, Viceroy's own
Palace with Viceroy's own body-guards.
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Saint
of Goa
By
Predhuman K Joseph Dhar
These days
thousands are thronging to Goa
irrespective of caste, colour, creed,
sex, place of birth or religion to pay
obeisance to the relics of Saint Francis
Xavier which have been on exposition in
the Basilica of Bom Jesus, Old Goa, since
November 22,2004. Who is this great
Saint? Yes, the one who answered by his
actions the query of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ:"What does it profit a
man to gain the whole world, if he suffer
the loss of his own soul?"
This was
also the question that Ignatius Loyola,
the founder of the Order of Jesuits,
asked a young Lecturer of Philosophy in
the prestigious University of Paris. The
young Lecturer was Francis Xavier born in
Navarre (Spain) of rich and noble parents
in 1506. In addition he had good looks, a
good strong body, a good brain and a
charming personality. He went to the
famous University of Paris to study and
in hardly three years he found himself on
the teaching staff of the University. A
good athlete, with his warm, charming
personality he was soon one of the most
popular men in the university.
Then he
met Ignatius Loyola. Like Francis Xavier,
Ignatius was also a Spanish nobleman, in
fact an ex-army officer. While
convalescing after a wound he had met God
and underwent a complete change in life.
Now he was in the process of forming a
society of men who were completely
devoted to God and were willing to go
anywhere and do anything to serve God and
men, as God directed. This was to be now
well known Society of Jesus.
Francis
was only 24 when Ignatius posed the
question, referred to above, to him and
the question of his friend did not create
any waves in him. Life was too good, he
felt, and with all his advantages he had
the world at his feet. Why should he give
it up? For what? However the fact
remains: Mysterious are the ways of God.
After about 6 months, Francis accepted an
invitation by Ignatius and took part in
some spiritual lessons. In 1534, in a
place called Monmartra, Ignatius,
Francis, Peter, Faber and 3 others took
the vow of Chastity, Poverty and
Obedience and also pledged to serve in
any capacity the Pope thought fit.
In
1537,Xavier was ordained a priest in
Venice. After that he served Venice,
Bologna and Rome in different capacities.
When the King of Portugal needed good
priests to go to India, Francis Xavier
was the first volunteer. He was not
selected. One of those who were fell
ill…. and Xavier went. On April
7,1541 boarded a ship from Lisbon
travelling to India. He had the order
with him as the Apostolic Delegate of
India, but he kept the order with himself
and served as an ordinary priest under
the Portuguese Officers.
Life for
Francis was none too a bed of roses in
India. India was divided into a number of
little and bigger kingdoms. Petty
princes, struggling to preserve ancient
privileges, to realise ambitions, freedom
loving nobles hateful of Portuguese
encroachments; the rival maharajas of
Ceylon struggling for supremacy, all this
is a background over which our servant of
God walks, sometimes wearily, but always
constant in Faith, high on hope and rich
and deep in charity.
This
disunity was but one of many difficulties
with which Francis Xavier was to cope.
There was the physical danger of dacoits
resulting from the disunity, the danger
from wild animals and snakes, and
particularly the dreaded Python. The
rugged terrain, far more difficult than
his own Navarre back in Spain, offered no
mean obstacle, but it was the subtropical
climate that was his most severe physical
trial. His difficulties were often
increased by the behaviour of those who
should have helped him the most---the
Portuguese. They indulged in all sorts of
vice-prostitution, alcoholism and other
corrupt ways of life. Their behaviour was
enough for an average Indian. Portuguese
atrocities and Christianity were
inextricably interwoven. Francis had a
lot of unweaving to do. He severely came
down upon them for their debaucheries and
ungodly life, and so, instead of being
helped by them, he was constantly
troubled by them.
To counter
all this, Francis, first was physically
strong. Not all his sickness and
mortifications had undermined the
constitution, which made him in Paris.
Francis did much more than keep just
alive. Then he had to be physically
brave. However supernatural his motives,
there is no reason to doubt that this was
a natural trait. In all his adventures,
some were extremely risky, he never seems
to have entertained the slightest notion
of fear. He had immense moral courage: he
was not afraid of accusing his own
Portuguese ‘supporters’ or of
attacking with bitter pen the more
extraordinary outrages of some hostile
rajahs in whose territory he might happen
to be staying. extraordinary gifts won
South India for Francis but that which
Saint Paul, his predecessor, ranks above
all such extraordinary
gifts—CHARITY. It was his utter
selflessness, his complete identification
with the heart, if not mind, that won his
susceptible Indian hearers, that must
have won any hearers anywhere who were
not deliberately malicious. They saw in
his eyes, as he uttered his few words in
their language, a burning love, a love of
God and a love for them, that expressed
itself in his anxiety for them, for their
souls first, and then for their bodily
sufferings.
Francis
Xavier arrived in Goa on May 6,
1542.After presenting his credentials to
the Bishop lost no time in visiting the
hospital and three prisons of the city.
He looked after the sick and preached the
prisoners to abandon the sinful ways and
tread the path of righteousness and good
behaviour. But hours slaving for this
scum of humanity--- the offscouring of
all-did not detain him for other
activities. He preached, he catechised,
and with a sure instinct appealed to the
children. After attracting an audience by
ringing a bell down the streets, he sang
the lessons, which he had rhymed and made
the children sing them. For a singing
people this was the perfect way of
committing his words to their memory.
But Goa,
despite its prisoners and lazaretto,
could not contain Francis,El Devin
Impaciente(the divine impatient one-as he
was called). The Paravas—pearl
fishers on the coast of East of Cape
Comorin facing Ceylon—had been
baptised hurriedly by Franciscan and
secular priests. Left to their own
devices, they lapsed into non-Christian
ways. Would Francis go to reconvert them?
Francis would and did. This land was
indeed the unknown-wild, scorched,
devil-haunted, that had never heard of
Navarre or Lisbon or Paris or Rome.
These
Paravas were, in the minds of their
rulers, traitors to their country, so a
troop of horsemen descended from kingdom
further north to Harry them. Some were
taken slaves, others fled to a rocky
island nearby to die of hunger and
exposure. Quite interestingly, the
Portuguese representatives in the
district sold the horses on which these
raiders were mounted on to them. It says
much for the moral courage of Francis and
detachment that he could write
afterwards, openly attacking him:
"It would be better for the
Captain’s reputation if he concerned
himself more with Christians than with
trading horses to that personage."
Immediately
he took the sufferings of the Paravas on
himself. He organised resistance to the
raiders, wrote to the local king (a
friend of the Portuguese governor)
seeking for the protection of his
friends, arranged for a small armed
Portuguese ship to petrol the coast. He
started collection for alms, and himself
led the relief expedition to his poor
stranded Paravas.Here we see a different
Francis in crisis---the practical man of
action, cool-headed, prudent, brave and
one must admit, an excellent string
puller. Like Saint Paul, a completely
selfless man, he could be stern when
necessary.
Francis
Xavier worked very hard for 10 years in
three countries—India, Malacca and
Japan. He stayed with the poor and ate
their food. His diet consisted of rice
gruel, and flattened rice powder. He
spent his days in studies and preaching
and nights in praying. When he was given
spiritual joy, he would say: "LORD
ENOUGH!" But when he was confronted
with sorrows and crosses. he would say,
"MORE OF IT,LORD!MORE OF IT!"
Saint
Francis Xavier wanted to go to China from
Japan where he had been staying, but as
ill luck would have it, when he was in
the island of Sancian, 100 Km south west
of Honkong, he succumbed to Typhoid and
died peacefully there on December
2,1552.His body did not decay for a very
long time. Even now it is not decayed
significantly and is kept in the Basilica
of Infant Jesus in Old Goa.His feast is
celebrated on December 4 every year and
his body to exposed for general public
view every 10 years. Thousands of
pilgrims assemble on his feast day at Goa
to pay their prayerful respects to this
great saint of the Indies more
particularly of India.
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Civil-Military
relations
By Vinod Vedi
The reported
decision to setup a "military tribunal"
to adjudicate grievances of military personnel
could well prove to be a retrograde step in
civil-military relations if the intention is to
remove from civilian purview any arrangement for
an overview of military affairs.
Military
establishment has been making the demand for a
tribunal given the large number of cases of
personnel seeking redressal in civilian courts.
The most
celebrated is the recent judgement in the
promotions case in the Indian Air Force. It needs
to be understood at the outset that the gravamen
of the case was the objection to the use of
"discretionary marks" available to the
selection board.
This had already
been redressed during the pendency of the
hearings in this particular case and the
"discretionary marks" were reduced to 5
per cent from about 25 per cent at the time when
the plaintiffs were denied promotion.
"Discretionary
marks" have had a destructive and disruptive
effect on the fabric of the Indian Air Force
(IAF) since the mid 70s when the top brass
decided to do some "deep selection"
through the use of discretionary marks.
This led to
turmoil then within the ranks of the IAF. Later
the apparent disparity between pilots and
technical staff in pay and allowances sparked off
unseemly demonstrations.
These are
essentially man-management issues and the armed
forces chaff at the fact that many of those
affected by adverse administrative decisions in
promotions and postings have taken recourse to
civil courts for redressal.
The other aspect
is indiscipline, criminal and human rights
issues. In recent times, particularly in the last
three years, there have been exposes about
corruption (the Tehelka tapes) in the military;
fake encounters in as distant and separated
places as Siachen glacier and Silchar (north-east
India) indicate that the malaise is more
deep-seated than is being acknowledged; human
rights issues also in the north-east and in Jammu
and Kashmir have tended to destroy the framework
for counter-insurgency operations and have given
the nation a bad name; and the failure to
pinpoint responsibility for the Kargil fiasco
which gives the impression that military
personnel can get away with anything.
There is need to
make a clear distinction between "service
interest" and "national interest"
and suppression of aberrations in the former
cannot always be done by the touchstone of
"national interests".
For example, it
does not serve national interest to appear to
cover up what happened in Manipur or the
despicable act at Handwara in Jammu and Kashmir
or demand that the media "lay off".
In a democracy,
the executive, the judiciary, and the media are
pillars that need to be preserved against any
attempt by the one or the other to dominate or
undermine the others. If such a tendency is
allowed to gain ground then the alternative is
praetorianism of the kind that has plagued some
of our neighbours at different times of their
history.
India has
witnessed a clash between the civil and the
military in the infamous episode of the
Curzon-Kitchner conflict in pre-independence
times in which the Commander-in-Chief prevailed
over the Governor-General through machinations in
Whitehall in London thereby dealing a blow to
civil-military relations.
Post independence,
India opted for the supremacy of the civil over
the military. In military minds this has come to
mean the bureaucracy being in pre-eminent
position because of its proximity to the
political class.
In an attempt to
rectify this there has, in the past five years,
been an effort to integrate the military
headquarters with the Ministry of Defence. The
raison d'etre given is that it would improve
national security. …This could not be done
without a clear enunciation of the role and
responsibilities of the Defence Secretary (a
civilian post) in the new dispensation so the
Government of the day decided to upgrade the post
to that of Principal Secretary but recent events
point to the possibility that the post has been
undermined by military insistence that certain
activities like promotions remain strictly within
the ambit of military headquarters.
The Defence
Secretary has been put in a position where he
rubber stamps what the military insists is within
its private domain. Over the years the other
pillar of democracy in India, the media, has also
been undermined by blatant demands that it
"lay off" in their reportage of
aberrations with the military establishment.
It has been made
to appear that reportage of such aberrations is
against the national interest. It is in this
context that demands for "military
tribunal" to adjudicate problems that arise
out of military man-management is an attempt to
draw an iron curtain and keep things out of
public view as they would if there are brought
before civil courts.
In an attempt to
prove transparency, media was allowed to cover
the court-martial proceedings of the person who
was charged with faking the encounters in
Siachen. This does not really satisfy the need to
prove transparency to its own cadres within the
military particularly in promotions and postings.
There is something
radically wrong if armed forces personnel need to
take recourse to judicial redress either through
the "normal channels" which leads all
the way to the President of India who is the
Supreme Commander of the armed forces or through
civil courts.
This is indicative
that transparency is inadequate in the internal
working of the armed forces. In this milieu, a
"military tribunal" could well turn out
to be nothing better than a court martial in new
camouflage.
If anything, there
can be no better assurance of rectitude within
the military establishment than the possibility
that actions within it can come within the
purview of the public domain. This is
particularly true in the case of the fake
encounters in Siachen.
An affidavit in a
civil court gave the media an opportunity to dig
deeper into the case and frequent revelations in
the media forced the military headquarters to opt
for media coverage of the court martial
proceedings against those charged with faking the
encounters.
The episode
underscores the fact that military establishments
would prefer to keep matters outside the public
gaze on the ground that such exposure would
undermine military morale and this be
counter-productive to national interest.
On the contrary,
public scrutiny can be a catharsis and a catalyst
for improvement in military procedures as the
issue of "discretionary marks" in
promotions has proved.
They were reduced
to five per cent only because of the frequent
resort to civil courts for redressal and the role
of the media in exposing the kind of rot that
took nearly a quarter of a century to rectify
since it was first discovered and reported by the
media when top brass decided to resort to
"deep selection" to supposedly improve
the quality of those who are in the officer
classes.
Fake encounters
prove that the system in place is fatally flawed
and it brings the nation to shame when officers
need to resort to such tactics to improve their
promotion prospects.
It cannot also be
gain said that the military headquarters were not
even aware (or willing to put in place
procedures) that would identify corruption and
root it out before national interests are damaged
by scandals and scams like Bofors or find on its
own those who fell foul with Tahelka.
What needs to be
in place is an institution that would be both
pre-emptive and palliative. It may be described
as "military tribunal" but it would be
most efficacious only when there are no in-built
locks and barriers to prevent scrutiny by the
public which pays for the military budget.
Already much
damage has been done to the body politic by
attempts to undermine such constitutional
institutions like the Comptroller and Auditor
General and the Central Vigilance Commissioner
(CVC). It may well be more appropriate to give
these two institutions more powers to oversee
military procedures in real time instead of the
dozens of years after the events as is the case
now. (Syndicate Features)
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Use
the surplus for essential investments
By Sisir Basu
One of the
positive aspects of India’s macro-economic
landscape post-reforms has been the dramatic
improvement in the external account. Economic
policy-makers used to proudly announce that
India’s forex reserves have crossed $100
billion. These have now crossed $120 billion.
It is another
matter that these reserves, which are kept
invested in debt and equity of developed
countries, yield low returns compared to the
marginal cost of raising loans abroad, which our
corporate even now indulge in, as also the cost
of our NRI deposits.
It is also worth
remarking that we are not alone in the abundance
of reserves. Many other Asian countries have, in
the wake of globalisation, come to possess
significantly large reserves. Japan with its more
than $550 billion, China with $514 billion, South
Korea with $174 billion, and Taiwan with $174
billion are ahead of us.
That does not, of
course, diminish the sense of achievement of our
policy-makers, who have succeeded in unshackling
India from the constraints of foreign exchange
shortage, which had been with us for almost five
decades since independence.
It is indeed, a
remarkable achievement of our economic reforms,
in that as a result of the reforms India has been
able to plan its moves forward without fearing a
forex squeeze, which was a feature of our economy
till recently.
Doubts have been
raised about whether this development is too good
to last, assuming that it is a
"blessing", albeit in disguise. Certain
fears centre round the volatile nature of the
sources of this bulge in our forex reserves.
The foreign
institutional investors’ contribution to the
reserves is around $32 billion. Whether FII
investments are fair-weather friends and will
exit the moment a crisis hits India has not been
tested as yet. But considering the size of this
source of our reserves, I feel the magnitude of
reserves is not too high.
Foreign direct
investment, which contributes nearly $30 billion
to the total reserves, is inherently less
volatile than foreign portfolio investment. By
its very nature, it cannot move out easily. By
the same token, it is difficult to acquire.
Recently, India
has – fortunately, in the views of most
observers – developed into a hospitable
destination for foreign direct investment. We can
expect it to contribute more to our rising
reserves and incidentally lead to a win-lose
situation in respect of overall returns. This is
because FDI normally gets a return of above
domestic (India) market rates of interest to the
investor, which is a debit to the country’s
account.
But the forex
reserves are invested at rates of return that are
well below these rates. This is a paradox, which
seems inherent in our current abundance of riches
unless we unlock the dilemma by increased
imports, either to upgrade industries
technologically or improve infrastructure, or
both. But that takes us to other macroeconomic
issues, which require to be dealt with
separately.
Among the
contributors to our strong balance of payments,
the most prominent item is the rising inflow on
account of invisible. A recent issue of the RBI
Bulletin (October 2004) has invited some
attention in this regard, especially as it
presents data relating to the various items in
regard to invisible from 2000-2001 to 2003-2004.
True, these
figures had also been covered in RBI’s
latest annual report, but the figures in the
October bulletin have, for some reason, excited
more interest to various observers.
A Table in the
RBI’s bulletin (page S919) shows that the
net receipts under invisible has risen from $9.7
billion in 2000-2002 to $26 billion in 2003-04.
The growth under this head as a whole has been
particularly sharp in the recent period.
The increase in
total "invisible’ receipts in the three
year period 2000-2001 to 2003-04 is, indeed,
remarkable. These receipts have been from $32.5
billion to $52.98 billion. More important, the
net receipts under invisible have gone up from
$9.7 billion to $26.7 billion – a rise of
nearly 300 per cent – or an average of 100
per cent per year.
The principal
components of this dramatic jump are, of course,
remittances from our non-resident Diaspora –
growing from $13.3 billion in 2000-2001 to $23.2
billion in 2003-04 – an increase of nearly
$10 billion in three years.
Equally, the
software sector has seen net inflows burgeoning
from $5.8 billion in 2000-01 to $11.7 billion in
2003-04 – a leap of nearly 100 per cent.
The figures of
gross receipts under software are, however, only
around $12 billion – well below what is
estimated by sources such as Naascom. This
requires reconciliation.
The tourism sector
– while showing signs of expansion –
has registered only marginal changes in net
receipts, which stand at $0.6 to $0.7 billion.
The net receipts
of forex earnings under the head
"Transportation" have shown a rise in
the three-year period from a negative figure of -
$1.5 billion in 2000-01 to a positive inflow of
$2.5 billion in 2003-04. This must reflect the
increase in shipping earnings as well as better
outturns in our ports.
The healthy
situation on the forex reserve front also depends
on the continuing good trends in invisible.
Besides this, it is bolstered by the continuing
inflows on NRI deposits, FDI and FII. The
fluctuations in respect of investment income need
to be carefully analysed. They reflect the
interest and dividend paid out as well as the
returns on our reserves.
A detailed
analysis may bring out the paradox of our
abundance. But policy-makers may have to think
hard about choices in respect of the various
increments to reserves, except perhaps FDI, which
has spillover effects in technology, productivity
and market access policy.
They would have to
factor in the high incremental costs of reserves,
resulting from attracting FII investments and NRI
deposits. Whether policy will turn out to be
flexible enough to stem the inflows under these
heads depends on how seriously the Government and
the RBI view the quasi-fiscal costs of increasing
reserves. It is true, however, that the structure
of India’s BoP gives the lie to the
impression that it is built up mainly out of FII,
FDI and NRI deposits. At least in the recent
period, it has been the surpluses contributed by
invisibles, remaining after financing the balance
of trade deflict.
This gives reason
to hope that there is space for planning a foray
into using the forex reserves for essential
investments, particularly for infrastructure. The
more attractive the infrastructure, the greater
the inflow of FDI and FII and consequent addition
to forex reserves. Such a virtuous cycle is
indeed a consummation devoutly to be wished for.
INAV
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