Daily Excelsior... Editorial

EDITORIAL

Perverted view

Chinese glasnost

RSS' blue-eyed boy,
now a bad boy

By Kedar Nath Pandey

Hurdles in E-metering

By Vikram Gour

Plebiscite not possible

By A. N. Bhardwaj

EDITORIAL

Perverted view

It is unfortunate that despite the fact that there are hardly any secrets left about the prevailing situation a section of media across the Line of Control continues to present an unbalanced picture of the happenings on this side. According to it the children in the Valley especially have been severely affected by psychiatric problems because of "violence" let loose by the "military". It has also given highly inflated figures of those undergoing treatment in hospitals. This is utterly absurd. Such motivated bits of information have the potential of upsetting the present bonhomie. There is need, therefore, to put the entire scenario in correct perspective. It is nobody’s case that innocent citizens have not been caught in crossfire between the security forces and the militants. There have been instances of human rights violations as well in which a few officials and jawans were involved. Concerned authorities and human rights commissions have taken prompt punitive action against them. It can’t be denied. What has to be remembered is that the Army and para-military forces were not the first to open fire. They were called upon to intervene in order to foil a proxy war, which had its genesis clearly in Muzaffarabad (does this not sound ironic?) with trigger being pulled from Islamabad in the name of "moral and diplomatic support". An important question that has yet to be fully answered is: who had killed some of the distinguished sons of the soil like Maulana Masoodi, Mirwaiz Farooq and Abdul Ghani Lone among a host of National Conference and other mainstream leaders and workers who felt honour bound to act according to their convictions? At whose behest were these shocking assassinations carried out? How can they be justified by any stretch of imagination?

As journalists of the State know from their personal experience not many in "Azad" Kashmir, as the occupied territory across the LoC is known, and Pakistan even are sufficiently aware of the background of the leaders of this region. How will they understand the agony of their relatives and followers? The militants — sadly including a few local boys who have taken plenty of time to realise that they have been taken for a ride by forces basically unsympathetic to them — have carried out senseless killings, caused communal tension and also indulged in the most blasphemous act of kidnapping of women which shocked the whole world including the parts swearing by the noble religion of Islam. It is not for nothing that top militant ideologues have been perturbed by the phenomenon of young "killers" waking up in the middle of night in jails and crying about the fate of their victims and families. It is in this vicious tussle of the gun that the ordinary women and children in particular have also been affected. There have been several cases of neurological disorders which are confirmed by the emergence of a large number of clinics in major towns. It is again because of violence that parents prefer to send their children for studies in educational institutions in the national capital and other cities.

To paint a lop-sided image will not serve any purpose. Those doing it are serving the cause of bedlam and bloodshed. It is in everybody’s interest that they drop their perverted perception without delay.

Chinese glasnost

Can any country hold death toll in its natural disasters a secret even if they are of massive magnitude? Yes, if its name is China. The country had passed a regulation in 2000 defining the number of casualties in natural calamities "a state secret". In practice, however, it was following this principle even before that. On July 28, 1976, for instance, it had witnessed a devastating earthquake in Hebei province. However, it released the report of as many as 240000 persons perishing in it only three years later. The reason why China has been secretive was that its ruling Communist Party calculated that exposing death figures could besmirch its reputation. However, the Chinese have apparently realised that in the present age and time with the growing popularity of Internet and other means of communication it will no longer be possible to put a tight lid on such happenings. Information travels faster in the world today than ever before and if it is not properly and correctly given there is every chance that it is replaced by utter confusion. The country has decided to publicise its death figures in accordance with the shared international practice. Interestingly, China has a full-fledged organisation actually named as the National Administration for the Protection of State Secrets which is stated to have veered around to the opinion that "keeping secrets is a way to ensure state security, but information publicity is another way to achieve the same end". Good for China, one will say. It is evident that the break-up of the Soviet Union, another Communist bastion, and the need for uplifting the condition of the poor people have persuaded China to open up on more than one front. It has already granted limited property rights to individuals — something flying in the face of the basic Communist philosophy — and allowed international players to assist in its market expansion. The latest Chinese concern is the growing income gap in the country with ten percent of the nation’s richest people enjoying 45 percent of the country’s wealth while the poorest 10 per cent having only 1.4 per cent share in it. In this context it may be noted that a recent United Nations study has cautioned both China and India in this behalf. Urban incomes are growing nearly twice as fast as rural incomes.

Arguably, the economic scenario may not be significantly different in India. However, it needs to be said that one is not indulging in any comparison. Our effort is to merely suggest that China must find the correct remedy. Experts have predicted serious social instability in China by 2010. If the Western expressions "iron curtain" or "bamboo curtain" still have some political relevance after the end of the Cold War it is just because of the bigger giant in our neighbourhood. The erstwhile Soviet Union was the reason that had provoked its opponents from Allan Dulles, Joseph Goebbels to Winston Churchill in the forties to dust off the 1914 metaphor of "iron curtain" with the purpose of describing the countries which were in the grip of the Soviet influence and had shut their doors on everybody else. It no more holds good. Why should China too not disregard the tag? There is no half way between secrecy and glasnost.

RSS' blue-eyed boy, now a bad boy

By Kedar Nath Pandey

How times change? Within the Sangh Parivar, Atal Behari Vajapyee was always considered an outsider while LK Advani one of their own and projected among the RSS adherents as an ideal swaymsewak. The perception was reinforced after Advani commandeered the now-famous Somnath-to-Ayodhya Rath Yatra in 1990 to steer the BJP, and the larger parivar, towards centre stage of Indian polity. After Mr. Vajpayee became the prime minister for the second time in 1998, it was he who had to bear the brunt of the RSS and its affiliates for taking the party away from its core ideological beliefs.

Advani was spared the tongue-lashing. In fact, he acted as the interlocutor between the Sangh Parivar and the government when relations between the two sides came under a strain. It was, thus, ironical that Advani, forced by the RSS to announce his exit-plan in the wake of the Jinnah controversy, would seek to express his indignation by making a bid to drive the party away from the Swayamsevak Sangh orbit. Advani’s anti-RSS outburst, therefore, was more a reflection of his sense of hurt and pique than anything else. It is likely to find few takers, as was evident by the reaction of his party colleagues after he went public with his departure plans.

There were no emotional outpourings of grief. He was as isolated in his own party as he was after his return from Islamabad in June this year. Advani would like to trigger a churning process within the BJP on its ties with the RSS, but, by sticking to the exit-plan prepared in consultation with the Nagpur establishment, he has given an important clue on who is the actual boss.

If there’s genesis to a start, then it all began in Bangalore six years ago. The BJP was holding its national executive meeting in the southern city, and the battle lines between the BJP and the RSS were being quietly drawn. It was at one fractious meeting between the two groups - and many more were to follow in the years to come - that LK Advani spoke about the need for ideological changes.

We must move with the times, Advani suggested to a group of adamant RSS men. Just look at how the communists have changed, he stressed. "The communists did a shirshasana (headstand)," one of the older RSS leaders scoffed. "Do you want us to do that as well?" Advani - then still an RSS favourite - wouldn’t cede ground either. "Ideology needs to be dynamic," he said.

Six year on - and before yet another national executive in Chennai - the debate continued. Instead, what was earlier a matter that was quietly discussed behind closed doors became an unending soap. Just when an episode seems to be moving towards a conclusion, a new development broke out, ensuring continuing debate. For the RSS, things could never have been this bad. The organisation, known to work behind the scenes, is now involved in what seems like a free-for-all street brawl. The fight was between the RSS and Advani and neither side seemed ready to fall into line. The RSS wanted Advani out as party president and a new, younger leadership to take up the reins of the BJP. And used as it had always been to dictating terms to the BJP, the RSS didn’t quite know how to deal with a stubborn Advani who had been refusing to toe its line. The edifice of the Sangh Parivar is based on trust - and in Advani’s case, that was lost.

Trust, clearly, is something of a rare commodity in the Sangh Parivar today. For long years, the RSS had problems trusting former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, but had a comfortable relationship with Advani. The RSS chief KS Sudarshan’s lack of trust in Advani - and vice-versa - threatend to rock the group. At the crux of it all was the RSS’s intention of making the BJP - seen to be dangerously straying - return to the RSS fold. And this was not a feeling that started with Karachi. It had been there for six years.

Karachi (where Advani spoke about MA Jinnah) - both the RSS and BJP admit - was merely a flashpoint. Karachi was just a pretext to corner Advani. But the RSS is convinced that Karachi was the trigger as well. His behaviour on Pakistani soil was deplorable because for 40-years, no Indian leader had betrayed the nation on foreign soil.

One of the problems, clearly, is that of age. Sudarshan’s predecessor, Rajju Bhaiyya, was an old RSS hand who had a relationship of mutual trust with Advani. But there is no love lost between Advani and Sudarshan, who took over the RSS in 2000. And curiously, it is the RSS - perceived for long years as an organisation run by geriatrics - that is stressing the need for young blood in the BJP. The RSS points out that within the organisation, similar changes have already been put into effect. There are 38 provinces in the RSS and the praanth pracharaks are like CEO’s. They are all between 40 and 45. Even at the top, the leaders are relatively young. Mohan Bhagwat is 53, Suresh Soni less than 60 and Madan Das Devi a little over 60. On the other hand, by the time elections are held as scheduled in 2009. Advani will be 83 and Vajpayee 87.

The party, the RSS hints, is bigger than the individual. The NDA lost power, it argues, because the BJP moved away from the RSS. And Advani’s decision not to resign - despite being asked to do so by the RSS - was a sign, it believed, of the turn the party had taken. The RSS is for ideology and idealism-driven politics, not power-driven alone.

There were other troublesome issues as well. The Swadeshi Jagran Manch, an economic wing of the RSS, was a bitter critic of the NDA government’s policy of economic reforms. The RSS was sceptical of the government’s changing equation with Pakistan. And it saw in Advani an ineffectual home minister who refused to toe the hard line on issues such as Kashmir.

Other minor irritants cropped up from time to time. Old RSS men, used to summoning the BJP to its headquarters in Nagpur, or at the Delhi office in Jhandewalan, suddenly found themselves waiting in reception rooms at the prime minister’s office or residence. The RSS suggested that every BJP minister keep an RSS man as an officer-on-special duty for easy communication between the RSS and the BJP. Few complied. Put together, these small irritants became a big issue.

For the RSS, it was a make-or-break situation. There was a serious rethink within the RSS on whether it should continue its relations with the BJP or not because the feeling was that the purpose for which the Jan Sangh was formed had been defeated,. The RSS was also discussing the option of pulling out its 25 pracharaks loaned to the BJP.

There was a section within the RSS which even thought that the RSS support-base could be transferred. There was a strong base of nationalist-minded Hindus all over the country. They will not vote for anyone whom the RSS rejects.

Not many believed that the situation would reach such a flash point, but the battle for supremacy continued. The RSS wanted, and succeeded in getting its pound of flesh as Advani was forced to announce his retirement as the BJP president by December end. INAV

Hurdles in E-metering

By Vikram Gour

Every day that passes makes the power situation worse than the day before, not only in our state but in the entire country. The recent controversy in the capital of the country over the power tariff, the erratic E-metering added to the power scarcity compelled the public to come out in the streets against the 10% rise in the power rates. The entire public of Delhi was up in arms against the State. The public cry against fast running of energy meters installed by the private supply companies was found to be justified and increased power tariff was withdrawn under the public pressure.

But still the anomaly in the supply system and the burden of misuse and theft of electricity on the genuine consumer for which he is being made to pay continues to be the major hurdle in the improvement of the power supply in the national capital. And unless the power supply is not disconnected from the politics as a vote-catching device and run purely on commercial lines the public will keep facing the difficulties.

The power position in our state is no better today. The public is facing 5-7 hours of shut down every day along with additional power cuts because of any small disturbance of weather or system failure. The scheduled power cut is because of the overloading of the system because of unchecked and unmetered supply as also large scale theft of electricity. Unscheduled power cuts are due to heavily overloaded, unhealthy and extremely poor condition of the distribution network.

The PDD these days is supposed to be busy in installing E-meters to regulate the power supply and make the genuine users pay for whatever they consume (although unmetered consumers and those committing theft by unauthorized hooking of lines are free to consume as much as they like). The exercise of metering was started long time back but the progress is not up to the mark because of many inherent problems. Some of the problems are :-

* Reluctance of the field staff

* Reluctance of the unscrupulous consumers

* Non-availability of the meters.

* Non-availability of the technicians for installing meters.

* People doubt the accuracy of the E-meters

* Reluctance of the concerned including the political authority to eliminate hundred % theft of electricity.

A sizeable number of field staff connected with metering and billing the consumers is not very keen to meter all the installations. They have a tendency to hamper the progress of installation of meters and their effort is to delay the meter installation as much as possible. Also because of paucity of the staff some of the officials have to do double duty in addition to their existing duty of maintenance of power supply without any added remunerations and they, therefore, are not very keen to speed up the work.

In spite of the fact that the installation of meters would add tremendously to the revenue of the department, the authorities have fixed no incentive based target of metering for their field staff.

Hence there is no effort on the part of the concerned staff to speed up the work. In some areas where the consumers are enjoying unrestricted unmetered supply of electricity they always coin some reason or the other to delay the installation of meters. At times they seek the help of even their MLAs or Counsellors to influence the officer concerned. The politicians are readily available for this cheap popularity. People sometimes even take the help of the 'regional discrimination slogan'.

The E-meters are not available in sufficient quantity. The quantity that was available has already been almost exhausted and the fresh orders for supply of meters are still awaited. With what ever quantity is available the target date of 100% metering by March, 2006 is not possible.

Although, the PDD has engaged some self-help groups for installation of meters, the number of groups is not sufficient and the progress of work is also not satisfactory.

Those of the official line staff members who have been assigned the work of metering do not get sufficient time for metering work because of their preoccupation with maintenance works. Therefore the PDD shall have to think of engaging additional hands to complete the metering work within the targeted date without which the whole exercise will be futile.

After the accuracy of E-meters doubt raised in Delhi by the consumers and found to be correct the people in Jammu too have started doubting the authenticity of the meter reading indicated by the meters installed. As it is, the reading recorded by these E-meters is much higher than the reading recorded by meters installed earlier.

The PDD also has not revealed to the consumers whether these meters have been tested in their laboratory as was being done earlier by the department. Until the introduction of E-meters each meter installed by the PDD or by the consumer privately was duly tested in the meter testing laboratory of the Department and certificate given to the consumer but nothing of type is being done now. And if one sees the condition of E-meters stored like potatoes by the PDD one is tempted to believe that even the departmental staff is not serious about accuracy of the meters and is treating the whole metering affair very casually.

Since 100% metering also includes completely doing away with the theft of electricity in all forms some of the connected staff like line men, meter readers, inspectors and the like are not willingly participating in the metering process. One can still see large number of illegal connections and direct hooking of the lines in the congested mohallas in the old city. I remember having seen the line staff of Gujjar Nagar and adjoining areas complaining to the higher officers that they are not being given any protection while disconnecting the illegal connections. And the people openly immediately reconnect their lines after these are disconnected.

The staff complained unless complete security cover is provided they will not venture into mohallas for checking. 'Over 50% of the connections in such areas are illegal not to talk of metering' they said. Even the higher authorities including political bosses turn their faces aside when the question of disconnecting illegal connections of influential people is brought up before them.

Thickly populated areas of Jammu city like old Jammu, Janipura area, Talabtillo and Bori area, all are yet to see the E-metering started.

These are the areas where the electricity consumption is maximum and that too without any kind of metering. Unless the misuse and theft of electricity is completely stopped no improvement in the power supply is possible. The Government shall have to come out with fresh and new ideas to set the whole system on right track.

To begin with it will be worth while if the whole process of improvement of the Power System is entrusted to some nationally reputed Power Systems Consultant Company who should advise the Government of J&K on how to set our house in order.

This will not only help the state in saving hundreds of crores of rupees but will also improve our Power system tremendously to the entire benefit to the people of our otherwise beggar state.

Creating unplanned and unwanted infrastructure in the name of improving power system just to spend the available funds from various quarters both at the national as well as international level will lead us no where.

The people at the helm of affairs both political as well as professional should keep only one thing in mind that it is only the healthy and efficient power system on which the development of the entire state in all other sectors depends.

Plebiscite not possible

By A. N. Bhardwaj

Plebiscite is not possible in J&K State in the present scenario. Pakistan is mis-leading the world that the State is a disputed territory where people are waging a war for the rights of self-determination and is an up-holder of human rights. Therefore, they are morally bound and under obligation to support their movement. The Pak-elite are of the opinion to decide the issue of the State through plebiscite, which was already been rejected long ago by the world opinion, especially by the US State Department which expressed ironically that 'some self-determination movements have very un-democratic aims such as creation of homogeneous mono-ethnic State."

Pak-supporters and separatists are well aware that self-determination is applied only to those people who lead their lives under slavery i.e. under domination of colonial rule. Any demand or movement or compaign or protest which dismembers or impairs the nation and territorial integrity of its sovereign State conducting themselves in compliance with the principle of equal rights and self-determination of people and thus process of a Government representing the whole people belonging to the territory with out distinction of any kind cannot be concerned to and the Kashmiris do not qualify the demand for secession. They are a part of the nation of India who cannot be alienated merely on the ground of religion. How long the partition and further partition process will continued. The consequences of the partition of India were horrible and heart-breaking. There will not be now further partition in any way. There are more than 140 minority groups in the world over which desire to depart from the main stream. No country of the world will allowed its minority to disregard the status of the nations and to delimit its territories.

This is the principles under which the world order is based. These countries have a representative democratic Government chosen through a legitimate political process. They have no right to raise their voice whimsically on their own. Once Sir Dixon and Josef Korhel UN Committee on India & Pakistan told that mere technicality of holding plebiscite seemed beyond the scope of reality. They further said that they were discouraged by the experience in Europe with plebiscites which turned into mere instruments of propaganda, pressure and classification. Apart from it, the UN Secretary General Kofi Annon had also expressed his view regarding resolutions passed by it, of being useless in the present scenario. His opinion was quite weighty.

The Pak-proxy Ali Shah Geelani advocate merging of the State with Pakistan on religious basis while the issue has already been settled but on the other hand PoK-leaders Sardar Ibrahim Khan disclosed that from 13th August to 22nd October 1947, the State had remained Independent. Afterwards, the State was invaded by Pakistan. He lambasted that what is the guarantee that we may not be victims of a similar aggression in the future.Thus he resented about their attitude about not being a responsible nation. Harping on Kashmir all the times which is its misleading propaganda just to confuse the international community is based on very filmsy grounds. The facts of the history cannot be ignored. In fact the Maharaja of the State signed the Instrument of Accession in favour of India under Indian Independence Act, which cannot be questioned. Thereafter, the State elected Legislative Assembly headed by Sheikh Mohd. Abdullah supported and endorsed his decision. But soon after the partition of British India, Pakistan invaded Kashmir, a part of the Indian union to grab it through military might by violating International Law. India referred the Pak-aggression to the UNO only to bring the matter to unnotice about committing the invasion and asked to get the territory of the State vacated occupied illegally and not went there for any dispute or to decide title. Thus Pakistan has no right to interfere in the domestic affairs of the sovereign country either through plebiscite, self-determination or any reference etc. It was conditional, Pakistan violated it and did not pay any heed to the UN resolutions as well as Simla agreement and started hue and cry for these resolutions by ignoring and by-passing all related conditions. Besides, far from being exploited, the political and other rights of the Kashmiri people are more than the other people of the country. These are being protected through Article 370-of the Indian Constitution which accords a special political status to the State.