EDITORIAL
Let tempers cool
It is time to let tempers
cool. The one-man judicial commission consisting of
Justice (retd) K.K. Gupta has given its verdict on
alleged tempering of the Shiva Lingam in the Amarnath
cave. It has found no evidence in this behalf. Instead,
it has given a clean chit to the Shri Amarnathji Shrine
Board (SASB). Very clearly it has come to the conclusion:
"We see no hand of any official of the Shrine Board
in formation of the snow Shiva Lingam or tampering of the
natural ice Shiva Lingam, which in fact had not been
tampered during the yatra period announced by
SASB. No tampering of any nature with the holy Shiva
Lingam took place." There was hue and cry all over
the country following newspaper reports that artificial
Lingam had replaced the natural one. This was
understandable because the millions worship the Lingam.
Lakhs every year undertake a tough journey to pay
obeisance to it. It was alleged that the Board had
actually procured ice worth lakhs of rupees for the
purpose. The Commission has put the record straight. It
has observed on the basis of expert opinion that these
reports were based on "misconception because of
ignorance about the term dry ice." The dry ice that
was purchased was worth Rs 85248. It was brought from the
national capital to keep the area cool and not for
forming unnatural Lingam. Therefore, the Commission has
described as "absurd" the propaganda that money
was wasted on dry ice even though plenty of such ice was
available in the nearby glaciers. It has thus clearly
underlined that the purposes of the material obtained
from markets and that available in plenty on the high
mountains are entirely different. The Commission has
appreciated the anxiety shown by the SASB in
"protecting and prolonging" the life the
Lingam. The Shrine Board was moved by the concern that
the natural formation might melt because of global heat.
There were many proposals before it including the one for
installing a transparent Lingam inside the holy cave. It
wants the Board to continue with its efforts to find a
permanent solution. For, there are threats of rise in
temperature inside the shrine because of global warming
as well as large gathering of devotees. The cave has to
be kept cool for ensuring the survival of the Lingam for
longer duration. It must be done by keeping the people
informed through various means. The Commission has
suggested leading Hindu religions personalities should
also be involved to nip any hullabaloo in the bud.
It is to be noted that the
Commission has not ruled out the piling of snow at the
place where the Lingam originates in natural form. This
may have been done by the Pandits of Mattan or Ganeshpura
before the start of the yatra. But it has made it
abundantly clear that nothing like this has happened
during the period of the official pilgrimage when
"divine powers" had intervened "for
creation of the Lingam." The timing is important in
this behalf. It is because all the disturbing noises
related to the official yatra phase when the SASB
and other authorities swing into top action to ensure a
smooth and successful journey for people coming from all
over the country. In the Commission's opinion, the storms
like this were raised to "sabotage the yatra
and malign the image of the SASB." It has struck a
note of warning for misinformed or motivated protesters:
"We would only like to remark that India is a
democratic country and everybody has the right as
permitted by our Constitution to raise any type of
controversy but at the same time we put a note of caution
here that divine and religious matters are not within the
scope of mischievous and misguided elements whosoever
they may be."
With this background in
view it is necessary to let the Lingam dispute melt. One
lesson that can be drawn from the Commission's findings
is that unsubstantiated allegations must be avoided at
all costs. These have inflammatory impact. In the
meantime, the SASB should seriously examine 11
recommendations made by the Commission for ushering in
improvement in the management of the yatra. These
include inter alia waving of langar fee; insurance
of pithoos, ponies, palkiwallahs and
labourers registered with the Labour Department at
Pahalgam and Baltal; relocation of the helipad and
printing and publishing of a magazine on religious
matters pertaining to Shiva. It has found no merit in
insinuations that the SASB is functioning as a commercial
organisation without caring for the welfare of pilgrims.
One hopes that in such sensitive issues touching upon
faith everyone is extremely careful. Nothing should be
said or done that is not based on a hundred per cent
credible information. Any laxity in this regard has the
effect of inflicting avoidable hurt.
Be careful
The other day an employee
of the Jammu and Kashmir Bank desperately approached his
senior for leave in his branch in the national capital.
The reason was that back home in Bishnah he had got a
recovery notice from the State Financial Corporation
(SFC) for a loan he had not taken. He was worried more
about his reputation than anything else. His senior
colleague tried to help him with his contacts in Jammu so
that he did not have to stay away longer than necessary.
What happened finally is not known but the incident comes
to mind following a report in this newspaper about Rs
one-crore scam unearthed by the Central Bureau of
Investigation. Much to their shock several persons had
received notices from the Central Bank of India for
returning money they had not taken. On inquiries with the
Bank they learnt that their names had been misused. Loans
had indeed been drawn against the property they were
supposed to have bought in Paloura at the outskirts of
this city. But they were not the beneficiaries. Out of
desperation they approached the CBI which has found out
that the person who had sold plots to them was the main
culprit. The accused would keep the papers with him after
selling pieces of land on the pretext of securing housing
loans. He would use these documents to get finances that
he would share as booty with two bank officers and an
evaluator all of whom connived to perpetuate the fraud.
The CBI will no doubt carry its probe to the logical end.
In the meantime one and all should learn to be careful in
their dealings. It is better to go by actual record than
by trust in issues involving "zar"
(wealth) and "zamin" (land).
Beyond merit
and quota
By Suresh
Babu
The very base in
which we target to alleviate the
discrimination through
implementing affirmative action
policies have been questioned at
different levels in our times
overlooking its wider impact on
creating social capital among the
underprivileged and above all the
changing character of different
subsystems of Indian social
structure driven by caste system
over the years. What was
projected by the media instead
was along with other related
binary pictures contributed to
the increase of violence,
tensions and hostilities between
groups and has further reinforced
to bring forth caste identities
in social and political life. The
entire episode of Mandal
agitation and recent protest by
Medicose against reservation to
OBCs in higher education
institutions is testimony in this
regard which divert the psychic
of the Indians, who claimed to be
citizens of the largest and ideal
democratic tradition in the
world.
An argument for
continuing and extending quota
system for the under privileged
sections in society is a valid
argument while one sees at the
way in which this serious issue
has been handled carelessly. This
could be visible when we look at
the perpetual socio-structural
fragmentation of the
underprivileged, albeit they were
guaranteed special provision
enshrined in the constitution. In
other words, the discourse of
affirmative action in India at
the ground level was a bizarre.
It was a result of the fact that
neither bureaucrats nor
politicians wanted to implement
these policies effectively. On
this backdrop, it is imperative
to note that the politics of
affirmative action which debunk
the whole conceptualization of
the sociological intricacies on
the landscape of Indian social
structure. In precise the same
issues is impinging us repeatedly
and gave birth to new discourses
at the public sphere and led
discontent for those who were
again the victims of loading a
label of scheduled categories
without marking any remarkable
change by the so called
affirmative action programs
during the course of time.
Those who object the
affirmative action, argue that it
will bring down quality at one
level and perpetuate huge divide
between different caste and class
group once we extent reservation
to other backward categories. It
is a fact that in the wake of
global economy, competition is
prerequisite for any individual
to make mobility. For this
purpose, we need to train and set
out the best brains for tomorrow
by giving quality education at
higher levels. Therefore, one
cannot compromise quality at any
cost not even with affirmative
action policies. The division
between the caste line is also
sought out a valid inference
while look into the visible
character of certain group of
reserved categories who enjoy
certain privileges than their
counterparts.
Although both of
these assertions put on divergent
views, it is very difficult to
judge between these two lines.
Hence, we need to have a judicial
validation on the question of
affirmative action in all
respect, since this issue
received wide currency nowadays
in the public sphere
overwhelmingly. In this respect
nobody can suggest a remedy
instantly. Instead of that we
need to see it causes and
consequences of affirmative
action by looking at its wider
impact on society.
Affirmative action
needs to be theoretically
succoured by the fundamental
axiom that when untapped talents
are realized, social well being
is enhanced, no matter which way
we look at into it. In the
process of putting affirmative
action to function, some
cherished democratic principles
are also to be realized.
Increasing the sum of realized
talents in society individuals
can actually gain greater
inter-subjectivity in their
everyday lives. Similarly at the
ground level, constitutional
support for affirmative action
was emanated from the fact that
the entrenched and cumulative
natures of structural group
inequalities were found as a
result of socio-cultural
backwardness of certain groups
and became pertinent issues
before independent India on the
quest for equality of
opportunity. Special measures
were to be allowed in order to
drag these disadvantaged groups
up to some assumed state of
desirable social development.
At one level it is
viewed that through affirmative
action policies, we can bring the
so called underprivileged up;
while on the other side because
of its visibility led to the
privileged often into the
negotiation table with logical
explanations. By the way the
privileged social groups are not
finding any invisibility in
conceptualizing in these
discourses for their on sake.
What is visible is that of
affirmation and assertion of the
under privileged through
affirmative action. For instance
the privileged made a point that
those who get privileges through
reservation are from well off
families and recent contestation
over the issue of reservation in
the higher education institutions
for OBCs believed to be curtailed
the quality of education. In this
juncture one can infer that the
dominant group is not happy with
extending reservation by sheer
suspicion that they loose their
hegemonic position. The ambiguity
of this understanding reveals the
extent that the large numbers of
social actors, including many who
claim to be committed to
substantive structural change,
accept the premises of equal
opportunity. Moreover, visibility
of the impact of affirmative
action is a curse and is becoming
a scale for targeting the
beneficiaries to downplay with
instead of finding at the very
location of socio-cultural
structural changes took place
during the course of time. The
recent move towards increasing
the number of seats seems to be a
mode of compromise for the
socio-cultural hegemony of the
dominant voices. Does it mean
that by increasing seats quality
will not be affected or the
division between castes lines
will not be perpetuated in future
in academics?. Further given
enough infrastructures to all
institutions of excellence, will
it be able deliver qualitative
services to the humanity.
It is certain that
history will never allow to think
that meritocracy is the prime
objection behind the protest
against reservation. In other
sense, we need to look at the
very base of meritocracy that is
determined by the dominant
cultural location than the
objective scaling conditionality
in the modern times. Here culture
becomes a new social capital for
nursing the upper caste in the
modern Indian society, at the
same time the very culture
becomes curse for the
marginalized. Nonetheless the
discourse on the question of
quality of our times is very much
hyped the mode of merit as binary
to quota system. What then merit
is all about, as Narayan Murthy
pointed out that some of the well
trained products of globally
toped technical educational
institutions in India, lack the
confidence to do more than
routine work. In other words, the
meritorious at the global level
mentally enslaved and the elite
institution are often taught them
to obey rather than to venture
any kind of innovation.
The need of the hour
is to unlearn certain arguments
like affirmative action is only
meant for correcting history
instead to tap untapped hidden
talents for the benefit of
society as a whole. There are
certain evidences to show that
even without reservation; the
underprivileged sections have
proved to be competent enough in
different field as well. Such an
extent, affirmative action, would
conceive the enduring form of
fraternity in the modern society
perhaps Indians could not have
been imagined prior to
independence.
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World
turning a wasteland!
By
P.R. Gupte
In
the West, few, if any,
basic needs are answered
locally. That is to say,
the items of daily
consumption are rarely
produced close to the
places where they will be
used; neither food nor
household goods, neither
materials for shelter nor
transport, neither
leisure nor
entertainment, certainly
not healthcare - its
services, drugs and
technology - have their
origin in the communities
for which they are
destined.
This
is why the highways of
Europe are congested with
enormous truck engaged
upon such urgent errands
as conveying biscuits or
bacon from Copenhagen to
London, vegetables from
Italy to Belgium, canned
fish from Portugal of
Stockholm. Some of these
journeys are comically
superfluous. Recently, I
met a truck driver, who
had carried empty cars to
Greece from Britain, so
that they could be
stamped with the
Coca-Cola logo in Athens,
before being returned to
London for filling with
the real thing. Another
driver was taking a
consignment of electric
light bulbs from London
to Piacenza in Italy, so
that the filament might
be inserted, they were
then brought back to
Britain, where they were
packaged for re-export;
some, doubtless, finished
by bringing light to
Piacenza.
To
wander through the
shopping malls of the
West is to witness the
plunder of a planet, so
that privileged people
might taste such exotic
commodities as mange-tout
from Guatemala,
pineapples from the Ivory
Coast, beans from Kenya,
mangoes from India,
cherries from Chile,
sweet corn from Thailand.
It is as though the earth
had become our own
backyards, reduced to our
own small holding, farm
or shamba, where we have
only to reach out to
pluck the choicest fruits
from the magic tree of
the market. This readily
induces in people a
strong sense of power:
See how easily our wants
and whims can be obeyed!
Yet, at the same time, a
darker, half-suppressed
apprehension arises: A
strange feeling of the
importance to which we
would be reduced, if we
were to be suddenly
deprived of the money to
buy.
There
is, therefore, a terrible
ambiguity in this
advanced form of
consumerism, which
depends upon distant,
unknown others to supply
us with the necessities
of life. Our money
commands anonymous hands
to grow and send to us
out-of-season fruits from
what are, no longer, the
remotest corners of the
earth; it compels beings
without identity to
labour in sweat-shops, on
plantations and in mines
to bring within our
effortless reach whatever
our heart desires.
Yet,
equally, that same
empowering wealth also,
paradoxically depowers:
For if we become
incapable for providing
for any of our needs in
the places where we must
lead our lives, we are
completely dependent
upon, not the goodness of
others to furnish us with
our wants, but upon the
coercive power of our
money to compel them to
do so.
It
can readily be seen,
therefore, that the
attachment of the rich to
their privilege is not,
as has been declared by
some popular moralists, a
consequence of greed, but
of a deforming of need.
For they have no option
but to provide for
themselves in the only
way open to them. The
insistence, in the West,
upon consumer choice, the
freedom to choose, is
just a little too
strident; for it conceals
the absence of any other
way of answering basic
needs than through the
global marketplace. This
suggests something far
from the freedom which
the people of the West
are constantly being
invited to cherish:
Markets may be free, but
people are bonded to
them.
The
separations of consumers
from producers, looking
to distant, translational
entities for the supply
of our most simple needs,
have some strange,
unforeseen consequences.
When we scarcely know who
provides us with our
daily bread, we are a
long way from the homely
imagery of Adam Smith's
baker and butcher, and
the benign social effects
of their self-interest.
It suggests dark areas of
shadow, where our
frightened dependency can
be the more readily
manipulated and exploited
by vast unaccountable
conglomerates, by whose
grace we are fed,
clothed, sheltered,
maintained in a state of
comfort, entertained and
kept amused. In such
context, brand loyalty
is, less a freely chosen
dedication to this
product or that purchase
than an effort to hack a
pathway, to create a
clearing in the maples
jungle of commodities.
But
there is an even more
damaging effect of this
deepening estrangement of
humanity from
self-provisioning, from
being capable of
answering our own, and
one another's needs, not
simply the fact that we
become scarcely aware
even of what these are,
and therefore all the
more suggestible to the
busy workings of
advertising, although
that also occurs. In the
end, our very identity
becomes one aspect of the
global marketplace, and
we are severely alienated
from our own human
purposes. Sometimes there
are dramatic examples of
this, like the girl in
the United State who had
played so many video
games, that she hacked
someone to death, under
the mistaken impression
that this would enable
her to proceed to the
next level of the game.
But more ordinarily, I
recently spoke with a
family in Britain whose
children refused to eat
the potatoes they had
grown in their garden,
"Because they come
from the earth where the
warms are"; yet they
eat frozen potato chips
every day. A girl of 14,
who visited my house with
her parents, would not
take an apple from the
tree, because she did not
believe that apples grew
on trees: For all she
knew, the perfect, waxed,
cosmetic fruit she bought
in the supermarket had
been created, like so
much of her food, on some
hygienic production-line.
These
are just a few of the
consequences of that
system to which we must
now all chant the global
mantra, that there is no
alternative. If there
really is no alternative,
and if we are incapable
of devising one, we shall
not only have voluntarily
thrown away our most
precious freedoms, but we
shall also inherit a
world - wasteland -
peopled with the impotent
starvelings of a global
market that has usurped
and enclosed the most
valuable of all
resources-the human
commons, the power of
human beings to create
and to provide for
ourselves and each other,
in the places where we
must live our brief and,
if we know to make them
so, beautiful lives. INAV
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Tension along
Indo-Bangla border
By
Subhashis Mittra
It was not one of those
usual tensions arising out of cattle
smuggling or exchange of fire along the
Indo-Bangladesh border. This time it was
a war-like situation on the international
boundary along Assam's Cachar district
because of a massive troop build-up by
Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) and Border
Security Force (BSF) rushing additional
troops.
The tension along the 32-km
stretch of border in Assam is often
attributed to lack of political will both
at the Centre and in the State and this
time too they have been blamed for the
situation. From time to time both the
Governments warned against the unabated
influx of illegal Bangladeshi migrants
and Islamic Fundamentalist elements
through the porous border. This time too,
the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU)
has expressed strong resentment that the
Assam-Bangladesh border was still open
even after 21 years of signing of the
Assam Accord.
Political observers feel it
is high time that the Centre fulfils its
promise to complete the erection of
barbed wire fencing among the border by
December this year and provide
floodlights to check infiltration.
The current ground situation
in Assam had an echo in the state
Assembly with the Government revealing
that Bangladesh had encroached 499.83
acres of Assam's land. The revelation
made by Assam's Revenue Minister
Bhumidhar Barman also rocked Parliament,
where Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee
gave details of the disputed areas in
Dhubri and Karimganj districts. The
border guards have exchanged fire on
several occasions in Nadia, Malda and
Dinajpur districts of West Bengal after
BSF jawans repulsed cattle smugglers.
A solution to the problem
lies in sincere and early implementation
of the Assam Accord for which the Centre,
State, AASU and all concerned need to
work in tandem to complete the remaining
works in a time-bound manner, say exprts.
Reports say that Bangladeshi
farmers, from Sylhet district, for the
third time in quick succession cultivated
a 200-acre plot of Indian land. In June
heavy exchange of fire was witnessed
between BSF and BDR when the illegal
cultivation on the Indian plot on the
other side of river Surma was objected
to. The gun battle stopped only when the
matter reached New Delhi and Dhaka. At a
subsequent commander-level meeting
between the two border guards, it was
agreed to withdraw additional troops from
the border to defuse tension.
Ironically, the troop
mobilisation and digging of trenches and
bunkers came close on the heels of the
two countries agreeing in Dhaka to hold
annual meeting of Joint Secretaries to
solve issues relating to international
boundary. The first meeting of the
India-Bangladesh Joint Working Group in
four years discussed demarcation of
border, exchange of enclaves and
territories in adverse possession as well
as construction of boundary pillars.
In a welcome move, the two
sides also agreed to schedule a joint
visit to enclaves and to territories
under adverse position both in India and
Bangladesh at an early date without
prejudice to their respective positions.
The Joint Working Group, which had last
met in 2002, also discussed the 1974
Treaty signed by the then Prime Ministers
Late Indira Gandhi and late Sheikh
Mujibur Rahman.
In the backdrop of renewed
skirmishes between the border guards of
India and Bangladesh, all eyes are set on
the proposed. Home Secretary level talks
by August-end where all issues of dispute
will be discussed besides addressing New
Delhi's concerns over terrorism flowing
through the eastern neighbour. India
believes that Bangladesh is being used as
a route by Jehadi terrorist groups,
including the suspects of the July 11
Mumbai blasts, to sneak into this
country. Preliminary investigations into
the blasts have indicated involvement of
terror groups from Bangladesh and Nepal
and it is most likely that the evidence
will be handed over to Dhaka.
Bangladesh and India enjoy
generally friendly relations but tensions
have increased since India began fencing
off its border to keep out what it
describes as illegal immigrants and
‘‘cross - border
insurgents’’. Several
skirmishes have been reported between the
two border forces in the past.
New Delhi is also peeved at
continued cross-border activities like
infiltration and smuggling which often
leads to skirmishes as has been witnessed
recently. The BSF and BDR have many times
exchanged fire along the border. In one
such recent incident, the BSF claimed
that it has shot dead five BDR personnel
after the latter fired mortars killing
two women at an Assamese village on the
Indo-Bangladesh border in Cachar
district. However, with tension mounting
on both sides of the boundary, the border
guards of both the countries decided to
withdraw additional forces deployed along
the border. The BSF decided to remove the
bunkers built following escalation of
tension over the alleged occupation of
200-odd acre of land by Bangladeshi
cultivators.
In a welcome move, both the
sides have agreed to take up confidence
building measures among the people
residing in the villages on either side
of the border to lower the temperature
following the death of two Indian women
by BDR mortar attack. It is reported that
BDR fired 140-150 mortar shells of 60 mm
and 82 mm caliber.
In the midst of heightened
tension, Bangladesh rubbished as
‘‘outrageous’’ BJP
President Rajnath Singh's remark that New
Delhi should attack the neighbouring
country and dismantle terror centres
there. India's Deputy High Commissioner
was summoned to the Foreign Office in
Dhaka and told that the BJP leader's
remark was ‘‘highly
irresponsible’’.
In a tit-for-tat action, the
Bangladesh High Commissioner to India was
summoned by the Ministry of External
Affairs in New Delhi to express concern
over the
‘‘unprovoked’’ firing
by BDR in Surma area of Assam. Dhaka's
envoy was handed over a Note Verbale
(protest letter).
The Ministry of Home
Affairs, on its part, has a wide-ranging
mechanism for interaction with the
Government of Bangladesh. At the national
level, Home Secretaries of both countries
meet once a year and Joint Working Group
(JWG) at the level of Joint Secretary
once in six months. In addition, DG level
meetings between Border Security Force
(BSF) and Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) are
also being held from time to time. The
issues discussed, inter alia, include
security and cooperation in combating the
problem of drugs, narcotics and
trans-border crimes. Both sides agree to
the need for more vigil and operations to
check trans-border crimes, cross border
movement, resumption of the meetings of
Joint Boundary Working Groups,
extradition treaty and agreement on
Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal
Matters and review of revised travel
arrangements.
Although India played a
major role in the establishment of an
independent Bangladesh in 1971, New
Delhi's relations with Dhaka were neither
close nor free from dispute. In 1975
Bangladesh began to move away from the
linguistic nationalism that had marked
its liberation struggle and linked it to
India's West Bengal state. Dhaka's
emphasis on Islam, as the binding force
in Bangladeshi nationalism, combined with
Bangladeshi concern over India's military
buildup and bilateral disputes over
riparian borders, shared water resources,
and illegal immigration of Bangladeshis
into West Bengal, made for fluctuations
in India-Bangladesh relations.
Differences persist between
the two sides on the issue of border
fencing and cross-border infiltration.
The dispute was mainly over establishment
of border pillars along the demarcated
porous international border between
Bangladesh and India with BSF opposing
the idea. Likewise, BDR rejected India's
bid to erect fences on the zero line and
not 150 yards from it as permitted by
agreed border guidelines of 1975 and its
desire to set up floating border outposts
on some stretches of the border, where
river midstream of Brahmaputra river
constitute the boundary. On the question
of cross-border infiltration, BDR stuck
to its stand that there was no insurgent
group operating in its territory, even as
BSF insisted that insurgent leaders were
hiding in Bangladesh. Dhaka, observers
feel, should realise that being one of
the world's poorest states, it should not
conjure up imaginary enemies.
PTI Feature
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