Daily Excelsior... Editorial

EDITORIAL

Afghan 'snow'

Jamaat vs Jamaat

Just a bit of security

By M J Akbar

Learning from the
Left Parties

Dr Bharat Jhunjhunwala

Why Javed was
denied visa ?

By Allabaksh

Pakistan establishment seems to take a sadistic pleasure in humiliating or harassing Indians associated with Mumbai films (Bollywood) or the world of arts and culture when they apply for visas to visit the land of the ‘pure’. The latest victim of this Pakistani fad is the well-known poet and scriptwriter, Javed Akhtar. He along with 20 others, almost . .......more

EDITORIAL

Afghan 'snow'

It is just a coincidence that there have been a number of reports of late pointing to the Afghan link in the drug menace in this country including in the State. First of all the Army has referred to it while denying an allegation that it is promoting alcoholism in south of the Kashmir region. Its version is that "no Army unit in the Valley is selling liquor to any unauthorised person." The Army spokesman has stated: "Opium, drugs and liquor were introduced into the Valley by the Afghan militants in the early years of insurgency." According to him, "the malice has spread to all parts of the Valley and in fact in some areas opium is also being cultivated." There is corroboration of the Army theory by responsible agencies that are not even remotely connected with the uniformed force. Figures available with the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) reveal that 30 per cent of drugs seized in the country during the last three years were produced in remote areas of Afghanistan and have reached the country through the India-Pakistan border. Mr Gary Lewis, South Asia representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), has noted that 1000 kilograms of Afghan-origin heroin and other drugs have been seized in India since 2002 compared to around 50 kilograms during the preceding years. This has led to an inference that smuggling of drugs into India has gone up sharply in proportion to the increase in the civilian movement between India and Pakistan. It was significantly less during the height of tensions between the two neighbours. The UN official himself has not ruled out the possibility of the current CBMs giving a fillip to illicit import through enhanced across-the-border movement ("this can be one reason for increase", is his quote). One will not miss the irony of the situation.

A war-torn Afghanistan has become a headache for the UN also for producing a whopping 11900 metric tonnes of opium in the last three years. More than the State, however, the neighbouring Punjab has a lot to worry on this count. Punjab has become a major transit route for drugs coming in from Afghanistan to India "which has one of the highest numbers of opium users in the world." A UN report has recorded that "the availability and consumption of drugs have increased in Punjab in the recent years with cities like Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Chandigarh and Patiala emerging as hotspots." The arrival of cocaine, a costly drug, in the country has also increased manifold. Anti-narcotics sleuths have recovered 200 kilograms of this particular contraband so far this year as compared to 14 kilograms seized in the last four years. Actually, however, it appears that the hidden Afghan weapon has hit the other countries too. Russia, for instance, has sounded an unambiguous warning: "One should acknowledge that despite measures that are being taken, the flow of drugs from the Afghan territory is growing and remains one of the world's major drug threats."

There is thus need for united action to meet the challenge. One feels sorry for Afghanistan. The country has been trampled upon by one adversity after the other in the recent years. Who will believe that not very long ago we would identify beauty with its snow?

Jamaat vs Jamaat

June 30 has come and gone. But one can't say with any degree of confidence that the tension between the pro and anti Syed Ali Shah Geelani camps within the Jamaat-e-Islami (Jammu and Kashmir) is over. The deadline of June 30 was fixed by Syed Nazir Ahmad Kashani, ameer of the Jamaat, for Mr Geelani and his close associates to distance themselves from their political organisation Tehreek-e-Hurriyat (TeH) if they wished to occupy any office in their parent body. Formal notices were served on Mr Geelani and his three main colleagues --- Mohammad Ashraf Sehrai, Shah Wali Mohammad and Shaikh Mohammad Abdullah --- in this behalf. Their copies were circulated to all "arkaan" (basic members) of the Jamaat. Mr Geelani had launched TeH with the concurrence of Majlis-e-Shoora (supreme advisory council) of the Jamaat. Thus Syed Kashani himself was a party to the decision. A political lightweight he had evidently followed a middle route earlier in deference to Mr Geelani's status and hold over the flock. The effect of it was that Mr Geelani while being a member of the JeI could pursue his own line on the Kashmir issue that was independent of the religious-political party. For decades Mr Geelani had held complete sway over the Jamaat. This was especially true after the militancy began in the late 1980s. He had also been chairman of the united Hurriyat Conference and conclusively called the shots. If there was any unease among a section of his Jamaat partners on this count they had not shown it. It would not be an exaggeration to say that they were completely overshadowed by Mr Geelani at that juncture. Mr Ghulam Mohammat Bhat as the Jamaat chief strove to follow a somewhat different approach but was upstaged by Mr Geelani in 2003. Mr Geelani's supporters, interestingly, had then voted in favour of Syed Kashani to facilitate his election as ameer. The latter was thought to be a pliable tool. Instead, he has chosen to gradually exhibit his backbone. Close to Mr Saifuddin Qari, another Jamaat stalwart and contemporary of Mr Geelani, Syed Kashani has ended up pursuing the same path that Mr Ghulam Mohammad Bhat had taken. The current Jamaat leadership wants to give primacy to its religious role without changing stance on the Kashmir problem. On the other hand, Mr Geelani is determined to treat Kashmir first without dilution of religious commitment. There is another significant difference. Syed Kashani makes sure that he is seen to be against violence and its practitioners. On the other hand, Mr Geelani believes in peaceful agitations but readily owns militants including foreign mercenaries.

For his part Syed Kashani has forced what seems to be a showdown. His effort is clearly to block Mr Geelani or any of his faction to become ameer in the coming elections in August. Despite his somersault he has tried to explain that "the same Shoora which allowed Mr Geelani to form a separate party has now asked the members to distance

themselves from TeH." It is unlikely that Mr Geelani will easily wind up TeH. The last word thus has not been heard so far. Mr Geelani's reach to about 2000 "arkaan" who have the authority to elect ameer is known. Will he put it to a serious credible test?

Just a bit of security

By M J Akbar

Every Government has a midlife crisis as well as a sell-by date. The trick is to ensure that the latter does not precede the former. The health of all Governments is measured by only one thermometer: the mercury of popular support. Even a monarch, if he has not degenerated into a despot, understands this principle and lives by it. Those who do not, pay a price, if not in their own lifetimes then in that of their heirs. Dynasties wither when personal greed overrides the needs of the State. Sometimes, to check the present, it is useful to look through the wrong end of a telescope. The Mughal Empire did not bolster its popularity through media frenzy, although its court historians were often condemned to disguise the truth beneath layers of ornate sycophancy (Contemporary media can sometimes put those historians to shame, but that is a separate story.) Popular support comes in as many varieties as people, and a sensible Government shows as much care for opinion builders as it does for those less influential. And principles are not necessarily moral; they can serve equally well when amoral, although they can never afford to be immoral.

Akbar, the builder of the Mughal Empire, based his vision on two principles, one tactical one strategic. The first was used in the management of elites, the second was the foundation on which his rule rested. You do not have to believe the author of Tarikh-i-Akbari when he claims that the emperor is ‘‘the ruler of the entire world’’, or that he is the epitome of humility and generosity, or that ‘‘the dust of the imperial throne has become the sacred place of worship of the great and the mighty’’-----including, incidentally, the king of China. But he does get more credible when he explains how Akbar in a few years created an empire that stretched from Bengal and Orissa to Sindh and Afghanistan. War was not the answer, although Akbar maintained a brilliant war machine: the cost of his stables, with 5,000 elephants and many times that number of horse, was estimated at Rs 50 lakhs a day (in mid-16th century prices). War was only a means to an end, not an end in itself.

The chronicler quotes the emperor to explain the method of expansion. The logic was excellent, proving that Akbar was ‘‘gifted with reason and faculty of showing the way’’. There were 320 Rajas of Hindustan, rationalised the emperor, most protected by a strong fort. On an average, a siege took a year or more. If, therefore, he wanted to subjugate every Raja of Hindustan by war, it would take him perhaps a little short of three centuries. On the other hand, what did each Raja want? He wanted peace with the imperial court. The Mughal court offered precisely that, and did so for generations: it is forgotten that there were more Hindu generals in Aurangzeb's army than in Dara Shikoh's.

The elite must be pacified; that is an important requirement of state. But far more important is that the people should be kept happy. The anser to this need was justice. This was derived from a fundamental principle of Islam, where justice, equality and charity command a premium over every other virtue. The best justification for justice as the guiding light of administration was provided by the great vazir of the Seljuqs, Nizam ul Mulk Tusi, an intellectual and bureaucrat who held the Seljuq lands together when the western revival in the form of the Crusades had taken Jerusalem and devastated the political structure of the Middle East. Nizam ul Mulk's Rules of Governance, a primer he wrote for a young prince to whom he was a tutor, is the outstanding testament of Islamic statecraft. With cool logic he separates justice from morality, and explains its necessity thus: A kingdom, to survive, need an army. An army, to survive, needs money. Money comes from taxes, and taxes come only when people are prosperous and happy. People are happy only when there is justice. QED. In both the great Turkish courts of their time, that of the Mughals and the Ottomans (the Mughals had far more Turkish blood in them than Mongol), the scales of justice were the principal metaphor of the emperor's power.

What do justice, and its consequence, prosperity, mean today in India ? The short answer is security: from external threat, from internal threat, from the elements, and from hunger. Of these needs, the state can claim victory only on the first count. India's armed forces have successfully eliminated the threat of invasion from the either the north or the west (the only invasion from the cast is one of people and economic migration works because there is implicit support from the host country).

We have a law; I am not so sanguine that we have order. A quarter if not more of rural India is ruled by the law of the Naxalities, who impose their own order, ensure their own form of justice and collect handsome revenues. Security is being increasingly privatised in urban India, with the police forced to pay more attention to the security of the ruling class than of the people. Then there is the matter of shelter. Check with the street children in the cities. Check with the poor in the villages.

One example is sufficient, and it is not the worst instance of poverty in our country by any means. Bidi workers-- so many of them young women, because of their still-nimble fingers which will age faster than the rest of their bodies---get paid thirty rupees for every thousand bidis they put together in bundles. Since the dollar is the preferred currency of the Indian elite, that comes to some sixty cents for a thousand bidis. Work out the decimal point for every bidi. When we take visiting heads of Government and media to see the shining computer cities of Hyderabad and Bangalore, we should also given them side-trips to the bidi manufacturing wastelands of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

The poor are not so foolish as to believe that any Government can turn their lives around with a magic wand. But they are not blind either. They want to see what is being done to improve their lives. The Left wins in Bengal because it keeps its attention fixed on this reality. Delhi has lot this very basic plot.

Food security means wheat, water and vegetables. No one treats water as a priority, because there is enough for the showers in the bathrooms of Lutyens' Delhi. As for vegetables, we must leave that issue to my cook. Normally he tends not to open a conversation with me, conserving his brain power for the true ruler of our home. But his voice was tinged with amazement, even awe, when he broke his silence the other day. The price of tomatoes in Delhi, he said, had risen to thirty two rupees per kilogram.

After the news, he added an editorial. The only thing to do with tomatoes at that price was to use them to pelt our honourable leaders.

Thirty two rupees a kilo. That is two rupees more than a bidi worker gets for every thousand bidies she makes.

Learning from the Left Parties

Dr Bharat Jhunjhunwala

Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has said that the BJP should learn from the Left Parties how to secure people's mandate repeatedly. Unquestionably the BJP has given a new direction to the country. It notable contributions were Pokharan explosions, IT revolution starting with the Y2K problem, Golden Quadrangle highway, accumulation of huge forex reserves and simplification of the tax regimen such as introduction of the 'Saral' form. But these proved inadequate in getting a second mandate from the people.

In contrast, the Left Government in Bengal has secured repeated mandate even though it has not made any such contributions. The reason of its success lies in it keeping welfare of the common man close to its heart. It is estimated that one-half of all land distributed in the country under land ceiling laws has been distributed in Bengal. The Party cadre at the local level worked closely with the administration to identify and seize benami lands. The Left parties have opposed the reduction of interest rate on EPF and passing of the burden of high international price of oil to the people. No wonder it has got people's support. This is what the BJP should learn from the Left.

But it will be difficult for the BJP to do so because the attitude of its leaders is different. Prime Minister Vajpayee had promised to create 1 crore jobs every year. But bureaucrats lured Vajpayee into believing that jobs were being created all right. Vajpayee publicly stated that 70 lac jobs were being created every year. The Task Force under S P Gupta of the Planning Commission, on the other hand, pointed out that the pace of job creation in the economy was slowing down. Other critics, including this one, repeatedly pointed out that the common man was not getting any relief. The Economic Survey reported that jobs in the organized sector have stated declining since 1997-coinciding with BJP's rule. But Vajpayee was not inclined to listen to the voice of the people. Welfare of the people mattered little to him.

BJP had promised to make a study of the impact of WTO in its election manifesto of 1966. But Mr. Vajpayee took no interest to make such a study. Perhaps he was afraid that the adverse effect of WTO on the common man will come out into the open.

This author, in the early part of BJP's tenure, had asked Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha whether the government was cognizant of the loss of a large number of jobs in the cottage soap making industry because of entry of big companies like Hindustan Lever? Mr. Sinha merely replied that the matter was being studied. Till the end of BJP's rule no such study was forthcoming.

The upshot is that BJP leadership had no place for the common man in its heart. Truly this attitude is part of the Hindu tradition which is responsible for its continuous decline. The most recent example is that of 'Hindu' King Gyanendra. The entire economy was designed only feed the royal household. There was no place for land reforms and other pro-people measures. That is similar to the situation in the Princely States. Tribals in Dungarpur in Rajasthan told that they would run away to British-ruled areas to escape from tyranny of the local Kings. The main reason for the expansion of Islam and Christianity in India is that the poor have been despised under the caste system. BJP's disdain towards the common man was continuation of this tradition.

But how do we explain the resurgence of the Congress? My assessment is that the Congress is as anti-people in its content as the BJP but it knows how to put on a pro-people mask. It excels in buying leaders of the poor while leaving the masses to rot. It runs umpteen programmes ostensibly for the welfare of the poor but the actual gains accrue to government employees and a handful of local leaders who are co-opted. The 73rd Amendment to the Constitution has turned local leaders into government contractors.

The common man has to choose between the Left, which raises issue of interest to it; the Congress, which provides contracts to their leaders; and the BJP, in whose vision he is non-existent. No wonder the BJP lost.

What should the BJP learn from the Left? The BJP should raise two issues. One, the objective of economic development should be generation of employment, not a faceless increase in Gross Domestic Product. The objective of human life, in the worlds of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, is to exhaust one's samskaras. That is possible only when people have access to productive work. An increase in production, on the other hand, may only provide more consumption. The BJP should formulate an 'Employment Policy' and introduce it in the Parliament and force a debate on the issue. It should ask that all investment proposals be subject to employment audit. Often, investments such as in soap making create a handful of jobs but kill millions of cottage industries. It should demand that industries creating large number of jobs with less capital be given tax exemptions and also freed from labour laws. Government contractors should be required to use labour-intensive technologies such as manual excavation of cable trenches. My assessment is that the Congress will not be able to implement these policies because there is less opportunity to put on a pro-people mask in such a dispensation. The Left too will find it difficult to support these policies because its traditional base is the small organized working class which may stand to loose in this approach. But it will also find it difficult to oppose such demands.

The second point to be raised by BJP is to provide direct relief to the common man. Presently the Union- and State governments together are spending about Rs 500,000 crore rupees every year on various welfare programmes including, power, food, fertilizer, health and education. This works out to about Rs 5,000 per year per person.

This amount should be given directly by the Reserve Bank to every citizen by cheque and the entire welfare state should be dismantled. People can buy the necessary food, health and education with this money from the market without mediation of government servants. My estimate is that this will not be palatable to the Congress because it provides no opportunity to purchase allegiance of local leaders as through the 73rd Amendment. It will be equally difficult for the Left to support this demand because one of their main supports comes from government employees who are the chief beneficiaries of these programmes.

The BJP can make anew beginning by admitting its past mistake in ignoring the welfare of the common man and pushing for these policies.

Why Javed was denied visa ?

By Allabaksh

Javed Akhtar, his actress-wife Shabana Azmi, and the other Mumbai stars were invited to participate in a day-long programme on Pakistani TV to raise funds for the victims of October 2005 earthquake in Pak Occupied Kashmir (POK) and parts of NWFP. Obviously, the Indian stars were not going to Pakistan for any political reasons; it was all for a humanitarian cause. By singling out Akhtar for ‘delay’ or ‘denial’ of the visa, the Pakistan foreign office had injected politics into the issue. As far as one can make out about the only thing that might bother the Pakistanis is that Javed Akhtar, like his wife, is a strong advocate of secular values in daily life.

The Pakistanis do not take steps like denying visa to a well-known Indian personality inadvertently; nor can it be dismissed as a case of bureaucratic muddle-headedness. Besides, Javed Akhtar had not applied for a Pakistani visa for a personal visit; he was among the invitees who were to go in a delegation that had, presumably, the previous approval of the military establishment that rules in Islamabad. When the visa denial issue caught attention of the media, the Pakistanis tried to cover up by saying that his visa had been ‘delayed’ and was not cancelled.

Few in India will buy the explanation. Islamabad is given to inventing preposterous excuses for ‘delays’ in issuing visas to certain Indians and when the visa is denied outright, the Pakistani excuses become outrageous. It would also appear that when the Pakistanis issue visa to certain class of Indians due to some compulsion they show their displeasure in very crude form. There are many instances when the visas were refused even to Indians invited by recognised bodies.

This is especially true of artists and entertainers, even the comparatively lesser known. One does not know if the practice continues, but at one time the Indian High Commission in Islamabad used to celebrate the Republic Day with a performance by a visiting classical Indian musician or a dancer. The Pakistanis put the spokes and started denying visas to the Indian artists-after keeping the artist in suspense till almost the last hour.

Pakistani High Commission in Delhi issues lesser visas than its Indian counterpart in Islamabad, as a result more Pakistanis travel to India than Indians travelling in the other direction. This imbalance looks strange because India and Pakistan, deeply suspicious as they are of each other, maintain a clear ‘parity’ in the number of High Commission staff in the other country. If, for instance, the ‘sanctioned’ strength of the visa section is 10, then 10 Indians are issuing more visas than 10 Pakistanis. Not necessarily because the Indian clerk is working harder than his Pakistani counterpart, but because the Pakistanis are so niggardly in allowing Indians to visit their country, fearing a larger influx into their ‘pure’ land would start to wash away (within Pakistan) their carefully orchestrated campaign against India that goes back to August 1947.

The Pakistanis are always pressing for permission to enlarge their staff in the High Commission here, even when their official policy is to keep ties with India limited, as long s the so-called ‘core’ issue is not sorted out to their satisfaction. It is significant that the Pakistani emphasis is on seeking permission to bring in more clerks for their visa section. If India is hesitant to accede to that wish there are clear reasons. Pakistan has a habit of sending a platoon of ISI types to its mission in India-and some neighbouring countries. It may be mentioned in passing here that since the number of Pakistani staff in Delhi was curtailed there has been a considerable decline in the activities of the Pakistani mission members ‘not compatible with their diplomatic status ’. It has been long since a Pakistani non-diplomatic staff member was caught hawking fake Rs. 500 currency notes or getting into altercation with an Indian sleuth hot on their heels.

According to the latest ‘rumour’, the Pakistani film industry is likely to hire Indian stars in their movies. But it is a cruel joke because more often than not, the Pakistanis outright deny visas to prominent Indian film stars. For instance, Lata Mangeshkar has never been issued visa to visit Pakistan. It is a well-known fact, resented to by many Indian artists, that the number of Pak entertainers and artists visiting India is several times more than the other way round. Some of the big names like Ghulam Ali and Reshma seem to be performing in India regularly; some others are almost permanently parked in Mumbai.

Not very long ago, the Punjab chief minister had taken a delegation to the Pakistani Punjab, on invitation from his counterpart in the Pakistani province. It was said to be part of a newfound bonhomie between the two Punjabs, which share a strong cultural and linguistic bond. Every member of the delegation was apparently issued a visa after ‘clearance’ from Islamabad. But no sooner had the Indians settled into their hotel in Lahore, an Indian journalist, very much part of the group, was unceremoniously thrown out and asked to leave the country immediately.

The Indian journalist was taken by surprise. Assuming that he was considered an ‘unfriendly’ sort of person by the Pakistani establishment, why was he issued a visa in the first place? When the matter came to light, the Pakistanis merely said that it was all due to some ‘misunderstanding’ for which they felt no need to apologise.

More recently, yester-year film star Feroze Khan landed in Pakistan on a valid visa and everything was going well till a local TV compere turned his leery gaze on a Mumbai film heroine and asked Khan some provocative questions to which he replied in kind. It did not take long for the Pakistanis to declare Khan an unwelcome guest; he has since been declared unwelcome for ever and a life-long ban on his visits has been clamped.

Unfortunately, for the Pakistanis, who probably have fabulous notions about their country, Feroze Khan is unlikely to crave for another visit to Pakistan. Nor would all the other Indians who have faced humiliation or boorishness at the hands of Pakistani bureaucracy either at the High Commission in India or in Pakistan! (Syndicate Features)