EDITORIAL
Wife vs. husband
All of a sudden a
colleague in the office started laughing. He had received
a joke through e-mail which tickled his funny bones. We
gathered around him to have a look at the comic story on
his computer. It went on like this: "A little girl
asked her mother: 'How did the human race begin?'
The mother answered: 'God made Adam and Eve and they
had children and all mankind was made.' Two days
later, the girl asked her father the same question: 'How
did the human race begin?' The father answered: 'Many
years ago, there were monkeys from which the human race
evolved.' The confused girl returned to her mother
and said: 'Mom, how is it possible that you told me
the human race was created by God and Dad said it
developed from monkeys?' The mother answered: 'Well,
dear, it's very simple. I told you about my side of the
family and your father told you about his." The
colleague then went on to undertake an extensive research
on the Internet. He found that invariably the wife would
have an upper hand in encounters with husband. Another
hilarious tale was: "A couple drove down a country
road for several miles, not saying a word. An earlier
discussion had led to an argument and neither of them
wanted to concede their position. As they passed a
barnyard of mules, goats, and pigs, the husband asked
sarcastically: 'Relatives of yours?' 'Yep,' the
wife replied, 'In-laws." In our society the
wife-husband relationship is normally very intense. By
and large the two are loyal to each other despite
occasional tensions. Divorces and separations are not
order of the day. Admittedly, they are on the rise
especially in urban areas where everyday tensions take
toll of the mutual warmth. On the whole, however, the
scenario is much better. There may be thousands of child
marriages every year across the country. More than 90 per
cent of them hold good in the long run. It is a healthy
feature of our lives. That does not mean that our people
are bereft of sense of humour. In fact, the
above-mentioned two verbal exchanges can take place in
any nuclear family in particular in this country. The one
that follows is in the same category. It reads: "A
man and his wife were having some problems at home and
were giving each other the silent treatment. Suddenly,
the man realised that the next day, he would need his
wife to wake him at 5 a.m. for an early morning business
flight. Not wanting to be the first to break the silence
(and lose), he wrote on a piece of paper, 'Please wake
me at 5 a.m.' He left it where he knew she would find
it.
The next morning, the man
woke up, only to discover it was 9 a.m. and he had missed
his flight. Furious, he was about to go and see why his
wife hadn't wakened him, when he noticed a piece of paper
by the bed. The paper said: 'It is 5 a.m. Wake
up."
In the West anything can
happen. Wife and husband may cheat one another in real
lives. Quite a few books have come out revealing this
phenomenon. By our traditions and existing standards any
such thing is largely no-no. Why should women have the
last word in all jokes? Our colleague was not wiser. He
convinced himself that God might have created man
before woman but there was always a rough draft before a
masterpiece. Think over it on this Sunday as you keep
laughing.
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Victims
of insularity
By T.K.
Krishnamurthy
Here is a true story
I got from the horse's mouth
itself. A senior IAS officer made
it at long last to the coveted
position of chief secretary of
his state. He went to convey the
good news to the matriarch of the
family, a ninety-year-old aunt.
After listening to his excited
account of how he got his
promotion, the old lady blessed
him with the words, "You
have always been a good boy. I
knew you would do well. I pray
that soon you will become
tehsildar".
Like the old lady,
there are many patriarchs and
matriarchs among our leaders,
administrators and intellectuals
who cling to ninety-year-old
ideas. A small share in the
dwindling and none-too-fertile
surplus land is the greatest
blessing that they like to confer
on our poor youth. Times have
changed; our economy has moved
beyond its agrarian past, and yet
the mindset has not changed the
view is still clogged.
Within the past one
week, both a senior leader of a
Left party, and a top executive
of national chamber of commerce
advocated hitching the future of
our economy to agriculture.
Undoubtedly, in absolute terms,
agriculture is growing, and
should grow. However, the share
of agriculture in the economy is
declining; it will decline even
more and should do so for the
good of our people. If we can
maintain a seven per cent growth
rate, by the year 2020 the share
of agriculture will dwindle to 10
per cent.
Admittedly, the hope
these days is not about primary
agriculture but on its more
glamorous variation of food
processing. No doubt, food
processing offers better scope
than agriculture by itself. Even
then, the share of food
consumption, which is currently
around 50 per cent, will go down
by 2020 to 25-30 per cent even as
the consumption of non-food items
will increase from the current
level of 50 per cent to 70 per
cent or so.
There is a
traditional saying in rural
Karnataka that an increase in the
consumption of paan (betel leaf)
is a sign of prosperity. That is
a rustic's way of confirming
Engel's Law that in a growing
economy, consumption of luxury
goods will grow faster than the
consumption of necessities.
Hence, if we want to wish anyone
well, we should direct them
towards the production of luxury
goods. Tying them to necessities
is no different from wishing a
chief secretary to become a
tehsildar.
In the new vision
for the backward areas - from
Naxalite-infested parts of Andhra
Pradesh to Kashmir and the
North-East - economic growth is
the panacea for political ills.
The government has announced
large financial packages, and
creation of new jobs. Higher
budgets are a sign of
quantitative progress, but they
will not necessarily guarantee
greater progress, nor will they
guarantee a better quality of
life.
When Kashmir or
Nagaland becomes more prosperous,
consumption of luxury goods will
naturally increase. A smaller and
smaller proportion of luxury
goods will be produced locally,
and a larger and a larger share
will be procured from outside. To
balance such purchases, the state
will have to produce more goods
that are saleable outside its
boundaries. Such goods will have
to be globally competitive both
in cost and in quality. Backward
states like Kashmir or Nagaland
will not graduate on their own to
the global class. They will need
new entrepreneurs, new
technologies.
Money does help.
However, even large sums of the
kind promised will not fructify
unless they are accompanied by an
infusion of competent
entrepreneurship and competitive
technology. Unfortunately,
political leaders of backward
parts of the country, whether
they are from Kashmir or the
North-East or Naxal areas are
allergic to outsiders however
competent and valuable they may
be. They are inward looking; they
do not welcome outside talent,
nor do they welcome new ideas.
In the past and in
modern times too, many poor
nations have grown rapidly; many
others with far greater growth
potential have languished or even
dwindled. The nature of their
culture made that difference.
Bangalore and Mumbai are rich
because they kept their doors
open; Kashmir, the North East and
tribal areas have remained poor
because they have kept their
doors shut. The richest man and
the richest woman in India are
both in Bangalore; they are both
rank outsiders. Political leaders
from backward areas complain,
quite correctly too, that they
have been neglected. At the same
time, if they look honestly into
their hearts, they will realise
that they were neglected because
they did not welcome talent,
investment and ideas from
outside.
There is a fable of
a very ambitious man who was
inordinately jealous of his
neighbour. God accepted his pleas
and granted all he wished but on
condition his neighbour will get
twice as much. Moved more by
jealousy than by ambition, the
man wished that God will take
away one of his eyes in the
expectation his neighbour will
lose both of his. Most insurgent
leaders in our country are of
that type; they prefer to make
others more miserable than to
make themselves happier.
Will Kashmir, or the
North-East or Naxals welcome an
Azim Premji or a Kiran Majumdar?
The Naxals have actually demanded
that Infosys, Satyam Computers
and the like should be thrown out
and the land those firms have
"grabbed" should be
returned to the locals. What
benefit will result if the
hundred odd acres these firms
have occupied, and have produced
thousands of jobs, are returned
to tribal farmers?
There is little hope
that these insular people will
open their doors to others. Yet,
one compromise based on the
Malaysian model is worth trying.
For the past fifty years,
Malaysia has practised vigorously
the Bhumiputra policy of giving
preference to the Malays, and
ensuring that Malays retain a
lion's share of the economy. At
the same time, they vigorously
welcomed foreign investment and
foreign businesses on condition
that the Bhumiputras had majority
share.
That policy has
worked well; from a very poor
agricultural economy, Malaysia
has graduated into a vibrant
industrial and service economy.
By investing in Malaysia, many
foreign firms have enriched
themselves, probably even more
than the Bhumiputras did.
More government jobs
too will not help much either;
what progress needs is not more
jobs but more work, productive
work. Unfortunately, government
jobs do not necessarily translate
into productive work.
It may be too late
for the central government to
rethink its offer of outright
grants. If it is not, it should
offer matching grants only;
grants matched to what these
states attract from the market.
Likewise, it would not create
jobs but matching jobs only;
matched to whatever new
entrepreneurs create.
The policy should
not be job creation but job
multiplication: for every job
created by the government,
private enterprise should give
birth to several others.
Naxalities and the
defiant leaders of Kashmir and of
the North-East complain that the
government has kept them poor. In
truth, they are poor not because
the government has given them too
little money but because they
have no vision of their own. They
are insular; they do not want to
be in the mainstream.
They want to
preserve the past and are unaware
of how the world outside has
changed. Their vision is that of
becoming a tehsildar and no
higher. Their capability too is
limited. They know how to make
headlines but not how to make
bread; certainly, they do not
know how to make butter. INAV
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Time
to reform IAS ?
TALES OF TRAVESTY
By Dr.
Jitendra Singh
This is not for the first
time that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
has called upon the bureaucrats to be
fair, honest and efficient while
discharging their duties. Addressing an
Indian Administrative Services (IAS)
officers meet in New Delhi last week, the
Prime Minister once again reiterated his
belief that bureaucrats have a very poor
image in public and therefore need to
redeem themselves. On an earlier
occasion, the PM had even suggested
changes in the system of recruitment to
IAS and advised new methods to
periodically assess the performance after
recruitment.
With his diverse experience
first as a teacher, then a bureaucrat,
finally a union minister and eventually
the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh can
be reasonably trusted for his views
regarding the IAS. Further, given his
unquestioned credentials of honesty,
integrity and professional rectitude, Mr
Manmohan Singh's suggestion would merit
discussion even if he were not the Prime
Minister.
Indeed, there are many
issues related to IAS, both its
recruitment method as well as its
functioning, which call for a
wide-ranging discussion. The IaS was
conceived along the lines of imperial
Indian Civil Services (ICS) which was
primarily geared to achieve revenue
collection. Today, in a rapidly changing
21st century scenario where India is
aheading for economic and global
supremacy while retaining its
distinguished character as the world's
largest democracy, many of the IAS
officers continue to be considered being
feudal, slothful and prone to take
advantage of their positions in various
ways. Not only there is often a
conspicuous conceit in their dealings
with common public but also so in their
dealings with fellow-colleagues from
non-IAS cadres. Quite contrary to its
role model the British ICS which was held
in high esteem for its incorruptibility
and unblemished honesty, the stories of
embezzlements, scams and corrupt
practices involving IAS officers hardly
need to be retold.
60 years after
independence, the IAS is seen as a mere
lucrative career option which offers a
secure well-paid job with choicest perks
often accompanied with the prospect of a
matrimonial alliance carrying a fat
dowry. The higher commitment about which
Mr Manmohan Singh is trying to remind the
IAS officers has unfortunately given way
to lesser considerations like the
unsavoury haste to make a fortune using
the IAS tag. And upon this, an IAS
officer with a non-specialised and often
non-technical educational background
considers himself qualified enough to sit
upon judgement over highly technical
professionals including engineers,
doctors etc. It is in this context that
one ought to view the Prime Minister's
suggestion regarding necessary
modifications being made in recruitment
methods, selection and training of IAS
incumbents.
It could be argued on behalf
of the IAS lot that after all they too
belong to the same society in which, for
example, many a doctor indulge in
malpractices like trade in kidneys or
advising unwarranted expensive
investigations to the patient and many an
engineer thrive through embezzlement of
state funds. But, the rejoinder to this
argument is that in that case the IAS
lobby should avoid posing as a
‘‘holy cow’’ with
claims to impunity not available to other
state functionaries.
Transparency and
accountability are the key words even for
IAS personnel. No longer can the common
man be held to ransom by the much
condemned bureaucrat-politician nexus. No
longer can Umapathy be taken for a
ride by what poet Akbar Allahabadi thus
describes, ‘‘Qaum Ke Gham
Mein Dinner Khaatey Hain
‘‘Hukkam’’ Ke Saath,
Ranj Leader Ko Bahut Hai Magar Aaram Ke
Saath !’’
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Controlling
'Unruly' MPs
By
Sondip Bhattacharya
The Lok Sabha Speaker, Mr.
Somnath Chatterjee, is always in the news
sometime for good reason and sometime for
wrong reasons. Unlike his predecessors he
is not a good crisis manager, and is
prone to provocations from opposition
benches in Lok Sabha. His ties with the
opposition are already strained.
In an unprecedented move Mr.
Chatterjee has cracked the whip by
sending as many as 32 'unruly' MPs to the
privileges committee. The action follows
a series of warnings by the chair that he
will initiate disciplinary actions
against the MPs who have been often
disrupting proceedings by trooping into
the well of the House to indulge in
sloganeering.
While 31 members have been
referred to the scrutiny of the
privileges committee for indulging in
continuous sloganeering on April 24 over
inflation and Mr. Baalu saga relating to
subsidized gas supply to his sons'
enterprises. Despite the chair pointing
out that the very subject was discussed
in the House just a few days ago, another
one, Brajesh Pathak of BSP, faces the
heat for repeatedly preventing Union
Minister Ram Vilas Paswan from making a
statement in the House the next day.
On both the occasions, the
chair had repeatedly warned members to
call off their disruptive tactics or face
action while instructing the staff to
note down their names. Of the 32 MPs, 22
belong to the BJP, four to the Shiromani
Akali Dal, two BJD, one each from BSP and
JD(S).
This could just be the
beginning as there are indications that
the Speaker is in the process of handing
out similar orders to another group of
obstructive MPs-some from the NDA (who
held up House proceedings on April 28,
over the T.R. Baalu issue, despite the
Speaker saying he was willing to allow a
discussion on the matter if proper
notices was given), and a few from
Samajwadi Party and BSP who indulged in
sloganeering over price rise, Bundelkhand
and Public Distribution System (PDS)
issues respectively.
A Lok Sabha bulletin, dated
April 30, and released on May 1 said:
"The Speaker, in exercise of his
powers under Rule 227 of the Rules of
Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok
Sabha has referred the matter relating to
disorderly conduct in the House by the
following members to the Committee of
Privileges for examination, investigation
and report".
That rule empowers the Chair
to refer the case of these members to the
privileges committee under Rule 349 which
says: Whilst, the House is sitting, a
member shall not interrupt any members
while speaking by disorderly expression
or noises or in any other disorderly
manner; shall maintain silence when not
speaking in the House; shall not obstruct
proceedings, or interrupt and shall avoid
making running commentaries when another
members is speaking; shall not shout
slogans in the House."
A week ago, the Rajya Sabha
witnessed such a rare incident when the
Chairman ordered an obstructive AIADMK
member to leave the House, which then led
to the Opposition members registering
their protest with Mr. Hamid Ansari,
saying his action was too harsh.
In this case, there will be
no immediate bar on these 32 members from
attending the House proceedings but they
will be served notices by the Lok Sabha
privileges committee to summon them for
hearing to examine whether their conduct
amounted to the breach of privileges (of
the other members to be heard while
speaking by ensuring the orderly
functioning of the House) and, finalise
the punishment if found guilty.
The Lok Sabha secretariat
pointed out that the chair has been
making repeated appeals, both in the
House and during the closed-door meetings
with the floor leaders, to put an end to
the practice of disrupting proceedings
every now and then. While the Speaker has
been telling many senior colleagues that
while the members forcing the
adjournments of the House 'in
extraordinary situations' were quite
understandable, same can't be justified
as a routine.
During one of the meetings,
the Speaker proposed the 'no work, no
pay', norm which was rejected by almost
all parties even while some of them
opined that the chair could invoke
disciplinary actions in extreme cases of
unruly behaviour. He seems to have
started that.
Among members who face the
heat are seniors like Shahnawaz Hussain,
P.S. Gadhavi, M.A. Kharabela Swain,
Kishan Singh Sangwan and Kiran Maheswari
of BJP, Chandrakant Khaire, Kalpana
Ramesh Narhire of Shiv Sena, Rattan Singh
Ajnala and Sukhdeo Singh Libra of Akali
Dal and Tathagatha Satpathy of BJD.
It is necessary to give the
background why MPs were agitated over Mr.
T.R. Baalu's letters of request to Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh, 'requesting' for
gas supplies for his son's companies. The
letters were forwarded to the Minister
for Petroleum and Natural Gas Murli
Deora. Mr. Baalu, of course, describes it
as 'justice'. No matter how much they all
protest, there seems to be everything
unusual about the Baalu episode.
It is unusual, not merely
because Mr. Baalu used his position as a
minister in the Union Cabinet, but also
because he was not willing to fork out as
much as other commercial entities were
required to pay for gas supplies.
Mr. Baalu wanted gas for two
companies-King Chemicals and Kings High
Power-run by his sons. The minister says
that he arrived at an agreement with Gas
Authority of India Limited (GAIL) in 1999
for 10,000 cubic metre of gas and 0.45
million cubic metre gas per day,
respectively. He was right when he said
that, but what Mr. Baalu chose not to
tell Parliament during his
"confession" was that he wanted
gas at the administered price of $1.96
per million British thermal units (mBtu)
when it was being sold at anywhere
between $6 and $16 per mBtu in the
market.
The UPA government will
insist that there is 'nothing unusual'
about it. Mr. Baalu, of course, describes
it as 'justice'. Remember what he told
Parliament? "Thousands of
shareholders approached me and said, 'the
company has got sick. Now you are at the
helm of affairs, you are minister. Why
don't you put our case before the
petroleum minister so as to have
justice," Mr. Baalu told the Rajya
Sabha last week.
But the speaker's decision
to virtually single out the
opposition-Left MPs have also been
raucous in raising the demand for higher
PDS allocations for West Bengal and
Kerala-might trigger a controversy. BJP
spokesperson and RS MP Prakash Javdekar
said the government has to be responsive
for the smooth functioning of Parliament.
Allies and supporters of the government
themselves disrupt the functioning of the
two Houses, he said.
During the NDA rule the
Congress party and the Left held many
times both the Houses to ransom, and no
business was transacted for 98 days in
total due to sloganeering of the then
opposition parties. And Mr. Somnath
Chatterjee was in the forefront to block
the proceeding of the Lok Sabha. Our
politicians have short memories about
what they did in the past.
If the privileges committee
decides to expel the MPs named by the
Speaker, to be sure the judiciary will be
the final arbiter, once again leading to
conflict between the two pillars of
democracy.
While the opposition does
stall Parliament, a part of the problem
seems to be poor communication with the
government. Usually, when the House is
stalled, there is an effort to resolve
issues through discussions led by the
parliamentary affairs minister and
Speaker. During the UPA government's
tenure the opposition and the ruling
combination have been on collision
course, which is not a healthy sign for
democracy. Punitive action by the Speaker
will further embitter relations between
the rulers and the opposition. INAV
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Hindi - Urdu get
going in the US
By M J
Warsi
Living in a diverse place
like United States, you come across to
meet and converse with all kind of
'desis' now. One can easily find people,
who have come from a non-English speaking
ethnic and cultural background; how many
of them can speak and understand their
parents native language. Also, a lot of
people of this generation can understand
but can't speak it.
I know many students and
community members who speak to their
parents in English and their parents
reply back to them in Urdu and other
Indian languages.
Ma'sha Allah, I can read,
write, speak Urdu and understand Hindi,
said one of my students Aisa Sabar, who
recently graduated from Washington
University in St. Louis.
Though many South Asian
languages are taught at different
universities but Urdu has a prominent
place because it is spoken by one-third
of the population of the world, almost
the entire Hindus, half of the Buddhists
and seventy percent of Muslims speak
Urdu.
After 9/11, there has been a
change in not just the United States but
also the whole world and now there is a
trend to gain more knowledge about other
cultures. It is also interesting to note
that Urdu is making waves in the United
States, where it has not yet forgotten.
With this trend Urdu has also become part
of some of the universities curriculum.
Acceptance and opportunities
given by the universities have encouraged
many South Asian students to venture out
and experience Urdu to its full capacity.
Likewise, it also gives
non-Urdu speakers an opportunity to
experience and learn Urdu language and
understand the culture. For example, one
of the beauties of the Urdu language is a
host of words used to show respect and
politeness. These words are generally
used with people who are older in age or
with whom you are not acquainted.
Thus allows members of the
other ethnic communities to understand
how the South Asian culture and norms
work.
With the prominent web
presence, one can easily find and enjoy
Ghalib, Iqbal and Faiz on the website
carrying Urdu text in naskh and nasta'liq
writing system. Due to wider presence of
Urdu on the web has lent words to
American cities such as halaal, eid,
biryani, ramdaan, menhdi, kabaab and many
more. BBC Urdu and many news portals can
easily be accessed to read the news in
Urdu.
Urdu is also one of the
primary languages of South Asian Islamic
culture and history. Most of the Islamic
literatures in South Asia are in Urdu.
This is another reason for learning Urdu
in the United States to know more about
the Islamic traditions in South Asia. It
is perhaps best known for its traditions
of romantic literature, especially its
poetic forms, the ghazals and masnavi.
Studies in Urdu are in
invariable part of building a broader
campus community that is aware of the
rich linguistic and cultural histories
that immigrants and their children have
brought with them to the US. Many
students take Urdu to fulfill their
language requirement in colleges and
universities.
With this trend Urdu has
also become part of some of the
universities curriculum. Acceptance and
opportunities given by the universities
have encouraged many students to venture
out and experience Urdu to its full
capacity South Asian Student's
Association at many universities in the
United States celebrate Cultural week
every semester, where they celebrate
festivals like Eid, Diwali show,
Eid-ul-adha and Holi. Putting together a
culture show allows all kinds of people,
whether they already are in touch with
their background or are not, to be
exposed to their music, language,
literacy, entertainment, sports,
politics, etc.
''A cultural event opens the
doors for friendship and it allows you to
communicate with people you never would
have approached before", said a 22
year old student Jocelyn Killmer.
Steven Wilson, a 21 year
student at Washington University in St.
Louis, who recently came back from
Lucknow, India after completing the Study
Abroad Program in Urdu said, ''A language
is more than just a means of
communication. It is a repository of a
community's collective history and
heritage. It also provides an identity
and a focus that binds together a
community for social togetherness, which
makes individual accomplishments much
easier".
Abida Sadiq, an South
Asian-American mother of 51 years of age,
living in Hayward, California for many
years expresses her views on the
importance of Urdu by saying that
"it will allow her children to know
their roots.
And thus they will be able
to pass it on to their children securing
the culture for the future
generations". Language is the
essence and the identity of culture, and
is the major tool for communication. To
know your language is the key element in
keeping and preserving the fundamental
nature of your culture.
In recent times the idea of
Cultural awareness in the United States
has increased thus allowing Urdu to be
more culturally accepted. Mushairah.....
yet another interesting cultural and
literary event making their waves in the
US are increasingly getting very popular
year after year.
Most popular among these
Mushairas are the one organized in
different US cities by Aligarh Muslim
University Alumni Association better
known as annual Sir Syed Day Banquet and
International Mushaira. "Mushaira of
these days in the US and bringing poets
from the sub-continent are an attempt to
meet and keep our tradition alive"
said a 45 years old Shaheer Khan, the man
behind this mission.
After attending the
Mushaira, Rabia Siddiqui, a 22 year
former student of the University of
California at Berkeley, with a great sigh
of relief, said very enthusiastically
"Ma'sha Allah Urdu is growing in the
United States".-(PTI)
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