Talks to nowhere
NO progress was expected and none was achieved: this about sums up the outcome of the six-point composite talks between India and Pakistan which ended late last week.

Unholy US intentions
THERE is nothing surprising or even disappointing in the US declaration of the “entities’ list” on Saturday, giving the names of India’s research institutions, public sector undertakings and private companies with which American companies will not be allowed to enter into business deals.

Remembering Nehru
THE Indian people’s memory of Jawaharlal Nehru is perennial. He loved children and considered them as creative citizens of the high noon of tomorrow. November 14 is, therefore, dedicated not only to our here and now.

POLITICAL DEGENERATION
by Bharat Wariavalla
A MOMENTARY shock, a flutter of rage, an outburst of indignation — these are the reactions of a middle class Indian at the public disclosures of Romesh Sharma’s crimes. By now he or she has seen many Sharmas, real and of Bollywood imagination, to spur him to doing something to fight them.

The issues in US mid-term polls
by V. Gangadhar
FINALLY, the hunter became the hunted and was forced to quit the scene. Mr Newt Gingrich, the US House of Representatives Speaker, who led the “moral crusade” against President Clinton’s Democrats in the elections to the Senate and the Congress had to admit defeat.

‘Mr’ versus ‘Judge’: who
is to judge?
by Anupam Gupta
“I do not understand,” said R.K. Sidhva in the Constituent Assembly 49 years ago, “why the Judge of a High Court should be above criticism as far as his conduct is concerned.... While I say that his judgement should not be under discussion of the House, his conduct should be certainly subject to discussion.

Cong efforts to win
back Sikhs
by Humra Quraishi
PERHAPS in keeping with the lazy winter still not setting in, the election fever is yet to pick up here. True, ageing filmstars Sunil Dutt, Vinod Khanna, Raj Babbar have just done their bit by going around the Delhi roads and canvassing for candidates of the political parties they are associated with, but that doesn’t seem to have given any kick to the tempo.

Honesty is (was) best policy!
by Anurag
I WAS aghast. My teenage son was adamant. He would have none of it. For no rhyme or reason. Or so it seemed. And lo and behold, in no time he pleaded his case so well to the “family court”, presided over by the Lady of the House (LOH), that both the Bench and the Bar declared me out of date, mind and temper...out and out!

75 Years Ago

Linguistic horror in Kashmir
THE vexed language question has been solved in Kashmir! Hindi has been put on the Procrustean bed of the Education Department of the State and maimed and mangled.

Talks to nowhere

NO progress was expected and none was achieved: this about sums up the outcome of the six-point composite talks between India and Pakistan which ended late last week. In fact, it is worse than this. On certain issues the two sides have gone back on past gestures of accommodation. Only a reckless optimist could have hoped for a positive result, given the compulsions of the ruling party in both countries and the utter lack of elbow room. Having tirelessly painted the other as the most dreaded force in the neighbourhood, neither India nor Pakistan can afford to give anything away, and without a clearly discernible give, there can be no take and hence no advance along the road to reduced tension.

Pakistan’s obsession with the Kashmir issue and India’s counterblast of crossborder trafficking in terrorism are outward symptoms of inward inflexibility. The daily disinformation campaign on Pakistan television has succeeded in creating a mass psychosis that the soul of Islamic Pakistan has shifted to Kashmir and if it is lost, the nation is lost. This explains the desperate attempt to assemble gangs of mercenaries to fight for “azadi” in the valley. Islamabad has started believing in its own myth, until New Delhi presented it with clinching evidence of its complicity in training, funding and arming the thugs. According to one report, the visiting delegation was taken aback at the painstaking efforts behind the collection of mass of sensitive information and also at the distinct damage of this material finding its way to Washington. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif seems to be doubly unblest. Not only has his attempt to interest the sole surviving super power in the Kashmir affair failed, but also his support to terrorists is beginning to attract notice in the USA. Terrorism is growing to be global issue number one in the months to come, and that would spell trouble for him and his country.

Even if the two countries stoutly deny it, the USA has, on its own, started taking extra interest in the Kashmir dispute. The US Ambassador in New Delhi likes to fly to Srinagar and hold court there. At other times he loves to tell listeners how urgent it is for the two neighbours to seek peace. The USA formally lifts a few unimportant economic sanctions, expressing satisfaction at the resumption of talks. The secretary-level talks last week was held at the US behest, if not because of its armtwisting. Although unsaid, the dollar kingdom will like to despatch a peace-maker to shuttle endlessly between the two capitals to hawk a US-made solution. It has some suitable men to spare for this kind of mission, men like Mr George Mitchell (Ulster), Mr Richard Halbrooke (Bosnia/Kosovo) and Mr Dennis Ross (Palestine). If an agreement miraculously emerges, it can be signed, sealed and delivered on the sanctified south lawns of the White House. One man seems to have seen through this and has decided to scuttle it. Home Minister L.K. Advani let go an explosive charge at Pakistan right in the middle of the six-day talks. On the surface, it was unfriendly fire, but deep down there was a message: no shotgun peace for us please and the two countries would themselves set the pace for eventual friendship. In the meantime, keep off. Did Mr Advani have one Mr Bill Clinton in mind? An interesting thought.

Unholy US intentions

THERE is nothing surprising or even disappointing in the US declaration of the “entities’ list” on Saturday, giving the names of India’s research institutions, public sector undertakings and private companies with which American companies will not be allowed to enter into business deals. Of course, the Clinton Administration’s move will choke the free flow of trade, technology and finance in certain key areas. But it is clearly in accordance with the unholy US designs prepared after the Pokhran-II developments in May. Those who have been reading between the lines the various statements coming from the American side that the only surviving super power was inching towards normalising relations with India have been proved wrong. The USA has been cleverly pursuing its plan to get the Indian nuclear programme capped, to falsely declare before the world community how serious it is about the cause of nuclear disarmament. Washington perhaps believes that it can make India — as also Pakistan — agree to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) without the necessary amendments sought by New Delhi to eliminate its discriminatory aspect. The Clinton Administration is using the unilateral sanctions as a weapon to achieve this unholy objective. That is why when last week the USA announced the easing of part of the sanctions, its Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Mr Karl Inderfurth, clarified the very next day that “this is not to return to business as usual”. He had also made it clear that soon the US administration would come out with a list of companies and government establishments in India and Pakistan with which Americans would be barred from doing business. The list has been made public and the “entities” are almost the same which were targeted under the Glenn Amendment. But the US claim that it was interested in creating a conducive atmosphere for the talks between its representative Strobe Talbott and Indian Prime Minister’s special emissary Jaswant Singh has no justification. One fails to understand how the political climate will improve when the USA is going to publish the Federal Register containing the so-called “entities list” on November 19, the day when Mr Jaswant Singh and Mr Talbott will begin the seventh round of their parleys. The ill-advised American exercise will, in fact, render the talks meaningless.

The truth is that at this stage the USA is least interested in normalising its relations with India. Its decision to lift some of the sanctions last week was dictated by its own commercial interests. After all, India has emerged as the second largest market for US exporters and they are unwilling to lose this advantage. That the step will ease pressure on Indian companies is a byproduct. Moreover, India was gradually learning to live with the sanctions. Now it is clear that India will have to look to European sources for its high technology requirements to sustain its various scientific and defence programmes. There is no dearth of foreign agencies willing to bail India out. Even otherwise, too much dependence on an arrogant source like America was unwise. The USA has exposed itself that it does not bother about others’ sensitivities. India’s business organisations should not feel distressed. Sooner or later, the USA will realise its folly of pursuing an anti-India policy. The sooner it does, the better it will be to drive the point home that arrogance does not pay in international relations.

Remembering Nehru

THE Indian people’s memory of Jawaharlal Nehru is perennial. He loved children and considered them as creative citizens of the high noon of tomorrow. November 14 is, therefore, dedicated not only to our here and now. It is an occasion for the celebration of the yet unborn grandeur of the future. In most of the tributes paid to him on Saturday, the focus was on Nehru’s personality and on child welfare. The schedules drawn up for the proceedings for such occasions should have a touch of realism about them primarily because Nehru was a realist highly inspired by idealism. If one looks at the torrents of speeches released all over the country on the auspicious day, one feels the need for remembering the quintessential Nehru and taking a few radical steps to end the exploitation of children. Proper health-care and purposeful education remain their basic requirements. It is necessary to iterate that throughout his life the builder of modern India worked ceaselessly to prove worthy of his developmental passion “as the mountain should rear its crest conformable to the height of the precipice which bounds it”. And he proved worthier than the mountain! On the personal level, Nehru’s achievement was well summed up by Sir Winston Churchill in a conversation with him: “I would have liked to have been with you and introduced you to American audiences. Do you know how I would have introduced you? I would have said, ‘Here’s a man who has overcome fear and hatred’.”

On the social level it is almost impossible to sum up Nehru’s complex accomplishments. Perhaps, the nearest approach to an estimation is his own: “I have been one of a mass, moving with it, swaying it occasionally, being influenced by it: like the other units an individual, apart from the others, living my separate life in the heart of the crowd”.

When D.P. Mishra, the veteran but vituperative leader from Madhya Pradesh, accused Nehru of having dictatorial tendencies, it was firmly asserted by leading political thinkers of the day that “Nehru will be the first person to join the hunt for Caesarism in his country”. His almost forgotten self-portrait, which he wrote anonymously several years before his death, reads partly thus: “Jawaharlal cannot become a fascist. And yet he has all the makings of a dictator in him — vast popularity, a strong will directed to a well-defined purpose, energy, pride, organisational capacity, ability, hardness, and with all his love of the crowd and intolerance of others and a certain contempt for the weak and inefficient.... In normal times he would just be an efficient and successful executive but in this revolutionary epoch, Caesarism is always at the door, and is it not possible that Jawaharlal might fancy himself as Caesar....? He cannot rest, for he who rides a tiger cannot dismount...” Like his famous oration on “Tryst with Destiny”, such revealing documents should be included in textbooks for the secondary school and college-level curricula. Doing so will be better than making students wade through millions of words, words, words, about men, matters and issues.

POLITICAL DEGENERATION
Handiwork of neta, babu & mafioso
by Bharat Wariavalla

A MOMENTARY shock, a flutter of rage, an outburst of indignation — these are the reactions of a middle class Indian at the public disclosures of Romesh Sharma’s crimes. By now he or she has seen many Sharmas, real and of Bollywood imagination, to spur him to doing something to fight them. Sharmas are above law, the middle class Indian thinks. The thought is born out of resignation.

The Sharma story of the rise of a one-time petty smuggler in Mumbai 20 years ago to the owner today of assets worth Rs 500 crore is thrilling. Soon it’ll be made into a film and in it the crime lord will ultimately be killed by the law enforcers. This is Bollywood’s moral norm: Ram must prevail over Ravana.

The real Sharma story as it has unfolded till now shows that crime pays, indeed richly, and if one goes by past precedents, crime can be done with impunity. He has acquired land and properties by blackmail, extortion and killings. He abducted girls for his pleasure and also of ministers, senior police officers, bureaucrats and sundry other VVIPs. The partnership between the mafioso, the politician and the bureaucrat was mutually profitable. The mafioso needed police and politicians’ protection to run his business; the police and politicians needed the mafioso to transfer their ill-gotten wealth to Dubai, liquidate their political opponents and provide them with flesh.

He was immensely powerful, claiming to know three former Prime Ministers; one of them was a frequent visitor to his mansion at C-30 Mayfair Gardens. A former Defence Minister and many small-time politicians visited it to transact their shady deals, and to satisfy their carnal needs. He grew to such importance because he knew so well that beneath the legitimate politics lay the thick core of dirty politics. It is one thing to contest for an election; it is another thing to have the election financed and won, in case the going is tough. Black money is needed to fight an election, and muscle men are needed to ensure victory in a contest that is keen.

Netas and Sharmas are allies. It was indeed boastful, but not entirely unreal, when Romesh Sharma said that he could be the next Prime Minister. He had known previous Prime Ministers, three of them, and knew well the stuff they were made off. Will the Sharmas one day take over the reins of politics in this country? India is the most corrupt democracy in the world. And this should surprise none.

The crime-politics-bureaucracy links are complex, and they vary from place to place. The kind of links that prevail today in our country is one of close partnership between the politicians, the bureaucrats and the operators of the underworld. There is a rough balance between the three, though at times it breaks down, resulting in violent conflicts among them. We have not yet reached a stage where the criminal dictates the politician and the bureaucrat, as in Myanmar today or in Colombia and Peru in the recent past.

The financial capital of the country, Mumbai, witnesses a partnership between politicians and crime lords. Haji Mastan, Varadrajan Mudaliar and Dawood Ibrahim just couldn’t have acquired power and influence in the city without the shield provided by politicians. Regardless of who rules Mumbai the Congress, the Shiv Sena or the BJP — the underworld prospers. Sometimes the understanding between the neta and the mafioso breaks down and the result is bloodshed (the recent killing of some Shiv Sainiks and the raging gang warfare can be given as exampler).

Yet one has not seen the underworld dictating the politics of the city of Mumbai so far. Dawood or Arun Gawli by the protection of the police and the politician; he funds politics, hawala transfers the ill-gotten wealth of politicians and bureaucrats, and he kills the opponents of a politician he is aligned to. But to date he has not yet stepped into politics.

In Bihar and UP however, gangsters have managed to get themselves elected. As many as 19 ministers in the Kalyan Singh government have criminal records. The Rabri Devi government is the model of criminalised politics; politics and crime are in perfect partnership here. Anand Mohan Singh formed the Bihar People’s Party and pursued his caste politics with tough necks, guns and money amassed from afim and ganja trade.

ULFA in Assam practices criminalised politics with impunity. It may well be only a matter of time before the Sharmas take over politics. Romesh Sharma had his own party, the Bharatiya Congress Party. His aspiration to be the Prime Minister of the country was not that unreal; he had money and the power of the gun with him. Democratic trappings can still remain while politics is taken over by the underworld. Italy is a good example of this kind of degeneration.

Andreotti and Bettino Craxi rose to be the Prime Ministers of the country with mafia support, as later investigations of the mafia operations showed. For a long-time the crime-politics nexus worked well in Italy. It is only when the nexus began to threaten the lives and property of average Italians that the people began to express their concern through various citizens’ forums and parties to rid their country of the mafia. New parties stepped on the political stage while the old ones, the Christian Democrats and the Socialists so mired in corruption, were discredited. But the fight between the Italian people, the judiciary and the Press on the one hand and the mafia and the politicians on the other proved to be tough. About six years ago a public prosecutor charged with investigating the extent of the mafia penetration of Italian politics was killed in her well-protected office in a bunker.

India’s hawala affair is by now forgotten. Those whose names were mentioned in the Jain Brothers’ diary as recipients of hawala money were cleared of the charges by the Supreme Court for lack of evidence. Names of many top leaders of important political parties were mentioned, though cryptically, in the Jain Brothers’ diary. But let us also remember the circumstances in which it was found; from two Kashmiri militants in Delhi. At least this merited a serious investigation into how and by whom is the Kashmir militancy sustained.

The issues in US mid-term polls
by V. Gangadhar

FINALLY, the hunter became the hunted and was forced to quit the scene. Mr Newt Gingrich, the US House of Representatives Speaker, who led the “moral crusade” against President Clinton’s Democrats in the elections to the Senate and the Congress had to admit defeat. Mr Gingrich announced he would be quitting his post and would not be a candidate for the leadership of his party.

President Clinton, basking in his electoral triumph, made all the correct noises. He called Mr Gingrich a “worthy political adversary” who had helped the government to prepare the USA for the 21st century. Nice words, but neither Mr Gingrich nor the Republican Party leadership would ever forget the party’s performance in the recent polls. In fact, it was Mr Gingrich who had started the moral crusade against the President, focusing on his much-publicised liaison with White House aide Monica Lewinsky. Once the results were out, Mr Gingrich had to confess, “We did not understand that people would frankly just get fed up with the existence of the topic”. He was referring to the Lewinsky affair and the report of independent counsel, Kenneth Starr.

Mr Gingrich had been in national politics for more than two decades and yet was unable to gauge the mood of the American electorate. Such miscalculations are not uncommon among politicians. Indira Gandhi, for instance, believed that her people really appreciated the benefits from her declaration of the Emergency, and was shocked when she found out that this was not so. The Americans, even as they prepared themselves for the 21st century, opted for a leadership which understood and cared for their problems rather than for one which clothed itself in garish moral armour. They simply rejected the Republicans’ contention that the polls should be considered a referendum for the President’s morals.

The Republicans, in fact, did manage to retain their hold on the Congress but now have a reduced majority. Their strength in the Senate did not show any significant improvement. Contrary to expectations, the Democrats managed to retain several of the closely-contested seats but also added to their overall tally. These gains were against traditional political wisdom which held the view that mid-term polls always went against the party in power. For the first time in 64 years, the party in power at the White House won additional seats to the Congress and the Senate.

What kind of an American President brought about this remarkable transformation? Mr Bill Clinton will certainly go down in history as one of the most astute and cunning politicians the nation had ever produced. The mid-term election in the country was yet another instance where the USA played all his cards rightly. In fact, the modest victories gained by the Democrats had been made to look like a tremendous political triumph. The statistics say so. The Republicans still controlled the Senate and the Congress besides most of the governorships in the USA. In the six years of the Clinton presidency, his party’s strength in the 435-member House of Representatives fell from 267 to 206 before reaching 211. In the Senate, the strength came down from 57 to 45. During the same period, the Republicans had made impressive gains at every political level.

There was a lot of inconsistency in these happenings. The aftermath after the recent elections found the Republicans mourning and burying their heads, as they thought their party had been routed in a landslide. There was a feeling that Mr Clinton had been allowed to wriggle out of an impossible situation. The President emerged larger than life-size. If the 21st Amendment which forbid a President from contesting more than two terms, Mr Bill Clinton will romp through for yet another term in the White House.

The media hoopla over the Lewinsky affair failed to have any impact. Moral values, ultimately, did not turn out to be the major issue in the polls. The people voted for issues, not values. What were the issues? Prices, wages, jobs, education and a bright future for the young Americans. In all these aspects, the Clinton administration had scored heavily.

Honesty is (was) best policy!
by Anurag

I WAS aghast. My teenage son was adamant. He would have none of it. For no rhyme or reason. Or so it seemed. And lo and behold, in no time he pleaded his case so well to the “family court”, presided over by the Lady of the House (LOH), that both the Bench and the Bar declared me out of date, mind and temper...out and out!What was my crime? None too grave. Certainly not a “high crime or misdemeanour” to warrant my impeachment!It was on a Sunday morning that I volunteered to help my son do his English homework, the LOH being a little out of sorts. The exercise was about changing direct speech into indirect speech. A few sentences read like this:Direct: He said to me, “The sun rises in the east.”Indirect: He told me that the sun rises in the east.Direct: The teacher said to the student, “Honesty is the best policy.”Indirect: The teacher told the student that honesty was the best policy.“The second sentence has not been correctly converted”, I reasoned, “because this too is about a universal truth, very much like the first sentence.” My son didn’t agree. An argument ensued. Polite noises made way for a pitched battle of wits, and those watching from the sidelines so far zealously joined. The deluge of points and counterpoints drowned my fervent appeals to restore calm and order. Three generations of my joint family took perfect potshots at one another. If the grandparents grandly goliathised about their times of yore and swore at the new age pragmatic predators, the ebullient youngsters were not at all apologetic about their convictions and conceptions in this regard. The latter baulked at the idea of simple living, and dubbed it a brainwave of simpletons. According to them, need-based dishonesty should be distinguished from greed-based dishonesty.

Quoting chapter and verse, the protagonists pronounced, “Dishonesty is a pre-requisite for prosperity. What dishonesty is to prosperity, honesty is to poverty.”

“We are the ninth most corrupt country in the world, but rank 134th on the human development scale,” I quipped.

Coming out of the cacophony, I thought of giving them some food for thought:

1. Would like to have a son/parent who behaves dishonestly with you?

2. Would you have like to have a wife/husband who is dishonest to you?

3. Would you like your friend to be dishonest enough to ditch you?

4. Would you like to be surrounded by dishonest employees in your organisation?

All of them nodded negatively. I’d won an argument. And won them over too, having done my “homework” along with my son.

‘Mr’ versus ‘Judge’: who is to judge?

by Anupam Gupta

  “I do not understand,” said R.K. Sidhva in the Constituent Assembly 49 years ago, “why the Judge of a High Court should be above criticism as far as his conduct is concerned.... While I say that his judgement should not be under discussion of the House, his conduct should be certainly subject to discussion. There is nothing wrong and it does not in any way derogate from his position. If you have some kind of restriction upon a Judge, I think it will be a very healthy procedure.”

There were only two interventions from the floor that day on June 10, 1949, as the founding fathers debated an important provision, Article 185 of the Draft Constitution. Presently Article 211, the provision enjoins that no discussion shall take place in a State legislature with respect to the conduct of a Supreme Court or High Court Judge “in the discharge of his duties”. Article 121 imposes a similar embargo on discussion in Parliament subject to unrestricted freedom of debate during impeachment proceedings.

The other intervention was by B. Das. And he too made the same point. “I am not happy,” he said, with Article 185. “I do think and appeal to Dr Ambedkar — the Drafting Committee has been very fair and if they have been fair, why do they want to stifle discussion about the High Court Judges in the provincial legislatures?” The legislature, he said, should have the right to question the conduct of High Court Judges.

No other member of the Constituent Assembly joined issue and the Article was adopted in its present form. Divining the mind of the founding fathers from the record of their deliberations five decades hence is no easy task and it is not at all clear whether the protests so succinctly lodged by Sidhva and Das, especially the former, were dismissed or considered unnecessary in view of the actual wording of the Article. For Sidhva drew a pointed, and highly meaningful, distinction between a Judge’s judgement and his conduct.

That a Judge hears a case and passes judgement in the discharge of his duties is but obvious. But his “conduct” may well extend beyond the discharge of judicial duties and entail the risk of his losing the protection that the Constitution so zealously, and wisely, affords him.

That is precisely what the head of the English judiciary, Lord Chancellor Kilmuir hinted at in December, 1955, in his letter to the Director General of the BBC — the famous letter which formulated what have come to be known as the “Kilmuir rules”.

Refusing permission for Judges to participate in radio lectures, the Lord Chancellor indicated that his real concern was anything that might be said by a Judge out of court. So long, he said, as a Judge “keeps silent, his reputation for wisdom and impartiality remains unassailable, but every utterance which he makes in public, except in the course of the actual performance of his judicial duties, must necessarily bring him within the focus of criticism.”

Precisely what happened last week to Justice M.F. Saldanha of the Karnataka High Court. A speech at a public meeting in Belgaum sharply critical of proceedings in the Karnataka Assembly (over the stay recently granted by the High Court in the Cubbon Park case, affecting the construction of an annexe to the Legislators’ Home) attracted a notice of breach of privilege and brought the distinguished Judge in the focus of criticism within the House.

An intolerable attack on judicial independence, the MLAs’ angry reaction to the High Court order — passed by a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice R.P. Sethi and Justice Mohamed Anwar in the discharge of their judicial duties under Article 226 — clearly infringed Article 211. No less certainly Justice Saldanha’s retaliatory attack on the legislators at a public meeting, totally outside the pale of judicial functions, was a fundamental and unpardonable breach of judicial propriety.

Displaying a refined sense of the law, the Speaker, Mr Ramesh Kumar expunged observations made in the House on November 3 against the Judges of the High Court and the judicial order passed by them. At the same time (and that is important), he ruled on November 11 that the House was well within its rights to go into the conduct of a Judge outside the precincts of the court and announced that he would fix a date for a discussion on the notice of breach of privilege against Justice Saldanha.

Strongly defending his right to move the privilege notice, BJP MLA Mr H.N. Nanje Gowda maintained that a Judge could be considered a Judge only in the courtroom or in his chambers. “But when a Judge speaks at a public meeting, a club or in a shandy,” — I quote from a report by The Hindu’s special correspondent — “his privileges are no more than that of an ordinary citizen.” He went on to read out from a book “Our Courts on Trial” by that great judicial patriarch, Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer.

His party colleague, Ms Pramila Nesargi disagreed. A judge, she said (and I quote this time from The Indian Express), “is a Judge for all 24 hours.” A practising lawyer and wife of a former High Court Judge, Ms Nesargi engaged the Chair in a prolonged argument, disputing the right of the House to discuss the conduct of a Judge even out of court.

Hearing out both, the Speaker asked Mr Nanje Gowda whether he was speaking of “Mr Saldanha” or “Justice Saldanha”. The member replied that he was speaking of Mr Saldanha, not Justice Saldanha, and was allowed by the Speaker to continue.

No judge, no jurist could draw a better distinction than that.

Cong efforts to win back Sikhs

by Humra Quraishi

PERHAPS in keeping with the lazy winter still not setting in, the election fever is yet to pick up here. True, ageing filmstars Sunil Dutt, Vinod Khanna, Raj Babbar have just done their bit by going around the Delhi roads and canvassing for candidates of the political parties they are associated with, but that doesn’t seem to have given any kick to the tempo. Either they have really aged or else we have! Then, till date there seems to be no clear trend coming forth from any minority group here, though christians and Muslims would probably vote along the traditional pattern, that is for the Congress. The Sikhs in Delhi seem to still carry anti-Congress sentiments, thought efforts have been on to bring about some amends. On October 27, Harbhajan Singh had invited about a hundred prominent Sikhs (which included CBI’s former Chief Joginder Singh, Dr Maheep Singh, Tarlochan Singh, Justice RS Narula, Justice RS Sarkaria, Tarlok Singh and several industrialists to his Defence Colony house, and Congress party’s Arjun Singh interacted with them for nearly two hours. Then, on November 11 another Sikh body — the National Sikh Council — invited Sonia Gandhi and several Sikh leaders, including Dr Manmohan Singh, where she spoke of her “anguish” over the 1984 riots. But mere empty words seemed to fail miserably for the ghost of the 1984 riots still looms large, wanting some sort of justice for those affected. Anger against the Congress seems so strong that some Sikhs, like Justice RS Narula, even told me that they would vote for the BJP simply to make the Congress lose. Some other prominent Sikh leaders are still hoping that if Sonia Gandhi even now asks for forgiveness and lists out a concrete plan of action against those guilty for the ‘84 riots then there could be some change in mood. “It was even suggested to her to go to gurdwara Rakabganj and clean the place, wipe the shoes with her chunni and ask for forgiveness but till now nothing has come out of it....we are hoping she might visit the Golden Temple in the coming week, “says another Sikh leader with Congress leanings.

Mamata’s new call

Mamata Banerjee touched New Delhi earlier last week, but the very next day flew to Lucknow. Heralded her return by giving a call to observe December 6 as “black day”. Just before filing this column I spoke to her and she said the only solution to the Babri Masjid site would be to go by the Supreme Court ruling. “Both communities — Hindus and Muslims — will have to go by the verdict of the Court....but, since the masjid demolition has hurt the sentiments of many so I observe the day it was demolished as black day. Though on this coming December 6, I will be in Manipur but I will try to return to either Calcutta or New Delhi by the evening flight. No, I purposely won’t be going to Ayodhya for I don’t want any new disturbances coming up, though I will send some representatives. “And if you were to ask her about the various contradictions in her stand: there are so many but right now just this one: on one hand she is upset about the masjid demolition and yet her tieup with the very political party behind the demolition . In response she talks at an amazing speed about her party’s stand, its differences with the BJP and yet the tieup, then she goes on to constitutional obligations and how she doesn’t like Jyoti Basu but then constitutionally he is the chief minister of her state....Understand? Even if you don’t, just try doing so for she rattles on at such a speed that even interruptions are impossible. So much so that when I asked for her comments on the fact that West Bengal CM Jyoti Basu has declined to attend the Human Rights Conference being convened next month by Union Home Minister LK Advani, she brought in the long list of human rights violations taking place in West Bengal. “Why is he not attending it?....he is scared that then the cat will be out of the bag (of the violations taking place in our state), but then, even if he likes or dislikes he has to attend it, for it is constitutionally required..”

Some more lined up

I have already mentioned that it has been a very reluctant start to winter, but that doesn’t seem to dampen spirits. Every day several cultural programmes stand lined up, with focus only on some of the prominent ones. I am purposely not writing about the ramp shows or beauty contest buildups. This week I would like to focus on a programme arranged by the Hungarian Information and Cultural Centre for it is offbeat — this coming week (commencing on 16 November) there will an exhibition of the works of Sir Aurel Stein and these would include documents, photographs, books and original letters (with special reference to Kashmiri scholars and friends). Also another interesting exhibition opens at the Max Mueller Bhavan on November 13 — this one is photographs of trees by Ranjit Singh and poems on trees by Bertolt Brecht, Erich Fried, Karl Krolow...’Worship the tree that from carrion soars up toward heaven!/Worship the rot/Worship the tree it begot/But furthermore worship heaven (Bertolt Brecht)

What’s news from VP?

When there seemed no comments/advice — laden words/patchup formulas coming from the VP Singh-end, to the growing turmoil in the Janata Party I telephoned one of his former aides and was told that he is away to the USA for a long term treatment. Accompanied by his wife and an aide-cum-physician he would be away for sometime.

75 YEARS AGO

Excerpts from article
Linguistic horror in Kashmir

THE vexed language question has been solved in Kashmir! Hindi has been put on the Procrustean bed of the Education Department of the State and maimed and mangled. There are few instances in the history of cultural cruelties illustrative of such inhuman treatment of languages.

Look at the irony of it. A simple, sensible and sound language has been tortured and mutilated in the name of nationalism. Is it really enlightened nationalism that demand the excision and distortion of languages and introduction of deadening uniformity in our cultural life?

No it is fanatical jingoism which does so, nurtured and supported by the vested interests. It was against this sort of jingoism that Stalin thundered when he came into power in the USSR. He guaranteed freedom to all languages to flourish and develop in their own way. In India also some such arrangement should be enforced. I am not against the creation of a common language which may enable the masses to exchange thoughts freely and fully. But what has been created in Kashmir is a linguistic horror.

— J.B.S.