Congress carrot for Delhi
In its Assembly election manifesto, the Congress has made an alluring assortment of promises for effecting some improvement in the quality of the citizens' life in the ever-expanding National Capital Region (NCR).

Not bankable, these NBFCs
HUMAN greed, men with malleable conscience, government apathy and weak or non-existing legal deterrence are broadly the distinguishing marks of NBFCs (non-banking finance companies).

Code war
ALTHOUGH the campaign for the Assembly elections in four States has yet to gain momentum the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress have begun taking pot shots at each other over the alleged violation of the model code of conduct prescribed by the Election Commission.

LEGACY OF SARDAR PATEL
by Jagmohan
NO one in modern India has achieved so much in such a short time as Sardar Patel. On his birth anniversary today it should be both timely and instructive to recall his many-splendoured contribution in various arenas of public life.

Cost of neglect of education
by P.D. Shastri
ECONOMICS Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen has said that the basic problem with India is that it has neglected education.

by Tavleen Singh

Debate needed on N-issue
SO, it’s finally official. The Congress Party does not approve of India going nuclear. After months of mealy-mouthed prevarication on the issue Sonia Gandhi openly ridiculed the nuclear tests in pre-election speeches in Rajasthan last week.

by Amita Malik

Talk shows or kitty parties?
BY the time one has surfaced all the channels, one starts wondering if one is seeing double or more. The girl anchors of music countdowns, all peculiarly dressed, scream in high-pitched voices at supersonic, mostly unintelligible, speed, badly in need of elocution lessons and jump about like crickets.

“Not a nice one”
by J. L. Gupta
RICH? Still not satisfied? Want to earn more? Have a desire to be even more useful to society? But not feeling hundred per cent fit? Pains and aches are taking their toll? Too many problems? Too much tension? Looking for a solution? Yes?

75 Years Ago

President Harding’s death
San Francisco: A bulletin issued by the physicians, who were in attendance on President Harding, says:- “President Harding died instantaneously, without warning, while conversing with the members of his family at 7.30 in the evening. Death is due to a stroke of apoplexy...”

Congress carrot for Delhi

In its Assembly election manifesto, the Congress has made an alluring assortment of promises for effecting some improvement in the quality of the citizens' life in the ever-expanding National Capital Region (NCR). Technically speaking, only a draft of the document has been released by the party set-up headed by Mrs Sheila Dikshit. But one gets enough ideas from it regarding the plans and promises the party intends to use in the election arena to garner votes. Expectedly, the DPCC has come down heavily on the BJP's "misrule". The draft says: "No area or section has felt secure during the five years of the BJP's governance." However, most of the allegations made in the draft against the present administration are justified. Society has been further disoriented and fragmented. The law and order situation has worsened. Those who live in the Capital city are literally powerless for long hours every day. Water shortage has condemned the residents to a thirsty and unclean life. Mushrooming colonies have made the polluted metropolis a cluster of slums. The helpless civic bodies have ignored even the Supreme Court orders on cleanliness and regulated social life. Fear stalks almost all parts of the city; criminals and vandals have a field day. But is the situation the creation of the BJP? When the Congress ruled the region as a Union Territory, its population level happened to be less frightening than what it is today. There were crimes and shortages of various kinds even then. Politicians kept on making and breaking promises at election time. Nobody can look back and describe the period between the 60s and the 80s as a stretch of time marked by uncorrupted and healthy urban life. However, it is true that conditions have become alarming now. The area is almost ungoverned and only a very determined administration can make a difference to the prevailing anarchical order. The Congress has kept its electoral vision focused on vote banks.

For every community, it has some hopeful thoughts. For instance, if the party comes to power, Delhi will find itself emerging from the power crisis. Outdated thermal plants will be replaced by gas-based units. There will be naphtha-oriented generators at Dwarka, Kondli, Gharoli and Narela. These are semi-urban areas where a large number of voters live in virtual darkness. The water situation will improve with the digging of a large number of tubewells and with extra care bestowed on the Alipore bandh. The confrontation between the administration and the top brass in the police will be ended and policemen and police women will become a source of fear for the criminal. The transport problem will be tackled by setting up a unified Delhi transport authority which will ensure coordination among the DTC, the road-building agencies and the railways. Urdu and Punjabi will get a better place in the curriculum; even Hindi and Sindhi will receive greater attention in schools. What do all these postulates amount to? The answer is: an effort at vote-harvesting. If one thinks of the action promised against the perpetrators of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, one comes to the conclusion that poll promises and pie-crusts are made to be broken. It has been cleverly stated that "the Congress commits itself to taking appropriate action as per the court's direction against all those found guilty by law". The BJP Government claims that it has been pursuing this very goal. A few known criminals have already been punished. The bigger culprits have been publicly disgraced by the Congress and they have no say in the party affairs. We have often said that the party is not over. The BJP's failures are glaring. Will a change of government help those who lead sub-human life in areas between the UP border and the Haryana border? Delhi is the seat of the Union Government and in many areas the duality of authority hampers effective remedial action. One tends to think that the draft manifesto is a good, although a rather opportunistic, document, which broadly shows what can be done to make the large city and its slums a better place to live in.

Not bankable, these NBFCs

HUMAN greed, men with malleable conscience, government apathy and weak or non-existing legal deterrence are broadly the distinguishing marks of NBFCs (non-banking finance companies). At one time they used to be called blade companies, to accurately highlight their bloodless efficiency in ripping gullible people of their savings. They promise a very high interest rate, which is a throwback to the early nineties when the economy was booming, bank credit was hard to come by, the demand for ready money was insatiable and the opportunity to make a quick buck bright. But those days are long past; there is now recession, banks are flush with funds, interest rate is somewhat low and avenues for making high and assured profits are a mere memory. No wonder, a good number of NBFCs have folded up, taking the depositors’ meagre savings with them. The Company Law Board, a puny department of the Union Government, has received over 10,000 complaints of cheating against 110 companies and in one case, the Delhi High Court has ordered all NBFCs to file a detailed statement of their assets within three weeks. In Chennai, the managing director of a respected firm, Anubhav, is under arrest after depositors failed to secure refund of their money. A newspaper survey estimated that the total money collected by all NBFCs could run into something like Rs 70,000 crore; Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha has turned down requests to ban them, saying that their role in mobilising savings outstrips the risk of failure inherent in their capricious functioning.

Can Mr Sinha’s assessment be married to the raw experience of hundreds of thousands of those who have parked their money in NBFCs? The ever-optimistic government attempted precisely that and the C.M.Vasudev committee report was expected to map out the strategy. But its bureaucratic approach is best reflected in the recommendation to impound 25 per cent of the funds they raise so that everyone would get one rupee for every four rupees he keeps in these firms in case of collapse. Just a 25 per cent guarantee of return of the deposit, without any interest and even that after the inevitable delay in settling the dispute by a receiver. There is no word about tightening the present procedure for starting an NBFC, no regular watch on the management, and no deterrent and prompt punishment for reckless investment of public money. The committee is fully aware of the risks every depositor undertakes; at one point it admits that extending the deposit insurance scheme to cover this sector would lead to a huge drain on the insurance companies and thus compress the government revenue. NBFCs are only one of the several traps a middle class man with moderate resources is vulnerable to. He lost a pile in the two stock market booms, lost some more in mutual funds, the remaining in blade companies. His investments in real estate and gold are turning out to be unwise after so many years with prices of both houses and the yellow metal falling every day. With inflation of consumable items touching 12 per cent and banks threatening to bring down the interest rate and the UTI delivering a shock, he has no safe and promising place keep his savings. Poor middle class.

Code war

ALTHOUGH the campaign for the Assembly elections in four States has yet to gain momentum the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress have begun taking pot shots at each other over the alleged violation of the model code of conduct prescribed by the Election Commission. Most of the complaints of violation of the code are amusing but some have substance. In a manner of speaking the Congress can be said to have drawn first blood by convincing the Election Commission that Delhi Chief Minister Sushma Swaraj was committing electoral malpractice by her midnight visits to police stations. The Election Commission has directed Mrs Swaraj to give up visiting police stations because it went against the concept of providing a level playing field to the political combatants. Of course, Mrs Swaraj had also started visiting hospitals and the offices of the Delhi Vidyut Board for on the spot “redressal” of complaints. The Election Commission has said a firm “no” to such visits because if members of the Congress or other political parties were to do the same, it would amount to preventing public servants from discharging their duty. The Commission has not spared the Governments of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan either, where ministers on the pretext of disbursing relief among the victims of floods and other natural calamities were reportedly turning the events into political campaigns. The Election Commission has rightly stated that such visits should be made by the District Collectors concerned and not politicians. As far Mrs Swaraj’s unsubtle attempt to bend the model code is concerned the Election Commission’s, stand that the Delhi police came directly under the Union Home Ministry cannot be faulted. Therefore, her visits to the police stations had no legal basis and the fact that the Delhi Police Commissioner accompanied her during the well publicised “raids” only compounded the offence.If the Delhi Chief Minister has been rapped on the knuckles by the Election Commission why should Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh be spared? The BJP has, therefore, complained to the Election Commission that the Congress was indulging in “unfair poll practice” by selling onions in Bhopal for Rs 5 a kg! The fact of the matter is that the Chairman of the Bhopal Development Authority, Mr P. C. Sharma, who is a Congress aspirant for the Bhopal South seat has hit upon the brilliant idea of selling onions at the unbelievable price of Rs 5 a kg to drive home the fact that the BJP-led coalition at the Centre is responsible for the mind boggling rise in the prices of most vegetables. The BJP has overlooked the simple fact that Mr Sharma is selling onions at whatever price in his personal capacity which is expected to earn him political dividends at the hustings. The BJP’s complaint would have had substance had the Congress Government in Madhya Pradesh decided to sell the precious vegetable at subsidised rates. It would have been a case of spending public money for political gains. In fact, the Election Commission should direct Mrs Sushma Swaraj to stop subsidising the sale of onions and other vegetables through retail outlets in Delhi. If her heart really bleeds for the electorate, she should direct the Delhi unit of the BJP to do what Mr Sharma is doing in Bhopal to win political friends and influence voters. That the proposed “political subsidy” may or may not translate into votes for the BJP is a different story.

LEGACY OF SARDAR PATEL
He encouraged objectivity
by Jagmohan

NO one in modern India has achieved so much in such a short time as Sardar Patel. On his birth anniversary today it should be both timely and instructive to recall his many-splendoured contribution in various arenas of public life, particularly when the country has lost the constructive impulse for which Patel was justifiably famous.

Before departure from India, Lord Mountbatten wrote to Sardar Patel on June 19, 1948: “There is no doubt that by far the most important achievement of the present government is the unification of the states into the Dominion of India. Had you failed in this, the results would have been disastrous. But since you succeeded, no one can see the disastrous consequences that you avoided. Nothing has added to the prestige of the present government more than the brilliant policy you have followed with the states.”

Nehru was undoubtedly a great leader. But in “resolute practicality” he was nowhere near Sardar Patel. According to Hudson, the author of “Great Divide”, Lord Mountbatten once observed: “I am glad Nehru has not been put in charge of the new States’ Department, which would have wrecked everything.”

Our country has no dearth of theoreticians. But it is woefully deficient in the art of execution. It does not understand that the great questions of the day are settled not by speeches and resolutions but by determined and diligent action. Ideas are important. But it is constructive work alone that can “inject meaning into the veins of history and civilisation.”

Sardar Patel was certainly one of the greatest constructive geniuses the country has known. He has often been compared with Chancellor Bismark, who effected German unification in the late nineteenth century. But Patel’s achievements regarding the integration of states were far more remarkable. Bismark wove only about a dozen states into German fabric. Patel had to handle 561 states of a wide variety. While the former resorted to the policy of “blood and iron”, the latter brought about a “bloodless revolution”. Patel’s amazing capacity to size up men and moments and to strike when the iron was hot, without splattering blood around, caused about 800,000 square kilometres of land to be added to the Indian Union, besides a population of 86 million.

Patel took care not to allow any grass to grow underneath his feet. He scotched the Nawab of Bhopal’s idea of grouping a few states and securing a separate dominion status. And when compulsive denigrators of India, like Winston Churchill, tried to complicate the Hyderabad problem by propping up the divisive game of the Nizam, “an old and faithful ally of the Empire”, Patel responded clearly and firmly: “It is only in goodwill, spirit and not on the malice and venom of Mr Churchill’s tongue, that an enduring relationship can be built between India and Britain and other members of the Commonwealth”. The message went home and browbeating of India stopped.

Being an implementation-man par excellence, Patel was aware of the crucial role the civil services had to play in tackling the great many problems which India had to face at the time of Partition and, later, as a nascent democratic republic. He did not allow the old prejudice of the Congress party to come in his way — Nehru had earlier described the Indian Civil Service neither Indian nor civil nor service.

Patel gave an honoured place to the Indian Civil Service and the Indian Police. He inspired them with a new zeal, won their loyalty and admiration, and also acknowledged their great contribution. Speaking in Parliament on October 10, 1949, he said: “I wish this to be recorded in the House that, during the last two or three years, if most members of the services had not been serving the country efficiently, practically the Union would have collapsed.”

Patel fully appreciated the need for a sound and stable administrative set-up. He organised new All-India Services. In a letter to Nehru, on April 27, 1948, Patel said: “An efficient, disciplined and contented service assured of its prospect as a result of diligent and honest work is the sine qua non of a sound administration under a democratic regime even more than under an authoritarian rule. The service must be above party.”

Patel encouraged initiative, independence and objectivity in the services and instilled confidence in them. H V R Iyengar, a stalwart of the Indian Civil Service, in his “Administration in India — A Historical Review”, recalled: “On one occasion, I took a decision in Patel’s absence and reported to him afterwards. He told me that if he had been consulted, he would not have taken that decision.... When the matter subsequently came up before the Cabinet, he told them that the decision was his and there the matter ended.”

What is happening now negates practically all the norms and principles on which Patel had constructed the edifice of public services. Political interference is rampant. Officers are being humiliated by way of whimsical transfers and suspensions. Even a Cabinet Secretary and a Senior Secretary of the Government of India were publicly labelled as “fools” by a Union Minister of State. In the overall management of the services also, parochial, caste and personal considerations are fast creeping in. And, instead of a strong, honest, fearless and vibrant civil service, a weak, frustrated apathetic, faction-ridden and venal set-up, with groups, grooves and god-fathers of its own, is emerging.

Patel has been accused of being anti-Muslim. Unfortunately, in the present-day India, this accusation has to be faced by all those who are the real benefactors of the Muslims but who have the courage and commitment of calling a spade a spade, and making a distinction between appeasement and fairness, between whetting the appetite of a trouble-maker and telling him to behave.

Patel, it is often forgotten, was the chairman of the Minorities Sub-Committee of the Constituent Assembly. The liberal provisions which our Constitution contains for the protection of linguistic and cultural rights of the minorities speak volumes about his catholicity. Mahatma Gandhi’s unflinching faith in Sardar Patel’s secularism comes out clearly in a letter of October 24, 1924, written to him by Mahadev Desai, during Gandhi’s famous 21-day fast for Hindu-Muslim unity. Mahadev said: “Whatever may happen on the Hindu-Muslim front in Gujarat, as long as you are there, Bapu is at peace. If a storm occurs despite your presence, Bapu will assume that it was not possible to prevent it.”

Though little known, Patel’s work in the field of civic administration was no less remarkable. In 1948, the Bombay Corporation held a civic reception in honour of Patel. On the occasion, he was asked what he considered to be the “finest hour” of his illustrious career. Nobody expected him to say what he said — inviting attention to his work first as Chairman of the Sanitary Committee (1917-22) and then as president of the Municipal Board (1924-28). Patel reflected: “To cleanse the dirt of the city is quite different from cleansing the dirt of politics. From the former you get a good night’s rest while the latter keeps you worried and you lose your sleep.”

Taking cue from Sardar Patel’s solid and selfless work in the streets of Ahmedabad, Gandhiji advised the municipal councillors all over the country “not to seek honours or indulge in mutual rivalries, but to have real spirit of service and convert themselves into unpaid sweepers and road-makers and, above all, take pride in doing so.”

Patel was an embodiment of probity in public life. The only property he left comprised a few “dhotis” and “kurtas” and a suitcase. But he bequeathed to the nation a legacy that it cannot afford to squander as it is doing today.

The author is a member of the Lok Sabha and former Governor of Jammu and Kashmir.

Cost of neglect of education
by P.D. Shastri

ECONOMICS Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen has said that the basic problem with India is that it has neglected education. According to The Tribune, Sen is still an Indian citizen and that is good news. After Raman and Tagore, gigantic India has suffered a Nobel famine for some eight decades. We went wild with glee when Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace — and she had adopted Indian citizenship. We thought we had touched the Everest of our Nobel ambitions though much smaller countries figure in this top world honour, so frequently. But she was a foreign born lady and ran a Christian mission (not of India’s national church), all with foreign money. Also the Nobel Prize related to a non-academic field. Of course, Indians have shown that in genius they are second to none in the world, but they shine and win world level prizes only when they shift their work centre to foreign countries — where they get ideal facilities for work, and more importantly the right atmosphere and correct academic climate for the afflorscence of their genius — which they lacked here. Such are Hardyal Khurana, Chandra Shekhar and now Amartya Sen.

What does neglect of education imply? Before Independence, we had 17 universities, now their number is nearing 200. The number of colleges too and their enrolment is also many many times thanks to our population explosion. The neglect of education in the context of Nobel Prizes can refer not to our mass illiteracy, but to the neglect of education in our colleges and universities and research centres. Even 100 per cent literacy can’t win us Nobel Prizes, unless we make the quality of our higher education globally competitive. As a wit said (with some air of exaggeration though) in the centres of higher education, we are progressively giving quit notice to education and inviting politics to take its place. This occurred specially after the voting age was lowered to 18 years — and such huge numbers of students became voters (the politician’s ultimate desideratum) and political parties set up their centres in these to expand their spheres of influence among this combustible young material, hoping for colossal gains. The atmosphere was progressively politicised — both for students and the professors.

Also their trade union wings became active as never before. The fact has to be faced that we have arrived at the stage, where leadership and control rests not in hands of the Vice-Chancellors and Principals or of staff — but of the trade unions. It is they who call the shots, who dictate terms, as to when these institutions will have a strike or go on mass casual leave or other expedients for work stoppage. It is they who decide when the colleges or universities would open — and for how long. Even after that they might continue with their black badge protests and public demonstrations which disturb the even tenor of academic life. Leadership has passed into non-academic hands.

Why do educationists follow them? Money being the god of the present society, they appeal to our greed. Their demands include four-fold increase in salaries or more perks and less working hours and all that. Not the most conscientious objector can resist this allurement of so much extra money, having found through repeated experiences that every demand of strikers is conceded — Partially if not wholly (of course after some dilly-dallying and holding out threats of punitive action and pay cut for the illegal strike). Who would not welcome more money, more comfort, more emoluments and less work?

The net result is that our educational standards are falling day by day. Our colleges and universities are not education — centred or research-centred, but all the time concerned with pays and perks and anomalies, the non-educational matters get the priority.

With every raise in salaries (and they have been very substantial, against the background of our stark poverty where 40-50 crore people live below the poverty line and do not get two square meals per day), the academic standards have fallen steeply — though the parties concerned would deny it. The professors’ salaries are now in the top bracket of two or three best-paid services. Our universities every year churn out thousands of Ph.Ds and other research scholars but they are mostly synthetic and do not come up to the world’s standards.

In some subjects, a Ph.D is rated as no better than a Master’s degree.

Where do we go from here? It is necessary to clean this Augean stable; the many noble teachers also get the blame of the majority. We have to create correct conditions, where geniuses can win Nobel Prizes while working in India, instead of having to go to the foreign countries for that end.

“Not a nice one”
by J. L. Gupta

RICH? Still not satisfied? Want to earn more? Have a desire to be even more useful to society? But not feeling hundred per cent fit? Pains and aches are taking their toll? Too many problems? Too much tension? Looking for a solution? Yes?

Live like the poor. Work hard. Be a workaholic. Hard work has never killed anyone. Eat simple food. With a lot of roughage. Sleep on a hard bed. Be close to nature. Do not lock yourself in an airconditioned room. Remember that sunlight is the best antiseptic. Fresh air is the most invigorating tonic. Clean water is the best drink. If you have to go to the room on the first floor, use stairs instead of the ramp. Prefer ramp to the elevator. Let the ‘lift’ be reserved for the rarest of the rare occasions.

Would this ensure a hundred years of healthy and trouble-free life? No? Then why should I work like a horse and live like a hermit? Why should I not lead my life as a normal human being? Why should I deny myself the innocent pleasures of everyday life? I am normal and I wish to occasionally indulge myself. Is it not my rightful due? I am married. But I do not want to be a mouse all the time. I like a bit of spice in life. I enjoy an outing with a friend. I like Ms Nicotine. She is a good company and a nice friend.

No! You know that like the atom bomb, even tobacco, is a gift from America.The “American Indians used tobacco in ceremonials.” The Pipe of Peace was their innovation. But, it has now been recognised that “inhaling and exhaling the fumes of burning — tobacco from a cigarette, cigar or pipe” has “deleterious” effect on health. Cigarette smoking causes cancer. A “widespread habit among men in World War II” gave clear evidence that smoking was responsible for the “rise in the incidence of lung cancer during the second part of the 20th century.”

How can a few puffs of tobacco smoke be solely responsible for all the ills that man faces today? How can a person who has never savoured smoke say that it is injurious to health? It is true that in excess even milk can be bad for health. So let it be even with smoking. But, believe me, a deep draw of burning tobacco smoke is very satisfying. It gives not only a distinct aroma to your breath but also relaxes the body and mind.

And then we live in a world where the buses, the cars, the scooters, the three wheelers, the factories, and even the human beings are continuously causing pollution. The man may have reached the Mars but he has befouled the environment. All the time one is inhaling the carbon mono-oxide fumes. Not only that. We do not hesitate to spit anywhere. How can a few cigarettes during the day or a cigar after dinner be called the culprit for all the problems that we face today?

Yes! A puff and its immediate effect are too small to be felt. But, just as a small leak can ultimately sink a big ship, the effects of smoking take time to show. The tobacco smoke is a sweet poison. Slowly, smoking becomes a habit. Just as a custom cannot be broken, the habit cannot be changed. One curses and yet clings to Ms Nicotine. One coughs. One is breathless on walking a few steps. The sleep is disturbed. Yet one longs for her. She renders life burdensome. Still, the antiquity of error exercises an over-powering control. One feels helpless.

Is this not only one side of the story? Don’t you recall the handsome face of Sir Winston Churchill? Would he look that attractive without the cigar between his lips? Similarly, the great scientist Einstein, who gave us the theory of Relativity. Imagine him without a pipe. And then, please visualise the usefulness of a small thing like a cigarette. It provides the simplest excuse for introduction. You do not know the person sitting next to you in a train, bus or the office lounge. Just offer him a smoke and you have made the beginning of what may prove to be a long and lasting relationship. On another occasion, you are in the midst of a serious discussion. You need a moment to make out a plausible argument. Start lighting a cigarette. Those who have enjoyed smoking would tell you that it is a great help when one wants to concentrate. This list can be long.

If this were really true, the people shall not campaign against smoking. In fact, in January 1971 the Royal College of Physicians had given a report on the number of deaths from cancer. Otherwise, it would be hard to imagine as to why did the cigarette manufacturers in Canada agree to end television advertising as far back as January 1, 1972? Why was the television advertising phased out in Germany by the end of the year 1972? Is it without reason that every pack of cigarettes carries a statutory warning?

No! Ms Nicotine is not a nice one to know. She is not a good friend.

by Tavleen Singh
Debate needed on N-issue

SO, it’s finally official. The Congress Party does not approve of India going nuclear. After months of mealy-mouthed prevarication on the issue Sonia Gandhi openly ridiculed the nuclear tests in pre-election speeches in Rajasthan last week. The BJP responded with an attack. A written statement issued by the BJP party office in Delhi said; “Was she addressing an Indian audience or sending a message to the Pakistanis..... Ever since the nuclear tests were conducted, the Congress has been speaking with a forked tongue. We demand that the party and its President take a clear stand on Pokhran II — let them either condemn the tests or support them”.

This is, indeed, important not just for the BJP but for the country as well because something as vital as national security cannot be allowed to be turned into a political football. Those parties that disapprove of the nuclear tests need to stand up and be counted so that we can have a proper debate on the issue instead of just election time polemics.

In the very week that the Congress President was making her anti-nuclear statements in Rajasthan I happened to be interviewing the Defence Minister and, inevitably, the nuclear issue was at the top of my list of security-related questions. Did he think South Asia was a safer place now that both India and Pakistan had officially gone nuclear? “Yes. If we hadn’t done the tests we could not have guaranteed our safety.....not after Pakistan’s generals were openly admitting to having the bomb. Not after the Pakistani Prime Minister had said clearly that the bomb could be used if there was a war over Kashmir”.

George Fernandes is one of the world’s peaceniks. He has always been on the side of human rights activists, anyone else who fights the establishment, and against the men Bob Dylan famously described as ‘the masters of war’.

Yet, he said that he believed India going nuclear was necessary as a deterrent. None of the countries that have the bomb have actually used it since World War II, he pointed out. There have been wars since what they have been fought with conventional weapons. “But, nobody has dared look in the eye of those countries that are known to be nuclear”. The Defence Minister added that it was only when China built missiles that could hit American cities that America decided it was time to start talking to the Chinese. This had resulted in a new set of uncertainties for India, evidence of which came in the fact that the American President on his recent visit to China went so far as to suggest that the security of South Asia would be in the hands of China.

Mr Fernandes rightly points out that it is a terrifying thought that countries who are part of the nuclear club should consider it their right to start dividing up the world in this fashion.

Since the initial euphoria over the tests, our nuclear status, has been largely forgotten. The average Indian has been more concerned with the price of onions and potatoes than national security. A small handful of liberals and Lefties have marched in the streets from time to time to protest against the bomb and Arundhati Roy has published a polemic against it, declaring herself no longer a citizen of India. Other than that there has been almost not a word said except by defence analysts and foreign policy experts whose thoughts on the subject have been generally too complicated, and their prose too dense, for a debate to result. But, a debate is necessary because in its absence we are at the mercy of unscrupulous politicians who say one thing when they are in power and quite another when they are in the opposition.

Mr Fernandes told me, for instance, that it was American pressure that prevented India from becoming a nuclear power shortly after Pokhran-I. He alleges that Mrs Indira Gandhi was ready to go ahead with further tests and with weaponisation but the Americans got wind of this and persuaded her not to.

The American position on the nuclear issue was made clear in Delhi, last week, by former Secretary of State, James Baker, who addressed a group of senior journalists at the Taj Mahal Hotel’s newly started Media Club. When questioned about why it was safer for India and Pakistan to be clandestine nuclear powers rather than official ones he said it was because other countries could follow the Indo-Pakistan example and this would make the world a more dangerous place. Would it really? Would it, for instance, have been safer for Pakistan to carry on building its Chinese or North Korean bombs without the world knowing about them? Safer for these bombs to be so clandestine, so deeply buried in the basement, that if they had been accidentally supplied to the Taliban or Osama bin Laden nobody would have known about them till it was too late? Mr Baker continued saying yes when he was asked these questions but none of us was particularly convinced. Neither did the group of senior editors and media personalities at the gathering seem convinced that America’s reasons for having the bomb were somehow better than ours.

There was the war, Mr. Baker said, and then there was the cold war. America needed the bomb in order for peace to happen. On the same grounds does India not need the bomb for peace to happen on the sub-continent? In Kashmir for 10 years now we have been fighting one of the dirtiest, most clandestine wars ever. Today, those who fight on Pakistan’s side are not Kashmiris so much as Sudanese, Afghans and Pakistanis themselves.

Would it have been possible for us to win this war if Pakistan had the bomb and we continued to be Gandhian in our approach? These are difficult questions but they need answers. These answers can only come if political parties openly state their positions on the subject.

by Amita Malik
Talk shows or kitty parties?

BY the time one has surfaced all the channels, one starts wondering if one is seeing double or more. The girl anchors of music countdowns, all peculiarly dressed, scream in high-pitched voices at supersonic, mostly unintelligible, speed, badly in need of elocution lessons and jump about like crickets. The comics, mostly cinema inspired, are all the same. The comic serials are worse. The serial soaps with spirited married women show identical signs of rebellion. And as for the multiplicity of insipid women who are anchoring talk shows, especially on Star Plus, the less said the better. Choosing subjects beyond their ken and covering up with designer clothes. They have dragged down chat shows to kitty party levels.

So it is cheering to find that some people are trying out new ideas. Star News, which had gone into hibernation after its election spurt, has now surfaced with a long-overdue idea, going beyond Delhi for regional news. A one-hour programme, Nation-Wide, has wisely started with Prannoy Roy as anchor and with its formidable line-up of experienced correspondents has made a good start. Apart from Roy, there is a commentator in the studio and an excellent start has been made with Mahesh Rangarajan and T.R. Ramachandran. The glitches are mostly technical with a time gap in audio and I find the change-over from recorded despatch to live not very smooth. I also hope that Prannoy Roy will not slip away after some time and hand over to his deputies who are simply not in the same class.

The other new news programme is Sawaal Apka in Hindi. Here there are two alternate anchors, the ever reliable Arup Ghosh and Pankaj Pachauri, with his pleasing screen presence. But the choice of interviewees for half an hour has not always been happy. Experts who might look good on paper are not always telegenic and sometimes go on long rambling discourses. The programme has to be much more crisp and better researched, especially as it is getting very good questions from all over the country.

I have no wish to discourage a newcomer but since I have been flooded with publicity hype, including launches, cassettes and hand-outs I have tried hard to see some merit in the new DD Metro programme, Aaj ki Nari but failed. For one thing, it is not television. It is far too static. To confine three women in a claustrophobic room and have them indulge in endless natter on the generation gap palls after one or two episodes. Some of the subjects do not warrant such long discussions. The one on fashion on Tuesday, for instance, dragged on to no end. Several subjects can be disposed of in one episode. I admire the enthusiasm of Koel Purie who has many of the credits. But I would like to remind her that to take on the production of such a programme one needs solid professional training in production, script-writing and above all experience. Producers are made, alas, and not born. The programme is naive in concept and better suited to juvenile audiences. But only when it has been spruced up with more movement and liveliness. And more mature production.

My young friends in Channel V have complained that I seem more partial to MTV. Actually, I love them both equally, preferring MTV’s eye-catching graphics and Channel V’s originals, including One-Gun Murugan and our very own Haryanvi dehati, Udham Singh. And now I have two more loves. Off and on one reads that the Asia Music Channel might be taken off. I wonder why. Whenever I switch it on, there is something lively and catchy going on. And sometimes very soothing classical music. I also find musically rivetting the French Channel MCM. Very avant-garde and French. And while on the subject, on Parul’s advice I watched their special programme last week and was swept off my feet by Pradeep Sarkar’s Euphoria.

75 YEARS AGO
Foreign news
President Harding’s death

San Francisco: A bulletin issued by the physicians, who were in attendance on President Harding, says:- “President Harding died instantaneously, without warning, while conversing with the members of his family at 7.30 in the evening. Death is due to a stroke of apoplexy. During the day, the patient had been free from discomfort. There was every justification for anticipating a prompt recovery.”

The end being sudden the members and officials of the presidential party could not be called in time. The President died after passing the most satisfactory day since the beginning of his illness.

The first indication of a relapse occurred when Mrs Harding rushed to the door of the room and called the doctors. Mrs Harding and two nurses were in the room at the time, the former reading to her husband, when, entirely without warning a slight shudder passed through the President’s frame. He then collapsed and all present immediately recognised that the end had come.

Within a few minutes all members of the President’s official party had been summoned. Mr Hoover was the first dignitary to arrive. The Vice-President, Mr Coolidge, who automatically becomes President, was notified immediately.

President Harding’s remains are being conveyed to Washington in a car guarded by soldiers, after a private and very simple ceremony. He will be buried at Marion.