Misusing ‘secular’
and ‘majority’
By T.V.R. Shenoy

DR JOHNSON famously defined “patriotism” as `the last refuge of the scoundrel’. Evidently, the great lexicographer never discovered the potential for mischief implicit in ‘secular’ and ‘majority’.

Shiromani Committee explains

AFTER sending to the press the communiqué about the attempt to get the Maharaja of Nabha to sign a document, the SGPC has received news that the offical concerned was able to secure from His Highness a statement to the effect that His Highness was not responsible for the present agitation about the Nabha affair.

Maverick politician, brilliant lawyer By Harihar Swarup GOD save only from Ram Jethmalani. He is feared, hated and admired in political circles. If he falls out with someone, he will chase him up to hell irrespective of the consequences; it doesn’t matter if he himself goes to hell along with his victim.

Horrors of rampant adulteration
By Devinder Sharma

NO sooner did the daily death toll from the dropsy epidemic go on a down-swing, than adulteration of mustard oil disappeared from the news pages. With a CBI inquiry already instituted into the causes that led to the mustard oil crisis, the Government too has very conveniently washed its hands from its constitutional obligation of protecting the health of the nation.

By TVR Shenoy
Misusing ‘secular’and ‘majority’

DR JOHNSON famously defined “patriotism” as `the last refuge of the scoundrel’. Evidently, the great lexicographer never discovered the potential for mischief implicit in ‘secular’ and ‘majority’.

Four states went under President’s rule in December, 1992 — Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh. The Narasimha Rao regime explained the decision as a precautionary measure against potential law-and-order problems. It was hailed as a victory for secularism though nobody disputed the fact that the BJP Ministries in the four states enjoyed the support of their respective legislatures.

History records no violence in the four states that could have provided a post facto justification for President’s rule. Yes, there was bloodshed, but it was largely concentrated in Congress-ruled Maharashtra and Gujarat. Even Uttar Pradesh, epicentre of the Ayodhya movement, didn’t witness anything close to the horrifying bloodbaths in Mumbai and Ahmedabad.

There is clearly one standard for BJP Ministries and another for ‘secular’ regimes. In 1992, the mere fear of disorder was sufficient excuse to bring four states under Delhi’s heel. But in 1998 even proven chaos is not reason enough to dismiss the grotesque Rashtriya Janata Dal rulers of Bihar.

“The Rabri Devi Ministry demonstrated its majority in the House!” says that lady’s husband. And the Congress, the Communists, and whatever rags are left of the patchwork United Front echo Laloo Prasad Yadav. Didn’t the Kalyan Singh, Patwa, Shekhawat and Shanta Kumar Ministries also possess the confidence of their own Assemblies in 1992? At which embarrassing question the tune changes: “Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh are even worse off than Bihar!”

I should point out that the Janata Dal’s Ram Vilas Paswan is an honourable exception to this idiot chorus. He has openly backed the call for President’s rule in Bihar. “They don’t know what they are talking about!” was his brusque rejoinder to his fellows in the Opposition. Of course, there is one thing that sets Paswan apart from the likes of Sharad Pawar, Harkishen Singh Surjeet and Sonia Gandhi. He, unlike them, is a Bihari.

Bihar is a state teetering on the edge of chaos. Criminals break the law in other states; in Bihar, criminals are the law. Nobody, repeat nobody, is safe. Two weeks ago, hooligans chased a school-bus carrying some girls in it through the streets of Patna. This, God help us all, was the same elite institution where Rabri Devi sends her children.

Again, elsewhere in India, an officer of the Indian Administrative Service is someone to be respected, someone who represents the authority of the government. But not in Bihar! Here, a civil servant’s wife was repeatedly raped and he couldn’t say a word for three years until he fled to the sanctuary of Delhi.

(This, by the way, is not unusual in Bihar where a case of rape is reported every 24 hours in Patna alone. Given the social stigma attached to this crime, nobody knows how many cases go unreported, leave alone what happens elsewhere in the state.)

It isn’t just the violence, Bihar is at the bottom of the table by almost every standard of human development. Female literacy, infant mortality, basic health care — the state lags behind other major states in every field. Local body elections haven’t been held in decades. And it took a direct order from the High Court before Patna University held exams on time for the first time in the Rashtriya Janata Dal’s reign!

It is nonsense to say that Article 356 can’t be used if a Ministry commands a majority. (I won’t comment on how Laloo Prasad Yadav manoeuvred the numbers!) The authors of the Constitution were very clear on the point — Article 356 is to be used when there is a breakdown of the constitutional machinery.

In Laloo-land, the constitutional machinery hasn’t just broken down. It has suffered the fate of anything that is left unguarded in Bihar — it has been taken over by the crooks!

By Harihar Swaroop
Maverick politician, brilliant lawyer

GOD save only from Ram Jethmalani. He is feared, hated and admired in political circles. If he falls out with someone, he will chase him up to hell irrespective of the consequences; it doesn’t matter if he himself goes to hell along with his victim. He is very quick at making enemies but still has a large number of friends; rich, powerful and poor too, whom he had helped at times of distress.

A maverick politician and a brilliant criminal lawyer, known for defending the indefensible in courts, Jethmalani was a surprise inclusion in the Vajpayee Government in March.

It is generally believed that Jethmalani has a match in only one leader and that is the ebullient Subramanian Swamy. Traits of their personality are identical in many areas; both are intelligent, perceptive, have razor-sharp minds and, above all, tenacity to give sleepless nights to their adversaries. Both will not hesitate to take recourse to calumny, deceit and innuendo to achieve their objective. Jethmalani and Swamy are at loggerheads again and the no-holds-bar clash is worth watching.

The question is: how did the files of MS Shoes make way to Subramanian Swamy, a known Jethmalani baiter? More embarrassing to the Urban Development Minister was release of the photocopies of the sensitive files by Swamy to journalists and making out a case of showing favour to MS Shoes with allotment of land to build a guest house-cum-shopping complex at a prime location in South Delhi.

Already strained relations between Jethmalani and his Secretary, Kiran Agarwal, and two senior officers came to a head with secret files making way into “enemy hands” and confidential letters making banner headlines in newspapers. This was enough provocation for the Minister to strip the Secretary and officers of all important work and assert that “I as Minister have reallocated works to officials who work under me. That is all”.

Now it is well known that when Kiran Agarwal refused to do his bidding in the MS Shoes case, noting instead in the file that it be referred to the Law and Finance Ministries, Jethmalani jotted down in the same file: This is gross, illegal and insubordination. Belonging to the Haryana cadre, Agarwal is known to be an honest, straightforward and tough officer.

The stand-off between Jethmalani and his Secretary has brought the simmering hostility between the Ministers and the bureaucracy to the fore dragging in the Prime Minister’s Office and the Cabinet Secretary in the unsavoury controversy. The PMO is known to have upheld Agarwal’s point in the MS Shoes case and, as a follow-up, the Prime Minister wrote a letter to his Cabinet colleagues counselling them to desist from publicly criticising either the government or bureaucrats.

The Cabinet Secretary’s note to restore the position of Agarwal has only drawn a retort from Jethmalani: “There is no question of a Secretary getting better of me. Agarwal is an officer of the Government of India who is subordinate to me and the Prime Minister”.

According to present indications Jethmalani may have the last laugh and Agarwal may be shifted — perhaps given a more important assignment —in a bureaucratic reshuffle. The PMO, obviously, does not want to give the impression that she was shifted because of her tiff with the Minister. Jethmalani has gone on record saying that the stand-off with his Secretary would be resolved and the issue would be settled in his favour.

There no, is doubt, the slow moving Urban Development Ministry, which had become slower during the tenures of Sheila Kaul and P.K. Thungan, gathered momentum with the stepping of Jethmalani in Nirman Bhavan. Here is a Minister who stands his grounds well and cannot be taken for a ride by bureaucrats easily.

He told officers at the first customary meeting that he meant business and would not tolerate unnecessary obstruction. There was, after years, scare in the corridors of Nirman Bhavan; the fast moving and tough talking Jethmalani did make an impact.

Acrimony started building on issue after issue. The first was Jethmalani’s decision to do away with the Urban Land Ceiling Act, followed by the controversy over the White House located at Bhagwan Dass Road. Then came the clash over general consultancy contract concerning Delhi’s proposed Metro Rail Corporation and finally the sensitive MS Shoes file passing on to Jethmalani’s arch enemy Subramanian Swamy.

Seventyfive-year-old Jethmalani came to India as a refugee from Pakistan when he was a young man of 25. He is a “pure Sindhi” having born in Shikarpur town of Sindh province and had to struggle to make his way in life.

Whenever Jethmalani is not in Parliament, he is in the Supreme Court, taking up the cases which nobody is willing to plead. They included top smugglers, rank criminals and some known politicians occupying high positions.

He has acquired years of experience as a parliamentarian, having represented Bombay North-West constituency in the sixth and seventh Lok Sabha. He was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Karnataka in 1988, courtesy R.K. Hegde, and again managed re-election to the Upper House from Maharashtra in 1994.

Whatever may be the criticism against Jethmalani but with him around there cannot be a dull moment; be it Parliament, the Supreme Court or the sprawling ministerial office.

Horrors of rampant adulteration
By Devinder Sharma

NO sooner did the daily death toll from the dropsy epidemic go on a down-swing, than adulteration of mustard oil disappeared from the news pages. With a CBI inquiry already instituted into the causes that led to the mustard oil crisis, the Government too has very conveniently washed its hands from its constitutional obligation of protecting the health of the nation.

Another disaster, and the country will suddenly wake up to the horrors of rampant adulteration. Such has been the callous indifference, not only of the government but also of the people, that food adulteration continues to periodically show its ugly head.

And without exception, the same drill is enacted every time a crisis erupts: hospitals get flooded with seriously affected patients, no medicines and no medical care, the government swings into action to streamline medical facilities, promises strict action against the adulterators, pays a little compensation to the victims and the files are closed.

Equally shocking is the casual way in which the government has treated the dropsy epidemic. The decision of the Ministry of Food and Civil Supplies to promulgate a separate edible oil packaging order, and the earlier steps that included re-inforcing the Oil Control Order and so on, were merely cosmetic decisions aimed at the galleries. All these are part of the fire-fighting exercise which the government routinely indulges in whenever an epidemic breaks out. Not even one government initiative is directed to uproot the menace of adulteration from its very roots.

Adulteration of the entire food chain, right from the sowing of the seed to its final consumption as food, has become a way of life. Millions of people have become victims of a continuing tragedy. Besides poisoning the nation and creating an ever-growing force of crippled, diseased and physically handicapped people, it has also ruined the country’s economy. Grinding its way through, it has in many ways turned out to be an organised industry.

Adulteration of seeds, including branded hybrid seeds, has often led to the failure of the crop, driving farmers to slide into a debt trap and at the same time forcing many of them to resort to suicides. One of the major reasons behind the recent spate of suicides that hit parts of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Punjab and Haryana was the supply of spurious hybrid cotton seeds. As if this was not enough, sub-standard and adulterated pesticides did the rest.

Several years back, I was appalled to see the extent of adulteration that plagued the farming sector in the frontline agricultural states of Punjab and Haryana. In addition to seeds, unscrupulous traders were selling mud as fertiliser. So much so that even the government was encouraging its cooperative units to market sub-standard fertilisers, enabling them to come out of red. All phosphatic fertilisers are adding a significant quantity of cadmium to the soils.

And in pesticides, all kinds of permutation and combinations were being applied by the private trade. While the trade resorted to gimmicks like selling blue ink as pesticides and chalk as DDT, the government turned a blind eye to reports of water being sprayed from aircraft to control mustard pests.

In eastern parts of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, the rural sector was and is still a haven for marketing sub-standard and adulterated products. In addition to agricultural inputs, all kinds of fake food products are being sold with impunity. Such is the magnitude of adulteration that even the district collectors will warn you of the quality of the soft drink that he offers to you, often saying that he instead prefers to bring clean drinking water from home. Well, if the chief of the district administration is helpless imagine the plight of the common man in the streets!

Food safety has never been the hallmark of the government’s health policy. Consequently, the fruits and vegetables that flow into the market are often sprinkled with chemicals that provides a shine and hastens the ripening of the product. For instance, farmers are known to spray methyl parathion on cauliflower to give it an extra white appearance.

Earlier, extensive surveys had shown that a fourth of the edible oil samples in Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra were adulterated with linseed and argemone seed oil, which incidentally led to the recent dropsy epidemic in Delhi.

Much of the foodgrains that the Food Corporation of India (FCI) releases through the fair price shops anyway is contaminated and often unfit for human consumption. In any case, contamination of staple diet foods with pesticides residues has already reached an alarming proportion. Even the fish in the village ponds is reported to have pesticide residues that exceed the permissible limit by at least 2,000 times.

Such is the extent of food adulteration that synthetic milk, manufactured from caustic soda, urea and soap solutions, is being sold in many parts of northern India. It is not uncommon to find unpermitted dyes in sweets and other food products, powdered brick in red chilly powder, papaya seed in pepper, and horse dung in dhaniya powder.

Little can be expected from a government which itself imports contaminated foodgrains. In the recent past, the import of one million tonne of Australian wheat came with 44 weeds and the import of another million tonne of soyabean, for which permission has been granted a fortnight ago, comes along with five weeds and 11 viral diseases. More worrisome is the fact that the soyabean being imported is genetically-engineered, about the health risks of which the government has no clue.

The rise in the incidence of cancer, cardio-vascular diseases, neurological disorders, hypertension, sterility, blindness and certain other dreaded diseases is the result of the raging adulteration of the food chain. So far, the government’s initiative has been to set up five-star hospitals to fight the disease fallout from adulteration.

Unless the focus shifts to nipping the evil in the bud, the source of adulteration will continue to grow. A beginning has to be made by setting up a Central Food Safety Commission, a statutory body with quasi-judicial powers, comprising food scientists, bureaucrats, consumer activists and retired Judges.

The commission needs to strengthen the anti-food adulteration machinery and provides strong teeth to the ailing departments. Once the government drives home the message that it is not going to brook any kind of adulteration of the food chain, the menace will be significantly minimised. The commission should, therefore, have the mandate to award stringent punishment, including death penalty and life imprisonment along with a fine of not less than Rs 20 lakh.

75 YEARS AGO

Shiromani Committee explains

AFTER sending to the press the communiqué about the attempt to get the Maharaja of Nabha to sign a document, the SGPC has received news that the offical concerned was able to secure from His Highness a statement to the effect that His Highness was not responsible for the present agitation about the Nabha affair and that he had no sympathy with it.

This declaration is quite consistent with the refusal of His Highness to sign the other document and the peculiar position in which Indian princes are placed. It is quite true and was necessary to say that His Highness is not responsible for this agitation, which is, on the contrary, a genuine and spontaneous movement started by the whole Sikh community out of the sense of Panthic danger.

His Highness can never be out of sympathy with the object of the movement, which is obviously his reinstatement to his ancestral throne.

At the same time, with the peculiar position of Indian princes, it cannot be expected that any one of them could identify himself with the methods of an advanced movement of struggle against official action. Therefore, the Sikhs cannot have any quarrel with His Highness’s attitude in the matter.