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Women on
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Enable the
disabled
Men and
prevention of rape
Cattle
unity zindabad!
NEWS ANALYSIS DELHI DURBAR
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Women on top IT is a foregone conclusion that Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi will have women as chief ministers. Of course, it is not the first time that women have made it to the top in states. Ms Jayalalithaa has been the chief minister of Tamil Nadu for quite some time. Until recently, Ms Mayawati was the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. But it is the first time that so many women have become chief ministers at the same time. Unlike in the past when the so-called High Command chose a woman to lead a state and the state legislature party merely acceded to the proposal, this time all of them successfully led their parties to victory at the hustings. Importantly, each of them has proved a leader in her own right and has not depended on any crutches to come to power. Whether one likes Ms Uma Bharati's style of functioning or not, nobody can deny that she braved many hurdles to reach the enviable position she finds herself in today. She had neither wealth nor family connections to aid her in achieving her political ambition. A self-made leader, she has proved her mettle as a fighter who can stand up for what she believes in. Now the sanyasin has to prove that she can also be a good administrator. In Rajasthan, Ms Vasundhararaje Scindia had to face stiff challenge from a large section of her own partymen, who were not happy with the BJP's decision to send her to the state. But she persevered against all odds to eventually lead the party to a massive victory. Her family connection played only a negligible role in her success. Ms Sheila Dikshit has proved that a woman can not only provide purposive leadership but also carry the party and the people along. Hers is the greatest success in these elections and it is a clear case of -- to use a cliché -- women empowerment. These individual successes notwithstanding, there is no conclusive proof that women politicians have come of age. Women do not get proper representation even in parties like the AIADMK and the BSP, which are led by women themselves. Unless women get a fair representation in all walks of life, a Sheila Dikshit here or an Uma Bharati there will bring little cheer to the womenfolk. |
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Another MiG crash IT is due to the pilot’s skill plus sheer providence that the MiG-29 which crashed near Hoshiarpur on Thursday did not hit any populated area. Otherwise, the consequences would have been disastrous. Several thickly populated villages are situated close to the fields where it came down. The pilot is also lucky to be able to eject seconds before the crash. PSEB officials showed great presence of mind when they saw the parachute descending and cut off the power supply to the overhead 11-KV electric wires to ensure a safe landing for the pilot. But such series of lucky coincidences do not take place too often. Many such plane crashes in the past have been fatal for the pilots as well as the people on the ground. Yet, accidents continue to take place with a chilling regularity. One cannot believe that the authorities are not taking these mishaps seriously. It is just that there is no improvement in the situation. The public has a right to know why the accident rate happens to be so high. Everyone from the Defence Minister to the Air Chief has said that the plane is absolutely safe. Then why is it that it keeps tumbling out of the sky? That is the uncomfortable question also asked by family members of some of the pilots who lost their lives in crashes but no answer has been forthcoming. Experts have pointed out two problem areas. One is the training of the pilots and the second the quality of spares and maintenance. The first can be taken care of, now that India has decided to go in for an advanced jet trainer. But the latter will require a tremendous improvement in the inventory and work culture. At the same time, it is also necessary to verify whether the parts manufactured locally are of top quality. A fighter plane puts extreme strain on the machine as well as the man flying it. Even a minor defect can make things go horribly wrong. The margin of error has to be near zero, if not zero. |
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Enable the disabled ONE way to find out how just and humane a society is, is to study how it treats its disabled members. Measured by this yardstick, the Indian society is unlikely to rank very high. Laws have been passed and reservations made for the benefit of the physically disadvantaged, but these, by and large, exist only on paper. Some of the major grouses voiced by those attending different functions organised to mark the World Disabled Day on Wednesday were: the Disability Act of 1955 is not implemented, the provision of 3 per cent reservation in government benefits is generally ignored, influential candidates with fake disability certificates corner the jobs meant for the disabled. These are not insuperable problems. What rubs salt into their wounds is the apathy of the government and the insensitivity of society. What is the point of observing the World Disabled Day year after year if the disabled are so frequently driven to protest? In the changed economic scenario where the government role is shrinking and the private sector is expanding, the plight of the disabled may go from bad to worse. Corporate decisions are based more on greed and profit than concerns for the underprivileged. Those less than complete deserve a little help from the corporate sector too to carry on with a sense of dignity. Officials can take up their cases on priority so that they don’t have to make rounds of offices. It is not difficult to put in place disabled-friendly measures both in the public and private sectors. Buildings can have ramps. Buses and train coaches can be so designed that the disabled are not inconvenienced. Any discrimination based on a disability must be dealt with sternly and swiftly. To mitigate the sufferings of the disabled in day-to-day life, society needs to effect an attitudinal change. |
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Be aware of wonder. Live a balanced life — learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
— Robert Fulghum |
Men and prevention of rape EVERY so often, the media focuses our attention on rape in a city. The report of a single violent and outrageous rape is followed by a string of reports of rapes all over the city. A sudden spurt of fear is generated, followed by news coverage and opinions about which city is the worst in terms of crimes against women. Statistical charts of gender-based crime surface on television screens. Graphs show that there is a rate of rapes that occur throughout the year, in all kinds of spaces and to all categories of women. Statistics may hide each individual fact of rape, but are revelatory in demonstrating the prevailing rates of gender violence. The other aspect that is evident is the sharp division between the statements of women activists and policemen. Women point out that the culture of silence which surrounds rape is only broken when a rape happens in a middle-class sanctuary space like the site of a film festival or at a “safe” time — in broad daylight at a busy city centre. Others are not addressed either by the media or by those whose business it is to prevent rape — the police. To this list one might add urban planners, municipal councillors and politicians whose business it is to ensure safety in streets, parks and public spaces. The men (particularly the policemen) whose opinions are solicited are full of good advice for women: “Don’t go out at night, never go alone, carry a cell phone, roll up car windows...” What is appalling about this form of advice is that it puts the responsibility of ensuring safety against rape on the individual woman. She must make sure she is back home; she must make sure that she is able to be in touch with the “right” people at all times; she must be accompanied and so on. The assumption that underlies this advice is that the woman is responsible for her own rape and for her own safety. Both rapist and policemen share a common cultural view of women in the city, especially if they are unaccompanied and out at night. The fact that the onus of rape rests with the individual woman has invidious consequences. City women internalise the culture of rape and adopt a series of measures to deliberately mute their bodies. They don’t look up and meet anyone’s eyes. They don’t talk to strangers. People asking for directions are first “checked out” with a set of risk-acute antennae to evaluate potential threat. To traverse perilous zones of the city, women try to temporarily make them invisible through their body language. But statistics tell us that women live in a world of fiction because there are no women-friendly safe zones; they demonstrate that safety in the city is not part of any masterplan. Most civic agencies are derelict in provisioning safety as a common urban good. Absenting themselves from certain spaces at particular times of the day is not really helpful because there are actually no such spaces and no such times. In fact, women have learnt not to expect any form of help from any authority. Ask a woman if she will approach a policeman on the street if she is being harassed and her likely response will be a resounding “No”. Far from demanding safety as a right, women feel themselves solely responsible for their own security. So whom can a woman approach if she is in trouble? Basically other women, if they are there, if they are not “safely” tucked away, if they can help without fear of attack. That’s it. My question is — what about men? What role can men play in the prevention of rape? Should we assume that every man in the city shares the rapist’s view of the woman as a target or the policeman’s view that the issue of safety is a woman’s responsibility and does not concern men? Do all male passersby or male urban citizens share a single homogenous attitude toward rape — it’s not their problem and she deserved it. If women respond to the chronic rate of rape by muting and negating themselves as visible persons, then do men — assuming that they are not all rapists — also have a routine set of strategies for “responding” to rape? Is silence, never speaking of rape, the only strategy men adopt? Is this another form of social muteness that we collectively suffer? No statistics help us track men’s responses to rape in public spaces. Certainly police or media reports never say a word about it. We don’t know if men were passersby at a rape scene. We don’t know if they heard a woman cry out and tried to find out if something happened. Or ran to her rescue. However, if you talk to individual women who have suffered a rape attempt they will tell you that people do come forward — sometimes. That is one of the reasons the rape did not happen. It was prevented. Not just by her managing to get away. But by someone else who came forward to help. Who are these others? Are they always women? Are any of them men? If they are, what did they do during the attack and after it? How come these individuals don’t make it to news reports? What did the police (who always come in after the rape) make of this help? Bar charts don’t help us decipher if there is any other pattern and response to rape in the city. Perhaps the bar charts aren’t there because social deafness and blindness is the only response to gender violence and rape. It’s in the nature of urban anonymity that the worst forms of human indignity can exist in cities. But we cannot just leave it at this and say, “Too bad rape happens, the statistics are there to prove it, so look out and come home safe if you can”. It’s important to restate something that women have known all along. Rape thrives on silence. Rape has the power to create divisions and produces people as victims, perpetrators, witnesses, allies, defenders and spectators. It also divides those who rape and those who can help prevent rape. Men who think of themselves as allies and supporters of women need to break the culture of silence that surrounds rape because it is a culture that positions all men as the same. It’s not just a question of “where was I?” The real question men need to ask is “where do I want to be?” Fascists understand silent spectatorship perfectly — they use it to unleash terror in the most routine way. The only real response to terror is to speak of it. The fact that rape has also been prevented needs a public record of its own. I refuse to believe that men don’t want to be part of that record. Breaking the silence on rape with a public account of another kind of collective response to gender crime is a weapon. It counters the assumption that men pass by with their eyes averted to rape. The record of resistance is a weapon worth having. |
Cattle unity
zindabad! A massive rally of stray cows, bulls and buffaloes of Chandigarh was held last night on one of the busy roads of the city to discuss the situation arising out of the increasingly militant postures adopted by human beings and brazen encroachment on cattle territory. The brainstorming session, which lasted till dawn, unanimously resolved that the threat posed by Homo sapiens had become so serious that it had to be tackled unitedly on a war footing. Speaker after speaker underlined the fact that while a befitting reply could be given to the challenge posed by the two-legged freaks, the unfair advantage enjoyed by these class enemies because of the availability of weapons of mass destruction like trucks, cars and scooters had complicated matters greatly. It was advisable for the cattle fraternity to continue to make a public show of exploring all peaceful avenues in conformity with the live-and-let-live ideal, but at the same time it was imperative to take recourse to guerrilla attacks so that it could negotiate from a position of strength. An All-Chandigarh Cow-Bull-Buffalo Unified Action Committee was formed to coordinate the proxy war. Surprise element had to be the main defence. As such, it was resolved that all of them should come to the roads only at night, that too on the stretches which had no streetlights, kill or maim as many human beings as possible, and vanish under the cover of darkness. Suitable memorials would be erected for those bulls and cows that lay down their lives in the process. All able-bodied animals were told to sharpen their horns for the impending long-drawn-out fight to the finish. White cows were advised to camouflage themselves with black paint so that the enemy could not detect them till an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation ensued. Certain senior cows advised against outright confrontation and suggested that they should get judicial help, instead. The possibility of obtaining a stay against the eviction of cattle from the streets should be explored. But the more militant office-bearers mooed down this suggestion and overwhelmingly decided to carry on their freedom struggle. The proposal was lustily cheered with a loud round of hoof-tapping. It was decided to honour municipal officials who were secretly sympathetic to their just cause and never curtailed their fundamental right to laze and graze where they liked. It was clarified that their struggle was not against the administration but the private individuals who unnecessarily provoked them by riding cars or scooters. The unanimous opinion was that those officials who had ordered removal of fences around the tiny gardens that various human residents had erected in front of their houses must be exempted from cattle attacks. It is these animal-friendly people who had ensured that the quadrupeds could have a free run of the city and paint it brown. It was the opinion of all the members that their fight was not confined to a small geographical area but had global ramifications. The conflict should be broadened with the help of their fellow animals elsewhere. For this purpose a team of buffaloes was formed to go to all states to liaise with their counterparts suffering in a similar manner and form a common front. A stern warning was issued that if the human beings did not stop their repressive activities, a nationwide “rasta roko” agitation would be launched against them, culminating in a relay stampede at the Rose Garden. The session noted that the plight of their foreign cousins was worse. They were not even allowed entry into the cities. It was decided to raise the issue at the UN. However, the selection of the delegation for the overseas trip had to be deferred because there was a difference of opinion among the various units which generated a lot of tension. The meeting ended with a full-throated rendering of “We will, we will rock you” and “Jo hum se takraeyga choor choor ho jayega”. |
NEWS ANALYSIS
NOW that the all-important assembly elections are over and the people having given their verdict, it is time for the Congress to take a good, hard and most importantly an honest look at what exactly went wrong. While drawing vital lessons from its humiliating defeat in the Hindi heartland, the oldest national party has necessarily to come up with a magic formula if it is to be seen as a serious challenger to the BJP throne at the Centre. In the first place, the Congress has to come to terms with the bitter truth that it was just not able to dictate the agenda in this vital election, which is expected to set the tone for the next Lok Sabha poll in the not too distant future. Even if the general election is not advanced, the Congress will face its next test in Andhra Pradesh which is slated to go to the polls next April. Having been in power in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, the Congress was admittedly weighed down by the inevitable anti-incumbency factor. But an astute leadership would have been well aware of these ground realities and taken some corrective measures. But obviously the party satraps were lulled into complacency by their own perceived invincibility and thus failed to read the writing on the wall. Consequently, it was the BJP which dictated the agenda, leading a high-voltage proactive campaign, which had the Congress scurrying for answers. Most importantly the Congress has also to face to the grim reality that the BJP has succeeded in shattering the myth that it is the only party capable of providing a stable government and delivering on good governance. Pointing to its 14 state governments, the Congress had sought to contrast the performance in these states with that of the NDA government at the Centre. As it happened, this strategy came a cropper. The BJP turned this argument around and instead placed the spotlight squarely on the failure of the Congress governments to deliver on its promises. That the BJP did so without having to resort to its trademark shrill Hindutva rhetoric has now made it only more difficult for the Congress to counter the BJP, which has positioned itself as a centrist force. The party’s defeat in the important states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh is unlikely to pose any serious challenge to party president Sonia Gandhi’s leadership within the party. But questions are bound to be asked about her ability to lead a broad anti-BJP front, particularly if the next general election is reduced to a contest between Sonia and Vajpayee. Her challengers within the opposition ranks, Mulayum Singh Yadav and Sharad Pawar, can be expected to step up their attack against Ms. Gandhi, who will be showed up as a poor “vote catcher” and whose foreign origins could prove to be a major handicap. The Congress, on its part, will need to do some serious introspection about how it should deal with prospective allies. Having given a call from Shimla that it is now open to do business with smaller regional players, it has to ensure that it is now implemented in letter and in spirit. In this respect, it could well learn some lessons from the BJP, particularly the Prime Minister, who believes in accommodating and not alienating the partners. The Congress can ill-afford to play the “Big Brother” any longer and must learn to share power with others. If not, it could end up paying a heavy price for its arrogance. For instance, in the recently concluded assembly elections, the Samajwadi Party fielded as many as 161 candidates in Madhya Pradesh while its leader Mulayum Singh Yadav campaigned actively in the state. The same story was repeated by the NCP in Chhattisgarh. Though both parties have
negligible presence in these states, they did succeed in playing the spoilsport. The Congress party’s inability to forge an alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) also did not help matters. More immediately, however, the Congress needs to treat this result as a wake-up call and put its house in order. It will need to go in for an organisational shake-up and put in place a fresh team for the next Lok Sabha polls, failing which the murmurs of dissent could only get louder. The party leadership has also to move in quickly to deal with the ongoing factional battles in Punjab, Kerala and Maharashtra which could pull the party further into oblivion. As it is, the Congress has no presence in the electorally-important states of Bihar and UP and after this election, its presence in the Northern belt is further reduced. |
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DELHI DURBAR DESPITE Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s effort to dismiss any talk of advancing the Lok Sabha elections due in the later half of 2004, there is a strong section in the BJP which believes the leadership will be pressured to consider the prospects without brushing it out of hand. It is apparent the BJP and those aligned to anti-Congressism are keen to ride the anti-incumbency factor. On his part, Vajpayee told the BJP parliamentary party on Tuesday now that the MPs should start working for the general election even though it is still a year away. Parliamentarians of the saffron brigade insist that a snap Lok Sabha poll cannot be ruled out. Be that as it may, there is another strong opinion that the BJP should hold its horses and wait for the general election till it becomes due. The Prime Minister firmly believes that his government must complete its five-year term in office.
A knock at the door Congress leaders from Punjab found to their discomfort the new levels of efficiency of the Chhattisgarh police. The leaders, who had gone to campaign for Motilal Vora’s son because of the personal rapport they enjoyed with the senior AICC leader, found the Durg police knocking at their hotel door at an odd hour in the evening and inquiring about the purpose of their visit. The policemen were politely told to come the next morning. Few AICC leaders camped in Chhattisgarh during the
campaigning, an exception being AICC Secretary Anita Verma, who is perceived to be close to Ajit Jogi. The Indian Youth Congress in which Ajit Jogi’s son Amit Jogi has quite a few friends, was the only frontal organisation of the Congress actively campaigning for party candidates. The IYC had deputed its general secretary Suresh Kumar to coordinate the poll exercise involving quite a few students from Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Hema Malini and Dara Singh After campaigning for the BJP, Hema Malini and Dara Singh made their appearance in the Rajya Sabha. The two nominated members did not seem unduly overawed while stepping into the country’s highest legislature. Hema Malini made her intentions clear of doing her bit for women, art and culture, apart from focussing on environment, children and, of course, films. She promised mediapersons that she would definitely manage the requisite time and get down to the brasstacks from the Budget session of Parliament. A little perplexed by the lung power of MPs, Dara Singh likened the House to a ring or akhara where the fight was cerebral or verbal, if you like.
The first Sikh in
Middlesbrough People in Middlesbrough in England are beginning to remember one of the first Sikhs who set up home in this country. They arrived by boat that was hit by a Japanese torpedo, killing many people. Amar Singh Rathore is one of the first Sikhs to live in Middlesbrough in the North of England. Though Rathore died on November 27, 1951, the local community has thought it fit to remember him now after more than 50 years. Rathore went to Middlesbrough in 1944 and settled at St Hilda’s. At that time there were only four Asians in the St Hilda area and all of them shared a flat. Although Rathore’s sons — Karnail and Chanan — joined him in 1947, his wife Taj Kaur arrived only in 1951 barely six weeks before he died of liver failure. The three-day ceremony in memory of Rathore was held at the Middlesbrough gurdwara.
Contributed by T.R. Ramachandran, Prashant Sood and S. Satyanarayanan |
A man who spends his time in discussing the good and bad qualities of others simply wastes his own time. For it is time spent neither in thinking about one’s own self nor about the Supreme Self, but in fruitless thinking of other’s selves. — Sri Ramakrishna The Master (Sri Ramakrishna) is the embodiment of all deities and of all mantras...Really and truly, one can worship through him all gods and goddesses. — Sarada Devi The Christian is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth. — Swami Vivekananda He who reflects upon himself, is truly wise. — Guru Nanak Vedanta has one distinct advantage over all other religious creeds. That is, every bit of Vedantic knowledge makes the veil thinner and thinner. With more and more knowledge, it reduces the veil of ignorance to its thinnest and enables the Vedantin (man who has digested Vedanta) to live a cheerful and blissful life in the din and roar of the market place. — Swami Parthasarathy |
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