P A G E
Friday, July 17, 1998
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E D I T O R I A L P A G E |
Friday, July 17, 1998 |
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spotlight today's calendar |
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Say
IT with tax relief
Wasteland
problem:
A
mismanaged nation |
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The
good old umbrella |
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Say IT with tax relief If there is a world record for the shortest time governments take to act on a high-powered committee recommendations, Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha has shattered it. The National Task Force on Information Technology and Software Development presented its first report on July 9 and Mr Sinha has unveiled sumptuous tax concessions within 10 days. What is more, the task force is still at its job and a committee of Union Ministers is poring over the 108 proposals. The Finance Minister delinked a few of them having tax implications and came to the Lok Sabha to announce the happy tidings. The relief is available with immediate effect — from Thursday itself. One thing is clear though. Mr Sinha’s is not an impulsive action aimed at the gallery. It is a studied move, meant to impart a sense of urgency to the vital task of accelerating the growth of the information technology sector. IT has three roles to play — to modernise, to generate jobs (about a million), and to increase exports. This year software sales is expected to rake in $ 2.7 billion and by 2002 $ 10 billion annually . The tax concessions are mainly linked to export of software. Export has become virtually tax-free; even transmission of electronic data is to be treated as software export. All this is designed to sharpen India’s competitiveness. On the import side, customs duty is banished from all types of software; hardware like computers attract 30 per cent duty. The depreciation rate has shot up from 40 to 60 per cent, meaning that within two years a computer can be more or less written off. And, normally it has to be written off since the technology becomes outdated. As a corollary to this is the new gesture to educational institutions, including government-run ones. They do not have to pay gift tax on these machines if somebody were to present them. What is interesting is that the importers of these gifted computers (estimated to be around 5000 immediately) can claim refund of customs duty. Under Mr Sinha’s dispensation the technological marvels will make not only the recipients but also the givers happy. Domestic users too stand to benefit. By 2002 the IT (information technology) will be divorced from the old IT (income tax rules) as the import and export of this sector will be totally tax-free. India offered to usher in the customs duty-less regime by 2005, but Mr Sinha has advanced the year to 2003. At a time when computer prices are coming down even as the level of technology is going up, free trade will push up the intensity of computer use — from the present availability of one machine for every 500 citizens to one for every 50 in a few years.  |
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| Populate, pollute, perish The loud orations, discussions and seminars during the World Population Week have brought a few bits of eye-opening information. There is credible proof that we are close to crossing the one-billion mark; Census 2000 will give us “irrefutable proof” that we have left the figure behind. The M.S. Swaminathan policy, which was said to be definitive, has been almost forgotten; no workable population-governing plan is in sight at the moment. The day is not far when we will leave China behind and become the most populous country in the world. So, we are populating fast, polluting in an alarming manner and perishing slowly. As if political myopia was not enough to cloud the vision of the normally far-sighted national leaders, scientists started an acrimonious debate on the importance of the birth-control vaccine. The former Director-General of the ICMR, Dr A.S. Paintal, observed: “The male vaccine is pointless because no man will allow himself to be vaccinated for becoming sterile. The immunological approach to family planning is impractical...” What, then, is the right way of fighting the alarming growth of the country’s population? Perhaps the first thing to do is to end political bickering. A vast country needs cohesive organisations in the form of political parties with a broad base. The Congress has ceased to be the organically built monolith that it was even several years after Independence. The other parties, having considerable areas of influence, must treat family planning as a clear objective and join hands with the government (correct it where it goes wrong) and help it in reducing the great threat to the nation. “Global 2000”, a report made for the American President, says: “If the present trends continue, the world in 2000 AD will be more crowded, more polluted, less stable ecologically and more vulnerable to disruption than the world we live in now. Despite greater material output, the world’s people will be poorer in many ways than they are today”. We are a considerable part of the “world’s people”. The desperate problem needs a desperate remedy. In 1967, William and Paul Paddock wrote a book called “Famine 1975 — America’s Decision: Who will Survive?” They classified developing countries, based on their population growth rates and food production potential, into three categories: “Can’t be saved”, “Walking wounded” and “Should receive food”. India suffered the ignominy of being classified as “Can’t be saved” with the comment that it “is the bellwether that shows the path which the others, like sheep going to slaughter, are following”. India was a country, according to the authors, to which the USA should not have bothered either to provide aid or food. Fortunately, India’s food production managed to keep ahead of the population growth, which helped it through some of the most critical drought years like 1979. But the apparent stagnation in agricultural production — though in 1983-84 new record foodgrain production of over 150 million tonnes was recorded — once again created despondency. The 1981 census results turned out to be even more of a shocker than usual. The Planning Commission had just put the finishing touches to its Sixth Five-Year Plan when the Registrar-General of Census announced that the country had some 13 million more people than the number estimated by the planners and that the birth rate was not 33 per 1,000 people but around 36. The Planning Commission had to hastily restructure the Sixth Plan to bring it into line with the new figures. The tendency continues. The key question for the expert as well as the lay person is: can India’s land support such a large and growing population? This is where the “carrying capacity” comes in. It is the number of people or animals that an area of land can support on a sustainable basis. Unfortunately, not one expert in the country has attempted to qualify the carrying capacity of the area under a single development block, leave alone the whole country. The Centre for Science and Environment has, in this way, made a few revelations and presented the spectre of the unborn in a clear way. |
| A mismanaged nation Wages of patchwork politics by Hari Jaisingh Power management is a subtle art in which, alas, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and his BJP colleagues have been found wanting. Not that their intentions are doubtful. But their perspective is narrow and approach to even crucial national issues ad hoc. This observation might shock some hardliners and blind-followers of the Sangh Parivar. For, they have put themselves on the high pedestal of superiority, little realising that Indian politics does not follow a straight line and that the success of leadership largely rests on a person’s ability to visualise behaviour variations of others and accordingly work out political strategies and counter-strategies. The BJP leadership failed to anticipate the power of the new populist factors that could stall the Women's Reservation Bill in the Lok Sabha. Perhaps the BJP too was not all that serious about the measure. It probably wanted to fill in the blanks in its achievement chart of at least having introduced the Bill. In fact, in today's competitive Indian politics, populism is nothing but a crude attempt at filling blank columns for record without any commitment to serious action. The move for the carving out of three new states—Uttaranchal, Vananchal and Chhattisgarh—is, again, half-baked ad hocism. The BJP is committed to it as per its poll manifesto. Now it is committed to one more—Pondicherry—thanks to the successful arm-twisting of the Vajpayee government by the one and only AIADMK supremo, Ms Jayalalitha. While this move has thrown up new problems, it has left several issues unanswered. Why only these three (now four) states and not the many others, which have an equally good claim? This is politics, for which the BJP will pay, and will make the country pay, a bitter price. But more on this later.  The British divided the country according to administrative convenience. This did not satisfy the Congress leaders, who were for linguistic division. But they had no clear idea on this. It never occurred to them that administrative convenience made an equal claim for good governance. However, when India became free, the Congress leaders had second thoughts. Jawaharlal Nehru opposed the division of Bombay and Madras presidencies as also Punjab. Why? He did not explain. We can only guess. He must have realised that it was a divisive process, which could lead to undue fragmentation of the country. But it was already too late. An Andhraite had self-immolated for a separate state. So Andhra was conceded. The demand for linguistic division of the country continued unabated. So Nehru was compelled to set up the States Reorganisation Commission. Here was an opportunity to make a rational division of the country. But it was missed. Bombay, Punjab and Assam were left untouched. The 1956 report of the Commission failed to bring about a true linguistic division. This left a contentious legacy, for which we are still paying. There can be only one explanation for this. The regional leaders were able to impress on Nehru the need to maintain the status quo. This was more so in the case of Punjab, where an Akali faction had raised the cry of separatism, causing much concern in Delhi. It will be recalled that Dr Ambedkar had opposed the creation of large states by the State Reorganisation Commission. He suggested Vidarbha and Marathwada to be taken out of the Bombay presidency, Bihar to be divided in two, UP into three and MP into four. His case was that these states were too unwieldy and that division would ensure good governance. But the Congress leaders had other calculations. A large state, in their view, could control the Centre. For example, UP with 85 Lok Sabha seats out of 544 controlled the Centre for almost half a century! And UP and Bihar, which together commanded 139 seats in the Lok Sabha, got 25 per cent of the funds that devolved from the Centre to the states. As against this, the vast region of the North-East had only a dozen MPs and got 3 per cent of the funds. It remained one of the most neglected and backward regions. This inequitous dispersal of power and resources caused immense harm to the country by creating uneven development, although uniform development was one of the main objectives of planning. We know today the reasons for distorted growth.But the remedy will not come from political parties and politicians. For, the issues involved are part of a highly dangerous game of politics, which is an active agent at all levels of functioning. It is one of the great fallacies to say that this country is divided on the basis of linguistic principles. Far from it. The main consideration was power. It was for capturing more power that UP was retained in its present form. If UP was divided into three units, would the people there have become less Hindi-speaking? Not at all. But each part would have lost some power over the Centre. Similarly, if Bihar is divided into two, the people of the entire area will continue to speak the same language. But politicians in North Bihar will be as poor as a church mouse because the resources are mostly in the south. So let us not talk of this "linguistic principle" any more. The country paid heavily for this craze for power. Today there is insurgency in a number of regions. Tens of thousands have lost their lives. The BJP has not given thought to any of these negative features of the federal polity. There are nearly a dozen regions wanting separate statehood. There has been no effort to study the real situation. Who wants separate statehood—the local politicians or the people. Do the people know the consequences? A new States Reorganisation Commission should go into all facets of demands, including economic viability. The BJP cannot have any serious objection to it when it is ready to review the Constitution itself. Vidarbha and Marathwada in Maharashtra, Saurashtra in Gujarat, Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir, Gorkhaland in West Bengal, Bodoland in Assam, Coorge in Karnataka and Telengana in Andhra Pradesh—all these are festering with discontent. It will be the greatest folly if these problems are seen any more in terms of partisan advantages. A major challenge in a democratic polity like ours is how to match rational political consciousness with the "increasing complexities of growth and the logic of cooperation." This also depends on the quality of leadership, which has to come up to the demands of a growing democracy. The pace and thrust of politics, in the circumstances, have to be "increasingly specialised" without losing touch with the masses. Division of states has been generally favourable. This was the case when Bombay was divided into Maharashtra and Gujarat. Today these are the leading industrial states of India. This was the case when Haryana and Himachal Pradesh were carved out of Punjab. Both are today leading states. The development of Haryana, which was a backward area of Punjab, was perhaps most spectacular. At the same time, even a single autonomous council has not done well to redress the backwardness of its region. This was the case with the North-East Development Council, Darjeeling Council, Vidarbha Council and so on. The answer then is: smaller states and more devolution of power—these alone can improve the governance of states. There may be a less chance of rampant corruption in smaller states provided the people are more vigilant. The politician will have to control his\her greed. However, we must control the size of every state ministry. Power must not be seen as a means to amass wealth at the cost of the exchequer. The basic explanation for backwardness is, of course, human failure. Bihar, a rich state, is a case in point. Its leadership has been so rotten since 1947 that nothing has gone well there. This cannot be overcome without reducing the size of Bihar. The larger the size of a state, the less accountable will be its rulers. This is almost a truism in all cases. The urge of ethnic and regional communities for greater autonomy is natural. It has arisen because our founding fathers had not given a serious thought to this matter. But this problem cannot be solved in an ad hoc manner as is being attempted now. As I said, politicians are after power. This is what any constitutional arrangement will have to address. Power must be diffused more evenly. It is not good to have very large and very small states. This will lead to an unequal division of power on a permanent basis. I am not advocating the dilution of Central authority. A strong Centre is a geopolitical necessity in India. But this objective has not been properly pursued. A strong Centre is a product of evolutionary development and it has to be based on mutual trust and confidence between the Centre and the states. And a strong Centre cannot be sustained if the federal units are weak and are plagued by tensions and conflicts. |
| Wasteland problem:a solution by Bharat Jhunjhunwala The Ministry of Agriculture proposes to invite foreign investors to help afforest barren land because of the “inability of farmers to reclaim such wasteland”. On the other hand, the environment lobby is against the leasing of forest land to private companies. Actually, neither is interested in the welfare of the farmer. Both are interested in afforestation for their own compulsions. The government wants the dollars and the NGOs want their grants. If we are interested in the welfare of the farmer we should sell the wasteland to him. The farmer will not only reclaim the land, he will grow foodgrains, and the money from the sale can be used to extinguish the national debt. The view of the government that the farmer is unable to reclaim the wasteland is entirely wrong. Across the country one will hardly find a piece of private land that lies barren. If nothing else, farmers grow grasses on them. The problem of wasteland is that the government is unwilling to relinquish its ownership. It wants to own these pieces of land and also to develop it for farmers. How is that possible? If the government is willing to give the wasteland to foreign investors for reclaiming it, then why not to the farmers? The environment lobby is against giving the land to the businessmen, Indian or foreign. It argues for the afforestation of such land in cooperation with the local people. It says that leasing to private developers would be against the interests of the local people who have been using the land for grazing and minor forest produce for centuries. This will also spell doom for the wood market and remove any incentive for the farmers to grow trees on their private land. Paper companies and other users will no longer have to buy wood from farmers. This argument is essentially correct. But, then, if we take it to its logical conclusion, the interests of the local communities will be better served by selling the land to them for crop cultivation. The basic question is whether the national interest will be better served by crop cultivation or by afforestation. The benefits of forests are many. The two most crucial ones, perhaps, are the production of biomass and the percolation of ground water. Let us compare the forest with crop cultivation on these two criteria. Forests certainly produce more biomass. A hectare of land under eucalyptus may produce 2500 trees which at 200 kg may give a biomass of 500,000 kg in 15 years or about 30,000 kg per year. In comparison, maize cultivation produces merely 2,000 kg biomass in the form of weeds and karbi. Forests also assist in greater percolation of groundwater. The roots of the trees open the veins of the earth and allow more water to seep in. On both these counts, forests are indeed better than crop cultivation. But there are other benefits of crop cultivation. The most important is food security. Whether we like it or not, our population is increasing. We need to grow more food. Forests do not do that. Secondly, crops produce fodder for livestock which, in turn, produce milk, and fuel and organic manure. The cowdung cakes are used as fuel. These reduce the pressure on the forests for fuelwood. The biomass that the forests would have produced would have been burnt on the stove. The dung does the same. The organic manure makes sustainable agriculture possible. Economics is heavily loaded in favour of crop cultivation. The reason why the environment lobby hankers after afforestation in cooperation with the local community is not because of the interests of the local people. That would be much better served by selling the land to farmers. They argue for afforestation because they have no locus standi if land is given to the farmers. The NGOs will exist only as long as the local people have to be “organised”. Then only will they get their grants, jeeps, computers and foreign visits. If the farmers become self-reliant then who will give money to the NGOs? And the government is against giving land to the people because of the bureaucracy factor. The correct solution would be to sell the land to the local farmers. Let the poor among them pay in instalments. This will solve three problems. It will lead to immediate regeneration of land. It will increase food production. And, lastly, it will give us money to repay the national debt. A counter-question that will be raised is: do we then not need the forests? First, the question we are discussing is that of barren land, not cutting of forest trees. Secondly, I am not sure how much of the forest is really “necessary”. The entire Ganga basin was once a dense forest. For the past 2,500 years it has supported sustainable agriculture. If the nation can live without forests in the Ganga valley, why not then in the Vindhyas? We must rely on the ingenuity of our people to create sustainable agriculture on the barren land. |
 75 YEARS AGO Simla News Cordial Hindu-Muslim relations The Id festival was celebrated with great eclat. All the Mohemedans of the town, including the Afghan Envoy, assembled at Idgah to read the Id prayer. With a few exceptions the whole company was dressed in foreign cloth. Before the prayer was read, Hafiz Abdul Ghani made a short, interesting speech praying for the unity of Hindus and Muslims and speedy Swaraj. The Hindus distributed paans to their brethren. This cordiality of relationship was deeply and gratefully acknowledged by the Mohemedans. A leaflet of Id congratulations printed on green paper with golden words and issued under the signature of Pandit Bhagirath Lall and Pandit Ganda Mal Sharma on behalf of the Hindus of Simla was widely distributed among the Mohemedans. The leaflet was couched in the following terms:- “Id Mubarak. We in heartily offering our felicitations on this occasion of Id to our Mohemedan brethren venture to request that they with the Id prayer should also pray with pathetic heart to God for the progress of mutual amity and love between all the communities.” |
| The good old umbrella by O.P. Bhagat Remember the tale of six blind men? One day they went to “see” the elephant. For, by observation, each wanted to satisfy his mind. Imagine one of them getting curious about the umbrella. He would feel it all over with his hands. He might pause, feel it again and then say, “The umbrella is all skin and bone.” Well, he would not be quite wrong. But perhaps nowhere else skin and bone give a better account of themselves. The umbrella’s cloth, though thin, is durable like a hide. While it must keep its backbone in shape, the brolly can do with one or two of its ribs broken or dislocated. Who made the first umbrella? We may never know. But whoever it was, he made a most wonderful thing. His handiwork helped his fellowmen face the elements. He gave them a shield against the sun and rain. You can ward off the rain with other things as well. Some of them are very stylish indeed. Beside them the umbrella looks almost primitive. A leaf or reed umbrella certainly does. Yet it has its plus points. Your waterproof hat may not stop a sharp, slanting shower from hitting you in the face. The umbrella can. Custom has not staled the umbrella. Age has not withered its charm. Women still show the same zest for pretty parasols as they do for other fashion accessories. There is no end to cute and colourful sunshades. Some time back a news report said that in Britain six million umbrellas were made every year. And most British males went for the traditional black umbrella. Such statistics may or may not be there for India. But ours is one country where the umbrella may never lose its patrons. People will — they will have to — use their “chhattas” in the summer sun and monsoon rain. Utility is not all. Umbrella days end with the rains. The sun is then mild and there is no fear of a sudden shower. Yet you come across individuals who carry their “chhattas” as before. They do not feel odd or embarrassed or even encumbered. Is this from the force of habit? Or do they have deeper reasons for it? R.L.S. wrote on the philosophy of umbrellas. It is time someone wrote on the psychology of the users. Some people own umbrellas, but cannot make use of them when there is need to. It is the just men, as viewed by Lord Bowen: The rain it raineth on the just And also on the unjust fella, But chiefly on the just because The unjust steals the just’s umbrella. If you are careful, not only the unjust will not steal your umbrella, but you can put it to new uses. Is that an unwelcome visitor coming your way? Just lower your umbrella to a suitable angle. It hides your face, and the guy (or girl) passes by without pestering you. Is this something that may not be touched with hand? You may examine it with the tip of your brolly. But do not prod everything with it. That would be an abuse of the umbrella. Some people do make a nuisance of themselves. If nothing else, they will keep poking the ground. The pockmarked patch they leave behind tells it all. If necessary, you can use your umbrella as a walking-stick. At times it comes in handy as a weapon. With it, you may scare away a bull or a bandit. It may even serve as a valuable third hand. There are moments when the umbrella inspires courage in its own way. Fancy a chap hesitating to go out in a downpour. Hand him any old or battered “chhatta” and say, “Take this and go.” He sets out as though you had given him a charm against all dangers. |
| Japan: beware of the Samurai! by M.S.N. Menon Japan is an associate member of the whiteman’s club. No wonder, it was among the first to condemn India for the Pokhran tests! Japan had, of course, other reasons to be concerned. It was the first and only victim of the nuclear holocaust, which devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But does it pain still, when Japan is in secret pursuit of the bomb? Even before Hiroshima and Nagasaki had recovered from their trauma, Japan was pleading with the Americans to let it develop the nuclear industry! And had it not been for the plea of Nakasone, a young member of the Japanese Diet at the San Francisco Peace Treaty talks in 1951, America had every intention to ban the development of a Japanese nuclear industry. Nakasone had also a hand in the development of reactors and fast breeders. In 1959, under Prime Minister Kishi, Japan separated plutonium. In 1964 Sato set up a reprocessing facility. In 1966, Japan produced enriched uranium by the centrifugal method. By 1984, Japan had an enriched uranium plant of a 150-tonne capacity. It was expanded to 600 tonnes and is now being expanded further to a 1500-tonne capacity. These are the milestones of Japan’s secret plan to be a nuclear-armed state. For form, Japan proclaimed its commitments to an anti-nuclear regime: (1) not to manufacture nuclear weapons; (2) not to acquire nuclear weapons; and (3) not to introduce nuclear weapons into Japan. This was to gain acceptability among its erstwhile victims and allied powers. Japan has already violated these principles. US aircraft carriers carry nuclear weapons into the Japanese ports. The Japanese government permitted US nuclear weapons to be stored in Okinawa. As for the first, it will not be long before Japan violates it too. The spirit of the Samurai cannot be contained. Like the volcanoes of Japan, it continues to erupt. Even meditation (Zen) came to serve the cult of violence in Japan! There are powerful forces in Japan in favour of nuclear arms. The process has been steady. It is true, there was provocation after China went nuclear in 1964. In 1969 the Japanese Foreign Ministry said: “...although Japan did not need nuclear weapons for the time being (because of the nuclear umbrella provided by the USA), it should keep economic and technical potential for the production of nuclear weapons.” Japan has kept that promise faithfully. It is far ahead in most of the technologies. It can produce weapon grade uranium faster in a laser plant. And it has huge resources. One thing is beyond doubt: Japan has enormous stockpiles of fissile material. It is waiting for the call to arms. Thus, Japan seems to say: Nuclear weapons are good for Japan’s security, but wrong for others. A case of goose and gander. In 1970 the Japanese Defence Agency published a White Paper which said that possession of nuclear weapons would not violate the Japanese constitution. Later, it recommended possession of tactical nuclear weapons. In the eighties, Nakasone sought revision of the US-Japan Atomic Cooperation Agreement. In 1988, an agreement was signed which permitted Japan to store plutonium on Japanese soil. But the world knows little of what is going on. Japan is secretive. In choosing the plutonium route, and not the uranium one, which is cheaper, Japan has raised doubts about its ultimate intentions. By taking shelter under the US nuclear umbrella, Japan has been able to save trillions of yens. After having done that, Japan has no face to ask others to deny themselves the security of nuclear deterrence. How can it blame India when India is facing two nuclear-armed and hostile neighbours? Japan is facing no such threats. China can be no threat to Japan, for the US troops on Japanese territory are a kind of hostage. China cannot provoke Japan without provoking the USA at the same time. At the Tokyo summit in 1992, Japan was reluctant to sign the NPT. It took much coaxing. There can be only one explanation: Japan did not want to close its nuclear option. But it voted for NPT extension because the consequences of not doing so could have been highly embarrassing. It is said that Japan secretly sympathises with India’s nuclear programme in view of the threat of a nuclear-armed China to Japan. This may be so. Japanese military analysts admit that Japan can live with India’s bomb and not with China’s. Japan must say so more openly. That is how to advance the world process. But, as I said, the Japanese are given to secrecy. And they had no great admiration for India. Japan has been portraying India as a country of irredeemable backwardness, famines, poverty, disease and squalor. The same as the whiteman did. The message was clear: India is not a fit country for Japanese business. This has delayed Indo-Japan cooperation, hurting both countries. Of late, there is a change in Japan’s stand. But, then, India also has a poor image of the Japanese: that they are cruel, rapacious, wanting in compassion. Many Indians would consider a nuclear-armed Japan as a disaster. It is said that an Indian is often asked in Japan why he is so different from the rest of Asia. That is very true. India is the country of the Buddha. It has never conquered another country. It has not exploited other peoples in all its 5000 years of history. We have no apologies to make. But China and Japan, the two countries where Buddhism really took roots, were expansionist powers. India will always be different. Its impulses are different. There is little dialogue between the Japanese and Indians. This is not because of the language barrier. When former Japanese Foreign Minister Ikeda visited India, he spoke of the need for a “strategic dialogue”, going beyond trade and investment. India has such dialogues with other countries. Not with Japan. Is it because we see the Japanese only as traders? Such thoughts are natural. India has played the most significant role in the decolonisation of the world, in the struggle against imperialism and apartheid. And suffered much in consequence. Japan is not known to have suffered for any noble cause. In fact, while Koreans and Vietnamese suffered, Japan was making money supplying goods to American soldiers! It is a pity that in 50 years India and Japan have not thought of the need to come together or to work for a common goal! That says all. |
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