Countdown to curtains
THANKS to a series of maladroit moves and miscalculations by many political parties, the developing parliamentary crisis is hurtling towards an unpredictable and unhealthy finale.

Drive against Kalyan Singh
IN its extreme eagerness to capture power at the Centre and in the states wherever possible, the BJP leadership has created for the party problems which have been normally associated with the Congress.

Amend waqf laws
THE claim that 50 per cent of Muslim waqf properties in the country are being misused may be a gross understatement. A correct assessment may show that only a fraction of the waqf assets are being put to proper use.

SIGNIFICANT SIGNALS
by S. Sahay
THERE have been two developments in two separate states that should cheer up all those who would like to see the panchayati raj system bloom in the country. The states are Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh.

Factors behind population problem
by Rahul Singh
IT is almost five years since a historic United Nations conference on population took place in Cairo. It marked an important turning point. A programme of action emerged from the conference, which was signed by almost all the members of the UN.

NAM mediation needed to end Kosovo war
by Maj-Gen Himmat Singh Gill
NEARLY a decade after the break-up of the Soviet Union and the demise of the Warsaw Pact, it is time to sound the dirge for the passing away of world peace and co-existional parity in the comity of nations. If things carry on at this rate, where the only remaining super-power left has decided to formulate and execute for himself its global aims irrespective of public opinion or concern, than possibly we can sing a requiem for the United Nations and the Non-Aligned Movement, as well.

A country’s currency
by Mohinder Singh
CURRENCY, like postage stamps, says a lot about the country that issues it. What lends distinction to a currency is its colour and cuteness, the pictures and motifs it carries, and the clarity of its value — coupled with durability in use and ability to thwart fakes.

75 Years Ago

Plague and the Hindu Sabha
THE extent of panic that prevails among a certain section of the public in Lahore on account of the high rate of mortality due to plague can be easily gauged from several reports we have received about the dead bodies of certain Hindus having been left in their houses for several hours for want of persons to carry them to the cremation ground.

Countdown to curtains

THANKS to a series of maladroit moves and miscalculations by many political parties, the developing parliamentary crisis is hurtling towards an unpredictable and unhealthy finale. The AIADMK has to walk out of the alliance and the BJP has to prepare itself for the life after. And that phase does not promise to be any more comfortable or creative. The Congress has no choice but to step in if the BJP fails in the numbers game. And it too faces daunting choices and non-choices; it will inherit power and also the potential for daily frustration. All other parties, big and small, face unacceptable alternatives. They can go by their old anti-Congressism and vote against a secular setup or stick to the anti-Sangh Parivar line and prop up the Dynasty. The Left will vote against the Vajpayee government with a clear conscience, but then what? The logical corrollary is to support a Congress-led regime, but that will lead to policy clashes or compromises. The Left cannot sink into a shell either. The small regional parties, which had their heyday during the brief United Front rule, may become irrelevant bystanders. Some like the DMK will no more have the freedom to decide what suits them; they have to automatically shift their loyalty to counter the action of their regional rival. All this at a time and in a situation when no one knows how long this Lok Sabha will last and when the next midterm election will come.

Behind the forced smile and awkward swagger of some BJP leaders lurk doubt and fear. The BJP’s is the worst lot. The dispute with the AIADMK and Ms Jayalalitha has been long, ugly and at the personal and not political level. The problem with tussles of this type is that there are no winners; the nature of the fight dims the image of both combatants. Further, in the process of freeing itself from one unreasonably demanding partner, the BJP is likely to make itself vulnerable to other demanding partners. The strength gained by jettisoning the Chennai lady may turn out to be a weakness in its relations with some warring groups. Again it is an uneasy coalition and when it cracks the cumulative damage will be far more than one party walking out of it. In short, the BJP managers have three tasks on hand: seek return of or shift in loyalty and solicit defection; insulate the supporting MPs from old style seduction and unleash a propaganda war to sow confusion among opposition groups. For the Congress the job is exactly the reverse of this. Its nearly insurmountable problem is about the composition and leadership of the government if the present one bows out. Mrs Sonia Gandhi is instinctively opposed to head an unstable arrangement, nor is she eager to form a full-fledged coalition. Her advisers bombard her with wild proposals and she has so far stood her ground. It is all a bizarre instance when the loser may lose less and the winner may lose more and over a long time.

Drive against Kalyan Singh

IN its extreme eagerness to capture power at the Centre and in the states wherever possible, the BJP leadership has created for the party problems which have been normally associated with the Congress. In the process the BJP has deprived itself of the moral high ground it once occupied, as it claimed to be an organisation having a disciplined cadre, always prepared to make any sacrifice for the party’s cause. The best example is available in Uttar Pradesh, which provided the maximum political muscle in its struggle to control the reins of power at the Centre. After the unhappy end of the flawed arrangement with Ms Mayawati’s BSP Mr Kalyan Singh formed a BJP government with the help of “defectors”. Despite having a jumbo ministry, he could not accommodate most BJP leaders who would have been ministers if there was no problem of giving a berth to every “defector”. This was intolerable for those left out. They had not yet recovered from the crippling blow dealt to their group by the party’s central leadership by selecting Mr Kalyan Singh to head the BJP government in UP when they were hit by the second shocking development. The anti-Kalyan Singh group now decided to keep aside the values projected by the party, and make use of every available opportunity to give sleepless nights to the Chief Minister and the central leadership. The banner of revolt currently being raised against Mr Kalyan Singh following the resignation by Mr Devendra Singh Bhole as Minister of State of Social Welfare on March 31 must be seen in this backdrop. The former minister has too controversial a past to be able to secure the support of over 50 party MLAs for his anti-Chief Minister drive as he claims. Whatever success he has achieved in his campaign has been possible because of the presence of disgruntled elements in good strength in the party and they include such stalwarts as Mr Rajnath Singh, Mr Kalraj Mishra and Mr Lalji Tandon. They belong to the upper caste lobby within the BJP and would never forgive the party’s central leadership for ignoring their interests.

When the anti-Kalyan Singh camp MLAs came to New Delhi to meet the BJP’s central leaders like Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, Mr L.K. Advani and Mr Kushabhau Thakre they would have known that only disappointment was in store for them because of the caste factor working against them. But they had an occasion to express their resentment against the party’s leadership in the national Capital. No one can help them, not even those who are otherwise sympathetic to their predicament. Mr Kalyan Singh represents the powerful backward caste segment in the BJP’s vote-bank, and it is this class which has made the party what it is today in UP. Removing Mr Kalyan Singh from the position of Chief Ministership will amount to destroying the backward class base of the BJP. The party central leadership cannot indulge in such an exercise even though it may be charged with playing the caste card for political gains. It is difficult to ignore the caste factor for any party, specially in the North, where its grip is stronger on the course of politics.

Amend waqf laws

THE claim that 50 per cent of Muslim waqf properties in the country are being misused may be a gross understatement. A correct assessment may show that only a fraction of the waqf assets are being put to proper use. However, the decision to set up a Joint Parliamentary Committee for a detailed examination of waqf affairs should answer the criticism that enough was not being done for making the managing of these properties economically viable. The Chairman of the JPC on waqf affairs, Mr K. Rahman Khan, was not wrong in stating that the scale of misuse and mismanagement may be much higher than indicated by current estimates based on incomplete data. Rampant corruption in most waqf boards is largely responsible for the current mess. The general impression is that the Waqf Act is not being implemented properly and that corrupt employees encourage encroachment of land and buildings under the charge of various boards. According to one estimate the Punjab Waqf Board is perhaps the richest in the country. However, since it oversees properties in Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh it is unable to cope with the problem of encroachment. The Administrator of the Board has requested the Centre to set up a special tribunal because the civil courts take years for settling the disputes. Out of nearly 15,000 unsettled cases nearly 500 are pending before the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

It is evident that the JPC should recommend suitable amendments in the Waqf Act for ensuring speedy disposal of disputes by special tribunals. According to Mr Khan, the Urban Affairs Ministry has given a list to the JPC indicating the scale of encroachment of waqf properties by unscrupulous elements. There is no doubt whatsoever that waqf properties across the country can generate revenue of upto Rs 500 crore through effective management against the current level of merely Rs 25 crore. A major problem which Mr Khan is likely to face is the reluctance of corrupt community leaders to accept reforms in the existing laws for better management of waqf properties. For instance, during a consultative committee meeting in Hyderabad the so-called leaders objected to the proposed changes in the State’s waqf laws on the ground that they were against “Muslim personal laws”. A sincere effort to introduce reforms in the existing laws is bound to upset the vested interests. The only way to isolate the malcontents is to take the community into confidence on the need for amending the waqf laws.

SIGNIFICANT SIGNALS
Panchayati raj on firmer footing
by S. Sahay

THERE have been two developments in two separate states that should cheer up all those who would like to see the panchayati raj system bloom in the country. The states are Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh.

In Karnataka, the question was whether or not the state government, with the help of an obliging state Election Commission could postpone elections to the gram panchayats.

The 73rd Amendment, it will be recalled, had given panchayati raj a firm constitutional foundation as against the pious expectations of the Directive Principles that the state would take steps to organise village panchayats and endow them with such powers and authority as would enable them to function as units of self-government. Since the Directive Principles are not enforceable in law — though the Supreme Court rather belatedly has been putting more constitutional teeth into it — the growth of the panchayats had been very uneven. It grew better roots in West Bengal and Karnataka than say in Bihar, where supprsessions became the rule and elections an exception.

It was to prevent such a state of affairs that the 73rd Amendment provided that the term of panchayats shall be five years and no longer, and that there was no scope for supersession. Individual panchayats could be dissolved, but then elections had to be held within six months. The further provision was that an election had to be completed before the expiry of the panchayat’s normal term of five years. There was the further provision for an independent state Election Commission to conduct the elections.

The term of 5,660 gram panchayats was to have expired in March and April this year. The state Election Commission informed the government that the elections would be held in the third week of February.

However, the government was reported to be under intense pressure from some ministers to postpone the elections. It not only announced that it wanted to restructure the panchayats but also issued an Ordinance to this effect. Later the Chief Minister announced that the panchayat elections would be held after the assembly elections in November this year.

It was against this decision that a public interest litigation was filed by Mr B.K. Chandrashekher and Mr N. Dharam Singh. It was argued that the term of the panchayats and the Election Commission’s responsibility in regard to the holding of elections had been demarcated by the 73rd Amendment itself. The right of the state government to issue an Ordinance was not questioned but it was canvassed that an Ordinance, to the extent it affected the constitutional mandate to hold elections, should be ignored.

The Karnataka High Court has held that the panchayat elections cannot be postponed. The full reasoning of the court is not available, but the ruling itself is clear: the government has no such power. This should act as a deterrent not only to the Karnataka government but to other state governments as well.

The sad truth is that, the constitutional status to the panchayati raj system notwithstanding the legislatures, the legislators and the state governments with honourable exceptions, have been fighting a rearguard action against power to the panchayats.

Among the honourable exceptions is the Madhya Pradesh government. Under the leadership of Mr Digvijay Singh, it is genuinely keen on decentralisation, with the results that were there for all to see. To the surprise of most, the Congress had a comfortable victory in the last assembly elections.

Encouraged by that, the Madhya Pradesh government has decided to give wide-ranging powers to the District Planning Committees (DPCs), which would review, supervise, monitor and follow up the schemes and activities of the various government departments, except those entrusted to the panchayati raj institutions and the civic bodies.

The DPCs will have considerable financial and administrative clout. It would scrutinise the work done in the field of tribal and social welfare. It shall have the authority to compensate individuals for losses suffered during natural calamities, but only to the extent of Rs 15,000. It shall have the power to appoint notaries and government pleaders.

It would consist of 15 to 25 members of which four-fifths would be elected in accordance with the constitutional provisions. The minister-in-charge of the district, the Collector and the district panchayats president would be the nominated members.

It is clear that the wheels of the panchayati raj are turning, slowly but surely, at least in some of the states. The states that have been unable to give the nation the lead in the matter have been witnessing violence mayhem — Bihar, for instance.

It is clear beyond doubt that if a state has to have peace and prosperity, it must honestly implement land reforms, must lay stress on the rule of law and must try to ameliorate the lot of the poor. This means that it must lay stress on not only land reforms but on primary and secondary education as well.

After all, why did the ministers in Karnataka want the panchayat elections to be postponed? Because the crucial elections to the assembly are scheduled in November this year, and the poll in as many as 5,660 panchayats would have given a clear indication of the way voters have been thinking. And this would have had possibly an adverse impact on the present government. It may still have, if the Karnataka High Court decision prevails. This implies that either the Karnataka government does not move the Supreme Court against the High Court decision, or the apex court upholds it, and on time.

Although the right of the government to issue an Ordinance had been conceded in the PIL case, it cannot be over-emphasised that the government at the Centre and those in the states have been wantonly misusing the power. At the Central level, the latest example has been the issuance of the Ordinance on Prasar Bharati, and in fact reissuing it, but it has had to be abandoned because of lack of requisite strength of the BJP and its allies in the Rajya Sabha. For the same reason, the imposition of President’s rule in Bihar had to be allowed to lapse.

It is high time politicians, of all hues, got the message that the misuse and abuse of constitutional and legal power are being noticed by even ordinary voters and, over the years, they have learnt to act when and how.

Factors behind population problem
by Rahul Singh

IT is almost five years since a historic United Nations conference on population took place in Cairo. It marked an important turning point. A programme of action emerged from the conference, which was signed by almost all the members of the UN.

It called for universal access to “reproductive health”, thereby enlarging the entire issue of population stabilisation (the phrase “population control” is no longer in vogue) to health and contraception. It also emphasised the voluntary nature of such a programme and the doing away of targets and quotas which, by definition, can be coercive in nature. The Roman Catholic Church and some other religious fundamentalists, which oppose modern contraceptive methods, were not in entire agreement with the programme of action but they were outnumbered and outvoted.

At The Hague last month, a conference was held looking back at what had been achieved since the 1994 Cairo conference. In New York later on, what was called a PrepCom, meaning a preparatory conference before the General Assembly session of the UN, was convened. Its job was to prepare a note for the UN Secretary-General to be taken up for discussion at the General Assembly.

The note will address what I have long been convinced is one of the biggest obstacles to the progress of the developing world, perhaps the biggest obstacle: the increasing numbers. At the end of World War II, the world’s population totalled two billion. This coming October, it will reach six billion. Almost the entire increase has taken place in the least developed and poorest countries. Here I shall go only into India’s experience. When we got our independence, we totalled around 350 million souls. In almost exactly a year, we will total one billion, almost three times as much.

We are already adding more to the world’s population than any other country in the world — 16 million more every year. China, which is more populous than India, is adding only 12 million annually, because the Chinese have managed more successfully than us, perhaps by coercive controversial means, in curbing their numbers. Quite soon into the next century, we will overtake China in numbers, a dubious distinction indeed.

There are three main reasons for this, all of them connected. The first is our abysmally low level of literacy: only about half of Indians are literate, even after over half a century of Independence. The countries which were much less literate than us 50 years ago — China and Indonesia are two of them — are much more literate than us now.

The second is our poor primary health care and deplorable levels of public hygiene. The best test of health care is expectancy of life, in other words the average age to which a person can expect to live. In India, it has not yet reached 60, whereas in the developed world it is into the late 70s. Even Sri Lanka scores over us. It has much better health care and, as a result, the average Sri Lankan can expect to live to about 75 — that is, unless he is not killed in the murderous civil strife going on in the country.

Our third area of failure is in providing couples with enough means of contraception. There is a term in the jargon of population experts which is called the “contraception prevalency rate (CPR)”. This translates into the percentage of couples who have access to — and use — modern methods of contraception.

There are now quite a few means of contraception available, ranging from the condom, to the pill, to the intra-uterine device (IUD), to injectibles, to sterilisation (of men or women). There is also the rhythm method (abstaining from sex during the “unsafe” period of the month for the woman), which is officially sanctioned by the Roman Catholic Church but which is most unreliable.

Needless to say, this last method does not come under CPR. India’s CPR is only a little over 40 per cent, which means that a large percentage of couples who would like to have access to modern methods of contraception are unable to get them. In other words, there is still a huge “unmet need” for contraception.

Increasing numbers also harms the environment. Forests have to be cut down to feed and house the growing population. The countryside cannot support so many people, so they migrate to the cities. Hence urban explosions, lack of employment, growing crime, more slums. Mumbai is a prime example of this, with close to half the city’s population living in slums and 300 to 500 people migrating into the city, for good, every day.

For at least five decades we have been faced by a problem that keeps India backward and poor, a problem to which there are fairly simple, straightforward solutions. All that is needed is political will and public support.

A country’s currency
by Mohinder Singh

CURRENCY, like postage stamps, says a lot about the country that issues it. What lends distinction to a currency is its colour and cuteness, the pictures and motifs it carries, and the clarity of its value — coupled with durability in use and ability to thwart fakes.

Colour-wise our currency stands enhanced with the new pinkish notes of Rs 10 and Rs 50. Again Rs 100 and Rs 500 notes with their brightened green mark an improvement over their earlier dull-looking counterparts.

Currencies world over are getting more colourful and cute, with the notable exception of US bank notes. The greenback continues unchanged in its dreary green and white — more green on the back, more white on the front. Italian liras and Spanish pesetas, bearing all those zeroes, sport a range of eye-catching colours. Even the UK pound has been smartened up considerably in recent times. Possibly the prettiest is the face of the Netherlands fifty-gulden note. It’s the close-up of a bee on a single sunflower, detailed with the precision of a typical Renaissance Dutch painting.

At one time all our notes prominently sported the Ashoka lions. In new ones, the lions stand reduced and moved to a corner, with the pride of place going to Mahatma Gandhi. The father of the nation shows up in a benign, cheerful mood.

In this respect we are now more like the British where the Queen is a must figure on all notes. But then the whole British government is run in her Majesty’s name. UK currency has also introduced the innovation of carrying the picture of a national hero on the reverse side. The 5 pound note, for instance, currently has George Stephenson, along with an image of his invention, the steam engine.

Incidentally 16 countries, quite a few tiny ones at that, feature the British Queen on their currency. And, curiously enough, the Queen comes out different in various currencies — looking motherly or young, serious or cheery, puckered or fetching. Doubtful whether the Queen herself ever handles any currency directly.

The practice of putting national heroes on notes is gaining acceptance and popularity everywhere. Spanish notes go as far as to sport two national heroes, one on each side. Political figures have their share: Lincoln and Washington on greenbacks, two former Canadian prime ministers on Canadian dollars, and Alhaji Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa (possibly the longest name on a note), the first Prime Minister, on Nigeria’s five-naira bill. Quite a few currencies have famous painters: Durer on German marks, El Greco on Spanish pesetas, Rembrandt on guilders, Michaelangelo on liras, and Cezanne or Delacroix on francs. The French franc in its depiction of “Liberty” has a topless revolutionary beauty, holding a banner aloft.

Admittedly featuring political or religious greats — barring Gandhi — on our currency could generate controversies; we’re rather touchy in these matters. Still there is a case for putting some great Indian on the reverse side. Rabindranath Tagore comes foremost to mind — his handsome profile lending distinction to a note. And others such as Mother Teresa or C.V. Raman. Swiss are liberal in putting eminent personages on their notes, Le Corbusier of Chandigarh fame being one of them.

As to clarity, US currency again possibly comes out the worst. All bills from $1 to $ 10,000 are exactly of the same colour and design. And all have the same size, more as a concession to the country’s purse-making industry than anything else. For outsiders, one size for all bills takes some time to get used to. Anyway it’s quite hard on the blind. We also risk mistaking between a new Rs 100 and a new Rs 500 note (which can turn out a costly mistake); the two notes look too similar with their identical colour and design. It would be a good idea to give them different colours. Incidentally the motif at the back of Rs 500, with people being led in the independence struggle, is truly poignant.

Runaway inflation affects a country’s currency for the worse. What can you expect of a note with little purchasing power? It’s bound to degenerate into something with an insubstantial feel and the blurry look of a photocopy; the sort of thing that happened to our one-rupee note. With the prices as they are it makes little sense to have any note below that of Rs 10.

What dismays outsiders most about our currency are the holes that notes develop in use, some of these gaping holes through frequent and vicious stapling. Possibly no other country outside the Indian sub-continent develops such holes in its currency.

It appears that our business routinely staple their bundles of hundreds before turning in at the banks. Banks affix more staples of their own when putting on their certification chit. Often a bundle can end up having four to five rusty staples. Forcing a bundle open inflicts its own damage. On top there is the widespread practice of jotting down remarks on bank notes.

All in all a good deal of our currency in circulation tends to take on a ragged appearance — torn, greasy, disfigured. Some say this is a reflection of our disorderly conditions, whether it’s traffic or rubbish removal.

New notes are almost a luxury; you have to have influence to get them or you buy them at a premium. And there are people whose sole business is to buy torn notes at a discount and then cash them at banks.

Maybe, someday we can follow the Australian model. Their currency is printed on a polymer that looks and feels paperish; slippery but durable. And one of the most difficult to counterfeit.

Paper money tells you something about what shape a place is in. Indeed through their money, countries project their self-image — to themselves and to foreigners. While there is scope for our designing more colourful and expressive currency to project our artistic heritage, there is the far greater need for less damaged currency in circulation to project the image of an orderly society.

NAM mediation needed to end Kosovo war
by Maj-Gen Himmat Singh Gill

NEARLY a decade after the break-up of the Soviet Union and the demise of the Warsaw Pact, it is time to sound the dirge for the passing away of world peace and co-existional parity in the comity of nations.

If things carry on at this rate, where the only remaining super-power left has decided to formulate and execute for himself its global aims irrespective of public opinion or concern, than possibly we can sing a requiem for the United Nations and the Non-Aligned Movement, as well.

For quite clearly, the role of the former has been abrogated by the European NATO alliance acting within the territorial jurisdiction of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, in Kosovo, and in so far as the NAM of Pandit Nehru, Tito of Yugoslavia and Nasser of Egypt is concerned, it may as well never have even ever existed.

A cursory reading of the US and NATO operations against the Serbs in the Balkans, would amply indicate that just about everything has gone wrong in the planning stage of the third-dimensional aggression itself, with no clear conception of the overall aim the former should have had in Kosovo. Even the time-frame for ushering in of autonomy there (the professed goal of NATO anyway), and exact strategy of how to get out of Kosovo in case the air action, now under way for nearly two weeks, is insufficient to bring Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic down to the peace table, does not appear to have been worked out in any depth or seriousness.

Let us for a moment examine the possible aims of all the three participants — the USA, Yugoslavia and the Kosovar rebels. In Kosovo, a Serbian province, the Americans are seeking to enforce a limited autonomy for the ethnic Albanian majority, whereas the Kosovar separatists are clamouring for complete independence.

President Milosevic of Yugoslavia, in his talks with the Russian Premier Primakov in Belgrade recently, has made it clear that he will settle for nothing less than a complete control over the Kosovo region.

How pray, are the three diametrically opposite aims ever going to be reconciled? And by who, with the United Nations and its peace force facing a mental and physical paralysis, and the Russians virtually out of the race, tied down as they are with the repayment of billions of dollars of Western aid.

Let us face it, even a dumb political and defence analyst would tell you, that aerial strikes have never won a war. The armies battling on land, do that for you. If the Americans and the NATO are unwise enough to leave it to a remote-controlled fight in the skies, then they have created more problems than they had bargained for.

Quite obviously, therefore, the American and NATO strategy has been to bomb the Yugoslavs into returning to the negotiating table, without having to commit ground forces into the battle zone. But herein lies a catch. Even the B-52 carpet-bombings of North Vietnam by the Americans did not deter the Viet-Cong from eventually reuniting the two parts (North and South) of that unfortunate land.

To one who has served with the International Control Commission (ICC) in Vietnam during the 1960s, and seen each bombing followed by a more determined resolve from the North, it is becoming increasingly clear that the Americans with the Vietnam experience in mind, could well be on the way to the upsizing of the NATO forces in Kosovo with a possible induction of more troops to follow, since the 30,000-odd NATO fighters are hardly in any position to slug it out with a highly equipped 1,00,000-odd Yugoslav army and paramilitary force.

The attacker in prudent military doctrine must achieve a 3:1 ratio in manpower for victory and that takes the NATO-American alliance force figure to the 3-lakh mark, if physical intervention is planned to take on the Serbs.

Today with the stage being readied for a close battle on the ground (and the flow of the battered refugees fleeing Kosovo in progress, making a ready case for physical intervention), it would need to be seen how far well-meaning and concerned nations of the world are prepared to hold out for a viable peace move. Already there are calls for Russian volunteers to fight on the side of Yugoslavia, and many on the other side of this new war game, have given a call for arming the Kosovar rebels in their fight against the Serbs. The Russians have already move in warships into the Mediterranean.

I think that with the United Nations having abdicated its role to the NATO forces, and no likelihood of the proposed Russia-India-China axis materialising to mediate on the growing conflagration, it is time for an independent NAM initiative on the lines of a Geneva round-table conference to take the lead.

A visit by Prime Minister Vajpayee, (India being a founder member of NAM), to Yugoslavia would be morally and politically justified in the hour of need of a former senior NAM nation. An international peace keeping force with its members drawn from non-Security Council nations, could ensure an immediate ceasefire in Kosovo, and possibly in the long run, even assist President Clinton in stopping short of the crossing the precipice of troop intervention.

There is still a ray of hope, provided wiser counsel prevails, and the Milosevic plan to get back to the peace talks is looked into more seriously, and not rejected outright as the Americans have done so far. The only condition the Yugoslavs have put in is that the bombing must stop before the talks begin.

Now unless the Western allies have already planned physical intervention, the heavens will not fall, if the bombing is dispensed with for some time, to enable the warring sides to get down to serious peace efforts.

Many security observers believe that it is the incessant bombings and not so much the reported atrocities on the ethnic group has led to the exodus of the refugees to the neighbouring countries. In any case, India and Pakistan have witnessed one of the biggest migrations in the history of mankind in 1947, and have lived to tackle the refugee problem without any outside assistance.

Nearer home, there is a lesson from the fighting in Kosovo, for those who care to see. Just a Yugoslavia is trying to keep the break-away Kosovo within its ambit, so also we in India and the Russians (Chechneya for example), have our compulsions in keeping national integrity and sovereignty intact. A big power or a super-power interest tomorrow in our affairs, say in Jammu & Kashmir, can hardly be justified or tolerated. No one nation or group can proclaim itself as the protector or the gendarmerie of the world.

Too much is at stake in Kosovo, for the world to just stand and stare. An immediate end to a NATO involvement of any kind by land, sea or air, an Afro-Asian or NAM-sponsored peacekeeping force under the auspices of the United Nations to usher in a peaceful environment for the eventual return of the refugees, and an end to any convert or overt intervention in assisting the secessionist forces in breaking away from their homeland can still bring about some sanity and peace to this troubled land.

The world must act before an actual land war between the soldiers engulfs the whole of Europe. The Americans could find soon enough as they did in Vietnam, (and as too the Russians found in Afghanistan), that the cost of waging long-drawn-out wars is too high, in terms of the expenses involved, the collateral damage to one’s own economy, and God forbid, the heavy losses to manpower due to the mounting casualties on the ground. The wise, would best avoid a similar experience in the future.

Last but not the least, on a purely strategic plane the unchecked march of the NATO alliance eastwards does not auger well for anyone and another power pact or alignment in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, to act as counter-balancing force to NATO, could well be on the cards sooner than many would like to concede.

75 YEARS AGO

Plague and the Hindu Sabha

THE extent of panic that prevails among a certain section of the public in Lahore on account of the high rate of mortality due to plague can be easily gauged from several reports we have received about the dead bodies of certain Hindus having been left in their houses for several hours for want of persons to carry them to the cremation ground.

There can be no severer condemnation of a community than the existence of a state of affairs like this. May we appeal to the newly organised Lahore Hindu Sabha to interest itself in the matter by immediately starting a Plague Relief Committee?

It is its clear duty to enlist volunteers pledged to the sacred cause of philanthropy who should go round the town, distribute medical relief and attend to dead bodies wherever it is found necessary to do so.

Judging from the large number of persons who offered themselves as candidates at the time of the last elections, Council as well as Municipal, it should not be difficult for the Hindu Sabha to get a sufficient number of men for the successful execution of this work, unless, of course, it is the case that what actuated these men was merely a hankering for power and not a desire for serving the public.