P A G E
Tuesday, December 7, 1999
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E D I T O R I A L P A G E |
Tuesday, December 7, 1999 |
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Orissa’s
disaster politics
ISSUE
OF TALKS WITH HURRIYAT |
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by P. Raman
A-B-C-D tribe
is growing
Yearning
for Unity |
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Orissa’s disaster politics ORISSA’S cup of woe is overflowing. So is that of the ruling Congress, if it is any consolation to the battered coastal people. The former Chief Minister, the state level party leadership, the MLAs and the high command in Delhi worked in perfect unison to destroy the credibility and image of the Congress, or what remained of it after the shocking mismanagement of relief work in the super cyclone-hit districts. It was an unbecoming act that everyone played out. Mr Giridhar Gamang, whose claim to fame until he was catapulted to power early this year rested on his playing a tribal drum at a public function like a man possessed, does not have chief ministerial timbre. It is not enough to be an incorruptible politician. A Chief Minister has to deliver goods and it was evident from day one that it was wrong to choose him. Apparently in her eagerness to get rid of Mr J.B. Patnaik, in the wake of the Graham Staines killing, party President Sonia Gandhi plumped for this colourless leader. It is a pity that not one of her senior advisers warned her of the likely consequence. It needed a killer cyclone to expose his deficiencies, and a rattled president rushed first Mr Pranab Mukherjee and then Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mr Balram Jakhar to supervise the relief operations. By then Mr Gamang had sapped all administrative energy and bureaucratic elan, rendering the presence of the Delhi veterans less than useless. It was a scandal that the state Chief Secretary flew away to the USA on some official work while the coastal districts were struggling to recover. The Relief Commissioner was suspended in a vain show of assertion of authority and this only angered senior officials further. Another empty and self-defeating move was to clear the worst-affected areas of the armed forces personnel just because the Defence Minister made a totally baseless charge. Today nearly one half of
Orissa lies in ruins. Some villages are still marooned
and supply of food and other basic needs is either sloppy
or has stopped. Whatever little enthusiasm the
administration showed has evaporated after Mr Gamang
wildly accused the officials of trying to divert funds
for personal use. This one thoughtless remark ignited a
mighty protest from party MLAs. The old intriguer, Mr
J.B. Patnaik, was back in business: to ease out Mr Gamang
and reoccupy the gaddi. A senior Cabinet Minister, Mr
Basant Kumar Biswal, joined him in the mistaken belief
that the way was being paved for his own coronation. When
he realised the game plan of Mr Patnaik, he opened a
dissident front of his own. Mr Gamang dodged meeting the
Congress general secretary in charge of Orissa, Mr
Madhavrao Scindia, and finally called him in just to tell
him that he was flying to meet the madam. At last he had
to be blackmailed into resigning by another observer who
said his earlier letter of resignation would be used to
end his undeserving leadership. Never have so many
leaders paraded their greed and insensitivity so brazenly
as in Bhubaneswar last week. The party high command
showed up as weak and vacillating; it was pathetic to see
a Chief Minister who had thoroughly discredited himself
defying the party president for a whole week! The BJP-led
government did not cover itself with glory. Its verbal
parsimony with the description of the super cyclone was
as unbecoming as its intrusive nomination of a relief
commissar in the person of the Defence Minister, Mr
George Fernandes, and keeping up a steady stream of
anti-state government statements. The hasty declaration
of the Orissa BJP unit to use the relief fiasco as an
election issue early next year did not help either. The
super cyclone has destroyed more than a few hundred
villages. |
Crime without punishment A DELHI Sessions Court verdict in the revolting Priyadarshani Mattoo rape-cum-murder case has understandably shocked both lay observers and members of the legal fraternity. Additional Sessions Judge G. P. Thareja in the order setting free the accused, Santosh Kumar Singh, left no scope for doubt that he was personally convinced of his guilt. But the due process of law does not allow even the most perceptive judge to look beyond the material produced in court as evidence by the prosecution in a criminal case. Nevertheless, he has done well to put on record his displeasure over the unconcealed attempt of the Central Bureau of Investigation to suppress evidence which could have proved Santosh Kumar Singh’s guilt beyond an iota of doubt. The case dates back to January 23, 1996, when Priyadarshani Mattoo, a Delhi University law student, was strangled to death at her residence in Vasant Kunj because she is said to have spurned Santosh’s offer of “friendship”. Santosh happens to be a son of a senior IPS officer. It is not difficult to see Judge Thareja’s sense of anguish and helplessness in a single sentence of the 449-page order for the acquittal of the suspect. The sound of the sentence that “he is a criminal but I cannot convict him for lack of evidence” is likely to echo for a long time in the corridors of justice. Questions are already being asked about the limitations in the judicial system in dispensing justice. Is the law so helpless that a well-connected criminal can get away with even murder in spite of the judge being personally convinced of his guilt? The verdict should make
members of the legal fraternity, the judiciary and the
investigating agencies read the opening chapter of
“Godfather” in which well-connected white
youth, accused of having raped and murdered a black girl,
are set free by the court. The girl’s father seeks
the help of “Godfather” and gets instant
justice. The Mattoo verdict should re-open the debate for
introducing long overdue judicial reforms. Without
plugging the loopholes in the existing laws there is
little that the judiciary can do to protect itself from
inadvertently becoming a party to what to the lay eye
looks like miscarriage of justice. The verdict is a
stinging expose of the clinical precision with which the
CBI suppressed and fudged evidence which would have
ensured Santosh’s conviction. It is not for the
first time that the CBI has been rapped on the knuckles
for trying to cover up, rather than expose, the criminal
acts of highly-placed suspects in cases assigned to it
for investigation. In the Rs 133 crore urea scam it was
rebuked by the Special Judge hearing the case for trying
to bail out Prabhakar Rao, son of former Prime Minister
P. V. Narasimha Rao. The judge noted in his order that
the name of “Prabhakar Rao, who is also alleged to
have received kickbacks in the scam, has been left out by
the investigating agency for reasons best known to
it”. Questions are also being asked about the
slip-shod investigations by the CBI in the case of murder
of Jessica Lal, a Delhi model and socialite, allegedly by
some young men from well-connected families. A proposal
for making changes in the functioning of the CBI is
pending before the Law Commission. In the light of the
Mattoo verdict the commission should accord the highest
priority to the need for removing the shortcomings in the
working of the investigation agencies. |
Not by populism alone The Prime Minister's assertion that the government is considering proposals to amend the Constitution to relax the existing requirements and provide for speedy promotion of the persons belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes is bound to evoke extreme reactions, depending on which side of the fence the person happens to be. That has been the unexpected undoing of the reservation policy. In place of actively bringing back the victims of centuries of exploitation and victimisation into the mainstream and giving them the social status that is their due, it has, to a great extent, brought about a neat us-versus-they divide. In the atmosphere of competitive lip service, every leader has seen the vital issue in terms of vote bank politics. The fact of the matter is that the benefits of reservation have been cornered by a few who have fattened themselves for two or more generations on its basis, denying the privilege to the more deserving ones. And in the eagerness to appease the people belonging to certain castes, reservation has been doled out to these select few as some kind of a substitute for merit. The end result is that the people of other castes, who should have been ashamed of the deeds of their forefathers in treating fellow human beings as untouchables, today bear a grudge against the very victims. The purpose of reservations is not just to give government jobs or official positions to the downtrodden people but to use this intervention as a means to provide them new opportunities so that the social status they had been deprived of for centuries improves. Since everyone agrees that this has not been attained even after 50 years of reservations, there is need for a course correction. In fact, it is necessary to have a dispassionate analysis to evaluate what went wrong and where. No sane person can deny
that those belonging to the Scheduled Castes and
Scheduled Tribes have been exploited to the hilt by an
unjust system. It is the responsibility of not only the
government but also the entire society to ensure that
they are given in the shortest possible time what has
been denied to them all along. The best way to do so is
to provide social, economic and educational assistance so
that they come up fast and compete with the best of the
rest. But making them move about in a separate channel
can lead to lack of motivation and challenge. There is a
very real danger that it may give birth to complacency
and a feeling of isolation. Only when they have the
confidence that they are as, if not more, meritorious as
the others who are from the general category would they
be able to occupy their due place in society. The
excessive stress on reservation has unwittingly harmed
this unification process. Instead of playing populist
politics, as Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee seems to be doing,
we need to try out a refreshingly different approach. |
ISSUE OF TALKS WITH HURRIYAT INDICATIONS are being given and perhaps soundings are being taken on the possibility of the Indian government opening talks with the leaders of the Hurriyat, which represents almost all the separatist movements in Kashmir and often speaks for the militants. There have yet come no firm statements from either side about the willingness of the various parties to enter into any kind of negotiations. Each side will have to cross many impediments into publicly accepting the need for the talks. More than the need is the acceptance of the willingness to sit together and talk to each other. Each side in accepting the willingness for the talks will be accused by its followers of giving up its commitments. It may, therefore, be difficult for them to immediately speak out publicly. At first a great deal of time will be spent on knowing each other’s mind. This will be done not by the senior leaders but by the second set-ups who may not have to make any commitments. All they will have to do is to report to their seniors about the need for and the prospect of the talks. These will have to be done without any fanfare and if possible secretly. Any revelations will set political rumour-mongers talking, which may even negate the very purpose of the talks. First of all, the top leaders of the two sides will have to come to some kind of an arrangement which will lay down whether the talks are necessary and useful. In this the biggest roadblock will be Pakistan. Whether under dictatorship or in a democratic rule, Pakistan will want to see to it that New Delhi’s representatives and Hurriyat leaders do not come together. The Hurriyat leaders too will find it extremely difficult to sideline Pakistan or have the talks without Pakistan’s approval. The main roadblock in this will be the dependence on Pakistan of the various political and militant groups who constitute the Hurriyat. Without the support and inspiration of Pakistan, the Hurriyat may not even have existed or, without Pakistani direction, would have fallen apart into warring groups. Sidelining Pakistan will mean the Hurriyat burning its bridges and depending on New Delhi’s goodwill which they do not want. The separatists are not going to accept this. Therefore, Pakistan not wanting the talks could mean the discussions not taking place. Yet, inside of their thinking, some individual Hurriyat groups would want the talks to take place. Some of them are disillusioned with Pakistan. They have got nothing from it except strife, to go on fighting without an end in sight. Through wars Pakistan has not been able to wrest Kashmir from India. Militancy no doubt continues in Kashmir, but it is clear that it is being continued only because it is able to send through the Line of Control numerous foreign militants armed with deadly weapons. Without this militancy would have ended in Kashmir. Pakistan launched a warlike situation in Kargil but it failed in its objective. In the meantime, much of the flower of Kashmiri youth has perished or has been deprived of careers and educational opportunities. So what have the separatists got from Pakistan? This feeling is sinking in. Many separatists thought that when militancy was at its height, Pakistan would intervene militarily. This also did not happen. There is, therefore, some internal disappointment with Pakistan. This realistic assessment is accepted internally by the separatists but no one has the strength to say this openly. Because the Hurriyat is only seen as being in support of violence, the continuing conflict is also taking a toll of its appeal to the people. By and large, Kashmiris are tired of continued militancy and uncertainties about the future. In this situation they are unable to invest in undertakings which provide permanent benefit for themselves and their families. Kashmiris would want to live and prosper like go-ahead industrialists in other parts of India, like the Modis and the Singhanias. This kind of progress has eluded Kashmiris because the separatists have not allowed life to become normal in the valley. This is also why they want peace. But the Pakistani propaganda machine works on the fundamentalists, telling them that for the sake of Islam they must continue to suffer. For this kind of an instruction there is no answer. But this goes well only with the fundamentalists, and the educated, enterprising, forward-looking Kashmiris would like to go ahead with peace. In this India’s secularism and India’s determination to give Kashmir a good government will help. New Delhi can take many steps for this. It should keep on selling the idea of having an honest and purposeful government in Kashmir. For this there should be peace. But peace cannot be one-sided. Both the government and the separatists should first of all affirm that there should be a ceasefire on militancy. Only then can talks take place. India should make determined efforts to see that young men and women who are said to be missing (a Press report put their number at 3,000) are located. This will be a great balm on the families who have suffered. Many households are in agony over their missing children. Determined efforts should be made to find them, and their parents should be convinced that this is being sincerely done. If peace prevails the presence of the security forces can be reduced. Let there be no searches of villages and homes. If negotiation is to be welcomed, there is no reason for the Hurriyat leaders to be in detention. The government should see to it that they are released and, without creating violence, they have the freedom to go about, like the other people who are not part of the government. Certain Hurriyat leaders have said that Pakistan should be part of the dialogue. This kind of tripartite negotiation will not give any results. It will become an India-Pakistan conference which is after all a different proposition. The talks should be between the Indian representatives and the separatists. The Indian representatives could meaningfully even include Dr Farooq Abdullah. It would be ideal if talks could be held only between Dr Abdullah and other like Mufti Sayeed, Mr G.M Shah, Mr Karan Singh, Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad, Jammu and Ladakh leaders and on the other side the Hurriyat leaders, with New Delhi staying apart. Perhaps a compromise could be produced by this kind of a group. They could discuss any solution, go through the reports of the committees on autonomy and even consider the question of new elections to administer the state. The Hurriyat committed a mistake in boycotting the last elections. Its participation could have given a new direction to the state’s politics and made the people who hide their thoughts to make these public. The Hurriyat leaders,
without getting into the endless confusion of involving
Pakistan, could speak out what they want. They will, of
course, have to give up the idea of separation. Short of
that the Hurriyat needs to open up its mind and speak up. |
The imperative of food
security THE Union Finance Minister has belatedly announced the imposition of Customs duty to check the unwanted import of wheat. Already, however, 1.5 million tonnes of wheat has been imported during May-November which has admittedly upset the supply-demand balance of an essential commodity and exposed once again the government to strong criticism for bad management of the economy. It is not something novel, however, for the burgeoning food stocks in the hands of public marketing agencies to emerge as an awkward problem. But on this occasion, it is not because of good monsoons yielding bumper crops in excess of “effective demand” in the market, which is depressed for want of purchasing power rather than the need of the people. The stock of wheat in the hands of the government is also piling up because of the mindless import spree, which has become a striking feature of the so-called economic reform policy as it is being implemented in India. The upshot is that the on-going, well-meaning public distribution system too has come under a severe strain. The stock of wheat, procured from domestic producers and imported is likely to grow to 10 million tonnes by April next year. It is estimated that the cost of holding one tonne of wheat costs the exchequer Rs 1600 per year. The government has really no valid explanation for allowing the import of wheat in the last six months. The truth on the foodgrain front is that the imperative of food security has ceased to be the policy concern of the votaries of free international trade. The fact too is ignored that at the present level of domestic foodgrain production, the import-export of foodgrain in sizeable quantities is risky and unwarranted. It may, of course, appear incredible that in India, where 40 per cent of the population is estimated to be undernourished, there can even arise “a surplus” situation in foodgrain for export or even stockpiling as a safety net to meet unforeseen contingencies. The official policy has been wisely guided by the dictum, since the mid-sixties, that a reasonable quantity, the maximum of about 10 million tonnes of all foodgrains as suggested by experts, should be held by the government at the start of an agricultural year which may close with the stock running down to 4 million tonnes, as a buffer stock to smoothly run the public distribution system and provide foodgrain at affordable prices to the vulnerable consumers. This became an unavoidable policy prescription after the unprecedented drought for two successive years in the mid-sixties and the humiliating dependency on PL 480 supplies from the USA with its grave political implications. But, as a distinguished economist once said, “One is not sure whether anything in excess of that 4 to 10 million tonnes of the foodgrain buffer should be considered as good or bad economic performance, a consequence of a correct or faulty economic policy”. The point is that the stock of foodgrain with the government should not be allowed to pile up beyond a reasonable level by procurement from even domestic production let alone imports. The focus should indeed be on domestic production and regulated marketing to achieve self-sufficiency in supplies and equitable distribution of foodgrain. It is also wrong to measure the production of marketable surpluses in the case of foodgrain by reference to their procurement at cost plus prices by the government. This procurement even under a strict regulation of the market has been fluctuating between 10 and 13 per cent of the total production of foodgrain in India. The small farmers are obliged to sell to the government a part of their total production, which is not necessarily surplus to the requirement of their self-consumption. They do sell, however, immediately after the harvest at the fixed procurement prices to pay for their other pressing needs. But rich farmers are able to hold back a bulk of their production and realise prices higher than procurement prices fixed by the government by the sale of their marketable surpluses in the open market. The governments of different hues, anxious to make a display of their “pro-farmer” credentials, have been hiking the procurement prices of agricultural commodities even as they have scaled down public investment in the development of agriculture during the nineties. But to run an efficient system of public distribution and provide foodgrain to vulnerable consumers at affordable prices, it is necessary that the procurement price should not be such that PDS prices for the consumers may tend to be higher than the prices in the open market. The import of foodgrain is, however, not the correct way to depress the procurement as well as open market prices for the consumer. The norm for fixing the procurement prices, in particular, should be based on the cost of production plus after taking into consideration the changes in the levels of production and productivity. The idea of importing foodgrain at prices competitive to procurement prices is indeed crazy and has distorted the responses of policy-makers to the critical objective of food security with all its implications — not only economic but social and political as well. The revamping of the public distribution system for foodgrain has been debated for several years and nothing worthwhile has, in fact, been achieved. The revamping idea is inspired mainly to relieve the government of the burden of food subsidy from the exchequer. Reliance is increasingly being placed on the market forces for the pricing of foodgrain for the PDS as well as the open market. The logic of the market-friendly economic policy, after all, is that no part of the consumption of goods and services should be subsidised by the state as the state should withdraw, step by step, from investment in the expansion of the production base and infrastructure for the growth of the economy. The problem of the determination of the cost of production of commodities, both in industry and agriculture, and their marketing is, therefore, becoming more and more uncertain for the mass of the consumers even as a small upper crust in society is free to exercise its economic, social and political clout brazenly to indulge in the satisfaction of its consumerist cravings. Indeed, it is not fortuitous that even subsidised supplies in the economy too are tending to flow to areas of high “effective” demand. It is those, generally speaking, living in slums, the migrant labour, the destitute and those without settled living and regular incomes in urban areas and the under-employed artisans and farm workers in rural areas who have little access to essential commodities for even their subsistence needs. The import of foodgrain
and other essential commodities of mass consumption at
prices lower than even of domestic procurement and open
market prices in India has not altered this position. The
lifting of direct curbs on imports results only in the
influx of the rejects of the exporting countries,
especially the USA and the European Union. The support
measures for the exporters of farm goods from India as
well as their domestic producers, that is the surplus
farmers, through incentive procurement prices make
matters worse for the export of these goods from India.
The export of farm goods by the USA and the EU enjoy high
subsidies, which India cannot match. Such subsidies have,
however, been legitimised by the WTO dispensation also.
Since government agencies are not allowed to handle farm
goods export from India, what is happening is that the
bulk of exports of foodgrain and other farm commodities
from India has been cornered by transnational
corporations. These corporations are also able to dump
their surplus stocks of foodgrain and other agricultural
products in India at rates lower than the procurement and
open market prices. |
THE JYOTI BASU episode, “isolation” on the implementation of the economic reform package, and the decline of the Third Front have once again prompted some of us to write the obituary of the Indian Left. The CPM’s refusal to leave alone its only crowd-puller and vote-catcher, we are told, was a desperate move to avert a total rout in West Bengal’s next assembly poll. And the success of the economic reform has made the Leftist philosophy obsolete, and disillusioned voters are deserting them in a big way. No doubt, the organised Left has been caught in a vortex of political jerks and jolts in quick succession. Twice in a decade they had held the levers of power without joining governments. But on both occasions the short-lived governments ended in a premature demise of the much-acclaimed political alternative. The Left had laid too much in store for the United Front, its third political alternative comprising non-Congress, non-BJP parties and a string of powerful regional outfits. But subsequently not only was the Left’s cherished dream shattered but they found each one of their secular allies deserting them to join the very forces they have been fighting against. In the aftermath, the Left Front found itself divided on the issue of extending support to a Congress alternative. The organised Left’s multifarious problems have been fairly well highlighted — often magnified for effect. Much has been said about their failure to extend their presence beyond their own strongholds. Compulsions of electoral alliances to defeat their foes have pushed them in many states into political tailism. In some cases, this itself has stunted their growth. In states like Bihar, extreme Left groups were able to take advantage of the failures of the CPI and CPM. However, the fact remains that in the past two decades every political formation in India had overtly or covertly sought the support of the Left in the fight against their respective adversaries. Even while fighting the Left Front in their strongholds, the Congress still counts on them at the Centre. Throughout the 80s, the BJP had tried to flirt with the Left in their common fight against the Congress hegemony. The BJP was keen on sharing power with the Left in the V.P. Singh Government but the latter had spurned the proposal. Leftism as a philosophy has suffered miserably after the Soviet collapse. Until 1991, socialism has been the state “religion”. The BJP had at times found it necessary to recite the socialist mantra even if with prefixes. Now it is a dirty word for every one. Even the European socialists and former Communists find it necessary to search for softer phrases. In India, religions and religious institutions suffered or prospered depending on monarchical patronage. Mahavir Jains could migrate to faraway friendly kingdoms and Buddhists survived outside the subcontinent. But the Left or whatever is left of the Left, can now accept such a blasphemous word as socialism only at the risk of being globally dubbed as dinosaurs. But none of this should blind us to the extreme resilience of the Left, especially the CPM. They have displayed tremendous capacity to face up to the most difficult situations. The CPM had walked out of the parent body when Moscow pressurised the Communists to support the Congress government. For over a decade, the party engaged in an open diatribe with both Moscow and Beijing on crucial policy matters. This gave it strong roots at home. Those who talk of an imminent collapse of the Left overlook this firm orientation. It is true that the Left parties find themselves stagnated horizontally. But it is also true that the Left Front has, by and large, been able to maintain its strength in Parliament and their strongholds of Kerala, Tripura and West Bengal. In fact, their support base has been more stable than other national parties in the past two decades. Barring the occasional electoral zig-zags, there has been no conclusive evidence to show any serious erosion in terms of votes or in their influence on the ground. Their traditionally committed base continues to be loyal to them. It is yet to be established that the new generation of voters are in any way distancing themselves from the Left in areas where they have been active. In states like West Bengal and Kerala, there are no sign of a let-up in the enthusiasm of student and youth for the CPI and CPM. From all accounts, their movement still seems to be attracting the young. A decade back, it was customary to make fun of the CPM’s gerontocracy at the central level. In this respect, the BJP is no better now. Twenty-three years of uninterrupted rule in West Bengal is something really credible in this era of dissension, faction fights, topplings and instability. Moreover, there has been no serious scandals involving the ministers in LF-ruled states. Their governments may not have achieved any miracles but at least they could get rid of the unrest and lawlessness that had prevailed in Calcutta. Paradoxically the media’s propensity to blow up dissension in the Left ranks out of proportion has only helped them close their ranks further. This is a known trait of political psychology. A few years back, we wrote tons on the “revolt” by Buddhadev Bhattacharya. He figured in every Calcutta story which gave graphic details about Bhattacharya’s plans and how would it mark the fall of the Jyoti Basu Government. Now the same Bhattacharya has been made Deputy Chief Minister as a reliever to the ageing Chief Minister. In Tripura, we were led to believe that the old veteran Nripan Chakravorti’s revolt would cause a vertical split the state CPM. Similar build-ups continued for months for M.V. Raghavan and K.R. Gowri in Kerala. In our enthusiasm, we fail to realise the basic fact that in cadre-based parties with high level of indoctrination and commitment, individual rebellions will have a limited impact. Similar has been the case with BJP’s Shankarsinh Vaghela and now Kalyan Singh. Today’s Communists are not the ones we had derisively dismissed as “commies” and “Reds” during the cold war. Over the years, they have undergone a metamorphosis — from the self-righteous, ardent revolutionaries and atheists to hard-headed realists. We no more hear them calling each other “revisionists” and “dogmatists’. Once when this writer had sought a clarification from an old CPI veteran — now no more — on a Press statement, he was curtly told to “first read a book of Lenin”. As if it was not enough, he expressed his lack of faith in the “bourgeois” Press. Now they have become more friendly and media-savvy. Even the older ones among them no more treat every reporter with suspicion or as a “class enemy”. Until 1991, we thought the Communists will disintegrate without Russian patronage and funding. After the Soviet Union collapse, volumes were churned out over Communist disillusionment. Understandably, the very foundation of the Communist ideology lay crumbled along with its most cherished model. However, the experience of the past nine years has proved how off-the-mark have we been in arriving at such hasty conclusions. Not only has the mainstream Left been able to retain their relevance, a whole array of various denominations of extremist Communist outfits have tightened their grip over vast tracts of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and tiny pockets in many other states. Not a day passes without a “Naxalites kill” story. Contrary to the earlier assumptions, international unipolarity, the official demise of concepts like socialism (of whatever variety) and replacement of equity and planned growth by market forces and globalisation seem to have not knocked down the foundation of the Left’s ideological faith. So far, no Left adherent has deserted ranks on this premise. Even if there has been some erosion, it has been more for mundane reasons like differences at the local levels and for better power prospects elsewhere, but certainly not due to ideological disillusionment. On the other, the uncalibrated — to borrow a term from the BJP’s pre-government days — globalisation and marketisation have given the Left a new ideological identity and political cause. Some of us in the media may dismiss them as “spoilers” or “old ruts”. But there are large unconvinced sections even within the ruling party and the main Opposition. The past nine years’ experience of reform has not been happy. The theory of percolation of benefits has proved to be a crude joke on the neglected millions in backward regions. The employment position, except in certain high segments, has worsened. Competition and productivity have led to shrinking of jobs the world over. Even the IT revolution has given opportunities to those who could dish out Rs 1 lakh to Rs 3 lakh to computer institutes. The backward tracts of BIMARU states are the worst victims of the “withdrawal of the state”, crumbling social security and marketisation. For them, the great strides in luxury cars and quality of the products have little meaning. All such unpleasant aspects will soon find political expression. Though scarcely reported, the frequent eruption of unrest in Asian “Tiger” states should come as a warning. The real tragedy of the Left has been that they have not been able to take advantage of such adverse fallout of the reform. Instead, it has been allowed to be channelised by casteist groups and religious fanatics. The Left’s problem
is not the collapse of the Soviet model but its own
failures in facing up to the challenge of the new brand
of power-based politics, decline of political dharma and
the question of insulating themselves from the spreading
influence of corruption and consumerist culture. Already
there are signs of such degeneration among the Left ranks
at the middle and lower levels. |
A-B-C-D tribe is growing AMERICA-Based Confused Desi (ABCD) is a tribe which is gradually growing in India. Tilak Raj, commonly known as Tilku here, somehow made it to America. He returned exactly after 363 days. The American magic had converted him into a totally confused desi in his stay of two days short of an year in Yankeeland. He was here to “looksee a squaw for himself”. “Already have I beaten up three quarters but the dolls were dumb, buddy”, he told me. He had a list of another four where also he wanted to “gamble his hand”. He forewarned me that I should not mind if he made frequent use of “Please” and “Thank you” in the conversation because that had become his second habit. I, on the other hand, was pleased that Tilku, who used to have BC and MC (Indian cuss words involving sister and mother) as punctuation marks in colloquialism, had mended himself. He invited me to a restaurant for “tittle-tattle” over a cup of tea. When the waiter brought the bill, he uttered, “How many dollars?” And then, as if he had suddenly realised that he was in India, “Oh boo-boo, the pelf here is Rupee”. By that time I had made the payment. I innocently reminded him, “Tilak, you forgot to say “thank you” to the waiter”. He ignored that but appeared hurt with “Tilak”. He told me that in America people called him “Tiara” drawn from his initials T.R. Then instantly he asked me: “Do you know what is Tiara? I told him that it is a village in Kangra district from where hailed his ancestors. “Oh shit”, he said and extolled boastfully, “Tiara is a dolled up ornamental band worn on the front of a goody-goody filly’s hair (good woman’s hair). “And Tilak is the mark of esteem made on the forehead of a person irrespective of gender distinction”, I added to his version of Tiara. Pleased, he did a sort of kowtow and went in search of “squaw”. Jetan, on his return from US of A, was eating “khichri” when I happened to bang on him. My unexpected presence disturbed him. He, at once, donned the garb of ABCD and said: “What do you call this dish here? Cheekri?” His American base forced him to just forget the name of that common dish of a common man’s home here. Kuldeep liked to call himself “Cool Dip” and Krishna would become “Christna” after returning from America. I also had the opportunity of attending a discourse by an ABCD. He was late in arriving at the venue by 20 minutes. Once on the dais he removed his wrist watch, placed it in front of him and showing due respect to Father Time inquired from the organisers about the time-limit of his address. His address was exactly on the lines prescribed by Khushwant Singh, “If you can’t dazzle them with your wit, bamboozle them with your bullshit”. The essence of the bugaboo (the bugs in the minds of expatriate Indians) was that because we Indians urinate on the road side so we do not win medals in the Olympics. I racked my Indian brains through all possible — even American — permutations and combinations but failed to understand the coordination of the function of urethra duct and winning medals in Olympics. The second category of
ABCDs are those who have spent their golden years there,
made ample money and knowing well that there is no
veneration for setting sun in that country have returned
to the land of their birth. This tribe actually lives
here as American in Indian’s clothing. Anyone who is
hated by Americans could be the name of their dogs —
Saddam or Khruschev or Laden. “Why not
Clinton?” I asked one of the tribe. “He has
other broads to sniff at”, he replied. I was caught
short. “I am a Republican”, the ABCD added. |
AS will be seen from a Bombay telegram published elsewhere, Mahatma Gandhi is said to be prepared, in his anxiety for unity, to “surrender his proposed amendment of the franchise”, whereby he recommends the substitution of the spinning qualification for the 4-anna payment, “in case the Liberals and the Besantites should object to the spinning franchise on any principle”. He is also stated to be
prepared “to definitely define Swaraj in the
Congress creed as meaning Swaraj within the Empire.” |
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