Killing & assassination
UNCONTROLLED Naxalism is violently challenging the established law and order machinery and the sense of security built into the matrix of civil society particularly in Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar.

Another bout with Bofors
BOFORS has become an energy giver for politicians and media persons. There are many who want to make the most of its sensational appeal.

Islamic varsity for Kashmir?
JAMMU and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah’s reported support to the proposal for establishing an Islamic university in the Valley needs a wider debate.

ECONOMIC CRISIS IN PUNJAB
Question of capital accumulation
by Nirmal S. Azad
THE genesis of the recent economic crisis of Punjab lies in the distorted structure of its economy and disarticulated “agricultural” social change. The only way out is through a measure of rapid industrialisation of the Punjab economy.

CTBT politics, Congress style
by G. S. Bhargava
DR Manmohan Singh’s first budget speech in 1991 was famous not only for its initiation of economic reform but also for his eloquent plea against what he called the East India Company complex.

The virtues of hypocrisy
by Tavleen Singh
WOULD you think I was being deliberately provocative if I said we should be grateful to our two Yadav leaders for the lavish festivities they organised for the weddings of their progeny? I am not being provocative, we should be grateful.

Awards and still more awards
by Amita Malik
END-of-year is always the season for evaluations and awards. And this time it is the end of a millennium. So we are really going to town on them. And if Ms World is the most glamorous, controversial and commercially viable, there are prestigious ones, like The Best Indian Businessman and Woman of the Year by BBC.

“My mission is accomplished....”
by Garima Singh
“I HAVE to build a house. So I must save.....I think I can get enough loan to buy a car next year.... I think I will get my promotion this year....I must finish the work before going for the meeting....” And life goes on like this. But not for everyone.

75 Years Ago

December 18, 1924
Mahatma Gandhi
WE desire to accord a cordial and respectful welcome to Mahatma Gandhi who arrived at Lahore on Thursday morning.

Killing & assassination

UNCONTROLLED Naxalism is violently challenging the established law and order machinery and the sense of security built into the matrix of civil society particularly in Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar. The saddest aspect of the spreading violence is the search for alibis or plausible causes by those who do not mind mixing politics with administration. It won't suffice to argue that no state is entirely peaceful. A group of marauders belonging to the banned People's War Group (PWG) killed five members of a family and attacked public property, including two railway stations and an express train, in Andhra Pradesh on the second day of a loudly announced and rigorously enforced bandh. This bandh was called by the state unit of the PWG to protest against the elimination of three of its top leaders in "a fake encounter" in the Talicherla forest area of Karimnagar district on December 2. The head of the decimated family belonged to the Telugu Desam Party. The victims were buried under the debris of a house razed to the ground by the Naxalities. Strong explosives were used from the distance of 300 metres to trigger the blast. According to the PWG, the Naxalite leaders were done to death in a ruthless manner in untruly stated circumstances. The group just "avenged the killings". The TDP man was not a high dignitary. So his family's extinction and the subsequent incidents did not cause consternation in the state and pandemonium in Parliament. After all, the loss of the common man's life is, at its worst, a hurtful killing. The murder of a VVIP is assassination — a thing that happened in Madhya Pradesh in the dark night on the same day.

The State Transport Minister, Mr Likhiram Kawre, was hacked to death in his home-town near Balaghat. The PWG men were said to be angry with the "state killings" of their leaders. After the assassination, PWG posters announced the end of Mr Kawre with this explanation: The Minister was a man with a feudal mindset. He was in the know of the arrests of the Naxalite leaders in Bangalore and their elimination in Karimnagar in a bogus encounter.... Madhya Pradesh is observing a three-day mourning for the Minister. The Andhra victims had been buried alive and then casually consigned to the flames. A CBI inquiry will be held in the Kawre case. The BJP says that the Minister was on a mission to have Ramsula Bai, a Naxalite woman, released after receiving "messages". The Congress says that the assassination of the Minister was the first crime of its kind in Madhya Pradesh. The gathering of data about the time, place and manner of Mr Kawre's assassination has begun in a confusing manner. Did he have Naxalite links? Why is there so much variation in the statements about the tracing out of the body? Normally, various kinds of crime are dealt with by the Home Minister or the Chief Minister. Mr Digvijay Singh is unable to say much about the gruesome incident. "Mr Kawre struggled all his life for the downtrodden, the exploited and the Dalits." A good posthumous certificate indeed! But what about his alleged Naxalite links and his last "mission"? The killings in Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh should be treated as one abominable episode. The attempt to blow up a whole train on the rails in the Patna-Gaya section by the PWG on Wednesday cannot be taken lightly. The states' laxity and failures should be exposed. The Union Government should ensure that Naxalite violence is not viewed in isolation in various areas. There is no real difference between killing and assassination.

Another bout with Bofors

BOFORS has become an energy giver for politicians and media persons. There are many who want to make the most of its sensational appeal. Now that the second and final set of documents are in the possession of India, speculation and also expectations are soaring high. Everybody wants to see the name of Hindujas linked to the receipt of commission in the Rs 1437-crore gun deal. If the name is not there for whatever reason, there will be howls of protest against suspected governmental manipulation and other such scary charges. If the name is there, as is expected the opposition will pounce on the ruling alliance to amend the Bofors chargesheet to make Hindujas an accused. Frankly, there is no intention on the part of any political party to fight corruption; the aim is somewhat base and it is to get political mileage out of what has been described as a kickback scandal. The Opposition, the Congress in the main, believes that Hindujas are close to the leader of the ruling alliance, the BJP. If the newly released bank documents link the name of the brothers with payment of commission, the fact will come handy to blacken the image of the saffron party and its most recognised leader. Or, so is the gameplan of the Congress, which is naturally looking out for an opportunity to get even with the government on the Rajiv Gandhi-as-an-accused issue. The former ruling party can draw confidence from the description the Swiss authorities have given in their press hand-out. Though Hindujas do not figure there, but it talks of three brothers who have three bank accounts in a Panamanian-listed company and who are very powerful in India.The reference obviously is to the Pitco, Moresco and Moineao accounts. But the Congress and other political parties will be well advised to proceed cautiously.

One, the Hindujas received the commission amount during the Congress regime, not during a BJP-headed one. A former adviser to the present Finance Minister and an angry critic of the BJP and the Hindujas has written that the three brothers had connections at the top level long before the BJP could dream of capturing power. A deep probe will embarrass more than Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee who cannot be tough with anyone. Two, the money the Hindujas, or for that matter Win Chadda and Octavio Quottarocchi, received is commission for facilitating a big deal. This is legal in all countries, though Indian rules do not permit “middlemen” in defence deals. Still, the fact remains that agents seek business for their companies. Anybody familiar with Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat case will endorse this. There is a related point. Sober party leaders should use the Bofors case not so much to tar this or that leader with the blackest of brushes but to streamline defence purchases to make them transparent. As a wise commentator wrote in The Tribune in the late eighties, Bofors proved that it was possible for the ruling party to raise enough resources through one defence deal to fight a general election and win it. This nexus has to be broken and that is the only lesson of Bofors.

Islamic varsity for Kashmir?

JAMMU and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah’s reported support to the proposal for establishing an Islamic university in the Valley needs a wider debate. Such a debate is necessary for understanding the full implications of the initiative in the context of the continuing tension in Kashmir engineered by Pakistan-trained Islamic militants. Because of the failure of the intelligence and security agencies in controlling cross-border terrorism and plugging infiltration routes the ISI has succeeded in spreading its diabolical influence to virtually all parts of the country. Consequently, the threat to the country’s security from Islamic fundamentalists is now as serious in distant Coimbatore as it is in Jammu and Kashmir. Intelligence reports indicate that the liberal flow of Wahibi money, through channels in Saudi Arabia, is largely responsible for the growth of fundamentalism in Muslim-dominated pockets in the South. Reports about terrorist outfits funding the establishment of “madarsas” in sensitive areas, not for imparting religious education but raising potential mujahideen, too have more than an iota of truth in them. In simple terms, at a time when the entire country seems to be struggling to neutralise the destructive control of the ISI in sensitive areas the proposal in favour of an Islamic university in the heart of the territory having to bear the brunt of Pak-sponsored acts of militancy should be dropped until such time as the situation becomes completely normal. In the current situation the establishment of a university for promoting Islamic education and the study of Islamic literature would merely provide one more avenue to the already well-entrenched anti-India elements to infiltrate the ranks of prospective students and teachers.

The Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister brought up the subject of consultation with eminent Muslim scholars from Deoband and other centres of Islamic teaching for preparing the blueprint of the proposed university while presiding over the general body meeting of Muslim Auqaf in the state. Instead of indulging in pontentially dangerous acts of political populism Dr Abdullah needs to be reminded of his priorities in the context of what happened in Kargil and the regular incidents of violence engineered by suicide squads in sensitive areas in the state. As of today, Jammu and Kashmir is in urgent need of good, efficient and transparent governance and not of institutions which can easily fall into wrong hands for spreading the Pakistani agenda of murder and mayhem. The impoverished state needs to create employment opportunities for the youth, provide educational and health facilities to the poor and instil the all-important sense of security among the people. Dr Abdullah would have done the country and the state a long overdue good turn had he suggested at the general body meeting of Muslim Auqaf that it should drop the idea of setting up an Islamic university. Instead it should devote its attention to generating funds for investing in the all-round development of Kashmiri-Muslims, who for want of anything better, do end up running bloody errands for the militants. If Dr Abdullah cares for Kashmir and its people, he should encourage the revival of the Sufi spirit of universal love born out of the happy mingling of Hindu traditions and Muslim faith. The Amarnath Cave and Charar-e-Sharif represent the essence of Kashmiriyat which has been badly wounded because of the carelessness of past administrations and the diabolical Pakistani policy of causing communal rift among people who are culturally and linguistically one. Surely, nursing the wounds of past wrongs and creating such conditions as would make the Kashmiri Pandits return to the Valley deserves a higher priority than asking Islamic scholars to prepare a blueprint for the proposed Islamic university.

ECONOMIC CRISIS IN PUNJAB
Question of capital accumulation
by Nirmal S. Azad

THE genesis of the recent economic crisis of Punjab lies in the distorted structure of its economy and disarticulated “agricultural” social change. The only way out is through a measure of rapid industrialisation of the Punjab economy. But, in turn, this move of the economy towards industrialisation depends on the nature of the Punjab finances, essentially based on internal market.

In fact, the finances of the Punjab Government should not be in a mess, as today. It is possible if the question of capital accumulation is rationally posed and resolved as per the norm: “let economics be in command and not politics”. And, for that, whatever taxes, cesses and/or surcharges are levied, these should be ruthlessly collected, even though “it is difficult to tax and to please as it is difficult to love and to be wise.” Then what ! the braves don’t bother.

Given the present context of the Punjab State vis-a-vis the Indian Union, some methods of primitive capital accumulation are not realisable for Punjab. These are the methods like plunder of petty production of peasants and handicraftsmen, of ruined (rural) producers through interest rate, of petty-production through State taxes and loans, etc. Rather, on the other hand, in addition to these methods based on non-economic pressure, the primitive capital accumulation by the Indian State from the Punjab economy is also marked by a system of unequal market exchange.

The net barter terms of trade (at 1970-71=100) between foodgrains and manufactured products was 93.64 in 1971-72 and it deteriorated further to 85.48 in 1990-91. In this way, this unequal market exchange also tends to weaken the socio-economic position of the rural households dependant only or mainly on agriculture as cultivators and farm wage workers.

In the face of the democratic political populism, the process of normal capital accumulation in Punjab is also suffering from lack of political will. Only the extraction and appropriation of surplus value of the (farm and industrial) workers in the reproduction process is becoming possible. But the main workers engaged in the entire state economy out of the total Punjab population were only 30.07 per cent in 1991. Of the large mass of employed persons in the tertiary (social services) sector, there is low intensity of the labour process and not full utilisation of the working days.

Of course, the state can play its historical role in the process of capital accumulation. But the Punjab State power is not being properly used to hasten and shorten the accumulation process. Even the available sources of capital accumulation are often inadequately realised. For instance, the method of systematic deduction from capital accumulation of farm and industrial producers through taxes is also a victim of democratic competitive politics.

Now, the process of bank deposits has become an instrument for mobilising the surplus earnings in society. But in Punjab, the privately accumulated capital and the bank deposited amounts are not being rationally distributed in the channels of expanded reproduction. In fact, the entire state credit policy of the banking system in Punjab is not subordinated to the law of capital accumulation for reproduction: first mainly in the state industry and only then to the Punjab agriculture. Moreover, given the established federal Centre State (financial) relations, lopsided economic development, wrong state policy for reinvestment of the accumulated capital and limited industrial development, the bank advance-deposit ratio is adversely functioning in the state.

In the modern context of the Punjab economy, one important source of internal capital accumulation can be the bank-deposited money. But the advance-deposit ratio of the scheduled commercial banks is adversely operating. This ratio was very low at 41.16 per cent for Punjab in 1992 (as against 58.59 per cent in India) and it further declined to 37.35 per cent in 1998 (when for India it was 55.46 per cent).

This adverse operation of the advance-deposit ratio is essentially for two reasons. One, there is already structured over-investment in the Punjab agriculture and limited but lopsided expansion of the overall industrial structure. Two, the development strategy of the Indian Union favouring market profits biases the banking institutions to favour capital investment outside the Punjab State economy.

With the overall economic development, the sphere of the commodity circulation process is widened in Punjab and it has resulted in the expansion of the home market. It is a powerful source of capital accumulation from the internal trade. However, it can be realised only if the ruling politics is not guided or influenced by the economic base of the trade exchange. But, given the class-alliance populism of the SAD-BJP ruling combine in the State, there is inadequate trade-profit taxation in Punjab.

The price policy of society in relation to agriculture, a very sensitive source of accumulation, determines the political relations between the state and the peasantry. To what extent capital accumulation is possible through the general price policy depends on the exchange relations between industry and agriculture. A consciously designed price policy, based on non-equivalent exchange of values, in relation to the products of agriculture with the industrial sector of the economy, helps in capital accumulation. It has very many advantages, mainly in collection, over other forms of direct and indirect taxation of the farm production.

On the basis of the expanded reproduction, there is always an increase in values within the economy itself. In this process, the generation and appropriation of the surplus value from the employed labour power is the principal source of normal capital accumulation. And, normally, the capitalist state helps and stands on guard over this capital accumulation which is always a forced burden on social labour. But, given the labour structure of the Punjab economy, the generation and appropriation of the surplus value as a source of capital accumulation has a limited scope at present.

Of the 30.07 per cent main workers in total population of Punjab in 1991, their sectoral division is very lop-sided and also non-productive. In general, the proportion of the main workers engaged in services, construction and household industry during 1991 was about one-third (32.97 per cent) among the total workers of Punjab. Only 30.07 per cent were the main workers in the total Punjab population in 1991 and of these 56.14 per cent were in agriculture as cultivators (32.83 per cent) and agricultural labourers (23.31 per cent). The remaining 43.86 per cent workers were in services (29.08 per cent), industry (10.89 per cent), constructions 2.56 per cent) and in household industry (1.33 per cent).

In the given situation three important sources of capital accumulation and value generation are largely being ignored. One is the useful employment of manpower, second is the elimination of huge wastages in the economy and third the realisation of the potential surpluses (of the social rich) as productive accumulation. The relative poverty, of a Third World region of Punjab does not arise so much from the inadequate surplus products as from the bad use made of it from the standpoint of economic growth.

The question of internal capital accumulation in Punjab is one of the basic questions of its social structure. Also, the present perspective about its methods defines and underlines the existing and dominant/ruling class relations and their social interaction in Punjab.

Apart from these methods for capital accumulation, the Punjab Government should muster courage to adopt and implement normal economic measures in this direction. For its budgetary expenditure, the proper way is to depend more on internal mobilisation of tax-based resources. It is absolutely necessary to have less dependence and reliance on public borrowing because it only accumulates the mounting debt burden for the future. It means attempt to mobilise the surpluses of the rich peasantry, remittances of the Punjab emigrants and NRIs, profits from industry, earnings from market trade, deposits of the service sector and also institutional credit capital.

Punjab requires a strategy, based not only on taxes but also on incentives, for capital investment of the rural-rich, traders, service-personnels and the NRIs in specific rural-based agro-industrial complexes to be organised through cooperative measures. Also, the state should not provide (through budgets) additional subsidies and tax concessions to the influential sections of affluent farmers, commission agents and even to industry, business, trade, etc. who have a considerable tax-paying capacity.

But in this respect, Punjab has to operate in the context of the Indian Union. In general, the policies of the budget allocations of the Indian Union and its regional states are not pro-people. Rather, they are inclined to serve the interests of industry and trade, rich peasantry and (urban) middle classes. In India, at present, the strategy of economic liberalisation is an attempt at “social planning” by the Indian State with specific focus on the extraction and appropriation of capital for accumulation.

(The writer is Professor, Department of Economics, Punjabi University, Patiala).

CTBT politics, Congress style
by G. S. Bhargava

DR Manmohan Singh’s first budget speech in 1991 was famous not only for its initiation of economic reform but also for his eloquent plea against what he called the East India Company complex. The reference was to the deep-seated distrust of international organisations, including the United Nations. Ironically, India has been drawing liberally on the World Bank for both technical assistance and credits and had also signed the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan, brokered by the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development. Yet, it is seen as surrender of national sovereignty if the government accepts its advice and assistance. His is the East India Company complex.

The suspicion of the UN, especially on Kashmir, is more understandable. Nehru’s reference of Pakistan’s aggression in Jammu and Kashmir was turned into a football for Cold War politics by the world body, largely at the instance of the USA and the UK. That was why the Simla Agreement with Pakistan made it independent of earlier UN actions. Bilateralism was its byproduct. That was despite Rajiv Gandhi’s high-pitched campaign in the 1980s that the US should declare Pakistan a terrorist state. The ambivalence persists in respect of all international treaties directly concerning India.

Take the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). For nearly 20 years the resistance to India’s accession to it was not merely that it was unequal and weighted against non-nuclear weapon states but that it would subject our nuclear power programme to international supervision. The attitude was extended to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) when the USA ultimately opted for it in 1994. That Nehru had hailed and wholeheartedly supported the partial test ban treaty about 30 years earlier and that the CTBT was a natural sequel to it did not matter.

The same was the case with the agreement regarding cessation of fissile material production. During the prime ministership of Mr P.V. Narasimha Rao India had co-sponsored with the USA and others a UN resolution in favour of such an agreement. There was consensus then and later that it was largely beneficial to India, while Pakistan cribbed that it was weighted against it by allowing India to keep intact its stockpile of fissile material.

Against this background, it is revealing to see the Congress party’s reaction to the Government’s move to accede to the CTBT as well as the agreement. Jairam Ramesh, the party’s spokesman, has raised two objections. The first is based on an apprehension that the assessment of our scientists, including those outside the nuclear establishment, that Pokhran-2 has given us sufficient experience of subcriticial tests obviating the need for more explosions may be optimistic. Secondly, he raised the rhetorical argument about India’s stated concern for elimination of nuclear weapons altogether.

The implied argument is that if the scientists are wrong and more tests are needed signing the CTBT will deprive us of the right to do so. Let us assume that the scientists have overestimated. Even without signing the CTBT can India undertake more nuclear tests? The Congress party leadership should answer the question without quibbling because for 24 years after Indira Gandhi’s Pokhran-1 “peaceful” explosion a succession of Congress governments, including that headed by her son, had not followed up on that. Further following Pokhran-2, the Congress leadership contended that the tests were premature, not necessary for India’s security and were motivated by the BJP’s electoral politics. Now if Jairam Ramesh is thinking of more tests does it mean that the Congress party has jettisoned its earlier stand?

More importantly, considering the reaction of Japan, G-8 nations and even Russia to Pokhran-2, can India hope to undertake more tests? Barring Pakistan which has the luxury of tacking on to India, in a bilateral parity game, no other State has kept out of the CTBT. Also, as a kind of poetic justice, further underground nuclear weapon tests are almost impossible. The situation owes itself, ironically, to India’s Pokhran-2 and Pakistan’s riposte to them. Of the three threshold States, Israel has already fallen in line. North Korea, too, has been tamed and Libya is not much of a nuclear weapon State, even potentially. As for those recognised as nuclear weapon States by the NPT there will be no incentive for undertaking more tests because they have mastery of the sub-critical test technology.

If we look back at the situation which culminated in the passage of the CTBT at the Geneva Conference both China and France had carried out a series of underground tests, in defiance of world opinion, before acceding first to the NPT and then to CTBT. The USA, which pretended to be outraged by Pokhran-2, silently connived at them. Thus all the nuclear weapon States have acquired the technology of carrying out sub-critical laboratory tests. In other words, India’s desire to see the end of nuclear weapon testing is being fulfilled, even if in a weird way. Elimination of nuclear weapons is, no doubt, a different matter but that will take time.

So the question arises whether India should face the consequences of keeping out of the CTBT for the sake of the ideal of a nuclear weapon-free world. When Arundhati Ghose rhetorically declared at the 1996 Geneva disarmament conference “not now, never,” and cast India’s vote against the treaty the situation was qualitatively different. Mention has been made of US connivance at Chinese acquisition of sub-critical test capability in the runup to its adherence to the CTBT. Then both of them, along with the UK, virtually conspired to put India in the wrong and deny it demonstrated nuclear weapon capability. Pokhran-2 has defeated that. The Congress leadership cannot be unaware of these facts.

“My mission is accomplished....”
by Garima Singh

“I HAVE to build a house. So I must save.....I think I can get enough loan to buy a car next year.... I think I will get my promotion this year....I must finish the work before going for the meeting....” And life goes on like this. But not for everyone.

There is a man who thought differently and led his life differently. The result of his dream and hard work is in front of us. A place which is lush with orange orchards and banana trees. A place where houses are made so scientifically that they require no artificial cooling or heating and where solar water distillation plants and gasohol driven generators are working efficiently. Everything is so perfect and meticulously planned and yet has a human touch. I am talking of Baba Amte’s ashram, Anandvan, not very far from Nagpur.

Four decades ago, Baba was leading life in a way which any ordinary man of his age would do. Then he came across a man who was dying on the street — ill, starved and helpless. He was a leprosy patient. Instead of showing sympathy and then moving on with his mundane life as most of us would do Baba stopped there and asked the man: “Why are you dying? Stand up and fight. Work hard and win back your right to live with dignity.” He stood up and fought. He told the world: “I want work not sympathy.” The result is the 500 acres of barren land, which was handed over to Baba four decades ago. Today it stands as an example of hard work, determination and willpower. People told Baba that he is a cruel and harsh man as he is making the leprosy patients work day and night instead of giving them sympathy, help and support. But Baba knew what he had given them. He had given them back their lost pride and self-respect.

I got the opportunity to visit this ashram. The sight of lepers working on powerlooms and blind men working on handlooms left me awestruck. I was simply overwhelmed and tears filled my eyes. I stood there thinking. I realised that most of the time we remain so much engrossed and bogged down by our own problems that we never think about others. Our ambitions, desires and troubles seem to be so pressing that we feel that once they are fulfilled only then can we think about something else. But that time never comes. It is only when someone somewhere rises above this “self” and thinks about others that he makes a difference to so many lives as Baba has done.

Baba thought in a very scientific and pragmatic way. Hence, the ashram is a very neat, well-planned and self-sufficient unit. Each member contributes his bit and everybody lives like a family. Baba firmly believes in the philosophy that progress of a particular area or region should go along with the development of the adjoining area, otherwise it would create resentment and unrest. As a result, a hospital was opened in the ashram which provides medical aid to local people. Not only this, employment is being provided to unemployed youth living in adjoining areas. The ashram supplies milk, fruit and vegetables to nearby towns. The lepers who were ostracised are now supporting the same society which had thrown them out to die. The turnover of the ashram is more than a crore and the taxman has reached the gates of the ashram. Baba says with satisfaction and pride: “My leper has become taxable. My mission is accomplished.”

We were very fortunate as the day we visited Anandvan, Baba had come there after many years (the ashram is now being managed by his son). Baba was very ill as he was having problem with the pacemaker apart from backache. In spite of so much pain he met us, that too with a smile. When I saw him I was speechless for a while. No words can do justice to describe his simplicity and humility. That meeting has left an indelible mark on my mind. Baba greeted us very warmly and then asked us to give our autograph along with the answer to the question — “With what aims have you joined the civil services?”

This question set me thinking. It lingered in my mind for days. Then I came across a few lines written by Swami Vivekananda which provided some guiding light. “Who knows whether there is God or not? Who knows whether soul is there or not? But if you can bring smile to another human being, be sure you shall be happy. I know not any other way to happiness. May the poor, the downtrodden and afflicted be your God. They are visible manifestations of God on earth”.

The virtues of hypocrisy
by Tavleen Singh

WOULD you think I was being deliberately provocative if I said we should be grateful to our two Yadav leaders for the lavish festivities they organised for the weddings of their progeny? I am not being provocative, we should be grateful. The reason is that it is more than about time that our political leaders shed their hypocrisy andshowed us just how much money can be made out of a career in politics. Think of it. Mulayam Singh started his career in a small town in Uttar Pradesh as a teacher and part-time wrestler yet, for the marriage of his only son, he managed to entertain more than a thousand people. He is a committed, passionate socialist.

Laloo Yadav had even humbler beginnings. In the course of his long and colourful political career he has often boasted about his father having been a peon. In the days when the media still loved him our newspapers were replete with stories of how he grew up in a single-room tenement. Remember all those pictures of his and wife and him living in what looked like a cattle shed, along with their cows and other animals? Wonderful, we gasped, whatsimplicity, what humility. Yet, for his eldest daughter’s marriage (there are eight more children to marry off) he reportedly invited 10,000 people. Gifts to the bride were so plentiful that her dowry had to travel in a convoy of police trucks. Laloo is also a committed, passionate socialist. Like his Yadav brother from Uttar Pradesh he routinely rages against the rich and powerful, against foreign investment, multi-national companies and against all those whom he considers exploiters of the poor’. His wife, Rabri Devi, who has graduated from milking cows to being Chief Minister of our poorest state has a limited political vocabulary but always manages to say; “We are working for the poor. Everything we do is for the poor.”

Yet, the two weddings saw a guest list that glittered with the names of the rich and powerful. I was, alas, not invited to Patna but at Mulayam Singh’s son’s reception in Delhi I saw a walking, talking Who’s who of India’s richest and most powerful people. The Prime Minister had left by the time I got there but underneath the fancy shamiana I spotted Amitabh Bachchan, Dilip Kumar, Sridevi, Jayaprada, Laloo Yadav, Kalyan Singh, Mamata Bannerjee, Harkishen Singh Surjeet and virtually every major media personality in the country. It was a truly impressive gathering and, I should add, that the event was reasonably tasteful. Liquor was not served but the food was delicious and plentiful and a small army of attractive women greeted guests with flowers as they came and went.

Laloo went overboard, as only Laloo can, and there appears to have been more vulgarity than taste so the media is now furious. There have been a spate of articles about how the wedding reflected just how much the country has changed in the past ten years and what an ugly change it has been. In fact, all that has happened is that hypocrisy has been abandoned for some welcome honesty.

The same hacks who are currently beating their breasts over Laloo’s vulgar display of wealth close their eyes when they see Sonia Gandhi wandering through Delhi winters in shahtoosh shawls which cost a minimum of Rs 20,000 a piece. The Congress President appears to have enough of these to open a small museum but almost nobody ever mentions them except her sister-in-law, who at a recent gathering in Rashtrapati Bhavan is believed to have commented loudly, when she saw Sonia in shahtoosh, that it was a banned item. The older Mrs Gandhi has, since then, noticeably switched to shawls of a cheaper kind.

Most political leaders of the pre-Yadav school are careful about not spending lavishly on the weddings of their children. But, when it comes to holidays abroad with the family, now that is quite another story.

Politicians, whose origins are often as humble as Laloo and Mulayam, appear to have endless resources as soon as they become Ministers. Suddenly, they are able to afford to take whole families abroad for the summer and, naturally, everyone stays in a fancy five-star hotel. Even V.P. Singh, that champion of the lowly and the low-caste, spends every year at the St. James Court Hotel in London at taxpayers’ expense. This is, ostensibly, because his health no longer allows for Indian summers. Perhaps not, but hypocrisy is hypocrisy and needs to be called that.

How, for instance, have we allowed ourselves to accept that while we suffer the inadequacies of Indian hospitals all our senior politicians and bureaucrats always manage to go to the best hospitals abroad for their own treatment? The irony is that if our hospitals are bad, and they most certainly are by international standards, then it is mainly because of the very men and women who flee abroad for their own treatment.

A similar situation exists with our universities. Higher education in India has plunged to abysmal depths in the past 20 years or so. This is mainly because our policy-makers-in the name of socialism - have not raised university fees for 50 years. So, the average Indian university student pays around Rs 20 a month to go to college while nursery schools in Delhi and Mumbai charge fifty times that much. Unsurprisingly, our universities are now in a state of terminal decay but this does not worry those who are responsible for this state of affairs because their own children go abroad. Even our supposedly ‘honest’ bureaucrats somehow always manage to afford to send their progeny abroad for higher studies.

If you need further proof that nearly all our political leaders (and bureaucrats) have sources of income that remain mysterious all you need to do is visit some of their homes.

Even in the humbler ones you will find electronic gadgets that the average Indian cannot dream of affording. In the less humble homes you will find marble floors, expensive air-conditioning, Persian carpets and crystal and china from the best shops in the world. But, the owner of these possessions continues to wear khadi as a mark of his simplicity and socialism.

Should we then not be sincerely grateful to Mulayam Singh and Laloo Yadav? Have they not done us a huge favour by showing us that all this simplicity and socialism is just a sham? Laloo and Mulayam are new at the game of power so they did not realise the virtues of hypocrisy. They need praise for this, not condemnation.

Awards and still more awards

by Amita Malik

END-of-year is always the season for evaluations and awards. And this time it is the end of a millennium. So we are really going to town on them. And if Ms World is the most glamorous, controversial and commercially viable, there are prestigious ones, like The Best Indian Businessman and Woman of the Year by BBC World’s India Business Report, a function with the Finance Minister as chief guest, with Prannoy Roy making one of his rare off-screen professorial speeches, a noticeable absence of Delhi’s usual socialites, with a distinguished jury of business peers and economic editors finally choosing N.R. Narayana Murthy and Mallika Srinivasan who received their awards with Indian Ocean providing an unlikely fanfare.

Further afield, we had this time in Singapore, the Asian TV Awards, 1999, established a few years ago, more Hongkong and Singapore based with Jonathan Hallett of TV Asia as chairperson. What I found strange about the 28-member jury was that there was only one Indian on it, Anu Kapur of Antakshari fame, considering that India is the major broadcasting country in the region and has been a steady competitor from the beginning. I also found it intriguing that while one got the results through TV outlets and hardly anything in print, Doordarshan found it fit to mention in their news bulletins only Karan Thapar’s award in the Best Current Affairs and Best Presenter category, actually a joint award with Ms Bettina Chua Abdullah of CNB Asia Singapore whom DD also omitted to mention presumably since Thapar’s award was for a DD programme. Not to be outdone, Star News only mentioned their best documentary award for Out of India. Surely news interest and professional courtesy should have made all the awards and commendations known on all channels in fact India got high commendations for Wheels, and Turning Point, Alka Amin in the best actress category for Bhanwar of Sony, was runner-up with Master Mind India and MTV for Aunty Corruption. I would, in this context, also like to remind our international contenders, not to forget the very prestigious ABU awards, of longer and far higher standing, when aspiring for fame.

Coming down from the heights, I must register a protest against the Star Plus programme Travel Asia on Saturday mornings, which sets my teeth on edge because I resent a foreign woman putting on a sari and telling me in strong American accents about Gandy (to rhyme with candy) from Goo-jer-rat. A programme clearly meant for foreigners. With such excellent travel programmes made by Indians, by the Alvas, by Anu Malhotra, need we always go for “phoren”. For that matter, I stumbled by accident on a travel programme Wanderlust on DD’s Metro, and there was a lively commentator (name not given in credits at the end) who treated us to a visit in Hyderabad to the home of the granddaughter and great grandsons of last emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar. A fascinating trip back in time and a wonderful insight into Mughal family customs and cuisine. The Metro channel, nevertheless, remains DD’s most misused channel. I saw a repeat review by Tarun Tejpal of a book by Pavan Verma which had been done ages ago. As for the Transtel serial, Derrick, which someone said has been running for 10 years, I saw two programmes repeated within a week, and almost all the programmes last week began without the English translation of the title as well as without sound, once for something like 15 minutes. Nobody seemed to notice or care so I refrained from the usual frustrating protest to the duty room.

PANKAJ HAS A FAN: When Amitabh Bachchan came to the Star News studios for an interview he said in full hearing to Pankaj Pachauri of Sawal Aap Ka and Raviviar: Apka Hindi bolne ka style sabse achcha hai. No mean compliment from the son of Harvansh Rai Bachchan and someone whom Satyajit Ray chose for the Hindi commentary for Shatranj ke Khilari, forgetting for the moment the more shaky Actor of the Millennium.

75 YEARS AGO

December 18, 1924
Mahatma Gandhi

WE desire to accord a cordial and respectful welcome to Mahatma Gandhi who arrived at Lahore on Thursday morning. This, as our readers are aware and as we stated the other day, is his first visit after the never-to-be-forgotten fast and the two Unity Conferences, both of which were due to his inspiration and in both of which he was the central and dominating figure, though he was not physically present in one.

All these circumstances have combined to make the Mahatma, who has always been particularly dear to the Punjab, literally the idol of her people, and we have no doubt that the Punjab will accord him a reception which in its warmth, its cordiality and its enthusiasm has seldom been equalled and never surpassed.

To the Mahatma himself, however, the reception will be devoid of any real meaning or substance unless it is accompanied by that change of heart on the part of the warring communities for which he is never weary of pleading.

Every man who takes part in the reception that will be accorded to him at Amritsar and at Lahore must bear in mind that the extent to which he is able to respond to the Mahatma’s plea is the exact measure of the genuineness of his welcome to the Mahatma.