Advani’s anti-naxal agenda
SEVERAL tough measures are being readied to step up the Home Ministry’s anti-naxalite operations. Minister Advani’s tough talking in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday barely touches the fringe.

Changes in the Congress
PUBLIC interest should be the foundation stone of the new structure of the Congress. This was the essence of the series of discussions held earlier this month on the A.K. Antony Introspection Committee Report.

VIP security
AFTER making life miserable for thousands of people all over the country for more than 50 years, the government is at last waking up to the need for downscaling VIP security.

INDIA’S PRINT MEDIA
Protect it but don’t cocoon it
by Sunanda K. Datta-Ray
LIKE French butter or Japanese rice, India’s print media must certainly be protected from unfair foreign competition. But if Mr Y.N. Chaturvedi, the Union Information and Broadcasting Secretary, is to be believed, the government is at last beginning to appreciate that it is not in the media’s long-term interest to be cocooned altogether in protectionist swaddling clothes. Competition would pep up our papers and also prove financially rewarding, as Singapore discovered long ago and China is discovering now.

Liberalisation of insurance
by R. N. Jha
THE barriers have finally crumbled. With Parliament’s nod for the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) Bill, 1999, in the current winter session dismantling the monopoly of the public sector over the insurance business, the countdown for the entry of the private insurers into the lucrative Indian market has begun.

Gen Mohan Singh, the INA’s creator
By Lieut-General Iwaichi Fujiwara
GEN Mohan Singh was the founder and creator of the INA. Without his burning patriotism, his immovable conviction and lightning action at Alor Star, no hope could possibly be entertained for the birth and growth of the INA.

Priorities of politicians
by Tavleen Singh
IF we were searching for a single word to define this winter session of Parliament it would be walkout. The Congress party walked out so often and so noisily that that we could all have been fooled into believing that they had somehow forgotten that the Lok Sabha was inside Parliament House and not outside.

Not a bad century
by Amita Malik
THIS is the best column to be written this century and an awesome thought that the next one will appear in a new century. The outgoing century has nothing to be ashamed of as far as the media is concerned.

Maid in India
by Anjali Majumdar
THE escape of the Adivasi maid from the house of the first secretary in the Indian embassy in Paris reminded me of what happened to the wife of an ambassador in a European country.

75 Years Ago

Cow slaughter
THE resolution on cow slaughter which was adopted by the Subjects Committee of the Unity Conference after a discussion lasting over two days and numerous consultations is essentially in the nature of a compromise.

Advani’s anti-naxal agenda

SEVERAL tough measures are being readied to step up the Home Ministry’s anti-naxalite operations. Minister Advani’s tough talking in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday barely touches the fringe. He has offered to equally split with the states their expenditure on containing, what he loves to call, leftwing extremism or terrorism. Since the Home Ministry’s funding can only be for buttressing the police force and arming it to the teeth, the focus will be almost exclusively on engaging the violent men in encounters. A reference to the way the dark days ended in Punjab explains the situation unmistakably. The Home Ministry is also drafting a new code on “federal crimes” and vesting itself with the powers to send in federal forces even without a formal reference to the states concerned. This is projected as an altruistic gesture to bail out the affected regions with trained manpower and superior ideas. Since the federal force will be under the control of the Centre, it is reasonable to expect that its services will be free; or, will the salary and other expenses be debited to the states, as it happened in Punjab? Money apart, the proposal will lead to an encroachment on the reserved turf of the states. At present law and order is a state subject and even in the matter of launching a CBI investigation, the prior approval of the states is necessary. If the latest suggestion becomes a reality, the Centre will be in a position to override the states. Of course, it was presented as tentative at the recent conference of top police officers who were asked to consult their governments and come up with concrete steps for discussion at a meeting expected early next year. But if experience is any guide, the Centre will find a way of achieving its aim, and right now it is to get tough with naxalites. This stems from the ruling NDA’s overall policy and blends nicely with Home Minister Advani’s known philosophy.

A third prong to this strategy is to sharpen the punitive provisions of a revised version of the much dreaded TADA. There are two drafts; one by the Law Commission is in circulation and the one by the Home Ministry is under scrutiny of the Law Ministry. The second is supposed to be TADA reborn with a human face. The original law was so draconian that no plastic surgery can attach anything human to it. The Law Commission draft makes no such claim. It retains two harsh clauses of TADA. One, a confession by a suspect before a police officer is valid evidence in a court of law. Even a subsequent retraction by the suspect will have to be ignored as invalid in the face of his earlier confession. In other words, if a police officer concocts a confession, he can ensure a life term for anyone. The second provision should be unacceptable in any civilised society. No court can offer bail to an arrested person if the public prosecutor opposes it. This means that the prosecutor, an official associated with the police, will finally decide if somebody deserves bail or not; and that job will not belong to a magistrate or a judge. There are more such nuggets. A life term for anyone who is a member of a terrorist organisation or insurgency group, no matter whether he knows about the activities or not. Anyone who receives any benefit from such crimes as gun-running, drug-trafficking, militancy-related extortion or forcible collection of “taxes” can also be sent to jail for many years. This will make the parents of criminals potentially guilty if they receive any financial help even without knowing the son’s source of income. This law will have a long reach which will also be unstoppable. The heartening fact is that several human rights organisations are bitterly opposed to the new law and have vowed to scuttle it.

Changes in the Congress

PUBLIC interest should be the foundation stone of the new structure of the Congress. This was the essence of the series of discussions held earlier this month on the A.K. Antony Introspection Committee Report. Issues made up themes. The last General Election indicated the weaknesses of the organisation and the Antony Committee took note of these. It is a clear indicator of the activism of the leadership of the party that action has followed the spirit of the suggestions made at the stocktaking sessions of the Working Committee. Several largely unexpected steps have been taken. The CWC has been reconstituted and major changes have taken place in the All-India Congress Committee set-up. The experience and commitment of Mr Natwar Singh, Mr Motilal Vohra and Mr N.D. Tewari have been recognised. Mr Pranab Mukherjee, Mr Madhavrao Scindia and Mr R.K. Dhawan have been replaced as General Secretaries. Mr Rajesh Pilot and Mr Kamal Nath had attracted much attention by asking for a "generational change" among the leaders. (The former was tipped for general secretaryship.) Mr Pilot seems to have been dealt with harshly for his plainspeaking. However, Mr Kamal Nath has not been pushed too far away from the centre of authority and is said to be associated with crucial media and publicity work. Mr V.N. Gadgil, a special invitee, had created a flutter in the inner circle by his radical views on secularism and socialism; he has been dropped. However, it is good that no elected CWC member has been touched. People with known abilities for effecting beneficial changes by any means, and having them accepted, like Mr Bhajan Lal, Mr P.M. Sayeed and Mr S. C. Jamir have got the special-invitee status. The Haryana stalwart will be happy to come out of relative oblivion. The other two also are regional political beings of worth. More changes are necessary and the impression of a witchhunt or personal prejudice must not be allowed to vitiate the on-going reorganisation process.

There is no need to attribute negative motives to Mrs Sonia Gandhi without sound reasons or clamouring from the perceivedly "forsaken". Mr Mukherjee and Mr Scindia did not do well during their pre-electoral assignments, but they have preferred to emphasise the need for more time and opportunity to perform their roles in Parliament in a better way. Their polite reaction to the changed situation will be viewed with appreciation until, of course, they protest in some way. Large-scale restructuring is never a please-all exercise. Which Congressman will lose if the Congress gains? The worry whether Mrs Sonia Gandhi is manifesting the newfound spirit of dynamism or is trying to consolidate her hold on the party should affect leaders and members of other parties more. Now, revamping should continue and the results—helpful or harmful—should be awaited. If expediency is forced by the top leadership at the cost of principles, opposition must come from conscientious Congressmen. There will predictably be minority sections in the AICC or even the small but more powerful bodies. However, disgruntled little groups must not be treated with callousness. Majorities have often choked the party processes and held loosely together with an eye on the other side of the barricades of power, looking hazy but seductively close.

VIP security

AFTER making life miserable for thousands of people all over the country for more than 50 years, the government is at last waking up to the need for downscaling VIP security. A review committee set up by the Home Ministry is reported to have recommended that of the 216 VIPs enjoying the six security categories (Z Plus, Z, X plus, X, Y plus and Y), as many as 40 do not need any security at all. And of the 17 elite ones in the Z plus category, eight do not require the Black Cat commandos, which have been shadowing them all along. The committee does not say so but it is a fact that the security paraphernalia has been treated as a status symbol by many of the allegedly threatened persons. The irony is that at times, policemen are called upon to protect erstwhile criminals once they change profession and join politics. Just look at the futile attempts made to remove red lights that these special people put on their cars without authorisation. As such, they can be depended on to use every stratagem at their command to make sure that they are not "downgraded" to a lower category. Similarly, those sought to be denied this privilege altogether are not going to let go without a fight. The bogey of the threat (real or perceived) to them and their families will be bandied about and a bleak picture of the heavens falling over their heads if the unthinkable is done will be painted. The Prime Minister and the Home Minister will have to steel themselves to call the bluff of all these people. As the police officials have themselves been stressing, the proliferation of VIP security duty has defeated the very purpose for which elite forces like the SPG were raised. And as far as security personnel from the poor state police forces are concerned, they are already reduced to being domestic servants of the high and mighty and whipping boys for their children.

The massaging of the oversized egos of the select few comes at a tremendous cost to the state exchequer. Even by the most moderate estimate, the figure exceeds Rs 160 crore per annum. While these handful of people remain cocooned behind the human wall provided by the security guards, there is hardly any arrangement to protect the life and limb of the common man. In Delhi alone, as many as 10,000 policemen remain on VIP duty, leaving others to their own devices. And that is not enough. The securitymen themselves become the problem many a time. Even the courts have had to lash out at the inconvenience caused to the common man through the arrangements made to let the "servants of the people" fly on the roads and to live in secure houses provided by the government. This colonial hangover of dividing society into masters and servants is an anachronism, which has no place in Independent India.

INDIA’S PRINT MEDIA
Protect it but don’t cocoon it
by Sunanda K. Datta-Ray

LIKE French butter or Japanese rice, India’s print media must certainly be protected from unfair foreign competition. But if Mr Y.N. Chaturvedi, the Union Information and Broadcasting Secretary, is to be believed, the government is at last beginning to appreciate that it is not in the media’s long-term interest to be cocooned altogether in protectionist swaddling clothes. Competition would pep up our papers and also prove financially rewarding, as Singapore discovered long ago and China is discovering now. Singapore’s money managers also learnt during the Iraq crisis that if the length of Cleopatra’s nose once determined the course of world history, today it is the frown (or smile) on the face of the American Secretary of State.

Denied access to Cable News Network, they complained bitterly in January, 1991, of losing billions of dollars — or the opportunity to make billions, which comes to the same thing — by missing Mr James Baker’s expression of gloom as he walked out of the Geneva conference room where he had spent six infructuous hours wrangling with Iraq’s Foreign Minister, Mr Tariq Aziz, before the Gulf war. The Dow Jones index of leading industrials plunged nearly 50 points in five minutes. The cost of American light sweet crude climbed seven dollars a barrel within a few minutes of his admitting failure. Apparently, CNN portrayals of the faces of the negotiators told the story seconds before the official announcement.

So great was the outcry that Singapore took a major decision. Selected corporations, Singapore Press Holdings which owns all newspapers in English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil, banks and financial institutions were allowed to install satellite dishes to watch CNN programmes. As a hub of world business, the island republic could not afford to shut out the world. So far as television is concerned, India does not do so either, mainly because our astute dish operators and others began raking in money from the satellite revolution before the chauvinists could so much as say Ram Avatar.

But Mr Chaturvedi’s disclosure that the government is considering allowing foreign investment in Indian newspapers and magazines suggested a watershed, sending ripples through media circles at home and abroad. However, it does seem curious that policy reversal on a subject that provokes passionate debate should be announced so casually, and by an official at that, to an apolitical gathering of businessmen at the India Economic Summit’s Entertainment and the Media session. Perhaps this was calculated strategy. But if there really is “a consensus now on the need to loosen restrictions”, not just Mr Arun Jaitley but Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee himself must make a serious effort to counter the lingering effects of the whirlwind of objections that was whipped up when Dr Manmohan Singh first mooted reform.

We all know that the instigators of the campaign against indigenising the foreign media feared the effect on their purses. To put it bluntly, major Indian publishing houses were alarmed that rivals with more money, superior technology and much better management might mop up the advertising revenue. But since it is not polite among Indians ever to talk of money as a major concern, they roped in venerable jurists and veteran journalists to spread the canard that India’s moral ethics, political integrity, economic vigour and, indeed, its very existence would be jeopardised if the International Herald Tribune or Time magazine were printed in this country and distributed cheap instead of being imported and sold at an inflated price for the edification of only the elite.

If Mr Chaturvedi’s announcement is to be the harbinger of change, the authorities must mount a multi-pronged effort. They must remove what Justices D.P. Wadhwa and D.K. Jain of the Delhi High Court called the “fear psychosis (that) has gripped the newspaper industry” by taking a leaf out of Mr P.V. Narasimha Rao’s book. Asked in Singapore about the reaction of Indian business houses to multinationals, Mr Rao asserted that the overall cake would be so much bigger that there would be more for all even if others took slices out of it. Globalisation is also a two-way street and Indian press tycoons can hope to similarly expand in other countries. Thailand’s Mr Sondhi Limthongkul may have suffered a setback in his attempt to launch a Pan-Asian newspaper, but there is no reason why there should not be a print media equivalent of Zee Television’s Mr Subhash Chandra who can one day compete with such global figures as Mr Rupert Murdoch or Mr Conrad Black. Many of the great British press magnates — Lords Astor, Beaverbrook and Thomson — came from across the Atlantic.

The government must also convince people whose sense of national identity is both narrow and fragile that not all foreign papers wallow in what an opponent of liberalisation called “blood and breasts journalism”. That description certainly cannot be applied to the New York Times which was first in the field with an application to publish in India as long ago as 1955. Nor to London’s Financial Times which has not lost its interest in India.

Three last points. First, the Internet has driven the final nail in the coffin of the closed shop: it takes time and money, but a modem allows you to access most of the world’s publications. Second, India is not such a vulnerable entity as to be so easily subverted or sabotaged by a newspaper or magazine. While Singapore prints five or six foreign publications including the Economist and the Asian Wall Street Journal, China, too, has now agreed to a quarterly version of Time. What has India to fear when such far less open societies can embrace the world’s media to their profit?

Finally, the question of adequate safeguards. I am reminded in this context of Mr Lee Kuan Yew saying that he did not “see any reason at all why (he) should ever allow foreign newspapers to operate in Singapore, to sell their newspapers in Singapore, as if they were Singaporeans. That is a right we will never concede.” Yet, the tiny island is home to about 200 accredited foreign correspondents, and allows free circulation facilities to nearly 5,000 foreign publications. About six major Western dailies and periodicals are actually published in Singapore which is also the only place in the world where the BBC World Service is available round the clock.

These are formidable boasts. They also suggest some conflict with Mr Lee’s contention. Actually, there is none. The clue lies in his statement that foreigners cannot operate “as if they were Singaporeans”. They must abide by a different set of rules. Like the competent head of any household, like the authorities in Beijing, the Singapore government retains control in its own house. Clearly, the richest and most powerful of the world’s media institutions do not regard the conditions that it has laid down as a serious hindrance.

The circulation of foreign publications is controlled; they must publish in full and without change any Singapore government rejoinder to their stories; they can be “gazetted” and forced to distribute without advertisements. There are other strictly enforced conditions. Not only do journals like Time, the Economist, the Far Eastern Economic Review and the International Herald Tribune accept all these terms cheerfully, they probably respect Singapore for its firmness. It also makes them circumspect about writing on Singapore. The example is worth studying. I would recommend it to Mr Jaitley and Mr Chaturvedi.

Liberalisation of insurance
by R. N. Jha

THE barriers have finally crumbled. With Parliament’s nod for the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) Bill, 1999, in the current winter session dismantling the monopoly of the public sector over the insurance business, the countdown for the entry of the private insurers into the lucrative Indian market has begun. The privatisation of insurance has hiked the expectation of the customers primarily due to the promises made by the zealots of the insurance reforms inclusive of potential Indian and foreign insurers.

Obviously, the customers are hoping to be benefited by the introduction of innovative products by the new insurers for life insurance. There are a few gaps in the product portfolio of the existing insurer which can be filled up by pure term insurance, variable protection plan, mortgage protection insurance, investment life insurance and unit-link insurance. The customers will be able to get death risk cover at low premium under term insurance and can earn high yield on premia invested in investment-oriented products like unit-link insurance.

Further the price of the life insurance products at present is quite high. The mortality of the Indian life has improved three times in the last 60 years. For instance, in 1935 out of one lakh policy holders aged 30 years, 465 policy holders died within a year but this number has fallen to 117 in 1996. This amply supports the strong case for reduction of premia by 30%, particularly for protection policy extending cover for death risk. This will considerably help the customers as products will be available at lower prices.

Besides the product mix for life insurance at present is highly skewed in favour of endorsement assurance and moneyback policies which are comparatively high priced compared to the cheaper products like bimakiran, whole life, bimasandesh. The sale of endowment assurance and moneyback policies accounted for 71% of the total sale of the life insurance policies in 1997-98. This is due to lack of competition, customer awareness and unprofessional agents. Under the pressure of competition this fault will be corrected and the customers will be able to pick up the appropriate life insurance products at lower prices.

Clearly the pension products have remained undeveloped in India while in developed countries like the UK and the USA, the pension products account for 50% of the total sale of policies by an insurer. The span of Indian life has increased to 64 years in 1999 from 32 years in 1951 and is expected to cross 76 years by 2015. The number of the aged over 60 years is around 70 millions at present and is expected to be doubled by 2015. With increase in the span of life and disintegration of the joint family system, the customers’ need for pension products has very much increased. But the LIC has been able to sell only 16 lakh pension policies till March, 1999, which constitute less than 1% of the potential market of pension. The new insurers will like to woo customers by offering attractive pension products and by marketing them more aggressively.

In the area of general insurance, GIC and its four subsidiary companies have most of the common insurance products in their portfolio. But their marketing is too weak as they have not been able to develop a professional band of Agents. Therefore products of personal line like accident covers, household risk cover and health covers have remained totally undeveloped. The products could not reach the needy customers.

Besides the health insurance market has remained totally undeveloped as four companies of the GIC have sold only 2.5 millions medi-claim policies which constitute less than 1% of the insurable population. The new insurers will be able to offer better health insurance, including managed health care, for customers. The long term care (LIC) product will be introduced in Indian market which will be beneficial for aged customers.

The introduction of multi-distribution channels like broker, IFA corporate intermediaries, affinity groups, bank branches, tele-sales and internet marketing will reduce the cost of distribution, increase the coverage to the new customers and will improve the quality of service in the liberalised Indian insurance market. The use of information technology in the competitive market by insurers will further improve the service provided to the customers.

The liberalisation of the insurance, however, will pose many challenges to the customers. The awareness level of the Indian customers for insurance is low. Only 52% of population is literate and less than 10% are educated. Even well-educated customers are not aware of over 55 products of life insurance and 180 products of the general insurance available in the existing market. The new insurers will float hundreds of new products in the market. In the shining glare of the advertising blitz for the new products, the interest of the customers, will be safeguarded.

Indian insurance, hitherto a monopoly of the public sector insurers, has been liberalised by the Government to ensure multiple benefits to the customers. Hence great responsibilities lie on the new insurers to fulfil the dream of the Indian customers.

(The writer is former Executive Director, LIC of India).

Maid in India
by Anjali Majumdar

THE escape of the Adivasi maid from the house of the first secretary in the Indian embassy in Paris reminded me of what happened to the wife of an ambassador in a European country. She narrated this incident to me in Chandigarh.

Her servant from India had just decamped, vanished into thin air. “But didn’t you have his passport?” Yes, of course she had, but that was obviously not a deterrent. I make haste to add that it had not been a case of harassment; more likely, knowing that the ambassador had not very long to serve in that country, the servant had decided to stay on even as an illegal immigrant. There is obviously a vast underground network to help such fugitives — and a demand for such hands.

This was not the first time that the bird had flown. Earlier in New York a maid had decamped, one more of the hundreds of thousands playing hide and seek. She was a demure soul who had never been outside her home town in India. We Indians learn fast.

There was a great deal of official entertainment in the European capital (the ambassador’s wife told me.) Besides, the wives of diplomats met very often in each other’s home. Wines were important, not Scotch which was seldom in demand. Also the decor, not just the food served, but the manner in which it was; the general ambience all scored points. The man who had done a Houdini had learnt his job quickly and was good at it.

Now another aspect of help in foreign countries. A merchant banker friend, an Englishman, returning to London from a long spell in Tokyo, was not allowed to bring his maid from the Philippines into the country. Nor was a young Indian couple moving from Singapore to London; apparently in such a case the servant must have worked for you for at least a year.

So the Indians and their infant recruited a Filipino maid soon after arriving in London: five days a week, 12 hours a day, starting from 7.30 a.m. I should add that both husband and wife worked in high pressure jobs in the city. She agreed to do all the household chores, not just look after the baby which was great. She could have breakfast and luncheon at work. So far, so good — and she was too. But she lasted three months.

She soon began helping herself to expensive goodies, opening fresh packets of whatever when there was another still unfinished; having a bath in the tub when she should have been using the shower — and leaving it dirty. But the final straw was her use of the employer’s expensive cosmetics.

She was asked to leave, but agreed to find another servant whom she would double with for a day to show her the ropes. She did this, but the new one failed to show up the next day.

The parents of the infant were desperate. They found a day-care centre some distance away. It was as satisfactory as such places can be. (I have seen one in Virginia which would not qualify; and one in Minnesota where my grandson was happy). But one of the parents had to collect the child by 5.30 p.m., not a minute later. Since they both worked till about eight, this caused some jangled nerves. The tale of travails of those working abroad is long.

Gen Mohan Singh, the INA’s creator
By Lieut-General Iwaichi Fujiwara

GEN Mohan Singh was the founder and creator of the INA. Without his burning patriotism, his immovable conviction and lightning action at Alor Star, no hope could possibly be entertained for the birth and growth of the INA. Without his spirited involvement at the initial stage, no attempt to organise it later would have proved successful. Even the appearance of the great Netaji, a warrior-son of India, in Singapore in July, 1943, would have proved too late for the purpose.

A primary factor that prompted Netaji to risk a submarine voyage to South-East Asia from Germany at the height of World War II must have been the news of the birth of the INA, spurred by ardent entreaties of Gen Mohan Singh and of the other leaders of the INA and the IIL repeatedly expressed and pressed through the Japanese GHQ and the Military Attache in Berlin. Many must remember the prophetic sentence uttered by Netaji in his speech to the Indian National Army, at his first inspection in front of Singapore City Hall on July 5, 1943: “During a long struggle against the British, India had all the means of fighting at its disposal save one, and that was an army of its own. The very fact of not having any fighting force vexed me. But now we have at last a highly efficient army of our own.” This army was no other than the INA founded and reared by that young man, Gen Mohan Singh.

I recall vividly my first meeting with the great Netaji at Singapore on August 26, when he, with his hand on my shoulder, thanked me for the assistance I had given in organising the INA and said: “I feel more than sorry that General Mohan Singh is not with us here today. I prize his meritorious deed most highly. India is grateful to him for what he has done for the country.” Then referring to the unfortunate case in which Gen Mohan Singh was involved, he said, “I will give a careful consideration to his case and will do all I can to straighten it.” Coming from his own mouth, I consider this statement to be the most authoritative pronouncement of the merits of Gen Mohan Singh.

The initial phase of any enterprise of this nature is always beset with enormous difficulties, and the INA was no exception. Following a very unfortunate incident, Gen Mohan Singh was arrested by the Japanese military on December 29, 1942. The INA then became more dead than alive as an army. But in spite of the vortex of changing events, the spirit of the INA imparted by him and maintained by his friends in the INA and the IIL remained in tact and unchanged even after his arrest, and was instantly revived on the arrival of and taking over the command by Netaji.

Between October, 1945, to March next year, I was enabled to witness and confirm with my own eyes and ears, in a corner of the Red Fort, Delhi, the part that the INA had played as a decisive and explosive force in the attainment of India’s independence. My confirmation has since been amply endorsed by Indian and foreign historians and researchers through scrupulous studies and investigations carried out in this behalf. But who else can better endorse my statement than the late Prime Minister Nehru, who in his address to the Constituent Assembly had said, “this military tribunal will be the sign of the end of history of British hegemony over India.”

The INA earned its immortal name in the pages of the Indian independence movement, when in March, 1944, the army aglow with a desire to liberate their motherland, advanced to the Manipur and Arakan fronts under the command of Netaji, and fought desperate battles side by side with the Japanese Army. It, indeed, was dearly earned. It is good to bear in mind that the heroic attempt of Gen Mohan Singh on the Malayan front and the great achievements of Netaji, who took over after him as Chief of the INA were greatly responsible for awakening and rousing the peoples of the entire South-East Asia to a regional and oriental consciousness.

Since the very beginning of the uprising, Gen Mohan Singh and other leaders of the INA and the IIL severely insisted on an independent and sovereign status working in cooperation with the Japanese Army and were more than careful not to concede even an inch in any matter that they considered might be harmful to their national pride. They were indeed extremely sensitive to any slanderous accusation of being labelled as Japanese puppets. At the same time, they were careful and attentive enough not to act contrary to the principles and aims entertained by Gandhi, Nehru and the Indian National Congress. In addition, so strict was their regard for the protection of lives and property, not to mention the honour of their countrymen in the combat areas, that even I their staunch friend and closest collaborator, thought at times that they went a bit too far. Subsequently, however, I realised and respected their point of view. Any armed movement aided by a foreign country was bound to cause doubts and uneasiness in the minds of their fellow countrymen. The leaders perforce must affirm their integrity and honesty.

There were, of course, a number of occasions when the interests of the two armies were found mutually irreconcilable. Despite my best efforts, I found myself unable now and then to give complete satisfaction to Gen Mohan Singh. More often than not, I had to request him for somewhat unreasonable cooperation, explaining the details and appealing for his understanding in the matter. But such was the force of his character and personality that on such occasions I found myself compelled to make a direct appeal to our GHQ disregarding the army command system entirely.

However, sensing my difficult position, sandwiched between the two armies, Gen Mohan Singh was never lacking in magnanimity and understanding. He invariably managed to enhance our mutual trust and friendship. It was very unfortunate indeed for all concerned that after my transfer to another military duty, the relations between my successor and Gen Mohan Singh were not what they should have been. Instead, doubt and distrust between them increased from day to day until the situation reached an irreparable stage. By the later half of 1942, officers and men of the INA began to express openly their distrust of and discontentment with the Japanese Army. A rigid attitude and a course of action which Gen Mohan Singh had dauntlessly shown as the leader of a revolutionary army at that critical situation appeared an inevitable conclusion. I must add that his attitude had given the Japanese Army a valuable precept and lesson as regards to their posture in subsequent cooperation between the two armies.

My memory wanders into one dead of night when two former members of my F.Kikan woke me up at the officers’ quarters and reported to me the staggering news of an imminent armed clash between the two armies. I remember spending many sleepless nights, agonising and thinking how best to save the situation, lamenting my incompetence due to my specific post, begging and praying heaven and earth to show me the right path. I was really desperate and in such a condition that one night I visited Gen Mohan Singh in secret at his quarters and implored him, as best as I could, to show prudence under the circumstances. I resolved at the same time that if things deteriorated beyond redemption I would answer it with my own life, as the man responsible for assisting the General in his task of organising the INA. Very fortunately, however, the worst crisis was averted at the last moment by his extraordinary good sense, coupled with an invariable spirit of friendship towards me. Had it turned out otherwise, it certainly would have resulted in unnecessary bloodshed in disarming and internment of officers and men of the INA with no hope of reorganising it.

No hope could, of course, have been entertained regarding a secret submarine voyage of Netaji to South-East Asia from Germany, not to speak of the cordial relations between the peoples of India and Japan which incidentally continue to this date without interruption. Furthermore, there would have been no advance of the INA to the Manipur front, nor the military trial at the Red Fort to cause that explosive situation which among other factors led to the achievement of India’s freedom. Probability is that Indian independence might have demanded of their people a longer and more terrific struggle of untold misery and sacrifices. Perhaps not only India but the whole of Asia also might have been destined to tread a different path of post-war history.

I must not forget to add the other achievements that Gen Mohan Singh, Pritam Singh and other leaders of the IIL were able to accomplish. Their heroic exploits and vigilant spirit helped forge bonds of comradeship between the people of war-ravaged areas. Great was also their contribution directly and indirectly towards the Japanese Army in lightening their burden of preserving peace and order as well as in facilitating the administration of occupied areas. It is a matter of great regret that even now all those meritorious deeds have not been properly recognised and appraised in general, except by those who were directly connected with them and the liberation movement.

The brave call “Chalo Delhi” that echoed throughout South-East Asia when the INA marched to the battle front of Manipur alongwith the Japanese 10th Army was no more to be heard after five months of fierce fighting. Hills and valleys of Manipur lay soaked in young blood of both our armies. This disastrous result was mainly caused by a number of miscalculations and erroneous strategies on the part of the Japanese Army. The biggest one of all was the loss of a golden opportunity to commence operations between the Autumn of 1942 and the Autumn of 1943, when we could take full advantage of India’s incomplete defence structure and political commotion. Owing to vacillation and indecision of Japan’s GHQ the die was not cast for the zero hour until the last day of 1943. By then the counter offensive of one million strong Allied Forces of the UK, the USA and China was already launched in the area of Hukawung Valley in N. Burma, while the main force of the 1st INA Divison and Japan’s 15th Division, which were to take part in the battle, were not even ready to concentrate.

Another reason was the friction and confusion caused by distrust and discontentment accumulated between the two armies since Maj-General Iwakuru took over my mission in May, 1942. This obstructed the advance of the INA to Burma, culminating in December, 1942, in the arrest of Gen Mohan Singh and a syncopic valuation of the INA as an army. Perhaps the causes of the incident were more complicated and deep rooted for a mere officer of the rank of a Major, for that was what I was, to appreciate and tackle. But I could not help thinking that if I and F Kikan had been absorbed and not succeeded by Iwakuru Kikan as was effected by an order of GHQ in May, 1942, perhaps there might have been a different picture. We might have been successful in coordinating and improving relations of mutual trust and cooperation between the two forces.

Still another cause of the unfortunate imbroglio was the late appearance of Netaji in South-East Asia. From the very beginning of my encounters with the Indian leaders, I found it their unanimous wish to regroup themselves under the command of great Subhas Chandra Bose. But in spite of my repeated appeals on their behalf to the Japanese GHQ, it took 20 long months to realise and seven months after the Mohan Singh incident to fulfil. Had his appearance been realised some 10 months earlier, I believe the previously mentioned cause might have been avoided by his wise statesmanship and commanding ability.

What I would like to mention here specially is the fact that when the first decision was made at Taiping between Gen Mohan Singh and myself to end the British hegemony, we swore to each other that we would be concerned only with the duty to discharge a thankless task for the great movement. He was hoping earnestly for the day when he could hand over command to a great leader such as Netaji. But that day was not to come to him, for when Netaji subsequently took command of the INA, Gen Mohan Singh was in exile.

When the Manipur campaign was opened in 1944, I, as a staff officer of the 15th Army, was able to take part in the battle along with my comrades-at-arm of the INA but not so Gen Mohan Singh. I felt very sad that he was not with us to share the glory of life and death for which he had done so much. He was not with us, too, to share the historical fight at the court in the Red Fort. But it was just as well because I was the witness to his oath to seek nothing for himself but to suffer and sacrifice, and be content to remain a bottom stone so that a cause can flourish and prosper in the hands of others.

However, the great mission of the INA was accomplished under the able command of Netaji. While they could not achieve “Chalo Delhi” by armed combat, they accomplished it at the military court in the Red Fort.

The article is based on the Introduction to Gen Mohan Singh’s book “Soldiers’ Contribution to Indian Independence”. The author, who was the Fujiwara Asia Research Institute’s Chairman is no more.

Priorities of politicians

by Tavleen Singh

IF we were searching for a single word to define this winter session of Parliament it would be walkout. The Congress party walked out so often and so noisily that that we could all have been fooled into believing that they had somehow forgotten that the Lok Sabha was inside Parliament House and not outside. There was a walkout over Bofors and this lasted so many days that it began to seem as if the session might have to continue without the Congress.

When the Prime Minister stood his ground and said firmly that Rajiv Gandhi’s name would not be deleted from the chargesheet because it could not be, the Congress came back momentarily. But, no sooner did we think that it was now ready to talk of the serious business of the House than it walked out once more over Ayodhya. Before walking out, this time, they made it clear that they would be satisfied with nothing less than the dismissal of the Home Minister, the Human Resource Development Minister and the Tourism Minister.

The Ayodhya walkouts went on for so many days and caused so much noise that it would have been easy for the less politically aware of India’s citizens to be fooled into thinking it was the most important issue in the country.

What is most interesting about all these walkouts and noisy demonstrations is the fact that Orissa barely came up at all. On the first day of the session we saw a handful of Biju Janata Dal MPs sitting foolishly under Gandhiji’s statue in Parliament House to draw attention to the lack of relief work, then they disappeared permanently into the woodwork. So much so that there was not a cheap out of either the Bharatiya Janata Party or the Biju Janata Dal when television news bulletins reported trucks carrying desperately needed tarpaulin had been unable to enter the state.

Orissa’s former Chief Minister, the very forgettable Giridhar Gamango, sacked his Relief Commissioner and then spent the next few days hovering around Sonia Gandhi in the hope of saving his job. It took the Congress ‘high command’ several days to conclude that Gamango had to go. Meanwhile, the trucks carrying essential supplies continued to wait at the borders of Bhubaneshwar because there was nobody interested in ensuring that the supplies got distributed.

When I asked BJP and BJD MPs in Delhi why they were not personally driving the trucks into the state they laughed. They thought I was joking. Their leaders appeared to be too busy doing ‘important things’ in Delhi to bother about Orissa’s desperate people. Television programmes continue to show us women and small children who claim to not even having enough to eat. We hear that there are thousands of widows and young girls who could all end up sold into prostitution. But, nobody in Delhi seems even slightly bothered.

Considering how adept our politicians are at politicking it is really puzzling that the Congress party has not even been mildly criticised for wasting valuable time changing the Chief Minister at a time when the people of Orissa desperately needed relief. Could it be that both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Biju Janata Dal are hoping that the incompetence of Orissa’s Congress Government will help them win the coming assembly elections? If this is true they need to be ashamed of themselves.

If you watch question hour in Parliament, televised daily between 11 a.m. and 12 p.m. you will notice that Orissa hardly features. I have sat through questions on tourism policy, fertilisers, propaganda for Kashmir and a hundred others. Our MPs get passionate about these questions. They put the government on the mat, haul it over coals, on the absence of the slightest detail, but on Orissa I have to confess to having heard nothing.

There is a task force under George Fernandes that, according to him, is closely monitoring relief work. Then, how is it people are still complaining about inadequate relief? How is it trucks carrying tarpaulin did not manage to distribute their vital supplies for nearly a week? How is it that people are still complaining that even when blankets have been distributed they usually get one per family?

In Delhi I met a lady, an ordinary concerned citizen, who said that she had tried sending a truck of supplies that had got looted in Bihar. She had also attempted sending things through Orissa Bhavan but had stopped when she heard that supplies were being sold instead in the bazaars of Old Delhi. Political leaders are aware that such things happen and Naveen Patnaik, who heads the Biju Janata Dal, and has travelled through all the affected districts suggested that it would be best if relief supplies were sent through him.

When I suggested this alternative to a lady, connected with the Rotary Club’s ladies wing, she said they had tried doing this but were told by some of the Minister’s underlings that he was not in town so it would be best to send it to Orissa Bhavan. How can ordinary citizens help if they are not sure whether what they are sending actually reaches the people who most need the relief?

Meanwhile, we in the media have forgotten Orissa. It has become an old story. Much more interesting, clearly, to put the meaningless walkouts over Ayodhya and Bofors on page one instead. So, despite everyone being fully aware of the fact that relief operations in Orissa have been painfully inadequate there is not a single national newspaper that has bothered to send a team of reporters to the affected districts to give us an investigative report.

The end result of this general apathy is that we have celebrated Diwali and Christmas and are now in a paroxysm of excitement over the Millennium while the people of Orissa are left to fend desperately for themselves.

There is a Congress government in Orissa — an incompetent, heartless government — that will undoubtedly lose power in the coming elections. But, surely, the Prime Minister will also be blamed for what amounts to an inhuman lack of concern. Even if the BJP-BJD alliance wins the assembly elections, due in March, they will have won over the dead bodies of the people of Orissa. It is a shocking, typically Indian story. It is hard to think of another country in which such a thing could happen.

Not a bad century

by Amita Malik

THIS is the best column to be written this century and an awesome thought that the next one will appear in a new century.

The outgoing century has nothing to be ashamed of as far as the media is concerned. If the cinema made it earlier to India with the Lumiere brothers introducing us to the bioscope at Watson’s Hotel in Bombay in 1897 and Dadasaheb Phalke and others lost no time in giving the cinema its unique Indian character, radio was a little later in taking off with the private sector in both Calcutta and Bombay doing their own thing in the thirties. It was World War II which gave a fillip to public broadcasting with the British using All India Radio as one of its main propaganda weapons including what were later to become its External Services. But to their credit, there were luminaries such as Nirad Chaudhuri working in its News Division even during the war and future media personalities such as P.C. Chatterjee, Pran Chopra, Vishnu Dutt, Samar Sen and many others on its staff. On the programme side, AIR soon had on five-year contracts Ravi Shankar, Sumitra Nandan Pant, Premendra Mitra and a host of equally distinguished personalities from the south. Newscasters such a Nobby Clark, Devaki Nandan Pandey, Melville de Mellow and women such as Roshen Menon and Latika Ratnam laid the foundations of high professionalism under DGs such as Lionel Fielden of the BBC and Prof A.S. Bokhari. Some of that professionalism still lingers on in AIR, such as proper contracts in time, reasonably punctual programmes and many slow but steady community programmes. Who can forget Radio Rice, inspired in South India by AIR’s rural programmes?

TV as we know it now also made a start under private enterprise andmore by accident than design when Philips set up an experimental TV transmission from a tent in the International Trade Fair at Pragati Maidan in 1956 with a reach of 20 miles, which, apart from the TV sets scattered round the Maidan reached as far as Connaught Place to eager audiences to whom it meant a little cinema for an in-built film-oriented audience. Then Philips gifted the equipment to the government, UNESCO followed suit and so began Doordarshan (although the name was to come later). It was lessons for secondary schools to begin with a very good beginning which later led to government spreading the myth that its aims were education, information and entertainment, in that order, although now the order has been reversed. Entertainment came in with Indira Gandhi in 1965 but with the Emergency, the whole aspect changed and this year Pramod Mahajan was to voice the same sentiments about DD and AIR being government possessions. Arun Jaitley is speaking in more liberal terms but the present wranglings about Prasar Bharati, with both sides playing a very dirty, selfish game, make the outlook for autonomy very bleak. Sometimes Jaitley seems to confuse public service broadcasting with public sector broadcasting, which is very different. Government does not always come into public service broadcasters like PBS.

However, with healthy competition from satellite channels, and everybody does not measure any broadcasting, let alone DD by TRP’s but standards of excellence and social responsibilities, governments and politicians as well as the bureaucrats will have to stop thinking in terms of the Telegraph Act of 1897 and more in terms of keeping pace with the rest of the modern world and stop wrangling about things like DTH and the rest, because the government is not in a position to ban, censor or hold up progress. Electronics are moving so fast that government dicta are becoming obsolete.

Our internetting whiz kids and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have shown that India is amongst the world leaders in both software and hardware and that India can not only do it, but do it well. Let the politicians and bureaucrats give them the freedom they deserve and put India on the world media map, as it so richly deserves. Both radio and TV in India need to move with the times and there is enough talent in the country to make it forge ahead and join the other world leaders in broadcasting in the new century. That is what democracy is about. And not in-fighting among greedy, short-sighted, short-term politicians and bureaucrats who have destroyed about everything in the country, and have now set about destroying broadcasting.

75 YEARS AGO

Cow slaughter

THE resolution on cow slaughter which was adopted by the Subjects Committee of the Unity Conference after a discussion lasting over two days and numerous consultations is essentially in the nature of a compromise. It could not possibly have been anything else. It will not please either those who wanted the slaughter of cows to be absolutely and compulsorily stopped or those who wanted that the right of Muslims to slaughter cows should be unfettered by any regard for Hindu feelings.

Of both classes there are unhappily so many in the country that it is difficult to say whether the resolution will please or displease the majority even among those who will consider any decision arrived at by the conference on such a subject as binding upon them. What can safely he said, however, is that it will satisfy the overwhelming majority of thoughtful, reasonable and fair-minded persons.

The very fact that it was unanimously adopted by a committee which was as representative of the various interests concerned as any similar body could possibly have been shows this beyond the possibility of doubt.

After all, no one need or can be a better Hindu than Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, and a decision which not only commended itself to the Pandit, but on which he felt no hesitation in congratulating the conference and the country is clearly one of which it can be reasonably expected that Hindu India will eventually accept it, even though the process of acceptance may not be as rapid as some of us would have liked it to be.