P A G E
Thursday, February 4, 1999
today's calendar
|
E D I T O R I A L P A G E |
Thursday, February 4, 1999 |
| weather n
spotlight today's calendar |
||
|
Beyond
roll-back
RESTRUCTURING
|
 |
Corruption
— good and bad
“Pass
to hona hee tha”
Spread
of spiritualism |
||||||||
 |
|
Beyond roll-back IT is tempting to be cynical about the latest decision of the BJP-led coalition to roll back foodgrain prices sold through fair price shops. Is it not something it specialises in? There is actually more to it and that is deeply worrying. The decision shows that the policy-making mechanism at the administrative and political levels is wobbly, to say the least. In the present case, the Finance Ministry is guilty of not doing a thorough job. If the idea was to contain the fiscal deficit, which is threatening to cross the Rs 80,000 crore mark, it should zero in on areas where there is lot of fat to be cut and not a sensitive item like food for the poor and not-so-rich. And anyway, Rs 3600 crore is just tokenism and not substantial enough. It is possible that the inspiration for increasing foodgrain prices came from the Prime Minister’s Office, a kind of super secretariat which exists only to please the top political boss and which nurses supreme indifference to ground level reality. Incidentally, it is the PMO which is coordinating the work of the experts groups of economists and industrialists and yet it has failed to identify a few sectors where there is rich picking. It is well to remember that the total subsidy doled out by both the Centre and the states works out to an astronomical Rs 1,50,000 crore. And yet the controversial decisions aimed at shaving off a mere Rs 4700 crore. More glaring is the insensitivity at the political level. The Telugu Desam Party had at one time sold rice at Rs 2 a kg but had to scrap the scheme as it could not afford it. And the price of rice was last week raised to Rs 4.52 a kg from Rs 3.25 a kg, all this in a rice-eating state and in a year of assembly election. The allies were not consulted on the proposal and were presented with a fiat accompli on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. If the BJP wants the allies not to rush to the media with their criticism but air their views in private at the coordination committee meeting, it is only fair that it does not force them to learn about major decisions from the media. The important outcome of
the Tuesday meeting was neither the roll back of prices
nor the BJP suing for fragile peace with truculent
partners but the long statement issued at the end of the
talks. It reads more like an annual report card of a
student but written by the student himself. It lists some
achievements, blames bad PR work for the people being
unaware of them and blames the Congress for its present
troubles and for exploiting these troubles. After this
regulation denunciation, it does two remarkable things.
Through the statement the allies, at least most of them,
have given up their right to barrack the government for
wrong policies. More interestingly, they have
collectively ranged behind Prime Minister Vajpayee and
have asked him to rein in the “organisations
belonging to the (BJP) ideological fraternity” from
tarnishing the image of the government. It is
extraordinary that the allies bracketed the VHP, Bajrang
Dal and the Swadeshi Jagran Manch with the Congress as
trouble makers. And it is even more extraordinary that
the Prime Minister accepted these bodies as sister units
of the BJP (after years of insisting that each one is
independent) and thought it necessary to regroup his
forces to confront his detractors from within the
parivar. The meeting thus went through the motions of
suing for peace with allies and declaring war on
“pseudo Hinduistic” outfits. The bugle has been
sounded and there is a distant rumble of war drums. |
Power from Pakistan LIKE the Delhi-Lahore bus service, the proposal to purchase electricity from Pakistan may be short on commercial importance but is long on symbolic significance. The trade between the two neighbours has remained frozen for far too long because of mutual suspicions and animosities. Both can supply each other several essential items but end up purchasing these from other countries at much higher prices. Pakistan purchases even Indian items through a circuitous route, which passes through West Asian countries. There are enough hotheads on that side of the border also who raise the bogey of Indian goods supplanting their markets. Then there are religious zealots who insist that any kind of business contact with India is nothing less than perfidy. In such an atmosphere, even a small forward movement is a big event. India can allay many apprehensions by taking the lead in establishing the contacts by becoming an importer. The move is not likely to be reciprocated immediately but Delhi can afford to wait. And electricity is one of the most non-controversial items on its purchase list that can make a good starting point. It is another matter that there may be enough enterprising persons to find ghosts here also. After all, the import of sugar too had become a big “issue” when it was revealed that the profit that Pakistan would make would go to its defence forces. Even if a similar
controversy does not arise, it will be futile to expect a
smooth sailing for the deal. There are enough teething
troubles to ensure that the two sides will have to be on
their toes. The first is the availability of power
itself. Although the Pakistan government has confirmed
the availability of 300 MW of power for export to India
for the next 10 years, experts say that this calculation
is based on grossly overestimated projections about the
future additions in generation. The fact of the matter is
that many of the foreign companies engaged in
establishing power stations in that country are said to
be keen to pull out. The projection also does not fully
take into account the growth in demand within Pakistan
itself. Then there are apprehensions about what will
happen to such an import in the eventuality of a
conflict. But the biggest sticking point is going to be
the fixing of tariff. The power from Pakistan is going to
cost more than Rs 3.25 per kWh as against the National
Thermal Power Corporation’s weighted average tariff
of Rs 1.30- 1.50 per unit. Since the payment will be in
foreign currency, the outgo may meet with stiff
resistance even from the supporters of the government.
Experts are already pointing out that it is meaningless
to make the purchases from a foreign country when the
eastern region is already having excess generation
capacity. The money will be better spent, they believe,
on establishing adequate evacuation facilities and
related transmission network there. All this, of course,
ignores the fact that any Indo-Pakistan enterprise goes
beyond being purely economic. But since this is a highly
emotive issue, both countries must move carefully. One
thing is clear though: move they must! |
Eliminating AIDS THE spread of AIDS at an alarming rate across the globe in the past two decades was, perhaps, the most disappointing development for medical scientists. They can now bid farewell to the 20th century on a more cheerful note because their research has at last busted the mystery about the source of the HIV-1 virus which causes slow and painful death among infected human beings. Medical scientists had all along suspected the African baboon to be the source of the deadly disease. Now they have concrete evidence that a sub-group of the African chimpanzees is the career of the HIV-1 strain of virus. In simple terms it means that those already suffering from the disease may not be saved but a vaccine is now possible to protect future generations from getting AIDS. Of course, much would depend on the response from the global community to the demand for funds for developing the AIDS vaccine without further loss of time. Research has confirmed that the sub-group of African chimpanzees has developed immunity and, therefore, offers the brightest chance of finding a cure or a vaccine for AIDS as the species is almost genetically identical to humans. But the bad news is that the “priceless chimps” are on the verge of extinction because of excessive hunting by African tribes. According to rough estimates Gabon has a population of about 64,000 “AIDS-immune” chimps followed by Congo which has about 10,000 of them. Angola, Cameroon and Nigeria are its other habitats. But the numbers are fast depleting and without global initiative the only ray of hope for AIDS-prevention, as of today, may slip out of the hands of medical scientists. Logically the chimps’
habitats should be sealed, following the path-breaking
discovery, and the tribes who hunt them for food should
be given adequate compensation. Dr Beatrice Hahn, a
member of the international team which made the
discovery, said that “we cannot afford to lose these
animals either from the conservation point of view or a
medical investigation standpoint”. A related
development may bring some immediate relief to AIDS
infected mothers who can now reduce the risk of passing
on the virus during childbirth by more than one-third if
they receive standard medicines for just one week.
Doctors have known for about five years that the drug AZT
administered during pregnancy reduces the risk of
HIV-infected mothers from passing on the virus to their
babies. But they have been grappling with the problem of
reducing the cost of treatment in places such as Africa
and India where the disease is more widespread in
relation to other regions. In wealthy countries infected
mothers receive five months of treatment which can cost
more than $ 1,000. Doctors have now found a less
expensive method of treatment which is only marginally
less effective than the one available to infected mothers
in developed countries. For a country like India even
this “half measure” is worth trying for it
could have a major impact on the spread of AIDS during
childbirth, which now accounts for nearly 6,00,000 HIV
infections across the globe every year. |
RESTRUCTURING THE MoD THE Kitchener-Curzon conflict in the first decade of this century was played in a colonial setting and had little relevance half a century later to a parliamentary system of democracy. Yet it was taken as a frame of reference in working out the new arrangement. The silent and subversive coup, started soon after India became a Republic was completed with the reframing of the Army, Navy and Air Force Acts, wherein the defence services ceased to be part of the government of India. They became one of its departments. That provided the framework for the Greek tragedy whose last act was staged on December 30, 1998; in the closing phase of the twentieth century. The evolved structure has been desultory, sterile and wasteful of national resources. The bureaucracy frightened the politician with the spectre of a military takeover and in the process, slowly but surely, excluded the military from the decision-making process, and engulfed it with an ever-increasing web of controls and restrictions. What was meant to be a political control, in fact, manifested itself as a bureaucratic hold. A defence perspective and the national security paradigm gave way to babudom, and in the interim the country lost many opportunities. If more visitations of the 1962 type did not befall this land, the credit belongs entirely to the Indian soldier; his resilience and steadfastness even in grossly disadvantaged situations. Stephen Cohen argues that the low-profile defence policy eventually adopted by Nehru was a direct result of the popularity of the INA, and there may well have been a connection between Nehru’s outward policy framework and the legacy of the INA. Moreover, neither he nor his civilian advisers understood sufficiently the intricacies of military technologies and strategy. Nehru sought outside help. P.M.S. Blackett was asked to prepare a report outlining the measures necessary for India to become near self-sufficient in defence production over a period of approximately seven years (an arbitrary and unrealistic time-frame). The Blackett report followed an earlier report from Wansborough Jones, who attempted to make India a self-supporting defence entity and laid down four essential roles for the Indian Army. The fact that no definitive paper on defence doctrine and policy has since emerged out of the portals of the Ministry of Defence (MoD), even though the country’s security environments radically changed and defence issues became increasingly more pressing, while self-sufficiency in defence equipment remained a mirage, carries a message of its own. The Administrative Reforms Commission headed by Morarji Desai had recommended the formation of a Defence Management Service which would develop expertise to man higher posts in the MoD. This did not suit the bureaucracy and, therefore, the proposal never fructified. It is not so much the lack of knowledge, understanding and capability which marked out the bureaucrat in the MoD as his obduracy and cussedness. Here it would be appropriate to give a few examples of the MoD’s working. During the author’s three tenures in South Block, innumerable gems surfaced. Recounting just three, one from each may suffice. For the movement of leave parties, units in field areas and strategic moves during operations, the Army proposed to surrender 300 trucks and take 300 buses in lieu at a nominal extra cost. For three years the case did not inch forward because a Joint Secretary-level officer persisted with his view that troops should prefer to travel squatting on the floor of a truck than sitting on a proper seat; consequently, the requirement of buses was not justified. The Vijayanta tank was born with a congenital heart, (the L-60 engine has a design defect). For four summers the Army carried out the most intensive and exhaustive trials to select an alternative engine. Finally, a committee of secretaries was formed to approve an engine. During the presentation on the trials it was discovered that not one among the secretaries knew the difference between a cam shaft and a crank shaft of an engine and yet they had been assembled to decide on a high-performance machine operating at the forward edge of diesel technology; the list included Rolls Royce besides other big names. No decision ever came out of that august body. Some 15 years later Vijayanta is still struggling with the L-60 engine. The case for a few tank gun simulators had moved up and down for over four years. There were over 173 notings on the file, some repeated three to four times, with no end yet in sight. When the author finally bid farewell to South Block, the advice to the secretary was that if he was not careful, the case may find a place in the Guinness Book of Records as an epitome of bureaucratic prevarication, obduracy, ignorance and arrogance. The Defence Minister’s decision to restructure the MoD has not come a day too early. That it is a fallout of the fiasco of the sacking of the Naval Chief and the nation-wide outrage, anguish and indignation expressed at this sordid drama is a manifestation of a reactive syndrome, for which this ministry is well known. The one-month time-frame has all the portends of ad-hocism, patchwork and expediency. While the long-term restructuring should broadly follow the recommendations of the Parliamentary Committee on Defence Expenditure (CDE) headed by Mr Arun Singh which had gone into these issues at great length, for a start some inescapable changes, as a first step towards the integration of the MoD with service headquarters, could be examined. A National Defence Committee (NDC), chaired by the Defence Minister with a small supportive staff drawn from all services and civil servants, headed by an officer of the level of army commander, could be an apex body formed to assist him in considering policy issues, etc. There is also the pressing need to set up a Defence Appellate Tribunal (DAT) on the lines of the CAT for the civil services. DAT should be independent of service headquarters and headed by an officer of the army commander level and suitably staffed. Instead of posting three service officers to man Joint Secretary-level posts in the MoD, as appears to be the proposal now, it would be better to post three Additional Secretary-level officers from the three services along with a number of director4-level officers to replace the existing incumbents. This arrangement will provide the correct intermix, scope and range of examination of cases. The availability of director-level officers is essential because it is at this level that a meaningful scrutiny should take place. In the service headquarters, officers from the administrative service could man Deputy Secretary-level posts. This would give them the necessary grounding to later take up higher defence assignments. The control over revenue expenditure must rest exclusively with service headquarters. The same was known to have been recommended by the CDE also. There is a crying need for decentralisation. Promotions of officers up to the rank of Lieut-General and equivalent should be entirely the responsibility of service headquarters. Promotions and appointments of army commander-level officers and the three Chiefs and the Chief of Defence Staff, as and when applicable, only should be taken up with the ACC. The MoD should divest itself of the functions and duties that are within the exclusive domain of service headquarters, such as the internal management of the services and personnel administration, training, logistics stores, works, pensions, canteens, etc, and associate itself more closely with the formulation of defence policy, planning, budgeting, the procurement of major weapon systems and stores, civilian personnel, resettlement of ex-servicemen and the large number of inter-service organisations. This would greatly reduce the present duplication and triplication of work. For the foreseeable future, the Army will remain the dominant player on the national security stage. It is four to five times the size of the other two services put together. While cooperation and team work are essential, the fact that the tail cannot wag the dog, must not be lost sight of. The inter-service appointments should follow a tenure of 2:1:1 between the Army and the other two services. The bureaucracy in the MoD has thrived on the policy of divide and rule. The services must guard themselves against falling a prey to this invidious device. The other area which needs immediate attention is the Department of Defence Production. The post of Secretary calls for not only considerable technical knowhow but also intimate knowledge of defence weapons and equipment. Many a shortfall and ills of this department can be traced to this deficiency. The Secretary’s post along with minimum three Joint Secretary-level posts should be manned by service officers. It will ensure that the delays between the Defence R and D effort, trials and series production and the induction of equipment into the services are minimised. The three service chiefs must have a direct, formalised and structured interaction with the Defence Minister. This direct interface will eliminate the chances of bureaucratic mischief and a repetition of the Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat episode and much else. They must have full and unhindered say in the decision-making process. An integrated and coordinated approach to defence planning, management, and policy formulation is mandatory in a fast-changing weapons technology development scene, geo-strategic environment and the evolving economic compulsions. The nuclear power status has added a new dimension to India’s responses and responsibilities, leaving no room for miscalculation and mismanagement of defence issues. While immediate steps need to be taken to make a start, a fuller integration of the MoD with service headquarters must follow soon on the lines of the CDE recommendations. Besides, all the other advantages that would accrue from the final integration of the MoD with service headquarters, the savings in financial terms alone will be nearly Rs 500 crore annually. Perhaps the final form may as well be a consociation of what the CDE has recommended— the American system. (The writer, a
retired Lieut-General, was the Deputy Chief of the Army
Staff.) |
Indonesia’s slide into anarchy AUSTRALIA, the only unequivocal Western supporter of Indonesian sovereignty over East Timor, (a former Portuguese colony annexed by Jakarta in 1976 after military operations), has recently changed tack. Prime Minister John Howard is now favouring an act of “self-determination” for the people of East Timor at some future time. In his carefully worded missive to President B.J. Habibie, Mr Howard maintained Australia’s support for Indonesian sovereignty but emphasised the need to explore alternatives. Predictably, Jakarta has not taken kindly to Canberra’s shifting position. True, Australia has emphasised its continued support for Indonesia’s sovereignty. But by introducing self-determination, it has also forewarned Australian recognition of East Timorese independence at some future time if it were still the people’s will in that territory. Besides, it tends to complicate Indonesian-Portuguese autonomy talks on East Timor under the UN auspices. Australia is keen to play a direct role and favours involvement of East Timorese leaders in the autonomy talks, especially the jailed East Timorese leader, Mr Xanana Gusmao, who has come to acquire the halo of a Nelson Mandela in this part of the world. Apart from losing its only Western supporter, what has stung Jakarta the most is Canberra’s comparison of East Timor with the French colony of New Caledonia. This has hit where it hurts the most. Not too long ago Indonesia itself was a Dutch colony fighting for its independence. And to be branded imperialist, however indirectly, is a difficult pill to swallow. Not surprisingly, therefore, Dr Habibe resented the comparison and reportedly called it totally inappropriate. He maintained that East Timor had been separated from Indonesia by the historical accident of different colonising powers the (Dutch in Indonesia, and the Portuguese in East Timor). And maintained that socially and geographically, East Timor was an integral part of Indonesia. Any referendum on East Timor is likely to result in its independence. And the fear is that it will have a domino effect on Indonesia’s other provinces. In Indonesia’s present porous economic and political situation, there are dangers galore. But with troubles and riots everywhere, the government cannot hold the country together against the wishes of people in its constituent territories. Therefore, it might be wise to let East Timor and, may be, Irian Jaya (both late annexations, and not part of Indonesia’s social and cultural matrix) make up their own mind. Among Indonesian elites, there is ambivalence about East Timor. While most would like it to remain part of Indonesia, there is also a realisation among some that this might not be feasible. And that its separation wouldn’t be all that awful. Mr Jusuf Wanandi, head of the Centre for International and Strategic Studies in Jakarta, for instance, doesn’t see any particular danger of a domino effect from its separation. He is “less worried about that because I know that East Timor is a special case.” East Timor, though, is only one among Indonesia’s myriad problems. It is faced with widespread riots and protests all over the country. According to an editorial in Media Indonesia (quoted in a Sydney newspaper), “In the past the hot spots were identifiable, but now they are anywhere, they could be near you, and they could explode at any time — in the jungle, the hinterlands or even Jakarta.” And, the paper adds, “The people are asking whether the Indonesian military still has the ability and commitment to protect and secure the nation.” Indonesia today is a highly fractured society in all its aspects: politically, economically (more than half its population, according to some estimates, is now below poverty line), ethnically with its minority Chinese population at the receiving end of popular backlash, and in its religious (Muslim/Christian) divide in a predominantly Islamic country. The social and political atrophy under Mr Suharto’s long and repressive rule has seriously afflicted its body politic. Under his rule, people lost the habit of thinking for themselves; they only followed dictates. And when the mighty patriarch himself fell under the weight of Indonesia’s economic collapse, his hand-picked successor under the old and discredited Suharto constitution lacked legitimacy from the very beginning. President Habibie’s government, therefore, has no moral authority to govern. As one Indonesian commentator has pointed out, “This is a political transition period occurring at a time of grave economic problems and without a succession mechanism set in place by former President Suharto.” People are flouting
authority everywhere, thus creating a situation of
anarchy.Indeed, the military and political establishments
are part of the problem, according to some. They (fearing
loss of their privileged positions under a new political
dispensation) are believed to be behind a number of riots
and killings to create justification for their continued
existence and role. In other words, the picture is very
murky, as Indonesia slides further down the tube. |
“Pass
to hona hee tha” A daughter is a divine gift, an embodiment of goodwill, compassion and dignity. She is a solace. The warm family atmosphere that a daughter can generate has no parallel. She has the effect of bridging all the gaps. My love for a daughter has withstood the ravages of time and onslaughts from well-wishers. But my feelings have never faltered. It is said that by the time a man realises that may be his father was right, he ends up with a son, who thinks he is wrong. Luckily I have escaped its wrath. When God blessed us with a grand-daughter, Macky, her arrival was a matter of pride and was celebrated with much fanfare unmindful of the strange myths and whispering comments from the traditional families. These curtains of delusion could not mask the truth and reality. I and my wife scoffed at these outbursts. I was wondering how this entrapped me. The cries in the darkness of my parentless childhood showed me the light. My sister was the only constant companion to shower me with laughter, tremendous depth of love and happiness, she had unknowingly planted the sacred seed. This, with the passage of time, grew from strength to strength and had a crushing grip over me. Just as the sun does not miss the shifting sands of the sphere or the trees the sweet scent of spring flowers, I too have never missed the soft and sweet preference. In fact, this has landed me quite often in uncomfortable situations and brought crisp and uncharitable comments from the male-dominated wings of the administration. One such incident is sharply etched in my memory. The Punjab government had
introduced a qualifying examination for a section of its
Secretariat employees for their promotion to a higher
rank. This examination was to be conducted by the
Subordinate Services Selection Board. The newly appointed
Chairman of this Board was keen to create a healthy and
honest image and wipe out the previous criticism. He
would, therefore, handle all ticklish and important
matters himself without taking any one into confidence.
He persuaded me not only to set the papers but also mark
the answer sheets. I succumbed to his honest pressure and
desire to lift the image of his organisation. He told me
that he would collect the papers personally and also
bring the answer sheets with fictitious roll numbers. All
efforts by the employees to find out the name of the
examiner, were merely a wild goose chase. The result was
declared. And lo! 75 per cent of the qualified candidates
belonged to the weaker sex. It became all the more
important for the minority males to unearth the name of
the examiner. This time they succeeded. My name was a
bolt from the blue and became a hot subject for debate.
The corridors of the Secretariat resounded with their
remarks that with Mukerjee as Examiner “Pass to hona
hee tha”. This was the unkindest cut of all. |
Corruption — good and bad IT is for the first time that bribery and corruption have come on the global agenda. An international bribery Act making bribery of foreign public officials a crime, comes into force this month. All 29 OECD countries and five non-members are expected to ratify the convention. The proposed Act has its origin in USA’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. It is a coincidence that almost simultaneously an Act of far-reaching consequence to curb corruption is coming up in our country. Transparency International, a Berlin-based organisation, prepares a corruption index for countries. As per its latest index, India’s corruption level has gone up. The increase in corruption in 1998 is 22 p.c. over the 1980-85 level. During this period the increase for other countries is Germany (3 p.c.) the U.S.A. (11 p.c.), France (20 p.c.) Japan (26 p.c.), South Africa (30 p.c.), Italy (6 p.c.) and Russia (53 p.c.). Some countries have shown a fall in cases of corruption such as Denmark (25 p.c.), Sweden (19 p.c.), Canada (10 p.c.) and Britain (9 p.c.). Most interestingly, corruption in Indonesia has fallen by 900 p.c. and in Nigeria by 90 p.c. Economists are divided on the outcome of corruption. According to one view, corruption creates inefficiency and countries tend to lose out in global competition. However, countries like Thailand and South Korea showed higher growth despite corrupt environs. Italy’s economic might is growing and its G.D.P. is at level with relatively virtuous Britain. Economists distinguish between good and bad corruption. Small “grease payments” spur slothful bureaucrats and are good. However, pay-offs to ministers and others to approve projects with self-interest at the Centre is certainly bad. Corruption acts as a tax on foreign direct investment. “An increase in the corruption level from that of Singapore to that of Mexico is equivalent to raising tax rate by over 20 per cent. In certain countries bribery is too burdensome for foreign companies and they avoid it. Unilever pulled out of Bulgaria rather than pay bribes. It has been observed that when India and Taiwan devolved power from the central to the state governments opportunities for bribery multiplied. On the CVC’s advice, the Law Commission is proposing a Bill to check corrupt public servants. It is entitled “Corrupt Public Servants (forfeiture of property) Act, 1999”. The CVC shall be the competent authority under the Act, which is modelled on the line of the Smugglers, Foreign Exchange Manipulators (forfeiture of property) Act 1976, which was upheld by a nine-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in 1994. Under the Act, the CVC and other commissions could give notice to a public servant seeking an affidavit on the means of acquisition of property as well as that held by him in the name of relatives and friends. Failure to authenticate the means of acquisition would result in its forfeiture. The proposed Act would be made applicable retrospectively to get hold of properties amassed by public servants in the past. The proposed legislation has 27 Sections and gives a wider meaning to the term — relatives and associates — of the public servant. Public servants would include all employees of Central Government and its undertakings, all present and past ministers, MPs and persons termed public servants under the Prevention of Corruption Act. Transparency of official decisions is essential to curb corruption. The Official Secrets Act, 1923, should be amended. It is unfortunate that the efforts of Mr Ram Jethmalani, Minister for Urban Development, for official transparency have been thwarted. Mr Jethmalani cites the 1982 Supreme Court judgement to stress that he needs no new law or statute to do so. The benefits of openness have been demonstrated in Rajasthan, though at the village level. The people’s group in some villages compares official documents with the work actually performed. In one case, it was found that about Rs. 50,000 was shown spent on some work which in fact was never done. So access to official records can do wonders. It is an open fact that
the growing menace of black money is the root cause of
corruption. No transaction in the white economy can be
completed without the black component. Suggestions are
coming from economists to de-criminalise black money as
it is simply money acquired from tax evasion and not a
sin against God. In due course black money would get
converted into white. |
Dalit women fight back AT the bottom of India's caste hierarchy is the Dalit woman belonging to the "untouchable" castes. More than 16 per cent of the women in India are Dalit, condemned by birth to provide free labour for a pot of water, to grow grain in upper caste fields, to clean waste and excreta so that the upper castes remain unpolluted. They are untouchable socially but touchable for rape. However, Dalit women are now fighting back in water, land and gender justice battles. From villages and towns all over northern India,1000 Dalit women came to Delhi recently to speak out against the oppressive burden of untouchability which persists despite Constitutional guarantees and punitive laws. At a convention organised by the Communist backed All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA), Dalit women shared the experience of their struggles, celebrated their successes and were candid about the reverses. These were women grown strong in struggle. Nirmala Devi, member of a district panchayat in Uttar Pradesh, drove home the persistence of untouchability, with her wry description of the curious reversal which has taken place in the village tea shop. Ten years ago Dalits were given tea in earthen cups which were broken after use to prevent pollution. But with the official ban on untouchability, now cups and glasses are used and re-used. So upper castes are now insisting upon being served in earthen cups which are broken after use. Dalit woman after woman spoke about the struggle over the right to water. Whether it was Yashoda Devi from Hajipur in Bihar or Rameshwari Devi from Sikar in Rajasthan, practically all the women testified to difficulties in access to water. In line with the power hierarchy in the village, hand pumps and taps are installed in upper caste areas of each village. Only after upper caste women have taken their fill of water for drinking, have washed their utensils and clothes and bathed their animals is a Dalit woman allowed to draw water. Often she is expected to perform chores like washing clothes for upper caste women in exchange for a pot of water. And if the handpump or tap is directly touched — i.e polluted — then it has to be repeatedly washed to cleanse it. How heavy this burden of fetching water still is for Dalit women was revealed in a survey undertaken by AIDWA activists in Haryana. Drawing up a simple questionnaire Bimla Devi, the AIDWA district secretary in Rohtak, interviewed women in seven districts covering 10 to 15 villages in each district in September and October,1998. Most of these villages had hand pumps and access to an hour of municipal water supply from public water taps. The survey, however, showed that on an average a Dalit woman has to go a distance of 2 km to reach a water source which is usually located in an upper caste area. For a pot of water she has to wait up to three hours. In a day some six hours are spent on water chores. In contrast upper caste women spend less than a third of the time and use double the quantity of water as a Dalit household. Moreover, 'begaar' or free labour is expected in return for a pot of water. The testimonies revealed that Dalit women are not only victims of the savagery of upper caste men but also of upper caste women. Upper caste women let then wash dirty utensils outside but will not let them pollute their kitchens. Many Dalit women do not divulge their caste so as to be able to get domestic work. The Delhi convention recognised the need to break this divide of women against women and to build solidarity between both groups. Non-Dalit women have to be drawn into the struggle against untouchability. House to house campaigns have to build support for "everyone's village everyone's water" concretised in the form of fund collection for joint water supply resources for all castes. For landless Dalits, oppression means the denial of access for toilet facilities in the landlord's fields. In Sikar in Rajasthan, Dalit women were prevented by upper caste women armed with lathis from using a secluded spot in the landlord's fields. In Pehrawar village, Haryana, a Brahmin versus Dalit confrontation led to the Dalit community being denied access to the landlord's fields. As a consequence all 15 Dalit families left the village. This confrontation arose over the rape of a Dalit girl who had gone to relieve herself in the landlord's fields. Subsequently beef was thrown into a well in t he Dalit area and they were taunted that since Dalits eat flesh they should have no objections to drinking from the well. Dalit women comprise 66 per cent of all female agricultural workers. Except in West Bengal and Kerala, where Dalits have benefited from land reform, they are mostly landless workers. But in Chakya Naogar near Varanasi, Dalit women have taken control of the land which their parents and grandparents had cleared and cultivated for the Raja of Benares. since 1984 Dalit women in the Bairat struggle have stood up to the musclemen of the Raja. When the former Raja falsely staked claim to 500 bighas of land, the women decided to stop giving the Raja his customary half share of the produce of the land. Backed by the Janvadi Mahila Samiti, they eventually forced the former Raja to accept a compromise. Fifteen years after the struggle began, Nirmala Devi, a member of the district panchayat, said with pride at the Delhi meet, that the women had just come from sowing 350 bighas of the land. They are now demanding land title deeds in their name. For Dalits, the most difficult struggle has been justice against sexual violence, especially as retaliation against Dalit assertion inevitably takes the form of public sexual violence — women being raped, stripped and paraded naked in the street. But where women have organised, small successes have been achieved. Subhashini Ali, a former member of Parliament, recounted how in 1995 Kaitmai village in Fatehpur in Uttar Pradesh hit the headlines because a raped Dalit woman, Sonia Passi, went all the way to Lucknow to file an FIR. Kaitmai's villagers lived in terror of an upper caste landlord called Maula. All the able bodied men had fled for fear of Maula and there was hardly a woman who had not been raped. Passi journeyed to Lucknow because the local police was in league with Maula. Backed by the Mahila Samiti, the Dalit women fought off Maula and saw to it that he was jailed for a year, two of the accused in the rape case were arrested and compensation of Rs 50,000 was paid to the victim. Women's unity against
systems and cultures of caste apartheid and social
inequality was at the core of the Delhi meet. Hearing the
militant testimonies, it was evident that the question of
Dalit women's rights will force itself onto the agenda of
the women's movements. — WFS |
Spread
of spiritualism SIR Arthur Conan Doyle has landed in Liverpool on return from his visit to America. He is more convinced than ever that spiritualism is the greatest thing in the world. He told an interviewer that spiritualism is sweeping America from end to end, but denied the statement attributed to him in the New York press that it would be possible in three days to communicate with President Harding. What he said was that
three days were required after death as a period of rest
to enable the souls to prepare for their new experience.
For genuine mediums he suggested that churches be given
power to issue certificates renewable if the holder
proved his credentials. |
 |
 |
| Nation
| Punjab | Haryana | Himachal Pradesh | Jammu & Kashmir | | Chandigarh | Business | Sport | | Mailbag | Spotlight | World | 50 years of Independence | Weather | | Search | Subscribe | Archive | Suggestion | Home | E-mail | |
