P A G E
Saturday, January 9, 1999
today's calendar
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E D I T O R I A L P A G E |
Saturday, January 9, 1999 |
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spotlight today's calendar |
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Advantage
Badal
PERILS
OF INDISCIPLINE |
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DD
should improve or close down
The
week of Amartya Sen
Greetings
and gratitude
An
appeal for unity |
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Advantage Badal THERE can be no doubt that Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has emerged politically stronger from the current round of Akali infighting involving SGPC President Gurcharan Singh Tohra and his supporters. The decision taken at the joint meeting of the Shiromani Akali Dal and SGPC representatives at Anandpur Sahib on Thursday provides a clear message to this effect. Mr Badal has been given total powers to run the Khalsa tercentenary show by coordinating the roles and functions of the SAD, the SGPC and the government. The historic celebrations to mark 300 years of the birth of the Khalsa is a landmark event not only for the Sikhs at home and abroad but for the nation as a whole. The significance of the occasion, therefore, should not be seen as a show of political strength. Its importance lies in high human values encompassing sacrifice, brotherhood, harmony, mutual tolerance, understanding and selfless service to the people. It is the spirit behind the Khalsa Panth which should guide the tercentenary celebrations, more than extravaganza and splendour. It is the simplicity of the message of the panth which needs to set the tone for the celebrations. Infighting and factionalism which have been evident for quite some time are certainly not in the interest of the panth and peace and prosperity of Punjab. Political battles have to be fought politically. Equally crucial is the need to avoid a crude mixing of religion with politics. The time has come for Akali leaders to do introspection. They should examine the whole gamut of the conduct of political and religious affairs. As we have repeatedly stated, competitive politics in the pursuit of personal and factional gains is not conducive to the healthy development of the polity in Punjab. The state badly needs peace to create the right atmosphere for faster growth. We expect Mr Badal to use his supremacy to set the pace for faster development of the state. Indeed, his real political test will depend on his performance as Chief Minister. There are serious gaps in the functioning of the state administration. Punjab's financial position is a shambles. The economy is yet to show the dynamism that the Punjabis the world over are known for. In fact, the Tohra group and the Jathedars need to look beyond the parameters they have carved out for themselves. They need to be positive and provide a helping hand to the Badal government in its onerous task of rebuilding Punjab as a modern and progressive state. It is a pity that
factional fights have constantly diverted the attention
of the leaders from vital tasks to the pursuit of petty
gains. Mr Tohra would do well to see the writing on the
wall. The Tribune survey of the grassroots clearly
suggests that the people are against the SGPC chief
donning the mantle of a hardliner. They favour the policy
of moderation being pursued by the Chief Minister. They
also disapprove the manner in which the Akal Takht
Jathedar has intervened in Akali affairs by issuing his
controversial hukamnama. Indeed, The Tribune survey
should be viewed in the larger perspective and, if taken
in the right spirit, it should provide the right clue to
the leaders on how to conduct themselves as well as how
to govern the state of Punjab. |
Right rebuff to USA ALL questions related to India's nuclear strength have to be answered by India itself. The American establishment — from the President through the secretaries dealing with foreign affairs of various strata to ambassadors — has indulged in pontification about the “nuclear deterrent” needs of this country. The latest query comes from the US Ambassador in New Delhi, Mr Richard F. Celeste: “How many missile systems and warheads does India need to have a minimum nuclear deterrent.?” Like other self-appointed inspectors or assessors of the nuclear capability of various independent countries, Mr Celeste has begun with the ill-thought-out suggestion that India should define “in concrete terms” its requirements of nuclear deterrence. The Union Government has done well to reject outright the demands emanating from President Bill Clinton's officials in Washington and elsewhere that this country should reveal its defence objectives and means of making them fructify. To say the least, here lies an insult to the sovereignty of India. The Ministry of External Affairs has said clearly that “this (nuclear deterrence) is entirely a matter of top secret assessment by the country's government after taking into account the possible threat perceptions. In a fluctuating environment how can you have any fixity? How can you determine the numbers or the range of weapons?” There is no control over nuclear proliferation even in the areas of administration and influence of the USA. It was not necessary for the Minister of State for External Affairs, Ms Vasundhara Raje Scindia, to talk of transparency or to give any clarification about the nuclear policy which has been well defined after the Pokharan tests. She has taken needless pains to explain that the common man of this country has to be assured of his safety and security and that the bilateral relationship in the entire South-Asian region is gaining stability and strength. Almost a month ago, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had categorically rejected “unreasonable external demands to limit the nation's nuclear capabilities”. He had added: “Our nuclear policy decisions are sovereign functions which are not subjects for negotiation.” A positive environment is a necessary ingredient of global peace and nuclear disarmament. Finding a balance between the imperatives of an effective nuclear force and a non-provocative nuclear posture is at the heart of the policy that the government is following. Why should the USA, the worst nuclear chauvinist, keep on needling such nations as want their territorial safety to remain inviolate? It is right and
appropriate to be aware of the civilisational traits of
the meddlesome nations, besides understanding their
policy-making process. Way back in 1917, Rabindranath
Tagore said with personal conviction that the western
civilisation “is the civilisation of power, and,
therefore, it is exclusive. It is naturally unwilling to
open its source of power to those whom it had selected
for its purposes of exploitation”. Defence and
cultural thinker Chintamani Mahapatra politely remarks
that it may not be appropriate now to suggest that the
USA seeks to exploit other nations. But it is a
civilisation of power. It seeks to keep its power and
source of power exclusive and tries to bully others. The
history of the Indian civilisation indicates that it has
never been a civilisation of power. “It never
believed in subjugation and colonisation of other peoples
and Indian history has been the history of continual
social adjustment and not of organised power for defence
and aggression.” But the realities today demand that
India, in order to maintain a respectable position in the
polycentric world, would not only have to make internal,
social and political adjustments and focus on economic
growth; it would also have to enhance its defence
capability for purely defensive purposes. Our nuclear
policy cannot be managed from Washington and men like Mr
Celeste must think twice before commenting on our
integrity. The USA wants to contain the emergence of
independent centres of power in various parts of the
globe. It has bared its fangs from Vietnam to Iraq. The
rebuff that has come from the External Affairs Ministry
is the most logical thing to have happened. |
Cars, cars everywhere THE advent of newer and better models warms the cockles of the car enthusiasts long used to driving antiquated jalopies. Competition has brought about a sea change in quality. A crash in the prices of second-hand cars has ensured that these are available for only a little more than the cost of a new scooter or motor cycle. That is encouraging many people to go from two wheelers to four wheelers. This move may be a welcome sign of prosperity but also poses a grave threat to the environment. The trouble is that there are just not enough roads to take the ever-increasing load of vehicles. Almost perpetual traffic jams are no longer the preserve of only metropolises. Even smaller cities are having to face the menace. The resultant pollution is playing havoc with the lives of millions. Things can only worsen further. Although the Prime Minister has laid the foundation stone of an ambitious road network, it will take many decades to materialise. By that time the number of cars will again outstrip the space availability. This is a problem to which a serious thought needs to be given right away otherwise time is not far when there will be so many taxes, as in Tokyo and Singapore, on operating a car that it will become a luxury — if not a decoration item — meant only for the super-rich. Things have come to such a pass mainly because adequate attention has never been paid to a functional public transport system. Take Delhi for instance. It is one of the few metropolises without a mass rapid transport system. That is why even those who can ill afford a private vehicle have to maintain one. There is an even greater
danger on the horizon. With diesel in the country being
heavily subsidised to cater to the farming community,
there is a race among the car makers to introduce more
and more diesel models. This is not only leading to a
misuse of the subsidy but also to an increase in
pollution. The sulphur content of the diesel commercially
available is unusually high and the smoke belched out by
the vehicles run on it has been playing havoc in cities
like Delhi. The problem is compounded by the fact that
Indian cars do not even conform to the emission standards
that the European countries adopted in 1966. If these are
to be made applicable, all engines will need to be fitted
with catalytic convertors and will have to have a
turbo-charged fuel injection system to reduce unburnt
fuel. Manufacturers are shying away from this upgradation
because it can make the cars costlier by as much as Rs
60,000. But pollution has reached such a stage that the
step will become mandatory in the near future. The sooner
the Environment Ministry acts in this regard the better.
At the same time, care must be taken that petrol
available is also of suitable quality. Manufacturers of
many new models have been complaining that the fuel
available in interior areas is adulterated and plays
havoc with high-performance vehicles, besides adding to
pollution. The Central Pollution Control Board has also
proposed that petroleum made available to the cities
should be diluted with ethanol or methanol to the extent
of 3 to 5 per cent. This suggestion needs active
consideration because this "lean mixture" cuts
the pollution of petrol-run vehicles without affecting
their engines. |
PERILS OF INDISCIPLINE THE Muslims of undivided India developed a grievance mentality to secure as much as possible from the British, and they continued that mentality even after they got what they wanted and Pakistan was formed, and even after they saw the Bengalees use the same tactics to secure the partition of Pakistan. It will be Sind’s turn next to use grievances. On the Indian side we continued with the fight to reduce the authority of government, and are paying a heavy price for it. The British had developed their authority not only with laws, but with a hundred diplomatic methods to play one faction against another. The Congress wanted to weaken British rule by reducing their authority, and even after independence the political parties continued in the same vein to weaken the rule of law by satyagrahas, morchas and bandhs. Most of our ills stem from this one cause, of indiscipline and contempt for authority and unity, which we think is normal in a democracy. For the first 20 years we lived in the euphoria of freedom. We had respect for our leaders, who in turn set a good example of duty and integrity, and we believed that we would continue that way for ever. Not only has that respect retreated, we have corrupted the entire system of administration, which is neither firm nor responsible. We have made indiscipline a common feature of the land, and if we do not correct it, we too will face disruptive violence. After independence we ought to have changed our course, made laws severe and easily enforceable, made the judiciary the right hand of authority, and shown all in the land that defiance of authority will not be tolerated. Instead, we have made separation of the executive and judiciary into a divorce, sanctified law breaking, made justice a forlorn hope for the poor and the victimised. All attention regarding the judiciary is focussed on the appointment of judges. I wish we could think more of subordinate courts — the congestion, the vacancies, the delays in work, the fact that justice is not available to those who need it most. It is in this atmosphere that crooks are born, and defraud the citizen, and it is with this weakness that we have to deal with corruption and mal-administration. Why can’t we see that in the next century with a burgeoning population, lack of jobs, the economy in tatters, drinking water a perpetual worry, we will need all the authority that we can summon to maintain law and order. Or we will yearn for a dictatorship, perhaps ask for army rule, as Pakistan has done in Sind, or shoot people for difference of faith. Secularism may save us from a total breakdown, provided we do not lose faith in that too. Let us start with an examination of our lack of order and discipline in the central and state legislatures. Any minority group with minuscule membership can disrupt proceedings, organise “hungama”, disobey and defy the presiding officers. A presiding officer pleading for order is a disgusting sight in our democracy. A mere tap of the gavel should be sufficient to stop interruption. Now that TV is showing the proceedings of the house to all of us, the message of confusion and disorder in our legislatures is spreading far and wide. We do not know what the consequences will be, but there will be a message of indiscipline. Nor will their corruption send the right message to people struggling in poverty. What a shame for this country that an ex-Prime Minister has to take permission from a court to go abroad, because he has been prosecuted for corruption. Then take the ballast of our ship of state — the armed forces. We depend on them for keeping us on a steady course and yet we are doing our best to spoil discipline by allowing easy access to courts for every promotion or punishment without realising that military justice and civil justice are different. The sudden dismissal of the Naval Chief seems to be a belated attempt to salvage the authority of government in a clumsy way. If we go by this example, we ought to throw out scores of persons in every department of government. The reaction of the dismissal in the armed forces will be critical, not only because of the injustice done to the chief, but because it will appear as an insult to those who have helped to support democracy at every juncture when it was threatened. In the police, state politicians have usurped the authority of the senior officers, and made thanas the happy hunting ground of corruption and revenge by politicians. How can the police enforce the law when they are themselves imprisoned? It is not as if the breakdown of authority is only in government. In every corporate office, in every stock exchange, in every bank, rules are flouted and nobody is held accountable for losses that run into crores. The lack of integrity in banking and investment companies has become one of the most serious defects of our economy. Besides, if there is no discipline, can the fiscal deficit be contained? We will blame Yashwant Sinha when the deficit crosses 8 or 10 but the fault, dear Brutus, is in ourselves that we accept everything wrong as the ethos of our land. If FIRE injures your cultural pride, you can smash the cinemas, and receive congratulations from the Chief Minister. If a boy falls out of a train, the station master’s office should be gutted, or the station staff beaten up because a train was delayed. If a man dies in hospital due to suspected neglect, the doctors can be thrashed, and in the ensuing strike scores of patients can be pushed to the state of collapse. The biggest defect of our system is the protection of hoodlums of the ruling party. It has made the rule of law redundant. The world is undergoing a
curious transformation of authority. From ruler adulation
we are going to ruler condemnation everywhere. Whoever
becomes the ruler will face it. The crisis of authority
can only be resolved in the world by moving towards a
Parliament of Man. In the national sphere we have to
decentralise, empower panchayats, enforce laws strictly,
and with the help of electronics get all the people of
India into a circle of information which will crystalise
our national thought, and give a needle-sharp direction
to modernisation. |
Welfare of girl child IN the welfare schemes initiated for improving the socio-economic status of a girl child, a financial help of Rs 500 is given to those families living below the poverty line in which a girl child is born. And in the Kasturba Gandhi Shiksha Yojana scheme, it is proposed to set up schools for girls at places where the rate of female literacy is low. A number of women’s organisations have been actively working on improving status of women in society. But the evil practice of female infanticide has been continuing in a number of states like Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, etc, despite a ban on gender-linked abortions. Sex tests have been killing over 3,500 foetuses every year in Jaipur alone. Earlier, the medical termination of 40,000 female foetuses in Bombay showed that people avoid the birth of a girl child due to having preference for a son. The Tamil Nadu government’s efforts to provide financial assistance to select parents and introducing a “cradle baby” scheme have failed to check such practices. Poverty and social attitudes are the main reasons for the prevalence of these practices. In the Delhi Declaration at a summit of nine countries held earlier, the goal of universal primary education of girls by the turn of the century was placed on the top of the global agenda. These nine countries account for more than half of the world’s population, and 70 per cent of the adults are illiterates. A UNESCO report says that nearly 70 million children in these countries do not get primary education and this number may cross 83 million in near future if the present trend continues. There is no doubt that educational facilities in India have increased manifold after Independence. But the country continues to be lagging behind in providing primary education even after 50 years of Independence. A study has shown that girls in 50 countries, including India, lag behind boys in respect of education, and their enrolment in primary and secondary schools is lower by 76 million than the boys; their number in India being 33 million. The Central African nation of Chad has the lowest ranking of 21 for every 100 boys. India’s ranking is 50.4. France and Canada, where girls average more than 11 years of schooling, top the list ranking above 99. In China, the world’s most populated country, 86 females are enrolled for every 100 boys in primary schools and 73 per 100 in secondary schools. In India, elementary education in the low-status groups remains beyond the reach of girls. The family background, ignorance of the parents, backward attitudes and lack of resources are the major contributing factors. At an early age, girls are entrusted with domestic responsibilities and other work to support the family with small earnings. More than 60 million girls in the SAARC countries do not get primary education and the majority do not complete their schooling. As a result, more than half of the illiterates in the 5 to 9 age group are girls. Female illiteracy has been quite disturbing in the north. It is high in UP, MP, Bihar and Rajasthan but Kerala is the only state where there is universal literacy. Female literacy in Rajasthan is hardly 20.84 per cent. It is unfortunate that for centuries, the girl child in India continues to be neglected because of tradition, prejudice and ignorance. The declining ratio of females to males from 933 in 1981 to 924 in 1991 in the 1991 census in India shows that attitudes and conditions have not changed. The decline in the female population is largely due to abnormal number of deaths in early childhood despite an increase in the government’s expenditure on the Integrated Child Development Scheme from Rs 1.54 crore to Rs 608.85 crore. Twelve million girls are born in India every year of which 25 per cent do not survive beyond the age of 15. Nearly three lakh more female infants than males die in the neonatal stage annually. Political will and public
opinion are most important for improving quality of life
of the girl child in respect of her health, nutrition and
education. Alleviation of poverty, universal primary
education for all as committed by the international
community at the Delhi Summit declaration and removing
gender disparities, particularly in the rural areas, must
get priority in the development programmes of the Third
World countries to initiate a process of social change
for improving social status of girls and women in
society. |
Greetings
and gratitude THE month of December brings Christmas. It brings the New Year eve. It brings greetings galore. There is a continuous flow of greeting cards. As the days pass, it becomes a trickle. Now, it seems to be almost drying up. But, there is already a pile. And it is nice to look through it. All very beautiful. Nicely printed. On fine paper. Make a nice collage of colours. Some cards are very artistic. Some truly thoughtful. Some warm and really touching. But slowly, I discover that some of the cards do not even bear my name. Except on the envelope. Some are not even signed by the “dear friends” who have so kindly chosen to wish me well. Some friends are so busy that they have got even their signatures printed. Then , there are some who presume that they are well known. Their “autographs” disclose their full identity. I scratch my mind. Strain my poor memory. The results are not very satisfying. All in all, these cards appear to be so impersonal. Totally cold. Just as good as the weather. However, that is not all. There are also those where even the postal stamps have been symmetrically pasted. Each of the cards appears to have been carefully chosen. Personally. The message is neatly written. In hand. By everyone. These really speak the language of the heart. These cards are symbolic of the old custom of greeting friends. These are as warm and pleasant as the sunny days. These messages of love and affection really brighten the spirits and give genuine pleasure. These touch the soul. And then, every good turn must be thankfully accepted. Gratitude has been described as “the mother of all virtues”. Even the Lord likes the thanksgiving songs. So do the lesser mortals. Thus, I should also do my duty. Resultantly, each of the cards has to be gratefully acknowledged. The messages of good wishes have to be reciprocated. With matching gusto. And I do. Here and now. I convey my sincere and heartfelt thanks to all my dear friends and esteemed well wishers for their very kind greetings. I heartily reciprocate and wish them all the good luck in the days to come. Through all the 365 days. Having done that, a thought crosses my mind. I wonder — Has the whole exercise served any purpose? Has the entire effort been of any use? Throughout the country, millions of cards have been exchanged. Tons of expensive art paper has been consumed. Part of it is even imported. By spending the scarce and precious foreign exchange. Then each individual spends substantial amount of time in writing and sending the cards. Finally, the cards cause a glut in all the post offices. We place a heavy and avoidable burden on the entire postal staff. Mostly at the cost of other work. Have we really spent the millions of rupees for a good cause? Could simple handwritten letters have not served the purpose of greeting cards? Would these letters be not more personal and, thus, warmer? Could this money have not been spent on something better and more useful? Like donation to Mother Teresa’s Home. Or to the school for the blind. Or for the lepers’ colony. Or at any other place according to one’s personal preference. These are the places where people are in distress. To take pity on them may be human. But, to help them shall be divine. Any help shall only soothe and heal. Sharing reduces suffering. Help gives comfort to the man in despair. In this case, the help
shall be the warm greetings to His children. Also an
expression of gratitude to him. |
DD should improve or close down
A FEW days before last year ended came some startling information from the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. Casually, almost in passing, in the form of a note on its future plans, it was made public that Doordarshan and AIR lose Rs 1000 crore a year. Imagine losing that kind of money in an area where everyone else seems to be raking it in hand over fist. But, so accustomed are we to government wasting taxpayers’ money and so unaware are most of us of how this can be stopped that most national newspapers did not even bother to report this piece of news. Other than the Asian Age nobody bothered to report it on their front pages so despite their being a dynamic new Information Minister any serious efforts to rid us of this utterly irrelevant ministry, for which we are paying through our noses, or even change its methods of working seems unlikely. Information Ministries are something that belong to totalitarian regimes. It was in the glory days of Communism when China and the Soviet Union felt the need to counter what they thought was Western, anti-Communist propaganda that these ministries came into being. Our leaders, mesmerised by most things that the Communist bloc did quickly imitated the Information Ministry idea and when the power of the electronic media began to grow quickly realised the importance of keeping such a powerful propaganda tool in the hands of the Government. It was used so effectively by Indira Gandhi against her political opponents that when they came to power in 1977 one of the first ideas that they discussed was the possibility of granting autonomy to Doordarshan and AIR. But, had this happened a whole army of incompetent, unemployable babus would have lost their jobs so they worked strenuously to ensure that this particular idea remained in cold storage. Committees went into the matter, more committees went into what the other committees reported and we carried on pretty much this way till last year when Jaipal Reddy, as I&B Minister, announced a Prasar Bharati Corporation which he said would be the instrument of autonomy for Doordarshan and AIR. It was an ostensibly generous gesture, since governments notoriously hate decontrolling anything they control, but alas one that came 30 years too late. Autonomy would have meant something in the days when all we had was Doordarshan and more Doordarshan but, these days, with 40 private channels available in Delhi and Mumbai it really makes no difference whether DD is free or not. At least not to the general public. Where it could make a difference, though, is to the government of the day but the I & B Ministry has missed every bus that went by so far so it’s possible to say with certainty that they will miss this one too. The I & B Ministry is housed in Shastri Bhavan, a shabby, nondescript block of a building which loses itself among the forest of similar ministerial blocks that the Nehruvian era contributed to Delhi’s architecture. A somnolent air pervades most of these ministerial offices but somehow it is more bothersome in the I & B Ministry if only because you know that we do not even need this ministry any more. From the moment you set foot in these corridors, which smell typically of unclean toilets and dusty files, you realise that if new ideas ever emanated here they would have died a long time ago. Yet, if this ministry is to continue to cost us Rs 1000 crore a year then it is about time that someone started insisting that we get something for our money’s worth. By this, I mean, that if we are going to have a loss-making broadcasting corporation that you and I pay for then it should be providing us with the sort of programming that we no longer see on any of our satellite channels. A peculiar change has come over them in recent times, a change for the worse. They appear to have all decided that the only way to attract viewers is by providing them with an endlessly inane mix of Hindi cinema and shoddy soap opera. So, nearly all have decided that current affairs programming will have to be taken completely off prime time. Even, the softer talk shows which discuss such things as sex and violence and other social issues are now shown either in the kiddies viewing time (between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m.) or after 11 p.m. when not many people sit up to watch. There is, in other words, a niche for Doordarshan to step right into. Television is much more than entertainment. In a country as illiterate as ours the mind boggles at the possibilities of using it to spread literacy, healthcare and awareness of that most vital of our needs, population control. Somehow, Doordarshan has not woken up to these possibilities. Nor has the Government. How else do we explain, for instance, the fact that a Government that needs desperately to convince people of the economic reforms it is trying to effect does not have a single programme on Doordarshan that is trying to do this. Pramod Mahajan is an intelligent, dynamic man, one of the best that Mr Vajpayee has in his Cabinet but unless he defines a new role for the Ministry he heads his tenure will be as forgettable as the Ministers who went before him. In the annals of I & B Ministry history only one Minister is remembered as being different and, alas, remembered for the wrong reasons: Vidya Charan Shukla. But, its time has now
come. Either it transforms itself into a means of
providing good, serious programming of the kind that will
help the country. This need not be unprofitable either if
it is done well. Or, it should close itself down
altogether and let the corporation that runs Doordarshan
and AIR take over with the specific brief that it reduce
the unacceptably large losses that it has been piling up
year after year. |
The week of Amartya Sen
PITY poor Amartya Sen. He must have been ready to drop down by the time he staggered into his (free) first class seat in the Air-India plane flying him back to England and his academic haven, Trinity College, Cambridge. When an intrepid eager-beaver asked him if life would be as in India this week when he went back to teach, he said a thankful “No”. So rabid did Sen-mania become that several unlikely people rang me up asking if I could fix a meeting, “After all, you are a Bengali” they argued. They didn’t quite believe me when I protested. “But I don’t know him.” In fact, the race to get within voyeur distance of Sen characterised everything that happened in Delhi. And it is to Sen’s credit that he got equal, and at times more media coverage than the Christians in Dangs, the BJP conference and even the dismissed naval chief, and survived. As his daughter said in an intimate portrait, they were eager to cast him as Saint Amartya of Shantiniketan. What Amartya Sen needed in all that bedlam was peace and quiet. And the prize for the interview of the week, and indeed of many weeks goes to Prannoy Roy, clad in sweater, chatting quietly with the Nobel Laureate without a trace of either awe or the sort of feverish over-eagerness which characterised other interviews. It was the difference between the professional with greater experience and perception and the eager-beaver amateurs, anxious to bask in some reflected media glory by the mere achievement of having interviewed the great man at all. In contrast, Prannoy was cool and collected, with thoughtful questions of depth and public concern. Sometimes searching, sometimes spontaneous, arising from an unexpected twist in the discussion. In the event Roy gave us an insight into Amartya as a person, a Nobel Laureate, an academic, an economist- philosopher and a very warm and witty human-being. It was the unflurried nature of the whole conversation which gave it that touch of class I sometimes wonder why Roy does not give coaching in the art of interviewing to some of his younger colleagues who seem to think that speeding and badgering is all. It was a wholly dramatic week, what with cricket nuts like this columnist watching the New Zealand Test half asleep, from 2.30 a.m. onwards, the naval drama with Niloufer Bhagwat breathing fire on the screen, the tragedy of the Christians in Gujarat, and the conflicting statements by different members of the Sangh Parivar. There was also New Year’s eve, the last before we enter the next century. And thereby hangs a tale. This year, because of the fog, friends did not drive from one end of the capital to another to celebrate New Year. Most stayed at home for fear of accidents and I welcomed the New Year in the house of friends. We tried all the channels around midnight, and found them equally unfunny. Only Sony had some liveliness although we felt Govinda’s new year resolution should be to cut down his weight. After some hectic channel surfing we tried the local cable channel. And lo and behold, they were showing Fire. A stroke of genius, I felt. Since I had seen it before, it allowed me to retire to bed while my friends thanked this unexpected chance to catch up with the film. On return next morning to
my flat, I complained to our local cable operator and
said: “Why don’t you show interesting films
like that?”. “Madam”, he replied,
“The Shiv Sena also found out they were showing the
film and they barged into the cable operator’s
office, smashed his equipment and beat him up as well as
his assistants.” When I mentioned this to the
producer, he said: “Although the film has not been
banned, the operator should have taken the permission of
the distributor. Wonder if he did, otherwise it is an
illegal show.” But, he added, video-cassettes of
Fire are now so freely available in video shops that he
wondered why people brave cinema halls and cable
reception when they can see it comfortably at home. There
is a moral in this somewhere, but I am still trying to
figure it out. |
An appeal for unity AN Open Letter has come to our notice which is addressed to Messrs C Y Chintamani, C Rajagopalachari and C R Das written by two Bengali gentlemen, now residing at Bombay, the signatories make an earnest appeal to the three leaders and the parties they represent to make common cause in the interests of their country. The ground for the appeal is thus set forth in the opening lines of the letter: —. “It is recognised and admitted on all hands that India was never confronted with problems during her life under British suzerainty, greater and more pressing than those that confront her today. But when forbearance and fellowship, unity and concord, trusted leadership and strict discipline should prevail throughout, we find our house completely divided, absolutely unprepared and hopelessly tottering. “When an all-round organisation of all the forces in the country is the one crying need of the hour to carry on the grim fight to a successful termination — when the hour for one supreme effort has virtually arrived — the situation appears to be worse than ever.” There may be a difference
of opinion as to the actual degree of the weakness of
political India consequent on the division in her ranks
— for our part we are inclined to think that the
signatories are taking a too gloomy view of the position
— but there is no doubt as to the substantial
correctness of their diagnosis. |
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