Burning at the stake
ATTACKS on Christians are no more an internal affair of the country, even if they ever were.

Sharif v judiciary
ON paper Mr Nawaz Sharif is the most powerful Prime Minister Pakistan has ever had.

Peace plan for Kosovo
YUGOSLAVIA’s Kosovo province has been in the news for a long time for the large-scale destruction of human lives and property there.

BMW HIT-AND-RUN CASE
Criminalisation of the elite
by Praful Bidwai
LIKE growing criminalisation of politics, we are witnessing the criminalisation of the topmost layers of our elite.

Secession is no crime in Ethiopia
by Hari Sharan Chhabra
THE world over, whether the countries have democratic or authoritarian regimes, secession is the most hated word.Any attempt at secession is considered treasonable.

The moving finger writes...
by Jayanti Roy
YOUR handwriting is like your face, you cannot escape it.

President-CJI quota tussle
By Anupam Gupta
DID, or did not, the President of India propose a quota for dalits and women in appointments to the Supreme Court?

State tableaux with a touch of irony
Humra Quraishi
WHEN you sit and watch the Republic Day celebrations on your television sets, while applauding the parade and the tableaux, do think about the Delhiite who has braved traffic restrictions the whole of last week?

75 Years Ago

Turkish Peace
THE Turkish Peace Celebrations are taking place. The Hyderabad city is being illuminated.

Burning at the stake

ATTACKS on Christians are no more an internal affair of the country, even if they ever were. The brutal murder of an Australian missionary and his two sons in a tribal district in Orissa will inevitably attract international spotlight on the treatment of minorities in the country. Some leaders will self-righteously take umbrage at outsiders questioning India’s faith in secularism, and others may seek shelter under diplomatic niceties to ward off verbal attacks. But the burning to death of three Australians and the context in which this gory event took place have shattered the image of this country as a throbbing democracy, with everyone living in freedom and peace. It is no more a functioning anarchy, but threatens to be just an anarchy, not in the eyes of Indians but certainly in the perception of foreigners. The earlier violent incidents, all directed at Christians, are different from the Orissa outrage in two ways. There was no murder and both the perpetrators and the victims were local tribals. Yet, foreign press was full of frightening stories, often somewhat exaggerated but grim in a realistic manner. And foreign embassies in New Delhi have been critical of the attacks and pressing for better safety measures. Last week the German Ambassador confronted the Foreign Minister with this question, fully aware of the fact that he was breaking the delicate diplomatic code. Obviously he was acting under instructions from his government which heads the European Commission these days. More worryingly, the US Administration has come out sharply attacking India’s steady downhill ride to sectarian clashes, breakdown of law and order and the weakening secular ethos. And the dollar kingdom has a law to impose sanctions on those countries which deny religious freedom.

The murder of the missionary and his sons has galvanised the BJP-ruled Centre into unusually vigorous action. The Home Minister has called for a report, asked the Congress-ruled Orissa government to crack down on the killer mob and ensure that the fallout is contained. The mighty official machinery will move and, more importantly, will be seen moving. This is what the Centre should have done after the first anti-Christian incident in Gujarat. But the BJP felt handicapped since the party is in power in the state as well. Yet the Centre will be justified, in fact it has an obligation, to demand strict action by the Orissa government and mount constant monitoring of the investigation. True, brutal attacks on Christian tribals are not unheard of in that poor state. One newspaper has reported that some months back two Christian tribals were pulled out of a prison, dragged in front of a police station and burnt there, very much like the way the Australians were murdered. There had also been a case when more than 100 houses belonging to the minority community were set on fire. It is plain that the Hindu Jagran Samakhya, which has attributed the triple murder to conversion of tribals, and its sister organisations have regimented the simple tribal mind and instigated these anti-Christian assaults. The tribal identity is the most powerful among the children of nature and all other identities, including the lately acquired religious one, are superficial. (In fact it is doubtful if they have any other identity other than the tribal one.) If such a tight society can be split by outsiders, no community is safe from manipulation.

Sharif v judiciary

ON paper Mr Nawaz Sharif is the most powerful Prime Minister Pakistan has ever had. When the Supreme Court took him on the Chief Justice was made to quit. Even the President and the army chief were replaced when they questioned Mr Nawaz Sharif. He is now bracing himself for a second round of confrontation with the judiciary. This time the bone of contention is the setting up of special military courts for tackling terrorism in Karachi. The fact that he bypassed the existing legal system to impose his will has once again put a question mark on the effectiveness of the Supreme Court in upholding the rule of law in Pakistan. Who will win the second round is still unclear. However, by staying the death sentences awarded by Mr Nawaz Sharif’s military courts the Supreme Court has indicated that the fight for supremacy between the executive and the judiciary has yet to be decided and the arrangement foisted on the country by an arrogant Prime Minister deserves legal scrutiny. Analysts see it as a last ditch attempt by the judiciary to defend its turf. Mr Nawaz Sharif’s arrogance has reminded observers of the style of functioning of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and General Zia-ul-Haq. Brave noises against the setting up of military courts for the summary trial of terrorists in Karachi are being made by legal experts. Mr Akram Sheikh, a former President of the Supreme Court Bar Association, believes that "it is not possible for the judiciary to compromise on its role. It is up to the government to take an administrative decision and it is up to the judiciary to examine it". Human rights activist Asma Jahangir says that "no law in the country sanctions military courts as a parallel judicial hierarchy, operating outside the Constitution, exempt from control and scrutiny by the superior courts".

But Mr Nawaz Sharif has no respect for legal correctness. Sometime ago when he was in trouble with the judiciary his supporters went on the rampage and stormed the Supreme Court. Although he became Prime Minister through the democratic process, it is evident from his actions that he has no respect for democracy. He suspended the Provincial Assembly of Sind in November, 1998, after his Muslim League was reduced to a minority. He has used the two-thirds majority which he has in the National Assembly not for pulling Pakistan out of the economic mess he created through the Chagai nuclear tests but to silence his critics. In the current legal battle the MQM has petitioned the Supreme Court against the setting up of military courts after a party activist was arrested on a murder charge. The Supreme Court has fixed February 1 for hearing the petitions against the establishment of military courts. However, it must be remembered that the unceremonious exit of Mr Sajjad Haider as the Chief Justice of Pakistan was effected by his fellow-judges who damaged the credibility of the judiciary. After having allowed Mr Nawaz Sharif to poach in its territory, the judiciary may find it difficult to regain its "surrendered" judicial authority. While deciding the case for or against the creation of military courts the judiciary would also have to answer the Prime Minister’s charge that the delay in deciding cases of sectarian violence was primarily responsible for the current unhappy situation in Karachi.

Peace plan for Kosovo

YUGOSLAVIA’s Kosovo province has been in the news for a long time for the large-scale destruction of human lives and property there. After Bosnia, it has been the worst victim of ethnic madness mixed with extreme religious intolerance. Those in Europe who give lectures on civilisational values to Asians and Africans must hang their heads in shame as ethnic killings have been going on in the eastern part of the most developed continent for years. All efforts to establish peace in the region have so far ended in a fiasco as nations of the West have no unanimity of views on the subject. Almost every nation has its own axe to grind. The US-brokered ceasefire agreement reached in October, 1998, had brought a silver lining on the Balkan horizon, and international watchers had begun to hope for a better tomorrow for the strife-torn region. But their hopes were shattered with the massacre of 45 villagers on January 15 in Kosovo, belonging to the Albanian ethnic stock. It was believed to be the handiwork of Yugoslavia’s security forces (which means a Serbian action), an act of revenge for the death of three policemen in an ambush by members of the Kosovo Liberation Army. The Organisation For Security and Cooperation in Europe has confirmed the Serbian hand in the massacre, and NATO has begun a move to punish the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for violating the ceasefire accord as also for reining in the Kosovo rebel forces. NATO, however, faces two basic problems. To ensure the implementation of the October agreement, any programme for air strikes will have to be accompanied by the deployment of ground troops, but neither the USA nor any West European country is willing to risk the lives of its fighters, who constitute NATO troops. Russia has always been opposed to NATO bombardment of Yugoslavian forces as it has its own interests to protect. However, the January 15 massacre has stunned the Russian authorities too, and there is no end to the Serbian attacks on the Albanian majority in Kosovo. In such a situation Russia is now unlikely to oppose a decisive military action to make the belligerent ethnic groups to agree to live in peace. In any case, military action has its own limitations. Even when such a course is resorted to, it must follow a political initiative. Reports have it that the Western "contact group", established for the joint handling of the Balkan crisis, may soon come out with a plan to accord interim autonomy to Kosovo within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia with certain conditions. Though this cannot be described as an ideal solution, it is difficult to find an alternative under the circumstances that prevail in that troubled area where one group is hell bent on carrying out ethnic cleansing as part of its own grand design, and the other group has no faith in the rest of the country’s population.

BMW HIT-AND-RUN CASE
Criminalisation of the elite
by Praful Bidwai

LIKE growing criminalisation of politics, we are witnessing the criminalisation of the topmost layers of our elite. The January 10 BMW hit-and-run episode in Delhi is one of its most revolting manifestations. Criminality is written into every bit of this ghastly event: driving without a valid licence; overspeeding (at 140 kilometres an hour); manslaughter of six; hiding and destroying material evidence; obstructing and trying to deter the police from investigating the crime, etc. The criminal intentions go back to the way the Rs 70 lakh car was purchased without registering it in India, because that would have attracted a hefty import duty. This too is a violation of Indian law and the Geneva Convention relating to trans-border passage of vehicles.

Of course, it is a mere coincidence that the prime accused is the grandson of Admiral S.M. Nanda, who embraced the noble profession of selling arms largely to the Navy after his retirement as Chief of Naval Staff. Clearly, it takes more than a little hubris or callousness to do what Sanjeev Nanda, Manik Kapoor and Sidharth Gupta did. You don’t ram into a police picket, killing three, then lurch into a pavement, and drag four more persons over a good 50 yards, and still try to escape and cover up what you know to be a serious crime unless you also feel sure that you will get away with all this. You won’t do this unless you have monumental callousness towards the non-BMW class, and contempt for human life, especially life of the poor. That is precisely why the accused and their relations did not show the slightest hint of remorse.

The BMW episode is not just a crime involving nasty individuals. It is a class crime, which reveals many social pathologies that afflict our upper crust. These pathologies are becoming increasingly pronounced. For instance, according to the Delhi police, 93 per cent of all heinous crimes in 1998 were committed by young novices, many belonging to the affluent classes. More than 80 per cent of all criminals in Delhi in the late 1990s are first-time offenders. The pattern is repeated in most other cities: men between 16 and 30 account for two-thirds of rapes, robberies and kidnappings, and a good 56 per cent of attempts to murder.

The most exclusive schools in our metropolises are among the most violent ones, where not just bicycle chains but knives and even firearms are brandished in gang-fights. Such fights, typically involving boys of class IX and above, and often between hostellers and day scholars, are common, according to three school teachers I recently spoke to. One of them works at a school where the principal recently had to ban students of class V from bringing cellular phones into the classroom.

Carrying an imported gun ("hot lead" or "back-up" in trendy slang) has become the ultimate status symbol for super-affluent youth who wear Cartier watches, take cocaine and go to five-star discos three nights a week. Insensate violence, or at least a demonstration of the will to commit it, is an important means of expression of power among them. The macho images they cultivate involve the use, or threat of use, of firearms. Guns are the latest fashion accessory in upper crust macho symbolism. Today’s typical young criminal is not a school dropout, or a frustrated man who has taken to picking pockets. He is more likely to be someone who speaks English, likes fancy cars, is comfortable in a jacuzzi. He could even be an MBA. He is far more purposive and professional than the petty thief. Economic offences are on the rise. In Delhi — perhaps our most violent and aggressive metropolis — there were 2,420 such offences last year, two and a half times more than in 1995. Delhi has many rich children who rob lakhs of rupees from their own homes — so they can live it up.

Many factors explain the elite’s criminalisation. Its consumerism celebrates ostentatiously hedonistic lifestyles. Elite super-consumerism has grown especially under neo-liberal policies: freer imports of luxury goods; greater availability of status symbols, such as branded garments and pricey liquor to posh cars; media manipulation of lifestyles; and an official inclination to see "progress" in unbounded, mindless, consumption. Mumbai’s and Delhi’s posh malls now crawl with youth for whom buying a pair of sunglasses for Rs 5,000 comes as naturally as having water.

This upper-end consumerism is related to tax evasion, growth of the black economy and large increases in executive salaries. There is more cash to spend, and the rich encourage their children to spend it. The children will splurge more to compete with their peers. Our youth’s conscience is increasingly devoid of any notion of social responsibility, and any conception of morality other than an instrumentalist one.

The entire upper middle class is inculcating such morality among its children. So exclusive has access to higher education become that scoring high marks by whatever means is essential for entry into elite colleges. A whole generation has grown up for whom education has little to do with unravelling the mysteries of nature or solving riddles of history. It is only about scoring marks. A "good" pupil would rather skip whole portions of the curriculum to concentrate of her/his "strong" subject, to score well. Our education is fast losing its ethical and humane content. Under the influence of communalism, it does little to inculcate the values of responsible citizenship. Social Darwinist ideas have come to dominate the minds of large sections of our elite.

However, two other phenomena are central to understanding the growing immorality of the elite. The first is corruption and bribery. So extensive is this, and so rapid its spread since the 1980s, that nothing, from arms deals to electricity bills, and from school admissions to oil exploration policies, is immune from it. The dissonance this produces between the claimed, legitimate, the purpose of governance, and its reality, is morally disorientating.If everyone at the very top is corrupt, what is the virtue of being clean at the bottom of the pile? If power, money and lack of scruple are all worshipped by the upper crust, why be honest? The moral example set by the high and mighty is an increasingly negative one. It brutalises one’s sensibilities, criminalises one’s conscience and debases one’s public conduct.

Secondly, just as there are no inner constraints upon irresponsible conduct, there are hardly any external deterrents to it either. When you live in a society that does not respect the rule of law, indeed where rules are routinely violated with impunity, the powerful need have little fear of punishment. They know they can get away with blue murder — they have the right connections, after all. This society is grossly under-regulated too. To take a personal example, in the 13 years that I have lived in Delhi, my driving licence has not been checked once. In the USA, by contrast, rare was the month when I did any highway driving, when my car papers were not checked. How can you have the incentive to drive well and learn traffic rules when you can buy a licence without undergoing a test?

This breakdown of the crime-punishment link extends to high crime, planned brutality and pre-meditated murder. Fifteen years on, there is at best token punishment for the perpetrators of the Delhi anti-Sikh pogrom. No top Shiv Sena leader has been hauled up for the killing of hundreds of citizens in Mumbai in 1993— despite the Srikrishna Commission. The BJP’s response to the current anti-Christian violence is to call not for punishing the guilty, but for a "national debate" on conversions (why not one on whether slavery or cannibalism is good or not?) Why should the Sena’s goons feel deterred from vandalising cricket pitches in future when they see Home Minister Advani genuflecting before Mr Bal Thackeray and Mr Thackeray issuing a statement congratulating them for their good work in terrorising all and sundry? And when Mr Thackeray with monumental arrogance says he is suspending his "ban" against Pakistani cricketers for "one year only" — "in response to the request made by the Prime Minister".

The message that is going out from high offices — the defence and Home Ministries, the Lucknow and Gandhinagar secretariats, the Cricket Control Board — is that criminals and thugs won’t be, cannot be, punished if they are powerful. Lynch Law Rules, OK? If this state of affairs continues, Indian cities will go the way of Chicago of the 1920s, or Karachi of the 1990s. Growing lawlessness is liable to generate pressures for draconian "correctives" — with their own perverse consequences. For, criminalisation has not bypassed the police force either. There are 200 criminal cases pending against Indian Police Service officers alone. In Karachi, the army, which has manifestly failed to control ethnic violence, has been given judicial powers to try civilian criminals and produce a verdict within eight days!

All this spells descent into social chaos, disorder, despotism and ultimately, barbarism, with horrendously undemocratic consequences. At stake are all our values of decency and humanity. That is why the BMW case must become a litmus test for us. If our law-enforcement and justice delivery system does not adequately punish the guilty, then no one will be deterred from wreaking havoc upon this society. The criminalised elite, with its power and money nexus, will prevail; it will get even more lawless. This can only be prevented if citizens remain alert and the media does not erase its own memory.

Secession is no crime in Ethiopia
by Hari Sharan Chhabra

THE world over, whether the countries have democratic or authoritarian regimes, secession is the most hated word. Any attempt at secession is considered treasonable and is dealt with severely. But the continent of Africa is quite used to secessionist attempts, divided as the continent is on ethnic, religious and linguistic lines.

Katanga, a part of Congo (Zaire), tried to break away in 1960 and so also Biafra, in eastern Nigeria, in 1967. Both attempts failed at great cost. Southern Sudan, predominantly animist, has been trying to secede from Islamic north for two decades, in what is known as Africa’s longest civil war.

Secession, however, became hated after the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), at the time of its birth in 1963, swore by the sanctity of the inherited colonial borders. The OAU advised the post-colonial African leaders to stick to the status quo as far as the existing borders are concerned, howsoever artificial the borders may have been. Carved out at the Berlin Conference in the last century, these borders paid scant regard to ethnic, religious and linguistic considerations.

But in present-day Ethiopia, known as the Horn of Africa, the word secession is most welcome after Eritrea seceded from Ethiopia in 1990 through a bloody war of "liberation". Eritrea has since become an independent entity. Ethiopians in 1994-95 drew up a constitution with a most unusual provision: It says without ambiguity that any federal part of the country can secede if it wants to. The Ethiopian leaders are motivated by high ideals of unity, but only voluntary unity, not that imposed by the sword. This is the realistic meaning of the notion "unity in diversity".

Ethiopia has a long history that dates back to 4000 years. Post-war Ethiopia, however, has seen two revolutions. In the first army rulers ousted Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974 and in 1990 the army dictatorial rump headed by Mengistu Haile Mariam was overthrown by the forces of Eritrean People’s Liberation Front and the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front. Eritrea became independent and Meles Zenawi, who was the leader of the Tigrayan forces, became the President of Ethiopia. Tigrayans are a small ethnic group, and Zenawi ended the hegemony of Haile Selassie’s Amhar group.

Under the new federal constitution there are 10 regions (multi-ethnic Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, included). Some of these regions are Somali, Afar, Tigray, Amhar and Harar; all of them enjoy equal status in the fledgling participatory democracy.

Ethiopia, under the new unique constitution, held the first-ever democratic republican elections in 1995 at the federal and regional levels. Despite boycotts and allegations of fraud and rigging, the elections in which 40-odd political parties participated, were pronounced by the international community as free and fair. Zenawi’s Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front swept the polls and now controls the Council of People’s Representatives which comprises 548 members and has the exclusive power to interpret the constitution. But Zenawi saw to it that the Amharan ethnic group was also coopted in the government.

There is peace and stability in the country, although the Ethiopians were greatly disturbed by last year’s short Ethiopian-Eritrean war on the border dispute. This sudden war came as a great shock to the government in Addis Ababa.

Pertinently, on the question of opting-out clause in the constitution, opinion in Ethiopia is divided. Some think the clause can be a recipe for disaster in the future. They say there is one Eritrea now, there could be another and yet another splitter on the lines of the erstwhile Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. Others take the stand that the very inclusion of the secessionist clause makes the idea of secession no longer tempting. This group feels that this clause can have a salutary effect in reinforcing freedom of association.

Some analysts suggest that the idea of secession in the constitution runs contrary to the wishes of the OAU, which has its headquarters in Addis Ababa. But they also add that in the foreseeable future there is nothing to indicate that any other African country will be in a hurry to try out the Ethiopian experiment.

There is little doubt that Africa (and the rest of the world) awaits the outcome of the Ethiopian experiment. Political thinkers, who are getting restless with the idea of nation-state, may applaud the bold Ethiopian move; Ethiopia could also be cited as a "model for Africa". — IPA

The moving finger writes...
by Jayanti Roy

YOUR handwriting is like your face, you cannot escape it. It is an accurate, individual identification mark of great help to the forensic scientist, handwriting analysts and experts dealing with fraud and forgery. Astrologers claim to tell the future of a person through his or her handwriting.

These facts apart, handwritings of persons dear to us are like inky extensions of their personalities. We recognise them in an instant. We love, hate, appreciate, imitate and are sometimes irritated by these hieroglyphics. Still they are imprinted on our memories.

Looking at the mail lying on my desk I can safely guess the name of the sender by just a fleeting glance on the handwriting. If it has bold and upright letters where n, m, and rs are not much cared about, it is bound to be my father’s and if it is beautifully delicate it is my mother’s. A friend of mine has such an awful hand that I cannot decipher her letter in one reading. I have to read it several times, each time making new discoveries before understanding the text completely. The neat and tidy handwriting of one of my acquaintances, precise to the dots on ‘i’s and nicks on the ‘t’s, inspire me to have an organised and well planned life like him. My brother’s spidery scrawl leaves me frustrated as it reminds me of the hours of unsuccessful efforts that I’ve put correcting his "u", "v", "n" and "r" s.

A distant cousin’s writing is just like a gilded script. His curvaceous alphabets with their delicate, tendril-like characters are so aesthetic that whenever there is a marriage in the whole clan he has to serve as invitation card-address writer. Another person I know has a dual personality as portrayed by his writing that appears aesthetically beautiful but is actually unreadable. Another friend who loves fun and frolic liberally uses exclamation marks, hyphens, colons and semi-colons, which are grammatically not required at all.

When I first taught writing to our maid Maya, her first attempts were a bit wobbly and unsteady, as if trying to stand on their own feet. The characters magically became bold and strong when she gained confidence in her new skill.

Our teachers laid great emphasis on handwriting in those days, we were forced to write pages and pages of "sulekh" until our hands ached and the writing emerged vivid and beautiful. Our Urdu teacher would punish us severely if we committed mistakes in the lines, curves or "nukta’s". He was specially critical of a classfellow whose writing according to our teacher resembled the footprints of a cockroach with legs dipped in ink. We were time and again warned about writing legibly in exam papers otherwise the examiner would just put a zero for the answer.

That is exactly what Devang Girish Sanghvi, MBBS student of Mumbai University, has been experiencing. He has failed to clear his papers in eight consecutive attempts. A fact-finding committee set up to look after the matter had recommended that he be allowed to read his answers to the examiners.

Mahatma Gandhi had expressed his grief over his bad handwriting in his autobiography. Some handwriting expert should come out with an explanation about how they can predict and relate his greatness through his untidy and illegible handwriting.

President-CJI quota tussle

By Anupam Gupta

DID, or did not, the President of India propose a quota for dalits and women in appointments to the Supreme Court? The more the suspicion is sought to be dispelled by distinguished writers, the more suspicious it all becomes.

The President "has a point", none other than Fali Nariman wrote in The Hindustan Times on January 19, reacting to India Today’s cover story, the story that has created a storm. There has been a "Jewish seat" in the Supreme Court of the USA, he said, implying that advocacy of a "Dalit seat" in our own Supreme Court is not that novel or unprecedented.

The latest is Rajesh Ramachandran’s "The Conflict That Never Was", carried yesterday by The Hindustan Times. He "explains exactly what happened" between the President, PMO and Chief Justice, claimed the sub-heading, compelling the reader’s attention. Care is usually taken to ensure regional and community representation in appointing Supreme Court Judges, said the article, but the Supreme Court "hasn’t had an SC or ST judge" after Justice K. Ramaswamy retired in 1997. "This has apparently been exercising the President..."

The raking up of the controversy has more to do with the souring of relations between the President and the BJP government, wrote Ramachandran. In an attempt to retaliate against Narayanan, motivated quarters leaked his noting (on a Judges’ appointment file, to India Today), twisting what he had said.

The leak, he pointed out, served another purpose as well: the backlash would destroy chances of elevation to the Supreme Court of "Dalit Chief Justices" K.G. Balakrishnan and Om Prakash of Gujarat and Kerala respectively. Only 53, Justice Balakrishnan, if elevated, "could well go on to become the first Dalit Chief Justice of India."

In all fairness to the President, it does appear that the India Today story was intended to serve a larger, political purpose. Shorn of niceties and without mincing words, the purpose may be stated to be: to cut the President to size. From his refusal to impose President’s rule in Bihar — a refusal which did the Indian Constitution proud — to his ideologically charged interview with N. Ram, the Marxist editor of the Frontline magazine, on the eve of Independence Day in lieu of the customary address to the nation, Mr K. R. Narayanan has repeatedly demonstrated his ability to think independently instead of being a personable rubber stamp.

The India Today story, highlighting an issue where the President’s persona cannot, in the public perception, be separated from his philosophy, is someone’s answer to a Head of State who does not toe his government’s line. And it is no coincidence that, apart from addressing the merits of the issue (of reservation in appointments to the higher judiciary), the story also questions the President’s constitutional competence to intervene at all in the matter.

And yet, Mr Narayanan could well do without "explanations" such as Rajesh Ramachandran’s which serve only to strengthen suspicion that the President meant exactly what the Chief Justice of India and his colleagues have understood him to have meant.

Our Constitution, Chief Justice A.S. Anand told Prabhu Chawla, envisages that merit alone is the criterion for all appointments to the Supreme Court and High Courts. "An unfilled vacancy may not cause as much harm as a wrongly filled vacancy."

That was the CJI’s answer, a sharp and clear answer, to the President’s noting on the file leaked to India Today. "Keeping vacancies unfilled", said the note, is "not desirable given the need for representation of different sections of society and the volume of work which the Supreme Court is required to handle."

"I would like to record my views", added the President on November 28, "that while recommending the appointment of Supreme Court Judges, it would be consonant with constitutional principles and the nation’s social objectives if persons belonging to weaker sections of society like SCs and STs, who comprise 25 per cent of the population, and women are given due representation. Eligible persons from these categories are available and their underrepresentation or non-representation would not be justifiable."

Looking around the world, this is not the first time that suchlike views have been expressed in relation to the higher judiciary. And rejected. It is "not the function of the judiciary to be representative of the population as a whole," Lord Mackay of Clashfern, Lord Chancellor of England from 1987 to May, 1997, said in November, 1991. Indeed, he said, "nothing would be worse for the reputation of the judiciary than for me to lower the standards for appointments to the judiciary simply to ensure a different racial or sexual mix." I quote from "The Independence of the Judiciary: The View from the Lord Chancellor’s Office" by Robert Stevens, a highly acclaimed observer of the British judicial scene.

Nor is Mr Fali Nariman’s reference to a "Jewish seat" in the American Supreme Court complete. The distinguished lawyer could have referred also to what Felix Frankfurter, an occupant of that "seat" and one of the greatest Judges of this century, thought about such a system of judicial appointments.

Desirous of putting a Jew on the federal bench in New York, US President William Taft asked Frankfurter, through Secretary of War Stimson, to suggest a name. Frankfurter refused.

"I told Stimson," he recounted later in a letter to Frank Buxton, Editor-in-Chief of the Boston Herald, "that racial and religious considerations seemed to me not only irrelevant in appointments to the Bench but mischievously irrelevant. And that to appoint men for racial or religious reasons was playing with fire. Therefore, I would have no truck with it and I begged to be excused for what I regarded a highly indefensible and dangerous procedure."

State tableaux with a touch of irony

By Humra Quraishi

WHEN you sit and watch the Republic Day celebrations on your television sets, while applauding the parade and the tableaux, do think about the Delhiite who has braved traffic restrictions the whole of last week?

There seems little to no way out from this 10-day-long restriction imposed every year at this time around India Gate. Reason? Preparations for the Republic Day Parade and the traffic diversions can be so nerve racking that all the enthusiasm to see the parade gets dampened.

This year, anyway, I decided to go for a preview of the tableaux at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. In fact, it seemed as though a full township had sprung up with tableaux artistes, managers, security guards and workers camping there.

Though there are 27 tableaux but the one that caught attention was that of Kerala’s. Reason? Never really seen a more provocative and daringly projected female bust as the one depicted at the very rear of this particular tableau. So taken aback was I that I stopped there and then to enquire about the rest of the details.

And walking not too far was Nek Chand of Rock Garden fame. Looking lost and completely ill at ease he told me: "Yeh Chandigarhwale mujhe le aaye hain... abhi ‘jhanki’ khali padi hai..." (Presumably the Union Territory of Chandigarh’s tableau was still not complete).

The tableau of Jammu and Kashmir also drew attention because of the general look of cheer and colour and pretty faces in shikara lookalikes.

The Ministry of Tourism seems to begin their "visit India year" on a serious note for the Tourism Ministry’s tableau isn’t just the longest in R-Day tableaux history but also has a touch of freshness about it. It depicts six classical dance forms of the country — Bharatnatyam, Odissi, Kuchipudi, Kathak, Manipuri and Mohiniattam. The idea was conceived and choreographed by the Kuchipudi maestros Raja and Radha Reddy and ITDC chief Ashok Pradhan gave the nod.

Actually for last year’s Republic Day celebrations Raja Reddy had choreographed and directed a dance show put up by disabled children and so impressed were the ITDC bosses that they approved of this idea of portraying our "natyam" heritage.

It is a 3000-year-old heritage and there is no wisdom nor knowledge, no art nor craft, no devise nor action that is not to be found in natya," says Raja Reddy.

And whilst going through the background material on these 27 tableaux, the irony hits you like a tight slap. Though violence against women is glaringly high in the state of Orissa (the latest being the gangrape of Anjana Mishra), yet Orissa’s tableau depicts non-violence. "The tableau presented by Orissa is an attempt to spread the message of non-violence and peace..."

And the tableau of the state of Andhra Pradesh depicts "the novel initiatives undertaken by the state government to conquer new frontiers in the field of information technology. Information technology is the latest key word. The recent development in this field in Andhra Pradesh has brought about a total change in the quality of life of the common man..." but doesn’t mention the recent suicides of farmers who had resorted to killing themselves, unable to cope with loan repayments. So what price this so-called technological advancement!

And the tableau from Maharashtra doesn’t hesitate in describing Mumbai as "one of the 10 best cities in the world". Needless to add, there is no mention of the perils lurking in that city and the danger signals flashing from there.

Not to miss the little slogan the CPWD (Central Public Works Department) has come up with "Slow and steady wins the race. "Yes, the admission of being slow and steady one can understand but I’m afraid I’m slow in following what the allusion to races is all about.

As I had mentioned in one of the earlier columns, the guest of honour at the Republic Day celebrations will be King Birendra of Nepal. The press attaché of Nepal’s embassy says that on January 24 the monarch, accompanied by Queen Aishwarya, and a 35-member delegation will reach New Delhi. And after the celebrations they will visit Bangalore, returning to Nepal via Bombay on January 29.

There is so much to focus on

Security is almost at its height as it were. In fact I was surprised to see extremely tight security bandobast at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, so much so that sniffer dogs were very visible and the entry and exit points foolproof. On the road leading to the airport there was unprecedented security again — earlier this week because of the Pakistani cricket team’s arrival and stay at the Taj Palace (which is situated on the road to the airport) and now presumably because of the arrival of VIPs, from Nepal.

And talk of the high roads would invariably lead to the mention of the much-hyped BMW case, where two youths, returning drunk from a late night farmhouse party, rammed their limousine into a police picket, which killed six people while the seventh is lying injured in one city hospital. There have been heated discussions on the topic, with most people completely overlooking the main point. Till we retreat from the high-party scenario where a near 90 per cent of the participants consume alcohol and then drive back, ghastly road accidents are bound to take place. The only difference being perhaps that in government parties or those hosted by top industrialists, drivers are there to drive you back so that camouflage is there.

With the lowering of car rates, thousands of more cars will soon hit the roads and add to the disasters around. At a wedding reception hosted by ITPO’s chief security officer and on the particular table where I sat a heated discussion was on between a director in the Ministry of Textiles and a senior income tax official and the spouse of an IPS officer.

The bureaucrat from the Ministry of Textiles, MA Ibrahimi, said he seriously planned to write to the police chief that a new law should be enforced wherein driving beyond 40 km speed would attract a challan and driving after consuming alcohol would be banned.

Yes, if only these two laws could be strictly enforced then we would be a changed people.

I must add that in this regard one must take a clue from Bangladesh. Every winter one of the finest, talented couples from Bangladesh comes down to New Delhi for a couple of weeks. They are Perveen Ahmad, a former editor and now writer of books on handicrafts, and Saeed Ahmad, a former civil servant and now a leading playwright (he is now writing a book on Habib Tanvir), and last week whilst talking to them the topic shifted to this BMW case. Here Perveen said the latest trend in Bangladesh is that well-known and well-respected people are themselves going about discouraging late-night partying.

"After all, how much can the police control? It is the turn of the society to try and control the ills that are sprouting otherwise these sort of accidents would continue to take place," she added.

75 YEARS AGO
Turkish Peace

THE Turkish Peace Celebrations are taking place. The Hyderabad city is being illuminated. Cordial telegrams have been exchanged between the Nizam and the Viceroy, the former expressing gratification at peace and satisfaction in the Muslim world and congratulating the Government of India on the notable success crowning their efforts on behalf of the Indian Muslims; and the latter greatly valuing the appreciation of His Exalted Highness.