Mohajir who hatched Kargil conspiracy
‘‘What kind of a person is General Pervaiz Musharraf to accept a position over his seniors”? This question was widely posed in Pakistan when General Jehangir Karamat was disgracefully removed and Gen Musharraf appointed Chief of Army Staff in his place.

Right to information
WHILE the journalists will have to wait for a considerable period of time for enactment of ‘Right to Information’, recently the Press Council of India came up with a law advisory that could well be a trendsetter.

75 Years Ago

Dispensaries in the Punjab
THE Punjab Government’s review of the triennial report of the working of the charitable dispensaries in the Province . . . shows that while there was an increase in the number of dispensaries working during the period, there was a fall in the number of patients treated.

Scribes’ right to information

WHILE the journalists will have to wait for a considerable period of time for enactment of ‘Right to Information’, recently the Press Council of India came up with a law advisory that could well be a trendsetter.

Following a complaint filed by the General Secretary of the Cooch Behar Press Club in West Bengal alleging denial of entry to the airport and circuit house premises to accredited correspondents during a visit of the Chief Minister, the Council advised that once a journalist establishes his bona fides through his accreditation card, it is, on scribes’ entry, not proper to restrain his entry.

The Council held that imposition of such a blanket ban amounted to curtailment of freedom of the Press and that turning back the accredited correspondents from the circuit house on the plea that they could be allowed entry only if any press conference or meeting was called by the Chief Minister was not proper.

“Though the security personnel are entitled to impose restrictions depending upon threat perception, the fact remains that the Chief Minister belongs to the people and the Press as representative of the people have a right of access to them,” the Council held.

Considering the fact that the complaint was made with regard to functioning of administration in West Bengal, where Mr Jyoti Basu is the longest serving Chief Minister of the country, the Council’s decision should be a benchmark.

The problem is acute in towns where the media has often to deal with officious bureaucrats who take shelter behind security concerns in keeping the Press at bay.

Advani’s visit to Jammu

It seems Union Home Minister L.K. Advani has once again woken up to the fact that the Department of Jammu and Kashmir Affairs is with him and not the Prime Minister.

The Home Minister decided that time was ripe for him to do his bit and announced a visit to Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday. Incidentally, last Sunday it was the Prime Minister who made a visit to the battlezone of Kargil and then on to Srinagar.

After all if Vajpayee can go to Kargil can Advani remain far behind. It may be recalled that after the Prime Minister went to Lahore by bus in February, the Home Minister travelled in March to the Attari border.

Meanwhile, the much-touted ‘hot-pursuit’ theory that did rounds in the Ministry of Home Affairs after Advani spoke of it in tackling the militancy problem in Jammu and Kashmir seems to have worked the other way around.

PTV havoc

At least that was the remark of former Foreign Minister Natwar Singh who said it was the Pakistanis who had intruded into India.

The Indian government’s decision to ban cable operators from beaming Pakistan Television (PTV) channel in the country has had little impact. Despite the ban, PTV continues to wreak havoc. On the one hand the government has come under criticism from several media professionals for stiffling information, however, incorrect it may be.

On the other hand, PTV channel continues to be available in other countries and the propaganda it puts out finds its way to India through the Internet. Last week, the PTV propaganda had its impact on the Mumbai stock exchange, where the Sensex nosedived on reports that two Indian planes had been shot down in Kargil sector. The Indian Air Force was quick to deny the incident but surprisingly the Bombay Stock Exchange did not react to the clarification. It was later discovered that several fund managers had heard the news on PTV in Hong Kong and had accordingly conveyed the incident to their Indian counterparts. This incident should be enough to make the Indian Government sit up. A ban is no solution. Propaganda has to be countered effectively by propaganda.

Now herbal pill

India will soon have a herbal contraceptive thanks to the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). DRDO has reported that it has developed a neem-based vaginal contraceptive (Concept), containing NIM-76 as the active spermicidal component derived from neem oil. It has been found effective in controlling fertility in experimental animals and it is free from any toxicity.

The active component was isolated from neem oil in collaboration with Indian Agriculture Research Institute, New Delhi. The process has been patented in India, and the patents filed in the US is under examination. In addition, the active components in NIM-76 are found to cure vaginal infections. The product will be undergoing clinical trials shortly.

To Vajpayee’s defence

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, who has come under fire for his historic Lahore bus journey after Pakistan-backed armed intrusions in Kargil, received support from one of the most unexpected quarters when a book “Vajpayee’s Foreign Policy — Daring the irreversible”by a former Lok Sabha MP, Prof Manohar Lal Sondhi, was released this week.

Prof Sondhi, who had emerged a giant killer after defeating late Mehar Chand Khanna in the 1967 Lok Sabha elections, was then considered a rising star of Indian politics but for some reasons went into political oblivion.

An expert on international relations and international politics, Prof Sondhi had started teaching at the Jawaharlal Nehru University after he took premature retirement from the prestigious Indian Foreign Service before he was picked up by the then Bharatiya Jan Sangh to contest the New Delhi Lok Sabha seat.

In his well argued book along with his co-author journalist Prakash Nanda, Prof Sondhi has offered a strong defence of Vajpayee’s foreign policy and various initiatives of the Prime Minister which have laid strong foundations for the country’s foreign policy for the coming 21st century. Mr Vajpayee’s foreign policy has prepared a solid groundwork for democracies of the world to come together, says the book.

Undemocratic Pakistan

In the book release function of Prof M.L. Sondhi, the Law and Justice Minister, Mr Ram Jethmalani, who defended the Prime Minister, accused Pakistan of betraying the teaching of the Prophet. According to Mr Jethmalani, the Prophet had said that “ink of a scholar was more important than blood of a martyr”. However, in Pakistan the written word is disrespected.

It took nine years for Pakistan to frame a constitution but within a span of few years it was thrown into the dustbin with Pakistani armed forces taking control of the country. Since then, democracy has been an unwanted child in the neighbouring country and misadventure in Kargil is the result of absence of democracy in Pakistan, Mr Jethmalani argued in defence of the Prime Minister.

Mr Jethmalani, who deputed for Defence Minister George Fernandes at the function, had the audience in laughter when he said that in legal terms he was speaking on “false pretext”. Mr Fernandes, he said, would have been an ideal person to comment on today’s development.

BJP’s faux pas

The BJP spokesman’s office appears to be under tremendous pressure to defend the party as well as the Vajpayee Government on the Kargil issue. The job is all the more difficult as the spokesman has to fight a daily battle with the media. So attacks are sometimes focused on media and at other times on the Opposition parties, primarily the Congress.

A written statement on Wednesday last week accused the Opposition parties saying:” Instead of raising baseless controversies, Opposition parties — which brought down the Government of India without having an alternative in its place — should reflect on the consequences which their actions have inflicted on the country”.

Possibly in one of their nervous moments, those in the party who drafted the statement, totally forgot that the Government of India is a continuing entity and cannot be brought down by a vote in the Lok Sabha. He probably confused the Vajpayee Government with the Government of India.

(Contributed by SB, Satish Misra, T.V. Lakshminarayan, K.V. Prasad and Girja Shankar Kaura)

Mohajir who hatched Kargil conspiracy

‘‘What kind of a person is General Pervaiz Musharraf to accept a position over his seniors”? This question was widely posed in Pakistan when General Jehangir Karamat was disgracefully removed and Gen Musharraf appointed Chief of Army Staff in his place. The new COAS had superseded two of his seniors — Lt Gen Ali Quli Khan, chief of the General Staff and Lt Gen Khalid Nawaz, serving as Quarter Master General (QMG). Deeply hurt and humiliated the two Generals, having impeccable reputation as professionals, tendered their resignations. Lt-Gen Khalid Nawaz was known to be one of the finest soldiers produced by the Pakistani army.

There was widespread resentment in the army firstly, because of the “unceremonious exit” of General Karamat, secondly, because of the supersession of two seniormost Lt General and thirdly, because Musharraf is a Mohajir. Precedents were sighted. It was recalled in Pakistan’s media that Ali Quli Khan’s father, Lt-Gen Habibullah Khan had also resigned after he was superseded by General Mummammad Musa.

Pakistan was ruled then by the military dictator, Field Marshal Ayub Khan and protest was considered almost a threat. Lt-Gen Habibullah showed extraordinary courage to send in his papers containing the insinuation. “I cannot serve under a person who was an orderly when I joined the army as a commissioned officer”. President Ayub Khan went red in the face and considered the remark as an affront. He pressurised the Lt General to withdraw the objectionable one line from his letter but Habibullah refused to abide by the wishes of the dictator.

History sometimes repeats itself, one of the two superseded Lt-Generals was quoted by Pakistan People’s Party bulletin as saying. “In protest, I would have quit even if I was an orderly”. The bulletin also quoted him as remarking: “ I thought a soldier picks up the injured without worrying about his own life; these guys walk over the injured .... PM is teaching the army it is okay to do that”. One wonders for whom these harsh words were meant, Nawaz Sharif or Gen Musharraf or for both.

Gen Musharraf was not a known figure in the Pakistan army nor was he known outside the barracks till he was kicked up to the top position by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in an apparent bid to contain the hold of the army on the government. Has he succeeded in doing so? Possibly not altogether. The army still is a powerful factor in Pakistan’s politics, Gen Musharraf does not appear to have been converted into a 100 per cent Nawaz Sharif’s man. It is still open to interpretation if the General launched virtually a war against India at the icy heights of Kargil with full knowledge of the Prime Minister or not. It is, however, certain that the “treachery in Kargil” was master-minded by COAS and, incidentally, its meticulous planning coincided with Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee’s jinxed bus journey to Lahore.

Reports say Gen Musharraf only apprised the Prime Minister of the bare outline and not of the details of his Kargil misadventure. Could he have defied the Prime Minister or hatched a conspiracy behind his back? One does not know what type of relationship Gen Musharraf has with Nawaz Sharif but a report published in the Washington Post is ominous. The prestigious daily has questioned the democratic credentials of Pakistan and expressed the fear that the country is on the brink of military takeover. One does not know the basis of the Post’s story but American journalists do their home work well. Pakistan’s history is replete with back stabbing. The late Z.A. Bhutto promoted Zia-ul-Haq and Gen Zia did not blink his eyes before hanging his benefactor.

There is little doubt that the army remains an important player in politics in Pakistan. Developments of the past few weeks have manifested that the army has considerable say not only in planning and implementing military strategy but also in formulation of foreign policy initiative and Gen Musharraf is evidently, the key figure in the exercise.

Gen Musharraf is the second Mohajir to have occupied the powerful position of army chief. Gen Aslam Beg was the first Mohajir to occupy the high office. He hailed from Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh.

Gen Musharraf’s parents hailed from Rajasthan and, like others from north India, migrated to Karachi after partition; the locals called them “Mohajirs” and “Panahgir” (refugees). They were treated as second class citizens and discriminated giving rise to the “Mohajir quami Movement”. The would-be chief of Pakistan’s army was born, brought up and educated in Karachi and, being a Mohajir, he had to struggle and make his way in the army. He is not known to be a liberal and more inclined towards fundamentalism.

75 YEARS AGO
Dispensaries in the Punjab

THE Punjab Government’s review of the triennial report of the working of the charitable dispensaries in the Province during the years 1920, 1921 and 1922, which has just been published, shows that while there was an increase in the number of dispensaries working during the period, there was a fall in the number of patients treated.

At the beginning of the year 1920 there were, in all, 512 dispensaries in the Province but by the close of 1922 the number had increased to 610. This increase of 98 dispensaries during the three years contrasts favourably with the very small increases recorded in the two preceding periods, viz, 12 and 26 respectively.

The number of outdoor patients treated, however, decreased from 17,192,759 in the triennium ending with the year 1919 to 16,778,250 in the triennium ending with the year 1922.

The Inspector-General attributes this decrease of over four lakhs of patients to the fear of plague and cholera which appeared in an epidemic form at different times during the years 1920 to 1922.

It is suggested that the decrease may also have been partly due to political unrest.