P A G E
Tuesday, September 7, 1999
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E D I T O R I A L P A G E |
Tuesday, September 7, 1999 |
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Voter
apathy and violence
WORRIES
OF THE SHANGHAI FIVE |
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Is Kargil a dead issue for BJP?
Bureaucratic
juggernaut
Sept 7, 1924 |
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Voter apathy and violence INDIFFERENCE to the sanctity of elections, intolerance to a likely unacceptable verdict and sustained intimidation in the Kashmir valley marked the first phase of the polling on Sunday. Of these voter disinterest is more worrisome than incidents of violence. More citizens in more areas are withdrawing themselves from the democratic obligation of electing their representative. This is almost entirely confined to urban dwellers, both educated and well-off. A cynical veneer marks their attitude, and their interest and commitment have long evaporated after glancing through a few opinion polls and pontificating on personalities and peripheral issues. They thus create the initial mood of uncertainty and indecision but step aside when the time comes to clear the air. A respected sociologist explains this superficial attitude this way. The members of the upper middle class have developed several “attachments” and taking part in the electoral process, a glamourless event which does not promise any immediate and personal gain — social or economic — enjoys no priority. Compared to this, a round of golf followed by a spirited lunch promises more benefit. So they go through their Sunday routine, polling or no polling. Their problems can only be solved through privatisation of services like health care, education, roads and water and electricity supply. This calls for less government and not more, and election is for a strong government and hence their boycott. . The genuine middle class
and the poor cannot afford this luxury. Their life in
congested localities and slums depends on what the
“sarkar” does or does not do. Election time
enables them to have a dialogue with the political
masters and voting helps them have the final say. They
enter the polling booth more with a prayer than with a
choice; the confidence in the netas has long since eroded
but their faith in the ballot paper (now a sleek button)
is in tact. At the time of voting their
“attachment” to the power of the ballot is
total. Political parties tap this by reinforcing their
“attachment” with traditional ones linked to
caste, religion and language and this time the fear or
hatred for foreigners. The germs of election violence are
contained in the poisonous speeches of politicians who
seek to produce a volatile mixture of fear and hope,
hatred and impatience. Their emotions stretched, a simple
minded voter not only wants his “party” to win
but also wants to rout the “enemy”. This
perception of we versus they brings out the dagger, the
matchbox or occasionally explosives and the gun. This
also partly explains why the poor vote massively and why
the rich stay away. In Delhi 45 lakhs of voters missed
their customary visit to the polling booth while just
above 40 lakhs voted. This 47 per cent polling, it must
be said, is the US average, and our gentry is introducing
globalisation in strange sectors. In contrast the 12 per
cent of voters in the Srinagar constituency who braved
the threats of the militants and at least of one
candidate, deserve admiration. Whatever their motive,
their action rings more loudly than the Kargil
denouement. |
Lack of seriousness INDIAN representatives rarely cover themselves with glory while holding fort abroad. The reference is not to sports contingents but to various other delegations, which roam the globe mostly at the taxpayers' expense. Fortunately, they also do not give such a bad account of themselves as to attract universal opprobrium. Like typical mediocre students they are content with clearing the examinations with pass marks. But when the reports that come from abroad start having too many red-pencil marks, there is an urgent need for corrective measures. One such account has come from the International Labour Organisation (ILO), which was forced to drop India's sole representative, the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), from its governing body recently. The reasons cited for the ignominy in the report are that the Indian representative, Mr Subrata Mukherjee, was unresponsive at the meeting. He did not concentrate on the agenda of the ILO governing body, says the report jointly prepared by two arms of the labour organisation, the International Council of Free Trade Unions and the Asia-Pacific Regional Organisation. He has also been accused of not attending the conference "seriously". This kind of behaviour was particularly unfortunate considering that Mr Mukherjee is an MLA from West Bengal. His ouster is not only a
setback to the workers' group in the ILO governing body
but also a stigma for the country. As a consequence, the
status of INTUC has been reduced from a titular member to
a deputy member. A Malaysian trade union will now replace
India. A chastened INTUC is learnt to have decided to
replace Mr Mukherjee with Mr N. M. Adyantha, the INTUC
chief from Karnataka, but the damage has already been
done. It will take a lot of effort to regain the lost
prestige. This incident draws attention to the
performance of Indian delegations in general. There is
scope for improvement in everything from the selection of
the candidates and their grooming to the monitoring of
their performance. In the atmosphere of excessive
government control, the assignments to attend
international conferences are doled out as some kind of
personal favour. Most of the times these go to
undeserving persons who cut a sorry figure in foreign
countries. Why, at times even Ministers go abroad without
adequately preparing themselves. One remembers the
performance of a former Telecommunications Minister in
Davos who was so much out of depth that he did not answer
even a single question put by the international media and
only diverted the queries to the senior officials
accompanying him. The result was that while other small
countries bagged contracts by the dozen, India had to
return almost empty-handed. |
Sachin needs long rest SACHIN Tendulkar's commitment to the game of cricket is amazing. Of course, it is his "hundred per cent" approach which has earned him the title of the best batsman in the world and high praise from the incomparable Sir Donald Bradman. Ever since he made his debut in international cricket at the age of 16 he has matured as an all-round player. Yet at a certain level he is still the schoolboy who along with Vinod Kambli ignored the signal to declare from the coach because they wanted to keep on batting even after having scored a record 600 plus runs. It was this "schoolboy" in Sachin which made him underplay the back injury he sustained in the Chennai Test against Pakistan early this year. In this respect he is the exact opposite of Navjot Sidhu who caused immense damage to his reasonably successful career by overplaying minor injuries as an excuse for not playing in crucial matches. Someone less schoolboyish than Tendulkar would have taken the sensible decision of taking the team management into confidence about the injury he suffered in Chennai. Instead he continued playing in the series against Pakistan and the Asian Test Championship until his suspect back literally packed up. On hindsight it can be said that it was a half-fit Tendulkar who played in the World Cup and overcame personal grief to score a century in the game against Kenya. But the damage which was caused to his back because of delay in seeking appropriate treatment has put a question mark on his career. Sachin deep down is
still a child unwilling to give up playing in spite of
physical discomfort. But the Board of Control for Cricket
in India and the selection committee are made up of far
maturer persons who instead of letting the little master
decide about his fitness should have been more firm in
getting him the best possible treatment. He is too gifted
a player to be allowed to bring a premature end to his
career through neglect of the pain in his lower back.
Even now, neither the selectors nor the board nor
Tendulkar is coming clean on the seriousness of the
injury which has recurred even after the expert treatment
he received in England. He was in obvious pain in the
tri-series in Sri Lanka - although he added a 23rd
century to his already impressive one-day record. He
should not have gone to Singapore for one of those
"masala" tournaments sponsored by big business
not for promoting cricket but for selling their products.
Now that he has opted out of playing in Toronto the board
and the selectors should not risk selecting him again
unless an independent panel of medical experts certifies
to his overall fitness on his return from Australia where
he is scheduled to seek the help of the doctor who
treated Shane Warne. He should be encouraged to take
complete rest until the tour of Australia later this year
so that he is not exposed to the risk of picking up a
fresh injury by playing cricket in hot and humid
conditions. In fact, the International Cricket Council
should review the policy of allowing member-countries to
play off-season cricket just because there is money in
it. The sight of Ajay Jadeja hobbling away from the
ground "retired hurt" during the on-going
tournament in Singapore was not a pleasant one. If the
ICC wants to promote round-the-year cricket it should
develop more centres like Toronto - not Sharjah - where
the weather is pleasant during the months when the
sub-continent is in the grip of severe energy-sapping
heat and humidity. |
WORRIES OF THE SHANGHAI FIVE VICE-PRESIDENT Krishan Kant recently visited Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan, as the chief guest during its ninth Independence Day celebrations. A few days earlier Bishkek was the venue for the summit meeting of the Shanghai Five consisting of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. The Shanghai Five first met at Shanghai, China in 1996. These five countries share a common border of over 5000 kms with eight countries, including Afghanistan and Pakistan. A treaty was signed at Shanghai by the participants to maintain peace along the border and take all necessary steps to contain the movement of militants as well as growth of terrorism. In the aftermath of the Taliban victory in Afghanistan there has been an overflow of fundamentalists and militants in the neighbouring Central Asian republics. China took the initiative in summoning the Shanghai summit after Islamic fundamentalism became a serious threat to Chinese rule in the Western border region of Xinjiang. The Uighurs, who are ethnic Muslims of Xinjiang, have been agitating against Chinese rule for several years. Since the other Central Asian republics, which formed part of the Soviet Union before 1991, were also increasingly being threatened by the growing menace of Islamic fundamentalism, their participation was in the mutual and vital interests of all of them. Kyrgyzstan has been experiencing internal turbulence after the Taliban success in Afghanistan. There has been sporadic fighting in the border region. A few days prior to the summit meeting at Bishkek, Islamic militants had invaded the border region and captured a few villages. They also kidnapped seven people, including four Japanese geologists who were visiting the area on official sponsorship. The thinly populated mountain area provided the militants easy access and movement. It was against this background that the Shanghai Five met at Bishkek in the third week of August. President Yeltsin of Russia and President Jiang Zemin of China were the prominent participants which highlighted the importance attached to the summit at Bishkek. The declaration put out at the end of the summit affirmed their resolve to respect each other’s territorial integrity and to cooperate in the fight against separatism and terrorism. The participants also agreed to give a boost to trade along the ancient silk route which connects Asia with Europe. They also agreed to cooperate in fighting against drug trade, arms trafficking, illegal migration and other forms of trans-border crimes. The two Presidents also declared that Central Asia would remain a nuclear-free zone. The Bishkek meeting of the Shanghai Five turned out to be also a mini summit meeting of the Presidents of Russia and China. In the post-Kosovo phase both China and Russia had made strident attacks on the USA on its self-assumed role of a global cop. The extended and devastating bombing of Serbia and several other cities as well as the infrastructural facilities of Yugoslavia had raised a sense of alarm in these two countries. Mr Yeltsin and Mr Jiang Zemin attacked the hegemonistic policies of the USA and NATO and opposed their attempts to build a global order that was suitable only to themselves. The Bishkek meeting of President Yeltsin and President Jiang Zemin appears to have taken certain vital initiatives in the matter of future cooperation between the two countries. The Russian Foreign Minister, Mr Igor Ivanov, who briefed the Press at the end of the meeting of the two Presidents, spoke of the two leaders discussing the question of development of strategic partnership and defence cooperation between the two countries. Russia expressed its willingness to supply its latest military technology and also SU-3 fighters to China. There are two other Central Asian republics, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, which did not participate in the Shanghai conference in 1996 or this time at Bishkek. However, Uzbekistan has also been at the receiving end of the Taliban menace, with terrorist attacks taking place in the capital city of Tashkent. Soon after President Yeltsin returned to Moscow, he despatched Defence Minister Marshal Igor Sergeyev to Tashkent to discuss with the Uzbek President, Mr Islam Karimov, the need to coordinate anti-terrorist measures with the neighbouring Kyrgyzstan. It may be recalled in this context that both China and Russia had spoken in terms of holding strategic discussions with India separately. President Yeltsin is due to visit India this winter. As for China, during the visit of Foreign Secretary K. Raghunath to Beijing recently the subject of strategic discussions was broached. The strategic discussions with India and Russia as well as China are intertwined with the larger concept of a strategic triangle which was first put forth by the former Russian Prime Minister, Mr Primakov, during his visit to New Delhi last year. For both Russia and China the Kosovo war of NATO was a defining moment and paved the way for discussions on closer cooperation between themselves. As for India, a lot of contentious issues have to be sorted out before the concept takes shape. The border dispute between India and China has to be resolved, followed by a smooth delineation of the border between the two countries. It is not the same case between China and Russia as they had smoothly resolved the border delineation a few years ago. The unpleasant baggage of history which was thrust upon India after the Chinese attack on India in the Arunachal Pradesh sector in 1962 had left bitter memories. In spite of a series of official-level talks, nothing concrete has emerged in the matter of settling the border disputes. Fortunately Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to China in December,1988, led to the implementation of certain confidence building measures along the Sino-Indian border. Later in 1993, during the Prime Ministership of Mr P.V. Narasimha Rao, the Peace and Tranquillity Pact was signed which added to the confidence building measures, leading to the pulling out of some troops in the border region by both sides. It was during the visit of the Foreign Minister, Mr A.B. Vajpayee, in 1979 that the Chinese authorities authoritatively conveyed to him that China had stopped extending any kind of facilities to the various insurgent groups in the North-Eastern region and India could verify this assertion of China through India’s own sources. Indeed, there were no reports that China had supplied any arms or extended any training facilities to Naga, Mizo or any other insurgent outfits in the North-East after 1978. It is, however, a different story in the western sector of India where Pakistan has maintained a close military cooperation with China. It is a different political and military game on the western border and has to be tackled by India separately. However, once the Sino-Indian border dispute is resolved, which is not difficult, given the goodwill and willingness and a sense of mutual adjustment on the part of both countries, the way will be open for more meaningful and substantial discussions with China. The visit of Vice-President Krishan Kant to Kyrgyzstan has taken place at an opportune moment. Apart from discussing bilateral problems, the Vice-President is reported to have explained the terrorist menace posed by Pakistan and Afghanistan’s Taliban elements. The Vice-President’s visit was followed by the Foreign Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh, writing to the Kryghyz Foreign Minister, Mr Muratbek Imanaliev, conveying India’s solidarity with the people and Government of Kyrgyzstan. In his letter Mr Jaswant Singh is reported to have highlighted the problem of militant and terrorist elements from outside and emphasised that cross border terrorism should be combated most decisively by all civilised societies and governments. (The author is a
former Governor of West Bengal and Sikkim.) |
Voter as the judge THE three pillars of a democracy are the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. In our country administrative officials have shown poor performance. The people are fed up with their corrupt practices, red-tapism and harassing tactics. Members of legislatures — MPs/MLAs — haven’t earned a good reputation either. “Corruption begins at the top” avers everybody. The masses in general are not happy with this class too, but they are helpless because of the shackles of the Constitution. Our judiciary shows a ray of hope and inspires a lot of confidence. A judge, a functionary of justice, is held in the highest esteem by every citizen. He listens to the pleas and arguments of litigants and then delivers his judgement. Nobody, rich or poor, literate or illiterate, high or low, famous or infamous, is above the law. A judge dispenses justice on the merit of each case without any bias. By and far, a judge is beyond any approach, any price. In some cases, a number of judges sit together, listen to the arguments of the parties carefully and deliver a judgement. This may be a unanimous verdict or a majority judgement. Sometimes, all the judges sit together to decide an important case. During the ongoing elections many individuals and parties are in the fray, with their bright, faint and dark shades. But who would decide about the right person? The voter, rather the totality of voters in a constituency. A voter is like a judge in a large Bench. And a host of contestants, each pleading, “I am the best one”. A judge is a good listener, so must every voter be. A judge does not announce his judgement in haste; he listens to oral pleas, reads the written submissions of the parties, ponders carefully and then arrives at a conclusion; so should every voter do. A judge does not give any inkling of his mind during the proceedings; this is what is expected of a voter. A judge gives due weightage to the demeanour of each party, its behaviour, its way of functioning. “Liar” is a harsh word and can hurt anyone even if it is used rightly for a particular person or a party. A polite substitute for the same word would be “no love for truth”. A judge keeps such words in his mind and gives due weightage to “untruths” in his judgement. A voter may likewise convince himself whether a candidate and/or his party could exhibit “love for truth” in the past (or if an individual, in his day-to-day dealings). For example, a person says that he has the support of A, B and C, but A, B and C individually and publicly deny it, “no love for truth” is established. Judges say, “no reliance can be placed on such a person”. Voters would accept this view. Cases are neither wanting, nor few in number when an MP announces something about his determined position as well as that of his party on one day in Parliament and acts otherwise on the next day in the same House ! This is how any individual or his party can demean by doing such dishonourable acts. Experienced voters often complain after every poll that every party made fool of them, promising one thing before the polls and doing quite the opposite after the elections. Ring out the old and ring in the new — this is the only solution. Ne quid nimis (Latin) : let there be nothing in excess. Once bitten, twice shy. New and young voters are extremely excited at the time of a poll. They think that the election is a play. But it is not so. Sometimes a single vote decides the fate of a candidate. Good candidates, if elected, may alter the fate of their party or even that of the country if they are in power. They save the country from some disaster even if they sit on the Opposition benches. So, every voter must vote after weighing all the pros and cons. The writer of these lines gathered courage to ask a noble and God-fearing District and Sessions Judge a difficult question: “How did you feel when for the first time you had to order a death sentence or acquittal of an accused tried under Section 302, Cr. P.C. ?” His reply was: “For three nights before the judgement, I had been sleepless, strolling up and down in my bedroom, thinking about the case.” A day before the above oddity, somebody recapitulated how Shakespeare had depicted the behaviour of enthusiastic people in his drama “Julius Caesar.” A passerby was seen from a distance by a member of such a group and he shouted, “Who goes there ?” “Cina”, replied the passerby. “Oh! he is Cina. Kill him”, shrieked another member of the group. “I am Cina, the poet”, cried out the passerby. “Kill him for his name”, shouted the members of the group. A voter ought to take a cue from the Sessions Judge before killing a Cina, the poet, just for his name. Fanaticism is wild and
unreasonable enthusiasm or belief. It webs off imaginary
fears even among the educated and high income people. An
honest poll is unthinkable under its sway. Fanaticism
based on religious issues is its worst form. Voting on
the basis of caste and religion has never helped the
clustered groups. Fanatics coin imaginary stories and
rumours that spread feelings of possible danger or pain
for others. They themselves do not have any fear of God.
No judge ever involves religion in economic and social
matters. How can a voter be a good judge with the above
background? |
Bureaucratic juggernaut INDIA is the land of “infinite” bureaucracy. There is no escape from it, howsoever one may wish. It shadows a person everywhere, touching each facet of his life. Unfortunately, this ubiquitous institution has come to acquire an unsavoury image, symbolising sloth, inefficiency, non-responsiveness, buck-passing and, of course, plethora of papers and proformas. What has happened? What does it imply? A close examination would reveal that some of the characteristics of the bureaucratic system itself conceptualised at the time of inception have become its bane. For example, the hierarchical order and distribution of duties and functions ensure that no unit within the organisation can act on the outside world in isolation. Different units move together in orchestrated pattern. Any piece of business must first get to an individual who is primarily responsible for initiating action. Now, it is this individual who contrives to act — up and down, back and forth, time and again — with others of his ilk and powers that be to cause a decision to be taken or an order to be issued from which action really flows. Newton, expounding the Law of Gravitation, had observed that you can’t move your little finger without disturbing the stars. Perhaps, he did not anticipate the advent of bureaucratic era when the movement of a PUC (Paper Under Consideration) would entail the movement of virtually the entire elephantine outfit, known as the ‘bureaucratic juggernaut’. Further, the officials of the bureaucracy — smug in the knowledge of regular salary, career structure, protection of status — tend to take on an identity of their own. Proficiency of rules and regulations is their forte; adherence to conventions, a creed; subservience to authority, a principle; survival of self, an instinct. Compulsions of career make them proliferate. Since they are supposed to work with neutrality and faceless anonymity, fluctuations of the fate of a proposal do not affect them, nor does the end result excite them. Come rain or sunshine, praise or censure, epidemic or cyclone — it makes no difference to them. Flux of time robs them neither of sleep nor position. True to their salt, these worthies pull out a microscope to see what is visible to the naked eye, hunt a precedent though none may exist. They go about their job with professional assiduity and utter nonchalance. With a profound demeanour they wield their mighty pen to write notes, endless notes, spinning ideas and building arguments for or against. As a consequence the inputs the PUC receives at many a diligent hand, it gathers size and weight; it grows into a file. And the file — God bless it! — in process of time, becomes thicker and heavier. And so much the better for everybody! None can pinpoint with certainty who said what; responsibility is totally diffused — it has been dispersed so far and wide, in space and time that it would require a Sherlock Holmes to unravel the truth. Regarding the labyrinthine journey of files in government offices, we have often heard the tales of woe and frustration of many a victim. Unfortunately, while frontiers of knowledge and areas of function have expanded, structures, rules and procedures have remained archaic and attitudes, hackneyed. If anything, a tendency has emerged to (a) interpret the rules subjectively, on a case to case basis, and (b) pass decisions from level to level to spread the risk of accountability. Frequent change of guard is another phenomenon to bedevil the system and exacerbate the process of delay. But, quite often, delay is premeditated, too, in order to harass and extort. It is not unusual to come across at every other corner a Shylock, demanding his pound of flesh. And woe betide the man who is neither in position to oblige nor call up a godfather to help his cause! The overall impression is that hardly anything moves on its own. The question is: how can
or should a citizen cope with an inexorable set-up
without losing his shirt, or his wits, or his sleep, or
his purse — if not all of them? The plain, though
discomfiting, answer is that unless there is a cataclysm
or the public opinion itself becomes vigilant, demanding
and forceful enough, there is no hope. The benign face of
bureaucracy will, alas, remain elusive. The juggernaut
— slow and winding — will trudge along
relentlessly. And this despite some very fine,
well-meaning and most competent individuals! |
Is Kargil a dead issue for BJP?
EVER since the 12th Lok Sabha was dissolved the routine questions put to the leaders of the ruling combine has been about Sonia Gandhi’s foreign birth. Would the BJP make it an election issue against her? “Of course, yes”, said party spokesman Venkaiah Naidu. Atal Behari Vajpayee said no. Most others went on alternating between yes and no as the situation demanded. However, Pramod Mahajan, by far the main strategist, has been quite forthright, at least off the record. “If Kargil and one-vote sympathy fail to click, we will turn to other issues”. In BJP, it is widely held that Mahajan can never go wrong. The present level of election debate once again adds credibility to the infallibility of this most important man in RSS parivar. The sudden splash in personal mudslinging has been in direct proportion to the sagging political returns of the Kargil effect and the government’s own performance. “Operation Vijay” could have been an impressive emotional issue had it not been over-used from the beginning. The Indian voter seldom falls for performance. After 1971, voters have always been going by emotional negativism rather than positive achievements. Therefore, pragmatic strategists like Mahajan have been sure about the need to rely on the valuable local votebank of the BJP allies for success. Until the second week of August, it looked as if the campaign for the 13th Lok Sabha election was going to be a totally one-sided affair. Such was the “hawa” (wave) produced by the cumulative effect of the ruling combine’s well-planned mobilisation and publicity. Apart from the party spokesperson and Vajpayee, L.K. Advani, Mahajan and Kushabhau Thakre simultaneously showered the mortars. Against this, the AICC spokesman’s feeble resistance had gone almost unnoticed. The third largest group — the Left — was totally ignored. That much for the fairness of our media. Thus a confused opposition, hopelessly divided and fighting against each other in most places, seemed ineffective to put up even a token resistance to the BJP’s effective propaganda blitzkrieg. The warhorse let loose by the Prime Minister for September’s “ashwamedh yagna” seemed to move around unchallenged even in the opposition strongholds. All this gave an impression that the people, by and large, had accepted the ruling combine’s claims on all crucial issues at stake in the ensuing elections. Things began to change only after the distribution of the party ticket for the first round of election. Thus by the third week, it had developed into a full-fledged political debate on all controversial issues. Even issues like the Kargil war, diplomatic success and the “toppling” of the Vajpayee Government, which were thought to have been settled, became subjects of intense arguments between rival political camps. How did this come about? What are the factors that have contributed to a sudden change in the content and aesthetics of the electoral debate? Answers to these queries will also help us rediscover the inherent strength and vitality of Indian democracy and its dynamics. If the political discourse has since degenerated into personalised muck-raking, it has been a purely transient feature which the system can easily take care of. The opposition cannot escape the blame for turning the initial debate on major election issues into a purely one-sided affair. It had exposed their inability to present their views effectively. The opposition’s utter confusion failed to help it counter the official propaganda onslaught. The mainstream media, for reasons best known to it, also could not live up to its role as informer and educator without fear or favour. Barring a few exceptions, official claims were in the beginning taken as the gospel truth. Efforts should have been made to scrutinise the claims and present the “other” view in a free and fair manner. The result has been a sort of partisan presentation of the political events on which there has been no unanimity. In some cases, opposition criticism of the official claims was dismissed as routine and tucked inside as single columns. For sections of the media it has been a case of amnesia — compulsive or self-imposed. It has never been so conspicuous since the Emergency. While some had understandable compulsions, certain others found it easier to be conformist than being a victim of unnecessary confrontation. Power and patronage have not been so effectively put to use after the Rajiv era. The Janata parivar never had the inclination or capacity to tame or hoodwink the media. To be fair, Narasimha Rao had never tried to gag the press which had merrily indulged in campaigns against him. The Harshad Mehta episode has been a case in point. As against this, there have been lots of reports about the stifling of the electronic media, which is more prone to official highhandedness. Media critics have come out with details of the kind of levers employed to come round even the mild resistance despite protests from the Prasar Bharati board and Nirvachan Sadan. It is more entertainment-oriented and not so directly circulation-sensitive. Thus it can, for a period of time, pull on with biased coverage, if it really comes to that. But soon after the Election Commission’s strictures, there seemed to be some signs of a level-playing ground. However, that too proved quite brief. The problem is that once a group of rulers set a pattern, others in future are bound to make it a precedent. Three factors have contributed to the sudden revival of the public debate on the issues once considered as settled. First, the Election Commission’s insistence on the code of conduct after the poll process was set in motion. Though this was mainly in relation to the electronic media, it provided a brief relief to sections of the print media which wished for a level playing ground for all players. Second, when the election campaign began, the diverse forces which had remained dormant, became suddenly active. This always happens. These forces began exerting their own influence at different levels of public opinion. Elections have their own momentum. When powerful sections with considerable clout on the business and media get activated at state and local levels, the media too becomes suddenly responsive. Third, in a free society media, too, works on the rules of the market. At the management level the newspapers will have to put up with the revenue-advertisement-circulation syndrome. At the editorial level it is the credibility-circulation syndrome. This forces even the patently partisan newspapers to be competitive in coverage and fairplay. It is a clash between patronage and credibility. In the normal course, the contradiction may not be so striking. But once electoral pressures begin to work, the rules of the marketplace come into play. It is a competition to be seen as impartial. This was what had induced a sudden return of the open debate and fairplay thus proving the innate strength of the system. The issues have not only been revived but the debate taken to the remotest corner of the constituencies. Is the Kargil war a victory or an unnecessary loss due to the government’s failure to prevent intrusion? Is it a case of martyrdom or colossal casualties which could have been averted with better planning, supplies and equipment? Was the BJP government toppled by a “power-hungry” opposition or did it due to its own failure to meet “wild” demands from allies like Jayalalitha? How many opposition governments has the Congress pull down in the past and how many the BJP? After Morarji Desai, did any opposition government fall without the combined efforts by the two largest parties? How many times did the Congress use Article 356 to topple state governments and how many times did the BJP support it and tried to use it on its own? While the “foreign origin” issue has led to many curious arguments, the “dynasty” debate has boomeranged on many of the loyal allies of the BJP Nephew-son inheritance in both the Shiv Sena and DMK have become the talking point even at the ground level. Sons are shining for the other three allies — Parkash Singh Badal, Maneka Gandhi and Farooq Abdullah. The Congress is forced to answer how many parties will join its own one-party “stable” government if it comes to that. The gathering slanging match on the PMO’s role in corruption has made major scams like the purchase of sugar from ISI, BHEL scandal and cellphone deal known nationwide. All attempts to avert a serious debate on such massive scandals are met with stiff resistance from the system. What surprises one is that each one of those scams germinated under the caretaker regime — not when it was accountable to Parliament. This itself calls for special study, especially in view of the fact that none of the earlier coalition regimes had been subject to such sweeping scandals. Trivialisation of the election debate to the gutter-level mudslinging has helped divert the focus from such crucial issues. First it has been an attempt to steamroll the campaign on emotional issues and personality cult. When it failed, the whole nature of debate began degenerating into the level of denigrating motherhood and womanhold. Sonia Gandhi’s only
contribution, George Fernandes said, was her two
children. Mahajan sought to equate her with Monica.
Another leader called her “surpaneka” of
Ramayana. A smear campaign is in progress to warn the
superstitious about the bad omen a widow can bring to the
nation. Ghulam Nabi Azad returned them by dragging in
Vajpayee’s son-in-law. Unfortunately, below-the-belt
debates always have better marketability at the ward and
mohalla levels. To an extent, this becomes inescapable
under a political system where the contest is being
reduced to those between two individuals. Despite such
attempts, this Lok Sabha election has the distinction of
having a healthy debate on all relevant issues. |
Sept
7, 1924 THE terrible loss of life and the heavy list of the injured in the railway collision near Multan on the night of Thursday last will once again remind the public of the increasing risks attendant on railway travelling in India — especially to the bulk of the masses who pay largely to maintain the railway system. One remarkable fact to be noticed is that the first and the second class passengers have not suffered and this shows that the railway arrangements and comforts are quite adequate in their case, which is doubtless gratifying. The same cannot,
however, be said of the railway arrangements for the
lower class passengers whose bad treatment is a subject
of constant complaint. Apart from this fact that
carelessness of the railway staff, the discontent
prevailing among the low-paid and harshly-treated station
staff must be taken into account and are important
factors seriously affecting railway travelling and the
risks to which the people are exposed. We hope that these
and other defects will be carefully required into. |
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