Poverty is a curse

MY heart melted with pity on seeing, on the front page of The Tribune of September 9, the photo of a young child wiping the front screen of a car in the hope of getting some “bakhsheesh”.

Apparently, the innocent child was conscious of the destitute condition of his parents and wanted to earn a rupee or so by the sweat of his brow.

Quite a large number of ragged barefoot children are seen picking pieces of iron, glass, plastic and waste paper from streets, roads, dumps, etc, or scrubbing utensils in hotels or houses of well off people. Many of these unfortunate children are capable of acquiring education, but their poor parents cannot send them to school.

Sometimes, parents languishing in penury kill their children and commit suicide to get rid of starvation. In many cases, poor young women and girls have to undergo the trauma of being sexually exploited by their employers.

A few months ago some parents sold their children for petty amounts in Bodh Gaya villages. A father had to sell his four-year-old son for just 10 kg of rice in the interior areas of Kanchanpur sub-division of North Tripura.

Is not poverty a curse? I am reminded of an Urdu verse: “Jab tak insaan ki jeb khaali hai/Zindagi ik ghaleez gaali hai” (Till the pocket of a person is empty, life is like a filthy abuse).

On the other hand, self-seeking and opportunistic leaders and their kith and kin indulging in corrupt practices are wallowing in wealth and pamper themselves with costly pleasures, comforts and delicacies.

Recently, addressing an election rally in Maharashtra, the Congress President, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, declared that in the event of her party being returned to power it will try to remove poverty and unemployment on a priority basis. Was it not a demagogic statement to garner votes? The Congress remained in power at the Centre for about 45 years. Yet crores of people still live below the poverty line.

Indira Gandhi also raised the slogan of “Gharibi Hatao” on the eve of Lok Sabha elections. But after ensconcing herself in the Prime Ministerial chair she brusquely said that she had no magic wand to eradicate poverty.

BHAGWAN SINGH
Qadian

Monopolising politics

As far as India is concerned, we have completed the first step towards the attainment of full democracy. We have given one right to our people and that is the right to vote. And it is on record that poor people come in large numbers to polling booths and stand in a queue for casting their votes. Those who are rich or well off do not come to these booths because standing along with poor and common people is against their dignity and that is the reason why the percentage of votes polled has not reached 80 per cent.

This time more people have ignored the elections and the number of voters has decreased. If we want to maintain this “vote democracy”, we shall have to make arrangements for moving polling booths so that each citizen should participate in electing a candidate.

Alternatively, we shall have to introduce a proxy voting system so that one member of a family goes to the polling booth and casts the votes for all the members of the family.

People are fed up with the election of the same candidates time and again. There is little chance of new faces coming forward because elections are costly, and the people who have already joined politics have converted this field into a monopoly of a few and they are inducting their own sons and daughters into it. That is the reason why our target of establishing a democracy which produces a government of the people, by the people and for the people could not be achieved.

DALIP SINGH WASAN
Patiala

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Soldiers’ right to vote

In his article on the soldiers’ right to vote (Aug 28) Lt-Gen Harwant Singh (retd) rightly concludes that the voting arrangement available to the soldiers through the postal ballot or through proxy (if and when introduced) being far from satisfactory, the soldiers should be granted the right to vote at their place of posting itself.

Permit me to float an entirely new idea that could emerge from the above suggestion. Through appropriate legislation we may create a “Defence State” consisting of serving personnel of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force and their families, which would just be a notional state created for the purpose of voting only, having an appropriate number of seats (say five) depending upon the strength of voters. It may be designated as a reserve state from where only retired defence personnel could contest or at least 50 per cent seats be reserved for them, thus giving them due representation in the government.

Modalities of polling and electioneering for the “Defence State” may be carefully worked out. Two alternative modes can be thought of. In the first case there would be one set of candidates for all seats of the defence state, and the defence voters all over India would vote for any five candidates (if there are five seats) from among the total number of candidates. In the second case, the “Defence State” could be divided into five different constituencies either region-wise — one each for the soldiers located in Northern, Southern, Eastern, Western and Central regions — or force-wise, say, three constituencies for the Army personnel and one each for the Navy and the Air Force. There should be a separate set of candidates for each constituency and the defence personnel of that constituency should elect one of them.

In both cases, polling would take place at the unit or station level, and the ballot boxes brought to a central place, say Army Hqs, for the counting of the votes.

The method of the election campaign for the new state would be entirely different from the traditional one. One such method could be that the candidates send in their particulars and photos along with their programmes and promises in adequate quantity to the Army Hqs for distribution to various units and stations for the information of the voters. Some other techniques of campaigning could also be devised.

Wg. Cdr C.L. SEHGAL (retd)
Jalandhar

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Saving the Taj

Apropos of your editorial (‘Saving the Taj’), it now looks likely that the level of air pollution might be reduced by a few notches when under the latest direction of the Supreme Court, 53 specified foundries in the Taj trapezium Zone would be closed down if they are not switched over from coal to gas-based units.

Not long ago, Agra, with its ancient monuments, medieval forts and serene environs, encapsulated the spirit of a bygone era. Especially the famous Taj Mehal — man’s eternal memorial to love — which drew tourists and art connoisseurs from around the world. While tourism in Agra has continued to grow, fumes and smoke from the town’s largely unregulated industries have spread engulfing the Taj’s pristine precincts. This has bred fear about the monument’s decay, forcing the Indian judiciary to clamp down from time to time on the polluting units.

In a regime of apathetic local governance, the court’s directives to safeguard the town’s environment have not made the desired impact. Air pollution in Agra is growing despite the efforts at regulating the town’s small-scale enterprise. Sulphur dioxide and particulate concentrations around the Taj are hovering dangerously above permissible limits. The other sources of atmospheric pollution are the emission from thousands of diesel generator sets in the city. This could be taken care of if the State Electricity Board, notorious (like several boards of other states) for recurrent breakdowns in its supply, could be persuaded to improve on its dismal record.

Even when all these are done, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry will need to continue to monitor and follow up the situation on a regular basis. Here it is important to note that it was only after the intervention of the Supreme Court (following a public interest petition on the subject) that the ministry began to address the problem in an effective manner. While one might feel grateful for the Supreme Court’s intervention, the question to ask is whether it should take regular prodding by the apex court to make a ministry perform what should be its normal duty in an area as vital as the environment.

K.M. VASHISHT
Mansa

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Removing backwardness

In the editorial “Two questions for Atalji” (The Tribune, Sept 9) the issue of special programme for social, economic and educational-backwardness of Muslims has been raised in a big way.

The first question is why Muslims are backward. Who prevents them from going to the existing educational institutions? Why do the Muslim social organisations not encourage their young ones to study?

The second question is: why should there be separate and special arrangements for backwards among the Muslims? Why should it not be common for the backwards among all the communities?

ANAND PRAKASH
Panchkula