Haryana without Lokayukta
THE official explanation for repealing the Haryana Lokayukta Act through an Ordinance would satisfy only those who have complete faith in the political intentions of Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala.

Exit poll surprises
IN retrospect, it is clear that the controversy over publishing or banning exit poll was more exciting than the survey results published after each round of voting.

Why drink & damage?
DRINKING has never been sufficiently condemned either by scientists or by society. One drinks when one is unhappy; alcohol in such cases “drowns” the causative factor of grief or disquiet and throws up relief!

INDIA’S NUCLEAR DOCTRINE
Minimum credible deterrence
by T.V. Rajeswar
THE draft report of the National Security Advisory Board on the Indian Nuclear Doctrine was released to the Press by the Security Adviser to the Prime Minister, Mr Brajesh Mishra, on August 17, 1999. It is a four-page document dealing with the entire gamut of India’s nuclear policy for the coming years.

The adolescent & reproductive health
by Nina Puri
THE current generation of 10-19-year-old is more than a billion-strong in the world, and one in every five is an Indian. Today they form the largest section in history to make the transition from childhood to adulthood.

Politicians vie to win over media, poll pundits
by P. Raman
THOSE were the days when most of us went to cover the AICC and plenary sessions in a third class compartment with a four-anna reservation. The AICC office allowed us to sit in the special coach on payment. At the “nagar” you were promptly given a bamboo charpoy, a metal bucket with a tin- mug and a surahi with an aluminium tumbler. All this plus free dal-roti-rice and sambar-rice accounted for the “hospitality”. You rarely got a banana or a sweet after the food. Then we had rows of make-shift roofless latrines and sack-covered bathrooms with creaky handpumps.

Rain birds of Himachal
by D. C. Sharma
TRADITIONS of Himachal though strange, are authentic and deep rooted.One such tradition pertains to rain birds. Legend has it that it rains only when kurl (the male rain bird) and kurlani (the female rain bird) sit turnwise at separate intervals.

75 Years Ago

September 21, 1924
N.W. Railway collision
IT is to be regretted that even a fortnight after the serious railway collision near Montgomery, the officials have issued no statement regarding the cause of the collision. It was stated that the senior Railway Inspector promptly held an enquiry in which, evidently, no representative of the public participated, and sent his report to the Government.

Haryana without Lokayukta

The official explanation for repealing the Haryana Lokayukta Act through an Ordinance would satisfy only those who have complete faith in the political intentions of Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala. Legal and constitutional experts may indeed have found several serious infirmities in the Act in its present form. However, by recommending the repeal of the Act without taking other parties into confidence the Haryana Cabinet has inadvertently sent out the signal that it does not believe in the policy of combating corruption in high places through a collective initiative. The decision to constitute an expert committee headed by a retired Judge of the Supreme Court or Chief Justice or Judge of a High Court for removing the shortcomings in the repealed Act amounts to wasting public money on an avoidable exercise. The proposed committee would be requested to incorporate such provisions in the revised law as would help the Lokayukta to act independently without any fear or favour. The expert committee would be required to submit its report within six months. The bitter truth is that neither the political class nor the bureaucracy is serious about putting into place a tamper-proof mechanism for combating corruption in high places. Mr Chautala is not the only politician and Haryana is not the only state to have virtually rejected the policy of probity in public life. The issue of fighting political and administrative corruption was first given the trapping of a national agenda for good governance by Mr V. P. Singh. The Bofors deal destroyed Rajiv Gandhi's image as the "Mr Clean" of Indian politics. Since then both the Central and state governments and political parties have put on the backburner the issue of fighting corruption in high places.

It is indeed true that certain provisions of the Haryana Lokayukta Act introduced when Mr Bansi Lal was Chief Minister were questionable. He had excluded the period of his earlier tenure from being investigated by the Lokayukta by reducing the duration of the "limitation clause" from 20 years to 10 years. But Mr Chautala has not covered himself with glory by killing the law — and that too without seeking the approval of the Haryana Assembly. There is no disagreement among legal experts that the provision of issuing an Ordinance for introducing a new law or killing an existing one should be used sparingly. The reason why the Lokayukta experiment has been a failure in most states is obvious. When "A" comes to power he appoints a Lokayukta for settling scores with "B" and vice versa. It has already happened in Punjab where the Congress-appointed ombudsman was replaced when the Akali Dal-led coalition came to power. The indictment of four former Congress ministers by the new incumbent has given birth to a major controversy. Mr Chautala probably wants to do in Haryana what Mr Parkash Singh Badal did in Punjab with the sole objective of "fixing" his arch political rival Mr Bansi Lal. The institution of Lokayukta is not meant for settling political scores but for putting the fear of exposure of and action against corrupt holders of high office. If the political parties agree to adopt a policy of "forgive and forget" each others' past economic transgressions, the element of witch-hunting can be eliminated from any future legislation for ensuring probity in public life. Ideally, the Lokayukta law should become operative from the day it is introduced and not with retrospective effect. The basic idea is to make the future less corrupt rather than punish public servants for their past sins.

Exit poll surprises

In retrospect, it is clear that the controversy over publishing or banning exit poll was more exciting than the survey results published after each round of voting. Except for incurable number crunchers, the routine addition of a dozen or so seats to this alliance or the other has ceased to provide any insight into the undercurrents possessing the electorate. Colourless analysis and superfluous conclusions have not helped either. Opinion polls conducted well before the elections were announced had given the BJP-led alliance a commanding lead of over 320 seats. Since then most sample surveys have faithfully repeated this line. Now the Pramod Mahajan-sponsored exit poll beamed by Doordarshan confirms the trend. This is the general opinion. This received wisdom has been powerfully challenged by a Delhi-based English language daily with known sympathy for the Congress. The central message of the latest findings, the paper notes, is that the BJP bandwagon is certain to stop at the danger zone of 270-280 seats and that is the upper limit. Of the 344 constituencies where polling is over, the BJP alliance is expected to win 191 seats; what this means is that it has to win every second seat out of the remaining 198 and that too from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Maharashtra, West Bengal and the North-East.

In UP the party is bracing itself for a steep fall in its tally and Madhya Pradesh, to go by opinion polls, is not likely to deliver 32 of the 40 seats it did last year. West Bengal and the North East are not so hospitable as to split the seats equally with the BJP-led alliance and Maharashtra seems to be still with the Congress if the seat count in the Assembly is anything to go by. The exit poll gives 141 seats to the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance but 143 to the Congress and the Sharad Pawar party put together. If this pattern is extended to the Lok Sabha voting, the BJP alliance will fall short of half of the 48 seats. There is another interesting finding. The Congress and its allies were given less than 145 seats but the exit poll at the end of the third round of polling has already given 126 seats. Simultaneously, its share of votes has gone up from about 27 per cent (opinion polls) to a substantial 38 per cent (exit poll). There is yet another exit poll, ignored by Doordarshan and most newspapers and it has given the Congress 12 seats out of the 30 which went to polls in UP on Saturday. An opinion poll sponsored by the same Nagpur-based newspaper had earlier predicted more than 210 seats for the Congress and its allies and 260-265 seats for the saffron brigade. Figures are the same but interpretation is different and that makes the finding stand on its head.

Why drink & damage?

DRINKING has never been sufficiently condemned either by scientists or by society. One drinks when one is unhappy; alcohol in such cases “drowns” the causative factor of grief or disquiet and throws up relief! One also drinks when one is happy; spirituousness boosts the spirit and then it becomes “easy” to celebrate. However, say, when the liver refuses to accept the effects of the “elixir”, the moment to say no arrives. Individual prohibition is medically enforced. Adults freely exercise their free will in this matter. Among them are women — some very modern persons — to whom “a couple of pegs a day keep the doctor away”. And among them are such ladies in this country who indulge cheerfully in “social drinking” during pregnancy too. For them Dr Jennifer Little and her colleagues at Queen’s University, Belfast, have brought cautionary research findings. They say that women who drink as little as a glass of wine a day during pregnancy could be causing neurological damage to the foetus. The British Psychological Society agrees with them. The research result suggests that drinking could be just as harmful to brain development as smoking. Yet, although pregnant women are urgently warned to stop smoking, most believe that occasional social drinking does no harm. The tests had one central theme: was the brain stem in 129 foetuses developing properly? The startle reaction in the womb should develop at around 24 weeks.

A buzzer sounding on the abdomen, above the baby’s head, should cause it to react in much the same way as a newborn would, with a sudden movement of the arms. The researchers found that 70 per cent of the foetuses whose mothers neither smoked nor drank while pregnant had developed the startle reaction. It would be normal for about 30 per cent to be late in developing the reflex. But among the women who smoked and drank, only 37 per cent of the foetuses had the reaction. Among those who smoked but did not drink, 55 per cent of the foetuses reacted, and among those who drank five to seven units a week but did not smoke, 42 per cent of the foetuses reacted. (These are hard statistics!). Although the babies passed all the physical development tests at birth, the failure of so many to develop the reaction at the right time indicated “some degree of neurological dysfunction”, said Dr Little. The researchers, based at the Foetal Behavioural Research Centre at the Royal Maternity Hospital, are waiting to see whether tests at five months of age will show up any developmental differences among the babies. They say their results are in tune with other studies which have found that drinking as well as smoking can be detrimental to the foetus. But Dr Little agrees that women are not always advised in strong terms to give up alcohol. “There needs to be more education and more health promotion about alcohol in pregnancy,” she says. In the UN there is no anti-drinking culture among women. But in India there is a strong cultural tradition. So, why drink and damage in the name of socialisation?

INDIA’S NUCLEAR DOCTRINE
Minimum credible deterrence
by T.V. Rajeswar

THE draft report of the National Security Advisory Board on the Indian Nuclear Doctrine was released to the Press by the Security Adviser to the Prime Minister, Mr Brajesh Mishra, on August 17, 1999. It is a four-page document dealing with the entire gamut of India’s nuclear policy for the coming years.

The earlier debate whether India should go nuclear is now outdated. It is true that India has been consistently advocating total nuclear disarmament, and this issue is periodically raised at the UN forum. The opening sentence in the preamble to the Nuclear Doctrine says that the use of nuclear weapons in particular as well as other weapons of mass destruction constitutes the gravest threat to humanity and peace and security in the international system. However, since the five established nuclear powers have no intention of abandoning their nuclear quest, and in the absence of global nuclear disarmament, India’s strategic interests require an effective and credible nuclear deterrence and an adequate retaliatory capability, should deterrence fail. It is emphasised that this is consistent with the UN Charter, which sanctions the right of self-defence.

After India and Pakistan declared and demonstrated their nuclear status in May, 1998, there can be no going back from the chosen path. Pakistan has a long-standing grievance and fear over India’s preponderant superiority in the matter of conventional force and arms. This disparity continues to prevail and will prevail for obvious reasons. However, after both countries demonstrated their nuclear capability, a certain amount of parity has come about in their defence capabilities. Whether a State possesses 10 nuclear weapons and missiles and the other 30 or 40, the nuclear parity is very much there because of the “mutually assured destruction” factor. Neither State would resort to the use of nuclear weapons though there are several analysts, particularly in the USA, who hold the view that in the event of a conventional war between India and Pakistan going seriously against Pakistan, it might be tempted to resort to a nuclear attack on India. Even with the present shaky political set-up in Pakistan, it is not likely to resort to any such serious miscalculation. The USA, whose satellites and communication system keep a constant watch on developments in this part of the world, especially after the nuclear explosions in May, 1998, in the Indian subcontinent, believes that a nuclear holocaust would be the last thing that would be countenanced.

The basic nuclear philosophy is “being prepared”, which is a truism even in a conventional war and that this could be ensured only by a credible minimum deterrence. The Nuclear Doctrine explains this minimum credible deterrence and what it means in its various configurations. It has been clarified that it is a dynamic concept with reference to the strategic environment, technological imperatives and the requirements of national security. While India will not be first to initiate a nuclear strike, in the event of aggression by a nuclear power, it would respond with punitive retaliation of “punishing strike which would be unacceptable to the aggressor”. India has also made it clear that it would not use nuclear weapons against States which do not possess nuclear weapons or are not allied with nuclear power States.

The minimum credible nuclear deterrence, according to the Doctrine, would consist of forces based on a triad of aircraft, mobile and land-based missiles and sea-based assets. There would be a command and control system. By way of clarification of some of these concepts, it is necessary to understand that the credible minimum nuclear deterrence does not have a fixity and it is supposed to be dynamic in the sense that it is constantly reviewed to keep up with the latest technological advances. The authority to order a nuclear strike, if circumstances so warranted, would rest in the Prime Minister of India. There would be the ancillary systems like communications capability and information systems supplemented by satellites in space.

Pakistan has refused to declare that it would not resort to first strike with nuclear weapons on the ground that India has a big conventional force and the distances between strategic points between the two countries being so close it would not be possible for them to make such a declaration. Now that India has formalised in the Doctrine that it would not resort to first use of nuclear weapons but would retaliate with a nuclear strike which would have unacceptable consequences, which might mean near-total devastation of the aggressor’s industrial and military complex, would not Pakistan be tempted to resort to an extensive nuclear strike in the very first instance? Among the big five nuclear weapon powers it is only China which has spoken, and that too with several reservations, about not using nuclear weapons in the first strike. The nuclear doctrine about no-first use against a potential nuclear aggressor therefore calls for a review.

The China factor hovers heavily in the background of the Indian Nuclear Doctrine. We had almost formally identified China as a potential nuclear threat against India in the aftermath of Pokhran-II. The dynamic concept and the nuclear forces being based on the triad of land, air and sea weapons would only suggest that India should be prepared for China posing nuclear threat in future. This also explains India’s Agni-II which is likely to go into further testing followed by production. Purely as a theoretical exercise, a nuclear doctrine should be prepared to face any potential nuclear aggressor, whether Pakistan or China or both. If the dimensions of this thinking are seriously examined, the ramifications and their consequences would become obvious. India is the only country in the world which has the unfortunate distinction of being juxtaposed between two potential nuclear aggressors. Of all the five nuclear powers, the USA is most comfortably placed since it is a distant and safe and even the UK and France do not have any potential nuclear aggressor except Russia which is a nuclear power only in name.

But China is a growing industrial and military power and is expected to emerge as the second largest power in the next millennium. While theoretically India should be prepared to face every potential nuclear aggressor, and also be prepared for any eventuality, India should take all steps to bring about conditions which would improve China’s relations with India. In the 1960s Russia and China had bitter and estranged relations extending over 20-25 years. However, the two major powers have since mutually sorted out their problems and also delineated their border which earlier had some disputed enclaves. In the aftermath of the disintegration of the USSR and particularly after the Kosovo war by NATO, Russia and China have become friendly and close. They are discussing the strategic cooperation between themselves and Russia has agreed to supply some of the sophisticated weapons like SU-29 and SU-30 aircraft. It is, therefore, in India’s long-term interest that similar cordial relations are worked out with China after resolving the long-pending border dispute.

Pakistan, however, would continue to maintain its hostile stance with its proxy war and the game of destabilisation of India, whichever government is in power in that country. The Kargil war was authorised by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif himself while he won the elections to the National Assembly on the promise of building good relations with India, among other things. This shows that the rulers, past or present, of Pakistan are also undependable. India’s preparedness and its Nuclear Doctrine should be, therefore, directed primarily to that effect and should be tailored accordingly.

There is the cost factor which puts a big question mark on the viability of the entire Nuclear Doctrine. There are several estimates, but on a rough calculation it is obvious that it would impose an additional cost of about Rs 10,000 crore a year and this will be in addition to the large amount of money which would have to be spent for upgrading the conventional forces and equipping them, in the aftermath of the Kargil war. This part of expenses is expected to run up to Rs 5,000 crore a year. Can India afford to spend these large sums, especially since India has over 30 crores of people below the poverty line and about 40 crores still remain illiterate? In the scale of human development published by the UNDP in 1997 India stood 138 out of 175 countries. Should not India, therefore, divert vast funds for improving literacy and health care facilities and poverty alleviation concerning millions and tailor the nuclear deterrence programme to a more practical and acceptable level?

The adolescent & reproductive health
by Nina Puri

THE current generation of 10-19-year-old is more than a billion-strong in the world, and one in every five is an Indian. Today they form the largest section in history to make the transition from childhood to adulthood. On the brink of a new millennium, it is how these adolescents take their place in this churning world that could determine not only the future of their individual lives but also of planet earth. The marvels of technology today, particularly in the field of the mass media, connect individuals around the globe, exposing all to a profusion of ideas, values and life-styles.

Society today is in a constant state of transformation, and the rapid and unstoppable change poses a dramatic challenge to parents, the community and the government who must prepare the adolescents and youth for the future. Unfortunately, adolescents may not be prepared to judge effectively the accuracy of or value of what they see or hear, and may simply emulate the life-styles and habits which could be detrimental to their mental, physical and psychological development.

In April, 1998, a roundtable discussion on “Adolescents’ reproductive and sexual health and rights” held in New York, which was a follow-up on the ICPD Programme of Action developed in Cairo in 1994, explicitly addressed young people’s need, extending the concept of the right to reproductive health to cover sexual education, information and services to adolescents.

Eighty-five per cent of the current world’s adolescents reside in developing countries and yet health care and educational programmes do not take into account the unique needs of these young boys and girls.

Between 1.4 million and 4 million adolescent girls have abortions in developing countries each year. Births to teenage girls account for over 10 per cent of all births world-wide. In the year 2000, 17.5 per cent of the world’s population will be in the age bracket 15-24 years. It is, therefore, imperative that actions taken during adolescence could affect a person’s life, opportunities, education and health.

It is well known and documented that many married and unmarried adolescents suffer from reproductive tract infections and sexually transmitted diseases, and knowledge on sexual and reproductive biology is poor. With the coming of the HIV/AIDS pandemic into India, the young are going to be the most vulnerable people here.

Today the adolescents in South Asia are echoing a demand and need when, they say, “we greatly lack proper and correct information and guidance, specially relating to physiological and psychological changes, and, therefore, we feel neglected for want of some attention, care and support from all”. They say, “Parents, can you hear us? Do not hide things from us specially when they are related to us.” In India, one of our biggest dilemmas is discrimination against the girl child. For girls in rural India adolescence can be best defined as the period which starts with the premature end of education and ends with the premature start of pregnancy and childbearing. The adolescent girl is beyond the reach of the school system, and antenatal services start only after she is pregnant. Indeed, these girls have become too old for toys but are too young for producing babies. Behavioural patterns adopted during adolescence often last a lifetime. Helping adolescents develop into healthy productive adults requires a safe and supportive environment, accurate information and counselling, training to build life skills and health services that are accessible, confidential and of good quality.

Today, at least on paper, the Government of India through its National Population Education Project in the Indian School System is recognising the need for basic changes in its new phase of implementation of programmes to integrate the elements of the post-ICPD reconceptualised framework on population and education in introducing elements of adolescent reproductive health, of course, under the euphemism of “adolescent education”.

The Indian school curriculum does not include critical elements of reproductive health such as sexual development during adolescence, HIV/AIDS and drug abuse, now being put on the map of national development planning policies. As a national endeavour hopefully, the psychological, emotional and socio-cultural dimensions of adolescent reproductive health will be dealt in a holistic manner, as stated in the policy document. Adolescents need both guidance and independence, education as well as opportunities to explore life for themselves in order to attain a level of maturity required to make responsible decisions.

We in India as social scientists, researchers, service providers, policy makers and as concerned citizens have to take up the challenge of this extremely vulnerable section of society in addressing their needs for a better future as they move into the down of the 21st century.

(The author is the President of the Family Planning Association of India).

Rain birds of Himachal
by D. C. Sharma

TRADITIONS of Himachal though strange, are authentic and deep rooted.One such tradition pertains to rain birds. Legend has it that it rains only when kurl (the male rain bird) and kurlani (the female rain bird) sit turnwise at separate intervals.

I being sceptic, went deep into the mythological origin of this tradition. How could the sitting of two birds cause and end rains? Why does it not rain when they are not sitting? What could be the scientific cause behind such heavy rains? Such questions often kept me thinking even in bed.

An octogenarian, educated of course, once told me how kurl and kurlani fall in love in the month of sawan. It being a pleasant month, they come close to each other. But when they get satiety in love making, they separate. The kurl sits at some secret place where it thinks the kurlani couldn’t possibly locate it. But God is great in establishing a continuous cycle of procreation so that the rare species don’t extinguish. Hence, at such a time, Lord Indra sends heavy rains creating a pleasant weather which compels the kurl and kurlani come close to each other thereby performing the act of procreation.

Another legend reveals how kurl and kurlani are the reincarnation of an old woman’s son and daughter-in-law. They had a pair of bullocks who were their only source of procuring food. Once there was a severe drought and it was difficult to find even drinking water. The old woman would often ask her son and daughter-in-law to do something for the fodder and drinking water for the particular ox assigned to each other.

At that time, the village people had also arranged for a worship in the temple in order to end drought. Soon there was going to be a grand village fair too. There were dances, music and beating of the drums. Hearing the alluring drum beats, the old woman’s son was tempted to go to the fair, thereby letting his particular ox go thirsty and hungry. He misinformed his mother that he had duly fed his ox.

On the other hand, the daughter-in-law ignored the charming fair, but did her duty well. That night, the son’s bullock died of hunger and thirst cursing his master to be a bird and cry for water. But the other bullock survived blessing his mistress to be noble and helpful to suffering mankind.

The legend reveals how the son and the daughter-in-law had been reincarnated as kurl and kurlani. That’s why when it is hot and there are no rains, the kurl undergoes penance, remains thirsty, and continues crying for rains. It sits at some secret place in a meditational pose till the rains begin. And when it starts raining so heavily that it causes dangerous floods, the kurlani sits in a meditational pose in order to save mankind of dangerous rains.

True, animals, birds and insects are the friends of man. They are not at all selfish. It is man himself who is selfish. They are more sensitive than man. The appearance of white ants is an information to man about the approaching heavy rains. The dogs and other animals start crying and howling before a severe earthquake takes place. The kurl starts crying for heavy rains when man needs it badly. The kurlani as per her nature, saves mankind at the right hour.

Hence begins the worship of rain birds and insects in Himachal. Such a traditional worship purifies the very psyche of hill people thereby stopping them from going astray.

Politicians vie to win over media,
poll pundits

by P. Raman

THOSE were the days when most of us went to cover the AICC and plenary sessions in a third class compartment with a four-anna reservation. The AICC office allowed us to sit in the special coach on payment. At the “nagar” you were promptly given a bamboo charpoy, a metal bucket with a tin- mug and a surahi with an aluminium tumbler. All this plus free dal-roti-rice and sambar-rice accounted for the “hospitality”. You rarely got a banana or a sweet after the food. Then we had rows of make-shift roofless latrines and sack-covered bathrooms with creaky handpumps.

At best, we were treated like AICC or PCC staff. No smiling PR boys and girls to guide you nor waiting vehicles to take you to the venue from five-star or four-star hotels. Neither free sight-seeing programmes nor gift packets in the name of a friendly local industrialist. The concept of “media centre” is of recent origin. News agencies had their teleprinters to flash every resolution and official report in full. Others could use their local offices, if any, or the cumbersome telegrams with all its endless word counting and wait in front of the Morse operator. Old-era politicians had hardly bothered to pamper the media. The Press should go to them, and they only obliged — with government facilities, if in power.

No doubt, institutionalised personal pampering and corrupting of the scribes had their roots in the post-1980 adversarial coverage of the Congress. Within years, the BJP began perfecting the art of winning over scribes and influencing their “dharma”. If the new-era Congress arranged free luxury hotel accommodation for the favoured few, the BJP did it for all invited scribes when they go to cover the national executive and national council meetings. To make it more cushy, the BJP earned the distinction of holding its national executive meetings in five-star hotels — in true corporate style. Some smart scribes even collected their hotel “bills” and encashed them at their respective newspaper offices.

All this is to highlight the changes in the style of political campaigns and the new politician’s mindset. Old tools of mass mobilisation are losing their sharpness. Mahatma Gandhi could electrify the nation by a march of few hundred Congressmen to pick salt. Now even massive rallies by a few lakhs do not bother people. Earlier, people used to go as far as 50 miles to listen to Jawaharlal Nehru or leaders of their own respective parties. Now this kind of direct communication has lost its mystique. Sickeningly over-dose of information induces aversion. Few would like to stand Vajpayee with closed eyes jerking his palms or a Sonia Gandhi briskly waving hands to the crowds. Television brings all this right into the drawing rooms.

Earlier, crowds used spontaneously to rush to public rallies. Now you have to bring them in trucks. This has further degraded the institution of public meetings. This facade robs it of its importance as an instrument of measuring public support of the sponsor.

After Operation Bluestar and Rajiv assassination, the distance between the leaders and the crowds has ridiculously widened — perhaps symbolically. This further inhibits public response and participation. Moreover, the once highly political middle classes seem to have developed a sort of contempt for politics. Trade unionism as means of protecting rights and enhancing prospects has been replaced by personal careerism and the urge for upward mobility. Suddenly, we all realise that the middle classes have joined the upper classes — their post-reform role model — in shunning disdainfully any kind of public activity. It is becoming increasingly fashioned to display their prowess in upward mobility, real or wishful.

This obsession with the new middle classes is a worldwide phenomenon. It has been described as “gladiator sports”. Under this, sports is something to be watched or sponsored by funds but without personal participation. In India, the gladiatorial mindset is accompanied by a strong dislike to be seen with economic untouchables at a rally or caste voters at polling booth. This has been the culmination of the contemporary consumerist advertisement campaign. Every consumer product has to be put in the mould of a class of its own, if it has to be depicted as “exclusive”, and the segment of population included is its exclusive club. This persistent pressure to be exclusive has turned into a middle-class psyche. It is a new sort of class consciousness. Thus the good old Karl Marx occasionally comes out of his grave to remind us of the undying relevance of his class characterisation.

The lower polling percentage and public participation are often attributed to voter fatigue due to frequent elections. But some have strongly discounted this theory. According to them, it is the politician and the fund-providing businessmen who feel fed up with having to tire out frequently for votes. All that an average voter is expected to do is to spend a few minutes at the polling booth for which he gets a holiday. Polling day is an occasion to assert one’s rights, to scrutinise the performing of the nominee and to warn him or her that they would have to be accountable to the people. An average voter would like to exercise this right to scrutiny frequently rather than giving a long-term lease to the elected. If this perception is right, then the only convincing explanation for the poor public participation in election can be the spread of the gladiator-sports syndrome among the vast middle classes. This is going to be an interesting subject of study for sociologists.

For the politician, the easiest way to overcome the problems of poor public interest and diminishing participation is to conduct the election campaign through the media, psephology and “satta”. So they have accorded the utmost priority to the electronic and print media to reach the eluding sections. A speech by the respective main campaigner will be heard only by a captive crowd. Media can take it to the entire middle class and educated sections. Stimulated media coverage has many other uses. It increases the “visibility” of the respective party. On this basis, opinions about the election results are firmed up. Often a few adverse reports, sponsored or real, are interpreted to mean “a marginal change” in the voters’ mood.

Thus investments in the business of media participation become politically highly profitable. Unlike the smug politicians of the tin-mug and bamboo charpoy era, the new generation political managers have built an elaborate network to win over the media. It invariably begins at the corporate thresholds and reach total PR perfection at the lowly scribe level. Even in those tin-mug days, occasionally a favoured journalist was allowed in a party supremo’s car. But now the BJP has outsmarted the rival Congress in ferrying the “useful” scribes in executive planes, choppers and special AC coaches. Free air tickets are also handed to them on commercial flights to induce them to cover the designated election functions.

Such sponsored crowds of journalists were taken to places like Bellary and wherever the top leaders campaign. In one case, a group of journalists airlifted by the BJP to Bangalore was diverted to Gandhinagar. The Congress is way behind in pampering the media and has been not so blessed with made-to-order reports. In the past too, newspersons were taken for big leaders’ poll rallies. But what is happening this time has been the worst form of “sponsored” journalism. Often, the political managers choose a favoured journalist of the media organisation.

The Press Council had given specific guidelines in this regard long ago. But Pramod Mahajan has taught us how individual reporters should have more “commitment” to the minister rather than the profession or his newspaper. In the process of such political patronage, objective, fairplay and balanced reporting become the worst casualty. As a result, a section of the media seems to leave its designated functions to surveyors and statisticians, political speculators and the underworld “satta” market. A big multi-edition English daily regularly carries the “satta” figures for parties and prominent leaders.

Undoubtedly, the controversy over opinion polls has not ended with the Supreme Court’s curt verdict. Their role as an instrument of electoral simulation calls for much closer scrutiny. While in the past some of these surveys have been nearer reality, many had gone wide off the mark. In 1996, an English weekly had predicted 200 plus for the BJP while it actually got 162. Another English weekly had flopped badly by exaggerating the Congress tally. What causes scepticism about the business of opinion polls has been their tendency to give an exaggerated picture of certain parties in the beginning and then gradually taking the tally closer to the truth. Thus the mischief largely occurs in the beginning of the poll campaign by way of inflated figures that can influence voters. This itself helps create public opinion in favour of the beneficiary party. As the campaign progresses, the same pollsters begin correcting the figures — to protect their own credibility.

A highly successful psephologist of the early days — before others crowded the scene — had once revealed to this writer how he used a mix of bare survey data and the political behaviour of the regions to arrive at the “right” conclusion. Thus so many deductions have to be made in the bare figures. BJP election nominee Arun Nehru has admitted how he does his arm-chair predictions without a field survey. Apart from the chartered surveys by known institutions, small-time psephologists have mushroomed. They fill the letter boxes of newspaper offices in the INS building. Some of them are complete with charts and swings and the “methodology” adopted. If opinion polls are misused, people will soon learn how to live with them.

75 YEARS AGO

September 21, 1924
N.W. Railway collision

IT is to be regretted that even a fortnight after the serious railway collision near Montgomery, the officials have issued no statement regarding the cause of the collision. It was stated that the senior Railway Inspector promptly held an enquiry in which, evidently, no representative of the public participated, and sent his report to the Government.

We fail to see any ground for secrecy in a matter which concerns the life and safety of the travelling public, especially concerning an affair in which more than a hundred people were killed and twice as many injured.

It is vaguely stated that some new experiment in the control of trains was introduced and its faulty method has been, in some measure at least, responsible for the terrible loss of life of the people.

The public are anxious to know the whole truth and we hope the Government would make a statement on the subject without delay.