Caste politics stalls communalism By Kuldip Nayar

IN one way, caste has stalled communalism in Uttar Pradesh. In another way, caste, which is co-terminus with class in India, has voted against those who denied it a better life. But there is no doubt that the election results reflect a strong opposition to the chauvinistic Hindu-inclined BJP which has also come to represent the upper half.

Yet, the state seethes with a strange mixture of apprehension and celebration — apprehension because the casteist criminals will return. If the cabinet of the new chief minister, Mayawati, who leads the Bahujan Samaj Party, is any guide new criminals will replace the old ones. The celebration is because the corporate sector, which had taken over Mulayam Singh’s once socialist Samajwadi Party, has been repulsed convincingly.

The two leaders, Mayawati from the Dalit (untouchables) and Mualayam Singh from the Yadav (the Other Backward Classes), have won between them 303 seats in a 403-member house with 56.5 per cent of the votes polled. Although both are arch rivals, their victory is a defeat for those forces which pulled down the Babri Masjid, released a cassette to vilify Muslims and evoked little hope for a better future for the poor. Consequently, the BJP has been reduced to a rump with 50 seats, 38 less than the last time, with only 16.93 per cent of the votes polled.

No doubt, Mayawati is way ahead of Mulayam Singh, 206 seats against 97 (vote-wise, the difference is a mere five per cent). But both represent a phenomenon which may well counter the elements that are determined to demolish the pluralistic character of the Indian polity. This caste combination, with Muslims and poor Brahmins, may throw up a different type of identity that could demand a bigger slice of the cake. The combination may also become firmer by 2009 when parliamentary elections are due. The Congress will be hard put to prove its credentials.

By raising the “Jai Ram” slogan once again and by re-selecting Kalyan Singh who was the chief minister when the mosque was destroyed, the BJP threw down the gauntlet which the Dalits, the Other Backward Classes and the Muslims picked up. The outcome has been the decimation of the Hindutva forces.

Yet, there is no remorse or introspection in the BJP quarters for having taken a blatant religious and anti-Muslim stand. Murli Manohar Joshi, a party stalwart, wants more Hindutva and regrets its “absence” from the party’s agenda during the polls. Maybe, he is expressing the BJP’s reaction to its debacle.

Strange, a party which aspires to rule India has not yet realised that its sectarian and religious stand does not sell in a country that is proud of its diversities and identities. At one time it looked as if the BJP had realised the futility of making secular India into a Hindu rashtra. This was when it put its bigotry aside and came to power at the centre with the help of parties known for their faith in secularism.

It turned out that the BJP had only changed its tactics, not its ideology. The BJP, in its furtive way, went on chipping at India’s common heritage. Education was the worst sufferer. The fatal blow was the ethnic cleansing in Gujarat. The BJP’s defeat in the last election should have chastened the party. Despite its contribution to development, it lost because Indian society, however divided, does not like its leaders to be parochial.

Still, both caste and communalism are not good for the country’s health. Both are divisive in their approach and both put India, as such, behind. Let there be a plague on both. But what does one do when one of them is determined to break up the country in the name of Hinduism and its superiority?

Caste at least has many layers contesting against one another. Communalism is monolithic — the passions and prejudices of one community brimming to the surface to the detriment of others. Communalism tends to be fascist in appeal while caste is often an assertion by the victims of discrimination and of being denied a level playing field.True, the forces of caste and communalism, arrayed against one another, have criminalised and corrupted society. But the tyranny of the Hindutva standard-bearers has forced the Backward Classes and minorities to seek security even in tainted quarters. They look for cover under any party or combination which assures them a pluralistic atmosphere and economic betterment.

It is a mockery of democracy to see that nearly half of Mayawati’s ministers come from the ranks of criminals, some charged with murder, rape, etc. The people voting for her are appalled but they could not have gone to the BJP for its communal as well as class approach. The Congress did not figure in their reckoning and polled eight per cent of the votes, one per cent less than before.

The general election is two years away. The BJP or, for that matter, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, can still adopt a policy which believes in pluralism. If it could have Indian-ness as its ethos instead of Hindutva, it might emerge as an alternative.India is not what the RSS foot soldiers represent, forcing their set of “morals”. An art student at the university at Vadodara, Gujarat, was detained by the Narendra Modi government for exhibiting “objectionable” paintings. The RSS youth wing, Akhil Bhartiya Vidya Parishad (ABVP), destroyed the exhibition and even had the dean suspended.

In Bhopal, the ABVP reportedly killed a professor who objected to its rowdy behaviour during student union elections. The state government is that of the BJP. The RSS has torn a leaf from the book of the Taliban. It is beginning to do the same things to Talibanise Hindus. It is setting into motion such forces which may one day become a Frankenstein. Pakistan knows this to its cost.

The Hindutva crowd forgets what India represents. Many years ago, Yehudi Menuhin, the outstanding violinist, told Jawaharlal Nehru in a letter: “When I myself think of India, I think of a quality specifically Indian which in my imagination holds something of the innocence of the fabled and symbolic Garden of Eden.

“To me India means the villages, the noble bearing of their people, the aesthetic harmony of their life; I think of Gandhi, of Buddha, of the temples, of gentleness combined with power, of patience matched by persistence, of innocence allied to wisdom, of the luxuriance of life from the oxen and the monkeys to the flame trees and the mangoes; I think of the innate dignity and tolerance of the Hindu and his tradition.

“The capacity of experiencing of the full depth and breadth of life’s pleasures and pains without losing a nobler recognition, of knowing intimately the exalted satisfaction of creation while remaining deeply humble, are characteristics peculiar to those villages.”

Mixing religion with politics By Kuldip Nayar

LETTER FROM NEW DELHI

THE Sikhs are a brave and courageous community but easily excitable. Transparent as their community is, it does not nourish a grievance. It ventilates it whenever and wherever it feels hurt. But it is too emotional.

What has happened in Punjab in India over the last few days reflects the same trait of pouring one’s heart out and getting square with those who hurt the community. Its anger is like a flood which breaks all the banks and even the dykes.

Take the case of Dera Sacha Sauda, a monastery of sorts, where thousands of people, particularly those belonging to low castes, throng to in order to meditate or listen to its chief, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh who purposely named himself so to convey the message of pluralism. Yet he donned robes like those of Guru Gobind Singh, the 10th guru of the Sikhs, and even imitated him in distributing ‘amrit’ — one can call it ‘sherbet-i-hayat’ (syrup of life).

In fact, he went beyond that by inserting an advertisement to publicise his reception where he was shown in flowing robes with a plume pinned on his turban like Guru Gobind Singh. This instigated a large number of Sikhs. Several thousands came out on the streets with unsheathed swords and there was a clash in which state buses and some buildings were set on fire. There was vandalism and destruction.

No doubt, the Dera chief is to blame for the violence. But the Punjab government sat back and did nothing for the first two days. Is it because the Dera chief had issued an edict to his followers during the recent state election to vote for the Congress? His behaviour, particularly the advertisement, has given life to militants and hardliners who had been lying low for the last decade or so. They took law and order into their own hands and the Akali Dal-led government became a mute spectator.

The Akal Takht came into action. It is the highest spiritual and temporal seat of the Sikhs and acts like the government and issues ultimatums. Had the state government taken timely action against those who went about unchecked, particularly in the countryside, things would not have reached the pass they did. While the state was in the throes of one of its worst crises, the government waited for word to come from the political affairs committee of the party.

The Dera chief could have doused the fire if he had gone to the public to say that he never meant to present himself as Guru Gobind Singh. The Dera later issued a press release to express regret. But it was too little, too late. An apology would have been in order.

I do not know why the Dera chief was adamant on not issuing an apology. The Pope did it when he realised that some of his words had hurt the Muslims. We, living in the land of Mahatma Gandhi, should never have any hesitation in saying “sorry”, especially when we find that we have, wittingly or unwittingly, hurt some people.

What has disconcerted me is the role of the Akal Takht. It supplanted the state government. Calling a bandh (strike) was none of its business. This is the job of political parties. The Akalis should have done it if they had felt the need. Bandh is a political term, not a religious one. India, particularly Punjab, has suffered in the past because the Akal Takht has mixed religion with politics. It has been once again found doing that. Ordering the closure of deras is the government’s job, not that of the Akal Takht. These are not religious issues.

The Sikh faith in ‘miri’ and ‘piri’ is interpreted wrongly in today’s context, and politics is mixed with religion. When Guru Hargobind Sahib, in adumbrating the concept, rationalised the joining of politics with religion, his purpose was to instil the sentiments of social service among his followers. He wanted the Sikhs to pay attention to the lowest in the land.

No doubt, the Sikhs are far ahead in this field as compared to other communities. Still, their contribution is not in proportion to the wealth at their command. Why can’t the community channel money to productive avenues so as to absorb the lakhs of unemployed Sikhs who are prone to drugs? One cause for the last militancy in Punjab was the unemployment of Sikh youth.

The situation has not improved. I do not understand why every time there is trouble in Punjab, some elements collect in London to raise the demand for Khalistan, a separate state. This happened last week as well. And, as usual, two Muslim MPs of Pakistani origin were there to denounce India.

Pakistan has its own troubles and they emanate from the same malady: mixing religion with politics. Take the case of Lal Masjid in Islamabad which has become a centre of fundamentalists trying to dictate to the Pakistan government.

The Sikhs, by and large, have come to accept provincial autonomy like the rest of the Indians. But the problem with the Sikh community is that it tends to mix religion with politics. It is not opposed to secularism but it overemphasises the religious identity. Guru Nanak Dev, the founder of the Sikh religion, preached pluralism and put together the sayings of Hindu, Muslim and other saints in the Guru Granth Sahib, the holy book.

It is pluralism the Sikhs should be pursuing and upholding, not religious jingoism. When they get carried away by passions, as has been seen again and again, they exhibit a trait which only impairs the community’s image.

I wonder if the Dera Sacha Sauda incident is the beginning of the era of the Giani Zail Singh type of politics. Then the Congress found the extremist Bhindranwale and lionised him to fight against the Akalis. Things went beyond control and the result was disastrous. The army attacked the Golden Temple where Bhindranwale had tried to build a state within a state and Sikh guards assassinated Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

This retaliation led to another fiendish kind of reprisal: the killing of innocent Sikhs in broad daylight, 3,000 in Delhi alone. What is called the Sikh problem got more aggravated. The elevation of Manmohan Singh as prime minister has solved it to a large extent and that Mrs Indira Gandhi’s daughter-in-law, Sonia Gandhi, has brought this about has made all the difference.

The tendency all over the world is to mix religion with politics. Turkey is a brave exception where people marched through the streets to show their support for secularism. I wish such a thing could happen in what was once the Indian subcontinent, now divided into three nations, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The region’s forte is pluralism.

The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.

__________________
Time is like a river.
You cannot touch the same water twice,
because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
Enjoy every moment of life.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

Ayub’s hatred of India

By Kuldip Nayar

LETTER FROM NEW DELHI


I DO not know whom General Ayub hated more, the Hindus or Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Both come in for maximum derision in his diaries from 1966 to 1972. He suspected the bona fides of Hindus and did not believe them to possess any worthwhile quality. In his book, Friends, Not Masters, Ayub was contemptuous of the Hindus. But the diaries beat all earlier references.

As for Bhutto, Ayub runs him down all the time. A typical observation by the general after dismissing Bhutto is: “Demagogy became his (Bhutto) stock in trade. Several warnings went unheeded. So there was no alternative but to tell him to go. Besides, he started drinking himself into a stupor and led a very loose life.”

Ayub’s notes in his diaries are like obiter dicta. He makes pronouncements, off the cuff, without realising the effect they can have. He has preconceived notions and interprets events and situations accordingly. In fact, this has been the problem with military dictators all over the world. They have a simplistic and naïve approach to politics. For them, there are no shades, there is only black and white, friend or foe.

The manner in which Ayub presents his views as policy statements leaves you cold. He was the man who guided the destiny of Pakistan for almost a decade. Some in Pakistan still remember him as the ruler who gave them stability.

Writing on India on September 8, 1967, Ayub says, “the real trouble is that India has no ideology (curious), this is exactly what I told Nehru when he came to Pakistan in 1962, to act as a force for integration and cohesion. Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence was supplemented by Nehru’s secularism and non-alignment. Both have met their doom because how can Hindu society be turned secular and non-belligerent? It is in any case in a shambles because of changed world circumstances. It is now an empty slogan with no relevance to realities.”

The Pakistan high commissioner in Delhi at that time was equally out of his depth when it came to analysing the Indian political scene. He said in a dispatch which Ayub quotes: “The rightists and Hindu bigots, all parties, are getting together. Chances are that they will throw out Indira (Mrs Indira Gandhi) and put a man like (Y.B.) Chavan in her place. The anti-Pakistan and anti-Muslim feelings will grow. They will seek to undo Pakistan and settle Kashmir by military means. So, security problems will assume much more serious dimensions as turmoil and instability increases in India and bigoted and narrow-minded Hindus assume power.”

Ayub quotes in his support one Dr Berg, the head of a German TV organisation, as saying: “Nehru is largely to blame for India’s misfortune. He ruled India as a private property, history will never forgive him for not coming to terms with Pakistan and even China. Any chance for revival of India is out of the question.”

Perhaps, these kinds of analyses have been the bane of Pakistan’s jaundiced policy on India. Islamabad depended on some nitwit and the clueless high commission which collected yarns and passed them on as the thinking in the country. That is why Islamabad lived in a make-believe world as far as India was concerned and seldom differentiated between facts and bazaar gossip.

I believe there is a better appreciation of the situation in India now than before. In fact, it has been so for the past few years. A democratic society may look chaotic and disorderly and, for that matter, every developing democratic polity is so in a way. Institutions are the backbone of a democratic structure, not a set of rules or stern warnings.

Ayub believed that India would fall apart. The same view was aired by his son Gohar Ayub as far back as 1984, when I met him at Abbottabad, nearly 18 years after his father’s foreboding. Gohar said that Pakistan was waiting for India to disintegrate into six parts before holding any serious talks with it. The basic unity of India remains intact.

A country like Pakistan which has been ruled by the military for more than three decades has developed a different kind of ethos. It does not mean that people have ceased to believe in democracy. It means that they have come to reconcile themselves to a situation which they believe they cannot change. It is an act of resignation, not renunciation.

That is the reason you see at times a glimpse of the fire burning within people’s hearts. The lawyers’ movement over the suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry indicates that unquenchable spirit. Man, however long he remains shackled, asserts himself in one way or the other.

India itself lost democracy for nearly two years, from 1975 to 1977, when the emergency was imposed. Dissent was smothered, the press gagged and arbitrary arrests were made in the thousands. A nation inured to free, democratic living was initially in a state of shock, unable to realise the directions and implications of actions by the government and its functionaries. The rulers did not assess the people’s anger. When it came to assertion, even Mrs Gandhi, the architect of the emergency, was defeated at the polls.

Ayub also did not appreciate the volcano rumbling in East Pakistan. Instead, he had contempt for its people and all those who wanted to rule themselves. This is what he wrote on August 14, a few months before Bangladesh liberated itself. “Today is the 27th anniversary of Pakistan. Normally it should be a day of rejoicing but I wonder how many people feel that way. The idea that had brought Pakistan into being can never lose validity, but its spirit has lost attraction, certainly for the generation below the age of 30 who form the bulk of the population. Regionalism and provincialism has supplanted it, specially so in East Pakistan. We have no constitution and there is no consensus as to what it should be like. East Pakistan is on the point of breaking off. What will happen in

West Pakistan remains to be seen.”

Ayub’s panacea like that of any dictator was the use of force. He said: “The only binding force left is the army. It has the formidable task of holding the country together and meeting the threat of Indian aggression, which is getting ever louder and provocative.”

No wonder, President Pervez Musharraf believes that he is providing cohesion and order to Pakistan as he goes on justifying the parallel rally against the lawyers and their supporters in Karachi the other day. Certain things are simply not defendable.

The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.

__________________
Time is like a river.
You cannot touch the same water twice,
because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
Enjoy every moment of life.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

Will Bangladesh go Pakistan’s way?

By Kuldip Nayar

Satureday, JUNE 16,2007

NOBODY hides it. Everyone in Dhaka assumes that you know about the army’s presence behind the caretaker government. Chief Advisor Fakhruddin Ahmed himself tells you about it. But he emphasises that the army is in charge of only law and order and all that can reveal corruption and the crime of politicians.

Yet, the fact remains that the army has spread to districts, and guides deputy commissioners in the administration.

Whatever one’s fears, the people in Bangladesh feel relieved. They have welcomed the army action without reservation. They were so sick of the misrule and corruption by former Prime Ministers Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina, the “Minus Two,” as they are called, that the public would have accepted anything, however drastic. Otherwise, Khaleda Zia would have returned to power, and she had arranged to the last detail to get a majority at the polls.

Whether the constitution allows the extension of the caretaker government beyond six months or not is hardly a topic of discussion. People are engrossed in witnessing case after case of corruption and criminality at high places. They applaud every disclosure and every arrest as if it were an emotional purification of their involvement in the wasteful hartals that has cost the nation dearly.

No one knows how many more corrupt politicians and their supporters in business and elsewhere will be brought to book. People want the cleansing of the stables once and for all. So far, only 130 or so cases have come up but the number is said to be “plus 420”.

They mostly relate to members of Khaleda’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Her son, Tariq, who was an extra-constitutional authority as Sanjay Gandhi was during the emergency in India, is on top of the list. His wealth runs into hundreds of crores. Khaleda’s other son, Koko, owns a house in Dubai under a fictitious name. From among Khaleda’s ministers in the limelight is her home minister. He hushed up a murder after pocketing 50 crore taka.

Many former ministers have fled the country. Hasina is reportedly herself involved. Three bank owners have given in writing that they paid her one crore, three crore and five crore takas respectively before getting permission to open their bank. Roughly 40 cases against her party men have come to light. She believes that all this has been done to put pressure on her to quit politics. This may well be true, but the taint of those involved cannot be denied.

The scale of corruption and the close involvement of top politicians have shocked the nation. It knew that corruption was there but the disclosures have been beyond their wildest guess. The army has set up a task force to dig out instances of corruption. Once the task force identifies the suspects and collects evidence, it passes on the case to the Anti-Corruption Commission for instituting proceedings before the specially-designated court. The commission, headed by a top retired army officer, is a constitutional body and also has civilian officers as members.

People have not raised any objection to the chief advisor’s statement that elections will be held towards the end of 2008, a postponement of two years. The election commission which is engaged in revising electoral rolls also has public support. The army’s help to the election commission for a quick job is seen as a plus point.

So far so good. One ominous thought which crosses the mind is whether the army would quit after it has done the cleansing job. Since 2008 is still one and a half years away, not many talk about what will happen after that. Even otherwise, people are so impressed by the manner in which the army is using the broomstick that they keep all doubts to themselves. They want a thorough cleansing job.

Eyebrows were, however, raised when Lt Gen Moeen U Ahmed, the chief of army staff, said in a written speech in the presence of the country’s president Iajuddin Ahmed that “democracy itself requires a secure environment for it to thrive and spread its roots.” He went on to add that “both democracy and security are complimentary features of the system now being put in place by correct initiatives.”

True, the army chief flinched after The Star, an influential English daily, questioned: “Was it a mere intellectual exercise or a purposeful floating of ideas to gauge public reactions?” The paper went on to say that “our first trust with a general in politics was with Ayub Khan back in 1958 and he wanted to ‘re-invent democracy according to the genius of the people’ and we ended up having ‘basic democracy’ that was thoroughly rejected by our people, though it took a while.” The Star’s forthright opinion received support all over. In subsequent observations, the general tried to water down what he had said earlier.

I asked the chief advisor in Dhaka the same question: would the army quit after the cleansing? He had no doubt that it would and he based his reading on talks with the army chief. The chief advisor, a simple and straight person, who wears his integrity on his sleeve, is confident that by the time the cleansing job is over, the system would have been reformed and institutions like the media, the judiciary and the election commission would have become strong enough to protect the polity.

The chief advisor may turn out to be right. The disgust and disdain with which people view the politicians indicates the nation’s determination to stay alert from now onwards. Yet I have seen how Ayub and Ziaul Haq promised to quit after holding free and fair elections within 90 days and stayed on for years to turn Pakistan into a military-ruled country.

Likewise, I fear, Bangladesh may go the Pakistan way, the khaki behind the kurta and pajama. But the silver lining is the irresistible Bangladeshi. He is defiant and determined, different from the phlegmatic Pakistani. The first has fought even against the Pakistan army to liberate the country. The second has had cosy relations with the army. True, the lawyers’ agitation over the “suspension of the Pakistan Chief Justice” has evoked a sustained countrywide agitation, never witnessed before. Yet, the anger is primarily directed against President General Pervez Musharraf, not the army.

On balance, I can say that I have every hope that Bangladesh will not accept the army in any role or shape permanently. There is, however, one proviso: politicians, particularly Hasina and Khaleda, should stop playing games in their pursuit of power and personal gains. But then politicians are not made that way. Bangladesh would have to begin from a clean slate and revive the spirit of liberation — all for the country and the country for all.

The writer is a New Delhi-based senior columnist.



http://www.dawn.com/2007/06/16/op.htm

__________________
Time is like a river.
You cannot touch the same water twice,
because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
Enjoy every moment of life.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

Loyalty versus consensus

By Kuldip Nayar

LETTER FROM NEW DELHI


INDIA’S president is a ceremonial head under the constitution. Yet, the office has assumed so much importance over the years that no political party, particularly the ruling one, can afford to have an indifferent, much less a hostile president. Only he has the power to invite a party to form the government and it doesn’t need to be the largest.

This situation has arisen because there has not been a single party that was able to secure a majority in parliament in the last two decades and none looks like it will have one over the next two decades. The president will continue to be an arbiter. With the general elections in 2009, this may well be the reason why Congress is insistent on having its loyal member Pratibha Patil at Rashtrapati Bhavan when there could be unanimity on President Abdul Kalam.

Another clout which the office of president has come to acquire is the power to dismiss state governments. The constitution’s Article 356 authorises the president to take over the administration of a state in case of a “failure of constitutional authority”. He and his nominee, the state governor, are judges. Pronouncements of failure have been on dubious grounds. Often the party or coalition at the centre has dismissed governments of the opposition in states for political reasons. The president’s concurrence is essential and hence the anxiety of the Congress to have its own person.

Incidentally, the president has dismissed state governments nearly 95 times since independence, beginning with the ouster of a communist government in Kerala during Jawaharlal Nehru’s rule. Nehru, however, saw to it that the constitution-makers did not give the president the authority to take over the government at the centre. Even when a government loses a vote of confidence in the Lok Sabha, a caretaker government is in charge, not the president. This has stalled dictatorship in India.

There is yet another crucial power the president enjoys. He can withhold assent to a bill passed by parliament. President Zail Singh returned the postal bill which authorised the government to intercept private mail. The government could have re-endorsed the bill in the cabinet whereby the president would have been bound to give his assent. But this did not happen because of wide public protests.

These considerations have led political parties to propose their candidate for succeeding Kalam who finishes his five-year term this July. The United Progressive Alliance (UPA), led by the Congress and supported by the Left, has nominated Pratibha Patil, the National Democratic Front (NDA), led by the BJP, Vice-President Bhairon Singh Sekhawat, and the Third Force (United National People’s Front), President Kalam for a second term.

The Congress was the first to make the announcement which, to say the least, poured cold water on general expectations for a tall person. A party which at one time mentioned the name of its stalwart, Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee, had only the unknown Pratibha Patil to field.

I have no doubt that India will bring laurels to womanhood when it elects Pratibha Patil. All those who have welcomed her candidature because she is a woman will feel gratified on her victory. Strange, the UPA should highlight the gender angle. Surely, there is more to the office of the president.

I have met Pratibha Patil as Rajasthan governor. I have found her simple, austere and clad in khadi from head to toe. However endearing these qualities, the country is looking for the next president, not for the chairperson of a khadi board or social welfare organisation. And the manner in which the UPA and the Left came to arrive at the name does no credit to those selecting it.

When Home Minister Shivraj Patil was not acceptable to the Left for his “soft Hindutva views”, CPI (M) leader Sitaram Yechuri suggested a woman. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, apparently at the nod of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, mentioned Pratibha Patil’s name. CPI leader Bharadan said that he had known her to be a good person. The name was finalised then and there.

Unfortunately, the president’s election has got mired in politics and controversy. The office enjoys so much respect that it should never be subjected to voting which may vitiate the atmosphere and divide the nation. Whether it was the BJP’s googly, or a desperate move to stall the person who has unflinching loyalty to Sonia Gandhi, the result was a pleasant surprise. The name of Kalam came to the fore. Practically, all parties, except the UPA-Left combination, rallied behind him.

Kalam is a tried hand, non-partisan, above communal and provincial pulls. His popular rating is over 90 per cent as the response to the surveys conducted by TV networks indicates.

True, the name figured almost towards the end. This was because the two main parties had their own candidate. He could either be a consensus candidate or not in the race at all. Even after knowing that Kalam’s election can be unanimous, Sonia Gandhi went ahead with the filing of Pratibha Patil’s nomination. If Sonia can get a Congress member as the president, why should she have a person who was the choice of the Third Front and the NDA?

But this is not the point. What matters is a unanimous choice. The biggest argument in favour of Kalam — and it is a weighty one — is that he is acceptable to all in the opposition, including the BJP which is not known for favouring Muslims. In Kalam, the nation has a known personality. Nehru selected Rajendra Prasad, Radha Krishnan and Zakir Hussain, all towering personalities, for the office. The name is important because the president must be well-known and one who is respected and trusted by the people.

The contest can also be messy and uncertain. The electoral college has a little more than a million votes comprising the elected members of parliament and the state legislatures. The UPA-Left commands a little less than half a million votes. With Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party, the vote goes up to more than half a million, clinching the election of Pratibha Patil.

But since there is no whip allowed for presidential polls and balloting is secret, cross-voting cannot be ruled out. This happened when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi fought against the Syndicate, the old guard in the Congress, and opposed the party’s official candidate Sanjiva Reddy.

V.V. Giri, the independent candidate, supported by Mrs Gandhi, won on the vote of second preferences. The Congress cannot take Pratibha Patil’s election for granted. However belated, the effort to have Kalam is a step eminently worth cherishing and pursuing — and defending to the last ditch because it can avert a fierce, divisive contest. The nation will emerge more cohesive and more united.

The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.


http://www.dawn.com/2007/06/23/op.htm#2

__________________
Time is like a river.
You cannot touch the same water twice,
because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
Enjoy every moment of life.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

Through democracy alone



By Kuldip Nayar

Satureday,July 07,2007

Letter from New Delhi


ISLAMABAD is a broad city with wide roads and deep runs of thick trees and green grass. Houses are expansive, neatly tucked into self-sufficient sectors, with markets, eating places and mosques. General Mohammad Ayub Khan who founded the city had a neighbourhood concept, with people from different provinces and thoughts living as a community.

Lal Masjid, where radical Islamic students and government forces clashed this week, is one of the mosques not far from the diplomatic enclave, the president's house, the National Assembly and the Supreme Court. The mosque has become more of a seminary than a place for praying. Nobody expected that the students studying there would one day copy the Taliban, demanding that the Sharia be imposed in Pakistan.

The posture of students, who have become increasingly militant over the last few months, would not have brought the security forces to confront them if Lal Masjid had not become a state within a state. The slogans of jihad against the General Pervez Musharraf’s government and the threats of using suicide squads were bad enough. The worst was when the students began kidnapping policemen to prove that their writ ran whenever they wanted to prove it.

When seven Chinese nationals were whisked away by seminary students, they went too far. No doubt, they were released but the government lost face because the Chinese government behaved as if it did not have enough confidence in the authority of the Musharraf government.

The students did not sit still and some 100 of them attacked the adjoining government building and a security picket. This was the official version. When confrontation converts into a clash, it is difficult to say who fired the first shot. Curfew in the area had quietened things at the time of writing. Except for stray incidents in Abbottabad and a couple of other places, the clash at Lal Masjid had no visible effect.

I feared a strong reaction by the religious parties or its conglomeration, the MMA. Apparently, President Musharraf had discussed the matter with them before taking action. Otherwise, the state governments in Balochistan and the NWFP would not have been intact since the religious parties rule there with the help of the Musharraf-blessed Muslim League (Q).

This also proves that the religious parties are opposed to what the Lal Masjid crowd, including burqa-clad women, had been doing. It is difficult to imagine what kind of pressures would be brought on the religious parties to part company with Musarraf. But the Lal Masjid incident has infuriated the radicals to do their best to wean away the MMA from the Muslim League.

The religious parties may themselves be facing a dilemma. They realise that the public wants a liberal, democratic Muslim state while the Lal Masjid crowd wants to impose bigotry and a system which people are not ready to adopt.

In fact, even religious parties have little support from the public. But for Musharraf's help in the last election, the religious parties would not have secured so many seats as they did. His strategy was to stall as many members of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the then Muslim League from entering the National Assembly.

The religious parties, which supported Musharraf in retaining his uniform, may not want to demolish their bridges with Musharraf in case he turns towards them if and when his efforts for rapprochement with Benazir Bhutto fail. Musharraf's confrontation at Lal Masjid definitely suits the PPP because the spread of radicalism affects the democratic temper.

Benazir Bhutto has been saying repeatedly that only the return of democracy — through free and fair elections — can stop fundamentalism from taking root in Pakistan. My impression is that once Musharraf contains the Lal Masjid crowd and its sympathisers, he might go for an election with Benazir Bhutto if possible or without her if necessary. He has realised that the genie of religious chauvinism he had released to fight progressive and democratic forces was not going to go back into the bottle and is turning its attention on him. Probably, he saw the ground reality when there was a fatal attack on him same time ago.

America may have applied too much pressure. US Vice-President Dick Cheney, during his visit to Pakistan earlier this year, reportedly reprimanded Musharraf for failing to rein in the militants. The CIA is said to have told Islamabad that the Lal Masjid crowd was being guided by the Al Qaeda and that the Taliban-like students constituted the bulk of the radicals.After giving an extra $750 million, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher said that “the development of Pakistan” was what they had in view and it was spelled out as the defeat of Talibanisation.

Islamabad has itself been worried over a report which was presented to its National Security Council. The report, has said that the Taliban have reorganised themselves and their influence was spilling over to the areas other than those bordering Afghanistan, to the detriment of the security forces’ morale. The report may have been the last straw. It looks as if Musharraf had no option except to act when Talibanisation was taking place right under his nose in, the Lal Masjid in Islamabad.

Military action is all right as far as it goes. With a sullen middle class, following the lawyers’ courageous agitation, and with alienated political parties, Musharraf cannot fight the Taliban or their type.

This has to be done by a people who can be harnessed by political parties through a democratic set-up. Weapons do not represent democracy, public response does. In fact, the Lal Masjid crowd would not have gained importance — and strength — if Pakistan had a democratic structure.

Yet, democracy does not come by holding free and fair elections alone. Institutions have to be strengthened so that they can assert themselves. For example, the manner in which Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry has been dismissed shows that the president’s fiat rules, not the law.

Former Chief Justice of Sindh High Court Wajihuddin Ahmed has aptly said: “If the full court restores the Chief Justice, it would be a salutary step in the direction of an independent judiciary. If that comes about, it is a bitter pill that those in power have to swallow. A bitter pill because they are not used to dealing with an independent judiciary. They will need to make changes in order to be able to live with it, and they will have to live it.”

Unless democracy is restored in Pakistan to full length — Washington should note it — religious militancy cannot be fought. Today there is one Lal Masjid, tomorrow there will be many more. Only democratic credentials can retrieve Pakistan.

The writer is a senior columnist based in New Delhi

http://www.dawn.com/2007/07/07/op.htm#2

__________________
Time is like a river.
You cannot touch the same water twice,
because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
Enjoy every moment of life.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

South Asia’s men of straw



By Kuldip Nayar
AT the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, India awoke to freedom. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru assured the nation that “long ago, we made a tryst with destiny and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge.” The pledge he spelled out meant the ending of poverty, ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity. Mahatma Gandhi had promised earlier to wipe out every tear from every eye.

Yet, after 60 years of independence, we have not been able to provide clean drinking water to our people, in fact, not even a regular supply of water. And our official admission is that 260 million in the population of one billion are destitute and 390 million are illiterate.

Independence has not improved the plight of the poor in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal either. The deprivation of the lower half increases as the region further adopts western (should one call it the World Bank?) model of development. The growth rate may be impressive, but it leaves an ordinary person way behind and helpless.

The difference between low and high salaries was generally in the ratio of 1:15. It is now 1:500, and even more. The worst part of this type of development is that it has squeezed out sympathy and consideration from our society that has ceased to care and which is no longer sensitive to the misery of the neglected, the ousted or the victims of disease or disaster.

Funds are collected out of pity, not because of real feeling. Not long ago, people talked about the poor. There was compassion in their approach. Civil society has lost this in its focus on the growth rate. Even liberal elements have been ossified into pragmatism. What was once the Left is today part of the establishment. Its revolution is confined to appointments and transfers.

On the other hand, vulgar consumption is rationalised in the name of entrepreneurship. The poor are seen as lacking in initiative and hence as a suffering lot. The value system has changed and ethical behaviour is absent. Big is as in big building, big dam or big bank balance. Everything has come to revolve around money.

Success is assessed in terms of the assets one has. In this race, where the ends justify the means, the common man has been crushed. There doesn’t seem to be any hope of his coming up. How can this take place when indiscriminate privatisation is edging out the small and the weak from the system? It is going to be more ruthless in the days to come.

The government is withdrawing from various sectors completely or partially. True, this lessens its liability. But what about the working conditions of those who have been thrown to the wolves? They do not get even a pittance of their salary regularly. The railways are one example.

People in the countryside, still eking out existence from the shrinking tract of land they possess, are suffering the most. Their output has gone down and the price of input has gone up. The support price leaves them with practically no margin. Still, they are a proud lot. Unfortunately, they prefer suicide to the shame of insolvency. In the last few years, 100,000 farmers have taken their lives. These are the travails of development, some argue. But why should all the sacrifice and suffering be the fate of the common man? He gave his all during the independence movement. What about those who wallow in luxuries in every regime and in every clime? Nehru’s pledge of dedication by the nation was not for the betterment of a few.

During the process of transfer of power to India, Winston Churchill said: “Power will go into the hands of rascals, rogues and freebooters. Not a bottle of water, not a loaf of bread shall escape taxation. Only air will be free and the blood of these hungry millions will be on the head of Mr Attlee (then prime minister). These are men of straw of whom no trace will be found after a few years.”

His was a remark of a defeated imperialist who had lost the profit-making empire. Yet, there is no doubt that leaders in South Asia have shrunk in stature. They are small men who have come to occupy big positions. They want power not to advance the public interest but to secure their own personal or party gratification.

In the last few months, I have travelled through all the neighbouring countries. I have found them far from settled. Even after six decades of independence, they are in a flux. They are free in name only and they are the ones who bear the burden the most. Their primary suffering is because the rule of law does not exist and the police have been contaminated. Minorities in most countries are insecure.

All nations in the region swear by democracy but they have lost it in essence. Some have only a semblance of it. Some are regretting its loss and some have a sturdy shell, without substance. Their jingoistic nationalism is their pride. What was common to all these countries is the violation of human rights and an array of draconian laws to chastise critics and opponents.

Protection of rights of individuals is the central edifice in which the concept of democracy is based. But the very right has become a relative term. Rulers use the police and the bureaucracy — now an instrument of tyranny and terror — to suppress the people. They were the ones whose lot Nehru promised to ameliorate.

The most disturbing factor is that these countries spend more on armament than all the European powers put together. One fighter plane costs as much as the building of 1,500 schools and 500 health centres.

India is purchasing some 70 fighter jets, apart from other weapons. Pakistan has a long inventory which the US is processing in addition to the F16s which have been delivered. Sri Lanka is feverishly buying big or small weapons from China after having failed to procure them from India.

No doubt, the countries in South Asia have made progress. Some fallout of development has trickled below, but very little. The task of building is stupendous. But the rulers are doing the opposite, permitting the speculative builder and greedy landlord to create hideous scars across our countryside. The people did not fail the rulers. The latter failed the people. They still do not know how to govern, how to stay clean and how to fulfill the pledge that economic independence will follow political independence. They have turned out to be men of straw.

Maybe, Gandhi had a premonition. When the independence celebrations were at their height on the night of August 14-15, he was sound asleep in a smashed-up mansion in a riot-torn Calcutta suburb.

The writer is a senior journalist based in New Delhi

http://www.dawn.com/2007/08/11/op.htm

__________________
Time is like a river.
You cannot touch the same water twice,
because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
Enjoy every moment of life.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

Secularism has a long way to go

By Kuldip Nayar


Letter from New Delhi


IT is a straight question which should have been addressed long ago. If the accused in the Mumbai blasts could be tried and punished, even after 15 years, why not those who rioted and killed hundreds in Mumbai in the wake of the Babri Masjid demolition in December 1992? The rioting, as the Justice B.N. Sri Krishna Inquiry Commission put it, was a “cause and effect” happening.

The Shiv Sena has threatened to organise a “Hindu backlash” if the government reopens the rioting cases. The Maharashtra chief minister at the time, Manohar Joshi, has warned that communal amity in the state would be torn asunder on religious lines if the past was looked into. But how does one explain that out of 13,000 cases, only 800 odd were taken up? Obviously, they were not pursued because of communal considerations. If things are left as they are, the government will be seen to be coddling communal elements.

The Sena’s hysterical outcry is understandable because the commission has held its men guilty. The report, now nine years old, has said: “There is no doubt that the Shiv Sena and the Shiv Sainiks took the lead in organising attacks on Muslims and their properties under the guidance of several bodies of the Shiv Sena.” Justice Krishna has specifically mentioned Sena chief Bal Thackeray “who, like a veteran general, commanded the loyal Shiv Sainiks to retaliate by organising attacks against Muslims.”

When the riots took place, the Sena-BJP combine was ruling Maharashtra. Atal Behari Vajpayee led the BJP coalition at the centre. Both rejected the report, the Sena characterising it as “pro-Muslim”. Today, the Congress leads the state and central governments. They have been in power for more than three years. The question that arises is why (seeing the BJP inaction) they did not move against the politicians and police officials indicted in the report?

Even now, the action taken is cursory because of the Sena threats. The Mumbai police are establishing a cell to re-examine the closed cases. When the police have done little so far and when the force itself is involved, how can a fair probe be possible? By not taking action, what the government would prove is that there is no rule of law and no constitutional right of equal citizenship.

The guilty, whatever their religion, have to be punished. However wayward India’s democratic system may be, there has to be justice. Instances like the non-compliance of the Krishna report give the impression that when it comes to taking action against the Muslims, the government is firm but lax in the case of Hindus.

This reading is confirmed when one goes through the recommendations of various commissions after Independence. Seldom have their steps been implemented. Action is still awaited on reports on the riots at Jabalpur (1961), Ranchi (1967), Bhiwandi (1970), Jamshedpur (1979), Meerut (1982) and Bhagalpur (1989). These were major riots where the names of politicians and police officials were mentioned because they were involved.

In all the riot reports, Hindu extremists were found to be the instigators. The police were blamed in every riot for their connivance. Muslim fundamentalists, too, were involved in some cases. But politicians of both communities remained behind the scenes. None of them were punished. The action against the police and other officials was a simple departmental inquiry which ended with a warning, censure or demotion.

Unfortunately, politicians and criminals have become so intertwined that when it comes to prosecution or punishment, it depends on political convenience, not legal advice. Invariably, those who get away are Hindus.

Take Gujarat. It is a standing shame. No action has been taken against Chief Minister Narendra Modi in view of political considerations. Around 20,000 Muslims are still refugees with no means of livelihood and no future. Even the belated action against those responsible for the massacre can mollify opinion in the country and abroad. But it is a prestige issue for the BJP. Or, is Gujarat a dress rehearsal for the party’s hidden agenda?

One is, however, stumped when one sees that Muslim fundamentalists are tearing a leaf from the BJP’s book of hatred and hostility. Their number is small. But when they are able to get a fatwa (cheaper by the dozen these days) in favour of a wrong action, they cause serious concern.

The recent instance is that of an attack on the Bangladesh novelist, Taslima Nasreen, in Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh. Members of the Majlis-i-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) who came to her book launch attacked her. The organisers protected her at the risk of their lives. The MIM gets a fatwa in its favour in no time as if it was ready beforehand.

Still, criticising any religion is not in order because its followers feel hurt. But one cannot stop writers who enjoy freedom of expression. I was sorry to watch on TV Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad of Jammu and Kashmir and UP Congress chief Salman Khursheed advocating that authors should avoid writing on religion. This is, in fact, defending the MIM — and both are Congress leaders. What the MIM members did (attacking Taslima Nasreen physically) smacks of fascism. One does not have to agree with the author, but she must have her right to expression.

This is what differentiates a democratic setup from a theocratic or dictatorial state. What the MIM members exhibited was a deep-rooted religious prejudice. I hope it is not spreading among Muslims.

The extremists among Hindus and Muslims have failed to realise that our tryst with destiny is to build a secular state. This is not dependent on whether Pakistan is an Islamic state or not. The ethos of the freedom struggle was to build a secular state. And that is what Jawaharlal Nehru did.

I feel disappointed that even after 60 years of independence the Hindu-Muslim question has not been sorted out. I imagined it would be within a few years of Independence and that the pluralism which the British had methodically destroyed would reassert itself. It is clear that this is not taking place. The nation must undergo introspection to find out why.

When organisations like the Shiv Sena feeding on hatred continue to attack the Muslims and when even the elected MLAs in Hyderabad are not willing to apologise for their action, it is clear that our society has been thickly coated with the grime of faith. It cannot be wiped away easily. What the government can ensure is that at least the parties do not have the name of Hindu, Muslim or Sikh appended to them.

The writer is a senior columnist based in New Delhi.

http://www.dawn.com/2007/08/18/op.htm

__________________
Time is like a river.
You cannot touch the same water twice,
because the flow that has passed will never pass again.
Enjoy every moment of life.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.