By M H Ahssan

Subhiksha is India’s largest retail chain — or some would prefer to say “it was.” Over the past few months, the network of neighborhood discount shops has been coming apart at the seams. Most of the outlets are now closed. The company — Subhiksha Trading Services — has been unable to pay salaries and statutory dues for the past few months. With the unpaid security agency staff also not reporting for work, many of the stores have been vandalized. “The properties have become vulnerable targets,” founder and managing director R. Subramanian told The Financial Express. The vandals, he said, could include “disgruntled vendors, employees, anti-social elements taking advantage of the situation, and even owners of the real estate” rented by the retail chain.

Subhiksha — which means “prosperity” in Sanskrit — is coming apart in other ways, too. In fast-moving developments, one of the investors — private equity company ICICI Ventures — has asked the government to step in and order an independent audit of the company’s accounts. Another investor — the high-profile Wipro chairman Azim Premji’s personal investment firm, PremjiInvest — has approached the Madras High Court to stop the proposed reverse merger between Subhiksha and Blue Green Constructions & Investments, a listed company Subramanian had acquired last year. Subramanian’s objective was to get listed through the back door after the plan for an initial public offering fell through because of adverse market conditions. ICICI Ventures holds a 23% stake in Subhiksha and PremjiInvest another 10%, which was sold to it by ICICI Ventures last year for around US$50 million. In addition, the Employees Provident Fund Office recently said that Subramanian will be held personally responsible for non-payment of statutory dues to the staff.

Previously, Subramanian was the poster child of India’s retail revolution. Others, like the Future Group’s Kishore Biyani (who started Big Bazaar, Food Bazaar and Pantaloon) may have made a bigger splash. But Biyani had a business background; Subramanian’s father was a Reserve Bank of India official and Subramanian was a first-generation entrepreneur, a product of liberalization and India’s answer to Wal-Mart’s Sam Walton. “Subhiksha was a value-focused retailer born at a time when organized retailing was only for the elite,” said Subramanian in an email to India Knowledge@Wharton. “From 150 stores in September 2006, all of which were in Tamil Nadu [a state in South India], the company grew rapidly to over 1,600 stores [across the country] by September 2008.”

The big question: Is Subhiksha shutting down? “We are in pain but we are not shutting down,” Subramanian wrote. “We had expanded rapidly; most of the growth was debt-led. The company had planned to raise equity during 2008 and was close to doing so in September when calamity hit the global markets. The company’s lenders, while supportive, were also unable to extend further lines unless the equity was raised. The banks were not lending to each other, forget about lending to us…. It became a chicken-and-egg story with the company running out of cash by October. We were making money up to September, so the business is viable; it’s just that the balance sheet was not…. Money is like blood. If the blood flow stops, the entire brain stops working.”

Subramanian acknowledges that employees, landlords and vendors have not been paid. “It’s not because we do not want to pay; it’s because we can’t pay.” Is the Indian retail story over for now? “In a market like this, there will be pain,” Subramanian wrote. “However, people with long-term interest in retail and a sane cost structure will survive and thrive. Subhiksha will be there, too.”

Lack of Demand

Subhiksha, of course, is not alone in facing a recent reverse. The woes of India’s organized retail sector — or “modern trade,” as it is called — have many causes and casualties. Even well-financed companies or those that have wealthy backers are feeling the heat.

“Lack of demand is the major problem,” says Mathew Joseph, senior consultant with Delhi-based think-tank the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER). “Real estate prices are falling, and organized retail would like to wait until the bottom is reached. Finance is also difficult to come by in the context of falling demand and low profitability as banks are becoming risk averse.” Gibson Vedamani, director of the Retailers Association of India (RAI), adds: “Like everyone else, the business groups in modern retail have been hit by the global recession by way of a credit squeeze [and a lack of] funding and working capital. The slump in real estate has been a big issue. Those who had big expansion plans had [acquired] real estate earlier at much higher prices. They are now re-looking at their expansion plans and renegotiating the rates.”

One example is Reliance Fresh, backed by Mukesh Ambani, the world’s wealthiest Indian and chairman of Reliance Industries. Ambani considers retail the next big thing both for his group and the country. Reliance Retail, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries, launched its first store in November 2006 through its convenience store format, Reliance Fresh. At the end of the last fiscal year (March 2008), the group had 590 stores across 13 states. (It is close to 1,000 now.) This includes other formats such as Reliance Digital, Reliance Mart (hypermarkets), Reliance Trends (apparel), Reliance Footprints (footwear), Reliance Jewels (jewelry), Reliance Timeout (books, music and other lifestyle products), Reliance Autozone (auto accessories and service) and Reliance Wellness (health and wellness).

There were problems from day one. Vegetable sellers stoned Reliance shops in Ranchi, Jharkhand, claiming their businesses would be killed. There was a dawn-to-dusk shutdown of all major markets in Bhubaneswar, Orissa. In West Bengal, Reliance Retail ceased operations after widespread protests. In Uttar Pradesh, the government ordered the closure of the chain following eruptions of violence and the ransacking of some outlets. In Mumbai, traders, farmers and shopkeepers moved into the streets, bringing the city to a near standstill. They were protesting not just against Reliance, but organized retail as a whole. “This is a do-or-die battle for us. Either they go, or the small traders and farmers perish,” says Dharmendra Kumar, director of India FDI Watch, an organization that seeks to prevent Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the retail sector in India. Kumar says his mandate is to prevent multinationals like Wal-Mart, Tesco and Carrefour from entering the Indian market. As they are not yet in India — or are present in very restrictive formats — companies like Reliance Retail have become the substitute targets.

Much of this battle took place in 2007. Today, organized retail is downsizing by itself. Reliance has reassessed its plans and closed some stores; it is in consolidation mode. According to the Future Group’s Biyani, growth has moderated. “While urban consumers have the ability to spend, we believe their confidence level has been low leading to disproportionate savings levels,” says a report by equity research firm Enam Securities. “Weak same-store sales have cast doubts on the retail consumption story.” According to The Economic Times: “Almost all retailers, listed and unlisted, are putting off or curtailing large-scale expansion plans announced earlier.”

Yet just a short while ago, the kirana (mom-and-pop) stores seemed to be fighting a losing battle. Groups like FDI Watch, along with the media and politicians, rose to the defense of the huge farmer-trader-shopkeeper segment.

The Future of Kiranas

But there are many who believe that both large and small retailers can thrive. According to Arvind K. Singhal, chairman of retail consulting firm Technopak Advisors: “The battle, if any, was being fought only by politicians and the media. In India, the kiranas will coexist with modern retail for many decades to come.” Adds S. Ramesh Kumar, professor of marketing at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB), who has recently done a study on the retailing sector: “Kirana shops, which number around 15 million to 20 million, are part of Indian shopping culture. They are spread throughout the length and breadth of the country and cannot be completely displaced by modern retail formats in the foreseeable future.”

The future of the kiranas caused so much concern that the Union Commerce Ministry appointed ICRIER to do a special study to find out the impact of modern trade on these small outlets. The ICRIER report, released in the middle of last year, found that it was “a positive sum game in which both unorganized and organized retail [could] not only coexist but also grow substantially in size.” The study found that:

The total retail business in India would grow at 13% annually, from US$322 billion in 2006-07 to US$590 billion in 2011-12.

The unorganized retail sector would grow at about 10% per year, with sales rising from US$309 billion in 2006-07 to US$496 billion in 2011-12.

Organized retail, which now constitutes a small 4% of the total retail sector, is likely to grow at a much faster pace of 45% to 50% per year and quadruple its share in total retail trade to 16% by 2011-12.

Joseph, who led the ICRIER research team, says that some numbers have had to be whittled down since the report was published. “There is a general slowdown in the economy due to the global crisis and that is expected to affect the growth of organized retail in the country,” he says. “We had assumed a GDP growth of 8% to 10% during 2007-12 in the report. This is now impossible, at least for the current year 2008-09 and the coming year. Organized retail cannot therefore grow at 45% to 50% as we envisaged.”

ICRIER was not alone in painting a rosy picture for organized retail. A November 2005 PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) study in tandem with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) said that one of the largest marketplaces for modern trade — India — was about to open up. “To reach its potential, the Indian retail sector requires significant capital, technology and best practices to bridge the existing productivity gap and achieve scale in operations, which are critical to the sector’s success. One of the key steps towards facilitating the development of the retail sector and in accelerating its growth would be to allow foreign direct investment.” Titled “The Rising Elephant,” the report concluded that the organized sector share would account for 9% to 10% by 2010. Increased employment, efficiency in agriculture and increased exports through sourcing from India were the three most significant benefits of modern trade, the study said.

Another PwC-CII report, released in December 2008, said that the real beneficiaries of organized retail will be “the government, consumers, unorganized trade participants and producer-farmers.” Mom-and-pop stores could become part of the system, benefiting everybody. Only about 100,000 “mid-category” stores would take a hit in the medium term.

Yet another report in September 2008 was titled, “The Great Indian Bazaar: Organized Retail Comes of Age in India.” The study, by consulting firm McKinsey, said that by 2015 India was likely to be a US$450 billion retail market. Organized retail would grow from 5% to 14%-18% by 2015. The report made two other important points. First, “mom-and-pop stores will continue to remain relevant across large and small towns.” Second, “retail in India can be profitable, but not with cut-and-paste global formats.” The four mantras for success included innovative “local” formats; customer-backed merchandise platforms; an efficient supply chain; and an empowered front-end sales team, said McKinsey.

A Welcome Shift

Are these strategies and projections destined for the dustbin as India joins the global slowdown? The experts say no. “This is a passing phase but it could last for another year,” Singhal of Technopak says. Adds Vedamani of RAI: “This is a temporary phase when many adverse forces are working together and organizations are therefore becoming very cautious. The boom in retail will surely return.”

Many see this as a welcome shift to neutral gear, because Indian retail had been growing so quickly. “This calendar year will see companies consolidating their operations rather than looking at expansion,” says Vedamani of RAI. “In the earlier retail rush, they were too busy to get their act together. They are now looking at putting their processes in place and getting their houses in order for when the market picks up.”

Joseph of ICRIER notes that the slowdown has given the mom-and-pop shops some breathing space, too. “They now have more time to adjust and compete with organized retail,” he says. “There are several cases of traditional retailers modernizing and successfully competing with organized retailing. We believe in the co-existence of both big and small retailers in the country, as each one has its own comparative advantages vis-à-vis consumers.”

“The situation here is very different from the one in the U.S.,” says Kishan Bhat, engagement manager at Zinnov Consulting, a Bangalore-based management consulting firm. “India is a market where everyone can coexist. The culture of kirana stores in a country like ours can never become obsolete. It is deeply rooted in the system and definitely has an edge over the organized sector in terms of convenience and personalized customer experience. The kirana stores today are also adapting to the growing competition from the organized sector. We do foresee them eventually organizing their way of business.”

Bhat sees a mutual learning process which will benefit both eventually. “The organized retailers are also learning from the kirana stores and trying to provide a better customer connection,” he says. “Besides this, both formats are implementing the best practices of each other. Hence, the two formats will definitely coexist as long as customers are the winners.”

“Small retailers in India have inherent advantages,” says the PwC-CII “Rising Elephant” report. “They are located next to the consumer, making it convenient for top-up purchase. They know them well, some even by name. They give credit too — which no large retailer does. Their fixed costs are so low that their breakeven point is as low as 46% of sales.”

Finding a Model

Kumar of IIMB says there are opportunities now that may look more attractive for organized retailers. “Segmenting consumers on price sensitivity and lifestyles along with multiple retail formats holds the key for a retail chain in the Indian context,” he says. “Organized retail, instead of competing with the unorganized sector using price cuts on branded offerings and short-term sales promotions, should get into private labels that provide good quality at relatively lower prices as compared to established brands. The economic slowdown is probably the ideal time for such retailers to launch these private labels. Private labels with limited merchandise will be an effective approach to target the middle-class consumers who shop almost every day as a part of their culture. Besides, since most residential areas have kirana shops, it is unlikely that consumers will drive long distances for their regular shopping cycles.”

“Modern retail is a less-than-20-years-old phenomenon in India,” says Singhal of Technopak. “It has attracted a diverse set of entrepreneurs and business organizations, and each one is trying to find out and develop its own unique business model. Some of these models are fundamentally flawed; in some cases the execution is flawed. However, overall, the growth of modern retail in India has been very steady and there is increasing width and depth [in terms of product categories, formats, etc.]. Modern retail trade in India is still in an evolutionary phase and will be in this phase for at least three-five more years before the winning formats and the winners stand out. Then, there will a consolidation and growth phase led by these winners.”

Will the winners be Indian companies or MNC majors? There are no easy answers. “India’s landscape is fundamentally unique,” says Singhal of Technopak. One can’t transport Western models and expect them to automatically succeed, he notes. For instance, infrastructure is in very bad shape. During the initial euphoria of the retail boom, several companies imported retail professionals from the West, who came armed with just-in-time and other cost-saving techniques. They realized, to their dismay, that none of this would work in a country where it could take days for a truck to traverse a few hundred miles, he adds.

“The large players usually try to gain on economies of scale and lure customers by reducing the margins,” says Bhat of Zinnov. “This would [require] elimination of middlemen and brokers along with established logistics and infrastructure support. However, in the current scenario, lack of infrastructure and inefficient logistics services have dampened the growth of organized retail while providing continued shelter to the middlemen. As a result, organized retailers have not been able to provide higher value. On the contrary, unorganized retailers leverage the inefficiencies of the system and encourage consumers to drive a hard bargain, which enables a win-win situation for both.”

One example of the potential pitfalls is the Piramal Group, which opened an upmarket outlet in downtown Mumbai, the first of a planned chain. It proved to be a tourist attraction for visitors to a nearby religious shrine. Most visitors came to look, but not to buy. The company tried to insist that all who came to the mall should possess a mobile phone or a credit card to gain entry, but the idea was quickly withdrawn after a public outcry against discrimination. (The mall closed down shortly thereafter.)

These are problems that no amount of multinational expertise or FDI can likely address. “FDI is not so relevant in the current context, but technology can certainly help retailers understand their customers better,” says Vedamani of RAI. Bhat of Zinnov disagrees. “The entry of foreign multinationals would make the market more competitive,” he says. “Indian consumers will definitely benefit.” But money or new technology will not help, he adds, “unless customers become the utmost priority.”

“FDI in retail is extremely relevant,” says Singhal of Technopak. “As India’s consumption basket changes, new retail businesses have to be started to take care of emerging consumer needs. For this, both capital and know-how [in sourcing, distribution, etc.] is needed. From a consumers’ perspective, they also need more choice in terms of retail options, and FDI can give them access to more choice of formats and value propositions.” Adds Joseph of ICRIER: “Inexplicable restrictions on FDI investments in the sector are preventing even Indian retailers from raising global capital.”

Early in February, the government announced major changes in its FDI policy through two “Press Notes.” The ban on FDI in multi-brand retailing such as supermarkets seems about to expire, but “the 10 pages of unintelligible officialese” leave many unanswered questions, according to The Financial Times. There have been no clarifications as political parties prepare themselves for the coming general elections. Subramanian of Subhiksha is certain he will be there when the MNCs arrive. The problems for both organized Indian retail and his own venture will pass. “After all, challenges make boys into men,” he says.

Politicians? Try The Apes

By M H Ahssan

Public figures must stop monkeying. They can be leaders as well

Almost three months since the Mumbai attacks, which led many citizens to loudly question politicians at a new level, we are still asking if their Teflon coat is damaged beyond repair and a replacement sought. Although people are now much less nervous than in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, it is clear that India has been shaken from the top, instead of the usual bottom. What was unique was that India’s upper classes were aggrieved as the hotels attacked were essentially extensions of their homes.

The demonstrations, marches and peace vigils by middle and upper middle classes were directed primarily against politicians of all colours. This vulnerability brought about not only outrage but started a blame game, a real urban backlash started against politicians.

With Parliamentary elections around the corner, I wonder, as a legislator myself: are politicians really dispensable? When will our most vocal critics start voting? Will those holding placards in Mumbai actually decide to stand in the same line as sweepers, cleaners and washers, sparing their precious time to vote, with the same commitment they demonstrated to the cameras on Marine Drive or Nariman Point? If we do rid ourselves of politicians, what will we miss? High-handedness? Devious schemes? Profitmaking? Political chicanery? The switching of political alliances faster than a chief minister’s convoy can skip traffic lights? But what if we actually get rid of them? Who will we lampoon and hate? Can crooked businessmen, film stars, and Delhi’s blueline buses really satisfy our need to blame someone else for the state of the nation, the crises we face and the pothole that aunty fell into yesterday?

A world without legislators is an undemocratic one, but there are alternatives. We could be managed by bureaucrats selected, posted and transferred by public vote, reality TV style each week. Or a return to princely states and dynastic power. How about a system of elected representatives without political parties, a merit-based democracy of loose and moving alliances based on individual beliefs, not hardened political dogma. Something like your golf club elections? What about warlords and the power of the gun? Why not leave it all to our religious leaders in a theocracy? Surely, a utopian world without discrimination or recrimination? Or perhaps a filmocracy; after Zardari’s reactions to the “beautiful” Sarah Palin, it could be good for cross-border relations!

Most urban dwellers would likely agree that while the rejection of all politicians is appealing, it belongs more to the dinner table. In the bright light of day, the alternatives are more unpalatable. Yes, politicians can be the worst of the worst, and some do need to stop monkeying around. But they can also, if we elect the right ones, be drivers of success, leaders to be proud of. Good politicians are not dispensable, they are crucial to the success of both individuals and our nation. Better still would be for the middle and upper classes to vote this May, increasing numbers at the ballot box, not just the TV phone-ins. Vote for those that will invoke the laws of the land and not the laws of the jungle.

And finally, for those urbanites, guilty of conspicuous consumption and neighbour envy, desperately seeking the abolition of politicians, there’s always that very appealing and appetising alternative featured in that 1968 blockbuster starring Charlton Heston: Planet of the Apes. I kid you not!!

SWISS BANKING ISSUE: The Black Trillion

By M H Ahssan

Cricket marketing may have dreamed up the blue billion tag to put a number to the fans of this pan-India passion, but Parliament has been rocked twice in the past two weeks over a rather different figure — a trillion and a half of Indian deposits in Swiss banks.

When Communist Party of India (CPI) Deputy General Secretary Sudhakar Reddy raised the issue of Indian deposits in Swiss banks, his mention of the $1.45 trillion figure and that it was double the country’s gross domestic product shook the Lok Sabha. External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, currently in charge of the finance portfolio, didn’t take note and left it to his deputy, Pawan Kumar Bansal, to say a probe would be ordered.

Reddy was quoting a Swiss Banking Association report of 2006-07 that said India led the top five countries in deposits — the others are Russia, the UK, Ukraine and China. “Everyone in the House was rattled,” says Reddy, whose repeated statements in Parliament were a follow-up of the two-page letter he’d written to the Prime Minister after being informed about a relatively unknown NGO.

“If equally distributed, each Indian will get Rs 100,000,” Reddy wrote in his letter, which evoked no response from the Prime Minister’s Office. But, in a late reaction, the Communist Party of India- Marxist (CPM) urged New Delhi to seek details of these deposits.

The point being made by the Left parties is that the famed Swiss banks secrecy is not an absolute. Recently, banking details of eight US clients of Switzerland’s UBS were sent to Washington, despite a late Swiss court order blocking the move. “If the US can do it, nothing prevents the Indian Government from getting the details,” said the CPM Politburo.

A report in The Washington Post says that, in addition to details of the eight clients, names of more than 240 clients have been sent by UBS. The US Justice Department is trying to break through Switzerland’s legendary banking secrecy to go after American tax evaders: UBS admitted to the tax fraud and agreed to pay $780 million. However, UBS rejected the demand that it disclose identities of some 52,000 US customers who allegedly evaded taxes. The US tax office argues US citizens are hiding about $14.8 billion in such accounts.

Reddy, Chairman of the Lok Sabha Committee on Labour, has moved a motion slated for discussion on February 27, as part of the Private Members Resolution. “We have to get to the bottom of this case,” Reddy told HNN.

In New Delhi, Swiss Ambassador to India Dominique Dreyer acknowledged the flow of black money from India and other countries into Swiss banks, but said that new legislation in Switzerland could make stashing such money difficult in the future. “The banks themselves monitor the origin stringently,” Dreyer said while celebrating 60 years of the Indo-Swiss Friendship Treaty. “Switzerland was accused of giving shelter to black money. It would not be stopped 100 per cent (under the new law) but controlled up to a certain limit.”

But those familiar with Swiss banks say that the chances of New Delhi seeking and obtaining a greater list of names than that sent to Washington seems doomed because of the new court order that arms the European country’s national regulator, FINMA. Swiss newspaper Tribune De Geneve quoted FINMA’s Alain Bischel saying the tribunal’s order forbade the Swiss bank regulator from giving the plaintiffs’ “banking documents to third parties” or risk legal proceedings. Also, Switzerland’s populist Swiss People’s Party (SVP) has called for a Parliament debate, demanding retaliation against the US probe and threats to the prized banking secrecy.

It is estimated that nearly $2.2 trillion, a third of $7 trillion the world’s wealthy have spirited into offshore tax havens, is stashed in Swiss banks. India, from where an estimated 80,000 people travel to Switzerland every year, has the largest slice of the secret pie. “There are no orders to probe,” says a senior official of the Enforcement Directorate. Agrees Admiral RH Tahiliani, former naval chief who now leads Transparency International India: “Billions have been parked in Switzerland, with Indians topping the list.”

With those levels of deposits, and Switzerland only one of the popular tax havens in the world (Lichtenstein, the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands also ask no questions), it is barely surprising that the integrity score of India has been 3.4 in 2007-08 (on a scale of 10) as compared to Denmark and Finland scoring a perfect 10. But since the wealth parked in these accounts is possessed both by rich businessmen and rich politicians, the chances that any government will be pushed enough to demand their banking details are slim indeed.

SWISS BANKING ISSUE: The Black Trillion

By M H Ahssan

Cricket marketing may have dreamed up the blue billion tag to put a number to the fans of this pan-India passion, but Parliament has been rocked twice in the past two weeks over a rather different figure — a trillion and a half of Indian deposits in Swiss banks.

When Communist Party of India (CPI) Deputy General Secretary Sudhakar Reddy raised the issue of Indian deposits in Swiss banks, his mention of the $1.45 trillion figure and that it was double the country’s gross domestic product shook the Lok Sabha. External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, currently in charge of the finance portfolio, didn’t take note and left it to his deputy, Pawan Kumar Bansal, to say a probe would be ordered.

Reddy was quoting a Swiss Banking Association report of 2006-07 that said India led the top five countries in deposits — the others are Russia, the UK, Ukraine and China. “Everyone in the House was rattled,” says Reddy, whose repeated statements in Parliament were a follow-up of the two-page letter he’d written to the Prime Minister after being informed about a relatively unknown NGO.

“If equally distributed, each Indian will get Rs 100,000,” Reddy wrote in his letter, which evoked no response from the Prime Minister’s Office. But, in a late reaction, the Communist Party of India- Marxist (CPM) urged New Delhi to seek details of these deposits.

The point being made by the Left parties is that the famed Swiss banks secrecy is not an absolute. Recently, banking details of eight US clients of Switzerland’s UBS were sent to Washington, despite a late Swiss court order blocking the move. “If the US can do it, nothing prevents the Indian Government from getting the details,” said the CPM Politburo.

A report in The Washington Post says that, in addition to details of the eight clients, names of more than 240 clients have been sent by UBS. The US Justice Department is trying to break through Switzerland’s legendary banking secrecy to go after American tax evaders: UBS admitted to the tax fraud and agreed to pay $780 million. However, UBS rejected the demand that it disclose identities of some 52,000 US customers who allegedly evaded taxes. The US tax office argues US citizens are hiding about $14.8 billion in such accounts.

Reddy, Chairman of the Lok Sabha Committee on Labour, has moved a motion slated for discussion on February 27, as part of the Private Members Resolution. “We have to get to the bottom of this case,” Reddy told HNN.

In New Delhi, Swiss Ambassador to India Dominique Dreyer acknowledged the flow of black money from India and other countries into Swiss banks, but said that new legislation in Switzerland could make stashing such money difficult in the future. “The banks themselves monitor the origin stringently,” Dreyer said while celebrating 60 years of the Indo-Swiss Friendship Treaty. “Switzerland was accused of giving shelter to black money. It would not be stopped 100 per cent (under the new law) but controlled up to a certain limit.”

But those familiar with Swiss banks say that the chances of New Delhi seeking and obtaining a greater list of names than that sent to Washington seems doomed because of the new court order that arms the European country’s national regulator, FINMA. Swiss newspaper Tribune De Geneve quoted FINMA’s Alain Bischel saying the tribunal’s order forbade the Swiss bank regulator from giving the plaintiffs’ “banking documents to third parties” or risk legal proceedings. Also, Switzerland’s populist Swiss People’s Party (SVP) has called for a Parliament debate, demanding retaliation against the US probe and threats to the prized banking secrecy.

It is estimated that nearly $2.2 trillion, a third of $7 trillion the world’s wealthy have spirited into offshore tax havens, is stashed in Swiss banks. India, from where an estimated 80,000 people travel to Switzerland every year, has the largest slice of the secret pie. “There are no orders to probe,” says a senior official of the Enforcement Directorate. Agrees Admiral RH Tahiliani, former naval chief who now leads Transparency International India: “Billions have been parked in Switzerland, with Indians topping the list.”

With those levels of deposits, and Switzerland only one of the popular tax havens in the world (Lichtenstein, the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands also ask no questions), it is barely surprising that the integrity score of India has been 3.4 in 2007-08 (on a scale of 10) as compared to Denmark and Finland scoring a perfect 10. But since the wealth parked in these accounts is possessed both by rich businessmen and rich politicians, the chances that any government will be pushed enough to demand their banking details are slim indeed.

The Double Bind Principle

By M H Ahssan

Despite a dramatic increase in agricultural and food subsidies, farmers across India continue to be in severe distress.

Subsidies on food and agriculture have scaled dizzying heights this year, with the Food Corporation of India (fci) raising a bill of Rs 48, 454 crore and the Ministry of Fertilisers a demand of Rs 1,00,600 crore. This is in addition to central subsidies disbursed under the National Food Security Mission and crop insurance and state subsidies on agricultural inputs like power, seeds, saplings, diesel, pumpsets, irrigation systems, tractors, soil amendments and animal husbandry.

Against this backdrop, the minimum support price (msp) of wheat was hiked another eight percent last week. The increase was preceded by a grim struggle in the Union Cabinet. Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar pushed hard for it, over protests that the msp has increased by 70 percent and the food subsidy bill more than doubled during the upa years. But with General Elections imminent, Pawar had his way.

And so the northward trend in subsidies continues. The fertiliser subsidy alone on each hectare of cultivable land this year was Rs 5,500 and on each hectare of net sown area was Rs 7,200. However, in real terms, the per hectare subsidy is double that figure, since more than 40 percent of farmers benefit from it. Ironically, despite increasing subsidies, the majority of Indian farmers continue to be in acute distress: 16,600 suicides reported in 2007. Some agricultural economists link the crisis in the farm sector in the last decade to the post-liberalisation withdrawal of key agricultural subsidies and limiting of output price support. Dependence of farmers on the private sector for inputs like seeds and agro-chemicals has ballooned input costs, even as the subsidies have inflated. Political pressure on the government to increase procurement for Rabi 2009 will push the food subsidy Bill still higher, due to the increased economic cost of commodities and the static central issue price (cip). For example, the economic cost per kg of wheat in 2007-8 was Rs 13 per kg, but the cip for apl consumers was Rs 6.10 per kg — a net subsidy of nearly Rs 7! For bpl consumers, it is much higher. The current year’s subsidy varies from 58 to 86 percent for wheat.

At the same time, due to population pressure, the government is keen on pushing production even higher than the current level of 78 million tonnes of wheat and 96 million tonnes of rice. This means more subsidy on agricultural inputs. The current year’s outlay may have been exceptional due to the high price of fossil fuels, but the trend is unmistakable. The fertiliser subsidy went up 300 percent between 2004 and 2007, and 2008 accounted for even more. Power subsidies by state governments have not abated, with Haryana announcing a Bill of Rs 2,000 crore and Punjab Rs 2,500 crore.

The government and the farmer are both in a Catch-22 situation. The msp is fixed by the Committee on Agricultural Costs and Prices (cacp) keeping in mind input costs, which increase every year (since seeds, farm machinery, agro-chemicals and labour cost more). But farmers remain exposed to the vagaries of weather and pest attack, so that a single crop failure can plunge them into debt. For example, 10 years ago a cumin farmer spent Rs 20,960 per hectare. He could earn up to Rs 24,000 per hectare if all went well. But if his crop failed or the cumin market crashed, he would be plunged into debt. Today, with cumin prices having gone up just 15 percent on the average and input costs having doubled, his situation is even more precarious.

The future of crops is always unpredictable. Cotton farmers in Punjab had their economics thrown out of gear last year by a mealybug attack. They had purchased bt cotton seeds at a high price on the premise that their crop would be safe from pest attack. What they did not anticipate was that the expensive seeds would protect them from one kind of pest, but not from others!

In defence of India’s subsidy regime, it is usually pointed out that it is tiny compared to direct farm subsidies in the US and the EU. The fact remains that reining in subsidies is looking more and more desirable, as we are caught in a vicious cycle of rising input costs and output support. A miniscule section of the government has been thinking out of the box to break the cycle. This is evident from a scheme floated by the National Horticulture Mission (nhm) under the Ministry of Agriculture to cut farm input costs. This makes the farmer earn more, making debt less likely, while shrinking the input subsidy. The scheme offers selected farmers a per hectare subsidy of Rs 3,300 for cutting down input costs by not using agro-chemicals.

However, resistance by the bureaucracy has ensured that this scheme is by and large a non-starter. In Rajasthan, for instance, hundreds of farmers enrolled in the programme have been denied subsidy support due to the laxity of the state Department of Horticulture. The agricultural extension has bludgeoned the farmer into using expensive seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, power and machinery for close to four decades.

Policy decisions have recently been taken to encourage farmers to use soil fertility inputs manufactured on-farm, such as farmyard manure, compost, phosphorous-rich organic manure and vermin-compost. Low-cost microbial cultures, green manuring and crop rotation have likewise got the policy-makers’ nod. Integrated pest management now advocates bio-control of pests and diseases, in tandem with application of chemicals. The cost effectiveness of sustainable agriculture, expounded by the National Commission on Farmers, appears to have been recognised, if for no other reason than the need to cut down on the use of fossil fuel based agro-chemicals. The National Food Security Mission only targets a tiny minority of farmers. It needs to be extended to agricultural and horticultural crops, but the majority of the civil servants and the bulk of the agricultural extension are still in a “green revolution” mindset. Unless that changes, the system will remain economically unsustainable, both for the individual farmer and the country as a whole.

The Devil In The Backyard

By M H Ahssan

The Zardari Government is making peace with the Taliban which is hanging amputated bodies from electric poles. HNN analyses the dangers for Pakistan.

The one time tourist heaven of Swat looks like a ghost valley today. The people have still not recovered from the gory nightmare that was unleashed by the local Taliban. The last one-and-a-half year has seen a population of 1.5 million people being held hostage by a ragtag force of some 2,500 Taliban. They are under the leadership of Maulvi Fazalullah, popularly known as Mullah Radio for his jihad-inflected sermons, aired through his illegal FM radio. Fazalullah’s men have fought bloody battles with the army over the past two years. They virtually took control of most of Swat last year. Over 1,200 civilians have died so far and around 350,000 hapless locals forced to leave through rough mountain terrain.

The rich have left for Peshawar — 70 miles away, and the richer for more posh Islamabad — 100 miles in the south. The poor, with no place to go, suffered the trauma that makes Hollywood horrors look like a picnic. Intelligence sources dubbed as ‘spies’ and government officials — particularly from law-enforcing agencies — were specifically targeted by the Taliban. They were abducted and maimed and their killing turned into a gruesome spectacle in order to send a message to others.

The reign of terror is symbolised by what has come to be known as Khooni Chowk — the Crossing of Blood. A band of Taliban would, late at night, block the central crossing in the city centre of Mingora, the district headquarters the size of Srinagar and no less beautiful. They hung amputated bodies — some headless — on an electrical pole in the middle of the crossing, with notes giving their name and details of their ‘misdeeds’ against Islam. The bodies were not to be removed before a given date. Anybody violating this dictat could do so only at the risk of being himself put up headless.

THIS SCENE — perpetuated for days and weeks — is not from the Wild West of the cowboys. It happened in the Swat valley, which once took pride in having the most peaceful and bettereducated residents not just in the frontier province alone, but all over Pakistan. The princely state — annexed by Pakistan in 1969 — had better schools, hospitals and police stations than anybody else. It had an airport, and attractions like ski resorts and trout fishing on the meandering River Swat, which used to attract hordes of tourists every year. No more.

A majority of the police force has either run away, resigned or simply not turned up for work. Local newspapers are filled with advertisements from policemen declaring that they have left their jobs, and hence they be spared “in the name of their small children.” A new force of 600 locals was recruited for special commando training to combat what is actually an insurgency. The story goes that 450 of them disappeared during the training itself, and another 148 did not appear on the date of joining. The two men left in the force have not ventured outside their office in uniform since.

This left the entire populace at the mercy of the wolves that are masquerading as saviours of religion. People have seen throats being slit. Those who violate the Taliban code are either lashed or hanged in public jirgas (gatherings). Events where masked gunmen with the latest weaponry went on the rampage were skillfully orchestrated, and then their videos released in order to instill fear in the public. This took a severe toll on the psyche of the public, already hard pressed thanks to unemployment and hunger.

Life has come to a standstill for 80 percent of the people whose earnings came from tourism. Orchids have become rotten in the absence of labour and markets; and the fields lie barren. People go without fire, food, and electricity for days. The only cinema in Mingora was forced to down shutters, television and music has been banned, and CD shops have been closed. Even barbershops were shutdown as shaving, according to the interpretation of the Taliban, is un-Islamic.

It has been particularly hard for women, children and the handicapped because of the problems of age or sickness. Over 200 schools have been blown up as they were giving “western education.” Girls are barred from schooling. Over 100,000 Swati girls stand to lose their chance of education and, consequently, any career or professional life. This is happening in a place where the ratio of women in literacy and the job market was one of the highest in the province. The new edict may allow girls an education till the fourth grade, but with a revised curriculum. Also, they must always wear scarves on their heads. In any case, it will take awhile as most schools have been destroyed.

Women have been rendered prisoner in their own homes as they are now barred from going out in public, something that even Saudi Arabia has not tried. The central bazaar for women — with items like cosmetics and bangles, when partially open — today gives an image of a haunted place without shoppers. But then, cosmetics are a lesser priority when your children sleep hungry. Women are not allowed to work. Even women doctors are not permitted to carry on with their jobs. Stories abound where women lost babies because of the non-availability of doctors. Many others have died because of the lack of medicines and medical treatment.

The question is — how did over a million people accept the inhuman dictates of a bunch of jihadi thugs who do not fit into any Islamic school of thought? Well, they have not. They voted liberal parties to power in the last election. But these parties did not have either the political muscle, or the will, to protect them from the evil of the Taliban.

But how did the Taliban gain ascendancy? The system of justice under the princely state was more efficient than what followed. The people, therefore, wanted Sharia courts to be established as a way of achieving quick justice and dispensing with the long delays and corruption of the civil courts. But the Taliban, who had a different agenda, hijacked their demand. For ordinary people, in the absence of the writ of the state, it’s just a matter of choosing a lesser evil.

All hopes now hinge upon Maulana Sufi Mohammad, the father-in-law of Fazalullah. Sufi Mohammad is no angel himself. He is a radical cleric freed in 2008 after spending six years in jail for leading 10,000 Pashtun tribesmen to fight the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Nearly 7,000 died in the bombing and he ran back for his life. The people whose children he took with him after indoctrinating them, leading to their being killed, hate him. He has now been resurrected in order to persuade Fazalullah to accept the government’s offer of a ceasefire, which he has agreed to partially. How long this respite will last, only time will tell.

The ceasefire agreement with the Taliban has raised questions as to whether it is a victory for the Pakistan Government, capitulation before the Taliban who want to recreate a 1,500-year-old replica of Islamic rule, or a strategic retreat by the military.

IT IS ironic that Frontier Chief Minister Ameer Khan Hoti, the great grandson of the champion of nonviolence, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan — the Frontier Gandhi — has signed the agreement. He has justified it saying, “I have done this to stop violence and to fulfill my electoral promise of restoring peace.” His uncle and Awami National Party Chief Asfand Yar Wali — whose party runs the troubled province bordering Afghanistan — is under attack from the Taliban. He survived a suicide bomb attack three months ago while most of his party members are on the run because of constant threats to their life.

The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Government at the Centre is playing it safe. President Asif Zardari’s position is that he will decide when the agreement will come to him for his signature. Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood has tried to pacify the Americans while on a tour of Washington, saying, “it’s a local remedy to a local problem.” The PPP has neither accepted the agreement nor rejected it. Obviously, the PPP Government would like to see what the outcome will be in a couple of months, if not earlier, before taking a stand. In the meantime, PPP spinmasters are arguing that the Sharia courts are not the same as strict Islamic law. The new laws, for instance, would not ban education of women or impose other strict tenets espoused by the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

LIBERAL CIRCLES in Pakistan and abroad are fuming over what they call “the sellout.” Some, like human rights activist Iqbal Haider, have described it as a deal with the devil. “How can you sit with the very people who have maimed hundreds of people,” he protested. “It’s a matter of principle which should be supreme. These people should be tried for crimes against humanity.”

The liberals have a valid argument that the agreement will now be a model for the rest of the Taliban. They will demand similar Sharia in other parts of the province. “Now they know that militancy is the way to coerce the government into submission,” said senior analyst Saleem Khilji. They have a point, as the agreement extends the scope of their power. The government has conceded that the new Sharia will be extended beyond Swat to the other five districts of Malakand division also.

The Pakistan Army has taken refuge behind the government, saying that it is following orders to stay out till further notice. They should be the happiest lot if this agreement were to result in peace. They have taken the brunt of the fight. Media reports say army casualties number more than a hundred dead but the Taliban claims that it might be much higher.

The issue is that the Pakistan Army has been trained to fight with India, and it may not be comfortable with counterinsurgency operations. It does not have sufficient experience of that except for the Balochistan insurgency in the 1970s, unlike its Indian rival, which has consistently countered insurgencies in Kashmir, Nagaland and Mizoram.

The army will remain stationed in Swat to deal with the fallout. The underlying assumption is that either Sufi Mohammad will deliver peace or fight with his son-inlaw. This will be a tactical victory. Instead of the army fighting the Taliban, it would be the militants fighting each other.

But then there is a counter-theory — the two factions might use the time to regroup, consolidate their power and fight later with even more ferocity. There are already signs of this happening. An indicator is that the price of arms in the tribal belt has almost doubled because of the massive demand.

In any case, the agreement is simply not implementable. Each party has a different interpretation of it. The governments in the Frontier and Islamabad think that the Sharia court is old wine in a new bottle. Sufi Mohammad believes that his mandate is to provide Sharia courts where religious scholars will be independent judges and not advisers to the regular civil judges like in the earlier agreement of six years ago. “The choice of judges will be ours and they will be all-powerful,” said Maulana Izzat, spokes man of Sufi Mohammad, in a telephonic interview.

Fazalullah wants the complete domination of the Sharia, encompassing all sectors beyond the judiciary. “We shall run the entire area in accordance with the holy book, “countered Muslim Khan, another spokesman for Fazalullah. “We don’t accept any system but our own and will inshallah spread it to other parts of Pakistan very soon.”

The legal and administrative intricacies involved in merging the old system with the new are something beyond these clerics. The Taliban have simply ceased fire but not surrendered. Both sides are waiting for the next round to start with bated breath. It almost came to that when a newly-appointed senior district official was kidnapped by militants two days after the ceasefire. After a tense standoff lasting hours, the official, Kushal Khan, was freed.

Later, it was disclosed that his release had been the result of a swap: Pakistani authorities released two militants who had been picked up a day earlier in Peshawar. Next time around, it is possible that some freed militants like this might renew the fighting while both sides continue to sit in the trenches.

Swat is different from other trouble spots like Bahaur, Waziristan and Khyber. It is the only trouble spot that is not a federal (FATA) but a provincial tribal area (PATA). It is wrong to generalise about the Taliban and the Swat situation in particular.

FAZALULLAH, A barely-literate former lift operator, was an indigenous product. He does not come from the ranks of Taliban or Al-Qaeda, but was later accepted by them and adopted as the commander of the area looking after his hold in the area. It is only in Swat that schools have been closed in an organised manner, otherwise the Taliban have not done so in FATA, except for occasional episodes. The Taliban have generally refrained from killing hostages, except for spies or the recent Polish engineer in Waziristan. The Swat Talibans have slit throats of hostages and security forces with ruthless abandon.

Swat is the only place which has been completely taken over by the Taliban. This may be because of its geography — it is a bowl-shaped valley. The Swat terrain makes it strategically easier for Taliban to hold power against numerical odds. There is one major communication artery along the Swat River that could easily be blocked from anywhere. In Bajaur, Khyber and Waziristan, the Taliban are dominant, but they do not run those agencies. Swat is also the only hotspot that does not border Afghanistan. In fact, it remained aloof and generally peaceful during the war with Afghanistan.

Swat has a past of peace and culture where thousands thronged from all over Pakistan and abroad every summer. Its capital, Mingora, happens to be much bigger than any other town in any of the troubled agencies.

Also, it houses the elite of Pashtun tribes, and is the abode of the royal, sophisticated Yousafzais of Tana, whereas the other agencies have a history of warring tribes. The impact of Swat’s takeover, like in the classical Clausewitzian centre of gravity, has been immense on the psyche of Pashtuns.

If the impression goes out that it’s a victory for the Taliban, it will encourage militancy elsewhere, in the rest of Pakistan. It becomes more alarming when seen in the larger context where the Waziristan commanders, pro-Pakistan Mullah Nazir and anti-state Baitullah Mehsud, along with Haji Gul Bahadur, have patched up differences in Waziristan to become a formidable force; Bajaur Taliban now expect similar Sharia in their area, and Hamimullah is blocking NATO supplies in Khyber. The Taliban seem to be on the ascendant, which should be a source of worry for not just Pakistan, but also the entire region and the world.

If the social fabric continues to be torn apart as it has in Swat, this will lead to the rise of more non-state actors who are not under the control of anyone. Since all of these commanders are connected to each other, including the militants in Kashmir, the genie is threatening to become ever more dangerous. The question is not just about the outcome of the investigation into the Mumbai attack. A more serious question is: what will happen if there is another attack of a similar nature?

(With inputs from Syed Saleem Shehzad & Maria Zuber Khan in Pakistan)

The Devil In The Backyard

By M H Ahssan

The Zardari Government is making peace with the Taliban which is hanging amputated bodies from electric poles. HNN analyses the dangers for Pakistan.

The one time tourist heaven of Swat looks like a ghost valley today. The people have still not recovered from the gory nightmare that was unleashed by the local Taliban. The last one-and-a-half year has seen a population of 1.5 million people being held hostage by a ragtag force of some 2,500 Taliban. They are under the leadership of Maulvi Fazalullah, popularly known as Mullah Radio for his jihad-inflected sermons, aired through his illegal FM radio. Fazalullah’s men have fought bloody battles with the army over the past two years. They virtually took control of most of Swat last year. Over 1,200 civilians have died so far and around 350,000 hapless locals forced to leave through rough mountain terrain.

The rich have left for Peshawar — 70 miles away, and the richer for more posh Islamabad — 100 miles in the south. The poor, with no place to go, suffered the trauma that makes Hollywood horrors look like a picnic. Intelligence sources dubbed as ‘spies’ and government officials — particularly from law-enforcing agencies — were specifically targeted by the Taliban. They were abducted and maimed and their killing turned into a gruesome spectacle in order to send a message to others.

The reign of terror is symbolised by what has come to be known as Khooni Chowk — the Crossing of Blood. A band of Taliban would, late at night, block the central crossing in the city centre of Mingora, the district headquarters the size of Srinagar and no less beautiful. They hung amputated bodies — some headless — on an electrical pole in the middle of the crossing, with notes giving their name and details of their ‘misdeeds’ against Islam. The bodies were not to be removed before a given date. Anybody violating this dictat could do so only at the risk of being himself put up headless.

THIS SCENE — perpetuated for days and weeks — is not from the Wild West of the cowboys. It happened in the Swat valley, which once took pride in having the most peaceful and bettereducated residents not just in the frontier province alone, but all over Pakistan. The princely state — annexed by Pakistan in 1969 — had better schools, hospitals and police stations than anybody else. It had an airport, and attractions like ski resorts and trout fishing on the meandering River Swat, which used to attract hordes of tourists every year. No more.

A majority of the police force has either run away, resigned or simply not turned up for work. Local newspapers are filled with advertisements from policemen declaring that they have left their jobs, and hence they be spared “in the name of their small children.” A new force of 600 locals was recruited for special commando training to combat what is actually an insurgency. The story goes that 450 of them disappeared during the training itself, and another 148 did not appear on the date of joining. The two men left in the force have not ventured outside their office in uniform since.

This left the entire populace at the mercy of the wolves that are masquerading as saviours of religion. People have seen throats being slit. Those who violate the Taliban code are either lashed or hanged in public jirgas (gatherings). Events where masked gunmen with the latest weaponry went on the rampage were skillfully orchestrated, and then their videos released in order to instill fear in the public. This took a severe toll on the psyche of the public, already hard pressed thanks to unemployment and hunger.

Life has come to a standstill for 80 percent of the people whose earnings came from tourism. Orchids have become rotten in the absence of labour and markets; and the fields lie barren. People go without fire, food, and electricity for days. The only cinema in Mingora was forced to down shutters, television and music has been banned, and CD shops have been closed. Even barbershops were shutdown as shaving, according to the interpretation of the Taliban, is un-Islamic.

It has been particularly hard for women, children and the handicapped because of the problems of age or sickness. Over 200 schools have been blown up as they were giving “western education.” Girls are barred from schooling. Over 100,000 Swati girls stand to lose their chance of education and, consequently, any career or professional life. This is happening in a place where the ratio of women in literacy and the job market was one of the highest in the province. The new edict may allow girls an education till the fourth grade, but with a revised curriculum. Also, they must always wear scarves on their heads. In any case, it will take awhile as most schools have been destroyed.

Women have been rendered prisoner in their own homes as they are now barred from going out in public, something that even Saudi Arabia has not tried. The central bazaar for women — with items like cosmetics and bangles, when partially open — today gives an image of a haunted place without shoppers. But then, cosmetics are a lesser priority when your children sleep hungry. Women are not allowed to work. Even women doctors are not permitted to carry on with their jobs. Stories abound where women lost babies because of the non-availability of doctors. Many others have died because of the lack of medicines and medical treatment.

The question is — how did over a million people accept the inhuman dictates of a bunch of jihadi thugs who do not fit into any Islamic school of thought? Well, they have not. They voted liberal parties to power in the last election. But these parties did not have either the political muscle, or the will, to protect them from the evil of the Taliban.

But how did the Taliban gain ascendancy? The system of justice under the princely state was more efficient than what followed. The people, therefore, wanted Sharia courts to be established as a way of achieving quick justice and dispensing with the long delays and corruption of the civil courts. But the Taliban, who had a different agenda, hijacked their demand. For ordinary people, in the absence of the writ of the state, it’s just a matter of choosing a lesser evil.

All hopes now hinge upon Maulana Sufi Mohammad, the father-in-law of Fazalullah. Sufi Mohammad is no angel himself. He is a radical cleric freed in 2008 after spending six years in jail for leading 10,000 Pashtun tribesmen to fight the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Nearly 7,000 died in the bombing and he ran back for his life. The people whose children he took with him after indoctrinating them, leading to their being killed, hate him. He has now been resurrected in order to persuade Fazalullah to accept the government’s offer of a ceasefire, which he has agreed to partially. How long this respite will last, only time will tell.

The ceasefire agreement with the Taliban has raised questions as to whether it is a victory for the Pakistan Government, capitulation before the Taliban who want to recreate a 1,500-year-old replica of Islamic rule, or a strategic retreat by the military.

IT IS ironic that Frontier Chief Minister Ameer Khan Hoti, the great grandson of the champion of nonviolence, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan — the Frontier Gandhi — has signed the agreement. He has justified it saying, “I have done this to stop violence and to fulfill my electoral promise of restoring peace.” His uncle and Awami National Party Chief Asfand Yar Wali — whose party runs the troubled province bordering Afghanistan — is under attack from the Taliban. He survived a suicide bomb attack three months ago while most of his party members are on the run because of constant threats to their life.

The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Government at the Centre is playing it safe. President Asif Zardari’s position is that he will decide when the agreement will come to him for his signature. Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood has tried to pacify the Americans while on a tour of Washington, saying, “it’s a local remedy to a local problem.” The PPP has neither accepted the agreement nor rejected it. Obviously, the PPP Government would like to see what the outcome will be in a couple of months, if not earlier, before taking a stand. In the meantime, PPP spinmasters are arguing that the Sharia courts are not the same as strict Islamic law. The new laws, for instance, would not ban education of women or impose other strict tenets espoused by the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

LIBERAL CIRCLES in Pakistan and abroad are fuming over what they call “the sellout.” Some, like human rights activist Iqbal Haider, have described it as a deal with the devil. “How can you sit with the very people who have maimed hundreds of people,” he protested. “It’s a matter of principle which should be supreme. These people should be tried for crimes against humanity.”

The liberals have a valid argument that the agreement will now be a model for the rest of the Taliban. They will demand similar Sharia in other parts of the province. “Now they know that militancy is the way to coerce the government into submission,” said senior analyst Saleem Khilji. They have a point, as the agreement extends the scope of their power. The government has conceded that the new Sharia will be extended beyond Swat to the other five districts of Malakand division also.

The Pakistan Army has taken refuge behind the government, saying that it is following orders to stay out till further notice. They should be the happiest lot if this agreement were to result in peace. They have taken the brunt of the fight. Media reports say army casualties number more than a hundred dead but the Taliban claims that it might be much higher.

The issue is that the Pakistan Army has been trained to fight with India, and it may not be comfortable with counterinsurgency operations. It does not have sufficient experience of that except for the Balochistan insurgency in the 1970s, unlike its Indian rival, which has consistently countered insurgencies in Kashmir, Nagaland and Mizoram.

The army will remain stationed in Swat to deal with the fallout. The underlying assumption is that either Sufi Mohammad will deliver peace or fight with his son-inlaw. This will be a tactical victory. Instead of the army fighting the Taliban, it would be the militants fighting each other.

But then there is a counter-theory — the two factions might use the time to regroup, consolidate their power and fight later with even more ferocity. There are already signs of this happening. An indicator is that the price of arms in the tribal belt has almost doubled because of the massive demand.

In any case, the agreement is simply not implementable. Each party has a different interpretation of it. The governments in the Frontier and Islamabad think that the Sharia court is old wine in a new bottle. Sufi Mohammad believes that his mandate is to provide Sharia courts where religious scholars will be independent judges and not advisers to the regular civil judges like in the earlier agreement of six years ago. “The choice of judges will be ours and they will be all-powerful,” said Maulana Izzat, spokes man of Sufi Mohammad, in a telephonic interview.

Fazalullah wants the complete domination of the Sharia, encompassing all sectors beyond the judiciary. “We shall run the entire area in accordance with the holy book, “countered Muslim Khan, another spokesman for Fazalullah. “We don’t accept any system but our own and will inshallah spread it to other parts of Pakistan very soon.”

The legal and administrative intricacies involved in merging the old system with the new are something beyond these clerics. The Taliban have simply ceased fire but not surrendered. Both sides are waiting for the next round to start with bated breath. It almost came to that when a newly-appointed senior district official was kidnapped by militants two days after the ceasefire. After a tense standoff lasting hours, the official, Kushal Khan, was freed.

Later, it was disclosed that his release had been the result of a swap: Pakistani authorities released two militants who had been picked up a day earlier in Peshawar. Next time around, it is possible that some freed militants like this might renew the fighting while both sides continue to sit in the trenches.

Swat is different from other trouble spots like Bahaur, Waziristan and Khyber. It is the only trouble spot that is not a federal (FATA) but a provincial tribal area (PATA). It is wrong to generalise about the Taliban and the Swat situation in particular.

FAZALULLAH, A barely-literate former lift operator, was an indigenous product. He does not come from the ranks of Taliban or Al-Qaeda, but was later accepted by them and adopted as the commander of the area looking after his hold in the area. It is only in Swat that schools have been closed in an organised manner, otherwise the Taliban have not done so in FATA, except for occasional episodes. The Taliban have generally refrained from killing hostages, except for spies or the recent Polish engineer in Waziristan. The Swat Talibans have slit throats of hostages and security forces with ruthless abandon.

Swat is the only place which has been completely taken over by the Taliban. This may be because of its geography — it is a bowl-shaped valley. The Swat terrain makes it strategically easier for Taliban to hold power against numerical odds. There is one major communication artery along the Swat River that could easily be blocked from anywhere. In Bajaur, Khyber and Waziristan, the Taliban are dominant, but they do not run those agencies. Swat is also the only hotspot that does not border Afghanistan. In fact, it remained aloof and generally peaceful during the war with Afghanistan.

Swat has a past of peace and culture where thousands thronged from all over Pakistan and abroad every summer. Its capital, Mingora, happens to be much bigger than any other town in any of the troubled agencies.

Also, it houses the elite of Pashtun tribes, and is the abode of the royal, sophisticated Yousafzais of Tana, whereas the other agencies have a history of warring tribes. The impact of Swat’s takeover, like in the classical Clausewitzian centre of gravity, has been immense on the psyche of Pashtuns.

If the impression goes out that it’s a victory for the Taliban, it will encourage militancy elsewhere, in the rest of Pakistan. It becomes more alarming when seen in the larger context where the Waziristan commanders, pro-Pakistan Mullah Nazir and anti-state Baitullah Mehsud, along with Haji Gul Bahadur, have patched up differences in Waziristan to become a formidable force; Bajaur Taliban now expect similar Sharia in their area, and Hamimullah is blocking NATO supplies in Khyber. The Taliban seem to be on the ascendant, which should be a source of worry for not just Pakistan, but also the entire region and the world.

If the social fabric continues to be torn apart as it has in Swat, this will lead to the rise of more non-state actors who are not under the control of anyone. Since all of these commanders are connected to each other, including the militants in Kashmir, the genie is threatening to become ever more dangerous. The question is not just about the outcome of the investigation into the Mumbai attack. A more serious question is: what will happen if there is another attack of a similar nature?

(With inputs from Syed Saleem Shehzad & Maria Zuber Khan in Pakistan)

Slumdogs And Palace Rats

By M H Ahssan

Why the lives of the very poor make for compelling stories

Slumdogs arouse instant interest because they laugh, bark, bite and bitch out in the open. They gambol in the sun and the rain without shoes, but can plot in alleyways for blood, lucre and less. Their lives are hard and brittle, but when they are generous they can make you cry.

As this rapid play of emotions is there for all to see, we are alternately repelled, attracted and awestruck. When they are chuckling and playful, we wonder how laughter can crack through poverty. When they claw and scratch we put it down to their bestial nature. We see them one act at a time: one winsome smile, one cruel swipe, a suckling child, a leery ganglord. Slumdogs can break your heart and smash your face, but always in full view.

The truth is that we are not very different from them. We go through the same feelings too, but much of them covertly backstaged. The higher we go up the ladder, the less our emotions are on display. When we at last come to royalty any public show of feelings is incorrect, even lese majeste. As their lives don’t obey the ways of flesh, a chance to sup with nobility upwards is worth paying an arm and a leg for. Such is the aura of taking a peep backstage.

In shanty garibkhanas there is no backstage. Place a camera on a tripod and it will film a riveting story on its own. Slumdogs can be now good and now bad, just like us. What makes them different is their total transparency. If they look childlike it is because they can neither crave nor curl in privacy. Their running lives are like a real-time movie. This is quite unlike palace rats. They disappear from their balconies in a blink to backstage with a chosen few. At one end, even the blind can see and at the other only the select have eyes.

For those of us caught in between, both extremes are compelling, but for different reasons. How can the poor laugh and weep, and the rich love and care? So if one does a half-way decent job of portraying either end, a hit is made. Slumdog Millionaire may have stolen the show this year, but not too long ago it was The Queen. The real test, however, is in presenting the lives of people like us — part backstage, part proscenium. This needs rock solid talent, or forget it! People won’t buy balcony seats and popcorns to see their kitchen sinks on screen.

The truth is that we know little of slumdogs, and even less of palace rats. The purists, however, only wag their fingers when it comes to the depiction of poverty, never that of riches. Between the two it is likely that the poor have a better shot at being correctly cast than the affluent, who also stoke our imaginations. What do we know of the very rich? We imagine that they do what we do, but only better — somewhat like our gods. And when a prince shoots his family, we are stupefied. A slumdog could have done that, but a palace rat?

A researcher or film-maker can barge into a slum home any time — no permission sought or needed. On the other hand, an upper class door does not yield under pressure. This is why both academics and artists can make a lifetime’s reputation purveying the lives of the poor. The very rich tend to lead underground lives. Their clubs, landing strips and private yachts are out of sight, and left mostly to imagination. That is why even salacious gossip about them by domestic helps is snapped up by publishers.

In the old days when Holi was a true saturnalia, subaltern peasants parodied the lives of their masters within a limited repertoire. They only mocked, in role reversal mode, the way their superiors interacted with them front stage. How potentates, oligarchs and landlords backstaged in their hunting lodges, or with their drinking buddies, was well beyond the ken of the poor. As these areas were out of bounds for them they rarely figured in carnivalesque renditions. What the uncouth mobs made fun of was limited to what they could see.

In a way this applies to us too. Knowing about other lives is tempting, especially from the comfort of a library or theatre. As the rich are well-hidden, reality buffs shift attention to the very poor. Slumdogs have no problems if a camera is rolling or a notepad flipping. As they have nothing to hide, the likelihood of coming up with a realistic account of their lives is much greater than it would be with other classes. This is why clever people seeking quick fame take a short cut through the slums.

The middle classes can hardly say anything interesting about themselves without investing a lot of talent. Where is that good book on the Indian middle class? On the other hand, the walls of the rich are too high for a quick pry. This is why hovels are such a draw. As script writers and researchers are rarely ever from the slums, they go about their job with a kerchief to their nose. Yet, this is the only life they can write, or make films, about with some degree of credibility. C’est la vie!

Slumdogs And Palace Rats

By M H Ahssan

Why the lives of the very poor make for compelling stories

Slumdogs arouse instant interest because they laugh, bark, bite and bitch out in the open. They gambol in the sun and the rain without shoes, but can plot in alleyways for blood, lucre and less. Their lives are hard and brittle, but when they are generous they can make you cry.

As this rapid play of emotions is there for all to see, we are alternately repelled, attracted and awestruck. When they are chuckling and playful, we wonder how laughter can crack through poverty. When they claw and scratch we put it down to their bestial nature. We see them one act at a time: one winsome smile, one cruel swipe, a suckling child, a leery ganglord. Slumdogs can break your heart and smash your face, but always in full view.

The truth is that we are not very different from them. We go through the same feelings too, but much of them covertly backstaged. The higher we go up the ladder, the less our emotions are on display. When we at last come to royalty any public show of feelings is incorrect, even lese majeste. As their lives don’t obey the ways of flesh, a chance to sup with nobility upwards is worth paying an arm and a leg for. Such is the aura of taking a peep backstage.

In shanty garibkhanas there is no backstage. Place a camera on a tripod and it will film a riveting story on its own. Slumdogs can be now good and now bad, just like us. What makes them different is their total transparency. If they look childlike it is because they can neither crave nor curl in privacy. Their running lives are like a real-time movie. This is quite unlike palace rats. They disappear from their balconies in a blink to backstage with a chosen few. At one end, even the blind can see and at the other only the select have eyes.

For those of us caught in between, both extremes are compelling, but for different reasons. How can the poor laugh and weep, and the rich love and care? So if one does a half-way decent job of portraying either end, a hit is made. Slumdog Millionaire may have stolen the show this year, but not too long ago it was The Queen. The real test, however, is in presenting the lives of people like us — part backstage, part proscenium. This needs rock solid talent, or forget it! People won’t buy balcony seats and popcorns to see their kitchen sinks on screen.

The truth is that we know little of slumdogs, and even less of palace rats. The purists, however, only wag their fingers when it comes to the depiction of poverty, never that of riches. Between the two it is likely that the poor have a better shot at being correctly cast than the affluent, who also stoke our imaginations. What do we know of the very rich? We imagine that they do what we do, but only better — somewhat like our gods. And when a prince shoots his family, we are stupefied. A slumdog could have done that, but a palace rat?

A researcher or film-maker can barge into a slum home any time — no permission sought or needed. On the other hand, an upper class door does not yield under pressure. This is why both academics and artists can make a lifetime’s reputation purveying the lives of the poor. The very rich tend to lead underground lives. Their clubs, landing strips and private yachts are out of sight, and left mostly to imagination. That is why even salacious gossip about them by domestic helps is snapped up by publishers.

In the old days when Holi was a true saturnalia, subaltern peasants parodied the lives of their masters within a limited repertoire. They only mocked, in role reversal mode, the way their superiors interacted with them front stage. How potentates, oligarchs and landlords backstaged in their hunting lodges, or with their drinking buddies, was well beyond the ken of the poor. As these areas were out of bounds for them they rarely figured in carnivalesque renditions. What the uncouth mobs made fun of was limited to what they could see.

In a way this applies to us too. Knowing about other lives is tempting, especially from the comfort of a library or theatre. As the rich are well-hidden, reality buffs shift attention to the very poor. Slumdogs have no problems if a camera is rolling or a notepad flipping. As they have nothing to hide, the likelihood of coming up with a realistic account of their lives is much greater than it would be with other classes. This is why clever people seeking quick fame take a short cut through the slums.

The middle classes can hardly say anything interesting about themselves without investing a lot of talent. Where is that good book on the Indian middle class? On the other hand, the walls of the rich are too high for a quick pry. This is why hovels are such a draw. As script writers and researchers are rarely ever from the slums, they go about their job with a kerchief to their nose. Yet, this is the only life they can write, or make films, about with some degree of credibility. C’est la vie!

Hepatitis B at AP’s door?

By M H Ahssan

Reusing Syringes, Not Testing Donated Blood Are Causes

The hepatitis B infection that led to the death of 43 people in Modasa town of Gujarat’s Sabarkantha district over the last two weeks has city doctors point out some malpractice that could well lead to a similar problem in Andhra Pradesh. Doctors say that reuse of syringes particularly in rural parts and donated blood not being tested for this particular infection are two worrisome trends in the state.

According to the doctors, occurrence of this infection is more rampant in rural areas of the state because of malpractice in the health sector. They say that the reuse of needles and syringes is considerably high in villages, which is one of the main reasons for the spread of hepatitis B. “This apart, even the needles used for tattooing and the blades used for shaving in villages are reused over and over again without sterilisation. These are very common carriers of the infection,” said Dr Subhas Chandra Samal, gastroenterologist (medical) with Apollo Hospitals.

HNN has earlier reported that many hospitals in the city were allegedly reusing cannulae for surgeries.

However, doctors do not deny that there is a reasonable spread of hepatitis B even in urban areas, though for different reasons. According to gastroenterologist Dr Srinivas Rao, Yashoda Hospital, it is primarily caused due to the lack of proper tests conducted to check hepatitis B during blood transfusions or dialysis. “There is a DNA test that should be ideally done to check for hepatitis B before any such process. This test can detect the presence of the infection even in its window period, when it (the infection) is in its developing stage. However, the cost of conducting this test is very high (around Rs 3,000-Rs 4,-000) and also requires a PCR lab, which is not there in most hospitals,” he said.

The fear of blood transfusions infecting people with hepatitis B is also because of the lack of scrutiny by most blood banks in the city, feel doctors. Most city hospitals treat close to four or five hepatitis B positive patients each week, which is a good 25 per cent of the total number of hepatitis (A and E primarily) cases handled by hospitals.

Though the number of acute hepatitis B cases form only five per cent of this figure, doctors say that it is still a matter of great concern. “Almost 95 per cent of the cases that we get are completely curable. However, India’s total load of hepatitis B is five per cent and that is worrisome. According to global readings, it falls under the intermediate level, (low, intermediate and high are the three levels) and should, therefore, be taken seriously,” said Dr Samal.

Another concern of health experts in the city is the lack of awareness among people about the disease and its symptoms. Rajesh Popli, ex-secretary of the Thalassemia Society, Hyderabad believes that the care-a-hoot attitude of people leads to most cases of chronic hepatitis B in society leading to death.

However, the issue is not that simple says C K George, director, Institute of Health Systems. According to him, several hepatitis B cases show no regular symptoms and, therefore, become difficult to detect. “Many times a person has none of the regular symptoms of the disease but is still found to be a carrier of the infection. This not only causes death due to lack of treatment but also makes it difficult for experts to determine a hepatitis B outbreak at times,” he said.

Hepatitis B at AP’s door?

By M H Ahssan

Reusing Syringes, Not Testing Donated Blood Are Causes

The hepatitis B infection that led to the death of 43 people in Modasa town of Gujarat’s Sabarkantha district over the last two weeks has city doctors point out some malpractice that could well lead to a similar problem in Andhra Pradesh. Doctors say that reuse of syringes particularly in rural parts and donated blood not being tested for this particular infection are two worrisome trends in the state.

According to the doctors, occurrence of this infection is more rampant in rural areas of the state because of malpractice in the health sector. They say that the reuse of needles and syringes is considerably high in villages, which is one of the main reasons for the spread of hepatitis B. “This apart, even the needles used for tattooing and the blades used for shaving in villages are reused over and over again without sterilisation. These are very common carriers of the infection,” said Dr Subhas Chandra Samal, gastroenterologist (medical) with Apollo Hospitals.

HNN has earlier reported that many hospitals in the city were allegedly reusing cannulae for surgeries.

However, doctors do not deny that there is a reasonable spread of hepatitis B even in urban areas, though for different reasons. According to gastroenterologist Dr Srinivas Rao, Yashoda Hospital, it is primarily caused due to the lack of proper tests conducted to check hepatitis B during blood transfusions or dialysis. “There is a DNA test that should be ideally done to check for hepatitis B before any such process. This test can detect the presence of the infection even in its window period, when it (the infection) is in its developing stage. However, the cost of conducting this test is very high (around Rs 3,000-Rs 4,-000) and also requires a PCR lab, which is not there in most hospitals,” he said.

The fear of blood transfusions infecting people with hepatitis B is also because of the lack of scrutiny by most blood banks in the city, feel doctors. Most city hospitals treat close to four or five hepatitis B positive patients each week, which is a good 25 per cent of the total number of hepatitis (A and E primarily) cases handled by hospitals.

Though the number of acute hepatitis B cases form only five per cent of this figure, doctors say that it is still a matter of great concern. “Almost 95 per cent of the cases that we get are completely curable. However, India’s total load of hepatitis B is five per cent and that is worrisome. According to global readings, it falls under the intermediate level, (low, intermediate and high are the three levels) and should, therefore, be taken seriously,” said Dr Samal.

Another concern of health experts in the city is the lack of awareness among people about the disease and its symptoms. Rajesh Popli, ex-secretary of the Thalassemia Society, Hyderabad believes that the care-a-hoot attitude of people leads to most cases of chronic hepatitis B in society leading to death.

However, the issue is not that simple says C K George, director, Institute of Health Systems. According to him, several hepatitis B cases show no regular symptoms and, therefore, become difficult to detect. “Many times a person has none of the regular symptoms of the disease but is still found to be a carrier of the infection. This not only causes death due to lack of treatment but also makes it difficult for experts to determine a hepatitis B outbreak at times,” he said.

Chiranjeevi to launch TV news channel

By M H Ahssan

Claiming that the media is not giving due coverage to Prajarajyam president Chiranjeevi, the starturned-politician’s family has decided to launch their own Telugu news channel. Final touches are being given to the ‘Maa News’ channel and it will start beaming by Ugadi, sources in the party said.

The Chiranjeevi family already has a minority stake in ‘Maa TV’, and the news channel of the same name will be completely owned and run by the megastar’s family. The licence for the news channel was secured almost a year ago and the owners of ‘Maa TV’ have no objection in leasing it to the Chiru family, the sources said. The new channel will operate from the ‘Maa TV’ building in Panjagutta.

According to the sources, Chiranjeevi was prompted to launch a news channel after realising that the existing local channels are not giving adequate coverage to his political campaigns and roadshows across the state. ETV is identified with the TDP. And chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy has got his son Jaganmohan Reddy running the ‘Sakshi TV’ channel and the multi-edition daily newspaper ‘Sakshi’. When it comes to Prajarajyam, the news channels are limiting themselves to showing few second clips of Chiranjeevi and Pavan Kalyan. Therefore, we have decided to start a news channel which will project Chiranjeevi as the protagonist of change and social justice, party sources said.

Party sources said a team of people are working on the project and that it will be ready in a fortnight’s time. Either P Mitra or P Prabhakar will be made in-charge of the channel, the sources said, adding that the channel will project the ideology of the PRP and promote the party as the only alternative to the ruling Congress party.

Another grouse of the Prajarajyam loyalists is that the local media gave extensive coverage to Chiranjeevi when he entered the political field. “But after that, the coverage has been focused on internal bickering in the district committees, organizational deficiencies and other minor lapses thanon the message of the leader. Thus, even as the election bugle is close to being sounded, Chiranjeevi will not be far behind in the media coverage,” one PRP leader said.

Chiranjeevi to launch TV news channel

By M H Ahssan

Claiming that the media is not giving due coverage to Prajarajyam president Chiranjeevi, the starturned-politician’s family has decided to launch their own Telugu news channel. Final touches are being given to the ‘Maa News’ channel and it will start beaming by Ugadi, sources in the party said.

The Chiranjeevi family already has a minority stake in ‘Maa TV’, and the news channel of the same name will be completely owned and run by the megastar’s family. The licence for the news channel was secured almost a year ago and the owners of ‘Maa TV’ have no objection in leasing it to the Chiru family, the sources said. The new channel will operate from the ‘Maa TV’ building in Panjagutta.

According to the sources, Chiranjeevi was prompted to launch a news channel after realising that the existing local channels are not giving adequate coverage to his political campaigns and roadshows across the state. ETV is identified with the TDP. And chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy has got his son Jaganmohan Reddy running the ‘Sakshi TV’ channel and the multi-edition daily newspaper ‘Sakshi’. When it comes to Prajarajyam, the news channels are limiting themselves to showing few second clips of Chiranjeevi and Pavan Kalyan. Therefore, we have decided to start a news channel which will project Chiranjeevi as the protagonist of change and social justice, party sources said.

Party sources said a team of people are working on the project and that it will be ready in a fortnight’s time. Either P Mitra or P Prabhakar will be made in-charge of the channel, the sources said, adding that the channel will project the ideology of the PRP and promote the party as the only alternative to the ruling Congress party.

Another grouse of the Prajarajyam loyalists is that the local media gave extensive coverage to Chiranjeevi when he entered the political field. “But after that, the coverage has been focused on internal bickering in the district committees, organizational deficiencies and other minor lapses thanon the message of the leader. Thus, even as the election bugle is close to being sounded, Chiranjeevi will not be far behind in the media coverage,” one PRP leader said.

Civil society turns election watchdog

By M H Ahssan

It was Mikhail Gorbachev who brought in ‘perestroika’ to restructure and reform the erstwhile Soviet Union in the mid-80s. A similar trend is catching on in Andhra Pradesh to cleanse the electoral system that could define the very outcome of the coming elections.

Heading the poll perestroika brigade are veteran election officials and top bureaucrats like J M Lyngdoh, K J Rao, E A S Sarma, Prof Trilochan Sastri, Justice Ambati Laxman Rao, B P R Vittal and K R Venugopal, who believe strengthening of the democratic foundation is possible only through greater accountability and transparency in the electoral process.

But what’s the provocation to step in as an election watchdog this time round? Apparently experts see Rayalaseema as a major trouble spot in this year’s election. “The situation in the region could be as bad as in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh,” an analyst averred. Former CEC Lyngdoh has already sounded the warning bugle that Rayalaseema constituencies are an area of concern that need a close watch.

Ironically, Rayalaseema is the hotbed from where the heavy weights in the AP political arena — Rajasekhara Reddy, Chandrababu Naidu and Chiranjeevi — will be in the fray. So what does one do to stem the rot? Though Lok Satta had initiated the process to raise awareness on poll-related irregularities, its efforts petered out once it became a full-fledged party.

This is when the state-level forum, ‘Ennikala Nigha Vedika’ (ENV) stepped in. A conglomeration of various NGOs like Samatha, Forum for a Better Visakha (FBV), Forum for a Better Hyderabad (FBH), intellectuals, ex-bureaucrats, scientists and concerned citizens, ENV will act as a means to enforce civilian involvement in the electoral process. “This watchdog role is aimed at improving the quality of elections and its conduct,” a spokesman of ENV said.

Not only in Rayalaseema, ENV is set to reach out to all regions in the state with the participation of locals. An election watch forum has been floated at Bapatla in Guntur district with an objective to educate and empower voters, its convener P C Sai Babu said.

EAS Sarma, former Union power secretary, stresses the need to set up a system to ensure that the election machinery for the coming elections functions impartially and to see that the elections for the Assembly and Parliament are conducted in the best traditions of a healthy democracy. The FBV, for which he is the conveyor, is holding a meeting in Vizag to discuss the issues of ‘election watch’ in the region with NGOs and RTI activists.

Welcoming the civic society’s initiative to keep a watch on the conduct of elections, former secretary to Election Commission K J Rao said people should join the movement in a big way. “Distribution of liquor by candidates on the eve of elections is a menace in the state. This can be curbed only when the people are vigilant and the official machinery is impartial,” he observed. Deploying electoral officials from outside is the only way out, opined Rao, who has earned a name for himself for the smooth conduct of Bihar polls.

Experts said not only do voters have the right to know the educational, financial and criminal background of the candidates contesting the elections, but they also have a right to reject a candidate. “If the voters feel that no candidate in the fray is fair, he can go to the polling station and inform the presiding officer that he is not interested in voting for anybody,” Sarma said. This right was given to the voter under Section 49(O) of Election Rules-1969. “If the number of these rejected votes are more than the votes polled by any candidate, then the election gets cancelled,” he said.

Rao said their effort is to ensure that the elections are conducted in a spirit of inclusiveness and fairness. It remains to be seen whether the ENV exercise would be a flash in the pan or it would work for the society’s good.

Civil society turns election watchdog

By M H Ahssan

It was Mikhail Gorbachev who brought in ‘perestroika’ to restructure and reform the erstwhile Soviet Union in the mid-80s. A similar trend is catching on in Andhra Pradesh to cleanse the electoral system that could define the very outcome of the coming elections.

Heading the poll perestroika brigade are veteran election officials and top bureaucrats like J M Lyngdoh, K J Rao, E A S Sarma, Prof Trilochan Sastri, Justice Ambati Laxman Rao, B P R Vittal and K R Venugopal, who believe strengthening of the democratic foundation is possible only through greater accountability and transparency in the electoral process.

But what’s the provocation to step in as an election watchdog this time round? Apparently experts see Rayalaseema as a major trouble spot in this year’s election. “The situation in the region could be as bad as in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh,” an analyst averred. Former CEC Lyngdoh has already sounded the warning bugle that Rayalaseema constituencies are an area of concern that need a close watch.

Ironically, Rayalaseema is the hotbed from where the heavy weights in the AP political arena — Rajasekhara Reddy, Chandrababu Naidu and Chiranjeevi — will be in the fray. So what does one do to stem the rot? Though Lok Satta had initiated the process to raise awareness on poll-related irregularities, its efforts petered out once it became a full-fledged party.

This is when the state-level forum, ‘Ennikala Nigha Vedika’ (ENV) stepped in. A conglomeration of various NGOs like Samatha, Forum for a Better Visakha (FBV), Forum for a Better Hyderabad (FBH), intellectuals, ex-bureaucrats, scientists and concerned citizens, ENV will act as a means to enforce civilian involvement in the electoral process. “This watchdog role is aimed at improving the quality of elections and its conduct,” a spokesman of ENV said.

Not only in Rayalaseema, ENV is set to reach out to all regions in the state with the participation of locals. An election watch forum has been floated at Bapatla in Guntur district with an objective to educate and empower voters, its convener P C Sai Babu said.

EAS Sarma, former Union power secretary, stresses the need to set up a system to ensure that the election machinery for the coming elections functions impartially and to see that the elections for the Assembly and Parliament are conducted in the best traditions of a healthy democracy. The FBV, for which he is the conveyor, is holding a meeting in Vizag to discuss the issues of ‘election watch’ in the region with NGOs and RTI activists.

Welcoming the civic society’s initiative to keep a watch on the conduct of elections, former secretary to Election Commission K J Rao said people should join the movement in a big way. “Distribution of liquor by candidates on the eve of elections is a menace in the state. This can be curbed only when the people are vigilant and the official machinery is impartial,” he observed. Deploying electoral officials from outside is the only way out, opined Rao, who has earned a name for himself for the smooth conduct of Bihar polls.

Experts said not only do voters have the right to know the educational, financial and criminal background of the candidates contesting the elections, but they also have a right to reject a candidate. “If the voters feel that no candidate in the fray is fair, he can go to the polling station and inform the presiding officer that he is not interested in voting for anybody,” Sarma said. This right was given to the voter under Section 49(O) of Election Rules-1969. “If the number of these rejected votes are more than the votes polled by any candidate, then the election gets cancelled,” he said.

Rao said their effort is to ensure that the elections are conducted in a spirit of inclusiveness and fairness. It remains to be seen whether the ENV exercise would be a flash in the pan or it would work for the society’s good.

Sex in city? Rural youth far ahead

By Rajini Mohit

Forget sex in the city, the villages are where all the action is.

A study has found that more youth in rural areas of the state indulge in pre-marital sex than their urban counterparts, thanks largely to the fact that they face none of the space and privacy problems young couples in cities are constantly grappling with.

Findings of the Youth in India- Situation and Needs study, which were made public on Thursday, showed that the chances of young men in rural areas indulging in pre-marital sex is three times higher than young men in urban areas.

The study indicates that one in five young men in rural areas as compared to one in nine in urban areas had indulged in pre-marital sex.

For women, 4% in rural areas had sex before marriage as compared to 2% in urban areas.

Cutting across the urban-rural divide, the study found that 16% of young men and 3% of young women reported being physically intimate with their partners.

“It can safely be concluded that pre-marital sex is not an elite phenomenon any more,” said Usha Ram, director, International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, which jointly carried out the study with the Population Council, New Delhi, in 2006-07.

“It was surprising to note that more rural men were indulging in pre-marital sex despite having little awareness,” said Shireen Jejeebhoy, associate professor, Population Council.

But half the youth who had pre-marital sex did not even know that one sexual act was enough for pregnancy to take place.

A total of 7,570 married and unmarried women and men between the ages of 15-29 were interviewed.

Shireen Jejeebhoy, associate professor, Population Council, said availability of space and privacy were some of the factors that favoured romantic relationships in rural areas. An informal chat by surveyors about dating locations found that secluded temples and fields were mostly favoured by the couples. “Urban couples obviously do not have such privacy,” she said.

The study has also thrown up a worrying trend of forced sex.

Nearly 6 % young men and 32% young women reported being either persuaded or forced to engage in sex.

Chances of contracting sexually transmitted diseases was also high among those indulging in pre-marital sex with 32% of men having sex with two or more partners as compared to 29 % of women.

Foreigners are welcome. Jai ho!

By M H Ahssan

It is not necessary to fall in love with Slumdog Millionaire as an example of fine filmmaking to appreciate its significance as a bright ray of hope in a time of economic gloom as it won eight Oscars on Monday morning. That has indeed been the meaning of Oscar-winning films over the years.

The winning films are faithful barometers of the mood of the moment. In 2009, the Americans are groping for light and hope, and so is Britain, the junior partner of the Anglo-American alliance. Slumdog Millionaire provides us the sweet tale in the heaven of imagination woven from the pleasing cultural mix of a British film made with American funds based on an Indian story and with an Indian cast of characters and actors. Global art in a global mart!

Danny Boyle, the Irish-Catholic director — his religious and ethnic origins matter over there though it does not matter a whit to us what the religion and caste of AR Rehman is — has struck a gold mine of a story and plot in Vikas Swarup’s surreal story which is so familiar and real to Indian film-viewers. Generations of the English, Irish and Scots have found and made their fortune in this fabulous land. It is not surprising that Boyle has too. The British have been lucky with India in the post-Raj era. Richard Attenborough stuck Oscars too with India’s ‘Gandhi’ story in 1982. Twenty-seven years later, Boyle has tasted success with Slumdog. While Attenborough’s was a swansong of the British empire on the big screen, Boyle celebrates India in the 21st century as an emerging market sizzling with energy and firing the imagination of the top dogs of the world..

So, we in India should not feel overwhelmed that a British film made on and in India has at last brought worldwide recognition to Indian film artists lurking in the shadows by getting those Oscars. It is nice to win them but we are not too enamoured of them, really. The Oscars are an American affair, and we have nothing against it. And we are happy to be part of the Oscar party. We are not averse to foreigners as others are. The Oscars do not take Indian films to a higher level as stated by some naïve folks in the industry and in the media. Indian cinema is not export-oriented. It is a fiercely domestic product, and its formulaic moulds can be used byothers to their own specifications. Slumdog Millionaire is a perfect example of how the Hindi film box-office formula was used by Boyle and screenplay writer Simon Beaufoy to conjure up a narrative that keeps millions in America and Britain enthralled. The film did not impress the Indian audiences except the few America-crazy folk here. But all Indians are happy for Boyle. And as for Rehman, we knew his genius. We are not surprised that others are discovering him now.

Indian films are a universe unto themselves and the Boyles of the world step into it, dazzled by its colours and passions. And this is just the beginning. More and more filmmakers are sure to turn to India to find their stories and make their mark. All that we need to do is to sit back and be generous and keep smiling. Rehman did it with understated panache in his Oscar acceptance speeches when he cited the throwaway Salim-Javed one-liner from Deewar, “I have mother with me” when he explained how he was sharing his moment of victory with her.The line has no resonance for the audience in the Kodak theatre in Los Angeles not for the millions of TV viewers in the United States and in Britain, but then he was not going to make any cultural concessions to them at his hour of victory. Similarly, he went back to his mother-tongue Tamil to indicate that everything is dedicated to God.

The sweet intoxication of Oscar success will linger like a sweet aroma a while longer. But we return to our own luxurious garden of the imagination, with its frenetic and gaudy atmosphere. Our dreams will continue to be made into films on the wheel of time. Foreigners are welcome to join in.

Foreigners are welcome. Jai ho!

By M H Ahssan

It is not necessary to fall in love with Slumdog Millionaire as an example of fine filmmaking to appreciate its significance as a bright ray of hope in a time of economic gloom as it won eight Oscars on Monday morning. That has indeed been the meaning of Oscar-winning films over the years.

The winning films are faithful barometers of the mood of the moment. In 2009, the Americans are groping for light and hope, and so is Britain, the junior partner of the Anglo-American alliance. Slumdog Millionaire provides us the sweet tale in the heaven of imagination woven from the pleasing cultural mix of a British film made with American funds based on an Indian story and with an Indian cast of characters and actors. Global art in a global mart!

Danny Boyle, the Irish-Catholic director — his religious and ethnic origins matter over there though it does not matter a whit to us what the religion and caste of AR Rehman is — has struck a gold mine of a story and plot in Vikas Swarup’s surreal story which is so familiar and real to Indian film-viewers. Generations of the English, Irish and Scots have found and made their fortune in this fabulous land. It is not surprising that Boyle has too. The British have been lucky with India in the post-Raj era. Richard Attenborough stuck Oscars too with India’s ‘Gandhi’ story in 1982. Twenty-seven years later, Boyle has tasted success with Slumdog. While Attenborough’s was a swansong of the British empire on the big screen, Boyle celebrates India in the 21st century as an emerging market sizzling with energy and firing the imagination of the top dogs of the world..

So, we in India should not feel overwhelmed that a British film made on and in India has at last brought worldwide recognition to Indian film artists lurking in the shadows by getting those Oscars. It is nice to win them but we are not too enamoured of them, really. The Oscars are an American affair, and we have nothing against it. And we are happy to be part of the Oscar party. We are not averse to foreigners as others are. The Oscars do not take Indian films to a higher level as stated by some naïve folks in the industry and in the media. Indian cinema is not export-oriented. It is a fiercely domestic product, and its formulaic moulds can be used byothers to their own specifications. Slumdog Millionaire is a perfect example of how the Hindi film box-office formula was used by Boyle and screenplay writer Simon Beaufoy to conjure up a narrative that keeps millions in America and Britain enthralled. The film did not impress the Indian audiences except the few America-crazy folk here. But all Indians are happy for Boyle. And as for Rehman, we knew his genius. We are not surprised that others are discovering him now.

Indian films are a universe unto themselves and the Boyles of the world step into it, dazzled by its colours and passions. And this is just the beginning. More and more filmmakers are sure to turn to India to find their stories and make their mark. All that we need to do is to sit back and be generous and keep smiling. Rehman did it with understated panache in his Oscar acceptance speeches when he cited the throwaway Salim-Javed one-liner from Deewar, “I have mother with me” when he explained how he was sharing his moment of victory with her.The line has no resonance for the audience in the Kodak theatre in Los Angeles not for the millions of TV viewers in the United States and in Britain, but then he was not going to make any cultural concessions to them at his hour of victory. Similarly, he went back to his mother-tongue Tamil to indicate that everything is dedicated to God.

The sweet intoxication of Oscar success will linger like a sweet aroma a while longer. But we return to our own luxurious garden of the imagination, with its frenetic and gaudy atmosphere. Our dreams will continue to be made into films on the wheel of time. Foreigners are welcome to join in.

A Congress-BJP government?

By M H Ahssan

A small news item that appeared in the papers last week may have slipped by most readers. It reported how the Congress, the BJP and the CPM had all joined hands in Sikkim to form the United Democratic Front, an electoral arrangement that will fight the Sikkim Democratic Front led by chief minister Pawan Chamling in the elections later this year. Sikkim politics barely makes news nationally and certainly not in Mumbai. But this was an intriguing bit of news — the three political parties who are at loggerheads in a tie-up!

By a coincidence perhaps the former BJP ideologue Govindacharya held a press conference in Ahmedabad where he suggested that the two big national parties come together in a joint front. His logic? This would avoid instability, which was sure to follow if a motley Third Front was formed in the absence of any big party getting enough seats. The two big parties together had 282 seats in parliament; this time round, Govindacharya predicted, they would get 252, which was still short of a full majority but would be the single largest combination.

It is a tempting thought, on the face of it. Neither of the two big parties looks set to reach even the 150 mark, leave along a full majority. None of the other parties, barring the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Left are likely to get more than 60 seats. The regional groups are too localised to make an impact on the national scene. The only possible option, going by past history, is for a collection of several small parties, with nothing in common between them who select a compromise candidate as the prime minister.

Again going by experience, this will be a shaky arrangement that will fall sooner than later: VP Singh, Chandrasekhar, HD Deve Gowda and IK Gujral, the examples are too many.

At a time when India faces so many challenges on the economic and security front, can we afford this kind of instability? Why not pool your best political talent and form a National Government which will work towards addressing these problems? Further, goes the argument, both the big parties have much in common. They both are for economic reforms, for the Indo-US Strategic partnership and for a tough approach towards terror. Indeed, as Govindacharya said, the BJP is “a saffron Congress”.

Govindacharya is not the only one to have proposed this idea. The academic Meghnad Desai had suggested this a few years ago and the business community has always been an enthusiastic votary.

Two broad questions arise from this proposal: firstly, is such a coming together possible? Second, and far more important, is it a good idea?

Stranger things have happened in Indian politics so no one can ever rule out such an alliance. But it is safe to assume that it is not going to happen too soon. The so-called commonalities apart, both are extremely different kind of organisations. The BJP is ideology driven and its members have a clear idea of what it fundamentally stands for; the Congress is a broad church, absorbing every kind of ideology within its folds. It has always had leftists, rightists, border-line Hindutva types and socialists among its members, often at the same time. Yet they are all Congressmen and women. The BJP adheres to a well-structure outlook, dinned into each and every member by the RSS and too much deviation is simply not possible. The twain, therefore cannot meet because these two worldviews cannot be easily reconciled.

Then there is of course the question of who leads whom. This will be no ordinary coalition — who will dominate the arrangement? Given the levels of polarisation in Indian politics, can the leaders of two parties reconcile themselves to working together? What price stability, then?

Democracies by their very nature look chaotic and coalitions more so. Everyone pulls in different directions, pushing their own agendas, whether it is a multi-party arrangement or a two-party one.

India looks even messier than other countries. We look at our plethora of regional parties and cringe and the absence of a national agenda. We think our democracy has got out of hand — if only we could be like Singapore.

India is too big and diverse for that. Even these two parties will represent just 50 percent of the country, if that. A national government of two parties will shut out the aspirations of a large section of the population which will never get proper representation, simply because the two giants would dominate. Mayawati is within an election of becoming the prime minister; she or any other Dalit would never get a chance. Rag-tag coalitions may look like a farce; a government by the two national parties would be dangerous.

We don’t know the result these elections will throw up, but whatever it is, that is the collective voice of the people. That has to be accepted. In the final analysis, it is they and not a small section of the population which thinks it has all the answers, who will count.

A Congress-BJP government?

By M H Ahssan

A small news item that appeared in the papers last week may have slipped by most readers. It reported how the Congress, the BJP and the CPM had all joined hands in Sikkim to form the United Democratic Front, an electoral arrangement that will fight the Sikkim Democratic Front led by chief minister Pawan Chamling in the elections later this year. Sikkim politics barely makes news nationally and certainly not in Mumbai. But this was an intriguing bit of news — the three political parties who are at loggerheads in a tie-up!

By a coincidence perhaps the former BJP ideologue Govindacharya held a press conference in Ahmedabad where he suggested that the two big national parties come together in a joint front. His logic? This would avoid instability, which was sure to follow if a motley Third Front was formed in the absence of any big party getting enough seats. The two big parties together had 282 seats in parliament; this time round, Govindacharya predicted, they would get 252, which was still short of a full majority but would be the single largest combination.

It is a tempting thought, on the face of it. Neither of the two big parties looks set to reach even the 150 mark, leave along a full majority. None of the other parties, barring the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Left are likely to get more than 60 seats. The regional groups are too localised to make an impact on the national scene. The only possible option, going by past history, is for a collection of several small parties, with nothing in common between them who select a compromise candidate as the prime minister.

Again going by experience, this will be a shaky arrangement that will fall sooner than later: VP Singh, Chandrasekhar, HD Deve Gowda and IK Gujral, the examples are too many.

At a time when India faces so many challenges on the economic and security front, can we afford this kind of instability? Why not pool your best political talent and form a National Government which will work towards addressing these problems? Further, goes the argument, both the big parties have much in common. They both are for economic reforms, for the Indo-US Strategic partnership and for a tough approach towards terror. Indeed, as Govindacharya said, the BJP is “a saffron Congress”.

Govindacharya is not the only one to have proposed this idea. The academic Meghnad Desai had suggested this a few years ago and the business community has always been an enthusiastic votary.

Two broad questions arise from this proposal: firstly, is such a coming together possible? Second, and far more important, is it a good idea?

Stranger things have happened in Indian politics so no one can ever rule out such an alliance. But it is safe to assume that it is not going to happen too soon. The so-called commonalities apart, both are extremely different kind of organisations. The BJP is ideology driven and its members have a clear idea of what it fundamentally stands for; the Congress is a broad church, absorbing every kind of ideology within its folds. It has always had leftists, rightists, border-line Hindutva types and socialists among its members, often at the same time. Yet they are all Congressmen and women. The BJP adheres to a well-structure outlook, dinned into each and every member by the RSS and too much deviation is simply not possible. The twain, therefore cannot meet because these two worldviews cannot be easily reconciled.

Then there is of course the question of who leads whom. This will be no ordinary coalition — who will dominate the arrangement? Given the levels of polarisation in Indian politics, can the leaders of two parties reconcile themselves to working together? What price stability, then?

Democracies by their very nature look chaotic and coalitions more so. Everyone pulls in different directions, pushing their own agendas, whether it is a multi-party arrangement or a two-party one.

India looks even messier than other countries. We look at our plethora of regional parties and cringe and the absence of a national agenda. We think our democracy has got out of hand — if only we could be like Singapore.

India is too big and diverse for that. Even these two parties will represent just 50 percent of the country, if that. A national government of two parties will shut out the aspirations of a large section of the population which will never get proper representation, simply because the two giants would dominate. Mayawati is within an election of becoming the prime minister; she or any other Dalit would never get a chance. Rag-tag coalitions may look like a farce; a government by the two national parties would be dangerous.

We don’t know the result these elections will throw up, but whatever it is, that is the collective voice of the people. That has to be accepted. In the final analysis, it is they and not a small section of the population which thinks it has all the answers, who will count.

Pakistan’s turmoil echoes in Afghanistan

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

The Pakistani government’s peace agreement last week with militants in the Swat Valley, followed by ceasefires all across the tribal areas and the formation of a united Pakistani tribal front of mujahideen to reinforce the Taliban’s battle in Afghanistan were the first seeds sown for the failure of the United States’ plans for the region.

Wednesday’s development in Pakistan now conclusively ends the political package drawn up in 2007 by Saudi Arabia, the US and Britain and implemented through February 2008 elections to install a consensus government of liberal and secular politicaln parties to provide popular support for the “war on terror”.

The possible ramifications for Afghanistan are enormous.

The Pakistani Supreme Court ruled that opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, chief of the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N), a former two-time prime minister, could not stand for parliament as a result of an old criminal conviction. The court also disqualified his brother, Shahbaz, who was chief minister of the provincial government in Punjab, Pakistan’s most prosperous and populous province, ordering him to resign immediately over a plane hijacking incident in 1999.

The decision sets the scene for political turmoil and unrest and a major challenge to the one-year-old government headed by President Asif Ali Zardari and his Pakistan People’s party (PPP).

Within hours of the news of the Sharif brothers’ disqualification, violent street protests forced the government to impose governor’s rule in Punjab for two months.

At a press conference at their Raiwind farm house near Lahore, the brothers blamed Zardari for orchestrating the decision. They said the reason was their support for the restoration of former chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhary, who was sacked by the government of president General Pervez Musharraf on November 2, 2007.

Lawyers and others have since then agitated on behalf of Chaudhary and other members of the judiciary who were dismissed and large protests are planned for next month. These could get even bigger, judging by Wednesday’s events in which the PML-N-dominated province was brought to a virtual standstill by protesters.

The ability of the federal government to function could well be compromised. A key coalition partner in the PPP-led government, the Awami National Party, issued a statement saying that the court decision was unacceptable and that it would stand with the PML-N.

The benchmark Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE)-100 index on Wednesday fell by 294.05 points or about 5% to close at 5,580.78 points. Shares earlier gained 1% before the court ruling prompted panic selling. The market is likely to remain under pressure in the short-term because of worry about political instability, according to the local traders.

The Afghanistan connection
The situation in Pakistan impacts heavily on Afghanistan. The Taliban-led insurgency relies to a large degree on its bases inside Pakistan and the latest ceasefires in the tribal areas will allow the Taliban uninterrupted preparations for its spring offensive. The Taliban, therefore, want the political uncertainty to continue as the central government will continue to leave them in peace.

Washington, on the other hand, will view the political turmoil in horror and will possibly back the military to take some form of initiative, at the least in dealing with the militants.

In this regard, the visit by Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani to Washington on February 20 could turn out to be crucial as to date he has advocated neutrality in political matters. The US might have tried to convince him otherwise.

In Afghanistan, meanwhile, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has deployed an additional 3,000 troops in the restive provinces of Logar and Wardak, and US President Barack Obama has ordered 17,000 more US troops to southern Afghanistan. Other countries, such as Italy and Britain, will contribute more troops and the total number could reach 90,000, only 30,000 fewer than the Soviet Union had in the country in the 1980s.

Pakistani strategic expert Dr Farrukh Saleem, however, pointed out to Asia Times Online that today’s troops “are far superior to the 120,000 Soviet troops in terms of training, equipment and strategy”.

The new troops will be split between Logar, Wardak and Ghazni provinces around the capital Kabul and Khost, Paktia, Paktika, Kunar and Nangarhar provinces, where they will attempt to stop the infiltration of Taliban fighters from Pakistan.

The Taliban believe they already have sufficient fighters to keep up the heat around Kabul and intend to send more forces to two areas:

Pakistan’s Khyber Agency for continued attacks on NATO supply convoys;

Helmand province in Afghanistan.

Asia Times Online contacts say that Pakistani fighters will come mostly from the South Waziristan tribal areas and head for the Garmsir district of Helmand. This is extremely inhospitable territory and the permanent ground deployment of NATO troops is not possible.

From Helmand, forces will be sent to the northwestern Afghan provinces of Nimroz and Herat. The province of Farah, situated on the same belt, is already under the control of the Taliban and the Taliban often slip into Nimroz and Herat to carry out actions against NATO troops.

An added element this year will be a concentration on disrupting NATO’s supply lines, whether they enter the country from Pakistan, Iran or Central Asia.

In these new struggles, the decisions that are made in Islamabad over the next few days or weeks will be crucial, that is, just which way the Pakistani military is going to jump.

Exclusive: Beggar, I thy neighbor

By M H Ahssan

Across the world, a number of previously autonomous republics are being forced to swallow their pride in the wake of the unfurling economic crisis. Often the cost of a bailout from a rich neighbor has been political accommodation, but even here shifts are only just beginning.

One of the more interesting stories deals with Dubai, the previously sleepy smugglers’ port in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that suddenly had aspirations to global dominance, as exemplified by the Burj Dubai, the world’s tallest building (as an aside, building the world’s tallest building almost always condemns the country to an economic downturn; the skyscraper curse is not urban legend).

Anyway, for a country with global aspirations and supposedly US$100 billion in asset values through the stock and property markets, Dubai found it well-nigh impossible to fund the ruling family’s hobby horses in banks, hotels and ports around the world, not to mention the real-estate boom that has been ongoing from 2002.

The ruling al-Maktoum family of Dubai reportedly approached their cousins, the al-Zayed family, running Abu Dhabi, for terms of a bailout. Initial conversations were allegedly heated, with the latter demanding that Dubai hand over control of its iconic airline, Emirates, as well as stakes in its biggest property firms, including Emaar and even Dubai Holdings (the ruling family’s in-house collection of vanity businesses). With oil prices down and nursing its own losses on ill-fated investments in American and European financial firms in 2008, the al-Zayed family was reportedly not very keen on being on the delivering side of charity.

There were unsubstantiated rumors that both Iran and Saudi Arabia had sent out feelers to Dubai over the terms of a rescue, which galvanized Abu Dhabi into swift action after weeks of dilly dallying. It is not very surprising that a country such as Iran, even on the brink of its own economic collapse, would countenance a bold move to intervene in Dubai’s financial mess, albeit for reasons entirely removed from finance.

The more puritanical rulers of Abu Dhabi now control a greater proportion of the UAE federation, after subscribing to $10 billion of a bond issue launched by the Dubai government this week. With the property market looking to face a multi-year slowdown and its banks beaten down by losses on global investments, it is highly likely that Dubai will default on the terms of this bond, among others over the next five years or so, in turn providing even more control to Abu Dhabi directly.

Germany as the new IMF
Typically, countries that find themselves in the midst of an external financing crisis would tend to approach the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which would in turn impose a bunch of nonsensical “austerity” measures, engineer relative poverty to the country’s immediate neighbors and thereby create conditions for an export-led recovery.

In almost every such case, neighbors that lost an export edge would soon find themselves in a precarious balance of payments problem and then soon enough approach the IMF. In this way, the IMF and the World Bank – the evil twins of global finance – managed to maintain relevance particularly in parts of the world such as Latin America and Africa.

The good news in the current crisis is that the IMF itself has run out of ammunition, and that before any major debtor nation has been pushed to bankruptcy. The multilateral institution has a paltry $200 billion in firepower, barely enough to save a handful of the most affected countries (for example Ireland, Iceland, Hungary, Ukraine, Turkey) let alone the bigger economies now lurching into a permanent downward spiral such as Japan, Italy, Spain and France.

Realizing this, the European Union has proposed that the IMF capacity be raised to $500 billion, although aside from Japan with its contribution of $100 billion, it is difficult to see any other “donor” country with the financial capacity to actually help the IMF. In particular, the idea will be deeply unpopular in Washington, given the spate of personnel changes that embarrassed Republicans no end; similarly other supposed donors like Britain and France will probably need their own bailouts soon enough.

Late last year, I wrote that the sheer size of the banking system in various European countries relative to their gross domestic product, as well as the extremely low recovery rates on various asset categories, simply meant that the countries offering explicit guarantees on their banking system’s deposits would themselves need external assistance sooner than later. (see Europe’s death by guarantee (Asia Times Online, October 11, 2008). This is now happening in the case of countries as diverse as Ireland, Portugal, Greece and the United Kingdom among others.

Meanwhile, other European countries, including Austria, have suddenly found another ticking time bomb in the shape of their banks’ exposures to emerging European countries. With two of its major banks in more than a spot of bother, Austria had to escalate its own crisis-fighting measures, but finds a complete absence of support from other members, including Germany, for any assistance to Europe’s “near abroad”.

It must not come as a surprise to note that Europe’s tilt towards the windmills of global finance only happened after the declining feasibility of tapping the European Investment Bank (EIB) became apparent. This institution, which operates as a quiet instrument of European policy, has often been used to prop up member states. The alarming decline of members like Italy, Ireland and Greece has meant though that market reaction to the EIB proved highly skittish. Credit default swap spreads widened to levels associated with the most risky of European sovereigns, from their previous levels when the EIB had tended to trade in line with the credit of Germany. This widening effectively removed the EIB from the game of providing unremarked subsidies to member states.

In turn, this brings to mind a continent that is unable to act in the collective best interest, instead sundered by selfish policy moves. As I wrote last year, (see Utterly pointless Europe, Asia Times Online, August 16, 2008), the inability to face down the Russian threat on Georgia was but a simple indication of bigger problems festering under the surface. With the recession, all these problems have started coming to the fore.

With the IMF and the EIB without actual ability to rescue countries and the common European mandate weakened by policy squabbles between the east (new EU members formerly in the Soviet bloc), south (the property-market led bubble economies of Greece, Spain et al) and the west (the troubled Old World of France, the United Kingdom and Germany), there is but one hope for any country facing down its creditors. That would be to secure bilateral assistance from the region’s sole solvent sovereign, namely Germany. Indeed, many European government officials have already called on the country to issue an explicit guarantee on the bond obligations of key member states, thankfully not to much avail thus far.

The Germans, though, appear in a funny mood. With a dramatic drop in industrial output going alongside the decline of its banking and insurance giants, there is well-placed fear that xenophobia could raise its ugly head once again. The comparison to Abu Dhabi is fairly straightforward: for all their wealth, the Germans do not feel confident about their place in the world, nor indeed in the likely forbearance of German citizens to further weakness in Europe. That would elicit precisely nationalist moves but effected as pre-emptive gestures: deporting a bunch of Turks or Poles to prove a point to the skinheads.

As the dust clears, it is highly possible that German influence on European policy and institutions will have been strengthened due to the crisis rather than weakened by it.

Power to the center
Elsewhere, the move towards tentative federalism has been halted in its tracks by the crisis. A good example is provided by Scotland, where talk of an independent country that splits with the United Kingdom but attains membership of the EU and uses the euro rather than the pound sterling has died a quiet death in recent weeks.

The reason isn’t hard to fathom: the two main industries in Scotland were banking and oil exploration and production. With the price of oil down a fair bit and the main Scottish banks – RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland) and HBOS (Halifax Bank of Scotland) both perilously close to being nationalized – there is a sense of embarrassment all around that simply doesn’t lend to nationalistic fervor.

The banks were felled not so much by traditional “Scottish-style” lending of the type that continues to be practiced successfully by the likes of HSBC, but rather by the overexpansion associated with a nationalist pride: a desire in effect for a Scottish institution or two to rise to the top of the world’s financial pile. The result has been quite the opposite.

British newspapers report that a furor over a BBC commentator calling Prime Minister Gordon Brown a “one-eyed Scottish idiot” quickly fizzled out because of the widely held belief that the premier in his previous job as chancellor of the exchequer, or finance minister, had laid much of the foundations for the United Kingdom’s current crisis of confidence. Rather than drawing more attention to the remark that was widely seen as a true depiction, the story was quietly buried. What this does to his re-election chances later in the year is anyone’s guess, but many political pundits are now betting on a return to the dominance of the English in all affairs British.

Then there is California. The nearly-bankrupt state had to corral its lawmakers into a deal designed to rebalance its budget and open the state’s access to financing; however, even this deal may soon fail, leaving no alternative but for the state to depend on Washington for a bailout. The state that proudly bills itself as the world’s eighth-largest economy is, in the absence of Federal assistance, for all practical purposes bankrupt

Even that is the tip of the iceberg as US$2 trillion of municipal securities, issued by various US towns and cities, head towards default by the year 2011. In many of these cases, the only potential saviour is the federal government itself. What all this means for the famously proud federal districts of America and the political and cultural independence cherished by generations of people in each of these towns and states, we do not yet know. All that we can surmise is that Americans’ sense of identity will likely face big changes in coming months, all to the benefit of the center.

Whether it is the case of Dubai losing its independence to the ruling family of Abu Dhabi or Germany taking charge of the EU directly, the imperative to concentrate power in the hands of those with demonstrable financial capacity will only increase in coming months.

Tamil pride shines with Slumdog win

By M H Ahssan

Ethnic Tamil composer A R Rahman’s Slumdog Millionaire moment on the Oscar stage lifted, momentarily, the gloom cast on the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu by the long shadow of the neighboring civil war.

The octogenarian chief minister of the state, M Karunanidhi, who had been reduced by a worsening civil situation around him to desperate fire-fighting from his hospital bed, seized on the opening.

Optimism was a scarce resource in these dire times, and here was a mood-lifter that came unannounced. What better topic of diversion, what more reassuring touch for the ethnic pride of the 3 million Tamils, could Karunanidhi hope to find? The ailing leader, himself a former film screenwriter known for purple oratory and canny realpolitik, lost no time in seeking to convert the Rahman moment into a much-needed balm for the battered Tamil ego.

Exhibiting as always a keen awareness of electoral math, he even acknowledged the composer as a “scion from the minority community”. Rahman’s own not-so-subtle statement, packaged along with the obligatory thank-you lines, at the 81st Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles – “All through life I have chosen love over hate and here I am … “, gestured right back at the larger situation.

Especially since these lines shared front-page space the next day with a depressing prospect: Sri Lankan army chief Sarath Fonseca’s claim that India – especially its southern states – could very well be the target of the next air strikes from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) .

The previous week had been marked by a sudden turn in the civil war that everyone thought was all over bar the shouting. In a show of desperate audacity, the rebel Tigers used a 140 kilometer road in the last area in its possession in the north (the Lankan army claims all four LTTE air-strips have fallen to them) to launch two Zlin Z-143s.

The difficult-to-detect light aircraft snaked their way under the radar all the way to Colombo. It was a characteristically extravagant show of defiance, but only partially successful. Precisely how the attack ended was disputed bitterly by the two sides.

Of course, Lieutenant General Fonseca’s warning needs to be examined with due skepticism. The Tigers are certainly not above operating in India – the assassination of premier Rajiv Gandhi counts among its most spectacular strikes, although the LTTE denies a role in it to this day. Still, it strains credulity that the LTTE, even in its most desperate hour, would strike at population centers in south India – they constitute, putatively or otherwise, the only source of ethnic sympathy it has outside Sri Lanka.

“The Tigers are angry that the Indian side is only talking about human casualties, while abandoning the LTTE completely,” said Fonseca. Could it strike India’s government installations then? Or is this part of an attempt by Colombo to enlist India in the war against the LTTE and let it take some of the burden of casualties?
It is in this milieu of strife, uncertainty and denial that Karunanidhi found temporary refuge in the celebratory Oscar-winning mood. He saw a chance to re-channel Tamil sentiment, bruised over the continuous killings of innocent Tamils in Jaffna and Killinochi, in a different direction.

He was delivered a chance to script an escape from the realm of reality – to the dazzling, silvery images and festival sounds of cinema – that is, after all, his natural home. And did not Slumdog Millionaire hold out redemption for the hopeless? And, though a very different cinematic beast, did it not somehow stand in distant kinship with the rousing-wordplay-and-heroic-action-filled odes to the underdog that he himself wrote for Tamil films beginning in the late 1940s?

And so, the fact that a large section of his people seem to be seething in anger over what they feel is a “betrayal of the [Lankan] Tamil cause” by mainstream political parties of Tamil Nadu, especially Karunanidhi’s Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), could be kept aside for the moment. Mindful of the national elections around the corner, where federal alliances spin around the “pro- and anti-” secularism camps, Karunanidhi deftly wove in a touch to the secular card to appeal to the larger domestic constituency.

It’s just this savvy and craft that has always stood him in good stead. After all, he manages to share power with the Indian National Congress in New Delhi without sharing it in Tamil Nadu, though he is crucially dependent on them to prop up his minority government.

But this time, the crisis is real and looks beyond the healing touch of words and soothing gestures. In Sri Lanka itself, the LTTE’s political chief Balasingham Nadesan communicated a ceasefire offer to the United Nations, but refused to actually lay down arms. This could be read in conflicting ways, an admission of near-defeat or a live capacity for regrouping.

The Mahinda Rajapaksa government was derisive of the offer and laughed it off, but after the Zlin strikes in Colombo the idea of an outright win against Velupillai Prabhakaran’s LTTE seems as implausible as winning, say, permanent immunity from earthquakes.

And human-right groups say thousands of innocent Tamils are caught in the crossfire, one side allegedly using them as some sort of a human shield and the other ignoring their existence in the single-minded pursuit of annihilating the enemy.

In the proximity of these boiling waters, the state of Tamil Nadu is naturally having sleepless nights and, in more ways than one, lawless days. Exasperated over the business-as-usual approach of its two main political parties – the ruling DMK and the opposition AIADMK – lawyers in Tamil Nadu took it on themselves to strike work to protest the large-scale civil rights violations taking place in the war zone.

Things came to a head when irate, stone-pelting lawyers pounced on Subramanian Swamy, a political mischief-maker with some nuisance value in Tamil Nadu and national politics and a known LTTE baiter. Things have now taken a life of their own, with the debate swirling around the civil rights violations of lawyers. Lankan Tamils have ironically been temporarily relegated to the background.

What actually happened was that, in the midst of a heavy-duty protest demo by the lawyers, Swamy decided to land in the Madras High Court donning the black robes to fight an unrelated case. All hell broke loose. Already close to boiling point, the lawyers physically attacked Swamy, set a jeep on fire and in turn got brutally beaten up by city cops.

After first torching a police station, they are now on a Gandhian-style fast to get the state’s two top police officials suspended. With uncomfortable echoes of the epic lawyers’ protest of Pakistan – sparked off by then-chief justice Iftikar Chaudhry’s dismissal and ending in the downfall of Pervez Musharraf’s government – the situation has brought Tamil Nadu to a standstill.

No judicial court in Tamil Nadu is functioning, so even the Supreme Court of India has been dragged into the unprecedented controversy. It is now hearing the lawyers-versus-police case on a priority basis. Meanwhile, Karunanidhi, convalescing in the hospital after a tricky spine surgery, was left to try emotional blackmail. Until the Oscars came along, he was telling the legal fraternity in his state to give in and patch up with the cops, or else he himself would go on a hunger strike.

Such dramatic flourish might come naturally to someone seen as the last of the larger-than-life political leaders and upholders of classical Tamil chauvinism, but Karunanidhi is in a sense overcorrecting for earlier inertness on the Sri Lanka question.

There is really nothing much an Indian state chief minister can or must do in a situation unfolding in another country. But the ethnic continuum between the Lankan north and Tamil Nadu makes for a emotional boilerplate situation, and the local government is obliged to be seen “doing something” just to cool tempers. His achievement on this front has been slim: nothing much other than forcing Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee to rush to Colombo, a visit that managed the two-day truce at the end of January.

Later, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa threw a curve by inviting Karunanidhi to visit Sri Lanka to broker peace between the LTTE and the Lankan government; the old man just let it pass.

Advancing age, failing health and an impending succession war in his family have left Karunanidhi much weaker and dependent on Congress chief Sonia Gandhi. Therefore, he may have been able to arm-twist Mukherjee to visit Colombo to work out a ceasefire, but could not manage what he would have really liked: that is, to get the Manmohan Singh government to change its stand-offishness on Sri Lanka and actively get involved.

It is evident that New Delhi, wary of Colombo finding other sources of support in the Asia region, has let it have free rein to fight the LTTE.

Typically, in a situation as complex as this, you find New Delhi allowing pressure to be lifted by allowing all shades of opinion to co-exist. Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, whose constituency lies in Tamil Nadu, has to be sensitive to local concerns. Accordingly, at a recent political rally in his constituency, he adopted a soft tone, referring to Prabhakaran as Thampi (younger brother) and calling on him to lay down arms in another India-brokered peace.

But if Mukherjee’s tough statements in parliament are to be taken as the baseline, the Indian government would not budge an inch in a direction that would give the proscribed LTTE any breather. Sending relief material to the besieged Sri Lankan Tamil population is the most the Congress-led government is willing to do.

Caught napping during the period when Rajapaksa created a complex web of half-truths to dismantle the arrangements for Tamil autonomy created under the 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan peace accord, the Indian side has little options. It had to perforce agree to give the Sri Lankan government a “free hand” to deal with the LTTE since it had already hailed the watered-down proposal of Tamil autonomy proposed by Rajapaksa as “a very positive first step”.

Political compulsions make it impossible for the Congress-led government to acknowledge any covert military support to Sri Lanka and geostrategic factors (to wit, the fear of China taking over the agenda) do not allow it to entirely disengage or take a critical view of Colombo. Could the situation, then, be more piquant?

Rajapaksa’s all-out war against the LTTE, which has rendered an estimated 200,000 ethnic Tamils homeless and vulnerable to a “concentration camp-like situation”, is supported by a government in New Delhi that is partnered by some dyed-in-the-wool Tamil chauvinists of old, once seen to be LTTE sympathizers.

Even daily protest marches in Tamil Nadu where Sonia Gandhi’s effigies are being burned cannot bring the Congress party out of its denial mode. Senior Congress leaders from the state hope against hope that Karunanidhi can perform some last-minute political magic or insist “[the war] will never be an election issue”.

This argument is based on the logic that no political party can openly espouse the cause of Prabhakaran, who is an accused party in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, in a political campaign.

In 1989, in polls held after the Indian Peacekeeping Force (IPKF) operation in Sri Lanka was launched by the former Rajiv Gandhi government, Karunanidhi’s DMK had a resounding victory. But in the 1991 election campaign, Rajiv was killed at a rally in Tamil Nadu and in the election that followed the Congress-All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) alliance swept the Tamil Nadu parliamentary polls.

The silver lining for the Congress, though, is that the opposition AIADMK chief J Jayalalitha is staunchly anti-LTTE. She, in fact, approximates the Congress position on the Lankan issue much more than the rival DMK and has been making overtures to the grand old party of Indian politics.

The party also takes solace from the fact that Prabhakaran’s violent ways do not find many supporters among Tamil opinion-makers, who feel the LTTE has in fact harmed and betrayed the Lankan Tamil people by refusing to disarm. There is a feeling that the Tiger chief sought to undermine the 1987 peace accord primarily because of his own aversion to democratic elections.

His inclination to seek absolute power through the bullet rather than the ballot, they privately say, has left the quarter-century-long legitimate Eelam movement of the minority ethnic Tamil population in the island dispirited and bogged down.

What started as a secular, non-violent struggle of moderate Tamils got converted into a liberation war that has defied all attempts at resolution. The last attempt to collapse was the 2006 ceasefire brokered by the Norwegians. The political leaders in India would rather keep a safe distance from the avenging Tigers, provided the voters in Tamil Nadu allow them to.

One game India can’t afford to lose

By M H Ahssan

As time runs out before New Delhi’s hosting of the 2010 Commonwealth Games, there is widespread concern about India’s levels of preparedness for the spectacle, which was hoped to showcase the nation’s rising sporting and economic prowess and rejuvenate the capital’s infrastructure.

There was nationwide jubilation in 2005 when New Delhi won the right to host the games, after beating stiff competition from the Canadian city of Hamilton. Expectations were high as this is the first time India will host the event, and is only the third developing country to do so after Jamaica in 1966 and Malaysia in 1998.

The games, scheduled to be held principally at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in October next year, are expected to cost US$1.6 billion, with infrastructure preparations that include the construction of five new stadiums and a games village.

An indoor stadium is being built at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium for weightlifting, at the Indira Gandhi Sports Complex for wrestling, at Siri Fort for badminton and squash, at the Yamuna Complex for table tennis. The world-class games village, being built at cost of $40 million, will accommodate athletes and officials from 20 sports disciplines from 25 countries.

However, while the plans are theoretically in place, factors such as the global economic slowdown, the November 26, 2008, Mumbai terror attacks and a lack of coordination among various urban development authorities have combined to throw numerous games-linked projects in doubt.

To make matters worse, a startling revelation this week by Sitaram Yechury, head of the committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture – which was set up last year to probe the progress of the games’ preparation – has thrown up serious doubts about the city’s capability to prepare adequate accommodation and security for the competition.

The committee’s report, entitled “Development of Tourism Infrastructure and Amenities for Commonwealth games 2010″, said that as the December 31 deadline for handing stadia over to the organizing committee swiftly approaches, many projects are yet to be initiated, let alone completed. The report said that despite there being sufficient funds available, the Sheila Dixit government in Delhi did not submit any infrastructure proposals until November 2008.

The 31-member committee has also questioned the capacity of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) to ready the necessary accommodation, renovate hospitality facilities or modernize tourism sites ahead of the games. The committee said that hotels in the capital and its surrounding cities have only 14,000 rooms available, though 30,000 will be needed for the expected influx of foreign and domestic visitors.

The committee has slammed the New Delhi authorities for a lack of coordination among the various agencies involved in building games-related projects. It said that despite a raft of civic and administrative agencies being responsible for the tasks, there is nobody to coordinate the agencies involved. It said the confusion will lead to problems preparing roads, airports and electric supply, and that entertainment, parking and information centers will not be ready.

Even before the committee raised these inadequacies, global hotel investment service firm Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels (JLLH), had already highlighted Delhi’s accommodation shortage. The firm said that the room shortfall had been caused by regulatory and financing impediments, and would likely create chaos.

“The pace of creation of additional hotel accommodation at 39 hotel sites, auctioned by the Delhi Development Authority since January 2006, is way behind schedule,” said a senior Sports Ministry official. “Of the proposed 39 additional hotels, work is only going on at 19.”

Compounding the problems is that due to the global economic slowdown, several private builders who took up hotel projects are facing severe funding problems. The fate of the games village is also under a cloud after the Dubai-based developer contracted to build it, Emaar MGF, approached the DDA for a financial bailout.

The government earlier granted Emaar MGF a nine-month deferral on the repayment of a $15.8 million loan from the State Bank of India, and no decision has been made on its request for additional funds.

Apart from infrastructure bottlenecks, the locations for the games’ main venues are also in doubt. Environmental cases are pending over the allegedly illegal felling of more than 1,000 trees needed for the area where squash and basketball courts and the games village on the Yamuna River floodplain will be built.

An environmental assessment found that clearing the land could cause serious flooding and affect Delhi’s already meager water supply. In view of the magnitude of the problem, the Supreme Court has ordered a re-assessment of the plans.

“Just because you’re hosting world-class games, it doesn’t mean that you can wreck the city’s environment,” said environmental activist Kiran Mansukhani. “If due attention isn’t given to Delhi’s ecology during the preparations for the games, their fallout could be catastrophic. In their hurry to host the games, the planners have failed to present a holistic vision of what Delhi would be like after them.”

This is not the first time the Delhi government has faced flak over its preparation for the games. Last year, during an appraisal survey of the venues, the Commonwealth games Federation (CGF) expressed concern over the slow pace of work. The CDF was so upset that it hinted that Delhi might even lose the bid to host the games if it did not improve its performance.

The CGF will do two subsequent reviews to check the progress of the preparations, one in August and another in March 2010. The latter review represents the absolute cut-off point, though there is no precedent of the games being moved at this late stage.

After the CGF’s harsh assessment, Suresh Kalmadi, the president of the Indian Olympic Association, scrambled to assure the federation that games venues would be completed by the deadline. “New Delhi’s Commonwealth games are happening, let there be no doubt about that,” insisted Kalmadi at the time.

Apart from other delays, the largest infrastructure upgrade project that was to be synchronized with the games – the modernization of the dilapidated New Delhi Railway Station – is also off track.

Railway Minister Lalu Prasad had promised to complete the modernization of the capital’s main train station by October 2010, but the project has run into a number of delays, including the lack of a traffic clearance from the DDA. Experts say this will hold up the project by at least six months and jeopardize any chance of it being ready before the games.

The problems are disappointing as one of the primary reasons India gave for hosting the competition was matching its arch-rival China’s efforts in making a success of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games. Another reason was the transformation of the capital’s existing infrastructure, and to generate income, as the new projects should have benefited domestic real estate developers.

But experts have said that financial gains from hosting large sporting evens are notoriously hard to predict, particularly given the current volatility of the world markets – Montreal will this year make the last payment on a $6.2 billion deficit 30 years after it hosted the Olympics Games.

Despite the barrage of criticism, the organizers of the games remain optimistic. Kalmadi has said that that he will provide world-class infrastructure on time, as has Union Sports Minister, MS Gill. “It’s like organizing an Indian marriage. This is India and we do it like this,” he said recently.

Recession effect in the Arabian Gulf

By Javid Hassan

News that Abu Dhabi, the UAE capital and the oil-rich sheikhdom of the seven-member confederation comprising the United Arab Emirates, has extended a $ 10 billion bailout to Dubai shows that the Gulf region, too, has been caught in the depression triggered by the waves of global recession.

The rescue package was announced early this week as Dubai, struggling with an ailing construction industry, saw a large-scale retrenchment of construction workers, including thousands from India, as investors began to pull out of the emirate setting in motion a chain reaction in what was till recently a shining example of the UAE’s success story. Its image was further dented at the international level after an Israeli player was refused a visa for the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships it hosts.

The $ 10 billion federal funding would enable Dubai to service its huge debt burden as it copes with a struggling real-estate market, where prices have plummeted by 25% on the back of the sagging demand for oil as well as the international liquidity crunch.

The crisis has taken its toll on Dubai’s economy. The expatriate community, used to high living, suddenly found itself in the grip of the emirate’s fading fortunes. Many expatriates, including Indians, had to abandon their cars at the airport and flee home rather than risk imprisonment for defaulting on loans. As many as 3,000 vehicles or more were found abandoned outside Dubai’s international airport in recent months.

The worst affected are the construction workers from Kerala who have been forced to return home, says K.U.Iqbal, journalist of Malayalam News from Saudi Arabia. He told HNN that the Kerala government has set up a Rs. 100-crore fund as part of its effort to rehabilitate the returnees and help them launch business ventures. The government has also decided to register those coming from the Gulf, so that they could benefit from a Rs. 10 crore emergency fund for providing interim relief.

The Andhra Pradesh government, too, is resettling these repatriates, mostly unskilled workers, through funds from the Rajiv Yuva Shakti Yojana for the purchase of agricultural implements, including tractors. There are several hundred thousand workers from Andhra Pradesh in Saudi Arabia, accounting for the largest segment of Indian expatriates in the Kingdom. In other Gulf states like the UAE and Kuwait, people from Andhra Pradesh form the second largest group of Indians after Keralites.

However, most of these workers are illegal migrants who had gone to the GCC states on visit visas and then disappeared to work at jobs without valid work permits. This puts them at the mercy of their employers, as they are unable to return home without the valid documents.

Many of the returnees, according to information available with HNN, were skilled and semi-skilled workers, such as fitters, masons, framers, finishers and shuttering workers who were employed on large-scale projects in the Gulf. The state government is trying to match their skills to the demands of the industry by holding employment fairs in collaboration with representatives of the construction industry. These fairs were held in districts with high illegal migration, such as Adilabad, Karimnagar, Nizamabad and East Godavari.

Since both the state and the central governments are pumping crores in the economic stimulus packages, especially for infrastructural projects, their experience could be utilized, if necessary, by giving them on-the-job training under the rehabilitation programme.

In Dubai and other Gulf states, worker advocacy groups, including the International Labor Organization (ILO), have mounted pressure for safeguarding the interests of hundreds of thousands of these construction workers. Their demands include ending the illegal but common practice of companies retaining the workers’ passports and effectively preventing them from seeking other jobs under a rigid sponsorship system. The Saudi government is working on a new sponsorship regime which seeks to address these concerns. But the proposed regulation is still in the works at the Saudi Ministry of Labour.

Besides the construction industry, the ripple effect created by the economic recession has also impacted the media, especially in the Dubai Media City. One of the first casualties last year was the Dubai edition of Arab News which had to be closed down due to the drop in the advertising revenue. It is now the turn of ARY Digital, a popular Pakistani TV channel with its head office in Dubai Media City. Many employees of ARY Digital have not received their salaries for the last three months.

While denying the report carried by the Khaleej Times of Dubai, Tariq Wasi, head of operations for ARY Digital Network, however, confirmed that the Pakistani news channel was shifting its operations to Pakistan and had asked almost 30 per cent of the employees to move to the country.

Even The Khaleej Times has closed down “Young Times”, its weekly magazine for children, and laid off some of its staff, mostly in marketing, while other publications have put on hold all pay hikes and expansion plans, reflecting the seriousness of the situation.

Under these circumstances, aspirants for jobs in the Gulf need to weigh their options carefully, as even the Saudi economy, the biggest in the GCC, is expected to post a real growth rate of around 4 percent only in 2010. The global credit crunch and low oil prices have had an adverse impact on the non-oil sector, according to Samba Economic Monitor for January. The 2009 budget also shows a projected deficit of around 5 percent of the Kingdom’s GDP, which is in sharp contrast to its surplus budget during the oil boom era. But for now there is depression in the Arabian Gulf.

Analysis: How To Resolve Kashmir

By M H Ahssan

Former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri’s interview to Karan Thapar has stirred up a lot of interest in his claims on the results achieved in the backchannel negotiations between New Delhi and Islamabad. Kasuri said that most of the negotiations on Kashmir were successfully completed during his tenure as foreign minister under Pervez Musharraf and draft agreements were ready to be signed. They were to have been signed during the visit of the Indian PM to Pakistan which did not take place, according to Kasuri, because of elections in India, the crisis in Pakistan following the ouster of the supreme court chief justice and subsequent polls and change of government.

There is another view that the Indian government backed off at the last moment. Some informed observers in India maintain that developments in Pakistan came in the way of the agreements being finalised. In this connection, it is pertinent to recall the much-criticised comment of national security adviser M K Narayanan in an interview that India found it easier to do business with Musharraf. The latest article by Steve Coll in the New Yorker goes some way in confirming the Indian and not Kasuri’s version.

In the last few days US special envoy Richard Holbrooke has been holding discussions with the Pakistani army chief and ISI chief along with senior Afghan officials in Washington on the proposed strategy for the Af-Pak region, especially in the light of the ceasefire agreement reached with the Taliban in the Swat valley. While India is staying out of this meeting, the idea appears to be to persuade the Pakistani army and ISI that the concerns of Pakistan about its eastern front, often used as an alibi to justify the inadequate response against the al-Qaeda and Taliban, are totally misplaced. Kasuri’s revelations and Coll’s report should strengthen the hands of Washington.

There is general agreement in India and the US that the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack was carried out by people with the intention of provoking New Delhi to react militarily. This, in turn, would have resulted in Pakistan shifting forces from its western to eastern borders and arguing that it was unable to effectively support the US-NATO strategy in Afghanistan. India, however, did not walk into the trap. It is obvious that some people would not like to see a solution to Kashmir as envisaged in the Indo-Pak backchannel dialogue. It would also appear that such opposition may not be restricted to a small group in Pakistan but may extend to a much larger section that is not interested in a bilateral solution to Kashmir but to continually bleed India through a thousand cuts. It is unfortunate that the Simla Pact efforts to solve Kashmir bilaterally were torpedoed and the Lahore Declaration was followed by the Kargil infiltration.

There are reasons to worry whether there is continuity of policy and approach in Pakistan. General Kayani was fully in the picture, according to both Kasuri and Coll, and was supportive of the draft agreement arrived at on Kashmir. However, the present government and army chief have discarded Musharraf ’s version of A Q Khan being the sole nuclear proliferator. According to the findings of the Islamabad high court, the charges against Khan were not substantiated. If this was so, who authorised the proliferation from Pakistan to North Korea, Iran and Libya? For reasons best known to them, the present rulers of Pakistan have decided to repudiate past policy.

Can we be sure that in respect of the backchannel understanding on Kashmir the current regime has not repudiated that too, as they have done with the version on Khan? If the Pakistani government feels bound by that backchannel understanding, why did they use the eastern border as a security concern preventing their full cooperation against Taliban? Two books by journalists David Sanger and Ron Susskind quote intercepts of telephone conversations in which Pakistani generals had referred to Taliban leaders Haqqani and Mullah Omar as strategic assets. Musharraf was prepared to assure the Americans of his cooperation to fight Taliban and at the same time use them.

If we are able to conclude a mutually satisfactory arrangement between India and Pakistan, which is also acceptable to the people of Kashmir, we should go ahead with it. But before we do that, we have to be sure that the backchannel understanding is not one more instance of running with the hares and hunting with the hounds. Second, we have to be sure that the present army leadership still stands by the understanding reached earlier and has not changed its mind as it has done in the case of Khan. The result of the repudiation of the earlier story on Khan is to restore the image of Pakistan and hold a pistol to the head of the US about the consequences of not giving full aid.

Now that Kasuri and Coll have spilt the beans, the Indian government should organise an education campaign, especially among US think tanks, that a framework for a Kashmiri settlement already exists. And as US president Barack Obama pointed out, Pakistan does not have to worry about any threat from its eastern border; its threats are from within. But the Pakistani army’s leadership is yet to be convinced that Taliban is a threat and not an asset and Khan was a proliferator.

Analysis: How To Resolve Kashmir

By M H Ahssan

Former Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri’s interview to Karan Thapar has stirred up a lot of interest in his claims on the results achieved in the backchannel negotiations between New Delhi and Islamabad. Kasuri said that most of the negotiations on Kashmir were successfully completed during his tenure as foreign minister under Pervez Musharraf and draft agreements were ready to be signed. They were to have been signed during the visit of the Indian PM to Pakistan which did not take place, according to Kasuri, because of elections in India, the crisis in Pakistan following the ouster of the supreme court chief justice and subsequent polls and change of government.

There is another view that the Indian government backed off at the last moment. Some informed observers in India maintain that developments in Pakistan came in the way of the agreements being finalised. In this connection, it is pertinent to recall the much-criticised comment of national security adviser M K Narayanan in an interview that India found it easier to do business with Musharraf. The latest article by Steve Coll in the New Yorker goes some way in confirming the Indian and not Kasuri’s version.

In the last few days US special envoy Richard Holbrooke has been holding discussions with the Pakistani army chief and ISI chief along with senior Afghan officials in Washington on the proposed strategy for the Af-Pak region, especially in the light of the ceasefire agreement reached with the Taliban in the Swat valley. While India is staying out of this meeting, the idea appears to be to persuade the Pakistani army and ISI that the concerns of Pakistan about its eastern front, often used as an alibi to justify the inadequate response against the al-Qaeda and Taliban, are totally misplaced. Kasuri’s revelations and Coll’s report should strengthen the hands of Washington.

There is general agreement in India and the US that the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack was carried out by people with the intention of provoking New Delhi to react militarily. This, in turn, would have resulted in Pakistan shifting forces from its western to eastern borders and arguing that it was unable to effectively support the US-NATO strategy in Afghanistan. India, however, did not walk into the trap. It is obvious that some people would not like to see a solution to Kashmir as envisaged in the Indo-Pak backchannel dialogue. It would also appear that such opposition may not be restricted to a small group in Pakistan but may extend to a much larger section that is not interested in a bilateral solution to Kashmir but to continually bleed India through a thousand cuts. It is unfortunate that the Simla Pact efforts to solve Kashmir bilaterally were torpedoed and the Lahore Declaration was followed by the Kargil infiltration.

There are reasons to worry whether there is continuity of policy and approach in Pakistan. General Kayani was fully in the picture, according to both Kasuri and Coll, and was supportive of the draft agreement arrived at on Kashmir. However, the present government and army chief have discarded Musharraf ’s version of A Q Khan being the sole nuclear proliferator. According to the findings of the Islamabad high court, the charges against Khan were not substantiated. If this was so, who authorised the proliferation from Pakistan to North Korea, Iran and Libya? For reasons best known to them, the present rulers of Pakistan have decided to repudiate past policy.

Can we be sure that in respect of the backchannel understanding on Kashmir the current regime has not repudiated that too, as they have done with the version on Khan? If the Pakistani government feels bound by that backchannel understanding, why did they use the eastern border as a security concern preventing their full cooperation against Taliban? Two books by journalists David Sanger and Ron Susskind quote intercepts of telephone conversations in which Pakistani generals had referred to Taliban leaders Haqqani and Mullah Omar as strategic assets. Musharraf was prepared to assure the Americans of his cooperation to fight Taliban and at the same time use them.

If we are able to conclude a mutually satisfactory arrangement between India and Pakistan, which is also acceptable to the people of Kashmir, we should go ahead with it. But before we do that, we have to be sure that the backchannel understanding is not one more instance of running with the hares and hunting with the hounds. Second, we have to be sure that the present army leadership still stands by the understanding reached earlier and has not changed its mind as it has done in the case of Khan. The result of the repudiation of the earlier story on Khan is to restore the image of Pakistan and hold a pistol to the head of the US about the consequences of not giving full aid.

Now that Kasuri and Coll have spilt the beans, the Indian government should organise an education campaign, especially among US think tanks, that a framework for a Kashmiri settlement already exists. And as US president Barack Obama pointed out, Pakistan does not have to worry about any threat from its eastern border; its threats are from within. But the Pakistani army’s leadership is yet to be convinced that Taliban is a threat and not an asset and Khan was a proliferator.

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Net hosts liable only for their own content

By Kajol Singh

While internet users may face libel for what they write themselves, the “intermediaries” who host such content are liable only if they are consciously complicit to the offence or fail to remove the offending material immediately after it is brought to their notice by the authorities.

This is evident from the amended Information Technology Act, which came into effect barely 20 days ago.

Hence, when the Supreme Court rebuffed this week an internet user’s plea to quash criminal action, it steered clear of making any observations about the corresponding liability of intermediaries.

The new Indian law is in keeping with the international trend of limiting the liability of intermediaries to situations where they act as “publishers” (with scope to moderate or edit the content) rather than as “distributors” (aggregators of information like libraries and book shops).

Accordingly, the amended section 79, which was in the Bill that was passed by Parliament in December 2008, says that where the intermediary in effect acts as no more than a distributor, he “shall not be liable for any third party information, data or communication link made available or hosted by him.”

An “intermediary’’ has been defined in the amended law as “any person who on behalf of another person receives, stores or transmits that record or provides any service with respect to that record and includes telecom service providers, network service providers, internet service providers, web-hosting service providers, search engines, online payment sites, online auction sites, online market places and cyber cafes.”

The elaborate safeguards for intermediaries contained were drafted in the wake of the industry-wide scare spread by the 2004 DPS-MMS scandal, which led to the arrest of the CEO of auction site baazee.com where a CD containing the salacious clip was offered on sale by a user.

Conversely, section 79 says that the immunity against criminal liability shall not apply in cases where “the intermediary has conspired or abetted or aided or induced whether by threats or promise or otherwise in the commission of the unlawful act.”

There was no evidence to suggest that baazee.com had colluded with the person who put the offending CD on its site.

Placement blues on campuses

By M H Ahssan

Engineering Students To Graduate Soon But Companies Have No Jobs To Offer

Placement sessions in top engineering colleges in the city are yet to begin though final year students will soon graduate. In some institutions, placement sessions are getting endlessly postponed and interview dates being cancelled.

Though institutions were not too positive about recruitments this year due to the economic meltdown, a complete job freeze by companies was not expected. Some companies which had given offer letters to students have backed out from their promise by suspending their recruitment for six months. “We expected about a 20 per cent drop in the job market. But the meltdown has hit freshers badly as no company is even ready to hold interviews,” placement office of JNTU, Hyderabad, K Eswara Prasad said.

He said 60 per cent of the students are yet to get offer letters. The companies willing to recruit students include national companies with their bases in the city.

“Their requirements are not as big as the MNCs and other big companies which used to come for placements. Hence the number of students getting placements this year is also less,” a student said.

He said the students who got placements had got them as early as February 2008 when the meltdown blues had not started.

The placement session at Osmania University engineering college has been postponed twice as companies kept cancelling interview dates. “Only reputed companies in the market were allowed to participate in the recruitment process. We are now forced to call companies not included in the recruiters list earlier,” placement officer, JNTU said, V Uma Maheshwar said. When OU had a placement of 100 per cent in February 2008, it has not gone beyond 50 per cent this year.

The salary packages being offered by the companies are also less when compared to the previous year. While last year saw an all-time high of Rs 18 lakh per annum in JNTU and Rs 10.2 lakh per annum in Osmania University it has reduced to Rs 6.5-7 lakh in both the universities.

While at least five students shared the top salaries last year, this year only one person each has got the top salary in both the universities.

Students who graduated last year and were given offer letters by companies, however, complain that they have been kept waiting with no signs of being given the jobs so far. The students have lodged a complaint to the college authorities and Andhra Pradesh State Council of Higher Education (APSCHE) on the matter.

SCHOOLING, AT WHAT COST?

By M H Ahssan

Schools are adding fuel to the fire of recession that is already burning a hole in the family’s pocket, with moves to increase fees by almost 50 per cent. Parents are not willing to buy their explanation.

The recession just got worse for parents of school-going children. City schools, particularly the premier ones, have hiked their admission fee and even the monthly fees of students by a whopping 50 per cent. And if this wasn’t enough, other fringe expenses such as transportation have also gone up by a near 30-40 per cent. Worse, schools forming a cartel by imposing a similar fee structure has left parents with no choice but to continue with the same school.

While schools managements cite reasons such as improving teacher salaries and introducing new facilities in the school, parents are just not convinced. They say that the fee-hike comes at a wrong time, just when they are facing salary cuts and job loss. Besides, with the new fee structure in place, a good part of their monthly income is being siphoned off to pay tuition fees, even if the child is at a pre-primary level.

Take the case of Karan Kapoor (name changed) who will have to shell out an additional Rs 15,000 for his kid this academic year, as he moves into Class I. Parents like Kapoor had opted for this school three years ago keeping in mind its ‘reasonable’ fee structure. “We were never prepared for this kind of a hike. When I admitted my kid, the school had a Rs 27,000 slab as tuition fees. The next year it suddenly hiked the fees by a clear 50 per cent. The following year there was again a hike of 36 per cent, and now with an additional increase of 17 per cent we will be paying close to Rs 65,000 for a child from this academic session,’’ said Kapoor.

Such concerns of parents have, however, failed to move the management of most city schools . When confronted, school authorities casually suggest that parents can pull their children out if needed. They even say that they would gladly refund all security deposits and annual fees, even mid-term. Small consolation that.

Parents protest that such an arrangement does not really solve their problem because of the practice of cartelisation among most schools. “The admission fee in most schools that fall under one category is more or less the same. So if I take my child out, I not only lose out on the nonrefundable admission fee but am also expected to deposit an equally large amount in the new school,’’ said Prasad.

Apart from the tuition fees, parents say, there are several other miscellaneous expenses which have been increasing over the years but have gone unnoticed so far. These include expenses towards conveyance, uniforms and textbooks among many others. “While we paid a meagre amount of Rs 5,000 annually as bus fare until two years back, we are now shelling out nearly Rs 18,000 for the same. And this is irrespective of the distance travelled,” said another parent who lives only 10 minutes away from school. She also goes on to say that a few “brand conscious” schools in the city have made it compulsory for the students to wear, among other things, branded sport shoes, which come for nothing less than Rs 2,000 (approx).

Justified hikes?
Though school authorities justify the high fee structures by citing various facilities that are made available to a child and are enhanced every session, parents rue that these facilities are only used to “decorate prospectuses” every year.

Defending fee hikes, school principals insist that it is a small price that parents pay to provide quality education along with a brand name to their children. All parents want the best for their children and that does not come cheap. “One has to pay more for any product that is better than the rest. And moreover schools invest a lot of money on their teachers, infrastructure facilities and even advertisements,’’ said Janajit Ray, vice president of Oakridge International.

Parents disagree. “In the name of providing extra-curricular activities, schools only fleece us. For example, we pay an extra sum of Rs 3,000-Rs 4,000 each year only for karate classes that are held only once a week. How is someone to learn the art with just a handful of sessions anyway,’’ questions Shalini Prasad (name changed) who has two kids in the middle school. Others argue that such activities should be optional so that parents are spared at least some expense.

School managements point out that the operational expenditure is on the rise continuously, primarily because more money is being spent on salaries and staff training sessions these days. With every other sector offering lucrative pay packages, schools feel that a similar trend needs to be maintained in the education sector to retain quality teachers. “Very few qualified people are interested in this profession (teaching) because of the unattractive salaries. So, in order to attract the right people to take up jobs in schools, we have to improve our pay structures,’’ said Madhubala Kapoor, principal of Nasr School.

Entry fee
The ordeal for parents begins right from the time of child’s admission (see box). While most people who passed out from school before the year 2000 may not remember paying any admission fee, it is now being routinely charged by all city schools these days.

But what is this admission fee? Schools charge an admission fee in the name of capital expenditure which includes any construction work undertaken by the school on its premises or any other development work. But such works only happen once in a while. “To charge such huge amounts (Rs 25,000 to Rs 1 lakh) for that and also hike it by a minimum of 25 per cent every year is definitely unreasonable,’’ said another parent who paid Rs 25,000 as admission fee for his first kid two years ago and will now have to shell out a neat Rs 60,000 for his second kid this year.

Agreeing that a child’s education is adding to the burden of parents, especially in the tough times of recession, a few principals of city schools feel that parents should be given valid reasons for the sudden hike in admission and term fees. “It is true that education is getting expensive by the day but we have to understand that the cost of everything else is also increasing. However, I completely agree that schools should keep parents informed about where their money is being spent,’’ said Ray.

But for parents like Prasad, it is not just the money but also the emotional aspect of a child that is forcing her to continue with the existing school. They feel that dragging children from one school to another disturbs their ‘emotional balance.’ “Children get used to a set of teachers, peers and environment. Adjusting to a new school can be quite taxing,’’ says a parent.

It is precisely this emotional aspect of education and parenting that schools in the city are exploiting to the fullest.

Quality can come cheap
The modest Kendriya Vidyalayas in the city are witnessing a curious trend over the last one year. They are being approached by parents who want to pull their children out of high-end schools and get them enrolled in the reasonably priced KVs. Teachers say that parents are not only seeking affordable education but also one that promises overall development, sans all those fancy frills and molly-coddling that expensive schools are known for.

While KV teachers admit that a majority of parents still prefer private ‘international’ schools, believing that ‘expensive is better’ there is a slight reversal of that trend now. “We mostly get children of central government officers who have transferable jobs,” says S Ramani, a KV teacher, adding that now even those working in the private sector are considering KV education once they get to know the teaching methodology adopted by these schools. Fees too have a large part to play in parents’ decision. While the fees of other schools with air-conditioned rooms peaks like the summer heat in Hyderabad, that of the KV remains fixed at Rs 160 per month. Besides, There is no tuition fee for girl students. The last time the KV fee was hiked, was five years ago.

Teachers and proud KV alumni explain that these CBSE board schools are in the same league as any other school, if the achievements of its students in their post-school life are any indicator.

Indu Agarwal, another KV teacher, says that the USP of a KV lies in it being a noncommercial organisation. “But when something is cheap, we suspect its quality,’’ rues Ramani, explaining the preference for private schools among parents.

Inactive PTAs
When Margaret Roberts took up cudgels against the government about two years ago, seeking an exemption from a compulsory Telugu paper for her daughter in the Class X board exam, it was a lonely battle. While the number of non-Telugu speaking children who would have benefited from this exemption would have been in hundreds, those fighting for it strangely never met. Roberts says that she never tried getting the parents together, but was fortunate that the exemption was finally given because pressure had been mounted from other sides as well.

Small wonder then that when the admission and term fees of city schools has shot through the roof, there is barely a whimper of a protest from parents. The few who do complain about the fee hike at a time when recession is peaking, are doing so in isolation. One parent volunteers an explanation, “You don’t stop buying petrol because it is expensive. After all it (school fee) is for your child’s education – so even if it pinches a bit, there wouldn’t be much resistance.”

It is possibly this ‘understanding’ of schools’ policies that has made Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs) completely inactive in the city. While one may pertinently question as to how schools are able to take such decisions without fear of a backlash from the parent community, the answer is that PTAs in Hyderabad are largely ineffective bodies, choosing to discuss only the scores of students and conscientious festival celebrations in their parent-teacher meetings. School management issues are rarely on the radar of the parent community. Even if they feel the pinch of the fee hike, the parent body doesn’t dare bare its teeth for fear of spoiling the rapport with the school that their child goes to.

Only this time around, things may be different as some parents say there might be a furore over the hike in fees. However, that seems farfetched given that in many cases the notices for the hike were served a good two-three months ago.

In fact, last year about 150 city parents came together to form a group to fight out such issues, but the number of members has since dissipated to an abysmal ten. “We are just a handful now. Most parents feared that their rapport with the school would get affected by joining this group, so they left,” shares a parent who had initiated the group.

Hyderabad could take a leaf out of parent activism from other cities. In Mumbai for instance, PTAs have set an example of how a united community of concerned parents can bring about much-needed changes in the way schools are run. In fact, it was over a fee hike issue in the year 2000-01 that PTAs of 160 schools across Mumbai got together and formed the PTA United Forum to fight it. And they won it, as they did several other cases that they had taken up over the last decade. “We took responsibility of the whole parent community and their concerns. We take up issues both with government-aided as well as private schools. And in the last decade, we have managed to gather enough clout to ensure that no school management can take an arbitrary decision,” says Arundhati Chavan, president of PTA United Forum, Mumbai, that has filed various petitions in the court challenging school policies and even won them.

Margaret Roberts admits that had she been in Mumbai, her struggle would have been supported by many more parents.

SCHOOLING, AT WHAT COST?

By M H Ahssan

Schools are adding fuel to the fire of recession that is already burning a hole in the family’s pocket, with moves to increase fees by almost 50 per cent. Parents are not willing to buy their explanation.

The recession just got worse for parents of school-going children. City schools, particularly the premier ones, have hiked their admission fee and even the monthly fees of students by a whopping 50 per cent. And if this wasn’t enough, other fringe expenses such as transportation have also gone up by a near 30-40 per cent. Worse, schools forming a cartel by imposing a similar fee structure has left parents with no choice but to continue with the same school.

While schools managements cite reasons such as improving teacher salaries and introducing new facilities in the school, parents are just not convinced. They say that the fee-hike comes at a wrong time, just when they are facing salary cuts and job loss. Besides, with the new fee structure in place, a good part of their monthly income is being siphoned off to pay tuition fees, even if the child is at a pre-primary level.

Take the case of Karan Kapoor (name changed) who will have to shell out an additional Rs 15,000 for his kid this academic year, as he moves into Class I. Parents like Kapoor had opted for this school three years ago keeping in mind its ‘reasonable’ fee structure. “We were never prepared for this kind of a hike. When I admitted my kid, the school had a Rs 27,000 slab as tuition fees. The next year it suddenly hiked the fees by a clear 50 per cent. The following year there was again a hike of 36 per cent, and now with an additional increase of 17 per cent we will be paying close to Rs 65,000 for a child from this academic session,’’ said Kapoor.

Such concerns of parents have, however, failed to move the management of most city schools . When confronted, school authorities casually suggest that parents can pull their children out if needed. They even say that they would gladly refund all security deposits and annual fees, even mid-term. Small consolation that.

Parents protest that such an arrangement does not really solve their problem because of the practice of cartelisation among most schools. “The admission fee in most schools that fall under one category is more or less the same. So if I take my child out, I not only lose out on the nonrefundable admission fee but am also expected to deposit an equally large amount in the new school,’’ said Prasad.

Apart from the tuition fees, parents say, there are several other miscellaneous expenses which have been increasing over the years but have gone unnoticed so far. These include expenses towards conveyance, uniforms and textbooks among many others. “While we paid a meagre amount of Rs 5,000 annually as bus fare until two years back, we are now shelling out nearly Rs 18,000 for the same. And this is irrespective of the distance travelled,” said another parent who lives only 10 minutes away from school. She also goes on to say that a few “brand conscious” schools in the city have made it compulsory for the students to wear, among other things, branded sport shoes, which come for nothing less than Rs 2,000 (approx).

Justified hikes?
Though school authorities justify the high fee structures by citing various facilities that are made available to a child and are enhanced every session, parents rue that these facilities are only used to “decorate prospectuses” every year.

Defending fee hikes, school principals insist that it is a small price that parents pay to provide quality education along with a brand name to their children. All parents want the best for their children and that does not come cheap. “One has to pay more for any product that is better than the rest. And moreover schools invest a lot of money on their teachers, infrastructure facilities and even advertisements,’’ said Janajit Ray, vice president of Oakridge International.

Parents disagree. “In the name of providing extra-curricular activities, schools only fleece us. For example, we pay an extra sum of Rs 3,000-Rs 4,000 each year only for karate classes that are held only once a week. How is someone to learn the art with just a handful of sessions anyway,’’ questions Shalini Prasad (name changed) who has two kids in the middle school. Others argue that such activities should be optional so that parents are spared at least some expense.

School managements point out that the operational expenditure is on the rise continuously, primarily because more money is being spent on salaries and staff training sessions these days. With every other sector offering lucrative pay packages, schools feel that a similar trend needs to be maintained in the education sector to retain quality teachers. “Very few qualified people are interested in this profession (teaching) because of the unattractive salaries. So, in order to attract the right people to take up jobs in schools, we have to improve our pay structures,’’ said Madhubala Kapoor, principal of Nasr School.

Entry fee
The ordeal for parents begins right from the time of child’s admission (see box). While most people who passed out from school before the year 2000 may not remember paying any admission fee, it is now being routinely charged by all city schools these days.

But what is this admission fee? Schools charge an admission fee in the name of capital expenditure which includes any construction work undertaken by the school on its premises or any other development work. But such works only happen once in a while. “To charge such huge amounts (Rs 25,000 to Rs 1 lakh) for that and also hike it by a minimum of 25 per cent every year is definitely unreasonable,’’ said another parent who paid Rs 25,000 as admission fee for his first kid two years ago and will now have to shell out a neat Rs 60,000 for his second kid this year.

Agreeing that a child’s education is adding to the burden of parents, especially in the tough times of recession, a few principals of city schools feel that parents should be given valid reasons for the sudden hike in admission and term fees. “It is true that education is getting expensive by the day but we have to understand that the cost of everything else is also increasing. However, I completely agree that schools should keep parents informed about where their money is being spent,’’ said Ray.

But for parents like Prasad, it is not just the money but also the emotional aspect of a child that is forcing her to continue with the existing school. They feel that dragging children from one school to another disturbs their ‘emotional balance.’ “Children get used to a set of teachers, peers and environment. Adjusting to a new school can be quite taxing,’’ says a parent.

It is precisely this emotional aspect of education and parenting that schools in the city are exploiting to the fullest.

Quality can come cheap
The modest Kendriya Vidyalayas in the city are witnessing a curious trend over the last one year. They are being approached by parents who want to pull their children out of high-end schools and get them enrolled in the reasonably priced KVs. Teachers say that parents are not only seeking affordable education but also one that promises overall development, sans all those fancy frills and molly-coddling that expensive schools are known for.

While KV teachers admit that a majority of parents still prefer private ‘international’ schools, believing that ‘expensive is better’ there is a slight reversal of that trend now. “We mostly get children of central government officers who have transferable jobs,” says S Ramani, a KV teacher, adding that now even those working in the private sector are considering KV education once they get to know the teaching methodology adopted by these schools. Fees too have a large part to play in parents’ decision. While the fees of other schools with air-conditioned rooms peaks like the summer heat in Hyderabad, that of the KV remains fixed at Rs 160 per month. Besides, There is no tuition fee for girl students. The last time the KV fee was hiked, was five years ago.

Teachers and proud KV alumni explain that these CBSE board schools are in the same league as any other school, if the achievements of its students in their post-school life are any indicator.

Indu Agarwal, another KV teacher, says that the USP of a KV lies in it being a noncommercial organisation. “But when something is cheap, we suspect its quality,’’ rues Ramani, explaining the preference for private schools among parents.

Inactive PTAs
When Margaret Roberts took up cudgels against the government about two years ago, seeking an exemption from a compulsory Telugu paper for her daughter in the Class X board exam, it was a lonely battle. While the number of non-Telugu speaking children who would have benefited from this exemption would have been in hundreds, those fighting for it strangely never met. Roberts says that she never tried getting the parents together, but was fortunate that the exemption was finally given because pressure had been mounted from other sides as well.

Small wonder then that when the admission and term fees of city schools has shot through the roof, there is barely a whimper of a protest from parents. The few who do complain about the fee hike at a time when recession is peaking, are doing so in isolation. One parent volunteers an explanation, “You don’t stop buying petrol because it is expensive. After all it (school fee) is for your child’s education – so even if it pinches a bit, there wouldn’t be much resistance.”

It is possibly this ‘understanding’ of schools’ policies that has made Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs) completely inactive in the city. While one may pertinently question as to how schools are able to take such decisions without fear of a backlash from the parent community, the answer is that PTAs in Hyderabad are largely ineffective bodies, choosing to discuss only the scores of students and conscientious festival celebrations in their parent-teacher meetings. School management issues are rarely on the radar of the parent community. Even if they feel the pinch of the fee hike, the parent body doesn’t dare bare its teeth for fear of spoiling the rapport with the school that their child goes to.

Only this time around, things may be different as some parents say there might be a furore over the hike in fees. However, that seems farfetched given that in many cases the notices for the hike were served a good two-three months ago.

In fact, last year about 150 city parents came together to form a group to fight out such issues, but the number of members has since dissipated to an abysmal ten. “We are just a handful now. Most parents feared that their rapport with the school would get affected by joining this group, so they left,” shares a parent who had initiated the group.

Hyderabad could take a leaf out of parent activism from other cities. In Mumbai for instance, PTAs have set an example of how a united community of concerned parents can bring about much-needed changes in the way schools are run. In fact, it was over a fee hike issue in the year 2000-01 that PTAs of 160 schools across Mumbai got together and formed the PTA United Forum to fight it. And they won it, as they did several other cases that they had taken up over the last decade. “We took responsibility of the whole parent community and their concerns. We take up issues both with government-aided as well as private schools. And in the last decade, we have managed to gather enough clout to ensure that no school management can take an arbitrary decision,” says Arundhati Chavan, president of PTA United Forum, Mumbai, that has filed various petitions in the court challenging school policies and even won them.

Margaret Roberts admits that had she been in Mumbai, her struggle would have been supported by many more parents.

NCP offers clock symbol to Chiru party

By M H Ahssan

In a move that may indicate changing equations at the Centre, the Nationalist Congress Party led by Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar has offered its ‘clock’ symbol to the Prajarajyam Party of Chiranjeevi to contest the elections in Andhra Pradesh. If accepted by Prajarajyam, Pawar’s NCP will take on its UPA ally, the Congress, in the coming elections in the state.

NCP is a registered national party with the Election Commission of India and was allotted the ‘clock’ symbol way back in 2000 after its electoral performance in Maharashtra and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Prajarajyam sources said the offer to lend its symbol to Chiranjeevi’s party was made by Y P Trivedi, NCP treasurer and close confidant of Pawar, when he met the Prajarajyam president here a few days ago.

The offer comes as a welcome relief for Prajarajyam as the Election Commission has rejected its plea for a common symbol on the ground that the new party does not meet the required criteria. “We are in the process of weighing the option of accepting NCP’s proposal,” A Prajarajyam Party senior leader said.

The sources added that Chiranjeevi is inclined to take up the ‘clock’ symbol. “His initial concern was whether by using the NCP symbol, would the party still be able to qualify for being recognised as a regional party by the EC for the next elections. After being told by EC that Prajarajyam will qualify provided it meets the criteria, the NCP offer is likely to be accepted,” the sources said.

NCP too stands to gain from the arrangement. “While the party’s stature as a national party will grow by the usage of the clock symbol in Andhra Pradesh, it is also seen as a direct challenge to Congress president Sonia Gandhi as the ‘clock’ would be pitted against the ‘hand’ symbol of the Congress. There is a clear message to the Congress that the NCP cannot be taken for granted by the Congress in the post-election scenario,” one leader said.

According to Prajarajyam sources, Chiranjeevi feels that lack of a common symbol might greatly mar the performance of the party in the elections. “Chiranjeevi has a huge following in rural areas and many of these voters are either illiterate or semiliterate and therefore, rely on the symbol to cast their votes. The lack of a common symbol is bound to confuse the rural voter,” the sources said. Hence, the likelihood of Prajarajyam taking up the NCP’s offer, they added.

NCP offers clock symbol to Chiru party

By M H Ahssan

In a move that may indicate changing equations at the Centre, the Nationalist Congress Party led by Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar has offered its ‘clock’ symbol to the Prajarajyam Party of Chiranjeevi to contest the elections in Andhra Pradesh. If accepted by Prajarajyam, Pawar’s NCP will take on its UPA ally, the Congress, in the coming elections in the state.

NCP is a registered national party with the Election Commission of India and was allotted the ‘clock’ symbol way back in 2000 after its electoral performance in Maharashtra and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Prajarajyam sources said the offer to lend its symbol to Chiranjeevi’s party was made by Y P Trivedi, NCP treasurer and close confidant of Pawar, when he met the Prajarajyam president here a few days ago.

The offer comes as a welcome relief for Prajarajyam as the Election Commission has rejected its plea for a common symbol on the ground that the new party does not meet the required criteria. “We are in the process of weighing the option of accepting NCP’s proposal,” A Prajarajyam Party senior leader said.

The sources added that Chiranjeevi is inclined to take up the ‘clock’ symbol. “His initial concern was whether by using the NCP symbol, would the party still be able to qualify for being recognised as a regional party by the EC for the next elections. After being told by EC that Prajarajyam will qualify provided it meets the criteria, the NCP offer is likely to be accepted,” the sources said.

NCP too stands to gain from the arrangement. “While the party’s stature as a national party will grow by the usage of the clock symbol in Andhra Pradesh, it is also seen as a direct challenge to Congress president Sonia Gandhi as the ‘clock’ would be pitted against the ‘hand’ symbol of the Congress. There is a clear message to the Congress that the NCP cannot be taken for granted by the Congress in the post-election scenario,” one leader said.

According to Prajarajyam sources, Chiranjeevi feels that lack of a common symbol might greatly mar the performance of the party in the elections. “Chiranjeevi has a huge following in rural areas and many of these voters are either illiterate or semiliterate and therefore, rely on the symbol to cast their votes. The lack of a common symbol is bound to confuse the rural voter,” the sources said. Hence, the likelihood of Prajarajyam taking up the NCP’s offer, they added.

‘Conspiracies’ cloud India’s terror probe

By M H Ahssan

After 79 days of beating around the bush, the government of Pakistan finally accepted earlier this month that “some part of the conspiracy” for last November’s terrorist attack in Mumbai was planned on its soil. While Western pressure may have forced the belated admission that India’s claims of Pakistani involvement in the attacks were true, it is worth probing why a denial was resorted to in the first place.

Just after the attack, Pakistan claimed there was “no credible evidence” to support the involvement of its nationals or its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency. As the weeks wore on after arguably the deadliest act of urban terrorism the world has ever seen, proof piled up which implicated not only Pakistan’s “non-state actors”, but also their state minders. Still, the cries of “no evidence” grew louder in Islamabad.

The reasoning behind this strategy was to show the world that India had unfairly accused Pakistan of complicity in terrorism to tarnish its international reputation, and that New Delhi instinctively makes a scapegoat out of Islamabad for its “domestic problems”.

To further this, state agencies planted stories in the Pakistani media claiming that the lone gunman captured alive from the sites of the attack – Ajmal Amir (Kasab) – was “kidnapped” in Nepal in 2006 and handed over to India to be pulled out like a rabbit from the hat for a Mumbai-like occasion. Nepal immediately denied this bizarre theory and the claim was not bought internationally.

Several countries agreed after a careful assessment that the attackers were indeed trained jihadis sent from Pakistan. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s security apparatus was flooding domestic newspapers and airwaves with claims that India had no credible evidence of its involvement, and that its accusations of Pakistani involvement were a demonstration of New Delhi’s hostility and aggressive intent.

The more India was painted as an unreasonable and reflexive foe that instinctively searches for a Pakistani hand in every violent terrorist attack, the more a national consensus built up to back the army and the ISI’s rejection of Indian demands for the handover of the terrorists harbored by Pakistan. Security professionals in Pakistan’s garrison city of Rawalpindi did not have to even instigate the demonstrations which broke out in many parts of the country against India’s “hostility” and “baseless allegations”.

Many observers point out that the real winners of the Mumbai attack were the Pakistani army and the ISI, which were keen to find a pretext (Indian hostility) that could halt the American-backed war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

The world knew the truth and saw all the smoking guns, but it still allowed the Pakistani state’s denial and evasion tactics to grow bolder. One of the biggest sources of relief for Pakistan as India drummed up diplomatic pressure after November came in the form of Islamabad’s all-weather strategic ally – China. The Chinese state picked up the baton when the ISI passed it and fanned the utterly absurd conspiracy theory that “Hindu fanatics” could be the perpetrators of the Mumbai horror.

Two days after the attacks, a report published in Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily), the official organ of the Chinese Communist Party, quoted “analysts” as saying that “radical elements from Hinduism could have also carried out this attack, because they have long opposed the US’s hegemonistic policies” as they were “unhappy with domestic and foreign policies of the Congress-led government”.

Li Wei, the director of anti-terrorist studies at China’s Institute of Contemporary International Relations, told official media that India was accusing Pakistan to “cover up” its own “flaws and shortcomings”.

Like the last-minute obstruction China brought forward at the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group in Vienna when India was about to secure the waiver for the civilian nuclear deal with the US, this mimicking of Pakistani conspiracy theories stung Indians and warned them for the umpteenth time that trusting Beijing was naive. At a solemn hour when Indians were counting the dead and trying to seek long-denied justice, China hid behind the facade of conspiracy theories.

In late December, New Delhi presented a full dossier of evidence to Pakistan’s closest allies – China and Saudi Arabia – stating the culpability of the separatist terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba and ISI supporters in the Mumbai attacks.

This exercise did little to change the Chinese line on Pakistan and it continued to avoid a hardline and ask Pakistan to hand over terrorists to India. What was achieved by sharing evidence with China, though, was an exposure of Beijing’s false commitments to cooperating with the rest of the world to fight the “common scourge” of terrorism.

The strong political motives behind conspiracy theories such as Pakistan’s are not often appreciated by people. Gossip is harmless when it is just loose social talk to spice up the banality of daily life, but when it is elevated to the point of affecting international political communications, there is more than likely a conspiracy behind the conspiracy theories.

Take, for example, the wild speculation about the “real attackers” in many parts of the Muslim world after the September 11, 2001, strikes in New York and Washington. The most memorable one, which spread like wildfire across cyberspace and Muslim countries, was that the attacks were the handiwork of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. This theory also claimed that Jews working in the World Trade Center (WTC) had been tipped off in advance not to come in on the fateful morning.

Although the theory was clearly debunked by statistics which showed that some 15% to 17% of the victims at the WTC that day were Jewish, the so-called “Muslim street” was still in the mood to ask for more “concrete proof” that the hijackers of the planes were actually jihadis.

Even after Osama bin Laden’s famous videotape detailing why and how he masterminded the attacks arrived via the news agency al-Jazeera in October 2004, the skeptics and denial specialists kept up the refrain that the tape may not be authentic or that Bin Laden was taking credit for something he never did.

The political backdrop of this stubborn refusal to face the facts was the American-led “war on terror”, which caused great violence and harm in the Middle East and beyond. Opposition to the “war on terror”, its targets and methods was perfectly justifiable, but intelligence agencies in many Muslim states used the conspiracy theories to tell Washington that their hands were tied by public opinion – that they could not act against jihadis or serve American demands for cooperation. “Gossip” was thus indirectly turned into an excuse for government inaction against fundamentalist outfits.

Conspiracy theories about terrorist attacks do not always originate from jihadis and their sympathizers. When the Oklahoma City bombing occurred in the United States in 1995, many Americans saw a “foreign hand” in it, notably al-Qaeda, and it was a bitter pill for them to swallow when Timothy McVeigh, a white American male, was eventually convicted for the attack.

At the domestic social level, conspiracy theories often relate to stereotypes of race, religion and ethnicity that predestine individuals to suspect that, say, the detested Muslim, Christian, Jew or Hindu is the “real” perpetrator. The politicization of these social biases is achieved through intelligence agencies, which fine-tune them into arguments and foreign policy positions at the international level.

Now that Pakistan has acknowledged “partial” responsibility for the Mumbai attacks, the question remains whether all the perpetrators will ever be brought to book. The irony of the present juncture is that if India does heed the advice of strategists and opens a covert front against the jihadi infrastructure in Pakistan, it will reinforce the weight of the ISI and the army in Rawalpindi and all the “Indiaphobia” they have propagated in Pakistani society.

But the price of doing nothing is worse for India, because the image of a perpetually antagonistic India has already seeped into Pakistani society and the next audacious cross-border attack may be only a few months or years away.

Recent investigative reports in HNN revealed that India failed to take prompt retaliatory measures against Pakistan after Mumbai due to military under-preparedness rather than a lack of political will. Intelligence analysts have also pointed out that India’s capability to perform covert actions against terrorist organizations in neighboring countries was downgraded during the brief 1997 prime ministerial tenure of I K Gujral.

Unless New Delhi reverses these self-defeating policies, attacks like last November’s will keep happening, and they will again be followed by the now all-too-familiar ritualistic denials and conspiracy theories from the perpetrating side.

Amplifying Advani Logic

By M H Ahssan

A leader is one who leads by example and does not follow in the footsteps of his followers and disciples but Lal Krishna Advani, country’s eager Prime Minister-in-waiting, is an exceptional political entity. He used to lead by example in his infamous Rath Yatra days but the addictive taste of Delhi’s political power has changed his mindset. No wonder he is blindly advocating a theory originally propagated by a small fish in the dirty pond of India’s communalism – the notorious Narendra Modi.

Modi had recently said, “Attacks like 26/11 couldn’t have happened without local support… The UPA Government is quiet on this aspect because of vote-bank politics.” In other words, it simply means that the attack could not have taken place without the active help of Indian Muslims. Modi’s statement was much appreciated within the BJP and Sangh Parivar. Advani, whose eyesight is fixed on 7 Race Course Road (Prime Minster’s residence), realized that it was time that he broke his dignified silence to please saffron souls lest they think Modi is their natural leader! It is in this context Advani raised the issue that local angle “could not be ruled out”, and demanded a “thorough” judicial inquiry covering “this aspect of the conspiracy as well.”

Winston Churchill once said, “The nation will find it very hard to look up to the leaders who are keeping their ears to the ground.” Had Advani kept his ears to the ground, he would have certainly broadened his approach but he didn’t. A man who desperately wants to be India’s next Prime Minister should have demanded a “thorough” judicial inquiry of Batla House, Mecca Masjid, Samjhauta blast and Malegaon blasts etc. That would have made him a man of all seasons but alas he is a man of saffron reason!

If Advani’s eyes are on the 7 Race Course Road, his ears are paying attention across the border. He is desperately seeking votes in Pakistan! The ad featuring on many Pakistani websites reads, ‘It’s possible, Advani for Prime Minister.’ Does Advani want to become Prime Minister of Pakistan? Advani’s adventurous ambition will bring much needed relief to Iftikhar Yusuf Raza Gilani, Pakistan’s current Prime Minister!

For a change we must give Advani benefit of doubt. If his “local angle” concern is indeed genuine, let’s try to apply this logic in totality. What would be the reaction of government and politicians if any political leader of Malegaon tries to raise the “local angle” involvement in September 29 2008 blast? What if he repeats the exact words of L.K. Advani only replacing 26/11 with Malegaon blast? He would be branded as a “communalist”, an “anti-national”. The police department will sing a song of law and order problem. It is quite possible that he would be booked under some sections of Indian Penal Code for making provocative statement of the communal nature.

This classic Indian duplicity is not a gift of British Raj but it’s a product of hate-preachers who still see Indian Muslims as “outsiders” and “invaders”. This tendency emanates from none other than the right-wing ideologue Golwalkar who put it quite bluntly, “Ever since the evil day, when Muslims just landed in Hindustan, right up to the present moment, the Hindu nation has been gallantly fighting on to shake off the despoilers.”

It is altogether a different matter that this kind of rabid rhetoric has been replaced by soft Hindutva because in an era of coalition politics, BJP can not form government on its own. Adopting the same kind of language will cut short Advani’s Prime Ministerial dream.

The duplicity and hypocrisy of L.K. Advani is nothing new. He has been accused of a criminal conspiracy to demolish Babri Masjid. Advani first blamed Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao and, next, acclaimed the event as a historic one. In front of Liberhan Commission, he has repeatedly said that December 6, 1992 was the saddest day of his life although Advani had said in Ayodhya that, “Aaj (December 6) kar seva ka akhiri din hai, kar sevak aaj akhiri kar seva karenge.” (It is the final day for the kar seva today. The kar sevaks will be doing the final kar seva today). And when the demolition of the mosque was in progress, he also told that the Central forces were moving from Faizabad towards Ayodhya, but they were not afraid of it and instructed the public to block the national highway straightway so that forces do not reach Ram Janam Bhoomi. This was reported by Indian Express and later documented by noted lawyer and commentator A.G. Noorani. Jaswant Singh said that the demolition should not have happened in the sense that the BJP was one of the participants and BJP has direct responsibility. Ashok Singhal was more blunt. He told a gathering in London that “Kar sevaks had removed a stigma attached to the Hindu community. This was a matter of pride for Hindus the world over. It was like Hanuman setting fire to Lanka.”

A.G. Noorani has beautifully described BJP’s confession and denial thus, “The BJP wants to run with the hares and hunt with the hounds. It simultaneously acknowledges as well as denies its involvement in the crime.”

Advani’s autobiography (My Country, My Life) is full of lies and contradictions and there is ample evidence of his “Muslim phobia” in it. It is an attempt to portray Advani as a “nationalist” leader and pave way for his Prime Ministerial dream. Perhaps the last word must be left to Noorani: “If Advani succeeds in fulfilling his 20-year-old ambition, this book will rank as the Fuhrer’s Mein Kampf. If he is defeated in 2009, it will be remembered for ever as the swansong of a man who wanted to be Prime Minister of India too badly.”

Amplifying Advani Logic

By M H Ahssan

A leader is one who leads by example and does not follow in the footsteps of his followers and disciples but Lal Krishna Advani, country’s eager Prime Minister-in-waiting, is an exceptional political entity. He used to lead by example in his infamous Rath Yatra days but the addictive taste of Delhi’s political power has changed his mindset. No wonder he is blindly advocating a theory originally propagated by a small fish in the dirty pond of India’s communalism – the notorious Narendra Modi.

Modi had recently said, “Attacks like 26/11 couldn’t have happened without local support… The UPA Government is quiet on this aspect because of vote-bank politics.” In other words, it simply means that the attack could not have taken place without the active help of Indian Muslims. Modi’s statement was much appreciated within the BJP and Sangh Parivar. Advani, whose eyesight is fixed on 7 Race Course Road (Prime Minster’s residence), realized that it was time that he broke his dignified silence to please saffron souls lest they think Modi is their natural leader! It is in this context Advani raised the issue that local angle “could not be ruled out”, and demanded a “thorough” judicial inquiry covering “this aspect of the conspiracy as well.”

Winston Churchill once said, “The nation will find it very hard to look up to the leaders who are keeping their ears to the ground.” Had Advani kept his ears to the ground, he would have certainly broadened his approach but he didn’t. A man who desperately wants to be India’s next Prime Minister should have demanded a “thorough” judicial inquiry of Batla House, Mecca Masjid, Samjhauta blast and Malegaon blasts etc. That would have made him a man of all seasons but alas he is a man of saffron reason!

If Advani’s eyes are on the 7 Race Course Road, his ears are paying attention across the border. He is desperately seeking votes in Pakistan! The ad featuring on many Pakistani websites reads, ‘It’s possible, Advani for Prime Minister.’ Does Advani want to become Prime Minister of Pakistan? Advani’s adventurous ambition will bring much needed relief to Iftikhar Yusuf Raza Gilani, Pakistan’s current Prime Minister!

For a change we must give Advani benefit of doubt. If his “local angle” concern is indeed genuine, let’s try to apply this logic in totality. What would be the reaction of government and politicians if any political leader of Malegaon tries to raise the “local angle” involvement in September 29 2008 blast? What if he repeats the exact words of L.K. Advani only replacing 26/11 with Malegaon blast? He would be branded as a “communalist”, an “anti-national”. The police department will sing a song of law and order problem. It is quite possible that he would be booked under some sections of Indian Penal Code for making provocative statement of the communal nature.

This classic Indian duplicity is not a gift of British Raj but it’s a product of hate-preachers who still see Indian Muslims as “outsiders” and “invaders”. This tendency emanates from none other than the right-wing ideologue Golwalkar who put it quite bluntly, “Ever since the evil day, when Muslims just landed in Hindustan, right up to the present moment, the Hindu nation has been gallantly fighting on to shake off the despoilers.”

It is altogether a different matter that this kind of rabid rhetoric has been replaced by soft Hindutva because in an era of coalition politics, BJP can not form government on its own. Adopting the same kind of language will cut short Advani’s Prime Ministerial dream.

The duplicity and hypocrisy of L.K. Advani is nothing new. He has been accused of a criminal conspiracy to demolish Babri Masjid. Advani first blamed Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao and, next, acclaimed the event as a historic one. In front of Liberhan Commission, he has repeatedly said that December 6, 1992 was the saddest day of his life although Advani had said in Ayodhya that, “Aaj (December 6) kar seva ka akhiri din hai, kar sevak aaj akhiri kar seva karenge.” (It is the final day for the kar seva today. The kar sevaks will be doing the final kar seva today). And when the demolition of the mosque was in progress, he also told that the Central forces were moving from Faizabad towards Ayodhya, but they were not afraid of it and instructed the public to block the national highway straightway so that forces do not reach Ram Janam Bhoomi. This was reported by Indian Express and later documented by noted lawyer and commentator A.G. Noorani. Jaswant Singh said that the demolition should not have happened in the sense that the BJP was one of the participants and BJP has direct responsibility. Ashok Singhal was more blunt. He told a gathering in London that “Kar sevaks had removed a stigma attached to the Hindu community. This was a matter of pride for Hindus the world over. It was like Hanuman setting fire to Lanka.”

A.G. Noorani has beautifully described BJP’s confession and denial thus, “The BJP wants to run with the hares and hunt with the hounds. It simultaneously acknowledges as well as denies its involvement in the crime.”

Advani’s autobiography (My Country, My Life) is full of lies and contradictions and there is ample evidence of his “Muslim phobia” in it. It is an attempt to portray Advani as a “nationalist” leader and pave way for his Prime Ministerial dream. Perhaps the last word must be left to Noorani: “If Advani succeeds in fulfilling his 20-year-old ambition, this book will rank as the Fuhrer’s Mein Kampf. If he is defeated in 2009, it will be remembered for ever as the swansong of a man who wanted to be Prime Minister of India too badly.”

THE FIGHT FOR PAKISTAN’S POLITICAL SOUL, Part 2

By Syed Saleem Shahzad & M H Ahssan

PART 1: Deal with militants emboldens opposition

A new face for militants emerges
In the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States, Washington forced Pakistan to make a major policy reversal and break its alliance with its natural allies, Islamic forces.

Pakistan provided logistical support for the US forces that invaded Afghanistan to oust the Taliban and hunt for al-Qaeda, and Islamabad assisted in the apprehension of al-Qaeda members.

Yet Pakistan, the only Muslim country in the world to have come into being on the basis of Islamic ideology, managed to maintain its alliance with the Islamic parties, militants and the jihadi establishment and orchestrated a war theater in which Islamic forces were largely under its control.

The Pakistani military establishment nurtured an anti-Western opposition religious alliance of six parties – the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal – which was in fact friendly to the government of president General Pervez Musharraf. This allowed Musharraf to have the constitution amended to give him maximum powers. Peace agreements were also signed with militants and the leaders of the jihadi organizations, many of whom were convinced to sit back in comfortable villas until their next orders came.

Everything was under control and by 2007 the situation was heading towards the alienation of al-Qaeda elements.

A dialogue process was initiated in Kabul through a grand jirga (council) after which jirgagais (small jirgas ) were to have started a dialogue process leading to an “honorable” exit for coalition troops from Afghanistan.

However, ultra-radical forces, which were slowly nurturing a new generation of the Taliban, grew in strength, which led to Pakistan’s security forces cracking down on the radical Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad in July 2007.

Following this operation, the radicals gained more and more ground in the tribal areas, to the point that today Pakistan has virtually lost control of North-West Frontier Province. And the Islamists, the once natural allies, have become sworn enemies.

However, in the largest province of Punjab and in urban centers such as Karachi, Rawalpindi and Lahore, the situation is still under control.

The largest jihadi network in Punjab, the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), was infiltrated by army officers after their retirement which led to an immoral relationship between the LET and the military establishment.

The premier Islamic party, the Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan (JI), was set up by its ideologue Syed Abul Ala Maududi in such a way that it could not deviate from the democratic path and it had to work within the confines of the laws of the land.

However, as the war theater in the Pakistani tribal areas and Afghanistan heated up under the influence of ultra-radical ideologues, many veteran LET commanders left the organization and joined forces with al-Qaeda. A very small number of JI members also joined forces with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

That small group then started an effective campaign within the rank and file of the JI against the status-quo policies of the party, which in essence stress loyalty towards Pakistan and its security forces.

Unprecedented pressure was mounted on the JI leadership to be vocal in favor of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and this could have a vital influence on the selection of a new party president next month.

This is happening at a time that Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani is visiting Washington on an extraordinary trip that could lead either to Kiani being sidelined or his empowerment and a major political change in the country.

The reason for the uncertain outcome is that the American establishment is confused over who is actually pulling the strings. In this context, the JI’s elections are being closely monitored by all quarters as they could turn this powerful pro-establishment party in the other direction, eventually leading it down the path of radical Islam.

Jamaat-e-Islami at the crossroads The Jamaat-i-Islami Pakistan is the country’s only party to hold genuine elections for its president, every four years. All other parties, whether religious or secular, are the personal fiefdoms of family politics.

The chief of the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) Fazlur Rahman is the son of the previous party chief, Mufti Mehmood. The JUI’s another faction is led by Maulana Samiul Haq, who is the son of the previous chief of the faction, Maulana Abdul Haq.

The Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz group is led by the Sharif family (brothers and now sons and sons-in-law). The Pakistan People’s Party was led by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, then his wife Nusrat Bhutto, then his daughter Benazir Bhutto and it is now co-chaired by Benazir’s son Bilawal and her widower Asif Zardari.

The Awami National Party (ANP) has been led by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan’s family members – his son Wali Khan, then his wife Naseem Wali Khan and now his grandson, Asfandyar Wali Khan.

The incumbent president of the JI, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, has indicated that due to his age – 71 – and deteriorating health, he will not stand for re-election. Three candidates have now been nominated – no one is allowed to nomninate themselves.

The three are all former student leaders: the party’s secretary general Syed Munawar Hasan, central vice president Liaquat Baloch and the president of North-West Frontier province Sirajul Haq.

Despite its current pro-establishment stance, the JI has a history of confrontation with the state. Its founder, Syed Abul Ala Maududi, was arrested only a year after Pakistan came into being, in 1948, for demanding Islamization in Pakistan.

In 1953 he was arrested again for writing an article which declared Qadyanis as non-Muslims. (Qadyanis – a movement that harbors some controversial Muslim beliefs – were declared non-Muslims in 1973 by the Pakistani parliament.) Maududi was sentenced to death, but due to nation-wide protests and extraordinary pressure from Saudi Arabia he was released.

The JI was banned by then-president General Ayub Khan in the early 1960s and its entire leadership was arrested. The party filed a case against the ban and eventually had it reversed. However, being the main opposition leader, Maududi was kept behind bars.

The JI was the main engine behind the movement of combined opposition parties in late 1960 which laid the foundation for Ayub Khan’s departure from the power. But the movement was later hijacked by a young Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and his newly founded Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and its slogan of socialist revolution.

In 1969, Maududi stepped down as party president and Mian Tufail Mohammad was elected. This was the beginning of the JI’s alliance with the Pakistani military establishment.

In 1970 elections, the Awami League emerged as the majority party, drawing all its support from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). The second-largest party, by a long way, was the PPP, scoring well in West Pakistan (now Pakistan).

Neither the PPP nor the military establishment was in favor of transferring power to the Awami League, which was demanding complete provincial autonomy. This resulted in an insurgency in East Pakistan, where the Bengali population was hostile towards the state of Pakistan.

The province’s administration, comprising Bengalis, rebelled and openly supported the insurgents. The Pakistan army was desperate for local support and hit on the JI, which which believed in the state of Pakistan.

The military armed the JI’s student wing (which had won student union elections at Dhaka University and Rajshahi University) and pitched it against the insurgents. Pakistan lost the war and Bangladesh was born in 1971, but the JI was by now reckoned as the most trusted ally of the military establishment.

In 1977, the JI’s dedicated workers changed the dynamics of street agitation and crippled Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s government, which had just swept elections. The military intervened and General Zia ul-Haq imposed martial law.

The new cabinet comprised JI leaders such as Professor Ghaffour Ahmad (minister of Railways), Professor Khurshid Ahmad (minister for the Planning Commission) and former student leader of the JI, Javed Hashmi (minister for Youth Affairs). The latter is now the central leader of the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz group.

The then-leader of the PPP, Kausar Niazi, has documented that Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto went to the residence of JI founder Maududi and asked him to fight against the martial law and save him (Bhutto) from court trails. Maududi did issue statements against martial law, but JI president Mian Tufail strongly supported Haq and the decision to execute Bhutto over charges of the murder of a political opponent. (Bhutto was hanged on April 4, 1979 – aged 51- in Rawalpindi jail.)

These experiences helped the military establishment understand the value of the JI, which is why it takes a special interest in its president.

When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 an Afghan Islamic resistance sprung up. This proved to be another major turning point in relations between the Pakistan military and the JI, which at that time was the only political and religious party which supported the Afghan resistance.

All the big parties, including the PPP and the National Awami Party (NAP – now the Awami National Party), claimed to be Marxists and therefore supported the invasion. The NAP openly supported a “red revolution” in Pakistan and even wanted to welcome Soviet tanks into Pakistan.

Half of the NAP leadership fled to Russia and Afghanistan, including Afrasiab Khattak (now the provincial president of the ANP in North-West Frontier Province) and Ajmal Khattack. Two other major religious parties, the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam led by Fazlur Rahman (now pro-Taliban) and the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Pakistan, were close to pro-Russian Muslim countries like Iraq and Libya, therefore they declared the Afghan resistance merely a civil war.

Pakistan was concerned of a Soviet threat on its western borders, while the Soviet presence emboldened pro-Russian India against Pakistan.

The JI supported the Afghan resistance as some of its leaders, such as Ahmad Shah Massoud, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Professor Abdul Rab Rasool Sayyaf and Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani, were ideologically close to the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood.

JI leader Qazi (now the president) was sent by party founder Maududi in the mid-1960s to Kabul University to lay the foundations of an Islamist student union, which further strengthened the JI’s ties to the resistance leaders.

Washington was sponsoring the Afghan resistance through Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and the JI was its field force. When Mian Tufail stepped down as chief of the JI, the ISI for the first time exerted influence over the JI’s elections and helped have Qazi elected as president in 1986.

The ISI wanted to use the JI not only in Afghanistan but also for newly planned operations in disputed Kashmir, which started in 1988-89. The JI had to fuel these operations woth supplies and human resources.

After 2001, a personality clash between Qazi and Musharraf created some distance between the JI and the military establishment, but the JI did not turn hostile, rather remained neutral and inactive.

Qazi has written articles critical of the Taliban’s policies, their vision and their brand of Islam – he was inspired by the Iranian Islamic revolution of 1979 and is against the Taliban.

When the administration of US president Bill Clinton adopted a policy of engagement with democratic forces in the Muslim world and encouraged engagement with the Muslim Brotherhood, the US State Department invited Qazi to the US under its International Visitor’s leadership program. Qazi became a regular guest at an influential think-tank close to the Democrats.

However, some JI workers who had fought against the Soviets became active and hosted some of their old Arab friends, including Khalid Shiekh Mohammad of September 11 infamy and others.

At least four important al-Qaeda members were arrested from the houses of JI workers, including Khalid. Washington put intense pressure on Pakistan to ban the JI and Interior minister Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat issued a statement on the possibility of doing this.

Within days, the ISI sprang into action and Hayat was removed and the government clarified the JI’s position – it would not be banned. Qazi sent out instructions for JI members to stay away from the Taliban and al-Qaeda and made it clear that any person found harboring such people would be disowned.

At this point, party secretary general Syed Munawar Hasan publicly adopted a separate line and proclaimed that the JI did not have any problem with the “Arab mujahideen”.

“We don’t know what al-Qaeda is all about. We heard this name from the Americans only. We know our Arab mujahideen who fought with our people against the Soviets. If today a world superpower is after them and they ask their Muslim brothers to support them, we don’t have any problem helping them,” Hasan said.

“Nevertheless, we would never support any sort of terrorism, neither would we allow them any operations from Pakistan.”

These words stunned everybody, including the JI’s leadership, but Hasan immediately became a hero figure within militant circles disgruntled with the behavior of Islamic parties. Hasan was approached by the military establishment for negotiations, but his refusal in bitter language caused alarm.

Hasan was a student leader at Karachi University and did his masters in sociology in the late 1960s, then emerging as a popular English- and Urdu-language orator.

The socialist-turned-Islamist known for his criticism of the military establishment gradually climbed up the ladder of the JI to become its powerful secretary general. The establishment is clearly concerned that he will become the JI’s next president – a landslide victory is predicted.

The timing is not good for Pakistan for this to happen. The military has been forced to back off from operations against militants in the Swat Valley following the government negotiating a ceasefire and the Islamists aim to gain from this in urban centers.

Militants sitting in the mountains are convinced that Hasan will provide them with a political front to fight for their cause – something they have not had before.

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With rate cuts, govt hopes to keep urban voters content

By M H Ahssan

Concern over a sullen mood gripping urban India in the wake of a slowing economy and rising job losses and a clamour for a dose of populism from within the ruling coalition saw finance minister Pranab Mukherjee abandon propriety to announce duty and service tax cuts.

Keeping an eye on the rapidly approaching elections, the government not only bent its resolve not to offer any specific economy pills, but Mukherjee made it clear that the stimulus to the economy will continue to roll. Pointing out that the excise and service tax cuts had not needed amendments, he said more succour would be offered if needed.

Though the government claims that it can still offer more relief, the imposition of the model code of conduct could be a serious impediment — the motivation for 70-odd decisions taken by the Union Cabinet at its marathon meeting on Monday.

Sources confirmed fear of loss of jobs was the trigger for “second thoughts”. Explaining the imperatives, home minister P Chidambaram said, “We feel demand in rural areas is strong. But the mood is cautious in urban centres. We don’t want job losses. These measures should spur consumption as we hope cuts are passed on to the consumer.” It was evident that politics drove the change of heart.

Mukherjee said his concessions were “like a third stimulus” and he expected export sectors with high levels of employment would be benefited despite the government accepting revenue loss to the tune of Rs 30,000 crore. Following Rs 40,000 crore already surrendered by Chidambaram earlier, the revenue now written off is a kick in the stomach. But the government is ready to grin and bear for the political imperative.

The re-think came after a prod from the Congress high command as well with party chief Sonia Gandhi besieged with pleas of tax and excise relief in order to ease the pressure on consumers and jobs. In particular, the leadership was wary of possibility of a souring popular mood which could end up targeting the government. If NDA erred in falling for its own India Shining hype, UPA clearly does not want to fall afoul of the aam aadmi gripped by uncertainty and gloom. Government had pointed to the strong financial commitments to rural-oriented flagship schemes to defend its decision not to tweak tax rates and announce any major relief packages in the interim budget. The reasoning was that the rural vote would swing UPA’s way as massive spending on schemes like Bharat Nirman and NREGA along with higher MSP for wheat and rice kept the village economy afloat.

The switch on Tuesday is the result of the belated recognition that urban constituencies are not only large but also have a sizeable percentage of the poor, many who are in the unorganised sector. As in the case of inflation, the slowdown in sectors like construction hit urban labour immediately.

The government scrambled to reassure the voter who is being wooed aggressively by BJP. The calculation may see the government being pressured into exploring more populist moves like a reduction in prices of products before the EC enforces its code.

Baby sold to pay hospital bill back with mom

By Arun Kumar

Tears of joy ran across the cheeks of Tagarapu Rajitha as she held the baby boy close to her at the government area hospital here. Three days after the infant was sold to an auto driver, the child was reunited with the mother whose happiness knew no bounds.

The young single mother (20) sold her two-day-old baby boy to the auto driver, Mada Ishwar (36) for Rs 6,500 on February 22 to clear the medical bill as demanded by the hospital staff for ensuring a ‘safe’ delivery. Rajitha gave birth to the baby by a caesarean section on February 20.

Both Ishwar and Rajitha’s aunt Dattam Sunitha, who was a mediator for the sale, were arrested on Tuesday evening. The incident came as a major embarrassment to Union minister of state for women and child development Renuka Chowdary, state Vaidya Vidhana Parishad and hospital services minister Vanama Venkateswara Rao. While Kothagudem is represented by Vanama in the Assembly, the segment comes under the Union minister’s Khammam Lok Sabhaconstituency.

District SP Mahesh Bhagwat told TOI that after the baby boy was born, Sunitha advised her to sell the baby to a childless couple. “She had also arranged for the buyer. We have arrested them under sections 317 (abandoning the child) and 372, 373 (selling/purchasing of babies) of IPC and registered a case,” Bhagawat said.

Rajitha of Manchiryal in Adilabad district was abandoned by her husband Rammurthy, a lorry driver, and moved to her aunt’s house in Kothagudem for delivery as she was unable to bear the medical expenses. The SP said the baby was traced and reunited with the mother after the police team nabbed Ishwar. He said Rajitha would also face charges for selling the baby. “We will file a case against her too,” he said.

Rajitha told the police, who interrogated her on Tuesday, that she had no means to support herself and the baby and hence, resorted to selling the baby. Rajitha married Rammurthy against her family’s wishes, but the couple developed serious differences when Rajitha came to know that Rammurthy was already married.

“Her financial condition was such that she could not afford to pay Rs 2,000 to the hospital staff. So, she sold her infant,” a relative said. Police said they would enquire and take action against the hospital staff for demanding money.

Kothagudem revenue divisional officer P Rajaram said a case would be booked against the erring staff. “We are also probing whether the doctor had asked for money from the woman,” he said. Sources said the doctor, who engaged an anaesthetist, had demanded bribe from Rajitha. Welfare department officials said they would shift the mother and the infant to a staterun facility.

Baby sold to pay hospital bill back with mom

By Arun Kumar

Tears of joy ran across the cheeks of Tagarapu Rajitha as she held the baby boy close to her at the government area hospital here. Three days after the infant was sold to an auto driver, the child was reunited with the mother whose happiness knew no bounds.

The young single mother (20) sold her two-day-old baby boy to the auto driver, Mada Ishwar (36) for Rs 6,500 on February 22 to clear the medical bill as demanded by the hospital staff for ensuring a ‘safe’ delivery. Rajitha gave birth to the baby by a caesarean section on February 20.

Both Ishwar and Rajitha’s aunt Dattam Sunitha, who was a mediator for the sale, were arrested on Tuesday evening. The incident came as a major embarrassment to Union minister of state for women and child development Renuka Chowdary, state Vaidya Vidhana Parishad and hospital services minister Vanama Venkateswara Rao. While Kothagudem is represented by Vanama in the Assembly, the segment comes under the Union minister’s Khammam Lok Sabhaconstituency.

District SP Mahesh Bhagwat told TOI that after the baby boy was born, Sunitha advised her to sell the baby to a childless couple. “She had also arranged for the buyer. We have arrested them under sections 317 (abandoning the child) and 372, 373 (selling/purchasing of babies) of IPC and registered a case,” Bhagawat said.

Rajitha of Manchiryal in Adilabad district was abandoned by her husband Rammurthy, a lorry driver, and moved to her aunt’s house in Kothagudem for delivery as she was unable to bear the medical expenses. The SP said the baby was traced and reunited with the mother after the police team nabbed Ishwar. He said Rajitha would also face charges for selling the baby. “We will file a case against her too,” he said.

Rajitha told the police, who interrogated her on Tuesday, that she had no means to support herself and the baby and hence, resorted to selling the baby. Rajitha married Rammurthy against her family’s wishes, but the couple developed serious differences when Rajitha came to know that Rammurthy was already married.

“Her financial condition was such that she could not afford to pay Rs 2,000 to the hospital staff. So, she sold her infant,” a relative said. Police said they would enquire and take action against the hospital staff for demanding money.

Kothagudem revenue divisional officer P Rajaram said a case would be booked against the erring staff. “We are also probing whether the doctor had asked for money from the woman,” he said. Sources said the doctor, who engaged an anaesthetist, had demanded bribe from Rajitha. Welfare department officials said they would shift the mother and the infant to a staterun facility.

HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL

By M H Ahssan

At the risk of romanticising the hardships faced by street children, a child rights activist shares her favourite story about a 12-year-old, pint-sized boy named Rajan (his street name) who dreams big. Living off the streets of Hyderabad for the last three years, he may not know where he would get his day’s meal from but is sure that he has perfected his dance steps well enough to become a choreographer some day. That he was abused physically and sexually on the streets of the city or that he was tortured by his alcoholic father and abusive stepmother for years forcing him to leave his home did not scar his dream. He continues to watch dance shows on the telly, hoping he would be there one day himself.

There are an estimated 45,000 street children in Hyderabad, who sleep under the stars every night but dream of that one big dramatic moment that could change their lives, much like the crorepati moment of Jamaal in Slumdog Millionaire. And that hope keeps them going, making them survivors on mean streets.

“They have a bindaas attitude and a great hope that something will happen that would change their lives,’’ says Mohd Rafiuddin, director of Hyderabad Council of Human Welfare, who goes on to share the story of a nineyear-old who fled from home after his parents’ death and went through every possible drill of a ‘new’ street child. From being abused to getting addicted to drugs, the child was soon a veteran in the ways of street life only to wean away from it all to realise his dream of doing something good. While an NGO intervention helped in this case, Rafiuddin says that in many cases children who do not get much help are still able to get their lives back on track themselves.

Activists share that from nursing ambitions of becoming a pilot to finally making it as waiters in pizza outlets or as office boys, children of the streets never really lose hope. “Their main ambition in most cases is to go back home with money to improve the lives of their families,’’ shares an activist.

Some turn exploitative situations to their advantage. Take the case of a boy working at a tea stall for many years who realised that he must explore cooking beyond brewing tea. Fortunately for him, there was a dramatic moment indeed when as part of a Corporate Social Responsibility initiative, he got a chance to learn cooking and is now on his way to assist a senior chef in a star hotel in Mumbai. “There is this emotional resilience, an inner strength and an inherent capacity to strive through stress and storm. They always look at the positive side of life,’’ says child rights activist Dr Nilima Mehta, who shares the tea stall boy’s story as a case in point.

Isidore Phillips, director Divya Disha, notes that the most amazing part of street children is their ability to learn, fast. “A boy came to Hyderabad, was raped on the streets, fled the city only to return later. He knows the boy who had abused him but he is now surviving on the street,’’ Phillips says, adding that children on the streets learn how to fend for themselves.

He goes on to share the story of a boy who spent his childhood on railway platforms and went on to become a police constable. “They are smart and have the instinct to achieve. They have the go-getter attitude,” he says.Well, they don’t call them street smart for nothing.

GUTS AND GRIT AMIDST GRIME

By M H Ahssan

A positive, never-say-die attitude helps slum children survive and emerge victorious despite, and not because of, government moves to rehabilitate them. HNN takes a look at what life in the slums of Hyderabad involves.

Relocation: A flawed concept
Even as the world wakes up to the living condition of slum dwellers in India, courtesy ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, and agencies flock Dharavi in Mumbai to develop it, the plight of slum residents in Hyderabad is only deteriorating, rue activists. They say that the “proactive” attempts made by the Andhra Pradesh government towards “altering” the lives of these people have only proved detrimental to slum dwellers, as the government is successfully alienating them from the rest of the city.

There are 1,210 notified slums in the city, of which an estimated 100 are under threat of relocation, while a few have already been shown the door, locked out of the city in a suburb with no nearby school or job options for slum dwellers.

The central government’s Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) was started to remove slums in the state and rehabilitate slum dwellers, but most social workers say that the programme has done more harm than good. On the pretext of rehabilitation, the powerful “real-estate lobby”, in order to grab land in the city, packs off slum-dwellers to far-flung corners of the city. The impact of such moves is the most serious on children, they say.

Relocation, as Rajesh Prabhakar, state manager of CRY, Andhra Pradesh notes, is not only a demolition of dwellings, but also of lives and the worst affected are children who are driven into child labour due to lack of other opportunities.

“This scheme that is meant to provide better conditions for the underprivileged has only accelerated the drop-out rate amongst slum children. The drive for relocation has led to slum dwellers being forcibly evicted from their homes to obscure areas which have neither basic facilities like schools for children nor transport facilities which allow them to travel to schools in other areas. Under such conditions, most children who earlier went to school have no choice but to drop-out,” explains RTI activist Umesh Varma giving an example of a relocation site in Afzalnagar where a number of children have stopped going to school due to lack of transport facilities.

Activists also say that with relocation done in a haphazard manner, the inhabitants of slums are suddenly uprooted and relocated to unfamiliar places. Children are forced to leave their schools midterm, with no one responsible for getting the slum children admitted to other schools.

The lack of job opportunities for parents in these new locations is also a major concern, as they are often thrust into extreme situations where they have no option but to send their children to look for work elsewhere instead of educating them, says Prabhakar. “Work is difficult to come by in these remote areas so the parents obviously need extra pairs of hands to earn their livelihood. At times like these, they cannot afford to think about education,” he says.

The whole idea of relocation, activists say is a sugar-coated term to cover up a crime of the “land-mafia”. If incidents of eviction of this class to the periphery of the city in the name of rehabilitation continue, the dropout rate amongst slum children will soon reach 100 per cent and the kids will be exposed not only to child labour but also to other physical and social abuse, say activists.

OUR REAL HEROES
Watching Jamal hop into speeding trains, land in unknown cities and take up odd jobs to earn a meal, in ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, was like revisiting his own days as a child for Oddepally Rajaiah. Though unlike Jamal, Rajaiah opted to run away from home in Warangal at the age of 10 years, driven by his desire to travel around the world, the rest of his story is much the same. Today with a Masters in Social Work, Rajaiah claims that his success is as sweet as his ‘brother’ Jamal’s and equally hardearned.

There are several rags-to-riches stories that Hyderabad is teeming with. Stories like that of Rajaiah who did not became a crorepati overnight, but landed a job that now earns him a princely sum of Rs 13,000 every month. Or that of a domestic child worker R Sridevi who was rescued and later went on to become a national handball player. Then there are more success stories of other deprived children who lived their dream of becoming an “officer” when they landed a government job.

While R Sridevi of Warangal was forced to take up a job as domestic help at an early age to support her old parents and younger brother and give up her love for the game of handball, Rajaiah left home driven by his love for travel. “I would hop into trains randomly, pose as a garbage boy as I never had money for tickets, and get down anywhere I wanted. I have been to Vijaywada, Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and finally Hyderabad where my life changed completely,” says the 26-yearold street boy turned social worker.

Having spent much of his childhood washing dishes at roadside eateries or begging at temple steps and sleeping on railway platforms, Rajaiah finally found an NGO-run shelter in the city, wherein he was also encouraged to resume education. A class V dropout, Rajaiah went on to clear his class X and XII, securing 84 per cent in the latter. He then opted for social work as his subject for graduation.

While Rajaiah was able to pursue his dream, for others such as Sridevi, juggling time between domestic work and handball practice was a daily challenge. She would practice in the evenings, after working all day. Her talent was soon noticed and the maid servant later went on to become a national handball champion with aid from various organisations. Sridevi is now reportedly flooded with job offers from different places and is a poster girl of sorts among the underprivileged girls in AP.

Born nearly two decades before Rajaiah or Sridevi, S Israel’s story is no different. Taking the first train out of his slum in Nellore district, the seven-year-old landed on the streets of Kolkata with no money or education. Israel was a rag picker, but with the help of kind soul who took notice of the child, was given both work and education. The 44-year-old now works with the Geological Survey of India.

But each of these success stories are riddled with various hurdles. In the case of Rajaiah, the used clothes that he wore (from the local resource management programme of the NGO) and the broken English that he spoke in was enough to alienate him from the rest of his class in college. At one time, he had even decided to run away from there, but stuck on realising that there were more serious issues in life than bad clothes. Predictably, he is proud of that he stayed on. “It’s been almost two years since I started working and I am greatly satisfied,” he says, adding that working for people from deprived backgrounds like his gives him immense satisfaction.

GUTS AND GRIT AMIDST GRIME

By M H Ahssan

A positive, never-say-die attitude helps slum children survive and emerge victorious despite, and not because of, government moves to rehabilitate them. HNN takes a look at what life in the slums of Hyderabad involves.

Relocation: A flawed concept
Even as the world wakes up to the living condition of slum dwellers in India, courtesy ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, and agencies flock Dharavi in Mumbai to develop it, the plight of slum residents in Hyderabad is only deteriorating, rue activists. They say that the “proactive” attempts made by the Andhra Pradesh government towards “altering” the lives of these people have only proved detrimental to slum dwellers, as the government is successfully alienating them from the rest of the city.

There are 1,210 notified slums in the city, of which an estimated 100 are under threat of relocation, while a few have already been shown the door, locked out of the city in a suburb with no nearby school or job options for slum dwellers.

The central government’s Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) was started to remove slums in the state and rehabilitate slum dwellers, but most social workers say that the programme has done more harm than good. On the pretext of rehabilitation, the powerful “real-estate lobby”, in order to grab land in the city, packs off slum-dwellers to far-flung corners of the city. The impact of such moves is the most serious on children, they say.

Relocation, as Rajesh Prabhakar, state manager of CRY, Andhra Pradesh notes, is not only a demolition of dwellings, but also of lives and the worst affected are children who are driven into child labour due to lack of other opportunities.

“This scheme that is meant to provide better conditions for the underprivileged has only accelerated the drop-out rate amongst slum children. The drive for relocation has led to slum dwellers being forcibly evicted from their homes to obscure areas which have neither basic facilities like schools for children nor transport facilities which allow them to travel to schools in other areas. Under such conditions, most children who earlier went to school have no choice but to drop-out,” explains RTI activist Umesh Varma giving an example of a relocation site in Afzalnagar where a number of children have stopped going to school due to lack of transport facilities.

Activists also say that with relocation done in a haphazard manner, the inhabitants of slums are suddenly uprooted and relocated to unfamiliar places. Children are forced to leave their schools midterm, with no one responsible for getting the slum children admitted to other schools.

The lack of job opportunities for parents in these new locations is also a major concern, as they are often thrust into extreme situations where they have no option but to send their children to look for work elsewhere instead of educating them, says Prabhakar. “Work is difficult to come by in these remote areas so the parents obviously need extra pairs of hands to earn their livelihood. At times like these, they cannot afford to think about education,” he says.

The whole idea of relocation, activists say is a sugar-coated term to cover up a crime of the “land-mafia”. If incidents of eviction of this class to the periphery of the city in the name of rehabilitation continue, the dropout rate amongst slum children will soon reach 100 per cent and the kids will be exposed not only to child labour but also to other physical and social abuse, say activists.

OUR REAL HEROES
Watching Jamal hop into speeding trains, land in unknown cities and take up odd jobs to earn a meal, in ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, was like revisiting his own days as a child for Oddepally Rajaiah. Though unlike Jamal, Rajaiah opted to run away from home in Warangal at the age of 10 years, driven by his desire to travel around the world, the rest of his story is much the same. Today with a Masters in Social Work, Rajaiah claims that his success is as sweet as his ‘brother’ Jamal’s and equally hardearned.

There are several rags-to-riches stories that Hyderabad is teeming with. Stories like that of Rajaiah who did not became a crorepati overnight, but landed a job that now earns him a princely sum of Rs 13,000 every month. Or that of a domestic child worker R Sridevi who was rescued and later went on to become a national handball player. Then there are more success stories of other deprived children who lived their dream of becoming an “officer” when they landed a government job.

While R Sridevi of Warangal was forced to take up a job as domestic help at an early age to support her old parents and younger brother and give up her love for the game of handball, Rajaiah left home driven by his love for travel. “I would hop into trains randomly, pose as a garbage boy as I never had money for tickets, and get down anywhere I wanted. I have been to Vijaywada, Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and finally Hyderabad where my life changed completely,” says the 26-yearold street boy turned social worker.

Having spent much of his childhood washing dishes at roadside eateries or begging at temple steps and sleeping on railway platforms, Rajaiah finally found an NGO-run shelter in the city, wherein he was also encouraged to resume education. A class V dropout, Rajaiah went on to clear his class X and XII, securing 84 per cent in the latter. He then opted for social work as his subject for graduation.

While Rajaiah was able to pursue his dream, for others such as Sridevi, juggling time between domestic work and handball practice was a daily challenge. She would practice in the evenings, after working all day. Her talent was soon noticed and the maid servant later went on to become a national handball champion with aid from various organisations. Sridevi is now reportedly flooded with job offers from different places and is a poster girl of sorts among the underprivileged girls in AP.

Born nearly two decades before Rajaiah or Sridevi, S Israel’s story is no different. Taking the first train out of his slum in Nellore district, the seven-year-old landed on the streets of Kolkata with no money or education. Israel was a rag picker, but with the help of kind soul who took notice of the child, was given both work and education. The 44-year-old now works with the Geological Survey of India.

But each of these success stories are riddled with various hurdles. In the case of Rajaiah, the used clothes that he wore (from the local resource management programme of the NGO) and the broken English that he spoke in was enough to alienate him from the rest of his class in college. At one time, he had even decided to run away from there, but stuck on realising that there were more serious issues in life than bad clothes. Predictably, he is proud of that he stayed on. “It’s been almost two years since I started working and I am greatly satisfied,” he says, adding that working for people from deprived backgrounds like his gives him immense satisfaction.

THE FIGHT FOR PAKISTAN’S POLITICAL SOUL, Part 1

By Syed Saleem Shahzad & M H Ahssan

Deal with militants emboldens opposition
Dramatic events over the past week since militants began calling the shots in the Malakand division on the northern fringe of Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) – which includes the Swat Valley – have already had an effect on political developments in other parts of the country.

Just over a week ago, the NWFP’s provincial government gave in to the demands of militants and announced a ceasefire, lifted a two-year-old curfew and announced the implementation of Islamic sharia law. For their part, the militants agreed to a 10-day ceasefire, which has reportedly now been declared permanent.

In another development resulting from the Malakand accord, a mujahideen shura (Shura Ittehad al-Mujahideen) council was formed this weekend due to the personal efforts of Sirajuddin Haqqani. His network is the most resourceful and strongest component of the Taliban-led Afghan resistance, and has long-standing links to Pakistan. Other members of the council include pro-Pakistan militants such as Moulvi Nazeer and Hafiz Gul Bahadur and, importantly, Pakistan Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, who has fought against Pakistani troops in the tribal areas.

The shura decided that the leaders would combine forces for a joint struggle against coalition forces in Afghanistan and end hostilities against Pakistan.

Meanwhile, the government has sent the first installment of a compensation package for militants in Swat worth 480 million rupees (US$6 million). It will be used to pay the families of those killed and injured by security forces and those who lost property.

Political parties have seized on the mood in NWFP, where the central government in Islamabad is perceived as having lost most of its writ, to force their own agendas.

The premier Islamic party – the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) – has taken a lead role in a campaign by lawyers to have Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, the chief justice who was sacked in 2007 by president General Pervez Musharraf, reinstated. The JI believes this volatile issue could boost its popularity in urban centers.

In this atmosphere, Pakistani Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani travels to Washington this week for meetings with senior officials aimed at protecting the US’s plans for the region.

Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan captured the mood succinctly during a television talk show. “God is great! [US Assistant Secretary for State for South and Central Asian Affairs] Richard Boucher and [former state secretary] Condoleezza Rice set up a coalition of secular and liberal parties [in Islamabad] to block the march of Islamization and the Taliban. … That setup has single-handedly enforced Islam and led to a signed agreement with the Taliban.”

This is a clear defeat for the American war in the region, but nobody is ready to accept responsibility, with the Pakistani coalition government criticizing the army for not taming the militants. The Barack Obama administration now faces the prospect of an unending stream of fighters entering Afghanistan from Pakistan without obstruction.

Jamaat-i-Islami on the offensive
The JI, considered the country’s most organized political force, especially in street agitation, is gearing up to mobilize its cadre against the Pakistan People’s Party-led government when lawyers next month begin a march and sit-in in Islamabad over the reinstatement of Iftakar Muhammad Choudhary. The JI aims to hijack the lawyers’ movement to revive its strength in key urban centers such as Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi, the capital’s twin city.

HNN contacts maintain that top decision-makers in Washington have said the situation is bleak and they want some answers from Kiani, whose appointment was forced on Musharraf by the US as he was perceived as being pro-US. This will be the Pakistan military’s first direct contact with the US administration since Kiani took over in late 2007.

Pakistani government officials in private conversations with Washington have blamed Kiani for not launching any “genuine” military operations against the militants, a situation which left them with no choice but to bow to the demands of the militants.

US Ambassador to Islamabad Anne W Peterson has also been urgently summoned to Washington and she will take part in these important discussions.

“After Musharraf, neither the Indians nor the Americans knew who was in charge of the country. The army chief’s visit aims to sort out this problem with a clear-cut strategy,” a source said of Kiani’s visit.

Whether Kiani is the man to do this is another matter. In conversations with senior representatives of the media, he has indicated that the military does not want to intervene in the affairs of the government.

The trouble is, the situation is rapidly being controlled by non-state actors, and the agreement in Malakand is a major milestone in this regard.

The JI, which boycotted general elections early last year and therefore rapidly disappeared into political oblivion, has been quick to claim “ownership” of the Taliban’s victory in Swat and other areas as a victory of Islamic forces.

Its chief in NWFP, Sirajul Haq, was the first leader to hold a press conference to endorse the agreement. The JI has also sent a message to all its members saying that the lawyers’ protest should be the “Jamaat-i-Islami’s show”. The JI sees this as a turning point, where JI-led countrywide protests against the government could draw together scattered Islamic elements in the urban centers under its umbrella, much like the Taliban did in NWFP.

This means that a powerful nexus of militants and anti-American political forces is rising, which threatens to cripple the ability of the American allies in the Pakistan government to act in the US’s favor.

HNN spoke to the JI’s central vice president, a former federal minister and a senior former parliamentarian, Professor Ghaffour Ahmed, to explore how the JI aims to gain from the Swat deal. Ghaffour, 80, is a cost and management accountant and a pioneer of the Institute of Cost and Management Accountancy in Pakistan. He worked both at the faculty and as a top professional manager in the corporate sector.

HNN: What is your opinion of the Swat agreement? First, the militants used intense force against the state and as a result military operations were carried out. The militants then used the demand for the introduction of Islamic laws as a blackmailing tool and the government surrendered to their terms and conditions. What is your assessment?

Ghaffour Ahmed: I think your assessment is wrong. You know Swat was ruled by a leader wali [when it was a princely state]. Swat was annexed to Pakistan in 1969. Before that it was not part of Pakistan. From 1926 to 1968 Islamic laws were enforced in Swat. Qazi courts were present and justice was quick in those days.

When Swat was annexed to Pakistan, its civil and criminal laws were enforced. Cases of this nature went pending for years. As a result, there was a feeling in Swat that [its people were] being deprived of justice or that they were getting delayed justice. Even the justice they did get was very costly [lawyer, court fees etc] and filing a case could mean spending millions of rupees.

So the people were just demanding that they revert to the old system which was more compatible for them. As far as sharia is concern, the demand is not there only, it is mentioned in the 1973 constitution, approved by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s government, that Islam is the state religion of the country. It says all laws shall be framed according to the Koran and sunnah [traditions and sayings of the Prophet Mohammad]. It also mentioned that all laws which are un-Islamic shall be modified according to Islam. Therefore, their demand [in Swat] was neither unconstitutional nor illegal and there was nothing strange in it. The people only wanted justice, and quick justice.

Then there is another thing, the military operation. The US-led war on terror started over there. When an army initiates action in any area, especially in a place like Swat, which is not a tribal but an urban center, mostly innocent people are killed in the collateral damage. Every day, it was projected that the army had killed many terrorists and miscreants. However, they [the authorities] never gave their names. The reason is that they only killed innocent people. As a result of this operation, at least 350,000 people migrated.

HNN: Over 600,000 people migrated.

GA: I am just giving you a very conservative figure. These people were living in camps. After this peace agreement, there has been a wave of joy among them. I don’t know whether this agreement will be successful or not, but the people are happy. Therefore, their demand was justified, legal and constitutional. None of their demands was against the law.

HNN: A statement issued to the press by Qazi Hussain Ahmed [the president of JI] condemned the acts of the Taliban in Swat, such as forcing people to grow beards and executions. He classified these as having nothing to do with Islam and its teachings.

GA: Who was doing such things?

HNN: The Taliban in Swat were blamed for this and for destroying schools and blowing up the shops of hairdressers.

GA: I think there is a lot of propaganda in this.

HNN: Sir, let me say, this is Qazi Hussain Ahmed’s statement.

GA: Indeed, he might have issued that statement. I say that all those actions have nothing to do with Islam. Islam does not ask for force in such matters. It is true that there are certain things Islam does insist on, for instance children’s schools. Almost 200 schools were destroyed in Swat. But nobody asks who built those schools. The people of Swat built the schools and the majority of them were privately owned – not by the government. The people of Swat were operating them, but suddenly the army occupied them. So the militants argued that those were no longer schools – they were merely buildings used by the army. You see, in such conditions a reaction is generated. You will have seen that such huge military operations failed to bring peace to the tribal areas.

HNN: I had the chance to visit those areas. I also got the chance to speak to militants. They say that they are against the existing education system in secular schools. They want an Islamic system of education. By an Islamic system of education they mean a madrassa brand of education, at least the majority of them believe that …

[Ghaffour interrupts]

GA: I asked you the question, who built those schools? The 200 schools which were blown up were not Islamic seminaries … those schools were built by the people of Swat.

HNN: But those schools were not built by the militants either.

GA: Yes, but the schools were built by the people of Swat. I mean to say here that the people there are not against schools. However, they want Islamic seminaries too. You have to appreciate that now even in the Islamic seminaries, different subjects like geography, science, maths and English are taught. Even graduates from the Islamic seminaries do master of arts degrees from universities and in some cases they become Phds.

HNN: I beg your pardon, but the secular syllabus is not part of the Islamic seminaries in North-West Frontier Province.

GA: You are talking about a region which is not under the control of the provincial government. The FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Areas] work under the president of Pakistan and the governor. It is beyond the government’s writ. So please don’t compare those areas with urban centers.

HNN: What do you think the impact of the Swat peace agreement will be on other urban centers of the country?

GA: Let this peace agreement be a success. This is an agreement with [cleric] Sufi Mohammad. Now there is a process of negotiations with the Taliban. So the talks have not been concluded yet. Neither has any draft of an agreement come out in public. When things come out in black in white, then we shall see how those things are implemented. However, there is one fact that people are happy about, and that is that military operations are over and life has come back to normal.

HNN: The West sees this as Pakistan’s surrender to militants. There is a perception that Islamic parties may gain from this situation and use it in other places for their popularity.

GA: I think the West is against Islam and Muslim countries. Pakistan has been an ally of the United States since the Liaquat Ali Khan period [the first prime minister of the country from 1947-1951]. He refused the USSR’s invitation and accepted an American invitation for his first visit [abroad]. Since then, all governments have insisted on better relations with the United States.

But on the other hand, see how the Americans behave with us. Even their help always comes with strings. The “war on terror” is a case in point. I fail to understand what the definition of terrorism is. To me, terrorism is all about killing innocent people. I asked America and the West when they invaded Afghanistan [in 2001], did they have any proof that the [September 11] attackers belonged to Afghanistan. To date, nobody knows who was actually responsible for that attack.

They attacked Afghanistan and forced Pakistan to support the war. Musharraf was the president and he was forced to provide logistical support. American aircraft flew from Pakistani bases and bombed Afghanistan. In that process, they destroyed the whole of Afghanistan.

The same happened in Iraq concerning WMD [weapons of mass destruction] and now they admit that it was wrong information, but on wrong intelligence they massacred millions of innocents. Is this not Western terrorism? Why does the West not question itself, that if they are powerful and they possess superior weaponry, does it mean that they can kill innocent human beings?

Now, after so much friendship, Pakistan is in the line of fire. Let us see how the new American administration frames its policies. As far as we are concerned, we don’t want any hostilities with America and the West, but the fact of the matter is that they have never recognized the existence of Muslim countries on the political map of the world.

HNN: How do you assess the performance of the present government? It is said that the West set up the coalition of secular and liberal parties to provide popular support to the “war on terror”. What is your opinion?

GA: No political party could get a decisive majority in parliament [in the February 2008 elections]. The ruling PPP has about 30% of the seats. After the elections, two majority parties emerged in parliament – the Pakistan People’s Party and Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz group [PML-N]. The Pakistan Muslim League, whether you call it liberal or whatever, is the party which laid the foundation of this country on Islamic ideology.

These parties developed differences over the restoration of the chief justice. Therefore, the PML-N separated from the government and the government forged alliances with several smaller parties, and it is a very weak government.

I think the PPP government has made some very wrong decisions and it has antagonized the PML-N not only politically, but it is wrong in principle. The slain [former premier] Ms [Benazir] Bhutto had an agreement with the PML-N to restore the judges, so this is binding on the present government.

Even [President] Asif Zardari had announced that his government would restore the chief justice, but now he is pulling out of this. These factors caused disillusionment within the coalition government and forced the PML-N to resign, which weakened the government.

This apart, there are other factions which caused political disillusionment in this government. For instance, it deviated from its slogans of empowering parliament. Instead, Asif Zardari has retained all the powers as president that Musharraf acquired through the 17th amendment to the constitution. People wanted change after Musharraf. Unfortunately, that change could not happen in the system. Only faces were changed.

At the same time, due to his personal agendas, Zardari is also kicking out the old party leaders who were close to Ms Bhutto. Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan’s membership in the central committee of the party has been suspended. Safdar Abbasi, Naheed Khan [political secretary of Ms Bhutto] are a few who have been practically separated from the PPP. All the new men around the government are Asif Zardari’s personal friends, like Rahman Malik [a senator and powerful advisor on interior affairs].

HNN: This government is hardly one year old. There was a perception after the last elections that everything would be dealt with through parliament. But now from next month street protests are planned by the lawyers’ movement and they are supported by the opposition parties. A sit-in is also planned in Islamabad. Don’t you think this will destabilize the elected political setup?

GA: If you review the situation, you will find that the government did not fulfill any of its promises. A resolution was presented in the joint session of parliament and presented by the government [for the restoration of the judiciary]. It should have been very significant, but the government only formed a committee and then set aside the whole issue. What choice is there but street protests?

HNN: Can’t you reprimand the government within parliament?

GA: Parliament appears as a rubber stamp.

HNN: Then why not try for a change of government through parliament?

GA: Nobody had a decisive majority but the government charmed smaller parties by giving them ministerial portfolios, so change is not possible through parliament.

HNN: Is it not unfortunate for this country that when an elected government is in place, politicians practice street politics and then allow the military establishment a chance to intervene?

GA: Street politics has always been a compulsion. Look at this lawyers’ movement. This is not a new movement. It started on March 9 [2007] when the chief justice was made non-functional by then-president Musharraf. Since March 9, not a single glass has been smashed during rallies. There have been huge rallies, long marches, but you cannot cite me a single example of violence.

HNN: I beg to differ. In 1977 there was a huge opposition movement on the streets against the then Pakistan People’s Party government led by Z A Bhutto. You were one of the main leaders of the movement and finally part of a team which held negotiations with the government. You documented the facts in your book that because of the agitation movement, the army got the chance to intervene, although the government and opposition had finalized a draft agreement. [Zia ul-Haq later imposed martial law and ruled for 11 years].

GA: You should read my book with concentration. I clearly mentioned that Bhutto made a blunder by after finalizing the terms of an agreement he did not sign the draft agreement. I was part of a three-member opposition committee holding the talks. I had warned Mr Bhutto that when he already had an agreement on everything, he should not delay in signing the documents [for the sake of proof-reading], otherwise martial law would be imposed. The army was looking for a chance.

They had already approached us. They were fully informed about the talks and contents and they tried to manipulate us as well. I personally explained this situation to Bhutto, that the military was looking for a chance to topple the government, so please take urgent steps. Although after the fall of East Pakistan [in 1971] and the humiliation they faced, we never expected that the army would fall into any more adventurism, such as imposing martial law, but this lust of power is very bad thing.

HNN: This is precisely my point. The military always looks for nuisances so unrest will spread, then they can conspire to take power. Don’t you think once again that with the long march you will give the military a golden chance to exploit?

GA: I am emphasizing the same point. In 1977, the PPP government made a dire mistake which cost the country with martial law, and once again, if they don’t comply with their promises, what chance does it leave for the people except street protests? Now the point is, are people wrong? Is not this the same demand, even put by Ms Benazir Bhutto, to restore the judiciary? Even Zardari committed to the same. So much so that a written agreement was signed, and then Zardari publicly said that the written agreement was not the Koran or the sayings of the Prophet Mohammad, which cannot be changed. So after such behavior, it is the government which needs to assess the consequences.

HNN: What is your choice. A bad democracy or good martial law?

GA: Martial law can never be good. Democracy has always been a choice. We don’t want to abandon the government. It is neither against the government, parliament nor against Asif Zardari. It is just about the fulfillment of the promises this government made.

HNN: Are Islamic laws implemented through the barrel of a gun acceptable to you?

GA: Islamic laws are always enforced through the will of the people. You have to appreciate this fact, that the particular situation in Swat is the result of a vacuum because from 1926 to 1969 Islamic laws were enforced in Swat. After the merger of Swat into the state of Pakistan, the laws were changed, which resulted in a vacuum. This is Western propaganda, that Islam was spread through the sword. In fact, Islam has always been oppressed. There are 56 Muslim countries at the moment, all of them are oppressed, all are victims of Western oppressions.

NEXT: Crucial choices for the Jamaat-i-Islami.

THE FIGHT FOR PAKISTAN’S POLITICAL SOUL, Part 1

By Syed Saleem Shahzad & M H Ahssan

Deal with militants emboldens opposition
Dramatic events over the past week since militants began calling the shots in the Malakand division on the northern fringe of Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) – which includes the Swat Valley – have already had an effect on political developments in other parts of the country.

Just over a week ago, the NWFP’s provincial government gave in to the demands of militants and announced a ceasefire, lifted a two-year-old curfew and announced the implementation of Islamic sharia law. For their part, the militants agreed to a 10-day ceasefire, which has reportedly now been declared permanent.

In another development resulting from the Malakand accord, a mujahideen shura (Shura Ittehad al-Mujahideen) council was formed this weekend due to the personal efforts of Sirajuddin Haqqani. His network is the most resourceful and strongest component of the Taliban-led Afghan resistance, and has long-standing links to Pakistan. Other members of the council include pro-Pakistan militants such as Moulvi Nazeer and Hafiz Gul Bahadur and, importantly, Pakistan Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, who has fought against Pakistani troops in the tribal areas.

The shura decided that the leaders would combine forces for a joint struggle against coalition forces in Afghanistan and end hostilities against Pakistan.

Meanwhile, the government has sent the first installment of a compensation package for militants in Swat worth 480 million rupees (US$6 million). It will be used to pay the families of those killed and injured by security forces and those who lost property.

Political parties have seized on the mood in NWFP, where the central government in Islamabad is perceived as having lost most of its writ, to force their own agendas.

The premier Islamic party – the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) – has taken a lead role in a campaign by lawyers to have Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, the chief justice who was sacked in 2007 by president General Pervez Musharraf, reinstated. The JI believes this volatile issue could boost its popularity in urban centers.

In this atmosphere, Pakistani Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani travels to Washington this week for meetings with senior officials aimed at protecting the US’s plans for the region.

Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan captured the mood succinctly during a television talk show. “God is great! [US Assistant Secretary for State for South and Central Asian Affairs] Richard Boucher and [former state secretary] Condoleezza Rice set up a coalition of secular and liberal parties [in Islamabad] to block the march of Islamization and the Taliban. … That setup has single-handedly enforced Islam and led to a signed agreement with the Taliban.”

This is a clear defeat for the American war in the region, but nobody is ready to accept responsibility, with the Pakistani coalition government criticizing the army for not taming the militants. The Barack Obama administration now faces the prospect of an unending stream of fighters entering Afghanistan from Pakistan without obstruction.

Jamaat-i-Islami on the offensive
The JI, considered the country’s most organized political force, especially in street agitation, is gearing up to mobilize its cadre against the Pakistan People’s Party-led government when lawyers next month begin a march and sit-in in Islamabad over the reinstatement of Iftakar Muhammad Choudhary. The JI aims to hijack the lawyers’ movement to revive its strength in key urban centers such as Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi, the capital’s twin city.

HNN contacts maintain that top decision-makers in Washington have said the situation is bleak and they want some answers from Kiani, whose appointment was forced on Musharraf by the US as he was perceived as being pro-US. This will be the Pakistan military’s first direct contact with the US administration since Kiani took over in late 2007.

Pakistani government officials in private conversations with Washington have blamed Kiani for not launching any “genuine” military operations against the militants, a situation which left them with no choice but to bow to the demands of the militants.

US Ambassador to Islamabad Anne W Peterson has also been urgently summoned to Washington and she will take part in these important discussions.

“After Musharraf, neither the Indians nor the Americans knew who was in charge of the country. The army chief’s visit aims to sort out this problem with a clear-cut strategy,” a source said of Kiani’s visit.

Whether Kiani is the man to do this is another matter. In conversations with senior representatives of the media, he has indicated that the military does not want to intervene in the affairs of the government.

The trouble is, the situation is rapidly being controlled by non-state actors, and the agreement in Malakand is a major milestone in this regard.

The JI, which boycotted general elections early last year and therefore rapidly disappeared into political oblivion, has been quick to claim “ownership” of the Taliban’s victory in Swat and other areas as a victory of Islamic forces.

Its chief in NWFP, Sirajul Haq, was the first leader to hold a press conference to endorse the agreement. The JI has also sent a message to all its members saying that the lawyers’ protest should be the “Jamaat-i-Islami’s show”. The JI sees this as a turning point, where JI-led countrywide protests against the government could draw together scattered Islamic elements in the urban centers under its umbrella, much like the Taliban did in NWFP.

This means that a powerful nexus of militants and anti-American political forces is rising, which threatens to cripple the ability of the American allies in the Pakistan government to act in the US’s favor.

HNN spoke to the JI’s central vice president, a former federal minister and a senior former parliamentarian, Professor Ghaffour Ahmed, to explore how the JI aims to gain from the Swat deal. Ghaffour, 80, is a cost and management accountant and a pioneer of the Institute of Cost and Management Accountancy in Pakistan. He worked both at the faculty and as a top professional manager in the corporate sector.

HNN: What is your opinion of the Swat agreement? First, the militants used intense force against the state and as a result military operations were carried out. The militants then used the demand for the introduction of Islamic laws as a blackmailing tool and the government surrendered to their terms and conditions. What is your assessment?

Ghaffour Ahmed: I think your assessment is wrong. You know Swat was ruled by a leader wali [when it was a princely state]. Swat was annexed to Pakistan in 1969. Before that it was not part of Pakistan. From 1926 to 1968 Islamic laws were enforced in Swat. Qazi courts were present and justice was quick in those days.

When Swat was annexed to Pakistan, its civil and criminal laws were enforced. Cases of this nature went pending for years. As a result, there was a feeling in Swat that [its people were] being deprived of justice or that they were getting delayed justice. Even the justice they did get was very costly [lawyer, court fees etc] and filing a case could mean spending millions of rupees.

So the people were just demanding that they revert to the old system which was more compatible for them. As far as sharia is concern, the demand is not there only, it is mentioned in the 1973 constitution, approved by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s government, that Islam is the state religion of the country. It says all laws shall be framed according to the Koran and sunnah [traditions and sayings of the Prophet Mohammad]. It also mentioned that all laws which are un-Islamic shall be modified according to Islam. Therefore, their demand [in Swat] was neither unconstitutional nor illegal and there was nothing strange in it. The people only wanted justice, and quick justice.

Then there is another thing, the military operation. The US-led war on terror started over there. When an army initiates action in any area, especially in a place like Swat, which is not a tribal but an urban center, mostly innocent people are killed in the collateral damage. Every day, it was projected that the army had killed many terrorists and miscreants. However, they [the authorities] never gave their names. The reason is that they only killed innocent people. As a result of this operation, at least 350,000 people migrated.

HNN: Over 600,000 people migrated.

GA: I am just giving you a very conservative figure. These people were living in camps. After this peace agreement, there has been a wave of joy among them. I don’t know whether this agreement will be successful or not, but the people are happy. Therefore, their demand was justified, legal and constitutional. None of their demands was against the law.

HNN: A statement issued to the press by Qazi Hussain Ahmed [the president of JI] condemned the acts of the Taliban in Swat, such as forcing people to grow beards and executions. He classified these as having nothing to do with Islam and its teachings.

GA: Who was doing such things?

HNN: The Taliban in Swat were blamed for this and for destroying schools and blowing up the shops of hairdressers.

GA: I think there is a lot of propaganda in this.

HNN: Sir, let me say, this is Qazi Hussain Ahmed’s statement.

GA: Indeed, he might have issued that statement. I say that all those actions have nothing to do with Islam. Islam does not ask for force in such matters. It is true that there are certain things Islam does insist on, for instance children’s schools. Almost 200 schools were destroyed in Swat. But nobody asks who built those schools. The people of Swat built the schools and the majority of them were privately owned – not by the government. The people of Swat were operating them, but suddenly the army occupied them. So the militants argued that those were no longer schools – they were merely buildings used by the army. You see, in such conditions a reaction is generated. You will have seen that such huge military operations failed to bring peace to the tribal areas.

HNN: I had the chance to visit those areas. I also got the chance to speak to militants. They say that they are against the existing education system in secular schools. They want an Islamic system of education. By an Islamic system of education they mean a madrassa brand of education, at least the majority of them believe that …

[Ghaffour interrupts]

GA: I asked you the question, who built those schools? The 200 schools which were blown up were not Islamic seminaries … those schools were built by the people of Swat.

HNN: But those schools were not built by the militants either.

GA: Yes, but the schools were built by the people of Swat. I mean to say here that the people there are not against schools. However, they want Islamic seminaries too. You have to appreciate that now even in the Islamic seminaries, different subjects like geography, science, maths and English are taught. Even graduates from the Islamic seminaries do master of arts degrees from universities and in some cases they become Phds.

HNN: I beg your pardon, but the secular syllabus is not part of the Islamic seminaries in North-West Frontier Province.

GA: You are talking about a region which is not under the control of the provincial government. The FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Areas] work under the president of Pakistan and the governor. It is beyond the government’s writ. So please don’t compare those areas with urban centers.

HNN: What do you think the impact of the Swat peace agreement will be on other urban centers of the country?

GA: Let this peace agreement be a success. This is an agreement with [cleric] Sufi Mohammad. Now there is a process of negotiations with the Taliban. So the talks have not been concluded yet. Neither has any draft of an agreement come out in public. When things come out in black in white, then we shall see how those things are implemented. However, there is one fact that people are happy about, and that is that military operations are over and life has come back to normal.

HNN: The West sees this as Pakistan’s surrender to militants. There is a perception that Islamic parties may gain from this situation and use it in other places for their popularity.

GA: I think the West is against Islam and Muslim countries. Pakistan has been an ally of the United States since the Liaquat Ali Khan period [the first prime minister of the country from 1947-1951]. He refused the USSR’s invitation and accepted an American invitation for his first visit [abroad]. Since then, all governments have insisted on better relations with the United States.

But on the other hand, see how the Americans behave with us. Even their help always comes with strings. The “war on terror” is a case in point. I fail to understand what the definition of terrorism is. To me, terrorism is all about killing innocent people. I asked America and the West when they invaded Afghanistan [in 2001], did they have any proof that the [September 11] attackers belonged to Afghanistan. To date, nobody knows who was actually responsible for that attack.

They attacked Afghanistan and forced Pakistan to support the war. Musharraf was the president and he was forced to provide logistical support. American aircraft flew from Pakistani bases and bombed Afghanistan. In that process, they destroyed the whole of Afghanistan.

The same happened in Iraq concerning WMD [weapons of mass destruction] and now they admit that it was wrong information, but on wrong intelligence they massacred millions of innocents. Is this not Western terrorism? Why does the West not question itself, that if they are powerful and they possess superior weaponry, does it mean that they can kill innocent human beings?

Now, after so much friendship, Pakistan is in the line of fire. Let us see how the new American administration frames its policies. As far as we are concerned, we don’t want any hostilities with America and the West, but the fact of the matter is that they have never recognized the existence of Muslim countries on the political map of the world.

HNN: How do you assess the performance of the present government? It is said that the West set up the coalition of secular and liberal parties to provide popular support to the “war on terror”. What is your opinion?

GA: No political party could get a decisive majority in parliament [in the February 2008 elections]. The ruling PPP has about 30% of the seats. After the elections, two majority parties emerged in parliament – the Pakistan People’s Party and Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz group [PML-N]. The Pakistan Muslim League, whether you call it liberal or whatever, is the party which laid the foundation of this country on Islamic ideology.

These parties developed differences over the restoration of the chief justice. Therefore, the PML-N separated from the government and the government forged alliances with several smaller parties, and it is a very weak government.

I think the PPP government has made some very wrong decisions and it has antagonized the PML-N not only politically, but it is wrong in principle. The slain [former premier] Ms [Benazir] Bhutto had an agreement with the PML-N to restore the judges, so this is binding on the present government.

Even [President] Asif Zardari had announced that his government would restore the chief justice, but now he is pulling out of this. These factors caused disillusionment within the coalition government and forced the PML-N to resign, which weakened the government.

This apart, there are other factions which caused political disillusionment in this government. For instance, it deviated from its slogans of empowering parliament. Instead, Asif Zardari has retained all the powers as president that Musharraf acquired through the 17th amendment to the constitution. People wanted change after Musharraf. Unfortunately, that change could not happen in the system. Only faces were changed.

At the same time, due to his personal agendas, Zardari is also kicking out the old party leaders who were close to Ms Bhutto. Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan’s membership in the central committee of the party has been suspended. Safdar Abbasi, Naheed Khan [political secretary of Ms Bhutto] are a few who have been practically separated from the PPP. All the new men around the government are Asif Zardari’s personal friends, like Rahman Malik [a senator and powerful advisor on interior affairs].

HNN: This government is hardly one year old. There was a perception after the last elections that everything would be dealt with through parliament. But now from next month street protests are planned by the lawyers’ movement and they are supported by the opposition parties. A sit-in is also planned in Islamabad. Don’t you think this will destabilize the elected political setup?

GA: If you review the situation, you will find that the government did not fulfill any of its promises. A resolution was presented in the joint session of parliament and presented by the government [for the restoration of the judiciary]. It should have been very significant, but the government only formed a committee and then set aside the whole issue. What choice is there but street protests?

HNN: Can’t you reprimand the government within parliament?

GA: Parliament appears as a rubber stamp.

HNN: Then why not try for a change of government through parliament?

GA: Nobody had a decisive majority but the government charmed smaller parties by giving them ministerial portfolios, so change is not possible through parliament.

HNN: Is it not unfortunate for this country that when an elected government is in place, politicians practice street politics and then allow the military establishment a chance to intervene?

GA: Street politics has always been a compulsion. Look at this lawyers’ movement. This is not a new movement. It started on March 9 [2007] when the chief justice was made non-functional by then-president Musharraf. Since March 9, not a single glass has been smashed during rallies. There have been huge rallies, long marches, but you cannot cite me a single example of violence.

HNN: I beg to differ. In 1977 there was a huge opposition movement on the streets against the then Pakistan People’s Party government led by Z A Bhutto. You were one of the main leaders of the movement and finally part of a team which held negotiations with the government. You documented the facts in your book that because of the agitation movement, the army got the chance to intervene, although the government and opposition had finalized a draft agreement. [Zia ul-Haq later imposed martial law and ruled for 11 years].

GA: You should read my book with concentration. I clearly mentioned that Bhutto made a blunder by after finalizing the terms of an agreement he did not sign the draft agreement. I was part of a three-member opposition committee holding the talks. I had warned Mr Bhutto that when he already had an agreement on everything, he should not delay in signing the documents [for the sake of proof-reading], otherwise martial law would be imposed. The army was looking for a chance.

They had already approached us. They were fully informed about the talks and contents and they tried to manipulate us as well. I personally explained this situation to Bhutto, that the military was looking for a chance to topple the government, so please take urgent steps. Although after the fall of East Pakistan [in 1971] and the humiliation they faced, we never expected that the army would fall into any more adventurism, such as imposing martial law, but this lust of power is very bad thing.

HNN: This is precisely my point. The military always looks for nuisances so unrest will spread, then they can conspire to take power. Don’t you think once again that with the long march you will give the military a golden chance to exploit?

GA: I am emphasizing the same point. In 1977, the PPP government made a dire mistake which cost the country with martial law, and once again, if they don’t comply with their promises, what chance does it leave for the people except street protests? Now the point is, are people wrong? Is not this the same demand, even put by Ms Benazir Bhutto, to restore the judiciary? Even Zardari committed to the same. So much so that a written agreement was signed, and then Zardari publicly said that the written agreement was not the Koran or the sayings of the Prophet Mohammad, which cannot be changed. So after such behavior, it is the government which needs to assess the consequences.

HNN: What is your choice. A bad democracy or good martial law?

GA: Martial law can never be good. Democracy has always been a choice. We don’t want to abandon the government. It is neither against the government, parliament nor against Asif Zardari. It is just about the fulfillment of the promises this government made.

HNN: Are Islamic laws implemented through the barrel of a gun acceptable to you?

GA: Islamic laws are always enforced through the will of the people. You have to appreciate this fact, that the particular situation in Swat is the result of a vacuum because from 1926 to 1969 Islamic laws were enforced in Swat. After the merger of Swat into the state of Pakistan, the laws were changed, which resulted in a vacuum. This is Western propaganda, that Islam was spread through the sword. In fact, Islam has always been oppressed. There are 56 Muslim countries at the moment, all of them are oppressed, all are victims of Western oppressions.

NEXT: Crucial choices for the Jamaat-i-Islami.

Games industry cool to slowdown blues

By Sarah Williams

The games industry is booming, helped by new peripherals that ratchet up the realism on your Xbox, PS3 or WiiMatt Bingham.

House prices might be plummeting and car sales dwindling but one sector is bucking the global economic trend: the video games industry has never had it so good. Gamers bought a record 82.8m titles in 2008. That’s a 26% increase on the previous year, making the UK the second-biggest games market in the world behind America. Analysts from Gfk Chart-Track, the British research company that published the report, say that as consumers hunker down at home, 2009 is likely to be another bumper year. Britain isn’t alone in experiencing a gaming boom. Last year global revenue from games software added up to an estimated $32 billion enough to overtake DVD sales for the first time.

The reasons for this growth aren’t hard to fathom. Just as cinema audiences grew during the Great Depression of the 1930s when people sought out good-value entertainment, so the recession is making gaming all the more attractive.

Games designers have been quick to capitalise on the trend by making their titles all the more complex and adding online play, extending their titles lifetimes. But its the accessories market thats really taking off. An entire industry now supplies add-on hardware for Xboxes, PlayStations, Wiis and PCs, bringing unprecedented levels of realism to gaming.

The first step for most gamers trading up their hardware to enjoy these cinematic games is to invest in a bigger, higher-resolution TV. But for a dream gaming setup, only a projector will do. Forget memories of dusty slide-shows on a wobbly screen; todays gaming projectors will splash a bright, high-definition image onto a wall at a size far larger than any TV set.

The most elaborate games pay a great deal of attention to audio design, and to do them justice a dedicated sound system is needed. Many titles support 5.1 sound a subwoofer, a central speaker and four satellite surround-sound speakers which is particularly useful for alerting players to sneak attacks in action games. Philips amBX system even adds lighting and air effects from fans to the audio mix, although hardcore gamers turn to the pinpoint accuracy of surround-sound headphones.

But the current cutting edge of gaming is 3-D. At the giant Consumer Electronics Show held in Las Vegas earlier this year, Sony demonstrated a 3-D version of the Gran Turismo driving game running on a standard PS3. Already available to buy in America at least is the GeForce 3D Vision system from Nvidia, the graphics card manufacturer. The card is compatible with more than 300 existing PC games, and splits the video signal sent to a 2-D monitor into the familiar red and blue channels used for 3-D films. Seen through the glasses that are included, driving games such as Burnout Paradise and first-person shooters such as Left 4 Dead become much more playable, with furniture such as maps and personal statistics floating eerily in the players peripheral vision. Threats and fast-moving objects, meanwhile, become easier to spot. The Nvidia kit costs $199. Expect many more innovations such as this to filter down from the PC gaming world into the next generation of consoles. The film industry had little competition in 1930s when it came to exciting, affordable entertainment; this time it’s got a fight on its hands.

Gold glitters, but silver shines brighter

By M H Ahssan

Silver Gives 28% Return Vs Gold’s 17% This Year; It May Continue To Outperform Gold

Everyone’s talking about gold and its glitter but check the returns silver has delivered this year. After falling around 10% in 2008, silver has outperformed its much hallowed yellow counterpart. Based on Saturday’s closing in the Mumbai bullion market, ready silver (.999) at Rs 23,230 per kg has given returns of 28% this year. In comparison, gold (99.5 purity) has returned 17%. Analysts say silver has the potential to outperform gold in future too and investors should keep their eyes open while parking their money in the precious metals space.

While silver fluctuated in the wide range of Rs 16,400 to Rs 27,000 in 2008, and finally ended the year 2008 at levels which were around 10 % lower than in 2007, gold has had an unprecedented bull run and finished 2008 with over 20% returns.

This at times when stock markets were down, enhanced the proposition of gold for investors, say market experts.

But commodity gurus like Jim Rogers have been betting on silver for sometime. He has recently announced that if pushed to choose between the two precious metals, the Singaporebased investor would choose silver.

When HNN contacted him on silver’s fortunes, the man who was one of the first to call the commodities boom right said, “I own it.”

People like him, who own silver in India have seen silver rise from Rs 18,100 per kilo (on December 31, 2008) to Rs 23,320 in close to 50 days in Mumbai bullion market. This is no different from what has happened in other bullion markets like those at Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, Indore and Kolkata. Gold, which started the year at which Rs 13,435/gm, closed at Rs 15,745/gm on Saturday-giving close to 17% returns in the same period.

Though people may be obsessed with tracking gold prices, precious metal experts believe that silver has the potential to outperform gold in future also. Like gold made all-time high the past week, silver too climbed to a five-month high.

“If one has Rs 100 to invest in precious metals, he/she could invest Rs 60 in silver and the rest (Rs 40) in gold. It’s a good investment option,” Mandar Pote, who tracks bullion at Angel Commodities said.

At commodity exchanges such as NCDEX and MCX, silver has been the top gainer amongst commodities with 9-10% gain this week while gold was the second best giving returns of 7-8%, data shows.

According to investment advisory firm SMC Global, silver contracts for March delivery at MCX are showing an uptrend while the weekly stock position shows rise of 3,649 kilograms for the week ended February 19.

Shellfish in Ciroc Fest in Taj Deccan

By Vaishnavi Uzzal

Ever imagined relishing on Shellfish and the costliest vodka in the world? Arena, the all-day international dining outlet in Taj Deccan, one of the trendiest and the most contemporary premium hotels in Hyderabad, is proud to present the unique “Shellfish in Ciroc” fest from February 20 to March 3, 2009.

Chef Sachin Joshi has amalgamated two of the finest continental delicacies shellfish and Ciroc vodka for the discerning guests. The pre-plated food is presented in a contemporary style and the dish will be flambe’d in front of the guests to make it more interactive.

Some of the specialties of the festival include dishes like Ciroc flambé prawns with garlic & olives, Lobster Ciromedor, Pan grilled fish fillets with olive tapenade & garlic, Herb crusted prawns & fish fillets with lemon grass flambé, Grilled squids and Seafood platter with squids, octopus & prawns. All dishes are accompanied with herb tossed veggies, crispy wedges and grilled tomato.

Cîroc vodka is an upscale brand of distilled beverage manufactured in France. It is derived from grapes, in contrast to corn, sorghum, rye, wheat, or potatoes that are more commonly used. The grapes used for Cîroc vodka are “snap frost” grapes, Mauzac Blanc from the Gaillac region of France, and Ugni Blanc from the Cognac region. The juice extracted from these grapes is cold fermented and is distilled five times to get the Ciroc Vodka.

The festival is open for dinner from 7:30 pm to 11:30 pm. For reservations, call 6666 3939 Extn. 5218/16.

As the Ciroc laced Shellfish flambe’d by your side, come and try Ciroc macerated lobster; Ciroc drenched crab and much more at Arena!

Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces
Established in 1903, Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces is one of Asia’s largest and finest group of hotels, comprising 60 hotels in 42 locations across India with an additional 16 international hotels in the Maldives, Mauritius, Malaysia, Australia, UK, USA, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Africa and the Middle East. From world-renowned landmarks to modern business hotels, idyllic beach resorts to authentic Rajput palaces, each Taj hotel offers an unrivalled fusion of warm Indian hospitality, world-class service and modern luxury. The Taj, a symbol of Indian hospitality, has recently completed the centenary of its landmark hotel, The Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, Mumbai. Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces is part of the Tata Group, India’s premier business house.

Shellfish in Ciroc Fest in Taj Deccan

By Vaishnavi Uzzal

Ever imagined relishing on Shellfish and the costliest vodka in the world? Arena, the all-day international dining outlet in Taj Deccan, one of the trendiest and the most contemporary premium hotels in Hyderabad, is proud to present the unique “Shellfish in Ciroc” fest from February 20 to March 3, 2009.

Chef Sachin Joshi has amalgamated two of the finest continental delicacies shellfish and Ciroc vodka for the discerning guests. The pre-plated food is presented in a contemporary style and the dish will be flambe’d in front of the guests to make it more interactive.

Some of the specialties of the festival include dishes like Ciroc flambé prawns with garlic & olives, Lobster Ciromedor, Pan grilled fish fillets with olive tapenade & garlic, Herb crusted prawns & fish fillets with lemon grass flambé, Grilled squids and Seafood platter with squids, octopus & prawns. All dishes are accompanied with herb tossed veggies, crispy wedges and grilled tomato.

Cîroc vodka is an upscale brand of distilled beverage manufactured in France. It is derived from grapes, in contrast to corn, sorghum, rye, wheat, or potatoes that are more commonly used. The grapes used for Cîroc vodka are “snap frost” grapes, Mauzac Blanc from the Gaillac region of France, and Ugni Blanc from the Cognac region. The juice extracted from these grapes is cold fermented and is distilled five times to get the Ciroc Vodka.

The festival is open for dinner from 7:30 pm to 11:30 pm. For reservations, call 6666 3939 Extn. 5218/16.

As the Ciroc laced Shellfish flambe’d by your side, come and try Ciroc macerated lobster; Ciroc drenched crab and much more at Arena!

Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces
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Goud’s NTP to merge with Chiru’s PRP

By M H Ahssan

Devender Goud May Seek Malkajgiri LS Ticket; To Fight On Prajarajyam Party Symbol

The eight-month-old Nava Telangana Party led by T Devender Goud is all set to merge with Chiranjeevi’s Prajarajyam party and a formal announcement is expected sometime next week before the poll notification is issued, NTP sources said.

While the official reason for the merger is said to be common ideology of the two parties—social justice and separate Telangana, the reality is that Goud has been finding it difficult to run the party as it had failed to create the kind of impact he expected before he quit TDP in June 23, 2008.

It may be mentioned here that before starting his own party Goud was a strong leader in TDP and from the position of ZP chairperson he rose to become virtually number two in TDP. He was also the revenue, panchayati raj and home minister during TDP regime under N Chandrababu Naidu. He was also the TDP deputy leader in the state assembly and used to share the seat of opposition leader in the assembly with Naidu.

While the TDP had constituted a committee to recommend the stand it should take on separate Telangana, Goud quit TDP alleging that it was anti-Telangana and floated his own outfit. But contrary to his expectations, except E Peddi Reddy, a former minister, no other leader went with him. Even the cadre did not desert TDP.

Since then, Goud had made several attempts to strike an alliance with TRS, PRP and even BJP. Now finally, Goud is said to have been assured by PRP leader Chiranjeevi that the party would include the promise of supporting separate Telangana in its manifesto. This was preceded by several rounds of talks between Chiranjeevi and Goud, NTP sources told HNN.

Once the merger is formalised, Goud is likely to get a key position in PRP and will contest polls on PRP symbol. Party sources say that Goud is keen to contest from Malkajgiri Lok Sabha constituency and jump to national politics. So far he has represented Medchal assembly constituency in Ranga Reddy district. Sources said he is likely to be named as in charge of party’s Telangana affairs committee.

Pharma colleges ‘sold’ merit seats in AP

By Ayaan Khan

Throwing norms to the wind, pharmacy colleges in the state unilaterally increased management quota seats in the academic year 2008-09. As many as 25 colleges in the state had admitted students more than their permitted seats under the management quota.

According to the rules, colleges can make admissions under the management quota for only 25 per cent of the total seats. However, some colleges allegedly ‘sold’ seats up to 35 per cent, even usurping seats under the convener quota.

According to Andhra Pradesh State Council of Higher Education (APSCHE) officials, a Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) team during the mandatory inspection found colleges had indulged in irregularities. The council has already served show cause notices to these colleges. According to the council officials, majority of these colleges were minority institutions.

“The colleges will now have to take approval from PCI to admit students from the next academic year. Students who had already taken admission will not be affected by the decision. They will be allowed to pursue the course,” an APSCHE official said. However, the council members said the colleges could lose PCI affiliation.

Officials found around 450 seats might have been ‘sold’ as management quota seats by college managements for fee as high as Rs 91,000 (convener quota fee is Rs 30,200 per annum). The council said they found irregularities when colleges submitted the final list of students admitted by them.

Meanwhile, the PCI has said 75 per cent of seats in colleges would have to be ratified by them from the next academic year so that there will be no irregularities in the admission process. Till recently, the seats were being ratified by the universities concerned while approval for the course was granted by PCI.

The erring colleges, however, defended themselves before the PCI stating that they had sold seats left out after the counselling by the convener. “There is a provision to sell such seats as management quota seats,” they argued.

In its report, the PCI has said that the colleges had made admissions in these seats before the admission procedure for engineering and pharmacy began, which is an offence in itself. The seats were supposedly sold with the connivance of the Single Window-II (counselling for minority colleges) convener.

“The admissions were closed before merit students took admission in these seats after convincing the state council that the seats were filled by candidates from the merit list,” the official said.

A Lavish Wedding of Jaipur

By M H Ahssan & Rosy Fernandez

Over three days and nights, The Pink City in Jaipur witnessed a Hindu wedding to remember – a sensory feast of centuries-old rituals and lavish revelry in grand celebration of the marriage of Anisha Sharma and Abu Dhabi’s Gaurav Varma.

Nira Varma has not stopped dancing for three days. She started when her son Gaurav exchanged rings with his new bride-to-be; she was still dancing a day later when her future daughter-in-law had her hands painted with henna in preparation for her big day; she twirled at the helm of a procession of hundreds heralding the groom on horseback and as she finally takes home the new addition to her family, she cannot help but break into a little jig.

Little wonder she is struggling to contain her glee, for this is no ordinary wedding. When Gaurav Varma, the only son from a prominent family of UAE restaurateurs, decided to spend the rest of his life with Anisha Sharma, the wheels were set in motion for lavish, no-expense-spared festivities lasting three days and nights.

The Varmas are stalwarts of the Indian community in Abu Dhabi where Gaurav’s father Vinay, 65, relocated from Meerut near Delhi 39 years ago to launch his catering empire, which now includes the Royal Orchid restaurants, and the Chappan Bhog, Kwality and Soy eateries.

But for the spectacular wedding, the action moved more than 2,000 miles east to the Rajasthani capital Jaipur in India, once the home of polo-playing princes and maharanis.

The Pink City, nicknamed after the rosy glow of its buildings, is known for its colourful art, sumptuous textiles, rich folklore and traditional music and dance. In keeping with the palatial setting, the wedding rituals staggered over several days take place in increasingly glamorous locations – with feasts fit for a Rajasthani king on each occasion.

“We just want to have fun,” declares the father of the groom. “Usually a wedding takes place in either the hometown of the bride or groom. Neither of our families are from Jaipur in this case, but we thought what better place for three days of merrymaking?”

Anyone who has seen the film Monsoon Wedding will be familiar with the spectacle of traditional Hindu nuptials. From guests competing to wear the brightest, most ornate outfits, to the revelry and dancing which mask the solemn vows being taken, Indian weddings are a sensory feast. Add in the notoriously raucous Hindu Punjabi element which makes up Gaurav’s heritage and it’s clear why 250 revellers have flocked from across the world to celebrate.

“I love weddings, Punjabi weddings in particular,” shouts Seema Shetty across the din of a dancing procession and a marching band.

The 26-year-old founder of Bite Rite, the health food chain, and owner of Zari Zardozi Indian restaurant in Al Raha, has flown in from Abu Dhabi with her entire family, including her parents Bavaguthu Raghuram and Chandra Kumari, who both head NMC medical group, brother Binay, and sisters Neema and Reema.

“You see the true culture of a place, any place in the world, at a wedding,” gasps Seema, catching her breath in between her energetic bhangra moves. “Most of us have friends from all over the world so it is a perfect opportunity to show our culture.

“Punjabi weddings are the most colourful and are all about having complete fun. The further north you go in India, the less conservative they get – north Indians love a spectacle. You just have to look at the clothes to see what bright, colourful people they are.”

In the midst of the action, it is little surprise Anisha looks overwhelmed at times and a shy awkwardness hangs in the air between her and her new partner. Born in Gwalior near Delhi and now living in Mumbai, she met Gaurav, 28, in June last year and was engaged to him 20 days later. They have met only a couple of times since.

Arranged marriages may be fading in popularity among the Mumbai jet set, who enjoy fairly westernised lives. But for supplanted communities, like the tight-knit Indian network in Abu Dhabi, an arranged marriage is a chance to preserve cultural and religious values to pass on to future generations, and many turn to their homeland to find the perfect match for their offspring.

In previous times, caste, social standing and matching astrology charts were ranked as high factors. These days, compatibility and education are deemed more important.

Anisha, from a family of Brahmins, the highest caste, was introduced to Gaurav by a mutual friend of both their fathers. The restaurateur, who is helping run his father’s business, was visiting Delhi to check on the family’s diner there, Dine-Esty.

“Ours was a completely arranged marriage,” says Anisha, a producer on India’s Star TV until she quit two months before the wedding. “My dad called me when I was at work and said, ‘There is an important e-mail you should check and tell me what you think’. It was Gaurav’s CV with his picture. I found it interesting and he looked nice so I said I would meet him.

He was leaving for Abu Dhabi a day later so we met for dinner on his last night. We hit it off really well. He never went back as planned. Instead, my dad came out with us the next night and then Gaurav came to Delhi to meet my mother. Apparently he had already decided on the first night, but it took me a lot longer to make up my mind. It was 20 days before we were engaged. I was thinking about leaving the country, my family and friends. I am very attached to my country. I originally wanted to marry someone in Mumbai.

“I had seen about six boys before Gaurav but I would like to have my own career and some of the suitors had a problem with that. Sometimes you just don’t click and I was starting to despair of ever meeting the right man. I liked a lot of things about Gaurav, particularly the fact he respects everyone a lot, which is very important.

“He understands it is difficult for a girl. He has done a lot to assure me that whatever I want to do, I can.

She is looking forward to married life, even though she has never been to Abu Dhabi, where the couple will live. “My parents have mixed feelings about me going. They are happy about me getting married but parents always feel a loss when a bride goes to another house.”

Born in Abu Dhabi, Gaurav had lived all over the world and had, by his own admission, a fairly hedonistic existence during his eight years in Las Vegas, where he worked in hotels. While his own friends express surprise that he decided to go down a traditional route in finding a lifelong partner, he says, “Contrary to what people believe, there is a choice involved. I had not met anyone myself and was not averse to the idea of an arranged marriage.

“We met on a Friday and I asked her to marry me on the Monday. We have a lot of things in common – family values, understanding, respect. She has a good heart and is career-minded. I feel very comfortable with her.

“This way we get to know each other while we are married. If you can get along, that is all that matters. For me, it is the start of a better life.”

But before the pair can face the challenges ahead as husband and wife, there are a long list of centuries-old rituals and ceremonies to go through, intended as blessings to set them off on the best start in life. While the basic blessings remain the same, customs can vary wildly according to region and background and for many guests, this is their first taste of a Punjabi wedding.

The mayhem begins at Jaipur’s Sanganeer airport, when revellers from the UAE, Britain, the US, Canada and other regions of India arrive to be met by gaudy banners announcing: “Welcome to Gaurav and Anisha’s wedding”.

The guestlist reads like a Who’s Who of the Indian glitterati in the UAE, including the Indian ambassador Talmiz Ahmed, the Shettys, Jayanti Maitra, head of research at the Centre for Documentation and Research in Abu Dhabi, and Raman Khanna, business development director for Aldar.

The Rambagh Palace, formerly owned by the Maharaja of Jaipur and the home of royals for nearly two centuries, is the scene for the first of many rituals, the chunni charana and ring ceremony – and the first opportunity for the bride to show off her trousseau. She dazzles in a flesh-toned, crystal-encrusted sari, her hair wound into a long plait entwined with flowers while her mother Nivedita, 50, a commercial lawyer for India’s Supreme Court, could pass for her older sister in an equally elegant ivory sari.

Mrs Varma, 58, presents Anisha with jewellery and clothes and drapes an elaborate turquoise shawl around her shoulders for the chunni charana. The act is deeply symbolic, explains the groom’s uncle Virender Sekhri. “It is effectively saying: ‘Now she is ours, we are going to protect her’. The bride keeps it all her life and either passes it down between generations or has it put on her when she is cremated.”

The second Anisha and Gaurav exchange rings, Mrs Varma breaks into a dance, arms in the air, leading the way for revelry which continues until 5.00am the next day.

As the bride and groom join her on the dance floor, Gaurav takes his first tentative step towards his matrimonial duties, putting a protective arm around Anisha. But the pair are still not officially married and part company at the end of the night until the following day for a mehndi, or henna painting, at midday.

The shindig, in the colonial-style Hari Mahal Palace hotel, is akin to a combined hen and stag party as the women cluster to gossip and have their hands and arms painted with the dye while their menfolk gather to give Gaurav tips for married life.

As the groom’s party arrive laden with gifts and a handmade basket packed with henna, they are greeted by the bride’s guests and ceremonial drums. Mrs Varma brandishes a key ring with a framed photo of Gaurav and declares: “I don’t have house keys for you yet so I am giving you the keys to his heart.”

Anisha, resplendent in an orange and red shelwar kamees, sits under a canopy made entirely of marigolds for hours on end while swirls of the dye are painstakingly applied to her hands and feet in elaborate flower motifs. The leisurely afternoon is a chance for those who have been through it before to reminisce about their own experiences.

“When my sons got married, I wanted to make sure I got all the ceremonies right,” says Aruna Misra from Mumbai, 56, a former schoolfriend of Vinay Varma. “We planted banana and mango trees for fertility and carried water with haldi [turmeric] for the mehndi. My eldest sister was very impressed that I knew all the customs – until I told her I’d done my research on Google.

“We had so much fun and the rituals are part of it. When a bride enters the groom’s house she normally throws her house keys and rice over her head to signify returning what she had in her mother’s home and kicks over a bowl of rice in the doorway for luck. My naughty friends told my Polish daughter-in-law that the harder she kicked, the more I would love her. She kicked the bowl with all her force and it flew to the other side of the house, smashing several vases on the way.”

Ritu Mehra, 48, from Delhi, smiles nostalgically as she says: “Mine was a love marriage, which was very unusual in those days. Rajiv was working near the college where I was studying and we fell in love when I was 21. My parents wanted me to meet a suitor, though. Finally I told them about Rajiv. My parents weren’t happy about it but eventually came round and we are still happily married 27 years later.”

“This is all new to me,” says Dr Maitra, originally from Calcutta. “Each wedding speaks a story about the different customs and rituals depending on the region. It is not just about tying the knot, it is a celebration between two families. The visual impact is extraordinary and you learn so much. Weddings in India are talked about all over the world and cause jaws to drop. The scale and dimensions of this one are huge. It is very lavish and elaborate and I would not have missed it for anything.”

The evening sangeet, or music ceremony, creates another spectacle as guests adorned with their finest gold and gems don bright rainbow colours and sequins to watch staged performances. In the past, musicians would sing traditional wedding ditties while the bride hid herself away in preparation for her big day. These days there is no room for demure brides and it is Anisha herself, in green satin pantaloons and a red bodice, who takes to the stage with her friends to tease the groom with songs and dances.

Having grown up with Bollywood films and, no doubt, performed the routines in their bedrooms until they have them down pat, they could rival any screen star as they borrow heavily from the movies and their corresponding songs to tell the story of Gaurav’s bachelor days in Las Vegas: Ma Da Ladlaa Vigar Gaya (The Mother’s Boy Has Been Corrupted), his first meeting with Anisha Desi Girl (Asian Girl) and his current status Lucky Boy.

Future matches are often made at these events and one female guest whispers: “Of course we all dream of falling in love and finding someone to spend the rest of our life with. Many couples date on the quiet and involve the parents when marriage is on the cards. But failing that, there is the fallback of an arranged marriage as your parents will always try and find the best for you.”

It is 8.00am on the day of the wedding proper before the exhausted revellers make it to bed, with the bride and groom escaping just three hours earlier. But there is little time to rest for the bride as she prepares to leave her the home of her mother and father Anil, 50, a financier, for good. Bangles and gold ornaments are strapped to her wrists for luck and her female relatives smear her face and body with a paste of turmeric, gram flour, yoghurt and oil to bring out the glow in her complexion. It takes hours to prepare her for the most significant part of the wedding; to carefully apply her make-up, adorn her with chunky gold jewellery and help her into her bridal lengha, a cropped top and floor-length skirt in heavily embroidered green with matching scarf, covering her head.

For Gaurav, the run-up to the ceremony means wearing a cream silk sherwani, made of a long tunic and trousers and having a turban wound onto his head, complete with a veil of red and white flowers as a priest blesses him and money is circled over his head to represent good fortune. His male relatives have the same headgear put on before he gets on a white horse, bejewelled and draped in cloth of mouthwatering Rajasthani colours, to set off on a procession to meet the bride.

And what a procession. There are marching bands with drums and trumpets, dancing in the streets, and the long line of his guests dressed in an array of saris in every shade under the sun. As the baraat, or groom’s party, arrives at the majestic Jay Mahal Palace hotel, it is met by the bride’s relatives, who shower them with red rose petals and adorn the men with garlands of white carnations. The footpath, despite being less than 200 metres, takes the best part of an hour to negotiate as the groom on his horse is given the welcome of an A-list celebrity, complete with red carpet.

The bride is brought out to meet him for the jaimala, or exchange of flower garlands. Traditionally, a groom stood on his toes to make the bride stretch upwards as it would often be his first opportunity to see her. As Gaurav forgets this custom, his friends bear him up on their shoulders, forcing Anisha to do the same so she can reach him.

Fireworks shoot off into the crisp night sky as they make their way to an outdoor pagoda strewn with marigolds for the two-hour blessing. Even during this sombre part of the ceremony, during the priest’s chants, the entertainment continues for the guests, who can wander in and out of the rituals and are treated to a lavish buffet and displays by fire-eaters and professional dancers, some balancing up to 10 pots on their heads.

As the ceremony concludes, a scarf is tied between Anisha and Gaurav and they walk around a fire seven times in a ritual called pheras. Each circuit represents a different aspect of life, such as prosperity and fertility, and while the bride leads for the first three, her new husband takes over for the last rounds showing their marriage is one of joint leadership. Gaurav smears her forehead with red powder to show she is married and hangs a mangal sutra necklace around her neck.

The marriage concluded, Anisha steps into a wooden doli, a sort of carriage carried on the shoulders of her male relatives to take her to her new home. Her mother, brother and friends weep as she leaves her old life behind. It is a poignant, sombre moment. A bewildered three-year-old cousin, Tia Palkar, bursts into tears and says: “Mummy, why are they sending her away? And where are you going to send me?”

“Marriage involves a lot of sacrifices,” observes Vinay Varma. “Most of the young ones today live abroad for many years but they have never forgotten their culture, their family upbringing and respect for their elders. We have found all those qualities in our new daughter. As long as they remember to respect one another and fall back on each other, they will be blessed for life.”

A Lavish Wedding of Jaipur

By M H Ahssan & Rosy Fernandez

Over three days and nights, The Pink City in Jaipur witnessed a Hindu wedding to remember – a sensory feast of centuries-old rituals and lavish revelry in grand celebration of the marriage of Anisha Sharma and Abu Dhabi’s Gaurav Varma.

Nira Varma has not stopped dancing for three days. She started when her son Gaurav exchanged rings with his new bride-to-be; she was still dancing a day later when her future daughter-in-law had her hands painted with henna in preparation for her big day; she twirled at the helm of a procession of hundreds heralding the groom on horseback and as she finally takes home the new addition to her family, she cannot help but break into a little jig.

Little wonder she is struggling to contain her glee, for this is no ordinary wedding. When Gaurav Varma, the only son from a prominent family of UAE restaurateurs, decided to spend the rest of his life with Anisha Sharma, the wheels were set in motion for lavish, no-expense-spared festivities lasting three days and nights.

The Varmas are stalwarts of the Indian community in Abu Dhabi where Gaurav’s father Vinay, 65, relocated from Meerut near Delhi 39 years ago to launch his catering empire, which now includes the Royal Orchid restaurants, and the Chappan Bhog, Kwality and Soy eateries.

But for the spectacular wedding, the action moved more than 2,000 miles east to the Rajasthani capital Jaipur in India, once the home of polo-playing princes and maharanis.

The Pink City, nicknamed after the rosy glow of its buildings, is known for its colourful art, sumptuous textiles, rich folklore and traditional music and dance. In keeping with the palatial setting, the wedding rituals staggered over several days take place in increasingly glamorous locations – with feasts fit for a Rajasthani king on each occasion.

“We just want to have fun,” declares the father of the groom. “Usually a wedding takes place in either the hometown of the bride or groom. Neither of our families are from Jaipur in this case, but we thought what better place for three days of merrymaking?”

Anyone who has seen the film Monsoon Wedding will be familiar with the spectacle of traditional Hindu nuptials. From guests competing to wear the brightest, most ornate outfits, to the revelry and dancing which mask the solemn vows being taken, Indian weddings are a sensory feast. Add in the notoriously raucous Hindu Punjabi element which makes up Gaurav’s heritage and it’s clear why 250 revellers have flocked from across the world to celebrate.

“I love weddings, Punjabi weddings in particular,” shouts Seema Shetty across the din of a dancing procession and a marching band.

The 26-year-old founder of Bite Rite, the health food chain, and owner of Zari Zardozi Indian restaurant in Al Raha, has flown in from Abu Dhabi with her entire family, including her parents Bavaguthu Raghuram and Chandra Kumari, who both head NMC medical group, brother Binay, and sisters Neema and Reema.

“You see the true culture of a place, any place in the world, at a wedding,” gasps Seema, catching her breath in between her energetic bhangra moves. “Most of us have friends from all over the world so it is a perfect opportunity to show our culture.

“Punjabi weddings are the most colourful and are all about having complete fun. The further north you go in India, the less conservative they get – north Indians love a spectacle. You just have to look at the clothes to see what bright, colourful people they are.”

In the midst of the action, it is little surprise Anisha looks overwhelmed at times and a shy awkwardness hangs in the air between her and her new partner. Born in Gwalior near Delhi and now living in Mumbai, she met Gaurav, 28, in June last year and was engaged to him 20 days later. They have met only a couple of times since.

Arranged marriages may be fading in popularity among the Mumbai jet set, who enjoy fairly westernised lives. But for supplanted communities, like the tight-knit Indian network in Abu Dhabi, an arranged marriage is a chance to preserve cultural and religious values to pass on to future generations, and many turn to their homeland to find the perfect match for their offspring.

In previous times, caste, social standing and matching astrology charts were ranked as high factors. These days, compatibility and education are deemed more important.

Anisha, from a family of Brahmins, the highest caste, was introduced to Gaurav by a mutual friend of both their fathers. The restaurateur, who is helping run his father’s business, was visiting Delhi to check on the family’s diner there, Dine-Esty.

“Ours was a completely arranged marriage,” says Anisha, a producer on India’s Star TV until she quit two months before the wedding. “My dad called me when I was at work and said, ‘There is an important e-mail you should check and tell me what you think’. It was Gaurav’s CV with his picture. I found it interesting and he looked nice so I said I would meet him.

He was leaving for Abu Dhabi a day later so we met for dinner on his last night. We hit it off really well. He never went back as planned. Instead, my dad came out with us the next night and then Gaurav came to Delhi to meet my mother. Apparently he had already decided on the first night, but it took me a lot longer to make up my mind. It was 20 days before we were engaged. I was thinking about leaving the country, my family and friends. I am very attached to my country. I originally wanted to marry someone in Mumbai.

“I had seen about six boys before Gaurav but I would like to have my own career and some of the suitors had a problem with that. Sometimes you just don’t click and I was starting to despair of ever meeting the right man. I liked a lot of things about Gaurav, particularly the fact he respects everyone a lot, which is very important.

“He understands it is difficult for a girl. He has done a lot to assure me that whatever I want to do, I can.

She is looking forward to married life, even though she has never been to Abu Dhabi, where the couple will live. “My parents have mixed feelings about me going. They are happy about me getting married but parents always feel a loss when a bride goes to another house.”

Born in Abu Dhabi, Gaurav had lived all over the world and had, by his own admission, a fairly hedonistic existence during his eight years in Las Vegas, where he worked in hotels. While his own friends express surprise that he decided to go down a traditional route in finding a lifelong partner, he says, “Contrary to what people believe, there is a choice involved. I had not met anyone myself and was not averse to the idea of an arranged marriage.

“We met on a Friday and I asked her to marry me on the Monday. We have a lot of things in common – family values, understanding, respect. She has a good heart and is career-minded. I feel very comfortable with her.

“This way we get to know each other while we are married. If you can get along, that is all that matters. For me, it is the start of a better life.”

But before the pair can face the challenges ahead as husband and wife, there are a long list of centuries-old rituals and ceremonies to go through, intended as blessings to set them off on the best start in life. While the basic blessings remain the same, customs can vary wildly according to region and background and for many guests, this is their first taste of a Punjabi wedding.

The mayhem begins at Jaipur’s Sanganeer airport, when revellers from the UAE, Britain, the US, Canada and other regions of India arrive to be met by gaudy banners announcing: “Welcome to Gaurav and Anisha’s wedding”.

The guestlist reads like a Who’s Who of the Indian glitterati in the UAE, including the Indian ambassador Talmiz Ahmed, the Shettys, Jayanti Maitra, head of research at the Centre for Documentation and Research in Abu Dhabi, and Raman Khanna, business development director for Aldar.

The Rambagh Palace, formerly owned by the Maharaja of Jaipur and the home of royals for nearly two centuries, is the scene for the first of many rituals, the chunni charana and ring ceremony – and the first opportunity for the bride to show off her trousseau. She dazzles in a flesh-toned, crystal-encrusted sari, her hair wound into a long plait entwined with flowers while her mother Nivedita, 50, a commercial lawyer for India’s Supreme Court, could pass for her older sister in an equally elegant ivory sari.

Mrs Varma, 58, presents Anisha with jewellery and clothes and drapes an elaborate turquoise shawl around her shoulders for the chunni charana. The act is deeply symbolic, explains the groom’s uncle Virender Sekhri. “It is effectively saying: ‘Now she is ours, we are going to protect her’. The bride keeps it all her life and either passes it down between generations or has it put on her when she is cremated.”

The second Anisha and Gaurav exchange rings, Mrs Varma breaks into a dance, arms in the air, leading the way for revelry which continues until 5.00am the next day.

As the bride and groom join her on the dance floor, Gaurav takes his first tentative step towards his matrimonial duties, putting a protective arm around Anisha. But the pair are still not officially married and part company at the end of the night until the following day for a mehndi, or henna painting, at midday.

The shindig, in the colonial-style Hari Mahal Palace hotel, is akin to a combined hen and stag party as the women cluster to gossip and have their hands and arms painted with the dye while their menfolk gather to give Gaurav tips for married life.

As the groom’s party arrive laden with gifts and a handmade basket packed with henna, they are greeted by the bride’s guests and ceremonial drums. Mrs Varma brandishes a key ring with a framed photo of Gaurav and declares: “I don’t have house keys for you yet so I am giving you the keys to his heart.”

Anisha, resplendent in an orange and red shelwar kamees, sits under a canopy made entirely of marigolds for hours on end while swirls of the dye are painstakingly applied to her hands and feet in elaborate flower motifs. The leisurely afternoon is a chance for those who have been through it before to reminisce about their own experiences.

“When my sons got married, I wanted to make sure I got all the ceremonies right,” says Aruna Misra from Mumbai, 56, a former schoolfriend of Vinay Varma. “We planted banana and mango trees for fertility and carried water with haldi [turmeric] for the mehndi. My eldest sister was very impressed that I knew all the customs – until I told her I’d done my research on Google.

“We had so much fun and the rituals are part of it. When a bride enters the groom’s house she normally throws her house keys and rice over her head to signify returning what she had in her mother’s home and kicks over a bowl of rice in the doorway for luck. My naughty friends told my Polish daughter-in-law that the harder she kicked, the more I would love her. She kicked the bowl with all her force and it flew to the other side of the house, smashing several vases on the way.”

Ritu Mehra, 48, from Delhi, smiles nostalgically as she says: “Mine was a love marriage, which was very unusual in those days. Rajiv was working near the college where I was studying and we fell in love when I was 21. My parents wanted me to meet a suitor, though. Finally I told them about Rajiv. My parents weren’t happy about it but eventually came round and we are still happily married 27 years later.”

“This is all new to me,” says Dr Maitra, originally from Calcutta. “Each wedding speaks a story about the different customs and rituals depending on the region. It is not just about tying the knot, it is a celebration between two families. The visual impact is extraordinary and you learn so much. Weddings in India are talked about all over the world and cause jaws to drop. The scale and dimensions of this one are huge. It is very lavish and elaborate and I would not have missed it for anything.”

The evening sangeet, or music ceremony, creates another spectacle as guests adorned with their finest gold and gems don bright rainbow colours and sequins to watch staged performances. In the past, musicians would sing traditional wedding ditties while the bride hid herself away in preparation for her big day. These days there is no room for demure brides and it is Anisha herself, in green satin pantaloons and a red bodice, who takes to the stage with her friends to tease the groom with songs and dances.

Having grown up with Bollywood films and, no doubt, performed the routines in their bedrooms until they have them down pat, they could rival any screen star as they borrow heavily from the movies and their corresponding songs to tell the story of Gaurav’s bachelor days in Las Vegas: Ma Da Ladlaa Vigar Gaya (The Mother’s Boy Has Been Corrupted), his first meeting with Anisha Desi Girl (Asian Girl) and his current status Lucky Boy.

Future matches are often made at these events and one female guest whispers: “Of course we all dream of falling in love and finding someone to spend the rest of our life with. Many couples date on the quiet and involve the parents when marriage is on the cards. But failing that, there is the fallback of an arranged marriage as your parents will always try and find the best for you.”

It is 8.00am on the day of the wedding proper before the exhausted revellers make it to bed, with the bride and groom escaping just three hours earlier. But there is little time to rest for the bride as she prepares to leave her the home of her mother and father Anil, 50, a financier, for good. Bangles and gold ornaments are strapped to her wrists for luck and her female relatives smear her face and body with a paste of turmeric, gram flour, yoghurt and oil to bring out the glow in her complexion. It takes hours to prepare her for the most significant part of the wedding; to carefully apply her make-up, adorn her with chunky gold jewellery and help her into her bridal lengha, a cropped top and floor-length skirt in heavily embroidered green with matching scarf, covering her head.

For Gaurav, the run-up to the ceremony means wearing a cream silk sherwani, made of a long tunic and trousers and having a turban wound onto his head, complete with a veil of red and white flowers as a priest blesses him and money is circled over his head to represent good fortune. His male relatives have the same headgear put on before he gets on a white horse, bejewelled and draped in cloth of mouthwatering Rajasthani colours, to set off on a procession to meet the bride.

And what a procession. There are marching bands with drums and trumpets, dancing in the streets, and the long line of his guests dressed in an array of saris in every shade under the sun. As the baraat, or groom’s party, arrives at the majestic Jay Mahal Palace hotel, it is met by the bride’s relatives, who shower them with red rose petals and adorn the men with garlands of white carnations. The footpath, despite being less than 200 metres, takes the best part of an hour to negotiate as the groom on his horse is given the welcome of an A-list celebrity, complete with red carpet.

The bride is brought out to meet him for the jaimala, or exchange of flower garlands. Traditionally, a groom stood on his toes to make the bride stretch upwards as it would often be his first opportunity to see her. As Gaurav forgets this custom, his friends bear him up on their shoulders, forcing Anisha to do the same so she can reach him.

Fireworks shoot off into the crisp night sky as they make their way to an outdoor pagoda strewn with marigolds for the two-hour blessing. Even during this sombre part of the ceremony, during the priest’s chants, the entertainment continues for the guests, who can wander in and out of the rituals and are treated to a lavish buffet and displays by fire-eaters and professional dancers, some balancing up to 10 pots on their heads.

As the ceremony concludes, a scarf is tied between Anisha and Gaurav and they walk around a fire seven times in a ritual called pheras. Each circuit represents a different aspect of life, such as prosperity and fertility, and while the bride leads for the first three, her new husband takes over for the last rounds showing their marriage is one of joint leadership. Gaurav smears her forehead with red powder to show she is married and hangs a mangal sutra necklace around her neck.

The marriage concluded, Anisha steps into a wooden doli, a sort of carriage carried on the shoulders of her male relatives to take her to her new home. Her mother, brother and friends weep as she leaves her old life behind. It is a poignant, sombre moment. A bewildered three-year-old cousin, Tia Palkar, bursts into tears and says: “Mummy, why are they sending her away? And where are you going to send me?”

“Marriage involves a lot of sacrifices,” observes Vinay Varma. “Most of the young ones today live abroad for many years but they have never forgotten their culture, their family upbringing and respect for their elders. We have found all those qualities in our new daughter. As long as they remember to respect one another and fall back on each other, they will be blessed for life.”

‘If i were an Hindu’

By Sonal Shah & Muzaffar Azad

A Singapore journalist says both major parties in India must abandon increasing communalism. “Some countries are united by a common language; India has around fifteen major languages and numberless minor ones. Nor are its people united by race, religion or culture…Does India exist? If it doesn’t, the explanation is to be found in a single word: communalism. The politics of religious hatred.” —Salman Rushdie in “The Riddle of Midnight: India, August 1947″ in Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-91.

If I were a regular Indian Hindu, I would not find it difficult to believe that the country today is threatened by the forces of Islamic terrorism— no matter what the Muslims say in their defense.
Further, I would add that the terrorizing Muslims and the evangelizing Christian missionaries are creating grave threats to India’s progress, a country that is rediscovering its destiny as a superpower in the world stage.
I’m saying this because the recent terrorist bombings in many Indian cities have changed our lives. We live in fear of being blown away while shopping or traveling. How can we not blame the Muslims when members of their community have created this atmosphere of terror in the nation of peace-loving Hindus?
I know what I am talking about. I read newspapers. I watch TV. Lest you should believe that I am a dehati, I am not. I could be a government official, an IT professional, an employee of an MNC, a businessman or even a member of the diaspora. I could be anyone.

I am using the term ‘regular Indian Hindu’ as a classification for those Hindus in India who are not liberal (or communists or atheists or pseudo-secularists) or have not acquired liberal education in India or abroad and who are conscious of their Hindu identity. Our liberal brethren, the so called ‘pseudo-secularists’ (whoever invented this term must be a Indian Hindu and I want to give him shabashi for this innovative coinage) might even object to the phrase “Indian Hindu” as a contradictory duality—an Indian is an Indian, end of the matter, they’d say—but I wouldn’t have thought the worst of it.

For me it wouldn’t have been difficult to bask in the glory of a resurgent India as a member of ‘Hindu India’ —an India that is waking up from its thousand year old slumber of inertia and slavery— first by the murderous Muslim invaders, followed by the wily British, who between them, ruled us for nearly a millennium.
But there are many who want to prick my balloon of pride. For instance, take the recent terror attacks in various Indian cities and the Muslim response to it. Let us keep our discussion confined to this topic and not get side-tracked by the issue of conversion of dalits and adivasis by the Christian missionaries, an issue that equally infuriates me.

If I were a regular Indian Hindu, I would feel the police action justified in the Batla House, Jamia Nagar police-terrorist encounter cases, no matter what people like Arundhati Roy have to say on this matter. When scores of innocents died in terrorist-planted bomb blasts in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Delhi, what is the big deal if the Delhi police killed two Muslim terrorists in an encounter?

Some Muslims are finding holes in the manner the police conducted the encounter and arrested the terror suspects. I give two hoots about it! I have my own problems to solve, my own life to live. But if I did care about the issue, being a newspaper reader and TV news watcher type, I would have felt the demands of inquiry into the whole episode by the Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Group or Delhi Union of Journalists unnecessary, nothing more than an act of minority appeasement.

Why demoralize our police force, I would have asked them? After all, we lost one of our own brave policemen in the encounter, didn’t we? I would have damned the conspiracy theories circulated by these doubters and gossip mongers. They do nothing or just shed crocodile tears when bombs go off in crowded bazaars and kill scores of innocent Indians. But when one of them is killed, they ask for enquiry and provide legal aid to those terrorists? How unpatriotic!

But they are not alone in what they do. To make matters worse, (I would have thought it a matter of shame) some of our own, the pseudo-secularists, are party to the game being played by the Muslim intelligentsia and some publicity-hungry liberal minded media persons. The same way that they did after the Gujarat riots—they could not appreciate the fact that what had happened was a natural reaction to the dastardly act of burning our holy men alive on the Sabarmati Express. What did they get after doing all those exposes and investigations? All they could achieve was that they kept Narendra Modi bhai from visiting the US. That’s it. Was it worth all that muck-racking?

Therefore, clearly, if I were a regular Indian Hindu, I would have no difficulty in believing that Hinduism is under threat from Islamic terrorism. I would, in that position, seem reasonable if I believed that Indian Muslims, even after the country’s partition in 1947, have wasted all opportunities given to them. They are always looking for special treatment. They have hundreds of apologists of all kinds to make excuses on their behalf. As such, my message to fellow Hindus would be this: We have done enough for these guys, and they have performed dismally, so let us stop bothering about them.

Because of our peaceful nature, others have dominated us for centuries. They could do it because we were weak. Now we must strike back by showing that we are more aggressive even than the ones that dominated us. We have shown it in Gujarat, and elsewhere in the country. But these Muslims don’t seem to be getting the message.
If I were a regular Indian Hindu, I would have no difficulty in believing in all that that I have just said. But, as it happens, I am not.
I happen to be an Indian born in a Muslim family. And as such, the tentacles of my consciousness were trained in a different manner—different from those belonging to other communities.

Despite the difference, I find it difficult to blame my “regular Indian Hindu” friend for the way he thinks. It is not his fault—it’s my way of looking at him that makes him appear faulty. But he may not be at fault at all. Perhaps he was brought up in a certain manner and while I believed in “unity in diversity,” he believed in some other philosophy—an idea of India that was different from that conceived by Gandhi and Nehru—and as old as them, shared by those who distributed sweets on the streets hearing the news of Gandhiji’s assassination.

Perhaps he does not even hold Gandhi and Nehru in high regard. He has been fed a certain version of India’s struggle for freedom and he believes in that version, as I do in mine. Right from his childhood, he has been exposed to a certain kind of thinking: all through shishu mandirs, shakhas, ekal vidyalayas, sant samagams, television serials, the rath yatras, leaflets, videos, CDs (I have borrowed this impressive list from Shabnam Hashmi, Communalism, Centrestage in Tehelka).
Therefore, I don’t want to blame my “regular Indian Hindu” friend for he is the creation of someone’s hard work. Like I am the creation of another group’s hard work. He is as legitimate an Indian as I am, albeit with a different idea of India. What matters though and what will determine our future is where we stand today: which ‘idea of India’ has moved from the center to the periphery and vice versa and which idea of India will eventually prevail. This is something that, everyone—Indians as well as Asians—need to watch out for as it relates to the Asia’s America (a nod to Daniel Lak, India Express), Asia’s liberal superpower.

My India has always been based on ideas of multiplicity, pluralism, hybridity: ideas to which the ideologies of the communalists are diametrically opposed. To my mind, the defining image of India is the crowd, and a crowd is by its very nature superabundant, heterogeneous, many things at once. But the India of the communalists is none of these things — Salman Rushdie in “The Riddle of Midnight: India, August 1947” in Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-91

As a child, I was sold on the ideas of Gandhi and Nehru. In school, I grew up on the ideals of a secular India, built on the foundations of syncretic ethos, an India where all citizens are equal before the law and where all religions are equally respected. While we wrote essays on the greatness of Gandhi and Nehru, Indira Gandhi ruled the country with an iron first. Those were the post-Emergency Congress days and everything looked normal in our small town of pre-television era.
Hindu Muslim Sikh Isai, aaaps me sab bhai bhai — we were to repeat this phrase. I believed in it and continue to believe in it.

Growing up, I knew that I was living in a country where the majority of the population consisted of Hindus. But I had no problems with that. Rather I enjoyed the diversity of India. My father’s best friends were Hindus. As much as I looked forward to Eid, I looked forward to Durga Pooja and Chhat—the two major festivals in Bengal and Bihar. My village came under the cross section of these two dominant cultures. During Durga Pooja, it was a common practice for us to roam around the town, be a part of the crowd and admire the pandals. On Chhat, we all waited to taste the delicious thakwa, a kind of snack prepared on that day—equivalent of Eid’s sewaiyan. Every December, I used to wait for Christmas to see the beautifully decorated churches, and if fortunate enough, get a chance to nibble at the cakes and pastries in the homes of my Christian acquaintances.

Then came 1984. Indira Gandhi was gunned down by her own guards and all hell broke loose. Thousands of Sikhs were mercilessly massacred in Delhi. The slogan– Hindu Muslim Sikh Isai, aapas me sab bhai bhai—began to sound shaky and fake.
I passed out of school and went to Aligarh Muslim University for further education. Aligarh is a communally sensitive town. While still a student there, I saw the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the riots that followed. The country’s atmosphere had completely changed.

The end of the Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb
But a slow change had started years even before the Babri demolition. At that point of time, I could not grasp the importance of those changes but in hindsight they seem to be damaging to the country’s secular ethos, the Ganja-Jamuni tehzeeb of India. What was happening was that slowly but surely, Muslim cultural elements, however small in significance but were taken as a given by Muslims, began to disappear from public life.

For example, take the “unity and diversity” ads taken out by the government. Hindu Muslim Sikh Isai, aapas me sab bhai bhai. I used to see these national integration ads regularly in the media, in Urdu magazines and on the back of buses and on walls. Gradually these ads began to disappear. They were replaced by other slogans on the wall. One slogan that I can remember vividly is this—Bharat desh me rehna hai to vande matram kehna hoga. While some Muslims began to paste stickers like Fakhr se kaho hum Musalman hain, I also began to notice some Hindu establishments prominently displaying stickers with slogans—Garv se kaho hum Hindu hain.

Mughlai Food: A Vanishing Act?
Along with the slogan baazi, I noticed two more things: Airbrushing of India’s Muslim, specifically Mughal, heritage and the undisputed dominance of Hindi in the common cultural space. Consequently, as the chandrabindu (dot, a sort of a diacritical mark) vanished from devnagri (Hindi), Mughlai food too disappeared from the great Indian menu.

While the Mughal and pre-Mughal Islamic architecture such as the Red Fort and Qutub Minar in Delhi and the Taj Mahal in Agra remained untouched (except for the mad claim that the Taj was built by a Hindu ruler), Mughlai food was airbrushed from the menu. Everything became tandoori or Punjabi—this is not to deny that there is no specific Punjabi cuisine but I find the case of the missing Mughlai cuisine intriguing. Also, I don’t think somebody sat down and deliberately performed the act of erasure (like somebody in the ministries forgot to commission the ‘useless’ unity in diversity ads). However, it has happened and consequently, today, if you go to any Indian restaurant, you will see typically two broad categories of cuisine: North Indian and South Indian. And the vast part of the North Indian menu would be Punjabi food, which is not totally illegitimate. But I can’t help asking: where has the

Mughlai food vanished?
The vanishing act of the Mughlai food (Superstar Shahrukh Khan once said that he loved Mughlia food, perhaps he meant Mughlai—he does not see the terminology so often so even an articulate person like him got it all mixed up) is not that big a deal but it can assume a greater significance if seen in the light of the communalization of Indian historiography. Let me give you an example from one of Rushdie’s writings again.

Muslims As ‘Mughals’?
In the introduction to his book of essays, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-91, Rushdie talks of a seminar in London in which eminent writers and historians from India were invited to speak at the festival of India in 1982. He writes: “…an eminent Indian academic delivered a paper on Indian culture that utterly ignored all minority communities. When questioned about this from the floor, the professor smiled benignly and allowed that of course India contained many diverse traditions—including Buddhists, Christians and ‘Mughals’. This characterization of Muslim culture was more than merely peculiar. It was a technique of alienation. For if Muslims were ‘Mughals’, then they were foreign invaders, and Indian Muslim culture was both imperialist and inauthentic. At the time, we made light of the gibe, but it stayed with me, pricking at me like a thorn.”

In the light of this experience, it would not seem impossible if Muslims took the airbrushing of the Mughlai food items from the Indian menu as an act of alienation.
Ghazal becomes Gajal

The same way the chandrabindu (the dot below a devnagri letter to signify pronunciation) seems to have been airbrushed from common devnagri lipi. It was meant to be a meeting ground of Urdu and Hindi, if you will—the two sister languages that also fell victim to communalization in India. The result is disastrous. The chef on TV has no compunction in pronouncing zeera (cumin seeds) as jeera. And the literature student has no problem asking: Yeh kya Galib (Ghalib) ki gajal (ghazal) hai. It grates my ears through. The interesting thing is that even no-Urdu knowing Muslims today pronounce words in this fashion.

Et Tu, Bollywood?
And finally, the technique of alienation seems to have invaded the most secular of India’s cultural spaces—television and Bollywood. These are not just virtual cultural spaces but powerful engines of culture-generation. After the 1990s, as Bollywood moved from producing the cinema for the front benchers to the cinema for the yuppie, multiplex-going crowd, its stars and filmmakers began to define and set the cultural agenda of the country. Their impact on Hindus and Muslims, both off screen and on screen, are alike. As noted American political philosopher Martha Nussbaum has pointed out, it’s also interesting that Bollywood is the one place where Hindus and Muslims intermingle and intermarry and there is not any great sense of the gulf between them.

After the death of the Muslim socials in Bollywood (a natural corollary of the death of the Muslim elite), its filmmakers turned their back on Muslim characters. How many principal Muslim characters have you seen in Bollywood movies in the post Manmohan Desia era? Don’t even try to count on your fingers.

The situation is worse in TV’s case, especially the popular daily soaps on satellite TV channels. With the exception of the low-budget fantasies like Alif-Laila, in the world of Saas bhi kabhi bahu thi (which is supposed to be popular even in far and away Afghanistan) and Kahani ghar ghar ki, there are hardly any mainstream Muslim characters. It seems they are not part of the glamorous and prosperous social fabric of India which is more or less true.

These are big-ticket questions for the entertainment world. But I am asking a minor question. Like the national integration slogans, Mughlai food and the chandrabindu, one more thing has disappeared from Hindi movie, well almost: the Urdu language titles, along with Hindi and English, in the opening credits. In the last 10-15 years, I think I have seen most movies have done away with it.
I was glad to see that not all filmmakers have forgotten this tradition. Shyam Benegal prominently displayed the Urdu titles in his latest film, Welcome to Sajjanpur, in the feature’s opening credits.

I agree that these are not big issues—where do they stand in front of typically cited larger issues such as fundamentalism and terrorism?

My “regular Indian Hindu” friend might ask me how do these minor, inconsequential things matter to the Indian Muslim mind? My answer is: a lot. These are minor issues but they act as psychological symbols—symbols of our existence, participation and inclusion with the nation at large.

How these symbolic things, tokenisms, if you will, have tiptoed their way out of the public consciousness remains a mystery to me. But I would rather not have had them disappear from our public lives.

“Let us consider dispassionately the consequences which will follow if we give effect to the Pakistan scheme. India will be divided into two states, one with a majority of Muslims, and the other of Hindus. In the Hindustan State there will remain three and half crores of Muslims scattered in small minorities all over the land…they will be weaker than they are today in the Hindu majority provinces. They have had their homelands in these regions for almost a thousand years and built up well-known centres of Muslim culture and civilization there. They will awaken overnight and discover that they have become alien and foreigners. Backward industrially, educationally and economically, they will be left to the mercies to what would become an unadulterated Hindu raj.” —Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in a statement issued on 15 April 1946, responding to Muslim League’s Lahore Resolution
The prescient maulana had seen it coming more than half a century ago. After India’s independence, developments such as vote bank politics, Hindu Muslim communalism and saffronization of the Indian middle class have made the maulana’s worse fears come true. Muslims today lag behind all other communities in India. Their condition is worse than that of the dalits.

But blaming the state for all the ills of the Muslim community for the last 50 years has not got the community any further. As the Vice President of India Shri Hamid Ansari said in the recently concluded World Summit of the Aligarh Muslim University Alumni: “While Shikwa (complaint) about our condition was valid, there was no need to carry it to the point of incapacity for autonomous action. We failed to take note of, emulate and adapt, the initiatives taken by other communities in creative ventures in the field of education independent of government agencies.”

It would be a cliché to repeat that Muslim communalism has been feeding Hindu communalism. It’s good that by and large Muslims have disowned their communal leadership but have not been helped by the secular leadership—they continue to remain a rudderless community, a mere pawn in the chess board of the great Indian ‘vote-bank’ politics.

But things can’t be left where they are. The status quo must change.
One thing that Muslims must do, in order not to alienate themselves from the Hindus, is to respect Hindu sentiments, respect their religious books and culture and emphasize the syncretic values of Islam and Hinduism. A siege mentality of staying aloof will not work any longer, as it has not worked in the past. Similarly, my religion is better than yours mentality will also not work. The members of two communities have to mingle together on equal terms.

Terrorism: Indian Muslims Falling In The Trap Of Denial?
Apart from the efforts that need to be put in to ameliorate the conditions of the community, Indian Muslims also need to the face the charge of terrorism squarely, as columnist Vir Sanghvi recently asked: Are Indian Muslims falling in the trap of denial?

“This terrorism must not be allowed to drive on even bigger wedge between India’s Hindus and Muslims,” he says. “Some of this is up to the Muslim community. From what I remember of the 1980s, Muslims are reacting as many Sikhs did then: arguing that the stories of terrorism are made up and that it is all a conspiracy against their community.”

“India’s Muslims must be wary of falling into the trap of denial,” he suggests. “I am prepared to concede that some of those arrested for terrorist attacks could be innocent. I am prepared also to admit that the police do concoct cases. But can every arrested person be innocent? Can every e-mail from the Indian Mujahedeen be a fake?”

There is a lot of truth in Sanghvi’s questions. No one is arguing that the black sheep in Muslim community should be treated differently from the black sheep of other communities. However, can the entire community be held hostage for the wrong doing of misguided few? Must we profile people because of their faith? Must we incarcerate people without evidence and torture them to extract spurious proof? If not checked, will this not hasten India’s sliding into a fascist state?
Where Is The Moral Leadership?

These are the questions that liberal Indians like Harsh Mandar and Arundhati Roy are asking today and these are the questions that both Hindus and Muslims need to ask of the police and the state. And our politicians should provide the moral leadership that is required of them at such times, not the usual vote bank politics that they are used to. After communal riots erupted in Delhi in the wake of a bloody partition of India, Gandhi went on a fast to stop people from cutting each others’ throat. No one expects today’s leaders to take such a self-sacrificial stand but some semblance of moral leadership has to be shown.

To their credit, a large number of Indian Hindus have been accommodative of the minorities. Indian Muslims, whether in India or abroad, must realize that Hindus are their best friends. Both share the same culture and are heirs to a rich 5000-year old civilization. Both have to work together to defeat the communal forces. Our sane minded leaders have tried to do so for the last hundred years or so but not with much success. It is time we took the matter in our own hands and gave communal hatred a silent burial.

Will that be easy? I have my doubts but let us make a beginning. Opening our circle of friendship to people of all faiths can be a good starting point. Everyone, all Indians, need to embrace a rational approach to civil life—don’t believe in unverified information, stop spreading rumors, and try to understand each other better.

At this juncture, India’s new elite and the technocratic middle class need to play a special role. “What I’m really discouraged by is the growing dominance of a technocratic middle class that is anti-political and for whom the suffering of excluded people doesn’t mean a lot,” said Martha Nussbaum. “This IIT mentality — become technically competent engineers, forget about human values — is very dangerous, particularly for a country like India.”

India’s new elite and the technocratic middle class need to pay heed. If they really want India to become the America of Asia, they can no longer afford to be silent and apolitical.

Holy Garb: Profane Agenda

By M H Ahssan

What do spiritual leaders talk when they meet? One thought it may be the matters pertaining to the ‘other world’ that is the focus of their attention, away from the profane World, which is the matter of concern for ordinary people. One thought they may be deliberating on the issues of moral values of the religion. But it seems that is not the case. Recently when many of them met in Mumbai they showed that the saffron garb is the mere exterior, this color of renunciation and piety, is no representative of their political core. On the top of that they use saffron color to hide their sectarian ideas and narrow politics in the name of religion. The only difference in their case being that their politics is couched in the language of religion. That their ideas are full ‘Hate’ for others, unlike the values Hinduism which teaches us Vasudhaiva Kutumbkam (whole World is my family). This got revealed once more.

Recently many a chiefs of Akharas and other assorted Saints came together at the First Conference of Dharma Raksha Manch (29th Jan 2009) in Mumbai. They were brought together by Vishwa Hindu Parishad, apparently for the agenda was Combating terrorism. They called for dropping the word secular from Indian constitution and replacing it with word religious. They Ram Temple, Malegaon blasts, terrorism, and amongst other things and demanded that they need Manu’s parliament and not Christ’s. They drew attention to terrorism breeding in Madrassa, and hit out at media for using the term Hindu terrorism. Finally Beginning Mid Feb. (2009) they plan to take out series of yatras (religious marches) covering large parts of the country, with the call for ending Jihad.

Who are these assorted Holy seers, coming together on the call of Vishwa Hindu Parishad? VHP itself is the creation of RSS in the mid sixties. Initiative was taken by RSS chief and his close lieutenant to get different established mutt’s to form VHP. It primarily became a religious wing of RSS, involving the Hindu achrayas etc, and attracted especially traders, affluent processionals and those who did not want to openly associate with RSS, as at that time RSS stood fully discredited in people’s eyes due to its association with Nathuram Godse, who killed Mahatma Gandhi.
VHP got involved in the identity issues strengthening the conservative politics and Ram temple became its central rallying point. Along with this it called for Dharma Sansad (religious parliament) where they stated that in the matters religious, in this case Ram Temple, the decision of saints is above the judgement of the courts. Place of Lord’s birth became a matter not of History but of faith, and who else can decide these issues than these custodians of faith.

This congregation of holy seers has taken place long after their earlier meetings around Ram Temple issue. It seems it is their next innings where the focus is also on terrorism apart from its earlier concerns. At the same time they are reiterating that Indian Constitution is not welcome; let’s go back to Manu Smriti. In a way there is nothing new in this. The RSS politics has always been against the Indian Constitution, against the values of secularism, democracy as these stand by Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Right from the time Constituent Assembly was formed, RSS opposed the same, saying that ‘we’ already have the best of Constitutions in the form of Manu Smirit so why a new Constitution. It was backed by eulogies for Lord Manu by the RSS ideologue M.S. Golwalkar, who also at the same time has heaped immense praise on the methods of Hitler. Later K.Surshan also openly called for scrapping of Indian constitution and bringing Manu Smriti instead.

While the saints are overtly for the subjugation of Muslims and Christians, at the same time their agenda is to push back the concept of equality for dalit, Adivasis and women. Interestingly RSS came up as a reaction to social changes of caste and gender during the freedom movement. Our national movement stood not only for freedom but also for the transformation of caste and gender towards equality. Barring some exceptions the concept of democracy and secularism go hand in hand. Freedom movement was the epitome of these political and social processes, leading to the emergence of secular India. Today RSS has many mouths to speak and many fora to articulate its agenda. VHP is the crude version of expressing its agenda while BJP, due to electoral compulsions, puts the same agenda in more subtle ways.

The VHP agenda is quite striking in combing the Holy language with profane goals. It will totally ignore the problems of ‘this World’; the problems related to survival and Human rights and will harp on identity issues. This brings in a politics which targets the ‘external enemies’, Muslims; Christians, and intimidates internal sectors, dalits; Adivasis and women, of society. Its call for doing away with the word secular is nothing new in that sense. Its demand to do away with secular word and secular ethos shows that their Holiness is restricted to the appearance, while they want to maintain their social hegemony through political means. Secularism is not against religion. The best of religious people like Maulana Abul Kalam and Mahatma Gandhi had been secular to the core. They knew the boundary line very well. Also they used the moral values of religion to create bonds of fraternity (community) amongst the people of different religions. There were others who created Hate against the other community, and that too in the name of religion. One can cite the parallel and opposite roles of Muslim League on one side and Hindu Mahasabha-RSS on the other.

The seers, respected because of their Holy garb are misusing their appearance at the service of sectarian politics, they are playing the role of handmaidens of the divisive politics. Secularism precisely means that secular, this-worldly, issues should be the base of politics. So the genuine religious person like Gandhi could distinguish between the moral values of religion which should be adopted in life while shunning the identity related issues from political life, “In India, for whose fashioning I have worked all my life, every man enjoys equality of status, whatever his religion is. The state is bound to be wholly secular.” It is a matter of shame and disgust the identity of a religion is being used to pursue the political goals of an organization, supplementing the goals a communal political party by appealing in the name of religion.

At the same time to further demonize the Muslims it is taking up the issue of terrorism in lop sided manner. The slogan end of Jihad is a way to hide the anti Muslim agenda. There is an attempt to put the blame on Islam and Muslims for terrorism, which is totally false. A political phenomenon is being presented as the one related to religion. So Islamic terrorism word is acceptable to them! All terrorist are Muslims formulation is acceptable to them. But how dare you use the word Hindu terrorism if Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, Swami Dayanand Pande and their ilk is involved in acts of terror? In this meet, overseen by RSS representatives, lot of anger was expressed for the Maharashtra ATS for starting investigations against Sadhvi and Company.

The timing of the meet and the planned Yatras is more then striking. As we await elections, the VHP is trying to revive Ram Temple as an issue and will also be talking of terrorism; about Afzal Guru and will be reprimanding the state for ‘torturing’ Pragya Thakur. As a matter of fact VHP and this motley crowd of saints is an adjunct to the electoral goals of BJP. It articulates emotive things which BJP will not be able to do because of election commission and the media watch.
Of all the techniques evolved by RSS, the use of these Holy men for political goals may be the worst insult of the Hindu religion. While these Holy seers infinite in number, many of them have succeeded in building up their own five star Empires, there are others who are sitting on the top of already established mutts. What unites them through VHP is the politics of status quo, the opposition to democracy. We had saints, who talked against caste system and social evils. We had Kabir, Chokha Mela, Tukaram and the lot who stood for the problems of the poor, and now we have a breed, whose agenda is to undermine the prevalent social evils of dowry, female infanticide, bride burning, atrocities on dalits and Adivasis. Their goal is to keep talking about the spirituality and religiosity which is so different from the concerns taken up by the likes of Gandhi and the whole the genre of Saints of Bhakti tradition in India. One hope the people of India can see this clever game of communal politics and differentiate the grain from the chaff.

Aged And Outdated Leaders – A Review

By M H Ahssan

In August 2007, the Union Health Minister Dr Anbumani Ramadoss had brought in All India Institute of Medical Sciences and the PostGraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (Amendment) Bill 2007 restricting the tenure of the AIIMS Director P Venugopal, to five years or attainment of 65 of age, whichever is completed first. Introducing the bill in the Lok Sabha, Dr Ramadoss had stated it would help the premier health institute improve its efficiency. Albeit the bill was struck down by the Supreme Court in May 2008, it gave birth to the debate on age factor that applies to the professionals in every job: Should the political leaders, like other professionals – either in public or private sector – be retired at a certain age? Should there be a legislation of age bar for politicians in India? Does age help improve efficiency? Should some sort of retirement criteria be introduced in Indian politics as well? Does vibrant India need equally young and vibrant leaders, not old, aging and ‘not-so-fit’ leaders?

When we think of young, vibrant India, like our democracy, we think of young, energetic and able leaders in the ministries – both at the centre as well as the states. More important is the fact that unlike in other fields of professional activities there is a lack of younger leaders in the political arena, and barring a few Gandhis, Pilots and Dutts, a fairly large number of politicians are well over 60 of and have no plans to retire in near future since no legal framework exists that could compel them to retire at a certain age. For example, the average age of the Cabinet Ministers in Dr Manmohan Singh’s Cabinet is 66.90 years. Out of the 32 ministers (Shiv Raj Patil resigned after Mumabi terro attacks), 12 are 70 year or more, while 7 ministers are 65 or more, which is what the retirement age that Dr Ramadoss wanted to prescribe for AIIMS Director. Only three ministers are in their late 50s. Except Dr Ramdoss, who, at the age of 40, is the youngest Cabinet Minister followed by A Raja who is 41, no other minister is below 50 in a total of 32 ministers, including the Prime Minister. If the President of India is 74, the Vice-President, M Hamid Ansari is 74. If M Karunanidhi is 84 and roaring, V.S Achuthanandan is 85 and ruling.

Average Age of Dr. Manmohan Singh Cabinet
1. Dr. Manmohan Singh (1932) 76
2. Pranab Mukherjee (1935) 73
3. Arjun Singh (1930) 78
4. A.K. Antony (1940) 68
5. Sharad Pawar (1940) 68
6. Lalu Prasad Yadav (1947) 61
7. Shivraj V. Patil (1935)* 73
8. Ram Vilas Paswan (1946) 62
9. S. Jaipal Reddy (1942) 66
10. Sish Ram Ola (1927) 81
11. P. Chidambaram (1945) 62
12. Mahavir Prasad (1939) 69
13. P.R. Kyndiah (1928) 80
14. T.R. Baalu (1941) 67
15. Shankarsinh Vaghela (1940) 68
16. Kamal Nath (1946) 62
17. H.R. Bhardwaj (1937) 71
18. Raghuvansh Prasad Singh (1946) 62
19. Priyaranjan Dasmunsi (1945) 63
20. Mani Shankar Aiyar (1941) 67
21. Meira Kumar (1945) 63
22. A Raja (1963) 45
23. Dr. Anbumani Ramdoss (1968) 40
24. Sushil Kumar Shinde (1941) 67
25. A.R.Antulay (1929) 79
26. Vayalar Ravi (1937) 71
27. Murli Deora (1937) 71
28. Ambika Soni (1943) 65
29. Prof. Saif-u-Din Soz (1937) 71
30. Sontosh Mohan Dev (1934) 74
31. Prem Chand Gupta (1950) 58
32. Kapil Sibal (1948) 60

Average Age 66.90

In Indian democracy, old, aged and infirm leaders are in plenty, and in every party. L K Advani is 81 and officially declared the would-be PM candidate of the BJP in the coming elections. Arjun Singh at 78, with physical infirmity so excruciating, is given a very important portfolio. Sharad Pawar is 68 and seems as if he has just started his career. Somnath Chatterjee is turning 79 coming July and still shouts in the Parliament to control his unruly colleagues, yet failed to put them in order. Lalu is 60 and kicking as if he will not stop before grabbing the PM’s office sometimes in 2014. The 64-year-old Buddhadeb Bhattacharya will surely follow his predecessor, 94-year-old Jyoti Basu, who retired at the age of 86. Not a single moment, all these old leaders have realised that out of the four time periods, they are in Vanprastha Ashram (last stage) as per the Hindu philosophy, yet they have no plan to retire. How can people expect exclusive social service from a 70-plus year-old man?

The photograph of 52-year-old Micheline Calmy-Rey (born July 8, 1945), the visiting Swiss President standing in between 75 year old Dr Manmohan Singh (born September 1932 and 73-year-old Pratibha Patil (born December 19, 1934) on the front pages of national dailies on 7 November 2007 shows the palpable difference of age: the Swiss President appeared as an energetic young daughter like figure of two of her older Indian counterparts. In comparison to our older politicians, British PM Tony Blair was just 43 when he assumed the office of Prime Minister in 1997 and Bill Clinton was just 46 when he was elected President of the US in 1992, while Barack Obama is just 47.

But can we expect Indian electorates, like those in the US, to prefer younger leaders like Obama to 72-year-old John McCain? While younger leaders are becoming general norms in the western countries, India has no such thinking.
Old age politicians are not new in this country: traditionally, politicians have been perceived to be men of advanced age, like the patriarchs (grand fathers) of individual families, who would oversee the household governance and who are respected due to their age and experience. Indian democracy provides a stark contrast between the average age profile of the politicians and that of the people: India has 80 per cent its politicians well over 70, while 70 per cent of the country’s population is below 40 years of age. Senior politicians in different parties have acquired larger-than-life images, simply because of their length of stay and not for any sacrifices made by them.

At 40, Rajiv Gandhi was the youngest Prime Minister followed by his mother Indira Gandhi, who assumed office in 1966 when she was 49. The oldest politician to become PM was Morarji Desai, who was 81 when assumed office followed by I K Gujaral and Chaudhary Charan Singh at 78 and 77 respectively. Even A B Vajpayee turned 72 when first time he was sworn in as India’s 10th PM in 1996. The average age of Indian Prime Ministers since 1947 is 65.2 years (see Table 2), which is more than the prescribed retirement age of professionals in institutions and departments.

Indian Prime Minister since 1947
J L Nehru (1947-1964) 58
Lal Bahadur Shastri (1964-1966) 60
Indira Gandhi (1966-1977) & (1980-1984) 49 & 63*
Morarji Desai (1977-1979) 81
Chaudhary Charan Singh (1979-1980) 77
Rajiv Gandhi (1984-1989) 40
V P Singh (1989-1990) 58
Chandra Shekhar (1990-1991) 63
P V Narsimha Rao (1991-1996) 70
A B Vajpayee (1996-1996) & (1998-2004) 72 & 74*
H D Deva Gowda (1996-1997) 63
I K Gujaral (1997-1998) 78
Dr Manmohan Singh (2004 till date) 72
Average 65.2

In comparison, the average age of US Presidents since 1945 is 57.27 (see Table 3), while that of UK Prime Minister 58.18 (see Table 4) since 1951 and French Presidents 59.16 (see Table 5) since 1958. Only German Chancellors having has more average age, i.e. 68.85 (see Table 6) since 1949 though within the last 38 years (from 1969 onwards), it has produced four head of states having less than 60 years of age. While in other countries the downward trend in age among the political head of states is ultimate norm, Indian does not seem to bring in young politicians. Winston Churchill and James Callaghan were the only two British Prime Ministers, who crossed 70 years of age and were still in office in comparison to their seven Indian counterparts, and no British PM crossed 80 while in office.

List of US Presidents since 1945
Harry S Truman (1945-1953) 61
Dwight D Eisenhower (1953-1961) 63
John F Kennedy (1961-1963) 44
Lyndon B Johnson (1963-1969) 55
Richard Nixon (1969-1974) 56
Gerald Ford (1974-1977) 61
Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) 53
Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) 70
George H W Bush (1989-1993) 65
Bill Clinton (1993-2001) 47
George W Bush (2001-till date) 55

PM of UK since 1951
Winston Churchill (1951-1955) 77
Sir Anthony Eden (1955-1957) 58
Harold Macmillan (1957-1963) 63
Alec Douglas Home (1963-1964) 60
Harold Wilson (1964-1970) & )1974-1976) 48 & 58
Edward Heath )1970-1974) 54
James Callaghan (1976-1979) 74
Margaret Thatcher (1979-1990) 54
John Major (1990-1997) 47
Tony Blair (1997-2007) 44
Gordon Brown (2007 till date) 56

French Presidents since 1959
Charles de Gaulle (1959-1969) 69
Georges Pompidou (1969-1974) 58
Valery Giscard d’Estaing (1974-1981) 48
Francois Mitterrand (1981-1995) 65
Jacques Chirac (1995-2007) 63
Nicolas Sarkozy (2007-till date) 52
Table 6: German Chancellors since 1949
Chancellors Tenure Age when assumed the office
Dr Konrad Adenauer (1949-1963) 75
Dr Ludwig Erhard (1963-1966) 66
Dr Kurt George Kiesinger (1966-1969) 62
Willy Brandt (1969-1974) 56
Helmut Schmidt (1974-1982) 56
Dr Helmut Kohl (1992-1998) 62
Gerhard Schroder (1998-2005) 54
Dr. Angela Merkel (2005-till date) 51

The age trend is lower in the case of France and Germany (see Table 5 & 6), with no leader of 70 years of age or more except German Chancellors Dr Konrad Adenauer, who was the lone head of the state assuming office at the age of 75, but no German Chancellor exceeded 62 years of age in the last 35 years.

As the next Lok Sabha elections are due this year, a close look at the leaders of the BJP and other parties would give us the age trend. If NDA coalition wins, the BJP will take lead in the government formation. Like the Congress, BJP has equally older leaders at the helm of affairs (see Table 7). And L K Advani, if he wins, is going to compete Morarji Desai when assuming PMO, at an age when our grand fathers turn into what Shakespeare said: “Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” Albeit Rajnath Singh (57), Sushma Swaraj (56) and Arun Jaitley (56) are younger lots, they will have to wait till their number in hierarchy comes, and by then, they will cross at least 70.

Because of rebellious voice from stalwarts like 85-year old Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, the his chances of joining Union Cabinet in 2009 seems bleak, while 71-year-old Yashwant Sinha and 70-year-old Jaswant Singh would head foreign and finance respectively. And then there is a big name: Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi, who is 74 and will replace four year older Arjun Singh in the Ministry of Human Resources Development, if BJP comes to power.

Individual Age of Current BJP Leaders
1. L K Advani (1927) 81
2. Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi (1934) 74
3. Venkaiah Naidu (1949) 59
4. BS Shekhawat (1923) 85
5. Rajnath Singh (1951) 57
6. Sushma Swaraj (1952) 56
7. Arun Jaitley (1952) 56
8. Yashwant Sinha (1937) 71
9. Jaswant Singh (1938) 70
10. Narendra Modi (1950) 58
Average Age 66.5

Out of the 10 leaders (see Table 8 ) who are in the mainstream politics, and whose average age is 69.3, only four are below 65, i.e. prescribed maximum retirement age. Two CMs — V S Achuthanandan and M Karunanidhi – are too old to be in any public service, while George Fernandez is 78 and ill; even healthier looking Mulayam Singh Yadav is 69. Only two leaders – Amar Singh and Mayawati – are young enough to carry out duties as public servants.

Individual Age of Some Other Indian Leaders
Somnath Chatterjee (1929) 77
M Karunanidhi (1924) 82
V S Achuthanandan (1923) 85
Mulayam Singh Yadav (1939) 69
Prakash Karat (1947) 61
H.D Deve Gowda (19330 75
Amar Singh (1956) 52
Mayawati (1956) 52
George Fernandez (1930) 78
Sonia Gandhi (1946) 62
Average Age 69.3

It looked nice to watch comparatively younger and energetic Barak Hussein Obama leading the US into a new era, India, in recent decades, has produced no younger leader of that stature, and those who joined as young leaders like Rahul Gandhi, Sachin Pilot, Varun Gandhi, Milind Deora – all need to undergo the strict party ‘hierarchy ’ that either prevents them from being in the first row or are expelled like Uma Bharti when try to override. Among the new generation, although the 32-year-old Milind Deora, MP in the 14th Lok Sabah from the Mumbai South constituency, shows modern outlook, progressive thinking and educated mind, he will have to wait no less than two decades to reach the upper echelons.

There are whispers and voices making rounds in certain quarters over Sachin’s retirement though he is only 36 and performing excellently. Well, if cricket is not like politics where long innings can be played even in old age, then there must be some frontrunner politicians who must have accomplished achievement far greater than that of the master blaster. But we cannot offer a single such example from politician fraternity. While there is hardly any institution that has not undergone reformation in the last 60 years in order to enhance efficiency, age limit for Indian politicians has never come up for serious discussion. Given the age factor and related health issues, there is nothing wrong in what Dr Ramadoss tried to put in place the age limit for AIIMS Director, but he should take similar initiative for the political fraternity as well, so that we will have young, talented and energetic leaders. But will he come up with a similar bill that could restrict the age for politicians/ministers?

An initiative could be taken in this regard by filing a petition before the Supreme Court of India. In order to set the age limit for politicians, the apex court could go for interpretation of the relevant Constitutional provisions within the framework of equality before law guaranteed under Article 14. Besides, the Election Commission could also initiate reform measures whereby it might go for certain age restriction on leaders to fulfill the larger public demand to have younger leaders at the helm of affairs. Since all mature democracies, by convention, have assiduously promoted and preferring younger leaders in lieu of older ones, Indian democracy lags far behind. The short-sightedness lies with our Constitution makers, who were guided by the Westminster model that did not prescribe age limit for politicians. But the time has changed.

Note: all calculations are done between January 28-30, 2009

Aged And Outdated Leaders – A Review

By M H Ahssan

In August 2007, the Union Health Minister Dr Anbumani Ramadoss had brought in All India Institute of Medical Sciences and the PostGraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (Amendment) Bill 2007 restricting the tenure of the AIIMS Director P Venugopal, to five years or attainment of 65 of age, whichever is completed first. Introducing the bill in the Lok Sabha, Dr Ramadoss had stated it would help the premier health institute improve its efficiency. Albeit the bill was struck down by the Supreme Court in May 2008, it gave birth to the debate on age factor that applies to the professionals in every job: Should the political leaders, like other professionals – either in public or private sector – be retired at a certain age? Should there be a legislation of age bar for politicians in India? Does age help improve efficiency? Should some sort of retirement criteria be introduced in Indian politics as well? Does vibrant India need equally young and vibrant leaders, not old, aging and ‘not-so-fit’ leaders?

When we think of young, vibrant India, like our democracy, we think of young, energetic and able leaders in the ministries – both at the centre as well as the states. More important is the fact that unlike in other fields of professional activities there is a lack of younger leaders in the political arena, and barring a few Gandhis, Pilots and Dutts, a fairly large number of politicians are well over 60 of and have no plans to retire in near future since no legal framework exists that could compel them to retire at a certain age. For example, the average age of the Cabinet Ministers in Dr Manmohan Singh’s Cabinet is 66.90 years. Out of the 32 ministers (Shiv Raj Patil resigned after Mumabi terro attacks), 12 are 70 year or more, while 7 ministers are 65 or more, which is what the retirement age that Dr Ramadoss wanted to prescribe for AIIMS Director. Only three ministers are in their late 50s. Except Dr Ramdoss, who, at the age of 40, is the youngest Cabinet Minister followed by A Raja who is 41, no other minister is below 50 in a total of 32 ministers, including the Prime Minister. If the President of India is 74, the Vice-President, M Hamid Ansari is 74. If M Karunanidhi is 84 and roaring, V.S Achuthanandan is 85 and ruling.

Average Age of Dr. Manmohan Singh Cabinet
1. Dr. Manmohan Singh (1932) 76
2. Pranab Mukherjee (1935) 73
3. Arjun Singh (1930) 78
4. A.K. Antony (1940) 68
5. Sharad Pawar (1940) 68
6. Lalu Prasad Yadav (1947) 61
7. Shivraj V. Patil (1935)* 73
8. Ram Vilas Paswan (1946) 62
9. S. Jaipal Reddy (1942) 66
10. Sish Ram Ola (1927) 81
11. P. Chidambaram (1945) 62
12. Mahavir Prasad (1939) 69
13. P.R. Kyndiah (1928) 80
14. T.R. Baalu (1941) 67
15. Shankarsinh Vaghela (1940) 68
16. Kamal Nath (1946) 62
17. H.R. Bhardwaj (1937) 71
18. Raghuvansh Prasad Singh (1946) 62
19. Priyaranjan Dasmunsi (1945) 63
20. Mani Shankar Aiyar (1941) 67
21. Meira Kumar (1945) 63
22. A Raja (1963) 45
23. Dr. Anbumani Ramdoss (1968) 40
24. Sushil Kumar Shinde (1941) 67
25. A.R.Antulay (1929) 79
26. Vayalar Ravi (1937) 71
27. Murli Deora (1937) 71
28. Ambika Soni (1943) 65
29. Prof. Saif-u-Din Soz (1937) 71
30. Sontosh Mohan Dev (1934) 74
31. Prem Chand Gupta (1950) 58
32. Kapil Sibal (1948) 60

Average Age 66.90

In Indian democracy, old, aged and infirm leaders are in plenty, and in every party. L K Advani is 81 and officially declared the would-be PM candidate of the BJP in the coming elections. Arjun Singh at 78, with physical infirmity so excruciating, is given a very important portfolio. Sharad Pawar is 68 and seems as if he has just started his career. Somnath Chatterjee is turning 79 coming July and still shouts in the Parliament to control his unruly colleagues, yet failed to put them in order. Lalu is 60 and kicking as if he will not stop before grabbing the PM’s office sometimes in 2014. The 64-year-old Buddhadeb Bhattacharya will surely follow his predecessor, 94-year-old Jyoti Basu, who retired at the age of 86. Not a single moment, all these old leaders have realised that out of the four time periods, they are in Vanprastha Ashram (last stage) as per the Hindu philosophy, yet they have no plan to retire. How can people expect exclusive social service from a 70-plus year-old man?

The photograph of 52-year-old Micheline Calmy-Rey (born July 8, 1945), the visiting Swiss President standing in between 75 year old Dr Manmohan Singh (born September 1932 and 73-year-old Pratibha Patil (born December 19, 1934) on the front pages of national dailies on 7 November 2007 shows the palpable difference of age: the Swiss President appeared as an energetic young daughter like figure of two of her older Indian counterparts. In comparison to our older politicians, British PM Tony Blair was just 43 when he assumed the office of Prime Minister in 1997 and Bill Clinton was just 46 when he was elected President of the US in 1992, while Barack Obama is just 47.

But can we expect Indian electorates, like those in the US, to prefer younger leaders like Obama to 72-year-old John McCain? While younger leaders are becoming general norms in the western countries, India has no such thinking.
Old age politicians are not new in this country: traditionally, politicians have been perceived to be men of advanced age, like the patriarchs (grand fathers) of individual families, who would oversee the household governance and who are respected due to their age and experience. Indian democracy provides a stark contrast between the average age profile of the politicians and that of the people: India has 80 per cent its politicians well over 70, while 70 per cent of the country’s population is below 40 years of age. Senior politicians in different parties have acquired larger-than-life images, simply because of their length of stay and not for any sacrifices made by them.

At 40, Rajiv Gandhi was the youngest Prime Minister followed by his mother Indira Gandhi, who assumed office in 1966 when she was 49. The oldest politician to become PM was Morarji Desai, who was 81 when assumed office followed by I K Gujaral and Chaudhary Charan Singh at 78 and 77 respectively. Even A B Vajpayee turned 72 when first time he was sworn in as India’s 10th PM in 1996. The average age of Indian Prime Ministers since 1947 is 65.2 years (see Table 2), which is more than the prescribed retirement age of professionals in institutions and departments.

Indian Prime Minister since 1947
J L Nehru (1947-1964) 58
Lal Bahadur Shastri (1964-1966) 60
Indira Gandhi (1966-1977) & (1980-1984) 49 & 63*
Morarji Desai (1977-1979) 81
Chaudhary Charan Singh (1979-1980) 77
Rajiv Gandhi (1984-1989) 40
V P Singh (1989-1990) 58
Chandra Shekhar (1990-1991) 63
P V Narsimha Rao (1991-1996) 70
A B Vajpayee (1996-1996) & (1998-2004) 72 & 74*
H D Deva Gowda (1996-1997) 63
I K Gujaral (1997-1998) 78
Dr Manmohan Singh (2004 till date) 72
Average 65.2

In comparison, the average age of US Presidents since 1945 is 57.27 (see Table 3), while that of UK Prime Minister 58.18 (see Table 4) since 1951 and French Presidents 59.16 (see Table 5) since 1958. Only German Chancellors having has more average age, i.e. 68.85 (see Table 6) since 1949 though within the last 38 years (from 1969 onwards), it has produced four head of states having less than 60 years of age. While in other countries the downward trend in age among the political head of states is ultimate norm, Indian does not seem to bring in young politicians. Winston Churchill and James Callaghan were the only two British Prime Ministers, who crossed 70 years of age and were still in office in comparison to their seven Indian counterparts, and no British PM crossed 80 while in office.

List of US Presidents since 1945
Harry S Truman (1945-1953) 61
Dwight D Eisenhower (1953-1961) 63
John F Kennedy (1961-1963) 44
Lyndon B Johnson (1963-1969) 55
Richard Nixon (1969-1974) 56
Gerald Ford (1974-1977) 61
Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) 53
Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) 70
George H W Bush (1989-1993) 65
Bill Clinton (1993-2001) 47
George W Bush (2001-till date) 55

PM of UK since 1951
Winston Churchill (1951-1955) 77
Sir Anthony Eden (1955-1957) 58
Harold Macmillan (1957-1963) 63
Alec Douglas Home (1963-1964) 60
Harold Wilson (1964-1970) & )1974-1976) 48 & 58
Edward Heath )1970-1974) 54
James Callaghan (1976-1979) 74
Margaret Thatcher (1979-1990) 54
John Major (1990-1997) 47
Tony Blair (1997-2007) 44
Gordon Brown (2007 till date) 56

French Presidents since 1959
Charles de Gaulle (1959-1969) 69
Georges Pompidou (1969-1974) 58
Valery Giscard d’Estaing (1974-1981) 48
Francois Mitterrand (1981-1995) 65
Jacques Chirac (1995-2007) 63
Nicolas Sarkozy (2007-till date) 52
Table 6: German Chancellors since 1949
Chancellors Tenure Age when assumed the office
Dr Konrad Adenauer (1949-1963) 75
Dr Ludwig Erhard (1963-1966) 66
Dr Kurt George Kiesinger (1966-1969) 62
Willy Brandt (1969-1974) 56
Helmut Schmidt (1974-1982) 56
Dr Helmut Kohl (1992-1998) 62
Gerhard Schroder (1998-2005) 54
Dr. Angela Merkel (2005-till date) 51

The age trend is lower in the case of France and Germany (see Table 5 & 6), with no leader of 70 years of age or more except German Chancellors Dr Konrad Adenauer, who was the lone head of the state assuming office at the age of 75, but no German Chancellor exceeded 62 years of age in the last 35 years.

As the next Lok Sabha elections are due this year, a close look at the leaders of the BJP and other parties would give us the age trend. If NDA coalition wins, the BJP will take lead in the government formation. Like the Congress, BJP has equally older leaders at the helm of affairs (see Table 7). And L K Advani, if he wins, is going to compete Morarji Desai when assuming PMO, at an age when our grand fathers turn into what Shakespeare said: “Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” Albeit Rajnath Singh (57), Sushma Swaraj (56) and Arun Jaitley (56) are younger lots, they will have to wait till their number in hierarchy comes, and by then, they will cross at least 70.

Because of rebellious voice from stalwarts like 85-year old Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, the his chances of joining Union Cabinet in 2009 seems bleak, while 71-year-old Yashwant Sinha and 70-year-old Jaswant Singh would head foreign and finance respectively. And then there is a big name: Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi, who is 74 and will replace four year older Arjun Singh in the Ministry of Human Resources Development, if BJP comes to power.

Individual Age of Current BJP Leaders
1. L K Advani (1927) 81
2. Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi (1934) 74
3. Venkaiah Naidu (1949) 59
4. BS Shekhawat (1923) 85
5. Rajnath Singh (1951) 57
6. Sushma Swaraj (1952) 56
7. Arun Jaitley (1952) 56
8. Yashwant Sinha (1937) 71
9. Jaswant Singh (1938) 70
10. Narendra Modi (1950) 58
Average Age 66.5

Out of the 10 leaders (see Table 8 ) who are in the mainstream politics, and whose average age is 69.3, only four are below 65, i.e. prescribed maximum retirement age. Two CMs — V S Achuthanandan and M Karunanidhi – are too old to be in any public service, while George Fernandez is 78 and ill; even healthier looking Mulayam Singh Yadav is 69. Only two leaders – Amar Singh and Mayawati – are young enough to carry out duties as public servants.

Individual Age of Some Other Indian Leaders
Somnath Chatterjee (1929) 77
M Karunanidhi (1924) 82
V S Achuthanandan (1923) 85
Mulayam Singh Yadav (1939) 69
Prakash Karat (1947) 61
H.D Deve Gowda (19330 75
Amar Singh (1956) 52
Mayawati (1956) 52
George Fernandez (1930) 78
Sonia Gandhi (1946) 62
Average Age 69.3

It looked nice to watch comparatively younger and energetic Barak Hussein Obama leading the US into a new era, India, in recent decades, has produced no younger leader of that stature, and those who joined as young leaders like Rahul Gandhi, Sachin Pilot, Varun Gandhi, Milind Deora – all need to undergo the strict party ‘hierarchy ’ that either prevents them from being in the first row or are expelled like Uma Bharti when try to override. Among the new generation, although the 32-year-old Milind Deora, MP in the 14th Lok Sabah from the Mumbai South constituency, shows modern outlook, progressive thinking and educated mind, he will have to wait no less than two decades to reach the upper echelons.

There are whispers and voices making rounds in certain quarters over Sachin’s retirement though he is only 36 and performing excellently. Well, if cricket is not like politics where long innings can be played even in old age, then there must be some frontrunner politicians who must have accomplished achievement far greater than that of the master blaster. But we cannot offer a single such example from politician fraternity. While there is hardly any institution that has not undergone reformation in the last 60 years in order to enhance efficiency, age limit for Indian politicians has never come up for serious discussion. Given the age factor and related health issues, there is nothing wrong in what Dr Ramadoss tried to put in place the age limit for AIIMS Director, but he should take similar initiative for the political fraternity as well, so that we will have young, talented and energetic leaders. But will he come up with a similar bill that could restrict the age for politicians/ministers?

An initiative could be taken in this regard by filing a petition before the Supreme Court of India. In order to set the age limit for politicians, the apex court could go for interpretation of the relevant Constitutional provisions within the framework of equality before law guaranteed under Article 14. Besides, the Election Commission could also initiate reform measures whereby it might go for certain age restriction on leaders to fulfill the larger public demand to have younger leaders at the helm of affairs. Since all mature democracies, by convention, have assiduously promoted and preferring younger leaders in lieu of older ones, Indian democracy lags far behind. The short-sightedness lies with our Constitution makers, who were guided by the Westminster model that did not prescribe age limit for politicians. But the time has changed.

Note: all calculations are done between January 28-30, 2009

Aged And Outdated Leaders – A Review

By M H Ahssan

In August 2007, the Union Health Minister Dr Anbumani Ramadoss had brought in All India Institute of Medical Sciences and the PostGraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (Amendment) Bill 2007 restricting the tenure of the AIIMS Director P Venugopal, to five years or attainment of 65 of age, whichever is completed first. Introducing the bill in the Lok Sabha, Dr Ramadoss had stated it would help the premier health institute improve its efficiency. Albeit the bill was struck down by the Supreme Court in May 2008, it gave birth to the debate on age factor that applies to the professionals in every job: Should the political leaders, like other professionals – either in public or private sector – be retired at a certain age? Should there be a legislation of age bar for politicians in India? Does age help improve efficiency? Should some sort of retirement criteria be introduced in Indian politics as well? Does vibrant India need equally young and vibrant leaders, not old, aging and ‘not-so-fit’ leaders?

When we think of young, vibrant India, like our democracy, we think of young, energetic and able leaders in the ministries – both at the centre as well as the states. More important is the fact that unlike in other fields of professional activities there is a lack of younger leaders in the political arena, and barring a few Gandhis, Pilots and Dutts, a fairly large number of politicians are well over 60 of and have no plans to retire in near future since no legal framework exists that could compel them to retire at a certain age. For example, the average age of the Cabinet Ministers in Dr Manmohan Singh’s Cabinet is 66.90 years (see Table 1). Out of the 32 ministers (Shiv Raj Patil resigned after Mumabi terro attacks), 12 are 70 year or more, while 7 ministers are 65 or more, which is what the retirement age that Dr Ramadoss wanted to prescribe for AIIMS Director. Only three ministers are in their late 50s. Except Dr Ramdoss, who, at the age of 40, is the youngest Cabinet Minister followed by A Raja who is 41, no other minister is below 50 in a total of 32 ministers, including the Prime Minister. If the President of India is 74, the Vice-President, M Hamid Ansari is 74. If M Karunanidhi is 84 and roaring, V.S Achuthanandan is 85 and ruling.

Average Age of Dr. Manmohan Singh Cabinet
1. Dr. Manmohan Singh (1932) 76
2. Pranab Mukherjee (1935) 73
3. Arjun Singh (1930) 78
4. A.K. Antony (1940) 68
5. Sharad Pawar (1940) 68
6. Lalu Prasad Yadav (1947) 61
7. Shivraj V. Patil (1935)* 73
8. Ram Vilas Paswan (1946) 62
9. S. Jaipal Reddy (1942) 66
10. Sish Ram Ola (1927) 81
11. P. Chidambaram (1945) 62
12. Mahavir Prasad (1939) 69
13. P.R. Kyndiah (1928) 80
14. T.R. Baalu (1941) 67
15. Shankarsinh Vaghela (1940) 68
16. Kamal Nath (1946) 62
17. H.R. Bhardwaj (1937) 71
18. Raghuvansh Prasad Singh (1946) 62
19. Priyaranjan Dasmunsi (1945) 63
20. Mani Shankar Aiyar (1941) 67
21. Meira Kumar (1945) 63
22. A Raja (1963) 45
23. Dr. Anbumani Ramdoss (1968) 40
24. Sushil Kumar Shinde (1941) 67
25. A.R.Antulay (1929) 79
26. Vayalar Ravi (1937) 71
27. Murli Deora (1937) 71
28. Ambika Soni (1943) 65
29. Prof. Saif-u-Din Soz (1937) 71
30. Sontosh Mohan Dev (1934) 74
31. Prem Chand Gupta (1950) 58
32. Kapil Sibal (1948) 60

Average Age 66.90

In Indian democracy, old, aged and infirm leaders are in plenty, and in every party. L K Advani is 81 and officially declared the would-be PM candidate of the BJP in the coming elections. Arjun Singh at 78, with physical infirmity so excruciating, is given a very important portfolio. Sharad Pawar is 68 and seems as if he has just started his career. Somnath Chatterjee is turning 79 coming July and still shouts in the Parliament to control his unruly colleagues, yet failed to put them in order. Lalu is 60 and kicking as if he will not stop before grabbing the PM’s office sometimes in 2014. The 64-year-old Buddhadeb Bhattacharya will surely follow his predecessor, 94-year-old Jyoti Basu, who retired at the age of 86. Not a single moment, all these old leaders have realised that out of the four time periods, they are in Vanprastha Ashram (last stage) as per the Hindu philosophy, yet they have no plan to retire. How can people expect exclusive social service from a 70-plus year-old man?

The photograph of 52-year-old Micheline Calmy-Rey (born July 8, 1945), the visiting Swiss President standing in between 75 year old Dr Manmohan Singh (born September 1932 and 73-year-old Pratibha Patil (born December 19, 1934) on the front pages of national dailies on 7 November 2007 shows the palpable difference of age: the Swiss President appeared as an energetic young daughter like figure of two of her older Indian counterparts. In comparison to our older politicians, British PM Tony Blair was just 43 when he assumed the office of Prime Minister in 1997 and Bill Clinton was just 46 when he was elected President of the US in 1992, while Barack Obama is just 47.

But can we expect Indian electorates, like those in the US, to prefer younger leaders like Obama to 72-year-old John McCain? While younger leaders are becoming general norms in the western countries, India has no such thinking.
Old age politicians are not new in this country: traditionally, politicians have been perceived to be men of advanced age, like the patriarchs (grand fathers) of individual families, who would oversee the household governance and who are respected due to their age and experience. Indian democracy provides a stark contrast between the average age profile of the politicians and that of the people: India has 80 per cent its politicians well over 70, while 70 per cent of the country’s population is below 40 years of age. Senior politicians in different parties have acquired larger-than-life images, simply because of their length of stay and not for any sacrifices made by them.

At 40, Rajiv Gandhi was the youngest Prime Minister followed by his mother Indira Gandhi, who assumed office in 1966 when she was 49. The oldest politician to become PM was Morarji Desai, who was 81 when assumed office followed by I K Gujaral and Chaudhary Charan Singh at 78 and 77 respectively. Even A B Vajpayee turned 72 when first time he was sworn in as India’s 10th PM in 1996. The average age of Indian Prime Ministers since 1947 is 65.2 years (see Table 2), which is more than the prescribed retirement age of professionals in institutions and departments.

Indian Prime Minister since 1947
J L Nehru (1947-1964) 58
Lal Bahadur Shastri (1964-1966) 60
Indira Gandhi (1966-1977) & (1980-1984) 49 & 63*
Morarji Desai (1977-1979) 81
Chaudhary Charan Singh (1979-1980) 77
Rajiv Gandhi (1984-1989) 40
V P Singh (1989-1990) 58
Chandra Shekhar (1990-1991) 63
P V Narsimha Rao (1991-1996) 70
A B Vajpayee (1996-1996) & (1998-2004) 72 & 74*
H D Deva Gowda (1996-1997) 63
I K Gujaral (1997-1998) 78
Dr Manmohan Singh (2004 till date) 72
Average 65.2

In comparison, the average age of US Presidents since 1945 is 57.27 (see Table 3), while that of UK Prime Minister 58.18 (see Table 4) since 1951 and French Presidents 59.16 (see Table 5) since 1958. Only German Chancellors having has more average age, i.e. 68.85 (see Table 6) since 1949 though within the last 38 years (from 1969 onwards), it has produced four head of states having less than 60 years of age. While in other countries the downward trend in age among the political head of states is ultimate norm, Indian does not seem to bring in young politicians. Winston Churchill and James Callaghan were the only two British Prime Ministers, who crossed 70 years of age and were still in office in comparison to their seven Indian counterparts, and no British PM crossed 80 while in office.

List of US Presidents since 1945
Harry S Truman (1945-1953) 61
Dwight D Eisenhower (1953-1961) 63
John F Kennedy (1961-1963) 44
Lyndon B Johnson (1963-1969) 55
Richard Nixon (1969-1974) 56
Gerald Ford (1974-1977) 61
Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) 53
Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) 70
George H W Bush (1989-1993) 65
Bill Clinton (1993-2001) 47
George W Bush (2001-till date) 55

PM of UK since 1951
Winston Churchill (1951-1955) 77
Sir Anthony Eden (1955-1957) 58
Harold Macmillan (1957-1963) 63
Alec Douglas Home (1963-1964) 60
Harold Wilson (1964-1970) & )1974-1976) 48 & 58
Edward Heath )1970-1974) 54
James Callaghan (1976-1979) 74
Margaret Thatcher (1979-1990) 54
John Major (1990-1997) 47
Tony Blair (1997-2007) 44
Gordon Brown (2007 till date) 56

French Presidents since 1959
Charles de Gaulle (1959-1969) 69
Georges Pompidou (1969-1974) 58
Valery Giscard d’Estaing (1974-1981) 48
Francois Mitterrand (1981-1995) 65
Jacques Chirac (1995-2007) 63
Nicolas Sarkozy (2007-till date) 52
Table 6: German Chancellors since 1949
Chancellors Tenure Age when assumed the office
Dr Konrad Adenauer (1949-1963) 75
Dr Ludwig Erhard (1963-1966) 66
Dr Kurt George Kiesinger (1966-1969) 62
Willy Brandt (1969-1974) 56
Helmut Schmidt (1974-1982) 56
Dr Helmut Kohl (1992-1998) 62
Gerhard Schroder (1998-2005) 54
Dr. Angela Merkel (2005-till date) 51

The age trend is lower in the case of France and Germany (see Table 5 & 6), with no leader of 70 years of age or more except German Chancellors Dr Konrad Adenauer, who was the lone head of the state assuming office at the age of 75, but no German Chancellor exceeded 62 years of age in the last 35 years.

As the next Lok Sabha elections are due this year, a close look at the leaders of the BJP and other parties would give us the age trend. If NDA coalition wins, the BJP will take lead in the government formation. Like the Congress, BJP has equally older leaders at the helm of affairs (see Table 7). And L K Advani, if he wins, is going to compete Morarji Desai when assuming PMO, at an age when our grand fathers turn into what Shakespeare said: “Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” Albeit Rajnath Singh (57), Sushma Swaraj (56) and Arun Jaitley (56) are younger lots, they will have to wait till their number in hierarchy comes, and by then, they will cross at least 70.

Because of rebellious voice from stalwarts like 85-year old Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, the his chances of joining Union Cabinet in 2009 seems bleak, while 71-year-old Yashwant Sinha and 70-year-old Jaswant Singh would head foreign and finance respectively. And then there is a big name: Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi, who is 74 and will replace four year older Arjun Singh in the Ministry of Human Resources Development, if BJP comes to power.

Individual Age of Current BJP Leaders
1. L K Advani (1927) 81
2. Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi (1934) 74
3. Venkaiah Naidu (1949) 59
4. BS Shekhawat (1923) 85
5. Rajnath Singh (1951) 57
6. Sushma Swaraj (1952) 56
7. Arun Jaitley (1952) 56
8. Yashwant Sinha (1937) 71
9. Jaswant Singh (1938) 70
10. Narendra Modi (1950) 58
Average Age 66.5

Out of the 10 leaders (see Table 8 ) who are in the mainstream politics, and whose average age is 69.3, only four are below 65, i.e. prescribed maximum retirement age. Two CMs — V S Achuthanandan and M Karunanidhi – are too old to be in any public service, while George Fernandez is 78 and ill; even healthier looking Mulayam Singh Yadav is 69. Only two leaders – Amar Singh and Mayawati – are young enough to carry out duties as public servants.

Individual Age of Some Other Indian Leaders
Somnath Chatterjee (1929) 77
M Karunanidhi (1924) 82
V S Achuthanandan (1923) 85
Mulayam Singh Yadav (1939) 69
Prakash Karat (1947) 61
H.D Deve Gowda (19330 75
Amar Singh (1956) 52
Mayawati (1956) 52
George Fernandez (1930) 78
Sonia Gandhi (1946) 62
Average Age 69.3

It looked nice to watch comparatively younger and energetic Barak Hussein Obama leading the US into a new era, India, in recent decades, has produced no younger leader of that stature, and those who joined as young leaders like Rahul Gandhi, Sachin Pilot, Varun Gandhi, Milind Deora – all need to undergo the strict party ‘hierarchy ’ that either prevents them from being in the first row or are expelled like Uma Bharti when try to override. Among the new generation, although the 32-year-old Milind Deora, MP in the 14th Lok Sabah from the Mumbai South constituency, shows modern outlook, progressive thinking and educated mind, he will have to wait no less than two decades to reach the upper echelons.

There are whispers and voices making rounds in certain quarters over Sachin’s retirement though he is only 36 and performing excellently. Well, if cricket is not like politics where long innings can be played even in old age, then there must be some frontrunner politicians who must have accomplished achievement far greater than that of the master blaster. But we cannot offer a single such example from politician fraternity. While there is hardly any institution that has not undergone reformation in the last 60 years in order to enhance efficiency, age limit for Indian politicians has never come up for serious discussion. Given the age factor and related health issues, there is nothing wrong in what Dr Ramadoss tried to put in place the age limit for AIIMS Director, but he should take similar initiative for the political fraternity as well, so that we will have young, talented and energetic leaders. But will he come up with a similar bill that could restrict the age for politicians/ministers?

An initiative could be taken in this regard by filing a petition before the Supreme Court of India. In order to set the age limit for politicians, the apex court could go for interpretation of the relevant Constitutional provisions within the framework of equality before law guaranteed under Article 14. Besides, the Election Commission could also initiate reform measures whereby it might go for certain age restriction on leaders to fulfill the larger public demand to have younger leaders at the helm of affairs. Since all mature democracies, by convention, have assiduously promoted and preferring younger leaders in lieu of older ones, Indian democracy lags far behind. The short-sightedness lies with our Constitution makers, who were guided by the Westminster model that did not prescribe age limit for politicians. But the time has changed.

Note: all calculations are done between January 28-30, 2009

Modernity, Its Discontent And Religion

By M H Ahssan

Modernity was greatly celebrated during colonial days of 19th century throughout the world, especially in African and Asian countries colonized by European countries. It was hallmark of superiority of west over east. West was considered most modern, rational in its approach and technologically far more superior whereas Asian and African countries superstitious, irrational and ignorant and backward.

Most of the intellectuals, mainly product of western colonial education felt ashamed of their ignorance and backwardness and lack of rationality and science and tried to reform their societies by spreading modern approach among their people. However, there was vertical division in these societies between those who refused to modernize and preferred their orthodoxy and those who considered modernization a must and celebrated modernity.

Almost all religious communities in colonized countries faced this vertical divide but more particularly the Muslims. We are more concerned here with Muslim communities in the colonized countries. Muslims were comparatively slow and more resistant to modernization as the Muslim societies were deeply embedded in feudal values and religious orthodoxy.

Muslim intellectuals who came under the influence of western education and modernism, welcomed modernity but had to adopt cautious approach between religious orthodoxy and western modernism. They had to rely more on their religious text to keep pace with their societies. But those societies which took to industrialization and modern business and commerce found modernity more easily acceptable.
Muslim societies, deeply embedded in feudalism and feudal values, as pointed out above, could not go for modern industrialization, business and commerce and hence modernity did not appeal to them or beneficial to them. Muslims were often criticized for refusing to change and modernize and even their religion Islam was blamed for it. Muslims still face this criticism though we have gone into post-modern era.

Modernity, however, did not prove to be unmixed blessing for western countries, let alone for eastern countries of Asia and Africa thanks to the powerful vested interests who used modernity for their own benefit. Modernity generally came with the capitalist system. In fact modernity was product of industrial system based on capitalism. It was Marx who developed great insights into functioning of modern capitalist system and wrote powerful critique of capitalism.

Capitalism was based on profiteering on one hand, and on cutthroat competition, on the other. The Western countries colonized Asian and African countries in search of raw materials and markets for their product. Modern machines produced on mass scale and for that their domestic markets were not enough and also they did not have all the raw materials they needed. Thus colonial countries became rich source of raw material on one hand, and provided huge markets for their industrial products.

It was this competition for markets which led to two World Wars resulting in killings of millions of people. These wars gave great impetus to armament industry so much so that in the post 2nd World War era no American government could defy what came to be known as military-industrial complex. All American policies were fundamentally influenced by this military-industrial complex. This unholy alliance depended mainly on sale of armaments on huge scale and for this wars had to be promoted in Asian and African countries.

This is not to say that modernization itself was responsible for all this but what is true to entire modernization project was hijacked by powerful interests whose only concern was accumulating profits. That is why I maintain that modernity was not an unmixed blessing for humanity. It has its darker side too. Here we are discussing modernity, not as values, but as an instrument to promote certain interests.
Modernity essentially represents important values like rationality, objectivity, respect for human reason and human values and conformity with fact. It was this respect for reason, and not authority, that led to progress of science and technology through which west acquired superiority over Asian and African countries. The modern bourgeoisie in the West challenged the authority of the Church and succeeded in establishing superiority of reason, the hallmark of modernity.

Reason is the highest value in modernity. It relies solely on reason and has no respect for any tradition. The Afro-Asian societies were based, on the other hand, mainly on respect for tradition whether they conformed to tradition or not. However, sole reliance on reason without wedding it to values and without making reason and values two sides of a coin, reason can and does become problematic.

Reason is a two edged sword without values and this is what happened with modernity when powerful vested interests, mainly capitalists hijacked modernity for their own purposes. Modern weapons and modern technology developed by the western countries were used for enslaving Afro-Asian countries and these countries were reduced to mere sources of raw materials and markets.

Reason could be used for promoting science, technology and deeper understanding of universe but also for developing disastrous weapons which cause great destruction. Humanity saw this destruction in the two World Wars. But it was reason again which developed pure science and we could understand infinite vastness of our universe and how it evolved and our extremely limited understanding of our universe changed. Qur’an says it is the ‘Ulama i.e. those who know, those who are scientists, who deeply reflect on the creation of Allah who can really worship Him.

But problem is rationalists disregard importance of faith and values and begin to worship reason. They do not appreciate limits of reason. This attitude developed among rationalists as reason was totally disregarded and devalued in traditional societies and those who accepted reason and challenged superstitions or traditional authority were severely persecuted.

Also, unscrupulous elements had exploited faith for their own benefits, rationalists came to reject faith as blind and irrational. Thus as modernity solely relied on reason and ridiculed faith, traditionalists totally elide on faith in the traditional authority and rejected reason. Thus both rationalists and faithful became exclusive categories. There was no meeting point. Thus faithful became blind and derided reason and rationalists dubbed faith as blind.

This mutual exclusivity caused much greater problems. Sole reliance on reason can give birth to discontents as sole reliance on faith. We find interesting debate in Islamic history between Imam Ghazzali and Ibn Rushd (known as Averros to the western world). Ghazzali was also a rationalist at one time. He even became atheist at one stage of his development. However, he soon discovered reason does not lead to inner peace and meaning and significance of life. He turned then to faith (though as is evident from his writings retained elements of reason too) and attacked philosophers like Ibn Rushed. He wrote a book Tahafut al-Falasifa (Bewilderment of Philosophers).
Ibn Rushd replied to Ghazzali’s Tahafut al-Falasifa by writing Tahafat Tahafut al-Falasifa i.e. Bewilderment of Bewilderment of philosophers. Thus this lack of mutual understanding lead to exclusivistic attitudes. Ghazzali was in search of inner peace and reason creates more doubts and raises more questions and leads to discontentment. Faith which depends on authority, gives inner contentment.

Modernity has thus led to discontentment in two ways: one, since it has been hijacked by capitalists it leads to more inner discontentment as it is hell-bent upon selling its products and creates illusion of ‘material happiness’ but fails to create one as more consumption leads to still more consumption; two, rationality lacks faith and for inner peace one needs faith which provides ‘final’ answers and hence inner contentment.

Thus neither rationality (i.e. modernity) nor faith alone can be without problems. For centuries faith in authority created total stagnation and superstition. No change or progress became possible. Human beings entertained so many superstitions about creation and about our universe. Diseases thrived and mortality became high.
Similarly reason too failed to satisfy many questions though it too became absolute and wanted to displace faith altogether. Thus many questions about meaning and significance of our universe could not be answered by reason alone. Reason, in a way, gave rise to its own superstitions. Reason claimed all the space which so far faith had occupied. Blind faith also led to exploitation of ignorant human beings and now modernity too, in the form of emphasis on material happiness which also led to discontentment.

Thus either way dilemma remains and there is no solution in sight. But discontentment of modernity has far acceded that of faith. As religion has been hijacked by priesthood (reducing it to mere rituals devoid of values) and other vested interests like politicians with which priesthood often (though not always) collaborated, in case of modernity too it has been hijacked by powerful vested interests and it has become almost a part of capitalist system.

Capitalism is highly exploitative and reason has been made a powerful instrument for exploitation to promote profiteering. Today modernity cannot stand on its own and has become almost an adjunct of capitalist system. Capitalism in our own times is promoting limitless consumerism. It has used reason to promote consumerism in various ways which leads to more and more violence.

Colonial violence was also part of capitalist expansion and led to wars and bloodshed. The colonized countries had to struggle hard, in most cases violently (India was an exception to a great extent) to free themselves from colonial bondage. However, in several newly freed countries western capitalist powers managed to install puppet governments and thus people could not enjoy fruits of freedom.

Thus on one hand ritualized religion and capitalist-based modernity created more discontent in the modern world. Democracy, though very necessary for ensuring freedom to common people, has also been hijacked by vested interests. In most of the countries in Asia and Africa we find today one ethnic group or one religious group at the throat of the other. Ethnic, caste and communal violence is rampant in most of the democratic countries in Asia and Africa today.

All modern means are being used to exacerbate these differences including means of modern mass communications. Mass communication with its most modern techniques is a powerful instrument to promote prejudices and misinformation. Twenty-first century has already witnessed unprecedented violence. Attack on New York towers and resultant wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and consequent terrorist attacks has already killed millions of people during the first decade itself.

Modern technology, again a part of hijacked modernity, has produced weapons of mass destruction. During medieval ages a sword could kill one person at a time. Today modern technology has produced such weapons which can kill thousands at a time merely by pressing just a button. Whole cities can be blasted out of existence. America invaded Iraq (to grab its oil) and tried all its latest weaponry on the poor people of that unfortunate country. More than half a million people perished.

Terrorists, not product of Islam as usually propagated, but a violent response to much greater violence being perpetrated by the Super Power, is also killing thousands of innocent human beings. These killings, it appears, has no end. Communally and ethnic violence within a nation states and wars internationally has robbed out modern world of peace and tranquility.

Most important question is can we free religion on one hand, and modernity on the other hand, from clutches of vested interests? It looks very difficult and complex problem. What we need is a creative synthesis of religion and modernity but to get it accepted is itself very difficult. Religion in its spiritual sense and modernity with emphasis on reason can be very liberative for human beings.

Islam, many people would not believe, was such a creative blend of the two but unfortunately it lost its liberative thrust in the hands of vested interests, particularly the feudal ruling class and medieval values. It was very difficult for Islam to escape this fate. However, now is the time to rediscover the Qur’anic Islam though, as pointed out, it would be make it very difficult to make it acceptable.
Islam today is so encumbered with medieval practices and web of cultural and traditional practices that it is very difficult to disentangle it from this complex web of medieval culture and ruling class interests. I would like to throw some light as to why the Qur’anic Islam could be really so liberative. I do not think war against terror can ever succeed without rediscovering this Islam and also without disentangling modernity too from the clutches of capitalist interests.

Qur’an, through the Prophet (PBUH) first of all addressed itself to rid the society of its ills. Mecca was in the primitive stage of capitalist accumulation and so Qur’an strongly denounced accumulation of wealth and luxurious living. It created sensitivity towards suffering weaker sections of society. It gave the ideal, considered most modern, of human dignity. No human being should be disrespected or robbed of dignity given by Allah.

It also gave awareness to its addresses that when it comes to human dignity both men and women are equal and one has no right over the other. Qur’an even avoided use of the word husband and wife but called them zawjain (couples) so that man cannot claim superiority over his wife. It also sensitized believers to indignity a slave suffers though he/she is also human person and hence enjoys equal dignity.

Thus freeing slaves was considered most meritorious act and also exhorted believers that if they cannot immediately emancipate their slave immediately (though they should), until such time they should treat them as their equal in every respect. It was for this reason that many slaves were attracted initially to Islam and Bilal Habshi (an Ethiopian slave emancipated by his master after accepting Islam) became icon of these slaves.

Also, like in modernity it tried to do away discrimination between one ethnic or linguistic or national group from the other and declared colour, race, languages and nations are Allah’s signs (Surah:Rum Verse: 22). Basic humanity and human dignity is above all these considerations. No superiority for one group, race, color or language to any other one and declared that only distinction could be on the basis of taqwa (i.e. purity of actions and God-consciousness).

These were revolutionary declarations and humanity has failed to realize these ideals even in post-modern period. The Prophet of Islam (PBUH) faced stiff resistance from Meccan tribal chiefs because they were not prepared to accept such a revolutionary transformation of their society which will fell in one swoop their status, their pride of wealth, their superiority of Arabic language and their belonging to tribe of Quraysh.

All this was not acceptable to them at all. They identified their ancestral religion with all their privileges and would not accept new religion as it was truly universal believing in human unity beyond all tribal, linguistic and ethnic boundaries and what was worse for them, believing in socio-economic justice. In this new religion neither language, nor race, nor colour of skin nor wealth was guarantee to nearness of Allah but only once piety, ethical and moral conduct. They did not mind demolishing physical idols kept in Ka’aba but were not prepared for demolishing idols of social, economic, linguistic, and ethnic pride. These idols were real object of worship which put them above others.

Modernity in this sense with due role of reason is hallmark of Islam from the beginning. But Muslims brought back all these idols installed in their hearts and never removed them. History of Islam shows with passage of time these idols carved out deeper and deeper niches. Ka’aba was purified of physical idols but hearts of Muslims were never purified.

Even today many Muslims have accepted modernity in superficial sense by accepting modern technology and like western countries, have instrumentalized role of reason but never accepted role of reason in fundamental and philosophical sense. Modern Western civilization is wholly materialistic and soulless and hence modernity has created more discontents. Its hallmark is more and more consumption, material standards of life and hence fighting for others’ resources leading to wars and bloodshed. America though apparently modern and civilized but most barbarious in waging wars on others territories with its ultra-modern weaponry.

Real modernity as expounded in Qur’an and also in other scriptures, does not use reason in instrumental sense but in fundamental and philosophical sense. It encourages cooperation, not destructive competition. It does not chase illusory goal of happiness based on consumption but promotes social justice, unconditional equality, inviolable human dignity and balanced approach to inner and outer happiness. Modernity cannot be judged through material progress alone. It is necessary but not sufficient.

Spiritual joy and material happiness must go together. Reason should not be devoid of values. Reason without higher goals, meaning and significance of life, is two-edged sword. Truth should not be mere conformity with facts but also beyond and above it, transcendent and all inclusive. Otherwise modernity will remain handmaiden of powerful vested interests which is what it is today and will generate more and more discontents.

India grapples with the Obama era

By M H Ahssan

What prompted the spokesman of India’s ruling party, Congress, to recommend that the Bharat Ratna – the “Jewel of India” – be bestowed on George W Bush, we might never know. India has conferred its highest civilian honor on only two foreigners, one of whom was Nelson Mandela.

The Congress politician apparently got carried away on a balmy winter day with nostalgia hanging heavily in the air, as he faced a select audience of Delhi’s elite, who formed the gravy train of India-US “strategic partnership” in the Bush era.

Ironically, even as he spoke last Friday, a delegation was setting out from the United States for India to pay homage to Mahatma Gandhi, the great apostle of non-violence, who inspired Martin Luther King, who in turn remains a constant source of inspiration for US President Barack Obama.

The bizarre coincidence was driven home when at a special ceremony at the US State Department marking the visit, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “India is a reminder that the struggle for civil rights and justice has always been and continues to be a global mission; it knows no borders.”

The two unconnected events underscored the dilemma facing India’s policymakers as the Obama era gets under way. Indeed, it is an extraordinary statement that the first American delegation to visit India after Obama took office should be a “Gandhian” delegation. Is Obama “demilitarizing” India-US strategic cooperation? “Mil-to-mil” cooperation was at the core of US-India relationship during the past eight-year period. In recent years, India conducted more than 50 military exercises with the US.

All dressed up, nowhere to go
Yet a pall of gloom has descended on New Delhi’s elite. There is a pervasive nostalgia for George W Bush. The Bush administration officials claimed that the US regarded India as the preponderant power in South Asia and as a key Asian player that would shape up to be a viable counterweight to China militarily. The expectation was that the US would extricate India from the morass of its South Asian neighborhood by arm-twisting Pakistan.

Under constant encouragement from the Bush administration, the Indian elite placed faith in the country’s emergence as a global player. They began working “shoulder to shoulder” with the US, just as Bush’s officials urged. Now, Indian strategists find themselves awkwardly placed – all dressed-up but there’s nowhere right now for them to go.

Three factors have shaken up the Indian complacency. First, Indian strategists seriously underestimated the military stalemate that was developing in the war in Afghanistan and the consequent acute dependence of the US on Pakistan’s cooperation. This may sound surprising, but the knowledge of Afghan affairs remains shockingly poor among Indian strategists.

Two, Indian strategists underestimated the gravity of the global financial crisis that erupted last year. They couldn’t comprehend that the crisis would fundamentally change the world order. Even hard-nosed Indian strategists placed a touching faith in the “New American Century” project.

Three, the Indian establishment failed to grasp what Obama meant when he spoke of “change”. The Indian skepticism about Obama’s capacity to change US policies remained fairly widespread. The Indian establishment concluded that Obama would ultimately have to work within the box, hemmed in by America’s political, foreign policy and security establishment. It failed to see that the US’s capacity to sustain its global dominance was itself weakening and that necessitated radical changes in Obama’s policies.

From this perspective, the past week offered a reality check. The visit by the newly appointed US Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, to the region underscored that Islamabad’s support for the US war strategy in Afghanistan has become critical. The war is at a crucial stage and salvaging it appears increasingly difficult.

More to the point, given the overall fragility of the political situation in Pakistan, a stage is reached beyond which the US cannot “pressure” Pakistan. Therefore, in a change of approach, the US will have no choice but to work with Pakistan. In the coming period, as Holbrooke gradually opens the political track leading to an Afghan settlement, need of Pakistan’s cooperation increases further.

Meanwhile, the revelation that the US Predator drones operate out of Pakistani bases underlines how closely Washington and Islamabad have been working. The US’s acquiescence in the release of AQ Khan revealed the great latitude towards Pakistan’s concerns. The Indian strategists who fancied that New Delhi was Washington’s preferred partner in South Asia are stunned. Clearly, India is nowhere near as valuable an ally as Pakistan for the US for the present.

Looking ahead, Obama’s decision on Wednesday approving a troop buildup in Afghanistan constitutes a defining moment. He has put his presidency on the firing line. From this week onward, Obama’s war has begun. The war can well consume his presidency. Either he succeeds, or he gets mired in the war. Yet, the new US strategy is still in the making. Delhi takes note that it is at such a crucial juncture that the Pakistani army chief, General Parvez Kayani, has been invited to go across to Washington for consultations.

The message is clear: Washington will be in no mood to antagonize its Pakistani partner and Delhi is expected to keep tensions under check in its relations with Islamabad.

Dollar courting yuan
But there is another aspect in Obama’s new foreign policy that worries India even more. Obama’s China policy renders obsolete the Indian strategic calculus built around the US containment strategy. Hardly two to three years ago, the Bush administration encouraged India to put faith in a quadrilateral alliance of Asian democracies – the US, Japan, Australia and India – that would strive to set the rules for China’s behavior in the region.

According to reports, State Department officials had originally proposed that India be included in the itinerary of Clinton’s current first official tour abroad, but she struck it out. As things stand, Clinton meant every word of what she wrote last year in her Foreign Affairs article that “our [US] relationship with China will be the most important bilateral relationship in the world in this century”.

In a major speech at the Asia Society in New York last Friday before embarking on her tour of Asia, Clinton said, “We believe that the United States and China can benefit from and contribute to each other’s successes. It is in our interests to work harder to build on areas of common concern and shared opportunities”. She argued for a “comprehensive dialogue” and a “broader agenda” with China.

The Washington Post cited State Department officials as saying, “It is symbolically important that Clinton is the first secretary of state in nearly 50 years to intensely focus his or her maiden voyage on Asia”. The story is easily comprehensible. The US needs to have new opportunities to export more to China; it should persuade Beijing to accept a realistic dollar-yuan exchange rate; and, it should convince China to keep investing its money in America. But what is unfolding is also a phenomenal story insofar as a new chapter in their mutually dependent relationship is commencing where the two countries become equal partners in crisis. This was simply unthinkable.

Dennis Blair, the newly appointed director of national intelligence, in his testimony before the US senate intelligence committee on January 22, struck a fine balance when he said,

While the United States must understand China’s military buildup – its extent, its technological sophistication and its vulnerabilities – in order to offset it, the intelligence community also needs to support policymakers who are looking for opportunities to work with Chinese leaders who believe that Asia is big enough for both of us and can be an Asia in which both countries can benefit as well as contribute to the common good.

However, this is precisely where a serious problem arises for India. In the Indian perception, South Asia and the Indian Ocean just aren’t “big enough” for India and China.

Dragon encircles peacock
This was rubbed home when Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived in Port Louis, Mauritius, on Tuesday on the final lap of his latest odyssey to Africa. Hu nonchalantly handed out a generous US$1 billion aid package for Mauritius, which India traditionally regarded as its “sphere of influence” in the Indian Ocean. No doubt, it was an audacious gesture by Beijing to a country the majority of whose 1.3 million population are people of Indian origin – at a time when China too faces an economic crisis and analysts say anywhere up to 40 million migrant workers may lose their jobs this year.

Arguably, Beijing regards Mauritius as a value-added platform between China and Africa from where its entrepreneurs could optimally perform. But Hu has convinced the Indian strategic community about China’s “encirclement” policy towards India. A leading Indian right-wing daily commented that Hu’s visit was “anything but ordinary … It underscores Beijing’s relentless thrust to secure a permanent naval foothold in the western Indian Ocean … That, of course, would only come at the expense of the Indian navy, which has been the principal external security partner of Mauritius all these decades”.

It is precisely such hubris that gets punctured by the shift in the Obama administration’s new priorities in the Far East and southwest Asia. A difficult period of adjustment lies ahead for Indian policymakers. India needs good relations with the US. At any rate, the India-US relationship is on an irreversible trajectory of growth. There is a “bipartisan” consensus in both countries that the relationship is in each other’s vital interests. But the US’s current strategic priorities in the region and India’s expectations are diverging. Given the criticality of Pakistan in the US geo-strategy, Obama administration will be constrained to correct the Bush administration’s “tilt” towards India.

Kashmir beckons
New Delhi pulled out all the stops when rumors surfaced that Holbrooke’s mandate might include the Kashmir problem. Obama paid heed to Indian sensitivities. But at a price. It compels India to curtail its own excessive instincts in recent years to seek US intervention in keeping India-Pakistan tensions in check.

In short, New Delhi will have to pay much greater attention to its bilateral track with Pakistan. And, of course, Pakistan will expect India to be far more flexible. Rightly or wrongly, Pakistan harbors a feeling that India took unilateral advantage from the relative four-year calm in their relationship without conceding anything in return.

In a sensational interview with India’s top television personality, Karan Thapar, on Thursday night, Pakistan’s former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri confirmed what many in New Delhi suspected, namely, that through back channel diplomacy, Islamabad and New Delhi had reached a broad understanding on contentious issues such as Sir Creek, Siachen and Kashmir as far back as two years ago.

The Indian prime minister was expected to visit Pakistan to conclude some of the agreements but the Indian side apparently began developing cold feet and it is “sheer bad luck”, as Kasuri put it, that the momentum dissipated.

To quote Kasuri, “If the Prime Minister of India had come when we [Pakistan] thought he would, we would have actually signed it, and that would have created the right atmosphere for resolution of other disputes, particularly the issue of J&K [Jammu and Kashmir]. We needed the right atmosphere.”

In other words, there is always a lurking danger that at some point, Holbrooke may barge into the Kashmir problem by way of addressing the core issues of regional security. The Bush administration had been kept constantly briefed by New Delhi on its back-channel discussions with Islamabad regarding Kashmir. Retracting from any commitments given to Pakistan becomes problematic at this stage.

At the same time, the Indian government has done nothing so far to sensitize domestic public opinion that such highly delicate discussions involving joint India-Pakistan governance of the Kashmir region have reached an advanced stage.

Thus, in a manner of speaking, with Holbrooke’s arrival in the region this past week, the clock began ticking on the Kashmir issue. Pakistan will incrementally mount pressure that Obama must insist on India moving forward on a settlement of the Kashmir problem in the overall interests of peace and regional stability.

And New Delhi will remain watchful. Holbrooke’s visit to New Delhi on Monday was kept low-key. The Indian media fawned on any mid-level official calling from the Bush administration, but Holbrooke was tucked away as if under quarantine. And no wonder; there could be many among New Delhi’s elite who feel nostalgic for the tranquility and predictability of the Bush era.

What will Obama do with KBR?

By M H Ahssan

President Barack Obama will almost certainly touch down in Baghdad and Kabul in Air Force One sometime in the coming year to meet his counterparts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he will just as certainly pay a visit to a United States military base or two.

Should he stay for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or midnight chow with the troops, he will no less certainly choose from a menu prepared by migrant Asian workers under contract to Houston-based KBR, formerly Kellogg Brown & Root and once a subsidiary of Halliburton.

If Obama takes the Rhino Runner armor-plated bus from Baghdad Airport to the Green Zone, or travels by Catfish Air’s Blackhawk helicopters (the way mere mortals like diplomats and journalists do), instead of by presidential chopper, he will be assigned a seat by US civilian workers easily identified by the red KBR lanyards they wear around their necks.

Even if Obama gets the ultra-red carpet treatment, he will still tread on walkways and enter buildings that have been constructed over the last six years by an army of some 50,000 workers in the employ of KBR. And should Obama chose to order the troops in Iraq home tomorrow, he will effectively sign a blank check for billions of dollars in withdrawal logistics contracts that will largely be carried out by a company once overseen by former vice-president Dick Cheney.

Questions for the Pentagon If Obama wants to find out why KBR civilian workers can be found in every nook and cranny of US bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, he might be better off visiting the Rock Island Arsenal in western Illinois. It’s located on the biggest island in the Mississippi River, the place where Chief Black Hawk of the Sauk nation was once born.

The arsenal’s modern stone buildings house the offices of the US Army Materiel Command from which KBR’s multibillion dollar Logistics Civilian Augmentation Program contract (LOGCAP) have been managed for the last seven years. This is the mega-contract that has, since the September 11, 2001 attacks, generated more than $25 billion for KBR to set up and manage military bases overseas (and resulted, of course, in thousands of pages of controversial news stories about the company’s alleged war profiteering).

Even more conveniently, Obama could pop over to KBR’s Crystal City government operations headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, just a mile south of the Pentagon and five miles from the White House. On Crystal City Drive just before Ronald Reagan National Airport, it’s hard to miss the KBR corporate logo, those gigantic red letters on the 11-story building at the far corner of Crystal Park.

Many people who know something about KBR’s role in Iraq and Afghanistan might want Obama to question the military commanders at Rock Island and the corporate executives in Arlington about the shoddy electrical work, unchlorinated shower water, overcharges for trucks sitting idle in the desert, deaths of KBR employees and affiliated soldiers in Iraq, million-dollar alleged bribes accepted by KBR managers, and billions of dollars in missing receipts, among a slew of other complaints that have received wide publicity over the last five years.

But those would be the wrong questions.

Obama needs to ask his Pentagon commanders this: Can the US military he has now inherited do anything without KBR?

And the answer will certainly be a resounding “no”.

Keeping a Volunteer Army Happy
Tim Horton is the head of public relations for Logistical Supply Area Anaconda in Balad, Iraq, the biggest US base in that country. He was a transportation officer for 20 years and has a simple explanation for why the army relies so heavily on contractors to operate facilities today: What we have today is an all-volunteer army, unlike in a conscription army when they had to be here. In the old army, the standard of living was low, the pay scale was dismal; it wasn’t fun; it wasn’t intended to be fun. But today we have to appeal, we have to recruit, just like any corporation, we have to recruit off the street. And after we get them to come in, it behooves us to give them a reason to stay in.

Even in 2003, the US military was incredibly overstretched. For the Bush administration to go to war then, it needed an army of cheap labor to feed and clean up after the combat troops it sent into battle. Those troops, of course, were young US citizens raised in a world of creature comforts. Unlike American soldiers from their parents’ or grandparents’ generations who were drafted into the military in the Korean or Vietnam eras and ordered to peel potatoes or clean latrines, the modern teenager can choose not to sign up at all.

As Horton points out, the average soldier gets an average of $100,000 worth of military training in four years; if he or she then doesn’t re-enlist, the military has to spend another $100,000 to train a replacement.

“What if we spend an extra $6,000 to get them to stay and save the loss of talent and experience?” Horton asks. “What does it take to keep the people? There are some creature comforts in this Wal-Mart and McDonald’s society that we live in that soldiers have come to expect. They expect to play an Xbox, to keep in touch by e-mail. They expect to eat a variety of foods.”

A quarter-century ago, when Horton joined the US Army, all they got was a 14-day rotational menu. “We had chili-mac every two weeks, for crying out loud. What is that? Unstrained, low-grade hamburger mixed with macaroni. Lot of calories, lots of fat, lots of starch, that’s what a soldier needs to do his job. When you were done, you had a heart attack.”

Today, says Horton, expectations are different. “Our soldiers need to feel and believe that we care about them, or they will leave. The army cannot afford to allow the soldier to be disenfranchised.”

When I visited with him in April 2008, Horton took me to meet Michael St John of the Pennsylvania National Guard, the chief warrant officer at one of Anaconda’s dining facilities. St John led me on a tour of the facility, pointing out little details of which he was justly proud – like the fresh romaine lettuce brought up from Kuwait by Public Warehousing Corporation truck drivers who make the dangerous 12-hour journey across the desert, so that KBR cooks have fresh and familiar food for the troops.

Stopping at the dessert bar St John explained, “We added blenders to make milkshakes, microwaves to heat up apple pie, and waffle bars with ice cream.” The “healthy bar” was the next stop. “Here,” he pointed out, “we offer baked fish or chicken breast, crab legs, or lobster claws or tails.”

“Contractors here do all the work,” St John added. He explained that he had about 25 soldiers and six to eight KBR supervisors to oversee 175 workers from a Saudi company named Tamimi, feeding 10,000 people a day and providing take-away food for another thousand.

“They do everything from unloading the food deliveries to taking out the trash. We are hands off. Our responsibility is military oversight: overseeing the headcount, ensuring that the contractors are providing nutritional meals and making sure there are no food-borne illnesses. It’s the only sustainable way to get things done, given the number of soldiers we have to feed.”

Horton chimes in: “I treat myself to an ice-cream cone once a week. You know what that is? It’s a touch of home, a touch of sanity, a touch of civilization. The soldiers here do not have bars; all that is gone. You’ve taken the candy away from the baby. What do you have to give him? What’s wrong with giving him a little bit of pizza or ice cream?”

Between a chili-mac military and a pizza-and-ice-cream military, the difference shows – around the waistline. Sarah Stillman, a freelance journalist with the website TruthDig, tells a story she heard about a PowerPoint slide that’s becoming popular in Army briefings: “Back in 2003, the average soldier lost fifteen pounds during his tour of Iraq. Now, he gains ten.”

Stillman says that the first warning many US troops receive here in Baghdad isn’t about IEDs (improvised explosive devices), RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades), or even EFPs (explosively formed projectiles). It’s about PCPs: “pervasive combat paunches”.

Privatizing the US Army
KBR has grossed more than $25 billion since it won a 10-year contract in late 2001 to supply US troops in combat situations around the world. As of April 2008, the company estimated that it had served more than 720 million meals, driven more than 400 million miles on various convoy missions, treated 12 billion gallons of potable water, and produced more than 267 million tons of ice for those troops. These staggering figures are testimony to the role KBR has played in supporting the US military in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries targeted in former president George W Bush’s “global war on terror”.

And in the first days of the new Obama administration, the company continues to win contracts. On January 28, 2009, KBR announced that it had been awarded a $35.4 million contract by the US Army Corps of Engineers for the design and construction of a convoy support center at Camp Adder in Iraq. The center will include a power plant, an electrical distribution center, a water purification and distribution system, a waste-water collection system, and associated information systems, along with paved roads, all to be built by KBR.

How did the US military become this dependent on one giant company? Well, this change has been a long time coming. During the Vietnam War in the 1960s, a consortium of four companies led by the Texas construction company Brown & Root (the B and R in KBR) built almost every military base in South Vietnam.

That, of course, was when Lyndon B Johnson, a Texan with close ties to the Brown brothers, was president. In 1982, two years into Ronald Reagan’s presidency, Brown & Root struck gold again. It won lucrative contracts to build a giant US base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, a former British colony.

In 1985, General John A Wickham drew up plans to streamline logistics work on military bases under what he dubbed the Logistics Civilian Augmentation Program (LOGCAP), but his ideas would remain in a back drawer for several years. In the meantime, Dick Cheney, as secretary of defense in the administration of the elder George Bush, loosed the American military on Iraq in the First Gulf War in 1991, and hired hundreds of separate contractors to provide logistics support.

The uneven results of this early privatizing effort left military planners frustrated. By the time Cheney left office, he had asked Brown & Root to dust off the Wickham LOGCAP plan and figure out how to consolidate and expand the contracting system.

President Bill Clinton’s commanders took a harder look at the new plan that Brown & Root had drawn up and liked what they saw. In 1994, that company was hired to build bases in Bosnia and later in Kosovo, as well as to take over the day-to-day running of those bases in the middle of a war zone.

By the time Donald Rumsfeld took over as secretary of defense under the younger George Bush, he had embraced the revolution that Wickham had begun, and Clinton and Cheney had implemented. At a Pentagon event on the morning of September 10, 2001, one day before three aircraft struck the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, Rumsfeld identified the crucial enemy force his assembled senior staff would take on in the coming years: The topic today is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America. This adversary is one of the world’s last bastions of central planning. It governs by dictating five-year plans. From a single capital, it attempts to impose its demands across time zones, continents, oceans, and beyond. With brutal consistency, it stifles free thought and crushes new ideas. It disrupts the defense of the United States and places the lives of men and women in uniform at risk. You may think I’m describing one of the last decrepit dictators of the world. The adversary’s closer to home. It’s the Pentagon bureaucracy.

We must ask tough questions. Why is DOD [Department of Defense] one of the last organizations around that still cuts its own checks? When an entire industry exists to run warehouses efficiently, why do we own and operate so many of our own? At bases around the world, why do we pick up our own garbage and mop our own floors, rather than contracting services out, as many businesses do?

He outlined a series of steps to slash headquarter staffs by 15% in the two years to come and promised even more dramatic changes to follow. While the invasion of Afghanistan the following month was conducted by military personnel, Rumsfeld’s ideas started to be implemented in the spring of 2002. Indeed, the building of bases in Kuwait in the fall of 2002 for the coming invasion of Iraq was handled almost entirely by KBR.

Today, there is one KBR worker for every three US soldiers in Iraq – and the main function of these workers, under LOGCAP, is to build base infrastructure and maintain them by doing all those duties that once were considered part of military life – making sure that soldiers are fed, their clothes washed, and their showers and toilets kept clean.

While many stories have been written about the $80,000 annual salaries earned by KBR truck drivers, most of the company’s workers make far less, mainly because they are hired from countries like India and the Philippines where starting salaries of $300 a month are considered a fortune.

Outsourcing the kitchen patrol
The majority of KBR’s labor force, some 40,000 workers (the equivalent of about 80 military battalions), are “third country nationals” drawn largely from the poorer parts of Asia. In April 2008, I flew to Kuwait city where I spent time with a group of Fijian truck drivers who worked for a local company, PWC, doing subcontracting work for KBR.

My host was Titoko Savuwati from Totoya Lau, one of the Moala Islands in Fiji. He picked me up one evening in a small white Toyota Corolla rental car. The cranked-up sound system was playing American country favorites and oldies. Six-feet-tall with broad, rangy shoulders, short-cropped hair, and a goatee, Savuwati had been a police officer in Fiji. He was 50 years old and had left at home six children he hadn’t seen in four years. When he got out of his car, I noticed that he had a pronounced limp and dragged one foot ever so slightly behind him.

We joined his friends at his apartment for a simple Anglican prayer service. Deep baritone voices filled the tiny living room with Fijian hymns before they sat down to a meal of cassava and curried chicken parts and began to tell me their stories.

Each had made at least 100 dangerous trips, driving large 18-wheeler refrigeration trucks that carry all manner of goodies destined for US soldiers from Kuwaiti ports to bases like LSA Anaconda. They slept in their trucks, not being allowed to sleep in military tents or trailers along the way.

Savuwati had arrived in Kuwait on January 14, 2005, as one of 400 drivers, hoping to earn $3,000 a month. Instead, his real pay, he discovered, was 175 Kuwaiti dinar (KWD) a month (US$640), out of which he had to pay for all his food and sundries, even on the road, as well as rent. Drivers were given an extra 50 dinar ($183) allowance on each trip to Iraq.

“I came to Iraq because of the large amount of money they promised me,” he said, sighing. “But they give us very little money. We’ve been crying for more money for many months. Do you think my family can survive on fifty KWD?” He sends at least 100 dinars ($365) home a month and has no savings that would pay for a ticket home at a round-trip price of roughly $2,500.

I did a quick calculation. For every trip, if they worked the 12-hour shifts expected of them, the Fijians earned about $30 a day, or $2.50 an hour. I asked Savuwati about his limp. On a trip to Nasariyah in 2005, he told me, his truck flipped over, injuring his leg. Did he get paid sick leave? Savuwati looked incredulous. “The company didn’t give me any money. When we are injured, the company gives us nothing.” But, he assured me, he had been lucky – a number of fellow drivers had been killed on the job.

The next day, I stopped by to see the Fijians again, and Savuwati gave me a ride home. I offered to pay for gasoline and, after first waving me away, he quickly acquiesced. As he dropped me off, he looked at me sheepishly and said, “I’ve run out of money. Do you think you could give me one KWD [$3.65] for lunch?” I dug into my pocket and handed the money over. As I walked away, I thought about how ironic it was that the men who drove across a battle zone, dodging stones, bullets, and IEDs to bring ice cream, steak, lobster tails, and ammunition to US soldiers, had to beg for food themselves.

This, of course, is the real face of the American military today, though it’s never seen by Americans.

Obama’s Army
Pentagon commanders often speak of a “revolution in military affairs” when summing up the technological advances that allow them to stalk enemies by satellite, fire missiles from unmanned aerial vehicles, and protect US soldiers with night-vision goggles, but they rarely explain the social and logistical changes that have accompanied this revolution.

Today, US soldiers are drawn from a video-game culture that embraces computers on the battlefield, even as the US Army bears ever less relation to the draft armies that did the island hopping in the Pacific in World War II or fought jungle battles in Vietnam. Indeed, the personnel that Obama will soon visit in Iraq and Afghanistan is generally supplied with hot food and showers around the clock in combat zones in the same way they might be on a Stateside base – by workers like Savuwati.

Undoubtedly, an Obama administration could begin to cut some of the notorious fat out of the contracts that make that possible, including multi-million dollar overcharges. Obama’s potential budget trimmers could, for example, take whistleblowers inside KBR and the Pentagon seriously when they report malfeasance and waste.

But could Obama dismiss KBR’s army, even if he wanted to? Will Obama really be willing to ask American volunteer soldiers to give up the bacon, romaine lettuce, and roast turkey that they have come to expect in a war zone? And even if he could do so, those are only the luxuries.

Keep in mind that, on US bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, every single item, from beans to bullets, is shipped using contractors like PWC of Kuwait and Maersk of Denmark. In the last two decades, the US military has even divested itself of the hardware and people that would allow it to move tanks around the world, relying instead on contractors to do such work.

The White House website states that “Obama and Biden support plans to increase the size of the Army by 65,000 soldiers and the Marine Corps by 27,000 Marines. Increasing our end strength will help units retrain and re-equip properly between deployments and decrease the strain on military families.”

As part of the same policy statement, the site claims the new administration will reform contracting by creating “transparency for military contractors,” as well as restoring “honesty, openness, and commonsense to contracting and procurement” by “rebuilding our contract officer corps”.

Nowhere, however, does that website suggest that the new administration will work toward ending, or even radically cutting back, the use of contractors on the battlefield, or that those 92,000 new soldiers and Marines are going to fill logistics battalions that have been decimated in the last two decades.

What we already know of the military policies of the new administration suggests instead that President Obama wants to expand US military might. So don’t be surprised if the new LOGCAP contract, a $150 billion 10-year program that began on September 20, 2008, remains in place, with some minor tinkering around the edges to provide value for taxpayer money.

KBR’s army, it seems, will remain on the march.

What will Obama do with KBR?

By M H Ahssan

President Barack Obama will almost certainly touch down in Baghdad and Kabul in Air Force One sometime in the coming year to meet his counterparts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he will just as certainly pay a visit to a United States military base or two.

Should he stay for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or midnight chow with the troops, he will no less certainly choose from a menu prepared by migrant Asian workers under contract to Houston-based KBR, formerly Kellogg Brown & Root and once a subsidiary of Halliburton.

If Obama takes the Rhino Runner armor-plated bus from Baghdad Airport to the Green Zone, or travels by Catfish Air’s Blackhawk helicopters (the way mere mortals like diplomats and journalists do), instead of by presidential chopper, he will be assigned a seat by US civilian workers easily identified by the red KBR lanyards they wear around their necks.

Even if Obama gets the ultra-red carpet treatment, he will still tread on walkways and enter buildings that have been constructed over the last six years by an army of some 50,000 workers in the employ of KBR. And should Obama chose to order the troops in Iraq home tomorrow, he will effectively sign a blank check for billions of dollars in withdrawal logistics contracts that will largely be carried out by a company once overseen by former vice-president Dick Cheney.

Questions for the Pentagon If Obama wants to find out why KBR civilian workers can be found in every nook and cranny of US bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, he might be better off visiting the Rock Island Arsenal in western Illinois. It’s located on the biggest island in the Mississippi River, the place where Chief Black Hawk of the Sauk nation was once born.

The arsenal’s modern stone buildings house the offices of the US Army Materiel Command from which KBR’s multibillion dollar Logistics Civilian Augmentation Program contract (LOGCAP) have been managed for the last seven years. This is the mega-contract that has, since the September 11, 2001 attacks, generated more than $25 billion for KBR to set up and manage military bases overseas (and resulted, of course, in thousands of pages of controversial news stories about the company’s alleged war profiteering).

Even more conveniently, Obama could pop over to KBR’s Crystal City government operations headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, just a mile south of the Pentagon and five miles from the White House. On Crystal City Drive just before Ronald Reagan National Airport, it’s hard to miss the KBR corporate logo, those gigantic red letters on the 11-story building at the far corner of Crystal Park.

Many people who know something about KBR’s role in Iraq and Afghanistan might want Obama to question the military commanders at Rock Island and the corporate executives in Arlington about the shoddy electrical work, unchlorinated shower water, overcharges for trucks sitting idle in the desert, deaths of KBR employees and affiliated soldiers in Iraq, million-dollar alleged bribes accepted by KBR managers, and billions of dollars in missing receipts, among a slew of other complaints that have received wide publicity over the last five years.

But those would be the wrong questions.

Obama needs to ask his Pentagon commanders this: Can the US military he has now inherited do anything without KBR?

And the answer will certainly be a resounding “no”.

Keeping a Volunteer Army Happy
Tim Horton is the head of public relations for Logistical Supply Area Anaconda in Balad, Iraq, the biggest US base in that country. He was a transportation officer for 20 years and has a simple explanation for why the army relies so heavily on contractors to operate facilities today: What we have today is an all-volunteer army, unlike in a conscription army when they had to be here. In the old army, the standard of living was low, the pay scale was dismal; it wasn’t fun; it wasn’t intended to be fun. But today we have to appeal, we have to recruit, just like any corporation, we have to recruit off the street. And after we get them to come in, it behooves us to give them a reason to stay in.

Even in 2003, the US military was incredibly overstretched. For the Bush administration to go to war then, it needed an army of cheap labor to feed and clean up after the combat troops it sent into battle. Those troops, of course, were young US citizens raised in a world of creature comforts. Unlike American soldiers from their parents’ or grandparents’ generations who were drafted into the military in the Korean or Vietnam eras and ordered to peel potatoes or clean latrines, the modern teenager can choose not to sign up at all.

As Horton points out, the average soldier gets an average of $100,000 worth of military training in four years; if he or she then doesn’t re-enlist, the military has to spend another $100,000 to train a replacement.

“What if we spend an extra $6,000 to get them to stay and save the loss of talent and experience?” Horton asks. “What does it take to keep the people? There are some creature comforts in this Wal-Mart and McDonald’s society that we live in that soldiers have come to expect. They expect to play an Xbox, to keep in touch by e-mail. They expect to eat a variety of foods.”

A quarter-century ago, when Horton joined the US Army, all they got was a 14-day rotational menu. “We had chili-mac every two weeks, for crying out loud. What is that? Unstrained, low-grade hamburger mixed with macaroni. Lot of calories, lots of fat, lots of starch, that’s what a soldier needs to do his job. When you were done, you had a heart attack.”

Today, says Horton, expectations are different. “Our soldiers need to feel and believe that we care about them, or they will leave. The army cannot afford to allow the soldier to be disenfranchised.”

When I visited with him in April 2008, Horton took me to meet Michael St John of the Pennsylvania National Guard, the chief warrant officer at one of Anaconda’s dining facilities. St John led me on a tour of the facility, pointing out little details of which he was justly proud – like the fresh romaine lettuce brought up from Kuwait by Public Warehousing Corporation truck drivers who make the dangerous 12-hour journey across the desert, so that KBR cooks have fresh and familiar food for the troops.

Stopping at the dessert bar St John explained, “We added blenders to make milkshakes, microwaves to heat up apple pie, and waffle bars with ice cream.” The “healthy bar” was the next stop. “Here,” he pointed out, “we offer baked fish or chicken breast, crab legs, or lobster claws or tails.”

“Contractors here do all the work,” St John added. He explained that he had about 25 soldiers and six to eight KBR supervisors to oversee 175 workers from a Saudi company named Tamimi, feeding 10,000 people a day and providing take-away food for another thousand.

“They do everything from unloading the food deliveries to taking out the trash. We are hands off. Our responsibility is military oversight: overseeing the headcount, ensuring that the contractors are providing nutritional meals and making sure there are no food-borne illnesses. It’s the only sustainable way to get things done, given the number of soldiers we have to feed.”

Horton chimes in: “I treat myself to an ice-cream cone once a week. You know what that is? It’s a touch of home, a touch of sanity, a touch of civilization. The soldiers here do not have bars; all that is gone. You’ve taken the candy away from the baby. What do you have to give him? What’s wrong with giving him a little bit of pizza or ice cream?”

Between a chili-mac military and a pizza-and-ice-cream military, the difference shows – around the waistline. Sarah Stillman, a freelance journalist with the website TruthDig, tells a story she heard about a PowerPoint slide that’s becoming popular in Army briefings: “Back in 2003, the average soldier lost fifteen pounds during his tour of Iraq. Now, he gains ten.”

Stillman says that the first warning many US troops receive here in Baghdad isn’t about IEDs (improvised explosive devices), RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades), or even EFPs (explosively formed projectiles). It’s about PCPs: “pervasive combat paunches”.

Privatizing the US Army
KBR has grossed more than $25 billion since it won a 10-year contract in late 2001 to supply US troops in combat situations around the world. As of April 2008, the company estimated that it had served more than 720 million meals, driven more than 400 million miles on various convoy missions, treated 12 billion gallons of potable water, and produced more than 267 million tons of ice for those troops. These staggering figures are testimony to the role KBR has played in supporting the US military in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries targeted in former president George W Bush’s “global war on terror”.

And in the first days of the new Obama administration, the company continues to win contracts. On January 28, 2009, KBR announced that it had been awarded a $35.4 million contract by the US Army Corps of Engineers for the design and construction of a convoy support center at Camp Adder in Iraq. The center will include a power plant, an electrical distribution center, a water purification and distribution system, a waste-water collection system, and associated information systems, along with paved roads, all to be built by KBR.

How did the US military become this dependent on one giant company? Well, this change has been a long time coming. During the Vietnam War in the 1960s, a consortium of four companies led by the Texas construction company Brown & Root (the B and R in KBR) built almost every military base in South Vietnam.

That, of course, was when Lyndon B Johnson, a Texan with close ties to the Brown brothers, was president. In 1982, two years into Ronald Reagan’s presidency, Brown & Root struck gold again. It won lucrative contracts to build a giant US base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, a former British colony.

In 1985, General John A Wickham drew up plans to streamline logistics work on military bases under what he dubbed the Logistics Civilian Augmentation Program (LOGCAP), but his ideas would remain in a back drawer for several years. In the meantime, Dick Cheney, as secretary of defense in the administration of the elder George Bush, loosed the American military on Iraq in the First Gulf War in 1991, and hired hundreds of separate contractors to provide logistics support.

The uneven results of this early privatizing effort left military planners frustrated. By the time Cheney left office, he had asked Brown & Root to dust off the Wickham LOGCAP plan and figure out how to consolidate and expand the contracting system.

President Bill Clinton’s commanders took a harder look at the new plan that Brown & Root had drawn up and liked what they saw. In 1994, that company was hired to build bases in Bosnia and later in Kosovo, as well as to take over the day-to-day running of those bases in the middle of a war zone.

By the time Donald Rumsfeld took over as secretary of defense under the younger George Bush, he had embraced the revolution that Wickham had begun, and Clinton and Cheney had implemented. At a Pentagon event on the morning of September 10, 2001, one day before three aircraft struck the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, Rumsfeld identified the crucial enemy force his assembled senior staff would take on in the coming years: The topic today is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America. This adversary is one of the world’s last bastions of central planning. It governs by dictating five-year plans. From a single capital, it attempts to impose its demands across time zones, continents, oceans, and beyond. With brutal consistency, it stifles free thought and crushes new ideas. It disrupts the defense of the United States and places the lives of men and women in uniform at risk. You may think I’m describing one of the last decrepit dictators of the world. The adversary’s closer to home. It’s the Pentagon bureaucracy.

We must ask tough questions. Why is DOD [Department of Defense] one of the last organizations around that still cuts its own checks? When an entire industry exists to run warehouses efficiently, why do we own and operate so many of our own? At bases around the world, why do we pick up our own garbage and mop our own floors, rather than contracting services out, as many businesses do?

He outlined a series of steps to slash headquarter staffs by 15% in the two years to come and promised even more dramatic changes to follow. While the invasion of Afghanistan the following month was conducted by military personnel, Rumsfeld’s ideas started to be implemented in the spring of 2002. Indeed, the building of bases in Kuwait in the fall of 2002 for the coming invasion of Iraq was handled almost entirely by KBR.

Today, there is one KBR worker for every three US soldiers in Iraq – and the main function of these workers, under LOGCAP, is to build base infrastructure and maintain them by doing all those duties that once were considered part of military life – making sure that soldiers are fed, their clothes washed, and their showers and toilets kept clean.

While many stories have been written about the $80,000 annual salaries earned by KBR truck drivers, most of the company’s workers make far less, mainly because they are hired from countries like India and the Philippines where starting salaries of $300 a month are considered a fortune.

Outsourcing the kitchen patrol
The majority of KBR’s labor force, some 40,000 workers (the equivalent of about 80 military battalions), are “third country nationals” drawn largely from the poorer parts of Asia. In April 2008, I flew to Kuwait city where I spent time with a group of Fijian truck drivers who worked for a local company, PWC, doing subcontracting work for KBR.

My host was Titoko Savuwati from Totoya Lau, one of the Moala Islands in Fiji. He picked me up one evening in a small white Toyota Corolla rental car. The cranked-up sound system was playing American country favorites and oldies. Six-feet-tall with broad, rangy shoulders, short-cropped hair, and a goatee, Savuwati had been a police officer in Fiji. He was 50 years old and had left at home six children he hadn’t seen in four years. When he got out of his car, I noticed that he had a pronounced limp and dragged one foot ever so slightly behind him.

We joined his friends at his apartment for a simple Anglican prayer service. Deep baritone voices filled the tiny living room with Fijian hymns before they sat down to a meal of cassava and curried chicken parts and began to tell me their stories.

Each had made at least 100 dangerous trips, driving large 18-wheeler refrigeration trucks that carry all manner of goodies destined for US soldiers from Kuwaiti ports to bases like LSA Anaconda. They slept in their trucks, not being allowed to sleep in military tents or trailers along the way.

Savuwati had arrived in Kuwait on January 14, 2005, as one of 400 drivers, hoping to earn $3,000 a month. Instead, his real pay, he discovered, was 175 Kuwaiti dinar (KWD) a month (US$640), out of which he had to pay for all his food and sundries, even on the road, as well as rent. Drivers were given an extra 50 dinar ($183) allowance on each trip to Iraq.

“I came to Iraq because of the large amount of money they promised me,” he said, sighing. “But they give us very little money. We’ve been crying for more money for many months. Do you think my family can survive on fifty KWD?” He sends at least 100 dinars ($365) home a month and has no savings that would pay for a ticket home at a round-trip price of roughly $2,500.

I did a quick calculation. For every trip, if they worked the 12-hour shifts expected of them, the Fijians earned about $30 a day, or $2.50 an hour. I asked Savuwati about his limp. On a trip to Nasariyah in 2005, he told me, his truck flipped over, injuring his leg. Did he get paid sick leave? Savuwati looked incredulous. “The company didn’t give me any money. When we are injured, the company gives us nothing.” But, he assured me, he had been lucky – a number of fellow drivers had been killed on the job.

The next day, I stopped by to see the Fijians again, and Savuwati gave me a ride home. I offered to pay for gasoline and, after first waving me away, he quickly acquiesced. As he dropped me off, he looked at me sheepishly and said, “I’ve run out of money. Do you think you could give me one KWD [$3.65] for lunch?” I dug into my pocket and handed the money over. As I walked away, I thought about how ironic it was that the men who drove across a battle zone, dodging stones, bullets, and IEDs to bring ice cream, steak, lobster tails, and ammunition to US soldiers, had to beg for food themselves.

This, of course, is the real face of the American military today, though it’s never seen by Americans.

Obama’s Army
Pentagon commanders often speak of a “revolution in military affairs” when summing up the technological advances that allow them to stalk enemies by satellite, fire missiles from unmanned aerial vehicles, and protect US soldiers with night-vision goggles, but they rarely explain the social and logistical changes that have accompanied this revolution.

Today, US soldiers are drawn from a video-game culture that embraces computers on the battlefield, even as the US Army bears ever less relation to the draft armies that did the island hopping in the Pacific in World War II or fought jungle battles in Vietnam. Indeed, the personnel that Obama will soon visit in Iraq and Afghanistan is generally supplied with hot food and showers around the clock in combat zones in the same way they might be on a Stateside base – by workers like Savuwati.

Undoubtedly, an Obama administration could begin to cut some of the notorious fat out of the contracts that make that possible, including multi-million dollar overcharges. Obama’s potential budget trimmers could, for example, take whistleblowers inside KBR and the Pentagon seriously when they report malfeasance and waste.

But could Obama dismiss KBR’s army, even if he wanted to? Will Obama really be willing to ask American volunteer soldiers to give up the bacon, romaine lettuce, and roast turkey that they have come to expect in a war zone? And even if he could do so, those are only the luxuries.

Keep in mind that, on US bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, every single item, from beans to bullets, is shipped using contractors like PWC of Kuwait and Maersk of Denmark. In the last two decades, the US military has even divested itself of the hardware and people that would allow it to move tanks around the world, relying instead on contractors to do such work.

The White House website states that “Obama and Biden support plans to increase the size of the Army by 65,000 soldiers and the Marine Corps by 27,000 Marines. Increasing our end strength will help units retrain and re-equip properly between deployments and decrease the strain on military families.”

As part of the same policy statement, the site claims the new administration will reform contracting by creating “transparency for military contractors,” as well as restoring “honesty, openness, and commonsense to contracting and procurement” by “rebuilding our contract officer corps”.

Nowhere, however, does that website suggest that the new administration will work toward ending, or even radically cutting back, the use of contractors on the battlefield, or that those 92,000 new soldiers and Marines are going to fill logistics battalions that have been decimated in the last two decades.

What we already know of the military policies of the new administration suggests instead that President Obama wants to expand US military might. So don’t be surprised if the new LOGCAP contract, a $150 billion 10-year program that began on September 20, 2008, remains in place, with some minor tinkering around the edges to provide value for taxpayer money.

KBR’s army, it seems, will remain on the march.

What will Obama do with KBR?

By M H Ahssan

President Barack Obama will almost certainly touch down in Baghdad and Kabul in Air Force One sometime in the coming year to meet his counterparts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he will just as certainly pay a visit to a United States military base or two.

Should he stay for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or midnight chow with the troops, he will no less certainly choose from a menu prepared by migrant Asian workers under contract to Houston-based KBR, formerly Kellogg Brown & Root and once a subsidiary of Halliburton.

If Obama takes the Rhino Runner armor-plated bus from Baghdad Airport to the Green Zone, or travels by Catfish Air’s Blackhawk helicopters (the way mere mortals like diplomats and journalists do), instead of by presidential chopper, he will be assigned a seat by US civilian workers easily identified by the red KBR lanyards they wear around their necks.

Even if Obama gets the ultra-red carpet treatment, he will still tread on walkways and enter buildings that have been constructed over the last six years by an army of some 50,000 workers in the employ of KBR. And should Obama chose to order the troops in Iraq home tomorrow, he will effectively sign a blank check for billions of dollars in withdrawal logistics contracts that will largely be carried out by a company once overseen by former vice-president Dick Cheney.

Questions for the Pentagon If Obama wants to find out why KBR civilian workers can be found in every nook and cranny of US bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, he might be better off visiting the Rock Island Arsenal in western Illinois. It’s located on the biggest island in the Mississippi River, the place where Chief Black Hawk of the Sauk nation was once born.

The arsenal’s modern stone buildings house the offices of the US Army Materiel Command from which KBR’s multibillion dollar Logistics Civilian Augmentation Program contract (LOGCAP) have been managed for the last seven years. This is the mega-contract that has, since the September 11, 2001 attacks, generated more than $25 billion for KBR to set up and manage military bases overseas (and resulted, of course, in thousands of pages of controversial news stories about the company’s alleged war profiteering).

Even more conveniently, Obama could pop over to KBR’s Crystal City government operations headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, just a mile south of the Pentagon and five miles from the White House. On Crystal City Drive just before Ronald Reagan National Airport, it’s hard to miss the KBR corporate logo, those gigantic red letters on the 11-story building at the far corner of Crystal Park.

Many people who know something about KBR’s role in Iraq and Afghanistan might want Obama to question the military commanders at Rock Island and the corporate executives in Arlington about the shoddy electrical work, unchlorinated shower water, overcharges for trucks sitting idle in the desert, deaths of KBR employees and affiliated soldiers in Iraq, million-dollar alleged bribes accepted by KBR managers, and billions of dollars in missing receipts, among a slew of other complaints that have received wide publicity over the last five years.

But those would be the wrong questions.

Obama needs to ask his Pentagon commanders this: Can the US military he has now inherited do anything without KBR?

And the answer will certainly be a resounding “no”.

Keeping a Volunteer Army Happy
Tim Horton is the head of public relations for Logistical Supply Area Anaconda in Balad, Iraq, the biggest US base in that country. He was a transportation officer for 20 years and has a simple explanation for why the army relies so heavily on contractors to operate facilities today: What we have today is an all-volunteer army, unlike in a conscription army when they had to be here. In the old army, the standard of living was low, the pay scale was dismal; it wasn’t fun; it wasn’t intended to be fun. But today we have to appeal, we have to recruit, just like any corporation, we have to recruit off the street. And after we get them to come in, it behooves us to give them a reason to stay in.

Even in 2003, the US military was incredibly overstretched. For the Bush administration to go to war then, it needed an army of cheap labor to feed and clean up after the combat troops it sent into battle. Those troops, of course, were young US citizens raised in a world of creature comforts. Unlike American soldiers from their parents’ or grandparents’ generations who were drafted into the military in the Korean or Vietnam eras and ordered to peel potatoes or clean latrines, the modern teenager can choose not to sign up at all.

As Horton points out, the average soldier gets an average of $100,000 worth of military training in four years; if he or she then doesn’t re-enlist, the military has to spend another $100,000 to train a replacement.

“What if we spend an extra $6,000 to get them to stay and save the loss of talent and experience?” Horton asks. “What does it take to keep the people? There are some creature comforts in this Wal-Mart and McDonald’s society that we live in that soldiers have come to expect. They expect to play an Xbox, to keep in touch by e-mail. They expect to eat a variety of foods.”

A quarter-century ago, when Horton joined the US Army, all they got was a 14-day rotational menu. “We had chili-mac every two weeks, for crying out loud. What is that? Unstrained, low-grade hamburger mixed with macaroni. Lot of calories, lots of fat, lots of starch, that’s what a soldier needs to do his job. When you were done, you had a heart attack.”

Today, says Horton, expectations are different. “Our soldiers need to feel and believe that we care about them, or they will leave. The army cannot afford to allow the soldier to be disenfranchised.”

When I visited with him in April 2008, Horton took me to meet Michael St John of the Pennsylvania National Guard, the chief warrant officer at one of Anaconda’s dining facilities. St John led me on a tour of the facility, pointing out little details of which he was justly proud – like the fresh romaine lettuce brought up from Kuwait by Public Warehousing Corporation truck drivers who make the dangerous 12-hour journey across the desert, so that KBR cooks have fresh and familiar food for the troops.

Stopping at the dessert bar St John explained, “We added blenders to make milkshakes, microwaves to heat up apple pie, and waffle bars with ice cream.” The “healthy bar” was the next stop. “Here,” he pointed out, “we offer baked fish or chicken breast, crab legs, or lobster claws or tails.”

“Contractors here do all the work,” St John added. He explained that he had about 25 soldiers and six to eight KBR supervisors to oversee 175 workers from a Saudi company named Tamimi, feeding 10,000 people a day and providing take-away food for another thousand.

“They do everything from unloading the food deliveries to taking out the trash. We are hands off. Our responsibility is military oversight: overseeing the headcount, ensuring that the contractors are providing nutritional meals and making sure there are no food-borne illnesses. It’s the only sustainable way to get things done, given the number of soldiers we have to feed.”

Horton chimes in: “I treat myself to an ice-cream cone once a week. You know what that is? It’s a touch of home, a touch of sanity, a touch of civilization. The soldiers here do not have bars; all that is gone. You’ve taken the candy away from the baby. What do you have to give him? What’s wrong with giving him a little bit of pizza or ice cream?”

Between a chili-mac military and a pizza-and-ice-cream military, the difference shows – around the waistline. Sarah Stillman, a freelance journalist with the website TruthDig, tells a story she heard about a PowerPoint slide that’s becoming popular in Army briefings: “Back in 2003, the average soldier lost fifteen pounds during his tour of Iraq. Now, he gains ten.”

Stillman says that the first warning many US troops receive here in Baghdad isn’t about IEDs (improvised explosive devices), RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades), or even EFPs (explosively formed projectiles). It’s about PCPs: “pervasive combat paunches”.

Privatizing the US Army
KBR has grossed more than $25 billion since it won a 10-year contract in late 2001 to supply US troops in combat situations around the world. As of April 2008, the company estimated that it had served more than 720 million meals, driven more than 400 million miles on various convoy missions, treated 12 billion gallons of potable water, and produced more than 267 million tons of ice for those troops. These staggering figures are testimony to the role KBR has played in supporting the US military in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries targeted in former president George W Bush’s “global war on terror”.

And in the first days of the new Obama administration, the company continues to win contracts. On January 28, 2009, KBR announced that it had been awarded a $35.4 million contract by the US Army Corps of Engineers for the design and construction of a convoy support center at Camp Adder in Iraq. The center will include a power plant, an electrical distribution center, a water purification and distribution system, a waste-water collection system, and associated information systems, along with paved roads, all to be built by KBR.

How did the US military become this dependent on one giant company? Well, this change has been a long time coming. During the Vietnam War in the 1960s, a consortium of four companies led by the Texas construction company Brown & Root (the B and R in KBR) built almost every military base in South Vietnam.

That, of course, was when Lyndon B Johnson, a Texan with close ties to the Brown brothers, was president. In 1982, two years into Ronald Reagan’s presidency, Brown & Root struck gold again. It won lucrative contracts to build a giant US base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, a former British colony.

In 1985, General John A Wickham drew up plans to streamline logistics work on military bases under what he dubbed the Logistics Civilian Augmentation Program (LOGCAP), but his ideas would remain in a back drawer for several years. In the meantime, Dick Cheney, as secretary of defense in the administration of the elder George Bush, loosed the American military on Iraq in the First Gulf War in 1991, and hired hundreds of separate contractors to provide logistics support.

The uneven results of this early privatizing effort left military planners frustrated. By the time Cheney left office, he had asked Brown & Root to dust off the Wickham LOGCAP plan and figure out how to consolidate and expand the contracting system.

President Bill Clinton’s commanders took a harder look at the new plan that Brown & Root had drawn up and liked what they saw. In 1994, that company was hired to build bases in Bosnia and later in Kosovo, as well as to take over the day-to-day running of those bases in the middle of a war zone.

By the time Donald Rumsfeld took over as secretary of defense under the younger George Bush, he had embraced the revolution that Wickham had begun, and Clinton and Cheney had implemented. At a Pentagon event on the morning of September 10, 2001, one day before three aircraft struck the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, Rumsfeld identified the crucial enemy force his assembled senior staff would take on in the coming years: The topic today is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America. This adversary is one of the world’s last bastions of central planning. It governs by dictating five-year plans. From a single capital, it attempts to impose its demands across time zones, continents, oceans, and beyond. With brutal consistency, it stifles free thought and crushes new ideas. It disrupts the defense of the United States and places the lives of men and women in uniform at risk. You may think I’m describing one of the last decrepit dictators of the world. The adversary’s closer to home. It’s the Pentagon bureaucracy.

We must ask tough questions. Why is DOD [Department of Defense] one of the last organizations around that still cuts its own checks? When an entire industry exists to run warehouses efficiently, why do we own and operate so many of our own? At bases around the world, why do we pick up our own garbage and mop our own floors, rather than contracting services out, as many businesses do?

He outlined a series of steps to slash headquarter staffs by 15% in the two years to come and promised even more dramatic changes to follow. While the invasion of Afghanistan the following month was conducted by military personnel, Rumsfeld’s ideas started to be implemented in the spring of 2002. Indeed, the building of bases in Kuwait in the fall of 2002 for the coming invasion of Iraq was handled almost entirely by KBR.

Today, there is one KBR worker for every three US soldiers in Iraq – and the main function of these workers, under LOGCAP, is to build base infrastructure and maintain them by doing all those duties that once were considered part of military life – making sure that soldiers are fed, their clothes washed, and their showers and toilets kept clean.

While many stories have been written about the $80,000 annual salaries earned by KBR truck drivers, most of the company’s workers make far less, mainly because they are hired from countries like India and the Philippines where starting salaries of $300 a month are considered a fortune.

Outsourcing the kitchen patrol
The majority of KBR’s labor force, some 40,000 workers (the equivalent of about 80 military battalions), are “third country nationals” drawn largely from the poorer parts of Asia. In April 2008, I flew to Kuwait city where I spent time with a group of Fijian truck drivers who worked for a local company, PWC, doing subcontracting work for KBR.

My host was Titoko Savuwati from Totoya Lau, one of the Moala Islands in Fiji. He picked me up one evening in a small white Toyota Corolla rental car. The cranked-up sound system was playing American country favorites and oldies. Six-feet-tall with broad, rangy shoulders, short-cropped hair, and a goatee, Savuwati had been a police officer in Fiji. He was 50 years old and had left at home six children he hadn’t seen in four years. When he got out of his car, I noticed that he had a pronounced limp and dragged one foot ever so slightly behind him.

We joined his friends at his apartment for a simple Anglican prayer service. Deep baritone voices filled the tiny living room with Fijian hymns before they sat down to a meal of cassava and curried chicken parts and began to tell me their stories.

Each had made at least 100 dangerous trips, driving large 18-wheeler refrigeration trucks that carry all manner of goodies destined for US soldiers from Kuwaiti ports to bases like LSA Anaconda. They slept in their trucks, not being allowed to sleep in military tents or trailers along the way.

Savuwati had arrived in Kuwait on January 14, 2005, as one of 400 drivers, hoping to earn $3,000 a month. Instead, his real pay, he discovered, was 175 Kuwaiti dinar (KWD) a month (US$640), out of which he had to pay for all his food and sundries, even on the road, as well as rent. Drivers were given an extra 50 dinar ($183) allowance on each trip to Iraq.

“I came to Iraq because of the large amount of money they promised me,” he said, sighing. “But they give us very little money. We’ve been crying for more money for many months. Do you think my family can survive on fifty KWD?” He sends at least 100 dinars ($365) home a month and has no savings that would pay for a ticket home at a round-trip price of roughly $2,500.

I did a quick calculation. For every trip, if they worked the 12-hour shifts expected of them, the Fijians earned about $30 a day, or $2.50 an hour. I asked Savuwati about his limp. On a trip to Nasariyah in 2005, he told me, his truck flipped over, injuring his leg. Did he get paid sick leave? Savuwati looked incredulous. “The company didn’t give me any money. When we are injured, the company gives us nothing.” But, he assured me, he had been lucky – a number of fellow drivers had been killed on the job.

The next day, I stopped by to see the Fijians again, and Savuwati gave me a ride home. I offered to pay for gasoline and, after first waving me away, he quickly acquiesced. As he dropped me off, he looked at me sheepishly and said, “I’ve run out of money. Do you think you could give me one KWD [$3.65] for lunch?” I dug into my pocket and handed the money over. As I walked away, I thought about how ironic it was that the men who drove across a battle zone, dodging stones, bullets, and IEDs to bring ice cream, steak, lobster tails, and ammunition to US soldiers, had to beg for food themselves.

This, of course, is the real face of the American military today, though it’s never seen by Americans.

Obama’s Army
Pentagon commanders often speak of a “revolution in military affairs” when summing up the technological advances that allow them to stalk enemies by satellite, fire missiles from unmanned aerial vehicles, and protect US soldiers with night-vision goggles, but they rarely explain the social and logistical changes that have accompanied this revolution.

Today, US soldiers are drawn from a video-game culture that embraces computers on the battlefield, even as the US Army bears ever less relation to the draft armies that did the island hopping in the Pacific in World War II or fought jungle battles in Vietnam. Indeed, the personnel that Obama will soon visit in Iraq and Afghanistan is generally supplied with hot food and showers around the clock in combat zones in the same way they might be on a Stateside base – by workers like Savuwati.

Undoubtedly, an Obama administration could begin to cut some of the notorious fat out of the contracts that make that possible, including multi-million dollar overcharges. Obama’s potential budget trimmers could, for example, take whistleblowers inside KBR and the Pentagon seriously when they report malfeasance and waste.

But could Obama dismiss KBR’s army, even if he wanted to? Will Obama really be willing to ask American volunteer soldiers to give up the bacon, romaine lettuce, and roast turkey that they have come to expect in a war zone? And even if he could do so, those are only the luxuries.

Keep in mind that, on US bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, every single item, from beans to bullets, is shipped using contractors like PWC of Kuwait and Maersk of Denmark. In the last two decades, the US military has even divested itself of the hardware and people that would allow it to move tanks around the world, relying instead on contractors to do such work.

The White House website states that “Obama and Biden support plans to increase the size of the Army by 65,000 soldiers and the Marine Corps by 27,000 Marines. Increasing our end strength will help units retrain and re-equip properly between deployments and decrease the strain on military families.”

As part of the same policy statement, the site claims the new administration will reform contracting by creating “transparency for military contractors,” as well as restoring “honesty, openness, and commonsense to contracting and procurement” by “rebuilding our contract officer corps”.

Nowhere, however, does that website suggest that the new administration will work toward ending, or even radically cutting back, the use of contractors on the battlefield, or that those 92,000 new soldiers and Marines are going to fill logistics battalions that have been decimated in the last two decades.

What we already know of the military policies of the new administration suggests instead that President Obama wants to expand US military might. So don’t be surprised if the new LOGCAP contract, a $150 billion 10-year program that began on September 20, 2008, remains in place, with some minor tinkering around the edges to provide value for taxpayer money.

KBR’s army, it seems, will remain on the march.

India grapples with the Obama era

What prompted the spokesman of India’s ruling party, Congress, to recommend that the Bharat Ratna – the “Jewel of India” – be bestowed on George W Bush, we might never know. India has conferred its highest civilian honor on only two foreigners, one of whom was Nelson Mandela.

The Congress politician apparently got carried away on a balmy winter day with nostalgia hanging heavily in the air, as he faced a select audience of Delhi’s elite, who formed the gravy train of India-US “strategic partnership” in the Bush era.

Ironically, even as he spoke last Friday, a delegation was setting out from the United States for India to pay homage to Mahatma Gandhi, the great apostle of non-violence, who inspired Martin Luther King, who in turn remains a constant source of inspiration for US President Barack Obama.

The bizarre coincidence was driven home when at a special ceremony at the US State Department marking the visit, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “India is a reminder that the struggle for civil rights and justice has always been and continues to be a global mission; it knows no borders.”

The two unconnected events underscored the dilemma facing India’s policymakers as the Obama era gets under way. Indeed, it is an extraordinary statement that the first American delegation to visit India after Obama took office should be a “Gandhian” delegation. Is Obama “demilitarizing” India-US strategic cooperation? “Mil-to-mil” cooperation was at the core of US-India relationship during the past eight-year period. In recent years, India conducted more than 50 military exercises with the US.

All dressed up, nowhere to go
Yet a pall of gloom has descended on New Delhi’s elite. There is a pervasive nostalgia for George W Bush. The Bush administration officials claimed that the US regarded India as the preponderant power in South Asia and as a key Asian player that would shape up to be a viable counterweight to China militarily. The expectation was that the US would extricate India from the morass of its South Asian neighborhood by arm-twisting Pakistan.

Under constant encouragement from the Bush administration, the Indian elite placed faith in the country’s emergence as a global player. They began working “shoulder to shoulder” with the US, just as Bush’s officials urged. Now, Indian strategists find themselves awkwardly placed – all dressed-up but there’s nowhere right now for them to go.

Three factors have shaken up the Indian complacency. First, Indian strategists seriously underestimated the military stalemate that was developing in the war in Afghanistan and the consequent acute dependence of the US on Pakistan’s cooperation. This may sound surprising, but the knowledge of Afghan affairs remains shockingly poor among Indian strategists.

Two, Indian strategists underestimated the gravity of the global financial crisis that erupted last year. They couldn’t comprehend that the crisis would fundamentally change the world order. Even hard-nosed Indian strategists placed a touching faith in the “New American Century” project.

Three, the Indian establishment failed to grasp what Obama meant when he spoke of “change”. The Indian skepticism about Obama’s capacity to change US policies remained fairly widespread. The Indian establishment concluded that Obama would ultimately have to work within the box, hemmed in by America’s political, foreign policy and security establishment. It failed to see that the US’s capacity to sustain its global dominance was itself weakening and that necessitated radical changes in Obama’s policies.

From this perspective, the past week offered a reality check. The visit by the newly appointed US Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, to the region underscored that Islamabad’s support for the US war strategy in Afghanistan has become critical. The war is at a crucial stage and salvaging it appears increasingly difficult.

More to the point, given the overall fragility of the political situation in Pakistan, a stage is reached beyond which the US cannot “pressure” Pakistan. Therefore, in a change of approach, the US will have no choice but to work with Pakistan. In the coming period, as Holbrooke gradually opens the political track leading to an Afghan settlement, need of Pakistan’s cooperation increases further.

Meanwhile, the revelation that the US Predator drones operate out of Pakistani bases underlines how closely Washington and Islamabad have been working. The US’s acquiescence in the release of AQ Khan revealed the great latitude towards Pakistan’s concerns. The Indian strategists who fancied that New Delhi was Washington’s preferred partner in South Asia are stunned. Clearly, India is nowhere near as valuable an ally as Pakistan for the US for the present.

Looking ahead, Obama’s decision on Wednesday approving a troop buildup in Afghanistan constitutes a defining moment. He has put his presidency on the firing line. From this week onward, Obama’s war has begun. The war can well consume his presidency. Either he succeeds, or he gets mired in the war. Yet, the new US strategy is still in the making. Delhi takes note that it is at such a crucial juncture that the Pakistani army chief, General Parvez Kayani, has been invited to go across to Washington for consultations.

The message is clear: Washington will be in no mood to antagonize its Pakistani partner and Delhi is expected to keep tensions under check in its relations with Islamabad.

Dollar courting yuan
But there is another aspect in Obama’s new foreign policy that worries India even more. Obama’s China policy renders obsolete the Indian strategic calculus built around the US containment strategy. Hardly two to three years ago, the Bush administration encouraged India to put faith in a quadrilateral alliance of Asian democracies – the US, Japan, Australia and India – that would strive to set the rules for China’s behavior in the region.

According to reports, State Department officials had originally proposed that India be included in the itinerary of Clinton’s current first official tour abroad, but she struck it out. As things stand, Clinton meant every word of what she wrote last year in her Foreign Affairs article that “our [US] relationship with China will be the most important bilateral relationship in the world in this century”.

In a major speech at the Asia Society in New York last Friday before embarking on her tour of Asia, Clinton said, “We believe that the United States and China can benefit from and contribute to each other’s successes. It is in our interests to work harder to build on areas of common concern and shared opportunities”. She argued for a “comprehensive dialogue” and a “broader agenda” with China.

The Washington Post cited State Department officials as saying, “It is symbolically important that Clinton is the first secretary of state in nearly 50 years to intensely focus his or her maiden voyage on Asia”. The story is easily comprehensible. The US needs to have new opportunities to export more to China; it should persuade Beijing to accept a realistic dollar-yuan exchange rate; and, it should convince China to keep investing its money in America. But what is unfolding is also a phenomenal story insofar as a new chapter in their mutually dependent relationship is commencing where the two countries become equal partners in crisis. This was simply unthinkable.

Dennis Blair, the newly appointed director of national intelligence, in his testimony before the US senate intelligence committee on January 22, struck a fine balance when he said, while the United States must understand China’s military buildup – its extent, its technological sophistication and its vulnerabilities – in order to offset it, the intelligence community also needs to support policymakers who are looking for opportunities to work with Chinese leaders who believe that Asia is big enough for both of us and can be an Asia in which both countries can benefit as well as contribute to the common good.

However, this is precisely where a serious problem arises for India. In the Indian perception, South Asia and the Indian Ocean just aren’t “big enough” for India and China.

Dragon encircles peacock
This was rubbed home when Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived in Port Louis, Mauritius, on Tuesday on the final lap of his latest odyssey to Africa. Hu nonchalantly handed out a generous US$1 billion aid package for Mauritius, which India traditionally regarded as its “sphere of influence” in the Indian Ocean. No doubt, it was an audacious gesture by Beijing to a country the majority of whose 1.3 million population are people of Indian origin – at a time when China too faces an economic crisis and analysts say anywhere up to 40 million migrant workers may lose their jobs this year.

Arguably, Beijing regards Mauritius as a value-added platform between China and Africa from where its entrepreneurs could optimally perform. But Hu has convinced the Indian strategic community about China’s “encirclement” policy towards India. A leading Indian right-wing daily commented that Hu’s visit was “anything but ordinary … It underscores Beijing’s relentless thrust to secure a permanent naval foothold in the western Indian Ocean … That, of course, would only come at the expense of the Indian navy, which has been the principal external security partner of Mauritius all these decades”.

It is precisely such hubris that gets punctured by the shift in the Obama administration’s new priorities in the Far East and southwest Asia. A difficult period of adjustment lies ahead for Indian policymakers. India needs good relations with the US. At any rate, the India-US relationship is on an irreversible trajectory of growth. There is a “bipartisan” consensus in both countries that the relationship is in each other’s vital interests. But the US’s current strategic priorities in the region and India’s expectations are diverging. Given the criticality of Pakistan in the US geo-strategy, Obama administration will be constrained to correct the Bush administration’s “tilt” towards India.

Kashmir beckons
New Delhi pulled out all the stops when rumors surfaced that Holbrooke’s mandate might include the Kashmir problem. Obama paid heed to Indian sensitivities. But at a price. It compels India to curtail its own excessive instincts in recent years to seek US intervention in keeping India-Pakistan tensions in check.

In short, New Delhi will have to pay much greater attention to its bilateral track with Pakistan. And, of course, Pakistan will expect India to be far more flexible. Rightly or wrongly, Pakistan harbors a feeling that India took unilateral advantage from the relative four-year calm in their relationship without conceding anything in return.

In a sensational interview with India’s top television personality, Karan Thapar, on Thursday night, Pakistan’s former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri confirmed what many in New Delhi suspected, namely, that through back channel diplomacy, Islamabad and New Delhi had reached a broad understanding on contentious issues such as Sir Creek, Siachen and Kashmir as far back as two years ago.

The Indian prime minister was expected to visit Pakistan to conclude some of the agreements but the Indian side apparently began developing cold feet and it is “sheer bad luck”, as Kasuri put it, that the momentum dissipated.

To quote Kasuri, “If the Prime Minister of India had come when we [Pakistan] thought he would, we would have actually signed it, and that would have created the right atmosphere for resolution of other disputes, particularly the issue of J&K [Jammu and Kashmir]. We needed the right atmosphere.”

In other words, there is always a lurking danger that at some point, Holbrooke may barge into the Kashmir problem by way of addressing the core issues of regional security. The Bush administration had been kept constantly briefed by New Delhi on its back-channel discussions with Islamabad regarding Kashmir. Retracting from any commitments given to Pakistan becomes problematic at this stage.

At the same time, the Indian government has done nothing so far to sensitize domestic public opinion that such highly delicate discussions involving joint India-Pakistan governance of the Kashmir region have reached an advanced stage.

Thus, in a manner of speaking, with Holbrooke’s arrival in the region this past week, the clock began ticking on the Kashmir issue. Pakistan will incrementally mount pressure that Obama must insist on India moving forward on a settlement of the Kashmir problem in the overall interests of peace and regional stability.

And New Delhi will remain watchful. Holbrooke’s visit to New Delhi on Monday was kept low-key. The Indian media fawned on any mid-level official calling from the Bush administration, but Holbrooke was tucked away as if under quarantine. And no wonder; there could be many among New Delhi’s elite who feel nostalgic for the tranquility and predictability of the Bush era.

India grapples with the Obama era

By M H Ahssan

What prompted the spokesman of India’s ruling party, Congress, to recommend that the Bharat Ratna – the “Jewel of India” – be bestowed on George W Bush, we might never know. India has conferred its highest civilian honor on only two foreigners, one of whom was Nelson Mandela.

The Congress politician apparently got carried away on a balmy winter day with nostalgia hanging heavily in the air, as he faced a select audience of Delhi’s elite, who formed the gravy train of India-US “strategic partnership” in the Bush era.

Ironically, even as he spoke last Friday, a delegation was setting out from the United States for India to pay homage to Mahatma Gandhi, the great apostle of non-violence, who inspired Martin Luther King, who in turn remains a constant source of inspiration for US President Barack Obama.

The bizarre coincidence was driven home when at a special ceremony at the US State Department marking the visit, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “India is a reminder that the struggle for civil rights and justice has always been and continues to be a global mission; it knows no borders.”

The two unconnected events underscored the dilemma facing India’s policymakers as the Obama era gets under way. Indeed, it is an extraordinary statement that the first American delegation to visit India after Obama took office should be a “Gandhian” delegation. Is Obama “demilitarizing” India-US strategic cooperation? “Mil-to-mil” cooperation was at the core of US-India relationship during the past eight-year period. In recent years, India conducted more than 50 military exercises with the US.

All dressed up, nowhere to go
Yet a pall of gloom has descended on New Delhi’s elite. There is a pervasive nostalgia for George W Bush. The Bush administration officials claimed that the US regarded India as the preponderant power in South Asia and as a key Asian player that would shape up to be a viable counterweight to China militarily. The expectation was that the US would extricate India from the morass of its South Asian neighborhood by arm-twisting Pakistan.

Under constant encouragement from the Bush administration, the Indian elite placed faith in the country’s emergence as a global player. They began working “shoulder to shoulder” with the US, just as Bush’s officials urged. Now, Indian strategists find themselves awkwardly placed – all dressed-up but there’s nowhere right now for them to go.

Three factors have shaken up the Indian complacency. First, Indian strategists seriously underestimated the military stalemate that was developing in the war in Afghanistan and the consequent acute dependence of the US on Pakistan’s cooperation. This may sound surprising, but the knowledge of Afghan affairs remains shockingly poor among Indian strategists.

Two, Indian strategists underestimated the gravity of the global financial crisis that erupted last year. They couldn’t comprehend that the crisis would fundamentally change the world order. Even hard-nosed Indian strategists placed a touching faith in the “New American Century” project.

Three, the Indian establishment failed to grasp what Obama meant when he spoke of “change”. The Indian skepticism about Obama’s capacity to change US policies remained fairly widespread. The Indian establishment concluded that Obama would ultimately have to work within the box, hemmed in by America’s political, foreign policy and security establishment. It failed to see that the US’s capacity to sustain its global dominance was itself weakening and that necessitated radical changes in Obama’s policies.

From this perspective, the past week offered a reality check. The visit by the newly appointed US Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, to the region underscored that Islamabad’s support for the US war strategy in Afghanistan has become critical. The war is at a crucial stage and salvaging it appears increasingly difficult.

More to the point, given the overall fragility of the political situation in Pakistan, a stage is reached beyond which the US cannot “pressure” Pakistan. Therefore, in a change of approach, the US will have no choice but to work with Pakistan. In the coming period, as Holbrooke gradually opens the political track leading to an Afghan settlement, need of Pakistan’s cooperation increases further.

Meanwhile, the revelation that the US Predator drones operate out of Pakistani bases underlines how closely Washington and Islamabad have been working. The US’s acquiescence in the release of AQ Khan revealed the great latitude towards Pakistan’s concerns. The Indian strategists who fancied that New Delhi was Washington’s preferred partner in South Asia are stunned. Clearly, India is nowhere near as valuable an ally as Pakistan for the US for the present.

Looking ahead, Obama’s decision on Wednesday approving a troop buildup in Afghanistan constitutes a defining moment. He has put his presidency on the firing line. From this week onward, Obama’s war has begun. The war can well consume his presidency. Either he succeeds, or he gets mired in the war. Yet, the new US strategy is still in the making. Delhi takes note that it is at such a crucial juncture that the Pakistani army chief, General Parvez Kayani, has been invited to go across to Washington for consultations.

The message is clear: Washington will be in no mood to antagonize its Pakistani partner and Delhi is expected to keep tensions under check in its relations with Islamabad.

Dollar courting yuan
But there is another aspect in Obama’s new foreign policy that worries India even more. Obama’s China policy renders obsolete the Indian strategic calculus built around the US containment strategy. Hardly two to three years ago, the Bush administration encouraged India to put faith in a quadrilateral alliance of Asian democracies – the US, Japan, Australia and India – that would strive to set the rules for China’s behavior in the region.

According to reports, State Department officials had originally proposed that India be included in the itinerary of Clinton’s current first official tour abroad, but she struck it out. As things stand, Clinton meant every word of what she wrote last year in her Foreign Affairs article that “our [US] relationship with China will be the most important bilateral relationship in the world in this century”.

In a major speech at the Asia Society in New York last Friday before embarking on her tour of Asia, Clinton said, “We believe that the United States and China can benefit from and contribute to each other’s successes. It is in our interests to work harder to build on areas of common concern and shared opportunities”. She argued for a “comprehensive dialogue” and a “broader agenda” with China.

The Washington Post cited State Department officials as saying, “It is symbolically important that Clinton is the first secretary of state in nearly 50 years to intensely focus his or her maiden voyage on Asia”. The story is easily comprehensible. The US needs to have new opportunities to export more to China; it should persuade Beijing to accept a realistic dollar-yuan exchange rate; and, it should convince China to keep investing its money in America. But what is unfolding is also a phenomenal story insofar as a new chapter in their mutually dependent relationship is commencing where the two countries become equal partners in crisis. This was simply unthinkable.

Dennis Blair, the newly appointed director of national intelligence, in his testimony before the US senate intelligence committee on January 22, struck a fine balance when he said, while the United States must understand China’s military buildup – its extent, its technological sophistication and its vulnerabilities – in order to offset it, the intelligence community also needs to support policymakers who are looking for opportunities to work with Chinese leaders who believe that Asia is big enough for both of us and can be an Asia in which both countries can benefit as well as contribute to the common good.

However, this is precisely where a serious problem arises for India. In the Indian perception, South Asia and the Indian Ocean just aren’t “big enough” for India and China.

Dragon encircles peacock
This was rubbed home when Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived in Port Louis, Mauritius, on Tuesday on the final lap of his latest odyssey to Africa. Hu nonchalantly handed out a generous US$1 billion aid package for Mauritius, which India traditionally regarded as its “sphere of influence” in the Indian Ocean. No doubt, it was an audacious gesture by Beijing to a country the majority of whose 1.3 million population are people of Indian origin – at a time when China too faces an economic crisis and analysts say anywhere up to 40 million migrant workers may lose their jobs this year.

Arguably, Beijing regards Mauritius as a value-added platform between China and Africa from where its entrepreneurs could optimally perform. But Hu has convinced the Indian strategic community about China’s “encirclement” policy towards India. A leading Indian right-wing daily commented that Hu’s visit was “anything but ordinary … It underscores Beijing’s relentless thrust to secure a permanent naval foothold in the western Indian Ocean … That, of course, would only come at the expense of the Indian navy, which has been the principal external security partner of Mauritius all these decades”.

It is precisely such hubris that gets punctured by the shift in the Obama administration’s new priorities in the Far East and southwest Asia. A difficult period of adjustment lies ahead for Indian policymakers. India needs good relations with the US. At any rate, the India-US relationship is on an irreversible trajectory of growth. There is a “bipartisan” consensus in both countries that the relationship is in each other’s vital interests. But the US’s current strategic priorities in the region and India’s expectations are diverging. Given the criticality of Pakistan in the US geo-strategy, Obama administration will be constrained to correct the Bush administration’s “tilt” towards India.

Kashmir beckons
New Delhi pulled out all the stops when rumors surfaced that Holbrooke’s mandate might include the Kashmir problem. Obama paid heed to Indian sensitivities. But at a price. It compels India to curtail its own excessive instincts in recent years to seek US intervention in keeping India-Pakistan tensions in check.

In short, New Delhi will have to pay much greater attention to its bilateral track with Pakistan. And, of course, Pakistan will expect India to be far more flexible. Rightly or wrongly, Pakistan harbors a feeling that India took unilateral advantage from the relative four-year calm in their relationship without conceding anything in return.

In a sensational interview with India’s top television personality, Karan Thapar, on Thursday night, Pakistan’s former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri confirmed what many in New Delhi suspected, namely, that through back channel diplomacy, Islamabad and New Delhi had reached a broad understanding on contentious issues such as Sir Creek, Siachen and Kashmir as far back as two years ago.

The Indian prime minister was expected to visit Pakistan to conclude some of the agreements but the Indian side apparently began developing cold feet and it is “sheer bad luck”, as Kasuri put it, that the momentum dissipated.

To quote Kasuri, “If the Prime Minister of India had come when we [Pakistan] thought he would, we would have actually signed it, and that would have created the right atmosphere for resolution of other disputes, particularly the issue of J&K [Jammu and Kashmir]. We needed the right atmosphere.”

In other words, there is always a lurking danger that at some point, Holbrooke may barge into the Kashmir problem by way of addressing the core issues of regional security. The Bush administration had been kept constantly briefed by New Delhi on its back-channel discussions with Islamabad regarding Kashmir. Retracting from any commitments given to Pakistan becomes problematic at this stage.

At the same time, the Indian government has done nothing so far to sensitize domestic public opinion that such highly delicate discussions involving joint India-Pakistan governance of the Kashmir region have reached an advanced stage.

Thus, in a manner of speaking, with Holbrooke’s arrival in the region this past week, the clock began ticking on the Kashmir issue. Pakistan will incrementally mount pressure that Obama must insist on India moving forward on a settlement of the Kashmir problem in the overall interests of peace and regional stability.

And New Delhi will remain watchful. Holbrooke’s visit to New Delhi on Monday was kept low-key. The Indian media fawned on any mid-level official calling from the Bush administration, but Holbrooke was tucked away as if under quarantine. And no wonder; there could be many among New Delhi’s elite who feel nostalgic for the tranquility and predictability of the Bush era.

India grapples with the Obama era

By M H Ahssan

What prompted the spokesman of India’s ruling party, Congress, to recommend that the Bharat Ratna – the “Jewel of India” – be bestowed on George W Bush, we might never know. India has conferred its highest civilian honor on only two foreigners, one of whom was Nelson Mandela.

The Congress politician apparently got carried away on a balmy winter day with nostalgia hanging heavily in the air, as he faced a select audience of Delhi’s elite, who formed the gravy train of India-US “strategic partnership” in the Bush era.

Ironically, even as he spoke last Friday, a delegation was setting out from the United States for India to pay homage to Mahatma Gandhi, the great apostle of non-violence, who inspired Martin Luther King, who in turn remains a constant source of inspiration for US President Barack Obama.

The bizarre coincidence was driven home when at a special ceremony at the US State Department marking the visit, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “India is a reminder that the struggle for civil rights and justice has always been and continues to be a global mission; it knows no borders.”

The two unconnected events underscored the dilemma facing India’s policymakers as the Obama era gets under way. Indeed, it is an extraordinary statement that the first American delegation to visit India after Obama took office should be a “Gandhian” delegation. Is Obama “demilitarizing” India-US strategic cooperation? “Mil-to-mil” cooperation was at the core of US-India relationship during the past eight-year period. In recent years, India conducted more than 50 military exercises with the US.

All dressed up, nowhere to go
Yet a pall of gloom has descended on New Delhi’s elite. There is a pervasive nostalgia for George W Bush. The Bush administration officials claimed that the US regarded India as the preponderant power in South Asia and as a key Asian player that would shape up to be a viable counterweight to China militarily. The expectation was that the US would extricate India from the morass of its South Asian neighborhood by arm-twisting Pakistan.

Under constant encouragement from the Bush administration, the Indian elite placed faith in the country’s emergence as a global player. They began working “shoulder to shoulder” with the US, just as Bush’s officials urged. Now, Indian strategists find themselves awkwardly placed – all dressed-up but there’s nowhere right now for them to go.

Three factors have shaken up the Indian complacency. First, Indian strategists seriously underestimated the military stalemate that was developing in the war in Afghanistan and the consequent acute dependence of the US on Pakistan’s cooperation. This may sound surprising, but the knowledge of Afghan affairs remains shockingly poor among Indian strategists.

Two, Indian strategists underestimated the gravity of the global financial crisis that erupted last year. They couldn’t comprehend that the crisis would fundamentally change the world order. Even hard-nosed Indian strategists placed a touching faith in the “New American Century” project.

Three, the Indian establishment failed to grasp what Obama meant when he spoke of “change”. The Indian skepticism about Obama’s capacity to change US policies remained fairly widespread. The Indian establishment concluded that Obama would ultimately have to work within the box, hemmed in by America’s political, foreign policy and security establishment. It failed to see that the US’s capacity to sustain its global dominance was itself weakening and that necessitated radical changes in Obama’s policies.

From this perspective, the past week offered a reality check. The visit by the newly appointed US Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, to the region underscored that Islamabad’s support for the US war strategy in Afghanistan has become critical. The war is at a crucial stage and salvaging it appears increasingly difficult.

More to the point, given the overall fragility of the political situation in Pakistan, a stage is reached beyond which the US cannot “pressure” Pakistan. Therefore, in a change of approach, the US will have no choice but to work with Pakistan. In the coming period, as Holbrooke gradually opens the political track leading to an Afghan settlement, need of Pakistan’s cooperation increases further.

Meanwhile, the revelation that the US Predator drones operate out of Pakistani bases underlines how closely Washington and Islamabad have been working. The US’s acquiescence in the release of AQ Khan revealed the great latitude towards Pakistan’s concerns. The Indian strategists who fancied that New Delhi was Washington’s preferred partner in South Asia are stunned. Clearly, India is nowhere near as valuable an ally as Pakistan for the US for the present.

Looking ahead, Obama’s decision on Wednesday approving a troop buildup in Afghanistan constitutes a defining moment. He has put his presidency on the firing line. From this week onward, Obama’s war has begun. The war can well consume his presidency. Either he succeeds, or he gets mired in the war. Yet, the new US strategy is still in the making. Delhi takes note that it is at such a crucial juncture that the Pakistani army chief, General Parvez Kayani, has been invited to go across to Washington for consultations.

The message is clear: Washington will be in no mood to antagonize its Pakistani partner and Delhi is expected to keep tensions under check in its relations with Islamabad.

Dollar courting yuan
But there is another aspect in Obama’s new foreign policy that worries India even more. Obama’s China policy renders obsolete the Indian strategic calculus built around the US containment strategy. Hardly two to three years ago, the Bush administration encouraged India to put faith in a quadrilateral alliance of Asian democracies – the US, Japan, Australia and India – that would strive to set the rules for China’s behavior in the region.

According to reports, State Department officials had originally proposed that India be included in the itinerary of Clinton’s current first official tour abroad, but she struck it out. As things stand, Clinton meant every word of what she wrote last year in her Foreign Affairs article that “our [US] relationship with China will be the most important bilateral relationship in the world in this century”.

In a major speech at the Asia Society in New York last Friday before embarking on her tour of Asia, Clinton said, “We believe that the United States and China can benefit from and contribute to each other’s successes. It is in our interests to work harder to build on areas of common concern and shared opportunities”. She argued for a “comprehensive dialogue” and a “broader agenda” with China.

The Washington Post cited State Department officials as saying, “It is symbolically important that Clinton is the first secretary of state in nearly 50 years to intensely focus his or her maiden voyage on Asia”. The story is easily comprehensible. The US needs to have new opportunities to export more to China; it should persuade Beijing to accept a realistic dollar-yuan exchange rate; and, it should convince China to keep investing its money in America. But what is unfolding is also a phenomenal story insofar as a new chapter in their mutually dependent relationship is commencing where the two countries become equal partners in crisis. This was simply unthinkable.

Dennis Blair, the newly appointed director of national intelligence, in his testimony before the US senate intelligence committee on January 22, struck a fine balance when he said, while the United States must understand China’s military buildup – its extent, its technological sophistication and its vulnerabilities – in order to offset it, the intelligence community also needs to support policymakers who are looking for opportunities to work with Chinese leaders who believe that Asia is big enough for both of us and can be an Asia in which both countries can benefit as well as contribute to the common good.

However, this is precisely where a serious problem arises for India. In the Indian perception, South Asia and the Indian Ocean just aren’t “big enough” for India and China.

Dragon encircles peacock
This was rubbed home when Chinese President Hu Jintao arrived in Port Louis, Mauritius, on Tuesday on the final lap of his latest odyssey to Africa. Hu nonchalantly handed out a generous US$1 billion aid package for Mauritius, which India traditionally regarded as its “sphere of influence” in the Indian Ocean. No doubt, it was an audacious gesture by Beijing to a country the majority of whose 1.3 million population are people of Indian origin – at a time when China too faces an economic crisis and analysts say anywhere up to 40 million migrant workers may lose their jobs this year.

Arguably, Beijing regards Mauritius as a value-added platform between China and Africa from where its entrepreneurs could optimally perform. But Hu has convinced the Indian strategic community about China’s “encirclement” policy towards India. A leading Indian right-wing daily commented that Hu’s visit was “anything but ordinary … It underscores Beijing’s relentless thrust to secure a permanent naval foothold in the western Indian Ocean … That, of course, would only come at the expense of the Indian navy, which has been the principal external security partner of Mauritius all these decades”.

It is precisely such hubris that gets punctured by the shift in the Obama administration’s new priorities in the Far East and southwest Asia. A difficult period of adjustment lies ahead for Indian policymakers. India needs good relations with the US. At any rate, the India-US relationship is on an irreversible trajectory of growth. There is a “bipartisan” consensus in both countries that the relationship is in each other’s vital interests. But the US’s current strategic priorities in the region and India’s expectations are diverging. Given the criticality of Pakistan in the US geo-strategy, Obama administration will be constrained to correct the Bush administration’s “tilt” towards India.

Kashmir beckons
New Delhi pulled out all the stops when rumors surfaced that Holbrooke’s mandate might include the Kashmir problem. Obama paid heed to Indian sensitivities. But at a price. It compels India to curtail its own excessive instincts in recent years to seek US intervention in keeping India-Pakistan tensions in check.

In short, New Delhi will have to pay much greater attention to its bilateral track with Pakistan. And, of course, Pakistan will expect India to be far more flexible. Rightly or wrongly, Pakistan harbors a feeling that India took unilateral advantage from the relative four-year calm in their relationship without conceding anything in return.

In a sensational interview with India’s top television personality, Karan Thapar, on Thursday night, Pakistan’s former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri confirmed what many in New Delhi suspected, namely, that through back channel diplomacy, Islamabad and New Delhi had reached a broad understanding on contentious issues such as Sir Creek, Siachen and Kashmir as far back as two years ago.

The Indian prime minister was expected to visit Pakistan to conclude some of the agreements but the Indian side apparently began developing cold feet and it is “sheer bad luck”, as Kasuri put it, that the momentum dissipated.

To quote Kasuri, “If the Prime Minister of India had come when we [Pakistan] thought he would, we would have actually signed it, and that would have created the right atmosphere for resolution of other disputes, particularly the issue of J&K [Jammu and Kashmir]. We needed the right atmosphere.”

In other words, there is always a lurking danger that at some point, Holbrooke may barge into the Kashmir problem by way of addressing the core issues of regional security. The Bush administration had been kept constantly briefed by New Delhi on its back-channel discussions with Islamabad regarding Kashmir. Retracting from any commitments given to Pakistan becomes problematic at this stage.

At the same time, the Indian government has done nothing so far to sensitize domestic public opinion that such highly delicate discussions involving joint India-Pakistan governance of the Kashmir region have reached an advanced stage.

Thus, in a manner of speaking, with Holbrooke’s arrival in the region this past week, the clock began ticking on the Kashmir issue. Pakistan will incrementally mount pressure that Obama must insist on India moving forward on a settlement of the Kashmir problem in the overall interests of peace and regional stability.

And New Delhi will remain watchful. Holbrooke’s visit to New Delhi on Monday was kept low-key. The Indian media fawned on any mid-level official calling from the Bush administration, but Holbrooke was tucked away as if under quarantine. And no wonder; there could be many among New Delhi’s elite who feel nostalgic for the tranquility and predictability of the Bush era.

Indian garment exporters may lose out to low-cost competitors

By M H Ahssan

Garment exports from India show little signs of picking up this winter-autumn season, following a gradual shift of international buyers towards low-cost neighbouring countries. International bookings of garments have dropped sharply, although exporters slashed prices by 11-12%.

“Major global buyers like Wal-Mart, JC Penney, Li & Fung, Gap and Target have indicated plans to cut offtake from India by 12-15% this year, while they are increasing their offtake in neighbouring countries,” said Rahul Mehta, president of the clothing manufacturing association of India. Countries like Vietnam and Bangladesh have lower import duties and cost of production enabling them to offer more competitive prices, said industry officials.

According to the industry analysts, garment exports from India would be lower than Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia and Combodia. It is expected that India would end up exporting garments worth $9 billion this fiscal, down by almost 10% compared with the last year. Bangladesh is expected to export worth $12 billion garments.

Global buyers have also cut down purchases in the wake of a global meltdown and recessionary trends in western economies. Premal Udani, managing director of Kaytee Corporation said that the industry is likely to face further challenges, if the winterautumn order booking fails to meet expectations.

“Currently, bookings are 20-25% lower than the same period last year and sentiments are weak ahead because of gloomy outlook of textile industry,” said Mr Udani.

Two relief packages and a 2% interest rate subvention in pre-and post-shipment credit up to September 2009, seem to offer little relief yet to the industry.

Exports said that they had hoped for sops like scrapping of the fringe benefit tax and higher duty drawback rates. However, any further relief packages have been ruled out before Parliamentary elections, said a government official.

Indian garment exporters may lose out to low-cost competitors

By M H Ahssan

Garment exports from India show little signs of picking up this winter-autumn season, following a gradual shift of international buyers towards low-cost neighbouring countries. International bookings of garments have dropped sharply, although exporters slashed prices by 11-12%.

“Major global buyers like Wal-Mart, JC Penney, Li & Fung, Gap and Target have indicated plans to cut offtake from India by 12-15% this year, while they are increasing their offtake in neighbouring countries,” said Rahul Mehta, president of the clothing manufacturing association of India. Countries like Vietnam and Bangladesh have lower import duties and cost of production enabling them to offer more competitive prices, said industry officials.

According to the industry analysts, garment exports from India would be lower than Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia and Combodia. It is expected that India would end up exporting garments worth $9 billion this fiscal, down by almost 10% compared with the last year. Bangladesh is expected to export worth $12 billion garments.

Global buyers have also cut down purchases in the wake of a global meltdown and recessionary trends in western economies. Premal Udani, managing director of Kaytee Corporation said that the industry is likely to face further challenges, if the winterautumn order booking fails to meet expectations.

“Currently, bookings are 20-25% lower than the same period last year and sentiments are weak ahead because of gloomy outlook of textile industry,” said Mr Udani.

Two relief packages and a 2% interest rate subvention in pre-and post-shipment credit up to September 2009, seem to offer little relief yet to the industry.

Exports said that they had hoped for sops like scrapping of the fringe benefit tax and higher duty drawback rates. However, any further relief packages have been ruled out before Parliamentary elections, said a government official.

Urban Indians simply refuse to feel the pinch

By Prateek Sinha

Call it irrational exuberance or rational expectations . Urban Indians continue to be reasonably optimistic about the state of the economy and as high as 75% of them expect their family’s financial situation to remain stable or improve over the next 12 months. This is so, even as a majority of them acknowledge that the economy is doing badly at present. Expectations of this kind determine spending behaviour and that is why the pervasively gloomy mood in most developed markets has industry and economists worried. The mood in India, in contrast, is positive, finds a 14-city survey of 2,900 reasonably well-informed and well-off people. The survey was conducted by Futures Company and TNS Global as part of its ‘Feeling the Pinch’ series, previous editions of which covered the UK and the US. About one in every three persons in urban India is not worried about economy at all.

A little over 53% expect their finances to remain the same while over 21% expect their finances to improve over the next 12 months. However, worries about their financial stability have risen over the past three months. Less than 20% said that they are facing financial difficulty, while more than 38% said they were financially comfortable or well off and 41% said they have enough to make ends meet. That confidence emanates from the level of savings respondents have accumulated over the years, says Rima Gupta, Country Head, The Futures Company. After all, with the economic boom of the past few years, more than 50% feel they were better off than they were three years ago.

But that’s the broad trend. The survey of people in the SEC A, B, and C categories (socio-economic classes that are clerical/supervisory staff and above), conducted in January, however, saw divergent trends. Individuals in metro cities were slightly more pessimistic about the economic outlook than their non-metro counterparts. That can probably be attributed to the impact of external factors on metro residents. They were more affected by the stock market collapse, the Satyam episode and the Mumbai terror attacks. In contrast, people in the smaller towns were more preoccupied with mundane matters such as meeting expenses for basic necessities, impact of prices and paying for children’s education. They have gained from inflation cooling off. About 71% of those living in metros said the economy was doing badly or fairly badly compared 61% in the non-metros. Further, 36% in non-metros felt the economy was performing well or fairly well against 28% in the metros.

Yet, the sudden change in the economic climate in the country had majority of the people concerned about their financial situation. Only a little more than 13% said they had not become more worried about their financial situation over the three months preceding the survey. The anxiety level was higher among the non-metro dwellers, with nearly 64% saying they somewhat more or a lot more worried now, perhaps due to the nature of their concerns and greater fear of losing their job due to the slowdown. Small-town folk came across as more confident, with more than 82% saying their family’s financial position would be about the same or better over the next 12 months.

Gold prices surging toward Rs 16k level

By M H Ahssan

Surging gold prices set yet another record of Rs 15,800 per 10 gram in the national capital and Rs 15,925 in Kolkata per 10 gram on Thursday in line with the surging global bullion markets on speculation that the global recession will deepen further. The precious metal recorded fresh gains of Rs 50 to Rs 15,800 a level never seen before after poor economic data of Russia and Japan raised concerns of a growing malaise of global recession. Jewellers and market analysts said the demand of the yellow metal picked up after the global equity and forex markets dropped in the recent past.

They said shaky investors find no other option but to park their funds in the precious metals while physical buying for the current marriage season declined substantially. “We do not see any customers these days as surging gold prices cooled down the demand for jewellery in this marriage season,” said a Delhi-based jeweller Gaurav Anand. A similar trend in other regional bullion markets in the country also dampened trading sentiment to a great extent. In Kolkata the gold opened at a record high of Rs 15,925 per 10 gram.

Gold futures break all records
Gold futures continued hitting a new high for the third day on Thursday at Rs 15,712 per 10 gram in early trading on the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX), on continued buying on speculations that the global recession will deepen further. The far-month June contract for gold surged by Rs 138 or 0.88 per cent to touch a new high of Rs 15,712 per 10 gram at the MCX counter.

The contract clocked business volume of 268 lots (one lot is equal to one kg) in early trade. Gold for April month contract rose by Rs 145 or 0.93 per cent to Rs 15,706 per 10 gram, clocking a business turnover of 4,665 lots. Firming trends in spot markets on account of marriage season also influenced metal prices. At Chennai, gold opened Rs 235 higher to Rs 15,725 per 10 gram. “Continued investment buying and break of $980 an ounce level, an important resistance level, supported the bull-run in the precious metal,” Galipelli Harish of Karvy Comtrade said.

In the global markets gold touched a high of $988.40 an ounce on Wednesday.

Lend a shoulder, Shah Rukh Khan

By M H Ahssan

Celebrity haemorrhage has led to a stroke of good luck for the rest of us. The frequency of VIP illnesses means that schools may no longer need to impart anatomy lessons, and even medical colleges could become as disposable as a needle. The media has stepped into the role of the conventional classroom, teaching us everything we never wanted to learn about every current hiccup in the VIP body.

The latest case is that of Shah Rukh Khan. While lesser mortals make do with a simple pulled tendon, he gets some posh supraspinatus tendonistis. But, ordinary folks still score because the ensuing mass of information in print, on TV, and the crosssection of Net dissections, enables all of us to bone up on every disgusting detail about this muscular affliction. Surgeon ne bana di joint, and we receive a hotshoulder lesson ek dum free of cost — no tendons attached. Actually, SRK is a mobile classroom whether immobilised on an operating table, or merely hamstrung by an armsling or the neck-brace he has long needed for his hard-pressed back. Neosix-packers and the Akshay breed of DIY action-heroes must pay the price of push-upping their body too far.

Of course, Amitabh Bachchan towers over the star classroom as much as he does on screen; in fact, he first triggered these media medical lessons, way back in 1982, after the near-fatal accident on the sets of Coolie. Thank Bhagwan, he emerged alive and still-kicking off the competition from that illness, but not before he had given the whole world a crash course in myasthenia gravis. It wasn’t some ‘Munnabhai MBBS’ sham. Within days of hearing about it for the very first time, newspapers had taught us enough to max a medical-school paper on it.

Then, in 2005, our AB was back in the OT and our prayers, this time for diverticulitis. So now everyone knows the intestinal twists and turns of the intestine, which cause this painful condition. I owe him a Big B-size thank you. After those media lessons, my own attacks of the dreaded D are no longer rudely laughed off with, “Rubbish! Diverticulitis sounds like one of those words you make up in your column.”

It is not only in our stars that we are understudy surgeons. Sachin Tendulkar’s elbow, for instance, made us experts in that field in orthospeedic time. However, the greatest gurus remain our politicians. The range and frequency of their ailments could provide the layperson with not just post-graduate degrees, but the whole doctorate. No surprise here. Gray’s Anatomy is best studied via our grey-haired netas who continue to be at a premium despite all the lip-service to youth. In fact, power/elections inject them with a personal stimulus package, as can be clearly seen in the case of NDA PMs, past and promotee.

We had just about recovered from our intensive study of the cardio-pulmonary system prompted by the present PM’s sudden bypass surgery, when a new-old political patient arrived on the media syllabus. In recent weeks we have been provided regular respiratory tract lessons via Mr Vajpayee’s precarious condition, but in 2001, his less-critical foster knees merited more space and time because he was then the sitting prime minister.

Next we will have to gird our loins to master the intricacies of electile dysfunction. Theoretical lessons will emphasise the importance of a fit constitution, but field malpractices will throw up contra-indications. Politics has already begun to look like an OPD, with wannabe candidates lining up at party offices, feverishly clutching their files and nursing hopes/grievances. Indeed, the media classroom has already begun to teach us about the internal workings of the body politic. Investigative procedures such as Soniagraphy are par for the course. But the EC-ji may no longer be a reliable tool. It’s suffering from arhythmic abnormalities of its own.

Lend a shoulder, Shah Rukh Khan

By M H Ahssan

Celebrity haemorrhage has led to a stroke of good luck for the rest of us. The frequency of VIP illnesses means that schools may no longer need to impart anatomy lessons, and even medical colleges could become as disposable as a needle. The media has stepped into the role of the conventional classroom, teaching us everything we never wanted to learn about every current hiccup in the VIP body.

The latest case is that of Shah Rukh Khan. While lesser mortals make do with a simple pulled tendon, he gets some posh supraspinatus tendonistis. But, ordinary folks still score because the ensuing mass of information in print, on TV, and the crosssection of Net dissections, enables all of us to bone up on every disgusting detail about this muscular affliction. Surgeon ne bana di joint, and we receive a hotshoulder lesson ek dum free of cost — no tendons attached. Actually, SRK is a mobile classroom whether immobilised on an operating table, or merely hamstrung by an armsling or the neck-brace he has long needed for his hard-pressed back. Neosix-packers and the Akshay breed of DIY action-heroes must pay the price of push-upping their body too far.

Of course, Amitabh Bachchan towers over the star classroom as much as he does on screen; in fact, he first triggered these media medical lessons, way back in 1982, after the near-fatal accident on the sets of Coolie. Thank Bhagwan, he emerged alive and still-kicking off the competition from that illness, but not before he had given the whole world a crash course in myasthenia gravis. It wasn’t some ‘Munnabhai MBBS’ sham. Within days of hearing about it for the very first time, newspapers had taught us enough to max a medical-school paper on it.

Then, in 2005, our AB was back in the OT and our prayers, this time for diverticulitis. So now everyone knows the intestinal twists and turns of the intestine, which cause this painful condition. I owe him a Big B-size thank you. After those media lessons, my own attacks of the dreaded D are no longer rudely laughed off with, “Rubbish! Diverticulitis sounds like one of those words you make up in your column.”

It is not only in our stars that we are understudy surgeons. Sachin Tendulkar’s elbow, for instance, made us experts in that field in orthospeedic time. However, the greatest gurus remain our politicians. The range and frequency of their ailments could provide the layperson with not just post-graduate degrees, but the whole doctorate. No surprise here. Gray’s Anatomy is best studied via our grey-haired netas who continue to be at a premium despite all the lip-service to youth. In fact, power/elections inject them with a personal stimulus package, as can be clearly seen in the case of NDA PMs, past and promotee.

We had just about recovered from our intensive study of the cardio-pulmonary system prompted by the present PM’s sudden bypass surgery, when a new-old political patient arrived on the media syllabus. In recent weeks we have been provided regular respiratory tract lessons via Mr Vajpayee’s precarious condition, but in 2001, his less-critical foster knees merited more space and time because he was then the sitting prime minister.

Next we will have to gird our loins to master the intricacies of electile dysfunction. Theoretical lessons will emphasise the importance of a fit constitution, but field malpractices will throw up contra-indications. Politics has already begun to look like an OPD, with wannabe candidates lining up at party offices, feverishly clutching their files and nursing hopes/grievances. Indeed, the media classroom has already begun to teach us about the internal workings of the body politic. Investigative procedures such as Soniagraphy are par for the course. But the EC-ji may no longer be a reliable tool. It’s suffering from arhythmic abnormalities of its own.

Notes from ‘Red Country’

By Neelesh Swati

Bastar Is Truly A ‘Liberated’ Area

It was early morning when the phone rang. “Do you still want to meet the naxalites?,” asked the voice at the other end. For the past eight months, I was waiting for this “invitation” to meet the Maoists of Chhattisgarh in their den: the Dandakaranya jungles of South Bastar.

We drove down to Kondagaon, a Kasbah, about 250 km from Raipur. We began our journey in a Scorpio van. Expecting cops on the way, we had created an alternate identities for ourselves: We were NGO workers surveying implementation of NREGA. Thankfully, nobody stopped us.

We rested for a few hours in another village before embarking on our final trek around 4 am. We must have walked for close to four hours across fields, forest and hills, before we finally reached a makeshift naxalite camp. But for a small group of cadres in olive fatigues or saris, there was hardly anyone there.

We sat on blue plastic sheets and looked around. Nobody said this but we knew: This was ground zero of the red country. The jungles of south Bastar have their own unwritten rules. Government officials do not dare to enter here. Few dare to file FIRs in the police station. And it is unlikely thatpoliticians will come here for votes in the coming Lok Sabha polls.

The Maoists have their own Jantana Sarkar, a parallel government in five districts: Bijapur, Bastar, Kanker, Narayanpur and Dantewada.

Nothing angers them more than the mention of Salwa Judum, a movement guided by Congress leader Mahendra Karma to counter the rise of Left extremism. “He is public enemy no 1. We have attacked him many times and will continue to do so,” says Comrade Pandu, the unit’s spokesperson. “Villagers do not support the Salwa Judum. No one wants to live in those camps, which are like jails. But this is a truly ‘liberated’ area. There are no Salwa Judum camps around.”

It’s Tuesday, February 10. Thousands of tribals gathered in the forest away from the watchful eyes of Cobra, the paramilitary force set up to counter the Maoists. The forces patrol highway but the jungles resonate with song and dance interspersed with Red propaganda speeches.

A Jantana Sarkar Swasthya Kendra dispensed free malaria, dysentery and headache pills. The Maoists’ parallel government has eight departments: education and culture, finance, law, defence, agriculture, forest conservation, health and sanitation, and public relations. Once the people’s court pronounces a judgment, the guilty is held in custody till deemed fit to be released. The Maoists fund their government with tax collections from villagers.

The celebrations began around noon and carried on till six in the morning when we left the camp. That such a grand festival can be organized without the official machinery being aware of it is proof of the naxalites’ sway in the Dandakaranya region. They are the law here.

Kerala nun’s autobiography shocks and sells

By Maria Kutty

Nun Recounts Tales Of Sexual Exploitation And Discrimination In Convents

The explosive life story of a Kerala nun, ‘Amen — Oru Kanyasthreeyude Atmakatha’ (Amen — Autobiography of a Nun), by Sister Jesmi, is selling briskly in Kerala with its publishers having ordered a third reprint of 2,000 copies within weeks of its release.

Not long ago, a study had claimed that 25% nuns were unhappy in convents. Now, there’s more embarrassment for the church with Sister Jesmi, once associated with the Congregation of Mother of Carmel under the Catholic Church, recounting her harrowing ecclesiastical life in the autobiography, which she says, forced her to leave the convent. The revelations could further rattle the clergy that’s already in a spot with the Abhaya case.

Born C Meamy Raphael, Jesmi writes in her autobiography that she got her first rude shock when she was a novitiate. “At a retreat for novices, I noticed girls in my batch were unsettled about going to the confession chamber. I found that the priest there asked each girl if he could kiss them. I gathered courage and went in. He repeated the question. When I opposed, he quoted from the Bible, which spoke of divine kisses,’’ she writes.

Her second shock was from an ordained nun. “I was sent to teach plus-two students in St Maria College. There, a new sister joined to teach Malayalam; she was a lesbian. When she tried to corner me, I had no way but to succumb to her wishes. She would come to my bed in the night and do lewd acts and I could not stop her,’’ she writes.

In Bangalore for a refresher course in English, she writes, “I was told to stay at the office of a priest respected for his strong moral side. But when I reached the station, he was waiting there and hugged me tight on arrival. Later in the day, he took me to Lalbagh and showed me cupid struck couples and tried to convince me about the need for physical love. He also narrated stories of illicit relations between priests and nuns to me. Back in his room, he tried to fondle me and when I resisted, got up and asked angrily if I had seen a man. When I said no, he stripped himself, ejaculated and forced me to strip,’’ Jesmi recounts.

“It’s a very courageous work. It’s not easy for a person who has lived 30 years in a convent to bring out the undesirable things that happened there, particularly matters like jealousy and backbiting between sisters in responsible position,’’ said M V Pylee, first vice chancellor of Cochin University of Science and Technology.

Jesmi, who leads a retired life in Kozhikode, confirms claims made by the study about the discrimination against nuns.

Dr Reddy’s stuck on assigned land

By Swati Reddy

Offers Market Price For The Same Land Taken Over By Govt

With the Ranga Reddy district administration resuming 10.24 acres of land from Dr Reddy’s Laboratories at Bachupally as it is an assigned land, the company is now seeking to buy the same piece of land at market rate. The request, however, has been kept pending by the state government.

Dr Reddy’s had purchased the land in survey no 44 of Bachupally village in Qutubullapur mandal from assignees a few years ago. After the district administration found out that it was assigned land, proceedings to resume the land were initiated in 2005. Dr Reddy’s challenged it in court but after the matter went up to the High Court, eventually the district administration resumed it as per rules.

However, the company management has urged the state government to alienate the same land at prevailing market rate — Rs 66 lakh per acre.

The pharmaceutical company had set up its biotech park’s manufacturing facilities at survey nos 41 to 47, 53 and 83 covering about 140 acres at Bachupally a decade ago. The 10.24 acres assigned land in survey no 44 is in the middle of its facilities.

Three months ago, managing director of Dr Reddy’s Laboratories Satish Reddy wrote to the Ranga Reddy district collector seeking alienation of the same land as the firm does not want any further fight with the state government over the issue. This after initially the company had challenged the decision before the revenue divisional officer of Chevella division. An appeal was also made to the joint collector of Ranga Reddy district and later the fight was taken to the high court.

“The land can be alienated in public interest. By exporting its products to the US and other European countries and earning about Rs 100 crore worth of foreign exchange every year, the company is acting in public interest. A positive decision also directly helps 350 people working in the unit,’’ Satish Reddy said in his letter.

The revenue department, however, has not taken any decision on the plea.

The land was originally ‘patta’ land which was declared as ‘ceiling surplus land’ after one Pannamaneni Rama Krishna Prasad had handed over 51.76 acres to the state government in 1977. It was described as ‘Khariz Khata’ and mentioned in revenue records through ‘Failsal patti’ of the year 1980-81 and pahani for the same year.

Later the land was assigned to 11 landless poor families including one Chakali Sathemma and 10 others. The assignees names were also mentioned in revenue records as ‘Laoni pattedars’ in 1991-92 through ‘Faisal patti’ of the same year.

When contacted, joint collector of RR district M Jagan Mohan said a report was sent to principal secretary of revenue department to take a decision on the request of Satish Reddy.

Politics to scorch Tollywood screen

By M H Ahssan

Tollywood stars may have taken to politics and hit the road, but they have not abandoned the silver screen to further political goals. As the momentum picks up for the 2009 elections, former celluloid rivals and now political foes have lined up at least six films to turn political debuts into box-office successes.

Leading the pack is a man whom everyone is familiar as more being behind the scene rather than in front of it. Congress leader, former Union minister and Tollywood director Dasari Narayana Rao, a Kapu, is producing a film titled ‘Mestri’ (labour supervisor) in which he would play the lead role and take on his fellow community superstar and political novice Chiranjeevi.

However, not to be left behind, Chiranjeevi family member Pavan Kalyan is producing ‘Yuvarajyam’ to counter Dasari. Pavan, who is the president of the youth wing of Prajarajyam, will play the lead role and to portray his rivals as corrupt and indifferent to social justice.

To take on chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, Prajarajyam has lined up Posani Murali Krishna, who is producing a film titled ‘Rajavari Chepala Cheruvu’ (royal fish pond). The film intends to project corruption in the YSR regime. But with several thespians under its belt, can the Congress be expected to keep quiet. Sources said veteran actor G Krishna and his wife Vijayanirmala are readying a film which will speak of the glorious years of development of the state under Rajasekhara Reddy.
Another hero Srikant, who acted with Chiranjeevi in the hit ‘Shankardada MBBS,’ is to make a film titled ‘Mahatma’ in which the virtues of the hero (read Chiranjeevi) would be glorified. Another actor Jagapathibabu is giving indications that he too might not be averse to joining politics. His film ‘Adhineta’is scheduled to convey the message that even a common man can become chief minister.

The only family which appears to be immersed in political roadshows and taken a break from Tollywood is the NTR clan. For the electorate though, it is going to be politics on the screen and Tollywood on the streets.

Obama, Osama and Medvedev

By M H Ahssan & Sarah Williams

For those who harbored any doubts, the Barack Obama administration’s adoption of the George W Bush framework of the “war on terror” – it does feel like a back-to-the-future “continuity” – here are two key facts on the ground.

Obama has officially started his much-touted Afghanistan surge, authorizing the deployment of 17,000 US troops (8,000 marines, 4,000 army and 5,000 support) mostly to the Pashtun-dominated, southern Helmand province. Justification: “The situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan demands urgent attention.” The marines start arriving in Afghanistan in May. Their mission is as hazy as it is hazardous: eradication of the poppy culture, the source of heroin (which accounts for almost 40% of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product). There are already 38,000 US troops in Afghanistan, plus 18,000 as part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 50,000 contingent.

Obama administration nominees, in confirmation testimony that seemed to have disappeared in a black hole, stressed they are in favor of continuing the Central Intelligence Agency’s extraordinary rendition practices and detaining – ad infinitum – “terror” suspects without trial, even if they were captured far, far away from a war zone. (Considering the Pentagon’s elastic definition of an “arc of instability”, this means anywhere from Somalia to Xinjiang.) That has prompted New York Times writers to come up with a delightful headline: “Obama’s War on Terror May resemble Bush’s in some Areas.”

When in doubt, bomb ‘em
Basically, the Obama administration’s strategy – for now – boils down to turbo-charging a war against Pashtun farmers and peasants. Poppy cultivation has been part of Afghan culture for centuries. A high-tech aerial war on destitute peasants will have only one certified result: more of them increasing their support for, or outright migration to, the multi-faceted fight against foreign occupation which the Pentagon insists on defining as an “insurgency”.

Throughout his presidential campaign, Obama defined the key goal of the “mission” in Afghanistan (promoted to “the central front in the war on terror”) as capturing Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership. There’s no evidence whatsoever that Osama is involved in the heroin trade. There’s also scant evidence the sprawling, sophisticated US surveillance system is interested in actually finding Osama. After all, that would remove the only “war on terror” rationale for the US to be semi-occupying Afghanistan.

Plus there’s no evidence these extra 17,000 troops are going after Osama in Helmand province. Assuming he has not gone to meet his 72 virgins in eternal bliss, Osama is supposed to be holed up in Parachinar, in Kurram province, at least according to the latest guess circulating among the vast legion of Osama watchers; this one is by University of California Los Angeles’ Thomas Gillespie in the magazine Foreign Policy.

Before the legion starts swamping Google Earth with frantic searches, it’s worth noting that by a quirky twist of history, Parachinar happens to be the same dusty village Osama and a few al-Qaeda operatives escaped to from a B-52-bombed Tora Bora in early December 2001 – when the neo-cons were already salivating with the prospect of bombing not empty mountains but “target-rich” Iraq.

In fact, since the fabled escape to Parachinar in late 2001 there has been absolutely no credible intelligence on Osama. Obama’s new poppy gambit does bypass Osama. So it’s fair to assume Obama has not been presented by the US national security apparatus with any new intelligence breakthrough – not to mention pure and simple on-the-ground basic intelligence, as bombing peasants and farmers to oblivion with Predator drones in Helmand is not exactly the best strategy to seduce them into collaborating with the US in finding those al-Qaeda ghosts, as it has been amply demonstrated in the Pakistani tribal areas.

Of course, in all this charade there’s never a slight mention in the US – even in passing – of why Afghanistan matters: as a transit node of Pipelineistan – that is, the key Caspian oil and gas branch of the New Great Game in Eurasia. Compared to the real game, the monochromatic Washington rhetoric of “winning Afghanistan for democracy” does not even qualify as a joke.

Moscow to the rescue
The 1,600-kilometer Karachi-Khyber-Kabul supply line envisioned by the US and NATO is for all practical purposes dead – thanks to the hit-and-run guerrilla tactics of neo-Taliban in the Pakistani tribal areas, and not Osama and his al-Qaeda ghosts.

Last week, Obama’s Afghanistan/Pakistan envoy Richard Holbrooke was duly welcomed in Kabul – the day before he arrived – with a group of suicide bombers and gunmen raising hell in the Justice and Education ministries, killing 26 and wounding 57 and paralyzing the capital. This came after Kyrgyzstan had given Washington a six-month notice to pack up and leave the Manas air base contiguous to Bishkek’s civilian airport. Yet more evidence that Central Asia now listens primarily to Moscow, not Washington.

What was not reported was how General David “Iraq surge” Petraeus – a man who calculates his each and every move in terms of ideal positioning for a 2012 presidential run – had rings run around him by those wily Russians. Petraeus told Obama in person on January 21, the day after the inauguration, that the US supply lines in Central Asia were totally secure. Obviously, he forgot to factor in a subsequent regional charm offensive by Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, which established exactly the opposite.

In the end, transit salvation for the US and NATO is indeed coming from no one else but Russia – but on Moscow’s terms: this means Russia possibly using its own military planes to airlift the supplies. A deceptively charming Medvedev has been on the record identifying “very positive signs” in the new US-Russia chess match. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has been on the record saying transit of US and NATO non-military supplies through Russia begins in effect only a few days after the 20th anniversary of the Soviets leaving Kabul.

Obama for his part would have little to lose by listening to the man who was in command at the time – retired Lieutenant General Boris Gromov. Gromov – speaking from personal experience – has said Obama’s surge is doomed to fail: “One can increase the forces or not – it won’t lead to anything but a negative result.”

The price for the US and NATO to have their Afghan supplies arrive via Russia is clear: no more encirclement, no more NATO extension, no more anti-missile shield in the Czech Republic and Poland for protection against non-existent Iranian missiles. All this has to be negotiated in detail. Russian media have reported Medvedev wants a summit with Obama in Moscow – with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin obviously at the table. But that still seems far-fetched; what will happen in Geneva in March is a meeting between Lavrov and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Assuming Medvedev has indeed given Obama a tremendous success story – in terms of a new transit route to Afghanistan – a pesky question remains; what is, after all, the US mission? It can’t be nation-building; successive US administrations never cared about Afghanistan except as a sideshow. It can’t be to “secure” the country and prevent it from becoming a base for attacks on the US because – as much as Russia, alongside the US, doesn’t want a Talibanized Afghanistan – if there ever was a “base” it’s now in the Pakistani tribal areas.

The best of it all – as usual – is left unsaid. Washington cannot admit that its only real interest in Afghanistan is as a transit corridor for a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India (the TAPI pipeline). Moscow cannot admit that the opportunity of helping the US to be bogged down in Afghanistan for a few more years is too good to pass.

And it gets better.

In the unlikely event Obama and Medvedev decide not to tango, the only other realistic possibility for the US/NATO to have a new supply route would be by courting Iran. Practically, that would mean a very long route from Turkey through Turkish/Iranian Kurdistan, Iran and then Kabul. A very convenient, shorter route would be from an Iranian port, say Bandar Abbas, and then into Afghanistan.

It’s obvious that to play chess with Russia is much easier for the Obama administration than to play with Iran. In this case, to get what it needs, the US would have to forcefully end once and for all the three-decades-long “wall of mistrust” between Washington and Tehran; it would have to terminate the sanctions and the embargo; it would have to renounce regime change in Tehran; and it would even have to allow Iran to develop its civilian nuclear program, to which it has a right under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to which it is a signatory.

The Obama administration also would have to face unimaginable pressure from the Israeli hard right – from Likud supremo Bibi Netanyahu to the hardline, former Moldova bouncer Avigdor Lieberman – and their minions operating in the Israel lobby in Washington.

Iran is getting closer and closer to Russia. Russia currently holds the presidency of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) – the Eurasian answer to NATO not only in terms of security but also in the economic and energy spheres. The SCO unites Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, with Iran and Pakistan as observers. In an interview with RIA Novosti, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said, “Iran has officially addressed SCO members and expects its observer status to be finally upgraded to full membership during Russia’s chairmanship period.”

This is what it’s all about in Eurasia – the inexorable march of Asian integration, via the Asian Energy Security Grid and, in security terms, via the SCO. Both China and Russia are deeply connected with Iran. China has signed mega-multibillion dollar deals to be supplied by Iranian oil and gas while selling weapons and myriad goods; and Russia is bound to sell more weapons and is already selling nuclear energy technology. All this while Washington is focused on bombing Pashtun peasants and chasing the ghost of Osama bin Laden.

Succession worries unsettle Tibetans

By M H Ahssan

Living in exile for nearly half a century, the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is now 73. Tibetans in exile are becoming increasingly concerned with the issue of his succession and their future after the passage of the spiritual leader.

Hospitalized recently, living in semi-retirement from the Tibetan movement to let the elected Tibetan government control daily affairs, the health and future of the Dalai Lama is fodder for speculation. Many, especially those from older generations, are afraid that once the Dalai Lama passes away the Tibetan movement will lose steam and gradually fade from the international spotlight.

The Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile here since fleeing Tibet after a failed armed rebellion against Chinese rule in March 1959, says he feels attached to the northern India state where he lives. “I have spent most of my life in this hill station. Now I feel like a citizen of Himachal Pradesh,” the Dalai Lama said.

The spiritual leader of Tibetans in exile and at home who also leads the Tibetan government in exile is highly respected internationally. A Nobel Peace Laureate, the Dalai Lama was also listed as one of the 50 most powerful people in the world by Newsweek. During his recent tour of Europe, the Dalai Lama was presented with honorary citizenship in Rome and granted the German Media Prize.

The Dalai Lama’s fame, charm and high-profile international activities have helped make the Tibetan movement known to the world and win wide international support. Many Tibetans in exile also believe that it is the Dalai Lama who spiritually sustains their dream of returning to their homeland one day.

Therefore, many Tibetans in exile are worried that without him, the Tibet movement may gradually become forgotten by the world as his successor, if there is one, might not be able to make the same strides.

Older generations believe that following tradition, the Dalai Lama’s successor must be a boy, the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. So it will take time for the next Dalai Lama to take up leadership and engage in international activities. But this is a topic too sacred for older Tibetans to talk about, and they are afraid of making any comment when asked.

Tibetan elders in exile simply believe that “His Holiness will make the right decision on choosing his successor which will benefit the future of Tibetans in exile and in Tibet”.

But some young Tibetans in exile, who seek “full Tibet independence” and increasingly see the Dalai Lama’s “middle way” as a constraint on their radical thinking and action, may feel freer to pursue their goal through more drastic means once the Dalai Lama passes away. These young radical Tibetans in exile, represented by the Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC), have become increasingly discontent with the Dalai Lama’s approach to seeking autonomy instead of independence for the Himalayan region, though spiritually they still hold the Dalai Lama in esteem.

Although the Chinese government has labeled the Dalai Lama a traitor intent on fomenting violent unrest in Tibet with the ambition of achieving independence, the Dalai Lama has not given up his middle-way approach and has made every attempt to hold a dialogue. Although he has admitted that his faith in the Chinese government is becoming thinner and thinner.

Compared with other active Tibetan organizations in exile, TYC has a clearcut goal – rangzen (full independence) – on its agenda. Thus it states that while its members will feel sad about the passage of the Dalai Lama, they will continue to fight for their freedom.

“No doubt, no one will be able to replace the Dalai Lama and we Tibetans won’t be able to repay him. But we are struggling for an independent nation and our struggle will continue,” said TYC president Twesang Rigzin.

Therefore some analysts are increasingly concerned that once their spiritual leader is gone, the Tibetan movement, now united under the Dalai Lama, is very likely to split, given the differing views on how to achieve its goals.

Many have questions on how the Tibetan movement will proceed. Some have deep worries that the current Tibetan religious and government structure will change after his holiness passes. Others say the Tibetan movement will lose its direction and steam, as there will be growing frustration among exiles with the loss of a leader to guide them and to help them gain international support.

This is despite some of the Dalai Lama’s staunch followers who believe that international support for the Tibetan movement is growing even though the Dalai Lama has already taken up semi-retirement to secure the future for the Tibetan movement by allowing the democratically-elected government in exile to play a more active role in deciding the course of the Tibetan movement.

Tibetans in exile are also concerned with who will become the next Dalai Lama and how the successor will be chosen. The Dalai Lama himself has not avoided talking about the issue of his succession in recent years. He seems to leave the question open. He once said whether Tibetans need the next Dalai Lama is an issue to be “democratically” decided by them.

On another occasion he did not rule out the possibility of his successor being female if Tibetans agreed on the issue, though according to Tibetan tradition a Dalai Lama must be male. And recently, the Dalai Lama described himself as “a simple Buddhist monk – no more, no less” and spoke of his “retirement”, though according to Tibetan tradition the Dalai Lama is a lifetime god-king.

“If people feel that the institution of the Dalai Lama is still necessary, then this will continue,” he said. “There are various ways of [choosing a successor]. The point is whether to continue with the institution of the Dalai Lama or not. After my death, Tibetan religious leaders can debate whether to have a Dalai Lama or not.”

But Tibetans in exile widely believe that when their spiritual leader is gone the Chinese government will step in to choose its own reincarnation, as it did in case of the Panchen Lama, Tibet’s second highest-ranking religious figure.

In 1995, the Chinese government forced Tibetan monks to appoint Gyancain Norbu rather than the Dalai Lama’s chosen candidate – Gedhun Choekyi Nyima – in an attempt to further exert its authority over Tibet. And Tibetans in exile claim the Dalai Lama’s designated candidate for the Panchen Lama is the youngest political prisoner in the world, held by the Chinese government.

Most Tibetans believe Beijing is not sincere in its desire to talk with the aging Dalai Lama on the Tibet issue, saying China is just buying time, which is not on the Dalai Lama’s side as he is 73. Analysts believe that even if Beijing does not intervene in the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation (which is very unlikely), once the Tibetan god-king is gone his successor will be a small boy and decades may pass before the new Dalai Lama is ready to assume religious and political leadership, making a much longer wait for Tibetans in exile. And during that long wait, anything can happen.

Yet it may be too early to depict any true image of a post-Dalai Lama era. As long as the Dalai Lama lives, he will continue to do his very best to try and lead his people back to their homeland. As the spiritual leader said, “It is my moral responsibility until my death to work for the Tibetan cause. My body and flesh is all Tibetan. I remain committed to the Tibetan cause.”

Pakistan fears poverty surge

By M H Ahssan & Ruhena Fatima

Concern is growing in Pakistan that levels of poverty may worsen if the country gets additional support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in addition to a US$7.6 billion deal agreed late last year. A better source of cash, they say, would be the United States in return for Pakistan’s contribution to the “war on terror”.

The poverty rate has jumped to 37.5% from 23.9% during the past three years. More than 64 million people, out of a 160-million population, were living below the poverty line in 2008, as against 35.5 million people in 2005, according to the Planning Commission of Pakistan.

Pakistan is seeking an additional $4.5 billion loan after agreeing to the $7.6 billion standby loan last November as it grappled with a 30-year high inflation rate and fast-depleting foreign exchange reserves.

Strict IMF conditions have forced the government to ignore social-sector spending and more people are being pushed below the poverty line. A reduction in the fiscal deficit, higher interest rates and a cut in the country’s development program have been dictated by the IMF, leading to further increases in unemployment and poverty levels. Local experts fear that tough IMF conditions will drag the country further into a vicious circle of poverty while increasing debt-servicing liabilities.

The government forecasts that the economy, South Asia’s second-biggest, will grow at its slowest in seven years after raising interest rates as part of the IMF conditions. The fund late last year released $3.1 billion as the first installment to save Pakistan from defaulting on external payments. Pakistani and IMF officials are now holding talks, due to last until February 26, in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates as part of a review for disbursing the second installment of $775 million under the 23-month program.

“Pakistan is [also] to ask for an additional loan of $4.5 billion from the IMF to patch up an economy wilting under a widening trade deficit,” the private Geo TV channel reported, citing a Finance Ministry official. Pakistan may seek that amount from the IMF as the country’s fight against terrorists is hurting the economy, Shaukat Tarin, the finance adviser to the prime minister, said on February 15, according to Bloomberg.

While there is little question that Pakistan needs help in meeting its financial obligations, critics question whether the IMF terms and payback conditions do not make the US a more desirable source of support, given the partnership the two countries profess in the “war on terror” on Pakistan’s eastern border with Afghanistan.

“Before asking for more loans, the government needs to say how it will pay it back?” Business Recorder quoted Muzzammil Aslam, an economist at KASB Securities in Karachi, as saying. “The government should seek aid from the US, and not a loan from the IMF, as compensation for fighting terrorists. It is time to consolidate the economy and adjust policies for pro-investment activities. The IMF loan can only be used for balance of payments and building foreign reserves. The government needs to cut interest rates to boost businesses.”

Islamabad is facing a 45 billion rupee (US$564 million) shortfall in revenue in the first seven months of the current fiscal year, which runs to the end of June, after cutting the budget deficit 27.24% during the first half of the fiscal year to 259 billion rupees compared with a year earlier.

The fiscal deficit is targeted to decline to 4.2% of GDP this fiscal year from 7.4% in 2007-08. In the first six months, the deficit was held back to 1.9% of GDP against a 2% target.

“To meet the IMF’s 4.2% fiscal deficit condition, a major cut was made to the development budget,” according to a report published in Business Recorder. The report, citing a Planning Commission document, said achieving IMF conditions ultimately would lead to ignoring social sector spending.

The government spent only 19% of the federal Public Social Development Program (PSDP) total allocation of 371 billion rupees, during the six months through December, the lowest since 2005. This PSDP has already been cut by 100 billion rupees.

Pakistani authorities finalizing the next budget outlay will keep in view the IMF’s terms and conditions, according to a report in The News.

These terms include a commitment to increase the ratio of tax to gross domestic product. The Federal Board of Revenue submitted to the IMF an action plan for the tax reforms late last year. If the plan is approved, the government will have to choose between increasing the tax base by incorporating the agriculture sector, real estate and stock markets under the tax net or pile up new taxes on existing taxpayers.

Taking the latter route would risk public unrest and political agitation.

Local industrialists, meanwhile, are unhappy over the central bank’s decision to keep interest rates at 15%, a level well above rates in the developed world. Critics say the government agreed with the IMF to raise the discount rate by 350 basis points in two phases, with an increase of 200 basis points (or two percentage points) made effective before last year’s $7.6 billion deal was approved by the IMF board. An increase of 150 basis points would be dependent on the behavior of relevant indicators this fiscal year.

Industrialists are already struggling from the global slowdown, with textile exports falling 1.79% during the first six months of the current fiscal year. It now looks unlikely that the export target of over $22 billion for the full 12 months will be met.

“The financial crisis in the US and Europe [Pakistan's most important textile markets] has a spiral impact and Pakistani textile products are no exception to this global issue,” the Daily Times reported Federal Textile Commissioner Mohammad Idris as saying.

Exports are being hit despite a more than 30% deprecation of the rupee, what has increased import costs and removed the potential benefits of a 70% decline in the price of oil in the international market. The country’s oil import bill increased by 45% to $5.48 billion during the first five months of the current fiscal year, from $3.8 billion over the same months the previous year, according to the Federal Board of Revenue.

The oil import bill did decline in November, but only on the back of a steep dip in demand from the slowing economy.

The government has given a commitment to the IMF to reduce domestically financed development spending by about 1% of GDP through better prioritization of projects. The government wants a total adjustment of 100 billion rupees by slashing the Public Sector Development Programme, according to Business Recorder.

The Planning Commission of Pakistan has sent a summary of its rationalization proposals to Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani. In the next phase, projects that require foreign lending will be cut in the face of government difficulties in obtaining loans from international donors, the report said, citing commission sources.

The cuts will come amid forecasts of an average 2% growth in Pakistan’s economy by June, with expansion now dependent on the performance of agriculture after the manufacturing sector shrunk 6.5% in the six months through December.

The IMF has forecast real GDP growth of 3.5% in the year through June, down from an average of 6.8% in the past five years and the slowest pace in seven years.

Crisis challenge for Sino-Indian trade

By Pallavi Aiyar

The trade momentum built up between India and China over the past few years has survived the onset of the global financial crisis, with bilateral trade surging by more than a third last year and China ousting the United States as India’s top trading partner.

Bilateral trade rose 34% in 2008 to US$51.8 billion, according to Chinese data, a more than 10-fold increase since 2002, when the figure stood at a mere $5 billion.

More than 100 Indian companies have opened up shop in China since 2000, including banks and even a law firm, while Chinese investment in India is also growing. Chinese government figures put the value of cumulative contractual Chinese investments in projects in India since 2000 at $22 billion, almost half coming in the last year alone. Between January and October 2008, the value of contractual Chinese investments in India was $10.5 billion.

However, while the Sino-Indian economic relationship is marching upwards, fundamental concerns remain that have shown little sign of resolution.

On the Indian side, there is a widening trade deficit, worry over the composition of exports and concern at the inability of Indian companies with Chinese operations to break into the domestic Chinese market.

The Chinese complain that India is holding back on a proposed regional trade agreement and that Chinese companies have on occasion been prevented from investing in India on the grounds that they pose a security threat.

Both sides also complain of insufficient knowledge of the business practices and the regulatory framework of the other country. Cultural discomfort involving language and food habits form an additional barrier – despite being neighbors, the two countries appear culturally more comfortable doing business with the West than with each other.

For the Indians, the most ominous sign in the trade relationship is the emerging trade deficit with China. In 2004, the balance of trade was $1.7 billion in India’s favor. By 2006, this surplus had turned to a $4.12 billion deficit, widening further last year to $11.2 billion, with Indian exports of $20.3 billion overshadowed by imports from China worth $31.5 billion.

Large trade deficits have already marred China’s relationship with other countries, notably the United States. India and China, however, lack any serious governmental mechanism through which they can manage trade friction. In India, lingering insecurities about the competitiveness of the country’s industry compared with the might of China’s manufacturing are coupled with suspicions of the lack of transparency in Chinese pricing and accounting systems.

India is thus reluctant to grant China market economy status, a first step towards negotiation of the proposed regional trade agreement. Currently, India is a leading initiator of anti-dumping cases against China. Were New Delhi to grant market economy status to China, India would have to accept pricing figures supplied by Beijing, a situation some fear may lead to large-scale dumping of Chinese products.

The two countries have a ministerial-level joint economic group that is supposed to meet every two years to discuss bilateral issues of an economic nature. It last met in 2006 after a gap of six years, failing to meet again in 2008.

When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Beijing in January last year, Indian industry leaders brought up its concerns during a business summit that was held at the same time. The Chinese side promised to give the matter serious attention and alluded to the possibility of sending large-scale buying missions, a strategy it has deployed with the US and European Union. The Chinese vice minister of trade did subsequently undertake a trip to India, but the deals that were signed at the time were worth less than $100 million in value, far from being adequate to redress the deficit in any serious manner.

Nor has there been significant movement towards removing non-tariff barriers erected against Indian products. For example, the Indians believe their is great potential for their agricultural products. Yet eight years after a bilateral agreement was signed on China’s accession to the World Trade Organization under which Beijing agreed to the import of 17 types of Indian fruits and vegetables, only three items – mangoes, grapes and bitter gourd – have been approved for import from India.

Even there, India businesses appear to lack aggression in making the most of what is available to them. Thus, although mangoes were cleared for export to China in 2003, this correspondent has been unable, year after year, to find any Indian mangoes in Chinese stores. Given problems with cold storage facilities, logistics and poor infrastructure at the Indian end, exports of the fruit to China remain problematic. Those producers who are able to overcome these lacunae choose to focus on Western markets with which they are already familiar.

As a result, Sino-Indian trade has failed to develop in terms of content. Indian exports to China continue to be overwhelmingly dominated by primary products with little value added. In the first 11 months of last year, 71% of Indian exports to China comprised iron ore, up from 59% in 2007. The Chinese conversely export to India mainly high-value, finished products such as electrical machinery, a situation that has remained unchanged over the last several years despite much hand-wringing on the Indian side.

The global economic crisis has now muddied the picture further. On the one hand, China’s demand for steel slumped towards the end of last year – the China Steel Industry Association reported a 17% decline in steel production in October 2008. Shipments in the 10 months ended January fell 1.5%, Bloomberg reported, citing the Federation of Indian Mineral Industries said.

That decline has since reversed, with India’s iron-ore exports rising in January for the second straight month as China increased purchases following Beijing’s announcement of a US$586 billion economic stimulus plan focused heavily on infrastructure projects.
The economic downturn also prompted Jet Airways, India’s largest domestic carrier, to halt its Shanghai-Mumbai service in January, barely six months after it started to much fanfare. The Indian Embassy in Beijing, meanwhile, said visas issued to Chinese nationals in 2008 did not increase over the the previous year, despite an aggressive campaign to attract more Chinese tourists, including the opening of the first India Tourism office in China early last year.

That Sino-Indian trade should falter when the rest of the world is staring at recession should not be surprising. Nevertheless, the two countries are almost alone in continuing to grow, albeit at a slower pace than previously. That is likely to create new opportunities for trade and investment across the Himalayas. What is required is the will and foresight to convert these opportunities into realities.

Economic catastrophe looms

By M H Ahssan

When the US Congress passed its US$787 billion stimulus package last week, the size of the plan caused many observers to forget the water that has already passed under the bridge. Fewer still are wondering what havoc will erupt when all this liquidity eventually washes ashore.

The latest spending, signed into law this week by President Barack Obama, came on top of $300 billion committed to Citigroup, $700 billion for Troubled Assets Relief Program 1, $300 billion for the Federal Housing Administration, $200 billion for the Term Auction Facility and some $300 billion for mortgage guarantors Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Just over the past six months, which excludes the initial George W Bush administration stimulus and several massive, unfunded Federal guarantees, nearly $5 trillion has been committed by the government to the financial industry. Rational observers cannot be faulted for concluding, despite administration claims to the contrary, that the government is merely throwing money at the problem.

Although the rhetoric has managed to convince many observers of the possibility of success, the gold market appears to clearly understand the implications of this unprecedented spending.

The feeling that the government has no idea how to proceed has created palpable panic. In response, pragmatic investors are seeking the ultimate store of wealth. In 2009, as has occurred countless times throughout history, that store will be stocked with gold. Thus, whether the Federal government’s interventions will succeed or fail will be anticipated by the price of gold. Right now, the market is screaming failure.

Prior to the latest round of Federal spending, the Federal government had committed $4 trillion to postpone bank collapses and to lay the groundwork for subsequent restructuring. But has any of this activity actually rescued the banking system? In light of the evidence of deepening recession, is it likely that the additional $787 billion in the latest stimulus will instill enough confidence to restore economic growth? If not, what damage will it do to the eventual recovery?

Congressional rescue packages rarely work. Nevertheless, Congress is turning up the heat with previously unimaginable increases of government debt to fund stimulus and rescue packages. Senator John McCain rightly describes the scheme as “generational theft”. Each package of debt will encumber many future generations, halt restructuring and also threaten latent hyperinflation.

While Congress claims that the seriously over-leveraged economy is in desperate need of restructuring, it appears blind to the fact that deleveraging will encourage such restructuring. Instead, Congressional leaders actively seek to increase leverage and add debt. They warn of fire, while pouring petrol on the flames.

The seriousness of the situation is magnified by the rapidly increasing scale of the problem. Just this week, the release of the latest minutes of the Federal Reserve confirmed that even that bastion of eternal optimism is sobering. The American economy, which shrank by 3.8% in the last quarter of 2008, is forecast to decline by some 5.5% in the first quarter of this year. In some pockets, the unemployment rate is already in double figures. Despite massive government spending on rescue and stimulus, the American consumer clearly is becoming increasingly nervous, and the credit markets show few signs of recovery.

With bad news only getting worse, investment markets are turning into quagmires. The Dow Jones Average is testing new lows, and the commodities markets show few signs of life. In such times, the price of gold should fall along with the prices of other assets and commodities. But, the reverse has occurred. In the past two months, gold has staged a remarkable rally. This is despite the activity of price-depressants such as official gold sales by the International Monetary Fun and official “approval” for massive naked short positions to be opened by new “bullion” banks.

Not only have gold spot prices risen in the face of such selling pressure, but the price of physical gold is now some $20 to $40 per ounce above spot. This would indicate that investors are now so nervous that they are insisting on taking physical delivery.

Make no mistake, the economy will not turn around soon. When the recovery fails to materialize, look for governments around the world, and especially in the US, to send another massive wave of liquidity downriver. When it does, the value of nearly everything, except for gold, will diminish. Don’t be intimidated by the recent spike in gold. Buy now while you still can.

India’s nuclear submarine plan surfaces

By M H Ahssan

Expressing fears about cross-border terrorism in the wake of the November 26 Mumbai attack and keeping a close eye on China’s military expansion, India announced plans this week to hike its defense budget by 34% to 1.4 trillion rupees (US$30 billion) and last week revealed that its project to build three nuclear-powered submarines is nearing completion.

“Things are in the final stage now in the Advanced Technology Vessel [nuclear-submarines] project. There were [mainly technical] bottlenecks earlier … they are over now,” Defense Minister A K Antony said on February 12.

The Advanced Technology Vessel (ATV) project is part of India’s $3 billion plan to build five submarines and complete what it calls a “triad” of nuclear weapon launch capability – from air, land and sea. India is concurrently developing the K-15 ballistic missile, which can be nuclear-tipped and launched from submarines.

Defense sources have told Asia Times Online that New Delhi has been actively seeking out assistance from France in the implementation of the ATV project, and that Russian engineers are already involved. The sources said that the sea trials of the nuclear-powered submarines should begin this month and that the submarines should be operational within the next three years.

The secretive ATV nuclear backed ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) project began in the late 1970’s and is being implemented at a secret dry dock in Visakhapatnam, India’s Eastern Naval command base. Observers have said that the submarines are a critical addition to India’s weapons capabilities.

In a grim reminder of the possible dangers facing India from the sea, India’s Naval chief Admiral Suresh Mehta warned this week that terrorists could smuggle “dirty” nuclear bombs via the nation’s ports as they lack adequate security measures. Terrorists also used a sea route to infiltrate Mumbai.

Nuclear-powered submarines with their greater speed, power, range and the length of time they can stay submerged compared to conventional diesel-electric submarines are effective for sudden strikes as well as fast and stealthy protection from attacks.

New Delhi has been concerned about Beijing’s strengthening of bilateral ties with Islamabad, particularly given recent tension on sea projects such as at the Gwadar port. China has also been developing ties with Sri Lanka and Myanmar to deepen its control over a complex energy-security conflict being aggressively played out in the region.

Given the ongoing tussle between India and China to control the waters of the Indian Ocean, the New Delhi government has been put under tremendous pressure from the navy to ramp up India’s sea power. China has already spoken of creating three ocean-going fleets to patrol the areas of Japan and Korea, the western Pacific, the Malacca Strait and the Indian Ocean.

The ATV project has been in the spotlight as India’s other attempt to procure a nuclear submarine this year received a setback when Russia “indefinitely” postponed delivery of the Akula-II class Nerpa nuclear submarine, citing incomplete sea trials and a lack of funds.

Further, the Amur shipyard in Russia’s far east, where the sub is being built, is yet to finalize a new team following an accident in November in which 20 members were killed. The accident has led Indian media to describe the submarine as “cursed”.

India has been looking at developing underseas capabilities to launch nuclear weapons, after gaining some competence in land-based nuclear delivery platforms for the domestically developed ballistic missiles Prithvi and Agni.

India has already developed a submarine-launched supersonic missile, a modification of the BrahMos cruise missiles, an achievement previously limited to only advanced nations such as the US, France and Russia. Ship and land launched versions of the BrahMos are being introduced in the navy and army.

The state-controlled Defense Research and Development Organization is also undertaking a joint development project with Israel Aerospace Industries to develop a surface-to-air missile which can be launched from land and ships.

Upgrade and renovation of India’s navy will be an important aspect of India’s US$50 billion defense modernization exercise. Under the plan, the projects code named 75 and 76 entail the production of 24 underwater vessels valued at US$20 billion to meet the challenges across the Indian Ocean.

In 2007, construction of the highly-advanced Scorpene submarine began at the upgraded Mazgon Dock in Mumbai as part of a US$3.5 billion deal for six such French submarines. As the Scorpene deal involves transfer of technology, it should be beneficial for both nations as India gains new technology and French firms gain a possible foothold in the big Indian market.

But significant delays are now expected in India’s acquisition of the aircraft carriers Admiral Gorskov from Russia and two that are being developed at home. In early 2007, India purchased the 36-year-old US warship the USS Trenton (re-christened INS Jalashwa) with a gross tonnage of 16,900 tons for US$50 million.

The Trenton is the first ever US warship owned by the Indian Navy and the second largest that India possesses after the INS Viraat aircraft carrier. The Indian Navy plans to add 40 new warships to its fleet and the government plans to invest over 500 billion rupees (over US$12 billion) over the next 10 years on warships.

The government has encouraged the private sector to play a bigger role in the nation’s defense, and India’s largest engineering and construction firm Larsen & Toubro has announced plans to build defense warships and paramilitary vessels at a proposed facility in Tamil Nadu.

After the rude awakening of the Mumbai terror attacks, others branches of the military are also now pushing for more upgrades and additions.

The Indian Air Force, for example, is seeking 42 fighter squadrons up from the current 32 or 33 squadrons (each with 14 to 18 jets), to offset the phasing out of older Russian planes. The army, which has been allocated a large piece of the military outlay, is seeking more tanks and howitzer field guns.

GREATER HYDERABAD – ELECTIONS 2009

By HNN Election Desk

ASSEMBLY SEATS – HYD + RR (66,85,377)

HYDERABAD DISTRICT – ASSEMBLY (1492609 1434467 – 2927553)
57 Musheerabad (112670 103852 – 216524)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Ward No.1

• INC

• TDP / TRS : Buta Gopal

• PRP / NTP

• BJP : K Lakshman

• MIM

58 Malakpet (88257 86817 – 175089)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Ward No.16 Ward No.17 (Part) Block No. 8 and 9

• INC : Malreddy Rangareddy

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM : Akbaruddin Owaisi

59 Amberpet (95905 90549 – 186462)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) – Ward No.2 Ward No.3 (Part) Block No. 1 to 4

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP : Kishan Reddy

• MIM

- Loksatta : C Vinod

60 Khairatabad (109190 102716 – 211906)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Ward No.6 Ward No. 3 (Part) Block No. 5 and 6 Ward No.8 (Part) Block No. 2. Ward No.5 (Part) Block No. 10

• INC : P Vishnuvardhan Reddy

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP : C Ramchandra Reddy

• MIM

61 Jubilee Hills (122950 111993 – 234943)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Ward No.8 (Part) Block No. 1, 3 and 4.

• INC : P Vishuvardhan Reddy

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

62 Sanathnagar (89637 85909 – 175569)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Ward No.7, 24 (excluding the area in AC – 46 Kukatpalle) and 25 to 30.

• INC : M Sashidhar Reddy

• TDP / TRS : Padma Rao – TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

63 Nampally (112183 109384 – 221613)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Ward No. 10 to 12.

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP : Ramulu

• MIM

64 Karwan (110172 104255 – 214543)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Ward No.9 Ward No. 13 (Part) Block No. 3 to 6.

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

65 Goshamahal (103013 95744 – 198797)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Ward No. 4, 14 and 15 Ward No. 5 (Part) Block No. 1 to 9 Ward No. 13 (Part) Block No. 1 and 2.7

• INC : Mukesh Goud

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP : Prem Signh Rathod

• MIM

66 Charminar (82445 76230 – 158712)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Ward No. 20 to 23.

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

67 Chandrayangutta (80043 82928 – 163009)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Ward No.18 (Part) Block No. 1 to 3 and 8 to 14.

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

68 Yakutpura (107366 105131 – 212518)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part)- Ward No.17 (Part) Block No. 1 to 7 Ward No.18 (Part) Block No. 6 and 7

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

69 Bahadurpura (90100 91180 – 181306)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Ward No.18 (Part) Block No. 4 and 5 Ward No.19.

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

70 Secunderabad (96422 95820 – 192302)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Ward No.33 (Part) Block No. 4 to 7 Ward No. 34 and 35 Osmania University Area.

• INC : Jayasudha

• TDP / TRS : T Srinivas Yadav

• PRP / NTP

• BJP : Venkata Ramani

• MIM

71 Secunderabad Cantt. (SC) (92256 91959 – 184260)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Ward No. 31 and 32 Ward No.33 (Part) Block No.1 to 3 Secunderabad Cantonment Board.

• INC

• TDP / TRS : Saianna – TDP

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

RANGAREDDY DISTRICT – ASSEMBLY (1941833 1815537 – 3757824)
43 Medchal (143455 136729 – 280222)
Medchal, Shamirpet, Ghatkesar and Keesara (Rural) Mandals.

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

44 Malkajgiri (163480 158997 – 322483)
Malkajgiri Mandal.

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP : Ramchander Rao / Ballingam

• MIM

45 Quthbullapur (143996 128442 – 272455)
Quthbullapur Mandal.

• INC : K M Pratap

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

46 Kukatpalle (196297 169541 – 365842)
Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) – Ward No.24 (Part) (Area in Balanagar Mandal) Kukatpalle (M) (Part) Kukatpalle (M) – Ward No. 5 to 16.

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

47 Uppal (172156 152804 – 324992)
Uppal Municipality, Kapra Municipality.

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP : S V V S Prabhakar

• MIM

48 Ibrahimpatnam (98047 92538 – 190597)
Hayathnagar, Ibrahimpatnam, Manchal and Yacharam Mandals.

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

49 Lal Bahadur Nagar (191857 173835 – 365693)
Saroornagar Mandal (Part) Gaddiannaram (CT) Lal Bahadur Nagar (M+OG) (Part) Lal Bahadur Nagar (M) – Ward No. 1 to 10.

• INC : Sudhir Reddy

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP : K Bal Reddy

• MIM

50 Maheswaram (140047 133603 – 273658)
Maheswaram and Kandukur Mandals Saroornagar Mandal (Part) Medbowli, Almasguda, Badangpet, Chintalakunta, Jalpalle, Mamidipalle, Kurmalguda and Nadargul (Rural) Mandals. Hyderabad (OG) (Part) Balapur (OG) – Ward No.36 Kothapet (OG) – Ward No.37 Venkatapur (OG) – Ward No.39 Mallapur (OG) – Ward No.40 Lal Bahadur Nagar (M+OG) (Part) Lal Bahadur Nagar (M) – Ward No.11 Nadargul (OG) (Part) – Ward No.12 Jillalguda (OG) – Ward No.15 Meerpet (CT).

• INC : Sabita Indrareddy

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

51 Rajendranagar (130034 123218 – 253364)
Rajendranagar and Shamshabad Mandals.

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

52 Serilingampally (194776 172478 – 367258)
Serilingampally Mandal Balanagar Mandal (Part) Kukatpally (M) (Part) Kukatpally (M) – Ward No. 1 to 4.

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

53 Chevella (SC) (96291 92745 – 189121)
Nawabpet, Shankarpalle, Moinabad, Chevella and Shabad Mandals.

• INC

• TDP / TRS : K S Ratnam – TDP

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

54 Pargi (93644 96103 – 189807)
Doma, Gandeed, Kulkacherla, Pargi and Pudur Mandals.

• INC

• TDP / TRS : Harishwar Reddy – TDP

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

55 Vicarabad (SC) (90315 91146 – 181511)
Marpalle, Mominpet, Vikarabad, Dharur and Bantwaram Mandals.

• INC : Prasad

• TDP / TRS : Chandrashekhar – TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

56 Tandur (87438 93358 – 180821)
Peddemul, Tandur, Basheerabad and Yalal Mandals.

• INC : M Ramesh

• TDP / TRS : Mahender Reddy – TDP

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

PARLIAMENTARY SEATS – HYD + RR (65,38,840)

7-MALKAJGIRI (21,15,947)
43 Medchal, 44 Malkajgiri, 45 Qutbullapur, 46 Kukatpalle, 47 Uppal, 49 Lal Bahadur Nagar and 71 Secunderabad Cantt. (SC).

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP : T Devender Goud

• BJP : Indrasena Reddy

• MIM

8- SECUNDERABAD (14,83,379)
57 Musheerabad, 59 Amberpet, 60 Khairatabad, 61 Jubilee Hills, 62 Sanathnagar, 63 Nampally and 70 Secunderabad.

• INC

• TDP / TRS : Vijayarama Rao

• PRP / NTP

• BJP : Bandaru Dattatreya

• MIM

9-HYDERABAD (13,03,974)
58 Malakpet, 64 Karwan, 65 Goshamahal, 66 Charminar, 67 Chandrayangutta, 68 Yakutpura and 69 Bahadurpura.

• INC

• TDP / TRS : Zahed ali Khan

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM : Asaduddin Owaisi

10-CHEVELLA (16,35,540)
50 Maheswaram, 51 Rajendranagar, 52 Serilingampally, 53 Chevella (SC), 54 Pargi, 55 Vicarabad (SC) and 56 Tandur.

• INC : Laxma Reddy

• TDP / TRS : Sunita Mahipal Reddy

• PRP / NTP

• BJP : Baddam Balreddy

• MIM

GREATER HYDERABAD – ELECTIONS 2009

By HNN Election Desk

ASSEMBLY SEATS – HYD + RR (66,85,377)

HYDERABAD DISTRICT – ASSEMBLY (1492609 1434467 – 2927553)
57 Musheerabad (112670 103852 – 216524)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Ward No.1

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP : K Lakshman

• MIM

58 Malakpet (88257 86817 – 175089)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Ward No.16 Ward No.17 (Part) Block No. 8 and 9

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

59 Amberpet (95905 90549 – 186462)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) – Ward No.2 Ward No.3 (Part) Block No. 1 to 4

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP : Kishan Reddy

• MIM

60 Khairatabad (109190 102716 – 211906)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Ward No.6 Ward No. 3 (Part) Block No. 5 and 6 Ward No.8 (Part) Block No. 2. Ward No.5 (Part) Block No. 10

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP : C Ramchandra Reddy

• MIM

61 Jubilee Hills (122950 111993 – 234943)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Ward No.8 (Part) Block No. 1, 3 and 4.

• INC : P Vishuvardhan Reddy

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

62 Sanathnagar (89637 85909 – 175569)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Ward No.7, 24 (excluding the area in AC – 46 Kukatpalle) and 25 to 30.

• INC : M Sashidhar Reddy

• TDP / TRS : Padma Rao – TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

63 Nampally (112183 109384 – 221613)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Ward No. 10 to 12.

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP : Ramulu

• MIM

64 Karwan (110172 104255 – 214543)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Ward No.9 Ward No. 13 (Part) Block No. 3 to 6.

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

65 Goshamahal (103013 95744 – 198797)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Ward No. 4, 14 and 15 Ward No. 5 (Part) Block No. 1 to 9 Ward No. 13 (Part) Block No. 1 and 2.7

• INC : Mukesh Goud

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP : Prem Signh Rathod

• MIM

66 Charminar (82445 76230 – 158712)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Ward No. 20 to 23.

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

67 Chandrayangutta (80043 82928 – 163009)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Ward No.18 (Part) Block No. 1 to 3 and 8 to 14.

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

68 Yakutpura (107366 105131 – 212518)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part)- Ward No.17 (Part) Block No. 1 to 7 Ward No.18 (Part) Block No. 6 and 7

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

69 Bahadurpura (90100 91180 – 181306)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Ward No.18 (Part) Block No. 4 and 5 Ward No.19.

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

70 Secunderabad (96422 95820 – 192302)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Ward No.33 (Part) Block No. 4 to 7 Ward No. 34 and 35 Osmania University Area.

• INC : Jayasudha

• TDP / TRS : T Srinivas Yadav

• PRP / NTP

• BJP : Venkata Ramani

• MIM

71 Secunderabad Cantt. (SC) (92256 91959 – 184260)
Hyderabad (M Corp.+OG) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Ward No. 31 and 32 Ward No.33 (Part) Block No.1 to 3 Secunderabad Cantonment Board.

• INC

• TDP / TRS : Saianna – TDP

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

RANGAREDDY DISTRICT – ASSEMBLY (1941833 1815537 – 3757824)
43 Medchal (143455 136729 – 280222)
Medchal, Shamirpet, Ghatkesar and Keesara (Rural) Mandals.

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

44 Malkajgiri (163480 158997 – 322483)
Malkajgiri Mandal.

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP : Ramchander Rao / Ballingam

• MIM

45 Quthbullapur (143996 128442 – 272455)
Quthbullapur Mandal.

• INC : K M Pratap

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

46 Kukatpalle (196297 169541 – 365842)
Hyderabad (M Corp.) (Part) Hyderabad (M Corp.) – Ward No.24 (Part) (Area in Balanagar Mandal) Kukatpalle (M) (Part) Kukatpalle (M) – Ward No. 5 to 16.

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

47 Uppal (172156 152804 – 324992)
Uppal Municipality, Kapra Municipality.

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP : S V V S Prabhakar

• MIM

48 Ibrahimpatnam (98047 92538 – 190597)
Hayathnagar, Ibrahimpatnam, Manchal and Yacharam Mandals.

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

49 Lal Bahadur Nagar (191857 173835 – 365693)
Saroornagar Mandal (Part) Gaddiannaram (CT) Lal Bahadur Nagar (M+OG) (Part) Lal Bahadur Nagar (M) – Ward No. 1 to 10.

• INC : Sudhir Reddy

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP : K Bal Reddy

• MIM

50 Maheswaram (140047 133603 – 273658)
Maheswaram and Kandukur Mandals Saroornagar Mandal (Part) Medbowli, Almasguda, Badangpet, Chintalakunta, Jalpalle, Mamidipalle, Kurmalguda and Nadargul (Rural) Mandals. Hyderabad (OG) (Part) Balapur (OG) – Ward No.36 Kothapet (OG) – Ward No.37 Venkatapur (OG) – Ward No.39 Mallapur (OG) – Ward No.40 Lal Bahadur Nagar (M+OG) (Part) Lal Bahadur Nagar (M) – Ward No.11 Nadargul (OG) (Part) – Ward No.12 Jillalguda (OG) – Ward No.15 Meerpet (CT).

• INC : Sabita Indrareddy

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

51 Rajendranagar (130034 123218 – 253364)
Rajendranagar and Shamshabad Mandals.

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

52 Serilingampally (194776 172478 – 367258)
Serilingampally Mandal Balanagar Mandal (Part) Kukatpally (M) (Part) Kukatpally (M) – Ward No. 1 to 4.

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

53 Chevella (SC) (96291 92745 – 189121)
Nawabpet, Shankarpalle, Moinabad, Chevella and Shabad Mandals.

• INC

• TDP / TRS : K S Ratnam – TDP

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

54 Pargi (93644 96103 – 189807)
Doma, Gandeed, Kulkacherla, Pargi and Pudur Mandals.

• INC

• TDP / TRS : Harishwar Reddy – TDP

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

55 Vicarabad (SC) (90315 91146 – 181511)
Marpalle, Mominpet, Vikarabad, Dharur and Bantwaram Mandals.

• INC : Prasad

• TDP / TRS : Chandrashekhar – TRS

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

56 Tandur (87438 93358 – 180821)
Peddemul, Tandur, Basheerabad and Yalal Mandals.

• INC : M Ramesh

• TDP / TRS : Mahender Reddy – TDP

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM

PARLIAMENTARY SEATS – HYD + RR (65,38,840)

7-MALKAJGIRI (21,15,947)
43 Medchal, 44 Malkajgiri, 45 Qutbullapur, 46 Kukatpalle, 47 Uppal, 49 Lal Bahadur Nagar and 71 Secunderabad Cantt. (SC).

• INC

• TDP / TRS

• PRP / NTP : T Devender Goud

• BJP : Indrasena Reddy

• MIM

8- SECUNDERABAD (14,83,379)
57 Musheerabad, 59 Amberpet, 60 Khairatabad, 61 Jubilee Hills, 62 Sanathnagar, 63 Nampally and 70 Secunderabad.

• INC

• TDP / TRS : Vijayarama Rao

• PRP / NTP

• BJP : Bandaru Dattatreya

• MIM

9-HYDERABAD (13,03,974)
58 Malakpet, 64 Karwan, 65 Goshamahal, 66 Charminar, 67 Chandrayangutta, 68 Yakutpura and 69 Bahadurpura.

• INC

• TDP / TRS : Zahed ali Khan

• PRP / NTP

• BJP

• MIM : Asaduddin Owaisi

10-CHEVELLA (16,35,540)
50 Maheswaram, 51 Rajendranagar, 52 Serilingampally, 53 Chevella (SC), 54 Pargi, 55 Vicarabad (SC) and 56 Tandur.

• INC : Laxma Reddy

• TDP / TRS : Sunita Mahipal Reddy

• PRP / NTP

• BJP : Baddam Balreddy

• MIM

Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen – Thriving on the ideology of its pre-Independence parent body

By R Upadhyay

The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (All India Council of the Muslims), an incarnation of Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) of pre-Independent India claims to be the sole representative body of the Muslim society of Andhra Pradesh. With one Lok Sabha seat, which the party has retained since 1984 till 2004 election, five MLAs in Andhra Prdesh Assembly, forty Corporators in Hyderabad city and about one hundred members elected to various municipal bodies, its claim is perhaps justified.

While taking over the command of the pre-Independence MIM in 1957 by prefixing All India to this name, Abdul Wahed Owaisi declared the party’s commitment to Indian constitution but three MLAs led violent assault on Taslima Nasreen, a Muslim woman writer of Bangladesh on August 9 this year proved its tunneled mindset, which is hardly in time negotiates with the spirit of secular democracy in the country. A trusted ally of the ruling Congress, it is known as “an Islamic, fundamentalist, secessionist, communal and political party in India that was founded by radicals among the Muslim population of Hyderabad and Muslim dominated areas of Andhra Pradesh though it has units in some parts of Karnataka and Maharashtra”(Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia).

To know further about the Islamist character of the party, we may look into the historical background of its parent body as well as its own contribution towards radicalization of the Muslim society. Like August 9 incident this year, the pre-Independence MIM also came in hot news on this eventful day of Indian History sixty five years back in 1942, when it had opposed ‘Quit India’ movement against the colonial British power and mobilized the Muslims of then Hyderabad State for defending the Islamic rule of Nizam. Founded in 1927 by a group of Islamists of Hyderabad initially as a socio-religious organization, its successive presidents particularly Nawab Bahadur Yar Jung, a religio-political activist and Qasim Rizvi, a militant Islamist gradually turned it into an Islamic fundamentalist, secessionist, communal and a pro-Nizam political party.

For MIM “the ruler throne (Nizam) is the symbol of the political and cultural rights of the Muslim community …. (and) this status must continue for ever”. (Party Politics in Andhra Pradesh by Vadakattu Hanumantha Rao, 1983, Page 163). Under the leadership of Bahadur Yar Jung, the party “proclaimed Muslims as the monarchs of Deccan with Nizam as only the symbolic expression of their political sovereignty. It demanded the creation of an independent Hyderabad to synchronise with the lapse of British paramountcy” (State Government and Politics – Andhra Pradesh by Reddy & Sharma, 1979, page392).

After the death of Bahadur Yar Jung in early forties of the last century, the command of the MIM was taken over by Kasim Razvi, who enrolled a large number of Muslim youths as Razakars to fight against the freedom fighters of Congress, Arya Samaj and Hindu Mahasabha and emerged as “champion of Muslims and protector of a Muslim State”. The militancy of the party however reached to its peak on the eve of independence, when Nizam was virtually put on hold by the MIM and was not allowed to sign the instrument of accession of Hyderabad State with Indian Union. In fact about 150,000 Razakars led by Razvi created a reign of terror against the non-Muslims and forced the Nizam to buy time under the cover of negotiation. The militant mindset of Razvi could be judged from his threat to Government of India during one of his talks with V.P.Menon, the then Secretary in Ministry of States in Delhi. He said, “if Government of India insisted on a plebiscite, the final arbiter could only be the sword”(Integration of the Indian States by V.P.Menon, page334). Similarly in one of his jehadi speeches as published in press, he asserted: “The day is not far off when the waves of the Bay of Bengal will be washing the feet of our sovereign”. He further declared that “he would plant the Asaf Jahi flag on the Red Fort in Delhi” (Ibid. page 352). Such statements of Razvi suggested that the latter was virtually the ruler of Hyderabad State. However, the sword of Rizvi failed to protect the end of the autocratic rule of Nizam, who surrendered at 1700 hour on September 17, 1948 and integration of Hyderabad State with Indian Union became a reality. MIM was proscribed and Razvi was jailed. He was released only in 1957, when he gave an undertaking to migrate to Pakistan within forty-eight hours of his release.

The story of the over one year delay in the integration of Hyderabad suggests that dependence of Nizam on an Islamist like Razvi was the main reason behind not only for his humiliating surrender before Indian army but also for demoralisation of the Muslim society of Hyderabad. His radio speech on September 23 was in fact a confession of being a prisoner of a group of MIM activists led by Razvi. He said, “In November last, a small group which had organized a quasi-military organization surrounded the homes of my Prime Minister, the Nawab of Chhatari, in whose wisdom I had complete confidence, and of Sir Walter Monkton, my constitutional Adviser, by duress compelled the Nawab and other trusted ministers to resign and forced the Laik Ali Ministry on me. This group headed by Kasim Razvi had no stake in the country or any record of service behind it. By methods reminiscent of Hitelerite Germany it took possession of the State, spread terror … and rendered me completely helpless.” (From Autocracy to Integration by Lucien D Benichou, Orient Longman 2000, Page 237).

Before his migration to Pakistan Rizvi handed over the command of the MIM to Abdul Wahed Owaisi an advocate and one of the richest Muslims of Hyderabad, who was known for his strong relations with Nizam. Owaisi revived the MIM with a new name of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen. He re-wrote its constitution and accepted Hyderabad as a part of Indian Union. Re-naming the party just by prefixing All India in it and re-writing its constitution was however, an eye wash as its subsequent behaviour showed.

Although Owaisi was an eye witness to all the misdeeds of Razvi, the Islamist element in him did not allow him to be reconciled with the loss of an independent Islamic State. “In 1957 the MIM was revived in Hyderabad and a decade later was petitioning the Government of India for the foundation of a purely Muslim State on India’s eastern coast” (Encyclopaedia of Islam – Lieden E.J.Brill, Vol. V, Page 1081). For over a decade the MIM maintained a low profile and remained a marginal player in the politics of Hyderabad but gradually Owaisi cashed on the hidden anger of Muslim society against the loss of Islamic power in the state. “Majlis played passion politics by trading on hate-Hindu sentiments and cashed on the angry Muslim electorates” (Party Politics in Andhra Pradesh – Hanumantha Rao, 1983, Page 164).

In 1976 Salahuddin Owaisi, a widely traveled barrister son of Abdul Wahed Owaisi took over the presidentship of the party after the death of his father and launched an aggressive campaign for the cause of his community members. Increasingly aligning the party with the fundamentalist ideology of its parent body the Owaisis carried forward the legacy of parent organization, which was “regarded as remarkably aggressive and a violent face of Muslim militancy as it organized the Razakars to defend the independence of this Muslim State with Indian Union”.

Popularly known as ‘Salar-e-Millat’ (Commander of the community), he criticized the Indian state for allegedly abandoning the Muslims to their fate and replayed the communal and militant politics of Razvi. He reminded his community members of their past glory and “compared the Majlis to the Black Power Movement of America” (www.nowpublic.com). Since 1984 he retained the Communal politics of Nizam days and never made any effort to transform the communalized Muslim masses of Hyderabad into secular and democratic Indians. Instead Owaisi family used this organization only as a platform for serving the communal interest of the Islamists in general and its vested political interest in particular. One fails to understand as to why he retained the name of the party, which had led the Razakars against Indian army? The answer lies with the Nizam-days mindset of Owaisis.

The MIM legislators opposed the motion which AP Assembly had placed for condemning the 9/11 attack on America. This was a reflection of the Islamist mindset of the AIMIM. Just on the eve of 2004 election Salahuddin stepped down in favour of his eldest son Asaduddin, who won this seat with a very big margin. His second son Akbaruddin became the leader of the five-member legislative group of AIMIM in Andhra Assembly. Taking over the presidentship of the party from his father, stepping down from his Lok Sabha seat for his eldest son and making his second son as leader of legislative party in Andhra Pradesh Assembly, the respective three generations of Owaisis have not only converted the AIMIM into a family trust but have also kept the Muslims of Hyderabad under siege. It is a fact that Owaisis have established some educational institutions for the benefit of the Muslim society of Hyderabad but its communal politics on which it is thriving has done more harm to the Muslims.

How does one deal with Owaisi types? What is the remedy? The Remedy lies with the Muslims of Andhra Pradesh themselves. If they want to live a peaceful and dignified life they will have to guard themselves from fundamentalists among them under the patronage of the parties, which are still obsessed to the pre-Independence mindset of All India Muslim League, Nizam of Hyderabad and Razvi, the leader of Razakars, who were opposed to integration of Hyderabad with Indian Union.

Opinion: Lure Of The Small Screen

By M H Ahssan

Private television channels have acquired a conspicuous presence in the country. They provide news and information, debate and discussion and a great deal of entertainment. They are rumoured to earn vast advertising revenues some of which they devote to the promotion of good causes. Their owners and managers like to say that their main aim is to serve the public interest. Those who work for them also seem eager to make that known to their viewers. At the same time, they also appear to be very dogged in the pursuit of their own commercial interests.

When a young girl dies under suspicious circumstances or rumours circulate about misconduct in high office, television reporters accompanied by cameramen are among the first to appear on the scene. They serve their viewers by providing information instantaneously and continuously. The information is accompanied by commentary and by speculation about the possible causes of what might be happening and why. The information provided is of value to the public, particularly where interested parties seek to suppress it.

But not all the information provided on television is of significant value. Much of it is trivial and ephemeral. The analysis provided is sometimes acute and incisive, but often it is empty and vacuous. There is a strain towards the presentation of information in a striking and dramatic form. Much of what takes place in our public life is ordinary and humdrum, but with some effort even the most banal happenings can be given a portentous air. Television reporters and anchors habitually adopt a breathless manner, which even the most seasoned newspaper columnist or radio broadcaster cannot easily simulate.

Like the other media, television provides both information and entertainment, but it combines the two in its own distinctive way. When Doordarshan held the field by itself, there was very little entertainment, and the information was bland and stereotyped. This has changed with the entry of private television channels into the field. Even Doordarshan is now less dull and stodgy than it used to be. Our newsreaders do not have to be grim faced as in China or Russia, and the women among them do not have to cover their heads as in Iran and Pakistan. It is good to see greater variety in dress and deportment although, personally, one regrets the passing of the sari.

While the media in general combine information with entertainment, private television channels make a special effort to present information and analysis in an entertaining way. The line between entertainment and
information is in any case never clear and, where there is acute competition to hold the viewer’s attention, it is easily crossed. Leaving aside the embarrassment and anguish caused to individuals and households, matters of public security and institutional propriety tend to be given short shrift. Newsreaders and analysts know how to simulate both grief and concern, but this loses something in credibility when their presentation is regularly interrupted by commercial advertisements that are anything but solemn or sorrowful.

What is worrying about private television is the cut-throat competition between rival channels. The competition affects the manner in which news is presented and, in the end, also its substance. It is natural that when an interesting or important story comes to light each channel should strive to be the first to present it to the public. It is also natural that it should wish to claim that its own story is exclusive. But such a claim serves mainly its own commercial interest rather than any identifiable public purpose.

The urge to stay ahead in the competition for consumer attention finds expression in the frenzy for ‘breaking news’ common among private television channels. When there is a plane hijack, a terrorist attack, a political assassination — or a successful landing on the moon — it is natural for the news editor to wish to break the news early or even to be the first to report it. Here the electronic media have an advantage over the papers and, within limits, competition provides a healthy stimulus for swift and immediate reporting.

What is presented as breaking news is not always very striking or dramatic. It is, in fact, often quite insubstantial. When something has to be shown as breaking news, there is pressure from within to present it in a dramatic way even when the matter is quite ordinary. It is, in any case, very difficult to view an event in perspective when it is unfolding before our eyes, so when there is pressure to present it as breaking news, that is how it will be presented.

I have often wondered what will happen if no momentous event occurs for one whole day or even for two successive days. If there is no breaking news, will it have to be invented? No account of unfolding events can be free from the more or less active use of the reporter’s imagination. Private television channels should not be blamed for seeking to augment their revenues, but they, on their side, should not cut too many corners. Nor should they be blamed for seeking credit for providing a useful service provided they do not make lofty moral claims about being the citizen’s shield against the authorities. It should not be too difficult for the citizen to determine what they do in the public interest and what they do for profit and, further, to see that the two are not always convergent.

Stem cell hope for neuro patients

By M H Ahssan

AIIMS Starts Trials For Treatment Of Parkinson’s Disease, Enrols Five Affected People

There may be life beyond dopamine therapy for the six crore-odd Parkinson’s patients in the country. The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has recently started stem cell trials for the treatment of Parkinson’s and the neurology department has enrolled five patients for it.

Though in the nascent stage, experts say stem cell treatment is likely to be the preferred treatment mode for neurological disorders like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and the lot in the near future. Stem cell therapy was, in fact, the recurrent theme in the 2nd Asian and Oceanian Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorder Congress and the 7th Asia Pacific Parkinson’s Association organised by AIIMS neurology department some days ago.

Usually extracted from embryos, bone marrow or the umbilical cord, stem cells are primitive, undifferentiated cells that have the ability to grow into any tissue type. They are being hailed as the dream treatment for a wide range of ‘‘incurable’’ diseases. “We have started stem cell trials for the Parkinson’s treatment. It is a long process, where we’ll use bone marrow stem cells harvested from patients. The cells, after being regrown in the lab, will be surgically inserted into the patient’s brain. As we would be using the patient’s own stem cells, there would be no chances of rejection,” said Dr Sumit Singh, associate professor and co-investigator of the stem cell trail at AIIMS. Headed by Dr Madhuri Behari, head of the neurology department, AIIMS, the team started the trial in Jan. “We plan to inject the stem cells back into the patients in the coming month. But it is too early to predict the results,” said Dr Singh.

After Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s is the second most common neuro-degenerative disorder. It is estimated that worldwide 1% people above 65 years and 3% people above the age of 80 are affected by it. “The reason for the disease is not known, but with timely medical intervention, degeneration can be delayed. But factors like genetic composition and environmental toxins are found to be responsible for the disease,” said Dr Behari, the organizing chairperson of the meet. Deliberating on the new trends in the treatment of Parkinson’s, experts cautioned that “hype should be kept aware from hope” as trials are in progress.

Dr Rupam Borgohain, neurologist at Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences in Hyderabad, who is also experimenting with stem cells in treating Parkinson’s disease, said, “It is definitely the way to go, but it is important to keep hype away from hope. It is in the trial phase and we will have to wait. Stem cell tissues have proved to be beneficial in treating Parkinson’s in a few cases. That us hope to move forward.”

Stem cell hope for neuro patients

By M H Ahssan

AIIMS Starts Trials For Treatment Of Parkinson’s Disease, Enrols Five Affected People

There may be life beyond dopamine therapy for the six crore-odd Parkinson’s patients in the country. The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has recently started stem cell trials for the treatment of Parkinson’s and the neurology department has enrolled five patients for it.

Though in the nascent stage, experts say stem cell treatment is likely to be the preferred treatment mode for neurological disorders like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and the lot in the near future. Stem cell therapy was, in fact, the recurrent theme in the 2nd Asian and Oceanian Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorder Congress and the 7th Asia Pacific Parkinson’s Association organised by AIIMS neurology department some days ago.

Usually extracted from embryos, bone marrow or the umbilical cord, stem cells are primitive, undifferentiated cells that have the ability to grow into any tissue type. They are being hailed as the dream treatment for a wide range of ‘‘incurable’’ diseases. “We have started stem cell trials for the Parkinson’s treatment. It is a long process, where we’ll use bone marrow stem cells harvested from patients. The cells, after being regrown in the lab, will be surgically inserted into the patient’s brain. As we would be using the patient’s own stem cells, there would be no chances of rejection,” said Dr Sumit Singh, associate professor and co-investigator of the stem cell trail at AIIMS. Headed by Dr Madhuri Behari, head of the neurology department, AIIMS, the team started the trial in Jan. “We plan to inject the stem cells back into the patients in the coming month. But it is too early to predict the results,” said Dr Singh.

After Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s is the second most common neuro-degenerative disorder. It is estimated that worldwide 1% people above 65 years and 3% people above the age of 80 are affected by it. “The reason for the disease is not known, but with timely medical intervention, degeneration can be delayed. But factors like genetic composition and environmental toxins are found to be responsible for the disease,” said Dr Behari, the organizing chairperson of the meet. Deliberating on the new trends in the treatment of Parkinson’s, experts cautioned that “hype should be kept aware from hope” as trials are in progress.

Dr Rupam Borgohain, neurologist at Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences in Hyderabad, who is also experimenting with stem cells in treating Parkinson’s disease, said, “It is definitely the way to go, but it is important to keep hype away from hope. It is in the trial phase and we will have to wait. Stem cell tissues have proved to be beneficial in treating Parkinson’s in a few cases. That us hope to move forward.”

Indian legal regime tough on historical imports

By Kajol Singh

Apart From Customs Duty, Private Collector Has To Get Import Licence For Retrieving National Heritage

The outrage in Parliament over the upcoming auction in New York of Mahatma Gandhi’s spectacles and other personal belongings is ironic. For, the same Parliament that’s indignant now about the Mahatma’s belongings being auctioned off, showed remarkable apathy while allowing an absurd piece of law that has made bringing back anything of “historical interest’’ to the country frustratingly difficult.

According to the rules, if a private collector from India buys any such piece of “historical interest”, the legal regime, far from waiving customs duty for retrieving national heritage, inflicts on him the hassles of obtaining an import licence. Vijay Mallya faced similar hassles when he sought to bring back Tipu Sultan’s sword. So, when the government-appointed expert committee meets this week to discuss the auction of Gandhi’s belongings, it can’t just limit itself to the issue of Gandhi’s scattered heritage. It would do well to find a long-term solution to the recurring problem of import into India of pieces of historical interest or antique value.

There is little awareness of the needless curbs on the import of historical pieces because the thrust of the statutory law, Antiquities and Art Treasures Act 1972, is to prohibit their export in a bid to end the ageold loot of Indian heritage. The executive slipped while framing the rules and introduced the same curbs on imports of historical or antique items. And our MPs nodded their assent to the subordinate legislation when it came up for Parliament’s ratification. Mridula Mukherjee, a member of the committee and director of Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, was surprised at this vestige of the licence raj that puts curbs on not just the export but also the import of historical legacy.

“It makes no sense to make it difficult for private collectors to import items of historical value to the nation,” she said, adding, “The committee should examine this anomaly and recommend incentives to those who collect and preserve our heritage.”

Bapu had gifted his glasses to late Nawab Mahabat
Mahatma Gandhi had gifted his round, metal-rimmed glasses, which would come under the hammer along with his other personal belongings at an auction in New York next month, to a British army colonel in the 1930s. Now, a closer look at the auction house Antiquorum Auctioneer’s website reveals that the colonel was none other than the late Junagarh Nawab Mahabat Khan, who had fled to Pakistan after partition. The British used to call him Colonel His Highness Sri Diwan Nawab Sir Muhammad Mahabat Khanji III Rasul Khanji. The auction has provoked outrage across India with Mahatma’s great grandson Tushar Gandhi describing it as “grave insult’’. The auction house recently received a letter of provenance from his great grandson Talat Sahid Khan Babi along with the glasses for auction.

Jamaat-e-islami to campaign for secular party

By M H Ahssan

Even as Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH) strenuously works to give shape to a political party of its own, it has decided to mobilize masses, particularly the Muslims, to vote for a group that promises to focus on comprehensive electoral reforms.

Jamaat is presently busy finalizing the profile of its political organization. “It may not be ready by the time the nation goes to polls in less than three months. But we will continue to do the kind of work we have been doing all along. We will campaign for a secular party or group of parties that has a clear vision about the country,’’ JIH’s state ameer (President) Malik Moatasim Khan told HNN.

He said that the decision to identify the party that will get JIH support would be taken sometime in March. Till then, an awareness campaign would be carried out about areas which Jamaat believes are core to bringing about a change in society.

For instance, the Jamaat would be supporting a political party that takes up electoral and political reforms as its main objectives. The other area on which the Jamaat has focused its attention is the nexus between politicians and criminals. “Its meetings would tell people how this nexus has damaged the civil society. Jamaat would also try to find out which political group is making commitment to the implementation of Supreme Court recommended reforms in the police force. The party’s outlook on caste, creed, religion and socio-economic background of people would also be checked out and made known to the masses. We would back a party that truly believes in pluralism,’’ Khan said.

JIH would also scan the parties to find out their interest in protection and welfare of the minorities, especially the Muslims. It would like to know what plans and policies the political parties have to strengthen the sense of safety and security in the community along with plans for its socio-economic development.

“During the 2004 elections we worked against the communal forces and prevailed upon the public to defeat them. Jamaat played an important role in bringing numerous Muslim organizations under the umbrella of United Muslim Forum. Andhra Pradesh is a good example of the successful efforts made by UMF,” Khan explained.

Couples find abortion way out of recession blues

By Sheena Shafia

Economic recession seems to be forcing couples into resorting to desperate measures, including abortion to tide over the crisis.

In the wake of slowdown and job losses, several women are getting their foetuses aborted in a bid to lessen their “economic burden”. Gynaecologists working in corporate hospitals in the city are getting an increasing number of cases since last month mostly seeking contraceptive advice or medical termination of pregnancy (MTP).

Interestingly, most persons seeking advice and going for MTP are from the software sector, they said.

“Earlier, the reasons for abortion were different. It used to be either contraception failure or an unwanted pregnancy. But now, it is ‘I cannot afford a child right now,’ phenomenon,” Dr A Manjula Anagani of Care Hospital told TOI.

Narrating a recent case, Dr Manjula said, a couple, both software professionals, got their eight-week pregnancy aborted as one of them got a pink slip. “When they had approached me, they were very sure they wanted a baby. Soon after one of them lost job, they came back and asked for MTP. I tried to convince her since she was 28 years old and any further delay would only make it difficult for her to conceive. She said she will try after a couple of years. We cannot do more than this,” Dr Manjula, who saw three such cases in the last 15 days, said.

Even more startling is the fact that some corporate firms are demanding undertaking from woman employees that they would not take maternity leave for a specific period of time.

Dr V Janaki, a gynaecologist at Niloufer Hospital and Image Hospital, said, “A feeling of insecurity and fear of losing jobs has crept in among the young workforce. I got cases wherein women told me that they signed bonds with companies for a specific period that they would not be taking maternity leave.”

“If just one partner is slogging it out to make ends meet, the men are insisting on their wives going in for MTP. Though we tried counselling them that the economic slowdown could be a temporary phenomenon, they are not ready to listen,” Dr Janaki added.

Talking to HNN, a woman, who had MTP recently, said, “I was sacked recently. Moreover, my husband had to settle for a pay cut to retain his job. Having a four-yearold child, I wanted to go in for the second one. But due to the present uncertainties, we are barely able to meet our present needs.”

The Joy And Pain Of Being An Indian Muslim

By M H Ahssan

For all Indians the resurgence of India in recent years is an occasion of pride and joy. And so it is for the 140 million minority Muslims in India. It makes Indian Muslims proud to see their country become one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world. Also, a few Muslims have achieved positions of prestige in India and there are some success stories.

However it pains Muslims to find that most Muslims continue to be marginalized and stereotyped in India and often suspect in their nationalism, not to mention their utter social, economic and educational backwardness, far in excess of the national average. An overwhelming majority of today’s Muslims are of the pro-independence generation. When someone doubts their nationalism or alleges that they may be sympathizers of Pakistan, just because they are Muslims, it causes them a lot of anguish.

In sixty years in post independence India, Muslims have continued to hear questions like, “Now that they have Pakistan, what do the Muslims want?” And then came the slogan, “If you have to live in India you have to worship Lord Rama.” Even some otherwise enlightened Hindus are heard saying that “There is a Muslim problem that will not go away.” It pains Muslims that rather than view them as descendants of great patriotic Indians of the past, such as Emperor Akbar, King Tipu Sultan, and Sufi saints like Khawaja Moinuddin Chishti of Ajmer, Nizamuddin Aulia of Delhi, freedom fighters like Maulana Azad and Ghaffar Khan, and the creator of ballistic missiles APJ Abdul Kalam, et al, today a significant number of Hindus prefer to link the entire 140 million strong Muslim community with the handful of tyrants of the medieval past like Ghouri, Ghaznavi, Nadir Shah etc, and the isolated instances of their suppression of Hindus.

It bothers Muslims that the close proximity of mosques and temples in countless cities of India is not interpreted as a sign of the coexistence of Muslims and Hindus over the centuries, but as that of the forcible conversion of temples into mosques by Muslim kings of the past. As the Urdu poet late BD Pandey, a former governor of Uttar Pradesh said:

“ Hazaaron saal ki yeh daastan. Aur unko yaad haiy sirf itna; Kay Alamgir (Aurangzeb) zaalim tha, hindukush tha, sitamgur tha.”

(Hindus and Muslims coexisting is a tale of a thousand years. And yet all they remember is that Alamgir (Auragzeb) was a suppressor of Hindus and a tyrant.)
Today after sixty years in independent India, despite their utter powerlessness and impoverishment, despite no government action against the culprits who massacred thousands of Muslims in Gujarat (2002), Mumbai (1993) and other cities in countless riots and who demolished many Muslim mosques and shrines, the Muslim Indians are neither willing to accept the epithet of Mohammadya Hindu, nor ready to give up their authentic home grown Indo-Islamic identity as the price for equal say in the affairs of their nation.

As erstwhile freedom fighter Bal Gangadhar Tilak said, “Freedom and equal rights is our birthright.” They also have no special love for Pakistan which is just another country for them. Today’s Indian Muslims want to be proactive in nation building and place great trust, not in the government but in the seventyfive percent secular Hindus who genuinely want to coexist in peace and dignity with them, remove their alienation from the mainstream of India and make them an active partner in the world class Indian nation of tomorrow.

The emergence of true grit secular leaders like VP Singh, Jyoti Basu, Sitaram Yechury, Prakash Karat, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Laloo Prasad Yadav, Arjun Singh etal on the national scene after decades of vote bank politics and the politics of political expediency gives them hope for the future. Muslims fully expect the silent majority of secular Hindus to remain silent no more but speak up and demand that the power structure take action to redress the genuine plight and deprivation of the Muslim community.

How to Elect your Leader?

By HNN Bureau

Elections provide the most opportune moments to express our preferences for socio-economic and other policies pursued by the political parties. Every time one comes around, we find a number of party workers soliciting our votes, and a little preparedness on our part can help. These questions can help us examine our preferences privately, and to engage others in discussions about the answers. Please feel free to submit your questions by writing editor@hyderabadnews.net; we will maintain this page in perpetuity for use in all future elections.

Before you cast your ballot …
Questions for the party poll worker at your door.

An elected leader

Who is the head of your political organization?

How did s/he get to that post?

Were internal elections held to appoint him/her?

Second string

Who are the other leaders of your political party?

How well educated are they? How many have college degrees?

If elected, who will occupy the major portfolios – finance, home, human resources, education, law, and energy?

Ideological integrity

What is the distinguishing characteristic of your party?

Which parties are clearly different from yours?

Do you have any pre-poll alliances? What is the basis for such alliances? Do the alliance partners share your economic and social ideologies? Give me some examples.

Financial background and integrity

What do you (the candidate) do for a living?

Do you file tax returns regularly, and are you willing to make these records public?

Do you promise to declare your and your immediate family’s assets periodically if elected?

Representing constituents
Are any candidates in your party contesting from more than one constituency? If yes, why? If elected from both, which one will s/he forfeit?

Transparent Government

What is your party’s position on secrecy of public information?

Will infrastructure agreements be made public at the time they are signed?

Will the costs of acquisition and sale of land by the government be kept public?

We will add questions regularly; please email your questions to us at editor@hyderabadnews.net

Candidate Questionnaire: The leader
Understanding the heads of political parties at the time of elections

These questions may help you understand how the leaders of individual parties have attained their current positions. Check the table to the right, for more questions covering a range of issues relevant to making electoral choices.

- Who is the head of your political organization?
- How did s/he get to that post?
- Were internal elections held to appoint him/her?
- If yes, when were these elections last held?
- Where were they held?
- Who was eligible to vote?
- Could party members in distant towns and cities vote?
- Was this a direct vote by the members themselves, or was this a represented vote?
- How periodically are elections scheduled to be held?
- Have you always adhered to this schedule?
- Who won the last three elections to the post of party president?
- If they were not held, why not?

Candidate questionnaire: Second string
Election questions about prominent party members

These questions will help you learn the identities of other prominent persons in political parties besides the leader, and how power is shared amongst various people at the top.

- Who are the other leaders of your political party?
- How well educated are they? How many have college degrees?
- If elected, who will occupy the major portfolios – finance, home, human resources, education, law, and energy?
- Which constituencies are these leaders contesting from?
- Do they live in those constituencies, and if not, why are they contesting from there?
- Have any of these party leaders previously held positions in government?

Candidate questionnaire: Ideology
What do you believe, whose beliefs do you share or reject?

These questions will help you understand the ideology behind which the party is organized and how consistent this thought is.

- What is the distinguishing ideology of your party?

- Which parties are clearly different from yours?

- Do you have any pre-poll alliances? What is the basis for such alliances? Do the alliance partners share your economic and social ideologies? Give me some examples.

- What is your opinion on post-election coalitions? Is your party sufficeintly strong to come to power by itself, or are you supporting other political parties? In what sense are the coalition partners similar to you?

- Is your political party an off-shoot of a different one? If yes, what was the ideological reason for the split, and in what important ways does this faction differ from the rest?

- Have you, in the past, opposed any political party which you are now supporting? If yes, what has changed?

- Have you, in the past, switched political afffiliation after an election, i.e., moved to a party after being elected on as the candidate of another?

Candidate questionnaire: Finances
Ensuring accountable and assured management of public funds

These questions will help you understand the party’s commitment to financial probity.

- What do you (the candidate) do for a living?

- Do you file tax returns regularly, and are you willing to make these records public?

- Do you promise to declare your and your immediate family’s assets periodically if elected?

- Is there any conflict of interest between your business and the welfare of your constituents? [eg. a mill owner in a labour costituency, or a landlord in a farmer constoituency]. If so how do you propose to resolve this?

- Do you think other representatives from your political party should make their financial records public before the elections, and regularly thereafter if elected?

Candidate questionnaire: The local interest
Representing the constituents, not the leadership of parties.

These questions will help you understand how committed the local representatives are to the interests of their particular constituency, and whether they are able to represent you independent of their loyalty to party members and leaders from elsewhere.

- Are any candidates in your party contesting from more than one constituency? If yes, why? If elected from both, which one will s/he forfeit?

- Does your party allow elected representatives to vote according to their own preferences in the assembly/parliament, or are they required to vote as instructed by the leadership?

- Does your party use a whip to regulate votes in the assemblies? [A whip is a party functionary who passes the word on how the party members are expected to vote].

Candidate questionnaire: An open government
Transparent functioning by elected representatives and administrators.

These questions will help you understand the extent to which the party is willing to make decisions publicly, and provide you with information as to how and why the decisions are taken.

- What is your party’s position on secrecy of public information?

- Will infrastructure agreements be made public at the time they are signed?

- Will the costs of acquisition and sale of land by the government be kept public?

- Will your party support a Freedom of Information Bill that includes whistle-blower protection? [ A whistle-blower is someone working for the government who reveals corruption inside it, and is often punished by the government as a consequence ].

- Will you enact legislation ro ensure AUTOMATIC cancellation of projects that use public money when the money is not used for the publicly stated intention?

We will add questions regularly; please email your questions to us at editor@hyderabadnews.net

How to Elect your Leader?

By HNN Bureau

Elections provide the most opportune moments to express our preferences for socio-economic and other policies pursued by the political parties. Every time one comes around, we find a number of party workers soliciting our votes, and a little preparedness on our part can help. These questions can help us examine our preferences privately, and to engage others in discussions about the answers. Please feel free to submit your questions by writing editor@hyderabadnews.net; we will maintain this page in perpetuity for use in all future elections.

Before you cast your ballot …
Questions for the party poll worker at your door.

An elected leader

Who is the head of your political organization?

How did s/he get to that post?

Were internal elections held to appoint him/her?

Second string

Who are the other leaders of your political party?

How well educated are they? How many have college degrees?

If elected, who will occupy the major portfolios – finance, home, human resources, education, law, and energy?

Ideological integrity

What is the distinguishing characteristic of your party?

Which parties are clearly different from yours?

Do you have any pre-poll alliances? What is the basis for such alliances? Do the alliance partners share your economic and social ideologies? Give me some examples.

Financial background and integrity

What do you (the candidate) do for a living?

Do you file tax returns regularly, and are you willing to make these records public?

Do you promise to declare your and your immediate family’s assets periodically if elected?

Representing constituents
Are any candidates in your party contesting from more than one constituency? If yes, why? If elected from both, which one will s/he forfeit?

Transparent Government

What is your party’s position on secrecy of public information?

Will infrastructure agreements be made public at the time they are signed?

Will the costs of acquisition and sale of land by the government be kept public?

We will add questions regularly; please email your questions to us at editor@hyderabadnews.net

Candidate Questionnaire: The leader
Understanding the heads of political parties at the time of elections

These questions may help you understand how the leaders of individual parties have attained their current positions. Check the table to the right, for more questions covering a range of issues relevant to making electoral choices.

- Who is the head of your political organization?
- How did s/he get to that post?
- Were internal elections held to appoint him/her?
- If yes, when were these elections last held?
- Where were they held?
- Who was eligible to vote?
- Could party members in distant towns and cities vote?
- Was this a direct vote by the members themselves, or was this a represented vote?
- How periodically are elections scheduled to be held?
- Have you always adhered to this schedule?
- Who won the last three elections to the post of party president?
- If they were not held, why not?

Candidate questionnaire: Second string
Election questions about prominent party members

These questions will help you learn the identities of other prominent persons in political parties besides the leader, and how power is shared amongst various people at the top.

- Who are the other leaders of your political party?
- How well educated are they? How many have college degrees?
- If elected, who will occupy the major portfolios – finance, home, human resources, education, law, and energy?
- Which constituencies are these leaders contesting from?
- Do they live in those constituencies, and if not, why are they contesting from there?
- Have any of these party leaders previously held positions in government?

Candidate questionnaire: Ideology
What do you believe, whose beliefs do you share or reject?

These questions will help you understand the ideology behind which the party is organized and how consistent this thought is.

- What is the distinguishing ideology of your party?

- Which parties are clearly different from yours?

- Do you have any pre-poll alliances? What is the basis for such alliances? Do the alliance partners share your economic and social ideologies? Give me some examples.

- What is your opinion on post-election coalitions? Is your party sufficeintly strong to come to power by itself, or are you supporting other political parties? In what sense are the coalition partners similar to you?

- Is your political party an off-shoot of a different one? If yes, what was the ideological reason for the split, and in what important ways does this faction differ from the rest?

- Have you, in the past, opposed any political party which you are now supporting? If yes, what has changed?

- Have you, in the past, switched political afffiliation after an election, i.e., moved to a party after being elected on as the candidate of another?

Candidate questionnaire: Finances
Ensuring accountable and assured management of public funds

These questions will help you understand the party’s commitment to financial probity.

- What do you (the candidate) do for a living?

- Do you file tax returns regularly, and are you willing to make these records public?

- Do you promise to declare your and your immediate family’s assets periodically if elected?

- Is there any conflict of interest between your business and the welfare of your constituents? [eg. a mill owner in a labour costituency, or a landlord in a farmer constoituency]. If so how do you propose to resolve this?

- Do you think other representatives from your political party should make their financial records public before the elections, and regularly thereafter if elected?

Candidate questionnaire: The local interest
Representing the constituents, not the leadership of parties.

These questions will help you understand how committed the local representatives are to the interests of their particular constituency, and whether they are able to represent you independent of their loyalty to party members and leaders from elsewhere.

- Are any candidates in your party contesting from more than one constituency? If yes, why? If elected from both, which one will s/he forfeit?

- Does your party allow elected representatives to vote according to their own preferences in the assembly/parliament, or are they required to vote as instructed by the leadership?

- Does your party use a whip to regulate votes in the assemblies? [A whip is a party functionary who passes the word on how the party members are expected to vote].

Candidate questionnaire: An open government
Transparent functioning by elected representatives and administrators.

These questions will help you understand the extent to which the party is willing to make decisions publicly, and provide you with information as to how and why the decisions are taken.

- What is your party’s position on secrecy of public information?

- Will infrastructure agreements be made public at the time they are signed?

- Will the costs of acquisition and sale of land by the government be kept public?

- Will your party support a Freedom of Information Bill that includes whistle-blower protection? [ A whistle-blower is someone working for the government who reveals corruption inside it, and is often punished by the government as a consequence ].

- Will you enact legislation ro ensure AUTOMATIC cancellation of projects that use public money when the money is not used for the publicly stated intention?

We will add questions regularly; please email your questions to us at editor@hyderabadnews.net

How to Elect your Leader?

By HNN Bureau

Elections provide the most opportune moments to express our preferences for socio-economic and other policies pursued by the political parties. Every time one comes around, we find a number of party workers soliciting our votes, and a little preparedness on our part can help. These questions can help us examine our preferences privately, and to engage others in discussions about the answers. Please feel free to submit your questions by writing editor@hyderabadnews.net; we will maintain this page in perpetuity for use in all future elections.

Before you cast your ballot …
Questions for the party poll worker at your door.

An elected leader

Who is the head of your political organization?

How did s/he get to that post?

Were internal elections held to appoint him/her?

Second string

Who are the other leaders of your political party?

How well educated are they? How many have college degrees?

If elected, who will occupy the major portfolios – finance, home, human resources, education, law, and energy?

Ideological integrity

What is the distinguishing characteristic of your party?

Which parties are clearly different from yours?

Do you have any pre-poll alliances? What is the basis for such alliances? Do the alliance partners share your economic and social ideologies? Give me some examples.

Financial background and integrity

What do you (the candidate) do for a living?

Do you file tax returns regularly, and are you willing to make these records public?

Do you promise to declare your and your immediate family’s assets periodically if elected?

Representing constituents
Are any candidates in your party contesting from more than one constituency? If yes, why? If elected from both, which one will s/he forfeit?

Transparent Government

What is your party’s position on secrecy of public information?

Will infrastructure agreements be made public at the time they are signed?

Will the costs of acquisition and sale of land by the government be kept public?

We will add questions regularly; please email your questions to us at editor@hyderabadnews.net

Candidate Questionnaire: The leader
Understanding the heads of political parties at the time of elections

These questions may help you understand how the leaders of individual parties have attained their current positions. Check the table to the right, for more questions covering a range of issues relevant to making electoral choices.

- Who is the head of your political organization?
- How did s/he get to that post?
- Were internal elections held to appoint him/her?
- If yes, when were these elections last held?
- Where were they held?
- Who was eligible to vote?
- Could party members in distant towns and cities vote?
- Was this a direct vote by the members themselves, or was this a represented vote?
- How periodically are elections scheduled to be held?
- Have you always adhered to this schedule?
- Who won the last three elections to the post of party president?
- If they were not held, why not?

Candidate questionnaire: Second string
Election questions about prominent party members

These questions will help you learn the identities of other prominent persons in political parties besides the leader, and how power is shared amongst various people at the top.

- Who are the other leaders of your political party?
- How well educated are they? How many have college degrees?
- If elected, who will occupy the major portfolios – finance, home, human resources, education, law, and energy?
- Which constituencies are these leaders contesting from?
- Do they live in those constituencies, and if not, why are they contesting from there?
- Have any of these party leaders previously held positions in government?

Candidate questionnaire: Ideology
What do you believe, whose beliefs do you share or reject?

These questions will help you understand the ideology behind which the party is organized and how consistent this thought is.

- What is the distinguishing ideology of your party?

- Which parties are clearly different from yours?

- Do you have any pre-poll alliances? What is the basis for such alliances? Do the alliance partners share your economic and social ideologies? Give me some examples.

- What is your opinion on post-election coalitions? Is your party sufficeintly strong to come to power by itself, or are you supporting other political parties? In what sense are the coalition partners similar to you?

- Is your political party an off-shoot of a different one? If yes, what was the ideological reason for the split, and in what important ways does this faction differ from the rest?

- Have you, in the past, opposed any political party which you are now supporting? If yes, what has changed?

- Have you, in the past, switched political afffiliation after an election, i.e., moved to a party after being elected on as the candidate of another?

Candidate questionnaire: Finances
Ensuring accountable and assured management of public funds

These questions will help you understand the party’s commitment to financial probity.

- What do you (the candidate) do for a living?

- Do you file tax returns regularly, and are you willing to make these records public?

- Do you promise to declare your and your immediate family’s assets periodically if elected?

- Is there any conflict of interest between your business and the welfare of your constituents? [eg. a mill owner in a labour costituency, or a landlord in a farmer constoituency]. If so how do you propose to resolve this?

- Do you think other representatives from your political party should make their financial records public before the elections, and regularly thereafter if elected?

Candidate questionnaire: The local interest
Representing the constituents, not the leadership of parties.

These questions will help you understand how committed the local representatives are to the interests of their particular constituency, and whether they are able to represent you independent of their loyalty to party members and leaders from elsewhere.

- Are any candidates in your party contesting from more than one constituency? If yes, why? If elected from both, which one will s/he forfeit?

- Does your party allow elected representatives to vote according to their own preferences in the assembly/parliament, or are they required to vote as instructed by the leadership?

- Does your party use a whip to regulate votes in the assemblies? [A whip is a party functionary who passes the word on how the party members are expected to vote].

Candidate questionnaire: An open government
Transparent functioning by elected representatives and administrators.

These questions will help you understand the extent to which the party is willing to make decisions publicly, and provide you with information as to how and why the decisions are taken.

- What is your party’s position on secrecy of public information?

- Will infrastructure agreements be made public at the time they are signed?

- Will the costs of acquisition and sale of land by the government be kept public?

- Will your party support a Freedom of Information Bill that includes whistle-blower protection? [ A whistle-blower is someone working for the government who reveals corruption inside it, and is often punished by the government as a consequence ].

- Will you enact legislation ro ensure AUTOMATIC cancellation of projects that use public money when the money is not used for the publicly stated intention?

We will add questions regularly; please email your questions to us at editor@hyderabadnews.net

How to Elect your Leader?

By HNN Bureau

Elections provide the most opportune moments to express our preferences for socio-economic and other policies pursued by the political parties. Every time one comes around, we find a number of party workers soliciting our votes, and a little preparedness on our part can help. These questions can help us examine our preferences privately, and to engage others in discussions about the answers. Please feel free to submit your questions by writing editor@hyderabadnews.net; we will maintain this page in perpetuity for use in all future elections.

Before you cast your ballot …
Questions for the party poll worker at your door.

An elected leader

Who is the head of your political organization?

How did s/he get to that post?

Were internal elections held to appoint him/her?

Second string

Who are the other leaders of your political party?

How well educated are they? How many have college degrees?

If elected, who will occupy the major portfolios – finance, home, human resources, education, law, and energy?

Ideological integrity

What is the distinguishing characteristic of your party?

Which parties are clearly different from yours?

Do you have any pre-poll alliances? What is the basis for such alliances? Do the alliance partners share your economic and social ideologies? Give me some examples.

Financial background and integrity

What do you (the candidate) do for a living?

Do you file tax returns regularly, and are you willing to make these records public?

Do you promise to declare your and your immediate family’s assets periodically if elected?

Representing constituents
Are any candidates in your party contesting from more than one constituency? If yes, why? If elected from both, which one will s/he forfeit?

Transparent Government

What is your party’s position on secrecy of public information?

Will infrastructure agreements be made public at the time they are signed?

Will the costs of acquisition and sale of land by the government be kept public?

We will add questions regularly; please email your questions to us at editor@hyderabadnews.net

Candidate Questionnaire: The leader
Understanding the heads of political parties at the time of elections

These questions may help you understand how the leaders of individual parties have attained their current positions. Check the table to the right, for more questions covering a range of issues relevant to making electoral choices.

- Who is the head of your political organization?
- How did s/he get to that post?
- Were internal elections held to appoint him/her?
- If yes, when were these elections last held?
- Where were they held?
- Who was eligible to vote?
- Could party members in distant towns and cities vote?
- Was this a direct vote by the members themselves, or was this a represented vote?
- How periodically are elections scheduled to be held?
- Have you always adhered to this schedule?
- Who won the last three elections to the post of party president?
- If they were not held, why not?

Candidate questionnaire: Second string
Election questions about prominent party members

These questions will help you learn the identities of other prominent persons in political parties besides the leader, and how power is shared amongst various people at the top.

- Who are the other leaders of your political party?
- How well educated are they? How many have college degrees?
- If elected, who will occupy the major portfolios – finance, home, human resources, education, law, and energy?
- Which constituencies are these leaders contesting from?
- Do they live in those constituencies, and if not, why are they contesting from there?
- Have any of these party leaders previously held positions in government?

Candidate questionnaire: Ideology
What do you believe, whose beliefs do you share or reject?

These questions will help you understand the ideology behind which the party is organized and how consistent this thought is.

- What is the distinguishing ideology of your party?

- Which parties are clearly different from yours?

- Do you have any pre-poll alliances? What is the basis for such alliances? Do the alliance partners share your economic and social ideologies? Give me some examples.

- What is your opinion on post-election coalitions? Is your party sufficeintly strong to come to power by itself, or are you supporting other political parties? In what sense are the coalition partners similar to you?

- Is your political party an off-shoot of a different one? If yes, what was the ideological reason for the split, and in what important ways does this faction differ from the rest?

- Have you, in the past, opposed any political party which you are now supporting? If yes, what has changed?

- Have you, in the past, switched political afffiliation after an election, i.e., moved to a party after being elected on as the candidate of another?

Candidate questionnaire: Finances
Ensuring accountable and assured management of public funds

These questions will help you understand the party’s commitment to financial probity.

- What do you (the candidate) do for a living?

- Do you file tax returns regularly, and are you willing to make these records public?

- Do you promise to declare your and your immediate family’s assets periodically if elected?

- Is there any conflict of interest between your business and the welfare of your constituents? [eg. a mill owner in a labour costituency, or a landlord in a farmer constoituency]. If so how do you propose to resolve this?

- Do you think other representatives from your political party should make their financial records public before the elections, and regularly thereafter if elected?

Candidate questionnaire: The local interest
Representing the constituents, not the leadership of parties.

These questions will help you understand how committed the local representatives are to the interests of their particular constituency, and whether they are able to represent you independent of their loyalty to party members and leaders from elsewhere.

- Are any candidates in your party contesting from more than one constituency? If yes, why? If elected from both, which one will s/he forfeit?

- Does your party allow elected representatives to vote according to their own preferences in the assembly/parliament, or are they required to vote as instructed by the leadership?

- Does your party use a whip to regulate votes in the assemblies? [A whip is a party functionary who passes the word on how the party members are expected to vote].

Candidate questionnaire: An open government
Transparent functioning by elected representatives and administrators.

These questions will help you understand the extent to which the party is willing to make decisions publicly, and provide you with information as to how and why the decisions are taken.

- What is your party’s position on secrecy of public information?

- Will infrastructure agreements be made public at the time they are signed?

- Will the costs of acquisition and sale of land by the government be kept public?

- Will your party support a Freedom of Information Bill that includes whistle-blower protection? [ A whistle-blower is someone working for the government who reveals corruption inside it, and is often punished by the government as a consequence ].

- Will you enact legislation ro ensure AUTOMATIC cancellation of projects that use public money when the money is not used for the publicly stated intention?

We will add questions regularly; please email your questions to us at editor@hyderabadnews.net

Indian Democracy – Towards Positive Change

By M H Ahssan

The the machinery and conduct of elections, is robust and intact. But the ’software’ of democracy, the processes by which we are governed in-between elections, is corrupt and corroded.

In India, astrologers are paid much better and respected far more than historians. But their profession is altogether more risky. Who, when the people of India went to the polls in the winter of 1951-2, could ever have predicted that this general election would be the first of very many? Not a respected Madras editor, who dismissed India’s tryst with electoral democracy as the “biggest gamble in history”. Not an Oxford-educated civil servant, who, when asked to supervise the polls in Manipur, wrote to his father that “a future and more enlightened age will view with astonishment the absurd farce of recording the votes of millions of illiterate people”.

Nor the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, whose journal, the Organiser, was certain that Jawaharlal Nehru “would live to confess the failure of universal adult franchise in India”. Sceptical about this “leap in the dark”, this “precipitate dose of democracy”, the Organiser complained that Nehru, “who has all along lived by slogans and stunts, would not listen”.

As it happens, Nehru’s faith was shared by millions of ordinary Indians. They chose to disregard the warnings of Hindu reactionaries, Oxford scholars, and English-speaking editors. A staggering 107 million Indians cast their franchise in the 1952 elections, this by far the greatest exercise of democratic will in human history. The record set then has been beaten 13 times – each time by Indians. And in the summer of 2009 the record will be superseded once more.

Before India, no society steeped in poverty and illiteracy had ever experimented with electoral democracy. Before India, no polity, large or small, had granted adults of both genders the vote at one fell swoop. In older democracies such as France, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, the privilege was first extended to rich men, later to educated men, then to all men, and finally, after a very long struggle, to women as well. Even a supposedly ‘advanced’ country such as Switzerland permitted its women citizens to vote only as late as 1971.

On the other hand, in independent India the franchise was immediately granted to all adults, regardless of education, wealth, gender or caste. The American constitution was adopted in 1787, but people of colour have effectively had the right to vote only since the 1960s. However, Dalits in India voted, and Dalit candidates were elected to Parliament, within two years of the writing of our own Constitution.

Electoral democracy in India was an act of faith, a challenge to logic and the received wisdom, perhaps even the biggest gamble in history. That it has now gone through so many iterations should be a matter of pride for Indians. Not least because our elections are free and fair. The Election Commission of India enjoys an enviable reputation for efficiency and neutrality. As recently as 2000, an American presidential election was decided by faulty balloting and biased judges. But we can be certain that the 2009 general election in India will more reliably reflect the will of the people.

Who will this verdict favour? Even the most trained psephologist (or astrologer) will not, I think, go so far as to offer an unambiguous answer to this question, to thus make himself hostage to a prediction that may go horribly wrong. For all one can safely say about the next general elections is that, like the six that immediately preceded it, no single party will get a majority in Parliament. Three options present themselves – first, that the Congress and its allies will somehow cobble together a majority; second, that the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies shall beat them to the magic figure of 272; third, that neither alliance will achieve its aim, thus making room for a minority ‘third front’ government propped up by either the BJP or the Congress.

The rise of coalition governments is a product of the deepening of Indian democracy. Our country is too large and too diverse to be adequately represented by a single party, or to be ruled in turn by two rival ‘national’ parties either. Thus communities that claim disadvantage on the basis of region, language or caste have articulated their grievances through political parties set up to represent their interests. At the local level, these identity-based parties have sometimes promoted a more inclusive politics, by giving space to groups previously left out of governance and administration.

However, when aggregated at the level of the nation, these regional diversities lead to irrational and excessively short-term outcomes. Despite their grand-sounding names, neither the United Progressive Alliance nor the National Democratic Alliance has a coherent ideology that serves to bind the alliance’s partners. Smaller parties join the BJP or the Congress on a purely opportunistic basis, seeking to extract profitable ministerships or subsidies to vote banks in exchange for political support.

This historian is hesitant to assume the role of an astrologer, but less hesitant to stake his claim to be a citizen. As I said, we should all take pride in the fact that after 60 testing years of freedom we are still somewhat united and somewhat democratic. But we might take less pride in the conduct of our political parties and politicians. The ‘hardware’ of Indian democracy, by which I mean the machinery and conduct of elections, is robust and intact. The ’software’ of democracy, by which I mean the processes by which we are governed in-between elections, is corrupt and corroded.

What might be done to redeem this? How might the political process be made more efficient and more sensitive to the needs of the citizens? Here are a few concrete suggestions for how we may improve Indian politics in the year 2009 and beyond:

First, promote bipartisanship on issues of national security and foreign policy. The Congress and the BJP are equally guilty here. When Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited Srinagar, as the first prime minister to do so in more than a decade, Sonia Gandhi asked the Congress ministers in the state government to boycott his speech. More recently, when several years of peace were threatened by the Amarnath controversy, L K Advani worked to intensify the conflicts between Jammu and the Kashmir valley, when he could have instead chosen to collaborate with the government to resolve them. On the question of terrorism, too, the BJP and the Congress seek to wound the other party rather than to make common cause in the national interest. When the idea of India is itself in peril, there must be no place for the politics of vindictive opposition.

Second, promote lateral entry into government. One reason Western states are better run than ours is that top jobs are not a monopoly of party apparatchiks and civil servants. Rather, qualified technologists, lawyers, entrepreneurs and journalists are encouraged to enter government in posts suited to their skills. Why should a successful businessman not be eligible to be made commerce secretary, or a brilliant scientist education secretary?

Third, restore Parliament as a theatre for reasoned debate, which it indeed was for the first quarter-century of its existence. The first few Lok Sabhas met for some 150 times a year; now, we are lucky if Parliament convenes for 80 days a year. And when they are not on holiday, the members of parliament seek not to speak themselves but to stop others from speaking.

Fourth, put pressure on political parties to voluntarily adopt a retirement age. No one more than 70 years of age should be permitted by their party to contest elections or hold office. In a young country and fast-moving world, to have octogenerians running state governments or seeking to be prime minister simply won’t do.

Fifth, act on the EC’s suggestion and include, on the ballot paper, the category “None of the above”, to be inserted after the list of candidates for each constituency. The right not to vote, and to make it known that an individual will not vote , is a natural extension of the democratic right to choose a particular candidate or party to represent oneself.

As the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attacks has underlined, the disenchantment with politicians runs deep in India. However, the slogans that currently express this disgust – “Jail all corrupt politicians”, “Do not pay your taxes”, and so on – are either wholly negative, or wholly impractical, or both. On the other hand, the proposals outlined above are both positive as well as realistic. They are intended to make Indian democracy something more than the periodic exercise of the popular right to vote.

That right is, of course, indispensable – and we should be thankful that, unlike some other countries in our neighbourhood, we can exercise it yet again in 2009. But we cannot be content with this. And so, in the interval between the 15th and the 16th general elections, let us promote bipartisanship in foreign policy, encourage talented professionals to enter government, restore the integrity of Parliament, send old politicians into a dignified retirement, and add, to the right to vote, the right not to vote as well.

Indian Democracy – Towards Positive Change

By M H Ahssan

The the machinery and conduct of elections, is robust and intact. But the ’software’ of democracy, the processes by which we are governed in-between elections, is corrupt and corroded.

In India, astrologers are paid much better and respected far more than historians. But their profession is altogether more risky. Who, when the people of India went to the polls in the winter of 1951-2, could ever have predicted that this general election would be the first of very many? Not a respected Madras editor, who dismissed India’s tryst with electoral democracy as the “biggest gamble in history”. Not an Oxford-educated civil servant, who, when asked to supervise the polls in Manipur, wrote to his father that “a future and more enlightened age will view with astonishment the absurd farce of recording the votes of millions of illiterate people”.

Nor the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, whose journal, the Organiser, was certain that Jawaharlal Nehru “would live to confess the failure of universal adult franchise in India”. Sceptical about this “leap in the dark”, this “precipitate dose of democracy”, the Organiser complained that Nehru, “who has all along lived by slogans and stunts, would not listen”.

As it happens, Nehru’s faith was shared by millions of ordinary Indians. They chose to disregard the warnings of Hindu reactionaries, Oxford scholars, and English-speaking editors. A staggering 107 million Indians cast their franchise in the 1952 elections, this by far the greatest exercise of democratic will in human history. The record set then has been beaten 13 times – each time by Indians. And in the summer of 2009 the record will be superseded once more.

Before India, no society steeped in poverty and illiteracy had ever experimented with electoral democracy. Before India, no polity, large or small, had granted adults of both genders the vote at one fell swoop. In older democracies such as France, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, the privilege was first extended to rich men, later to educated men, then to all men, and finally, after a very long struggle, to women as well. Even a supposedly ‘advanced’ country such as Switzerland permitted its women citizens to vote only as late as 1971.

On the other hand, in independent India the franchise was immediately granted to all adults, regardless of education, wealth, gender or caste. The American constitution was adopted in 1787, but people of colour have effectively had the right to vote only since the 1960s. However, Dalits in India voted, and Dalit candidates were elected to Parliament, within two years of the writing of our own Constitution.

Electoral democracy in India was an act of faith, a challenge to logic and the received wisdom, perhaps even the biggest gamble in history. That it has now gone through so many iterations should be a matter of pride for Indians. Not least because our elections are free and fair. The Election Commission of India enjoys an enviable reputation for efficiency and neutrality. As recently as 2000, an American presidential election was decided by faulty balloting and biased judges. But we can be certain that the 2009 general election in India will more reliably reflect the will of the people.

Who will this verdict favour? Even the most trained psephologist (or astrologer) will not, I think, go so far as to offer an unambiguous answer to this question, to thus make himself hostage to a prediction that may go horribly wrong. For all one can safely say about the next general elections is that, like the six that immediately preceded it, no single party will get a majority in Parliament. Three options present themselves – first, that the Congress and its allies will somehow cobble together a majority; second, that the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies shall beat them to the magic figure of 272; third, that neither alliance will achieve its aim, thus making room for a minority ‘third front’ government propped up by either the BJP or the Congress.

The rise of coalition governments is a product of the deepening of Indian democracy. Our country is too large and too diverse to be adequately represented by a single party, or to be ruled in turn by two rival ‘national’ parties either. Thus communities that claim disadvantage on the basis of region, language or caste have articulated their grievances through political parties set up to represent their interests. At the local level, these identity-based parties have sometimes promoted a more inclusive politics, by giving space to groups previously left out of governance and administration.

However, when aggregated at the level of the nation, these regional diversities lead to irrational and excessively short-term outcomes. Despite their grand-sounding names, neither the United Progressive Alliance nor the National Democratic Alliance has a coherent ideology that serves to bind the alliance’s partners. Smaller parties join the BJP or the Congress on a purely opportunistic basis, seeking to extract profitable ministerships or subsidies to vote banks in exchange for political support.

This historian is hesitant to assume the role of an astrologer, but less hesitant to stake his claim to be a citizen. As I said, we should all take pride in the fact that after 60 testing years of freedom we are still somewhat united and somewhat democratic. But we might take less pride in the conduct of our political parties and politicians. The ‘hardware’ of Indian democracy, by which I mean the machinery and conduct of elections, is robust and intact. The ’software’ of democracy, by which I mean the processes by which we are governed in-between elections, is corrupt and corroded.

What might be done to redeem this? How might the political process be made more efficient and more sensitive to the needs of the citizens? Here are a few concrete suggestions for how we may improve Indian politics in the year 2009 and beyond:

First, promote bipartisanship on issues of national security and foreign policy. The Congress and the BJP are equally guilty here. When Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited Srinagar, as the first prime minister to do so in more than a decade, Sonia Gandhi asked the Congress ministers in the state government to boycott his speech. More recently, when several years of peace were threatened by the Amarnath controversy, L K Advani worked to intensify the conflicts between Jammu and the Kashmir valley, when he could have instead chosen to collaborate with the government to resolve them. On the question of terrorism, too, the BJP and the Congress seek to wound the other party rather than to make common cause in the national interest. When the idea of India is itself in peril, there must be no place for the politics of vindictive opposition.

Second, promote lateral entry into government. One reason Western states are better run than ours is that top jobs are not a monopoly of party apparatchiks and civil servants. Rather, qualified technologists, lawyers, entrepreneurs and journalists are encouraged to enter government in posts suited to their skills. Why should a successful businessman not be eligible to be made commerce secretary, or a brilliant scientist education secretary?

Third, restore Parliament as a theatre for reasoned debate, which it indeed was for the first quarter-century of its existence. The first few Lok Sabhas met for some 150 times a year; now, we are lucky if Parliament convenes for 80 days a year. And when they are not on holiday, the members of parliament seek not to speak themselves but to stop others from speaking.

Fourth, put pressure on political parties to voluntarily adopt a retirement age. No one more than 70 years of age should be permitted by their party to contest elections or hold office. In a young country and fast-moving world, to have octogenerians running state governments or seeking to be prime minister simply won’t do.

Fifth, act on the EC’s suggestion and include, on the ballot paper, the category “None of the above”, to be inserted after the list of candidates for each constituency. The right not to vote, and to make it known that an individual will not vote , is a natural extension of the democratic right to choose a particular candidate or party to represent oneself.

As the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attacks has underlined, the disenchantment with politicians runs deep in India. However, the slogans that currently express this disgust – “Jail all corrupt politicians”, “Do not pay your taxes”, and so on – are either wholly negative, or wholly impractical, or both. On the other hand, the proposals outlined above are both positive as well as realistic. They are intended to make Indian democracy something more than the periodic exercise of the popular right to vote.

That right is, of course, indispensable – and we should be thankful that, unlike some other countries in our neighbourhood, we can exercise it yet again in 2009. But we cannot be content with this. And so, in the interval between the 15th and the 16th general elections, let us promote bipartisanship in foreign policy, encourage talented professionals to enter government, restore the integrity of Parliament, send old politicians into a dignified retirement, and add, to the right to vote, the right not to vote as well.

It’s an age-old political issue

By Swapan Das Gupta

Indian politics is blessed by short public memory. The last occasion when age was used as a weapon of political sparring was during the West Bengal Assembly election of 1987. In a bid to wrest control of the state from a well-entrenched but non-performing Left Front, an impish Rajiv Gandhi suggested, in one of his campaign speeches, that it was time for Jyoti Basu to retire. Basu was then a venerable 73 and Rajiv a sprightly 43.

Unfortunately for the Congress, the remark went down badly. It was perceived as insolent, tasteless and contrary to the Indian tradition of respect for elders. Basu dismissed Rajiv with customary brusqueness: “Rajiv Gandhi. I knew his mother.” Basu’s staccato-like inanities were legendary but on this occasion he hit bull’s eye. The Congress was trounced. The youth versus geriatric battle concluded as a tussle between sobriety and brashness.

An unintended consequence of PM Manmohan Singh’s heart surgery is that it is likely to deter the Congress and its dynastic cheerleaders from mocking L K Advani’s octogenarian status. At 76, the PM may well be the epitome of youth compared to the BJP leader’s 81 years but in terms of energy and vigour, the older man seems to have a clear edge. Having announced that Singh will be its prime ministerial candidate, the Congress can’t risk reducing the election to a competitive fitness test.

Neither for that matter will the BJP. Regardless of the no-holds-barred political culture that prevails in some western democracies, it is considered bad taste in India to try and score political points on the opponent’s state of health. A B Vajpayee wasn’t in the pink of health during the 2004 general election. His famed oratorical skills had diminished substantially and his tours were kept to the barest minimum. Yet, it is difficult to recall any instance of the Congress making an issue of Vajpayee’s condition. For all their shortcomings, politicians are keenly aware of the cultural sensitivities of voters. They know that the irreverence and the lack of inhibitions of bloggers cannot be translated into a popular and acceptable idiom. Kerala CM V S Achuthanandan can be attacked for his ideological pig-headedness but not because he is 85. One is acceptable, the other is considered downright offensive.

The courtesies that co-exist with incredible ugliness in Indian politics may be exasperating to those over-exposed to cosmopolitan culture but they can ignore parampara at their own peril.

There is, for example, considerable unease in Middle India over the growth of what is called pub culture. Those who argue that taverns have been an integral part of the landscape for as long as anyone can remember aren’t wrong. Yet, the madhushala was seen as the exclusive preserve of the bohemian fringe — poets, intellectuals, the idle rich and the heartbroken Devdas. Pubbing doesn’t enjoy the social acceptability here as it does in Britain. It is still regarded by many — not least those who cannot afford the visits — as needless cultural intrusions from an unfamiliar world.

India has wholeheartedly embraced modern technology; it is wary of the cultural baggage that comes with modernity.

This scepticism shouldn’t be taken as an endorsement of the goons who vandalised a pub in Mangalore last month and have threatened to disrupt St Valentine’s Day celebrations. The Sri Ram Sene was felled by a popular backlash, not on account of its voodoo Hindutva, but because its activists were seen to be assaulting frightened women. Pramod Muthalik’s sinister demeanour reinforced the sense of disgust. Indians experienced a simple, heartfelt abhorrence of depravity.

Tragically, this impatience with extremism has been misread by the Facebook brigade as thumbs-up for elevating the pub and pub-going women into symbols of Indian modernity. The Pink Chaddi protest is wickedly innovative and guaranteed to be noticed. However, it is likely to reinforce Middle India’s existing prejudices and bolster the stereotype of un-Indian “fast and loose women.” Coming in the wake of a general election, it is calculated to create wariness of politicians whose USP is their youth, westernised demeanour and inheritance. Far from triggering a generational and cultural change in politics as they hope, these ridiculous promoters of Young India may yet end up scoring self-goals. In public life, India prefers stodginess to bling, especially when the exuberance of an economic boom has given way to the nervousness of a slowdown. Those strategists intent on dazzling India with youthful inheritors, networking frenetically on Facebook with Obama Blackberrys, should pay heed.

The Taliban get their first wish

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

Many Muslims believe that ancient Khorasan – which covers parts of modern-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Iran, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan – is the promised land from where they will secure the first victory in the end-of-time battle in which the final round, according to their beliefs, will be fought in Bilad-i-Sham (Palestine-Lebanon-Syria).

The geographical borders of Bilad-i-Sham-Khorasan extend from Samarkand in Uzbekistan to the small Malakand division in the northern fringe of Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) that includes the militant-dominated Swat Valley.

On Monday, at a time when United States Central Command chief General David Petraeus was trying to set up a supply route for troops in Afghanistan through Uzbekistan, in this extreme corner of the promised land of Khorasan – Malakand division – militants had every reason to celebrate.

Asif Ali Zardari, the strongly American-backed Pakistani president, and the provincial government of NWFP gave in to the demands of militants and announced a ceasefire, lifted a two-year-old curfew and announced the implementation of Islamic sharia law.

“All un-Islamic laws in the Malakand division of Swat, which is geographically one third of the whole [NWFP] province, have been abolished,” the chief minister of NWFP, Amir Haider Khan Hoti, told the media after reaching an agreement with the Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat-i-Mohammadi, which is headed by Sufi Mohammad, the symbol of the sharia movement in Malakand division. The Islamic judicial system will be enforced by Islamic judges – qazi.

The accord is a significant victory for the Pakistan Taliban and could end two years of strife in the region which has seen militants pitted against Pakistani security forces.

The peace agreement will be complemented by a compensation package for the families of those killed and injured in the military operations. “[Families] of those who were killed will get 300,000 rupees [US$3,760] and those who were wounded will get 100,000 rupees,” Hoti said. “The entire deal, Islamic laws and other packages related to the deal were completely approved by the president of Pakistan,” he said.

“We have established a task force which will monitor the implementation of Islamic law, but enforcement will be bound by peace and the writ of the state,” said Hoti. “The security forces now [after the signing of the agreement] will be in reactive rather than proactive mode. They will only retaliate if somebody tries to challenge the writ of the state,” Hoti said.

The army’s Inter-Services Public Relations confirmed that the curfew has been lifted, after two years, in Swat Valley. Militants have also announced a ceasefire for 10 days which is likely to extend for an indefinite period.

The developments in Malakand division coincide with the arrival in Afghanistan of close to 3,000 American soldiers as part of an extra 30,000 to boost the already 30,000 US troops in the country. The new contingent will be deployed in Logar province to secure violent provinces near the capital Kabul. Petraeus must now be thinking of how many more troops he will need to confront the additional Taliban fighters that will come from Malakand.

Taliban’s victory: A curtain raiser to the spring battle
A key factor in the Taliban’s revival after being driven from power by US-led forces in 2001 was that from 2004 they established a strong network in Pakistan that was coordinated by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri.

A focal point of this was the radical Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad, which was stormed in July 2007 by Pakistani security forces to clear it of militants. The network extended into the Swat Valley, streamed into Bajaur Agency and Mohmand Agency from where militants fed the Afghan insurgency in Kunar and Nooristan provinces.

Other flows of militants into South Waziristan and North Waziristan, Kurram Agency and Khyber Agency respectively fed the Afghan insurgency in the provinces of Paktia, Paktika, Khost and Nangarhar provinces.

By this time, Western intelligence had realized that these developments in Pakistan were a major factor behind the “fireworks” in Afghanistan, and Islamabad was told as much. The Pakistanis were also warned that the militants could also launch a revolution in Pakistan. This was a major turning point in the “war on terror” in the South Asian theater.

For the first time, Islamabad felt a chill up its spine and viewed the situation from a different perspective – not as an American war in which its participation was drawn out of compulsion, but as a war necessary to maintain the status quo of its own system. This system was a blend of the country’s deep relationship with the US and the perpetuation of the military oligarchy, combined with a particular brand of Islam that could co-exist with this setup.

The attack on the Lal Masjid was the first shot fired in this battle, and its reverberations soon spread to the Swat Valley, South Waziristan and then Bajaur Agency, in effect turning the whole of NWFP into a war theater. A series of military operations in the tribal areas drove the militants from stand-alone sanctuaries into population centers.

In Malakand, which includes the Swat area, the militants are a part of the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Taliban and the vanguard of the Taliban’s cause in the region against Western occupation forces in Afghanistan and their ally – Pakistan. They have established their own writ with a parallel system that includes courts, police and even a electric power-distribution network and road construction, and all this is now official in the eyes of Islamabad.

All intelligence indicated that further concentration on military operations in Swat could lead to an expansion of the war theater into Pakistan’s non-Pashtun cities, such as Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. The security forces were already stretched and even faced rebellions.

These combined factors culminated in Monday’s peace agreement, which is a major defeat for Washington as well as Pakistan, and it could also lead to a major setback for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Afghanistan come spring when hordes of better-trained fighters from Swat pour into Afghanistan.

The Taliban defeat American interests
To tame the militancy, Washington and London devised a plan in 2007, one aspect of which was for the military to take on the militants. At the same time, Pakistan was to move from a military dictatorship under president general Pervez Musharraf to a political government.

This happened in the beginning of last year with the formation of a democratically elected coalition government of secular and liberal parties involving among others the Pakistan People’s Party, the Muttehida Quami Movement, the Pashtun sub-nationalist Awami National Party (ANP), the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam and the Pakistan Muslim League-Qaid-i-Azam. It was envisaged that these parties would fully back the US’s “war on terror”.

Earlier, Washington had brokered a deal between former premier Benazir Bhutto and Musharraf, who was also chief of army staff, under which a National Reconciliation Ordinance was enacted to have all corruption cases against Bhutto and her spouse Asif Ali Zardari dropped. Under this arrangement, later, NWFP was handed over to the ANP, recognized as the most genuine secular political party.

The militants were onto the game. The first shot was the assassination of Bhutto by al-Qaeda in December 2007, which practically turned the whole American plan on its head and created a situation in which Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, an anti-Musharraf party, secured an unprecedented number of seats in parliament, leaving no option but for Musharraf, the most important American ally, to resign. But in time, the secular and liberal political parties in the capital became hostage to the militants.

Another setback for the pro-American forces was the brazen militant attack late last year on Asfandyar Wali, the leader of the ANP, at his home about 20 kilometers from the NWFP capital, Peshawar. He then fled first to Islamabad and later to Europe. Asfandyar had been groomed by the US through many visits to the US.

Asfandyar’s departure resulted in half the leadership of the ANP, including the head of their foreign relations committee, Dr Himayun Khan, resigning. Their departure was hastened by dire threats from the Taliban. It was only a matter of time before the ANP’s influence in NWFP was severely eroded.

Ironically, the ANP, which sided with the Soviets against the Islamic Afghan resistance in the 1980s and put up fierce resistance to the enactment of Islamic laws in the country, has now become the main engine for the enforcement of sharia in NWFP where it technically rules.

On Tuesday, while Asfandyar has chosen to remain silent, his nephew and the chief minister of the province, Hoti, warned the federal government that any obstruction of the deal with the militants would be unacceptable.

Meanwhile, all schools in Swat, including girls’ schools, were opened on Tuesday and thousands of people flocked to a cricket stadium to greet Sufi Mohammad, who will soon travel to Matta, a sub-district of Swat, to visit his son-in-law Mullah Fazlullah to try to persuade him to end the insurgency. For the first time in many months, all members of the provincial and federal parliament will visit the Swat Valley.

Pakistan’s failure: How it tackled the militancy
During Musharraf’s eight years in power, Pakistan was on board with both the US and Saudi Arabia over the “war on terror”. This ensured that Pakistan received a steady supply of all sorts of resources, including deferment on oil payments from Saudi Arabia and special aid packages when Pakistan was badly hit by an earthquake in 2005. Washington mostly looked after Pakistan’s military aid packages and reimbursement of expenses incurred in the “war on terror”.

A few steps taken by Zardari, however, crumbled the setup like a house of cards. Immediately after taking over as president last September, in a very high-handed manner, Pakistan withdrew the hunting privileges of two Saudi princes located in the district of Dera Ghazi Khan in southern Punjab. To add salt to the wound, the facility was given to a rival sheikh from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The action was taken at a time when Pakistan badly needed Saudi oil on deferred terms due to soaring prices, and the UAE was in no position to fill the gap. Islamabad now enjoys very good relations with the UAE – which is unable to help Pakistan – due to the family friendship between the Bhutto family and the UAE’s rulers. But Pakistan’s relations with Saudi Arabia and its two major allies – Qatar and Bahrain – are at an all-time low because of the insult to the Saudi royal family. (The issue of Zardari’s Shi’ite background is a secondary factor.)

HNN has learned that the newly installed US envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, was impressed in recent talks with the government to learn that chief of army staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani works fully in coordination with the political government and does not intervene in its affairs. The Swat operation is an example: the military immediately stopped action when the government announced the peace deal with the militants. All the same, the Pentagon will be waiting to receive Kiani in Washington soon to discuss why the Pakistan army failed in Swat.

However, Holbrooke was apparently concerned when he interacted with Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani and members of the cabinet. Gillani expressed his fears that the poor economic situation in Pakistan could hamper its efforts in the “war on terror”.

Holbrooke is said to have asked the premier how much money he would need to revive the economy. “As much as we can get,” the premier replied, without giving specifics.

The dynamics of the region have changed once again. Nizam-i-Adal Regulation 2009, which proclaims the enforcement of sharia law in Malakand division, is indeed a written document of Pakistan’s defeat in the American-inspired war in NWFP.

Lalu Yadav celebrates Indian rail triumph

By M H Ahssan

India’s Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav had good reason to feel a sense of pride in a job well done when last week he announced to parliament his final budget, setting his seal on a hard-won reputation for being the most successful holder of the post. Indian Railways, operator of the country’s rail network under his command, has posted a historic pre-dividend profit of US$18 billion over the past five years,

Indian Railways (IR) is the world’s largest employer, providing 1.6 million jobs – the number of onboard catering staff yelling “chai” relentlessly from 5.30am to 9pm makes it appear as if there are 16 million of them – and Asia’s second-largest rail network, carrying 18 million passengers daily. Yet it has, so far, stayed ahead of a near-global recession, and Yadav is not one to let the scale of his success be overlooked.

“The same railways that faced a paucity of funds … have now surprised the whole world with a historic financial turnaround,” Yadav crowed in his final budget speech. “The year 2008 witnessed financial turmoil and a worldwide recession, making it difficult for even Fortune 500 companies to raise debt from the international markets.”

Yadav has earned his gloating rights. Five years ago, anyone seriously mentioning profits at Rail Bhavan, the IR headquarters near Parliament House in New Delhi, would have received stares of disbelief, if not prompting an urgent call to the nearest lunatic asylum.

When he took over, the 156-year old Indian Railways was dismissed as a hopeless, loss-making organization, with too little revenue, too many problems and too many employees. State-owned IR was spending 91% of its income just on salaries and maintaining an aging organization.

The Rakesh Mohan Committee report, a study that former Reserve Bank of India deputy governor Rakesh Mohan headed in 2001, termed IR a “white elephant’ heading for a $12.6 billion loss-making bankruptcy by 2015.

The dying animal seemed assured of more misery when Yadav took over as railway minister in 2004. The general opinion across the country, which this correspondent gloomily endorsed, was that his appointment was the last nail in the IR coffin, given his controversial track record.

When chief minister of Bihar, that state continued to be one of India’s most backward and violent regions. He earned a slew of corruption charges (the most famous being a $500 million cattle-fodder scam), went to jail, then triumphantly rode an elephant while returning home after being released on bail. He resigned in 1997 as chief minister but promptly handed over the job to his barely literate wife, Rabri Devi. The “backwardness” of Bihar under Yadav has been challenged in credible quarters, while he himself has maintained that the state suffered due to the central government being hostile in allocating it funds during his leadership.

Even when not in jail, Yadav was keeping colorful company with convicted murderers, such as his political mate Sibu Soren and brother-in-law Pappu Yadav, both directly elected members of parliament.

But then Yadav unleashed his unique brand of economics and stunned India and the business world. He declared he would earn profits without raising passenger fares – which he actually cut. And the Yadav gloat of success has enriched every IR budget speech since 2004.

Last February, while presenting the railway budget for 2008-09, he again informed parliament of a “historic” cash surplus. “The benchmark of net surplus before dividend of 25,000 crore rupees [US$5.1 billion] makes us better than most of the Fortune 500 companies in the world …” he said.

By 2006, IR was posting record profits and “Professor” Yadav was lecturing gawking business-school students from Harvard, the Indian Institute of Management and Wharton on how he turned around the hopeless rail company.

Yadav’s brand of economics, like his controversial life and his famous wit, is centered around his rural origins. “Indian Railways is like a Jersey cow,” he has often said when explaining the rationale behind “Lalu-nomics”. “It not milked fully, it would fall ill.”

The IR “milk” was freight capacity. Each freight wagon had an under-utilized capacity which corrupt railway officials were privately selling. Yadav explained his management mantra at a media conclave in New Delhi, in April 2007:

- I assured all 16 lakh [1.6 million] gang men, signalmen and others [IR employees] that they will not be retrenched.
- The turnaround in the railways is not one man’s effort, I have merely directed it.
- I just said, “We will not let anybody steal. We have to stop it.”
- I have personally checked goods trains, weighed the goods on the weighing machine and found huge disparities in load booked and the actual load carried. Several officers have been punished.
- Earlier the loading and unloading used to take seven days, now it has been reduced to five days.
- By taking these few small steps only, we were able to save about 10,000 crore rupees.
- Not just that, we have reduced the expenditure and last year we had a surplus of 13,000 crore rupees and we have paid dividends. This year [2006-07] again we had a surplus of 20,000 crore rupees.

Adding more cream to the “milk” formula, Yadav commissioned India’s first dedicated railway freight corridors, two east-west corridors across the country costing $7.5 billion, backed by a $4 billion loan from Japan. On February 9, Yadav commissioned the first 100-kilometer link of the two new tracks, each enabling higher speed goods trains.

“Almost 60% of freight in India is carried by road and I want that to move to the railways, ” Yadav said.

The Railway Ministry stint has added a remarkable gloss to the curious legend of Lalu Prasad Yadav, and not just inside the country, with India’s foreign offices reporting that he is one of the most sought after Indian politicians overseas.

His charisma seems to cut across bitter international conflicts, borders and even political rivalries. Reports of him being wildly mobbed during his visit to Pakistan in August 2003, as a guest of the South Asian Free Media Association, amazed the Indian public and angered an ignored official delegation of parliamentarians visiting Pakistan at the same time.

Javed Hashmi, then acting president of former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, said Yadav would be a major success if he addressed public rallies in Pakistan. “We don’t have any such popular leader in Pakistan,” Hashmi said, according to media reports.

Yadav’s successful Railway Ministry stint and his political nimbleness demonstrate a shrewd strategic mind lies behind perhaps a deliberately cultivated buffoonish demeanor, complete with a hairstyle generally associated with half-wits featured in Indian movies.

Yadav can be both court jester, who can have parliament rocking with mirth with his wit, and a king-maker – he stood like a rock behind Sonia Gandhi after the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party threatened nationwide agitation over her foreign origin, following her Congress Party leading poll results in 2004.

Yadav urged Gandhi, an Italian citizen until 1985, to accept the people’s verdict and become India’s prime minister. She chose instead to have Manmohan Singh lead the government. Yadav’s 29 Rashtriya Janata Dal MPs became the largest and most reliable partner of the ruling United Progressive Alliance, and the Yadav lore received another lustrous.

“I know some people say I can be funny, but there is always a deeper meaning to what I say,” he told Asia Times Online just over four years ago (see India’s man for all seasons , September 29, 2004). “I am a socialist at heart and have the interests of the poor in mind. When people see how I manage to work my way out of tough situations, it gives them hope in their own life.”

To back his “socialist” core, every IR budget since 2004 includes plans to help the poor. One example – replacing paper cups for servings of tea and coffee with earthen cups to help potters. Not all are successful – the mud-cup ambition did not last long, and paper cups are now back on rails.

Yadav proposed khadi (handspun) bed sheets in the bedding for passengers in air-conditioned coaches; provision of social security for contract workers and porters in India’s 6,856 railway stations; running vegetable retail outlets in stations to help farmers get better prices for their produce; and special air-conditioned trains with reduced fares for “poor people” to also enjoy travelling in comfort.

In 2006, he announced using excess railway land – IR is the second-largest land owner in India after the defense forces, owning 43,000 hectares of vacant land – to construct “world class” budget hotels near major railway stations.

Few politicians in the world can claim as colorful a biography as Yadav’s, and not many exhibit as simple and grounded an outlook. The 61-year-old cowherd owner from the badlands of Bihar is son of a poor peasant couple and is father of two sons and seven daughters. He became in 1977, at the age of 29, one of India’s youngest elected parliamentarians after once wanting to become a police constable; 13 years later he became chief minister of Bihar.

A photograph of Yadav in his early days as chief minister shows him sitting cross-legged on the floor at home, in a vest, and tucking heartily into a large plate of rice and lentils curry, unabashed at the media presence.

Journalist Sankarshan Thakur sounded wonderstruck in his book The Making Of Laloo Yadav – The Unmaking Of Bihar. In a discussion of the book in The Hindu daily in May, 2000, he said: “No chief minister of Bihar has ever ruled from the two-room tenement of a peon [his elder brother] employed by his government. No chief minister of Bihar has ever held cabinet meetings under a tree by the roadside … has raided liquor shops, constable-like, and canceling their licenses on the spot … No chief minister has stood in queue with the public at the Patna Medical College Hospital to get his fever-ridden son treated.”

Yadav’s critics continue to denounce him as an ambitious, political crook who had used caste-baste politics to destroy Bihar. The Yadav website, offering his five office telephone numbers, his e-mail and residence telephone number, is as contradictory and remarkable as the man himself, hailing his achievements, but also referring to him as a “convicted murderer”. The online contact form offering “direct” correspondence to Yadav specifies two types of comments that can be sent to him: 1) Questions. 2) Jokes.

The joke collection ridicules both Yadav and his impoverished, violence-ridden Bihar state. One joke claims that he went to Pakistan and solved the long-standing India-Pakistan problem over Kashmir. He simply insisted that if Pakistan wanted Kashmir, then India’s unruly Bihar state comes free with it. Pakistan leaders hastily gave up their claims on Kashmir.

The latest contributed joke says Yadav called the Tourist Department to find out the time difference between Patna in Bihar and Las Vegas in the US, and asked, “Could you tell me the time difference between Patna and ‘Las Begas’.” The man at the other end replies “One second sir … “. Yadav immediately replies “Thank you” and puts down the phone.

Yadav has openly declared his ambition to become India’s prime minister. The prospect of him holding forth his rustic wisdom on how to solve the world’s problems to a grinning US President Barack Obama, or a United Nations General Assembly cracking up in mirth, may not be as unthinkable in 2010 as the prospect of Indian Railways, effectively bankrupt in 2004, accumulating an $18 billion profit by 2009.

Two wars heat up India’s elections

By M H Ahssan

In this year’s national elections, there’s no hiding from history – or, if you like, geography. No escape from invocations of the 1971 Bangladesh war or the Indian army’s peacekeeping adventure in Sri Lanka in the late 1980s. Past wars have a life beyond memory and rhetoric, too. They live on in cyclical re-runs, in morphed forms. Or maybe they simply never end.

Thus it is with the Sri Lanka civil war and the India-Pakistan war of nerves sparked off by last November’s terror attack on Mumbai, two separate war fronts joined together only by the fact that they provide context to India’s general elections.

There’s no outright victory in sight in either case – it would be foolish to predict an end to such long-range enmities – but both give the impression of at least a provisional closure. The look that a phase is nearing its end. There’s no denying that Pakistan looks a bit cornered on the diplomatic front, just as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) chief, Velupillai Prabhakaran, is down to the last line of defense, despite the appointment of his son Charles Anthony as the next chief commander.

The jungles of northern Sri Lanka, Southeast Asian sea lanes, Pakistan’s frontier tribes, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, satellite phones from Vienna: these are strange issues to be buzzing around in the run-up to an Indian election.

Still, India is no different from other democracies: its elections are for the most part a study in self-absorption, characterized by local actors and issues that do not travel well beyond the immediate horizon. But with a truly globalized recession, the transnational flavors of terrorism, and an American election lost and won at least partly on foreign policy, could there be a more auspicious time for things to change?

It bears watching, therefore, as the world’s largest and most cantankerous democratic race literally goes around the bend for its home stretch, with only a few months before polls are due. Signs abound that the political lexicon is expanding to include themes that relate to events and people beyond India’s borders.

One strand comes from the south, in the form of the LTTE’s near-decimation and the very high human cost it is exacting. In the other case, India has scored a moral victory by extracting a partial confession from Pakistan that its soil and the sons of its soil were involved in last November’s Mumbai massacre.

Both the developments are being chewed, digested and converted into lively calories by India’s election machine.

The handling of the Mumbai terror strike – vis-a-vis exposing Pakistan’s role before the international community – has clearly gone in the favor of the ruling Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA). And with good reason. To Pakistan’s initial evasion of responsibility, India’s Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee had responded with the question, “Do non-state actors come from heaven?”

From that point to last week’s admission by Islamabad that the 10 gunmen who landed at the Gateway of India were indeed not from heaven but Karachi took a lot of diplomatic heaving. But if one looks at what had happened after the terrorist strike on India’s parliament on December 13, 2002 – the government of the time massed thousands of troops on the western border for months and more soldiers died of heat stroke than anything else – it was decidedly an improvement.

The same cannot be said about India’s response to the Sri Lankan civil war, though. The humanitarian crisis caused in its wake flows naturally into the volatile political mix in the southern state of Tamil Nadu and could cost the Congress quite dearly.

It could be argued that New Delhi was preoccupied with Pakistan and all it did vis-a-vis Sri Lanka was hurriedly rustle up a visit to Colombo by Mukherjee when temperatures rose in Tamil Nadu. Whether the Congress can really hope to recreate a mini 1971-like wave in its favor using the small gains made on the Pakistan front is, of course, another question. Whether it would be good enough to compensate for the debit incurred in the south will be evident only in the next two months.

However, the signs are a little more positive on the northern front. Things must surely get much worse before they get better. But analysts dulled into habitual cynicism about South Asia’s future are wondering: will not a final showdown with the Taliban, and a clear-eyed confronting of terror as state policy, actually contribute to Pakistan’s health?

From now on, if India does not overplay its cards, if the Barack Obama administration does not change tack to refocus on Afghanistan, and if Pakistan can really be forced to clean its closets, it could bring the curtains down on two decades of incessant bloodletting and proxy wars. That surely means more than just an election bonanza for the Congress.

Of course, to imagine a post-terror world from the contingent fact of a few terror camps being shuttered down may seem like going too far. For now, there seems to be no easy return of security for common citizenry, no sense of relaxing from constant vigil, no decisive escape from the construct used to snatch their tiny little democratic rights as payment for insurance against future terror strikes. As long as the mysterious provinces around the Khyber bleed from injuries sustained in pursuit of strategic depth, as long as Kalashnikovs pass for small change on the mountain trails to Kashmir, there would appear to be no danger of the region breaking out in peace.

But there is also an inexorable logic in numbers. A sizeable percentage of the Indian votebank is between 19 and 35 years of age, and they want no albatross around their necks. It is in response to their slightest change of mood – say, from anger to one of faint hope – that the Indian government is crafting its decisions. What carries the day is, no doubt, the opinion of the “urban/literate” segment within this votebank. They could be prone to simplistic formulations, but they behave as if they were the spokespeople for an entire age. And with the threat that millions really think like that, even the naive optimism of the average voter can come to have the force of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It’s because the government has kept a finger on the pulse of this outspoken, blog-sporting generation that it has not stopped talking tough with Pakistan. With an eye on what they might do to election results, the ruling dispensation has kept the heat on, so that Pakistan takes the next logical step … and the next. That is, it must dismantle the terror infrastructure and lock up dubious assets (like jihadi masterminds Masood Azhar and Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi) who obsessively plot to destabilize India. Given that in its northwest it is forced to make peace with a homegrown Taliban (who now officially run all of the Swat Valley according to sharia law), it must appear to some that it is the Pakistani state itself that is being dismantled. But Islamabad has found its room for maneuver shrinking on all fronts and must make these tactical retreats for now.

This suits any government in New Delhi just fine. The question is, how far can Pakistan be pushed to make vital concessions before it starts becoming seriously counter-productive? The speculation in New Delhi’s power circles is: a bit more. The idea that a further climbdown by Pakistan is possible arises because it just has to act to keep the international financial aid flowing. The Asif Zardari government badly needs external help to tide over its deep economic crisis and even deeper internal strife. It would also go down well with Obama’s special emissary for the troubled zone, Richard Holbrooke, who is in India at the time of writing and making appropriate noises. (The fact that Kashmir was kept out of his terms of reference is itself a tribute to India’s growing clout.)

In the aftermath of spectacular terror strikes like in Mumbai, more militarist options too frequently come up for debate. No one has yet sprouted the Obama catchline “Yes, we can” as a retaliatory message to Pakistan, but one never knows: the diminutive Mukherjee may just do it. His manner of working out an immunity package against future terror attacks (like the one the US seems to have worked out) relies entirely on his acerbic, inflected speech.

After Pakistan retracted from its first flush of empathy after Mumbai, and started upping its ante in response to domestic fears, Mukherjee slipped into Code Red mode. Ever since, a daily dose of cross-border verbal exchanges has kept the issue on front pages in both Pakistan and India. Between Mukherjee, Home Minister P Chidambaram and the gaffe-prone National Security Advisor, M K Narayanan, the radar is furiously beeping.

The public hostilities were in a sense necessary because Mumbai had other visible effects. To contain the initial public anger about the UPA government’s “impotence” and the age-old accusation that the Congress fosters a “soft state”, the government had to finally fire its then home minister Shivraj Patil and also a state chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh of Maharashtra.

Not quite the thing to hope for in the last quarter of a government’s reign, so a spot of revenge was in order. (Pakistan also sacked its national security advisor, Mahmud Ali Durrani, for letting the cat out of the bag.) But two months down from November’s Mumbai attack, the Congress cannot afford to seem complacent. It must be seen to be orchestrating international opinion – in such a manner as to keep the pressure on Pakistan – if it wants the people to bring it back to power.

Until now, the twin strategy of keeping Pakistan on tenterhooks and international opinion on its side has paid off. And the Congress is making it a prime exhibit in its election campaign. So, while Mukherjee talks tough to the outside world, Congress president Sonia Gandhi strikes a strident pose in the political arena.

Last Sunday, at her party’s first major election rally, she sounded a warning to Pakistan to the effect that “India’s restraint should not be misread as a sign weakness”. And then again, “Nobody should doubt one thing, we will surmount the situation. We will give a befitting reply to forces which are promoting terror from across the border.” History was invoked in the same breath – Sonia spoke of her mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi, as the inspiration. Thus, effectively reviving memories of the triumphant 1971 war with Pakistan that led to the creation of Bangladesh, and creating a link to the government’s present aspect of toughness.

All this belligerence has filled a vital gap in the Congress portfolio. Sensing the possibility of turning around the situation, it is now going for the jugular. Fittingly then, harsh words are not reserved merely for Pakistan. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the main opposition party that has traditionally prided itself for being tough on terror, is not being spared either.

Sonia thundered at the same rally, “[A party] which tries to divide society on grounds of religion, which repeatedly tried to mislead people in the name of Lord Ram, cannot be an effective weapon against terror.” Now, the BJP had been harping on bringing back a defunct terror legislation that was abolished by the UPA because it erred on the side of being “draconian”, but all the present anti-Pakistan rhetoric has helped blunt the BJP’s edge. The Congress is now managing the unthinkable – that is, entirely appropriate the terrorism plank from the BJP and make it part of a troika of planks – social welfare and economic stability combine well with security, after all.

For the bulk of the UPA’s five-year tenure, the Congress had been fumbling on how exactly to balance its response to terrorism – and growing talk that terror was no longer an import from Pakistan but an Indian cottage industry – with its concerns for its own Muslim support base. But the BJP was always prone to an excessive approach – in state elections in Delhi-Rajasthan that overlapped with the Mumbai siege, it brought out a full-page ad with blood splattered over a full page. The BJP lost in both states, the tactic had clearly boomeranged, and that’s where the Congress saw its first opening.

Then Chidambaram, quickly drafted in a replacement home minister, apologized for having failed to protect innocent Mumbai citizens. That did the trick, calming down public anger, and thereafter, in a strategy devised by Mukherjee and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Congress moved in to close all doors on the BJP. And sensing the BJP’s dilemma, Sonia also went full swing into an aggressive pitch against Pakistan.

As an opposition party, the BJP is in a fix. With senior al-Qaeda leader Mustafa Abu al-Yazid – who claimed responsibility for Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in December 2007 and who seems to have been resurrected from death – warning that India would be rent apart if it harms Pakistan, it makes the situation complicated. For the right-wing party which sustains itself on ultra-nationalism, to go for an out-and-out attack on the government when the country is battling outside forces is understandably tricky. Even the BJP’s super-confident mascot, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, had to beat a hasty retreat after Pakistan used his line about “the local links of the Mumbai attack” to its diplomatic advantage.

The BJP realizes that a direct offensive against Pakistan by the present Indian government would completely overshadow its poll prospects. Its apprehensions were reflected in party chief Rajnath Singh’s address to a recent party conclave. Criticizing Sonia Gandhi’s advocacy of “direct action” against Pakistan, he managed to say, “War should not be abused as a tool to fulfill political objectives” – a very surprising statement for a BJP leader. At the same time, a party spokesman was hard put to explain whether the BJP would oppose any war with Pakistan if the present government resorted to it as the strongest possible action. He tried to hide behind a statement the BJP’s prime ministerial hopeful, L K Advani, had made in parliament to the effect that the BJP would stand with the government in any steps it took against terrorism.

The BJP is not, however, on the back foot on the Sri Lanka issue. Away from media focus, the firebrand Tamil leader, Vaiko, who goes by one name, landed in Delhi with about 4,000 protesters in tow last weekend. At Delhi’s assigned protest zone, Jantar Mantar, he railed against the Congress-led government’s refusal to force Colombo’s hand in any way. While New Delhi and its media corps obsesses over Islamabad, Vaiko said in a characteristic harangue that thousands of innocent Tamils are being robbed of their lives and livelihoods. There must be something to what he said because his tirade went curiously under-reported.

Vaiko’s small political outfit, the MDMK, was once part of the UPA’s great coalition but is now hobnobbing with the chief opposition party in Tamil Nadu and the left parties. What might be worrying for the left and also for the Congress, though, is the fact that BJP leader Advani joined Vaiko at the rally. Another left ally, the Telugu Desam Party, also rallied behind Vaiko.

In short, the political climate down south is boiling hot and all the molecules are in furious motion. Will the Sri Lanka crisis change the political equations in Delhi? If that happens, the BJP-led coalition would stand a better chance of reclaiming the Delhi throne for the next five years.

Tauqir is the new chief of SIMI

By Momin Dilawar

Abdush Subhan Qureshi alias Tauqir, who has been under the scanner since the July 2006 train blasts in Mumbai, has become the head of the Student Islamic Moment of India (SIMI).

The Mira Road resident, who is believed to have had a part in all the blasts carried out by the Indian Mujahideen (IM) in the country, took over after Kayamuddin Kapadia, alias Moosa, arrest on November 29 last year in the blasts cases.

Becaming SIMI head
In his statement to the Delhi police, Moosa said he had joined SIMI in 2003. SIMI then got divided into two groups one led by Sahid Badar and another by Safdar Nagori. Moosa and Tauqir were part of the Nagori faction, which got involved in terrorist activities.

According to the IM chargesheet, Moosa revealed that after Nagori’s arrest, he and Tauqir took command of their faction of SIMI. But with Moosa’s arrest Tauqir took over as the sole leader.

Links with IM blasts
The chargesheet reiterates that the IM is a joint outfit of LeT and SIMI. The collaboration brought Tauqir and Moosa in touch with Riyaz Bhatkal the main accused in the IM blasts cases. Through Bhatkal, they met Atif Ameen, who was killed in the Delhi encounter on September 19.

Moosa and Ameen went on to plan the Delhi blasts and Tauqir kept in touch with them throughout.

Tauqir was also acquainted with Mohd Sadiq Sheikh, the co-founder of IM. Sadiq, who was earlier with the SIMI, had joined Bhatkal and Amir Raza to formed Indian Mujahideen.

How he evades arrest
Though wanted by the Maharashtra and Delhi police, Tauqir has managed to evade arrest so far. In fact, when Nagori was arrested in March last year in Indore, Tauqir had left the place only a few minutes before the police arrived.

He never tells his associates about his whereabouts and contact numbers, nor does he call anyone through mobile phones.

Tauqir is the new chief of SIMI

By Momin Dilawar

Abdush Subhan Qureshi alias Tauqir, who has been under the scanner since the July 2006 train blasts in Mumbai, has become the head of the Student Islamic Moment of India (SIMI).

The Mira Road resident, who is believed to have had a part in all the blasts carried out by the Indian Mujahideen (IM) in the country, took over after Kayamuddin Kapadia, alias Moosa, arrest on November 29 last year in the blasts cases.

Becaming SIMI head
In his statement to the Delhi police, Moosa said he had joined SIMI in 2003. SIMI then got divided into two groups one led by Sahid Badar and another by Safdar Nagori. Moosa and Tauqir were part of the Nagori faction, which got involved in terrorist activities.

According to the IM chargesheet, Moosa revealed that after Nagori’s arrest, he and Tauqir took command of their faction of SIMI. But with Moosa’s arrest Tauqir took over as the sole leader.

Links with IM blasts
The chargesheet reiterates that the IM is a joint outfit of LeT and SIMI. The collaboration brought Tauqir and Moosa in touch with Riyaz Bhatkal the main accused in the IM blasts cases. Through Bhatkal, they met Atif Ameen, who was killed in the Delhi encounter on September 19.

Moosa and Ameen went on to plan the Delhi blasts and Tauqir kept in touch with them throughout.

Tauqir was also acquainted with Mohd Sadiq Sheikh, the co-founder of IM. Sadiq, who was earlier with the SIMI, had joined Bhatkal and Amir Raza to formed Indian Mujahideen.

How he evades arrest
Though wanted by the Maharashtra and Delhi police, Tauqir has managed to evade arrest so far. In fact, when Nagori was arrested in March last year in Indore, Tauqir had left the place only a few minutes before the police arrived.

He never tells his associates about his whereabouts and contact numbers, nor does he call anyone through mobile phones.

Qutbullahpur Constituency Map

INDIAN ELECTIONS 2009

India is a largest democracy in the world in term of voters participation, election is an ongoing process in a nation, where democracy rules right from village/ municipal level to selection of states and federal governments.

The vastness in its geography, forces elections administrators to conduct polls in phase’s manners to ensure complete and fair elections.

This makes election an ongoing process in this ancient society, where democracy existed even in pre historic era as Panchayat and recognition of “Panch Parmeshwar” tradition in Indian society.

HNN brings In-depth, unbiased and direct from spots, news and researched based information of Indian elelctions to you in this section.

We have decided to dedicate the a complete section to Indian elections, as HNN is receiving multi queries from our readers and users on Indian democracy and particularly about multi levels democratic elections and their results.

Please feel free to share your views on our news and information on Indian elelction.

Write to me anything on Indian Elections 2009 – editor@hyderabadnews.net or newscop@gmail.com

INDIAN ELECTIONS 2009

India is a largest democracy in the world in term of voters participation, election is an ongoing process in a nation, where democracy rules right from village/ municipal level to selection of states and federal governments.

The vastness in its geography, forces elections administrators to conduct polls in phase’s manners to ensure complete and fair elections.

This makes election an ongoing process in this ancient society, where democracy existed even in pre historic era as Panchayat and recognition of “Panch Parmeshwar” tradition in Indian society.

HNN brings In-depth, unbiased and direct from spots, news and researched based information of Indian elelctions to you in this section.

We have decided to dedicate the a complete section to Indian elections, as HNN is receiving multi queries from our readers and users on Indian democracy and particularly about multi levels democratic elections and their results.

Please feel free to share your views on our news and information on Indian elelction.

Write to me anything on Indian Elections 2009 – editor@hyderabadnews.net or newscop@gmail.com

India’s moral police getting out of hand

By M H Ahssan

It says something for Indian society that the colour which was all pervasive on Valentine’s Day was not pink, associated with love and softness, but khaki, which stands for the police whose attitude to citizens is generally marked by force, callousness, and not unusually brutality. On February 14, the day when the idea of love is exalted, the police in all states were ordered to be out in strength to stop vigilante groups from harassing young men and women who desire to make their mutual affection public. Several such groups had given advance notice of their intention. Thankfully the day passed without incident by and large. But in states where it did not — notably Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Haryana — the police did little to redeem themselves. In Karnataka, they looked the other way when a young Mangalore girl committed suicide after being harassed by a fanatic Hindu group for being seen in the company of a Muslim boy.

In a flagrant instance of dereliction of duty, the local superintendent of police later told a television channel that apprehending the culprits could have brought on a communal situation. The state home minister also turned his face away. In Pune in Maharashtra, hoodlums associated with the Shiv Sena forced a girl to “marry” a donkey — a perverse thought clearly meant to detract from the dignity of the victim. In Rajasthan, the police took their cue from the chief minister and used force to scatter youngsters doing nothing more objectionable than offering each other flowers as a token of affection. In Haryana, a police official beat up a young woman and her friend inside her home after making an unauthorised and wholly illegal entry. Later the police took the plea that he had entered a private home in order to protect its owner!

All of these are disturbing signs, and show how far we are yet from the idea of respecting individualism and democratic norms in the social sphere even as we profess to be a political democracy. Vigilante groups were tolerated by the authorities in Karnataka and Maharashtra, which are thought to be progressive states, and in towns such as Bengaluru, Mangalore and Pune which are commonly used to advertise India’s modernity in the age of ether. It took spunky action by a hastily formed civil society outfit to stop the Hindutva-oriented Sri Ram Sene in its tracks. Their ingenious plan was simplicity itself — the dispatch of piles of pink-coloured female underwear to shame the leader of the SRS.

In Rajasthan and Haryana, it was the police that became the vigilantes. Seen in conjunction with the recent pub incident in Mangalore — where young women were physically assaulted by SRS goons — it becomes clear that the parading of so-called cultural norms was essentially a means to keep women from asserting their autonomy as individuals — in effect, keeping them in burqa, not unlike a repetition of what the Taliban are doing in Swat in Pakistan. Because Hindutva forces were in the forefront in the ugly pub episode and the Valentine’s Day disturbances, a communal tint is also lent to the actions of the culture-warriors.

Interim Budget: A Tale of Delayed Policies

By Prateek Sinha

An interim budget by an interim finance minister, in the midst of a global financial meltdown, is surely an extraordinary event by itself. No wonder then that all of us who were waiting with bated breath for an immediate solution to the country’s economic crisis were sadly let down.

It was inevitable, given the constraints of the situation. The fact is that constitutional priorities did not allow External Affairs Minster Pranab Mukherjee, who presented the interim budget, to announce any dramatic tax relief measures to help the beleaguered “aam aadmi” – the average citizen. But the question being asked is, was it not possible for him to have taken his own argument about “extraordinary economic circumstances” to the logical conclusion and present a package to revive the economy?

Unfortunately, the problem is that any vote on account is always treading dangerous ground. In case the government had decided to go for some clear sops to specific sectors, there would have been much clamour against them by the opposition. And there would have then been the consequent difficulty of getting the vote on account passed by parliament.

In case it was not passed, the government could have actually faced the embarrassment of having the entire administration come to a grinding halt on March 31. One must concede that even the opposition may not have liked to subject the country to such a crisis, but such possibilities always loom on the horizon when the government of the day oversteps its constitutional boundaries.

In the event, Mukherjee presented a bald statement of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s achievements over the last five years. It had none of the oratorical flourishes of the former finance minister P. Chidambaram who peppered his speeches with Tamil and Sanskrit poetry and invocations. In fact even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who held the finance portfolio between 1991 and 1996, has always ended his budget speeches on a lyrical note. Mukherjee, however, was utterly pragmatic and relied on no such props. In fact, his litany of the UPA’s achievements ended up being somewhat boring and lacklustre.

As for the content, he may not have addressed the major issues of stimulus to the economy, especially on the job front, but he did place the focus squarely on agriculture and rural development. Quoting Nobel laureate Amartya Sen’s comment on the need for “downturn with security”, he went on to elaborate on the higher allocations being made for social security programmes as the national rural employment guarantee scheme.

The allocation for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme has been pegged at Rs.30,100 crore (Rs.301 billion/$6 billion) while allocations for the mid day meal scheme, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission have also been substantially raised for 2009-10.

While the focus on social sectors and rural employment is laudable, the problem is that this is not likely to resolve the growing problem of job losses in the economy. The job guarantee scheme will need to be expanded much more to meet the needs of migrant labourers, who go back to rural areas in the absence of jobs in cities. The setback in exports reflects a global dip in demand and this has translated into loss of jobs for artisans in the diamond, textiles and handicrafts industries. This problem is growing and the UPA government needed to have expanded the scope of public investment to ensure to create the much needed job opportunities. This need not have affected the constitutional proprieties of a vote on account and would have provided a stimulus to the economy.

Mukherjee actually used the term “extraordinary measures” while referring to the need to relax fiscal responsibility measures owing to the global economic crisis. The fiscal deficit has been pegged at 5.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) for 2009-10, though he clearly expects it to rise to 6 percent given the urgent requirements of rising government expenditure. This includes a whopping 34 percent rise in the defence outlay, which is inescapable in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks.

Though the widening deficit may give rise to criticism about the government abandoning fiscal responsibility, the fact is that all countries, whether developed or developing, have had to take similar measures to revive their economies. A strict adherence to fiscal responsibility targets is a luxury that this country cannot afford for the time being. The fiscal deficit for 2008-09 is estimated at 6 percent against the budget target of 2.5 percent. But this was inevitable with tax collections having dipped by as much as Rs.60,000 crore (Rs.600 billion) largely due to indirect taxes, and plan expenditure having gone up due to the need to step up public investment.

The question is why the government could not have announced another stimulus package involving higher investment in infrastructure in the budget, as this is clearly the need of the hour.

Government spokespersons are insisting that another stimulus package of about Rs.60,000 crore (Rs.600 billion) is being worked out and will be launched in case the present regime comes back to power. Timing, however, is of the essence. With jobs being lost now in the thousands, the need for huge public investment in infrastructure to spur demand and create more job opportunities is urgently needed right now. The delay in taking the decision now on such public investments could turn out to be a costly mistake for the present government.

In the event, the interim budget has turned out to be a predictable occasion for the UPA and more notably the Congress party, to proclaim the success of its policies to the electorate. Clearly referring to the election symbol of the Congress, Mukherjee has urged the people to vote for the “hand” that had steered them to “peace and prosperity”. One can only hope that such prosperity is on the anvil in the next few months but given the spectre of recession and job losses, it looks a far cry right now.

OpEd: When business meets politics

By Kajol Singh

CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat had an interesting visitor the other day. Mukesh Ambani. India’s top corporate honcho dropped by the CPI(M)’s New Delhi headquarters on his way to Washington for a meeting with US President Barack

Obama. No-one was more surprised than Karat when the request for an appointment came. It seems Ambani wanted to suss out the Left’s view of the new US administration before the discussions with Obama. Ambani and Karat spent 40 minutes exchanging notes on the international economic, political and strategic order.

The industrial leader was particularly keen on knowing the Left’s opinion of Obama and its expectations of America’s first black president. It must have come as a pleasant surprise to Ambani that Karat was pretty open-minded and positive about Obama, even as he put in caveats about the new president’s ability to make a paradigm shift in US policies. The CPI(M) leader conceded that Obama may have some impact at an individual level and saw the US decision to pull out of Iraq as a positive step.

Ambani flew to Washington with plenty of food for thought and a 360 degree take for Obama on Indo-US relations under the next dispensation, whether it’s Left, Right or Centre.

The Ambani-Karat meeting naturally created a flutter. Was it a pointer to the direction in which the political winds are blowing? The last and only other time the two met was when the Left was the power behind the UPA throne. After the Marxists withdrew support to the Manmohan Singh government, they fell off the map as far as most opinion leaders were concerned. But with elections approaching and Karat doggedly stitching together a non-BJP, non-Congress front, those same opinion makers want to keep their options open. Much is being read into the fact that Ambani chose to also carry a Left view with him to Washington, besides the Congress and BJP perspectives with which he was already familiar.

The one circle in which the Ambani-Karat pow wow caused anxiety was the Samajwadi Party. It becomes such a high stakes game when corporate interests intertwine with politics. Amar Singh, who describes himself as Anil Ambani’s brother, telephoned Karat to seek a meeting, despite having been snubbed once already by the CPI(M) leader. Karat was quite curt. Your behaviour is too whimsical, he is reported to have told Amar Singh.

Make up your mind whether you are with the Congress or against it. The SP leader apparently confided that relations were at breaking point. Well, hold a press conference and announce it, Karat is believed to have shot back. Then we can consider meeting. They say Amar Singh is a worried man, uncertain and unsure about the significance of Mukesh Ambani’s unexpected decision to seek out Karat. Was it really connected to his Washington trip? Or was he carrying a message from the Congress to the Left for a post-poll understanding? The SP’s worst nightmare is to be out in the cold again like it was in 2004 when the Congress imperiously rejected its offer of support. Ah! The vagaries of an Indian summer election!

TAILPIECE
Amar Singh is not the only confused politician who blows hot one day and cold the next. The Congress is doing the same with Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal. After dashing Banerjee’s hopes for a Congress-Trinamool electoral pact by putting Left-friendly Pranab Mukherjee in charge of the party’s Bengal unit, Sonia Gandhi has dispatched Mukherjee and Mohsina Kidwai to Kolkata for another round of alliance talks.

But Banerjee seems to have taken lessons in the art of negotiating from her new friend Amar Singh. She’s told the Congress to stick to north Bengal and leave south Bengal to her. The problem is that there are only six (of Bengal’s 42) Lok Sabha seats in the north. Not much joy there for the Congress.

Taliban-Pakistan truce: Why India should worry

By M H Ahssan

India intelligence agencies are worried about the peace deal between the Taliban and the Pakistani Government in the Swat Valley.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) believes that it needs to convince the West that a Talibanised Pakistan with nuclear weapons would be a huge threat to the world.

On February 1, almost two weeks before the imposition of the Sharia law and the truce between the Taliban and Pakistani forces came into effect, National Security Advisor MK Narayanan has said that India was concerned about the stability of Pakistan

“As far as India is concerned as much as that we don’t allow our neighbour to go under forces which will definitely be much more inimicable to India than the civilian government there,” Narayanan had said.

But those words conceal a mountain of worries. India’s intelligence establishment has no doubt that a Taliban takeover will inspire and encourage like-minded groups within India.

They will find safe haven and sanctuaries in Pakistan, the intensity and sophistication of terror strikes will increase and communal polarisation will grow.

So how does India measure up to the challenge of a Talibanised Pakistan?

The most obvious would involve beefing up the armed forces, upgrading counter-terror capabilities and tightening internal security.

But pre-emptive strikes of some kind or even armed conflict are seen as a risky alternative for India.

“The option for India would be either to sit back and wait for this Talibanisation to slowly creep towards us or to go to Afghanistan and help fight it,” says Former MEA secretary KC Singh.

The thinking in South Block is that India needs to convince the West that a Talibanised Pakistan is a threat to the world.

Pakistan has nuclear weapons, has expertise in chemical and biological warfare and could be dangerously appealing to a Muslim diaspora in the West that has been under pressure since 9/11.

“That is the big danger and is the big threat which causes panic in the capitals of all western countries because they all believe that if there is a dirty bomb or a nuclear bomb exploded by a terrorist, the source would be Pakistan,” former R&AW chief Anand Kumar Verma says.

Intelligence experts believe the West knows and understands the danger.

The US missile strikes in Pakistan’s tribal territories is a small-scale war that has taken a heavy toll on Taliban capabilities.

Alongside, Indian diplomats say, the US should bring in key Pakistan allies like China and Saudi Arabia to stabilise and bring peace to Pakistan.

But in the event the Taliban are seen to be moving in on Islamabad or there is a danger of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons falling into their hands. America’s mini war in the tribal territories could escalate into a full-scale war with uncertain consequences.

Sharia imposed, peace returns to Pak’s Swat Valley
The beautiful Swat Valley, also known as the Switzerland of Pakistan, is now under the control of Taliban. For the past many years, it has been the scene of fierce battle between the Taliban and Pakistani forces.

Following the imposition of Sharia law and the peace deal, guns have finally fallen silent in the region.

Cheerful voices have replaced the gunfire and laughter has replaced cries but not without a mix of ground realities.

The Pakistan government signed a truce with the Taliban and local hardliners accepting imposition of the Islamic law in an attempt to curb terror in the Swat Valley.

While the world has been sceptical of the deal, residents are rejoicing as children can now go back to schools, vehicles are back on the roads and the markets abuzz with activity.

“We are very happy with the accord between the TSNM and the government,” a resident of the region says.

Even as critics have warned of repercussions, the Pakistan Government made it clear that the deal was reached keeping in mind the interests of the people of the Swat valley region.

Now people are seen crowding streets and markets without fear. Mingora witnessed open markets till late evening almost after one and a half year.

Traders, too, are happy with the boom at the local markets…

“Now that the curfew has been lifted our business will definitely do well. We are very happy,” says a trader.

People staying in relief camps are now returning back to their homes in the Swat Valley.

Residents are also hoping that peace persists for a long time to come.

But though the truce may have brought temporary peace to the area, with a thriving arms market and lawless society, will peace just be a pause in the long history of violence in this north western region of Pakistan is left for time to tell?

Meanwhile, Chairman of Pakistan National Security Committee Raza Rabbani says he supports the truce in the Swat Valley

“Our ruling elite must come to terms with the truth that what we consider to be our Western values cannot hold grounds all the time. You have to mix values with ground realities and give it a touch which is Pakistani,” says Rabbani.

Taliban-Pakistan truce: Why India should worry

By M H Ahssan

India intelligence agencies are worried about the peace deal between the Taliban and the Pakistani Government in the Swat Valley.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) believes that it needs to convince the West that a Talibanised Pakistan with nuclear weapons would be a huge threat to the world.

On February 1, almost two weeks before the imposition of the Sharia law and the truce between the Taliban and Pakistani forces came into effect, National Security Advisor MK Narayanan has said that India was concerned about the stability of Pakistan

“As far as India is concerned as much as that we don’t allow our neighbour to go under forces which will definitely be much more inimicable to India than the civilian government there,” Narayanan had said.

But those words conceal a mountain of worries. India’s intelligence establishment has no doubt that a Taliban takeover will inspire and encourage like-minded groups within India.

They will find safe haven and sanctuaries in Pakistan, the intensity and sophistication of terror strikes will increase and communal polarisation will grow.

So how does India measure up to the challenge of a Talibanised Pakistan?

The most obvious would involve beefing up the armed forces, upgrading counter-terror capabilities and tightening internal security.

But pre-emptive strikes of some kind or even armed conflict are seen as a risky alternative for India.

“The option for India would be either to sit back and wait for this Talibanisation to slowly creep towards us or to go to Afghanistan and help fight it,” says Former MEA secretary KC Singh.

The thinking in South Block is that India needs to convince the West that a Talibanised Pakistan is a threat to the world.

Pakistan has nuclear weapons, has expertise in chemical and biological warfare and could be dangerously appealing to a Muslim diaspora in the West that has been under pressure since 9/11.

“That is the big danger and is the big threat which causes panic in the capitals of all western countries because they all believe that if there is a dirty bomb or a nuclear bomb exploded by a terrorist, the source would be Pakistan,” former R&AW chief Anand Kumar Verma says.

Intelligence experts believe the West knows and understands the danger.

The US missile strikes in Pakistan’s tribal territories is a small-scale war that has taken a heavy toll on Taliban capabilities.

Alongside, Indian diplomats say, the US should bring in key Pakistan allies like China and Saudi Arabia to stabilise and bring peace to Pakistan.

But in the event the Taliban are seen to be moving in on Islamabad or there is a danger of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons falling into their hands. America’s mini war in the tribal territories could escalate into a full-scale war with uncertain consequences.

Sharia imposed, peace returns to Pak’s Swat Valley
The beautiful Swat Valley, also known as the Switzerland of Pakistan, is now under the control of Taliban. For the past many years, it has been the scene of fierce battle between the Taliban and Pakistani forces.

Following the imposition of Sharia law and the peace deal, guns have finally fallen silent in the region.

Cheerful voices have replaced the gunfire and laughter has replaced cries but not without a mix of ground realities.

The Pakistan government signed a truce with the Taliban and local hardliners accepting imposition of the Islamic law in an attempt to curb terror in the Swat Valley.

While the world has been sceptical of the deal, residents are rejoicing as children can now go back to schools, vehicles are back on the roads and the markets abuzz with activity.

“We are very happy with the accord between the TSNM and the government,” a resident of the region says.

Even as critics have warned of repercussions, the Pakistan Government made it clear that the deal was reached keeping in mind the interests of the people of the Swat valley region.

Now people are seen crowding streets and markets without fear. Mingora witnessed open markets till late evening almost after one and a half year.

Traders, too, are happy with the boom at the local markets…

“Now that the curfew has been lifted our business will definitely do well. We are very happy,” says a trader.

People staying in relief camps are now returning back to their homes in the Swat Valley.

Residents are also hoping that peace persists for a long time to come.

But though the truce may have brought temporary peace to the area, with a thriving arms market and lawless society, will peace just be a pause in the long history of violence in this north western region of Pakistan is left for time to tell?

Meanwhile, Chairman of Pakistan National Security Committee Raza Rabbani says he supports the truce in the Swat Valley

“Our ruling elite must come to terms with the truth that what we consider to be our Western values cannot hold grounds all the time. You have to mix values with ground realities and give it a touch which is Pakistani,” says Rabbani.

FLOOD OF PEOPLE, TRICKLE OF FUNDS

By Maria Kutty

With remittances from the Gulf dropping and laid-off Indians returning, the slowdown could hit home sooner than expected

For long, it was the Malayali’s Promised Land. The lure of shining cars, neon lights and petro-dollars has had Keralites flocking to Dubai since the mid-1970s. The money they sent back bolstered the state’s economy for over three decades, but the good times seem to be coming to an end, with the economic recession setting in.

An estimated 5.7 million Indian workers abroad sent home $27 billion in 2007 to make India the world’s top receiver of migrant remittances, according to a World Bank report. And Kerala accounts for 19.4% or almost a fifth of all remittances by NRIs.

There are about 19 lakh Keralites in the Gulf, and 56% of remittances to the state originate from there. Economists believe that the slowdown in the Gulf countries will have a major impact on the state as it is heavily dependent on NRI remittances for its consumption expenditure.

Remittance figures with the state-level bankers’ committee show a decline in the contribution by non-residents to the total deposits received by commercial banks in Kerala since 2007. While overseas deposits comprised 32% of total bank deposits in Kerala as of September 2007, it has dropped to 27.71% in September 2008. The deposits received by the state’s banks as on September 2007 was Rs 97,113.30 crore, of which non-residents accounted for Rs 31,690 crore. But by September 2008, banks had received Rs 1,13,985 crore, of which just Rs 31,585 crore came from overseas residents.

There may be a fall in Gulf remittances as hundreds of jobs are lost in Dubai on a daily basis. Sudhir Kumar Shetty, general manager of UAE Exchange, Abu Dhabi, says, “We have not seen much of a dip in remittances compared to last year, but with new contracts not being signed and projects postponed, the situation looks bleak. There is going to be no growth in 2009.”

A number of economic activities in the state, notably trade, real estate and construction, were financed by remittances, says a study done by Thiruvananthapuram-based Centre for Development Studies. The report submitted to the state government in December 2008 says the growth in remittances could see a reduced rate during the short and medium terms.

“We never expected the problem in Gulf to be so bad. Though we mentioned that remittances could be one channel through which recession could hit us, we underestimated its effect,” says K J Joseph, who helped conduct the study.

Though there are no official figures for the number of Indians returning home, there are other indicators to show how bad the situation is. Dil Koshy, secretary of Agricultural Products and Processed Food Exporters’ Association (APEXA) says, “Since December 2008, there has been a 40% fall in export of fresh vegetables and other food items to Dubai.” Officials at the air cargo division of Kerala State Industrial Enterprises speak of a 20% fall in imports.

State finance minister T M Thomas Isaac says the worst is yet to come. “The situation is going to worsen in the coming months, particularly after March when the schools have their holidays,” he says.

However, tourism arrivals have not fallen. “Contrary to expectations, tourist arrivals for December 2008 have recorded a one per cent rise over December 2007. It is very reassuring, given that we were expecting a 25% to 30% drop,” says tourism secretary V Venu.

Schools have no space for returning students
Schools in Kerala are being flooded with enquiries for admission from Gulf countries, with thousands of overseas residents returning home after losing jobs. Ever since mega-construction projects in places like Dubai were shelved due to the slowdown, it is believed that thousands of Indians, many from Kerala, have been retrenched. Enquiries by HNN confirmed that many had already landed in Kerala, while a few fortunate ones have got time till March when children complete the school year.

Jomon Joseph from Thrissur was laid off by a construction company in Dubai. His son and daughter are studying in class IX and II. “I’ve been trying for their admission back home as I need to pack up by March, but I haven’t been lucky,” he says.

P Sunder, administrator, Chinmaya Vidyalaya, says they can admit new children only when others leave.

CBSE school rules state that the number of students in a class should not exceed 35. “We should be allowed to accommodate more students. This time, the requirement for new seats is far higher than the expected exit,” says E Ramankutty, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s Kochi Kendra director.

The government could also grant ‘no objection’ certificates to schools awaiting CBSE affiliation. Some schools have approached courts to direct the government to grant NOCs. There are 300 schools awaiting NOCs. Education minister M A Baby told TOI it would be better if parents put their wards in government schools with state syllabus. “We are ready to relax norms to accommodate children. But granting NOC to CBSE schools is a major policy issue that we don’t encourage,” he says.

FLOOD OF PEOPLE, TRICKLE OF FUNDS

By Maria Kutty

With remittances from the Gulf dropping and laid-off Indians returning, the slowdown could hit home sooner than expected

For long, it was the Malayali’s Promised Land. The lure of shining cars, neon lights and petro-dollars has had Keralites flocking to Dubai since the mid-1970s. The money they sent back bolstered the state’s economy for over three decades, but the good times seem to be coming to an end, with the economic recession setting in.

An estimated 5.7 million Indian workers abroad sent home $27 billion in 2007 to make India the world’s top receiver of migrant remittances, according to a World Bank report. And Kerala accounts for 19.4% or almost a fifth of all remittances by NRIs.

There are about 19 lakh Keralites in the Gulf, and 56% of remittances to the state originate from there. Economists believe that the slowdown in the Gulf countries will have a major impact on the state as it is heavily dependent on NRI remittances for its consumption expenditure.

Remittance figures with the state-level bankers’ committee show a decline in the contribution by non-residents to the total deposits received by commercial banks in Kerala since 2007. While overseas deposits comprised 32% of total bank deposits in Kerala as of September 2007, it has dropped to 27.71% in September 2008. The deposits received by the state’s banks as on September 2007 was Rs 97,113.30 crore, of which non-residents accounted for Rs 31,690 crore. But by September 2008, banks had received Rs 1,13,985 crore, of which just Rs 31,585 crore came from overseas residents.

There may be a fall in Gulf remittances as hundreds of jobs are lost in Dubai on a daily basis. Sudhir Kumar Shetty, general manager of UAE Exchange, Abu Dhabi, says, “We have not seen much of a dip in remittances compared to last year, but with new contracts not being signed and projects postponed, the situation looks bleak. There is going to be no growth in 2009.”

A number of economic activities in the state, notably trade, real estate and construction, were financed by remittances, says a study done by Thiruvananthapuram-based Centre for Development Studies. The report submitted to the state government in December 2008 says the growth in remittances could see a reduced rate during the short and medium terms.

“We never expected the problem in Gulf to be so bad. Though we mentioned that remittances could be one channel through which recession could hit us, we underestimated its effect,” says K J Joseph, who helped conduct the study.

Though there are no official figures for the number of Indians returning home, there are other indicators to show how bad the situation is. Dil Koshy, secretary of Agricultural Products and Processed Food Exporters’ Association (APEXA) says, “Since December 2008, there has been a 40% fall in export of fresh vegetables and other food items to Dubai.” Officials at the air cargo division of Kerala State Industrial Enterprises speak of a 20% fall in imports.

State finance minister T M Thomas Isaac says the worst is yet to come. “The situation is going to worsen in the coming months, particularly after March when the schools have their holidays,” he says.

However, tourism arrivals have not fallen. “Contrary to expectations, tourist arrivals for December 2008 have recorded a one per cent rise over December 2007. It is very reassuring, given that we were expecting a 25% to 30% drop,” says tourism secretary V Venu.

Schools have no space for returning students
Schools in Kerala are being flooded with enquiries for admission from Gulf countries, with thousands of overseas residents returning home after losing jobs. Ever since mega-construction projects in places like Dubai were shelved due to the slowdown, it is believed that thousands of Indians, many from Kerala, have been retrenched. Enquiries by HNN confirmed that many had already landed in Kerala, while a few fortunate ones have got time till March when children complete the school year.

Jomon Joseph from Thrissur was laid off by a construction company in Dubai. His son and daughter are studying in class IX and II. “I’ve been trying for their admission back home as I need to pack up by March, but I haven’t been lucky,” he says.

P Sunder, administrator, Chinmaya Vidyalaya, says they can admit new children only when others leave.

CBSE school rules state that the number of students in a class should not exceed 35. “We should be allowed to accommodate more students. This time, the requirement for new seats is far higher than the expected exit,” says E Ramankutty, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s Kochi Kendra director.

The government could also grant ‘no objection’ certificates to schools awaiting CBSE affiliation. Some schools have approached courts to direct the government to grant NOCs. There are 300 schools awaiting NOCs. Education minister M A Baby told TOI it would be better if parents put their wards in government schools with state syllabus. “We are ready to relax norms to accommodate children. But granting NOC to CBSE schools is a major policy issue that we don’t encourage,” he says.

Malkajgiri Constituency Map

Malkajgiri Constituency Map

EC bans exit, opinion poll till voting comes to a close

By Sudha Raman

The Election Commission on Tuesday banned dissemination of results of opinion and exit polls during the 48-hour period till the polling ends in case of single-phase election. It also banned exit polls till the last lap in the event of multi-phase elections.

The EC’s move comes against the backdrop of the Supreme Court leaving it to the discretion of the commission to decide on laying down guidelines on opinion and exit polls till the government frames regulations on the issue.

The commission had a couple of years ago banned the telecast, publication or broadcast of exit polls during polls till the final phase of voting but media houses approached the apex court after which the order was revoked.

The commission had asked the court to decide whether there should be a reasonable restriction in publication and dissemination of results of opinion polls and exit polls during certain specified periods during the election process.

The government had in October last decided to amend the Representation of the People Act, 1951, to curb publication of exit polls during elections till the conclusion of the final phase so that it does not “influence” voters. The government’s move to amend the RPA is seen as an effort to ensure polls, which are generally spread over several phases, are free and fair.

“No result of any opinion or exit poll conducted at any time shall be published, publicized or disseminated in any manner by print, electronic or any other media at any time during the period of 48 hours ending with the hour fixed for closing of poll in an electioin held in a single phase,” the EC said.

“In a multi-phased election and in the case of elections in different states announced simultaneously,” the EC barred dissemination of opinion and exit polls by the media “at any time during the period starting from 48 hours before the hour fixed for closing of poll in the first phase of the election and till the poll is concluded in all the phases in all states”, the guidelines said.

Medchal Constituency Map

Medchal Constituency Map

United Muslim Forum in a quandary, Jamaat quits

By M H Ahssan

With Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH) deciding to lobby alone during the upcoming general elections, the United Muslim Forum (UMF) that played a key role in 2004 polls in the state is in a quandary.

JIH was an important component of the UMF, a conglomeration of non-political outfits that also had Majlis-e-Tameer-e-Millat and Amarat-e-Millat-e-Islamia as its members. Jamiatul Ulemae-Hind was not part of the UMF, but all of them campaigned for the Congress during the last elections. After winning the elections, the Congress government rewarded Amarat leader Raheemuddin Ansari with the chairmanship of State Urdu Academy and made Jamiat president Hafiz Peer Shabbir chairman of the Haj Committee. Peer Shabbir was later nominated to the legislative council.

“We are trying to broaden our base and inviting some people to work together. Invitations have been sent to some Ulema (Islamic scholars) and Mashaekheen (head priests at dargahs). All Muslims should vote for the party that promises to redress their grievances and make them partners in decision making. One meeting has also been held”, M A Raheem Quraishi, UMF GS, told HNN.

According to sources, there were at least four new faces in the UMF meeting that was held last week. They were Syed Ali Akbar Nizamuddin, member of the State Wakf Board; Hasanuddin Ahmed, former bureaucrat and social activist; Shafeeq Rahman Mahajir, lawyer and; M Ziauddin Nayyar, Vice President Iqbal Academy.

Sources said that the meeting heard some participants praising the Congress for undertaking many measures benefiting the Muslim community. There were also some who criticised the Congress for failing to protect the Wakf properties and stop the harassment of the Muslim youth by police in the wake of Mecca Masjid bomb blast. The meeting also heard that Telugu Desam that was part of the BJP led NDA has now learnt its lesson and wishes to work for the upliftment of minorities. Therefore, the forum should also consider supporting the TDP and its alliance partners, some participants suggested.

The meeting decided to make the functioning of the forum methodical by giving it a constitution and binding the members to follow it in word and spirit. The forum is expected to finalize it statute in two weeks. “It is too early to say what would be final form of the forum and who it would support. We should wait and watch “, the sources said

Greater Hyderabad Election Map

Greater Hyderabad Election Map

Opinion: INSECURED INDIAN MUSLIM

By M H Ahssan

A recent public opinion poll on a popular Muslim Indian e-magazine tries to ascertain the most important issue that is plaguing Muslim Indians this year. The issues discussed are many, ranging from economy and employment, to security and spiritually. Interestingly, majority of the respondents felt economy as the biggest area of concern (almost 37%), followed by security (20%). What appears even more alarming is the fact that the readership of this e-magazine includes majority of elite and educated Muslim Indians (most of whom are NRIs in various parts of the world, including the Americas).

The alarming percentage of our elite population that acknowledges insecurity is a disturbing fact. [Maybe, economy has been recorded as the most important issue in this poll as a temporary but important issue, because of the persistent world economic slump underway.] Are we, Muslim Indians, insecure; to the extent that 20% of our elite class believes it to be the prime concern?
Arguably, the answer to the above question should be, YES. Muslim Indians are insecure because we face threats from all nooks and corners. We face insecurity in terms of employment, we face insecurity in terms of civil rights and codes, we face insecurity in terms of our beliefs and the edifice of our beliefs, we face insecurity in terms of our material possessions, and we face insecurity in terms of existence.

So much so that we have all developed a fear psychosis that has stripped us from exploring and evaluating the de facto. The insecurity of existence becomes the gravest when we hear of the consistent thumping of the media regarding the relationship between terrorism and Muslims, and Islam. It apparently feels strenuous to revere about anything else when we face this momentous insecurity of existence. We have lived, and continue to live in this abject fear of insecurity. However, have we ever contemplated that this is exactly what the adversaries actually want us to believe?

Cogitating the historical despoilment of the Great Partition of 1947, I am reminded of a popular informal saying that almost all Muslim Indians would have been worse than bonded labors in Independent India, had it not been for the efforts of Late Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Aligarh Muslim University. [We do realize the fact how Independent India had been stripped off the elite and intellectual Muslims, our inspiration and think-tank, majority of whom had migrated to Pakistan in lure of greener pastures?] During those overcast days, AMU had emerged as the single source for dispensing distinction and virtuosity to Muslim Indians (and I should not be incorrect to say that perhaps it still continues to be so). Were Muslim Indians secure during those days? Perhaps not. How then, were we able to carve out a niche for ourselves during those days of insecurity – considering the fact that the magnitude of insecurity of existence was the highest during those days?

One prime and important reason that occurs to me is that Muslim Indians were definitely insecure in terms of existence; however, were not insecure in terms of their IDENTITY. Things are probably not much different today – we are in minority today as well, we do face prejudice and biasness today as well, and we do face the same threat to our property and lives today as well. The difference is that we did not face identity insecurity then, which we so deficiently face today.

To exemplify – how comfortable do we feel talking about Islam and Muslim Indians in public? How comfortable are we in discussing our rituals and beliefs? Most important of all, how comfortable are we in expressing ourselves as Muslim Indians (not Indian Muslims)? We ensure that we do not talk about the problems being faced by average Muslim Indians because we might be termed intolerant. We avoid expressing our rituals and beliefs because we fear becoming outcasts compared to the Majority. We fear (yes, FEAR) in expressing ourselves as Muslim Indians because we might be branded NON-SECULAR. This, the insecurity of IDENTITY, is the gravest concern that we are evidently faced with today.

The adversaries thrive on our insecurity of identity because they are aware and confident of the fact that this insecurity has all the aptitude to sojourn our rational thinking. And once we are stripped of rational thinking, everything starts slickly falling into their platter! Consider this revised sense of insecurity under the influence of stripped rational – We need to co-EXIST with a Majority. Therefore, we need to live at their disposal.

We need to abide by their rules of existence. If we cannot exist, how would we be able to proceed with our subsistence? Everything else (including education, employment, economy, empowerment, disposition, and social recognition and actualization) can wait; first we need to survive, EXIST. This is how things appear, and this is what and how the adversaries want us to believe!
The way out is easier said than done. It all is a vicious circle (something similar to the chakravyuh), the never-ending spiral formation of abjection, which needs to be broken; broken from various fronts simultaneously. The first front that we need to strike is our attitude and thought process, rational thinking, to be more precise. Let’s inspect the conditions a little more objectively, with a more rationale line of thought.

Muslim Indians constitute more than 13% of the total Indian populace. What percentage of Muslim representation do we have at various levels of national, social, political, economic, educational, and corporate governance? If we do not have adequate representation, how do we plan to wash out this enduring sense of insecurity? How do we ensure adequate representation if we are not adequately educated and consummate? One may argue that to be educated and consummate, one needs to be secure in terms of existence.

To address the previous concern, let’s appraise Article 29 of the Constitution of India, which states, “(1) Any section of the citizens residing in the territory of India or any part thereof having a distinct language, script or culture of its own shall have the right to conserve the same. (2) No citizen shall be denied admission into any educational institution maintained by the State or receiving aid out of State funds on grounds only of religion, race, caste, language or any of them.” So, if we are not educated and consummate, how can we expect to discern and implement this provision provided to us by our Constitution?

Having realized the importance of educational deficiency, we need to work on it manifolds. First, we need to collectively shun the premise of insecurity to existence being the highest level of our concern. Rather, we need to look at educational deficiency among Muslim Indians as the gravest of all concerns. We need to reconstruct our educational edifice so that our children get impartial education and excel in both religious and contemporary domains. At the same time, we need to hunt down the disgrace and de-branding of Muslim Indians in terms of insecurity of our IDENTITY. This calls for a revolution in its true sense – working on war footing to pull off both these ends simultaneously.

We need colossal efforts, sweat, toil, maybe blood, to uplift ourselves out of this sense of insecurity. That is the only way we can candidly and profoundly say that we are not prepared to lose even a small part of that legacy (being a Muslim) and we are equally proud of the fact that we are Muslim Indians, an essential part of the indivisible unity of the Indian nationhood, without which our noble edifice will remain incomplete.

Obama, an economic unilateralist

By NEWSCOP

The silliest thing that clever people are saying about the world economic crisis is that the United States will lose its position as the dominant world superpower in consequence. On the contrary: the crisis strengthens the relative position of the United States and exposes the far graver weaknesses of all prospective competitors. It makes the debt of the American government the world’s most desirable asset. America may deserve to decline, but as Clint Eastwood said in another context, “deserve’s got nothing to do with it”. President Barack Obama may turn out to be the most egregious unilateralist in American history.

America’s supposed decline dominates the glossy magazines. Last September, Germany’s Finance Minister Peer Steinbruck intoned, “One thing seems probable to me. As a result of the crisis, the United States will lose its status as the superpower of the global financial system.” The German official is quoted by Professor Richard Florida in the March 2009 Atlantic Monthly, who adds, “You don’t have to strain too hard to see the financial crisis as the death knell for a debt-ridden, overconsuming and underproducing American empire – the fall long prophesied by [British historian] Paul Kennedy and others.”

And the ubiquitous Professor Niall Ferguson told a Vanity Fair interviewer on January 20 that America would crumble like Great Britain in the 1970s. “It certainly will be extremely painful … Half the federal debt is held by foreigners. And if the US either defaults on debt or allows the dollar to depreciate, the rest of the world is going to say, ‘Wait a second, you just screwed us.’ And that’s, I think, the moment at which the United States experiences the British experience – when, in the dark days of the 60s and 70s, Britain fundamentally lost its credibility and ceased to be a financial great power.”

But is this true? In fact, the rest of the world has queued up to lend America as much money as it might wish to borrow in order to get its consumers to spend again, and buy the manufactures and raw materials of the rest of the world. It won’t work, but that is another matter. As I wrote last October, the world isn’t flat, contrary to New York Times pundit Thomas Friedman’s vision of a level global playing field. It’s flattened.

Here’s a thought-experiment to gauge the merits of different national markets as a safe haven. Close your eyes and try to imagine what Germany, Japan and China will look like 30 years from now, that is, when a newly-issued long-term bond will mature. Citing Pope Benedict XVI’s critique of economics, I argued recently that the market cannot form accurate long-term expectations; it only can imagine future states of the world. (See Benedict XVI is magnificently right, Asia Times Online, December 9, 2008). Let us see what imagination tells us about the world’s largest capital markets. The conclusions of this exercise, I will show later, reinforce the founding premises of “supply-side economics”, the theory that guided America out of the 1979-1983 mini-depression.

Imagination fails in the case of Europe and Japan. One out of every four Germans today is older than 60, and in 30 years the proportion will rise to two-fifths. Japan is even worse: 30% of Japanese today are above 60, and in 30 years the number will be almost half. What does a national economy look like when the demographics are so skewed to pensioners?

We never have seen anything like this before in all of history. Pension and health costs projected forward will crush these economies a generation from now. Taxes will suffocate the dwindling population of young workers. A straight-line projection of present trends takes us to the cusp of national failure. We do not know whether present trends will continue in a straight line, to be sure. The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, as Damon Runyon said, but that’s the way to bet.

Children are the wealth of nations, provided that their nations can put tools in their hands and the rule of law at their back. Countries that lack children are poor. Aging Germans do not have young people to whom to lend. That is why they lent their savings to Americans, through the subprime market, and why European banks are if anything worse off than American banks.

Imagination also fails in the case of China, not because extrapolation of present trends is so frightening, but rather because economic growth cannot possibly continue at the pace of the past 10 years. China is a different country than it was 30 years ago, and it will be a different country in another 30 years. It is in the midst of the largest migration of peoples in the history of the world, the fastest rate of urbanization and the greatest economic expansion of which we know. Its political system and social structure will change so radically that it is impossible to form a clear picture of the country in 2040.

Great opportunities are attended by enormous dangers. China has more young people than any other country in the world, more than all of Europe put together, but too many of them are trapped in rural poverty, uneducated and untrained.

That is why Chinese save half their income, more than anyone else in the world. Part of China’s steroidal savings rate can be explained by the one-child policy. People whose children will not care for them in old age require financial assets. What economists call precautionary savings, saving for a rainy day, explains a great deal of the Chinese demand for savings. The sun has shone on the Chinese economy for a generation, but when it rains, who is to say how hard it will rain? Extreme uncertainty about the future explains China’s savings rate.

But America’s future is not hard to visualize in 2040. In fact, America in 1979 was not much different from America in 2009. Minor adjustments await Americans over the next generation compared with the great changes affecting its prospective competitors.

China may offer greater prospective returns than America – a billion Chinese will make the transition from a low-productivity rural environment into a high-productivity urban environment during the next generation – but it also requires a greater appetite for risk. Nothing can compete with the United States as a safe-haven investment for the long term. German petulance about America’s domination of world markets rises in inverse proportion to the German birth rate. The German finance minister should know better.

The Chinese have no such illusions. Luo Ping, a director general at the China Bank Regulatory Commission, told an American audience, “We hate you guys. Once you start issuing $1 trillion-$2 trillion … we know the dollar is going to depreciate, so we hate you guys but there is nothing much we can do.”

A fearful world is buying trillions of dollars of securities from the US Treasury. Of all the cash flows in the world, nothing is more reliable than the tax revenues of the American state, the longest-lasting government on Earth presiding over the world’s largest economy.

During the 1960s, a young Canadian economist, Robert Mundell, argued that an increase in US government debt might represent a true increase in wealth under certain circumstances. It is relatively easy to capitalize corporate income streams through bonds, Mundell observed, but much harder to capitalize household income streams. If the government cuts taxes and issues bonds to replace the lost revenue, the increase in the float of the government bonds outstanding will represent an increase in wealth, provided that the tax increase stimulates growth, and the resulting growth brings in enough taxes to pay the interest on the bonds.

From this insight emerged the economic program of president Ronald Reagan. Drastic tax cuts, reducing the marginal tax rate from 70% to 40%, vastly increased the US budget deficit during the early 1980s. But the increase in revenues from a recovering economy more than paid the interest on the additional bonds, and the increase in government debt represented an increase in wealth. Mundell went on to win the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1999, for work in a different area.

America’s economic crisis in 2009 bears little resemblance to the mini-depression of 1979. Then, the baby boomers were in their 20s and 30s; now they are in their 50s and 60s. As I wrote in my year-end essay, the Reagan administration made it easier for homeowners and businesses to obtain leverage. Young people need leverage to start families; old people need savings. The medicine that cured the economy in the early 1980s turned into an addiction during the 2000s.

But there is a perverse parallel between the Treasury market of 1979 and 2009. In both cases, the market is willing to absorb an enormous increase in the float of US government securities. Looking into the future, no cash flows in the world are more secure than the tax revenues of the American Treasury.

The greater the uncertainty attached to all other cash flows, the greater the demand for US Treasury securities. America does not have to throw its political weight around to persuade the world to fund between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion of new debt issuance; its political weight stems from the fact that the world needs the United States as a safe haven for its money.

The difference, of course, is that the increased issuance of Treasury securities during the Reagan years represented an absolute increase in wealth, capitalizing the recovery prospects of the US economy. All the other economies of the free world benefited. The Obama administration’s multi-trillion dollar borrowing requirement constitutes a shift in relative wealth. Less capital will be available for other economies. The relative position of the United States will strengthen radically, which is to say that the position of many other parts of the world will weaken radically.

Obama isn’t entirely to blame for this sorry state of affairs, to be sure, given that these trends were in place before he took office. Still, it is incongruous that the liberal consensus welcomed the multilateralist Obama and bade good riddance to the unilateralist Republicans. A radical shift in economic power in favor of the United States makes Obama the moral equivalent of a unilateralist, to a degree that Reagan never could have imagined.

To overpay unionized construction workers to build bridges, and bail out the bloated budgets of American states, the Obama administration will flood the world with so much Treasury debt that capital will flow out of the poorest countries to buy it. Rather than protest this outrageously unilateralist action, the rest of the world encourages him to do so, hoping that somehow the Obama stimulus package will get American consumers to buy their goods once again.

During the Reagan years, the rest of the world had the right to grumble about the dominance of the American economy. Now that American policy has become a millstone around the necks of most of the world’s economies, the rest of the world’s leaders flatter Obama while he beats them. No Republican president ever had it so good.

Obama, an economic unilateralist

By NEWSCOP

The silliest thing that clever people are saying about the world economic crisis is that the United States will lose its position as the dominant world superpower in consequence. On the contrary: the crisis strengthens the relative position of the United States and exposes the far graver weaknesses of all prospective competitors. It makes the debt of the American government the world’s most desirable asset. America may deserve to decline, but as Clint Eastwood said in another context, “deserve’s got nothing to do with it”. President Barack Obama may turn out to be the most egregious unilateralist in American history.

America’s supposed decline dominates the glossy magazines. Last September, Germany’s Finance Minister Peer Steinbruck intoned, “One thing seems probable to me. As a result of the crisis, the United States will lose its status as the superpower of the global financial system.” The German official is quoted by Professor Richard Florida in the March 2009 Atlantic Monthly, who adds, “You don’t have to strain too hard to see the financial crisis as the death knell for a debt-ridden, overconsuming and underproducing American empire – the fall long prophesied by [British historian] Paul Kennedy and others.”

And the ubiquitous Professor Niall Ferguson told a Vanity Fair interviewer on January 20 that America would crumble like Great Britain in the 1970s. “It certainly will be extremely painful … Half the federal debt is held by foreigners. And if the US either defaults on debt or allows the dollar to depreciate, the rest of the world is going to say, ‘Wait a second, you just screwed us.’ And that’s, I think, the moment at which the United States experiences the British experience – when, in the dark days of the 60s and 70s, Britain fundamentally lost its credibility and ceased to be a financial great power.”

But is this true? In fact, the rest of the world has queued up to lend America as much money as it might wish to borrow in order to get its consumers to spend again, and buy the manufactures and raw materials of the rest of the world. It won’t work, but that is another matter. As I wrote last October, the world isn’t flat, contrary to New York Times pundit Thomas Friedman’s vision of a level global playing field. It’s flattened.

Here’s a thought-experiment to gauge the merits of different national markets as a safe haven. Close your eyes and try to imagine what Germany, Japan and China will look like 30 years from now, that is, when a newly-issued long-term bond will mature. Citing Pope Benedict XVI’s critique of economics, I argued recently that the market cannot form accurate long-term expectations; it only can imagine future states of the world. (See Benedict XVI is magnificently right, Asia Times Online, December 9, 2008). Let us see what imagination tells us about the world’s largest capital markets. The conclusions of this exercise, I will show later, reinforce the founding premises of “supply-side economics”, the theory that guided America out of the 1979-1983 mini-depression.

Imagination fails in the case of Europe and Japan. One out of every four Germans today is older than 60, and in 30 years the proportion will rise to two-fifths. Japan is even worse: 30% of Japanese today are above 60, and in 30 years the number will be almost half. What does a national economy look like when the demographics are so skewed to pensioners?

We never have seen anything like this before in all of history. Pension and health costs projected forward will crush these economies a generation from now. Taxes will suffocate the dwindling population of young workers. A straight-line projection of present trends takes us to the cusp of national failure. We do not know whether present trends will continue in a straight line, to be sure. The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, as Damon Runyon said, but that’s the way to bet.

Children are the wealth of nations, provided that their nations can put tools in their hands and the rule of law at their back. Countries that lack children are poor. Aging Germans do not have young people to whom to lend. That is why they lent their savings to Americans, through the subprime market, and why European banks are if anything worse off than American banks.

Imagination also fails in the case of China, not because extrapolation of present trends is so frightening, but rather because economic growth cannot possibly continue at the pace of the past 10 years. China is a different country than it was 30 years ago, and it will be a different country in another 30 years. It is in the midst of the largest migration of peoples in the history of the world, the fastest rate of urbanization and the greatest economic expansion of which we know. Its political system and social structure will change so radically that it is impossible to form a clear picture of the country in 2040.

Great opportunities are attended by enormous dangers. China has more young people than any other country in the world, more than all of Europe put together, but too many of them are trapped in rural poverty, uneducated and untrained.

That is why Chinese save half their income, more than anyone else in the world. Part of China’s steroidal savings rate can be explained by the one-child policy. People whose children will not care for them in old age require financial assets. What economists call precautionary savings, saving for a rainy day, explains a great deal of the Chinese demand for savings. The sun has shone on the Chinese economy for a generation, but when it rains, who is to say how hard it will rain? Extreme uncertainty about the future explains China’s savings rate.

But America’s future is not hard to visualize in 2040. In fact, America in 1979 was not much different from America in 2009. Minor adjustments await Americans over the next generation compared with the great changes affecting its prospective competitors.

China may offer greater prospective returns than America – a billion Chinese will make the transition from a low-productivity rural environment into a high-productivity urban environment during the next generation – but it also requires a greater appetite for risk. Nothing can compete with the United States as a safe-haven investment for the long term. German petulance about America’s domination of world markets rises in inverse proportion to the German birth rate. The German finance minister should know better.

The Chinese have no such illusions. Luo Ping, a director general at the China Bank Regulatory Commission, told an American audience, “We hate you guys. Once you start issuing $1 trillion-$2 trillion … we know the dollar is going to depreciate, so we hate you guys but there is nothing much we can do.”

A fearful world is buying trillions of dollars of securities from the US Treasury. Of all the cash flows in the world, nothing is more reliable than the tax revenues of the American state, the longest-lasting government on Earth presiding over the world’s largest economy.

During the 1960s, a young Canadian economist, Robert Mundell, argued that an increase in US government debt might represent a true increase in wealth under certain circumstances. It is relatively easy to capitalize corporate income streams through bonds, Mundell observed, but much harder to capitalize household income streams. If the government cuts taxes and issues bonds to replace the lost revenue, the increase in the float of the government bonds outstanding will represent an increase in wealth, provided that the tax increase stimulates growth, and the resulting growth brings in enough taxes to pay the interest on the bonds.

From this insight emerged the economic program of president Ronald Reagan. Drastic tax cuts, reducing the marginal tax rate from 70% to 40%, vastly increased the US budget deficit during the early 1980s. But the increase in revenues from a recovering economy more than paid the interest on the additional bonds, and the increase in government debt represented an increase in wealth. Mundell went on to win the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1999, for work in a different area.

America’s economic crisis in 2009 bears little resemblance to the mini-depression of 1979. Then, the baby boomers were in their 20s and 30s; now they are in their 50s and 60s. As I wrote in my year-end essay, the Reagan administration made it easier for homeowners and businesses to obtain leverage. Young people need leverage to start families; old people need savings. The medicine that cured the economy in the early 1980s turned into an addiction during the 2000s.

But there is a perverse parallel between the Treasury market of 1979 and 2009. In both cases, the market is willing to absorb an enormous increase in the float of US government securities. Looking into the future, no cash flows in the world are more secure than the tax revenues of the American Treasury.

The greater the uncertainty attached to all other cash flows, the greater the demand for US Treasury securities. America does not have to throw its political weight around to persuade the world to fund between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion of new debt issuance; its political weight stems from the fact that the world needs the United States as a safe haven for its money.

The difference, of course, is that the increased issuance of Treasury securities during the Reagan years represented an absolute increase in wealth, capitalizing the recovery prospects of the US economy. All the other economies of the free world benefited. The Obama administration’s multi-trillion dollar borrowing requirement constitutes a shift in relative wealth. Less capital will be available for other economies. The relative position of the United States will strengthen radically, which is to say that the position of many other parts of the world will weaken radically.

Obama isn’t entirely to blame for this sorry state of affairs, to be sure, given that these trends were in place before he took office. Still, it is incongruous that the liberal consensus welcomed the multilateralist Obama and bade good riddance to the unilateralist Republicans. A radical shift in economic power in favor of the United States makes Obama the moral equivalent of a unilateralist, to a degree that Reagan never could have imagined.

To overpay unionized construction workers to build bridges, and bail out the bloated budgets of American states, the Obama administration will flood the world with so much Treasury debt that capital will flow out of the poorest countries to buy it. Rather than protest this outrageously unilateralist action, the rest of the world encourages him to do so, hoping that somehow the Obama stimulus package will get American consumers to buy their goods once again.

During the Reagan years, the rest of the world had the right to grumble about the dominance of the American economy. Now that American policy has become a millstone around the necks of most of the world’s economies, the rest of the world’s leaders flatter Obama while he beats them. No Republican president ever had it so good.

Vote-Bank Politics: In the last year, mandarins of the ruling Congress Party (aided and abetted by various NGOs and self-styled “leftist” gurus) have been crafting policies with both eyes focussed exclusively on cultivating “winnable” vote-banks.

The hyper-aggressive quota-raj, the unprecedented (albeit opportunist and short-sighted) farm-loan waiver, unabashed (and often treacherous) Islamic appeasement, and the cynical Hindu-baiting (as in the frame-up of Sadhvi Pragya and Abhinav Bharat activists in the Malegaon blast) were all designed to shore up the Congress (and UPA) vote-banks in anticipation of state and national elections.

Even the left-initiated NREGS program (which was initially viewed with some skepticism) drew enthusiastic Congress support when its potential for attracting rural votes was highlighted. For an entire year, the Congress was consumed with harvesting specific vote banks, and so intent was the national media in advancing the image of the Congress that it chose to wilfully under-report or ignore a series of gross policy mis-steps (such as tightening interest rates when the entire world was heading towards a deep and long recession).

But the irony of the recent vote was not that the BJP failed to consolidate the anti-terror vote but that all the cynical ploys of the Congress bigwigs failed to make any impact on the two states where these crafty manouvers were expected to yield the highest dividends.

Candidates anointed by Quota Czar Arjun Singh failed miserably at the hustings, and the much touted loan waiver had only a minor impact on the rural vote. In a further karmic reversal, the tortuous attempts at concocting a “Saffron Terror Conspiracy” rudely backfired on the Congress with most voters seeing through the crude charade put up by the Maharashtra ATS.

For many months, the Congress-affiliated propaganda machine had gone over-board in portraying the BJP government as being ultra-harsh on the poor. International and domestic media outlets were rife with stories of “rampant malnutrition” and “starvation” deaths amongst the rural poor. And even though a CAG report had identified Madhya Pradesh as the most pro-active and efficient implementer of the NREG scheme, pro-Congress and pro-Left intellectuals rushed to trash the CAG report lest credit for the flagship scheme go the BJP. Yet, none of this cut much ice with the voters.

If anything, reports critiquing the BJP’s implementation of the NREG program only revealed the many inherent limitations in the flagship scheme that put serious question marks on its long-term utility and viability. After all, there is only so much useful infrastructure that can be built in villages where economic conditions are otherwise not conducive for develoment.

In spite of mounting evidence that India’s modernization requires widespread and rapid (but planned and orderly) urbanization, India’s left (whether naxal or mainstream) remains fixated with the Indian village even though droves of villagers continue to abandon their stagnant or unviable rural habitats for the economically more vibrant city. Throughout the world, there has been an inexorable trend towards migration to the city. Yet, only in India, does the entire left respond to the inevitability of urbanization with repeated acts of defiant lunacy.

Consequently, in both Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh, India’s medievally obsessed leftists got the decisive brush-off they deserved. For years, the Indian left had salivated at the prospect of a tribal-dominated state in central India that would finally allow it to expand beyond the old forts of Bengal and Kerala. The entire left (along with their many cohorts in the Indian “Human Rights” community) had rallied sharply against the BJP, yet it was in tribal-dominated Bastar where the BJP did best. Tribal communities refused to be treated as museum pieces by armchair leftists and outsiders. They saw that development could happen in the state (as it had not only in Raipur and the twin cities of Bhilai and Durg, but also in Bilapsur, Rajnandgaon and emerging industrial centres like Raigarh and Korba). What they wanted was tangible progress, not hot air.

Other purveyors of such vote-bank politics also suffered humiliating rejections. The Samajvadi Party that once appeared to have perfected the art of benefiting from vote-bank policies (until its recent defeat in UP) also received a befitting rebuff.

However, in Rajasthan, the result was less than cheering for those hoping for the demise of caste as a factor in Indian politics.

Although it may be worth noting that only 1% separated the vote share of the two main parties (and the combined vote of the BJP and its rebels exceeded the Congress vote), nevertheless, there is some evidence that the caste-card had a deleterious effect on the fortunes of the BJP, particularly the Congress-backed (and possibly Congress-engineered) Gujjar agitation and the subsequent Meena backlash. Having opened the door to the politics of quotas in her first campaign, Vasundhara Raje fell to an even more toxic cauldron of the caste brew.

Having taken commendable steps in improving state highways, dramatically augmenting power supply, enhancing schemes for education of the girl-child, and greatly increasing options for vocational training and engineering education, proponents of development in the once BIMARU state may have anticipated a Raje win. But unfortunately, some of her efforts will only yield fruit later (and so failed to move enough voters) and dirty politics undoubtedly played a role in her undoing.

Nevertheless, there may well be other lacunae in Raje’s strategy for the development of Rajasthan. In Gujarat, notwitstanding Sonia Gandhi’s shrill “Maut ka Saudagar” campaign, Modi won handsomely. None of the semingly clever caste and other calculations were able to undermine his popular appeal.

Therefore, other factors may also be at play.

One of the industries that has put India on the international map is its pharmaceutical industry. Although it would be foolhardy to over-generalize from an analysis of this industry alone, one may be tempted to infer that the development of the pharmaceutical industry can be seen as one important marker of a state’s industrial maturity. An on-line 2004 report on the spatial spread of pharma-manufacturers offers some useful clues.

By 2004, states like Gujarat (along with Punjab and Haryana) had achieved a remarkable developmental spread with pharmaceutical units setting up in almost every district; and in some districts, they had a presence in multiple blocks. In contrast, in Maharashtra, pharmaceutical units were concentrated almost entirely in the western third of the state. The Vidarbha region was conspicuously under-represented. This may have contributed to the earlier defeat of the Shiv-Sena led government which did quite poorly in the eastern regions of the state.

However, in MP, there appears to have been a modest (albeit visible) expansion in the industrialization of hitherto under-developed or undeveloped districts. Besides Indore and Bhopal, Gwalior has emerged as a growth magnet for northern MP and Jabalpur for southern MP. In addition, secondary growth clusters have emerged in Nimach, Mandsaur and Ratlam in the extreme west, Satna and Rewa in the north east, Sagar and Ujjain in central MP, and Balaghat and Damoh in southern/eastern MP. Even though substantive industrial growth has not yet encompassed all districts, the impact of development in neighboring districts has given hope to a majority of residents that progress is on the horizon.

In contrast (if one goes by the 2004 pharma survey), Rajasthan suffered from a more skewed and narrow pattern of industrialization. The spatial spread of its industries was noticeably worse than Orissa, AP and MP. Laudable as they were, Vasundhara Raje’s efforts to accelerate industrial development bore fruit primarily in Jaipur and the neighboring districts of Alwar, Kota and Ajmer(and to a lesser extent in Central Rajsthan, and around Sikar, Ganganagar and Bikaner). Although southern Rajasthan experienced much faster growth than before, the relatively slower pace of industrialization in some of the southern (and some western) districts may have disappointed some, and this may have contributed to some disaffection within party ranks as well.

Just as TDP’s Chandrababu Naidu had been punished by the state’s voters for overly Hyderabad-centric growth, Raje may have missed the electoral bus for highly Jaipur-centric growth. In spite of a vastly improved record over her predecessor (Gehlot), Raje paid the price for being unable to direct growth uniformly across the state.

Rajasthan is a state where local (or sub-regional) identities can be very strong and expectations for progress were extremely high. Raje’s hands-off approach to allow industry the full freedom to choose where it wished to invest may not have sat well with voters who wished her to play a more activist role in bringing industry closer to their door-step.

This is an important lesson for all aspiring state politicians. The same factors that played out against Vasundhara Raje this time may well come to the fore again if Gehlot’s approach to government lacks the activism that was expected from Raje. Ridiculed as a developmental zero in his previous term, Gehlot will have to deliver on some very high expectations.

As for the charge that the BJP’s attempt to “communalize” the anti-terror campaign failed, it must be emphasized that rural voters in undeveloped or under-developed blocks probably didn’t care about the issue enough in a state election. The Congress and its allies should not delude themselves in thinking that their abysmal record in fighting terror will have no impact in the general election.

In Delhi, the BJP’s anti-terror campaign fell on deaf ears partly because many of Delhi’s RWA activists felt deeply estranged from the party due to its strong and unconditional affiliation with the traders lobby. Many popular RWA leaders who had distanced themselves from both the BJP and the Congress in the earlier Municipal elections actively campaigned for the Congress this time. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the increased voter turnout helped the Congress, not the BJP.

By promoting a Chief Ministerial candidate who was perceived as insensitive or aloof towards the RWAs, and by sidelining many hard-working women cadres and popular municipal councillers, the BJP was fighting the election with one arm tied behind its back.

The RWAs have emerged as a unique and significant grassroots force in the politics of the city. By and large, the candidates that enjoyed a healthy relationship with the RWAs prevailed. Those critical of Congress policies stayed away but couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a BJP that had acquired the reputation of being adversarial towards the RWA movement.

However, should Sheila Dixit stubbornly persist in foisting foolhardy and unsound schemes such as the BRTS, it is quite likely that the RWA leaders who have swayed the vote in favor of the Congress will themselves lose credibility and the entire foundation of the RWA movement will be undermined.

Residents in East Delhi (who decisively voted Congress) were obviously unfamiliar with the BRTS fiasco in South Delhi. When such traffic nightmares recur elesewhere in the city, the mood of the city may well change, and quite dramatically so.

Voters are hungry for development, but not necessarily for the wrong kind of development.

It may also be noted that while the Congress did very well in terms of winning seats, it lost a considerable share of its previous votes to the BSP which increased its vote share in Delhi to 14%, in MP to roughly 10% and in Rajasthan to 8%. However, this has not yet translated into as many seats or any substantive political influence. Although the BSP has been able to demonstrate quite decisively that it can play the role of a “spoiler” (by drawing upon a shifting bank of protest votes), it has yet to be determined if similar trends will hold in a national election.

While identity politics may be understandably important for Dalits who are systematically denied the benefits that are their due to local corruption, it cannot be emphasized enough that for the BSP to emerge as a credible alternative to the Congress and BJP, it will have to articulate its views on issues that impact not just Dalits but all voters. It will have to feel the pulse of the entire citizenry if it hopes to lead the nation as a whole.

Even as the support of Dalits gives the BSP a certain moral standing, that may not ensure that other voters will give it a blank check on pressing issues of national importance. That will require more than placating some voters with promises of yet more quotas (even as it dodges key issues for fear of offending its Islamic and caste-related vote banks).

Even in terms of meeting the long-term aspirations of its core base, the BSP will have to carefully consider its present stance of (loosely) allying with an idealogically deformed left. Dalits have no real interest in the tired old left slogan of land reforms. The villages are where caste politics emerges in its ugliest and most baneful form. Most Dalits know that (relatively-speaking) cities liberate them and industrial development offers them the best jobs they can hope to find. They have few illusions about any rural “utopia” implied by the program of the left.

As it is, Dalits are typically the first to leave oppressive villages and the very last to return. That is why, the BSP had only very limited interest in supporting village-centric schemes (such as the NREGS) offered by the left.

Instead, the BSP has a far greater stake in rapid and balanced urbanization. As its urban base expands, it may be compelled to look at the urban-rural divide very differently. It may have to fight more forcefully for low-income urban housing and improved amenities in urban ghettoes and slums. These are issues that have been sorely neglected by the left and other so-called “secular” forces.

Unless sections of the left articulate an agenda of urban renewal and planned urbanisation, an alliance with the left is likely to remain one of temporal convenience – hardly the basis of long-term party building.

While the BJP may need to overcome its tendency towards conservatism and excessive economic liberalism, radical upstarts like the BSP may have to think more seriously about issues pertaining to national security and broad civilizational paradigms that extend beyond the immediate interests of its most avid supporters.

As for the Congress, it should not be too buoyed by its victory (by default) in Rajasthan. Instead, it should ponder very deeply over its predeliction for cynical policy manouvers that go against the overall good of the nation.

Not only is it bad politics, in a majority of districts, even the voters aren’t buying.

How Happy Are You?

By M H Ahssan

Have you ever wondered what makes people happy? Why do millionaires often seem wretched when slum-dwellers in Kolkata profess to be content? Here’s what modern science can teach you about turning that frown upside down

It does not look like a picture of the pursuit of happiness. In the photograph, social psychologist Robert Biswas-Diener is sitting on the ground somewhere in Kenya, his back straight, hands in his lap, the fingers of one wrapped fiercely around the opposite wrist. His short-sleeved shirt is half off. A Maasai warrior sits facing him, calmly poking a red-hot stick into Biswas-Diener’s exposed pectoral muscle. Which he did again and again.</