POLITICAL DIARY

NEW DELHI, 18 August 2006

Kaam Haraam Hai

INDIA ON HOLIDAY, ENJOY!

By Poonam I. Kaushish

Enjoy! It’s party time folks. Put it down to mid-monsoon madness. India is on a holiday. The country has come a full circle from the Nehruvian dictum of aaraam haraam hai to today’s maxim kaam haraam hai!

What else can one say about a country where work has largely become a dirty four letter word that has been erased from our collective psyche. All one needs is an excuse and before one can blink a holiday is ours for the asking. It comes in various forms: national, restricted, religious, regional, birth and death anniversaries et al. Perhaps, it has something to do with our laid back attitude dictated by a don’t-care-a-damn thinking and chalta hai outlook!

Consider this month. The Government will be shut for 9 of the 25 working days. The holiday season began on Friday afternoon, 11August. It was a working day. But then nobody was in a mood for work. Followed by the weekly two-day sabbatical Saturday-Sunday. Monday was also a working day. However, with heightened security arrangements for the Independence Day, offices were shut at lunch. Tuesday, 15 August was, of course, Freedom Day and Wednesday Janmashtmi. Thursday and Friday were officially supposed to be working days. But babudom, more or less, decided to take chhutti en block. Casual leave zindabad! And another weekly off on Saturday and Sunday. Work resumed only on Monday 21 August. Asserted a senior Babu: “The Gods seem to have joined hands to give us this bonanza!”

If the bureaucracy can do it, our Parliamentarians can do one better! In their collective wisdom, our Right Honourables of both the Houses have been giving themselves a break virtually every second day during the on-going monsoon session. Over a ‘mole’ in the PMO, leak of the Pathak report, ‘sense of the House’ resolution on the Indo-US nuclear deal, ‘tainted’ ministers et al. Never mind that these “adjournments” have virtually washed out the session. Who cares if crores of the tax payer’s money goes down the drain. Nevertheless, rued an MP: “My wallet will be lighter by some thousands of rupees, which I would have got as daily allowance.”

Questionably, can a poor nation afford this luxury of aaraam, aaraam and more aaraam?  Can one live life king-size while fighting for survival? Don’t holidays eat into our national productivity and sap economic strength? Play havoc with the timetables of schools and colleges? What about the crores lost in trading when banks and markets shut down? Yet another day off means a slow-down in policy implementation. Each of these nibble away at the legislative, educational, economic and executive fabric of the nation.    

Tragically, the general attitude is best reflected in the Punjabi saying: ki pharak penda hai. (What difference does it make?) If the powers-that-be cared, we wouldn’t be working less than half a year. Out of 365 days, the Government works a five-day week. This translates into 104 week-end holidays. Earned leave 30 days, medical leave 56, casual leave 12, gazetted holidays 17 and restricted ones 30. A grand total of 249 days of relaxation or recuperation, leaving just 116 working days! For women there is an additional 90 days of maternity leave.

Should we simply shrug our secular shoulders and pin our endless holidays down to an occupational hazard of a multicultural heritage? No. The culprit is none other than our bankrupt politicians who, in a burst of competitive populism announce holidays as a sop to their vote-banks. Remember, V.P. Singh as the Prime Minister went overboard and announced Prophet Mohammed’s birthday a holiday from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the Independence Day. Never mind that in no Muslim country is it listed as a holiday. What to say of former Prime Minister Vajpayee. To prove his pro-Dalit credentials, he declared Ambedkar’s birth centenary on  April 14, 2000 as a national holiday.

Not only that. When national leaders die, the Government promptly turns these grave occasions into a farce by declaring a holiday. People gladly take off. Work is suspended and gaiety, not gloom, takes over. Not for them the fact that on such occasions sombre reflections would be more appropriate. And considering the surfeit of so-called national leaders, this has become a rule, rather than an exception. More. Different regions have still more holidays — the South, for example, shuts down for Pongal and Onam, Bengal closes five days for Durga Puja and Maharashtra for Ganesh Chaturthi.

True, none can fault the desire to break free from the rough and tumble of contemporary existence. However, as the saying goes there are no free lunches in life. Every holiday costs the exchequer around Rs 200 crore by way of industrial loss and  business transactions.  Which works out to over Rs 6000 crore a year. Why is it that nobody seems to think about this problem and come up with a solution? Why, for instance, can’t the Government and banks adopt the principle most private companies follow, of instituting sectional holidays or allowing compensatory offs? Simply because work is at the bottom of the priority list.

Several efforts have been made in the past. But all came to naught. In fact, the Fifth Pay Commission suggested just two holidays against the list of 17 gazetted and 30 restricted holidays. However, its recommendations were rubbished. The same treatment was meted out to the recommendations of the Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) in 1971. It recommended even deleting Independence Day from the list of holidays. Its observation? “It appears to be unnecessary to declare holidays on both Republic Day and Independency Day.  Since both of them have more or less similar significance, an extra holiday means an extra outlay of the order of Rs 11 crore for the purpose of maintaining the level of output.” The amount has snow balled.

The ARC was shocked to note that the system of two restricted holidays in a year to suit the convenience of small religious groups had been converted into two extra holidays for all. A distressed ARC noted: “We must not forget that the factors that build up motivation in a social system as a whole are also the same that build up motivation in a small sub-system of that social system such as a government department or a business firm. A sub-system cannot escape the influence of the larger social system.”

This is not the only instance of non-work trend. The normal working day in Government offices is of eight hours, with a one-hour lunch break. But from the moment the employees leisurely drift into their offices (mostly late) enter their offices, tea time begins and continues every hour before lunch and again thereafter till the clock strikes pack-up time. They have ‘work’ in other offices. The commuter has his plea of arriving late and leaving early. And yet, there is no dearth of overtime, hogs trying to put in work beyond normal hours for a little money. French leave apart, there are Roman holidays---long lunch sojourns with pretty PAs or other woman colleagues. Extending over two long hours.

Britain has a five-day week and eight and a half days of public and ‘privilege’ holidays. The annual leave is a minimum of three weeks to a maximum of six weeks. In  Germany, government offices observe 14 holidays a year, besides the week-end. A government official is entitled to a holiday varying from three to six weeks a year depending on his age.  Japan has 12 public holidays. Government employees are entitled to 20 days earned leave a year. And in China it is a mere five. But a five-day week everywhere means five days of hard work and not work with thick layers of leisure and absenteeism, as in India.

Alas, we Indians yearn for el Dorado. Everyone wants to get rich quick---in a jiffy. But we are not prepared to lift a finger for it. Should a government or an organisation give itself a long week-end, if the five-day week fails to deliver or ensure punctuality and regular attendance?  It is time once more to decide whether or not we mean business--- and cry a halt to the holiday scandal.---INFA

  (Copyright, India News & Feature Alliance)

POLITICAL DIARY

NEW DELHI, 17 May 2008

Muslim Development Zones

WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF US?

By Poonam I Kaushish

India’s secularism has become a byword for minority appeasement. Being hawked by the UPA Sarkar in cheap polypacks of “pyare mussalman, what more can I do for you,” a la Sachar report. Anyone questioning this is promptly dubbed a fundamentalist. Bluntly, secular translates into being pro-Muslim. What’s happened to our saare jahan se accha Hindustan hamara?

Three cheers for the Delhi High Court for spotlighting an issue of fundamental importance to the future of India’s unity and integrity as a secular democracy. By raising many searching questions on the Centre’s actual intention behind setting up the Sachar panel.  Sadly, these issues have not received due attention of the country, Parliament and the media. Only one paper carried it on front page, while others chose to bury it inside. What happened deserves to be recalled extensively.

It all happened on last Thursday when the High Court took up a PIL filed by Rashtriya Mukti Morcha, alleging that the Sachar report on the social, economic and educational status of the Muslim community and the Government's follow up action was unconstitutional. The two-member Bench of Justices T S Thakur and Siddharth Mridul pointedly asked the Additional Solicitor General (ASG), “Is this meant to appease some community? .... A lot of money is spent in a welfare state, is it that you (Centre) spend it only for one minority community?”

Interrupting the ASG’s briefing on the “targeted intervention” intended by the Centre, including basic amenities and job opportunities for “90 identified minority concentration districts and opening of more branches by public sector banks in Muslim concentrated areas,” Justice Thakur asked, “When you say in your Action Taken Report on the Sachar recommendations that we will spend more for this minority community... does it mean that you will spend less for the major community?”

Replied the ASG, “The Sachar Committee report is for all. The Muslims were more in print in the report because they were ‘India’s biggest minority community.’ Of course, there are certain Muslim dominated areas where there is no development at all.” (A justification oft-repeated by the Government from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh downwards. Clearly, the UPA has done what Jinnah could never have imagined in his lifetime, i.e. creating 90 mini-Pakistan’s in the name of Muslim development zones in secular Bharat.)

To this, the Bench said: “So are you saying there are no Hindu slums? Tell us, in our Constitutional framework, can a welfare scheme say we concentrate only on the benefit of one community and not for all? Reminding the ASG that “we live in a welfare state”, the Bench observed: “There are Sikhs, Muslims and Christians here... Why are you not doing it (welfare measures) for the majority community? If you intend to fight poverty, cut across religions and communities and fight. Never mind whether it is a Hindu poor or a Muslim poor.”

Even as the ASG assured the Court that “special care is taken of all minorities,” he however, drew the line by adding that “political issues be best left to the public to decide during elections. Courts cannot decide”. (Whatever happened to upholding the Fundamental Right of Equality for all before the law? Does the law allow discrimination?)

Justifiably, earning a sharp rap from the Court. “You are trying to please one community. Poverty is the common enemy. You should fight against poverty rather than saying that you would fight against poverty for one community only.” In addition, the judges queried, “You are saying that more money be spent for one minority community. Should it not cut across caste and religion? Does the Sachar committee say that all facilities are available to other communities? Such issues should not be decided on the basis of emotions.”

But the ASG stood his ground. Rejecting the Bench’s view that the government was giving any preferential treatment to one community, he asserted, “If out of five children, one is neglected then can it not be provided the special treatment?” (Never mind that the four other children are being neglected simply because it doesn’t help our secular netagan’s vote bank.) In a sharp response, the judges observed, “Does it mean that drinking water facilities are available to the majority community and no person from it live in slums.”

But this is not the end. The Court also put Justice Sachar on the mat for his report. (Alas, for reasons best known to our media barons, the Bench’s searching questions to the former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court went largely unreported.) When asked searing questions, Sachar went on the backfoot and defended his report on moral grounds. “The report was prepared only after the committee members agreed to prepare it. As a moral person, if I think what I am doing is improper, I won't do it."

"You (Government) are trying to please one community and this is where the rot lies," the Court asserted. Replied Sachar, "I have done what I was asked to do. I just prepared the report and submitted it to the Government." Scandalously, the former Chief Justice refused to be dragged into the debate, and washed his hands of it by asserting, "I won't comment on my report. I am not a lawyer in the court. You should ask the Prime Minister." (How can Sachar not take the responsibility and conveniently pass on the buck given that it was his report?)

Recall, the “major decisions” proposed by the Government, as per the summary text of the Sachar report submitted in Court, include improving deficient civic and economic opportunities in “338 identified towns and cities with a substantial population of minorities, including Muslims”, an inter-ministerial group to monitor a programme to better their skill and entrepreneurial development, expand the outreach of upper primary schools, particularly for Muslim girls, bank loans et al.

Interestingly, another related PIL by the Patriots Forum in the Delhi High Court too sought to know whether the Sachar report had not treated the Muslims “in a manner inconsistent with the treatment given to other recognised minorities.” Arguably, doesn’t the report give rise to racial compartmentalization? Promise the rise of political Islam in India?

So caught up is our polity in brazen Muslim appeasement that it refuses to look at crucial data that in 9 States the Muslims were educationally more advanced than other communities. Besides, Sachar ignored four globally accepted human development indicators — infant and child mortality, degree of urbanisation, and life expectancy at birth — where Muslims were better off than Hindus. Also, their lower per capita income was due to higher population growth rate and lower work input by their women.

Scandalously, in its quest for regaining the votes of the Muslims for its political gain, the Congress conveniently bypassed Parliament by accepting the Sachar report without any debate in both the Houses. The High Court has sounded a warning. The time has come for the country to debate the issue threadbare. Will the powers-that-be listen? Or will they allow vote-bank politics to continue and play havoc with India’s unity and integrity? – INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

POLITICAL DIARY

New Delhi, 10 May 2008

Women’s Reservation Bill

NO MORE BELAN Vs PAGRI, PLEASE

By Poonam I Kaushish

Decency took a day off in Parliament last week. When a section of the male MPs’ stripped the Rajya Sabha of all etiquette and propriety. And bared their fangs against the Women’s Reservation Bill providing for 33 per cent reservation in Parliament and the State legislatures by lunging for Law Minister Bharadwaj, snatching his paper and tearing it up. Leaving it to the modern day Eves to retaliate and save him. Never mind if in this strange belan versus pagri fight it debased Parliament. Leaving one flabbergasted and gasping!

What is it about this Bill that inflames the right Honourables to lose their head and even take recourse to violence? And, why has it taken nine long years to just re-introduce the Bill a third time over? Why is this final hurdle so hard to cross? Is it just a pretense, a concession to humour a pocketful of educated women with the Bill, which is meaningless to the large majority?

Clearly, the ding-dong battle said it all. The women’s reservation bill is once again headed for cold storage in the standing committee on personnel, public grievances, law and justice. Blame it on our male-centric mindset. Any leeway given to women is termed as an affront to manhood. Followers of God Adonis, they hate the idea of reducing themselves to a situation wherein behind every successful woman stands a man. Right from Adam and Eve, to the Sati Pratha, the time when Raja Ram Mohan Roy initiated the process of unshackling women from male bondage, there has been stringent resistance at every level.

Even now the introduction is half-hearted, but it is politically correct to do so. After all, in the cut-throat business of politics of appeasement, 50 per cent of the electorate is crucial. The torch bearers of the anti-women brigade is led by our “made in India” trio of Mulayam, Laloo and Mayawati who revel in their crudest best to oppose all talk of reservation till such time as their vote banks --- the OBCs and the minorities --- are given a quota within this quota. No matter, that their track record of women representation within the existing SC/ST quotas is zilch. And never mind that they are among the worst in gender indicators - maternal mortality, women's literacy, etc in Bihar and UP.

Both the Congress and the BJP are grinding a different axe. Notwithstanding the right noises, they are simply doffing their hat to the cause of women’s empowerment than in actually seeing the law through. Besides, there are several spoilsports to put a spoke in the wheel. In fact, they are confident that the "OBC block" would stall the Bill. Thus, they support the legislation in public, certain that it would never become law.

Those openly opposing reservations argue that it would only bring the urban elite women to power. Hogwash. Remember, no quota has ever seen a homogenous representation. But even if the argument were justified, are we to believe that Indian women would like to be represented by the Mulayam’s and Laloo’s than by their urban sisters? Jayalalithaa's AIADMK is far more women-friendly than any Bihari or UP Government.

Look at the irony. India’s most powerful politician today is a women, many women have adorned the Chief Ministers kursi and thousands others head village Panchayats. Yet all attempts to increase the fairer sex’s presence in Parliament and State legislatures have miserably failed. Women account for less than 10 per cent of both Houses of Parliament.

In fact, women participation in electoral politics has remained more or less stagnant in successive Lok Sabhas. It ranges between 19 and 47 MPs: The twelfth Lok Sabha had 43 woman MPs (7.6 per cent), eleventh 40 (7.3 per cent), the ninth 28 (5 per cent), eighth eight per cent and the sixth had the lowest number of 19 women members, representing barely 3.4 per cent of the House. Also, our record for sending women to Parliament is among the worst in the world. In a list of 135 countries, India stands at a grand 105th position.

What is the reason for such poor women representation? Is it attitudinal inclination, the fair sex’s abhorrence for the rough and tumble of politics, lack of opportunities or purely male dominance? All this and more. If the 60s ushered in an era of free sex, burning the bra typified the emancipated 70s, the 80s measured equality with right to abortion and the 90s replaced rights and equality with empowerment.

In fact, the status of women has seen an evolutionary change over the centuries. Every generation and decade has tried to move one step closer towards eradication of gender discrimination. But as a woman activist asserted, “Women are slaves to men. To cook, feed, mother and warm their beds”. And this persistence of gender inequality manifests from the low female-male ration of 0.93, one of the lowest in the world. The preference for boys in fertility decision and the neglect and death of a girl child, gender gaps in literacy, restrictive property rights etc. lead the deficit of women in a male-dominated society.

Arguably, it is precisely the gender distinction that results in lack of women participation in politics, governance and economic activity. The Bill on reservation in legislatures will only help bring women into the political mainstream and give them tangible political and economic power in the context of the emerging paradigm, assert the feminists.

It is indisputable that there is a paucity of strong women in politics with Party bosses often being reluctant to trust them with handling the rowdy business of winning elections. There is also a certain neglect of women issues in most elected bodies. But the moot point is: Will this Bill correct the centuries-old imbalances and stigma against women? Will increased participation of women in the political process lead to less female infanticide, fewer dowry deaths, bride burning and trampling of female aspirations.

Experience shows that no amount of legislation has ended gender discrimination. Stringent laws against sex discrimination have not led to any decrease in crimes against a woman. Times out of number, the culprits go scot-free or, at best, get set off with light punishment. Empowerment of women has to come through the natural evolution of society. Instruments like education and family planning should be used to end feminine poverty along with legislation from the top. Not just physical and outward application, but mental acceptance that both males and females are on an equal footing.

On the whole, it is a good idea to have more women than less. But the danger is that gender politics at times leads to a ferocious brand of political Puritanism. One hopes this Bill will not end up as an exercise in competitive, reckless populism at its worst. Our leaders need to recognize that inequalities do exist and should be rectified. Simply to shrug one’s shoulder and assert, “reservation, not today sweetie,” is a cop out! ---- INFA

(Copyright India News & Feature Alliance)

ROUND THE WORLD

New Delhi, 19 May 2008

Transnational Terror Mounting

MAKING   IB  ACCOUNTABLE

By Dr. Monika Chansoria

(School of International Studies, JNU)

Terrorist bombings quivered India once again when the tourist city of Jaipur was rocked by a series of seven bombs that detonated a few minutes apart from each other on May 13, 2008. Killing at least 80 people and leaving scores severely wounded while transforming the ‘pink city’ into scenes of carnage. Wherein twisted debris and pools of blood on the streets narrated the ghastly act committed by the perpetrators of terror.

Although no particular terrorist group came forward and accepted responsibility for these blasts, however, a diminutively known group called the Indian Mujahideen has claimed responsibility for the terror attacks. It sent an e-mail declaring ‘open war’ against India in retaliation ‘for 60 years of Muslim persecution and for the country’s support of US policies.’ The group said it targeted Jaipur “to blow the tourism structure and demolish the faith” and further warned of more attacks in the country.

Nonetheless, the Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, Prakash Jaiswal swiftly stated, “One can’t rule out the involvement of a foreign power.” This statement manifestly referred to Pakistan and the Islamic militant groups that India accuses its neighbor of backing incessantly.

According to sources in the central intelligence agencies, apparently, the serial blasts in Jaipur bear the imprint of a well-coordinated strike with signs of the involvement of three transnational terrorist organizations — Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HuJI), Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and possibly, the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

Importantly, the Jaipur explosions bear uncanny similarity to the sporadic bomb attacks in Faizabad, Varanasi and Lucknow in 2007 caused by explosives strapped to bicycles as also other parts of the country in recent months. Incidentally, the prime suspect HuJI, is also the primary suspect in the October 2007 blasts in the Sufi shrine city of Ajmer.

Recall, the HuJI, was established in 1992 with reported assistance from Osama bin Laden’s International Islamic Front. The group operates in Bangladesh from the coastal area stretching from the port city of Chittagong south through to the Myanmar border. Crucially, the HuJI cadres allegedly also infiltrate frequently into the eastern corridor of India to maintain contacts with other terrorist and subversive outfits of the region. Notwithstanding, the Bangladesh Government officially banning the HUJI in October 2005.

This Islamic terror group is also believed to be having links with Pakistan with the outfit’s ‘operations commander’ Mufti Abdul Hannan, admitting to having passed out of the Gouhardanga Madrasa in Pakistan after his arrest in October 2005. In addition, police records in Gopalganj district also state that Hannan was in fact, trained in Peshawar and subsequently sent to Afghanistan to fight the erstwhile Soviet Army.

Moreover, the HuJI maintains links with terrorist groups operating in India’s North-East, including the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA). The HuJI is purportedly running some of ULFA’s camps situated in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh along the border of Tripura.

The US State Department labeled the HuJI as a foreign terrorist organisation (FTO) as recently as March 2008 and accordingly all the US financial institutions were required to freeze assets held by the HuJI. Washington previously put the outfit on the list of ‘Other Terrorist Organisations’ in 2003.

A press release to this effect by the US State Department said, “The leader of HuJI signed the February 1998 fatwa sponsored by Osama bin Laden that declared American civilians to be legitimate targets for attack.” Thereafter, HuJI has been implicated in a number of terrorist attacks in Bangladesh and abroad.

Furthermore, it was reported that the HuJI supplied grenades to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba to carry out attacks in India earlier. On his arrest, the HuJI leader Abu Zandal confessed that the outfit had sent several consignments of grenades to the LeT operating in India until 2004.

Therefore, the suspected involvement of HuJI does not entirely eliminate the Lashker-e-Taiba or Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) angle altogether. In that HuJI’s cadres have often been trained in terror camps across the border in Pakistan. The HuJI and Lashkar have scores of sleeper cells all over India ready to strike on direction from outside. Lately, the HuJI is said have established several sleeper cells across UP, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and even Rajasthan.

Transnational terrorism and transnational crime are being perpetrated largely by non-state actors across or beyond the political borders of a single State. Most Governments respond to international terrorism at a tactical level and resultantly, even after decades of combating terrorism, the conventional response of either eliminating or apprehending terrorists have not deterred terrorism.

This primarily could be attributed to the failure of the affected nations to obliterate the transnational support structures of terrorist groups. Transnational terrorist groups have established support infrastructures overseas where they are beyond the operational reach and domestic jurisdiction.

The need of the hour is to pull up the intelligence agencies since the Director  General of Police, A.S. Gill reprehensibly admitted, “There was no [intelligence] report of these attacks.” In addition, there has to be an advanced emphasis on intelligence sharing between the agencies so as to confront the transnational terror mechanism.

According to former Intelligence Bureau Joint Director and Chief of Police Intelligence in West Bengal Amiyo Samanta, “Until we modernize our intelligence gathering and hold it publicly accountable, we cannot win the fight against terrorism.” Evidently, India’s counter terrorism efforts need to be reassessed in that these attacks would witness just yet another inquisition. Time-bound accountability ought to be mandatory and the intelligence radar needs to be sharpened. 

The terror attacks in Jaipur are the latest demonstration of the fact that the wings of transnational terror are fast spreading throughout India and are not just concentrated in and around Kashmir. Notably, cross-pollination among various transnational terror groups makes it difficult to separate them and the latest attacks in Jaipur could well be a manifestation of the same. ---- INFA

(Copyright India News & Feature Alliance)