Showing posts with label asian age. Show all posts
Showing posts with label asian age. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
An Extreme Case is not an Exception
Arun Shourie
That an area as large as Bihar should sink into quicksand is alarming enough by itself. But one of our problems is that collapse in Bihar no longer shakes us: "O, that is Bihar," we shrug.
Bihar is an extreme case, yes. But the point about an extreme case is that it is but one end of a continuum. Bihar is far from being an exception. Even the most prosperous states today exhibit the same symptoms. Not just Bihar, but Punjab too is having difficulty paying just the salaries of government staff. Not just Bihar, but state after state -- Rajasthan is the example of the month -- has defaulted on the repayments it has to make to the Centre. In Assam�s case, all financial transactions had to be halted, and the treasury had to be closed last week, as the state had no funds to meet even the day�s liabilities. It isn�t just that almost all of plan expenditure of Bihar is now financed through central funds, that is so in the case of most states: Rakesh Mohan, the director of the NCAER, draws attention to a telling figure -- as recently as the Sixth Plan, balances from current revenues financed 40 per cent of state plans, in the Eighth Plan their contribution was zero, today it is a substantial negative. It isn�t just that state enterprises in Bihar are in a woeful condition, they are in more or less that condition across the country: another figure that Rakesh Mohan mentions -- state enterprises were projected to contribute Rs 4,000 crore to the financing of the Eighth Plan, their actual contribution was minus Rs 2,723 crore.
All sorts of devices have been contrived by the Centre and states to camouflage defaults by state governments, all sorts of devices have been fabricated by states to divert central funds meant for capital expenditure to pay wages and salaries. A senior functionary was educating me the other day to the mystery behind plan projects remaining incomplete for years and years on end in state after state. There is more than lethargy, he explained. Under our system of accounting, so long as the project is a continuing one, salaries and wages of the staff working on it can be paid out of plan funds; once it is completed, these have to be paid out of the state�s own funds. Unable to pay even salary and wage bills of its employees, state after state keeps that last mile of the road incomplete...
And finances themselves are but a symptom. Entire systems have fallen apart. A former deputy comptroller and auditor general, C.B. Kumar, points out that of the 992 state government companies, the accounts of 783 companies are in arrears -- up to 10 years. In the case of many of them, accounts have not been finalised for even one year since their inception.
And the finances of states, the evaporation of control and supervision mechanisms in state owned companies -- these too are but symptoms. The malaise extends far beyond states, far beyond governments. "Non-performing assets" -- a euphemism to cover up moneys which have been given, handed out on collateral considerations -- now exceed Rs 43,000 crore: that feat has been accomplished not by state governments but by our "commercial" banks. The companies that have vanished with over Rs 20,000 crore belonging to small depositors are not government companies, they are companies floated by private entrepreneurs. Similarly, while the securities scam showed up the degree of morality and vigilance in our banks and financial institutions, could it have remained undetected if a profession wholly outside the state structure -- chartered accountants -- had been doing its job?
In a word, unless we wake up, Bihar is not just an extreme case, it is the future. And the condition to which Pakistan has sunk is a live warning of what happens when such problems are neglected.
Everything else points to the same urgency. Time does not stop just because we are preoccupied with our problems: we talk of the "21st century;" it is five weeks away. The world does not stop because we are busy battling the next caste: technologies continue to replace each other every two-three years; per capita income in China is already double that of India, but with China growing at 10-11 per cent, and us stuck at 6 per cent, the gap between us and them doubles every 14 years -- and the per capita income is just an indicator: military capability, and much else is subsumed in it.
Nor do our problems abate because we are busy sorting out our politics. In the last three-and-a-half years when our politicians were busy bringing down and installing governments, our population increased by over five crore. Even in the six months between the ouster of the Vajpayee government and the installation of the present Vajpayee government, our numbers would have increased by over 70 lakh. We must, therefore, act, as the Buddha would say, "with the urgency of a man whose hair is on fire". The allied point is just as obvious: there is no discord on these issues. Indeed, I believe there is consensus on almost all the issues which are at all within the realm of the possible. When liberalisation was launched, how the critics lampooned it. But where they were in power, those very persons and their parties were taking pride in proceeding on that route even faster than the central government. Similarly, when the critics acquired office at the Centre, they continued those very policies.
That is a large part of the problem today: on almost every practicable matter there is consensus on what should be done, everyone also sees that those steps should be taken forthwith, but when one party takes them, the other shouts and screams, and puts obstacles. So that nothing is allowed to proceed -- except by fits and starts. The same danger lurks today. The economic decisions which will be taken now are ones that carry forward the same process which successive governments have been furthering for a decade. But because this government will be announcing those policies, others will stall them.
There is a conviction -- which all parties need to outgrow -- that because one is in Opposition, one�s job is to oppose, to choke whatever whoever is in government is trying to do. Precisely because it does not have a better idea on the matter, the party out of office feels compelled to contrive differences. Often, a completely unrelated issue is made the occasion for blocking everything. Notice the minatory statements which Congress leaders have been making about Rajiv�s name in the Bofors� chargesheet.
Assume for a moment that there is ground for a genuine difference of opinion on the matter -- I do not see any ground either in law or fact, but assume that there is. How does that difference on this particular matter justify throttling legislation on, say, economic reforms? Even countries deal with each other on some issues in spite of there being sharp differences on other issues. Indeed, many who will today be arguing -- within the Congress, say -- against cooperating with the government on any issue are ones who, when it comes to Pakistan, are most energetic in arguing that we must keep identifying areas on which we can engage it in joint action in spite of what it is doing in Kashmir, and the rest. But when it comes to cooperating with the government of their own country, even when it seeks to further policies they had themselves initiated, Congressmen will think it perfectly in order that they hold back till it interferes in the judicial process and has a document which is before the courts altered in the way they specify. As all parties are in office somewhere or the other in the country, and as all of them are therefore disabled by such conceptions of what the proper role for an Opposition is, all have cause to revise their conduct. The cure liable to be more effective is for people to be alert, notice who is stalling essential legislation or policies, and for what reason, and punish him accordingly.
Governments too would do well to change their ways. At least in five respects. All too often, they lose interest in a remedy the moment it has been enacted. Mr N. Vittal, the chief vigilance commissioner, gives a telling example. In 1988, Parliament passed the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act. It was acclaimed to be a decisive step in tackling corruption -- indeed, so urgent and vital were its provisions acclaimed to be that they were first introduced by way of an Ordinance. Clause 5 of the Act specified that a procedure would be prescribed for acquiring property under the Act. Eleven years have gone by, no procedure has been prescribed. Governments have forgotten all about the Act. And not just governments: the other day when I referred to the Act and its fate in the Rajya Sabha, it was evident that MPs too had not bothered to check up on what they had passed. The first point therefore is: follow through on what you get through Parliament, follow through on the schemes you launch.
The second lesson, equally elementary, is about existing institutions. Every government feels impelled to launch new schemes, to set up new institutions. But the need today is to energise existing institutions. It is good that the government will be introducing legislation to set up the Lok Pal: the bill has been in the works for 30 years, and this will be the seventh version of the bill. So, it is good that at last the law will be passed, and the institution will be set up. But just as important is to activate the Lok Ayuktas: in state after state, they have been rendered moribund. Why not call a conference of existing and past Lok Ayuktas, garner their proposals to make the institution functional, and create public opinion for those changes to be enacted? Similarly, I was astonished to learn the other day that the comptroller and auditor general has a staff of 20,000 persons. They produce over a hundred audit reports every year. These run into 15,000 to 20,000 pages. They are packed with details -- often, as we have seen in the case of Bihar, with details of the most alarming kind. But can any one recall a single consequence which has followed as a result of these prodigious labours? The cure would not be to set up yet another institution, but to get together with present and past CAGs and take steps which would make the work of this institution fruitful. The third lesson is about the new institutions we set up. Unable to improve existing institutions, we set up some new one. Unable to get existing courts to speed up, we set up special courts, unable to get states to act reasonably on sharing river waters we enact the inter-state river water disputes law. But the manner we provide for the new institution to function is exactly the manner which has paralysed the old institution. The procedural regulations that special courts must adhere by are exactly the same as the regulations which clog existing courts. The personnel who man the inter-state river dispute tribunals are just the same as the ones that man existing courts: they bring to their new task the same approach, the same fixation on legalisms, on the date of this notification as against that one which hobble our courts. For the new institution to be different, its personnel, the procedural rules that are to govern its functioning, its entire ethos have to be radically different.
Fourth, the solutions must be on an altogether different scale, they must be of an altogether different kind than the ones to which we naturally gravitate. The backlog in courts? As a great concession we agree to the setting up of a dozen courts. But the Chief Justice was mentioning the other day that the requests which are pending for additional courts already total over 4,500. Setting up a dozen more courts -- and that too after years and years of the files going up and down -- is as good as doing nothing. Similarly, to get the inter-state water disputes machinery out of the current rut, we need to man the tribunals with persons whose entire approach will be different: who will craft design solutions rather than pronounce awards that hinge on legalisms.
And when we do alight on a solution, as Montek Ahluwalia with his vast experience points out, we must not look upon it as set in stone. That is the fifth lesson. As new technology beckoned, a new telecom policy was announced in 1994. But technology changed so fast that a newer policy was required by 1998. The steps which have been taken under it have already had to be altered twice. But technology is continuing to evolve at a dizzying pace: the technology to transmit voice over Internet with distortion is almost at hand; you will soon be able, therefore, to talk to persons overseas at the cost of a local call; that will devastate the finances of existing long distance operators. And so we can be certain that an entirely new telecom policy will be required three-four years from now. If we hold up that new policy on the old supposition that the existing policy had been announced just a short while ago, or if allegation-mongering inhibits governments from attempting new formulations, we will be enlarging the gap between us and the rest of the world.
Hence: when you pass a law, when you set up an institution, look back and see how it is working; instead of setting up new institutions, where possible energize existing ones; when you set up new institutions, ensure that their personnel, their operating procedures, their entire thinking is new; think anew repeatedly, and each time at a speed which will, at the least, match the progress of technology.
The Asian Age
November 12 1999
An Extreme Case is not an Exception
Arun Shourie
That an area as large as Bihar should sink into quicksand is alarming enough by itself. But one of our problems is that collapse in Bihar no longer shakes us: "O, that is Bihar," we shrug.
Bihar is an extreme case, yes. But the point about an extreme case is that it is but one end of a continuum. Bihar is far from being an exception. Even the most prosperous states today exhibit the same symptoms. Not just Bihar, but Punjab too is having difficulty paying just the salaries of government staff. Not just Bihar, but state after state -- Rajasthan is the example of the month -- has defaulted on the repayments it has to make to the Centre. In Assam�s case, all financial transactions had to be halted, and the treasury had to be closed last week, as the state had no funds to meet even the day�s liabilities. It isn�t just that almost all of plan expenditure of Bihar is now financed through central funds, that is so in the case of most states: Rakesh Mohan, the director of the NCAER, draws attention to a telling figure -- as recently as the Sixth Plan, balances from current revenues financed 40 per cent of state plans, in the Eighth Plan their contribution was zero, today it is a substantial negative. It isn�t just that state enterprises in Bihar are in a woeful condition, they are in more or less that condition across the country: another figure that Rakesh Mohan mentions -- state enterprises were projected to contribute Rs 4,000 crore to the financing of the Eighth Plan, their actual contribution was minus Rs 2,723 crore.
All sorts of devices have been contrived by the Centre and states to camouflage defaults by state governments, all sorts of devices have been fabricated by states to divert central funds meant for capital expenditure to pay wages and salaries. A senior functionary was educating me the other day to the mystery behind plan projects remaining incomplete for years and years on end in state after state. There is more than lethargy, he explained. Under our system of accounting, so long as the project is a continuing one, salaries and wages of the staff working on it can be paid out of plan funds; once it is completed, these have to be paid out of the state�s own funds. Unable to pay even salary and wage bills of its employees, state after state keeps that last mile of the road incomplete...
And finances themselves are but a symptom. Entire systems have fallen apart. A former deputy comptroller and auditor general, C.B. Kumar, points out that of the 992 state government companies, the accounts of 783 companies are in arrears -- up to 10 years. In the case of many of them, accounts have not been finalised for even one year since their inception.
And the finances of states, the evaporation of control and supervision mechanisms in state owned companies -- these too are but symptoms. The malaise extends far beyond states, far beyond governments. "Non-performing assets" -- a euphemism to cover up moneys which have been given, handed out on collateral considerations -- now exceed Rs 43,000 crore: that feat has been accomplished not by state governments but by our "commercial" banks. The companies that have vanished with over Rs 20,000 crore belonging to small depositors are not government companies, they are companies floated by private entrepreneurs. Similarly, while the securities scam showed up the degree of morality and vigilance in our banks and financial institutions, could it have remained undetected if a profession wholly outside the state structure -- chartered accountants -- had been doing its job?
In a word, unless we wake up, Bihar is not just an extreme case, it is the future. And the condition to which Pakistan has sunk is a live warning of what happens when such problems are neglected.
Everything else points to the same urgency. Time does not stop just because we are preoccupied with our problems: we talk of the "21st century;" it is five weeks away. The world does not stop because we are busy battling the next caste: technologies continue to replace each other every two-three years; per capita income in China is already double that of India, but with China growing at 10-11 per cent, and us stuck at 6 per cent, the gap between us and them doubles every 14 years -- and the per capita income is just an indicator: military capability, and much else is subsumed in it.
Nor do our problems abate because we are busy sorting out our politics. In the last three-and-a-half years when our politicians were busy bringing down and installing governments, our population increased by over five crore. Even in the six months between the ouster of the Vajpayee government and the installation of the present Vajpayee government, our numbers would have increased by over 70 lakh. We must, therefore, act, as the Buddha would say, "with the urgency of a man whose hair is on fire". The allied point is just as obvious: there is no discord on these issues. Indeed, I believe there is consensus on almost all the issues which are at all within the realm of the possible. When liberalisation was launched, how the critics lampooned it. But where they were in power, those very persons and their parties were taking pride in proceeding on that route even faster than the central government. Similarly, when the critics acquired office at the Centre, they continued those very policies.
That is a large part of the problem today: on almost every practicable matter there is consensus on what should be done, everyone also sees that those steps should be taken forthwith, but when one party takes them, the other shouts and screams, and puts obstacles. So that nothing is allowed to proceed -- except by fits and starts. The same danger lurks today. The economic decisions which will be taken now are ones that carry forward the same process which successive governments have been furthering for a decade. But because this government will be announcing those policies, others will stall them.
There is a conviction -- which all parties need to outgrow -- that because one is in Opposition, one�s job is to oppose, to choke whatever whoever is in government is trying to do. Precisely because it does not have a better idea on the matter, the party out of office feels compelled to contrive differences. Often, a completely unrelated issue is made the occasion for blocking everything. Notice the minatory statements which Congress leaders have been making about Rajiv�s name in the Bofors� chargesheet.
Assume for a moment that there is ground for a genuine difference of opinion on the matter -- I do not see any ground either in law or fact, but assume that there is. How does that difference on this particular matter justify throttling legislation on, say, economic reforms? Even countries deal with each other on some issues in spite of there being sharp differences on other issues. Indeed, many who will today be arguing -- within the Congress, say -- against cooperating with the government on any issue are ones who, when it comes to Pakistan, are most energetic in arguing that we must keep identifying areas on which we can engage it in joint action in spite of what it is doing in Kashmir, and the rest. But when it comes to cooperating with the government of their own country, even when it seeks to further policies they had themselves initiated, Congressmen will think it perfectly in order that they hold back till it interferes in the judicial process and has a document which is before the courts altered in the way they specify. As all parties are in office somewhere or the other in the country, and as all of them are therefore disabled by such conceptions of what the proper role for an Opposition is, all have cause to revise their conduct. The cure liable to be more effective is for people to be alert, notice who is stalling essential legislation or policies, and for what reason, and punish him accordingly.
Governments too would do well to change their ways. At least in five respects. All too often, they lose interest in a remedy the moment it has been enacted. Mr N. Vittal, the chief vigilance commissioner, gives a telling example. In 1988, Parliament passed the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act. It was acclaimed to be a decisive step in tackling corruption -- indeed, so urgent and vital were its provisions acclaimed to be that they were first introduced by way of an Ordinance. Clause 5 of the Act specified that a procedure would be prescribed for acquiring property under the Act. Eleven years have gone by, no procedure has been prescribed. Governments have forgotten all about the Act. And not just governments: the other day when I referred to the Act and its fate in the Rajya Sabha, it was evident that MPs too had not bothered to check up on what they had passed. The first point therefore is: follow through on what you get through Parliament, follow through on the schemes you launch.
The second lesson, equally elementary, is about existing institutions. Every government feels impelled to launch new schemes, to set up new institutions. But the need today is to energise existing institutions. It is good that the government will be introducing legislation to set up the Lok Pal: the bill has been in the works for 30 years, and this will be the seventh version of the bill. So, it is good that at last the law will be passed, and the institution will be set up. But just as important is to activate the Lok Ayuktas: in state after state, they have been rendered moribund. Why not call a conference of existing and past Lok Ayuktas, garner their proposals to make the institution functional, and create public opinion for those changes to be enacted? Similarly, I was astonished to learn the other day that the comptroller and auditor general has a staff of 20,000 persons. They produce over a hundred audit reports every year. These run into 15,000 to 20,000 pages. They are packed with details -- often, as we have seen in the case of Bihar, with details of the most alarming kind. But can any one recall a single consequence which has followed as a result of these prodigious labours? The cure would not be to set up yet another institution, but to get together with present and past CAGs and take steps which would make the work of this institution fruitful. The third lesson is about the new institutions we set up. Unable to improve existing institutions, we set up some new one. Unable to get existing courts to speed up, we set up special courts, unable to get states to act reasonably on sharing river waters we enact the inter-state river water disputes law. But the manner we provide for the new institution to function is exactly the manner which has paralysed the old institution. The procedural regulations that special courts must adhere by are exactly the same as the regulations which clog existing courts. The personnel who man the inter-state river dispute tribunals are just the same as the ones that man existing courts: they bring to their new task the same approach, the same fixation on legalisms, on the date of this notification as against that one which hobble our courts. For the new institution to be different, its personnel, the procedural rules that are to govern its functioning, its entire ethos have to be radically different.
Fourth, the solutions must be on an altogether different scale, they must be of an altogether different kind than the ones to which we naturally gravitate. The backlog in courts? As a great concession we agree to the setting up of a dozen courts. But the Chief Justice was mentioning the other day that the requests which are pending for additional courts already total over 4,500. Setting up a dozen more courts -- and that too after years and years of the files going up and down -- is as good as doing nothing. Similarly, to get the inter-state water disputes machinery out of the current rut, we need to man the tribunals with persons whose entire approach will be different: who will craft design solutions rather than pronounce awards that hinge on legalisms.
And when we do alight on a solution, as Montek Ahluwalia with his vast experience points out, we must not look upon it as set in stone. That is the fifth lesson. As new technology beckoned, a new telecom policy was announced in 1994. But technology changed so fast that a newer policy was required by 1998. The steps which have been taken under it have already had to be altered twice. But technology is continuing to evolve at a dizzying pace: the technology to transmit voice over Internet with distortion is almost at hand; you will soon be able, therefore, to talk to persons overseas at the cost of a local call; that will devastate the finances of existing long distance operators. And so we can be certain that an entirely new telecom policy will be required three-four years from now. If we hold up that new policy on the old supposition that the existing policy had been announced just a short while ago, or if allegation-mongering inhibits governments from attempting new formulations, we will be enlarging the gap between us and the rest of the world.
Hence: when you pass a law, when you set up an institution, look back and see how it is working; instead of setting up new institutions, where possible energize existing ones; when you set up new institutions, ensure that their personnel, their operating procedures, their entire thinking is new; think anew repeatedly, and each time at a speed which will, at the least, match the progress of technology.
The Asian Age
November 12 1999
That an area as large as Bihar should sink into quicksand is alarming enough by itself. But one of our problems is that collapse in Bihar no longer shakes us: "O, that is Bihar," we shrug.
Bihar is an extreme case, yes. But the point about an extreme case is that it is but one end of a continuum. Bihar is far from being an exception. Even the most prosperous states today exhibit the same symptoms. Not just Bihar, but Punjab too is having difficulty paying just the salaries of government staff. Not just Bihar, but state after state -- Rajasthan is the example of the month -- has defaulted on the repayments it has to make to the Centre. In Assam�s case, all financial transactions had to be halted, and the treasury had to be closed last week, as the state had no funds to meet even the day�s liabilities. It isn�t just that almost all of plan expenditure of Bihar is now financed through central funds, that is so in the case of most states: Rakesh Mohan, the director of the NCAER, draws attention to a telling figure -- as recently as the Sixth Plan, balances from current revenues financed 40 per cent of state plans, in the Eighth Plan their contribution was zero, today it is a substantial negative. It isn�t just that state enterprises in Bihar are in a woeful condition, they are in more or less that condition across the country: another figure that Rakesh Mohan mentions -- state enterprises were projected to contribute Rs 4,000 crore to the financing of the Eighth Plan, their actual contribution was minus Rs 2,723 crore.
All sorts of devices have been contrived by the Centre and states to camouflage defaults by state governments, all sorts of devices have been fabricated by states to divert central funds meant for capital expenditure to pay wages and salaries. A senior functionary was educating me the other day to the mystery behind plan projects remaining incomplete for years and years on end in state after state. There is more than lethargy, he explained. Under our system of accounting, so long as the project is a continuing one, salaries and wages of the staff working on it can be paid out of plan funds; once it is completed, these have to be paid out of the state�s own funds. Unable to pay even salary and wage bills of its employees, state after state keeps that last mile of the road incomplete...
And finances themselves are but a symptom. Entire systems have fallen apart. A former deputy comptroller and auditor general, C.B. Kumar, points out that of the 992 state government companies, the accounts of 783 companies are in arrears -- up to 10 years. In the case of many of them, accounts have not been finalised for even one year since their inception.
And the finances of states, the evaporation of control and supervision mechanisms in state owned companies -- these too are but symptoms. The malaise extends far beyond states, far beyond governments. "Non-performing assets" -- a euphemism to cover up moneys which have been given, handed out on collateral considerations -- now exceed Rs 43,000 crore: that feat has been accomplished not by state governments but by our "commercial" banks. The companies that have vanished with over Rs 20,000 crore belonging to small depositors are not government companies, they are companies floated by private entrepreneurs. Similarly, while the securities scam showed up the degree of morality and vigilance in our banks and financial institutions, could it have remained undetected if a profession wholly outside the state structure -- chartered accountants -- had been doing its job?
In a word, unless we wake up, Bihar is not just an extreme case, it is the future. And the condition to which Pakistan has sunk is a live warning of what happens when such problems are neglected.
Everything else points to the same urgency. Time does not stop just because we are preoccupied with our problems: we talk of the "21st century;" it is five weeks away. The world does not stop because we are busy battling the next caste: technologies continue to replace each other every two-three years; per capita income in China is already double that of India, but with China growing at 10-11 per cent, and us stuck at 6 per cent, the gap between us and them doubles every 14 years -- and the per capita income is just an indicator: military capability, and much else is subsumed in it.
Nor do our problems abate because we are busy sorting out our politics. In the last three-and-a-half years when our politicians were busy bringing down and installing governments, our population increased by over five crore. Even in the six months between the ouster of the Vajpayee government and the installation of the present Vajpayee government, our numbers would have increased by over 70 lakh. We must, therefore, act, as the Buddha would say, "with the urgency of a man whose hair is on fire". The allied point is just as obvious: there is no discord on these issues. Indeed, I believe there is consensus on almost all the issues which are at all within the realm of the possible. When liberalisation was launched, how the critics lampooned it. But where they were in power, those very persons and their parties were taking pride in proceeding on that route even faster than the central government. Similarly, when the critics acquired office at the Centre, they continued those very policies.
That is a large part of the problem today: on almost every practicable matter there is consensus on what should be done, everyone also sees that those steps should be taken forthwith, but when one party takes them, the other shouts and screams, and puts obstacles. So that nothing is allowed to proceed -- except by fits and starts. The same danger lurks today. The economic decisions which will be taken now are ones that carry forward the same process which successive governments have been furthering for a decade. But because this government will be announcing those policies, others will stall them.
There is a conviction -- which all parties need to outgrow -- that because one is in Opposition, one�s job is to oppose, to choke whatever whoever is in government is trying to do. Precisely because it does not have a better idea on the matter, the party out of office feels compelled to contrive differences. Often, a completely unrelated issue is made the occasion for blocking everything. Notice the minatory statements which Congress leaders have been making about Rajiv�s name in the Bofors� chargesheet.
Assume for a moment that there is ground for a genuine difference of opinion on the matter -- I do not see any ground either in law or fact, but assume that there is. How does that difference on this particular matter justify throttling legislation on, say, economic reforms? Even countries deal with each other on some issues in spite of there being sharp differences on other issues. Indeed, many who will today be arguing -- within the Congress, say -- against cooperating with the government on any issue are ones who, when it comes to Pakistan, are most energetic in arguing that we must keep identifying areas on which we can engage it in joint action in spite of what it is doing in Kashmir, and the rest. But when it comes to cooperating with the government of their own country, even when it seeks to further policies they had themselves initiated, Congressmen will think it perfectly in order that they hold back till it interferes in the judicial process and has a document which is before the courts altered in the way they specify. As all parties are in office somewhere or the other in the country, and as all of them are therefore disabled by such conceptions of what the proper role for an Opposition is, all have cause to revise their conduct. The cure liable to be more effective is for people to be alert, notice who is stalling essential legislation or policies, and for what reason, and punish him accordingly.
Governments too would do well to change their ways. At least in five respects. All too often, they lose interest in a remedy the moment it has been enacted. Mr N. Vittal, the chief vigilance commissioner, gives a telling example. In 1988, Parliament passed the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act. It was acclaimed to be a decisive step in tackling corruption -- indeed, so urgent and vital were its provisions acclaimed to be that they were first introduced by way of an Ordinance. Clause 5 of the Act specified that a procedure would be prescribed for acquiring property under the Act. Eleven years have gone by, no procedure has been prescribed. Governments have forgotten all about the Act. And not just governments: the other day when I referred to the Act and its fate in the Rajya Sabha, it was evident that MPs too had not bothered to check up on what they had passed. The first point therefore is: follow through on what you get through Parliament, follow through on the schemes you launch.
The second lesson, equally elementary, is about existing institutions. Every government feels impelled to launch new schemes, to set up new institutions. But the need today is to energise existing institutions. It is good that the government will be introducing legislation to set up the Lok Pal: the bill has been in the works for 30 years, and this will be the seventh version of the bill. So, it is good that at last the law will be passed, and the institution will be set up. But just as important is to activate the Lok Ayuktas: in state after state, they have been rendered moribund. Why not call a conference of existing and past Lok Ayuktas, garner their proposals to make the institution functional, and create public opinion for those changes to be enacted? Similarly, I was astonished to learn the other day that the comptroller and auditor general has a staff of 20,000 persons. They produce over a hundred audit reports every year. These run into 15,000 to 20,000 pages. They are packed with details -- often, as we have seen in the case of Bihar, with details of the most alarming kind. But can any one recall a single consequence which has followed as a result of these prodigious labours? The cure would not be to set up yet another institution, but to get together with present and past CAGs and take steps which would make the work of this institution fruitful. The third lesson is about the new institutions we set up. Unable to improve existing institutions, we set up some new one. Unable to get existing courts to speed up, we set up special courts, unable to get states to act reasonably on sharing river waters we enact the inter-state river water disputes law. But the manner we provide for the new institution to function is exactly the manner which has paralysed the old institution. The procedural regulations that special courts must adhere by are exactly the same as the regulations which clog existing courts. The personnel who man the inter-state river dispute tribunals are just the same as the ones that man existing courts: they bring to their new task the same approach, the same fixation on legalisms, on the date of this notification as against that one which hobble our courts. For the new institution to be different, its personnel, the procedural rules that are to govern its functioning, its entire ethos have to be radically different.
Fourth, the solutions must be on an altogether different scale, they must be of an altogether different kind than the ones to which we naturally gravitate. The backlog in courts? As a great concession we agree to the setting up of a dozen courts. But the Chief Justice was mentioning the other day that the requests which are pending for additional courts already total over 4,500. Setting up a dozen more courts -- and that too after years and years of the files going up and down -- is as good as doing nothing. Similarly, to get the inter-state water disputes machinery out of the current rut, we need to man the tribunals with persons whose entire approach will be different: who will craft design solutions rather than pronounce awards that hinge on legalisms.
And when we do alight on a solution, as Montek Ahluwalia with his vast experience points out, we must not look upon it as set in stone. That is the fifth lesson. As new technology beckoned, a new telecom policy was announced in 1994. But technology changed so fast that a newer policy was required by 1998. The steps which have been taken under it have already had to be altered twice. But technology is continuing to evolve at a dizzying pace: the technology to transmit voice over Internet with distortion is almost at hand; you will soon be able, therefore, to talk to persons overseas at the cost of a local call; that will devastate the finances of existing long distance operators. And so we can be certain that an entirely new telecom policy will be required three-four years from now. If we hold up that new policy on the old supposition that the existing policy had been announced just a short while ago, or if allegation-mongering inhibits governments from attempting new formulations, we will be enlarging the gap between us and the rest of the world.
Hence: when you pass a law, when you set up an institution, look back and see how it is working; instead of setting up new institutions, where possible energize existing ones; when you set up new institutions, ensure that their personnel, their operating procedures, their entire thinking is new; think anew repeatedly, and each time at a speed which will, at the least, match the progress of technology.
The Asian Age
November 12 1999
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Not Just an Islamic, But a Psychological State
Arun Shourie
India's size has become "an unmanageable liability," writes an analyst in Pakistan's Frontier Post of June 9. "As a result, nearly one-third of its 25 states are at war, where military troops are routinely called out to keep peace." The cause for this is largely "India's exclusionary political, religious and social order that is heavily biased against non-Hindu minorities," he says. This from an analyst whose own country is being torn apart by killings of Shias by Sunnis, of Sindhis and Mohajirs by Punjabis, by tensions between Baluchis, Pakhtuns and Punjabis. Second, except for a brief period, he observes, India's economy has been stagnating around "the Hindu pace of growth." This from an analyst whose country is living from month to month on what is the seventeenth bail-out package from the IMF since 1958, this from an analyst the currency of whose country has been devalued over forty five times in the last decade, this from the analyst in whose country even the management of the Water and Power Development Authority, even of the Karachi Electricity Board has had to be handed over to the Army! Third, its military power has remained "less than decisive in its conflicts with Pakistan except for its military action in East Pakistan." The Pakistan Army has lost every single war it has fought with India, yet India's military power has been "less than decisive"! And as for that one exception which even he acknowledges, the case of 1971, it seems that in the author's view, it is "the backing of the overwhelming majority of native Bengalis" which enabled Indian forces to prevail.
A bit of a change in that last bit, I must say in fairness! For in their history textbooks, children are taught that the "native Bengalis" very much wanted united-Pakistan to continue and it was only the cunning of Hindu-Bharat which waylaid them.
The next point will truly be news to us. Recalling some hare-brained proposals for "solving the Kashmir problem," he says "Even if I were Indian, I couldn't help but support Pakistan's so very obviously rational approach to the conflict on Kashmir." Not just that, this analyst knows something we don't, for he continues, "This rationality in Pakistan's position has the majority of Indians re-looking at the Kashmir conflict in terms of 'justice' although their immediate motive is economics. In survey after survey, the majority of Indians have come to believe that the cost of keeping Kashmir is higher than leaving it alone..." The only way out for India is to resolve the Kashmir issue "in accordance with the wishes of the people of Kashmir, and in accordance with UN resolutions," writes a former Army colonel in the June 11 issue of the same paper. Till it does so, not only will it keep bleeding, such analysts write, it will be exposing the region to "power-play by the West under CIA machinations." "But India," the colonel continues, "with typical narrow-minded bania mentality, refuses to see the realities on the ground and the resultant fall-outs of a continuing impasse over the Kashmir issue..."
"The latest Indian Army operations in Kashmir are due to the adamance of the mujahidin who are waging war to achieve their aim of self-determination," observes the Jang in its editorial on June 4 - two lies in those few words: that the invaders are mujahideen, and that the goal of their invasion is self-determination! "History tells us that when people of any region start sacrificing themselves for their rights then no power on earth can restrain them from their goal. This time mujahideen have given a new life to the movement and the Kashmir issue has become prominent. The Indian government has tried to crush the mujahideen but all in vain..." The invasion has given a new life to the secessionist movement in Kashmir? That will certainly be news to the tourists in the Valley!
"No doubt India is losing on the war front," the Jang announces, "but at the same time the Indian propaganda machinery has become very active with western media support..." In a word: only mujahidin from within Kashmir are involved, militarily they are prevailing, if at all India is scoring a point it is only in propaganda, and that too only with western help! Still the latter is a matter of concern to the paper. "We fail to understand," the paper says, "why our 'grand official intellectuals' have failed in convincing the foreign media that the Kargil war is not based on fundamentalism. Why most of the foreign media reports on Kashmir are anti-Pakistan and anti-mujahideen and why our diplomats and embassies are unable to present the mujahideen's case in its right perspective. And finally why western rulers are endorsing the views of Vajpayee in the context of Indo-Pakistan relations and the Lahore Declaration."
A week, and that lacuna too seems to have been made up! "Its (India's) casualties are mounting," writes an analyst in the Nation of June 13, "and there is a grudging acceptance that it is also losing the media war to Pakistan. These twin pressures are beginning to take their toll on a wary populace which has seen political instability followed by military failure. Elections are less than three months away and no one seems to know which way the country is headed." "In such a situation," he concludes, "Pakistan should stand its ground with grit and determination and appreciate its brave men in uniform who are manning our territory with courage and ensuring that India's aggressiveness is countered swiftly and severely."
Soon, however, that Pakistan is completely isolated diplomatically cannot be denied. But that only proves that it is a martyr in the cause of Islam! Taking note of the US reluctance to swallow the Pakistani version, the Army colonel observes that the US has always been bending backwards to "placate India." And for reason, he writes, "We may be aware of the US role the world over against the interests of Muslims. And its desire to somehow contain China, its only possible rival after the disintegration of the USSR. It will like the dispute over Kashmir to be so resolved that as a result of it the present land linkage between Pakistan and China is severed. In this context, its best bet is India as a countervailing power... In fact the US is / has been actively helping India in its technological attainments through Israel." In a word, if the US is not swallowing the Pakistani version that is because it is congenitally anti-Muslim, and if India has achieved something technologically that is because the US has been helping it via Israel!
Hence the colonel's ringing exhortation: "Let there be no misconception about the US and Indian collusion where interests of Muslims and the western nations clash. For the loss of Muslims also becomes the gain of India. It is time we realised this and the OIC, the Arab League and Mutamar-e-Islami worked together towards unity and greater cohesion in their ranks to thwart the designs of these enemies of Islam."
A complete rupture from reality. That one-third of India's states are at war, that our economy is collapsing, that India is losing on the war front, that Pakistan has overcome the initial Indian advantage and is now winning the diplomatic battle too, that to the extent that the US etc. are not endorsing Pakistan's position that is because they are anti-Muslim, that India's technological advances are due to American help via Israel, that Pakistan's rational position on Kashmir has led every Indian to re-think his country's stance... A psychological condition, schizophrenia. To the onlooker the figments are so absurd that he tends to disregard them. But the person concerned actually believes the hallucinations. He acts on them.
That is one lesson: we must at all times be alert to what Pakistani society and rulers are reading into developments in India, for those inferences will tempt them to instigate, and to invade. The manifest instability of our governments during the last few years, their being pushed and pulled from every side would have been an important factor in the Pakistani calculation. So myopic, so self-centred are those who have been pulling down governments, those who have fractured the electorate that it is useless asking them to see the consequence of what they are doing. At least the rest of us should heed this consequence -- of tempting a neighbour who is so apt to misread the situation in any case -- and quarterise these politicians and groups.
But that is just the preliminary lesson, almost an incidental one.
First, we must bear in mind that the one -- Pakistan in this case -- who conceives of himself as an enemy has an inherent advantage. He can prepare for one type of operation -- it was sponsoring insurgency last time, it is high-altitude warfare this time -- at a place and a time of his choosing. We have to prepare ourselves to counter that entire gamut of possible operations.
That will take resources. Therefore, we must not cavil at sparing them. There is no other way to survive. Things which have come to light during the past few months also show that we must rethink management of defence at several levels.
The management of production and procurement of defence equipment, for instance. The sorry tale of snowmobiles is well known by now. But it is just one of many. From the fate of the plan to produce ammunition for the Bofors guns within the country to the way proposals to produce bullet-proof vests have been knocking around - all speak to the same state of affairs.
The relationship that should prevail between the defence forces and the defence ministry, for another. To refuse to re-examine this on the clich�, "The forces must be subordinate to civilian authority," is to ensure that many operational requirements will not be attended to in time. It is also to ensure that resentments which have erupted in the past few months will continue to fester.
The composition of the National Security Council, the staffing of its secretariat, its function and role, for a third. The council really has to be more than a version of the India International Centre's Saturday Lunch Club.
But the basic lesson that Pakistan's Kargil invasion holds out is the old one, an unfortunate one but an inescapable one: Pakistan remains an implacable enemy. It sees only one role for itself: to break India. It is doubly convinced of this purpose because it sees itself as a state dedicated to Islam, and India as a dar-ul-harb, the land of war to vanquish which is an Allah-ordained duty. It stokes insurgency in Punjab, that leaves 21,000 dead. But it fails to wrest Punjab from India. Therefore, it inflames insurgency in Kashmir.
That leaves 15,000 dead. But that too fails to break India. So, it begins planning Kargil... Pakistan will just not abandon these operations. It sees no other role for itself. It sees that mission - of breaking India - as a divine mandate. At each turn it is convinced that while the particular operation which has just concluded has failed, the next one will break India.
Therefore, a united, prosperous Pakistan is not in India's interest. It will only be that much more zealous, and more effective in carrying out its mission.
And, therefore, we must engage Pakistan in the arms race which it cannot afford, we must lift restrictions we have put on our agencies and ask them to widen the fault-lines which have developed in Pakistani society and polity.
That is the basic lesson. Do not shy away from it. Listen to what the enemy is saying. Look at what he is doing. Look at his nature - full-face. Look at what he conceives his nature to be. As a first step, learn not to drown voices which try to awaken you to that enemy, and his nature.
Asian Age
July 2, 1999
India's size has become "an unmanageable liability," writes an analyst in Pakistan's Frontier Post of June 9. "As a result, nearly one-third of its 25 states are at war, where military troops are routinely called out to keep peace." The cause for this is largely "India's exclusionary political, religious and social order that is heavily biased against non-Hindu minorities," he says. This from an analyst whose own country is being torn apart by killings of Shias by Sunnis, of Sindhis and Mohajirs by Punjabis, by tensions between Baluchis, Pakhtuns and Punjabis. Second, except for a brief period, he observes, India's economy has been stagnating around "the Hindu pace of growth." This from an analyst whose country is living from month to month on what is the seventeenth bail-out package from the IMF since 1958, this from an analyst the currency of whose country has been devalued over forty five times in the last decade, this from the analyst in whose country even the management of the Water and Power Development Authority, even of the Karachi Electricity Board has had to be handed over to the Army! Third, its military power has remained "less than decisive in its conflicts with Pakistan except for its military action in East Pakistan." The Pakistan Army has lost every single war it has fought with India, yet India's military power has been "less than decisive"! And as for that one exception which even he acknowledges, the case of 1971, it seems that in the author's view, it is "the backing of the overwhelming majority of native Bengalis" which enabled Indian forces to prevail.
A bit of a change in that last bit, I must say in fairness! For in their history textbooks, children are taught that the "native Bengalis" very much wanted united-Pakistan to continue and it was only the cunning of Hindu-Bharat which waylaid them.
The next point will truly be news to us. Recalling some hare-brained proposals for "solving the Kashmir problem," he says "Even if I were Indian, I couldn't help but support Pakistan's so very obviously rational approach to the conflict on Kashmir." Not just that, this analyst knows something we don't, for he continues, "This rationality in Pakistan's position has the majority of Indians re-looking at the Kashmir conflict in terms of 'justice' although their immediate motive is economics. In survey after survey, the majority of Indians have come to believe that the cost of keeping Kashmir is higher than leaving it alone..." The only way out for India is to resolve the Kashmir issue "in accordance with the wishes of the people of Kashmir, and in accordance with UN resolutions," writes a former Army colonel in the June 11 issue of the same paper. Till it does so, not only will it keep bleeding, such analysts write, it will be exposing the region to "power-play by the West under CIA machinations." "But India," the colonel continues, "with typical narrow-minded bania mentality, refuses to see the realities on the ground and the resultant fall-outs of a continuing impasse over the Kashmir issue..."
"The latest Indian Army operations in Kashmir are due to the adamance of the mujahidin who are waging war to achieve their aim of self-determination," observes the Jang in its editorial on June 4 - two lies in those few words: that the invaders are mujahideen, and that the goal of their invasion is self-determination! "History tells us that when people of any region start sacrificing themselves for their rights then no power on earth can restrain them from their goal. This time mujahideen have given a new life to the movement and the Kashmir issue has become prominent. The Indian government has tried to crush the mujahideen but all in vain..." The invasion has given a new life to the secessionist movement in Kashmir? That will certainly be news to the tourists in the Valley!
"No doubt India is losing on the war front," the Jang announces, "but at the same time the Indian propaganda machinery has become very active with western media support..." In a word: only mujahidin from within Kashmir are involved, militarily they are prevailing, if at all India is scoring a point it is only in propaganda, and that too only with western help! Still the latter is a matter of concern to the paper. "We fail to understand," the paper says, "why our 'grand official intellectuals' have failed in convincing the foreign media that the Kargil war is not based on fundamentalism. Why most of the foreign media reports on Kashmir are anti-Pakistan and anti-mujahideen and why our diplomats and embassies are unable to present the mujahideen's case in its right perspective. And finally why western rulers are endorsing the views of Vajpayee in the context of Indo-Pakistan relations and the Lahore Declaration."
A week, and that lacuna too seems to have been made up! "Its (India's) casualties are mounting," writes an analyst in the Nation of June 13, "and there is a grudging acceptance that it is also losing the media war to Pakistan. These twin pressures are beginning to take their toll on a wary populace which has seen political instability followed by military failure. Elections are less than three months away and no one seems to know which way the country is headed." "In such a situation," he concludes, "Pakistan should stand its ground with grit and determination and appreciate its brave men in uniform who are manning our territory with courage and ensuring that India's aggressiveness is countered swiftly and severely."
Soon, however, that Pakistan is completely isolated diplomatically cannot be denied. But that only proves that it is a martyr in the cause of Islam! Taking note of the US reluctance to swallow the Pakistani version, the Army colonel observes that the US has always been bending backwards to "placate India." And for reason, he writes, "We may be aware of the US role the world over against the interests of Muslims. And its desire to somehow contain China, its only possible rival after the disintegration of the USSR. It will like the dispute over Kashmir to be so resolved that as a result of it the present land linkage between Pakistan and China is severed. In this context, its best bet is India as a countervailing power... In fact the US is / has been actively helping India in its technological attainments through Israel." In a word, if the US is not swallowing the Pakistani version that is because it is congenitally anti-Muslim, and if India has achieved something technologically that is because the US has been helping it via Israel!
Hence the colonel's ringing exhortation: "Let there be no misconception about the US and Indian collusion where interests of Muslims and the western nations clash. For the loss of Muslims also becomes the gain of India. It is time we realised this and the OIC, the Arab League and Mutamar-e-Islami worked together towards unity and greater cohesion in their ranks to thwart the designs of these enemies of Islam."
A complete rupture from reality. That one-third of India's states are at war, that our economy is collapsing, that India is losing on the war front, that Pakistan has overcome the initial Indian advantage and is now winning the diplomatic battle too, that to the extent that the US etc. are not endorsing Pakistan's position that is because they are anti-Muslim, that India's technological advances are due to American help via Israel, that Pakistan's rational position on Kashmir has led every Indian to re-think his country's stance... A psychological condition, schizophrenia. To the onlooker the figments are so absurd that he tends to disregard them. But the person concerned actually believes the hallucinations. He acts on them.
That is one lesson: we must at all times be alert to what Pakistani society and rulers are reading into developments in India, for those inferences will tempt them to instigate, and to invade. The manifest instability of our governments during the last few years, their being pushed and pulled from every side would have been an important factor in the Pakistani calculation. So myopic, so self-centred are those who have been pulling down governments, those who have fractured the electorate that it is useless asking them to see the consequence of what they are doing. At least the rest of us should heed this consequence -- of tempting a neighbour who is so apt to misread the situation in any case -- and quarterise these politicians and groups.
But that is just the preliminary lesson, almost an incidental one.
First, we must bear in mind that the one -- Pakistan in this case -- who conceives of himself as an enemy has an inherent advantage. He can prepare for one type of operation -- it was sponsoring insurgency last time, it is high-altitude warfare this time -- at a place and a time of his choosing. We have to prepare ourselves to counter that entire gamut of possible operations.
That will take resources. Therefore, we must not cavil at sparing them. There is no other way to survive. Things which have come to light during the past few months also show that we must rethink management of defence at several levels.
The management of production and procurement of defence equipment, for instance. The sorry tale of snowmobiles is well known by now. But it is just one of many. From the fate of the plan to produce ammunition for the Bofors guns within the country to the way proposals to produce bullet-proof vests have been knocking around - all speak to the same state of affairs.
The relationship that should prevail between the defence forces and the defence ministry, for another. To refuse to re-examine this on the clich�, "The forces must be subordinate to civilian authority," is to ensure that many operational requirements will not be attended to in time. It is also to ensure that resentments which have erupted in the past few months will continue to fester.
The composition of the National Security Council, the staffing of its secretariat, its function and role, for a third. The council really has to be more than a version of the India International Centre's Saturday Lunch Club.
But the basic lesson that Pakistan's Kargil invasion holds out is the old one, an unfortunate one but an inescapable one: Pakistan remains an implacable enemy. It sees only one role for itself: to break India. It is doubly convinced of this purpose because it sees itself as a state dedicated to Islam, and India as a dar-ul-harb, the land of war to vanquish which is an Allah-ordained duty. It stokes insurgency in Punjab, that leaves 21,000 dead. But it fails to wrest Punjab from India. Therefore, it inflames insurgency in Kashmir.
That leaves 15,000 dead. But that too fails to break India. So, it begins planning Kargil... Pakistan will just not abandon these operations. It sees no other role for itself. It sees that mission - of breaking India - as a divine mandate. At each turn it is convinced that while the particular operation which has just concluded has failed, the next one will break India.
Therefore, a united, prosperous Pakistan is not in India's interest. It will only be that much more zealous, and more effective in carrying out its mission.
And, therefore, we must engage Pakistan in the arms race which it cannot afford, we must lift restrictions we have put on our agencies and ask them to widen the fault-lines which have developed in Pakistani society and polity.
That is the basic lesson. Do not shy away from it. Listen to what the enemy is saying. Look at what he is doing. Look at his nature - full-face. Look at what he conceives his nature to be. As a first step, learn not to drown voices which try to awaken you to that enemy, and his nature.
Asian Age
July 2, 1999
Curiosity? Myopia? Servility?
Arun Shourie
Sonia Gandhi endeared herself to women and the youth in Udaipur today," said a gushing TV reporter, by taking up issues close to their hearts -- price rise, and unemployment." In another report of the same day, she was reported to "have taken up the issue of corruption."
In what sense had Sonia "taken up the issue"? She reads out a sentence -- I know how difficult it is for you, specially for my sisters here to make ends meet these days, prices have risen so much because of instability -- and "the issue" of price rise had been "taken up." "Berozgari bahut badh gayee hai,": and the "the issue" of unemployment had, at least in the reckoning of large sections of the media been "taken up". And what, having just flagged off the campaign of Satish Sharma -- indicted by the Supreme Court for having made a retail business of his ministry -- did she say on corruption? That everyone wants to live a life of dignity, that we do not want to have to bend and cringe before every officer of the state: In what sense does that amount to "taking up the issue of corruption"?
And yet that is what the press proclaimed she had done. Earlier we had been told that she had "trumped", her opponents by confronting Bofors head-on." But what had she said on Bofors? That she for one has always wanted the papers to be out at the earliest. That is "confronting the issue head-on?" Not a word about the accounts into which the money went: their particulars were published ten years ago, after all, and they were published in the teeth of denials and naked force deployed by her husband. Having told her so many things in private, did he never say anything about these accounts? Not a word about why her husband changed his statements about the matter every other week? Not a word about why he felt it necessary to suborn Parliament, to prostitute its committee? Not a word why he felt compelled to sacrifice his Prime Ministership rather than let the inquiry proceed? Sonia says she herself wants the truth to be out at the earliest: Is there is slightest shred of evidence that she did anything, that she expressed some shock, even in private, when one attempt to prevent the truth from surfacing was nailed? The way the offer of Bofors to reveal the names to the JPC was squashed by Rajiv, the way a foreign minister of a Congress government was caught surreptitiously delivering a letter to the foreign minister of Switzerland stating that the Government of India did not want the inquiry to continue...? Is there even one occasion on which Sonia took the slightest step to help the truth come out? But today, her saying, "I myself want the truth to come out at the earliest" is projected to be "confronting the Bofors issue head-on."
"Sonia apologises for (operation) Blue-star" - this, when all she had said was that those things should not have happened." That a statement such as that should be taken to be an apology, and that an apology should be deemed to be enough what is one to infer from this?
This is just the way the media functions these days, explains my friend. And in part, he is right. Sonia is new, so Sonia is news. However, there is a problem, the newspapers and TV channels see. And there is the predictable solution: Sonia is the lead-story for now; but she is uttering only inanities; as you have to report those inanities nonetheless, read into the new inanity, the inanity of the day some superlative significance, and, presto, her speech is news. But in doing that the press and TV are creating news. Fabricating something out of nothing.
But is that -- the nature of news -- all? I sense an affinity. For the press itself "deals -with" issues at no deeper level than Sonia is doing. So it does not see the utter hollowness of her speeches. And there is gratitude. The secularists in the media were completely befuddled, what With the crumbling of each one of their "pillars of secularism" -- Mulayam Singh, Kanshi Ram, Laloo, the Untied Front itself. She has given them ground for hope. And who can complain: Is not Castro himself turning to the Pope?
But the matter is not confined to reporters: Very large numbers are turning up at her meetings, after all. Newspaper accounts of some of the meetings have reported that people in the audience could be seen to be wiping tears from their eyes. Is it that they too feel that in reading out those inanities she has actually "taken up" the issue of price rise, of unemployment, of corruption? I don't want to be too despondent about the people -- at least, as Sonia would say, "for now"! After all, it is the same people who by their silence, their nonchalance, by what they must have led her intelligence agencies to believe, it is the same people who fooled Mrs Gandhi into announcing elections in January 1977; it is the same sort of people in Pakistan who led so many newsmen -- specially foreign newsmen -- to believe that Imran Khan had as good as swept the country. But the very fact that such vast numbers are flocking to her meetings is enough ground for apprehension. Why do they travel distances, and wait an hour or two to see and hear her?
Because she is a new face? Because she is the latest non-politician? Because she is foreign-born? Of course, if the last, that would not be enough by itself -- they wouldn't flock the same way to see an African or Burmese, so to the extent that it is the exotica of being foreign, it is the old racial inferiority complex vis-�-vis the white skin. But still, in what sense do they get to see the whiteness? In a crowd of a lakh, a dot seen far away -- for ten-fifteen minutes? What sort of curiosity is it which is satiated by a glimpse of that kind? Could it be that these thousands too feel that she has addressed the issue?" Do they feel, "God be thanked, she has heard our sighs, she has spared a thought for our pain." and that no more can be expected of Royalty? After all, it can't be that as a result of what she said at any meeting, they got to know what she or the party she controls will do on any matter she "addressed."
In spite of the scores of meetings she has addressed, no one anywhere in the country is any the wiser about her views on any issue. She remains at the end of the campaign what she was at the beginning -- the one entity about which even less is known than about the Swiss accounts into which the Bofors money went.
What she has done is to reveal three things. First, that the Congress is nothing, it is certainly nothing to her. Ever heard any other Congress leader speak in her presence, ever seen anyone of them even try to approach her on the dais? Ever seen anyone -- in particular any other Congressman -- attach any importance to what other Congress leaders have or are saying, when she is at the meeting? Should the party do well, should it form a government, she will be the government, and she alone -- the others will be no more than doormats. And public life will consist of second-guessing the office. Priyanka has agreed to take over, whether she is to be dreaded or her husband, whether Rahul will save us from her husband, or Rahul's prospective bride will save us from Rahul... Is that really the condition to which the country will consciously consign itself?
The second set she has shown up are the old, scheming little calculators -- V P Singh and the rest. They are astir again. Has he gone honkers?, a friend asked, as he read V P Singh's statement exempting Sonia from having to answer any question about Bofors. Not at all. He was as usual, preparing rationalisations for the next manoeuvre, the grounds for teaming up with the Congress after the elections. Anticipatory calculation, not senility.
Nor is he alone. I am willing, Jyoti Basu keeps saying. we will look at the issue of associating with the Congress afresh. he says. And people who have formed such a high opinion of him are embarrassed that he should be announcing his availability so brazenly. He can be expecting that his Left Front -- with a minuscule number in the last Lok Sabha -- can get the numbers to form a government, why is he behaving this way? they ask. Calculation, again: May be the House will be hung again, some theoreticians will be reasoning, may be the Congress will need the Left MPs to make up the numbers may be she will not mind putting our man in office, after all he is not going to be in anyone's way for long...
How comfortable a Laloo having to shield a Rana -- is certain to feel behind her having a Quattrocchi to shield. And correspondingly, what advantages they will bring to her: With Laloo, Mulayam and Kanshi Ram to direct their certificates to her, she will have the halo, not just of keeping alight the torch of martyrdom, but also of being the continuer of the commitment to the forces of social justice. And won't they shepherd into her corral the mediamen who have invested so much in these pillars of secularism -- a transferable herd if ever there was one.
And the intellectuals. Today papers carry a statement that asks people to vote for the one candidate in their constituency who has the best chance of defeating the BJP candidate. And to help them do so, the signatories say they will be releasing a list of five hundred of the most "winnable" candidates for the purpose. Though little else, the statement did show two things. First, that the ranks of these Casablancas are much depleted: Apart from four professional secularists, there was not a name worth any attention. Second, the statement was released by none other than Syed Shahabuddin! He -- the very one who has played communal politics as cynically as anyone in the past fifty years -- he is to certify which is the candidate secular enough to be preferred to any and every BJP candidate! Some pass the poor secularists have come. But for the moment the point is the future: This is the very rationalisation which shall be used to legitimise any and every combination should the BJP fall short of a clear verdict in its favour.
Third, Sonia has shown the power of an advertising campaign to sway -- at the least the media. That she should not address any issue. That she should just hit and run to the next meeting. That she must not ever put herself in a situation in which she may have to spell out her convictions, even her view on any issue... Even the time at which to enter the fray: As she has nothing to say, we can be certain that, given four or five months, she will be relegated to the inside pages; hence, do not display her for more than a few weeks.
There is, of course, the Italian precedent: of thrice refusing the crown - she waited till the Congress had completely subsided, she then had just to walk over it and it was her's. But it isn't just the Roman example, it is the advertiser's hand. In the short exposure. In seem, the potential of a new face, the way a new face is used to sell soap: She is positioned as the heir of the "Nehru-Gandhi" legacy, but she is a new face -- so she is distanced from the ghastly bits in the legacy. Thus, she can talk of continuing the work of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv, and simultaneously go on apologising for what they did! An advertiser's triumph.
But the point is that not one of the persons who are being mentioned in the press as the ones behind her moves, not one of them has the wit to plan such stratagems. Who are her advisers, who are planning her moves?
And that leaves me fearful for the future: Are the people going to hand the country -- its defence, the location of missiles, the positioning of our troops and planes, the details of our atomic programme, decisions about fighting terrorism and secession -- in the hands of a person about whom they know absolutely nothing? In the hands of person whose advisors, themselves concealed, have themselves concluded that, to capture the country, nothing about her should become known?
For make no mistake about that: She has demonstrated that she is the Congress, that the Congress is nothing but her. And so, to vote the Congress to power is to place power in her hands -- that would remain the case even if she were to put some stepney in office for a while.
Asian Age
February 13, 1998
Sonia Gandhi endeared herself to women and the youth in Udaipur today," said a gushing TV reporter, by taking up issues close to their hearts -- price rise, and unemployment." In another report of the same day, she was reported to "have taken up the issue of corruption."
In what sense had Sonia "taken up the issue"? She reads out a sentence -- I know how difficult it is for you, specially for my sisters here to make ends meet these days, prices have risen so much because of instability -- and "the issue" of price rise had been "taken up." "Berozgari bahut badh gayee hai,": and the "the issue" of unemployment had, at least in the reckoning of large sections of the media been "taken up". And what, having just flagged off the campaign of Satish Sharma -- indicted by the Supreme Court for having made a retail business of his ministry -- did she say on corruption? That everyone wants to live a life of dignity, that we do not want to have to bend and cringe before every officer of the state: In what sense does that amount to "taking up the issue of corruption"?
And yet that is what the press proclaimed she had done. Earlier we had been told that she had "trumped", her opponents by confronting Bofors head-on." But what had she said on Bofors? That she for one has always wanted the papers to be out at the earliest. That is "confronting the issue head-on?" Not a word about the accounts into which the money went: their particulars were published ten years ago, after all, and they were published in the teeth of denials and naked force deployed by her husband. Having told her so many things in private, did he never say anything about these accounts? Not a word about why her husband changed his statements about the matter every other week? Not a word about why he felt it necessary to suborn Parliament, to prostitute its committee? Not a word why he felt compelled to sacrifice his Prime Ministership rather than let the inquiry proceed? Sonia says she herself wants the truth to be out at the earliest: Is there is slightest shred of evidence that she did anything, that she expressed some shock, even in private, when one attempt to prevent the truth from surfacing was nailed? The way the offer of Bofors to reveal the names to the JPC was squashed by Rajiv, the way a foreign minister of a Congress government was caught surreptitiously delivering a letter to the foreign minister of Switzerland stating that the Government of India did not want the inquiry to continue...? Is there even one occasion on which Sonia took the slightest step to help the truth come out? But today, her saying, "I myself want the truth to come out at the earliest" is projected to be "confronting the Bofors issue head-on."
"Sonia apologises for (operation) Blue-star" - this, when all she had said was that those things should not have happened." That a statement such as that should be taken to be an apology, and that an apology should be deemed to be enough what is one to infer from this?
This is just the way the media functions these days, explains my friend. And in part, he is right. Sonia is new, so Sonia is news. However, there is a problem, the newspapers and TV channels see. And there is the predictable solution: Sonia is the lead-story for now; but she is uttering only inanities; as you have to report those inanities nonetheless, read into the new inanity, the inanity of the day some superlative significance, and, presto, her speech is news. But in doing that the press and TV are creating news. Fabricating something out of nothing.
But is that -- the nature of news -- all? I sense an affinity. For the press itself "deals -with" issues at no deeper level than Sonia is doing. So it does not see the utter hollowness of her speeches. And there is gratitude. The secularists in the media were completely befuddled, what With the crumbling of each one of their "pillars of secularism" -- Mulayam Singh, Kanshi Ram, Laloo, the Untied Front itself. She has given them ground for hope. And who can complain: Is not Castro himself turning to the Pope?
But the matter is not confined to reporters: Very large numbers are turning up at her meetings, after all. Newspaper accounts of some of the meetings have reported that people in the audience could be seen to be wiping tears from their eyes. Is it that they too feel that in reading out those inanities she has actually "taken up" the issue of price rise, of unemployment, of corruption? I don't want to be too despondent about the people -- at least, as Sonia would say, "for now"! After all, it is the same people who by their silence, their nonchalance, by what they must have led her intelligence agencies to believe, it is the same people who fooled Mrs Gandhi into announcing elections in January 1977; it is the same sort of people in Pakistan who led so many newsmen -- specially foreign newsmen -- to believe that Imran Khan had as good as swept the country. But the very fact that such vast numbers are flocking to her meetings is enough ground for apprehension. Why do they travel distances, and wait an hour or two to see and hear her?
Because she is a new face? Because she is the latest non-politician? Because she is foreign-born? Of course, if the last, that would not be enough by itself -- they wouldn't flock the same way to see an African or Burmese, so to the extent that it is the exotica of being foreign, it is the old racial inferiority complex vis-�-vis the white skin. But still, in what sense do they get to see the whiteness? In a crowd of a lakh, a dot seen far away -- for ten-fifteen minutes? What sort of curiosity is it which is satiated by a glimpse of that kind? Could it be that these thousands too feel that she has addressed the issue?" Do they feel, "God be thanked, she has heard our sighs, she has spared a thought for our pain." and that no more can be expected of Royalty? After all, it can't be that as a result of what she said at any meeting, they got to know what she or the party she controls will do on any matter she "addressed."
In spite of the scores of meetings she has addressed, no one anywhere in the country is any the wiser about her views on any issue. She remains at the end of the campaign what she was at the beginning -- the one entity about which even less is known than about the Swiss accounts into which the Bofors money went.
What she has done is to reveal three things. First, that the Congress is nothing, it is certainly nothing to her. Ever heard any other Congress leader speak in her presence, ever seen anyone of them even try to approach her on the dais? Ever seen anyone -- in particular any other Congressman -- attach any importance to what other Congress leaders have or are saying, when she is at the meeting? Should the party do well, should it form a government, she will be the government, and she alone -- the others will be no more than doormats. And public life will consist of second-guessing the office. Priyanka has agreed to take over, whether she is to be dreaded or her husband, whether Rahul will save us from her husband, or Rahul's prospective bride will save us from Rahul... Is that really the condition to which the country will consciously consign itself?
The second set she has shown up are the old, scheming little calculators -- V P Singh and the rest. They are astir again. Has he gone honkers?, a friend asked, as he read V P Singh's statement exempting Sonia from having to answer any question about Bofors. Not at all. He was as usual, preparing rationalisations for the next manoeuvre, the grounds for teaming up with the Congress after the elections. Anticipatory calculation, not senility.
Nor is he alone. I am willing, Jyoti Basu keeps saying. we will look at the issue of associating with the Congress afresh. he says. And people who have formed such a high opinion of him are embarrassed that he should be announcing his availability so brazenly. He can be expecting that his Left Front -- with a minuscule number in the last Lok Sabha -- can get the numbers to form a government, why is he behaving this way? they ask. Calculation, again: May be the House will be hung again, some theoreticians will be reasoning, may be the Congress will need the Left MPs to make up the numbers may be she will not mind putting our man in office, after all he is not going to be in anyone's way for long...
How comfortable a Laloo having to shield a Rana -- is certain to feel behind her having a Quattrocchi to shield. And correspondingly, what advantages they will bring to her: With Laloo, Mulayam and Kanshi Ram to direct their certificates to her, she will have the halo, not just of keeping alight the torch of martyrdom, but also of being the continuer of the commitment to the forces of social justice. And won't they shepherd into her corral the mediamen who have invested so much in these pillars of secularism -- a transferable herd if ever there was one.
And the intellectuals. Today papers carry a statement that asks people to vote for the one candidate in their constituency who has the best chance of defeating the BJP candidate. And to help them do so, the signatories say they will be releasing a list of five hundred of the most "winnable" candidates for the purpose. Though little else, the statement did show two things. First, that the ranks of these Casablancas are much depleted: Apart from four professional secularists, there was not a name worth any attention. Second, the statement was released by none other than Syed Shahabuddin! He -- the very one who has played communal politics as cynically as anyone in the past fifty years -- he is to certify which is the candidate secular enough to be preferred to any and every BJP candidate! Some pass the poor secularists have come. But for the moment the point is the future: This is the very rationalisation which shall be used to legitimise any and every combination should the BJP fall short of a clear verdict in its favour.
Third, Sonia has shown the power of an advertising campaign to sway -- at the least the media. That she should not address any issue. That she should just hit and run to the next meeting. That she must not ever put herself in a situation in which she may have to spell out her convictions, even her view on any issue... Even the time at which to enter the fray: As she has nothing to say, we can be certain that, given four or five months, she will be relegated to the inside pages; hence, do not display her for more than a few weeks.
There is, of course, the Italian precedent: of thrice refusing the crown - she waited till the Congress had completely subsided, she then had just to walk over it and it was her's. But it isn't just the Roman example, it is the advertiser's hand. In the short exposure. In seem, the potential of a new face, the way a new face is used to sell soap: She is positioned as the heir of the "Nehru-Gandhi" legacy, but she is a new face -- so she is distanced from the ghastly bits in the legacy. Thus, she can talk of continuing the work of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv, and simultaneously go on apologising for what they did! An advertiser's triumph.
But the point is that not one of the persons who are being mentioned in the press as the ones behind her moves, not one of them has the wit to plan such stratagems. Who are her advisers, who are planning her moves?
And that leaves me fearful for the future: Are the people going to hand the country -- its defence, the location of missiles, the positioning of our troops and planes, the details of our atomic programme, decisions about fighting terrorism and secession -- in the hands of a person about whom they know absolutely nothing? In the hands of person whose advisors, themselves concealed, have themselves concluded that, to capture the country, nothing about her should become known?
For make no mistake about that: She has demonstrated that she is the Congress, that the Congress is nothing but her. And so, to vote the Congress to power is to place power in her hands -- that would remain the case even if she were to put some stepney in office for a while.
Asian Age
February 13, 1998
Their Sacrifices: A Chapter from Tomorrow's Textbooks
Arun Shourie
In the beginning was a foreigner. He founded the Congress.
Then, no one did anything till the Nehru-Nehru (Father and Son) Family stepped forth. They firmly stamped the history of India with the twin features that characterise it in the first half of the 20th century: everything they did was a sacrifice, no one else made any sacrifices.
With the passing of the Father, the Son became the Father, and with the coming of the Daughter, the Nehru-Nehru Family came to be known as the Nehru-Gandhi Family. But it continued the noble tradition: everything they did was a sacrifice, no one else made any sacrifices.
Soon enough the country's interest demanded that the secret plans of the new Viceroy and his co-plotters be ferreted out. The Father therefore sacrificed that one thing to which he was so attached -- the sacred memory of his dear wife, who, having joined the Nehru-Nehru Family had already made the Supreme Sacrifice -- and let the Viceroy's wife fall for him.
Time flew yet again, and the cares of office began to weigh Father down. As president of the Congress and because of his own scholarship, he was of course aware of historical precedents of our rulers marrying foreign women to manage the household while they attended to affairs of State. But so as not to further disturb a people that had been so recently devastated, he sacrificed his love of history and its mores, and continued to live alone. That only weighed him down further.
Therefore, while her dear husband was busy in various adventures in Lucknow and Allahabad, the Daughter, Indira Gandhi, chose to stay in Delhi. Soon, she too sacrificed her marriage to devote herself to the one thing that was so necessary for our poor country -- the well-being of Father.
Then, as Father aged (as the original Father had before him), she sacrificed her devotion to housework and his care, and agreed to take over the presidentship of the Congress.
And then, she sacrificed her deep devotion to this hoary party, split it and threw out the blackguards -- all so as to free it, and therefore the country, from the clutches of The Syndicate.
And then, she sacrificed her respect for the elderly, and threw Morarji out -- so as to save the country from The Return of Reaction.
And then, out of her infinite love for the poor, and because of her exemplary fealty to the memory and inclinations of her father, she sacrificed her own pragmatism, and embraced socialism.
And then, seeing how those old stuck-in-the-muds, the judges, were going to impede the great things which were being done for the poor, she sacrificed her deep love for propriety, superseded three of them, and made yet another original, sterling contribution to world thought, the concept of a Committed Judiciary.
And then, as the wretches had still not stopped howling, she sacrificed her new love -- socialism -- for pragmatism; and thus we got the justly fabled "Twenty Point Programme" which, as everyone knows, catapulted our country to the very limits of prosperity.
And then, as she was being attacked from all sides and being asked to resign just because some high court judge had found her guilty of electoral fraud, her devoted son, Sanjay sacrificed his love of automobiles, and stepped forth to protect her from these evil machinations and conspiracies. And then, as misguided students, and their misguides -- JP and the rest started demanding that corruption and inefficiency be checked, she and Sanjay standing together sacrificed their deep attachment to probity and excellence, stood firm, refused to mend matters under duress, and thereby saved the country from extra-constitutional anarchy.
And then, as the bureaucratic machinery had become moribund, as the political leaders had become limp, she sacrificed her deep aesthetic love for consistency, and allowed Sanjay to station himself as The Unconstitutional Authority par excellence so as to kick-start the merely constitutional authorities.
And then, as the senile fools still did not abandon their unconstitutional ways, she sacrificed her deep commitment to democracy, and with the utmost reluctance so touching a characteristic of The Family -- and only to save the country from The Foreign Hand -- threw the entire oppositions as well as over a lakh of people into jail, and suspended the Constitution.
And then, so as to create an example that would inspire all budding entrepreneurs and thereby lift the country to ever greater heights, she sacrificed her own good name and ensured all official and non-official encouragement to Sanjay's dream project, the Maruti.
And then, precisely when she had acquired complete mastery over the entire country and everyone was ever so full of joy at the trains running on time, precisely when a great scholar, the then Congress president, had proclaimed, "Indira is India, India is Indira", she sacrificed her unrivaled, unquestioned position. and announced elections.
And then, just because the people had wiped her out and her party, she sacrificed even her prime ministership and agreed to go along with the verdict of the ignorant people -- a verdict she knew the blockheads would soon rue.
And then, as the Janata government floundered, she sacrificed the well-deserved peace and quiet she had at last got after so many years of travail, and agreed to take on the bother of once again ruling this wretched country.
And then, because his dear brother had sacrificed his very life for that ancient love of the Nehrus -- aviation, Rajiv sacrificed his quiet family life, his love of the skies, his blossoming career in aviation and stepped forth to help Mummy -- so beleaguered and alone at the pinnacle.
And then, to save her beloved Punjab from the communal Akalis, she sacrificed her unshakable commitment to secularism, and put up Bhindranwale.
And then, when those foolish young students in Assam began demanding that foreigners not be smuggled on to electoral lists -- as the local Congress leaders were doing so as to enrich our culture through cross-fertilisation she sacrificed her deep love and compassion for all living beings; and let the forces shoot down 800 of them.
And then, when the damned students still did not listen, she sacrificed her undying love and commitment to the country's unity, and directed her minions to encourage the Bodo militants after all, how could mere students be allowed to decide what was good for the country; after all, how could mere students be allowed to challenge the decisions of Delhi?
And then, when Farooq and NTR would not see reason and submit to her, she sacrificed her unshakable commitment to the Constitution and, with the same pain and reluctance that we have encountered earlier, dismissed their elected governments -- she had nothing to gain from the step, she had everything to lose, but she knew that the country had to be made safe for the Constitution.
And then, as courts, legislatures, civil services with their interminable forms and procedures, were all standing in the way of the poor, she sacrificed her devotion to everything her father had helped construct, and, by skillful undermining, she put all institutions out of harm's way.
Unfortunately -- and this tragic thing happens so often in the case of the Nehru-Gandhi Family -- the followers of Bhindranwale did not see that Bhindranwale did not see that Bhindranwale would have never attained the heights he did it not been for her. They, therefore, sacrificed her life to their ingratitude.
And then, though the Mummy he had stepped forth to help had been taken away, Rajiv, disregarding the entreaties of his wife, sacrificed the easy-relaxed life of a mere MP, and became PM: for the earth which was quaking as the giant tree had fallen had to be calmed.
And then, to safeguard the country, he sacrificed his commitment and that of Olof Palme to the cause they had met to discuss, disarmament, and swiftly concluded the Bofors deal.
And then, he sacrificed his longing to spend time in India, and travelled incessantly all over the world to solve the problems which were buffeting it from all sides.
And then, on his visits to his beloved India, he sacrificed all his waking hours to solve its myriad difficulties.
And then, though he had not had anything to do with any of those things -- Bofors, the Airbus purchases, the settling of the HDW matter -- he sacrificed the good name of generations of the Nehru-Gandhi family, and, Shiva-like, took and held the entire poison of calumny himself: for, steeped as he was in the Nehru-Gandhi Family tradition, he saw that justice had to be done, and the middlemen, who after being abolished had only taken fees for "genuine industrial espionage," had to be protected from the hounds out to destabilise the country.
And then, moved to compassion by the plight of Tamils across the seas, he sacrificed his natural attachment to the principle which was a family heirloom, his own grandfather having invented it -- that of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries -- and opened training camps for Prabhakaran and his LTTE.
And then, as those unthinking judges gave a judgment which hurt the sentiments of the Muslims, he sacrificed his dedication to another of the Family's principles, secularism -- a principle which would not even have been in the Constitution but for his mother -- and passed a law to overturn the judgment.
And then, the effect this had on the sentiments of the Hindus moved him once again to compassion, and so he sacrificed his and the Nehru-Gandhi family's' unyielding devotion to the sentiments of Muslims, and had the locks to the Ram temple opened.
And then, his wife learnt that the Father (originally the Son) had been sacrificing his sleep to write every night to the Viceroy's wife. So as to spare the simple people of our country any trauma, and so as to protect the one institution which held the country together -- namely, the Nehru-Gandhi Family -- she sacrificed the pile of royalties she could have made, and, having kept them in her personal custody for long, refused to allow their publication.
And then, as Prabhakaran's followers turned out to be as ungrateful as those of Lt Bhindranwale, they too sacrificed his life to ingratitude.
And then, his wife, so as to prevent the rich of the country from squandering their money on worthless pursuits and so as to do good to which the Nehru-Gandhi Family has always been committed, sacrificed the good name of the Family once again, she sacrificed her own peace and quiet, and established The Foundation.
Today it is this noble lady, who has sacrificed the comforts of foreign climes, who continues the noble tradition of The Family. As she has said again and again, as she has shown again and again Shrimati Soniaji Gandhi is not interested in any post -- nor should too much be read into the "for now" she has used of late: she is just sacrificing her natural dislike for office to keep up our hopes by keeping alive the prospect of her taking on the reins.
She has stepped forth with the same great reluctance which has been a mark of the Nehru-Gandhi family as much as aviation. She has, like Rajiv before her, who had like his mother before him, done so only to save the country. And what reassurance she provides, the reassurance of things continuing: "The time has come," she told the people in her opening speech, "when I feel compelled to put aside my own inclinations and step forward. I am here not to seek political office or position but to share my concern over the country's future. We do not want our society to be broken into fragments" -- the same touching reluctance of the Nehru-Gandhi Family, the same putting aside of personal interest, the same disregarding of ones own inclination, the same devotion to our poor country. Reading it, citizens were thrilled, they felt 30 years younger, back in 1969 -- Mrs Gandhi, the Daughter, was alive and back in Mrs Gandhi, the Daughter-in-Law, and the entire reign lay before us again.
The first and second halves of the 20th century hold three lessons. These are: all the sacrifices made were made by the Nehru-Gandhi Family, and it is because of those sacrifices that the country has risen to the heights it has, second, that no one else has made or makes sacrifices, and that is why the country is on the verge of breaking into fragments. Third, and most important for the future, that everything the Nehru-Gandhi Family does is a sacrifice. If they do not accept the prime ministership, they are sacrificing the comforts, the pomp and show that go with the highest office. If they do accept it, they are sacrificing their own inclinations, they are sacrificing their personal interests and promising careers. If they accept security, they are sacrificing their privacy. If they do not, they are sacrificing their lives. If they keep rotten, minority governments in place, they are sacrificing what no one else ever sacrifices, power and its pelf. If they bring them down, they are sacrificing the comforts of back-seat driving. If they eat European food, they are sacrificing the food of the country they love so that our hungry millions may have more. If they eat Indian food, they are sacrificing the joys of their childhood. If they eat at all, they are sacrificing their vow to fast. If they fast, they are sacrificing food...
Question in BA Exam: Resolve the following paradox -- as The Foreign Hand has been so vital to our survival, the Congress having been founded by and then brought back to life by it, why did Indira Gandhiji accustom the country to looking upon The Foreign Hand with suspicion?
Model answer in Key: As Comrade Surjeet will soon explain, "Arey bhai, had not Comrade Lenin explained long ago? "There is Foreign Hand and there is Foreign Hand" The Italian Hand is very different from the American Hand The Italian Hand when it installs a government that might be in my hand is very different from the Italian Hand that removes a government that was in my hand."
Asian Age
January 23, 1998
In the beginning was a foreigner. He founded the Congress.
Then, no one did anything till the Nehru-Nehru (Father and Son) Family stepped forth. They firmly stamped the history of India with the twin features that characterise it in the first half of the 20th century: everything they did was a sacrifice, no one else made any sacrifices.
With the passing of the Father, the Son became the Father, and with the coming of the Daughter, the Nehru-Nehru Family came to be known as the Nehru-Gandhi Family. But it continued the noble tradition: everything they did was a sacrifice, no one else made any sacrifices.
Soon enough the country's interest demanded that the secret plans of the new Viceroy and his co-plotters be ferreted out. The Father therefore sacrificed that one thing to which he was so attached -- the sacred memory of his dear wife, who, having joined the Nehru-Nehru Family had already made the Supreme Sacrifice -- and let the Viceroy's wife fall for him.
Time flew yet again, and the cares of office began to weigh Father down. As president of the Congress and because of his own scholarship, he was of course aware of historical precedents of our rulers marrying foreign women to manage the household while they attended to affairs of State. But so as not to further disturb a people that had been so recently devastated, he sacrificed his love of history and its mores, and continued to live alone. That only weighed him down further.
Therefore, while her dear husband was busy in various adventures in Lucknow and Allahabad, the Daughter, Indira Gandhi, chose to stay in Delhi. Soon, she too sacrificed her marriage to devote herself to the one thing that was so necessary for our poor country -- the well-being of Father.
Then, as Father aged (as the original Father had before him), she sacrificed her devotion to housework and his care, and agreed to take over the presidentship of the Congress.
And then, she sacrificed her deep devotion to this hoary party, split it and threw out the blackguards -- all so as to free it, and therefore the country, from the clutches of The Syndicate.
And then, she sacrificed her respect for the elderly, and threw Morarji out -- so as to save the country from The Return of Reaction.
And then, out of her infinite love for the poor, and because of her exemplary fealty to the memory and inclinations of her father, she sacrificed her own pragmatism, and embraced socialism.
And then, seeing how those old stuck-in-the-muds, the judges, were going to impede the great things which were being done for the poor, she sacrificed her deep love for propriety, superseded three of them, and made yet another original, sterling contribution to world thought, the concept of a Committed Judiciary.
And then, as the wretches had still not stopped howling, she sacrificed her new love -- socialism -- for pragmatism; and thus we got the justly fabled "Twenty Point Programme" which, as everyone knows, catapulted our country to the very limits of prosperity.
And then, as she was being attacked from all sides and being asked to resign just because some high court judge had found her guilty of electoral fraud, her devoted son, Sanjay sacrificed his love of automobiles, and stepped forth to protect her from these evil machinations and conspiracies. And then, as misguided students, and their misguides -- JP and the rest started demanding that corruption and inefficiency be checked, she and Sanjay standing together sacrificed their deep attachment to probity and excellence, stood firm, refused to mend matters under duress, and thereby saved the country from extra-constitutional anarchy.
And then, as the bureaucratic machinery had become moribund, as the political leaders had become limp, she sacrificed her deep aesthetic love for consistency, and allowed Sanjay to station himself as The Unconstitutional Authority par excellence so as to kick-start the merely constitutional authorities.
And then, as the senile fools still did not abandon their unconstitutional ways, she sacrificed her deep commitment to democracy, and with the utmost reluctance so touching a characteristic of The Family -- and only to save the country from The Foreign Hand -- threw the entire oppositions as well as over a lakh of people into jail, and suspended the Constitution.
And then, so as to create an example that would inspire all budding entrepreneurs and thereby lift the country to ever greater heights, she sacrificed her own good name and ensured all official and non-official encouragement to Sanjay's dream project, the Maruti.
And then, precisely when she had acquired complete mastery over the entire country and everyone was ever so full of joy at the trains running on time, precisely when a great scholar, the then Congress president, had proclaimed, "Indira is India, India is Indira", she sacrificed her unrivaled, unquestioned position. and announced elections.
And then, just because the people had wiped her out and her party, she sacrificed even her prime ministership and agreed to go along with the verdict of the ignorant people -- a verdict she knew the blockheads would soon rue.
And then, as the Janata government floundered, she sacrificed the well-deserved peace and quiet she had at last got after so many years of travail, and agreed to take on the bother of once again ruling this wretched country.
And then, because his dear brother had sacrificed his very life for that ancient love of the Nehrus -- aviation, Rajiv sacrificed his quiet family life, his love of the skies, his blossoming career in aviation and stepped forth to help Mummy -- so beleaguered and alone at the pinnacle.
And then, to save her beloved Punjab from the communal Akalis, she sacrificed her unshakable commitment to secularism, and put up Bhindranwale.
And then, when those foolish young students in Assam began demanding that foreigners not be smuggled on to electoral lists -- as the local Congress leaders were doing so as to enrich our culture through cross-fertilisation she sacrificed her deep love and compassion for all living beings; and let the forces shoot down 800 of them.
And then, when the damned students still did not listen, she sacrificed her undying love and commitment to the country's unity, and directed her minions to encourage the Bodo militants after all, how could mere students be allowed to decide what was good for the country; after all, how could mere students be allowed to challenge the decisions of Delhi?
And then, when Farooq and NTR would not see reason and submit to her, she sacrificed her unshakable commitment to the Constitution and, with the same pain and reluctance that we have encountered earlier, dismissed their elected governments -- she had nothing to gain from the step, she had everything to lose, but she knew that the country had to be made safe for the Constitution.
And then, as courts, legislatures, civil services with their interminable forms and procedures, were all standing in the way of the poor, she sacrificed her devotion to everything her father had helped construct, and, by skillful undermining, she put all institutions out of harm's way.
Unfortunately -- and this tragic thing happens so often in the case of the Nehru-Gandhi Family -- the followers of Bhindranwale did not see that Bhindranwale did not see that Bhindranwale would have never attained the heights he did it not been for her. They, therefore, sacrificed her life to their ingratitude.
And then, though the Mummy he had stepped forth to help had been taken away, Rajiv, disregarding the entreaties of his wife, sacrificed the easy-relaxed life of a mere MP, and became PM: for the earth which was quaking as the giant tree had fallen had to be calmed.
And then, to safeguard the country, he sacrificed his commitment and that of Olof Palme to the cause they had met to discuss, disarmament, and swiftly concluded the Bofors deal.
And then, he sacrificed his longing to spend time in India, and travelled incessantly all over the world to solve the problems which were buffeting it from all sides.
And then, on his visits to his beloved India, he sacrificed all his waking hours to solve its myriad difficulties.
And then, though he had not had anything to do with any of those things -- Bofors, the Airbus purchases, the settling of the HDW matter -- he sacrificed the good name of generations of the Nehru-Gandhi family, and, Shiva-like, took and held the entire poison of calumny himself: for, steeped as he was in the Nehru-Gandhi Family tradition, he saw that justice had to be done, and the middlemen, who after being abolished had only taken fees for "genuine industrial espionage," had to be protected from the hounds out to destabilise the country.
And then, moved to compassion by the plight of Tamils across the seas, he sacrificed his natural attachment to the principle which was a family heirloom, his own grandfather having invented it -- that of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries -- and opened training camps for Prabhakaran and his LTTE.
And then, as those unthinking judges gave a judgment which hurt the sentiments of the Muslims, he sacrificed his dedication to another of the Family's principles, secularism -- a principle which would not even have been in the Constitution but for his mother -- and passed a law to overturn the judgment.
And then, the effect this had on the sentiments of the Hindus moved him once again to compassion, and so he sacrificed his and the Nehru-Gandhi family's' unyielding devotion to the sentiments of Muslims, and had the locks to the Ram temple opened.
And then, his wife learnt that the Father (originally the Son) had been sacrificing his sleep to write every night to the Viceroy's wife. So as to spare the simple people of our country any trauma, and so as to protect the one institution which held the country together -- namely, the Nehru-Gandhi Family -- she sacrificed the pile of royalties she could have made, and, having kept them in her personal custody for long, refused to allow their publication.
And then, as Prabhakaran's followers turned out to be as ungrateful as those of Lt Bhindranwale, they too sacrificed his life to ingratitude.
And then, his wife, so as to prevent the rich of the country from squandering their money on worthless pursuits and so as to do good to which the Nehru-Gandhi Family has always been committed, sacrificed the good name of the Family once again, she sacrificed her own peace and quiet, and established The Foundation.
Today it is this noble lady, who has sacrificed the comforts of foreign climes, who continues the noble tradition of The Family. As she has said again and again, as she has shown again and again Shrimati Soniaji Gandhi is not interested in any post -- nor should too much be read into the "for now" she has used of late: she is just sacrificing her natural dislike for office to keep up our hopes by keeping alive the prospect of her taking on the reins.
She has stepped forth with the same great reluctance which has been a mark of the Nehru-Gandhi family as much as aviation. She has, like Rajiv before her, who had like his mother before him, done so only to save the country. And what reassurance she provides, the reassurance of things continuing: "The time has come," she told the people in her opening speech, "when I feel compelled to put aside my own inclinations and step forward. I am here not to seek political office or position but to share my concern over the country's future. We do not want our society to be broken into fragments" -- the same touching reluctance of the Nehru-Gandhi Family, the same putting aside of personal interest, the same disregarding of ones own inclination, the same devotion to our poor country. Reading it, citizens were thrilled, they felt 30 years younger, back in 1969 -- Mrs Gandhi, the Daughter, was alive and back in Mrs Gandhi, the Daughter-in-Law, and the entire reign lay before us again.
The first and second halves of the 20th century hold three lessons. These are: all the sacrifices made were made by the Nehru-Gandhi Family, and it is because of those sacrifices that the country has risen to the heights it has, second, that no one else has made or makes sacrifices, and that is why the country is on the verge of breaking into fragments. Third, and most important for the future, that everything the Nehru-Gandhi Family does is a sacrifice. If they do not accept the prime ministership, they are sacrificing the comforts, the pomp and show that go with the highest office. If they do accept it, they are sacrificing their own inclinations, they are sacrificing their personal interests and promising careers. If they accept security, they are sacrificing their privacy. If they do not, they are sacrificing their lives. If they keep rotten, minority governments in place, they are sacrificing what no one else ever sacrifices, power and its pelf. If they bring them down, they are sacrificing the comforts of back-seat driving. If they eat European food, they are sacrificing the food of the country they love so that our hungry millions may have more. If they eat Indian food, they are sacrificing the joys of their childhood. If they eat at all, they are sacrificing their vow to fast. If they fast, they are sacrificing food...
Question in BA Exam: Resolve the following paradox -- as The Foreign Hand has been so vital to our survival, the Congress having been founded by and then brought back to life by it, why did Indira Gandhiji accustom the country to looking upon The Foreign Hand with suspicion?
Model answer in Key: As Comrade Surjeet will soon explain, "Arey bhai, had not Comrade Lenin explained long ago? "There is Foreign Hand and there is Foreign Hand" The Italian Hand is very different from the American Hand The Italian Hand when it installs a government that might be in my hand is very different from the Italian Hand that removes a government that was in my hand."
Asian Age
January 23, 1998
With Friends Like These, Having Enemies is Better
Arun Shourie
Some months ago an official of the United States state department met me through a common scholar friend. The official had been following Indian affairs for many years, in particular the Indian press. He knew more about the press, specially about trends in our Indian language papers than a casual reader like me is ever likely to know. He was also concerned about the frequency with which our countries get into scraps with each other. Last week the same scholar friend sent me an account which that officer had written and circulated about the way India, in particular Hindus, are again being portrayed in the USA. The note deserves to be read in full, so what follows is the verbatim text of his note.
Politically aware Indians have made much recently of the increasing strain between the US administration and India over positions and statements on Kashmir. Those expressing this concern, however, may be unaware of a growing phenomenon currently taking place which has more profound and far-reaching implications: legitimisation of Hindu-bashing in US institutions.
Influenced and supported by noisy self-appointed Indian "secularists," many western scholars and government officials are now taking a position on Hindu revivalism. With very few exceptions, this position is exceedingly negative. Though this phenomenon is now limited to those conversant with South Asia and has not yet influenced the general public's opinions, in time it will. Though there are many forums for Hindu-bashing currently being opened, I will reserve my comments here to two recent conferences, one sponsored by the US state department and one by the University of Wisconsin.
On July 16 of this year the state department held a conference entitled, Hindu Revivalism in India: Position, Prospects and Implications for the US. Many highly placed individuals were present including ambassador elect deputy assistant secretary for Regional Analysis Phyllis Oakley and a wide range of US government officials. Scholars were invited to make presentations on Hindu revivalism. On the whole, the atmosphere was one of ridicule. There was a lot of finger pointing at Hindu revivalism as the source of India's current problems and of potential conflict with the US.
On November 5-7, at the annual conference on South Asia at Madison, Wisconsin, two panels and many individual presentations were devoted to Hindu nationalism. Every single presentation was negative towards Hindu nationalism with remarkable statements being made that I never thought I would hear in an academic institution.
I will detail the presentation of Lisa McKean of the University of Sydney because she was a featured speaker at both the University of Wisconsin and at the state department conference. I will give a sampling of the statements made by other scholars. Though I have documented their statements as well, I will avoid reference to their names in this note.
Lisa McKean claims to have spent a lot of time with Vishwa Hindu Parishad, enough to make scholarly presentations, anyway! The basic thrust of her argument is that Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America is a fascist organisation which remits funds to its illegal sister organisation in India. Not mentioned of course is that the corrupt, opportunistic Congress banned the VHP for its own political gain. Lisa describes VHP sponsored groups in America as "Front Organisations" for a larger fascist cause. She refers to VHP activities, including Diwali celebrations and Swami Chinmayananda's spiritual camps as "covert operations" and to active members as "militant activists." Lisa called the late Shri Chinmayananda a "master manipulator" and alleged that he initiated unwanted physical contact with women, including herself. Not content with merely bashing VHP, however, Lisa referred to the colorful monthly magazine, Hinduism Today as a front paper supporting militant activities. Global Vision 2000 was targeted as a fascist assembly. She described Hindus moving into professional positions as "infiltrators" working for the cause of Hindu fundamentalism. Hindu Digest, Samskar and the Hindu Students Council did not escape her censure.
Perhaps most appalling was the warm hand given to her at the end of her presentation in both conferences. Praised as a "bright, young progressive scholar," most of the audience accepted her statements as fact, particularly those progressive Indian "secularists." One even suggested that universities should perhaps ban Hindu Students Council of America -- imagine the outcry if someone suggested banning an Islamic or Christian Students' Council. Lisa was certainly not alone and played to an appreciative audience in both locations.
Scholars making presentations at the state department conference were less concerned with facts than with making points. Many erroneous statements were made such as "The Sangh Parivar planned the execution of Mahatma Gandhi and will stop at nothing. "The misquoted statement of Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray about Indian Muslims being like the Jews of Europe was used in making the authoritative statement that "Sangh Parivar under- prinnings are just like those of Nazis." An example of how criticism of Sangh Parivar activities is extended to Hindus in general is the statement of a Johns Hopkins scholar that "Hindus in the US are very sympathetic and supportive of fundamentalism." One scholar even justified discrimination against Hindus in India itself with the remarkable statement, "Equal rights to the Hindus is equal to abolition of minority rights." The scholar made this statement after echoing the hollow line started by Indian "secularist" Romila Thapar that "There is in reality no such thing as Hinduism."
The University of Wisconsin panels were truly pitiful and I will give only a few quotes from various presentations. One Indian "secularist" suggested that India was an artificial entity which "Requires fascism to maintain its existence." A scholar from Berkeley referred to the "dirty communal imprint" that Hindus leave on Indian society. Hindu Sangram Parishad's effort in India to spread Sanskrit learning among all castes and classes was seen as "militant activity" rather than a remarkable democratisation. Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was referred to as a "Celluloid Divinity" and Swami Vivekananda was refered to as "reactionary at home though seemingly progressive abroad." The popular Ramayana and Mahabharata serials were referred to as "communalist, oppressive and inspirational to fascists."
The University of Wisconsin's willing (witting or unwitting) participation in Hindu-bashing is proven by their giving a booth to the so-called "Overseas Friends of India" from Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. This organisation has apparently taken the lead in spreading malicious and misleading propaganda. Calling Hinduism "unrivaled in sheer bigotry and intolerances, these overseas "friends" claim that Hindus plan pogroms of minorities and are guilty of having "banished Buddhism," and having "Forced Jainism into a sect of Hinduism." Rape is claimed as the normal response of a Hindu male to a "minority" woman. Harijans are claimed to he non-Hindu. Sympathy is claimed for the "persecuted Harijans who are not allowed to convert to Christianity or Islam." The "lack of availability of beef" is claimed a "denial of protein to a poor population." Finally these "friends" of India urge overseas Indians to write to their ambassador to urge India to stop this communalist behavior (assist efforts to delegitimise and malign Hinduism). With "friends" like these, having enemies would be an improvement.
There is no doubt that "secular progressive" scholars bash other religions, and traditions as well. The consensus viewpoint of western scholarship for quite some time has basically been one of aggressively promoting atheistic values which denigrate traditional culture and religion. Yet despite the "normalcy" of this denigration, I cannot therefore dismiss these scholars' work as harmless and limited to ivory towers. Though their arrogant pronouncements are irrelevant to, and cannot impact upon divine truth, I fear Hindus in the West may be persecuted due to the willful spread of false and misleading propaganda on the part of these scholars. It particularly pains me to see Indians, Hindu by birth, participate in the denigration of their own civilisation. What would they replace it with, a "progressive India" with a 50 per cent divorce rate, high illegitimate birth rates, McDonalds on every corner, discos replacing temples and MTV as the most watched TV show?
Incredible as the assertions of these misguided "intellectuals" are, there is a danger of an appearance of legitimisation of these ideas through repetition. These unprincipled "scholars" would leave no stone unturned to denigrate Hindu culture. The "secular" Indians are at the forefront of this campaign which is willingly supported by proselytising Muslims and Christians who have the same goal: the denigration and delegitimisation of the traditional Hindu culture and world view. The rhetoric of the "Overseas Friends of India" is similar to that of an extreme group of Protestant evangelicals who have portrayed Rajneesh as mainstream Hinduism and maliciousness and ignorance as prerequisites to being Hindu. How this will affect an unknowing American public, when repeated over time remains an open question. Some possibilities:
Tenure of an university professor of Indian ethnicity being contingent upon his or her allegiance to Hindu-bashing rhetoric when dealing with Indian subject matter (a very real possibility in light of the suppression of the truth already being justified in some universities due to political correctness ideology).
Professional advancement among Hindus in non-university settings requiring their disassociation from "backward" delegitimised practices and beliefs (based on the assumption that the only good Indian is a dead Indian or at least a secular atheist who is "dead" to his own culture and civilisation and therefore "progressive" and "liberal."
Increasing embarrassment and alienation on the part of Hindu youth growing up in this country from identifying with Hindu beliefs and practices due to their delegitimisation.
Hindus having to repeatedly justify their religious practices such as Puja to Ganapati as, not being "one of those weird cult practices."
Hindus having to work much harder to dispel mistaken impressions and to ward off a witch hunt mentality which could be precipitated by incessant Hindu bashing. There is much historical precedent for this in Western culture (Jew-hunts, etc).
The complexity of Indian civilisation simply overwhelms most western scholars (and apparently, Indian "secular" scholars as well). They do not, for the most part, understand that the rhythms of Hinduism beat in the heart of most "oppressed untouchables" and in the hearts of much of "the minorities" as well, including most Indian Muslims before 20th century politicisation. One scholar, facing the complexity of increasing Harijan, Christian and Muslim sympathy for Hindutva, echoed the true feelings that most western scholars have always exhibited towards India. Asked how he could analyse such a complex civilisation, he replied, "When Hinduism dies, we'll do a better job."
The note speaks for itself. Notice the kinds of things that pass for scholarship at meetings of scholars on South Asia. This kind of "scholarship" will certainly harm America itself, as it has done in the past: the then prevalent notions of "political correctness" kept European and American intellectuals from speaking the truth about Communism for decades, and thereby led the governments to misjudge the nature of the beast that confronted them.
Next, notice how several of your friends will react to a note like this one. Sentences in the note speak to the regard this particular official has for India, for Hinduism in particular. In the eyes of so many, this fact alone will be sufficient to destroy the veracity of his narrative, to reduce the importance of what he has pointed out. Now look at the question the other way: how many of the same persons ever discount what a person says about India and Hinduism when it is evident that he hates Hinduism and India? When someone who is obviously attached to Islam says something about Islam -- even in the face of all of its history and all the canonical texts -- do these scholars and friends dismiss it? Do they not on the contrary insist that what he is saying must take precedence over the evidence of mere texts and history'? And now? Because sentences suggest that the official thinks well of India and Hinduism what he says must be discounted! Almost the only thing which might keep such persons from throwing out the note altogether and at the outset itself is the fact it has been written by an American and not an Indian! But what if the officer, though American, actually is one who has converted to Hinduism?! That would be the final, conclusive "proof' surely -- the content itself being the primary "proof!" -- that nothing in the note should be believed at all! "That explains it all," these friends will proclaim in triumph!
"But surely," even the non-secularists among us will exclaim, "it would have been so much better if a person less obviously appreciative of India and Hinduism had written the note." And what is the proof of the person being less than fit to narrate the facts? That he has not indulged in Hindu-bashing! That he has not conformed to the prevailing intellectual fashion, that instead he has shown it up! And what if the "objective", "neutral" scholars are too intimidated by the intellectual fashion to testify to the truth? My friend puts it well. A man tried to stand up to the gangsters in town. In retaliation they set upon his sister, and raped her in view of a large crowd. Everyone was terrified. The brother ran from one eye-witness to the other beseeching them to help him lodge a complaint with the police. None dared. At last he went himself and lodged the FIR. "But wouldn't it have been better if someone other than you had come to register the case'." exclaimed the policeman. "After all, she is your sister. Everyone will say you are an interested party."
That is the secularist position. But notice that this is their position vis-a-vis India and Hindus alone: if the country in question is Palestine and the narrator is a Muslim, say, then they insist that what he says has conclusive evidentiary status. And then there is the other point: if even the brother will shy away from filing the case when his own sister has been raped, why would others?
In a word, what answers to the preceding questions explain is the depth to which our self-esteem has been pushed. what they document is the extent to which secularists have internalised double standards and calumny, and the extent to which they have been able to brow-beat others into adhering to these skewed standards.
Notice the persistence of calumny; the falsehoods which are being hurled at us are exactly the ones which the missionaries fabricated and smeared us with a 100 years ago -- and yet when, at the invitation of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, I had occasion to refer to them two years ago in my book, Missionaries in India, the cry went up, "But why are you digging up these old things? Who talks about India and Hinduism to those terms today?"
Notice the congruence of themes: what is being put of at these conference in the US is exactly what our secularists and others put out in the newspapers here; the themes and premises are the very same -- that there really is no such thing as Hinduism -- the very words are the same. The primary responsibility for this is not of the foreign scholar as of the secularist Indians: just as the spectacles of the foreign correspondent working in Delhi get coloured by what he reads and hears from Indian journalists writing in the English newspapers in this one city, the perception of the foreign scholar -- a "specialist on South Asia" though he be -- gets coloured by what he hears from and reads of the output of Indian scholars.
Notice also the convergence of interests: of the interests of Christian missionaries and Islamic groups, of the official US establishment, of our secularists. Notice the subservience of US academies to the current fashion of "political correctness." Notice the total perversion, indeed the complete inversion: the groups whose foundational belief is theocracy, whose ideology is exclusiveness distilled 10 times over are the very ones who are accusing Hindus of ahem -- theocratic! The very groups the Leftists -- whose forbears collaborated with the Nazis, whose ideology is Nazism by a different name are the ones who are accusing Hindus of being Nazis.
But falsehood is a potent weapon. Neither American Presidents and Congressmen nor the American people at large have any time to ascertain facts about India. Policy is therefore formed by just a handful of middle- level officers -- the Robin Raphaels whose predilections have been on display in such vivid colours these five years. Presidents and Americans in general go along with what this handful concocts -- they are conditioned to do so by the stereotype which they have been fed over the years. It is this stereotype which this kind of falsehood manufactures.
When what the note of this official reveals is the perception Americans are let to form of India, the policy which they will countenance will be one of unadulterated hostility. That will harm not just Indo-US relations, it will harm India no end.
But who cares?
Asian Age
August 30, 1996
Some months ago an official of the United States state department met me through a common scholar friend. The official had been following Indian affairs for many years, in particular the Indian press. He knew more about the press, specially about trends in our Indian language papers than a casual reader like me is ever likely to know. He was also concerned about the frequency with which our countries get into scraps with each other. Last week the same scholar friend sent me an account which that officer had written and circulated about the way India, in particular Hindus, are again being portrayed in the USA. The note deserves to be read in full, so what follows is the verbatim text of his note.
Politically aware Indians have made much recently of the increasing strain between the US administration and India over positions and statements on Kashmir. Those expressing this concern, however, may be unaware of a growing phenomenon currently taking place which has more profound and far-reaching implications: legitimisation of Hindu-bashing in US institutions.
Influenced and supported by noisy self-appointed Indian "secularists," many western scholars and government officials are now taking a position on Hindu revivalism. With very few exceptions, this position is exceedingly negative. Though this phenomenon is now limited to those conversant with South Asia and has not yet influenced the general public's opinions, in time it will. Though there are many forums for Hindu-bashing currently being opened, I will reserve my comments here to two recent conferences, one sponsored by the US state department and one by the University of Wisconsin.
On July 16 of this year the state department held a conference entitled, Hindu Revivalism in India: Position, Prospects and Implications for the US. Many highly placed individuals were present including ambassador elect deputy assistant secretary for Regional Analysis Phyllis Oakley and a wide range of US government officials. Scholars were invited to make presentations on Hindu revivalism. On the whole, the atmosphere was one of ridicule. There was a lot of finger pointing at Hindu revivalism as the source of India's current problems and of potential conflict with the US.
On November 5-7, at the annual conference on South Asia at Madison, Wisconsin, two panels and many individual presentations were devoted to Hindu nationalism. Every single presentation was negative towards Hindu nationalism with remarkable statements being made that I never thought I would hear in an academic institution.
I will detail the presentation of Lisa McKean of the University of Sydney because she was a featured speaker at both the University of Wisconsin and at the state department conference. I will give a sampling of the statements made by other scholars. Though I have documented their statements as well, I will avoid reference to their names in this note.
Lisa McKean claims to have spent a lot of time with Vishwa Hindu Parishad, enough to make scholarly presentations, anyway! The basic thrust of her argument is that Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America is a fascist organisation which remits funds to its illegal sister organisation in India. Not mentioned of course is that the corrupt, opportunistic Congress banned the VHP for its own political gain. Lisa describes VHP sponsored groups in America as "Front Organisations" for a larger fascist cause. She refers to VHP activities, including Diwali celebrations and Swami Chinmayananda's spiritual camps as "covert operations" and to active members as "militant activists." Lisa called the late Shri Chinmayananda a "master manipulator" and alleged that he initiated unwanted physical contact with women, including herself. Not content with merely bashing VHP, however, Lisa referred to the colorful monthly magazine, Hinduism Today as a front paper supporting militant activities. Global Vision 2000 was targeted as a fascist assembly. She described Hindus moving into professional positions as "infiltrators" working for the cause of Hindu fundamentalism. Hindu Digest, Samskar and the Hindu Students Council did not escape her censure.
Perhaps most appalling was the warm hand given to her at the end of her presentation in both conferences. Praised as a "bright, young progressive scholar," most of the audience accepted her statements as fact, particularly those progressive Indian "secularists." One even suggested that universities should perhaps ban Hindu Students Council of America -- imagine the outcry if someone suggested banning an Islamic or Christian Students' Council. Lisa was certainly not alone and played to an appreciative audience in both locations.
Scholars making presentations at the state department conference were less concerned with facts than with making points. Many erroneous statements were made such as "The Sangh Parivar planned the execution of Mahatma Gandhi and will stop at nothing. "The misquoted statement of Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray about Indian Muslims being like the Jews of Europe was used in making the authoritative statement that "Sangh Parivar under- prinnings are just like those of Nazis." An example of how criticism of Sangh Parivar activities is extended to Hindus in general is the statement of a Johns Hopkins scholar that "Hindus in the US are very sympathetic and supportive of fundamentalism." One scholar even justified discrimination against Hindus in India itself with the remarkable statement, "Equal rights to the Hindus is equal to abolition of minority rights." The scholar made this statement after echoing the hollow line started by Indian "secularist" Romila Thapar that "There is in reality no such thing as Hinduism."
The University of Wisconsin panels were truly pitiful and I will give only a few quotes from various presentations. One Indian "secularist" suggested that India was an artificial entity which "Requires fascism to maintain its existence." A scholar from Berkeley referred to the "dirty communal imprint" that Hindus leave on Indian society. Hindu Sangram Parishad's effort in India to spread Sanskrit learning among all castes and classes was seen as "militant activity" rather than a remarkable democratisation. Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was referred to as a "Celluloid Divinity" and Swami Vivekananda was refered to as "reactionary at home though seemingly progressive abroad." The popular Ramayana and Mahabharata serials were referred to as "communalist, oppressive and inspirational to fascists."
The University of Wisconsin's willing (witting or unwitting) participation in Hindu-bashing is proven by their giving a booth to the so-called "Overseas Friends of India" from Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. This organisation has apparently taken the lead in spreading malicious and misleading propaganda. Calling Hinduism "unrivaled in sheer bigotry and intolerances, these overseas "friends" claim that Hindus plan pogroms of minorities and are guilty of having "banished Buddhism," and having "Forced Jainism into a sect of Hinduism." Rape is claimed as the normal response of a Hindu male to a "minority" woman. Harijans are claimed to he non-Hindu. Sympathy is claimed for the "persecuted Harijans who are not allowed to convert to Christianity or Islam." The "lack of availability of beef" is claimed a "denial of protein to a poor population." Finally these "friends" of India urge overseas Indians to write to their ambassador to urge India to stop this communalist behavior (assist efforts to delegitimise and malign Hinduism). With "friends" like these, having enemies would be an improvement.
There is no doubt that "secular progressive" scholars bash other religions, and traditions as well. The consensus viewpoint of western scholarship for quite some time has basically been one of aggressively promoting atheistic values which denigrate traditional culture and religion. Yet despite the "normalcy" of this denigration, I cannot therefore dismiss these scholars' work as harmless and limited to ivory towers. Though their arrogant pronouncements are irrelevant to, and cannot impact upon divine truth, I fear Hindus in the West may be persecuted due to the willful spread of false and misleading propaganda on the part of these scholars. It particularly pains me to see Indians, Hindu by birth, participate in the denigration of their own civilisation. What would they replace it with, a "progressive India" with a 50 per cent divorce rate, high illegitimate birth rates, McDonalds on every corner, discos replacing temples and MTV as the most watched TV show?
Incredible as the assertions of these misguided "intellectuals" are, there is a danger of an appearance of legitimisation of these ideas through repetition. These unprincipled "scholars" would leave no stone unturned to denigrate Hindu culture. The "secular" Indians are at the forefront of this campaign which is willingly supported by proselytising Muslims and Christians who have the same goal: the denigration and delegitimisation of the traditional Hindu culture and world view. The rhetoric of the "Overseas Friends of India" is similar to that of an extreme group of Protestant evangelicals who have portrayed Rajneesh as mainstream Hinduism and maliciousness and ignorance as prerequisites to being Hindu. How this will affect an unknowing American public, when repeated over time remains an open question. Some possibilities:
Tenure of an university professor of Indian ethnicity being contingent upon his or her allegiance to Hindu-bashing rhetoric when dealing with Indian subject matter (a very real possibility in light of the suppression of the truth already being justified in some universities due to political correctness ideology).
Professional advancement among Hindus in non-university settings requiring their disassociation from "backward" delegitimised practices and beliefs (based on the assumption that the only good Indian is a dead Indian or at least a secular atheist who is "dead" to his own culture and civilisation and therefore "progressive" and "liberal."
Increasing embarrassment and alienation on the part of Hindu youth growing up in this country from identifying with Hindu beliefs and practices due to their delegitimisation.
Hindus having to repeatedly justify their religious practices such as Puja to Ganapati as, not being "one of those weird cult practices."
Hindus having to work much harder to dispel mistaken impressions and to ward off a witch hunt mentality which could be precipitated by incessant Hindu bashing. There is much historical precedent for this in Western culture (Jew-hunts, etc).
The complexity of Indian civilisation simply overwhelms most western scholars (and apparently, Indian "secular" scholars as well). They do not, for the most part, understand that the rhythms of Hinduism beat in the heart of most "oppressed untouchables" and in the hearts of much of "the minorities" as well, including most Indian Muslims before 20th century politicisation. One scholar, facing the complexity of increasing Harijan, Christian and Muslim sympathy for Hindutva, echoed the true feelings that most western scholars have always exhibited towards India. Asked how he could analyse such a complex civilisation, he replied, "When Hinduism dies, we'll do a better job."
The note speaks for itself. Notice the kinds of things that pass for scholarship at meetings of scholars on South Asia. This kind of "scholarship" will certainly harm America itself, as it has done in the past: the then prevalent notions of "political correctness" kept European and American intellectuals from speaking the truth about Communism for decades, and thereby led the governments to misjudge the nature of the beast that confronted them.
Next, notice how several of your friends will react to a note like this one. Sentences in the note speak to the regard this particular official has for India, for Hinduism in particular. In the eyes of so many, this fact alone will be sufficient to destroy the veracity of his narrative, to reduce the importance of what he has pointed out. Now look at the question the other way: how many of the same persons ever discount what a person says about India and Hinduism when it is evident that he hates Hinduism and India? When someone who is obviously attached to Islam says something about Islam -- even in the face of all of its history and all the canonical texts -- do these scholars and friends dismiss it? Do they not on the contrary insist that what he is saying must take precedence over the evidence of mere texts and history'? And now? Because sentences suggest that the official thinks well of India and Hinduism what he says must be discounted! Almost the only thing which might keep such persons from throwing out the note altogether and at the outset itself is the fact it has been written by an American and not an Indian! But what if the officer, though American, actually is one who has converted to Hinduism?! That would be the final, conclusive "proof' surely -- the content itself being the primary "proof!" -- that nothing in the note should be believed at all! "That explains it all," these friends will proclaim in triumph!
"But surely," even the non-secularists among us will exclaim, "it would have been so much better if a person less obviously appreciative of India and Hinduism had written the note." And what is the proof of the person being less than fit to narrate the facts? That he has not indulged in Hindu-bashing! That he has not conformed to the prevailing intellectual fashion, that instead he has shown it up! And what if the "objective", "neutral" scholars are too intimidated by the intellectual fashion to testify to the truth? My friend puts it well. A man tried to stand up to the gangsters in town. In retaliation they set upon his sister, and raped her in view of a large crowd. Everyone was terrified. The brother ran from one eye-witness to the other beseeching them to help him lodge a complaint with the police. None dared. At last he went himself and lodged the FIR. "But wouldn't it have been better if someone other than you had come to register the case'." exclaimed the policeman. "After all, she is your sister. Everyone will say you are an interested party."
That is the secularist position. But notice that this is their position vis-a-vis India and Hindus alone: if the country in question is Palestine and the narrator is a Muslim, say, then they insist that what he says has conclusive evidentiary status. And then there is the other point: if even the brother will shy away from filing the case when his own sister has been raped, why would others?
In a word, what answers to the preceding questions explain is the depth to which our self-esteem has been pushed. what they document is the extent to which secularists have internalised double standards and calumny, and the extent to which they have been able to brow-beat others into adhering to these skewed standards.
Notice the persistence of calumny; the falsehoods which are being hurled at us are exactly the ones which the missionaries fabricated and smeared us with a 100 years ago -- and yet when, at the invitation of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, I had occasion to refer to them two years ago in my book, Missionaries in India, the cry went up, "But why are you digging up these old things? Who talks about India and Hinduism to those terms today?"
Notice the congruence of themes: what is being put of at these conference in the US is exactly what our secularists and others put out in the newspapers here; the themes and premises are the very same -- that there really is no such thing as Hinduism -- the very words are the same. The primary responsibility for this is not of the foreign scholar as of the secularist Indians: just as the spectacles of the foreign correspondent working in Delhi get coloured by what he reads and hears from Indian journalists writing in the English newspapers in this one city, the perception of the foreign scholar -- a "specialist on South Asia" though he be -- gets coloured by what he hears from and reads of the output of Indian scholars.
Notice also the convergence of interests: of the interests of Christian missionaries and Islamic groups, of the official US establishment, of our secularists. Notice the subservience of US academies to the current fashion of "political correctness." Notice the total perversion, indeed the complete inversion: the groups whose foundational belief is theocracy, whose ideology is exclusiveness distilled 10 times over are the very ones who are accusing Hindus of ahem -- theocratic! The very groups the Leftists -- whose forbears collaborated with the Nazis, whose ideology is Nazism by a different name are the ones who are accusing Hindus of being Nazis.
But falsehood is a potent weapon. Neither American Presidents and Congressmen nor the American people at large have any time to ascertain facts about India. Policy is therefore formed by just a handful of middle- level officers -- the Robin Raphaels whose predilections have been on display in such vivid colours these five years. Presidents and Americans in general go along with what this handful concocts -- they are conditioned to do so by the stereotype which they have been fed over the years. It is this stereotype which this kind of falsehood manufactures.
When what the note of this official reveals is the perception Americans are let to form of India, the policy which they will countenance will be one of unadulterated hostility. That will harm not just Indo-US relations, it will harm India no end.
But who cares?
Asian Age
August 30, 1996
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