Benjamin Franklin once said, “There are three things that men are most likely to be cheated in: A horse, a wig, and a wife.” One can easily substitute the word horse for wealth, as the former was considered a measure of a man’s wealth at the time. The desire to become rich has been at the root of all scams recorded in history.
India is not new to scams — they have plagued us right from the time of independence. But the regularity with which they are taking place is truly shocking. Also, given that most of the scams involve the same old tricks of cheating such as underwriting or fudging company books, one will not be wrong in saying that history is repeating itself. The only thing that distinguishes one scam from another is that the companies and the principle actors are different. But the motive remains the same in each case.
The Rs 7,000-crore scam that chairman of Satyam Computers Services Ramalinga Raju has admitted to has taken the wind out of corporate India. He has disclosed that the company’s balance sheets were dressed-up over several years. It is a crime for which he and his brother as well as the chief financial officers of the company have been arrested.
There can be no doubt about the fact that this was a case of corporate fraud of epic proportions, which like other similar white-collar crimes will take centrestage in public memory for some time to come. In the aftermath of the fraud there has been a lot of talk about effective and transparent corporate governance and a system of institutionalised checks and balances.
The role of checks and balances is best illustrated in the thriller Silver Blaze, wherein Sherlock Holmes deals with the theft of an expensive racehorse on the eve of an important race. Asked whether there is any point to which Holmes wants to draw the Scotland Yard detective’s attention, Holmes points to “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” The detective replies, very aptly, that the dog did nothing, to which Holmes responds that the dog made no noise because it knew the thieves well. Perhaps, this is what happened to the internal and external auditors in Satyam’s case. As it is, the laws in our country are so lax that a thief who has stolen a bottle of liquor gets almost the same quantum of punishment as that of a prince embezzler.
Much has been made of the role of independent directors in the Satyam saga. I asked an officer, who had retired from a top audit and accounts service, as to what he was doing these days. He said that he was an independent director in a large number of companies. Then I asked him as to how seriously he took his job, to which he replied that he was only interested in the sitting fees and perks, and that if he raised too many queries he would be eased out of the board.
The truth is that even Government companies and organisations do not function as models of probity and efficiency because of the continuous interference, not only in taking decisions but also in awarding contracts. Large amounts of funds are misused by those who exercise control over these companies from their seat of power.
When the infamous Harshad Mehta scam took place, Mr Manmohan Singh, who at the time was the Finance Minister, described the scam as a system failure and had subsequently declared that steps would be taken to rectify the situation. But promptly after that surfaced the Ketan Parekh scam.
Each scam that comes to light seems to be bigger than the previous one. And each of them is due to greed and the lack of any deterrence. The best of laws with the worst of men can be misused and the worst of laws with good men will never deter these corrupt practices. There is no coherent, integrated machinery in our country to deal with such fraud in the private corporate sector.
The responsibility of enforcing the law in the corporate sector is split between the Serious Fraud Investigation Office, Department of Company Affairs, SEBI, Banking Department and the State police. The police comes in the final picture and can take action only for offences of cheating, fraud and defalcation. A police case can mean a long-drawn affair, which may take even 10 years to be finalised.
Truly speaking, there is hardly any worthwhile punishment for the collaborators and the auditors in such cases of fraud. The Companies Act undoubtedly lays down the duties and powers of the auditor. But the penalty for non-performance is pathetic and puny. If an auditor fails in carrying out his duties properly, the maximum penalty is a fine of Rs 10,000.
Incidentally, PricewaterhouseCooper, the firm which audited the books of Satyam, received a consolidated audit fee of Rs 4.3 crore for the financial year 2007-08, almost twice as much as Satyam’s peers like TCS, Infosys and Wipro pay to their auditors. Satyam promoters and others who have benefitted — some by insider trading — could not have carried out their scam with the fear of being found out by the auditors. According to one report, about Rs 800 crore was made by insider trading and sale of shares in this scam.
The truth is that there can be big or small money involved in auditing, depending upon the size of the company. No auditor, unless he wants to be out of the business, would be too harsh or expose any wrongdoings. There are many Ketan Parekh, Harshad Mehta and Satyam scams waiting to emerge if company auditors are willing to put their neck on the block and lose their business. But it is doubtful, if anybody would commit harakiri.
According to company law, for fudging of accounts there is a maximum fine of Rs 5,000 and imprisonment of up to two years. No doubt the Companies Act does provide for special audit, investigation, reconstitution of the board of directors and even ‘dawn raids’. But the penalties for non-compliance are as good as non-existent. Moreover, there is no mechanism even for test-checking a few corporate balance sheets and accounting statements certified by auditors.
Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. The investigation into the Enron fraud had also shown its auditors, Arthur Anderson, as guilty as Enron’s CEO. No doubt that there are a number of very good companies with impeccable records, though the same cannot be said about every company. The Government must decide what it should do and then do it to end such occurrences. It would be prudent to remind it of what Mrs Indira Gandhi said: “My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people, those who work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group. There was less competition there.”
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Chinese threat looms large: Govt must wake up
Throughout history, there have been numerous rulers with the ambition to lord over the entire world or at least a large chunk of it. The Second World War happened due to the over-riding ambition of Adolf Hitler. Thereafter, Soviet Union nourished the ambition to have global ideological sway over the world through its puppet Governments. We all know the end. Today, USA nurtures the same ambition. George W Bush attacked Iraq without any valid reason to control its oil resources as if all the world reserves must belong to the US. Imagine the brutal force of Robert Gates, Defence Secretary of US Administration, frightening Pakistan President Musharraf to be an ally to fight against terror or perish into stone age. That it suited Pakistan, is another matter.
Today, the emergence of China as a world power at par with the US, carries a global threat. Being a neighbour, India should be the most worried country. India has not yet gotten over the humiliation of the 1962 War. The first Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, actually lost vigour and ego.
Ultimately, he did not survive this jolt. He underestimated Chinese designs and diplomacy in spite of timely warning from Sardar Patel explaining expansionist ambitions of the Chinese. Similar thoughts were expressed by Dr Mukherjee, Mr Malkani and Prof NG Ranga. In fact, KM Munshi wrote that China's has an aggressive history. Whenever she was strong, it tried to include many countries in its empire.
Recently, The History of China published by the Chinese Government contains a map showing Chinese territory, which includes Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, Ladakh and NEFA (50,000 square miles area). The map also includes Burma, Malay, Thailand, North and South Vietnam, Combodia and chunks of Soviet Siberia, Mangolia, Tajikistan and Khirurgiia. The book declares to bring back every territory. Some think that by-and-large status-quo would prevail in the world order but if one looks at the world's geo-political map of past 500 years, with an interval of 50 years, the map changes drastically. Those who do not think beyond get shocked when international boundaries change.
Nearly 5 months back Defence Minister, AK Antony told that "with China developing anti-satellite missiles, lasers and other space capabilities, India has no option but to be fully prepared for Star Wars in future." Army Chief added that Space War was increasingly becoming the ultimate high ground to dominate war in the future. I can quote dozens of such warnings. China has positioned its nuclear submarines in Gwadar naval base at Baluchistan and more than half a dozen naval bases of Suludao, Quingdao, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Hongkong and others. We have naval bases but inferior submarines at Mumbai, Goa, Kochi, Port Blair and Vishakhapatnam. China has developed observatory towers from where they can watch our movement at Sriharikota and other centres. They have also prepared metal roads till the nearest points of India, Nepal and Sikkim borders. Their missiles in Tibet are targeted towards all Indian cities. Even US targets are included.
It must be noted that the Defence Budget of China viz-a-viz India is atleast double. According to Pentagon's assessment, China's military build up poses a direct threat to India as well as Taiwan, Japan and Russia. China has infiltrated 75 millions 'Hans' to Manchuria, 7 millions to Sinkiang, 8.5 millions to inner Mangolia and 7.5 millions into Tibet. Chinese leadership has always followed the war strategy of their master Sun Tzu. Mao was particularly influenced by him. Sun Tzu has said, "to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence, it consists of breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." This is what China is doing to India through Pakistan. They are aligning with Sri Lanka to develop its war machine. They are also trapping Bangladesh. In Nepal, their mysterious diplomacy has succeeded.
The Defence Ministry's annual report, stated that 50-60 cities are targeted from Greater Tibet. Just this week, Chinese troops entered Sikkim by nearly two kms. Similar happenings have been occurring in Tawang area of Arunachal Pradesh but our Defence Ministry has not taken a serious note and said they are local skirmishes. The Government minimises the seriousness of all these threats.
Our security challenges are multi-fold and include Islamic terrorism in J&K and elsewhere, Bangladeshi infiltration, Left-wing extremism, troubled neighbouring States, insurgency in north-east and Chinese military push.
There are experts in India who feel that there is no immediate threat from China, as its priority is to develop its economy. But this opinion stands discounted by ground realities.
Today, the emergence of China as a world power at par with the US, carries a global threat. Being a neighbour, India should be the most worried country. India has not yet gotten over the humiliation of the 1962 War. The first Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, actually lost vigour and ego.
Ultimately, he did not survive this jolt. He underestimated Chinese designs and diplomacy in spite of timely warning from Sardar Patel explaining expansionist ambitions of the Chinese. Similar thoughts were expressed by Dr Mukherjee, Mr Malkani and Prof NG Ranga. In fact, KM Munshi wrote that China's has an aggressive history. Whenever she was strong, it tried to include many countries in its empire.
Recently, The History of China published by the Chinese Government contains a map showing Chinese territory, which includes Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, Ladakh and NEFA (50,000 square miles area). The map also includes Burma, Malay, Thailand, North and South Vietnam, Combodia and chunks of Soviet Siberia, Mangolia, Tajikistan and Khirurgiia. The book declares to bring back every territory. Some think that by-and-large status-quo would prevail in the world order but if one looks at the world's geo-political map of past 500 years, with an interval of 50 years, the map changes drastically. Those who do not think beyond get shocked when international boundaries change.
Nearly 5 months back Defence Minister, AK Antony told that "with China developing anti-satellite missiles, lasers and other space capabilities, India has no option but to be fully prepared for Star Wars in future." Army Chief added that Space War was increasingly becoming the ultimate high ground to dominate war in the future. I can quote dozens of such warnings. China has positioned its nuclear submarines in Gwadar naval base at Baluchistan and more than half a dozen naval bases of Suludao, Quingdao, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Hongkong and others. We have naval bases but inferior submarines at Mumbai, Goa, Kochi, Port Blair and Vishakhapatnam. China has developed observatory towers from where they can watch our movement at Sriharikota and other centres. They have also prepared metal roads till the nearest points of India, Nepal and Sikkim borders. Their missiles in Tibet are targeted towards all Indian cities. Even US targets are included.
It must be noted that the Defence Budget of China viz-a-viz India is atleast double. According to Pentagon's assessment, China's military build up poses a direct threat to India as well as Taiwan, Japan and Russia. China has infiltrated 75 millions 'Hans' to Manchuria, 7 millions to Sinkiang, 8.5 millions to inner Mangolia and 7.5 millions into Tibet. Chinese leadership has always followed the war strategy of their master Sun Tzu. Mao was particularly influenced by him. Sun Tzu has said, "to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence, it consists of breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." This is what China is doing to India through Pakistan. They are aligning with Sri Lanka to develop its war machine. They are also trapping Bangladesh. In Nepal, their mysterious diplomacy has succeeded.
The Defence Ministry's annual report, stated that 50-60 cities are targeted from Greater Tibet. Just this week, Chinese troops entered Sikkim by nearly two kms. Similar happenings have been occurring in Tawang area of Arunachal Pradesh but our Defence Ministry has not taken a serious note and said they are local skirmishes. The Government minimises the seriousness of all these threats.
Our security challenges are multi-fold and include Islamic terrorism in J&K and elsewhere, Bangladeshi infiltration, Left-wing extremism, troubled neighbouring States, insurgency in north-east and Chinese military push.
There are experts in India who feel that there is no immediate threat from China, as its priority is to develop its economy. But this opinion stands discounted by ground realities.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Sorry, but not so sorry
The principles of Westminster system, the democratic parliamentary system that we adopted, modelled after the British government, help us govern the largest democracy in the world. Now that we have finished the gigantic task of electing worthies who will represent us in the national capital, we must look beyond our shores, as we often do for inspiration.
The Palace of Westminster is the seat of Parliament of the United Kingdom and, practically, all former British colonies, with the notable exception of the United States of America, have adopted the legislative model used in Westminster.
While India has adopted the British system, there are differences, and one that has occupied headlines in the UK recently is that the British MPs can, and do, claim expenses for a second home, outside their constituency, in London.
Ever since the British paper, The Daily Telegraph, published expenses claims made by senior British MPs under the controversial Personal Additional Accommodation Expenditure for MPs or second homes allowance, what Freedom of Information activists long held, became obvious-that this is an expense most open to abuse.
Media exposure of glaring cases — like claiming the cost of cleaning a moat, fitting chandeliers and in another case, jacuzzi-style bath — stunned taxpayers, as they learnt exactly what they were subsidising with their hard-earned money.
We must keep in mind that historically, all over the world, more tax is paid by those who do not have homes with moats or chandeliered hallways where their visitors might wait while the butler announces them, or retire to the rest room for a jacuzzi bath. These are blue or white collared workers struggling to pay bills as they balance various aspects of their lives. For them, this extravagance is a bitter pill to swallow, indeed.
Not that all MPs were extravagant in their purchases: They even billed for routine things like an ice tray for £1.50, and to top it all, a chocolate Santa, for 59p! Hey, a guy’s got a right to a snack. Others were billing the British taxpayers as much as £18,800 over four years in “unreceipted” expenses for food consumed at the designated second home!
Now that they have been exposed, the honourable members are not terribly contrite, they are sorry, but not so sorry as to resign from their positions following public outcry at their extravagances. They have actually found the scapegoat — the House of Commons Speaker, Michael Martin, who has announced his resignation for failing to handle the crisis of confidence that followed the evisceration of the expense accounts scandal.
Considered the first person from a working-class background to sit on the Speaker’s chair in the House of Commons, Martin presided over a house that for a long, long time held allowances as a supplementary salary, and receipts as notional, because they were anyways secret.
Now that they had been “outed”, the MPs bayed for blood, and punished their leader. Yet, even after they elect a new Speaker, they will have to reform the system, or be seen to be on the wrong side of fair play, which would definitely lead to the loss of public support. The Honorable Members can still have their chandeliers; clean their moats or have jacuzzis installed, provided they pay for them, like the rest of us.
The Palace of Westminster is the seat of Parliament of the United Kingdom and, practically, all former British colonies, with the notable exception of the United States of America, have adopted the legislative model used in Westminster.
While India has adopted the British system, there are differences, and one that has occupied headlines in the UK recently is that the British MPs can, and do, claim expenses for a second home, outside their constituency, in London.
Ever since the British paper, The Daily Telegraph, published expenses claims made by senior British MPs under the controversial Personal Additional Accommodation Expenditure for MPs or second homes allowance, what Freedom of Information activists long held, became obvious-that this is an expense most open to abuse.
Media exposure of glaring cases — like claiming the cost of cleaning a moat, fitting chandeliers and in another case, jacuzzi-style bath — stunned taxpayers, as they learnt exactly what they were subsidising with their hard-earned money.
We must keep in mind that historically, all over the world, more tax is paid by those who do not have homes with moats or chandeliered hallways where their visitors might wait while the butler announces them, or retire to the rest room for a jacuzzi bath. These are blue or white collared workers struggling to pay bills as they balance various aspects of their lives. For them, this extravagance is a bitter pill to swallow, indeed.
Not that all MPs were extravagant in their purchases: They even billed for routine things like an ice tray for £1.50, and to top it all, a chocolate Santa, for 59p! Hey, a guy’s got a right to a snack. Others were billing the British taxpayers as much as £18,800 over four years in “unreceipted” expenses for food consumed at the designated second home!
Now that they have been exposed, the honourable members are not terribly contrite, they are sorry, but not so sorry as to resign from their positions following public outcry at their extravagances. They have actually found the scapegoat — the House of Commons Speaker, Michael Martin, who has announced his resignation for failing to handle the crisis of confidence that followed the evisceration of the expense accounts scandal.
Considered the first person from a working-class background to sit on the Speaker’s chair in the House of Commons, Martin presided over a house that for a long, long time held allowances as a supplementary salary, and receipts as notional, because they were anyways secret.
Now that they had been “outed”, the MPs bayed for blood, and punished their leader. Yet, even after they elect a new Speaker, they will have to reform the system, or be seen to be on the wrong side of fair play, which would definitely lead to the loss of public support. The Honorable Members can still have their chandeliers; clean their moats or have jacuzzis installed, provided they pay for them, like the rest of us.
Its all about "power",go to hell with "ideology"
If West Bengal’s CPI(M) stood for Communist Party of India (Marwari), it should now be Communist Party of India (Mamata). Not that Didi will ever follow the ‘Hammer and Sickle’. But her Trinamool Congress resembles the Marxists in many ways as it marches relentlessly to Writers’ Buildings.
There was precious little difference between the two manifestoes for the Lok Sabha election. Both parties employed the same rumbustious methods. And the trickle deserting the sinking CPI(M) ship for the boisterously sailing Trinamool vessel may soon become an avalanche. Most important, Ms Mamata Banerjee’s “Maa, Mati, Manush” (mother, earth, people) slogan, the title of a popular 1975 jatra, touched the same emotive, even perhaps xenophobic, chord that the Left Front exploited to sweep to power in the late-1970s.
The Communists were seen then as a wholly indigenous force pitted against a Congress that was at Sanjay Gandhi’s beck and call and the Centre’s tool. Bengalis equated the party ‘high command’ with the cow belt. Without overtly invoking provincial passions like the Shiv Sena or Amra Bangali idealists, the Marxists presented themselves as local men determined to restore Bengal’s glory. Championing peasants and Muslims, Ms Banerjee similarly projects herself as the voice of the most underprivileged elements in long-suffering Bengal.
It will take West Bengal some time to grasp the full long-term implications of her party’s Lok Sabha representation shooting up from one solitary MP (herself) to 19 and the Left Front’s plummeting from 35 to 15. But the Marxists, whose State committee will discuss the rout tomorrow with inputs from the districts, obviously understand their future is at stake.
In a not dissimilar situation in 1977, the Centre’s Janata Party regime arbitrarily dismissed nine State Governments. Three years later, Mrs Indira Gandhi’s Congress did the same. The Centre held in both cases that the parliamentary election results indicated that voters had lost confidence in the State ruling parties.
That argument is again being peddled. Though the Left Front controls 235 out of 294 legislature seats, even West Bengal’s Land and Land Revenue Minister, Mr Abdur Rezzak Mollah, advises Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to dissolve the Assembly and seek a fresh mandate. His case is that the Lok Sabha vote showed that the CPI(M) had lost its majority in 198 Assembly segments and that the Congress-Trinamool alliance had made serious dents in the constituencies of 27 Ministers.
Mr Mollah’s principled stand is unlikely to find takers. Instead, the growing clamour among Bengali Marxists against Mr Prakash Karat and the Polit Bureau recalls West Bengal’s history of resentment against central diktats. Mr Jyoti Basu blames the Polit Bureau for not supporting Morarji Desai’s Government in 1979 as he recommended. Worse, it would not allow him to become Prime Minister 17 years later. Apparently, the CPI(M)’s West Bengal unit wanted the parliamentary Left Front to continue supporting Mr Manmohan Singh’s Government last year and was anguished and angered when failing to bring down the UPA regime, the Polit Bureau expelled the Speaker, Mr Somnath Chatterjee, from the party.
It’s difficult to say whether Bengali Marxists reacted to these Polit Bureau decisions as Bengalis or faulted them on political grounds. But the conflict holds unmistakable echoes of the furore over the 1939 Tripuri Congress when Mahatma Gandhi famously regarded Subhas Chandra Bose’s re-election as Congress president as his own defeat since he had sponsored the defeated candidate, Pattabhi Sitaramayya. Irrespective of ideology, many Bengalis see Syama Prasad Mookerjee’s arrest and death in custody in a similar light.
Now, the former Lok Sabha Speaker denounces the CPI(M)’s central leadership without naming Mr Karat, his wife or Mr Sitaram Yechury on two counts. First, leaders should contest elections and be accountable to voters. Second, the ‘Third Front’ was only a “myth”. West Bengal’s Transport Minister, Mr Subhas Chakrabarty, agrees.
Less prominent and more outspoken political activists blame the CPI(M)’s plight on the party general secretary’s high-handedness, and accuse Mr Karat of deliberately committing political suicide by toeing Beijing’s line. They stress that China played a negative role in the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group until US President George W Bush telephoned Chinese President Hu Jintao. The speculation is that having failed to stop the Indo-American nuclear agreement, China sought to sabotage it through the CPI(M)’s obedient central leadership.
Communists with longer memories claim that betrayal of the national cause has a hoary lineage. They recall that pro-China elements in the undivided CPI opposed SA Dange, the party chairman, when he supported India’s stand in the disputes over the McMahon Line and Aksai Chin. These elements broke away in 1964 to form the CPI(M), thereby establishing a tradition of opposing India’s interests to placate China.
If Mr Mollah is to be believed, a far more remote conflict also casts a sombre shadow on West Bengal. He warns that if the Trinamool comes to power, it will try to replicate the grisly bloodbath that engulfed Indonesia in 1965-66. With three million members, the Partai Komunis Indonesia was the world’s biggest Communist party outside the Soviet Union and China. The purge began when six top Indonesian Generals were killed, allegedly by the PKI, and their bodies thrown down a well. The event triggered a reprisal massacre of Communists by the Army under Gen Suharto, probably with US backing.
A CIA study claimed that “In terms of the numbers killed the anti-PKI massacres in Indonesia rank as one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century...” The death toll was estimated at between 500,000 and a million. Sukarno was deposed and Suharto became the ruler in 1967. His dictatorship lasted 31 years.
Such drastic events are inconceivable in West Bengal, even for those who nurse nightmares of the Muslim League’s Direct Action Day and the ‘Great Calcutta Killing’. But turmoil there is bound to be as Communists try to cling to their 32-year monopoly of power and Ms Banerjee, standing high in the Congress’s favour, insists on her reward. She can expect Central help as she sets about storming the bastion of Left Front power.
Mr Bhattacharjee accuses her Trinamool of lacking any “ideological mooring”. She retorts that the CPI(M) is “politically bankrupt”. Both are right. The brewing storm has nothing to do with programmes or policies. It is about power. For ordinary apolitical citizens, therefore, the change can mean jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.
There was precious little difference between the two manifestoes for the Lok Sabha election. Both parties employed the same rumbustious methods. And the trickle deserting the sinking CPI(M) ship for the boisterously sailing Trinamool vessel may soon become an avalanche. Most important, Ms Mamata Banerjee’s “Maa, Mati, Manush” (mother, earth, people) slogan, the title of a popular 1975 jatra, touched the same emotive, even perhaps xenophobic, chord that the Left Front exploited to sweep to power in the late-1970s.
The Communists were seen then as a wholly indigenous force pitted against a Congress that was at Sanjay Gandhi’s beck and call and the Centre’s tool. Bengalis equated the party ‘high command’ with the cow belt. Without overtly invoking provincial passions like the Shiv Sena or Amra Bangali idealists, the Marxists presented themselves as local men determined to restore Bengal’s glory. Championing peasants and Muslims, Ms Banerjee similarly projects herself as the voice of the most underprivileged elements in long-suffering Bengal.
It will take West Bengal some time to grasp the full long-term implications of her party’s Lok Sabha representation shooting up from one solitary MP (herself) to 19 and the Left Front’s plummeting from 35 to 15. But the Marxists, whose State committee will discuss the rout tomorrow with inputs from the districts, obviously understand their future is at stake.
In a not dissimilar situation in 1977, the Centre’s Janata Party regime arbitrarily dismissed nine State Governments. Three years later, Mrs Indira Gandhi’s Congress did the same. The Centre held in both cases that the parliamentary election results indicated that voters had lost confidence in the State ruling parties.
That argument is again being peddled. Though the Left Front controls 235 out of 294 legislature seats, even West Bengal’s Land and Land Revenue Minister, Mr Abdur Rezzak Mollah, advises Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to dissolve the Assembly and seek a fresh mandate. His case is that the Lok Sabha vote showed that the CPI(M) had lost its majority in 198 Assembly segments and that the Congress-Trinamool alliance had made serious dents in the constituencies of 27 Ministers.
Mr Mollah’s principled stand is unlikely to find takers. Instead, the growing clamour among Bengali Marxists against Mr Prakash Karat and the Polit Bureau recalls West Bengal’s history of resentment against central diktats. Mr Jyoti Basu blames the Polit Bureau for not supporting Morarji Desai’s Government in 1979 as he recommended. Worse, it would not allow him to become Prime Minister 17 years later. Apparently, the CPI(M)’s West Bengal unit wanted the parliamentary Left Front to continue supporting Mr Manmohan Singh’s Government last year and was anguished and angered when failing to bring down the UPA regime, the Polit Bureau expelled the Speaker, Mr Somnath Chatterjee, from the party.
It’s difficult to say whether Bengali Marxists reacted to these Polit Bureau decisions as Bengalis or faulted them on political grounds. But the conflict holds unmistakable echoes of the furore over the 1939 Tripuri Congress when Mahatma Gandhi famously regarded Subhas Chandra Bose’s re-election as Congress president as his own defeat since he had sponsored the defeated candidate, Pattabhi Sitaramayya. Irrespective of ideology, many Bengalis see Syama Prasad Mookerjee’s arrest and death in custody in a similar light.
Now, the former Lok Sabha Speaker denounces the CPI(M)’s central leadership without naming Mr Karat, his wife or Mr Sitaram Yechury on two counts. First, leaders should contest elections and be accountable to voters. Second, the ‘Third Front’ was only a “myth”. West Bengal’s Transport Minister, Mr Subhas Chakrabarty, agrees.
Less prominent and more outspoken political activists blame the CPI(M)’s plight on the party general secretary’s high-handedness, and accuse Mr Karat of deliberately committing political suicide by toeing Beijing’s line. They stress that China played a negative role in the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group until US President George W Bush telephoned Chinese President Hu Jintao. The speculation is that having failed to stop the Indo-American nuclear agreement, China sought to sabotage it through the CPI(M)’s obedient central leadership.
Communists with longer memories claim that betrayal of the national cause has a hoary lineage. They recall that pro-China elements in the undivided CPI opposed SA Dange, the party chairman, when he supported India’s stand in the disputes over the McMahon Line and Aksai Chin. These elements broke away in 1964 to form the CPI(M), thereby establishing a tradition of opposing India’s interests to placate China.
If Mr Mollah is to be believed, a far more remote conflict also casts a sombre shadow on West Bengal. He warns that if the Trinamool comes to power, it will try to replicate the grisly bloodbath that engulfed Indonesia in 1965-66. With three million members, the Partai Komunis Indonesia was the world’s biggest Communist party outside the Soviet Union and China. The purge began when six top Indonesian Generals were killed, allegedly by the PKI, and their bodies thrown down a well. The event triggered a reprisal massacre of Communists by the Army under Gen Suharto, probably with US backing.
A CIA study claimed that “In terms of the numbers killed the anti-PKI massacres in Indonesia rank as one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century...” The death toll was estimated at between 500,000 and a million. Sukarno was deposed and Suharto became the ruler in 1967. His dictatorship lasted 31 years.
Such drastic events are inconceivable in West Bengal, even for those who nurse nightmares of the Muslim League’s Direct Action Day and the ‘Great Calcutta Killing’. But turmoil there is bound to be as Communists try to cling to their 32-year monopoly of power and Ms Banerjee, standing high in the Congress’s favour, insists on her reward. She can expect Central help as she sets about storming the bastion of Left Front power.
Mr Bhattacharjee accuses her Trinamool of lacking any “ideological mooring”. She retorts that the CPI(M) is “politically bankrupt”. Both are right. The brewing storm has nothing to do with programmes or policies. It is about power. For ordinary apolitical citizens, therefore, the change can mean jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.
Friday, May 22, 2009
SC ruling on interim bail a big step
The Supreme Court judgment regarding the granting of bail is a big win for liberty and constitutional rights. It brings to an end an injustice that has unnecessarily prevailed for long. The apex court has said that courts have an inherent power to grant interim bail to a person pending disposal of the bail application. This means that the practice of courts sending a person who has applied for regular bail to jail, and then looking into the case diary which has to be obtained from the police, has now ended. The Supreme Court has clarified that courts can continue to decide regular bail pleas after perusing the case diaries and other evidence, but it is within their jurisdiction and discretionary powers to grant interim bail to the accused to protect their reputation from being dented by their arrest by the police. It is true that going to jail dents a person’s reputation and image in society. It can cause irreparable harm and loss to a person even when arrested for a minor offence. The Supreme Court has, thus, rightly taken serious note of this and has said that even if the arrested accused applied for bail and was released thereafter, his reputation might still be tarnished irreparably. The apex court has gone on to interpret the power of courts to grant interim bail in the light of Article 21 of the Constitution which protects the life and liberty of every person. It has said in its judgment that the reputation of a person is a valuable asset for him and constitutes a part of his constitutional rights.
Under the law an individual is presumed to be innocent unless proven guilty. Given the low conviction rates in our courts, the majority of those brought before them are innocent. This means that a very large percentage of individuals who were sent to jail and have been denied bail till now are wrongly being detained. Such individuals have had to suffer needlessly in police or judicial custody. Sometimes such imprisonment has extended for weeks depending on the gravity of the alleged offence and resulted in brutal treatment of those detained. In the past the law has also been subject to misuse. False cases have been lodged against individuals merely to harass them. Regrettably, some of these have tended to be politically motivated or at the behest of vested interests. It hardly needs to be said that this power to grant bail, though discretionary, is not arbitrary. Bail should only be denied when absolutely necessary to curtail the freedom of an individual, and bail, not custody, should be the rule. Therefore, the Supreme Court judgment ends the misuse of law and upholds civil liberty.
Under the law an individual is presumed to be innocent unless proven guilty. Given the low conviction rates in our courts, the majority of those brought before them are innocent. This means that a very large percentage of individuals who were sent to jail and have been denied bail till now are wrongly being detained. Such individuals have had to suffer needlessly in police or judicial custody. Sometimes such imprisonment has extended for weeks depending on the gravity of the alleged offence and resulted in brutal treatment of those detained. In the past the law has also been subject to misuse. False cases have been lodged against individuals merely to harass them. Regrettably, some of these have tended to be politically motivated or at the behest of vested interests. It hardly needs to be said that this power to grant bail, though discretionary, is not arbitrary. Bail should only be denied when absolutely necessary to curtail the freedom of an individual, and bail, not custody, should be the rule. Therefore, the Supreme Court judgment ends the misuse of law and upholds civil liberty.
Pakistan must go Sri lankan way
The Greek saying “money is the sinew of war” is proving true in Pakistan as its armed forces have mobilised an all-round assault against the Taliban. However, it appears more to be an eyewash than anything concrete. With the promise of billions of American dollars as civilian and military aid, Pakistan has told the US Administration that it has begun a massive anti-Taliban offensive. Incidentally, it is after two earlier failed attempts that Islamabad had to once again assure US President Barack Obama that its forces are indeed marching forward to dislodge the jihadis from the areas held by them.
According to the Pakistan military sources, the Taliban and its allies had around 5,000 fighters in the Swat Valley. Over the last few years some of the most feared jihadi organisations have opened offices in Swat, a halfway point in a militant transit route running between Indian Kashmir and eastern Afghanistan. How far Pakistan is serious about wiping out the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the region cannot be ascertained as media and international rescue and relief operations are not allowed within the war zone, and one has to depend on the claims made by the Pakistani Army.
Notwithstanding financial assistance, US Central Command Chief General David Patreaus has warned Pakistan that it will be forced to act if the country is not able to take concrete action against the Taliban. On the other hand, the deteriorating situation in the war zone has forced Mr Obama to comment that the civilian Government in Pakistan is fragile and ill-equipped to handle the crisis on the ground.
It is undoubtedly because of the Pakistani Army’s patronage that the Taliban has gained so much in strength. For media consumption the Pakistani Army says that more than 800 Taliban fighters have been killed by its forces. Yet there is no trace of the bodies. This fact has been confirmed by war correspondents representing national and international newspapers.
The Pakistani Government has demonstrated a lack of capacity and will to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Islamabad needs to learn from Sri Lanka, if it is serious at all about exterminating terrorism from its soil. No quarter should be spared in the fight against the jihadis. Only a take-no-prisoners attitude can win this war for Pakistan.
According to the Pakistan military sources, the Taliban and its allies had around 5,000 fighters in the Swat Valley. Over the last few years some of the most feared jihadi organisations have opened offices in Swat, a halfway point in a militant transit route running between Indian Kashmir and eastern Afghanistan. How far Pakistan is serious about wiping out the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the region cannot be ascertained as media and international rescue and relief operations are not allowed within the war zone, and one has to depend on the claims made by the Pakistani Army.
Notwithstanding financial assistance, US Central Command Chief General David Patreaus has warned Pakistan that it will be forced to act if the country is not able to take concrete action against the Taliban. On the other hand, the deteriorating situation in the war zone has forced Mr Obama to comment that the civilian Government in Pakistan is fragile and ill-equipped to handle the crisis on the ground.
It is undoubtedly because of the Pakistani Army’s patronage that the Taliban has gained so much in strength. For media consumption the Pakistani Army says that more than 800 Taliban fighters have been killed by its forces. Yet there is no trace of the bodies. This fact has been confirmed by war correspondents representing national and international newspapers.
The Pakistani Government has demonstrated a lack of capacity and will to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Islamabad needs to learn from Sri Lanka, if it is serious at all about exterminating terrorism from its soil. No quarter should be spared in the fight against the jihadis. Only a take-no-prisoners attitude can win this war for Pakistan.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Evil called child marriage
A new Compulsory Registration of Marriage Act should be introduced. Were this to be linked to the ration card, the birth certificate and the voter identity card, people would learn soon enough that it does not pay to avoid getting the certificate.
People may fudge, but at the end of the day the age of marriage and consequently the age at first birth will go up
Does it take America to dole largesse for preventing child marriages? In the last three weeks, two Bills have been introduced in the US Congress and the Senate called the International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act 2009.
What triggered this move was the recognition that US foreign assistance provided for improving education, health and economic prospects for women and girls in developing countries was coming a cropper. Simply because too many girls were forced to leave school to get married. Such girls remained uneducated, increasingly vulnerable to contracting sexually transmitted diseases, bearing underweight babies and leading horrifying lives — a downright violation of human rights. Since this phenomenon was negating the effect of investments made in improving their lives, it was money down the drain. The new Bills, therefore, authorise US foreign assistance funding for five years to prevent child marriage and increase educational and economic opportunities for girls in developing countries including India.
Let us move from the international scene, bypassing the national and State levels and go straight down to the district and panchayats. Dewas is a district in Madhya Pradesh which is perched in the middle of the country in terms of social and health indices. It also has exceptionally high child mortality ranked 516th out of 593 districts surveyed by the International Institute of Population Sciences, Mumbai.
Last week the district Collector of Dewas invited 40 sarpanches to attend a workshop on the “Impact of Early Marriages and Early Conception on Health of Girls.” For starters, it was apparent that registration of marriages was not being done anywhere in the district despite the fact that the State had issued orders under the Special Marriage Act, making it incumbent upon the Gram Panchayats to issue marriage registration certificates under law. The Supreme Court order on compulsory registration of marriages of all religions across the country was unheard of.
At a workshop a film showed 15year olds cradling their infants like toys. These child mothers evinced no rancour, not even self-pity. Only a smiling acceptance that it was their lot in life to bear more children. Juxtaposed against this was the professional advice of a paediatrician and gynaecologist from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences who spoke about the irreversible fallout of early pregnancies, underweight children, lack of spacing leading to a predictable cycle of malnutrition, death and disability. The two perspectives were so divergent that it made sagacious thinking impossible. It was unclear whether the panchayat representatives had understood the mixed messages and whether at all they were amenable to thinking differently.
The workshop went on to draw attention to the legal requirement to register marriages and the correlation of age at first birth with the health of the infant. At the end of the sequence there was pin drop silence. Not one among the 40 Sarpanches wished to speak. Even the national Awardees, among the Sarpanches after receiving recognition from the President of India, albeit for other achievements, were unwilling to speak. Sensing a stalemate, the Collector broke them into four groups, gave them four different subjects to focus on and asked them to return with a plan.
The outcome was unexpected. Far from the wishy-washy faces we had seen an hour earlier, came a newfound enthusiasm proclaiming that indeed it was possible to promote and register marriages after the legal age. Most striking was the fact that they had understood the issues and undertook to do something about it. This sudden change of heart could be attributed to the presence of the Collector. But how much? Even a cynic would agree that it would have been difficult to brainwash 40 Sarpanches from disparate blocks simply because of official presence.
In speech after speech the Sarpanches recounted how the correlation between very early childbirths and safe motherhood and child survival had never been highlighted so vividly. They lauded the Rural Development “Nirmal Gaon” scheme that conferred awards on the cleanest panchayat and recommended that a similar Award scheme should be launched for the best performing panchayat that promoted marriages after the legal age, accompanied by registration of marriage.
Given the importance that the US parliamentarians have accorded to overcoming child marriages in developing countries, it behoves the Government to give far greater importance to making this the bulwark for women’s empowerment and children’s health. A new Compulsory Registration of Marriage Act should be introduced with an office of a Registrar General of Marriages. Were this to be linked to the ration card, the birth certificate and the voter identity card, people would learn soon enough that it does not pay to avoid getting the certificate.
People may lie, people may fudge but at the end of the day the age of marriage and consequently the age at first birth will go up. The future of Indian children is at stake. They are worth all the trouble it might take. It should not need the United States of America to show us the way.
People may fudge, but at the end of the day the age of marriage and consequently the age at first birth will go up
Does it take America to dole largesse for preventing child marriages? In the last three weeks, two Bills have been introduced in the US Congress and the Senate called the International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act 2009.
What triggered this move was the recognition that US foreign assistance provided for improving education, health and economic prospects for women and girls in developing countries was coming a cropper. Simply because too many girls were forced to leave school to get married. Such girls remained uneducated, increasingly vulnerable to contracting sexually transmitted diseases, bearing underweight babies and leading horrifying lives — a downright violation of human rights. Since this phenomenon was negating the effect of investments made in improving their lives, it was money down the drain. The new Bills, therefore, authorise US foreign assistance funding for five years to prevent child marriage and increase educational and economic opportunities for girls in developing countries including India.
Let us move from the international scene, bypassing the national and State levels and go straight down to the district and panchayats. Dewas is a district in Madhya Pradesh which is perched in the middle of the country in terms of social and health indices. It also has exceptionally high child mortality ranked 516th out of 593 districts surveyed by the International Institute of Population Sciences, Mumbai.
Last week the district Collector of Dewas invited 40 sarpanches to attend a workshop on the “Impact of Early Marriages and Early Conception on Health of Girls.” For starters, it was apparent that registration of marriages was not being done anywhere in the district despite the fact that the State had issued orders under the Special Marriage Act, making it incumbent upon the Gram Panchayats to issue marriage registration certificates under law. The Supreme Court order on compulsory registration of marriages of all religions across the country was unheard of.
At a workshop a film showed 15year olds cradling their infants like toys. These child mothers evinced no rancour, not even self-pity. Only a smiling acceptance that it was their lot in life to bear more children. Juxtaposed against this was the professional advice of a paediatrician and gynaecologist from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences who spoke about the irreversible fallout of early pregnancies, underweight children, lack of spacing leading to a predictable cycle of malnutrition, death and disability. The two perspectives were so divergent that it made sagacious thinking impossible. It was unclear whether the panchayat representatives had understood the mixed messages and whether at all they were amenable to thinking differently.
The workshop went on to draw attention to the legal requirement to register marriages and the correlation of age at first birth with the health of the infant. At the end of the sequence there was pin drop silence. Not one among the 40 Sarpanches wished to speak. Even the national Awardees, among the Sarpanches after receiving recognition from the President of India, albeit for other achievements, were unwilling to speak. Sensing a stalemate, the Collector broke them into four groups, gave them four different subjects to focus on and asked them to return with a plan.
The outcome was unexpected. Far from the wishy-washy faces we had seen an hour earlier, came a newfound enthusiasm proclaiming that indeed it was possible to promote and register marriages after the legal age. Most striking was the fact that they had understood the issues and undertook to do something about it. This sudden change of heart could be attributed to the presence of the Collector. But how much? Even a cynic would agree that it would have been difficult to brainwash 40 Sarpanches from disparate blocks simply because of official presence.
In speech after speech the Sarpanches recounted how the correlation between very early childbirths and safe motherhood and child survival had never been highlighted so vividly. They lauded the Rural Development “Nirmal Gaon” scheme that conferred awards on the cleanest panchayat and recommended that a similar Award scheme should be launched for the best performing panchayat that promoted marriages after the legal age, accompanied by registration of marriage.
Given the importance that the US parliamentarians have accorded to overcoming child marriages in developing countries, it behoves the Government to give far greater importance to making this the bulwark for women’s empowerment and children’s health. A new Compulsory Registration of Marriage Act should be introduced with an office of a Registrar General of Marriages. Were this to be linked to the ration card, the birth certificate and the voter identity card, people would learn soon enough that it does not pay to avoid getting the certificate.
People may lie, people may fudge but at the end of the day the age of marriage and consequently the age at first birth will go up. The future of Indian children is at stake. They are worth all the trouble it might take. It should not need the United States of America to show us the way.
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