Indira’s Emergency vs Advani’s democracy

Mrs Indira Gandhi locked up India’s so-called strongman, Mr Lal Krishan Advani, on June 26, 1975, the day she declared her controversial Emergency rule. He was picked up in Bangalore and later lodged in the Rohtak Jail in Haryana, a veritable hellhole, for much of his imprisonment.

Mr Advani was one of several opposition leaders who spent all or most of the 19 months of Mrs Gandhi’s authoritarian rule in different prisons across the country. Every year since then, Mr Advani has found a ruse to remind us of his undemocratic ordeal. This year too, on June 26, he visited the Rohtak Jail with the usual media ensemble in attendance. He also got state TV to narrate the sequence of events that led to the suspension of civil liberties by Mrs Gandhi. The programme lasted an entire day. It’s election time and these things count.

After he was freed from prison, Mr Advani became information and broadcasting minister in the Janata Party government that removed Mrs Gandhi from power. She had miscalculated the national mood and called elections in mid-1977. She lost. It was a big day for Indian democracy. It had narrowly survived what could have been a close call.

But what did Mr Advani do next? He promptly did as a democrat what Mrs Gandhi hesitated to do as a dictator. Within days of its inauguration, his government banned four school textbooks that were written by world acclaimed professors, including Messrs Bipan Chandra, R.S. Sharma and Romila Thapar.

Hindutva is an ideology that equates the demolition of desolate mosques with national awakening. But in some ways Mr Advani came to practise his ideology years before his fanatical followers tore down the Babri Mosque in Dec 1992. Banning the books was one such.

Before he became a politician Mr Advani was a film critic. He seemed to know his subject when as information minister he chose to show on Doordarshan one of the most brazenly communal films made in Hindi cinema, Swayam Siddha. It is a 1950s film about a Hindu woman’s zeal to drive out Christian missionaries from her village to purify her motherland. As bonus, in the process of her exorcism, her deaf and mute husband is cured. The issue became one of several that drove a wedge between Mr Advani’s loyalty to his ideology and his commitment to democracy via the Janata Party experiment. He chose the former. The government collapsed.

How do Mr Advani’s democratic precepts that he always takes care to wear on his sleeves compare with Mrs Gandhi’s straight from the heart, unpretentious fling with dictatorship? Mrs Gandhi overrode parliament and jailed her foes. She then used her contrived majority in parliament to shape the constitution to suit her purposes such as they were. It is rumoured that she also influenced the Supreme Court to vacate her indictment by the Allahabad High Court, which had set aside her election from Rae Bareily, an issue that prompted the Emergency.

Mrs Gandhi had used a cocktail of draconian laws to hunt her quarries. They included MISA (Maintenance of Internal Security Act), COFEPOSA, a law ostensibly to track and check smuggling, and the Defence of India Rules. Of these MISA was the most notorious. Mr Advani in his turn had no need for the multiplicity of laws, so he reduced them to just one, POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act). Mrs Gandhi had manipulated the provisions of parliamentary democracy to push her way past the opposition. Mr Advani used parliamentary loopholes to reach there. He got Prime Minister Vajpayee to summon a joint session of parliament after the Congress blocked the passage of POTA in the Rajya Sabha. Mr Advani got the bill passed.

Nowadays, Mr Advani’s allies are using POTA freely to fix their rivals. The chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are prime examples of this abuse, not to speak of Gujarat. If Mrs Gandhi used her political power to tame the Supreme Court, Mr Advani used the street power of his hordes to reduce the apex court to a helpless bystander. That is how the mosque was demolished in Ayodhya. Of course there is not a trick in the legal armoury that he has not apparently used to delay and deny justice in the matter. He is one of the accused in the demolition trial.

Mrs Gandhi’s minions used the Emergency to harass their rivals. Mr Advani’s cohorts are so brazen they do not need the cover of an emergency. Nor do they stop at mere harassment. They rape, burn, kill in the name of saving democracy as they did in Gujarat. They then seek shelter under the law of the land. That is how a day after Mr Advani took his ritual walk down memory lane inside a jail, a local court in Baroda allowed 21 men accused of mass murder inside a bakery during the February-March pogroms in Gujarat last year to walk free. The reason? The key witness, a Muslim woman, had turned hostile because she was reportedly too frightened to stand by her charge. This was the first case among several that are dealing with the carnage. They are all hanging fire. The outcome is cynically known.

When Mr Advani was imprisoned, he had been a leading participant in a nationwide campaign to topple Mrs Gandhi. She accused the press also of collusion against her and therefore jailed several journalists and imposed strict censorship. But Mr Advani says he believes in democracy. So he allows two hapless journalists, Iftikhar Gilani and Kumar Badal, to rot in prison over allegations that they had abused their privilege as free citizens under his dispensation to harm the interests of the state. Iftikhar was picked up in June last year on fake charges of espionage and Kumar was next in July for allegedly poaching animals. They were freed earlier this year.

Mr Advani’s experiment with his peculiar form of democracy is not over yet. His government has caused the closure of the Tehelka website, the only news medium that dared to expose the government’s corrupt ways with hard evidence. Offices of the Outlook magazine were raided ostensibly to discipline the editor. And so the experiment trundles on. And it has lasted more than Mrs Gandhi’s 19 months.

When Prime Minister Vajpayee was leaving for China, the Urdu daily Qaumi Awaz noticed he had pinned a red rose on his jacket a la Jawharalal Nehru. Qaumi Awaz should know since it was founded by Nehru himself as part of the National Herald family of newspapers.

Many journalists who travelled with Mr Vajpayee also spoke of his increasing resemblance to India’s charismatic first prime minister. However, by the time he returned, his own colleagues had upgraded Mr Vajpayee to a much higher level. “He is Gandhi II,” thundered Praveen Togadia, not in tribute but with rage. Why was Mr Vajpayee being compared with Mahatma Gandhi? Because apparently he was appeasing Indian Muslims, though goodness knows how or even why. Gandhi had partitioned the country into two. Now Mr Vajpayee would split it into 10 pieces, said a perpetually frothing Mr Togadia. Whether his barbs were intended or not, he managed to show the prime minister as a mild hearted liberal. In an election year the image could sell quite well. Ergo, Mr Togadia is Mr Vajpayee’s best bet to create an acceptable image.

QAU — a neglected premier institution

ISLAMABAD is getting a facelift. Apart from the planting of new greenery on the grassy medians of major roads, including Faisal Avenue, Constitution Avenue and Khayaban-i-Quaid-i-Azam (or Jinnah Avenue), an ambitious effort to redesign the central business and commercial centre, Blue Area, has also been announced.

The plan afoot to give the city a make-over is well illustrated by a new humongous billboard with the words “Islamabad, the beautiful”, which recently came up on the Islamabad Highway at the junction of Airport Link Road.

But, one place in Islamabad which is far from being beautiful is Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU). The appearance of this so-called premier postgraduate university of the country does not do justice to its picturesque setting, spreading over some 1,700 acres at the base of the scenic Margalla Hills.

Inaugurated as Islamabad University on October 15, 1971 by President Gen Yahya Khan, the QAU as it is known today is not a sleek and modern campus; nor does it give the look of a grand, traditional campus on the style of some of the older universities.

Instead, on entry into the QAU grounds through the landmark crossed marble arches, the impression is that of a neglected historical monument, almost hidden by uncut trees and unkept vegetation. The sprawling campus grounds are also home to several thousand villagers and their cattle, many of whom had encroached upon the premises after the university had acquired the land.

The buildings of the administration and especially the various department blocks, damaged by the elements over time, give an unsightly, almost ghostly look. The surrounding grounds are uneven and, there is untidy growth of bushes and plants all round. The main entrance to the QAU buildings, which leads to the main library, does not look at all like a main entrance: rusty, half open gates open into the grounds, in the middle of which lies a fountain that is more often than not, dry.

Inside the buildings, the picture is even more depressing. The roofs of many buildings leak badly during rains. The 30-year-old plumbing system in the buildings is in need of a major overhaul. The lack of air-conditioning - with the exception of certain VIP rooms - makes life very uncomfortable for both faculty members and students alike during the hot, sultry summers.

Much of the furniture is broken. Most of the computers are out of order. Fax machines are practically non-existent in every department. Chemicals and materials for the laboratories are also hard to come by. The library, with its worn out carpeting and very limited books, is more of a frustration than a facility for students and faculty staff.

In recent years, increase in the student population has not been matched by concomitant expansion in terms of facilities like faculty staff, classrooms and hostel accommodation. Not only the hostels are overcrowded, but also the lack of maintenance of the water supply and sanitation systems there has put students at major risk of developing diseases like hepatitis, typhoid and other abdominal illnesses.

Located several kilometres away from the nearest market, QAU badly lacks a commercial complex within campus complete with bookshop, stationery store, post office, gift shop, sports wear/goods shop, etc. No stationery or book shop exists in the campus today 30 years after QAU’s establishment. The tiny dingy post office on campus is a far cry from the new and modern post office in F-7.

The university cafeteria is a disgrace to the institution. Not only the food is of substandard quality, the cafeteria overall gives a dirty and unpleasant look.

Just outside the university grounds, opposite the main library and administration block, is the QAU campus version of “food street”. This is an untidy and unhygienic row of open-air food stalls, whose proprietors are known to be “lakhpatis”. It has become a favourite haunt of both students and faculty members only because the university cafeteria’s food is unpalatable and the nearest other eating places are at least four to five kilometres away at Blue Area or Aabpara.

The university lodge, originally meant to accommodate visitors to the university from both within and outside the country, is another disgrace. Dilapidated with broken windows and all, it is being misused by bachelor faculty members. Many a guests have complained about the facilities at the lodge.

It is an accepted fact that persistent inadequate funding is a major cause of QAU’s predicament. Yet the government’s annual allocation for QAU remains pathetically low. The university’s syndicate has just approved a Rs295.616 million budget, of which the federal government grant is only Rs157.5 million.

The meagre government funding for QAU has been aggravated by the government spreading its already limited resources even thinner with the establishment of several new universities in the twin cities during the last five years. The increase in salaries for staff and employees, plus the rising utility rates have all made the job of running QAU that much a harder task. A large chunk of the QAU budget goes on salaries (Rs202.53 million) and utility bills (Rs79.66 million). QAU’s electricity bill for one month alone amounts to Rs2.4 million!

Recently, some projects totalling Rs188 million have been allocated for QAU under the Public Sector Development Programme. Moreover, construction is expected to start soon on additional residences for staff members as well as a new hostel for the students. Plans to improve security within campus include the setting up of two security check posts, one at the entrance into the university grounds from the Bari Imam side, and the other from the Bharakahu side.

The question is: Will these help lift QAU out of the quagmire it is in? Or are these mere band-aid solutions that will have little effect on the overall outlook and productivity of QAU? Can QAU be expected to impart quality education or produce quality research if it is not provided with a qualitative academic environment?

So long as the government continues to neglect QAU, the university is unlikely to be able to live up to its name as the premier educational institution of the country. The QAU as it is today is more of a shame and embarrassment rather than a source of pride and honour - for the academic community, the capital and the country.

4m sacks of wheat wasted

KAWISH has dealt with the issue of a huge stockpile of wheat stored in the godowns of the Sindh food department which has reportedly become infested. The paper says four million sacks are now believed to be unfit for human consumption and may be sold to producers of chicken/cattle feed.

Ironically, Kawish points out, food officials are still insisting that the wheat is in good condition though those in charge of the godowns where the grain is stored have reported that it has been infested. This is why the wheat samples have been sent to a private organization for testing.

The paper says it is the same wheat which Sindh was compelled to purchase from Punjab last year. The stock could have been either sold in the local market at a cheaper rate to provide relief to poor people or exported. However, the federal government refused to allow Sindh to export the wheat and the provincial authorities did not bother to dispose it of in the local market. Hence, around 100 million maunds of wheat has been wasted.

This tragedy, Kawish says, again proves people die of starvation not because of lack of resources but due to their misuse.

Referring to the issue of water distribution among provinces, Sindhu says the Indus River System Authority has proposed the Council of Common Interests should be constituted to settle the dispute over the Thal canal project and implementation of the 1991 Water Accord.

According to the paper, the Sindh-Punjab tug of war over water sharing has reached a point of no return whereas the start of the Thal canal construction has added fuel to the fire. Under these circumstances, the CCI can be instrumental in resolving the canal and water disputes by providing an opportunity to the provinces to present their viewpoints.

Sach writes the water crisis in Sindh is not confined to an acute shortage for farmland since several cities, towns and villages are also in the grip of a famine of water for drinking. The latest in the list of badly affected settlements is Hyderabad, the second largest city of the province, where water supply to a number of areas has been suspended for the last fortnight.

On the other hand, stagnant water has accumulated on roads and streets of different localities. These problems have compelled the city dwellers to take to the streets in protest against the apathy of the Hyderabad Development Authority. The civic agency should take measures on a war footing to restore the water supply and drain out stagnant water.

Awami Awaz, while commenting on the Camp David deliberations, says the choice of the presidential resort instead of the White House for a meeting between the US president and his foreign counterpart implies their negotiations were focused on some territorial or regional dispute.

Therefore, it is believed the Kashmir issue must have been the central point of talks between the American and Pakistani presidents.

As the talks came at a time when the US is trying to redraw the world map, it has become more important parliament is taken into confidence on the decisions taken at Camp David, the paper urges.