| 20 May 2004 | Thursday | 29 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425 |
Wana confusion
Contaminated water supply
There is perhaps not one single factor that can be cited as the reason for Ms Sonia Gandhi's decision to decline to accept the honour of being India's prime minister. Many factors were at work, but certainly the overriding consideration appears to have been to ensure a smooth term in office for her party.
Her foreign origins would have continued to provide the right-wing revivalists with ammunition to attack the Congress and cramped the working of the party's government. It takes a rare kind of statesmanship and political acumen to give a party's interests precedence over the mesmerizing attractions of power.
Ms Sonia Gandhi has added to the stature she had already acquired by virtue of her deft stewardship of her party, leading it to a stunning electoral victory.
That said, the episode also shows how the natural evolution of a political system can be brought under pressure from vested interests, and while it does not take away anything from the strength of India's democracy, it must make some of us rue the praises heaped on the Indian tradition of avoiding a crisis at every transfer of power.
Ms Gandhi led her party in the electoral fray; and the battle was widely depicted as a Sonia-vs-Vajpayee contest. The Congress emerged as the single largest party in parliament.
Ms Gandhi was unanimously asked by her parliamentary party to head the next government; she was also wholeheartedly supported by the left parties and had the overall backing of 320 out of the 539 members of the new Lok Sabha.
It was her right to be prime minister and that was the mandate given by the electorate. She met the president on Tuesday, and what transpired between the two is not fully known.
It is also unclear whether Indian citizenship laws have a disabling clause with regard to people of foreign extraction holding sensitive posts. The Congress (itself founded by an Englishman in 1885) does not believe that there is anything to prevent Ms Gandhi from becoming prime minister.
On Wednesday there was a strong move by her party and at the popular level to persuade her to change her mind. But both the BJP and Big Business have already shown their hand.
While the extremist Hindu parties launched a vitriolic crusade against Ms Gandhi and her Italian antecedents, the stock market in Mumbai was manipulated to come crashing down to express the resentment of the commercial and industrial sectors. It promptly recovered when Ms Gandhi withdrew herself and reports appeared that Dr Manmohan Singh might be nominated as prime minister.
Some analysts have pointed out how the RSS, the ideological fountainhead of the BJP, has deeply penetrated India's security apparatus, and resistance to Ms Gandhi from the intelligence establishment cannot be ruled out.
There must also have been a question of personal safety worrying Ms Gandhi, and her children were said to have been against their mother exposing herself to the risk of assassination from demented ideologues.
Whichever way events may turn, it has been shown that although the Congress and left gains have strengthened secular forces and those that are committed to social change, the threat to secularism and democratic pluralism remains strong. Perhaps what has happened in these seven turbulent and extraordinary days will make Indians see the threat with greater clarity.
Wana confusion
The government's campaign to persuade foreign militants hiding in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas to 'register' themselves with the authorities remains mired in confusion and uncertainty.
The facts so far are these: On April 24 a deal was brokered between a local leader of the militants and the government, represented by the Peshawar corps commander. The details of this deal were never made public and in fact doubts about its authenticity or permanence surfaced the next day when the government publicized it as a surrender on the part of the militants while the latter's leader claimed otherwise.
A deadline was then set for foreign fighters hiding in South Waziristan to register themselves with the authorities or face action. The official stand has been that the registration was an integral part of the April 24 deal, a position disputed by the militants' leader.
On Tuesday he told a newspaper from a secret location that the agreement made no mention of registration and threatened to launch attacks against what he called 'government targets'.
A 1,200-strong lashkar raised to trace foreign militants has so far found nothing. The matter, no doubt, is a sensitive one and needs proper handling. If the government believes foreign militants or terrorists are hiding in parts of the tribal areas, it is necessary that such elements are flushed out, apprehended and sent back to their respective countries of origin.
Unfortunately, the sensitivity of the situation has translated into a fumbling government response, characterized by hasty planning, failure of intelligence, tactical errors and policy reversals.
Many of the foreigners, mostly Arabs, have been in the region for years and have married among the locals, with whom they have thus acquired some acceptability. Driving them out or disciplining them can be a problem.
Facts like these underscore lack of political understanding on the part of the administration not just before or during the Wana operation, but over at least a decade and a half.
The local leader of the militants is a man who was first hotly pursued by government forces, then embraced by a senior army commander (on the day of the April 24 agreement, and after his sympathizers had ambushed and killed several troops) and is now again threatening to go on the offensive. The approach to the whole issue needs to be more coherent and unified.
Contaminated water supply
The supply of contaminated water by the Water and Sanitation Agency to parts of Hyderabad city and adjacent localities has resulted in a large number of people falling ill over the last few days.
Hyderabad hospital sources have reported a marked increase in cases of gastroenteritis, saying they are unable to cope with the high number of patients, many of them children, suffering from vomiting and diarrhoea.
Laboratory tests have confirmed that the water contains up to three times the number of pathogens permissible in drinking water as per the standards set by the World Health Organization.
Doctors fear outbreaks of hepatitis A and typhoid if the water being supplied is not made safe for human consumption. Meanwhile, residents are forced to buy bottled water, which the vast majority cannot afford and thus remain exposed to grave health risks.
The situation has come about as Wasa released water to the Kotri barrage from Manchhar Lake. There are also reports that another source of water reaching the barrage has been the Right Bank Outfall Drain.
The Sindh agriculture department has neither confirmed nor denied these reports. Considering the large number of people being affected by the contaminated water it is time the provincial government moved quickly and arranged for alternative sources of risk-free supply.
Water being among the most vital amenities of life, its purity is of paramount importance. Failure to do so in the present case would expose the provincial government and the civic agency concerned to grave charges of dereliction of duty.