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| December 1, 2005 | Thursday | Shawwal 28, 1426 |
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Pneumonia cases up north
Olive and OIC
It’s only the first round
ONCE again, there are reports that the government may soon take a decision in favour of building a big dam on the Indus. President Pervez Musharraf has come out publicly in favour of the Kalabagh dam several times and emphasized the need for augmenting the capacity for water storage and power generation. Neither of the two needs can be ignored for the future. As the country’s population grows, so does the demand for more power for industrialization and domestic consumption. At the same time, more land needs to be brought under the plough to increase agricultural production. Yet, since the completion of the Tarbela dam decades ago, the situation has remained frozen as far as agriculture is concerned. Some power stations have been built using thermal and nuclear energy, but Pakistan’s biggest source of power — river water — has remained under-utilized. Meanwhile, the storage capacities of the Tarbela and Mangla dams have shrunk by 30 per cent because of constant silting. This has affected both energy production and the volume of irrigation water that is released downstream. There is, thus, no alternative to a big dam. The big question is how to go about it.
The biggest hurdle in the way of a big reservoir upstream is the lack of national consensus on this sensitive issue. Two of the small provinces — the NWFP and Sindh — are opposed to it. The latter especially feels disturbed on several counts. Sections of the farming community in the province think the construction of a big dam will deprive it of its share of water and severely hurt those at the tail-end of its irrigation system. Then there are ecological considerations. Already, the decline in the volume of Indus water flowing into the Arabian sea has pushed the sea inward causing widespread salinity. This has ruined agriculture in large areas, affected marine life and devastated the mangroves. Any further cut in the Indus’s water would aggravate the situation. The government insists that this will not happen and that 8.6 million-acre feet of water will be released below Kotri to check sea intrusion and environmental damage. There are reports that the government may be able to secure the Sindh government’s approval, but that will hardly be called a step towards a national consensus. A major coalition party in Sindh, the MQM, is opposed to the Kalabagh dam, and — given the kind of general elections we had in October 2002 — the Arbab Rahim faction of the Sindh coalition can hardly claim to represent the majority opinion in Sindh.
The point to note is that a national consensus does not exist at present, even though the party in power in the federal government is also the ruling party in three of the provinces. This being the current situation, one can imagine what the political scenario would be like after the general election in 2007. A ‘yes’ given by the Arbab-led government now may not necessarily be acceptable to the Sindh government that will come to power in 2007, and that will only make things worse. There is no doubt that a big dam is over due. It should have been constructed long ago. But, because of the political mess, a national consensus on it has not been possible. That still remains the main task. Going ahead with the Kalabagh or Bhasha dam without the agreement of all the constituent units will be a disaster, and it goes without saying that foreign donors will not commit aid to a politically controversial project.
WITH the onset of winter, the worst nightmare of doctors and health personnel working in Azad Kashmir is coming true as hundreds of cases of pneumonia are being reported in the quake-affected zone. While pneumonia cases are not uncommon in this area at this time of the year, the fact that hundreds of thousands of homeless people are being exposed to the biting Himalayan cold has made the situation far grimmer than usual. Children have been particularly affected, and unless immediate measures are taken to protect them against shivering cold, the death toll could rise enormously. This is the kind of scenario that doctors and international agencies had been fearing and warning against, days after the Oct 8 quake struck northern Pakistan. That despite the untiring efforts of the government, independent organizations and individuals, the need for adequate safeguards against the cold was not addressed on a priority basis points to careless planning.
However, the situation must not be allowed to deteriorate any further. Besides ensuring proper nutrition — including vitamin fortified food — for the quake victims to keep up their immunity levels and providing them with at least temporary shelter against the cold, it would be important to evolve a consensus in the medical community on the efficacy of preventive vaccines. In many cases, pneumonia can occur as a complication of some other diseases like measles or haemophilus influenzae for which preventive vaccines are available. While the medical history of each child/individual can vary, some general agreement should be in place for the administering of these vaccines, as it should be for the Expanded Programme on Immunization for those victims who have not been inoculated against childhood diseases. Moreover, hospitals and clinics in the north must obtain antibiotics to treat pneumonia cases. In view of the snowy conditions, the government must also make all possible attempts to persuade those living in the mountains to descend to areas where temperatures are not sub-zero. All this must be done on a war footing so that the health situation does not get any worse.
THE other day, Dawn carried on its front page the picture of a Palestinian woman clinging to her olive tree, while Israeli soldiers who had chopped it off watched. A few days earlier, Jewish settlers in the Nablus area had cut down hundreds of olive trees on the Palestinian farms that still remain with them. In both Israel and the occupied territories, Israeli authorities and Jews living in kibbutzim (settlements) close to Palestinian villages cut down olive and citrus trees so as to destroy the means of Palestinian livelihood. The aim in both cases is the same — to make life miserable for Palestinians and make them leave the West Bank and Israel. As a matter of policy Palestinian orchards and villages are made to shrink because the Israeli government requisitions land for new settlements or for the expansion of the existing ones. Another more heinous form of attack on Palestinian livelihood is to align the routes of roads and highways so that they go through Arab villages and orchards, thus uprooting those villages and farms. So far, Israel has destroyed 150,000 olive and citrus in the West Bank alone, diverted water from Palestinian villages to the settlements, and — as reported by Amnesty International last April — sprayed Palestinian grazing grounds with poison so as to kill their cattle.
By any standards these are ecological crimes, in addition to gross violations of laws of war on the treatment of populations in occupied territories. Yet the western media looks the other way. An emergency summit conference of the Organization of Islamic Conference is to take place in Saudi Arabia next month. Besides speeches and pious declarations, one doubts if anything concrete would come out of it. The least the heads of government meeting at Makkah on Dec 7-8 can do is to issue a declaration drawing the world’s attention to Israel’s crimes against humanity, environment and ecology on such a colossal scale.
NO matter which way the numbers are stacked, there is only one clear winner in the long-drawn Bihar Sudoku: a Sikh gentleman generally resident in Delhi who barely intervened in the turmoil of India’s most turbulent state except to give Laloo Prasad Yadav the chance to convert what was a self-inflicted wound in March into suicide in November. When the Almighty was writing Dr Manmohan Singh’s destiny, He took a lot of care to ensure that every loophole was properly sealed.
Nitish Kumar has not yet won the Bihar election. He has only won an opportunity. We will know whether he has converted that opportunity into a hard political victory by this time next year.
If Nitish Kumar believes that he can do everything, he will achieve nothing. Bihar is not suffering just from the sins of Laloo; Laloo was only the most cynical of a long line of chief ministers who compounded a disease that began in the sixties. It might shock readers to know that Bihar was consistently ranked among the best-administered states in the fifties; but there is no point discussing how prosperous Bihar was when Chandragupta Maurya was in power.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will be tested on a five-point report card. I was going to put “law and order” at the top but felt, on consideration, that it might be too ambitious. If the new chief minister can ensure order, even if he cannot implement the full majesty of the law, he can claim distinction. There has to be a curb on the dacoits and gunmen who form a parallel, and more effective, administration. He should import high-profile consultants who can draw up, and perhaps oversee, a comprehensive plan that addresses the menace district-wise. On a practical, and politically incorrect level, a few trigger-happy policemen might be needed.
Priority number two will be the Naxalites. Bihar shares a long border with Nepal that is porous for criminals, smugglers and those who dress up violence in ideological clothes. The sharp escalation of Naxalite violence across the country is also an indictment of the Union home ministry.
As far as this terrible problem is concerned, Delhi’s response is to jerk a knee before the cameras whenever a story bursts on the front pages, and retire hurt when the news disappears from public view. Clearly, unlike straight crime, there is a social dimension to this problem, which has to be addressed politically. Nitish Kumar must involve the Leftist parties in a bipartisan effort that must be transparent and sincere. The chief minister will probably run dry of his resources of sincerity after a year’s pressures and strains, so it is best that he start doing something right away.
Third: the economy. Nitish Kumar should stop trying to think of the answers, because there is no answer that will take less than 15 years to implement. He will have long passed his sell-by date by then. But there is something that can be done, which is a deft combination of the cosmetic and practical. Bihar is littered with tombstones of projects aborted. For decades, its leaders have laid the foundation of grand schemes that never saw as much as a wall being built, let alone a chimney constructed. The chief minister could go back to what had been sanctioned (this will save a lot of time), get a fast-track reassessment done, offer the best terms to industrialists of repute, and bring at least a few tombstones to life.
Fourth: urban renewal. If someone were to control the mosquitoes of Patna, he would be renamed Chandragupta. Disease is another name for neglect and filth. So far, the city’s services ensure little more than comfort for the residential area of the political class, up to a point. There should be a ministry for infrastructure in the Bihar cabinet, with a politician of some ability heading it, and a strong bureaucrat in charge. To treat a road as a joke, as Laloo did, is to sign the death warrant of the economy.
Finally, the government will be severely tested on Hindu-Muslim relations. So many of Laloo Yadav’s crimes were forgiven because he was absolutely flawless in ensuring peace between communities so easily provoked into violence. His government imploded because even Yadavs and Muslims deserted him in large numbers. Nitish Kumar found a brilliant political answer by creating his core vote around backward castes other than Yadavs, but there had to be a spillover from the Laloo vote to ensure such a comprehensive victory. Laloo was complacent because he was convinced that no one would get a majority, and no one was better than him in cobbling a coalition. Complacency is the blood brother of power.
Nitish Kumar’s problem is accentuated by the fact that the BJP is his ally, and too many of its leaders find Muslim-baiting irresistible. But the challenge is greater than being the good cop of the alliance. Nitish Kumar has to use power to create a vote base as solid as Laloo’s. Only then can he hope to change political equations. If he grows, he will be a potential leader of a Third Front. The “if” should be written in capital letters.
A key to his future will be the level of trust he can create among Muslims. I suspect that he will at some point announce a job reservation for backward caste Muslims (akin, in some ways, to the four per cent Karnataka model rather than the hurried, ill-thought Andhra scheme that was punctured by the courts). This will create friction with the BJP, which will do him no harm either.
If victors are hard to identify, losers are not. Victors demand applause; losers invite sympathy. The biggest loser in Bihar was Shatrughan Sinha, because he decided to lose when his side was winning. All wars have collateral damage, the serious-sounding term for being shot dead by your own side.
Shatrughan Sinha, erstwhile film star and BJP-minister pulled off something spectacular: he shot himself dead. No wonder his nickname was Shotgun Sinha. I hope this gives pause to the myth that film stars enable you to win elections. This proposition was always demeaning to the Indian voter. To collect a crowd is not synonymous with collecting votes. Former film stars make a difference when they become politicians, in the extraordinary manner that N.T. Rama Rao did, or Jayalalithaa has done.
Laloo Yadav may have suffered a setback, but he is still in play. His fate will be determined by the quality of Nitish Kumar’s performance as chief minister.
And thus to the question that I hope has been nagging you: how has Dr Manmohan Singh become the winner of the Bihar election? In just about every which way. Defeat in Patna has made Laloo Yadav impotent in Delhi. After the first Bihar elections, Laloo was powerful enough to demand and obtain a disgraceful recommendation to the president dissolving the Bihar Assembly without due consideration. If he had won, he would probably be discussing a better portfolio for himself at the centre — for starters. Now, the prime minister can take Laloo’s support for granted. An occasional smile will be sufficient to keep him happy.
A simple fact will explain more. Dr Manmohan Singh has never been in danger of being destabilized by the BJP-led opposition. Why would any party of the ruling alliance exchange the comfort of power for the uncertainty of an election? The only party that might conceivably have an interest in another election is one that hopes to do much better.
For the past year, voices have been gathering strength in the Congress that, with the BJP in disarray, a midterm election could win the party up to 200 seats. The additional seats would come from Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra (where the Shiv Sena is fading into inconsequence). It is axiomatic that another election would mean the end of Dr Singh’s tenure in office, irrespective of how the Congress fared.
The defeat in Bihar has ended all talk of a midterm poll. Unless some seismic event takes place that no one can foresee, the government of Dr Manmohan Singh is safe for the rest of its tenure. The accidental prime minister has become a politician of substance.