The failure of the UN-led efforts to bring the warring parties to the negotiation table last month in Geneva has once again brought war clouds over Syria. Only with the collective efforts of the US, Russia, Iran and Turkey, peace can be brought to war-torn Syria. Also it demands a new approach with a purely humanitarian concern
The Syrian Civil War started as a non-violent uprising in the middle of March 2011. Today it is a full-fledged war which involves several nations and world’s prominent jehadi outfits such as Islamic State (ISIS), al-Qaeda and splinter groups of these two mainstream groups. However, the Baathist Syrian Arab Republic headed by President Bashar al-Assad has survived a decade in power despite military challenges from all corners of the country.
Estimates emerging from various human rights agencies and independent media reports say that by end of December last year, the death toll in the war was between 3,87,000 and 5,93,000. The UN reports that more than 5.6 million have already fled the country and over 6 million have been internally displaced so far.
Although many complex events pushed the Syrians into this war, one that stands out is the historic Arab Spring, started in the early months of 2011. This 21st century movement mainly inspired by digital platforms across North Africa through the West Asia finally triggered the uprising in Syria. But then quickly, the Arab Spring had turned into mass gathering in the form of non-violent protests against the authoritarian and family-ruled regimes in all these countries.
In Syria, in the month of March, 15 schoolchildren were arrested and tortured for writing graffiti which was rightly inspired by the Arab Spring. One of the boys was killed as well. The arrest of these schoolchildren sparked outrage across Syria. Soon after, people came out on the road and demanded the release of all the children and raised slogans for basic freedoms for all in the country. The Assad regime responded by killing many protesters and this led to the demand for his resignation by the demonstrators. Subsequently, the clashes broke out between the masses and the supporters of the Government. This gradually spiralled into the full-blown war, what the whole world is witnessing today, involving terror groups of various nations of the world. But at its heart, the conflict highlights the tragic Shia-Sunni divide among the Muslims in the entire region.
The failure of the UN-led efforts to bring the warring parties to the negotiation table last month in Geneva has once again brought war clouds over this West Asian nation. The United Nations should take the lead and restart the Geneva process. So far, the UN strategies have broadly failed for Syria. If it moves in the same direction, can it be so that the organisation is complicit in the crimes committed by the Assad regime?
Now, what America is doing to bring peace to Syria is that it is back again. The latest American strike in Syria has signalled President Joe Biden’s new war game in West Asia.
The so-called messenger of peace and reunion of America badly divided by former President Donald Trump, Biden is now targeting Iran-backed militias in Syria. His administration is justifying the attack as the missile sallies are directed towards rebels that are propping up the Assad regime. The US Air Forces dropped 500-hundred-pound joint direct attack munitions at a crossing used by Iranian backed groups reportedly killing 17. The particular groups hit by the limited US strike are Kataib Hezbollah and Kataib Syyaid al-Shuhada. Meanwhile, Deniss Ross, a former Senior US official and West Asian expert, says the attack was designed to show that there would be a military response if US forces were targeted, or the militias continued to strike. The Assad administration was quick to remind Biden that the American attacks were a cowardly act and urged Biden not to follow the law of the jungle.
The country’s Foreign Ministry condemned the attack on areas in Deir al-Zor, near the Syrian-Iraqi border. The statement released by the Ministry highlighted that Biden Administration is supposed to stick to international legitimacy, not to the law of the jungle as did by the previous administration.
It’s really ironic that Biden and Harris, the duo is repeating what once Trump simply did. When Trump ordered a strike on Iran in 2019, Biden sharply reacted and tried to offer a sermon to him: “Trump’s erratic, impulsive actions are the last things we need as Commander-in-Chief. No President should order a military strike without fully understanding the consequences. We do not need another war in the Middle East, but Trump’s actions toward Iran only make that likely.”
And what Biden is doing now? He knows very well how an American President responds to the crisis zones in the “Middle East”. Precisely, nothing has changed in Washington, except the man giving orders. What Obama did, Trump followed and now Biden is taking it forward. America clearly has no strategy for the West Asia and North African (WANA) region. Its policy towards the region is outdated and dangerous. It’s meddling carelessly with Iraq, Iran and Syria. Washington has no coherent policy to deal with Tehran, Damascus and Baghdad. So obviously, finding out a solution for the Syrian war demands a new approach with a purely humanitarian concern.
Only with the collective efforts of the US, Russia, Iran and Turkey, peace can be brought to war-torn Syria. Biden’s engagement with Putin, Erdogan, Rouhani and Kadhimi (Iraq) would matter the most in bringing a permanent solution to the chaos in Syria. That is why the stability in West Asia demands more than a deal with Iran from Washington. The experts and policy practitioners opine that regional issues in this part of Asia could no way be comprehensively addressed.
They all agree that Iran would no way concede its sustained support for regional proxies and halt its ballistic missile programme in the near future. It is widely felt that isolating Iran was purely counterproductive. So to address, Tehran’s troublesome behaviour in the region, it is better to handle each regional conflict through separate and parallel platforms at the same time.
Why is Moscow equally concerned about the chaos in Syria? It is not only to save the embattled Assad regime, an old ally of Russia, but also to stave off the growth of the Islamic terror in Russia. Hence, the Syrian conflict is not just a faraway battle for Putin regime. The life-time monarch is longing for stability at any cost. He knows fully well that the jehadists may get enough ground for their subversive models in his vast country. Of course, this might alter Putin’s long-term strategies to keep the opposition and western pressure at bay. His regime is not best equipped to counter the ISIS, the way it is raging its ugly head in the WANA region. Russia’s relationship with Syria dates back to 1950s and the Cold War. In those days, the USSR used to train the top brass of the Syrian military.
What lies ahead in Syria? By 2020, the Syrian civilians faced another year confronting life-threatening challenges. It is all about their survival as all of them are fighting for basic amenities such as food and medicines.
However, the last year saw the discernible decrease in violent conflicts across the country. But this does not mean that warring groups are retreating. No single rebel group is considering withdrawing from the war zones. The reason behind is that all these groups are backed by strong allies and they want to pursue the war till the fall of the Assad Government.
The Human Rights Watch notes, “With the unprecedented depreciation of national currency, the imposition of further international sanctions and crises in neighboring countries, the Syrian economy went into freefall for much of 2020. For ordinary Syrians, this translated into an inability to procure food, essential drugs, and other basic necessities. As a result, more than 9.3 million Syrians have become food insecure and over 80 per cent of Syrians live below the poverty line.”
This correctly reflects the situation on the ground and insurmountable challenges faced by the millions who are caught between warring zones.
Only way to solve the imbroglio in Syria is to establish a UN-backed transitional regime and pressurise Assad to step down. A presidential election is meant to be taking place in Syria this summer. It would be a total disregard to millions of those who are suffering and a sham on global governance platforms such as the UN. The world body is not talking anything about this. And it is abandoning the Geneva peace process.
In fact, the Syria Constitutional Committee that demands a political process would be useless if the UN does not stop the upcoming presidential poll for Assad. This election would offer full immunity and legitimacy to the torturous and autocratic regime in Damascus. It’s time to act. Ensure that no more civilians die. There is no need to secure peace when hardly anyone will be there to share the joy of the same. Washington should not employ the old tactics to handle the dictators in WANA.
(The writer is an expert on international affairs)
A shameful 50 kg of food is wasted per person per year in Indian homes, says a UN report
It is unbelievable and shocking at the same time: Average households waste 50 kg of food per person per year in India, where “Annapoorna” is considered the Hindu goddess of food and nourishment. Globally, according to the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Food Waste Index Report 2021, homes, institutions, retail outlets and restaurants wasted almost 931 million metric tonnes, or 17 per cent, of the food available for consumption in 2019. Besides, a significant quantity of food is lost on farms and in supply chains, indicating that overall a third of the food produced actually never gets eaten. But the maximum wastage is done at homes. Nearly 61 per cent of consumer-level food goes into waste bins each year at home, the report states. Although food waste is normally thought of as a problem mostly affecting rich countries, the report found that the levels of waste were surprisingly similar across nations, though it was somewhat handicapped in burrowing out more details due to the lack of data in poor countries. In South Asia, besides the 50 kg per person food wastage in India, 65 kg is wasted in Bangladesh, 74 kg in Pakistan, 76 kg in Sri Lanka, 79 kg in Nepal and 82 kg in Afghanistan.
Especially in the context of India, the revelation is excruciating because food waste has serious social, environmental and economic impacts. As per the UN, 690 million people were impacted by hunger in 2019 and three billion couldn’t afford a healthy diet. Closer home, just recall the plight of lakhs of migrant workers last year following the sudden announcement of the lockdown. Confused, angry and helpless, they then started the long trudge back home, with impoverished and famished families in tow. They had to be content with the barest minimum that came their way, which on most days comprised just a pack of biscuits and a couple of bananas. As per the Government’s estimates, more than 1.06 crore migrant workers started for their homes; for at least 29,415, it was their last journey. Just imagine if they could get to eat what we throw away every day! Then, wasted food, upon reaching landfills, leads to major greenhouse gas emissions. So, next time, think twice before leaving behind that morsel on the plate after your hearty meal. Think about all the people who are forced to go hungry every night, and think about the damage your seemingly innocuous act is causing to the environment.
The politicos are using the Ram temple tangle to ensnare voters but the latter must show prudence
He belongs to everyone. For millions, he is the very soul of their existence and the “aatma” of ‘Bharatvarsh’. “Ram Ram” is a common salutation across the Hindi heartland and no one else touches the lives of millions of devotees the way Lord Ram does. The last words of even our Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, were “Hey Ram” when Nathuram Godse pumped three bullets into him. Be it “Jai Shri Ram”, “Hey Ram” or “Ram, Ram”, there is nothing controversial in His name; however, there is no denying the fact that the name has been used by the leaders of certain political parties to polarise voters and that it has for long been at the heart of communal controversies. This time, it is the donation drive for the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya that is being used as a surefire recipe to turn the issue into a contentious one just when Assembly elections in four States and a Union Territory are around the corner. The latest salvo in the ongoing tussle has been fired by Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole who, while speaking in the State Assembly, likened the donation drive to toll collection. He alleged that he was threatened for not donating to the cause of Ram temple’s construction while tauntingly asking whether Lord Ram has given the BJP a contract to collect “toll” in his name.
One can hardly imagine how a powerful leader like Patole, whose party is part of the ruling coalition with the Shiv Sena and the NCP and who yields considerable influence, is “threatened” by someone who just came asking for a fund contribution. Such an allegation reeks of petty politics and points towards deliberate attempts to fan unrest in society. Along somewhat similar lines, former Karnataka Chief Minister and JD(S) leader HD Kumaraswamy had last month attempted to discredit the Ram temple fundraisers, alleging that the collectors had been marking the houses of those who didn’t pay up. He said the act was similar to what the Nazis did during Adolf Hitler’s regime. Seen through the prism of politics, what Patole said is likely to reap some benefit for the Congress, which is banking on minority votes in the Assembly elections. Be it the decision to align with the Indian Secular Front, an Islamic outfit, for getting Muslim votes in West Bengal or Rahul Gandhi’s controversial remarks during his Kerala visit, all point towards the divisive politics that the ‘Grand Old Party’ seems to be deploying. Meanwhile, nearly Rs 2,000 crore have been collected from across the world for the temple’s construction. The BJP, no doubt, is again banking heavily on Hindu votes in the name of the temple’s construction. However, it is in the best interest of the voters to exercise their franchise wisely and judiciously and not go by what these political leaders proclaim. They should not vote in the name of any divinity as religion must be kept distant from politics. Rather, public welfare policies, programmes and development should be the priority for the voters. Remember, Lord Ram was “Maryada Purushottam” but our politicians are not.
The Biden Administration has an ambitious agenda for stepping up action to cope with global warming but there are hurdles in the way
The Trump Administration, an unmitigated disaster for the fight to save the environment, has been defenestrated. Thanking the heavens for that, however, will not be enough. Wise leadership, massive allocation of funds and unflagging political will are needed at the global level to undo the damage done during the last four years and step up action to cope with global warming, which can wipe out humankind.
Two questions arise here. How deep is President Joe Biden’s commitment to fight global warming? What kind of hurdles will his administration have to overcome? As to the first, he has declared that climate change poses an “existential threat to the planet”. He has been called a “climate change pioneer” who believes that people have a moral and economic imperative to address the issue. He has a $2 trillion clean energy plan, and is on record as stating before assuming his current office that, as the President, he would ensure that the US achieved a 100 per cent clean energy economy and net-zero emissions by 2050. As clearly a part of this goal, he wants to make the US power grid carbon neutral by 2035.
His commitment is reflected in his track record. In 1986, he introduced one of the first climate Bills in the US Congress. In 1998, he played a critical role in the enactment of the Tropical Forest Conservation Act, which allowed the US to reach agreements with foreign Governments to conserve tropical forests in exchange for debt relief. As chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee (2001-2003 and 2007-2009), he organised several hearings on climate change and garnered support for a number of non-binding resolutions on the issue.
As the President, he is making climate change the central issue of his administration and the subject of a two-pronged approach to combat it. The first is the establishment of a formidable administrative infrastructure; the second is the conceptualisation of the problem in all its dimensions and appointment of competent and dedicated people to cope with it.
He has already made progress with the second. In November 2020, not long after winning the presidential election, he named John Kerry, who was the Secretary of State in the Obama Administration and a principal architect of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change (December 2015), as his special presidential envoy for climate change. He has set up a White House office of domestic climate change policy to coordinate the implementation of his climate agenda. Indeed, as the President, he has gathered the largest team of climate change experts ever assembled at the White House. More, on the anvil is a national climate task force comprising 21 Government agency leaders, and an environmental justice inter-agency council to address racial and economic inequities exacerbated by climate change and air and water pollution.
President Biden has already taken certain important steps. On his first day in office, the paperwork for the US’ return to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change was completed. He revoked the permission granted to the TC Energy Corporation to construct the Keystone XL Oil pipeline for brining oil from Alberta, Canada, to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico. The Obama Administration had denied permission to it in 2015 for the severe damage it would cause to the environment but the Trump dispensation had allowed it to proceed. Also, according to a White House statement, Biden was directing the Department of Interior to pause all oil and gas drilling leases on federal land and water and, as far as possible, launch a review of the existing energy leases. Besides these and other measures related to his domestic climate agenda in the works, his administration is giving a hard look at the environmentally harmful measures taken by the US Environment Protection Agency during Trump’s tenure. Many of them will be up for scrapping.
In a reversal of the Trump Administration’s policy of turning away from the world on the climate change issue, a White House statement has said that the US should “exercise global leadership” in advancing the Paris Agreements objectives. Clearly, combating climate change is a mission with President Biden, which is encouraging given the enormous power and resources the US commands. Nevertheless, tall hurdles remain in the way. The fossil fuel industry lobby will fiercely oppose his policies restricting drilling and oil use conducing to global warming, and will seek to mobilise senators and representatives to derail his plans.
Second, his steps have been taken through executive orders. These can be revised by a future President just as he is doing in respect of Trump’s measures. For permanence he needs legislation, which will require careful navigation through the Senate and the House of Representatives where Democrats have a thin majority. Finally, he has to successfully counter the criticism that measures to protect the environment will mean job loss. He has doubtless emphasised the potential for jobs in new industries producing clean energy and research organisations supporting the latter. But then employment must actually follow.
(The author is Consulting Editor, The Pioneer. The views expressed are personal.)
It helps to build highly effective differentiated learning experiences, which are rather challenging otherwise in a group setting with traditional teaching approaches
Technology has been one of the mainstays of music education, particularly contemporary music and its production and sound engineering since the late 2000s. However, the adoption rate was probably slower than anticipated due to the general resistance to change and the reluctance to shift to newer methods of learning and teaching. Interestingly, music technology, which we should clearly differentiate from the technology for pedagogical purposes, has been adopted widely and is frequently adapted by music educators in line with music industry practices.
The year 2020 presented many with a make-or-break situation due to the pandemic and music education providers, both institutions and teachers were swift to drop all inhibitions and embrace technology to aid pedagogy.
Most interestingly, private tutors — who probably argued the most against technology-driven learning and teaching in place of the tried and tested traditional approach of in-person instruction — were the first to jump on the bandwagon. Consequently, they taught music using every possible technological means, from Skype to Zoom to Google Hangouts. In most of such cases, the technology integration started and ended with these video calling apps that allowed remote teaching and learning and did not extend to more immersive and interactive learning systems.
Increasingly, we are now seeing larger music schools tapping into comprehensive learning management systems (LMS), customised mobile apps and subscription-based music learning services such as music notation applications, ear training applications with content libraries, backing music tracks and practice tools for instruments, voice instruction and so on, that integrate into LMS or remote teaching using video calling apps.
LMS are excellent cloud-based tools to extend learning beyond face-to-face time, and more importantly to build a social learning ecosystem around the class. There are a number of such solutions available now, mostly on a per-user subscription model that is increasingly becoming affordable in markets like India and South Asia.
LMS allow teachers to administer independent learning content to a class or individual learners, provide feedback to students using text, audio or video, conduct online assessments that could be auto-graded and so on. More importantly, LMS allow students to interact with each other, share and discuss topics of interest online, and learn from each other’s works. This provides invaluable benefits over just focusing on instrumental or voice mastery.
Newer learning technologies that either work as stand-alone mobile or web-based apps or integrate into LMS help further enhance the music learning experience. Many schools employ music notation and ear training applications with preloaded content libraries for independent learning and practice.
For example, music teachers are able to assign an exercise with a predetermined difficulty level and a target practice score to student groups or individuals. The students can then practice the material on their own with the app giving highly specific feedback on how well they are doing, and the areas that need improvement. Once the student attains the target score, the teacher assigns a new difficulty level, much like a game.
Similar gamified learning technologies also exist for instrument and voice learning. Many of these systems provide comprehensive content libraries organised in terms of progressive difficulty levels. Teachers are able to assign target goals for practice, and once a student achieves the desired proficiency, conduct an assessment within the app, using similar content to validate the learning and progress to the next level. Some of these systems give detailed visual heatmaps of a student’s performance, with granular feedback on areas that have met expectations and those needing improvement.
Technology-enabled pedagogy also helps to build highly effective differentiated learning experiences, which are rather challenging otherwise in a group setting with traditional teaching approaches. One of the biggest benefits of technology-enabled pedagogy is its focus on student-centred learning, taking the attention away from the teacher as the sole enabler of learning. With technology-enabled learning, the teacher has the flexibility to adopt a more efficient role of a learning facilitator, provide necessary personalised interventions and allow each learner to grow at their own pace while focusing on the core areas to be developed. Teachers can drop the one-size-fits-all approach that works rather poorly in creative arts education.
While this recent and swift adoption of technologies for pedagogical purposes is mainly driven by the pressure to enhance remote learning in light of the social distancing and lockdown conditions necessitated by the Coronavirus pandemic, they are more than likely to find a permanent place in music education since both students and teachers will find obvious enhancements to their learning and teaching experiences.
Institutions are likely to adopt and scale such technologies aggressively since they introduce efficiencies and help collect extremely valuable data that will help design newer and more effective curriculum, learning programmes and delivery methods.
The writer is Dean, The True School of Music, Vijaybhoomi University. The views expressed are personal.
Netas getting into poll campaigning must get the jab, both for safety and for sending a message for public good
India began one of the largest vaccination drives attempted globally on January 16 and opened it up for frontline workers in February. The second phase of the inoculation drive began on March 1, with the doors thrown open to citizens above a certain age and fulfilling specific criterion. At the launch of the second phase, the nation woke up to a visual of Prime Minister Narendra Modi getting vaccinated at a Government facility. It was a wide message, ranging from taking the India-developed vaccine, being conscious of the home State of healthcare staff administering the shot and the sartorial choice of a gamcha from Assam. However, there was another story unfolding mid-day onwards in many of the vaccination centres around the country as many senior citizens failed to get vaccinated on days one and two despite managing to register successfully on the CoWin website.
Despite the glitches, this is a remarkable feat for our country which, till the same time last year, was not aware of the horror waiting to unfold and, therefore, didn’t even have basic toolkits of personal protective equipment handy. The reason it is vital to mention this is so that we keep learning every moment and improvising on the deliverable processes, like we did in 2020.
It is a welcome step that a sizeable chunk of private hospitals has been roped in for the second phase of the vaccination drive. However, it seems like they are being treated like lesser institutions when it comes to supply and execution logistics. Many private hospitals reported one queue for walk-in registrations and those registered with confirmed time slots through the CoWin website. This led to crowding, which is an in-your-face blunder to be avoided during these times. The private sector is equipped enough with stipulated processes for vaccination and with some guided information, could manage the drive with proper social distancing. Ideally, the authorities should have done a workshop with key hospitals and taught the staff to manage a demand-driven hybrid model vaccination exercise. At some stage the Government has to think about opening up the vaccination drive for corporates and the money spent should be treated as part of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Most of the corporates are willing to either take up a vaccination drive for their staff under the CSR head or allow staff to pay, provided the exercise like Aadhaar registrations moves to their premises. RS Sharma, the current chief of the National Health Authority, is aware of the private-public cooperative plumbing required to make India’s vaccination pipeline a model worth emulating. He is also aware of the role technology is going to play in the exercise and the digital divide in the country over access and use of factual information. The confusion between the use of the CoWin app vs the CoWin website needs to be addressed. Also, vaccine hesitancy among certain sections of society is triggered by opinionated fake information on social media. It is time for all technocrats involved in the process to start tackling the barrage of misinformation and talk about the facts on all platforms available.
Another aspect of the inoculation programme is driven by politics. Already there have been some remarks regarding the Prime Minister’s picture on the vaccine completion certificate, specially from States bound for elections. Universal vaccination against the dreaded virus is a shared project of all leaders at the Central and State level. Any attempt to subvert the process by creating barriers may not go down well with the electorate or be good for the leader’s image. Of course, the optics need to be high for any candidate facing the electorate in a few days, however it would be good if they start showing their commitment. Most of the leaders getting into campaigning ahead of polls would do well to get vaccinated, both for safety and for sending a loud message for public good.
(The writer is a policy analyst. The views expressed are personal.)
Graft is a huge, insidious problem in our country that has eaten into every aspect of our lives, be it in rural or urban India
A survey conducted by Transparency International (TI) last year found that India has the highest rate of bribery in the Asian region. The survey titled, ‘Global Corruption Barometer (GCB), Asia’ revealed that the nation also had the highest rate of people using personal connections to access public services. The country has a bribery rate of 39 per cent while 46 per cent people use “familiarity” to get access to services. The report noted that “slow and complicated bureaucratic process, unnecessary red tape and unclear regulatory frameworks force citizens to seek out other solutions to access basic services through networks of familiarity and petty corruption (in India).”
The nation’s quest for economic dynamism has been severely stifled by chronic corruption. The country needs to urgently modernise its institutions and end the culture of rent-seeking and cutting corners if it wants the wheel of its economy to roll seamlessly. Corruption is both anti-national and anti-poor because the resources meant for poverty alleviation schemes get siphoned off by dishonest politicians and bureaucrats. It is among the most debilitating economic illnesses that afflict large parts of the world. India is now caught in a situation where many sectors are steeped in endemic corruption, including those charged with controlling it — from the legislators who write the laws, to the judiciary which makes them roadworthy and the police which is charged with enforcing them.
In the last four decades, despite several Government programmes for the welfare of the rural poor, poverty remains endemic. Either the nets were not cast wide or there were too many holes blown into them. The cruel reality is that much of the public spending does not reach the poor. It is either sponged off by the delivery mechanism consisting of consultants, advisors, their equipment and studies — or it gets pocketed. This has become a touchstone for all public-funded programmes and is now parroted in all Indian development literature. Low-level graft remains pervasive. Much of the Western world aid is running down the bureaucratic ratholes. Corruption is a huge, insidious problem in our country that has eaten into every aspect of life. It can lead to distrust in the Government, generating civil strife, violence, and conflict.
While the poor do not have the money to bribe public servant to avail services that are their right, they have a vote that the politician wants. The politician does a little bit to make life a little more tolerable for the poor — a seat in a good school for the lucky few, a Government job for the even luckier, on occasion the unexpected munificence of a loan waiver or, more commonly, a phone call that helps them get a police case registered. For all this, the politician gets the gratitude of his voters. However, he then also has little reason to improve the system by reforming it.
The state of affairs is grim, as every village official must be paid not just to expedite the application form for development schemes but specifically for not obstructing it. There is no easy solution to the problem. The corrupt police officials have a rollicking time at the expense of helpless citizens. In fact, there is no link between corruption and poverty. It is easier to convert a corrupt constable rather than an officer into an honest person. Higher officials get so carried away by the glamour and competition evident among their peers, and the aspirations of their families, that malpractices and bribes become a part of their lives. Surely education is a failure here. Voters favour a familiar family pedigree, partly because of a cultural reverence for the family and because of feudal habits that go back centuries. These traditions are more important in politics than individual qualities or merits in India and they strike at the very core of democracy. Grassroots activists and student leaders with no patronage matter little, and given the huge money and muscle power involved in elections, outsiders can only dream of power. In fact, the impact of nepotism goes beyond politics, with the reign of dynasties extending to most businesses too.
Like the mythological hydra, corruption is a many-headed foe that insinuates itself into every part of the social fabric — weakening the body politic and jeopardising prospects for economic growth. It can wither only after the heads are lopped off.
It has been a long-standing problem that successive Governments have battled and mostly failed to quell. In his magnum opus ‘Arthashastra’, written nearly three centuries before the Christian era, Kautilya, the classical master of statecraft, observed: “Just as it is impossible to know when a fish moving in water is drinking it, so it is impossible to find out when Government servants in charge of undertakings misappropriate money.”
The phrase, “probity in public life” has become an oxymoron. The time to start popping the corks would be when corrupt officials are actually convicted and penalised. Unfortunately, our criminal justice system has a truly pathetic record on this front. As long as that remains true, much publicised arrests serve little or no purpose. They certainly do not act as effective deterrents to potential bribe-takers or bribe-givers. Corruption is too often seen as merely a moral issue. Not enough people realise just how crippling an economic factor it can be. The cost of the bribes clearly must be factored into the business model and hence into the costs.
The country’s economic system is fused with many strands of corruption and organised systems of tax evasion. Cases of people greasing palms to get a college scholarship, tax refund or mortgage from a State-owned bank are now commonplace. Petty corruption includes slipping banknotes to the police and to officials to get paperwork done. Businessmen have to offer “seed money” to avoid red tape.
Writer and former diplomat Pavan Varma suggests that the persistence of corruption in India also reflects a strain of amorality in our character: A willingness to tolerate corner-cutting and rule-breaking in the successful pursuit of wealth and power. “Corruption, of course, is not unique to India,” he writes in ‘Being Indian’. “What is unique is the level of its acceptance, and the creative ways in which it is sustained. Indians do not subscribe to antiseptic definitions of rectitude… Their understanding of right and wrong is related far more to efficacy than absolute notions of morality.”
Most Indian businesses cannot survive or remain competitive without stashing away undeclared earnings. Almost everybody who has sold a house has taken one part of the payment in cash and evaded tax on it. Huge quantities of secret wealth are still a part of our system.
The solution lies in ensuring that the Central Bureau of Investigation remains free of Government interference and that whistle-blowers, witnesses and journalists working on corruption cases are protected. The Government must realise that increasing corruption can act as a speed breaker in the Indian growth story. There is a need for a strong political will to untangle it. Without a strong civil society or an independent judiciary to check Government power, the political class can become complacent. We have a long distance to cover to get rid of corruption and it may require longer sprints as time is running out.
The writer is a well-known development professional. The views expressed are personal.
Sasikala’s retirement comes as a boost for the AIADMK. But how long will she keep still?
In a stratagem that has left Tamil Nadu’s political circles stunned, VK Sasikala — considered by many the closest aide of the late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa — has declared that she will “stay away from politics and public life” while also “praying” for the AIADMK to retain power in the April 6 election. She unequivocally spelt out the reasons for her decision, too: That the AIADMK cadres need to stay united rather than fighting among themselves, so that the party can continue to rule even after Jayalalithaa and keep the “evil DMK” out of power, “as was Amma’s wish”. Chinnamma, as Sasikala is fondly called by her followers, had aired the same sentiment even on the day she came out of Bengaluru jail after serving a four-year sentence in a corruption case and undertook the road journey from Karnataka to Tamil Nadu. The latest surprise was delivered even as the central leadership of the BJP, which is allied with the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, had been mounting pressure on the regional outfit to work with Sasikala and her nephew’s party, the Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK). The move clearly translates into an unexpected advantage for the beleaguered party — already facing anti-incumbency and with the odds stacked against it as the State alternates between the AIADMK and DMK Governments — and a major setback to AMMK leader TTV Dhinakaran.
With one deft stone, she has killed two birds: Sasikala has taken the moral high road, projecting the image of a leader whom the masses want to see in an office of authority but who doesn’t hanker after power; and, at the same time, she has shielded herself from any blame that might have come her way, should the AIADMK perform poorly in the elections. This possibility, however, is bleak as the Congress is already considering an exit from the DMK-led front since it’s not being offered a “respectable number of seats”. Of course, Sasikala’s current assertion keeps her safely away from the party’s inner turmoil and political heat and dust in the State without compromising her chances of springing back on to the centre stage at an opportune moment later. There’s nothing that could stop Sasikala from re-entering politics after assessing the poll results. For Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami, it would be tough to keep his hold on the party when he is no longer in the top seat. That is when Sasikala would probably time her comeback.
The Army, unmoved by global appeals, is back to repressive tactics to quell pro-democracy protests
All hell has broken loose on the streets of Myanmar as the security forces resorted to unbridled violence to crush peaceful anti-coup protests, reminding one of the Chinese crackdown in Tiananmen Square in the spring of 1989 and the bloodshed in Libya and Yemen in the Arab Spring of 2010. Though the official number of people killed in the “Burmese Spring” is being put at 38, the United Nations (UN) says the number is close to 50. However, the activists put the toll even higher as the armed forces continue to use lethal weapons on the protesters, resulting in unarmed teenagers, women and youth being killed for demanding what is rightfully theirs. No one is surprised at the recent show of brutality by the Tatmadaw, which had been in power in Myanmar since 1962 and had just about tolerated the quasi-democracy that began in 2011, even though the parliamentary elections and other reforms had been initiated by the military itself under global pressure. The February 1 coup, which returned the military to full power, had seen a major pushback from the repressed citizenry that obviously did not want to be living once more under the shadow of the ruthless Tatmadaw, which had gained notoriety for having crushed pro-democracy movements in 1988 and 2007 by shooting protesters. Though the forces had initially shown some restraint when the protests began, the Army became increasingly repressive each passing day as the demonstrations showed no signs of abating.
In fact, the movement swelled as more people rallied together to protect their democracy and seek the release of their democratically-elected leaders. The military regime had to face global embarrassment and resort to firing the country’s ambassador to the UN a day after he gave an impassioned speech to the UN General Assembly in New York, pleading for international help in restoring democracy in his nation. Rattled by the unwanted global attention, the Tatmadaw became increasingly aggressive, thus inviting global sanctions. Now, the military, which has long been documented to be engaged in human rights abuses in conflict zones, seems to be past caring if the revelations by the UN’s Special Envoy Christine Schraner Burgener are to be believed. When Burgener warned the military that the UN Security Council and member States were likely to take strong measures against it, she was told: “We are used to sanctions, and we have survived those sanctions in the past.” Warned of global isolation, the Tatmadaw’s answer was: “We have to learn to walk with only few friends.” This is a worrying line of thought because when a regime that has a history of brutality and repression becomes indifferent to the consequences of its actions, there is not much the global community can do. For the people of the beleaguered country it means double trouble: The wrath of the authoritarian regime on the one hand, and the economic hardship that the sanctions bring, on the other. Whatever the global community has to do for the beleaguered citizens of Myanmar it must do fast, because the people there are running out of time.
If a Muslim man and Hindu woman marry, it is recommended they do it under the Special Marriage Act, which doesn’t have unequal rights
At my niece’s wedding in a church, the officiating priest began by declaring: “Marriage is a union; divine and indivisible.” This is a succinct way of expressing that marriage is a sacrament; no breaking until death does the union part.
The Dictionary of Islam by Thomas Patrick Hughes (published by Rupa & Co) calls marriage a nikah, a word that in its literal sense means a conjunction. It is a contract till the husband wants it. He can divorce his wife at pleasure by giving a notice of three months. The wife does not have this privilege. If she wants to separate, she has to follow the procedure of khul, which entails finding a qazi and convincing him under the rules of fiqh or dogmatic theology of Muslims.
If a Muslim man and Hindu woman fall in love, it is recommended that they marry under the Special Marriage Act, which does not have unequal rights nor requires the woman to change her religion or name, whereas a nikah insists that both partners be of the same religion, i.e. Muslim. If the man does not wish to divorce, he can take another wife.
It is rare to find an interfaith marriage where the bride is a Muslim and the groom a Hindu. Perhaps the reason is that it is impermissible for a non-Muslim to marry a Muslim woman as he would have legal authority over her. The tenets of Islam say that God doesn’t allow non-Muslims to have authority over Muslims. A Muslim man can marry a non-Muslim woman, but not vice versa.
This seems unfair, but the Islamic rationale is that a non-Muslim man will not respect his Muslim wife’s faith. These tenets also hold that while Muslims believe in all previous religions and Prophets of God and respect them, a non-Muslim does not return the favour. A non-Muslim husband might not explicitly express this, but a Muslim wife cannot expect her husband to respect her faith. Muslims believe in only the revealed religions of the Book, not other religions. A Muslim woman marrying a non-Muslim would eschew respect of the wife’s religion.
Some time ago, celebrated IAS couple Tina Dabi and Athar Aamir Khan filed for divorce in Jaipur, two years after they had tied the nuptial knot. Their love story and marriage in 2018 had made national headlines. A video made by Tina, in which she alleged that her Muslim husband tortured her for wearing a burqa, converting to Islam, reading namaz and adopting ‘Khan’ in her name, went viral.
Even without divorce, a Muslim male can marry up to four wives at a time; with divorce, there is no limit on the number of wives he can have. Hinduism and Christianity insist on only one wife. For marrying a Muslim boy, girls must know the possibilities they face. If the boy is Muslim, his faith enjoins upon him to produce as many children as possible so that they achieve demographic preponderance. This is borne out by the Hadith (The Traditions, the second holy book after the Quran; The Dictionary of Islam by Hughes). Concerned Hindus understandably use the word ‘jihad’ in this context.
It is time to stop romanticising interfaith marriages blindly. Marrying Muslim men does entail legal outcomes for non-Muslim women. Today’s political discourse is less than open in that it tends to ignore arguments of those who have issues with such marriages. Selective quoting and presentation of only particular views as acceptable does not help the cause of any informed debate. The current secular outrage over interfaith marriages souring is focused on romanticising interfaith marriages as a virtue by itself and treating all such alliances as the same, which they regrettably are not.
The rights of women under the Hindu Marriage Act or Special Marriage Act vary greatly from the rights of those who wed as per the Sharia. This has particular outcomes, as under Sharia, non-Muslim women have to first convert to Islam because this is a condition for marriage. Thus, any non-Muslim woman marrying a Muslim man instantly forfeits all her rights as she transits from a legal regime with more rights to one with fewer rights. This is not reversible, as Islam does not permit apostasy. Many women who convert for the sake of getting married, believing they can continue to practice their faith, are quickly belied of this notion; the faith they marry into doesn’t permit this either.
Moreover, Hindus hold marriage to be a sacrament where even divorce is considered an anathema (though allowed legally). Under Sharia, it is only as a contract where a man can divorce his wife orally and instantly by simply saying talaq thrice (till it was banned). This is the chasm between the two worlds.
Non-Muslim women must be made aware of these consequences. The blind eulogy and advocacy of interfaith marriages and pretending that all such alliances are of the same nature is dishonesty. Rosy and romanticised pictures of interfaith marriages carry the serious propensity of harming non-Muslim women, who might make hasty and misinformed decisions only to repent and suffer later.
(The writer is a well-known columnist and an author. The views expressed are personal.)
Do nominated members in other State legislatures, Union Territories and in Parliament, too, enjoy voting rights during a trust vote?
Expressio unius est exclusio alterius (expression of one subject, object or idea is the exclusion of other subjects, objects or ideas)”, is a maxim in Latin, which is heard quite frequently in law classes as well as in courtrooms. It finds application in the construction of Constitutions, statutes and similar instruments. This phrase came to mind after watching the proceedings in Puducherry that led to the fall of the V Narayanasamy-led Congress Government last week.
The resignation of Narayanasamy as the Chief Minister (CM) has not surprised any of the political observers. The only question being asked by them is why did it take four years for Narayanasamy to quit his post.
Though the BJP is accused of political manipulation, encouraging defections from the ruling party to topple the Government and MK Stalin, the president of the DMK, is accused of murdering democracy, the fact is that the fall of the Congress Government was bound to happen from the day Narayanasamy was sworn in in 2016.
“Why did the Congress high command appoint Narayanasamy, who had not contested the 2016 Assembly election as CM, superseding many party heavyweights in the Union Territory?” wonders Kolahala Srenivasan, political chronicler of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. “There were seasoned leaders like former CM Vaithilingam and A Namasivayam who were in the running for the top post,” says Srenivasan.
Narayanasamy, the all-powerful Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime under Manmohan Singh, had been defeated in the Lok Sabha election held in 2014. Sources say that the interests of other Congress leaders were overlooked by the party high command while appointing him. Apparently, there was strong discontentment among the Congress MLAs when he was handpicked by the party president. The appointment of Kiran Bedi, the former super cop of Delhi as the Lieutenant Governor (L-G) of the Union Territory (UT), was like opening another war front by the BJP. Consequently, the running battle between the CM and the L-G hogged the limelight in the last four years. This style of functioning of the L-G was a new experience for the population of the UT and naturally, Narayanasamy got annoyed!
The nomination of three BJP leaders as MLAs by the Union Home Ministry was also on expected lines. But the nominated legislators getting a chance to cast their votes in the trust vote held on Monday has to be explained by the BJP’s national leadership.
What sealed Narayanasamy’s fate was the resignations of K Lakshminarayanan, MLA and former Minister who was also the Parliamentary Secretary to the CM and that of D Venkatesan, an MLA belonging to the DMK. These resignations happened 24 hours before the trust vote. Lakshminarayanan had been complaining since 2016 that the party was not recognising his seniority and experience. He was hurt when he was overlooked by Narayanasamy when Speaker Vaithilingam resigned to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha poll and appointed first-time MLA Sivakozhunthu as the presiding officer of the House.
The resignation of John Kumar from the House, too, speaks about the discontentment that had set in. John Kumar was elected as an MLA in 2016 but resigned his seat to facilitate the election of Narayanasamy to the House. Though John Kumar was elected subsequently to the House in 2019, he too fell out with Narayanasamy eventually.
Though Venkatesan, the DMK MLA, announced his resignation from the House well in advance, the party leadership in Tamil Nadu kept silent over the issue. Despite the declaration by Venkatesan that he quit from the House with the concurrence of his party leader (MK Stalin), the DMK did not do anything till Tuesday to buy peace with him. It was on Tuesday that the party’s general secretary Durai Murugan announced the removal of Venkatesan from all official posts in the party.
Last month saw Stalin deputing party MP and moneybags Jagathrakshakan to rejuvenate the DMK in the UT. “This gave rise to many doubts in the minds of the Congress and DMK leaders in Puducherry. What we saw during the last two days was the impact of this decision,” said Srenivasan.
The question why Jagatrakshakan was sent to Puducherry at this juncture remains unanswered. Narayanasamy did not include his alliance partner, the DMK, in the Government and this resulted in a lot of heartburn.
Though the Congress and the DMK challenged the L-G’s nomination of three BJP leaders to the Assembly, the apex court upheld her act. But how the nominated members were allowed to cast their votes in the Assembly reminds one of the Latin maxim “expresso unius…”
Do nominated members in State legislatures, other UTs and in Parliament, too, enjoy voting rights. There cannot be one rule for Puducherry and another for the rest of the country. Let’s have the same rules for the whole country. This was what Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared when Parliament abrogated Article 370: “Now people in Jammu and Kashmir enjoy the same status as that of the rest of the Indians.” People of Puducherry, too, should get the same status. Shouldn’t they?
The writer is a senior journalist. The views expressed are personal.
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