SACW | March 9-10, 2007

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire  | March 9-10, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2374 - Year 9

[1]  Pakistan: Regulating Democracy  (I A Rehman)
[2]  Sri Lanka: Island in crisis (Ahilan Kadirgamar)
[3]  India: There's a great need for equal rights (Teesta Setalvad)
[4]  India: There is no civil society in Gujarat'  (Achut Yagnik)
[5]  India : Bombs Not Food - Priorities of the State
      (i) Neglect of Children under 6 in the 
Budget 2007-2008 - Concerned Citizens letter to 
the Prime Minister
      (ii)  Empty Stomachs and The Union Budget (Jean Drèze)

____


[1]

Dawn
March 08, 2007  

REGULATING DEMOCRACY

by I. A. Rehman

WHAT is common in the creation of a committee to 
screen the ruling party's parliamentarians for a 
new term, the organisation of an election cell in 
Punjab, the 'disappearance' of the PPP- Patriots, 
and the new parliamentary rules of conduct? The 
answer is: the working of a democratic system 
regulatory authority. The omens are unsavoury.

All parties scrutinise, or should scrutinise, the 
performance of their parliamentary 
representatives at the time of examining their 
request for party tickets in a new election. 
Traditionally this has been done by bodies all 
parties describe as parliamentary boards. The 
scheme is supposed to work like this: A board 
studies the credentials of candidates seeking the 
party ticket in each constituency, including the 
sitting member of a house as well as new 
aspirants to elective office. The board may award 
the party ticket to the sitting legislator or may 
dump him in favour of a new candidate. At least 
in the bad old days before independence there 
used to be an appellate board to hear the cases 
of all those who were aggrieved by the decision 
of the first parliamentary board.In the course of 
vulgarisation of politics in Pakistan, and 
elsewhere too, deviations from this scheme may 
have become common, and the parliamentary 
candidates' selection may have been reserved for 
the party supremo, but democratic politics knows 
no other way of choosing party representatives 
for any assignments.

The criteria for selecting party candidates for 
elected bodies is not written in any manual. To 
an extent a good candidate is a person who 
understands and is committed to his/her party's 
manifesto and has appreciable support in the 
constituency he/she wishes to represent. There 
may be other considerations, some in accord with 
democratic norms and some others repugnant to 
them. But the exercise is quite different from 
ACR writing by bureaucrats, and it is fairly 
transparent.

The committee reportedly set up to open dossiers 
on the ruling party parliamentarians is quite a 
different fish. Apparently, instead of a party 
outfit, it is an official entity, paid for by the 
state, and accountable to the government only. 
And its functioning is secret. Whatever the 
objectives of the exercise, and it is not 
difficult to imagine what these can be, the whole 
approach is anti-democratic. It amounts to 
regulating elections in a manner alien to 
democratic politics. It reveals the same thought 
process that had earlier given us some ugly 
concepts such as 'controlled democracy' and 
'guided democracy'.

No dissimilar is the premises of the high-level 
election cell created in the Punjab province. Any 
political party may create a cell to prepare 
constituency profiles, identify established vote 
banks in the country, and analyse the 
success/failure of candidates in preceding 
elections. This is good politics. The same cannot 
be said, however, about an election cell created 
by the state and functioning secretly. Something 
could be said in its favour if its findings were 
meant to be offered to students of electoral 
politics, research scholars, media persons and 
the public at large.

That cannot be the purpose of a secret 
undertaking. Since the people can recall the 
working of similar cells on the eve of and during 
general elections in the past, it is impossible 
to dismiss the thought that the present cell has 
been established to continue tits predecessors' 
mission, that is, to manipulate elections in 
favour of the entrenched establishment. Regulated 
democracy begins with regulated polls.

There is nothing surreptitious about the 
disappearance of one of the establishment's 
auxiliary companies known as PPP-Patriots. Their 
merger with the PML (Q) may be likened to 
formalisation of a partnership into a more 
popularly acceptable bond.

For all political purpose, the worthies concerned 
have for years been in the camp they have now 
notified as their permanent address. But for this 
they have had to add some adverse remarks to 
those they had attracted in 2002. The 
worldly-wise are offering several explanations - 
that as PPP - Patriots they could receive no 
accommodation with the present masters of Punjab 
or that they would have become homeless in the 
event of government's understanding with the 
flock from which they had broken away.

There may be some substance in these theories but 
a more decisive cause of the awakening of the 
honourable patriots seem to be the regulatory 
authority's known discomfort with diversity and 
its insistence on gathering its forces under a 
single or unified command.

What has revealed to the people the most easily 
recognizable (so far) portrait of the democracy 
regulatory authority is the adoption of a new 
code to punish parliamentarians who can be so 
ill-mannered as to violate the rules of decorum, 
make noise (unauthorised, that is ) in the holy 
chamber, and criticise the president, the armed 
forces or the judiciary. The message is: the 
dictum that democracy is a messy affair does not 
hold good in Pakistan, here will be grown a 
thoroughly sanitised brand of democracy in which 
nobody is out of step, nobody stirs, and nobody 
raises his/her voice higher than a whisper. 
Regulated democracy, in plain words.

Let us take note of some amusing statements made 
by privileged citizens in justification of the 
new code. It has been said that criticism of the 
armed forces and the judiciary is already 
prohibited in the Constitution and now only 
president has been added to them. The statement 
can easily be assailed. The constitutional 
provision under reference is contained in Article 
63 (g) and it runs as follows:

" 63. A person shall be disqualified from being 
elected or chosen as, and from being, a member of 
the Majlis-i- Shura (Parliament) if

(g) he is propagating any opinion, or acting in 
any manner, prejudicial to the ideology of 
Pakistan, or the sovereignty, integrity or 
security of Pakistan, or morality, or maintenance 
of law and order, or the integrity or 
independence of the judiciary of Pakistan, or 
which defames or brings into ridicule the 
judiciary or the armed forces of Pakistan."

While invoking this provision to justify the new 
rules of procedure, two points need to be noted. 
First, democratic opinion has never accepted this 
sub-section, as well as the other eligibility 
tests for members of parliament arbitrarily 
devised by Gen. Ziaul Haq. The restrictions on 
parliamentarians interfere with their 
responsibilities as defenders of public interest. 
Now they are being made liable to arbitrary 
punishment Hence democratic opinion has 
consistently demanded repeal of the clauses added 
to Articles 62 and 63 by Gen. Zia

Secondly, the authors of the new rules of 
procedure seem to assume that any criticism of an 
institution, such as the judiciary or the armed 
forces, amounts to defaming it or bringing it 
into ridicule. The proposition is simply 
preposterous.

It has been argued that the Speaker has been 
given additional powers to control unruly conduct 
by parliamentarians in order to ensure peace and 
proper decorum in the house during a presidential 
address. The lack of such guarantees is said to 
have been the main reason that General Pervez 
Musharraf has not addressed the parliament he 
himself brought into being. What this matter 
involves is a strategy for dealing with 
opposition elements in the parliament. Assuming 
for the sake of argument that those who created 
noise or sought to disrupt presidential address 
in the past violated a sacred code of behaviour, 
the question is whether threats of punishment is 
the only way to deal with them. The democratic 
system does provide for resolution of such 
matters through government-opposition 
negotiations and issue-based understanding. 
Unfortunately, however, authority in Pakistan 
seems to believe that those opposed to it are 
only fit to be put on the chopping block.

Much has been said in denigration of the popular 
modes of political expression the people have 
followed for decades. For them politics means 
congregation in open space, processions, 
slogan-mongering in streets, and the excitement 
of thrust and counter-thrust in political 
fencing. The regulatory authority wants to put an 
end to all this, all that gives democracy its 
colour and vibrancy. This is a recipe for 
depoliticisation of society. And

we are already witnessing the result of this operation.

Democracy does not suffer decline by being noisy 
and messy, but the imposition of garrison 
discipline will surely choke it to death. This 
country needs more and more articulate, even 
angry, defenders of the rights of the poor and 
the marginlised and not tongueless models of 
obsequiousness that react neither to the rapacity 
of the privileged nor the despair of families 
driven to suicide by hunger and want.

There must come a day when a Pakistani citizen 
does not have to cry out 'chali hai rasm keh koi 
na sar utha kai chaley.'

______


[2]

Hindustan Times
March 8, 2007

ISLAND IN CRISIS

by Ahilan Kadirgamar

The absence of State effort to put in place human 
rights mechanisms has aggravated the war in Sri 
Lanka. For matters to improve, Colombo must rein 
in State-linked violations

Situations of armed conflict lead to grave human 
rights abuses. In Sri Lanka, the absence of human 
rights mechanisms and protection has led to the 
escalation of an undeclared war. The 
Norway-facilitated Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) 
between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE 
has collapsed. Many argue that the seminal 
failure of the Norwegian peace process was the 
lack of an adequate human rights agreement and 
corresponding monitoring.

The LTTE took advantage of the CFA during the 
early years of the peace process, including its 
provisions to do political work in 
government-controlled territory, to carry out 
political killings and child recruitment with 
impunity. The killings that were initially 
limited to the LTTE's Tamil opponents spilled 
over to target military personnel and eventually 
even the Foreign Minister on August 12, 2005. A 
year later to the day, human rights and peace 
activist Kethesh Loganathan, then deputy head of 
the government peace secretariat, was gunned down 
the by the LTTE.

While the LTTE's human rights abuses and its 
intransigence are nothing new, what is worrying 
is the rapid descent of the Sri Lankan security 
forces to their despicable practices of the early 
1990s. The Karuna faction, a breakaway faction of 
the LTTE now working closely with the security 
forces, has made matters worse. Sri Lanka has 
witnessed an orgy of abuses by multiple actors. 
Grave abuses contained in the last decade, such 
as disappearances, abductions, rape and torture, 
are back to haunt us with a vengeance.

If the State wants to, it can contain the abuses 
by checking the security forces and reining in 
the Karuna faction. The latter in its present 
form is a failure of the Norwegians, who froze a 
two-party peace process and created conditions 
for the LTTE to obliterate its breakaway faction. 
This allowed the Sri Lankan establishment to take 
it under its wing. The undeclared war - over 
4,000 dead, over 250,000 internally displaced and 
another 16,000 finding refuge in India last year 
- has proved costly for the Tamil community in 
the North and East.

Furthermore, Tamils in the heart of Colombo have 
also been subject to arbitrary detentions, 
disappearances, extortion and humiliation by 
State-linked forces. While LTTE threats forced 
the new Vice Chancellor of Jaffna University, 
Jeevan Hoole, to flee the country, the Vice 
Chancellor of the Eastern University, Raveendran, 
has disappeared after alleged abduction by 
State-linked forces from a high security zone in 
Colombo. The attacks on the Vice Chancellors are 
a grim foreboding for the Tamil community, which 
placed a premium on academic excellence.

The extension of abuse in Colombo would have been 
the ultimate shame for any other government. But 
in Sri Lanka, even the abduction and extortion of 
the Tamil business elite and the assassination of 
a member of Parliament, Raviraj, in broad 
daylight seems to have set a norm. The 
government, effectively now an oligarchy leaning 
towards militarists and Sinhala chauvinists, 
appears not to care. The cry that one expects 
more from a democratic government than a fascist 
group such as the LTTE seems to be falling on 
deaf ears. And the international community is 
increasingly finding it embarrassing and annoying 
to pretend that business is as usual in Colombo.

It is in this disturbing climate that the fourth 
session of the UN Human Rights Council begins 
proceedings in Geneva on March 12, 2007. Will the 
council, to which Sri Lanka was elected, take 
note of the island nation's dismal record and act?

Will India take the necessary step of leading a 
multilateral diplomatic initiative to pressure 
Sri Lanka to address its human rights situation 
and move on a political solution? The engagement 
at the UN forums last year was propelled by the 
interventions of UN Special Rapporteur on 
Extrajudicial Killings, Philip Alston, calling 
for a UN human rights monitoring mission in Sri 
Lanka.

Colombo, to deflect attention from such 
monitoring, has appointed a Presidential 
Commission of Inquiry. It needs to deliver by 
showing a pattern of State complicity in at least 
some of their 15 mandated cases of grave human 
rights abuses. This does not in any way reject 
the need for UN human rights monitoring.

If the government musters the political will, it 
can immediately rein in the State-linked 
violations and create an environment for a 
political solution. However, that may depend on 
Sri Lankans concerned about human rights taking a 
firm stand coupled with international pressure 
led by India.

Ahilan Kadirgamar is a human rights activist with the Sri Lanka Democracy Forum


______


[3]

[ 
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2007/03/theres-great-need-for-equal-rights.html 
]

Deccan Herald
March 9, 2007

THERE'S A GREAT NEED FOR EQUAL RIGHTS
by Teesta Setalvad

Curiously, it was just this cleverly coined word, 
appeasement, (read tushtikaran) of the Muslim 
minority, more than any other coinage that can be 
credited to have resulted in the soaring success 
graph of the sangh parivar's hate politics into 
the mind and vocabulary of large sections of 
India's largest religious minority through the 
1980s and 1990s.

Aggressive, if mindless street politics by a 
carefully cultivated religio-political leadership 
among the largest minority that was caught in a 
time warp when it came to expressions of protest 
especially in relation to the Indian state's 
relationship with one half of its population, the 
Muslim woman, contributed to the shifting and 
hardening of stances against all Muslims in 
general.

When protests on the streets from the minority 
were seen and heard, they easily took the form 
and shape of a threat to keep away from personal 
laws of the community, even if the aim was to 
empower and enable divorced or deserted Muslim 
women. The result was that the Indian state 
passed, in 1986, in Parliament, an Act that in 
fact disempowered the Muslim woman by keeping her 
out of the rights guaranteed under Indian penal 
law to all women but this action of the Indian 
state, pushed by a belligerent Muslim community 
leadership, is remembered in public memory as the 
symbol of Muslim appeasement.

Other protests that often took ludicrous forms 
especially given the syncretic culture of the 
sub-continent with its centuries-old Sufi-Bhakti 
traditions included, for instance, protest 
against the start of an occasion through lighting 
the lamp (a pervasive tradition in Kerala and the 
South, especially) and even for Friday holidays!

All these combined, successfully kept the image 
of this vibrant minority community that is as 
diverse, rich and plural as any other Indian 
community or caste, confined for those among the 
Hindus and the elite who wished not to look 
beyond the surreptitious propaganda of the sangh, 
or those who actually believed it anyway and 
found, with the propaganda, a convenient anchor 
to peg their belief.

As the word appeasement threatens to surface once 
again in the wake of the recently released Sachar 
committee report, it would be wise for all, 
politicians and media included, to recall this 
recent history. For any society, country or 
nation, the graph of comparative access and 
development is a matter of collective appraisal, 
either pride or shame. Just as the denial of 
space, access and rights for the minority black 
population in the USA right until the 1960s, the 
results of the shocking, if not gross findings of 
the Sachar committee reveal that the Indian state 
has led the Muslim minority down. Even the 
communist-run states have questions to answer, 
with the onus on 'Hindu' society to answer.

Global growth rate however inflationary is 
revelled in, stock market surges are celebrated 
but have we so lost the capacity to critique 
ourselves that we accept institutionalised 
discrimination against our largest minority-that 
can only be the result of active bias - without 
so much as the blinking of an eye?

Sixty years of independence as a democracy ought 
to bring maturity and reason into the polity and 
searching self-criticism into all institutions of 
democratic governance.

A question that begs a reply is how come in two 
fields with mass appeal, Bollywood and sports, it 
has not been possible to keep the Muslims out? 
The zippy run-up and in swing of Irfan Pathan, 
from a bruised and battered Vadodara in Gujarat, 
who is one of the icons of Indian cricket 
nationalism today. Or the Aamir, Shahrukh and 
Salman Khans, who are the heart throbs of 
millions! Azim Premji, a corporate giant and 
self-confident Sania Mirza are the icing on this 
cake.

Clearly in those fields and arenas of free and 
fair play, Muslims can and do excel, on their 
own, and need no prop. As high as 55 per cent of 
India's vibrant artisan class - self-employed and 
ignored by the present development paradigm - is 
also Muslim, be they the extradordinary weavers 
of Benarasi silk, or those that create skilled 
embroideries on fabric, be it the Kutchi or 
Lucknowi chicken variety.

Faced with 400 pages of the revealing Sachar 
committee report, that contains as many as 150 
pages of carefully and meticulously tabulated 
graphs, it is time for India as a whole, 
especially its articulate, privileged sections to 
sit up and take notice.

A retired bureaucrat who had covered many a site 
of bitter communal strife in north India in the 
seventies and eighties had this to say about the 
landscape in Uttar Pradesh: "A Hindu area can be 
spotted or marked with the existence of a school, 
a Muslim area with the existence of a police 
station!" Stark words that deserve some serious 
consideration. Rationally, not through the 
hysterical dialectic being adopted by the BJP's 
think-tank on the eve of the elections in Uttar 
Pradesh.

Equal rights, equal access and non-discrimination 
should be the demand of all including minority 
organisations.

A close monitor on access in and to educational 
institutions and arenas for employment can only 
be ensured through a Non-Discrimination Officer 
who is available to register complaints of denial 
and discrimination.

A mature and inclusive Indian democracy and 
polity must not, and cannot let the Sachar 
committee report, with its findings and 
recommendations become the victim of narrow, 
divisive, hate-filled politics.

Implementation of the Sachar committee report is 
a challenge to all Indian political parties, 
saffron included. The pathetic status of the 
Indian Muslim, socially and economically, in 
areas where there are structural glass ceilings 
of bias in place is a challenge first and 
foremost to the secular, Indian state and then to 
elitist, privileged Hindu India.

(The writer is co-editor of 'Communalism Combat'.)


------


[4]

rediff.com

THERE IS NO CIVIL SOCIETY IN GUJARAT'

March 7, 2007

Ahmedabad-based Achyut Yagnik, 62, author, 
thinker and social activist, and co-author 
Suchitra Sheth are engaged in writing the history 
of Ahmedabad, which will turn 600 years old in 
2011.

Their acclaimed last book, The Shaping of Modern 
Gujarat: Plurality, Hindutva and Beyond, was 
shortlisted for the Crossword Book Awards 2006.

Yagnik has also co-authored Creating a 
Nationality: Ramjanmabhoomi Movement and Fear of 
the Self with noted sociologist Ashis Nandy.

From 1970 to 1980, Yagnik was a journalist and 
trade unionist. Then, he became general secretary 
of the People's Union for Civil Liberties, 
Gujarat.

In Ahmedabad, he leads SETU: Centre for Social 
Knowledge and Action, a social organisation 
working among the vulnerable communities in 
western India.

Yagnik, who studied religion and nationalism at 
university, has strong views on the middle class 
of Gujarat. And he speaks fearlessly against what 
he says is the dominance of the upper class in 
Gujarati politics.

Through his writings Yagnik has been trying to 
explain why Gujarat, which has absorbed diverse 
people like the Turks, the Portuguese and the 
Marathas for centuries, today appears insular and 
parochial, making even the release of commercial 
Hindi films a difficult issue.

Yagnik debates with Managing Editor Sheela Bhatt 
his views on the last five years of Gujarat after 
Godhra.

Five years have passed after the Godhra carnage 
and the communal riots. How do you evaluate those 
events?

By and large, Gujarat has remained peaceful, 
except the incident of violence in Baroda over 
the issue of the demolition of a dargah.

When I say peaceful, you must remember that it is 
peace without justice. It is peace without 
remorse.

The Muslim minority -- who were attacked, 
harassed and marginalised -- is waiting for 
justice. You hardly find remorse in the urban 
middle class of Gujarat. That is very disturbing.

However, we must note that in 2002, except in 
Rajkot and Bhavnagar, virtually nothing happened 
in Saurashtra, Kutch and south of the Narmada. 
The main theatres of violence were north and 
central Gujarat and urban centres like Baroda and 
Ahmedabad.

In these areas there is further ghettoisation. In 
Mehsana and in some villages of tribal Gujarat, 
Muslim families are unable to go back to their 
homes. In Himmatnagar, Visnagar and Vijapur, you 
find that Muslims are being further marginalised 
in society.

In Ahmedbad, Juhapura has evolved as the biggest 
ghetto of Muslims. It was continuously neglected 
by civil corporations and the state government 
for many years.

The Juhapura area has a Juhapura village but it 
also includes some other villages like Sarkhej.

It is believed that out of the 300,000 
population, 90 percent are Muslims. Nationalised 
banks are not opening their branches here.

It is not just the state government that is 
neglecting Muslim areas, even the central 
government is doing so. It is so because the 
bureaucracy involved here at the local level has 
also internalised anti-Muslim images and emotions.

Many buses are not passing through this area. 
Only in July 2006, Juhapura has become a part of 
the Ahmedabad Corporation.

Now we will have to wait and see how development 
activity picks up here. We shall compare it with 
other areas.

On one hand Muslims themselves are moving towards 
Juhapura out of fear, anxiety and insecurity, and 
on the other hand you realise that the majority 
is neglecting them more and more.

You said it is peace without remorse. Why?

For the riots of 2002, the state government was 
responsible. The state machinery didn't work at 
all. Over and above the state government, you 
also find that the Gujarati middle class is 
equally responsible. They refuse to analyse the 
situation. They refuse to look at their own face 
in the mirror.

Why?

it is an interesting question. You can say it is 
unfortunate. But I am not in a position to give 
you the reason why the Gujarati middle class has 
no remorse.

I can look back 25 years. I know how in the 1980s 
we saw the emergence of the politics of the upper 
castes. In 1981, and later in 1985, for the first 
time we saw violence against Dalits. In 1990, we 
saw that the politics of the upper castes was 
fully converted into Hindutva.

The Sangh Parivar played a significant role in 
Hinduisation. They played an important role in 
shaping the worldview of the Gujarati urban 
middle class.

Along with the Sangh, we should also take note of 
various modern Hindu religious sects. They have 
not come out against the violence and they are 
not talking about Gandhiji's Arva Dharma Sambhav.

They are talking about classical Hinduism without 
the ethical or Bhakti traditions of Gujarat.

The religious sects of Gujarat are playing a very 
crucial role in inducting Hindutva amongst their 
followers. They are spreading Hindu cultural 
nationalism. In that process, non-resident 
Gujaratis also played a significant role.

Abroad, they are in a minority. Many of them, 
while living in different countries, think they 
are second class citizens. Their identity problem 
shifts here because a large number of 
non-resident Gujaratis in the Western world have 
their relatives in urban Gujarat in upper caste 
society.

The emergence of upper caste politics, which got 
transformed into Hindutva politics, and the role 
of religious sects are helping this 
transformation.

If you analyse their lectures they are talking 
about the Gita without talking of non-violence. 
Gujarat's Bhakti tradition spoke about plurality 
but that message is not highlighted today.

I think the popular religious leaders of Gujarat 
don't want to disturb their equation with the 
middle class and also with the political and 
social establishment.

If central government employees are not opening 
bank branches in Juhapura, it is not because of 
the Hindus. The close-knit Muslim community is 
seen as posing a security problem.

The Muslims in Gujarat are not a homogenous 
community. All the Muslims living in Juhapura are 
not criminals.

In the same way, you can't say all Gujarati Hindus are communal.

I have already told you that in Kutch, Saurashtra 
and south of the Narmada people are living in 
peace and harmony.

My question was regarding Juhapura. If banks are 
not opening their branches easily then don't you 
think the community also has to answer?

The community in Juhapura wants more banks and 
other government offices. But within the banking 
world, the authority lies in hands of upper class 
people. And they are not responding to the 
demands of Muslims.

You can't say all the 300,000 people living in Juhapura are communal.

Nobody is saying all Muslims in Juhapura are 
criminals, but questions are raised about the 
lack of response from the Muslim community too.

What kind of responsibility you are talking 
about? This is the problem with the perception of 
upper class banking officers. A city that is 
divided and segmented like Ahmedabad is not even 
good for the development of Ahmedabad.

How can you make Ahmedabad a mega city where 
there are walls within walls? When there are 
boundaries, some areas known as 'Chhote Pakistan'?

Even Dalits are not allowed within upper caste 
areas. Now Dalits are forming their own housing 
societies. Nobody is talking about the 
marginalisation of Dalits by the same people who 
marginalised Muslims.

Why is civil society not taking up the issue?

There is no civil society in Gujarat.

At the beginning of the 21st century Ahmedabad is 
at the crossroads. Godhra changed Gujarat's image 
for the first time but the changes within 
Ahmedabad started in the 1980s. Riots occurred 
frequently through the 1980s and 1990s. You 
cannot understand 2002 in isolation.

But for non-Gujaratis the earlier riots of 1985 
or 1989 or 1990 were not that important. Because 
the 2002 riots were the first televised riots of 
India, it became different. The media's reach 
played a role also.

As a result, large numbers of writers in the 
Western world are not looking at Gujarat as 
Gandhi's Gujarat or mercantile Gujarat. From the 
viewpoint of the image of Gujarat, 2002 was the 
watershed event. Within Gujarat, the media, 
academicians and upper caste think outsiders are 
anti-Gujarat.

Personally, I am worried about intellectual 
poverty in Gujarat. Take the example of the 
Sahitya Parishad, which celebrated its centenary 
in 2006.

A centenary ago the same Parishad was talking 
about an inclusive Gujarat but now writers are 
talking in the language of Hindutva.

Professor Ganesh Devi is a professor of English 
working in the tribal areas of Gujarat and 
working on the tribal dialect. He criticised the 
riots, so a number of writers attacked Devi in 
literary journals. They threaten to boycott the 
annual event organised at Devi's institute. The 
Parishad was forced to change the venue. This is 
very suggestive.

The events of 2002 have not created any new waves 
in literature. Ranjitram, founder of the 
Parishad, was talking of an inclusive Gujarat. 
Poet Khabardar was talking about Hindus, Muslims 
and Parsis in his poems. The great poet Nanalal 
gave powerful expression to the plurality of 
Gujarat. In 1960, the Gujarat state was created. 
Then, Sundaram and Umashanker Joshi were talking 
about pluralist Gujarat.

Now, that voice is hardly heard. The cultural 
leadership of Gujarat has failed in projecting 
the greatness of Gujarat. Once, the great poet 
Narmad asked: Koni, koni che (Gujarat? Gujarat 
belongs to whom?)

He said Gujarat belongs to not only Aryans and 
Hindus -- but those who came from outside and are 
settled here and who speak Gujarati are 
Gujaratis. Gujarat belongs to people who speak 
Gujarati.

Now, in the universities of Gujarat, top 
appointments are made only if the educationalists 
and writers voice Hindutva views. There is a 
vacuum and intellectual poverty in cultural 
organisations.

The present generation of Gujarat has only 
witnessed anti-Muslim or anti-Dalit propaganda 
and violence. How would they get the correct 
messages and from where? The youth is not trained 
to look within.

Don't miss the second part of the interview where 
Achyut Yagnik decodes Gujarat Chief Minister 
Narendra Modi.


______


[5]   [Bombs Not Food - Priorities of the Indian State]

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(i) http://www.sacw.net/Nation/Letter_PM_Finalpdf.pdf

     LETTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER OF INDIA


5 March 2007


Dr. Manmohan Singh
Prime Minister of India

Dear Prime Minister,

Neglect of Children Under Six in the Union Budget 2007-8

We are writing to express our deep concern about 
the neglect of children under six in the Union 
Budget
2007-8.

You may remember meeting some of us on 19 
December 2006 (just after "Bal Adhikar Samvad"), 
when we discussed the FOCUS Report, the rights of 
children under six, and the recent Supreme Court 
judgement on ICDS.  At that time you had assured 
us that the UPA Government was committed to the 
universalization of ICDS, as stated in the Common 
Minimum Programme (CMP), and also to the 
implementation of the Supreme Court judgement. 
We are, therefore, startled and dismayed that 
this commitment is not reflected at all in the 
Union Budget 2007-8.  The allocation for ICDS (Rs 
4,761 crores) has barely increased in real terms, 
and is virtually unchanged as a proportion of GDP.

It is a mystery to us how the CMP commitment and 
Supreme Court judgement can possibly be 
implemented within such meagre budget 
allocations.  The Supreme Court judgement 
requires an increase in the number of Anganwadis 
from the present 9.4 lakhs to 14 lakhs at the 
very least by December 2008.  Higher allocations 
are also required to enhance the quality of ICDS 
services.  Based on fairly conservative 
calculations of the requirements of 
"universalization with quality", the National 
Advisory Council had recommended (in November 
2004) an allocation of at least Rs 9,600 crores 
for ICDS in 2007-8.  This figure needs upward 
revision in the light of the Supreme Court 
judgement, yet the actual provision in the Union 
Budget 2007-8 is not even half of this 
conservative estimate.

As per this Budget, the Government of India will 
be spending less than Rs 5,000 crores this year 
on children under six, who represent more than 15 
per cent of India's population.  This compares 
with Rs 96,000 crores to be spent on "defence". 
This is a staggering and unacceptable imbalance 
in Budget priorities.  The contrast is all the 
more shocking at a time of growing evidence 
(particularly from the National Family Health 
Survey) that there has been no substantial 
improvement in infant and young child nutrition, 
including optimal breastfeeding practices, during 
the last eight years, in spite of runaway 
economic growth.

We urge you to intervene and ensure a fairer deal 
for children in the Union Budget 2007-8 as well 
as in the 11th Plan.  We also take this 
opportunity to reiterate our appeal for more 
active political leadership on children's issues, 
including the universalization of ICDS.

Yours Sincerely,

                                    
   Jean Dreze        N.C.Saxena Shantha Sinha  Aruna Roy
   (Allahabad University)        (former 
Secretary, (M.V.Foundation) (National Campaign 
for 
      Planning Commission) 
People's Right to Information)
                             
Kavita Srivastava Harsh Mander   Vandana Prasad     Arun Gupta
(People's Union  (Centre for Equity 
(Jan Swasthya Abhiyan)     (Breastfeeding 
Promotion  
for Civil Liberties) Studies)           Network of India) 
                
        Annie Raja                        Veena 
Shatrugna  Sudha Sundararaman             
       (National Federation 
(National Institute                     (All 
India Democratic                        
        For Indian Women)                 of 
Nutrition)                   Women's 
Association)          




cc: Mrs. Sonia Gandhi (Chairperson, UPA), 
Shri P. Chidambaram (Finance Minister), 
      Dr. Montek S. Ahluwalia (Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission) 


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(ii)

The Hindu
Mar 09, 2007

EMPTY STOMACHS AND THE UNION BUDGET

by Jean Drèze

The need of the hour is to increase expenditure 
under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.

FINANCE MINISTER P. Chidambaram's recent budget 
speech leaves no doubt about the priorities of 
economic policy in India today. The Minister 
endorses the 11th Plan's "declared goal" of 
"faster and more inclusive growth," but the fine 
print makes it clear that his main concern is 
with "faster." Human development is little more 
than a footnote, and is even invoked at the end 
of the speech to justify the single-minded focus 
on faster economic growth: "Our human and gender 
development indices are low not because of high 
growth but because growth is not high enough." 
This odd statement trivialises any possible 
dissent with the growth-centred strategy by 
equating such dissent with the foolish claim that 
India's human development indicators are low 
"because of high growth." The concluding sentence 
of the speech drives the last nail in the coffin 
of the critics by quoting Nobel Laureate Mohammad 
Yunus to the effect that there is "no other 
trick" than faster growth to achieve rapid 
poverty reduction.

A useful test of the government's commitment to 
"more inclusive growth" is the priority attached 
to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 
(NREGA), which came into force in February 2006 
in the country's poorest 200 districts. Two years 
ago, the National Advisory Council (NAC) 
estimated that fair implementation of the Act in 
these 200 districts would require an annual 
expenditure of about Rs.20,000 crore, or Rs.100 
crore per district on average. As it happens, 
expenditure levels in the better-performing 
districts are right on track. Rajasthan, for 
instance, has already spent Rs.600 crore in its 
six NREGA districts. But in the country as a 
whole, NREGA expenditure per district was barely 
Rs.30 crore by the end of January 2007 - about 
one third of the NAC benchmark.

The case of Dungarpur district in Rajasthan is 
particularly interesting because the findings of 
recent "social audits" conducted there give 
reasonable confidence that the money has reached 
the intended persons. For instance, large-scale 
verification of "muster rolls" uncovered little 
evidence of significant fudging. According to 
official data, NREGA expenditure in Dungarpur (a 
relatively small district) is already well over 
Rs.100 crore. Almost every rural household has a 
job card, and the average job cardholder had 
already worked for about 70 days under the NREGA 
by the end of January. This is an unprecedented 
achievement in the history of social security in 
India, which points to the enormous potential of 
the NREGA as a tool of "inclusive growth."

The positive experiences in Dungarpur and 
elsewhere also lend support to the hopes that 
have been placed in the potential achievements of 
the Act, whether it is in terms of enhancing food 
security, or reducing distress migration, or 
activating the Gram Sabhas, or empowering 
disadvantaged groups (notably women, Dalits, and 
Adivasis). The need of the hour is to extend 
these positive experiences across the country, 
and to raise NREGA expenditure levels much closer 
to the NAC projections.

Instead, the Finance Ministry continues its 
crusade against the Employment Guarantee Act. It 
is an open secret that the Ministry opposed the 
NREGA (the "expensive gravy train", in the words 
of a former Chief Economic Adviser) from the 
beginning. Indeed, it played a leading role in 
the attempted dilution of the NREGA draft 
prepared by the National Advisory Council. When 
this failed, the Finance Ministry insisted on the 
inclusion of a so-called "anti-corruption 
clause," which gives sweeping powers to the 
Central Government to discontinue NREGA funding 
on the flimsiest suspicion of "improper 
utilisation of funds." As the Act came into 
force, the Finance Ministry restricted the 
financial allocation for administrative expenses 
to two per cent of total costs, making it very 
hard to implement the NREGA in States that do not 
have readymade arrangements for implementing 
large-scale public works. And in the run-up to 
the Union budget 2007-08, the Finance Ministry 
opposed the Ministry of Rural Development's 
demand for extension of the NREGA to another 200 
districts. As the Rural Development Minister, 
Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, politely said in a 
recent interview to Business Standard, "the 
Planning Commission and Finance Ministry are not 
showing interest in funding the programme." In 
more agitated moments he often castigates North 
Block as an "anti-rural, anti-poor lobby."

With a little help from the Prime Minister's 
Office, the Finance Ministry eventually agreed to 
extend the NREGA to an additional 130 districts. 
But there is a catch: the budget allocation is 
virtually unchanged (just over Rs.10,000 crore), 
on the grounds that last year's allocation was 
underspent. In effect, the Union budget 2007-08 
takes last year's diminutive expenditure levels 
as a benchmark for this year, instead of waking 
up to the need for a drastic increase. And while 
the budget speech states that "the budget 
allocation [for the NREGA] would have to be 
supplemented according to need," it is a safe bet 
that nothing of the sort will actually happen. 
The sub-text is clear: The NREGA was successfully 
held up last year, and will be held up again this 
year.

Another useful test of the government's 
commitment to "inclusive growth" is the fate of 
the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) 
- the only major national programme for children 
under the age of six years. The universalisation 
of the ICDS is one of the core commitments of the 
Common Minimum Programme. It is also required for 
compliance with Supreme Court orders, including 
the landmark judgment of December 13, 2006. In 
concrete terms, universalisation involves 
ensuring that every settlement has a functional 
anganwadi (child care centre), and that all ICDS 
services are extended to all children under six 
as well as to all eligible women. As things 
stand, barely one third of all children under six 
are covered, and the quality of ICDS services is 
also far from adequate.

Detailed recommendations to achieve 
"universalisation with quality" have recently 
been formulated by the National Advisory Council, 
the Commissioners of the Supreme Court, Citizens' 
Initiative for the Rights of Children Under Six, 
the Ministry of Women and Child Development's 
Working Group on Child Development, the Planning 
Commission's Working Group on Food and Nutrition 
Security, and the Working Group on Integrating 
Nutrition with Health, among others. In spite of 
minor differences, there is a remarkable 
consistency between these different sets of 
recommendations. The government has rarely been 
presented with such a clear road map to implement 
its own promises.

This material was consolidated in the Focus On 
Children Under Six (FOCUS) report, released on 
December 19, 2006, by Amartya Sen on the occasion 
of "Bal Adhikar Samvad," a public gathering on 
the rights of children under six. Montek S. 
Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning 
Commission, publicly welcomed the report and 
assured the audience that the government was 
committed to the implementation of the Supreme 
Court judgment on the ICDS. Similar assurances 
were received from the Prime Minister, Manmohan 
Singh, on the same day, and from Sonia Gandhi, 
Chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance, 
the next day.

Against this background, it is startling to find 
that the budget allocation for the ICDS in 
2007-08 is virtually the same as in 2006-07. In 
fact, it is the same, as a proportion of GDP. 
This year, the Government of India will be 
spending less than Rs.5,000 crore to protect the 
well-being and rights of 160 million children 
under six. This compares with Rs.96,000 crore to 
be spent on defence - the figures speak for 
themselves.

The status quo on the ICDS would be easier to 
accept if the government had an alternative plan 
to tackle the country's disgraceful levels of 
child undernutrition and ill health. According to 
the recently released findings of the third 
National Family Health Survey, 46 per cent of 
Indian children are underweight - virtually the 
same figure as eight years ago. This is a stark 
indictment of aimless economic growth as a 
strategy for rapid improvements in health and 
nutrition. Yet the fixation with "faster growth" 
continues and direct intervention is limited to 
token programmes. In effect, hungry children are 
being told, "be patient, it's just a matter of 
another twenty or thirty years and everything 
will be fine."

(The author is Visiting Professor at the 
University of Allahabad, and member of the 
Central Employment Guarantee Council.)


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