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| May 22, 2000 | ||
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Around the Clock Engage the moderate Kashmiri--and give him some loaves and fishes
Correct as it may be, Home Minister L.K. Advani's distinction between external factors -- implying Pakistan -- and internal dissidence is therefore scarcely a revelation. Only if this indicates the institutionalisation of talks with the released leaders -- even if for, at least initially, public benefit rather than substance -- is any good going to emerge. It is now more or less accepted that the state assembly is not truly representative of popular aspirations in Jammu and Kashmir. Perhaps a sort of grand panchayat, with representation from the Farooq Abdullah regime, the Union government and the newly free leaders, could be mooted. Nothing may come of it -- but at least it's a talking point. Salute to Science It
has been over a week now since Benoy Krishna Chowdhury died. A simple,
humble man, as West Bengal's land reforms minister he worked a virtual
revolution in the period immediately after 1977. Chowdhury's life spanned
most of the past century, There are 12 million visually-impaired people in India. Four of every five can be cured. Many await cornea implants; donors are in short supply. Dead bodies serve other purposes too -- in anatomy classes at medical colleges, as tools for research scientists at the frontiers of the battle against disease. To put a human being's remains to such use is as much a reflection of a scientific temper as a philosophy that understands the impermanence of the human condition. Chowdhury's example -- and that of celebrities who have pledged their eyes to ocular repositories -- points to a social service, even social obligation. There have been proposals to make such action mandatory. This will be neither feasible nor democratic. A donation, by definition, has to be voluntary. Even in death, Chowdhury has given the call. How many of his countrymen are up to answering it? |
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There
are two ways of looking at the recent release of senior leaders of the All
Party Hurriyat Conference and the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front. The
easier and more plausible reaction will be to see the government's
munificence as goaded by American pressure. In the light of President Bill
Clinton's recent visit, the utility of a public
relations gesture would not be lost on either Washington DC or Delhi. In
the past decade, as Jammu and Kashmir has been bled by the war against
terrorism, relatively moderate -- at any rate relatively less extreme --
politicians have frequently walked in and out of prison. On each occasion,
the pattern is replicated. The politicians talk to the same bunch of
journalists and voice the same criticism of the Indian government,
accusing it of state terrorism. The Centre religiously reaffirms its
resolve to talk to anybody and everybody but only within the parameters of
the constitution. In the end nothing comes of this routine, one India has
got inured to. The Kashmiri leaders are too overwhelmed by the presence of
the militant's gun to begin serious negotiations. The Indian government
has never been in the mood for dramatic gestures, preferring to tire out
the problem.
as
a committed communist he saw his ideology triumph and then perish. Many
verities died with him; there are others, however, that must not be
allowed to pass away. Among these is rationality, once the bedrock of all
progressives everywhere and, to his final moment, an article of faith for
Chowdhury. His body has not been cremated and the site of his pyre not
converted into an architectural monstrosity. Rather, Chowdhury has willed
himself to science. His body will be the cadaver that will help train
tomorrow's doctors. True, his ashes won't be strewn across the fields of
India from an aircraft -- but no citizen could have served his country
better.