VOX POPULI
by
S Kamat
as
Aam Admi
Issue: 201 Date: 15.05.2017
Contents:
1. Are Our Fighting Forces Battle Ready?
2. Of Demonetisation, Liquor Ban on Highways and
the Cow Dominating Public Discourse
3. Is Kashmir Completely Lost?
Are Our Fighting Forces Battle Ready?
The frequent attacks on our military,
para-military forces and their temporary as well as permanent encampments as
also while they are deployed in action leads to questions on their alertness,
preparedness and the proper training of the forces. The leadership and
guidance offered by the officers to the jawans in the field also needs to
be assessed. These questions come to mind since after the Pathankot base attack
when terrorists struck at one of our forward military base camps it was
at dawn and when the shifts of duty were changing and hit the kitchen tent
considered a soft target and also at the arms and fuel dump for maximum impact.
Should we not be asking our 'trained' forces the reason for laxity in not
taking as one would believe normal protective measures particularly during
change of shifts? In this incident it was reported that the terrorists had
holed up in the upper reaches of the terrain surrounding the camp and had been
keeping watch for days and knew exactly when and where to strike inside the
camp. This raises the question - Does our military not have regular
patrols to sanitise the area around the camps to ensure that such incidents do
not take place? In the last strike by the Naxalites against the CRPF protective
force in Sukma, the story is similar. The forces were hit while they were
having lunch and it was said that the Naxalites had been keeping watch and knew
exactly when to strike to extract the maximum impact. The question here
again is - Were all the forces having lunch together and did the officers
present not think it necessary to keep lookouts to keep a watch on
enemy action? It is all right to sympathise with the forces who got killed or
injured in such action but the story keeps repeating. Not only that such
casualties have a great impact in lowering the morale of the forces. It is a
known fact now to at least the cross-border terrorists and the better equipped
Red terror outfits within the country that the Indian forces are easy and
predictable targets whose reaction times are also slow and suspect. When
such incidents happen the top brass of the armed and/or paramilitary forces
talk of giving a fitting reply. Given the past experience, these are
empty words which lack credibility and carry no import to the enemy
like putting the fear of God in them. The politicians are worse since they
look to extract the maximum mileage from such incidents and use them as photo
opportunities while shedding crocodile tears and mouthing pithy words about the
slain men being martyrs and that their service to the nation will never be
forgotten! In actual terms our armed and paramilitary forces need to take out a
page from the celebrated though controversial World War II US
General, the Late George. C Patton who famously said - We do not want
heroes who die for our country but we want heroes who make our enemies die for
their country. (The quote has been sanitised.) Thus our political leaders
and the top echelon of our armed and paramilitary forces should concentrate on
making our soldiers the best fighting force in the world who kill rather than
get killed.
Of Demonetisation, Liquor Ban on Highways and
the Cow Dominating Public Discourse
If you see the issues that have captured
national attention and generated debate in the last few months, they have been
Demonetisation, Liquor Ban on Highways and the Cow - its status and more
importantly its slaughter.
On the first issue, much has been debated and written about
Demonetisation but in summary its effects and impact on the Indian economy and
society has been like what Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda man is known to have
said - If you repeat a lie a thousand times then it becomes the truth.
Ostensibly this measure was taken to control black money, corruption and in its
spin off effects to reduce terrorism both foreign instigated and the Red terror
within the country. Corruption has not reduced at all with the latest evidence
of an Income Tax Commissioner and a Dy. Commissioner of Excise in
Mumbai caught while accepting bribes in the range of Rs. 1.25 to Rs. 2
crores. With this you can imagine the state of corruption in Bihar & UP. As
for terrorism when the stone throwing reduced in the height of winter in
Kashmir it was claimed it was because of Demonetisation. But later facts
have now proved that nothing has changed in Kashmir both in terms of local
unrest and cross-border terrorism and in fact it has got worse with terrorists
attacking banks to access cash for which the government in its greater wisdom
has shut down bank branches putting the general public into distress. Thus
there has been no benefit of the Demonetisation measure to either the
economy or the people apart from spinning off negative measures like having
less cash in the economy resulting in continued difficulty for common people
under the plea of promoting cashless transactions. The latter for a largely IT
unfriendly population particularly in the rural areas and among the elderly who
are not gadget friendly where it has created a problem of making
this category averse to financial transactions. Such people are reluctant to
leaving their comfort of closing any transaction completely at the time of its
taking place by payment of cash rather than go through unseen and
unknown agencies on whom they do not have any confidence of completing
the transaction. They are also not aware of the manner of handling
the transaction in case there are problems with it going through and
the process of grievance redressal to correct the matter and in fact, they are
simply not interested in needlessly going through these new methods. Thus this
government under the plea of modernising our society is taking it back in time
by limiting firstly, the number of people who voluntarily use these new methods
since cash usage was a simple and universal process and secondly, breeding a
class of touts particularly in the rural and urban slum areas who will claim to
help those not aware of cashless transactions and in this process recover their
pound of flesh and/or use their muscle to swindle and/or extort money from
these hapless users. With all this evidence, our Finance Minister Arun Jaitley
continues to tout that Demonetisation has been beneficial which seems to
be akin to the ostrich burying its head in the sand and reading off from a
prompting board buried there.
On the second issue of liquor ban near highways
under the plea that it will reduce the number of fatalities caused by road
accidents on the highways, the judgment though given by the Supreme Court, the
highest court of the land, the judgment is somewhat debatable since
there seems to be very little evidence of a direct linkage between drunken
driving and road accidents. Additionally the distance limit set at 500 meters
from the highways within which there cannot be any liquor served or sold has
really set the cat among the pigeons across India both the State governments
and the drinking public. Now look at it this way by moving the drinking from
the highway within the sanitised distance of 500 meters to somewhere beyond
that, are we not just shifting the location of the accidents in the
majority of cases to more populated areas of our towns and cities. This will be
the case all across India and therefore are we not increasing the number of
fatalities by this judgment while the avowed intention has been to reduce it.
In the tradition of jugaad that is a byword in India
the judgment has had most of the States raising various interpretations on
the method of calculating the 500 meters whether it as the crow flies or by the
road distance or by the 'motorable' distance which problem has been further
compounded now by the reduction of this distance to 200 meters for towns with a
lesser population which has made the chances of the liquor vends being
exempt more reachable. This reduction in distance is again not understandable
since those who drink will drink irrespective of the ban and for the
difference in distance of 300 meters exempted for smaller towns, makes one ask
- Are the lives in these towns cheaper than in bigger cities? Another method
being adopted by the States to work around the judgment is to call the highways
passing through population centres as district roads or important roads. All
these will only add to the Supreme Court spending more time on the matter to
sit in judgment on the finer variations that the Indian mind can devise to get
around the original judgment. A simpler method to resolve the issue was to
strengthen the Highway Patrol service that is in operation in most States and
have them do breathalyser tests on the highways for drivers on a random
but frequent basis with substantial fines in cases found to be of drunken
driving. Doing this rigorously along with a similar drive within towns
and cities for about a year would get the message across that drunken
driving is unacceptable on Indian roads and would thus definitely reduce
the number of human fatalities. An overall issue related to alcohol and society
is that in the developed world it is considered that a country with a higher
per capita of alcohol consumption is more developed than one with a lower
per capita figure. So are our measures to regulate alcohol intake a method to
take the country backwards by way of international standards which we keep
quoting and trying to emulate in all general matters!
We now come last to the last holy of holies and
that is the cow. The cow is an animal, a useful animal at that since it gives
us wholesome and nutritious milk. After its useful life it used to be killed to
provide its meat - beef - to those with a taste for it or which comprised their
normal diet and its hide was converted to leather in which process it provided
for employment in the tanning and leather industry wherein it was used to make
various items ranging from belts, purses, wallets, handbags, chappals and
shoes. Thus the cow holding an important and respected position in our
scriptures is also a practical animal which serves humanity in various
ways. Therefore there is no doubt that we need to hold the cow in high esteem
short of deifying it. For those now driving the agenda of putting the cow on a
pedestal we need to ask them where were they all this while. There have been
many instances across the country until now where stray cattle, many of
these cows, have been neglected with some dying for want of fodder and
water and it has been a common sight in our towns and cities of stray cattle
wandering out of neglect on our roads creating a hindrance to traffic. Is
it that the cow protectors have only now woken up that the cow is holy and
needs protection? Do these gau rakhsaks realise that it is not
enough just to protect but it is necessary to nurture these cows properly
over their lifetime? There have been some suggestions that cows will be given
Aadhaar cards which is another harebrained idea which will make those who are
responsible to monitor these cards to be provided with special cow features
recognition tools. Thus while recognising that the cow is a very emotive
political tool and is being milked currently to the maximum extent, we
should tone down these sentiments and moderate them by sheer practicality and
common sense. The cow is a living being and it should be treated with respect
it deserves as mentioned above and after its death if it continues to be of
benefit to some of our brethren who eat its meat or who become gainfully employed
from its hides, then so be it. An example in this regard is that some people
donate their organs and/or bodies after death to others in need of organ
transplantation or for medical research, notably the retired lady Judge Leila
Seth who died recently who donated her body for research. So those who do this
are motivated by noble sentiments since what happens to their
bodies after death is unimportant to the living being. And when we
can accept it for human beings then what is great about doing the same thing
for the Holy Cow! Concluding on the cow issue, the government should
actively come out and roundly condemn attacks on people involved in legitimate
cow trade so that the gau rakhsaks are reined in. The attacks
by these self appointed protectors has ranged across the country and it is
rather surprising and also disappointing that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has
not mentioned anything about it anywhere even after many of those attacked
getting killed. Here also if you see the cow issue is taking us backwards in
time which normally assumes being backward in economic development
terms.
Thus on the three matters dominating public discourse lately
of Demonetisation, Liquor Ban on Highways and the Cow, as covered
above, we are all being retrograde and driving this country backwards
while this government of ours claims its primary agenda is going forward
through development and through it economic growth.
Postscript:
The story of EVM is also retrograde wanting to take the country backwards with most
political parties preferring to go back to ballot paper. Instead of supporting
an excellent piece of equipment that is locally designed and produced our
political parties are wanting to shoot it down because it is not giving them
the results in elections that they want and that is to win them. All the losers
in the elections are complaining with more noise being made by those who lost
heavily and more recently including those who won even in the latest round of
elections and also in the past because the victory is not large enough!
Is Kashmir
Completely Lost?
There
is no end it seems of the turmoil in Kashmir. What is alarming this time around
are the pictures of children in school uniforms with their faces masked
throwing stones at the security forces. Even girls have been in the thick of
such action. Earlier it was the terrorist ympathizers and the youth who were involved
in street uprisings but with schoolchildren getting involved as now, it
would seem that the indoctrination cycle is complete. This will last for
another decade and any hope of peace that the PDP-BJP government nurtured is
blown to bits. Both parties should take responsibility for the current state of
affairs in Kashmir since instead of striving to bring normalcy to the State,
both parties were bickering about government formation. The incident where Lt.
Ummer Fayaz, the young Indian Army officer, was kidnapped and then killed shows
you the bravado of the terrorists who are confident of getting away with
such incidents. At the same time such events add to the atmosphere of fear
among the local population and it will be very few mothers who would accept
sending their children to join the Indian armed forces after this. The
hamhanded government has been trying to pump up any positive news to foster
morale among the Kashmir people like claiming that there were some 70,000
youth who applied for some 700 police vacancies. There seems to be some
error in zeros in this news and the numbers have to be probably divided by 10!
It is sad that Kashmir, a beautiful place has gone this way for the failure of
successive governments to win the
hearts and minds of the local people and with children looking the other way,
all seems lost.
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