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TheIndian EXPRESS
www.indianexpress.com

NEW DELHI l THURSDAY l JULY 19 l 2012

The Indian EXPRESS

BECAUSE THE TRUTH INVOLVES US ALL

T IS possible to argue that Mamata Banerjees U-turn on Pranab Mukherjee was foretold. She really did have limited options, given a host of factors ranging from Pranabdas Bengali-ness to the fact that she could ill-afford to vote on the same side as the BJP because of West Bengals significant Muslim vote. Arguably, she also needed to stay within the UPA to extract the much-needed financial package from the Centre. Whatever be the reasons that led up to her rethink on Mukherjee, there can be no doubt that the final trigger was the UPAs decision to call her bluff. The UPA may have reason to congratulate itself in this moment. From a position where it seemed that the presidential election could turn out to be a precarious test of its numbers, it appears to be now sitting pretty, having not only rallied all its allies behind its candidate, but also drawn in outside support from the BSP and SP and from NDA partners Shiv Sena and JD(U). Yet, unless it draws the right lessons from the just-concluded episode, its present comforts will prove to be fragile . Vis-a-vis Banerjee, the UPA has been guilty of, first, not talking enough and then letting her prolong the argument beyond a rea-

Her U-turn on Pranab underlines it: Congress can no longer use TMC as an alibi for indecision
sonable point. Most Congress allies rightly complain that the party does not talk to them before taking consequential decisions. Many of the logjams on crucial policy issues like FDI in retail may have been prevented from turning into a dialogue of the deaf if the Congress had reached out to friends and allies, and even political opponents, earlier. Yet, especially with Banerjee, it is also true that after making the first mistake of not engaging her enough, the Congress then allowed her to obstruct a slew of reform measures. This is because, in many cases, Banerjees apparent obstinacy was being used by sections of the Congress to cover up its own lack of conviction. If this government is to turn around the negative story so far, in the two years left in its tenure, it must remember this: in the end, it cannot credibly blame it on the allies not even on Banerjee. Her capitulation on Mukherjees candidature has shown that if the Congress demonstrates clarity and stands its ground, it will, more often than not, prevail. On issues that matter, the Congress will have to interrogate its own indecision, or lack of coherence and belief. It cannot hide behind the real or presumed recalcitrance of its allies.

Its not Mamata

HE National Commission for Women is an apex organisation mandated to protect and promote the interests of women but the recent comments made by its chairperson, Mamta Sharma, blatantly undercut that purpose. She has asked women to be careful about the way they dress because aping the West blindly is eroding our culture and causing such crimes to happen. These statements that shift the blame to the victim are more troubling as they come in the context of the Guwahati molestation case and before Sharma presents the recommendations of the panels probe report into the incident. A womans freedom to choose her dress and her right to safety are not mutually exclusive. Earlier, NCWs representative, Alka Lamba, publicly named the victim. It is only in cases involving sexual crimes that the victim is so readily incriminated, and her freedoms sought to be circumscribed rather than safe-guarded. Earlier this year, after a woman was raped in Gurgaon, the administration decided that the next step should be

Guwahati shows that NCWs main problem is not its politicisation, but a sensitivity deficit
to bar women from working in commercial establishments after 8 pm. In Andhra Pradesh, a DGP attributed the increase in rape cases to women wearing flimsy and fashionable dresses. A body like the NCW should be redirecting this discussion. It should be bringing down archaic and dangerous mindsets, not shoring them up. An institutions credibility is hard-won. The NCWs response to the incident in Guwahati has shown that it is not yet up to the task. It has been argued that the primary flaw lies in the manner of appointment of its members: they are political appointees circumscribed by narrow agendas, compromising the institutions autonomy. There is truth in that accusation. But as the NCWs response to the Guwahati outrage shows, the panels problems lie at a more fundamental level. After they come on board, members are unwilling or unable to use the platform to meaningfully engage with womens problems in a changing world. In Guwahati, they did not observe the basic, laidout protocols meant to govern the commissions response.

Against the woman

HE change of guard at the finance ministry has brought in a cautious optimism among investors. In the first few days of the month, stock prices moved up and $1.3 billion of portfolio investment came into India, perhaps reflecting improved investor sentiment. The problems the country faces are, however, far from over, and the prime minister and his team have huge challenges ahead. Macroeconomic difficulties facing India may be exacerbated in the coming months, making it difficult to keep up the optimism. One of the biggest difficulties facing the government is likely to be bad news on production. Since 2008, when the global crisis began, the investment climate has been poor and worsening. While existing projects were completed, new project plans, both public and private, slowed down. Even if the investment climate improves, and the government and the private sector start planning to invest again, it could easily be two to three years before these translate into higher investment. After projects are planned, it takes time to get various clearances and tie up the finances to execute them. These are not necessarily delays but part of project execution, even when all processes are moving smoothly. So even an improved investment climate will not translate immediately into higher investment spending. Meanwhile, the slowdown in new investment plans in the last four years is likely to lead to lower investment in the pipeline. Lower investment is likely to translate into lower output and unemployment. The quiet decline in investment plans that has been happening over the last few years could translate into a shrill discussion on slipping industrial growth and poor corporate performance on every business channel. It will be a constant challenge for the government to offset the gloom and pressure caused by the bad news. There will need to be more than a

Towards climate change

A slow trickle of reforms wont do. Nor can government follow a policy of do no harm
ILA PATNAIK
slow trickle of reforms. It will not be enough to follow a policy of do no harm. At the same time, there is little sign that inflation will come down soon. Month-on-month seasonally adjusted inflation based on the consumer price index is showing that inflation for the next five months is likely to be high. Even after that there is no indication that price rise will slow down. What might be the best way for the government to stabilise the economy? Considering the multiple problems facing the economy, there is clearly no single magic bullet. The government will have to adopt a multi-pronged aptional environmental standards need to be met, the government must get that process under way as soon as possible. Long delays lock up finances, get companies and banks into trouble, and slow down the economy. In the longer term, improving the investment climate will require an array of reforms. Reducing uncertainty in investment and project implementation is an important element of economic policy. While on one hand, unearthing corruption is good for the country, on the other, it implies a change in the way people do business. The old ways of using political influence or money power and being

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In the next few days, the government must swing into action to free up blocked investment projects. It must work with the relevant ministries and courts. If norms have been violated and fines need to be imposed, or if additional environmental standards need to be met, the government must get that process under way as soon as possible. Long delays lock up finances, get companies and banks into trouble, and slow down the economy.
proach. For example, there needs to be one set of strategies to address the question of investment plans and the implementation of existing projects that will work towards pushing growth. Interest rate policy should not be used to push growth. It should be used only to fight inflation. In the next few days, the government must swing into action to free up blocked investment projects. It must work with the relevant ministries, and courts, to find out ways to move ahead faster. If norms have been violated and this implies that fines will need to be imposed, or other action is required, or if addihelped by a politician or bureaucrat who would assist in removing the various hurdles in the way of a project are no longer going to be as easy under a more transparent system and a more cautious bureaucracy. Moving away from the present ad hoc system towards one where there are well-defined rules and standards for environment, land rights and forest rights is now needed. For this purpose, the prime minister should set up task forces to review rules and laws proposed for land acquisition, environment, forest rights to ensure that while there is no violation of peoples fundamental rights or undue de-

struction of our countrys natural resources, we do not make it impossible for honest entrepreneurs and investors to do business. In addition, there is the usual laundry list of economic reforms that have been much debated and can help ease the current economic difficulties. The problem of inflation is the other big issue that has been mishandled by the present regime. If bad news on the economy comes in, the pressure on the government to ease monetary policy could also increase. It will be a mistake to ease monetary policy at this stage, when inflationary expectations are high. In order to avoid taking the blame for raising interest rates, the politicians of many countries have redefined the role of central banks as one where their primary objective is price stability. Tightening monetary policy is the hardest during stagflation as industry lobbying for easing increases. The best policy at this time would be to change the institutional arrangement for inflation control and to give the RBI a clear mandate to focus on price stability. Not only is it important for the government to implement this strategy, it should communicate it adequately to the public. In the last few years, former finance minister Pranab Mukherjee often made statements that amounted to suggesting that the instrument to address economic growth was the interest rate, and that the RBI is not an independent central bank whose objective is price stability, implying that interest rate policy in India can be used to push growth at the cost of inflation. The government needs to change this perception. The mismanagement of the economy is translating into lower job growth and higher prices that hit the voter. The government must act urgently. The writer is a professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, Delhi
express@expressindia.com

EDITOR
THE suggestion to use NREGA funds for developing skills required for industrial and corporate sectors is innovative and should be considered by the government. (Audit objection, IE, July 18). Special skills will get workers better wages. They will also increase productivity, which will contribute to economic growth. This, in turn, will create more jobs for skilled workers. At present, the scheme is drawing criticism for not being productive. The UPA needs to think out of the box and beyond vested interests to put the NREGA to good use. Satwant Kaur Mahilpur

Letters to the

Skill cycle

Friend in need

APROPOS UPAs Pawar cut

(IE, July 17), Sharad Pawar, who has been the UPAs most consistent ally so far, was treated shabbily by the Congress, which is yet to master the art of coalition politics. Fickle allies like the Trinamool Congress have not made the UPA value its loyal ones more. Bal Govind Noida

KISHWAR DESAI
WAS 14 when I discovered Rajesh Khanna and death, at the same time. It was an unforgettable experience and I cried for weeks. Perhaps months. The desolation would not leave me. My mother still remembers that I kept asking, as though it had never struck me before, But why do people die? The film was Anand (1971). A powerful story of hope and despair. Anand had a rare impact on viewers, possibly because it also foreshadowed the death of our first superstar. The film was a shock to the system. How could Rajesh Khanna, handsome and gentle, immortalised on celluloid, die at the height of his stardom? It reinforced the contradiction that the eternal superstar was human and all the hysteria that surrounded him was ephemeral. But it also revealed the ferociousness of the emperor of all maladies. All this was new to Indian cinema, where people only died of love, not of cancer. It was far too believable but none of us wanted to face it. The sorrow lay in the script as well as in what it foretold. And it is a film that I still frequently think about today more than ever. The role that Rajesh Khanna played so well is now finally reality. The actor I did not want to ever die, is dead. And once again, I cannot help crying. Anand was a transformational

Just by closing his eyes

Rajesh Khanna could light up a room
had recorded earlier unspool on a tape, Zindagi aur maut uperwale ke haath mein hai jahanpanah there was almost a hysterical reaction in the audience. But I have to admit that while I cried over the film, there were two women in our family who already had precedence over the adoration of Rajesh Khanna. One from very close and another from a very, very discreet distance. And that is why Kakaji was often discussed in our home. One was my cousin, the feisty and courageous Anju Mahendroo, who had been by his side film. Of course, I saw Aradhana, Kati Patang, Dushman and the other tragic masterpiece, Safar, among others. But it seemed that while playing the cheerful cancer patient who succumbs to his illness, Rajesh Khanna changed not just cinema, but the way we connected with our actors forever. This was not the masala, blood-soaked death by a thousand bullets, prior to which we knew the hero would give a speech while we sighed impatiently in the aisles. This was a real death because Rajesh Khanna was a real actor playing a doomed man, directed impeccably by Hrishikesh Mukherjee. when he was unwell. The other person who had been a huge fan of the superstar was my mother. And she often said that he was the one actor she really wanted to meet. That moment came when he was shooting in Kashmir and my father was posted there as IG, Kashmir. He sportingly arranged a visit for us, and we all trooped off to meet Kakaji. Of course, when she actually faced her favourite screen actor, my mother was too shy to say anything. But we still have a large photograph of my mother and Rajesh Khanna gazing happily into the camera. Rajesh Khanna affected all of us in a myriad ways. There was something about him as one of the last of the gentle, romantic heroes that reminded us of better times, of nobler pursuits, when commerce did not dominate. Perhaps that is why he, like so many other stars of his vintage, did not care to reinvent himself. The new violent cinema of anger and insult had no room for him: someone who could light up a room just by closing his eyes, shaking his head and enunciating his dialogues with that slight drawl at the end. There will never be another romantic hero like him. There will never be romance like that again. Desai is the author of Darlingji: The True Love Story of Nargis and Sunil Dutt
express@expressindia.com

BARACK OBAMAS comments on the investment climate in India may affect the volume of FDI flowing into the country and turn investors against India (Obama said it, IE, July 17). However, our own policies and bad governance are to blame for poor investor sentiment. Instead of blaming Obama or his pro-China stance in Asia for our economic ills, we need to set our house in order. Ved Guliani Hisar THE editorial Obama said it drives home the point that instead of reviving our crumbling economy, we are busy creating obstacles for investors. On account of our faulty policies and the lack of monitoring, the telecom sector as well as other sectors like metals, automobiles and IT are suffering. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had promised in 2009 that price rise, black money and corruption would be brought under control soon. Three years have passed and this remains a promise. Nothing concrete has been done to rejuvenate the ailing economy. Inflation continues and the current account deficit is spiralling out of control. Sharda Bhargav Jalandhar

Look within

With the death of Syrias defence minister, the fighting has reached Assads inner circle
Tremseh last week is closer to the oppositions claim of 220 than the governments 50, it would be bigger than the Houla massacre in May, when 108 people were killed, mostly women and children. The Syrian crisis, which began as mass protests riding on the Arab Spring last year, has unfolded against a divided UN Security Council, with Russia and China vetoing sanctions. The UNSCs haplessness, evident in the diplomatic scrambling prior to voting on a tougher resolution, has been mirrored in the predicament of special envoy Kofi Annans six-point peace plan. The massacres and Wednesdays attack only prove the crisis is beyond voting. India, which supported the vetoed February resolution against Syria and thereby placed itself on the right side of the Arab revolutions, was lobbied for the new resolution. Faced with a divided UNSC P5, India can do little. But it should keep talking to economic and energy partners in the Gulf. Stabilising Syria is important for every state with vital interests in the region.

Siege of Damascus

Anand reinforced the contradiction that the eternal superstar was human and all the hysteria that surrounded him was ephemeral.
The success of the film lay in the fact that it combined terrific comedy and extreme tragedy. Only an actor like Rajesh Khanna could bring authenticity to the role. There were no maudlin or melodramatic moments in the film at all in fact it was so close that we wept almost right from the start as he joked, laughed and charmed his way through to his inevitable death. Even his scenes with the strong, serious doctor, played by Amitabh Bachchan, were restrained, albeit tinged with the lovably familiar affectations. And in the final scene when he lies dead but the words he through his early years, when he made his initial foray into Indian cinema. As his star rose and he married Dimple Kapadia, we felt betrayed by Kakaji even though we had not even met him. But he remained part of our family lore. However, the stories I read in the gossip magazines made up for his betrayal because undoubtedly the Kaka-Dimple romance had set Juhu beach on fire and we grudgingly forgave him. Because what else could a King of Romance do? Undoubtedly, Anju also let bygones be bygones and we know that they were still friends and she too was by his side in the past few years

ITH the deaths of Syrias Defence Minister Daoud Rajiha and his deputy Assef Shawkat, President Bashar al-Assads brother-inlaw, in a suicide bombing inside the National Security Bureaus headquarters in Damascus on Wednesday, Syrian rebels have struck at the heart of the Assad regime its most secretive department, responsible for the uncompromising repression of the revolt, and the presidents inner circle. Although the regime has steadfastly refused to soften, the battle has moved well into the worlds oldest capital and come very close to Assad. The relentless violence, with massacre piling on massacre, will have to stop soon. But if a negotiated political settlement is not in the process by then, the dangers could exponentially increase in terms of instability in the Middle East, as a wellarmed but divided state implodes, and vis-a-vis the fate of the regimes stock of chemical weapons. Syria is a gigantic humanitarian crisis. If the actual death toll in

Dressing down

THIS refers to Women

WORDLY WISE
William Penn

For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity.

HE ruling was nearly two weeks ago, but the reaction to it has ond, the ruling strikes at the heart of the role of religion in a secular society: grown exponentially ever since. The judgment of the regional should secularism seek to establish a homogeneity built around the excourt in Cologne that a doctor performing circumcision had com- clusion of religious practices, or should it guard a generous pluralism in mitted bodily injury to a child has reached national and internawhich different forms of religious practice are allowed to flourish? tional proportions. The case involved a Muslim boy, and affects A ruling that puts circumcision into the same category as childmany more Muslims in Germany than it does Jews. But Jews beating is one that, to say the least, is insensitive to anyone who reand Muslims are at one in condemning the judgment as a fundagards the practice as a marker of identity. The same argument PRINTLINE goes for the veil in France or minarets in Switzerland. The laws of mental attack on their freedom of belief... The first thing to say is that if this is a legitimate debate, Gera secular society should prevent one religion from dominating anmany is about the least-suited country to hold it. History matters, and it has other. It is not to tell religious people that they should not be religious. taken a long time for the Jewish community in Germany to rebuild itself, without a direct attack on what it would regard as its religious freedom. SecFrom a leader in The Guardian, London

German ruling, which puts circumcision in the same category as child-beating, is insensitive

In the name of the law

should dress carefully: NCW chief (IE, July 18). Head of the National Commission for Women, Mamta Sharma, has made news in the past for controversial comments. In the current instance, it is a shame that the NCW head blames incidents of molestation on the way women dress, rather than criticising male attitudes towards women. Even if a woman dresses provocatively, it does not give men the right to molest them. The comment shifts the blame on to the victims and tries to justify the culprits actions. Sharma is no different from the Canadian policeman whose remarks on women drew protests worldwide. It is alarming that someone with such views heads the NCW. Ashok Goswami Mumbai