The Cub Shows His Paws

Anna Hazare: My Prime Minister

The bellicose posture by Pyongyang may well be an external manifestation of legitimisation of its heir-apparent

In Sicilian Mafioso set-up, a rookie is considered a na'vet' till the time he has not 'made his bones' i.e. to prove his skills in the warfare. It appears, the family line of Kim II-Sung in North Korea has taken the leaf out of the Sicilian code.

The sinking of South Korean warship Cheonan ' which the UN fact finding committee blamed on North Korea ' at the time of the possible announcement of succession in Pyongyang has turned the attention towards the Korean peninsula.

There are several questions regarding the motivation of North behind this attack. It's at all times tricky to define North Korean motivations, principally for the reason that it's the most opaque nation in the world. The foremost explanation could be that it's an unswerving vengeance for a surface ship row between the two Koreas that took place in late 2009 in the Yellow Sea, in which a lone North Korean sailor was allegedly killed. That's a tit-for-tat rationalisation. However, sources close to The Sunday Indian maintain that it might not be the only case. The event might be a "peripheral manifestation of legitimisation" on the part of North Korean leader Kim Jong-II's preferred successor and heir-apparent, his youngest son Kim Jong-un. To put it in perspective, it can be recalled that when Kim Jong-II, the incumbent, himself became the chosen heir to his father Kim II-Sung, a similar type of legitimisation course took place in which Kim Jong-II was held to be liable for numerous of the actions in the 1980s ' the Korean Air 858 explosion in 1987 and the partial massacre of the South Korean cabinet while it was on a state visit to Burma in 1983.

'It has been witnessed several times in the past that when the successors do not have the revolutionary qualifications or radical credentials of the original leader, the successors frequently apply these tactics to legitimise themselves,' says Victor D. Cha, Senior Advisor on Korean affairs at Centre for Strategic and International Studies, while talking to TSI.

So what are the credentials of Jong-un? There is very little about him in public domain. He has studied in Switzerland and is in his late 20s. But since he is way too young to lead, sources maintain that the authority would be passed to him in combination with Kim Jong-II's sister, Kim Kyung-Hee, and her husband, Chang Song-taek. But the heir would get to keep members of the military as well as the party with him. And as far as military training is concerned, Jong-un does not have much experience behind him. But he has indeed been seen at very low political levels of the National Defence Commission. However, no one is sure if that will be enough to keep him in the good books of Army's old guards. And whatever the world thinks, Jong-II too had tough time keeping armed forces in order. There were no less than two coup attempts against Kim Jong-II's own succession. In the late 1991 or early 1992, sources claim, there was an attempted rebellion by a cluster of Soviet-trained perestroika-favouring generals. A dozen odd generals conspired to snuff out the two Kims and apply sweeping reconstruction of North Korea. However, their cover was blown and the plotters, according to one version, were burnt on the stake in front of a military audience ostensibly as a warning. Similarly, in 1995, some of the factions of the 6th Army Corps in North Hamgyong province bordering China decided to join ranks with the rogue elements of the adjoining 7th Army Corps and planned to march on Pyongyang. However, this potentially threatening conspiracy was uncovered by 6th Corps commander, Kim Yong-chun, who was promoted to be the chief of the general staff in gratitude.

Under the circumstances, the succession of Jong-un will not be smooth as well. Therefore, Pyongyang has been abuzz with the news of restructuring and possible shuffles in the party and the military order.

'Kim Jong-II wants to construct a bellicose ambience at the domestic front to push through with the succession of authority to his son,' said Cheon Seong-whun, an analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification while talking to TSI. 'However, to achieve this, he needs tensions and an outside foe.'

Kim Jong-II's most strenuous labours seem to be focussed at the armed forces, the vital power pedestal for his son. In good measure, he has also promoted no less than 100 senior officers in April this year. While its armed forces keep South Korea on tenterhooks by firing coastal weaponry, North Korea's power elite is all set to officiate the hitherto unofficial status of Kim Jong-un as the nation's next 'Dear Leader'. But there are official procedures to keep as theoretically North Korea is run by the Workers' Party. The Workers' Party is likely to give Jong-un and his cohort plum posts at the upcoming Central Committee meeting. Sources maintain that since July last year, Jong-un has already started taking part in the formulation of Pyongyang's internal and external domestic and international policies.

Jong-un began managing North Korea's secret police agency since last year. In fact, sources suggested that all bureaucratic reports made to Kim Jong-II has already started going through Jong-un. Therefore, Workers' Party will have to offer him a post that is worthy of his stature. In all probability, that post could be that of an Organisational Secretary of the party's Central Committee. The Committee exercises the maximum authority on the committee. As the heir-apparent, the young man also reportedly confers with a number of high-status officials or minions of his father that uphold the Kim family's sway on the nation. His uncle Chang Song-taek instructs him on the Pyongyang's finances and associations with China while Kim Yong-chun is in charge of the armed forces. Chang and Chun are two of the four vice chairmen of the National Defence Commission, nation's in effect utmost guiding appendage. North Korea's armed forces, which were formerly guarded by Kim Jong-II's direct orders, came under defence minister Kim Yong-chun's command in April 2009. While Chun controls the nation's troops for conventional combat, Kim Jong-II administers the strategic troops that deal with missiles and nuclear weapons. The latter, without question, will pass on to Jong-un.

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The silent valley

After Irom Sharmila last year, Anna Hazare wins IIPM's 2011 Rabindranath Tagore Peace Prize of Rs. 1cr. To be handed over on 9th May

It's that time of the year when the Valley was to have been buzzing with beaming tourists; instead, all that can be heard are wails, sirens and the odd silence. Haroon Reshi treads warily around a lost paradise'

Early this year, when the Jammu & Kashmir government dubbed 2010 as the 'Visit Kashmir Year' to attract more tourists, and launched a massive advertising campaign across India and in the West, Muhammad Ashraf Dar (43), painted and decorated his shikara (houseboat) to make it more alluring to the visitors. His shikara named 'New Dar Place' is among two thousand registered shikaras in the renowned Dal Lake.

In the months of April and May, as the place started filling up, shikara owners like Ashraf anticipated a record-breaking tourist season. With about 6,10,000 domestic and foreign tourists landing in Kashmir Valley by the first week of June, state's ailing economy had much to be optimistic about. Ashraf was looking forward to at least 0.2 million rupees worth of income generation between May and October. His plans included renovation of his one storey house in the Dal Dwellers colony near the Lake. But then, as is known now, events took a nasty turn. On June 11, Tufail Mattoo, a school going teenager was killed by a teargas shell fired by security forces in downtown Srinagar. Violence erupted, and this time angry protesters resorted to stone pelting at the security forces. In the last three months, 67 people, including teenagers and under-10 boys lost their lives in confrontation with the defence forces. More than three thousand were wounded, and many of them still battling for their lives in different hospitals of the Valley. Hartals (strikes) and curfews continue to plague civil life, and government offices, business establishments, educational institutions and public transport have shut down.

Within days of the first signs of trouble, tourists were on their out and others cancelled impending trips to the Valley. The month of September ' supposed to be peak tourist season ' has only known empty hotels, guesthouses and houseboats as yet.

Mount View Hotel at Phalgam (one of the most popular destinations in the Valley, at an altitude of 2130m above sea level), was teeming with guests in the first week of June. 'Now all 55 rooms of our hotel are unoccupied and the staff is idle,' says Saleem, manager at Mount View. 'Most of the hotel owners have asked their employees to go home. Thankfully, we are still getting salaries,' he added.

A similar situation is seen at the Dal and Nigeen Lakes' houseboats. 'About 99 per cent houseboats in the lakes are unoccupied. All bookings have been cancelled. We even had to refund advance payments.' says Gulam Muhammad Pakhtoon, Vice President of the Houseboat Owners Association. 'Ye to Khuda ka kehar hai (It's the Lord's wrath),' says Pakhtoon, proprietor of two houseboats. Like the hoteliers and houseboat owners, shopkeepers are suffering a similar fate. The Shaikh brothers ' Javid Ahmad Shaikh and his younger brother Shakeel Ahmad Shaikh ' run a Kashmir Arts showroom called, 'Elegant Store' in the posh polo-view market in Srinagar. Having seen the encouraging influx of tourists in the early months of the season, they stocked in enough inventory hoping for brisk business in the coming days. They had even approached Jammu and Kashmir Bank for financial assistance to purchase Pashmina shawls, sarees, embroidered curtains, chain stitch rugs and Kashmiri hand made dresses. 'Not only have we lost business due to regular hartals and curfews, we have also to repay the bank loan with its huge interest rates. It is a grave situation for us,' says Javed, who had opened his shop for the brief period that curfew was relaxed.

The state's tourism minister Rigzen Jora told TSI that the government had expected a record-breaking 1.3 million domestic and foreign tourists in this summer for a major campaign had been implemented to draw visitors to the state where 60% of the population directly or indirectly relied on the tourist industry. Adventure tourism was promoted feverishly; for the first time, the government had thrown open more than 100 high-altitude peaks in the state to climbers. But all these attempts to boost the ailing tourism industry of this militancy hit state have failed due to civil unrest. 'As the situation is constantly worsening, I am afraid we might even lose the winter season activities. Tourism in the state will flourish only after peace is restored.' Jora said.

According to Shakeel Qalandar, President of the Federation Chamber of Industries Kashmir, 'The State meets with 100 crore rupees of loss each day due to strikes. Since June 11, we have lost to the tune of a thousand crores. And 1.2 million people are directly hit by this loss.' In addition, with waning trade and tourist activity in Kashmir, the corresponding scene in a neighbouring state, HP, has had a shot in the arm.

Ashraf has now dropped plans of repairing his house; he is worried about the days ahead though. He does not have enough savings to hold out the harsh winters, and he is equally worried about the needs of his three schools going kids. The Ashrafs in the Valley are waiting to get on with their lives; when will the deadlock end..?

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Babri conundrum: Human blood is precious

After Irom Sharmila last year, Anna Hazare wins IIPM's 2011 Rabindranath Tagore Peace Prize of Rs. 1cr. To be handed over on 9th May

The politics of appeasement by the Congress has resulted in much bloodshed in the country

Arif Mohammed Khan,
Former Union minister and senior politician

Ibn Ishaq, in his biography of the holy Prophet, reports that Abraha, the Abyssinian governor of Yemen, had built a Cathedral of immense proportions in his capital Sana, and made efforts to divert the pilgrims from Mecca to the new place of worship. Angered by these attempts, a resident of Mecca travelled to Sana, visited the Cathedral and defiled it. When Abraha came to know of this, he decided to punish the Meccans, by leading an army to attack Mecca and demolish the Ka'aba, the House of God. After reaching in the vicinity of Mecca, Abraha dispatched one of his generals to plunder the people there. The campaign was successful and a huge booty was looted, among it 200 camels belonging to Abdul Muttalib, the chief of the Quraysh and grandfather of the holy Prophet.

Subsequently, Abdul Muttalib went and petitioned Abraha to return his camels and other property looted by his army. Abraha replied, 'I am pleased to see you and hear what you have said. Do you wish to talk to me about 200 camels of yours which I have taken, and say nothing about the religion of your forefathers which I have come to destroy.' Abdul Muttalib said, 'I am the owner of the camels not the temple. The temple (Ka'aba) has an owner who will defend it.'

The rest is history, showing how the invading army was destroyed to a man by the divine intervention and the Ka'aba was saved though no defence was offered by the custodians of the Ka'aba. This event took place in the year of the birth of Prophet Mohammed, that is, 570 AD. The story is endorsed by the Holy Qur'an in chapter 105 titled 'The Elephant', giving an idea of the fate of the invading army.

The Qur'anic story is profoundly instructive for any sensitive mind. It clearly shows that places of worship, important as they are, do not have greater sanctity than that of the human blood. The holy Prophet himself is reported to have said that the sanctity of Muslim blood is more than the sanctity of Ka'aba, yet we see people fighting over these places. The number of people who lost their lives either as kar sevaks on November 19, 1990 or as innocent victims of the communal orgy unleashed after the demolition of the mosque on December 6, 1992, is saddening. The Ayodhya dispute has been hanging fire since 1885, when one Mahant Raghubar Das had made a plea before a sub-judge at Faizabad to allow him to build a temple on the spot just outside the Babri Masjid, where the Hindu idols were installed on a platform. The dispute took a new turn after the idols were installed inside the mosque on the night of December 23, 1949, leading to number of court cases. It is interesting to note that the litigant parties were on amicable terms and often travelled together to attend the courts.

People were generally indifferent to the court proceedings till February 1, 1986, when the District Judge passed an order for opening of the gates that were locked in 1950 by a judicial order. The District Judge passed the order only after examining the Deputy Commissioner and the Superintendent of Police of Faizabad district, who assured the court that they could maintain the peace and law and order even without locks. One cannot imagine that the senior officers of the district would have given their consent to open the locks without necessary instructions from the state and the central governments. The fact that the order was implemented within an hour and was widely covered by Doordarshan further establishes the fact that the government was using the Ayodhya dispute for pursuing its political agenda.

Neerja Chaudhary, writing in The Statesman on May 1, 1986, observed: 'There is an evidence of connection between the opening of the doors of the disputed Ramjanmabhumi in Ayodhya and the introduction of the Muslim Women Bill in Parliament, both of which have heightened the communal tension.' She quoted a member of the Muslim Personal Law Board as saying, 'To be honest, we were not expecting it to come so soon' and further opined that its timing indicated that it was not unconnected with the opening of the masjid doors. She concluded her piece thus: 'A policy of appeasement of both communities being pursued by the government for electoral gains is a vicious cycle which will become difficult to break.'

Indeed it became difficult to control the communal and divisive forces after the twin decisions of the government in 1986' succumbing to the pressure of the Personal Law Board to undo the Supreme Court judgment in the Shah Bano case and then counterbalance it by unlocking the gates in Ayodhya. To use an Urdu couplet: Han khabardar ke ek laghzishe paa se kabhi/Sari taarekh ki raftaar palat jaati hai (Beware, sometimes one false step leads to altering the whole course of history).

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KARNATAKA OFFICERS WITHOUT OFFICES: Sitting idle at public's expense

After Irom Sharmila last year, Anna Hazare wins IIPM's 2011 Rabindranath Tagore Peace Prize of Rs. 1cr. To be handed over on 9th May

Officers sans jobs continue to draw government salaries

Seven officers of the rank of chief engineer in the Department of Public Works, Ports and Inland Water Transport in Karnataka are drawing their salaries sitting idle at home for the last several months. Jagannath Reddy Patil, CV Patil, Mahesh Hiremath, RP Kulkarni, Ganesh, BY Jumnal and Jayachandra are the officers who are not attending office because the government has not given them any postings. But each of them is getting full salary which is around Rs.75,000 per month. While Jagannath Reddy Patil is without charge from the last one-and-a-half years, the rest are waiting for postings for the last six months. It should be noted that none of the officers is facing any disciplinary charges.

It is not that there are no vacancies to accommodate them. Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and Command Area Development Authority (CADA) together have four vacant posts. Karnataka Housing Development Corporation and Bagalkot Development Authority and Infrastructure Project each have one vacant post.

Moreover, in the Public Works Department itself the additional secretary post reserved for a chief engineer is vacant. All these vacant posts are currently being managed as additional responsibilities by other officers who are also holding their own posts. But these officers do not have the authority of taking major decisions. The extra burden and no authority are not only affecting the quality of the development work, it's also causing delays.

J Satyanarayan, Assistant Engineer in the department tells TSI, 'All the seven chief engineers are forced to sit idle at home just because of internal contradictions.' In a meeting on August 5 a resolution has been passed to fill the vacancies. The recommendations have been sent to Chief Minister YS Yeddyurappa. The authority of creating a post and deciding its power and jurisdiction rests with the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms. Since this department is with the chief minister, he has to take the final call on it. Sources in the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms have confirmed that the process to fill up the vacant posts has begun. But nobody knows when it will be completed.

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