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TheIndian EXPRESS
www.indianexpress.com

l FRIDAY l SEPTEMBER 14 l 2012

The Indian EXPRESS

BECAUSE THE TRUTH INVOLVES US ALL

N KOLKATA at a Samajwadi Party convention, Mulayam Singh Yadav rained many blows on the UPA for the several corruption scandals on its watch. He expressed the belief that a general election was imminent, after which the SP would position itself for a bigger role at the Centre. He made a show of meeting the UPAs problem ally, Mamata Banerjee, and announced that his party was still very much in opposition to the Congress. While this new positioning drew attention, the Congress would be right in not feeling terribly threatened by Mulayam Singhs fighting words. He was, after all, addressing his cadre, rallying them for a new fight. The truth is that Yadav has a far more zigzag approach to the UPA than he now professes the SP has been a committed opponent in UP and a semi-insider in Delhi. Over the course of the UPAs tenure, the SP has bailed out the UPA in crucial moments, from the Indo-US nuclear deal to the presidential polls. On the UPAs third anniversary in May, he even held up the coalitions report card on the dais. It is also true that this is fickle support, and Yadav, like all the other regional forces hoping for a non-Congress,

The SPs talk of the next election only highlights the UPAs loss of initiative
non-BJP verdict, has his eye firmly on the main chance, in the next government. The real news is not what Yadav said in Kolkata, however, but why that rhetoric resounds widely. It is because of the UPAs silence and the hollow echo chamber of national politics. Yadav, Banerjee and Jayalalithaa are all readying their strategy for the upcoming Lok Sabha election, after fresh victories in their states. In 2012, a long countdown has already begun for the next government, only because the UPA has failed to assert itself with a constructive agenda. Whether it is the presidential election or the controversy over coal allocation, other parties are seizing the opportunities to choreograph their larger moves while the UPA remains passive and silent. It can barely be heard over the din created by others, its will falters before every reform. It seems content merely to raise an idea, be it retail reform or coal auctions, and then sit back, thwarted, when it faces some opposition it can later blame. The UPAs inability to be an active, resourceful government and command attention is the only reason all eyes are focused on the cast of characters waiting in the wings.

Off-stage action

HE attack on the US consulate in Benghazi appears to have been planned. Although details will emerge only after a thorough investigation, the incident in Libya is different from the protests at the US embassy in Cairo. At the centre of the tensions is a film seen to be anti-Islamic, which has touched off ripples in a region that is still struggling to settle down after the tumult of the Arab revolutions. Despite the context of political fragility and churn, however, the violent reaction highlights the failure of the state in each case, with anti-US protests now spilling into Sanaa, Yemen. Libyas continuing lawlessness is complicated by the arms still possessed and used by militia groups, as tragically demonstrated in Benghazi. Yet, the new Libyan order had been quickly put in place after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi unlike in Egypt, which suffered several violent spasms till Mohamed Morsi assumed presidential office in June. Morsi, under pressure from the Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood, will now have to ensure that this weeks incident is

The US must deepen its engagement with post-Arab Spring governments

not repeated. While the Libyan government immediately condemned the Benghazi attack and pledged to bring the perpetrators to justice, the Egyptian president took his time to warn troublemakers. The incident will play into the US presidential election, with Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate, having already made a cynical and widely criticised attempt to exploit it. But the onus is on the US to stay the course and, in fact, deepen its engagement with the fledgling administrations in Tripoli and Cairo. With the Egyptian Coptic Christian activist who reportedly promoted the film on the internet identified as an associate of Terry Jones, the American pastor whose threats to burn the Quran caused violent riots in Afghanistan last year, the US will also need to work out ways to deal with challenges, both internal and external, such as those framed by recent events. Afghanistan is particularly volatile; a similar incident there could destabilise the subcontinent. India must bear that in mind as it builds its own relationships with post-Arab Spring governments in the Middle East.

After Benghazi

HE brutal killing of the US ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, in Benghazi and the storming of the American embassy in Cairo following the release of a film in the US that is seen to be offensive to Islam underline how unpredictable the consequences of the Arab Spring have been. Last year, the popular upsurge in the Arab street against the ruling regimes was widely heralded as a definitive turn of the Middle East towards democracy. The surge of Islamists in the elections that followed and the recrudescence of violent anti-Americanism in the region have begun to disillusion many in the US who offered strong support to political modernisation in the region. The violence in Benghazi and Cairo has encouraged the sceptics to declare that the end of the new beginning in the Middle East is at hand. If the international celebration of the Arab Spring last year was breathless, its condemnation amidst the awful incidents of this week is entirely premature. Change was inevitable in the long stagnant Middle East. But political change does not come in neat, predetermined lines that ideologues of our age fondly hope for. In the West, the framework of democracy versus dictatorship has become the simplistic, but entirely unhelpful, device to debate the unravelling of the old Middle East. Both liberals and neoconservatives in the US have long claimed that democracy is the answer to all the problems in the Middle East. America is not the only one with a blinkered view of the Middle East. India has its own shibboleth: the preference for secular regimes in the region. Indias fear of religious extremism in the Middle East and its impact on the subcontinent, and the platitudes on non-intervention, have muddled the debate in Delhi on the Syrian crisis.

Spring storm
In the struggle for the Arab political soul, Egypt is key. Delhi must reach out to Morsi
C. RAJA MOHAN
The Middle East will not evolve according to American or Indian preferences. It has a political motor of its own. Given the pivotal nature of the region, change in the Middle East will have significant consequences for the rest of the world. The pace and direction of this change will be influenced by many factors. But none of them is more important than the future of Egypts orientation under its first elected leader, Mohamed Morsi. It is in Egypt that the current struggle for the Arab political soul will be won or lost. Much like the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 In the few weeks that he has been Egypts president, Mohamed Morsi has quickly consolidated his position at home and signalled his determination to reclaim Egypts natural leadership in the region. Having pushed aside the old guard in the military that tried to limit the scope of his presidency, Morsi now enjoys as much power as Mubarak did. By asserting an independent foreign policy, Morsi has restored the sense of Egyptian pride and won more than 75 per cent of popular approval. He defied the US by travelling to the non-aligned summit in Tehran last month. As velopment of Egypt. There is speculation that Beijing might help modernise Egyptian armed forces. This week he is in Brussels engaging the leaders of the European Union. In a few days, he will be in New York addressing the United Nations General Assembly and outlining the new Egypts international policies. He will also meet US President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the UN gathering. While his diplomacy has been impressive, Morsi will need to quickly put Egypt on the path of rapid economic growth and tackle the countrys manifold challenges of development. Morsi will face even bigger problems in preventing the extremist forces in Egypt from pushing their divisive agenda at home. After the latest incidents in Cairo, Morsi will have to demonstrate the will to stand up against those who want to undermine his plans to reorder the relationship with the US on the basis of mutual respect. Unlike other major powers, India has been slow in its outreach to the new Egypt. The end of the Mubarak era, which saw growing distance between Delhi and Cairo, is a historic opportunity for India to restore the old political warmth in the bilateral relationship and inject it with substantive economic content. Beyond the bilateral, strategic cooperation with the new Egypt will be critical to the pursuit of Indias broader interests in a rapidly changing Middle East in strengthening regional security, promoting political moderation and economic modernisation. Delhis first step is to arrange Morsis visit to India at an early but appropriate occasion and begin a productive conversation with him on reinventing the old partnership between India and Egypt. The writer, a distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, is contributing editor for The Indian Express
express@expressindia.com

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Letters to the

EDITOR

While his diplomacy has been impressive, Morsi will need to quickly put Egypt on the path of rapid economic growth. He will face even bigger problems in preventing the extremist forces in Egypt from pushing their divisive agenda at home. After the latest incidents in Cairo, Morsi will have to demonstrate the will to stand up against those who want to undermine his plans to reorder the relationship with the US on the basis of mutual respect.
that altered the geopolitics of the Middle East, the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is bound to have a lasting impact on the region. Unlike Iran, which is Persian and Shia, Egypt is at the very heart of the Sunni Arab world. As the champion of Afro-Asian solidarity and one of the founding members of the non-aligned movement, Egypt was indeed the Arab voice in the post-war world. Under Hosni Mubarak, though, Egypts prolonged economic and political stagnation at home was matched by Cairos steady marginalisation in the Middle East and beyond. the first Egyptian leader in Iran in more than three decades, Morsi challenged the Iranian position on Syria by arguing that it is the moral duty of the world to support the fight of the Syrian people against the oppressive regime of Bashar al-Assad. At the same time, Morsi recognised the importance of drawing Tehran into a regional initiative by proposing a contact group on Syria that includes Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran. In his first trip outside the Middle East, Morsi travelled to China and won Beijings promise to support the economic de-

IN The price of half truths (IE, September 13), Pratap Bhanu Mehta has rightly observed the flaws in our economic policy. It is true that blaming bad global conditions for our slowdown is untenable. These conditions could probably have helped the Indian economy had we been smart enough to use them to our advantage. Using unproductive populist schemes to co-opt peoples anger has now started telling on our economy. Satwant Kalkat Ludhiana

Flawed policy

THE states treatment of cartoonist Aseem Trivedi is condemnable. The government, instead of considering it an act of sedition, should concentrate on the message that Trivedi tried to convey through his cartoons. It was a peaceful means of communicating public discontent against the government. Trivedi, too, has the right to participate in our democracy, even if the government does not like what he has to say. Jasleen Kaur Chandigarh

Learn a lesson

T.R. ANDHYARUJINA
ARLIAMENT, our highest democratic institution, has been subverted by members who refuse to let it function. Debate and discussion are spurned by the opposition, even as it agitates on issues of national concern. If the government does not comply with the oppositions demands, the latter disrupts Parliament as a matter of course. In the recent monsoon session, the BJP asserted that it had a right to hold up Parliament after the CAGs report on coal allocations, and that it would continue to do so until the prime minister resigned. Demanding the resignation of the prime minister or a minister is routine in the politics of a democracy. But holding Parliament to ransom for this is a travesty of democratic institutions and of the rule of law. In the monsoon session, the Lok Sabha lost 77 per cent of its working time and the Rajya Sabha 72 per cent. Every hour that was wasted meant a loss of Rs 1.50 crore. Only four out of 29 pending bills were passed in the session. The Lok Sabha passed three of these in 20 minutes, amidst the din. The presiding officers of both chambers were totally helpless to prevent the disruption and adjourned their respective Houses each day. The prime minister and the

No matter how great the scandal, nothing justifies subverting Parliament

government stated they were willing to debate the CAG report on the coal allocations and even to discuss the prime ministers alleged culpability. This would have been the proper way in a parliamentary democracy, but it was rejected by the BJP, which was adamant on the prime ministers resignation. The elementary principle of natural justice to give the accused a chance to defend himself before he is condemned seemed to have been forgotten. CAG reports are not sacrosanct; further examinations are needed to establish the findjya Sabha as well as thousands of TV viewers witnessed the unbecoming spectacle of a scuffle between a member of the Bahujan Samaj Party, who favoured the bill, and a member of the Samajwadi Party, who did not. This led to the House being adjourned for the day. The next day, SP members returned shouting slogans, and were joined by the Shiv Sena. Once more, the bill could not be introduced and the House was adjourned. We have reached a stage when legislation cannot be introduced in Parliament merely ation of Telangana. When the last dysfunctional monsoon session of Parliament finally ended, the BJP tried to justify holding up the Houses. It would shake the conscience of the country and make it aware of corruption in the allocation of national resources, said the BJP. But no matter how great the scandal, nothing justifies such unconstitutional methods of subverting Parliament. BJP also says that, had it not disrupted Parliament in 2010, the country would not have realised the amount of revenue that could accrue from proper 2G auctions. This is a totally misleading statement. The new 2G auctions, starting with a higher base price, are a result of the Supreme Court judgment of February 2, 2012, not of parliamentary disruption in 2010. The obstruction of Parliament this monsoon session is not one of the rarest of rare cases as a leader of the opposition tried to claim. It is becoming endemic and ruining our top democratic institution. Such obstructions set a bad precedent not only for Parliament but also for the legislatures in the states. The writer, former solicitor general of India, is senior advocate of the Supreme Court
express@expressindia.com

Debate has left the House

Court case

THIS refers to Lines of Con-

HE comedy series, Blackadder,hasitsownversionofthe Battle of Bosworth, where Richard III, the last Plantagenet king, was killed. In the midst of battle, Edmund Blackadder tosses a severed, helmet-clad head to his sidekick Baldric, who lifts the visor, peers in and mutters, Oh dear, Richard III. Archaeologists digging up a car park in Leicester recently might have felt the same way. Excavations have yielded a male skeleton of considerable antiquity, with an axe-wound to the head, an arrowhead in its back and a spinal curvature that could match stories of the slain kings crookback. Nothing can be proved until DNA tests are conducted, but the discovery of the skeleton could be an occasion to revisit a figure damned by history and popular culture. After the Tudors won at Bosworth, stories proliferated of his cruelty and deformity, of how he had ousted his brothers from the throne and killed his young

A skeleton thought to be that of Richard III prompts reflection on the man behind the myth
nephews. If anything could seal his reputation, it was Shakespeares play on him. For centuries, Richard III has been remembered as a bitter, scheming man who died offering to exchange his kingdom for a horse. Few British rulers have been as lavishly hated and ridiculed. Perhaps it helped that he is one of the two British monarchs whose remains were known to be lost. Richard III has lived on in history as a shadowy absence that could be filled by myths. Yet the Tudors set down a victors history, and Shakespeare was writing for a Tudor monarch. Many of the stories about the last Plantagenet cannot be proved and groups like The Richard III Society have sprung up in defence of his reputation. Phillipa Langley, a playwright working on a screenplay of the kings life, says the discovery will prompt more research on the man behind the Tudor myth. The next play on Richard III could be written in a very different vein.

Body of proof

BJP also says that, had it not disrupted Parliament in 2010, the country would not have realised the amount of revenue that could accrue from proper 2G auctions. This is a totally misleading statement.
ings of such reports. They are examined by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and the findings of the latter become the subject of parliamentary debate. This established procedure was disregarded and Parliament was obstructed by shouting and slogans by a minority party. Equally disgraceful was the commotion caused to prevent the introduction of a constitutional amendment bill that proposed reservation in promotions for SCs and STs in government service. On September 5, the Rabecause a political party is opposed to it. Such events made the last session the most degrading one in 62 years of Parliament. Such negation of parliamentary democracy is becoming a familiar pattern. In the winter session of 2010, the Lok Sabha was not allowed to function for 23 sittings, as agitation over the 2G scam broke out, leading to a loss of Rs 230 crore. In the winter session of 2011, Parliament was held up for nine days on various matters, such as price rise, black money, FDI in retail and the cre-

trol (IE, September 12). No doubt, the press is that pillar of a democracy without which the word democracy is an empty slogan. But the doctrine of postponement propounded by the apex court with respect to the reporting of judicial proceedings is welcome. Regulation of the press must not be seen as an encroachment on its freedom. Careful observation shows that the court has basically widened the scope of the contempt law. The bench has clarified that the contempt law is not meant for punitive action but for preventing prejudice in the administration of justice, surely a laudable goal. The right of free speech must, after all, be balanced with the right to a fair trial, which cannot happen if the media conducts a parallel trial through its coverage. No specific rules or postulates have been laid down by the court, so the media always has the option to challenge it. Kshitij Gupta Narwana

Caste in the mould

APROPOS Why it is neces-

Isaac Bashevis Singer

WORDLY WISE

Doubt is part of all religion. All the religious thinkers were doubters.

N CASE anyone had forgotten, Moodys Investors Service issued a stark reminder Tuesday that the federal government is speeding headlongtowardapoliticalandfinancialcliff.OnJanuary1,anumberoftemporary tax cuts are due to expire just as new spending restraints kick in, pulling hundreds of billions of dollars out of the US economy and potentially triggering another recession. At the same time, Washington is expected to reach the limit of its borrowing authority, necessitating another increase in its debt limit. If lawmakers and the White House cant reach a budget deal that effectively manages those problems, Moodys said, it expects to downgrade the federal governments credit rating. That might seem unduly pessimistic if so many congressional Republicans hadnt called for the government to stiff its creditors last year instead of raising the debt ceiling. One of the three major ratings agencies, Standard &

Prospect of a Moodys downgrade should come as a wake-up call to the US Congress

Poors, downgraded US debt after that acrimonious episode; now, Moodys is threatening to do so as well... We shouldnt have toreach that point.RegardlessoftheoutcomeofNovemberselections,Congressfacesatoughchoicebeforetheend of the year. The economy isnt strong enough to withstand the looming tax increases and spending cuts, but any move to soften the economic blow would add to a debt load thats already too large. Complicating matters is the sharp disagreement between the parties over how to generate the strong economic growth thats crucial to improving the countrys fiscal health. The message from the analysts at Moodys and S&P is that lawmakers cant keep putting off the day of reckoning. From a leader in the Los Angeles Times

Mind the economy

PRINTLINE

sary to extend the quota (IE, September 10), I completely disagree with Abdul Khaliq. He acknowledges that caste is ingrained in our collective consciousness. Therefore, we need to address that part of our sociological make-up. Reservation hasnt helped in realising the national dream of a casteless society. It has encouraged political expediency and created permanent lines of division between citizens. In this case, I agree with Pratap Bhanu Mehta (The quicksand of caste, IE, August 28) when he says that reservations are no longer about justice. Affirmative action cannot be a permanent solution to the inequalities existing in our society. The poor should be provided material and financial help, but reservations, especially in promotions, are not the best way to do it. Harkirat Singh Patiala