1. travel
2. tourist destinations
3. greece

THE TIMES
16
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A T H O U G H T F O R TO DAY
OF IDEAS
THE TIMES OF INDIA, BANGALORE
TUESDAY, MARCH 9, 2010
■
How To End A Greek Tragedy
When women thrive, all of society benefits, and succeeding
generations are given a better start in life.
KOFI ANNAN, former UN Secretary-General
The IMF is best positioned to help Greece return to the path of fiscal rectitude
Block And Tackle
Yet again, the women’s reservation Bill
is held to ransom by a minority
F
ourteen years after it was first tabled, the women’s reservation Bill –
which faces stiff opposition from regional outfits that depend on
caste vote banks for political survival – looked set to be passed fairly
easily in the Rajya Sabha yesterday when the BJP and the Left pledged
support. Both these parties must be commended for displaying exemplary bipartisanship on such a nationally significant issue and we hope
they will remain steadfast in their commitment. But as was proved yet
again yesterday, one can never underestimate the resolution of parties
like the RJD, SP and BSP to employ any tactic possible to stall the progress
of the women’s reservation Bill.
When outnumbered, legislators from these parties resorted to unruly
obstructionism, which increasingly seems to be the preferred mode of expressing dissent at the highest platform of our democracy. The RJD and
SP have withdrawn support to the government, a choice they are entitled
to. But they have no right to create a ruckus in Parliament, wasting precious business hours funded by taxpayers and
holding the nation to ransom. The hooliganism we witnessed yesterday underlines the
need for an overhaul of parliamentary politics
in India. Easing the path for women to participate in greater numbers at the highest levels of
legislation cannot come a moment too soon.
The government should have seen this coming and have been better prepared to ensure
that the Bill went through this time around.
Every time this Bill – which holds the potential
of transforming India’s political reality and
substantially empowering women – has been
tabled in the past, it has met with stiff opposition from the RJD, SP and BSP, among others.
These parties want further quotas for their
own constituencies (OBCs, Muslims and Dalits) within the 33 per cent
women’s quota, ostensibly because they are concerned about women
from these disadvantaged groups getting fair representation. As we have
pointed out before, if that concern was indeed genuine, why have these
parties not nominated greater numbers of OBC, Muslim and Dalit women
candidates so far? In fact, it’s the deep-rooted reluctance among some
sections of our political class to create more space for women in our
Parliament and state legislatures that is the real issue.
The government, along with the BJP, Left parties and other supporters of the Bill like the JD(U), should stand up to the opponents of
women’s reservation and ensure that it is voted upon and passed today.
Otherwise it will not only cut a very sorry figure but also pay a heavy
political price.
its excess spending is rather
ridiculous. This masking was
suspected and could have been
pinpointed without difficulty
and was therefore ignored as unimportant until it grew into a
Frankenstein’s monster. In fact,
we know that several other European nations also violated the
Maastricht discipline on fiscal
spending, in transparent and
non-transparent ways. So, we
see here the kind of scapegoating
that we were witness to during
the earlier East Asian financial
crisis, which was precipitated
by browbeating the East Asian
nations into premature current
account convertibility and the
blame was sought to be shifted to
Asia’s “crony capitalism”!
Jagdish Bhagwati
T
he tragedy in Greece is
out of character. It is premature: the traditional
Dionysia festival for Greek
tragedy is at the end of March.
Besides, a Greek tragedy brings
a great figure down, thanks to
his own mistaken action. But
here, the Greek mistakes on fiscal policy are bringing down the
euro, and distressing big European players Germany and
France for sure (while Britain
basks in Margaret Thatcher’s
wisdom in resisting the invitation to exchange the British
pound for the euro). These are
greater nations than Greece today, even as we properly glory
in Greece’s distant past that is
the western world’s past as well.
But these nations are certainly
not the cause of the immediate
crisis, which lies instead in
Greece’s profligacy.
Of course, the bigger European Union nations that masterminded and propelled the euro
are, in the ultimate analysis, not
entirely blameless in their overlooking the fragility of a common
currency if a tight control of fiscal policy was not accompanied
by a zealous monitoring system.
We all know that several German economists had predicted
what has just happened, and that
fiscally handicapped nations
like Greece would be nations
that busted fiscal discipline and
then threatened the euro.
Scapegoating
Goldman
Sachs and other financial firms
for having helped Greece mask
Members of IMF can
turn to it in crisis of
the kind Greece brought
on itself. Let IMF do the
job, take the opprobrium
of imposing conditionality
and bring Greece back
into fiscal responsibility
There has been no shortage
of prescriptions for the sick
patient, Greece, even as events
moved forward over the last
week. Let me first dismiss some
wrong-headed
prescriptions
even though they have been
advanced by prominent economists and columnists. For example, the distinguished American
economist Martin Feldstein,
who frequently writes with
Greece’s prime minister and France’s president: Why look in two directions?
great insight, has suggested that
Greece should be allowed to opt
out of the euro, set its house in
order, and then be allowed to
rejoin the euro. Unfortunately,
this is not like sending a disruptive student out of the classroom
and then bringing him back
after an hour’s exile. Contracts
would have to be rewritten in
different currencies, for example, and there would be huge
transaction costs in making the
currency changes.
Then again, columnist Sam
Brittan has suggested that
Greece should issue its own currency “so it can pursue a fiscal
policy attuned to domestic
needs”. As the noted economist
Benn Steil has remarked, this is
a pipe dream. If Greece then continues excess spending, and does
not set its fiscal house in order,
Let’s deliver justice to victims
O
n the eve of International Women’s Day, Chief Justice of India
K G Balakrishnan came up with a strange suggestion. Addressing a
meet on justice for rape victims, the CJI said that “due regard”
must be given to the wishes of a rape victim if she wants to marry the rapist
or give birth to a child conceived following the crime. The CJI’s statement
sends out mixed signals. It almost makes it appear that marriage is an
alternative to punishment for perpetrators of rape. Indeed, it could have
the unfortunate effect of minimising the seriousness of rape which is a
fundamental violation of a woman’s body. Besides, it does not take into
account that rapes can occur within marriages too.
The courts or the state shouldn’t have any say on the course of action
that a rape victim intends to take. It is paternalism – something that the
CJI has accused activists and lawyers of – to decide on behalf of rape
victims. What should be of utmost importance for law-enforcing agencies
is to ensure that rapists are convicted and handed the maximum possible
punishment. At present, rape figures in India tell a sorry story. According
to some statistics, only one in 69 rapes is reported, and out of these the conviction rate is a pathetic 20 per cent. Law enforcement agencies should be
looking at ways to increase the conviction rates as well and put in place
conditions where victims feel comfortable to report rapes. This is a big
ask. Let’s not deflect from the real task at hand by suggesting marriage
between a rape victim and the perpetrator.
can it seriously expect that private funds will flow into it? A
sovereign drachma, with extravagance of fiscal policy, in fact
would be a deadly combination
that would induce capital flight
rather than capital inflow.
So, the real issue has been
whether the EU steps in with
support funds, while imposing
draconian fiscal conditionality
of the order which is called for,
or whether Greece should turn
instead to the IMF for support
(an action which Greece has now
said it is in favour of). There are
two reasons why the former
course of action by the EU would
be imprudent. The EU can be
sure that Greek populist anger
will be directed at it for the austerity that it would impose.
Equally, Germany (if not France
as well) will find that its citizens
The writer is University Professor at Columbia University.
Swiss voters say no to a law requiring state lawyers for abused animals
First, ensure rights of humans
Give voice to the voiceless
Rape Ruckus
will object to EU funds transfers
to Greece to ease the transition
to necessary fiscal prudence:
by contrast with the frugal
Germans, the Greeks treat themselves better on issues like
retiring age and pensions.
The only sensible solution
would, therefore, be for the EU
to acquiesce in the proposed
Greek turn to the IMF for liquidity assistance and for the IMF to
impose the necessary fiscal conditionality. All member nations
of the IMF can turn to it in crisis
of the kind Greece has brought
on itself. Let the IMF do the job,
take the opprobrium of imposing conditionality as it often
does, and bring Greece back into
fiscal responsibility.
This may not please President Nicolas Sarkozy who, as a
cynic has remarked, would rather use German funds to finance
Greece and bring glory to
France. But another distinguished Frenchman and the managing director of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, would be
glad to have yet another client
and possibly more. The European Central Bank (ECB) president, Jean-Claude Trichet, yet
another Frenchman, frowns upon Greece turning to the IMF:
sharing the “management” of
the Greek crisis means, for the
ECB, the sharing of crisis-resolution with the IMF. But such gratuitous battles are inappropriate
at a time of crisis: the Greek turn
to the IMF remains a measure
that the EU should support.
S
witzerland has very strict animal to even conserve the dignity of plant life.
rights laws. Yet, even in that Alpine Many other countries are yet to even get
Eden for creatures big and small, le- used to animal “rights” conceptually,
gal representation for animals seems an leaving compassion to individual caprice.
idea whose time hasn’t come. In a referSome convincingly argue that since
endum, Swiss voters rejected a proposal animal abusers hire lawyers, their nonthat would have seen each canton in the human victims need
country install a lawyer to defend rights legal voice. Predictof abused animals at taxpayers’ cost. The ably, others say we
naysaying doesn’t mean the idea doesn’t ought to focus on huhave merit. Or that its time may
not still come one day, as socie- ■ T I M E S V I E W ■
ties get increasingly sensitised
to the ugly truth of cruelty to animals.
mans in distress.
For proof, consider why Swiss citizens This is mere sophissaid no. Switzerland’s protective cover for try. Serving humanianimals, most argue, is so strong it needs ty and helping brutalno reinforcing. Others wanted to avoid an ised animals aren’t
unwieldy bureaucracy. So, the proposal mutually exclusive.
didn’t sink because Swiss citizens feel ani- Both efforts have ethmals don’t need human pleaders but be- ical underpinnings. Given scientific evicause they think existing laws are good dence for the interdependence of all livenough. If anything, Switzerland is a glob- ing beings, narrow anthropocentrism is a
al exemplar on fair, kind and eco-sensitive weak basis for organising human life. Betreatment of non-human species. All pets sides, how do we tell how civilised a socieand farm animals benefit from humane ty is? Wise men have long told us to look at
policy. A constitutional change was made the way it treats defenceless animals.
T
he Swiss have done the right
thing at the referendum. Animal
rights are fine, but to call for lawyers to represent them in court is silly.
Think, for a moment, what would
happen if such a legislation is enacted in
India. We are a litigious people and
our courts are burdened with cases.
sensitive to animals. But there is an inherent flaw in the moral argument made
out for animal rights. To begin with, do
we humans have the right to impose our
notion of justice and well-being on animals? Who knows what a cow’s idea of
justice is? And, are we sure that a dog and
a cat share the same notion of rights? A
rights-based welfarist approach surely
can’t assume that some animals are more
privileged than others.
■ C O U N T E R V I E W ■ If that is not so, then a rat
or a snake must have
Kautilya Kumar
same rights as a cock or a
Do we wish to spend bull. We can’t argue that we are conpublic funds and cerned only about pets and livestock, and
drown our courts perhaps other animals in captivity.
with more cases?
As these examples suggest, there’s a
Spare a thought for strong element of hypocrisy in animal
the judges. Let’s rights campaigns. It’s okay from the
first ensure that the law enforcement point of view of its votaries to keep
mechanism works well for citizens. animals away from their natural
Make sure the concerned institutions, habitat, held captive as pets in kennels
from police to courts, are receptive to and cages, as showpieces in zoos, and as
genuine grievances. Then we can food in farms, provided their rights are
discuss animals.
respected. That sounds like having the
It’s nobody’s case that we needn’t be cake and eating it too.
SNAP JUDGEMENT
A blog by a baingan
Ballot Power In Iraq
Baywatch In Goa
I
B
T
ndie drama The Hurt
Locker swept the Academy Awards, winning Best
Film and Best Director
over Avatar, its wildly
commercially successful
competitor. Not only did
Kathryn Bigelow’s win for
best director mark the first
time a woman has won an
Oscar in that category,
The Hurt Locker’s plethora of trophies proved that
small-budget independent films aren’t automatically overlooked by it.
I am now the king of the
vegetable khandaan
Satish K Sharma
T
hey have got it all wrong. I mean those who tried to sow seeds of
discontent between me and my putative Bt, sorry, bete noire. They
don’t know how grateful i am to it. But for it, i would still be a nobody,
an extra, so to say, in the galaxy of greens. If today i compete with the likes of
Shah Rukh Khan and Sachin Tendulkar for countrywide popularity, it is
entirely owing to my genetically altered ego.
Just look at it. Despite my stellar qualities, i was just the ‘Ghar ki murgi
daal barabar’. They did not take a cue from the hit Bollywood number, ‘Dekhi lakh lakh pardesi girl/ Sab toh soni saadi desi girl/ Who’s the hottest girl
in the world?/ My desi girl/ My desi girl.’ They recognised my worth only
after the foreigners did so.
For a quintessential Indian could anything be more painful? I can’t
understand why i was treated with such indifference by my own countrymen. I am on their plates whether you go east or west, north or south of
India. But when it came to getting credit there was always the aaloo or the
foul-smelling pyaaj ahead of me.
Imagine how sidelined i felt when an out and out desi politician tried to
make aaloo– a fellow with decided foreign origins – immortal by saying,
“Jab tak rahega samose mein aaloo/ tab tak rahega Bihar mein Lalu.” Talking of samosas it beats me why they never stuff me into them or into curvy
parathas but instead pack me into pathetically shaped pakoras.
You have desi phrases honouring even as knotty a thing as ginger. Thus
you say, ‘Bandar kya jaane adrak ka swad?’ But if i had ever asked a man of
letters to coin a complimentary phrase around me, i am sure he would have
said, “Tum kis khet ki mooli ho?” All they can do to me is to poke fun
through cliched Akbar-Birbal tales.
When the westerners realised that their children disliked spinach,
they gave it an iconic status by making it the power-munch of Popeye. But
not one Indian cartoonist thought of making me the chosen chomp of
an Indian superman so that children here could take to me without
throwing tantrums.
Even my great looks were overlooked. Nature has endowed me with the
softest of skins, the brightest of colours and curviest of contours. And yet no
Indian painter has done my portrait, not even M F Husain when i would
have gladly allowed myself to be painted in the nude. I cared little when the
westerners launched computers called apple and cellphones called blackberry. But when an Indian manufacturer chooses lemon over me as the
brand name for its cellphone, it hurts.
However hard the times for housewives, i have never acted pricey.
Among all vegetables, i alone seem to defy the laws of demand and supply. I
remain the shining symbol of the quintessential Indian trait called
resilience. But rather than appreciating it they call anyone who is wary of
taking a firm stand a ‘Thali ka baingan’.
Forget about making me an election issue as they made that arrogant
tuber – the onion – in the not too recent past, i wasn’t even picked up as the
symbol of any political party, national or regional. You have an entire
bazaar of Mumbai named after that slimy thing – the bhindi– but not even
an alley of Bareilly is named after me.
Perhaps i should not think like this. So what if i arrived late? Haven’t i
arrived with my desiness intact? But now that i have become a celebrity, i
can’t wait for campaign managers to sign me up for promoting the products
of their clients. And the first thing i am going to endorse would be potato
chips. Imagine that imported abomination – the aaloo – needing my endorsement. It would be an event no less momentous than an Indian buying the
East India Company.
Indie Bags Oscars
y Iraqi standards, violence was contained
on its date with democracy. 38 people died in bomb
attacks on polling stations
when Iraq held its national elections, but people
still voted in large numbers. Reported polling
numbers have gone up, for
example, from 2 per cent
in insurgency-hit Anbar
province during the 2005
elections to 61 per cent this
time. Iraqis may be about
to take back their country.
hey’re not banning
bikinis in Goa, yet.
Instead they’re planning
to set up a beach patrol
force, Baywatch-style, to
police Goa’s beaches and
curb crimes committed
against tourists. There
will also be a fast-track
court to try cases of sexual
assault. That’s certainly
the way to go, if it takes the
place of earlier ham-handed attempts to shift some
of the blame for rising sex
crimes onto victims.
E D I T PAG E ■
MAILBOX
MY TIMES MY VOICE
■
■
SACRED
S PAC E
■
Yoga Matters
This calm steadiness of
the senses is called yoga.
Katha Upanishad
✥
Yoga, an ancient but
perfect science, deals
with the evolution of
humanity. This evolution includes all aspects
of one’s being, from
bodily health to selfrealisation. Yoga means
union – the union of body
with consciousness and
consciousness with the
soul. Yoga cultivates the
ways of maintaining a
balanced attitude in dayto-day life and endows
skill in the performance
of one’s actions.
B K S Iyengar
✥
Yoga is the perfect
opportunity to be
curious about who
you are.
Jason Crandell
✥
The meaning of our self
is not to be found in its
separateness from God
and others, but in the
ceaseless realisation of
yoga, of union; not on the
side of the canvas where
it is blank, but on the side
where the picture is
being painted.
Rabindranath Tagore
A Seamless Learning Experience
mense love, but on the other hand, not. And if
not, the karma could become an obstruction,
n important tradition in the gharanas creating long drawn out states of stasis in the
of Hindustani music is the practice of spiritual journey. For which, then, the teachtaking permission from your earlier ers of our parampara – our ancient spiritual
guru if you wish to move on to another guru tradition – suggested ‘seva’ or selfless service,
during the period of learning. In the case of service done with no thought to what it could
Pandit Amarnath, his first guru had actually yield at a personal or public level.At the end
said to him, “Go to Ustad Amir Khan Saheb, i of five years of learning, his first guru, B N
know what your soul is craving for, and for Datta, whispered into Pandit Amarnath’s
this, if need be, i will help and support you fi- ear – “My only seva, or service, is that you
nancially also.” For the great man knew the teach music to everyone as i have taught
principles of continuity and connectivity in you, without keeping away anything, giving
the guru tradition – what changed was the in abundance, for this is how this vidya or
face and the form and the name. But what did knowledge is meant to be passed on.”
not change was the principle of the
In the language of the abstract,
Guru himself.
the guru is the mirror that reflects as
At the same time, however, the
well as the transparent medium that
name and form of the guru are an
enables looking and seeing, enrichimportant anchorage in the disciing experience. He is both formless
ple’s journey to realisation of the
and in form, the silence and the utFormless and Nameless – the
terance, the absence and the pres‘alakh’, from ‘a-lakshya’ or that
ence, and both the shunya, nothTHE
which is without sign and syming, as well as everything. In him,
■ SPEAKING ■
bol, that is, without form. For this
the disciple sees both what he
reason, Pandit Amarnath would
wishes to be and what he is.
TREE
insist that disciples learn their
The idea, finally, is to connect
art only from the musician whose music – connect so well and so spontaneously that
they loved the most. The music of the musi- you, too, become the mirror, the formless, the
cian you carried in your heart was already silence, the shunya, and a transparency in
your guru and learning from that musician which you are the sound of silence and the
or his music alone was your own real musi- fullness of vacant and empty space.
Today is the 14th Barsi of Pandit Amarnath.
cal journey. No wonder he often refused disciples with many a ‘background’ when they
came to him to learn, insisting that he alWe have recently launched THE SPEAKING
ways preferred to ‘write on a clean slate’, in
TREE as an 8-page Sunday paper devoted to
terms of teaching.
your physical, mental and spiritual wellAnd hence there is the need to take permisbeing. To book your copy sms STREE to 58888
sion – a spiritual release – from those to whom
or email to [email protected]
you were bound, and indebted to, for the karor call 080-39898090 or contact your newspaper vendor. The Speaking Tree comes at an
mic debts of musical knowledge. This release
introductory price of Rs 1.50.
could come spontaneously, and with imBindu Chawla
A
Woman is a human being
This refers to ‘Destiny’s Daughters’ (March
8). Not only does the woman bear the
cross, the man walks away with the bouquets. A dissection of this historical legacy
has shown that the malady isn’t so much
black and white as it’s commonly perceived and addressed. Though in most
cases, it’s the hurt male ego that’s the trigger. Discrimination of women often begins
right within the family with stereotyping. A
lot of change needs to take place. Stereotyping has to end and the effort to see a
woman as a human being first has to be
kept up.
B Rajeev Nair, VIA EMAIL
Husain is not ‘our’ loss
This is with reference to ‘Can’t be in Husain’s shoes... he doesn’t wear them’
(March 7). M F Husain always chooses between deals, at the cost of anything, including the country. Shobhaa De has mentioned that “it’s our loss”. The author
should not have generalized it.
Hemant Bhatia, VIA EMAIL
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