The Naga problem

Source:- http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/chasing-a-chimeric-peace/article4096586.ece

Come Assembly elections in Nagaland, orchestrated noises claiming that peace is within reach are bound to get louder. Political actors know that traumatised by decades of external and internal bloodletting, the Naga craves nothing more than peace. The recent demonstrations of competitive eagerness by Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio and Nagaland’s legislators to support the ‘peace’ purportedly being cooked between Delhi and the NSCN (IM) were nothing but drama. In a political two-step, Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde has assured the Nagas of a ‘peace’ gift before the elections early next year.

The Naga public, however, is all too familiar with this periodic show. They know that peace is a distant dream — not inherently distant but because Delhi, by design or default, makes it so. They know that by ignoring the crucial stakeholders and pampering a set of gun-toting men who have little resonance with the broad Naga family, Delhi might cobble together a deal — one that will bring anything but peace.

The polemics of the fractious Naga politics have been rendered more complex by Delhi’s reckless interventions. Instead of appreciating the intricacies of the Naga polity — comprising over 25 tribes, each a proud owner and inheritor of a distinct culture, language, tradition and geography, espousing a distinct world view, falling within the broad rubric of the Naga family — Delhi deals with it as if itwere a homogenous collective with common aspirations. Thus it believes that making a deal with one set would satisfy the rest. How else to explain its abiding faith in the peace process with the NSCN (IM), quintessentially an entity of Tangkhul tribes of Manipur, having little resonance with other Nagas notwithstanding its pan-Naga rhetoric?

Powerful groups ignored

There are other potent Naga militias aligned along tribal lines not in the orbit of the Centre’s peace enterprise. The NSCN (K) holds sway over almost the entire eastern Nagaland — nearly half the State and its people — and resonates well with the locals including the Konyaks, the largest of Naga tribes.

The NSCN (KK) — essentially a militia of the Sumis, one of the larger Naga tribes — control a large swathe of Nagaland adjoining Manipur and also has heavy presence in Dimapur district. The Naga National Council (NNC), the mother of all Naga militias though now a rump of its older self, deeply resonates with the Angamis, the second largest Naga tribe, and their kin tribes in Kohima and adjoining regions. Besides these militias, the traditional bodies that carry much weight with their respective tribes, are also not in the reckoning of Delhi’s peace enterprise.

The peace project, thus severely truncated, got further undermined with the exclusion of the Nagaland State government. I.K. Gujral, the Prime Minister who presided over the formalisation of engagement with the NSCN (IM) in 1997, decided to ignore the State government. He did it, in the face of professional advice to the contrary, to placate the belligerent Th. Muivah, the NSCN (IM) supremo. To Mr. Muivah, the popularly elected Nagaland government was illegitimate and S.C. Jamir, the then Chief Minister, was his bête noire . Nagaland and Delhi had different political dispensations at the helm then, making it easier for Mr. Gujral to ignore Mr. Jamir. Subsequent governments in Delhi preferred not to rock the boat and nonchalantly carried on with the charade.

Having achieved exclusion of the State government from the process, Mr. Muivah insisted on Mr. Jamir’s removal. He knew his biggest challenge was not managing a distant Delhi but an inconvenient Naga government at home. In the run-up to 2003 elections — the first after the ceasefire — he threw tantrums seeking Mr. Jamir’s dismissal and holding elections under President’s Rule. K. Padmanabhaiah, the Centre’s interlocutor, played along and sought to influence L.K. Advani, the then Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister. Mr. Advani was not moved, but the Assam Rifles — a Central force with the mandate to enforce the ceasefire rules and ensure that armed NSCN (IM) cadres remained confined to designated camps and did not interfere in the elections — turned a blind eye to widespread violations by the outfit.

Tactical alliance

Mr. Muivah’s boys had the field to themselves. They targeted candidates not aligned with the NSCN (IM). Popular cries for reining them in went unheard. Mr. Muivah had propped up Neiphiu Rio, a renegade Congressman turned acolyte who had forged a tactical electoral alliance with the BJP, the ruling party in Delhi.

Mr. Rio came to power and his government became a proxy for the Government of the People’s Republic of Nagalim (GPRN), of which Mr. Muivah is the self-styled ‘prime minister’. Many a times it became difficult to determine who ruled the State — Mr. Rio or Mr. Muivah.

With the State government’s backing, the NSCN (IM) sought to enlarge its footprint in Nagaland. Its manoeuvres provoked a fierce backlash from other Naga militias. Bloody clashes ensued. The State witnessed an unprecedented spike in violence until the rivals undid the military gains of the NSCN (IM) and restored the balance of power in their favour. Over 800 people were killed in about 1,500 bloody clashes with the NSCN (IM). Though constitutionally mandated to maintain public order, Mr. Rio extricated himself from his responsibility on the plea that the State government was not a party to the ‘peace process’ with the militias and it was for the Centre to rein them in.

Excluded from the ‘peace-process’ and its obligations, Mr. Rio was free to give currency to the ‘revolutionary’ vocabulary of ultra-Naga nationalists. He reversed previous State governments’ policy of ‘equidistance’ from all militias and advocated a policy of ‘equi-closeness’. He debunked the 16-point agreement between the Centre and the Naga People’s Convention in 1959 and called the Nagaland State, its product, illegitimate. Indeed, he tried to turn the clock of Naga history back to the 1950s, negating all the gains since then.

Misery in Manipur

Another crucial stakeholder excluded from the ongoing peace project is the Manipur government. Delhi’s hush-hush deal with the NSCN (IM) has devastated Manipur and brought untold miseries to its people. Since the professed objective of the outfit is to dismember the State and take away two-thirds of its territory, a protracted negotiation with it without the Manipur government on board has given room for wild speculations and stirred visceral existential fears among Manipuris. It resurrected the Metei insurgency. It has turned neighbours — the plainspeople and the hill people — into bitter enemies.

It is impossible to expect a sustainable peace from the ongoing process between Delhi and the NSCN (IM). An endeavour for peace that excludes crucial stakeholders is a travesty.

Corruption, Vigilance and “Us”

It is natural for you all to wonder about my whereabouts - I absconded for, I dunno, may be, a year or so !!!

Nevertheless, for your information, last week almost all the government departments were celebrating the Vigilance Awareness Week - not merely supposed to be a protocol observed for the last fourteen years or so [in 1998-9, Mr Vithal, then Chief Vigilance Commissioner started off the campaign in right earnest] - but a harsh reminder to all the corrupt 'insiders' as well as potential and would-be corrupt outsiders plus the malicious 'intruders'.

At the same time, it was a way to recharge the batteries of the Vigilance system - to examine the various nuances of the structure and devise plugs for the holes, if any. The basic theme of deliberation was to inspect whether the existing mechanism of public procurement had enough charge in it or needed to be re-charged. 

Well, quoting from memory:

"Orient is a place where the scholar never takes a degree"

That was what specifically Mr. Curzon had to say regarding India in particular, and the Eastern hemisphere in general. Curzon - who left an indelible imprint on the political fabric of colonised India - considered India to be an enigma, a puzzle, by which even a seasoned administrator like him was flummoxed.

It is no wonder, thus, an outsider, be it an Englishman or any person from the Occident, still keeps on unravelling the intricacies of the societal fabric of India and its consequent political and economic ramifications. Hence, we have scholars like Mark Tully of the BBC and a Stephen Cohen of the Washington-based Brookings Institute devoting precious hours of their daily routine to research on matters pertaining to India.

And what fundamentally confounds all the scholars about India – is not how such variegated heterogeneity resides under a singular umbrella – but how India still survives as a nation-state amidst all the chaotic population growth which at times challenges Malthusian concepts, and a vicious cycle of corruption existing as an untoward malice blackening the socio-cultural ethos of the nation.

Public procurement system is an inevitable arm of the day-to-day functioning of the executive – which is bound by the Constitution to implement the laws promulgated by the independent and democratically elected sovereign legislature. The system deserves scrutiny so as to eradicate corruption which might creep in, either deliberately or inadvertently; either due to structural defects or may be due to the gross incompetence and negligence of the personnel concerned or due to the machinations of the bureaucrat-minister combo.

Since Independence, and till 1991, India believed in License Raj – a quota based system and a potent weaponry for the injection of corruption into the political economy of the country. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the consequent ‘Domino Effect’ on the eastern European states leading to the demise of the erstwhile USSR in 1991, imported the IMF-flavoured concepts of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation into the Lingua Franca of even the hardcore Communist regimes – and India, though not a Communist state in any sense of the term, also felt the heat.

Slowly, but surely, words like ‘transparency’ and ‘accountability’ as key features appeared in the lexicon of governance and public administration in Third World nations. Today, in the wee hours of the 21st century, one can ignore these terms at her[his] own peril.

A number of statutory and administrative developments which took place in India in the last decade deserve mention. 

• First, the promulgation of the Right to Information Act (2005) cleared the blind alleys of the public procurement system.
• Second, the vibrancy of the media – online, print and electronic, keeps on pressuring the political-bureaucracy nexus not to indulge in rampant corruption and nepotism.
• Third, and significant, is the upheaval of the Civil Society which keeps a strict vigil on any untoward “deal” – be it in the lucrative Defence sector or in the Public Distribution System.
• And fourth, the constitutional pillars of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) as enshrined in the Arts. 148 to 151 of the Constitution, compounded with the institutionalisation of the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), have further tightened the noose on any lapse in the public procurement system.  

From the administrative perspective, public procurement is based upon the sound principles of financial probity and transparency. For instance, any public procurement in India, be it for the Railways, the Defence or any Civil Works is guided by written manuals; wherein it is specified that a specialised committee needs to be formed for the purpose; viz. the Tender Purchase Committee (TPC) does the job for various such procurements.

Moreover, TPCs are formed for various financial levels – each headed by suitable executives of adequate seniority in the scalar chain – bringing in experience and wisdom so as to ensure propriety without losing efficiency.

Furthermore, for all practical purposes, the relevant TPCs float Open Tender Enquiries so that just competition is allowed amongst vendors in an open market. To add to this, deliberations of the TPC meetings are noted down in writing and such ‘file-notings’ can also be sought for by the general public through the instrument of RTI.

And the ‘top-in’ on this TPC is provided in the form of a financial advisor – an independent arm which monitors the whole transaction procedure and looks for irregularities. As a completely ‘outsider’ organisation but with plenipotentiary powers to audit – the CAG is not to be forgotten at any cost whatsoever.

The procurements also conform to the general guidelines of the CVC and the General Financial Rules as floated from time to time by the central administration.

So, don’t you think that the above public procurement system as extant in India seems to be well within checks and balances, if not “fool-proof” and the related procedural formalities appear to be ‘quite adequate’? 

If that is the case, then why we listen to graft cases to the tune Rs 175 thousand crores – a phenomenal quantum indeed. Why do we keep on hearing about a ‘3G’ or an ‘Adarsh’ or for that matter a ‘Tatra’? 

Wherein lays the loophole which allows the insatiable corrupt crocodile to invade? 

Do we need a complete overhaul of the system? Or, do we need something else? 

Actually, if we have to examine the rationale behind the existence of corruption in our society, we need a posse of anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists and historians, among others. The defect does NOT lie in the procedures; rather it is embedded in the psyche of the people. 

It is not that corruption has come up only after Independence or it has raised its ugly, serpentine head in the last five to six years – which may appear so due to the wider publicity given to it by the media – but historically speaking, corruption existed in the sub-continent since the period of recorded history. And every society for that matter has the element of corruption. Isn’t Italy rampaged with the Mafia and scandalous politicos? Scandinavia might be an exception, nonetheless. 

It is no great discovery to associate corruption to South Asia at large and India or Bangladesh as particular examples – as sometimes claimed by the Transparency International. Moreover, not even poverty can be directly linked to endemic cases of corruption. Because, for most of the times, a wealthy desires to be wealthier by tricky means and we may cite umpteen examples in that regard. 

A police constable demanding bribe from a lorry driver is fundamentally no different from a Secretary or a Minister receiving cut-money from a contractor. In a similar vein, the lorry-driver is equally responsible as the vendor for the spread of corruption.

Some structural changes and edits, albeit minor, may surely be brought about in the procurement system – no doubt, but for a cleaner and transparent system, the personnel involved therein need to enhance their values and ethics and necessary uphold their integrity and probity. 

Probably, that is why, Bills are being mooted in the Parliament to bring in the possibility of an “Integrity Pact” between the vendor and the purchaser – in this case, the Govt. of India – as a part of the legal contract. 

Along with this, the office of the Lokpal or the Ombudsman might add an additional deterrent for the wrongdoers and at the same time, hasten the pendency of litigation. 

And before we wind up for today, a food for thought – why NOT usher in a performance based promotion system in the bureaucracy? That [might] bring in efficacy and reduce indiscriminate and indescribable corruption. After all, we all want to work only when we know there is something to be achieved. 

Ah, yes, I am not counting the philosophers and their abstractions here!!!!!!!!!! 

Talk to you all later, hopefully soon..........

----------------------------

These days, Uddipan Mukherjee wakes up very early – at 8 A.M. IST, yet struggles to pen down anything substantial for Indian Policy. 

At sea over marine conservation

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/at-sea-over-marine-conservation/article4069097.ece

What does 50 million U.S. dollars get you? The eleventh Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has just concluded in Hyderabad this October. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has made the “Hyderabad Pledge” of $50 million for biodiversity conservation, and enhancing “human and technical capacity” for conservation. For the next two years, India is president of the CBD and is expected, both normatively and administratively, to take a lead in seeing through decisions taken at the CBD. Most significantly, India now has a serious chance at reimagining its conservation policies.

Many firsts for COP 11

There are several firsts at this CBD. This was the first conference of parties for the implementation of the time-bound Aichi targets, set to root out biodiversity loss. These targets, decided at the last CBD conference of parties in Nagoya, relate to planning, ecosystem services, invasive species, food security and climate change among others. They are a serious departure from the sort of myopic, single department-centred approach that conservation has had in our country. The 20 Aichi targets set out to establish that biodiversity conservation has to do with nearly every aspect of our life, and subsequent well-being. Crucially, the Aichi targets are wholly dependent on national action plans made by parties as per their national circumstances.

Several decisions have been made at the CBD which set the tone for domestic action plans. I would like to emphasise some of the decisions most relevant for the Indian context: on marine and coastal biodiversity, invasive alien species and protected areas. Crucially, these decisions have to be looked at through the time frame provided for the Aichi Targets — from this year to 2020, which is also two years into the United Nations Decade of Biodiversity. Equally, while this is the closest biodiversity targets have ever got to a deadline-oriented framework, this entire framework also runs the risk of never getting implemented, being wholly contingent on domestic action.

Existing policies

“I really don’t know what’s down there,” a forest department official remarked once, referring to the rich coral reefs of Gujarat’s Marine National Park. I have encountered other officials who believe that coral reefs are inanimate rock, rather than the sensitive, connected, and alive polyps they really are. But the concern of the official who doesn’t really know what’s “down there” is a valid one and should not be discarded. India has almost 8,000 kilometres of coastline, including its islands. India is also the country that took the lead in declaring marine conservation as one of the five themes for the high-level segment for this CBD meeting. It was decided in Hyderabad that marine areas which are ecologically and biologically sensitive will begin to get identified.

Is this a turning point? For India, it certainly can be. We have accepted voluntary guidelines for keeping biodiversity in perspective while conducting Environment Impact Assessments related to coastal and marine projects; it was India that mooted an “open and evolving” process at the CBD to begin identifying marine areas of significance through robust, scientific processes.

But the real question to ask is the one posed by the forest official: do our policy implementers know what is “down there,” and what will they do, since they do know? Is our forest department, historically set up to manage forests, curtail grazing, make plantations and fell timber, equipped to deal with marine conservation? The answer, clearly, is a no. While we have available science at our disposal for marine conservation, it is not an applied science for our forest department, who have been made the custodians of protecting all manner of wildlife. And that leads us to an even more significant question: are our present conservation policies capable of dealing with marine conservation? What we have in our kitty today is the Wildlife Protection Act, Tree Preservation Acts (at State level) and Environment Protection Act, none of which deal in any comprehensive way with marine conservation. Coral reefs are often referred to as the rainforests of the sea, and sea grass beds are no less life-giving than terrestrial grasslands, which form a primary food base for many species. But it is clear that a “tree” of the sea, or a grassland of a sea, cannot be protected by terrestrial policies, which have so far shaped our conservation policy landscape.

Just one example is that of dugongs, large marine mammals which feed on sea grass meadows. Nicknamed “sea-cows,” they are rapidly disappearing from their ranges in Gujarat and the Andamans. The sea “cow” nickname is testimony to how we familiarise ourselves with new concepts through terms we know already: here, that of a cow. But the sea-cow, for all the familiarity its name evokes, is fast disappearing, prey to poaching on land and threats in the sea.

What we need today are separate laws for marine conservation. At the cusp of finding new marine Ecologically and Biologically Significant Areas (EBSAs) for India and implementing targets for marine conservation, what will truly benefit marine conservation is taking marine conservation out of the box it presently is in: protection accorded to just familiar groups of marine species, and protection through marine protected areas, legally imagined as analogous to terrestrial protected areas.

Alien species and protected areas

On the question of protected areas (PA), the new text makes an important point: it calls for “other effective area-based conservation measures.” This marks a departure from the heavily guarded and enforced PAs which dot the country and coastline, and, in a majority of cases, have alienated traditional dwellers in and around PAs. “Other effective systems” can mean biodiversity heritage areas, community reserves and important bird areas, which should call for a management regime approach (seasonal or otherwise), rather than strict protection. Invasive alien species, like the omnipresent Lantana, have caused considerable economic and ecological damage, sweeping over natural habitats, as well as city-forests. But India has never felt the need to have a policy for alien species, despite the risk they pose to the mainland and the biodiversity hot spot of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The new text on invasive alien species calls on countries to address threats from these species, check pathways and spread. This is especially important for a country as massive and megadiverse as ours: where even native species can be “alien” — the House Crow, for example, is a serious threat to the biodiversity of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Post-CBD, the money is where the mouth is; now comes the all-important question of creating responsible domestic policy and action plans for it. As a host country and as CBD president, this is a chance for India to ensure CBD decisions and recommendations don’t remain paper tigers. Or just paper.