https://telegram.me/TheHindu_Zone

http://www.ias4india.com

OPINION

123

CHANDIGARH | SUNDAY | 19 FEBRUARY 2017

11

Caring for the differently-abled...

Harish Khare

ILLUSTRATIONS: SANDEEP JOSHI

Thanks to Mrs Neelu Sarin, coordinator of the Chandigarh chapter of the Special Olympics, Bharat, I had a moving experience last Friday morning. Mrs Sarin was kind enough to invite me to inaugurate the annual athletic meet for the differentlyabled children. She has been dedicating her time, energy and affection for the cause of such children since 1993. It was a heart-breaking as well as a heart-warming morning. Heart-breaking to see what physical and neurological deficiencies nature can inflict on those we love. Heart-warming to see so much human kindness at work among those who care for and look after these special boys and girls. Meeting some of the parents was very painful. It is just not possible to understand the pain a father or mother of a disabled child feels, day after day. The need to feel normal about their children who cannot spend a normal life must be the most taxing and frustrating experience. Each day the parents have to summon their inner reserves of patience and love and affection, to climb out of despair and depression to attend to the needs of these wards. It is civil society initiatives like the Special Olympics and activists such as Mrs Neelu Sarin who help ease that pain. There is solace and comfort in the solidarity that such initiatives create. Special schools are there to provide professional help and eight such institutes were associated with last Friday’s athletic meet. Nearly 400 boys and girls took part in the events. It was very thoughtful of the Chandimandir brass to send a band to liven up the proceedings. From Mrs Sarin, I learnt what a difficult and an almost lonely enterprise it was to carry out the Special Olympics activities. It is admirable that women and men like her remain undaunted and un-frustrated. I think their efforts need to be recognised and saluted. Chandigarh needs to show a little generosity.

“voice of human dignity and people’s empowerment.” His publication stands for its simplicity in this age of sleek, glossy publications. What it lacks in production qualities it makes up in the editor’s zeal and sincerity. Mr Sharda’s single-minded mission seems to be to shake the authorities out of their organisational sloth and insensitivity. Mr Sharda takes pride in having performed the role of a social catalyst in raising such issues as the prevention of beggary, healthcare for the poor, health and safety of safai karamcharis, better conditions for maidservants and water conservation. Ludhiana is fortunate to have such a sincere voice. So uncompromised and so uncontaminated a conscience does he command that Mr Sharda dares to argue that ‘voluntary action’ is often underutilised, even misutilised. It would seem that Mr Sharda carries on his shoulders the burden of civil society. It is natural that Mr Sharda has not found many patrons. His penchant for speaking up for the interests of the ordinary citizens does not earn him many friends. He will not take funds from the government. But I am inclined to believe that India is changing, our citizens who want good governance are beginning to understand the importance of raising their voice and demand dignity and empowerment. My counsel to Mr Sharda is: carry on the good work and reward, recognition and satisfaction will follow.

A

few months back, Mr SK Rai, that formidable presence of Ludhiana, had suggested that it would be worth it to spare some time for a fellow citizen, a gutsy man named UK Sharda, also from the Cycle City. I could not say no to Rai sahib. But for weeks, it was not feasible for Mr Sharda to travel to Chandigarh. Finally, we got to meet last week. Though for more than two decades he has been editing and publishing a publication called The Egalitarian Fortnightly, Mr Sharda calls himself a “social catalyst.” The Egalitarian is designed to be the

C

AN a “bad” politician inflict his badness on people without the active connivance of a bureaucrat? Can a competent, upright IAS or IPS officer tell the minister that a particular line of legality and morality need not be crossed? Such questions are at the core of the crisis of governance in our country. And a kind of answer may be available in the distinguished record of service of Abid Hussain, the quintessential public servant, who passed away in 2012. A charming, utterly open and transparent man, Abid saheb was a civil servant dedicated till his very last breath to issues of public

welfare. He was a man who commanded respect and affection on the strength of his integrity, commitment and intellect. That is why so many respected public intellectuals came together to honour the memory of Abid Hussain, in a recently published book, Shaping India’s Future. The contributors to this volume give a glimpse of the changing relationship between the political leaders and civil servants. There was a time when the founding fathers of our republic — Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and Maulana Azad — inspired the bureaucrat. As Nitin Desai notes, there were these “Midnight’s Adults” — such as Abid Hussain, Lovraj Kumar, George Verghese — who were young adults, around 20 years of age at Independence, who joined public life, inspired by “Nehru’s vision of a secular, rationalist and democratic India.” That generation of bureaucrats had the privilege, in partnership with the political giants, of “shaping India’s future.” Abid Hussain’s own chapter in this volume gives an idea of an elevated relationship between the political leadership and the bureaucracy in the early years of our national consolidation. Nehru and Patel showed “practical wisdom and pragmatism” in retaining the edifice of “those very instruments of administration and police that the British had earlier employed to crush the independence movement.” The post-Partition violence, disruption and dislocation had overwhelmed sanity and idealism; stability, control and consolidation were the need of the hour. The bureaucra-

cy was the only instrument available. On their part, the bureaucrats imbibed a sense of mission and national journey in the early years. The good bureaucrats — the PN Haksars, the Abid Hussains — inspired others. Public service beckoned the likes of Vijay Kelkar, Yoginder Alagh, Nitin Desai, Montek Singh Ahluwalia into the portals of the government. This volume celebrates Abid Hussain’s clarity of vision. He was among the early “reformers”, among the first to comprehend that the ‘licence raj’ had run its course. He was among the few who could network the best in the government, industry, media, academia and society. Would an Abid Hussain have been able to survive as a chief secretary in the Chautalas’ Haryana or Parkash Singh Badal’s Punjab or Jayalalithaa’s Tamil Nadu? Perhaps not. Because, Abid saheb was clear: “Bureaucrats must also let their conscience, as Adam Smith said, raise the voice of moral reasonableness without which a man becomes thoughtless and has no qualms in perpetrating injustice.” When VP Singh offered Abid saheb ambassadorship in Washington, he told the new prime minister that he was fond of the former prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, and would continue to remain in touch with him. VP Singh was big enough to countenance that. Today, we are in the age of extreme partisanship. There are no VP Singhs. Nor do we have Abid Hussains.

P

ROFESSOR Chaman Lal of JNU has drawn attention to the stupidity of some sangh hotheads, wanting to make February 14 as the execution day of the greatest martyr, Bhagat Singh. It appears that some organisations are determined that we should not be observing or celebrating Valentine’s Day (February 14) and are trying to reinvent that day as the day of Bhagat Singh’s shahadat. Prof Chaman Lal, who has researched and written extensively about Bhagat Singh, wants to remind everyone that it was on March 23, 1931, that Bhagat Singh’s petition got dismissed in the Punjab High Court at Lahore. The execution of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev was set for the morning of March 24, 1931. Granted that we are in the post-truth age, yet history cannot be totally falsified. The right-wing fanatics would need to come up with some other ploy to prevent young men and women from enjoying Valentine’s Day. Well, enough of these unhappy notes. Time to brighten up, with a cup of coffee. [email protected]

Post-truth and the age of the internet TOUCHSTONES IRA PANDE

Virtually every political party includes free laptops, wi-fi and smart phones to attract the young voters in backward states, such as UP

Commissions & omissions

Email your letters ■ Readers are invited to send their feedback to [email protected] The mail should not exceed 150 words.

Come election in the North in which Sikh voters matter, political parties opposed to the Congress take it upon themselves as their bounden duty to reopen the wounds of 1984 Sikh massacre (Kaffeeklatsch: ‘A time to seek closure of 1984’). But what have these political parties done when in power at the Centre or in states? The bitter truth is that no party is serious about closure of this chapter of cruelty. The victims will be made to suffer afresh in every election. LJ SINGH, AMRITSAR

II I often read your column in Punjabi Tribune and like it. However, It is very hard to believe that you still use the word

ISTOCK

W

HAT was life like before the internet? Once upon a time, we asked our grandparents what life was like before the advent of electricity. Electricity and I were born together in Almora in 1951. However, for several years after that historic occasion (the advent of electricity, not my birth I mean) there were still vestiges of the dark ages that lurked in several corners of the town. Old servants’ quarters still made do with an oil lamp or a lantern and street lights were powered by such low-wattage bulbs that we were always sent out after dark with a torch in hand or a faithful retainer carrying a lantern who stood respectfully before us to light ruts and puddles on the road. There were other interesting lifestyle habits acquired over centuries, chief among which was the rule that one must maximise the use of sunlight and daylight. Early to bed and early to rise was quoted in all such homes and meals were cooked and eaten before the sunset and insects and rodents emerged from dark crannies. In the matter of a few decades, these habits have been forgotten and the new generation now has almost reversed the classic circadian sleep cycle. My father-in-law was fond of saying: ‘The rising generation retires when the retiring generation rises’,

in a sort of mild rebuke to us when we came in late from a party. Today, rare is the home where dinner is served before 8pm and even rarer the home where a family sits down to eat breakfast together. As for the young, I have no idea when they go to bed or if they do so at all. I have stopped calling my sons because their time cycles and mine are at complete variance. In some cases it is to do with the fact that they live in different continents and so have reversed time zones from us, but the one who lives in Delhi hits the sack an hour or so before

I wake. So messaging is all we do to exchange important news. However, I digress from my original question: how has the information age changed our lives? As in the case of any major technological change, there are positives that we must list out first. The rapid movement of news and information and the ready availability of information must rank as a revolutionary change. If knowledge as power was jealously held by a privileged few, then we must hail the internet for breaking down the unjust barriers that denied this to those who were either social-

riots; for this well-planned genocide. Secondly, Hindus have not forgotten Raavan after thousands of years, so, how can Sikhs forget 1984? It is hard for some to feel the pain and suffering, the insult of the Sikhs. It is very sad that a section wants us to simply forget 1984.

would like to know what you think about Gujarat riots.

GURPREET SINGH SAHOTA (LUCKY), SURREY, BC CANADA

III The article has only strengthened my view that for ‘liberal-seculars’ the 1984 anti-Sikh riots were ‘secular’ and the 2001 Gujarat riots were ‘communal’. That is why ‘secularists’ always take contradictory stands on both these riots. Now that you have made your stand clear on 1984, many readers like me

AC VASHISHTHA, NEW DELHI

IV It is a travesty of fairness and justice that those guilty of the 1984 riots have not been punished. Our judicial system is not too weak to be manipulated by the likes of Jagdish Tytler. The politicians should stop stooping low to make a political capital out of this national ignominy. It is our collective responsibility to bring the alleged perpetrators and abettors to book, and provide much-needed psychological relief to the victims and their distraught families. TAJPREET S KANG, HOSHIARPUR

ly or economically disadvantaged. As a tool of empowerment, I cannot think of any technological revolution other than the printing press that has made access to information a universal phenomenon. Libraries, newspapers, journals and various portals act as quick referrals and have provided vital information to those who do not have access to libraries in their villages and towns. It is no wonder that virtually every political party includes free laptops, wi-fi and smart phones to attract the young voters in backward states, such as UP. The longterm benefits of this will be revealed over time but the hunger to be part of a new world where Google is God is manifestly visible. Strangely, some political leaders still harp on secularism and divisions of caste and class as if they are modern day Rip Wan Winkles who have been asleep while the country has moved on. One cannot deny the overwhelming role that digital technology has acquired in our lives and how it has empowered even those who are not literate in the old-fashioned definition of the term. Yet, one must now also begin to ask whether this vast world of information that is opening up is all for the good. Information is fine as long as it is regarded as such, but when this

becomes the substitute for knowledge is when one begins to wonder whether we are headed in the right direction. Posttruth is the moniker that has become fashionable now and refers to the tendency that we are all prone to in uncritically accepting every Facebook post and tweet as substantiated fact. Add to this the masquerading of views as news (six panelists debating a topical issue with every night) and the steady increase of paid news across the print and electronic media and you have a dangerous cocktail being prepared. Content is being subsumed under the pull of the medium that conveys it. Years ago, I started a PhD (never completed) on Marshall McLuhan’s pioneering work on this topic and it amazes me how prescient he was almost half a century ago when he predicted a scenario likely to emerge in the future. I may not be alive to see it, but how I would love to see the world at the end of this century. As I sign off this column, a fervent prayer in my heart is that Punjab gets the best Chief Minister. Maturity and love for its people must guide the hand that rules it for the next five years. About UP, what can one say? Its people have a choice between goondaism, corruption and communalism: take your pick!

V

ing scenario is a big challenge before J&K chief minister Mehbooba Mufti. There seems merit in the criticism of the move for indirect election of the sarpanch. If we want free and fair elections, then sarpanches should be elected directly by the people. In Punjab, too, indirect elections were held for sometimes, but the procedure was reversed in the last panchayats elections in 2013.

What Delhi and other places witnessed in 1984 was not riots; it was organized violence, perpetrated by frenzied mobs, patronized and supported by all the organs of the state against the minority Sikh community. You have rightly raised a valid question about failure to punish the guilty. It is because the people of the country are too easily carried away by rhetoric and propaganda. It is also because the politics of genocide has become the permanent feature of the Indian psyche and revenge has become an instrument of state policy. KANWAR PAL SINGH, AMRITSAR

Mehbooba’s task Holding panchayats elections in the prevail-

RAJ KUMAR KAPOOR, ROOPNAGAR

‘Take my Word’ I am a regular reader of the column. It is interesting as well as informative. ‘A listicle of new words’ was also in the same genre. Lol...the word 'listicle' is being shown as an error! JASWANT SINGH AMAN VIA EMAIL