Sunday Reading

New Delhi, 23 July 2010 

Honour Killers

NOT KNIGHTS IN SHINING ARMOUR

By VS Dharmakumar

`Honour’ is a sanguine word. A lexicon that means respect, admiration, nobility et al. Today the obverse holds true. Wherein a bone-chilling murder or the horrendous slaughter of women and young girls by family members is called an ‘honour crime’. Bluntly, ‘honour’ stands for ‘sanction’ given by society to people who kill their kith and kin perceived to have brought dishonour to the family or caste. Never mind, it is a negation of the expression.

Sadly, by prefixing a glorifying word to a horrific crime, we are not only indirectly justifying the killings but also supporting the cause. Worse, such murders have become so routine; hardly a day passes without one hearing of a young couple’s killing in some part of the country.

Earlier, honour killings were the curse of Haryana. Nowadays, it has spread to other States threatening the lives of many more young people who dare to cross the caste lines to select their life partners. Be it urban India or rural Bharat.

Last week a Dalit youth and his upper caste wife were stoned to death in Andhra’s Krishnajivadi village in Nizamabad. Ditto in the country’s nerve centre, Delhi, a 19 year-old girl and her boyfriend were bludgeoned and electrocuted by her remorseless father and uncle. A journalist belonging to a highly educated Brahmin family of Jharkhand met the same fate, allegedly smothered to death for falling in love with a man of lower caste. In UP’s Greater Noida teenage lovers were lynched by the girl’s family and two schoolgirls who ran away with their boyfriends met the same fate at the hands of their cousin in December last.

The great social reformer Sree Narayana Guru, who wanted to build a classless society advocating, “One in kind, One in religion, One God for human” must be squirming in his samadhi when four persons belonging to his caste fell victims to honour killing in Mumbai in 2004.

Curiously, none dares to praise Chandrapati who exhibited exemplary boldness in fighting against the `Khap’ and getting death sentences awarded to the self-styled honour killers. Khap translates into a motley group of self- righteous, egoistic men who function as custodians of society norms and oppose marriages within the same 'gotra'. Also, they lend a hand to make the murders look respectable by calling them as 'knights in shining armour'.

Undoubtedly, women are always at the receiving end of the Khap’s justice system as they personify ‘honour' and are expected to “behave well”. Men, however, are free to do anything, including rape women. Shockingly, even compulsive rapists are exonerated by the Khap. Social laws put women at an unfair disadvantage and often at the mercy of men. Indian culture per se is used as a pretext to limit a woman’s prospects and life. A mere allegation is enough to award death to an innocent woman.

The travesty of justice in honour crimes is the harsh reality that the victim, killer, police, victim’s family and society are all inured to accept the Khap’s diktat as inevitable. The victim knows she would have to die for ‘family's honour’; police stays inactive as they share the same view as the killers. The parents think their daughter brought dishonour to the family, endangering the marriage prospects of her siblings who join in the 'killing' because they do not want to risk their own prospect in the marriage market. Mothers, mother-in-law and cousins support the attack because of their community and society views this as a good example, so that none repeat the mistake.

In this milieu of medieval morality, most cases go unreported and the perpetrators go unpunished as 'honour' killings are justified by the community and law enforcing authorities.

Interestingly, ‘honour’ killings are frequent in Islamic countries as the Shariat law permits them. In Pakistan over 10,000 honour killings take place every year. But unlike India they go a step further. A labourer not only killed his eldest daughter for marrying against his wishes but also three other daughters fearing that they too might follow in the eldest’s footsteps. In Turkey, a young girl was told to “kill herself” as her father wanted to save himself from a prison sentence. In Saudi, a woman was killed by her father for simply chatting with a man on Facebook.

A teenaged Jordanian girl was stoned to death by her brother for walking towards a house where young boys lived alone. An Egyptian killed his unmarried pregnant daughter and then cut her corpse in to pieces. A Palestinian hanged his sister. Another let his sister decide how she wanted to die, poison or slitting her throat.

In Baghdad, there is the bizarre case of a young woman who was imprisoned as a ploy to reach her criminal brother, evading the police. Raped by the prison guards and pregnant she wrote to him for help. The brother came to the prison and shot her dead. Why? To spare the family the disgrace, notwithstanding the post-mortem showed “forced entry.”

In sum, `honour killings’ are the new emerging dangers of society. Wherein parental and social pressure force a girl to commit suicide after she has written a suicide note absolving her family of all charges. Equally outrageous is of how men murder another man and then kill a woman from their own family to make the murder look like an 'honour killing'. Women get killed for no other reason than that they are just women!

The time has come to take immediate steps to curb the increasing menace of Khaps. The need of the hour is to set up fast track courts and hang the perpetrators of these heinous murders as quickly as possible. A measure which will save many lives. ---- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

Sunday Reading

New Delhi, 14 July 2010

Prescription Drugs

ABUSE DANGEROUSLY ‘HIGH’

By Suraj Saraf

The trend of prescription drugs’ abuse is menacingly increasing in India for getting a high. It is estimated to have grown three times during the past five years. In fact, a recent report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) pegs India as the largest consumer of heroine in South Asia.

“Easy availability of pharmaceutical drugs like Spasmo, Proxyvon, Tramadol and Ketamine make them the most abused drugs in the North East. Addicts take as many as 24 injections a day, says Dr. Chawand Lung Muana, project officer of an NGO working on HIV and AIDS cases in Mizoram. Such drugs are readily available at any chemist shop and are legally prescribed even by premier health institutes for pain management, especially for pregnant women and women during menstruation.

“Globally, the number of people using amphetamine type stimulants, estimated at around 30 to 40 million, is soon likely to exceed the number of opiod and cocaine users combined. There is also evidence of increasing abuse of prescription drugs”, warns the UNODC report. Opiods, in particular, have a side effect of euphoria. It is similar to the pleasure felt when one has been successful or after intense physical excitement, but it requires no such effort to attain. As people who are in pain have typically suffered an unpleasant experience that caused the pain -- be it an accident or over-exertion -- the pleasurable effects of these painkillers may turn out to be a delightful surprise. Seeking repeated experiences of pleasure through the addictive behavior or substance is one of the hallmarks of addiction.

According to the UN organization the non-medical use of prescription drugs is an increasing problem in many countries. In some countries, this is second only to cannabis. This is most notably in North America, but there are reports of significant treatment demand in Europe, Africa, South Asia and Latin America. Addressing the non-medical use of prescription drugs needs to carefully take into consideration the need to ensure the availability of these substances (that do have a recognised and much needed medical use), while preventing diversion and misuse. The UNODC is developing a ‘discussion paper’ to assist Member States in addressing the issue of the non-medical use of prescription drugs, focusing on recommendations for policy and practice.

The purpose is to provide the same kind of advice that exists with regard to prevention of the use and the treatment and care of the dependence of illicit drugs. The sources of prescription drugs are different, but the need for prevention and treatment with a view to promoting health is the same. Government authorities, parents, medical doctors, pharmacists, pharmaceutical companies have all important roles to play, notes the UNODC.

In India the easy availability and least legal check makes prescription drugs, especially for pain management the latest hit among drug users even though manufacturers’ label on painkillers contain chemicals, which if taken for long lead to addiction. The addiction to legally pharma drugs has further compounded the number of HIV cases in the country. Among 20 to 30 per cent of such addicts in the North East are already HIV positive and health functionaries are concerned that they are instrumental in spreading the scourge, which is already a major problem.  

An assessment is that the growing dependency over pharma drugs for getting a high has also trapped people in one of the most affluent states such as Punjab. Here experts emphasise the case of Maqboolpura, near Amritsar which has come to be known as a land of widows because majority of male members there had succumbed to excessive pharma drugs’ abuse.

“Prescription drugs for pain management are used without legal prescription. There is an indispensable angle of crime associated with drug usage. It is the prevalence of criminal organizations and drugs mafias that is driving the market for such drugs,” is an assessment of Cristibe Albertio, UNO Drug and Crime South Asia representative.

The big question is what steps should be done to bring a halt to such kind of drug abuse? According to Dr Muana the need of the hour is that adequate primary interventions such as sensitizing the youth and empowering them through counseling and advocacy should be in place. The young minds must be alerted about the need to restrain from misusing such drugs or else they could get trapped as addicts.  

Three classes of drugs viz certain pain killers, which contain codeine of morphine, sedatives or tranquilizers can get you hooked if taken without a medical prescription or if taken over a period of time. What is common and well-know is that even the most common cough syrups are misused as they give a ‘high’.

Clearly, drug abuse of any sort is not an individual problem. It is a social problem and must be viewed as such. This is so primarily because an addiction can create curiosity among the non-users thereby multiplying the numbers of users. A collective onus is required to curb the menace from the roots.

Both the Health and Family Welfare and the Chemicals and Fertilizers Ministries need to take collaborative measures to check this rapidly growing abuse of pharmaceuticals drugs for getting a high, suggests Prasada Rao of UNAIDS.

Another suggestion to curb the menace comes from Dr. Jitendra Nagpal, senior consultant, psychiatrist, Vidyasagar Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences. He recommends that both doctors and chemists can play an important role—the doctors by studying the patient profile carefully and the chemists by not giving the drug without a proper prescription.

Another expert, Dr. CM Gulati, is of the view that “we are aware of cases where people take medicines for psychotropic effects. There may be some legitimate cases where a chronically sick patient suffering from a long-term illness gets hooked on to a particular drug, or where patients recovering from serious bone injuries, get relief from a pain killer which may be an opioid”.  

“Chronic use of these drugs can result in tolerance which means that higher doses are required to achieve the same initial effect,” notes Rani Dandeka Bhatia, psychiatrist, St Stephen’s Hospital.

Doctors say that those abusing the drugs usually are between the age group of 15 to 35. Often they may pop a pill to alleviate anxiety but it becomes a case of addiction if taken for three to four weeks. The danger increases when one starts taking higher doses. Indeed, the non-medical use of drugs is on the increase and it is time for the authorities to check this abuse. ---INFA 

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

Sunday Reading

New Delhi, 16 June 2010

Scientific Heritage

NO LONGER VICTIM OF NEGLECT

By Suraj Saraf

Showcasing India’s scientific heritage usually remains neglected in the welter of politics. Fortunately, not any more. Strenuous efforts are afoot to develop India into a knowledge nation. And one such measure has been to open a science and technology gallery at the National Science Centre in the Capital city of Delhi.

As pointed out by Nobel laureate Prof. Amartya Sen scientific heritage of India had been a victim of an all-round neglect “and distortion of Indian history and undermining of scientific objectivity by sectarian traditionalists (including the Hindutva movement) and the rootlessness and historical innocence of the obdurate modernist.”

Indeed, the tradition of science and mathematics in India tends to receive a fairly raw deal from both sides of the divide--from sectarian traditionalists and rootless modernists. And this was underlined at the opening of the new gallery, which needs to be publicized and high quality publications are needed to be brought out to create an understanding and pride in our heritage among children.

Other than the gallery, a high-level committee has been constituted comprising experts from the National Centre of Science Museum and other departments under the Union Culture Ministry to do more research in scientific and technological heritage of the country and disseminate that information among the public.

“The new gallery points out the fact that since the dawn of history, India and indeed different civilizations had contributed immensely to different branches of science and technology, often through interactive contacts across cultures separated by large distances,” noted the Museum Director General G.S. Rautela.

Right from the Harappan period to the early historic period copper-bronze technology had flourished in the Indian sub-continent. Underlining the development of science in ancient India, Prof. Sen had said “Our unwillingness to remain satisfied with ongoing understanding and knowledge can be very important for the motivation behind the development of science. Arguments and skepticism are central to two-way relation between science and society.

“We can’t live without the past, even though we cannot live within it, either. When history is distorted for one purpose or another, it requires correction……. I was dismayed by the fact that intellectual link between the strong heritage of skepticism and heterodoxy in India on one side and scientific pursuit and creativity on the other, had received so little attention,” he lamented.

Examining these issues, Prof Sen opined that cultivation of doubts and sharpening of questions lie at the root of most scientific inquiries. “India had a truly exceptional heritage at being doubtful and skeptical. However, this legacy had tended to be fairly comprehensively neglected by modernists, who had attributed the origin of Indian skepticism to the West, particularly British influence.”

Using the example of Vedas, Prof. Sen said Rig Veda had raised central doubts about the religious account of the world, for example “that of Creation.” These fundamental doubts about the creative power and even the omniscience of any god-like figure would occur in Indian critical debates again and again. In fact, Sanskrit had a long volume of agnostic or atheistic writings than any other classical language. Doubt sometime takes the form of agnosticism, sometimes that of atheism. Buddhism that originated here and that was its principal religion for thousands of years is the only world religion in which the morality of behaviour did not involve god in any way.

He referred to the ‘Lokayukta’ philosophy of skeptical materialism, which flourished from the first millennium B.C. and Kaurava’s arguments against Krishna’s advice in Mahabharata to illustrate how atheism and materialism continued to attract adherent and advocates over many centuries.

An understanding of Indian heterodoxy is particularly important for appreciating its reach and range in the country’s intellectual and diverse history. Referring to the constructive role of science in the development of skepticism in society, Prof Sen said that economic problems were central to the maladies of famine and chronic hunger, relentless poverty and persistent inequality, among other issues.

While the dismal nature of economies was certainly not in dispute, what about its claim to science, he asked.  In fact, no economist could be unaware of the skepticism that was widely shared about the economists’ ability to carry out objective investigations and to make reliable predictions. “There is even some mistrust of the very idea of social science. We must make room for the inherent ambiguity for many economic and social concepts such as poverty, inequality, class or community.”

Supporting Prof. Sen in the oldest doubt concept in Rig Veda about the Creation hymn, renowned Indologist A.L. Basham in his “The Wonder That Was India” had underscored, “Hymn of Creation is one of the oldest surviving records of philosophical doubts in the history of the world..  It marks the development of a high stage of abstract thinking, and it is the work of a very great poet, whose evocation of the mysterious chaos before creation, and of mighty ineffable forces working in the depths of the primitive void, reminds us the cosmic fantasies of William Blake.”

Basham also underlines other aspects of Indian scientific heritage. He makes particular mention of the country’s achievements in mathematics much more so invention of decimal system of numerals saying, “The debt of the western world to India in this respect cannot be over-estimated. Most of the discoveries and inventions of which Europe is so proud would have been impossible without a developed system of mathematics, and this in turn would have been impossible if Europe would have been shackled by the unwieldy system of Roman numerals. The unknown man who devised the new (decimal) system was, from the world’s point of view, after the Buddha, the most important son of India. His achievement, though easily taken for granted, was the work of an analytical mind of the first order, and he deserved much more honour than he has received so far.

“Medieval Indian mathematicians, such as Brahma Gutpa (7^th century), Mahavira (9^th century) and Bhaskara (12^th century), made several discoveries which in Europe were not known until the Renaissance or later ….. the mathematical implications of zero and infinity, never more than vaguely realized by classical authorities, were fully understood in India.”

In the positive sciences of the ancient Hindus, Sir Brajendra Nath underpins: “The Hindus, no less than the Greeks have shared in the work of constructing scientific concepts and methods in the investigation of physical phenomena, as well as building up a body of positive knowledge which has been applied to industrial technique; and Hindu scientific ideas and methodology (e.g. inductive method or method of allergic analysis) have deeply been the curse of natural philosophy in Asia --- in the east as well as in the west --- in China and Japan, as well as in the Saracen Empire. Fortunately, the Sanskrit philosophic-scientific terminology, however difficult from its technical character, is exceedingly precise, consistent and expressive”. No wonder that Prof. Sen is so emphatic that sans highlighting its scientific heritage, Indian history is being subjected to distortion.--INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)

Defence Notes

New Delhi, 28 June 2010

Kargil Revisited

MYSTERIES CONTINUE ON POINT 5353

By Col (Dr) P. K. Vasudeva (Retd)

Kargil was one of India’s greatest victories over Pakistan, undoubtedly. Indian soldiers fought valiantly in the battle against heavy odds. The leadership at all levels was at its best and it was a well-coordinated battle of wits, courage and determination. The country is proud of its soldiers who are by far the best amongst the world armies.

Two months into the conflict, Indian troops had slowly retaken most of the ridges that were encroached by the infiltrators. According to official count, an estimated 75%–80% of the intruded area and nearly all the high grounds were back under Indian control. However, a big question or should one say mystery continues on Point 5353 that is on the Indian side of the Line of Control (LoC) and is occupied by Pakistani troops.

Recall, in August 1999, news broke that Pakistan holds one of the most important mountain features in the Drass Sector, Point 5353-metres. Since then, a series of facts and ambiguity surrounding this Point have come to light. The most important revelations have been by senior lawyer and former Rajya Sabha MP R.K. Anand's disclosure that five other positions on the Indian side of the LoC were held by Pakistan.  His revelations were not rebutted, but generated a wave of hostile official statements from Army Headquarters.  

Addressing an audience of businessmen in Mumbai in early August 1999, the then Union Defence Minister George Fernandes put forward the sole cogent official response about Point 5353:  “Point 5353, is the point over which the LoC goes. The fact is, our troops had never occupied that. The normal practice among them has been that where the line goes over a peak, then nobody occupies it." Bluntly, Fernandes’s statement shows that not only did he have little concern for fact but also sidestepped a serious defence matter. 

Pakistan had put forward claims that the LoC was undefined on the ground, and that its territorial contours were imprecise during the Kargil battle. An irate External Affairs Ministry spokesman shot back on June 19, 1999: "The LoC is well defined and delineated.” Adding, that detailed co-ordinates of the LoC were given in 19 annexure of the December 11,1972 agreement between Pakistan’s Lieutenant-General Abdul Hamid Khan and India’s Lieutenant-General P.S. Bhagat.  Further, the spokesman stressed, "so far as the de jure position is concerned, there are no doubts. The maps signed by the Indian and Pakistani DGMOs (Directors General of Military Operations) in 1972 clearly indicate that it belongs to India."

On July 23,1999, media reports talked of fierce fighting taking place in the Batalik and Kaksar sub-sectors as Indian troops tried to evict the intruders from the three pockets they were holding. "Fighting," the reports noted, "was under way at Point 5353 in Drass, Muntho Dhalo and Shangruti Ridge in Batalik, and also at a position in Kaksar." However, two days later, officials announced that the last of the intrusions had been cleared. Notwithstanding, that media reported to the contrary. Namely, that fighting continued in several areas and the army had lost one soldier each in shelling in the Batalik and Muntho Dalo areas.

Making the situation messier, the Pakistan Army had launched a counter-attack on Sando Top and Zulu Spur. And troops on both sides had exchanged small arms fire in the Mushkoh sub-sector of Drass around Point 5353.

Questionably, what were the Indian troops doing if the peak was not on the Indian side of the LoC? Particularly if, as the Army insists, that the peak is of little strategic significance and poses no real threat to National Highway 1A?

Pakistan, which now denies that it holds any territory on the Indian side of the LoC, clearly understood the gains it had made. On July 26,1999 even as New Delhi announced that all the Pakistani intruders had been evicted from the Indian side of the LoC, Pakistan’s Army Brigadier Rashid Qureshi stated: “Contrary to Indian claims, the Pakistan Army is still holding some strategic heights along the LoC and can effectively tackle any Indian attack and target any Indian vehicles on the Kargil-Drass road".

Clearly, Point 5353, along with the features around it, was occupied by the Pakistani troops at the start of the Kargil war. When the hostilities ended, the Indian troops had succeeded only in taking back two secondary positions Charlie 6 and Charlier 7 on the Marpo La ridge-line. But had been unsuccessful in evicting Pakistani soldiers from Point 5240, some 1,200 metres from Point 5353. In retaliation, the Indian soldiers occupied two heights, 4875 and 4251, on the Pakistani side of the LoC, just before the ceasefire came into force.

However, in mid-August 1999, New Delhi used these two heights to bring about a territorial exchange and both sides agreed to leave Points 5353, 5240, 4251 and 4875 unoccupied. Indian and Pakistani troops pulled back to their pre-Kargil position as part of a larger agreement between their respective DGMOs.

But, in October 1999, the Indian Army negated the August pact and decided to take Point 5240 and occupy Point 5353 instead of risking Pakistani reoccupation of these positions. Sadly, the operation was mishandled. The Pakistani troops detected the Indian presence on 5240 and not only promptly launched a counter-assault on Point 5353 but worse, rapidly consolidated its position on 5353. They put up concrete bunkers on the peak and constructed a road to the base of the peak of Benazir Post.

Importantly, Point 5353 and its adjoining area are now linked by road to Pakistan's rear headquarters at Gultari. Thus, any attack will lead to a full-blown resumption of hostilities; hence the Union Defence Ministry and the Army have chosen to remain silent on the issue. Forgetting, that though silence is golden it does no one any favours.  Indian soldiers may have to yet again pay with their lives for ignoring the harsh truth.

The need of the hour is that New Delhi urgently takes up the Point 5353 issue with Islamabad during the forthcoming Prime Ministerial level talks. Pakistan must agree to abide by the 1972 Shimla Agreement and vacate Point 5353. --- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)