INDIA'S NEW CABINET

A mixed bag with conservative overtone

Praful Bidwai in New Delhi

AFTER three long weeks of consultation, deliberation and jockeying, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) finally formed a Council of Ministers. But the result is not authentically representative of India's diversity, or the sources of its own victory. Indications emanating from the allocation of portfolios and the priorities outlined by President Pratibha Patil in her address to Parliament suggest that the UPA will be conservative on foreign policy, security, human rights and counter-terrorism; inclusive and pluralist in its social policy; and will follow an economic policy that is a hybrid or amalgam of the neoliberal model and state intervention through measures such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and other social sector programmes.
   The composition of the 79-strong Ministry is more skewed and less diverse than that of the parties that constitute the UPA. Former Chief Ministers occupy nine of the 33 Cabinet positions. Within the Council, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Kerala claim a disproportionate share, respectively, 10, nine, eight and six berths, although they account for 139 Lok Sabha seats. Uttar Pradesh, four times bigger than Kerala, has just five Ministers, all of them Ministers of State. Bihar has only one Minister.
   This partly reflects the UPA's big electoral gains at the Left's expense in West Bengal and Kerala. But it is equally the result of intense bargaining, as in the case of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. If electoral performance was the main criterion, Andhra Pradesh should have figured high on the list. The Congress' performance ­ victory in 33 of 42 constituencies ­ helped turn the election around. But Andhra Pradesh has only one Cabinet Minister.
   
   Cabinet mismatch
   A big story is the Congress' rejuvenation in U.P., where it was half-dead for decades. Yet, U.P. does not have a single Cabinet Minister. Thanks to the "dynasty factor", the Congress promoted Rahul Gandhi as never before. It did not elevate any other Congress leader to a rank at which he might be inducted in future. The other States from the so-called Hindi heartland are also under-represented. The number of "cow belt" Ministers has fallen by one-third to 16 in 2004 ­ despite the UPA winning six more seats there than the 59 it bagged five years ago. The region contributes 209 Members of Parliament but is represented by only three Cabinet Ministers. Rajasthan and Jharkhand have had a particularly raw deal. Orissa and Assam, like most tribal Northeast States, are also poorly represented.
   Dalits are relatively well-represented in the Ministry, with four Cabinet berths and five Ministers of State. This, like Meira Kumar's nomination as Lok Sabha Speaker, reflects the Congress' anxiety to counter Mayawati. On the other hand, Brahmins (nine) and other "upper castes" (19) are over-represented. Together, they outnumber Other Backward Classes (16) by three-fourths. But Adivasis have only one Cabinet representation.
   Muslim under-representation stands out especially because the UPA claimed to uphold the principle of "fair representation" advocated by the Sachar Committee and because Muslims scripted the Congress' victory in many States, most notably U.P. On the Sachar criterion, there should have been 11 Muslims in the Council. There are only five. There are only two Cabinet Ministers. Neither is from the heartland. This will rankle.
   
   Chronic under-representation
   The UPA must recognise that Muslims have long been under-represented in India's political life. They form 13.4 per cent of the population. Yet, only 5.5 per cent of Lok Sabha MPs are Muslims. Their number has fallen from 34 in 2004 to 30. Half of the 30 belong to the Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party. Major State-level parties ­ the Samajwadi Party, the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Telugu Desam Party ­ have no Muslim MPs.
   Muslim under-representation is chronic and in a sense built into the first-past-the post system, which favours geographically concentrated minorities. The problem will be best resolved through a proportional representation system. But meanwhile, corrective action is necessary to prevent Muslim alienation. The Congress/UPA has failed to take this and ignored the warning signals from the emergence of exclusively Muslim parties and Ulema Councils in U.P.
   The President underlined "inclusive growth, equitable development and a secular and plural India". But the continuation of A.K. Antony as defence minister, P. Chidambaram in charge of home, and M.K. Narayanan as National Security Adviser, and the government's intention to beef up anti-naxalite operations through the National Counterterrorism Centre speak of an internal security approach that relies on force to suppress movements arising out of deprivation and popular alienation from a callous state apparatus corrupted by entrenched interests.
   On security policy, the government is likely to be deeply conservative, including military power projection, which goes beyond legitimate or adequate self-defence. This spells rising military spending, which already runs at an obscene Rs.170,000 crore. The UPA is likely to build on the strategic partnership with the U.S. and continue with a status-quoist approach towards the immediate neighbourhood.
   
   Pro-Israel policy
   External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna is new to international affairs but reportedly has a pro-Western, pro-U.S. orientation. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is likely to be active on the foreign policy agenda with the assistance of Shashi Tharoor, who has been given crucial portfolios despite being a first-time MP. Shashi Tharoor is strongly pro-U.S. and sought support from Zionist lobbies during his bid for the United Nations Secretary-General's post. Going by Shashi Tharoor's support for the recent Israeli invasion of Gaza, in which he described Israel as "India's envy", he will favour uncritical support for Israel. This does not augur well for the prospect of an independent foreign policy.
   On climate change, the most important global negotiation India is engaged in, Minister of State for Environment Jairam Ramesh is likely to harden India's stance against caps on greenhouse emissions, while relying on fossil fuels for rising elite-driven energy consumption. Jairam Ramesh says India will more than double its coal consumption in eight to 10 years.
   
   Environmental stance
   He wants the Ministry of Environment and Forests to adopt an "industry-friendly" approach to environmental clearances and not be "a stumbling block to faster growth". His rhetoric about not turning "Paryavaran Bhavan into the Udyog Bhavan of the pre-liberalisation days" might please those who buy into the "licence-permit raj" paradigm. But the context is set by a recent report of a committee constituted by the Finance Ministry, which recommends industry self-assessment and certification of environmental impacts. Jairam Ramesh's pronouncements signal capitulation to corporate lobbies and further dilution of environmental regulation.
   Kapil Sibal has been given charge of Human Resource Development just when commercial institutions and foreign universities are making a strong bid to enter Indian education. He is known to favour privatisation. The first event he attended after assuming office was a business chamber-sponsored meeting. This sends a bad signal. Kapil Sibal will be under pressure to reduce the state's commitment to school education and opt for vouchers to give access to private schools. How he handles this is an open question.
   Courtesy: Frontline magazine

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Mubashar Hasan

Recently, the parliamentary standing committee on education recommended reforming Madrassah education. It shows that Government is seriously thinking of upgrading the Islamic education system. How effective and thoughtful are those recommendations is a matter of another debate.
   However, it is true that against the backdrop of active militant Islamists' operation in the country, an urge to reform Islamic education is now vigorous than ever before. Nevertheless, it is necessary to advance our level of thinking in terms of Islam and education especially at graduate and postgraduate levels.
   For example, a normative standard of Islamic education at graduate level is that it mainly deals with Islamic jurisprudence, Muslim history and teaching of core sources. However, to cope with 21st century challenges, it is now a necessity for Islamic education in Bangladesh to deal with the theories of political sciences, economics, international relations, anthropology etc in detail.
   By Islamic education, I do not mean physical or quasi-physical paraphernalia and instruments of instructions such as the books taught or the external educational structure, but what I call 'Islamic intellectualism'; for me this is the essence of higher Islamic education. It is the growth of a genuine, original, adequate Islamic thought. Can we see reflection of such thinking in any government's agenda to create a pool of scholars within the realm of
   Islamic education?
   It is now an established fact that Islam becomes an important and significant issue in mainstream disciplines. For example, in the West, in renowned universities, number of centres and institutes has been established to understand Islam and its rich history. Institute of Islamic Studies at the McGill university, Canada; Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre for Muslim Christian Understanding at the George Town University in Washington DC; Dundee based Al-Maktoum Institute of the University of Aberdeen in the UK; Centre of Islam and the Modern world at the University of Monash, Australia are among such leading centers and institutes whose names are noteworthy to mention here.
   A close reading on courses, research publications and research interests of those institutes and centres, reveals that those institutions in the west are trying to understand the dimension of Islam -- starting from its early history, philosophy, teaching of core sources, economic system, political movements, and jurisprudence -- with an aim to address contemporary socio-political issues at national and global levels. A major characteristic of these centres is that, Islam is being researched by scholars from Islamic education as well as by an anthropologist, a political scientist and so on.
   Centripetal of these activities is to realize different societal structure and mindset of the Muslim world as well as of Muslim migrants living in the west. For example, in the UK following the 7/7 bombing in London underground, millions of pounds were disbursed by the British government to various universities to conduct research in order to understand different dimensions of Muslim communities living there. Those research papers try to understand why a Briton blew himself in British underground trains to kill fellow Britons, why a British Muslim travelled far from home to receive training conducted by Al-Qaida in Pakistan in order to fight against British Army in Afghanistan by joining in Taliban forces.
   These researches and working papers play a significant role in re-evaluating domestic and foreign policy of western countries. President Obama, who is continuously advocating to show mutual respect to the Muslim world and arguing that Islam and Muslims are very much part of the heritage of the US since he took over the oval office. This is a sharp shift in US policy comparing to the policy formulated by the arrogant president George W Bush. Recently, Obama's speech in the Cairo University, where he quoted from the holy Quran and addressed diverse audiences that included members of controversial but influential Egyptian Muslim brotherhoods, is a step forward to boost the understanding between Muslim World and the West.
   The situation is almost similar in Bangladesh when we see a section of Bangladeshis are committing suicide to kill fellow Bangladeshis in the name of Islam. But apart from seeking assistance from Western security agencies, i.e CIA, FBI, MI5, are we experiencing enough researches to address issues such as the source of origin and pattern of modus operandi of these types of organizations? It is necessary to understand what are dynamics in the society that fosters expansion of extremist organizations? Outright cracking down on these parties is never going to be of enough help. In this regard, we need to remember the power of a pen is always mightier than sword. Therefore, there is no alternative but to conduct research at university level as well as by the established think-tanks in the country on the issues of extremism.
   In Bangladesh, Islamic education at graduate and postgraduate level should break the barrier of traditional curriculum and focus should be on researches that will deal more critically with many issues of the social sciences starting from governance, culture, education, communication and so forth. Similarly, academics from other disciplines notably history, communication, political science and international relations should seriously think critically about west-dominated theories such as clash of civilizations
   Finally, the government must take an effective agenda of promoting comprehensive research programme to understand the dynamics of Islamic fundamentalism and militant extremists in Bangladesh. In that regard, a good amount of fund should be allocated for the universities and research organization.
   mubashar.hasan.08@aberdeen.ac.uk

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Agriculture: Foreigners lead
global land rush

Stephen Leahy in Alaska Acacia Savannah in Zanzibar

Acacia Savannah in Zanzibar More than 20 million hectares of farmland in Africa and Latin America are now in the hands of foreign governments and companies, a sign of a global "land grab" that got a boost from last year's food crisis.
    Rich countries that are short on land or water at home are looking to secure food-producing lands elsewhere as a way to ensure food security for their populations, said Joachim von Braun, director of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
   "There is a major lack of transparency in these land deals," von Braun said in a telephone press conference from Washington.
   The IFPRI study, "'Land Grabbing' by Foreign Investors in Developing Countries," by von Braun and Ruth Meinzen-Dick, which was presented last week, estimates that 15 to 20 million hectares have been acquired or are in the process of being sold.
   Von Braun pointed out that this is equivalent to about 25 percent of all the farmland in Europe.
   Because hard data is difficult to come by - the study was based primarily on information from press reports - IFPRI conservatively estimates that the deals represent 20 to 30 billion dollars being invested by China, South Korea, India and the Gulf States, mainly in Africa.
   "About one-quarter of these investments are for biofuel plantations," von Braun said.
   China started leasing land for food production in Cuba and Mexico 10 years ago and has extensive holdings in Africa, including pending or attempted deals for millions of hectares in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, and Tanzania, with many thousands of Chinese workers brought in to work on these lands, according to the report.
   The largest foreign ownership or control of African farmland is in Sudan - in this case a group of Gulf States, including Saudi Arabia. Last year, the United Arab Emirates negotiated several farmland deals with Pakistan. Qatar has agricultural land in Indonesia, the Philippines, Bahrain, Kuwait and Burma.
   The huge Korean company Daewoo Logistics Corporation signed a deal to lease 1.3 million hectares in Madagascar to grow maize and oil palm, which reportedly played a role in the political conflicts that led to the overthrow of the government in 2009, the report noted.
   "The number of land deals is much higher than the IFPRI numbers. No one is monitoring all the private land deals," says Devlin Kuyek, a researcher at GRAIN, a Barcelona-based non-governmental organisation dedicated to global agricultural issues.
   GRAIN published its own "Land Grab" report six months ago, concluding that rich countries are buying poor countries' soil fertility, water and sun to ship food and fuel back home, in a kind of neo-colonial dynamic.
   Kuyek told Tierramérica that this 21st-century land rush is driven in part by countries that no longer want to be held hostage by the big, multinational food trading companies.
   But increasingly the private capital is coming from pension funds, which are staking their bets on farmland as the next profitable commodity to invest in after the collapse of the global stocks and financial sector and continuing weak prices for oil and metals.
   "A huge chunk of the Australian cattle industry is now owned by a private equity firm. The two biggest pork producers in China are owned by Goldman Sachs (a private investment firm)," Kuyek said.
   As a result, he noted, ranchers and farmers have turned into employees.
   But it could be far worse than that for hundreds of millions of small landholders, pastoralists and indigenous people who do not hold formal land titles, because they are at risk of being driven off their land, he said.
   Most of African farmland is under local customary land holding, without formal land title, acknowledges IFPRI researcher Meinzen-Dick.
   "When outsiders come they don't recognise those customary land rights. Such rights must be respected," she told Tierramérica.
   IFPRI is calling on the international community to develop a code of conduct that would uphold local peoples' rights to their land, guarantee transparency, share benefits, foment environmentally sustainable production and ensure local food security.
   Von Braun sees great potential in such land deals because they bring badly needed capital to the agricultural sectors of poor countries, contributing to infrastructure and research. "China is creating several research stations in Africa to boost yields in rice and grain," he said.
   Kuyek disagrees: "These investments are not about agricultural development. This is all about making money and shipping food back to home markets."
   Food processing companies and even food retailers are involved in this because they are anxious to ensure "security of supply" as efficiently as possible, says Janice Jiggins, of the International Institute for the Environment and Development, in London. One of the world's biggest banks, the Netherlands' Rabobank, is one of the main financiers for these kinds of deals, Jiggins told Tierramérica via e-mail.
   The 2009 report from the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Food Sovereignty, Olivier de Scutter, detailed the legal implications of the farmland deals, warning that they completely override existing rights, enshrined in laws, constitutions, and customs, Jiggins wrote.
   (*This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.)
   Inter Press Service

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