It will take Haryana quite some time to recover from the painful events it has just witnessed. The Chief Minister may be living in delusion if he thinks an investor summit would bring back private investment and send out a signal of normalcy. The top priority at this critical juncture is not wooing investment but restoring public faith in the rule of law. The trauma that the state has undergone during the 10-day Jat agitation cannot be allowed to be forgotten and forgiven without bringing those guilty of acts of commission and omission to justice. It is a tough job. Identifying faceless criminals who caused death and destruction will not be easy. Rape victims may be too scared to come forwards to testify. Even in normal times the way the Haryana police functions does not inspire much confidence. Since tempers have cooled and a semblance of law and order has been restored, it is time to take a hard look at what went wrong and who was sleeping at the wheel. Since the entire state machinery broke down and people of the state were left to fend for themselves for days together as rampaging mobs had a free run, an inquiry to be held by the same set of people under the same administration will clearly lack credibility. For the first time Haryana stands divided between Jats and non-Jats. The Cabinet itself is split with ministers saying they are not aware what is going on and who is deciding what. The Centre has either remained a mute spectator or the little intervention it made was woefully inadequate. Post-destruction too, the government seems clueless as to what needs to be done. A few suspensions here and there are not enough. Actually, the state administration has a vested interest in a cover-up. Since the Punjab and Haryana High Court has taken note of the Murthal rapes, it should constitute a special investigation team (SIT) of the CBI and monitor its investigation to deliver time-bound justice. The Khattar government itself has a lot to answer and a lot to cover up. A fair and impartial probe is the last thing one would expect it to do.
Let there be no more denials for ‘mobocracy’
he violence in Haryana is a setback to the ideas of peace, hard-work and values. In addition to an impartial probe, an intellectual audit is needed to find out why the situation crossed the boiling point of social order.
The fear-psychosis due to the mayhem far exceeded the impact of Dinanagar or Pathankot terror strikes.
The hard-hitting reality is that the last nail in the coffin has been pierced through the heartland of Haryana. Its air has got choked with the smothering ashes of pain, flames, resentments and deep anguish, thus furthering the ever-increasing historical gap between the Jats and non-Jats in the political, social and cultural landscape of the State which is already quite notorious for its diktats of ‘khap panchayats’ and the remarkably low-sex ratios.In the words of layman’s analysis, Haryana has been critically paralysed, destroyed and decimated like never before. India stands shocked and surgically numb over the stark fact that the State has been engulfed by politically venomous propaganda and mercilessly razed to the ground. Sadly, this devilish act has been done, not by any outside non-state actor or terrorist. The destruction has been choreographed and performed by the legally domiciled inhabitants of the State itself. It will not be far-fetched to declare that the trail of damage and fear-psychosis which has gripped the collective conscience has far exceeded the impact caused by recent terror attacks, whether in Dinanagar or Pathankot. Today, a mind-boggling debate rages on as to whether the country needs to be fearful of being attacked by external forces or be more cautious of being demolished from within by its own inimical hostilities. The concerns are not without any basis as the common man has actually lost hope in the laws of the land. Death, destruction and devastation cannot be rationalised or justified by any means. On the face of it, the endemic issue seemed to be revolving around the demand by ‘Jats’ for reservation. But it actually turned out to be a free-for-all ‘goondaism’ and brazen anarchy, with hooligans, arsonists and hoodlums creating havoc akin to the flames of demonising hell. The gory images carried by the media of burnt business houses, vandalised malls and car-showrooms gutted in fire sends chills down the spine of any human being who believes and practices the ideas of peace, hard-work, sincerity of virtues and values. The public perception is that an orchestrated scheme of savage style brutality was unleashed to pull back Haryana into the pre-ancient times. Indeed, the state has backpedalled in terms of progress and it will take real painstaking years of new hardships to again achieve any desired levels of reasonable development. The decision involving merits versus demerits of demand for reservation by the ‘Jat community’ can be discussed, debated and dissected at length by a plethora of well-educated scholars, legal luminaries, and constitutional experts, but the real question by every citizen of this nation which begs for an honest answer is that whether mobs, unruly violence and anarchism plays a decisive role in drafting and finalizing the crucial policymaking key decisions of our country’s future. Is the national security, citizen’s welfare, protection and prosperity so easy to be violated and prone to being breached at anyone’s sundry will of perceived disillusionment?The common man on the street simply wants to know if there actually exists any prevalent working mechanism to successfully prevent and stop the national prestige, life and property from getting bruised, beaten and tortured time and again at the cruel hands of nonsensical vested interests resorting to unmindful blockades, protests and agitations. The voice of the nation wants to know whether something similar happened in Haryana akin to the mini-1984 riots or Godhra carnage? The comparisons are obvious. The state machinery was brought on its knees, the law and order took an unexpected beating, the national highway was hijacked, road and rail networks obstructed, airlines reaped bumper profits, water-taps in Delhi ran dry, and to add salt to the national wound, reports of rapes and molestations surfaced which bombarded our trust and immense faith in the spirit of legislature, executive and judiciary. No matter how reasonable anybody’s demands are, resorting to such inexplicable proportions of violence, looting and arson for securing the ends amounts to ‘mobocracy’ and not democracy. The dangerous levels of destruction unleashed by agitators in Haryana is a blot on the nation’s psyche as a whole, whereby immeasurable losses caused to human life, public and private property, have to be borne by the state from the treasury of its law-abiding taxpayer’s pockets. The Supreme Court has rightly asked the concerned quarters to detail out the modalities for recovering the losses from the protesters as a part of its efforts to prevent any such blatant acts in the near future. Apart from this financial assessment, an intellectual audit is also needed to understand the reasons as to why the situation crossed the boiling point of reconciliation. The role of police and others responsible for containing violence needs to be probed effectively and accountability fixed for any dereliction of duty within the defined boundaries of law. Also, a hunt needs to be launched on a war-footing for tracing persons who incited as well as participated in the mob violence for meting out an exemplary punishment for their calculated misdeeds. It also requires a mention that the Army cannot be reduced to just controlling mobs; it has its own demarcated criteria of operations. The requirement is to make the State police forces as well as the concerned paramilitary forces self-sufficient in dealing with any emerging law and order situations of volatility. The Prevention of Damage to Public Property Ac, 1984, also needs to given more teeth to act as a formidable deterrent.This is not an occasion to score brownie points and indulge in political games of vendetta. We need to collectively nurse the broken spirit of Haryana and resuscitate the shattered hopes of the nation. By the way, is there anyone still wondering as to why no one is ready to invest in Haryana anymore?The writer is a senior Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) in Punjab Government
Suicidal path
Badal govt selling public land like there is no tomorrow
Farmers on the brink in Punjab look to the government for help. The government, unfortunately, is no better than them; broke. Under such unmanageable debt that it is hard to pay even the interest. Credit worthiness is so low that banks are refusing to give loans to its development and infrastructure agencies. To somehow still carry on the charade of administration and development, the SAD-BJP government has all through its second term been executing a nefarious plan of selling off public property — just like that. It takes extraordinary boldness to come up with a ‘development plan’ based almost entirely on auctioning the state’s assets. What is worse, the money is not being all spent on development. A significant chunk of the proceeds is going into paying salaries, which are still not paid regularly.The ever-mounting debt of the state has shown no sign of easing during the Badals’ two terms. Among the major reasons for this ‘mismanagement’ is the massive unwarranted expense on the fleet of ministers with a taste for luxury. Perpetually on overdraft with the RBI, the Chief Minister personally goes around literally showering benefits on political and social constituencies, as was seen last in the Khadoor Sahib byelection. This amounts to using public money to bribe the voter. The surge in ‘development’ planned in the last year of the government is also just that. Public land is meant for future requirements of public facilities and infrastructure. The assets being sold cannot be recreated.Unfortunately for the SAD, which had been hoping for a debt waiver from the ally BJP at the Centre, what has come Punjab’s way is only a cut in the Centre’s contribution to most social sector expenditures, including education. The land sale worth thousands of crores could well be the biggest scandal in the state. No one, however, is speaking up because no private interest is immediately hurt. In the long term, however, the state will not only have a nearly unserviceable debt, but also no assets to mortgage.http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/editorials/suicidal-path/202360.html
