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Between the Lines
Intelligence agencies run Indian politics
By Kuldip NayarChecking antecedents of officers is nothing new. Air Force Chief S. K. Sareen felt unnecessarily embarrassed when a clueless policeman landed in Dehra Dun to check his background with his father. Someone at the office of the Prime Minister messed up things. Otherwise, the Intelligence Bureau is all the time keeping surveillance on top military and civil brass.
The real problem is about new entrants to government. Police have to check the antecedents of all those who are selected through competitive examinations or through interviews by the Union Public Service Commission. Some of the selected have been rejected on the basis of police report.
The guidelines for verification are: ~In order to ensure that persons in government service are loyal upright and impartial, it is necessary for the government to exercise discretion in the matter of appointments with a view to seeing those persons who are likely to abuse the confidence placed in them are not appointed to public service. The appointing authority has also to satisfy itself that the candidate is in all respects suitable for appointment to the service or post in question."
So far those belonging to radical and religious organisations have been blocked. The Naxalites, the RSS members and the Jamaat-e-Islami supporters have been black balled invariably. In fact, India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru intervened in the cases of two candidates who had been rejected by police for their connection with the Students’ Federation, a communist outfit.
The "Undesirable elements," according to officials sources, "are those (a) who are, or have been members of, or associated with anybody or association declared unlawful after it was so declared or (b) who have participated in, or associated with, any activity or programme (1) aimed at the subversion of the constitution, (2) aimed at the organised defiance of the law involving violence (3) prejudicial to the interests of sovereignty and integrity of India or the security of the State, or (4) which promotes, on grounds of religion, race, language, caste or community, feelings of enmity or hatred between different sections of the people."
Till the other day, the "progressives" were regarded as subversive elements. The Congress governments felt that the RSS connection was a bad mark against a candidate. I do not know what are the instructions after L. K. Advani has become the Home Minister. The IB is under his ministry. The guidelines are so vague that they can be interpreted differently by appointing authorities. Not long ago, three IAS recruits joined their training course at Mussoorie a few months late because their past association had raised doubts about them in the Home Ministry.
It looks as if there is too much emphasis on political leanings. In fact, the whole process of police verification is subjective. Besides, what happens to a person who at the time of verification is "all right" but becomes "undesirable" after completing his probation? It is necessary that a commission or parliamentary committee should be appointed to look into the process of checking. It should also examine the cost of intelligence. Funds for such work, rightly or wrongly, are not subject to public scrutiny. But there must be some way of knowing whether the money is well spent. There have been instances where an informant has collected payment from more than one organisation by supplying the same information.
The RAW is doing its job abroad and the IB within the country. Their secret funds are never disclosed. As India’s High Commissioner in London, I never knew what RAW was spending and where. Over the years, even the credibility of the two agencies has become a question mark. Politicians use them and it has come to be accepted as a legitimate practice. The IB’s counterpart in the states is probably the most abused institution because it is employed to harass the critics and opponents and to concoct cases against them. The bulk of work by the agencies even at the Centre is to find out which politician is meeting whom and talking what. Dissenters within the ruling party are no exception. Attorney General Soli Sorabjee has said, "an intelligence report should be taken with the pinch of salt."
Rajiv Gandhi would use RAW to check the antecedents of Congress candidates before elections. Some did not get the ticket because the agency did not give them a clean chit. He also used the intelligence agencies to find out how the polls would go. The IB claims that it told Mrs. Indira Gandhi in 1976 that if she were to hold elections, Congress would lose. I do not know how far it correct because her remark after the polls was that the IB let her down by telling that she would win.
The intelligence agencies have now got so deeply involved in domestic politics that they have unchecked access at the top. IB chief walks into the Prime Minister’s room straightaway. They talk about politics. So do the intelligence chiefs in the states. I would not be surprised if Vajpayee keeps a tab on their senior colleagues. During the Gujral regime, former Prime Minister Deve Gowda said publicly that his telephone was tapped and that the CID checked on his movements. Chandra Shekhar made a similar allegation when V. P. Singh was the Prime Minister. The CBI probe, however, showed that it was not true. Nobody knows the truth. One intelligence agency going into the allegations against another is bound to protect H. Many sleuths are transferred from CBI to IB or the other way round. After all, they are part of the same establishment.
India has not found an Aslam Beg yet. The retired chief of army staff in Pakistan claimed on solemn oath before the Supreme Court of that country last year that ISI was involved in the domestic politics of Pakistan. He said that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto created a special cell in 1975 "to collect truth and distort the record of the operations of the military intelligence agencies since independence." Bhutto probably did not want the truth of Islamabad’s debacle in Bangladesh to come out.
The late President Giani Zaii Singh told me more than once that his telephones at Rashtrapati Bhavan were tapped. It is an open secret that Rajiv Gandhi kept a check on visitors to the President’s house. Those were the days when the insurgency in Punjab was at its height and when poor Giani’s name was dragged for political gains. That was also the time when the Giani had before him the petition from George Fernandes and Rajinder Puri, seeking permission to sue Rajiv Gandhi in a court of law.
In fact, there is a larger question involved. A person considered dangerous in a particular regime may be having such beliefs as are not liked by those who are in power. In other words, the antecedents can become acceptable when a different government is sworn in. Critics of yesterday are rulers of today. There is a case to ponder over the mode of checking. No method is correct per se. Should a brilliant candidate be rejected because he held particular view at a particular time? And then what about politicians who are all the time being followed by the intelligence agencies because of their importance in public life?
Intelligence agencies’ defence is that since there is hardly any significant political activity, domestic or foreign, national or international, which does not impinge on national security, their activities are justified. This may be true as an argument. But at present they look like running our politics. — (EOM)
The First Few Years
A statistical comparison of the economic performance of three governments under executive presidency
by Professor C.M. Madduma Bandara, University of PeradeniyaThe first four years of any democratically elected government represents two-third of the period of its legitimate tenure of office. It is therefore, natural that a public debate had ensued regarding the performance of the government presently in office. However, it is distressing to note the absence of any objectivity in the statements often made, which are purely of a political nature. The inherent difficulties in the measurement of performance of governments is compounded by the indiscriminate use of mass media by the politicians in power that tends to confuse the public mind - a situation that becomes ideal to exercise power without accountability or social responsibility. In the modern society, the running of a government, if greater efficiency is to be achieved, has to be based on principles similar to those of managing business enterprises. As the old saying goes, for forms of government let fools contest; whatever is administered best is best’.
Objective
The primary objective of this note is to stress the need for and highlight the importance of developing objective criteria for the complex task of assessment of the performance of governments. The technique adopted here is simple to make it convenient to the reader, and therefore, no claim is made that it is the most perfect. There are certainly many ways of improving upon it.It is now widely felt that in general terms, the policies adopted by the present government are not fundamentally different from those of the previous government. In many spheres, the continuation of same programmes often under different banners and titles, is now abundantly clear. Even in the tactics adopted there appear to be hardly any difference, as could be seen in the blatant and biased use of state controlled media, in election frauds and in the ruthless suppression of any opposition or deviant points of view. This broad parallelism between the regimes that ruled since the introduction of the executive presidency, for which the present government is also now badly addicted, provides a common basis for comparison. It is therefore, argued that the statistics published primarily by the Central Bank, may prove to be a common platform and a useful index of the relative levels of performance.
It is granted that, sometimes statistics have their own drawbacks and pitfalls. It was not a long time ago that Central Bank Governors were accused of producing their own statistics. If such elements of doubt prevail it may be argued that they too can be common during all regimes. Further the Bank also publishes a vast array of social and economic indicators out of which selection of a suitable set of significant performance measures can pose certain problems. At the same time, the statistics published by the Bank does not include clear indicators regarding many important issues that affect people, such as the management of the war. In this regard one has to resort to other latest publications and sources on the subject. Further, since the latest 1998 statistics are still not fully available, only the first three years performance of each government had to be chosen for this analysis.
The Table of Statistics given here reflects the performance during the first three years of the governments of three elected executive presidents. The 18 indicators chosen here refer to some vital aspects of living and well-being of the people in Sri Lanka, such as the cost of living, wage rates, unemployment, and the resultant level of misery. In an ideal situation the list should have been longer and different weights should have been assigned to more important indicators. Any number of indicators could be accommodated in advanced statistical analyses by the powerful computer facilities of the modern age. It is however, obvious that the selected indicators cover a wide range of issues that seriously affect the people and the country.
Indicator
The simple statistical method adopted here is to compare the statistics of the first year of assuming office with those of the third year. In the column indicating ‘%change’, a plus or a minus value is computed to indicate the achievements or failures. Finally, ‘%change’ values are added up to obtain a ‘cumulative %’ value, which is taken as an indicator of the overall performance under different regimes.As could be seen from the overall performance statistics, the performance during the first few years of two former presidents had been far better than that during the present government. It is interesting to note that the best performance was during the period of the late President R. Premadasa with a leading score of 538. The worst was during the present government which could obtain only 129 points which is less than one fourth of the former. The score for the period of late President J. R Jayewardene i.e. 439 may perhaps seem relatively lower than that expected by some, considering the massive development projects undertaken during the period. Obviously the increase in foreign debt and the misery index has eaten up much of the scores for that period. On the other hand the performance of the Premadasa regime was good all around having only two minus points compared with six minus points for the Jayewardene regime and five minus points for the present government.
Different analysts, some of course with vested interests, may level several criticisms against the technique adopted and the interpretation of its results. One may say that the three periods chosen are not comparable in the context of macro-economic trends or in terms of the status of civil turmoil. In terms of civil disturbances of course, Premadasa period suffered most, both from the problems in the South as well as those in the North, but could forge ahead with a reasonable level of development activity while controlling inflation and unemployment with the assistance of a group of highly competent advisors. The greatest weaknesses in the present government appears to be in the fields of Finance, Agriculture and in the management of War. Two of these subjects come directly within the purview of Her Excellency the President. In particular, the management of the economy without a full pledged Finance Minister, and the poor selection of persons for advisory roles, may account for many minus points. The poor performance in agriculture may largely be due to conflicting policy directions between production and trade which in turn are largely due to the dictates of some external lending and funding agencies. The tourist arrivals on the other hand, reflects the stability and security situation in the country.
Same pattern
An attempt has also been made to compare the first ‘four year’ periods with whatever the statistics available for 1998; but that too indicates generally the same pattern giving an even worse performance scenario for the present government. This leads one to the important question that, despite all state propaganda, whether the country is on a slippery slope in terms of economic performance and whether we are heading for a similar economic disaster as that being experienced now in some South East Asian countries. The warnings and ‘wake up calls’ sounded recently by some knowledgeable persons perhaps indicate that, we may not be too far from an impending catastrophe.
The world economic recession
By Dr. J. B. KelegamaContinued from yesterday
Third the market is unable to provide public goods such as education, health and housing for the majority of the population. Fourth there are macro-economic imbalances such as balance of payments deficits, inflation, currency overvaluation and fluctuations in prices which can only be addressed by state intervention. Finally while free markets may ensure efficient allocation of resources to maximize production, it cannot be allowed to determine how it should be shared. It is the state which has to determine how the pie should be shared for it alone is the instrument which can ensure social justice. It is beyond dispute that the unregulated market creates invidious disparity in income distribution. The fortune of Bill Gates the richest man in America and in the world is equal to the net worth of 106 million poorest Americans. As the World Bank’s John Williamson points out "Plainly, there are some areas in which governments need to play a more active role than people would have said 18 months ago.
State intervention and direct participation in economic activity is a sine qua non for rapid economic and social development and to ensure equitable distribution and social justice. State guidance and state intervention is part of Asia’s tradition and have been a major factor in Asia’s rapid growth. When private enterprise is lacking or weak, the state has perforce to assume the responsibility of building up national capabilities by direct state investment in industry and trade and of building an indigenous entrepreneur class by state intervention such as protection, subsidies, concessional credit, tax incentives and regulation of foreign investment. This is how Japan built its economy; this is how East and South East Asian economies were built - in a framework of a mixed economy which combines the market with state intervention harmoniously.
The current crisis has now forced the Asian countries to resort to direct state intervention in order not to destroy but to improve the market mechanism.
Hong Kong government actively intervened in August 1998 in the stock market for the first time in history and spent more than $ 15 billion to prop up stocks and deny speculators gains from attacking the Hong Kong dollar. The Hong Kong authorities further announced a package of 30 measures to control Hong Kong’s stock and futures exchanges, including a proposal to increase jail terms for illegal shortselling of shares. It also launched a $ 5.7 billion stimulus package interalia to shore up property.
(b) Indonesian government took over nearly all private lenders including the largest of them, Bank Central Asia and continues to operate the state monopoly -BULOG - for the distribution of subsidised food to the population.
(c) Korean authorities are spending over $ 48 billion to assist the banks to wipe out their dead loans and increase their capital.
(d) The Thai govemment has nationalized 6 of the country’s 15 banks and all of its 60 odd finance companies.
(e) Malaysian authorities have pumped funds into 11 large banks and are bailing out major companies.
(f) Japan’s bank reform package of $500 billion envisages the government buying states a nationalizing failed banks and injecting new capital forcibly into most of the country’s 18 major banks this year.
The IMF cannot but connive at the resurrection of state intervention where its own remedies have failed; the takeover of banks and finance houses, for instance, gives overall power to the government to direct and influence all economic activities. The East and South East Asian countries, after all, have achieved rapid economic and social development within the framework of a mixed economy which combined state intervention and the market harmoniously. This paradigm of development is being jettisoned by the IMF and developed countries who plan to substitute for it the free market model with deregulation, liberalization and privatization. It is the view of many Asian economists that such a sudden reversal of development strategy and the replacement of the traditional economic paradigm with an alien one would hinder rather than help these countries to regain their dynamism.
