ROUND-UP OF REGIONAL NEWS

The Great Fall

SHE DOES IT. Most of the Madams do it, and the rest of the Begums imitate them. That is, how Benazir Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan, first sets and then lets her dupatta (head scarf) fall. These days, it has become fashionable among the conservative female elite of the country to similarly cover and uncover their heads while attending receptions, talking to dignitaries, and speaking on the mike at seminars and symposia.

More, and more, the falling of the dupatta, requiring intermittent readjustment, is beginning to seem like a deliberate gesture meant to project grace. Whatever the case, the dupatta is in vogue in Pakistan.

More than a decade ago, Gen Zia-ul Haq, not happy with the uncovered heads of women on state television and at public functions, ordered them to use the head scarf. Apart from TV personalities, the early victims were wives of ministers, government secretaries, and lady officials. Although there were no "cover-your-head" orders under Nawaz Shard., the trend continued.

When Benazir took over and the new "liberated TV" started airing glamorous programmes, all the madams and begums let off a sigh of relief. They could now fling the dupatta deep into the almirah. But alas! Nothing changed. Keeping the conservative vote in mind, the "most Westernised woman" in Pakistan herself took to the dupatta, and for good measure picked up a string of prayer beads.

"The dupatta is like a bahiat (leftover) from the Zia era, like the Zia men who remain her ministers and governors," says a Lahore journalist. His analysis of the gesture with the scarf: "The fall of BB's dupatta shows Benazir's Westernised past and the immediate action of refixing it her present, meant to appease the fault-finding clergy."

According to Sindhi tradition the woman who vows to avenge some misdeed done to her, wears a white dupatta until she fulfills her promise. "She has worn it all along and it shows that her revenge is not yet over," chuckles the hack.

Says another, more fashion-minded, colleague: "Certainly this is the only part of her dress which looks graceful. Otherwise the clothes she wears are awesome. The colour combination certainly fails to bring her to the ranks of one of the smartest daughters of the East."

Well, as long as the dupatta is in place…

– Arif Shamim

Bangla Route to the Sea

TAKING ADVANTAGE OF India's newfound magnanimity towards its smaller neighbours, Nepal's Foreign Minister Prakash Chandra Lohani returned from New Delhi recently bearing a prize: an agreement on a route to the sea through India into Bangladesh. Or so he claimed.

However, the fine print in the joint communique was not as forthcoming. It states that "in principle… Government of India will facilitate an overland transit route through and to Bangladesh." "It is the 'in principle' bit that has us perplexed," says a South Block-watcher in Kathmandu.

Access to Bangladesh through the Indian chicken-neck is something that Kathmandu has been asking of New Delhi for decades. Besides reducing the distance to the sea, Nepal also hopes that Calcutta's notoriously inefficient port authority will wake up to the competition.

If South Block is not merely playing with words, then, according to the plan, Nepal's new route to the sea would go from the southeastern border point of Kakarbhitta through Naxalbari and Siliguri to Phulbari on the India-Bangladesh border.

On the other side is Bangabandh, from where a wide and well-maintained highway built during Gen Ershad's rule leads down past the North Bengal towns of Bogura and Shajahadpur to Bagahabari, where there is a jetty on a tributary coming off the Brahmaputra (here known as the Jamuna). With a little bit of dredging, it is said, the jetty can handle ocean-going cargo vessels even though today it only services barges with low draft.

In future times, not only Nepal but all of Assam and Bhutan might take advantage of this easy connection to the high seas. Siligun would then become the staging point, and it is not impossible that a time will come when this sleepy jetty will serve as a port for Tibet. Times change, and things happen.

Virtual Vitriol

THE SUBCONT1NENT's bumpy ride into the digital superhighway is integrating South Asians as never before. But there is no way to filter out bigotry and distrust from the net. The following exchange on the electronic bulletin board soc. culture. nepal is tame in comparison to some of the flame-outs that occur regularly. The argument is between Anil Tuladhar and Prasanna Vijay Pendse ('jai'), who have obviously been at it for a while.

Tuladhar: Hi Jai. Your repeated posting of the same article without any obvious reasons annoyed me so much that I decided to educate you a bit on the relationship between Nepal and India. Though Nepal is a small country, it has maintained its identity from the time immemorable. When India was slaved by Brits, Nepal was enjoying its freedom and identity. Bir (Brave) Bahadur Shah was able to conquer most of the northern Indian states and extend the borders of Nepal to Tistha, Kagada, Dehradun. Nepal was almost three times bigger than its current size in his time. But you Indians are not well informed of this fact. Some bad historians twisted the facts and wrote useless crap about Nepal and idiots like you kept on believing that Nepal was a small country. Even some Indians think foolishly that it was once a part of India. 1 want you all Indians to understand this fact very clearly that Nepal was NEVER NEVER a part of India but once India was a part of Nepal.

Pendse: While the ones who believe that Nepal was once a part of India are not well informed, the ones that claim that India was once a part of Nepal are pure idiots. Kingdoms in the Indian subcontinent did indeed once stretch into Nepal, but Nepal itself was not a part of India and vice versa. As simple as that. History has gone by, and now all we need to know is that they are, at present, two different countries with different traditions. While India has been a secular democracy, Nepal has been a Hindu Monarchy. 1 am proud of both India and Nepal for keeping their traditions alive in their own ways.

Tuladhar: Jai jee , your dream of integrating all South Asian countries also seems to be possible only if you stop suspecting these petty things like the Pakistani-Nepal pack in destroying India. My proposal is why don't we all get integrated under the auspicious umbrella of Nepal. There are many reasons behind this. Once India was a part of Nepal so there should be no hesitation to accept this fact again. Further, Nepal has been known as a zone of peace so coming under its hood will protect you crazy nuts from nuclear holocust. We all will be called Nepalis who have maintained comparatively better image than you (Indians). You will not have to feel sorry for the fault of your poor ancestors.

Pendse: Granted Pakistani-Nepal pack (pact?) does not tickle my fancy, a United South Asia (if it ever happens) should be "under the umbrella" of nothing other than South Asia as a whole. It should not be a form of Nations "squished" into one, instead, they should be a way of learning each other's cultures and a better understanding of how each other behave, and hence a better understanding of oneself. I personally would love to see South Asia, or even the whole world unite. But the mentality of hatred towards each other based on differences instead of interest and appreciation makes this impractical.

Tuladhar: 'nuff said.

Global Warning from the Himalaya

THIS MAY COME as good news for the dhabawalas of Gangotri, at the headwaters of the Ganga, who have been blamed by some scientists for the retreat of the Gangotri Glacier. The 600 metres by which the glacier has receded in the last 50 years is more a result of global warming, it seems, than the heat from dhaba cooking stoves.

The proof comes from the fact that villagers living in the central Nepal hills have witnessed a similar phenomenon taking place with glaciers in their vicinity. And there are no pilgrim eateries here to take the heat.

The Gangapurna glacier lies face to face with the village of Manang and, according to old-timers, it has retreated more than 150 metres over their lifetime. "There used to be large avalanches in the past in the glacier which used to bring a rush of air and powder snow down to the village. But that does not happen any more," says Tendorje Gurung, the village head. "When we were young, we used to cross the glacier to get to the other side, but now a deep gorge has formed and it is not possible to cross over."

As perplexing to village elders has been the decrease in the volume of water in the stream that descends from the base of the nearby Chulu Peak. Water from the spring used to irrigate all the village fields. But even when out-migration has caused much of the agricultural land to remain fallow, the water is not enough.

Min Bahadur Gurung of Ghandruk village has also noticed that the glaciers near his home village are not what they used to be. "When I was young, I used to go hunting for the Himalayan thar around the foothills of Annapurna. I had no problems crossing glaciers from one bank to another. But now the glaciers have shrunk, and the banks have eroded."

Even though they have never heard of global warming and its potentially disastrous consequences, these villagers of central Nepal sense that something is amiss. They imagine that some day all the snow on the mountains will disappear, bringing an end to agriculture, which depends so heavily on water from snow-fed streams. Pastures, too, will disappear, putting an end to livestock rearing.

The observations of these earthy villagers are not very dissimilar to those expressed by learned scientists. But while for the latter it is more often a matter of academic discourse, those who live up in the mountains are expressing concern about a global phenomenon which actually affects their livelihood.

– Gehendra Gurung

Mr Human Development

MAHBUB UL HAQ made a sudden splash a few months ago when he called for a South Asian detente with speeches before think tanks and articles in the Pakistani and Indian press. In Pakistan, his "coming out" attracted brickbats from those unwilling to forgive his "past" as Minister of Finance under Gen Zia-ul Haq and his various other supposed misdemeanours.

And then there was silence, as if Mr Haq had decided that the slug fest was too bruising. Had he given up on his South Asian crusade?

Far from it, Himal South Asia found out when we decided to visit Mr Haq's office in a quiet Islamabad residential neighbourhood. The former Finance Minister and progenitor of UNDP's Human Development Report was very much on top of things as President of the Human Development Centre he has just activated, with a slew of international luminaries on its advisory board, including Maunce Strong, Oscar Arias Sanchez, Meghnad Desai, Nafis Sadik and Olusegun Abasanjo.

His First Report on Human Development in South Asia, being published by the Oxford University Press, will be out by the end of the year to be launched in each country of the region. Designed along the lines of the global Human Development Reports, Mr Haq hopes to impress the forthcoming SAARC Summit (in March in Male) about t he urgency of the situation in South Asia.

Says Mr Haq: "The report, which will be an annual affair, will discuss the challenge of human development in South Asia and develop concrete policy options to upgrade the human capital of the region."

The Human Development Centre is also up to several other activities. Mr Haq is setting up a South Asia Commission, to be made up of eminent personalities from all the various regional countries. In 1998, it will publish a report to be called The Asian Challenge. Marking the 30 years after Gunnar Myrdal's ground-breaking Asian Drama, it will "throw a challenge to Asian intellectuals on how they plan to tackle the 21st century."

Mr Haq has no doubt that if "human development" is given due priority, "South Asia will emerge as the dynamic engine of development of the 21st century." This requires a regional compact for human development, and a "dialogue for detente" in South Asia. "The objective will be to remove poverty of opportunity, not just poverty of income," he adds.

That is not all. Mr Haq also has plans to publish a Human Development Journal as a quarterly, starting sometime in 1997. This one will look at the globe rather than restrict itself to South Asia. Also on the cards is a regional Human Development Society, along the lines of the Society for International Development (SID), which will involve a couple of hundred opinion-makers who can make it a movement.

"The idea is to take a look at the entire South Asian context through a few qualitative initiatives," says Mr Haq. More than a few, actually.

God Save the Beeb

THE OCTOBER "clock change" when it shifts from British Summer Time to GMT is also when the British Broadcasting Corporation normally carries out drastic changes such as sacking staff or dropping programmes. This October, one departure will involve the cancellation of South Asia Report.

An internal memo from BBC Director General John Birt states that the English listenership volume in the Subcontinent does not justify continuing with the programme. If South Asia and its teeming English-literate millions do not provide enough listeners to the BBC, then it is hard to imagine which other region or country, including Her Majesty's own Great Britain, does.

According to one Bush House insider who wished to remain anonymous, the termination of South Asia Report is part of the slash-and-burn Mr Birt plans with blessings from the corporation's Board of Governors. He also proposes to merge BBC radio's international and domestic services—which is being fought tooth and nail in a Save-the- Beeb campaign being led by the Guardian newspaper, and which includes South Asip's own Mark Tully.

BBC World Servicers fear that the merger will destroy the credibility which is the international trademark of their station. Under Mr Birt's agenda, world news would invariably be targeted to a domestic British audience rather than an international listenership, and the BBC would no longer be the source of objective news end information to the world, which is the function it has carried out since the end of the Second World War.

"Unfortunately, Mr Birt and his cohorts do not understand the nature of the institution which they propose to dismantle with such ease," says the BBC source. "You cannot apply Thatcherite austerity measures on a news organisation like the BBC."

The hatchet came down swiftly enough on South Asia Report, with less than 24 hours' notice, reportedly given to Sam Younger, Managing Director of BBC World Service Radio, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which actually funds World Service Radio. (Domestic BBC is run from licence fees.)

Says a South Asian journalist who reported for the World Service in the 1980s: "The BBC was a pioneer in popularising the use of the term 'South Asia' in the media. It is ironic that even as South Asians themselves are beginning to use the term, the BBC is pulling the plug on South Asia Report."

Peaceniks Fail To Connect

ON THE NIGHT of 14 August, about 50 Indian human rights activists gathered at the Indo-Pakistan border point at Wagah near Amritsar and held a midnight vigil to mark the 50th anniversary of Partition with a call for peace and amity.

The trouble was, someone forgot to tell the Pakistanis in time. And so there was only darkness on the other side, no candles. One fallout of the affair was that the Pakistan government once again got a bad name in the Indian press, for presumably having prohibited a gesture for peace. Pakistani activists, however, say that they were not told of the planned vigil by their Indian colleagues in time to mount "an appropriate response".

Elder journalist, former Ambassador and Indo-Pakistan peacenik Kuldip Nayar apparently remembers telling Pakistani human rights crusader Asma Jehangir about the plans for the vigil. Ms Jehangir says she does not remember anything that specific.

On 8 August, while Ms Jehangir was overseas, one of the Pakistani members of the lndo-Pakistan People's Forum saw a Delhi-datelined Dawn report on the proposed programme. Time was short, and the Pakistani activists sent a letter to the Ministry of Interior asking to be allowed to he at the border at the appointed time. They also promised in the letter to make demands for stopping human rights violations in Kashmir, and so on.

However, time was short, a weekend intervened, and the activists were unable to get the required permission. Unlike on the Indian side, a kilometre before the border on the Pakistani side is normally out of bounds at night-time, and there has been heightened security in Pakistani Punjab after a series of unexplained bomb blasts in public places.

So, there were candles only on one side of Wagah. There is always next year.

Railing at the Lahore Club

THOSE GATHERED at the Wagah checkpost on the night of 14 August, wrote_ analyst Swapan Dasgupta derisively in The Indian Express, were "a handful of busybodies" pushing for a "contrived sense of subcontinental brotherhood".

In a larger part, Mr Dasgupta's piece was a reaction to the dovish posture of what he calls "the Lahore club", among whose front ranks he places Indian Foreign Minister I. K. Gujral. Mr Dasgupta's sharply worded article, titled "Carry on from Wagah: Lahore Club in Power", seemed to flag the domestic Indian reaction to the dovish posture held out by Mr Gujral and his soft-spoken coterie in South Block.

While maintaining a lonely hawkish posture on the matter of the CTBT and nuclear disarmament, Mr Gujral has more than once since the United Front Government came to power made cooing noises towards India's neighbours. He says he does not expect "reciprocity" for extending the olive branch, and that he is willing to give more than he receives. Pakistan's response has been wary, and complicated by the Kashmir elections, but with other neighbours India's relations seem to be on the mend under Mr Gujral's watch.

With Nepal, although Mr Gujral went against his own earlier well-known stand on the Lhotshampa issue and has refused to bring pressure to bear on Bhutan to take the refugees back, there were significant concessions provided to Kathmandu, including easing of restrictions on exports to India and willingness to allow access to the sea via Bangladesh. With Bangladesh, opening up of the sluices at Farakka seems a real possibility, and there are also agreements which will improve Bangladesh's trade balance with India.

Mr Dasgupta might well countenance these hands held out to the smaller neighbours, but he sees red when Mr Gujral seeks Indo-Pak reconciliation. The Indian Foreign Minister seems not to understand "the traumatic parting of ways in 1947" which according to Mr Dasgupta was a "civilisational rupture".

The Lahore club, he writes, is "an influential lobby which, by an accident of history, has been catapulted into positions of authority. They determine India's foreign policy in the Deve Gowda Government." And what is dangerous is that the club members "nurtures a secret irredentism" which goes back to memories of pre-1947 college-days in Lahore. They seek to refashion India "in line with Jinnah's constitutionalist fantasies–India as a loosest of confederations."

The writer ends his column with: "The answer to Pakistani cussedness does not lie in being wilfully rude and offensive. It lies in not being importunate and thrusting brotherhood on unwilling souls. It lies in acknowledging the logic of Partition and recognising its finality. It lies in looking at Pakistan, not as an estranged brother, but as a difficult neighbour."

Now, Now, No Pointing Fingers

AFTER DECADES OF sleeping over the subject, trafficking of women from Nepal to India is finally getting the attention of activists, in both countries. And if controversy is indication that people are seized with an issue, then the matter of taking responsibility for Nepali prostitutes in India raised its share of hackles earlier this month in Stockholm.

Nepali NGOs, while generally critical of their own government's inactivity regarding the "export" of sex workers, insist that there is a lot that the Indian government can do on its own For example, they state, even though brothel, are illegal in India the authorities do nothing to make it difficult to operate them. As a result, they continue to run as traps for young women from the hills of Nepal and other poverty-stricken regions.

Many Indian NGO workers active in the field, however, do not entirely agree with this contention. Since it is economic necessity that forces the Nepali women to the "cages" of Bombay, the focus of governments and activists alike must pay attention to raising the quality of life in the exporting hill communities. It is unrealistic to think that action against Indian brothels will reduce the demand for sex workers, they contend.

It was these views that saw expression at the World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, held in Stockholm. Taking the case of the 218 Nepali girls who had been "rescued" from Bombay brothels by the Maharashtra authorities earlier this year and were recently repatriated to Kathmandu (see HSA, August 1996), Kathmandu-based social workers protested that Indian authorities were taking the expedient route of returning AIDs-infected prostitutes back to Nepal. "This is akin to dumping," said one Nepali organiser. "These prostitutes seem to become a problem only after they are identified with HIV, and not while they are providing safe sex to their Bombay clientele."

In Stockholm, with the Nepali NGOs making much noise, their Indian counterparts remonstrated that an international forum was not the right place to bring up bilateral matters. There was a verbal duel between the two sides, who otherwise work closely on the ground. The Indian side also resented that the Nepali NGOs went ahead and brought out their own press release, whereas the joint SAARC NGO statement should have sufficed. In their press release, the Nepalis, among other things, had demanded that the two governments include the issue of trafficking on their bilateral agenda, something which has never been done.

The war of words, obviously, did not lead to a solution and might even have created a small but significant divide on a critically important humanitarian issue. The wise words on this particular episode between the feuding neighbours came from a Sri Lankan delegate, as reported in The Indian Express: "Nepal should set its house in order, educate its young people, protect those who are victims of mass poverty and ecological devastation. Just as India should. When you start pointing a finger, you forget that four fingers can be pointed back to you."