Cause for Alarm

On September 9 Congress chief and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, who has just been ‘re-elected’ as the party President, made certain valuable observations. She said that while land was needed to build industry, the “land acquisition must be done in a manner that does not result in the loss of large tracts of fertile and productive agricultural land so indispensable to grow foodgrains and feed people.” She further opined that environmental concerns cannot be rejected offhand. She also opined that “if the farmers are deprived of their land-based livelihood, they must be provided with adequate compensation and alternative occupations”.

The difference in emphasis between Sonia’s considered views and the PM’s pronouncements just three days earlier was unmistakable. According to Dr Manmohan Singh, the “only way we can raise our heads above poverty is for more people to be taken out of agriculture”; he had, in the same breath, asserted: “…there has to be a balance. You cannot protect the environment of this country by perpetuating poverty.”

Moreover on the issue of tackling Maoism his statement was noteworthy:
After all, the Naxalite areas happen to be those areas which are the heartland of India’s mineral wealth. Now, if we are not allowed to exploit the mineral resources of this country, I think the growth path... could be adversely affected.

The difference between their utterances was attributable to Sonia’s overriding concern for the aam aadmi who had wholeheartedly voted in favour of her party and the UPA in the Lok Sabha elections of both 2004 and 2009, whereas Dr Manmohan Singh was speaking in defence of corporate India
which had solidly stood behind him through thick and thin. Does this reflect the Congress’ broad all-encompassing character as in the pre-independence days or is it a case of running with the hare and hunting with the hound? There can be no easy answer to this crucial query.

Meanwhile the overall success of the all-India general strike across the country to register the working class and employees’ protest against the unbearable rise in prices is a renewed manifestation of the public resentment over the government’s inability to check the unending price spiral as well as indifference to the woes of the public on this score. The fact that eight central TUs, including the INTUC, gave the strike call was a fresh reminder of the mounting TU unity on this basic issue affecting the toiling masses, the significance of which has been lost on the powers that be including influential sections of the media totally sold out to corporate interests.

As we go to press, the situation in Kashmir has turned even more grave than before.

Both the State and Union governments seem to be at their wits’ and on how to respond to the fast-paced developments in the Valley. CM Omar Abdullah’s request to the Centre for at least a partial withdrawal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) from Kashmir as a concrete step towards offering the necessary healing touch has fallen on deaf ears while the Cabinet Committee on Security is speaking about the ‘need to address the trust-deficit and governance-deficit’ thereby weakening the National Conference, the major pro-India force in the region. This once again reveals the lack of any coherent Kashmir policy at the Centre in this grim scenario.

This is a definite cause for alarm.

September 14 S.C.