Bogus rage over IPL tamasha!

And while St Peter's thieves debate... (ELP, Works, Vol 1)

So, IPL is not only about adrenaline-pumping cricket! Here are some statistics about IPL’s third season: 57 matches, 54 parties, 270 hours of partying and 1,29,600 bottles of beer. And just in case you want to know what happens at these parties (to which, of course, you will never be invited as you don’t belong to the charmed circle of ‘celebrities’ who claim to represent ‘new’ India) check out Friday’s Telegraph which has published a set of photographs on the front page capturing the tide of testosterone that hit Dublin, the happening place at ITC Sonar Bangla in Kolkata, well past the witching hour. Apparently, discarding clothes to the rhythm of Flo Rida’s Right Round is de rigueur to celebrate the completion of an IPL match, in this case between Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals. Why else would KKR opener Chris Gayle and a starlet called Sherlyn Chopra make a public spectacle of themselves?

No, I am not taking a moral position on clothes being dropped at a private party (admittedly in a public place) or 1,29,600 bottles of beer being swigged over 270 hours of partying. What worries me is that such vulgarity should be seen as an indicator of India’s social and economic progress. No less worrisome is the widely held notion that much of young India aspires to a lifestyle stripped of all values, morals and ethics. If this is what globalisation and liberalisation have done to us as a nation, a people, then perhaps the Coca-colonisation of the world is not such a terribly good idea.

Yet, I cannot bring myself to even remotely support, leave alone endorse, the ersatz anger and bogus anguish of our Members of Parliament who have spent the past week debating, discussing and deliberating upon the great cricketing tamasha called IPL. The faux outrage of our politicians over IPL’s alleged financial scandals and scams deserves to be ignored with all the contempt that can be mustered, not least because each statement, every utterance, heard in Parliament reeks of hypocrisy and worse. It ill suits our politicians to be smugly moralistic and pretend self-righteous indignation.

It is laughable to hear, of all people, Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav, whose loot of Bihar is surpassed only by the sacking of Delhi by Nadir Shah, wax eloquent on the need for probity in IPL. Strange as it may sound, he is the president of Bihar Cricket Association. But it’s not strange to hear him demand that IPL should be ‘nationalised’ and Government should manage commercial cricket in the country. He would want that as it would open various avenues of grabbing a slice of the pie that has till now been denied to him. That Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav’s wannabe cricketer son has acquired neither fame nor money via the IPL route is not entirely inconsequential in determining his attitude towards the cricketing enterprise as it exists. Politics can be leveraged to the advantage of kith and kin if an institution belongs to the public sector: Hence the Rashtriya Janata Dal leader’s demand that IPL be ‘nationalised’.

Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav believes, or so he claims, that the alleged mess in IPL’s affairs is the “fallout of a lop-sided policy of promoting a foreign game at the cost of indigenous sports”. That’s very endearingly rustic, but it’s utter nonsense — or, as a friend exclaimed, it’s unadulterated tripe. Kushti and khokho are not exactly spectator sports, or else Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav’s many friends in the corporate sector would have by now done a Lalit K Modi with both. More importantly, the Samajwadi Party leader’s criticism of cricket is as antediluvian as his party’s Lok Sabha election manifesto which promised to abolish English and banish computers from Uttar Pradesh and (if he were to become Prime Minister) the rest of the country.

And then there is the irrepressible leader of the working class, the one and only Gurudas Dasgupta, who is known for his proximity to both trade unions and the managements against whom they stage periodic strikes and agitations, often with disastrous results. “At the root of the problem lies the fact that IPL is laundering black money, it is a caricature of cricket… It is nothing more than organised gamble,” the venerable CPI leader thundered in Parliament. Amazingly, the BJP has embraced the Left’s agenda by demanding that a Joint Parliamentary Committee be set up to probe, of all things, the shenanigans of IPL! High matters of state have obviously ceased to matter for the main Opposition party.

It’s the colour of IPL’s money that’s bothering our politicians, is it? If only they would disclose the colour of the money that is used for funding election campaigns and the source of the money that greases the giant, uneven wheels of our democracy and keeps them moving! Had the colour of money been of such great significance for our holier-than-thou politicians, they would have by now forged sufficient consensus to bring about sweeping electoral reforms to eliminate the role of big money, bad money, slush money and black money in elections.

Pilloried incessantly by party elders for his links with a certain businessman, the late lamented BJP leader Pramod Mahajan had once shot back at his critics in a closed door meeting: “He is not a prostitute with whom you can sleep at night and refuse to recognise in the morning.” On the eve of the Mumbai Maha-adhiveshan in 1996, a senior BJP leader had gone public with questions about the source of money to pay for the extravaganza. “I don’t recall you asking me whether the money I gave you to contest the last election was purified with Ganga jal,” Mahajan retorted. No politician asks that question — whether he/she belongs to the Congress, the CPI(M) or the BJP. Others don’t matter.

The rank hypocrisy of our politicians is further highlighted by the fake concern of our Prime Minister who is believed to be “very troubled” by the allegations levelled against IPL and the colourful stories that are being planted in our pliant, unquestioning, ill-informed media by the Congress’s dirty tricks department in the form of ‘startling discoveries’ by the Income Tax Department, the Enforcement Directorate and the Intelligence Bureau implicating not only Mr Lalit K Modi but senior politicians in other parties. It’s a shame and a pity that our libel laws are virtually non-existent and our judiciary entirely indifferent to defamation and political blackmail. It is equally shameful that media houses which thrive on cronyism should cavil at crony capitalism, but for which they would have been languishing. More to the point, our limp-wristed Prime Minister was nowhere near being as “troubled” as he is today when his Government subverted the law to exonerate Ottavio Quattrocchi. On the contrary, he thought it was a “shame” that the obnoxious Italian wheeler-dealer was charged with and prosecuted for stealing India’s money.

[This appeared as my Sunday column, Coffee Break, in The Pioneer on April 25, 2010. For other articles, see archive.]

*Visual courtesy The Telegraph.

L'affaire Shashi Tharoor

Of probity and provincialism

Nobody who is caught with his hand in the till ever admits to his guilt till proven guilty in a court of law; all sense of decency and honour, dignity and respect, evaporates and yields space to belligerence followed by maudlin sentiments of hurt innocence. So also with the disgraced former Minister of State for External Affairs who once famously tweeted to me that he was proud to be associated with the Congress because of its “tolerance” and “liberal values”.

That was in response to my tweet (not the one on 'cattle class' travel which led to his first taste of controversy!) pointing out his irreverent comments about Mrs Indira Gandhi and the Congress’s first family (“Had Indira’s Parsi husband been a Toddywalla rather than so conveniently a Gandhi, I sometimes wonder, might India’s political history have been different?”) in his book India: From Midnight to the Millennium and Beyond. This was soon after Mr Jaswant Singh’s unceremonious exit from the BJP following the publication of his book Jinnah — India, Partition, Independence and Mr Tharoor was all over Twitter, patronisingly gloating over a veteran politician’s fall from grace in his party.

For all its ‘tolerance’ and ‘liberal values’, the Congress has not been particularly tolerant about Mr Tharoor’s extra-ministerial activities or liberal towards his cavalier attitude. When push came to shove, the Congress disowned him and distanced itself from his interest in promoting T20 cricket in Kochi. It would be in bad form and poor taste to gloat over Mr Tharoor’s current plight, but it would be perfectly in order to point out that arrivistes in politics should resist the temptation of excessive preening.

It is not the least surprising that Mr Tharoor, whose Dubai-based fiancée was a beneficiary by way of free ‘sweat’ equity worth Rs 70 crore from IPL’s Kochi franchise deal (hours before he was given marching orders she offered to return the shares which only served to implicate him) should have pretended outrage, flown into a temper with journalists, belligerently asserted that under no circumstances would he resign from office, only to be told to put in his papers last Sunday evening. He has now predictably resorted to mawkish claims of victimhood.

Reading out a statement in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, Mr Tharoor declared, though not for the first time, “My conscience is clear and I know that I have done nothing improper or unethical, let alone illegal… I am deeply wounded by the fanciful and malicious charges that have been made against me.” We have heard similar remonstrations of innocence before by those accused of compromising their integrity.

He could have, however, spared us the claim that he resigned from the Union Council of Ministers to uphold the “highest moral traditions of our democratic system” and to “avoid embarrassment to the Government”. He did not resign voluntarily when unsavoury details (including those of his role which went well beyond that of a neutral ‘mentor’) of the IPL’s Kochi franchise scandal surfaced in media, which would have been the honourable thing to do; he was told to go by his party bosses. Had he resigned immediately, or at least offered to resign, rather than arrogantly cavil at the suggestion that he should do so to uphold the “highest moral traditions of our democratic system” he now cites, his reputation might have been tarred but it would not have been lying in tatters today.

Nor is any purpose served by his informing the Lok Sabha that he has “requested the Prime Minister to have these charges (against him) thoroughly investigated”. Whatever else may be the Prime Minister’s shortcomings, and he has many, he is not known to be a man who acts in haste. Neither is Mr Pranab Mukherjee known for arriving at a decision without carefully scrutinising and considering all available facts. A formal inquiry should be conducted into l’affaire Shashi Tharoor, but irrespective of its findings, which cannot possibly controvert the facts of the case, the smooth-talking former Minister would do well to bear in mind that in politics perception matters more than reality and the past is often, if not always, swamped by the present. Politics is a harsh world far removed from the rarefied confines of the UN headquarters in New York.

It would, however, be churlish to deny Mr Tharoor the right to defend himself and clear his name; others with a far lower integrity quotient have been given that opportunity. After all, as he has eloquently pointed out in his statement in the Lok Sabha, he has “a long record of public service unblemished by the slightest tint of financial irregularity”. That he served the UN under Mr Kofi Annan, who will be remembered as a Secretary-General who fetched immense disrepute to the organisation and whose son was found to have benefited from UN contracts, is inconsequential. Although it could be asked as to whether his conscience troubled him every time media reported about Mr Annan’s, or his son Kojo’s, dubious deeds. Of course, the perks of office can have a numbing effect on the conscience of the most honest person, as can the loaves and fishes of office.

What is reprehensible is Mr Tharoor’s attempt — there’s nothing covert or sly about it — to provoke provincial resentment against his sacking from the Government. No doubt he has been elected to the Lok Sabha from Thiruvananthapuram, but he was a Minister in the Government of India, not the Government of Kerala. As an MP, he is tangentially responsible for minding the interests of his constituency as his primary job is to participate in parliamentary debates on national affairs and help frame laws on national issues. As a member of the Union Council of Ministers, his remit was to mind India’s foreign affairs.

By repeatedly referring to Thiruvananthapuram and Kerala, the “ethos of Kerala”, the people of Kerala (with whom he had no association at all during his growing up years in Kolkata and Delhi and the many decades he spent at the UN) he has tried to link high issues of ministerial probity with low politics of provincial identity. The unstated though clear message he has sought to send out is that an elected representative of Kerala is being unjustly penalised. That’s balderdash and Mr Tharoor, more than anybody else, knows it.

It’s strange that a suave, accomplished person with an impressive track record of serving an international organisation with distinction, and whose last tweet sent out at 11.16 pm on April 16 reads, “U folks are the new India. We will ‘be the change’ we wish to see in our country,” should fall back on the discredited ‘old’ politics of provincial pride and prejudice in his time of trouble. That’s as distressing as his fiancée benefiting from a cricket franchise deal that he ‘mentored’.

(My blog on the mess called IPL/BCCI will appear soon. And no, I am not a fan of Lalit K Modi nor do I fly the flag for IPL.)

[This appeared as the main edit page article in The Pioneer on April 21, 2010.]

Shubho Nobo Borsho!

Reflections on Poila Boishakh, 1417.

Prayer

Twice a year Anandabazar Patrika dutifully publishes a list of restaurants planning to serve a selection of dishes showcasing the best of epaar Bangla-opaar Bangla cuisine to celebrate Bangaliyana: On the eve of Poila Boishakh and on Shashthi, the day before Durga Puja begins. Till about a decade ago, Kolkata’s leading Bengali newspaper would have carried interviews with noted personalities, asking them how they planned to celebrate Poila Boishakh or Durga Puja. Feasting at home on traditional Bengali food would feature prominently in their replies.

Presumably, Bengalis do not cook Bengali food at home any more. Twice a year they eat out to rediscover their cultural roots. The last Bengali wedding I attended, I was horrified to find chholey-kulchey and shahi paneer on the menu, along with chilli chicken and Amritsari fish. I haven’t bothered to attend any Bengali wedding since then.

The cultural decline of Kolkata’s Bengalis has been precipitous. Its impact is now visible in the districts of West Bengal. When Bengali women take to wearing salwar-kameez, discarding and disowning the graceful taanter sari, and Bengali men snigger at those who still wear dhuti, then there’s something horribly wrong with the way Bengalis look at themselves.

On my last visit to Kolkata I was saddened to see Bengalis reprimanding their children for speaking in Bengali. Abaar dekha hobey (we will meet again), the traditional parting statement used with relatives and friends, has now been replaced by phir milengey, thik hai! The diction is laughable; the repudiation is contemptible.

The cultural degeneration of the Bengalis has a lot to do with the degeneration of politics in Bengal. The Marxists made deracination fashionable; perverse and twisted cosmopolitanism has killed what remained of Bangaliyana. What survives of Bengali culture is because of Bangladesh: Bengalis across the river have not given up their roots. It's because of Bangladesh that Bengali is the world's fourth largest spoken language -- or third largest, depending on which statistics you choose to grade spoken languages.

Today, as a new Bengali year begins, Bengalis would do well to reflect on what they have lost, and how to regain the cultural and, by extension, intellectual, space they have ceded. That could yet lead to a new beginning.

Shubho Nobo Borsho!

My speech at the India-China Development Forum, Beijing

The following is the text of my speech at the India-China Development Forum in Beijing on March 30, 2010:

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.

It is a pleasure and a privilege to be here today at the India-China Development Forum. I feel deeply honoured for being given the opportunity to share some thoughts with such a distinguished gathering of diplomats, officials and mediapersons.

Let me begin by quoting from the Book of Changes, or I Ching, an amazing collection of the distilled wisdom of ancient wise men of China.

“Friendship from outside is auspicious.”

I stand here today as a friend of the people of China. And I say this with confidence: My country desires abiding friendship with China -- a friendship between equals based on mutual understanding and respect, a friendship fashioned after shared concerns. Relations between nations are no doubt determined by self-interest; let ours be determined by enlightened self-interest.

There are two ways of looking at India-China relations. We can look at our bilateral relations through the prism of the past, or we can look at it from the perspective of the future. Either way, we would do so from the vantage position of the present.

Without going into the details of India-China relations as they stand today, for instance expanding trade, investment, etc, which others will no doubt do during the course of the day, I would like to point out the imperatives of greater proximity between New Delhi and Beijing and why our two countries should work towards a paradigm shift in bilateral relations as we enter the second decade of the 21st century.

History tells us that India and China are not only the two greatest civilisations of the East, but that we set the benchmark for civilisational excellence which is universally recognised.

Our two countries are divided by a border that stretches for 3,600 km. Yet, daunting as that may sound, it has not prevented travel and trade between India and China; our interaction is not of recent vintage, just as we are not nations born 100, 200 or 300 or even 500 years ago.

This is only to underscore the point that we are matured civilisations and not arrivistes trying to make their presence felt in global affairs.

However, the past cannot be the full story; nor can the present entirely dominate our thinking – at least it should not.

It is expected of matured civilisations to weave a rich tapestry using facts of history, the realities of today and, perhaps most important, a shared vision of the future. This is by no means an easy task and will require tremendous effort and determination by both sides to accomplish.

Emperor Qianlong had a simple yet instructive message inscribed on a plaque that hung above his throne: “The way of heaven is profound and mysterious. The way of mankind is difficult.” Great nations would acknowledge this reality, and then set about the job of overcoming this difficulty.

We are fast moving towards a future where India and China, with nearly 40 per cent of the world’s population, will together dominate the global economy. The only other country of proximate significance will be the US, but that is inconsequential to why we have gathered here today.

However, emerging as powerful economies by itself will perhaps not serve any larger purpose. That would be served if India and China were to forge a strategic partnership, one which goes beyond our stated intent and helps us strategise the realities of tomorrow’s world, factoring in the imperatives of 2025 or maybe even beyond.

Enhanced trade and cooperation are no doubt important components of the matrix of such a relationship. But there are others too. Dealing with terrorism, whose manifestation continues to mutate with each passing day, is one of them. The other is global warming and its consequences.

Why do I specifically mention these two points? Because, in India there are serious concerns about both issues, and these are often reflected in the media’s coverage.

Let me first dwell on the issue of terrorism – it poses a serious threat to India; it also poses a threat to China. The terrorist threat we face emanates from Pakistan and there is incontrovertible proof of Pakistan’s complicit role. It is in this context that questions are often raised in India with regard to the nature of relations between China and Pakistan, especially when those relations are to do with military and strategic affairs.

Frankly, it is entirely up to China to determine the nature of its relationship with Pakistan. That’s your sovereign right, just as it is India’s sovereign right to determine the nature of its relationship with any country. But China’s relationship with Pakistan does cause serious concern in India, and is often the subject of media criticism. Therefore, we must factor in this point of view.

Second, we have certain concerns over global warming and its consequences, especially the impact of climate change on shared rivers and glaciers that feed them. We believe there is urgent need for joint management of shared rivers and joint study of melting of glaciers that feed those rivers.

There is need for transparency in collection and sharing of data, especially data related to glaciers. The two countries should be open to cooperation by way of sharing of information and river management. There has been some movement on this front, but it’s not sufficient. That would be possible when we take our relationship to a new level.

Let me reiterate, India’s friendship will augur well for China just as China’s friendship would augur well for us.

The Book of Changes informs us, “No matter how smooth it is, there are always slopes.”

It would be absurd to suggest that there are no differences between India and China, that there are no disagreements, that there are no divergent views and opinions. Of course there are. No relationship is without differences and disagreements.

The biggest disagreement, as we all know, is over stretches of our border. Both countries have done the right thing to set up a joint mechanism to deal with this issue while moving ahead on other fronts.

This does not mean the problem has been brushed under the carpet, but that we have not allowed ourselves to be overwhelmed by it. That is being pragmatic; that is being mindful of our mutual enlightened self interests.

The test of true friendship is whether friends are honest with, and can freely speak their minds to, each other.

We could flatter you, as some countries indeed flatter you, but that would be unwise. It would definitely not be a sign of true friendship between India and China.

“To accept flattery is good for a base person,” the Book of Changes alerts us, “but it might ill inform a great person.”

China, to my mind – and the mind of most Indians – is a great nation which should be wary of flattery.

Friends can also be keen competitors. Friendship and competition are not mutually exclusive, nor do they clash with overarching shared interests. After all, within China provinces compete with each other, as they do in India, for investment. If we are competing for investment, for trade, for commerce, we are doing so without any sense of ill-will.

Nor does competition exclude collaboration. We believe that the world is big enough for us to compete with others and yet collaborate with them on key issues of mutual concern. Nurturing a relationship such as this, as I have mentioned earlier, will take a lot of effort and investment – both literally and metaphorically.

There will be naysayers and those who will insist that competition and collaboration cannot co-exit. We need not be deterred by them.

For, as the Book of Changes says, “Prediction will show that the expedition is dangerous. But do not intend to save the expenditure; instead, you must increase it.”

I do believe that taking our bilateral relationship to a new level in tune with the realities of 2025 and beyond will require a joint expedition, in which both India and China will have to invest heavily in more ways than one. If we hit a slope, as the Book of Changes tells us, we should just ignore it. Instead, we should increase the investment in our relationship and move on.

The Book of Changes cautions us: “Give rein to your emotion. If not, disaster is ahead. There is no benefit whatsoever.”

After 28 years of working for various newspapers and being associated with media in India and abroad, I would call upon professional colleagues in India and China to avoid the temptation of episodic, knee-jerk reactions.

I understand that there is often consternation in Beijing about what appears in Indian newspapers or is broadcast by Indian news television. However, it must be understood, and this is important, that media in India enjoys full freedom.

It would also be useful if friends in China were to understand that there are often occasions when both the Government and the people of India are equally, if not more, upset over what appears in the Chinese media. There were several such occasions last year.

I wouldn’t want to mention specific instances as that would serve no purpose. Suffice to say emotional commentary in media is indistinguishable from irrational criticism; neither is desirable. This is as true for Indian media as it is for Chinese media.

I would, therefore, urge media to be responsible and exercise restraint even when the temptation to be sensational and dramatic is great. I would also call upon intellectuals, opinion-makers and scholars attached to think-tanks to avoid language that is inflammatory and neither does service to their country nor promotes national interest.

Let me conclude with an explanation as to why I have repeatedly referred to the Book of Changes in my comments today.

Standing in front of Bao He Dian, or the Hall of Preserved Harmony, in the Forbidden City, on Monday morning, my eyes fell on a board providing information to tourists. Out of sheer curiosity, I walked up to the board and read the information. At the very end, there was this profound sentence from the Book of Changes which was one of the guiding principles of the Emperors who conducted affairs of state from this hall:
“Maintain harmony between all things on Earth to have a long period of peace and stability.”

We need peace, we need stability. Because, without peace and stability, we cannot prosper – as two nations, two peoples, two neighbours.

Our ancient wise men knew the importance of peace and stability. They also knew how to ensure peace and stability: By maintaining harmony.

I am confident that both India and China will continue to maintain a harmonious relationship, and seek to harmonise differences, to ensure peace and stability so that the people of both countries can prosper.

Thank you.

To fight Maoists, reform police

Unless your foot soldiers are good, you can't win the war on Red terror.

The Uttar Pradesh Government has taken an extraordinary step towards police reforms, something which everybody talks about but nobody does anything to implement. Ms Mayawati, who is much criticised for being, to put it politely, unconventional in the manner in which she runs the BSP and the Government she presides over, has instructed her administration to scan the answer-sheets of 2,28,000 candidates who recently sat for a selection examination for 35,000 posts of constables and make them available online. Each applicant will have the right to access his or her answer-sheet, tally it with the listed right answers, and if he or she has been unfairly marked, file an appeal. Given the fact that Indians are a litigious lot, we can expect many of the hopefuls to not only appeal against their grades but even approach the courts. But since it was an objective test based on multiple choice answers and the examiners had no discretionary powers to either mark up or mark down the applicants based on their ‘subjective’ assessment of his or her abilities, it’s unlikely those who contest the results will get too far in using loopholes in the law to either hold up the recruitment process or force the Government to employ those unworthy of the job.

In the past, the recruitment of constables for Uttar Pradesh Police has always been a controversial affair. Instead of selecting candidates based on their merit and potential policing acumen, the emphasis has been on caste, community and, the most important of all, cash. Hopefuls readily paid huge sums of money to get into the State police force, and then subsequently recovered their ‘investment’ and more through means that do not merit elaboration. The money would travel all the way up to those in power. The last time constables were recruited in large numbers for Uttar Pradesh Police was when Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav was in power, and it was a scandal. Ms Mayawati has put an end to that abominable practice, hopefully for good.

The system of recruiting police constables is flawed across the country. Either State Governments are too niggardly and therefore reluctant to fill up existing vacancies or, when recruitment does take place, various considerations other than merit come into play. The recruitment of constables in West Bengal is a classic example of perversion of the process: Over the decades the Left Front Government has institutionalised a system whereby only those affiliated to the CPI(M), or who have been activists and members of the party with a proven track record of loyalty, are drafted to serve as constables and junior officers. As a result, West Bengal Police is, for all practical purposes, an adjunct of the party organisation and the policemen, not surprisingly, are amazingly partisan even when in uniform and on duty. The role of the State police in putting down the agitation against acquisition of farmland for setting up a Special Economic Zone in Nandigram bears testimony to this fact. Such examples abound, and they are not necessarily limited to West Bengal.

What politicians fail to realise is that for short-term gains that suit their narrow interests, or worse, to fill their purses with bribes in exchange of jobs in the police, they have, over a period of time, hobbled the State-level law enforcement agency which is crucial to uphold the authority of the state and keep law-breakers at bay. Constables and their immediate bosses — sub-inspectors and inspectors — are the first respondents to any crisis and turmoil. They are the foot soldiers who have to combat organised crime, deal with terrorism of various shades and confront insurgencies. When the quality of recruitment is poor, or merit is compromised, or vacancies are left unfilled because in their wisdom some Chief Ministers decide that spending more on the police force is a waste of money, the power of the state to enforce its writ and uphold the law of the land is severely diminished. It’s a telling comment on the warped priorities of those who govern India’s States that there is a shortage of at least 6,00,000 policemen in the country.

If we look at the States where Maoists are on the rampage and have ‘liberated’ entire districts from the civil administration, we will find that the police force is either crippled due to lack of personnel or the foot soldiers are of such poor quality and acumen that they cannot be expected to wage war against a disciplined, trained and motivated force of insurgents. When Maoists attacked a police station in Odisha, the constables on duty fell at their feet and pitifully pleaded for mercy. At Lalgarh in West Bengal, constables and their bosses simply shuttered the police stations under their charge and fled even before the Maoists came looking for them. In Bihar, they just don’t show up for duty. As for Jharkhand, the less said the better. Conversely, Andhra Pradesh has been successful in driving the fear of death into Maoists and chasing them out of the State because it has invested wisely in strengthening its police force and in setting up a dedicated anti-insurgency unit which is famously known as ‘Grey Hounds’. Such is the fear of being picked up by the Grey Hounds that Maoists will do anything to avoid taking shelter in Andhra Pradesh.

Reforming the process of recruitment of policemen is only one aspect of police reforms. Training the new recruits, providing them with the latest arms and state-of-the-art communications equipment, instilling in them a sense of pride and boosting their morale so that enemies of the state — and the people — can be effectively neutralised are some of the other aspects. There is also the issue of housing and other benefits which has been begging attention for a long time now. But the process must begin with recruiting the right personnel so that an effective police force can be created over the next few years.

For all her shortcomings, and the list is pretty long, Ms Mayawati has demonstrated that it does not take too much effort to cleanse the process of recruitment of constables who form the bulk of a State’s police force. Yes, a share of the credit should also go to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs which, at Mr P Chidambaram’s behest, has circulated an advisory to all State Governments on how to make police recruitment transparent and rid it of corrupt practices.

Sadly, the chances are that most State Governments will cry foul and Chief Ministers will pretend self-righteous indignation while pointing out to the Home Ministry that law and order is a State subject and the Centre should desist from interfering in their domain. That’s poppycock. When national security is imperilled by inimical forces like the Maoists and jihadis, there is no reason why the Centre should bother about constitutional niceties. India cannot bear the burden of corrupt, indifferent or callous State Governments, irrespective of whichever party is in power.

[This appeared as my Sunday column Coffee Break in The Pioneer on April 11, 2010.]

In war on Red terror, blood shall be spilled

We should be resolute in exterminating Maoists to the last cadre. India has to win this war for the sake of liberty and democracy.

The reaction to Tuesday’s (April 6) ghastly Maoist attack on CRPF jawans deep in the densely forested Abujhmad region of Dantewada in Chhattisgarh has been predictable. There’s outrage across the country that the lives of 76 security forces personnel should have been so cruelly snuffed out. Politicians have responded with lachrymose statements; some have pretended anger at Government’s ‘flawed’ policy of using security forces as cannon fodder in the war on Red terror. Strangely, or perhaps not, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram has been criticised by colleagues in the Congress for “provoking” the Maoists into striking with such ferocity. Security experts have been prompt in pointing out faultlines in the overall strategy and ground level tactics, not so subtly suggesting they could have done a better job. Sympathisers of the Left extremists, who masquerade as ‘intellectuals’, have had no compunctions about using friendly media outlets, including television channels, to slyly justify the slaughter. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister has expressed “shock and grief”, which really amounts to saying nothing.
While the sense of outrage (tinged with frustration) that prevails among the people is genuine, it is doubtful whether the reaction of the political class is motivated by concern for national security. Mr Chidambaram’s colleagues in the Congress, no doubt displeased that he should have emerged as an effective Minister on whom praise is lavished frequently, have seized upon the opportunity to try and run him down. Those in the Opposition who mock at the Government do so unthinkingly. Their own track record in tackling the Maoist menace is a tale of callous indifference or, worse, shameful capitulation. The JD(U) spokesman would do well to bear in mind that Maoists have ‘liberated’ large stretches of Bihar from the civil administration where the writ of the state no longer runs. As for our security experts, it is possible that their criticism of the Government’s strategy and tactics is well-meaning, but the course of an asymmetric war cannot be predicted by the best strategists and tacticians.
Could Tuesday’s massacre have been prevented? In hindsight, the answer to this question would be, yes. If only the CRPF jawans had been more cautious, if only they had not used a vehicle in a terrain likely to have been laid with landmines, if only they had not under-estimated the firepower of the Maoists, if only they had not ventured out at that hour of dawn, if only… If ifs and buts were pots and pans, there would be no need for tinkers’ hands. Or, as another version of the proverb goes, if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we would all have a Merry Christmas. The point is, ifs and buts are neither pots and pans, nor are they candy and nuts. In battling insurgency, the best laid plans can go wrong and fatalities can be high, just as collateral damage cannot be entirely ruled out.
Those who are suddenly mindful of the fact that 76 jawans have been killed should look at the statistics of Maoist violence over the past few years. In 2009, Maoist violence and encounters with security forces witnessed a spurt in casualties, and fatalities added up to a whopping 998. Among the dead were 292 Maoist cadre, 312 security forces personnel (including policemen) and 392 civilians. It would be absurd to suggest that since more security forces personnel have died than Maoists, or because civilian casualty is so high, the state is losing the war on Red terror. Insurgency driven by ideology extracts a terrible toll; if we are to win the war, we should stop counting the body bags. Excessive focus on casualties of war weakens national resolve. Maudlin sentiments have never helped anybody win a battle, leave alone a protracted war which the offensive against the Maoists is going to be: The ‘liberated zones’ won’t be liberated from Red terror overnight; it will take at least a decade to re-establish the authority of the state where Maoists now rule the roast.

This is not to suggest that the lives of our security forces are expendable, or that they can be sacrificed without any concern on the altar of belligerent extremism, but to underscore the fact that the Indian state’s success in overcoming several challenges to the nation’s unity and integrity have not been without the loss of lives — of security forces personnel, of civilians and of those waging war on the state. Public memory being notoriously short, few would recall the terrible price that had to be paid to put down insurgency in the North-East, or restore peace in Punjab. Young officers and jawans in the prime of their lives are routinely killed while fighting terrorists in Jammu & Kashmir or while preventing jihadis from crossing the Line of Control into India. If we must shed tears, we should do so for all our men in uniform who have laid down their lives for their country and their people, and steel our resolve to avenge their deaths by exterminating the practitioners of violence, no matter what the shade of their evil ideology or their purported cause.
No purpose, however, would be served if the state were to take recourse to either senseless bravado or a bull-headed response to grisly blood-letting by the Maoists, irrespective of whether the victims of their butchery are civilians or security forces. The state must move stealthily, it must strategise with absolute clarity about what it seeks to achieve, and, most important, it must adopt tactics that will enable the security forces to outmanoeuvre the insurgents at every step. There will be errors of judgement, there will be mistakes and there will be slip-ups. Those strategising and fighting the war on Red terror will have to learn from these and recalibrate their tactics accordingly.
Mr Chidambaram has rightly cautioned against any “knee-jerk reaction” to Tuesday’s savagery by the rabid ilk of Koteswara Rao and advised that “at this moment we must remain calm and hold our nerves in the fight to rid India of the grave threat of Maoists and to save democracy”. Successive strikes by the Maoists in recent months — Sildah in West Bengal where 24 jawans of the Eastern Frontier Rifles were killed; Koraput in Odisha where 11 CRPF jawans died after their vehicle hit a landmine; and, now Dantewada in Chhattisgarh — suggest the need for course correction by those strategising the war on Red terror. Once this is done, the Government must stay the course and press on till the objective of ridding India of those who wish to supplant our democracy with a totalitarian state no different from Pol Pot’s regime is achieved. Liberty comes attached with a price tag and we should be willing to pay the price, no matter how high.

[This appeared as the main article on the Edit Page of The Pioneer on April 8, 2010.]

Please see: This is war by Ajai Sahni & Ajit Kumar Singh on why there's no other option but to smash the Maobadis.

Lakshmanpur-Bathe victims get justice

A Bihar court on April 7 sentenced to death 16 of 26 convicted persons in the Lakshmanpur-Bathe carnage in Jehanabad district in which 61 people, all Dalits, were killed by a private militia of landlords in December 1997. Announcing the judgement, Additional District Judge Vijay Prakash Mishra sentenced to life imprisonment the remaining 10 convicts and imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on each. The trial in the case had concluded on April 1.

[My report on the Lakshmanpur-Bathe massacre of 1997. It was commissioned by Rediff.com.]

The Stench of Death

Lakshmanpur-Bathe (Jehanabad district, Bihar): It has been raining for the past few days and the air is laden with the cold moisture of winter showers. The fields are a soggy brown. The Sone river shimmers is the dull winter daylight, lazily flowing through wide banks of sand.

In normal times, a village like Lakshmanpur-Bathe would be full of sounds that you do not hear in urban India. But these are not normal times. And you do not hear children shrieking to their hearts's delight, the gentle mooing of cows or the bleating of goats. There are no snot-nosed children staring at you in wide-eyed amazement or giggling women in dark doorways. There is no whiff of woodfire in the air.

In this emptiness you can feel strains of sorrow; if you hear hard enough, you can hear the silent, grievous sobbing of women, you can smell the staleness of death. The day before was daswi, the tenth day when rituals are performed for the soul of the departed in rural Bihar so that the journey into the other world is unhindered and peaceful. But what peace can you pray for when the soul is that of a young mother who was shot dead with her infant suckling at her breast? And how do you bade the infant goodbye?

Sixty-one people were shot dead in this village on the night of December 1 by armed criminals who came from across the river. Entire families of three generations wiped out by gunfire. All of them were poor, perhaps the poorest of the poor. They belonged to that vast underclass of Indians who, 50 years after Independence, are yet to realise what freedom means. They were born into oppression, they lived in oppression and their brutal slaughter is the ultimate symbol of oppression.

No, all of them were not dalits. The five boatmen -- three of whom ferried the marauders across the Sone -- whose threats were slit by the killers so that there would be no witnesses to the crime, were Nishads. Among those who were shot dead, were men and women who in life enjoyed a social status higher than that of harijans but in death were united by the economic criterion of unrelenting poverty that stalks the landless peasantry of Bihar.

The villagers of Lakshmanpur-Bathe, caught in the time warp of feudal India, refer to you as 'sarkar.' The landlords in whose fields they work for a kg of foodgrains a day, the petty government officials who make occasional forays, the uniformed policemen and the local politicians are their 'mai-baap.'

Fifty years after India kept its tryst with destiny, these villagers, like millions of villagers in thousands of other villages all over the country, are yet to see the miraculous healing powers of modern medicine or the magic of switching on an electric light. They are yet to learn how to read and write or to explore the world beyond Lakshmanpur-Bathe by travelling down pucca roads, Globalisation may have made the world into a small village, but the only village they are aware of is Lakshmanpur-Bathe.

Like giant concrete totems, electricity poles stick out from the blood-soaked soil of Lakshmanpur-Bathe, inert sentries of modernity that never existed. A politician in Patna, looking for ways and means to make some quick money from sources other than animal fodder, must have ordered the erection of these electricity poles. After paying off the contractor's enormously inflated bill, there was not enough money to string these poles with cables. Not that it would have made any difference. Bihar's towns and villages that have both poles and cables do not have electricity.

The only ray of hope in the benighted lives of these underclothed, underfed, underpaid people who were unlucky enough to be born in villages like Lakshmanpur-Bathe is provided by the revolutionary fervour of groups that profess Marxism-Leninism or dream of a Maoist transformation of rural Bihar society and economy. The Naxalbari movement in rural Bengal triggered the imagination of these men and women, mostly men, in rural Bihar.

Initiated by Jagdish Mahto and Rameshwar Ahir in Bhojpur district, the Naxalite movement in Bihar has taken several twists and turns. And like the Naxal movement in Bengal or Andhra Pradesh, in Bihar too it has splintered over the years, giving birth to three main streams: The Maoist Coordination Committee swears by Maoist tactics while the two CPI-ML factions, Liberation and Party Unity, continue to persist with Marxism-Leninism.

Each has carved out an area for its 'operations' that largely concentrate on securing a better deal for the landless peasantry but often focuses on retributive justice based on the principle of eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, limb for a limb and life for a life.

Like everything else in Bihar, the haves and have-nots are also divided along caste lines. The oppressor, the landlord, is a Rajput, a Bhumihar or a Kurmi. The oppressed is a Paswan, Koeri, Majhi, Musahar, Chamar or, in some cases, even a Yadav. Class and caste have nearly coalesced, defying conventional Left wisdom that seeks to segregate caste from class and draws a line between caste war and class war. In Bihar, class war is also caste war.

And with the virtual withering away of the State, the disappearance of any semblance of constitutional rule of law, the oppressor and oppressed have organised their own lines of defence. The landlords have created brutal private armies like the Ranvir Sena and Sunlight Sena, whose soldiers have a tremendous capacity for brutality. The landless are protected by the Naxal groups whose armed cadre have no less an appetite for bloodletting.

The designated guardian of both the landlords and the landless, the police, is a pathetic carricature of law-keepers. Policemen in Bihar are scared to confront either the extremist groups or the landlord's armies. They would rather disappear from the scene of a carnage and reappear after the killings are over.

Policemen who thought that valour was more important than discretion have both their lives and their weapons. In Patna and elsewhere, policemen refuse to carry weapons, scared that their outdated .303 rifles will attract the attention of either the private armies or the extremist groups whose armoury comprises looted police weaponry. Unarmed policemen can at least plead mercy and run for their lives.

The unending cycle of violence in Bihar where the not-so-poor kill the poor and the poor kill the very poor in a relentless caste/class war, in a sense, provides macabre, black humour in an otherwise unexciting saga of political intrigue and financial misdemeanour. But frivolity apart, the Republic of Bihar today is a grim reminder that all is not well with the Republic of India.

Lakshmanpur-Bathe is a blot on the collective conscience of the nation. The barbarity of the massacre should have stirred us as never before. The entire nation should have grieved along with the grieving men and women who saw their flesh and blood being butchered but dare not raise their voice in protest, lest their mai-baap, their sarkar forsake them forever.

But nobody is perturbed, least of all in New Delhi from where the world of McDonalds and Pizza Hut looks so beautiful.

‘English cannot be given primacy over the language of our culture’

Pavan K Varma, in conversation with Kanchan Gupta, says the local must prevail over the foreign

My first encounter with Pavan K Varma, or rather his writing, was when I reviewed his book Krishna: The Playful Divine many years ago. Before reading the book, I had this image of him in my mind which later proved to be entirely wrong. I had thought of Pavan as a stuffed shirt, a self-obsessed and utterly boring member of the exalted, twice-born Indian Foreign Service. Half way through Krishna, I had begun to doubt whether I had the right impression of the author; by the time I finished reading the book, I knew I was wrong. No stuffed shirt would have written a book like that. When I finally met Pavan, which was some years later, I realised he was a cut above his colleagues in the IFS, a class apart from those who represent India abroad. At an open air Hindustani classical music concert where Kishori Amonkar was in full flow and all of us had lost track of the hour of the night, Pavan taught me, with great élan, how to appreciate the finer nuances of Raga Nand Kalyan which I would have missed otherwise.
One of our finest diplomats, Pavan K Varma remains rooted in all things Hindustani — from culture to clothes to language. And that is evident in the series of books he has written exploring the mindset and worldview of the Indian middle classes. A gifted writer — he makes his point without belabouring it repeatedly — he is what may be called a ‘thinking bureaucrat’, which could be mistaken as an oxymoron by those acquainted with our bureaucracy and babus. The Great Indian Middle Class and Being Indian fetched Pavan, and deservedly so, critical acclaim as a commentator with profound thoughts on the past, the present and the future. His new book, Becoming Indian: The Unfinished Revolution of Culture and Identity, proves that praise for his earlier work was not misplaced. It’s a brilliant, incisive exposition of how colonialism has moulded the way we look at ourselves, our culture, and the world. “Those who have never been colonised can never really know what it does to the psyche of a people. Those who have been are often not fully aware of — or are unwilling to accept — the degree to which they have been compromised,” he writes in this book. That, in a sense, is the theme of Becoming Indian.

I met Pavan for a long adda on a lazy late spring afternoon in New Delhi during which we discussed his new book. What he had to say, as always, was scintillating. Below are excerpts from that free-flowing conversation:

Kanchan Gupta: So tell us, what prompted you to write this book? To take the middle class series nearer to a conclusion or something else...

Pavan K Varma: Essentially, after 60 years of independence, I thought the time had come for a cultural audit. This audit entails two things. One is a rigorous analysis of colonialism because, as I write, colonialism is not about the physical subjugation of a people but the colonisation of their mind. And while a political audit takes place after the Union Jack comes down and an economic audit takes place to take stock of what is lost and what is gained, a cultural audit is something that does not take place ... this is something which is common to all colonised countries... to, in a sense, recolonise the mind. So, it is both a rigorous analysis of colonialism and a meditation on the state of culture today in our country.

I must confess I profess a fair degree of anguish at our low threshold of satisfaction and self-congratulation. Because we are not only a nation, we are a civilisation. We have 5,000 years of history, antiquity, peaks of refinement, assimilation, diversity ... but underlying that diversity, what is not visible to a superficial observer, is great unity. We are not a parvenu civilisation, we were not born 200 years ago, and therefore it is legitimate for us to see where we are in terms of our culture today in contrast to the journey we have made and where we have come.

And I believe in the reappropriation of our cultural space without chauvinism or xenophobia. This is all the more important because we are simultaneously in an aggressive phase of globalisation where the subtext in the field of culture is often co-option, where the victim is the last to know. And, when the educated are relatively rootless, that co-option becomes all the more easier. So that, essentially, is the paradigm of the book.

KG: Nothing offers a better platform than a book for a study and discourse of this nature... By the way, some people feel you have been needlessly uncharitable towards English and Western culture...

PKV: There is hardly any space left for cerebral discourse. There has been an oversimplification of what I have to say in my book. One is that I am against English. I am not. I am not for the imposition of Hindi. I am just saying that there must be respect given to our languages and while English is an indispensable language of communication, specially to help us interface with a globalising world, it cannot be given primacy over the language of our culture.

There is a language of communication and there is a language of culture. The language of culture is a window to your history, mythology, folklore, proverbs, idioms, to your creativity ... and it’s the language in which we cry and laugh. There is no contradiction between the two. Recent research shows that all those who are well-grounded first in their mother tongue pick up a foreign language that much faster.

KG: Do you believe English is still a foreign language in India?

PKV: I genuinely believe that while it is a language of communication which has been indigenised in India, it can never take the place of our natural languages. And, badly spoken English cannot become the lingua franca of a country which is so rich in its linguistic heritage.

KG: Your book opens with an intense personal experience centred around your father — his attempt to learn English and thus qualify for the ICS, in which he was successful. Did that influence your career choices? After all, the IFS, in fact the civil services, are part of the colonial governance construct, it has a hierarchical structure put in place by our colonial rulers.

PKV: Without a doubt I am a product of the milieu that, in a sense, I was condemned to inherit. That is why I went to St Columba’s, St Xavier’s and St Stephen’s. And I am not against these schools and colleges. But I have mentioned in my book that my mother withdrew me from Modern School and put me in St Columba’s because she said the standard of Hindi in Modern School was too high!

People place priorities because they are products of a milieu. English was the language which was inherited by us, it was the language of social status and, by that virtue, it was a language of exclusion. If you did not speak English with the right accent and fluency, however shallow you might be in other respects, or accomplished for that matter, you could never be part of the charmed circle which ruled India.

So I am a product of that milieu but I am able, at some level I think, and I don’t take any special credit, to see that no nation can sit on the high table of the world as we aspire without giving respect and pride to their own culture and languages. So when we try to be like them at the cost of being who we are, that forces India to become a caricature. I have served all across the world and I have seen this happen.

The whole point is that you have to be an authentic spokesman of your own milieu. Today, I believe that as far as our general cultural scene goes, Kanchan, mediocrity, mimicry, rootlessness and tokenism have become features which we need to introspect about. I don’t say this with anger, I say it calmly.

Look at the state of our humanities departments, not an original work! This is the country of Nalanda? Doctoral theses are being written with footnotes by foreign scholars. Look at the state of our literature, the man who won the Bharatiya Gnanpeeth told me his books sell less than a thousand copies. Look at the state, pardon my saying so, of even our book reviews. If you are in the UK, the country that colonised us, on the weekend any broadsheet will have 30 to 40 pages only on book reviews. Here we have leading newspapers who have dispensed with book reviews!

KG: Look at the state of our classical arts... music, dance...

PKV: Exactly! Look at the state of classical dance… I mean I have been a cultural administrator also. Top exponents of a parampara which goes back 3,000 years have to telephone friends for days before a performance to fill a hall when the entrance is free. Look at the state of classical music, the raga represents a 4,000-year-old parampara and it is a very delicate structure... the elaboration of the mood the gradual vistaar and the drut... Today we have eminent musicians performing like adolescent pop stars, catering to the lowest common denominator of an audience.

Now, I am not against pop culture. In Hyde Park — I have lived in London — when you have a pop music performance thousands go for it. But on the same day I have seen people queuing up from 11 in the morning at 20 pounds a pop to attend a performance of Western classical music. Mature civilisations nurture both. We cannot be reduced to a sterile simplicity that it is either popular culture or nothing else at all. So these are things we need to think about.

Look at the state of our monuments. Of our museums. Of our libraries. The MGMA gets 30,000 visitors a year. The Louvre gets 2.5 millions at 12 euros an entrance. The Tate gets four million visitors a year at 1.20 pounds an entrance. These statistics are there in my book. A country like China, in spite of the setback of the cultural revolution, is investing in 100 new museums, 83 are already built. Beijing alone has 150 art galleries. There’s a full gallery district. Here you have a gallery but no curators, no cataloguing worth the name! So what has happened that our threshold of satisfaction has become so low?

KG: Maybe it’s the sarkari thing, perhaps we should get the state out of it?

PKV: Hundred per cent. But the state will be out of it when there is a cultural vibrancy in the people. It’s a symbiotic relationship. The performer will be bad if the audience is unresponsive. Whether at the level of the state or at the level of the common man or at the level of the artiste and our creative people, there needs to be something that jolts us out of our complacency. Because, as I said, we are not a parvenu civilisation. We were the benchmark of civilisational excellence, Kanchan. I was amazed when I read it, 200 years before the birth of Jesus Christ, Bharata wrote the Natyashastra, 6,000 Sanskrit shlokas not on any particular art ... a meditation on aesthetics, what constitutes rasa.

Even in popular culture, Bollywood, which we hold as a brand ambassador now of India abroad, I have nothing against it, some very good films have been made, but 70 per cent of Bollywood is a lift of Hollywood! What has happened to India’s originality? Music and story? So, there is reason for us to introspect...

KG: We get carried away by foreign awards...

PKV: Yes, any foreign accolade! I give the example, I have nothing against Slumdog Millionaire although on merit I believe it was mediocre, but when it got the Bafta award, it had not been released in India, people had not seen it. Yet, without application of mind there was only only euphoria, it made headlines and breaking news everywhere. Similarly with the Booker. I have read 12 reviews of Aravind Adiga’s White Tiger in the British Press, substantive reviews, some good, some damning, some panning it. In India, when the award was announced, there was hardly a review. In this great flexible civilisation with its own refinement touchstone, the only news is that it got the Booker! There has to be santulan, there has to be equilibrium, which is a sign of maturity…

KG: We are constantly looking at foreign awards…Somebody gets the Sahitya Akademi award or Gnanpeeth does not even find mention in the media…

PKV: I will give an example, I will name the person. Sitakant Mahapatra, a very sensitive Odiya poet, he gets the Bharatiya Gnanpeeth award, and his book sells 843 copies! Even till this day in Russia, when a new edition of Pushkin is published, a million copies sell. And they were selling even during the stage of transition during and after Yeltsin when people had not got salaries for three months. So you have to think...

KG: You also talk of the mimic men!

PKV: You see mimicry is a natural consequence of rootlessness. People mimic when they are not secure in their own anchorage and my worry is that for a great deal of the educated in India today there is that rootlessness and therefore that mimicry.

KG: But Nirad C Chaudhuri, about whom you are critical in your appraisal, was equally comfortable with his Indian identity while living in Britain...

PKV: Without a doubt. But Nirad C Chaudhuri, and this is my own feeling, went out to prove that if you have to be the brown sahib, you should be the most educated, most accomplished, most knowledgeable, beyond tokenism brown sahib. And he did it in many respects. His taste of wine, his knowledge of Western culture, his reading his writing… I personally believe that it was one of those complex consequences of colonialism which produces a man of his towering intellectual stature who judges himself only in terms of his ability to be the most accomplished Indian in terms of the Western touchstone of refinements. At another level he remained Bengali at home… But to be harmonious schizophrenics is also a sign of colonial legacy.

KG: You are also harsh with Rammohun Roy…

PKV: I have used Rammohun Roy as an example to show how the well-intentioned leader in the colonial phase needed to caricature his own civilisation in order to win the approbation of the ruler. First of all, his movement against ills within his own society and religion, especially sati, was a well-intentioned crusade. But if you read his letter to the Viceroy, he first devalues his language, the learning of philosophy and metaphysics, and without a doubt they struck the right chord. And, as you know, when he went to London he actually argued in the House of Commons for the permanent residency in India of the British and a mixed community through inter-marriage between both. So Rammohun Roy, as I say in my final paragraph, shows that people are products of their times. Colonialism was a hugely, hugely impacting influence on the lives of our well-intentioned leaders…

KG: But it did help bring about reforms…

PKV: I give him credit for his crusade against obvious evils, but I analyse how when you are part of the colonial syndrome, to do that you need to caricature aspects of your civilisation — which is totally unnecessary — to win the approbation of the ruling power. It’s only an example.

KG: Today we have crossover sahibs who subscribe to the idea of being global citizens, world citizens. For them, the Indian identity becomes baggage.

PKV: I would say I honestly believe in today’s time, the authentic global citizen is one who has the tools to interface with a globalising world is one who is rooted in his own milieu, his own civilisation. Because it is only that person who is rooted in his own milieu who can be a confident interlocutor with the world. Otherwise, we are producing clones. One of the great myths spawned by globalisation is that having been reduced to a global image we have all become mirror images of each other. But I believe that differences are real, that diversity needs to be respected and people who are the legatees of such a civilisation must preserve that identity because only then will they get respect.

(Pavan K Varma’s book, Becoming Indian — The Unfinished Revolution of Culture and Identity has just been published by Penguin.)

Photograph: Alwin Singh

[This interview was published in The Pioneer on Friday, March 26, 2010.]

S*IT hits the fan!

Media spattered and bruised

NaMo exposes p-sec fraud

The signs of desperation are showing. After failing to bring him down despite 8 years of relentless calumny and worse, Narendra Modi’s critics have begun to hit out in blind fury.

For more than a week English language media, including news channels, based in Dilli had been reporting with gay abandon how the Special Investigation Team set up by the Supreme Court (whose remit has now come under the apex court’s review) had Modi in a twist after ‘summoning’ him in the case filed by the widow of Ehsan Jafri, former Congress MP who died in the violence that followed the slaughter of 58 Hindus when a Muslim mob set two coaches of Sabarmati Express ablaze on February 27, 2002.

The p-sec media, which has been relentless in demonising Modi using the Goebbelsian trick of repeating its toxic lies in the hope people will come to believe them, launched a coordinated tirade on Monday morning, berating the Gujarat Chief Minister for failing to turn up before the SIT. Some accused him of running scared. Others even listed the questions the SIT planned to ask Modi. Is the SIT being provided with questions drafted by p-sec journalists and activists who have lost all sense of propriety? On Monday, Teesta Setalvad went to the extent of justifying ‘extra-judicial’ measures to bring Modi to heel!

Modi, of course, has had the last laugh – as usual at the expense of p-sec media elite and their jholawallah friends. In a stunning disclosure by way of an open letter to the people of the country, he has exposed media’s calumny and casuistry.

Had I owned a newspaper, I would have run a front page banner headline:

S*IT hits the fan!

with a second deck:

Media spattered and bruised

This demonisation of Modi has had no impact on the people of Gujarat. Modi won the 2002 Assembly election with a huge margin; he repeated the feat in 2007. The people of Gujarat, both Hindus and Muslims, have moved on, Modi has moved on and the State is a shining example of what good governance can achieve by all-round inclusive development and growth. In industry, agriculture and social welfare, Gujarat leads every other State.

But media won’t give up. It is still stuck in 2002. And, like a stuck record, continues to plan the same canard again and again, accusing Modi of imaginary crimes and trying to instigate a Muslim backlash. It has not fetched the p-sec media elite any results; it won’t either.

Modi’s open letter to the nation speaks for itself. Frankly, no further comment is needed to highlight the deviousness of those who use the cover of ‘free media’ to pursue their anti-Modi agenda. What do you think?

The following is the text of Modi’s letter:

My beloved countrymen,

Namaskar!


I am constrained to write to you with a deep sense of anguish. Since last eight years, canards have been spread against me. For the past one week, if we analyse the allegations levelled against me, then the truth will become evident. Truth cannot be suppressed. It is now my duty to place before you the facts that bring out the importance of understanding what the truth really is.
After the 2002 Godhra incidents, I had categorically said in the Vidhan Sabha and in public that no one is above the Indian Constitution and the law, even if he happens to be the Chief Minister of a State. These are not mere words. My actions have reflected this statement in its true spirit. I assure you that this would be my stand in the future.
In spite of that, some vested interests, without losing a single opportunity and with malicious pleasure and without bothering to ascertain the truth based on mere whims and fancies have been tarnishing the good image of Gujarat, my Government and me.
Recently, there has been a systematic campaign to defame Gujarat through propagation of false reports titled ‘Special Investigation Team summons Narendra Modi’; ‘Narendra Modi did not appear before SIT’ and ‘Modi has shown disrespect to Supreme Court and SIT’. Such baseless allegations are being levelled once again against me to defame Gujarat.
I am therefore compelled to place the facts before my countrymen.
FACTS:
As soon as newspapers began reporting that Modi has been summoned by the SIT, the Government spokesperson immediately said that Shri Modi is bound by the law of the land and the Indian Constitution. He has always extended his cooperation to every procedure of law. And he is committed to do so in the future.
It is a matter of grave concern and needs investigation as to why and who started spreading lies that ‘SIT summons Narendra Modi on March 21, 2010’.
The purveyors of untruth failed even to think that March 21, 2010 happens to be a Sunday and a public holiday.
These purveyors of lies even did not once bother to check whether the key SIT officers, who are appointed by the Supreme Court, were present in Gujarat on March 21, 2010.
SIT had not fixed March 21, 2010 for my appearance. To say that I was summoned on March 21 is completely false. I shall respond to the SIT fully respecting the law and keeping in view the dignity of a body appointed by the Supreme Court.
The date of March 21, 2010 was invented by some vested interest and as a part of their effort to interfere in the due process of law. They wanted to paint me as a person who refused to respond to the SIT. This country has in the last twenty four hours witnessed a campaign of disinformation in which a section of the media became an instrument of the disinformers. I hope this section will now take corrective steps.
My beloved countrymen,
The people of Gujarat and this country have identified those who are defaming Gujarat continuously since 2002. But I want to tell the truth that spreading falsehoods has only one single purpose and that is to instigate people. It is a sinful action which will harm the working of a democratic state. Seen in the backdrop of events in the last 24 hours, it shows that there is a nexus among the vested interests in spreading lies against me in order to defame me. This machination has come unstuck and the people have seen through this charade.
The Government of Gujarat has always honoured and cooperated with the investigative agencies, commissions and the Supreme Court looking into Godhra and post-Godhra incidents. And that is why I never thought of giving a public statement on this issue. Despite unbearable pain, I decided to maintain silence in the belief that the due process of law would take its own course.
But now, as the lies reach a crescendo as never before, I am compelled to bring the facts before the countrymen. I also consider it my humble duty.
I hope the truth is not twisted by the purveyors of untruth to misguide the investigation. And I expect that the media would bring my deep pain and despair to the notice of the people.
Thanks,

(Narendra Modi)

Tough guy act by limp-wristed UPA

How will Congress react if push comes to shove?

Nearly five years after the Cabinet Committee on Security cleared what was then billed as a ‘tough anti-hijacking policy’, the UPA Government has decided to amend the antiquated Anti-Hijacking Act of 1982. The purpose behind the proposed amendments, we are told, is to make the punishment for hijackers harsher so that the law acts as a deterrent. It would be churlish to cavil against such intent. After all, what good is a law unless it scares the daylights out of potential criminals and forces them to desist from risking the state’s clenched fist of fury?

The Government, therefore, should be complimented for deciding to make the law against hijacking more stringent. On Friday, the Cabinet discussed and approved the proposal, as drafted by a Group of Ministers headed by Union Minister for Home Affairs P Chidambaram, to introduce the death penalty for hijackers of aircraft. The 1982 law stipulates that hijackers and/or their accomplices will be sentenced to life imprisonment as well as made to pay a fine. Obviously, such measures have not proved to be a deterrent, hence the decision to make hijacking a capital offence. This will also necessitate an amendment to the definition of hijacking. Although the exact language of the proposed amendments has not been disclosed, it would be safe to assume that the amended law will describe hijacking as tantamount to ‘waging war on the state’.

Till such time the draft Bill amending the Anti-Hijacking Act of 1982 is circulated, any detailed comment on the proposed changes in the law would be premature. It also remains to be seen how much of the UPA Government’s declared policy to prevent hijacking of aircraft and deal with hijackers in the event they succeed in seizing a plane is reflected in the Bill. Policy and law are not necessarily inter-changeable, nor is there any binding requirement for the former to be codified through an Act of Parliament.

However, it would be in order to recall the salient features of the anti-hijacking policy that was cleared by the CCS in August, 2005. The policy commits the Government to treat any attempt to hijack an aircraft, or the hijacking of an aircraft, as an act of aggression against India. Hence, the Government will respond in a manner that is fit to deal with an aggressor. Second, hijackers, irrespective of whether they succeed or fail in their mission, will be sentenced to death. Third, the Government will engage hijackers in negotiations but not to cut a deal. Negotiations will be aimed at bringing the hijacking to an end, to comfort passengers and prevent loss of lives. Fourth, IAF fighters will try and force hijacked aircraft to land. Fifth, if hijackers try to use the aircraft as a missile to strike ‘strategic targets’, as was done on 9/11 in the US, the plane will be shot down. Sixth, if a hijacked aircraft lands at an Indian airport, it will not be allowed to take off under any circumstances.

According to details of the policy made available to media in 2005, the Bureau of Civil Aviation would be asked to prepare a list of designated ‘strategic targets’ that hijackers might target with a commandeered plane. Since the list would qualify as ‘Top Secret’, we will never get to know what all are deemed as ‘strategic targets’. The Government is neither obliged to nor should it voluntary disclose the list. As for the decision to shoot down a hijacked plane to prevent it from being used as a missile to blow up ‘strategic targets’, it is supposed to be taken by the CCS. If there is no time to go through the elaborate process of summoning the CCS, the Prime Minister, the Defence Minister or the Home Minister are authorised to take the call. Air Force officers not below the rank of Assistant Chief of Air Staff (Operations) will have the authority to prevent a hijacked aircraft from taking off, if necessary by shooting at the plane. All this, of course, is based on the presumption that the policy, barring the death penalty for hijackers, which requires an amendment to the 1982 law through an Act of Parliament, has been implemented. For all we know, it has been shelved in a ‘red corner’ file in the ‘Not to Go Out’ section in the Prime Minister’s Office.

We no doubt need to adopt a tough law both to prevent hijacking of aircraft and punish hijackers. But are a no-nonsense policy and a tough law sufficient to deal with a problem faced by Governments across the world after 9/11? More important, what good are a policy and a law if they are not implemented? It’s not only about determination, which the UPA Government lacks in large measure, but also compulsion. For instance, if push came to shove, it would be a tough call to issue instructions to shoot down a passenger aircraft. Apart from the moral dimension, there is the legal aspect: Can the state take such an extreme measure? The courts in Germany and Poland have ruled otherwise.

Which brings us to the other moral compulsion: Can any Government decide to callously ignore the plight of the families of hostages on a hijacked aircraft? The low point of the NDA Government was no doubt its capitulation to the demands of the hijackers of IC 814 which led to the release of three Pakistani terrorists, Maulana Masood Azhar, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar and Sheikh Ahmed Omar Sayeed. That capitulation followed the NDA Government giving in to the demand of the families of the hostages “to do anything to secure their release”. In hindsight, it is easy to say that Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee erred, that he should have stood firm rather than be persuaded by tearful relatives of hostages to accept the hijackers’ demand. But would any other Prime Minister or Government have acted differently? Mr Chidambaram has been candid enough to admit that this is a question not easily answered.

As for the deterrent value of the death penalty proposed for hijackers, it is doubtful whether terrorists will feel deterred. Jihadis are not scared of death; they see it as ‘martyrdom’ which will fetch them a short-cut to a zannat teeming with houries. In any event, the threat of a state which does not have the courage to punish terrorists after a fair trial — Afzal Guru, held guilty of masterminding the jihadi attack on Parliament House in December, 2001, and sentenced to death by the Supreme Court in 2004, is yet to be executed — will raise no more than condescending twitter among those planning to hijack passenger planes. It is one thing to have a Prime Minister who is a fawning admirer of the US and eager to do its bidding, it is quite another to act like the Americans did when they intercepted an Egypt Air plane carrying the hijackers of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985 over the Mediterranean and forced it to land in Sicily. Or conduct a daring commando raid on foreign soil to free hostages as the Israelis did in Entebbe in 1976 . That requires courage, not a harsh Act of Parliament or a hard policy, neither of which is worth the paper it is printed on.

Which does not make the Congress any better. The UPA has miserably failed to deal with the Maobadi problem just like it has made all of India vulnerable to Pakistan-sponsored jihadi attacks. The amended Prevention of Unlawful Activities Act remains on paper; the much-touted Operation Green Hunt is no more than Government bluster. It increasingly appears that no Government in India is keen to tackled internal security issues. Which is a shame and a pity.

PS: The BJP, in the five years that it was in power after the IC 814 humiliation, should have amended the 1982 anti-hijacking law and adopted a tough policy to deal with hijackers. Instead, it chose waffle over action and paid the price in 2004 -- and again in 2009.

[This appeared as my regular weekly column Coffee Break in Sunday Pioneer. (c) CMYK Printech Ltd.]

US cuts deal with terrorist Headley!

Mockery of America's alleged war on terror
So much for justice and so much for America's alleged war on terror! In its wisdom, the US Department of Justice, no doubt with clearance from the Obama Administration which is blinded by its perverse love for Pakistan, has decided to enter into a plea bargain with Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley aka Daood Gilani (his father was a top Pakistani diplomat)who played a key role in the 26/11 jihadi attack on Mumbai, masterminded in and launched from Pakistan by the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, the favourite handmaiden of the Pakistani establishment.

Headley has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to bomb public places in India; conspiracy to murder and maim persons in India; six counts of aiding and abetting the murder of American citizens in India; conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism in India; conspiracy to murder and maim persons in Denmark; conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism in Denmark; and conspiracy to provide material support to Lashkar-e-Tayyeba.

The DoJ indictment of December 7, 2009, filed against Headley can be read here.

A statement issued by the US Department of Justice says Headley attended the following training camps operated by Lashkar: A three-week course starting in February 2002 that provided indoctrination on the merits of waging jihad; a three-week course starting in August 2002 that provided training in the use of weapons and grenades; a three-month course starting in April 2003 that taught close combat tactics, the use of weapons and grenades, and survival skills; a three-week course starting in August 2003 that taught counter-surveillance skills; and a three-month course starting in December 2003 that provided combat and tactical training.

By agreeing to a plea bargain, the US DoJ has ensured:

a. There will be no trial and hence no public disclosure of details that may have indicated a larger conspiracy; no depositions by witnesses; no chance of CIA chaps being called in if he were to claim he was a CIA agent. [Headley has been variously described as a CIA 'agent', 'double agent' and 'strategic asset'. There has been no official denial. Needless to add, there has been no confirmation either!]
b) Headley will escape death penalty, despite causing the death of several Americans in among the 173 innocent people who died in the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack.
c) Prevent his deportation to India to stand trial for crimes, including mass murder, committed on Indian soil.

The DoJ statement says, “In light of Headley’s past cooperation and expected future cooperation, the Attorney-General of the United States has authorized the United States Attorney in Chicago not to seek the death penalty against Headley".

The deal makes a mockery of America's so-called war on terror. US Attorney-General Aric Holder has absurdly argued: “Today's guilty plea is a crucial step forward in our efforts to achieve justice for the more than 160 people who lost their lives in the Mumbai terrorist attacks. Working with our domestic and international partners, we will not rest until all those responsible for the Mumbai attacks and the terror plot in Denmark are held accountable. Not only has the criminal justice system achieved a guilty plea in this case, but David Headley is now providing us valuable intelligence about terrorist activities. As this case demonstrates, we must continue to use every tool available to defeat terrorism both at home and abroad.”

Having allowed Headley to get away with his crimes, what punishment is America talking about?

As fellow tweeter said in his response to the stunning plea bargain: "Post-Headley, wonder why the US doesn't end the charade of 'fighting terror' by putting itself on its own list of terrorist nations."

Our pusillanimous Prime Minister, of course, will continue to look up to America for strength, guidance and inspiration. Who is to tell him that this India's war and we have to fight it ourselves, on our terms, our way?