Millions, Ministers and Sushil Kumar .

Sanjay Dutt, the actor caught between fame and notoriety, has this famous line in a recent movie: When people repetedly ask Who’ll Become a Millionaire … who’ll become a millionaire … I realized that to become a millionaire you must first become WHO! ( as in Who’s Who).

The last week has all been about a Bihari youth form Motihari, Champaran District , Bihar. All media at some point or the other carried news of his winning the biggest prize of the TV game-show conducted by the inimitable Amitabh Bachchan,Rupees 5 crores or 50 Million.

The TV Show was telecast tonight, 2^nd November, 2011 at 08.30 and I watched spellbound like millions of Indians all over the country. I shared his confidence, I shared his logic, I shared his tension and emotion and I shared his joy and triumph. It was an hour of pure, magical joy to watch this Bihari youth, his wife and other relatives ; and it was magical to see Amitabh ‘s exuberant delight as he yelled Paanch karode (Five Crores!) . It was magical to see the winner pour a glass of water on his head and raise his thin arms, palms bunched, in some triumph and some delirium, as if he was Tarzan or Mohammed Ali after yet another world Heavy weight boxing title.

Sushil and Amitabh hugged, then Sushil hugged his wife in public view, something that no common Indian has ever been seen to do because of an unwritten code of conduct that insists that pati-patni must maintain public decorum and not be seen even remotely sexually involved in their life as a married couple ( the children alone are public evidence of their sexual relationship;beside, may be, a Karwa Chauth and a Varalakshmi Vratam). They were shown clinging to each other may be 3 times; what’s more, Sushil’s wife clung to Amitabh which is unthinkable in a traditional family where the wife and the daughter-in-law only touch the feet of the patriarch at all events of public celebration. Amitabh, face-glowing, stroked her head with avuncular joy, even as tears of joy and disbelief welled in her eyes.

A landmark event in the history of modern Indian public life, this.

And what were some newspapers saying? India’s own Slumdog Millionaire! How insensitive; how callous, how indelicately low in thought, O my countrymen! That even Amitabh, for all his debonaire grace and suavity, could not resist repeated references to Sushil Kumar’s lowly status and salary of Rs. 6,400/- per month!

In the early 1980s India’s premier training institution for future administrative officers (IAS and IFS) at Mussoorie, probably under the Directorship of an upright Civil Servant, P.S. Appu, was witness to some ugly behaviour. A trainee from Bihar threatened a woman trainee with a gun, it is alleged. The pistol-wallah ( sounds like tchai-wallah! in Anil Kapoor’s deliberately mocking and contemptuous tone), insisted that he had been bad-mouthed by the woman–trainee as a ‘stupid, drunken Bihari’. Whatever the truth of the matter is, Biharis are targetted in Mumbai; Biharis are gangster-lords in Telugu movies; Shatrughan Sinha and Laloo Prasad Yadav epitomize in different ways, the Bihari after the generation of Babu Rajendra Prasad.

A sorry view about the land of the Buddha and of Nitish Kumar.

Now Sushil Kumar has come along to change that view. From what one could see of the young man on TV, he is truly Su—shiil, of good manners and conduct. His view of the winnings? An opportunity to help his brothers to stabilize their businesses, AND to give up his little job to PURSUE education! If I heard right, he wanted to study for the civil sevice examinations. Truly a thrilling moment for the aam admi of this country. Last year, a police constable from Andhra Pradesh ranked very high at the civil service examinations.Recently a physically challenged person won his due right from the Apex Court to selection for the Civil Services though his physical challenge is of a grievous nature.

Inference: India is not yet lost. There are enough people who believe that they must strive and not yield in despair.

Compare this with the millions that Koda, Kalmadi, Kanimozhi, Maran, Soren, Gali Janardhan Reddy, Yeddyurappa et al have contrived to siphon off from the country’s exchequer, if the Investigators’ allegations are confirmed through trials in Courts of law. How many millions did they need for a comfortable, indeed luxurious living? Sushil Kumar’s tax-paid winnings amount to about 35 million rupees. And he acquired the money through completely legal means, with luck playing its due part. Did our ministers doubt their basic abilities and the favour of lady luck, that they resorted to dubious, criminal means to acquire those disproportionately large amounts, far, far in excess of their most fanciful needs?

Sushil Kumar’s TV Game is by far the most worthy of the games the ministers are alleged to have played. May his tribe increase.

Lady Gaga’s Tricolour Hairdo:

What constitutes insult to the National Flag?

The Indian tricolour has aattracted enough Constitutional and Legal attention in the 64 years of its history as India’s symbol of sovereignity. Flag-burning, deliberate mutilation, illegal use by non-State entities barred expressly barred, use by individuals defined as ieligible except on the Independence and Republic Days, use as Standard by entities below a prescribed level of hierarchichal authoroity, use for commercial purposes, -- all are forms of Insult to the national flag. There must be a few more atleast under the penal code which are punishable as per the gravity of the offence. BUT the point is that they are Cognizable Offences.

Four or five years ago some one went to the Supreme Court asserting the right of all citizens/nationals of India to using the flag with due seriousness and honour without discrimination between officially eligble and and ‘non-eligible’ persons and purposes except clearly anti-national/ secessionist/ deliberately mischievous and frivolous use of the tricolour. I think the Apex Court responded with favour in this case.

Yet, when Mandira Bedi appeared on television on a cricket commentary panel in a plain coloured Sari with the little emblems of the Indian tricolor printed all over it a case was filed against her for using the flag in a manner that constituted the offence of insult to the symbol of India’s sovereignity. I do not know what happened subsequently, nor am I interested in the sense of insult suffered by the ultra-sensitive patriots who took exception to Mandira Bedi’s dress sense .

But , for two days running, the print media has carried photographs of some firangee named Lady Gaga, apparently a singer/entertainer, who visited India on the ‘auspicious’ occasion of the inaugural Indian Grand Prix F1 race ,October 30, 2011. This lady sported a tall hairdo with the three colours of the Indian flag sprayed on her coiffeur to ‘symbolize’ the ‘sprit of India’. This is BIG news and worthy of media attention and celebration. Surely there will be life size posters of Lady G in this hairdo in the bedrooms of adoring urban youth who will find pleasure and pride I displaying the poster-girl.NO ONE IS ASKING LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS about the propriety of the tricolor hairdo. Doe this not constitute an insult to the Indian Flag?

Or is it that Indians are punishable but foreign nationals ‘misusing’ the tricolor have inherited the rights of the erstwhile British Empire to ride rough–shod on Indian sensitivities without inviting opprobrium?

Come, let us be clear about this. Are Mandira Bedi and other nationals of India LESSER persons than Lady Gaga ,that their use of the national flag is an offence and the Lady’s use honourable or pardonable? Indeed, does Lady Gaga define the collective deferential attitude of India to White and non-‘dark’ foreigners?

Is Lady Gaga going to be booked or be scot-free?

By keeping discreetly quiet in this case India exposes its double standards, and insults itself.

Ghaddafy: America's Painted Devil

There are different ways in which America works the world towards one goal : what my writer –friend Rani Sivasankara Sarma calls Americanism in his most recent Telugu work bearing that title.

Americanism is a way of establishing its strangle-hold of power over all countries “great and small’. If God made the countries and the peoples, He appointed America its viceroy on earth. And the viceroy has virtually supplanted God and His order in the world. Except that America is Christian in some senses, America is a post-Miltonic Satan who has succeeded in replacing God as the sole power and arbiter of justice and rule of order. And has used that power with a degree of mischief that has no rival except in American comic-books.

From a Monroe doctrine which has been tweaked several times to suit the occasion for easily two centuries; to the interference in Vietnam, Korea and Cambodia; the two Iraq wars, the execution of Saddam Hussain; the Afghan adventures from the soil of a sovereign Pakistan; the use of NATO forces to neutralize Muammar Ghaddafy of Libya some hours ago; the use of nuclear thumb-screws on India whose energy requirements for over a billion people is as genuine as any other genuine cause in the world; the use of information technology for making its own economy and marring others—from theory to practice there is a range of strategies America uses to advance its cause and its alone. If China is tough to handle, let there be some ping-pong diplomacy. If Islamic terrorism is tough to handle, give plenty of aid to Pakistan and hope that it will be used to root out terrorism. If that fails, step into a military role and ride rough-shod over their sovereignity. Meanwhile keep an irresolute India, from speaking of retaliation, leave alone attempting it.. The way forward for America is to get different countries locked in shackles of hostilities and secure its own economic and political interests. Any one who strikes an aggressive posture is an enemy and must be neutralized. Even one of Ghaddafy’s little sons was a sufficient enemy to be killed in a bombing blitz, when Ghaddafy indulged in one of his ‘aggressive’ antics, over 20 years ago.

Now that Ghaddafy is gone America will need a new enemy as an international ,political red-herring.Pakistan’s General Kayani is reported to have warned America that it would have to think ten times before going into action mode from Waziristan. Is it Kayani’s turn after Ghaddafy?

America can not be at ease without a painted devil.

Pummelling Prashant:India Violent

The ‘treatment’ of Prashant Bhushan by two youth representing some ‘sena’ or the other was violent. Times Now camera and reporter’s presence notwithstanding, the youth slapped, punched and kicked Prashant Bhushan this afternoon in his office near the Supreme Court of India. It was a brutal show and Prashant was rather shaken.Who wouldn’t be?

As years go by since the days of Gandhiji, the violence has only grown. Names of some the ‘victims’ of violence I recall are: Pratap Singh Kairon, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, MG Ramachandran, Devyani Chaubal, Jai Prakash Narayan, Lala Jagat Narayan,JS Bhindranwale, HS Longowal, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Safdar Hashmi, General AS Vaidya,Asghar Ali Engineer, Phoolan Devi,Syed Modi, Santhakumaran Sreesanth… now Prashanth Bhushan.

From the list, one can see clearly that the Degree and Kind of violence is immaterial ... Wife-beating husbands, pupil-caning teachers, gun-toting gangsters,political and ideological opponents, and indisciplined actors and sports-persons, child-beating parents, AND the victims (we play both roles, I hasten to add) all generate violence. The sum of which is so high that trying to theorize and categorize violence is a futile academic exercise. This all pervasive violence is appalling, especially in India which prides itself as the karma-bhoomi of Gandhi. Every wakeful minute of our lives is spent negotiating this monster called violence. The reasons for such violence lie within ourselves. The red-chip that Danny Denzongpa inserts in Rajnikant’s Robot is already present in us and can remain within us for all we care.

In which case, what is this great civilization, this principle of non-violence? A big ruse and a big failure. We are great at pretending to be what we are not; we are hypocrites,; we are incapable of tolerance; and before that, we are incapable of understanding. So we roll up our sleeves at the slightest opportunity.How else can we explain the Prashant Bhushan incident except as illogical, irrational, impulsive behavior? He said something which we do not like… so bunch the fists, gentlemen and sock into him… so simple you see! This whole business of police, police-stations, lawyers, courts, round-table meetings is unnecessary, as indeed useless, witness Kasab and Kalmadi. You only need to bunch your fist, look menacing, and have a god-father in the right places.It is a perfectly acceptable technique of dispute-settlement. It is a time-honoured method, you see… Pummel Prashant into submission. Others will fall in line. Flex your muscles, gentlemen while you can. In India law will take its own course and time.

Jagjit tera jawaab nahiin

Jagjit Singh was praised by the irrepressible Khushwant Singh as better looking than Dilip Kumar and better singer than Mehdi Hasan. This was in early 1970s. The comment courted controversy, like all of Khushwant’s comments were wont to.It is not possible to judge whether Khushwant was on the mark;but it is possible to say:

Jagjit, tera jawaab nahii.

A whole generation of music-lovers were brought-up on Jagjit’s Ghazals. The’d heard of Talat Mehmood; they had heard Begum Akhtar. They grew up humming Jagjit’s soulful and simple tunes and lyrics which rarely got complex. Aam aadmi’s ghazal, without any compromise on standard of music, words which fell soothingly on souls, notes and little taans which kept the musically initiated waiting for more, Chitra’s voice among other accompaniments of the excellent orchestra … this was Jagjit’s forte.

Many , many were the days when five or six of us would assemble at Nuzhath’s home, for ‘combined studies’. No one knows what happened to the studies. But we combined Jagjit’s tapes with the afternoons’ siesta ,following the lunches full of delicacies the Senior Hussains always conjured for us. Nuzhath would ask, ‘yeh sunaa, Subbu?’ and play Koyii yaad aaya, saveraey, saveraey/ Mujhhe aazmaaya, saveraey, saveraey in raaga Lalit. The guitar notes went “ ni re … ga ga ga/ / ni re … sa sa sa” in the Mandra saptak, using the delicate flexibility of komal dha drawing on a ‘pa’ which hovered somewhere in the background. Then came the taan in the Madhya saptak skimming the depth of a Mandrama ” ga ma dha ni sa re sa/ni dha re sa / ni dha re sa / ni dha re sa/ ni re ga/ ni re … ga / ni re … ga ga ga/ / ni re … sa sa sa ”. Between the tivra madhyama and the komal gaandhaara the so called stable panchama played hide-and-seek. I’d be lost. Then came the verse kati raat saari, terii maikadey mein/ Khuda yaad aaya, saveraey, saveraey. I was even more lost. What could one do except go down on ones knees and pray?!

Jagjit was not rigid about the raga. He’d experiment and touch unexpected notes, but get back to the matrix soon enough. Alongwith this ghazal, my mind recalled the Manna Dey-Rafi classic “Man ki pyaas bujhaaney aayii/ antarghaT tak pyaasii huun mai/ Tu hii Merii Prem Devataa”, and Rafi’s “Ek shahenshah ne banwaake hasiin TajMahal/Saari duniya ko mohabbat ki nishaanii dii hai”…., and for hours afterwards I’d keep humming silently in my mind, these songs and the raga Lalit.

That was also the time of ‘love and loss’. Jagjit gave me “Duniya jise kehtey hain, jaduu ka khilona hai/mil jaaye tau mittii hai, kho jaaye to Sona hai” to sing alongside Mukesh’s “Saarangaa teri yaad mein…”. In Duniya jise kehtey hai there is a particularly memorable verse: “Barsaat ka baadal tau / Diiwana hai kya jaaney/ kis raah se bachnaa hai,kis chath ko bhigona hai”. How should love know what is appropriate? Oh! God! He and Chitra squeezed out our hearts for us.

Many of us think Jagjit burst in on the scene at his best. Except for “Yeh daulat bhi ley lo… woh kaagaz ki kashti, woh barish ka paani” Jagjit never sang like he did in late 70s and early 80s. There was an occasional film song (“ Honthon se chuukar tum, mera geet amar kar doo” and “Tum itna kyuun muskuraa rahey ho”). India also got hooked on to Ghulam Ali and to a much lesser extent, Talat Aziz (“Kya milaega kisii ko kisi sey…). Pankaj Udhas and Anoop Jalota did the rounds as well.

But, Jagjit? Oh well there is much to recall. The accidents in his life made him a little melancholy as a singer, but what is music without that ‘still, sad, humanity”? The sadness of his voice, his choice of verse brought for us a karuna and laalitya like the pleasing , soft hues of a secondary rainbow.

Thank you, Nuzhath, for providing the space in which I could discover Jagjit for myself. And your parents, for the open-house, and our M.A. which provided the ‘bahaana’ of combined studies!

And Thank You Jagjit Saahib, for the gift of music you gave with passionate generosity.

Aapki aawaaz ke sahaarey hum jii laengey.

Hyderabad Halt

Hyderabad ,the sticken capital city of a critically paralyzed State, is waiting for the Delhi Durbar to infuse some life into it. The Peoples Strike has brought it to a virtual halt. It can no longer be called Andhra Pradesh without inviting the wrath of Telangana, Rayala Seema and what may be left of ‘Andhra’ Pradesh.

The locale of political activity shifts between Hyderabad and Delhi; but the heart of the State and hearts of the people are sticken and the head is contused. The witch-doctors are still watching and trying to ‘anlyze and understand’ the problem as though they are super-speciality doctors who’ll need more diagnostic inputs before taking a suitable and ‘final’ decision. By now any kind of a doctor ,with minimal knowledge of first aid should have rushed with his little bag of pills,potions, herbs and balms, for the care and the cure are necessary NOW, and are quite within the scope of abilities of anyones quackery. The paralysis is reversible as in cinema (notably Rang De Basanti in which Waheeda Rehman’s fingers twitch symbolically at the end of the movie). All that is needed is one simple mantra of understanding and solution which the Delhi apothecaries are unwilling to utter under the breath while tying the knot of a talisman.

The well-known author of some recent, significant Telugu works such as The Last Brahmin, Purana Vedam etc. was in Hyderabad for 3 days. Today when I had to help him buy a ticket back to his hometown, I tried Private bus operators, Railway Reservation Counters and finally bought a General Ticket and pushed him into a crowded bogie. The strike and the festival combined to conjure a World War II rickety bogey choked with contorted passengers hoping somehow to keep breathing till the destination came.

The pleasure of the three days of company and animated conversations and the disarming candour of the writer gove way to a sense of guilt that he was being put to so much trouble. What is the plight of the Singareni worker, the RTC driver, the MCH worker, the government clerk, the common patient at a government hospital, and the thousands of students who are hoping that the schools WILL reopen on the 10^th of October ? What about small-traders, street-vendors, daily labour? Does Delhi want to wait till a gas cylinder is sold for Rs. 2000/- and a litre of petrol for Rs. 150/-? Onoions at Rs. 60/- etc.?

The AP CM, Mr. Kiran Kumar Reddy promised Rice at Re.1/-Kg through the PDS for certain categories of Ration Card –holders. Is he joking? If the strike continues and goods transport is hit, will a rupee buy a few grains of rice?

Wake up Delhi, before everything spirals out of control. Act now.Manmohan ji, your composure is actually obscene now.

Pataudi ,theTiger ! Burning Bright

The Nawab of Pataudi, Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, and Tiger Pataudi the cricketer who was known variously and for his varied abilioties will have a nice little chapter in a definitive history of Indian cricket.

When I first began following cricket as a 10 year-old, there was the Nawab ; in 1969 Indira Gandhi abolished the Privy Purses, and we got Mansoor ali Khan. The Tiger, however, remained constant. When he took the field to bat or to marshal the fielding and bowling resources, all of India waited expectantly, and the cricketing world looked on with great admiration and respect. He was very alert and quick on the field, quite astute as a captain, gave Indian cricket a direction with the spin-bowlers dominating batsmen all over the world, till Kapil Dev came in 1978. He was aggressive as a batsman, and aggressive as a teamsman. Only M.L. Jaisimha, Sourav Ganguly and MS Dhoni are comparable, while Kapil’s individual attacking game and Kumble‘s hunger for wickets compare person to person. Kumble and Dravid displayed attacking captaincy qualities but all too briefly.

What stands out about Tiger Pataudi is his overall attitude towards the game. He knew that the ball was there to be hit along the carpet or in the air, but hit certainly. When someone else hit it he had to stop it, not watch it roll over the boundary. And the match was there to be won or lost, not drawn out to a point of boredom as Geoff Boycott or Anshuman Gaekwad were won’t to do. Safety first , was a tactic that came in later years through other captains.

Pataudi will be remembered for many things: his opening over ,then the new ball tossed to Bedi; the ‘dropping’ of medium-pacer Subrata Guha for spinner Venkataraghavan after the playing eleven had first been announced; the loss of Captaincy to Ajit Wadekar by Vijay Merchant’s Casting Vote; the come back as captain against the WIndies in 1975 and a special treatment of Vanburn Holder after a ‘special‘ treatment from Andy Roberts; but most importantly his two knocks of over 70 in Australia handicapped with a hamstring injury beside the blind right eye.

For the 1967-68 series in Australia, ML Jaisimha was not in the touring team. By the end of the 2^nd Test, India was desperately looking for a strong player. An ‘injured’ Chandrasekhar was sent back and Jaisimha flown in. Jaisimha scored a memorable century joining the team virtually from off the aeroplane. I certainly don’t know the politics of it all, but wonder whether Pataudi and Jaisimha, both very accomplished and very proud players, were on the best of terms. It is often said the Jaisimha was the best captain India never had.

That’s not the only Hyderabad note in Pataudi’s life apart from his nephew, Saad Bin Jung’s remarkable century against the West Indies (after which he just faded away). Moin-ud-Dowla was a prestigious tournament in those days.Pataudi played for Hyderabad alongside Jaisimha, Abbas Ali Baig and Abid Ali, a bit of a star-cast you might say.

Star he was. Burning bright. Like Blake’s Tiger.

People Strike in Telangana

The Railway Strike of 1974, called by George Fernandez , lasting 20 days and involving over 1.5 crore railway workers, alone appears bigger than the current Telangana strike. The railway strike and the aftermath led to the imposition of Internal Emergency in 1975 and the subsequent churning in Indian politics changing it forever. This 7 day-old people’s strike is quite as total as a strike can be.

Whether this strike will have the desired impact or not may be a debatable point. But the strategic planning that has gone into it is nothing short of a marvel. The stages by which it is being intensified and implemented merits close analytic attention ; and the minds of the people at the helm of affairs are definitely shrewd. Barring sporadic incidence of violence, by and large the strike has been peaceful. And it has crippled the functioning of the administrative as well as the civil machinery quite emphatically. Where will this lead to? Let it be admitted:Even the most visible faces of the Telangana Movement may not be able to steer the course with the deftness displayed till now. Is chaos set to prevail?

The Centre and the State are ‘watching’ or making ad hoc moves which can do no observable good. It is important for leaders to display statesmanship in this situation. People of this now-untenable State must not be treated as sacrificial pawns in the political chess games of the Congressmen at Hyderabad and Delhi. An active engagement by way of all inclusive and wide-ranging dialogue is an immediate need. The waiting and the deferment are no longer acceptable. Whether there are any compromise formulas or whether all options but the creation of a new state are closed, is less of an issue than the immediate expression of intent to address the problem.

Yet, the Centre and the State are almost unwilling to acknowledge that a problem exists. Then, will they act with urgency to provide solutions?

I expect not.

They behave like monarchs, not democratic governments.I don’t think they are familiar with the famous words: “When Fate summons, monarchs must obey.”

Is anyone listening?

Telangana and the Central Government

With the participation of coal-miners, and of State Government Employees, the strike called by the proponents of Telangana has begun today on a scale that promises to grow larger than the ‘rulers’ expected.

Anna Hazare and YS Jagan, in a sense, took national focus away from the issue.

Let it be said that the interregnum gave the Telangana people time to recoup and plan in such a way that this time the issue may be ignored only at great peril to the powers that be.

What is the UPA government doing?

Why does the Congress send its emissary only two days before the strike is all set to begin?

And why does a Congress government in this State adopt postures it can hardly sustain?

For a moment, let it be imagined that ESMA and other provisions and strategies succeed in defusing

this event now, in a few days, without much damage to the people and the economy of this state.

Will that clear the issue once for all?

Hardly.The polarization is so complete now, that there can only be an even bigger event of unimaginable proportions.

The Congress at the Centre and the State is very definitely pushing in that direction, when people will no longer cook and eat on the streets, or sing and dance. A macabre dance is waiting in the wings for a beckoning history to gesture vigorously enough. Evidently the Centre does not see well and hears little. When the macabre dance unveils itself, the Centre will really be caught unawares. As in Anna’s case, it will make all the mistakes it can before making its customary knee-jerk attempts to resolve the issue.

How sore and listless, how bowed and buffetted to keep ones own counsel; what dire times and governing stars reign unseen! Ha! Manmohan; ’fore civil strife and rot general spread, wake thou, if thou couldst thy political sense and yield ground to the venturesome AlexChanders and Kodands.They that make their fortunes shall make thine, too.Must ye choose t’mar theirs, be thou marred in thine…

Ten Years since 9/11

Because Nature does not destroy mankind the way it destroys most life forms, it gave him intelligence.

He learns unending ways of destroying himself.

There is something of a celebratory rituality about this self-destruction.

He celebrates destruction as victory, and gives it moral names Nature looks on with an air of slight amusement.

A random sample of events in history will suffice to strengthen this view.

9/11 and the succeeding reign of terror is one of a series of such destructive actions of intelligent man.

Religion, power, science, aggression and defense, ethics are names and values man gives to these self-destructive activities. And celebrates them more fiercely than he does compassion , love(making), child-birth, music, poetry and art. Because the intelligence Nature gives man is the instrument of destruction, not the impulse of life. As Ann Stevenson points out in her poem, ‘the sprit is too blunt an instrument’ to create the tenderness of the delicate and complex curves of the ear of a baby.

Osama, Obama, Dubya and Mohd. Atta , and everyone who made and recalls 9/11 is essentially admitting that Nature has outwit them and their gestures are an affirmation that they are carrying out Nature’s Will as it willed.

Two Home Ministers and a Quake

One Home Minister was busy changing his suits, it is said, when Mumbai was under siege of terrorists. He eventually lost his cabinet berth and occupied a workless place worth plenty of privilege and protocol.

Another was probably polishing his parliamentary speech for the day when the Delhi High Court suffered a sledge-hammer punch. The bomb-blast took 11 lives and wounded about 70 people at a fairly early hour in the morning.. The Home Minister was at pains to explain that the country was saddened by this grievous attack, although it was doing its best to prevent such events. Among the major measures undertaken to prevent terrorist strikes were:

1. Scrutiny of tenders to buy CCTV cameras for installation at the High Court;
2. Refining ones English –speaking skills to condemn such attacks in more sophisticated ways;
3. Conducting research into the Opposition party’s record of handling such events when they were last in power;
4. Appearing more concerned than the last time on TV and in the parliament
5. Sounding a Red Alert all over the country.

Excellent, Mr. Home Minister. The terrorists are beginning to quake in their shoes. Their fear showed that night at 11.28. Delhi and other places recorded 4.2 on the Richter scale.

The Home Minister had earlier reacted quickly to the demand for a separate Telangana. That also led to a quake, of a different kind ,though. The after-shocks have not ceased yet. But his alacrity in response has been noticed by one and all. Time he got his reward, too--- a guv’nor’s post and relief from the responsibilities of the Home Ministry.

The PM faces a tough task. Who should be appointed Home Minister?

General Musharraf. He knows all about plotting for bomb blasts; so he’ll be able to monitor the suspicious movements and control the mysterious ways of terrorists.

***Unny's Cartoon in today's Hindu newspaper With Chidambaram watching his reflection in the mirror to find Shivraj Patil was an apt comment.

The Privilege Motions

Om Puri and Kiran Bedi face privilege motions for having spoken against the Loksabha members

Om Puri said the MPs are ‘naalaayak’, ‘nikamma’, ‘anpadh’ and ‘ganwaar’.

That, apparently ,is a breach of privilege of the MPs.

I agree.

Om Puri should not have described themselves as such

They alone have the right and the privilege to describe themselves accurately. Who is Om Puri to take away their rights?

Remember, how once upon a time there was an old man in a hurry, one Mr. Deve Gowda who was Prime Minister? Some MP called him nikamma. In a spirited defense, before handing the baton to IK Gujral, Mr. Gowda who knew little Hindi, asked : What is this ‘nikamma’? Nikkamma… akkamma…

Clearly, if the PM could say that on the floor of the House, it is no longer an unparliamentary word. After all ,it was used to describe the Prime Minister of India , damn it !

Actually, all these words and much worse have been used in many legislatures across the country. The Speakers of these Houses have long been reduced to instructing the secretaries to refrain from taking anything on record. They and the secretaries are so accustomed to it, probably very often they babble in sleep… nothing on record… kuch record mein nahiin jaayega.

As for Kiran Bedi, the mimicry was very poor. She could hardly match a back-bencher in antics. Really, there are a good many law-makers who do a far superior mimicry of democracy than Kiran Bedi could ever hope to match.

So, what privilege was breached?

Nothing . The MPs and the parliament are supreme, and Om Puri and Kiran Bedi are poor imitators. The parliament should send them to the National School of Drama, give them enough time to really learn, and then decide whether they are capable of saying anything that amounts to a trespass. Of parliamentary privilege.

The Cynic and the Sainik

So Arundhati Roy has voiced the belief of most people that Anna Hazare has been used by by foreign-funded NGO s, and that the whole thing, a regressive bill, and the events of the last fortnight were driven by considerations other than the best interests of the Indian people. Lots of people all over India were taken for a ride.

Great.

Political parties and party-men take Indians for a ride.

NGOs and Foreign Agencies take Indians for a ride.

Men posturing as Messaiahs take Indians for a ride.

Babas (Godmen) posturing as Men take Indians for a ride.

White people posturing as bearers of civilization take Indians for a ride.

Indians posing as Indians take Indians for a ride.

You can draw up your lists of people and agencies which take Indians for a ride.

Are Indians so stupid that they lend themselves so easily to impostors? If yes, then we deserve to be… fully.

I don’t believe we are stupid. We are only at loggerheads with each other because of certain laws of Nature by which we are all , in gigantic numbers, fighting for scarce resources. Scarce by political and industrial design, not by Nature.

If we are to survive this exploitative phase, we must leave the cynics to indulge themselves.

And we must follow the Gandhi-Anna Hazare mode… turn into Sainiks and put Sibals, Advanis, Chidambarams, Sushmas and Umas, Manish Tiwaris, Arun Jaitleys in their place.

A huge force of sainiks can keep the cynics from making demoralizing statements. Only demoralized people are taken for a ride. We shall no longer lend our shoulders for these cynics to hop on .Enough of this being taken for a ride. Aundhati Roy speaks the same language as Sibal and Chidambaram … only the dialect is different .Debaters play with idiom… the issue always is I, me, myself.

The cynics are weak ,half-believers in their casual creeds, and talkers.

Sainiks will have to be disciplined, ready to understand the anguish and the language of the people, ready to follow good leaders and build a nation of believers, and workers. The beliefs and the work can be very simple. Food-security for all; desi kapda for all; a shelter over each ones head; complete freedom from harassment, both internal and external.

Very big task. Needs strong sainiks (Volunteers of Shiva and of National Reconstruction must leave their Gods and their ‘heritage-driven’ ideologies before joining this force) .

Are we game?

Back Again

Having been busy with some house-keeping for some days, I'm back to my pastime.

Not that anyone may have missed me; but that I missed the activity.

So the next three posts deal with issues which have current significance but are already 'old' in terms of media-speeds. This is indulgence , but blogging , as a good friend pointed out, are indulgence.

And my first blog spelt out my motto. Koyi na miley tau akeyley mein gaana...

On with it, then...

What is the history made today?

What is the history that’s been made today ? Members of Parliament will be unmindful of people’s view, leave alone needs, unless the people are led by some real social-welfarist; or a good-samaritan who believes in his goodness but may not have more than a nebulous vision for the society he believes he represents. Or by a charlatan.

The many twists and turns, the tamaasha, the foregrounding of ‘youth’ in Parliament and in the much larger society, the media-mayhem for almost two weeks, the Central Government’s attempts to hold off the inevitable capitulation, the Opposition’s attempts to score points in the joust, everyone’s hope to avoid being worsted, crumbling edifices and weak moves to prevent a collapse using pest-ridden scaffoldings, a fearful sheltering behind rules… all this and the hard-working back-channels have established beyond doubt that Indian Democracy is as spurious as it can get without crossing over into a mafia state.

People pay taxes, direct and indirect, and fill the treasuries and the governments takes loans from every possible source, only to enable the politicians and the businessmen to siphon away the largest portion of the resources. In turn people make do with small pickings from dubious sources using dubious methods. Those who can not do that live in ways we will not want to imagine. They die in ways we will never be able to imagine.That is the status of social life and political life in this country.

At statutory intervals the governments change. Nothing else does.

Till the average good man or an above average charlatan decides to manipulate the system. This is certainly not an ideal context in which to live and script history. But that is precisely what’s been happening.For 64 years.

Will the Anna Hazare phenomenon be a defining moment for India? Or will it be a bit like Indira Gandhi’s 1969 coup against the older Congressmen; or Jai Prakash Narain’s Total Revolution that created an all too brief interregnum in post-independence Indian political history; or like NT Rama Rao’s political foray into Andhra Pradesh politics; or like Manmohan Singh’s entry into politics under P.V. Narasimha Rao’s umbrella; or like Kanshi Ram’s BSP?

Won’t governments automatically work for the people without flashing chimeras in order to win elections? Will India always need Anna Hazare-like figures? From time to time, someone who’ll get too difficult to handle and fearing a backlash from his support-bases the Governments and Oppositions beat strategic retreats?

The pressure that Anna and the people built up was difficult to handle only because the “system” was “ Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike” (Alexander Pope). What happens if the hard-lines hardened further and the government did what Indira Gandhi did in 1975? Please be aware… that what happened today was no honourable resolution.; only a pitiable or indeed shameful display of the self-preservation instinct.

After the celebrations, gentlemen, ,all too short I dare-say, will have to begin a real soul-searching. Otherwise the country—all 100 crores of us—will be facing hard times and facts. And harsh acts.

A pyrrhic victory will necessarily be followed by a dire calamity if we drop our vigil. Let there be sobriety lest there follow something sombre.