It’s one year since those horrific terror attacks in Mumbai. Pictures of a burning Taj Mahal hotel near the Gateway of India and NSG commandos slithering down from choppers to rescue the trapped hostages and eliminate the enemies of the nation shall remain etched in Indian public memory for a long time to time. First anniversary is certainly a time to pay homage to the victims and tributes to the brave hearts who died fighting to save Mumbai, Mumbaikars and India.
Yet, anniversaries are also solemn occasions to engage in self-introspection as to what all lessons we learnt from the past to ensure that such crimes do not occur in the future. Reams have been written about the efficacy (or inefficiency) of our police and intelligence machinery, the loopholes therein and the possibility of similar attacks.
Nevertheless, one must give full credit to Union Home Minister P Chidambaram for ensuring that no major terror strikes took place thereafter. But that is no reason to celebrate, While Pakistan-backed terror attacks may have abated, due to increased vigilance and partly due to the international pressure on Islamabad, Naxalite attacks have increased manifold. Terrorism is terrorism. Let us not segregate it. Killing of innocents is unacceptable in a civilized society. There are democratic means of protests, howsoever genuine the grievances are.
If the Naxalite problem can be justified on the plea that the tribals face genuine problems, when we condemn terrorism, do we mean to say that the people in Kashmir are not facing problems? The million dollar question is whether in a civilized and democratic polity, is violence the answer to problems people face and the answer is an emphatic NO.
Coming back to Mumbai, television shots have shown us the miserable conditions in which policemen guarding the prestigious Gateway of India are living. Few sophisticated weapons and automobiles cannot do what motivated men can. While machines are important, the men behind the machines are more important. A demotivated security force with all the security paraphernalia just won’t be able to deliver.
Equally important is what Vice-President of India Hamid Ansari pointed out at a recent International Conference of Jurists on Terrorism in Delhi. He described corruption as the gravest threat to national security. Let us not treat anyone as holy cows. Let us accept that corruption exists not only among politicians and bureaucrats but also among our security forces personnel. There are black sheeps deployed along the nation’s porous borders who won’t blink an eye selling the nation’s security for a price. All the terrorists, their sophisticated weapons and the loads of counterfeit currency gaining free access into the country is certainly not reflective of the competence of the anti-India forces alone. Rather, they speak volumes of the incompetence and corruption among the people entrusted with guarding the nation’s frontiers and maintaining law and order across the country.
As they say, one bad fish can spoil the entire pond. Let us draw out an action plan to weed out such corrupt and anti-national elements from our patriotic forces. The war against corruption has to be an integral and inalienable part of our war against terrorism.
Last but not the least, has the media learnt any lessons? Again, an emphatic No. We only slammed those who dared to criticize us, such as the Naval Chief. We have become so touchy and hypersensitive that we consider even a mild criticism as an assault on freedom of speech and expression. This is another threat to democracy and free speech and exposes the double standards of Indian media, among the free-est, if one may describe so, in the democratic world. Carrying live commando operations, to the advantage of the enemy, was nothing short of irresponsibility. It only reminded one of the Himalayan blunders committed by some of our television journalists during the Kargil conflict wherein they exposed our forces to enemy fire, just for the sake of exclusive shots. Sad that instead of being condemned to the dustbins of the profession, they went on to acquire the halo of Christian Amanpour of Indian media.
The scare the Indian media created following the outbreak of H1N1, which happened after the Mumbai attacks, showed that we have not learnt any lessons. They succeeded in shutting down Mumbai, its markets, malls and movie halls, something Ajmal Kasab and his accomplices could not. More people have died of Dengue in Delhi alone over the past couple of months than the people killed by H1N1 across the country put together.
It’s high time the media too did some introspection. While pointing a finger at others, it must remember that three fingers are pointed inwards. As an eminent thinker said, you may disagree with me but I shall defend your right to disagree.
Let us all pledge to be a little less corrupt, a little more patriotic, a little less talkative and a little more hardworking. That would be the real tribute to the martyrs of Mumbai, not just candlelight and flowers.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
'Bhasmasuras' of Indian Politics
Finally, the political crisis in Karnataka appears to have blown over with a ‘dictatorial’ Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa succumbing to the demands of rebel MPs led by Bellary’s (in) famous Reddy brothers, after an emotional outburst on television. With his wings clipped, the Chief Minister presented a rag-tag compromise as a memento to party stalwart L K Advani on his 82nd birthday in Delhi. In the process, he had to ‘sacrifice’ not only his close aides such as Minister Shobha but also loyal bureaucrats like Baligar.
While the emergence of the Reddys, mining barons who have wreaked havoc with their mining activities on the Andhra-Karnataka border, as political heavy weights influencing the fate of democratically elected Governments is a matter of serious concern for one and all, the development should also open the eyes of political parties like the BJP, which swear by morality and ethics, to the follies of aligning with such elements in their blind pursuit of power.
All said and done, it was the Reddy brothers, who facilitated the formation of the first saffron Government south of Vindhyas, by luring away legislators from the opposition Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) and it was but natural that they would extract their pound of flesh. The days of freebies and free lunches are over, so are convictions and ideological commitments in politics. Politics has become a marriage of convenience and power has become an end in itself and no more a means to serve the masses.
In Indian mythology, we have the story of Bhasmasura, the demon who obtained from Lord Siva the power to turn anyone into ashes by just keeping his hand over them and then turned against the same divinity to try his hand out, literally. In the West, we have the famous story of Frankenstein.
But then grooming monsters are not new to us in Indian politics. Wasn’t it the Congress party which groomed Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale with the vested interest of belittling the Akalis. The Sikh militancy, the Operation Bluestar, the assassination of Indira Gandhi and the unfortunate riots that followed it are too deep scars etched in our national memory. So is the case with the LTTE, which ultimately devoured a promising national leader.
Examples galore both domestically and internationally. The US is paying the price to date for raising the Mujahideen in Afghanistan while Pakistan is today at the receiving end of Taliban, the Islamic student militia, which it sustained and nourished for decades.
The decline of the BJP has little to do with either Hindutva or Jinnah. They are at best excuses. For a party that projected itself as ‘different’, the nemesis has its origins in the umpteen compromises it made for the sake of power. In its pursuit of power, the party threw to the winds all norms of propriety and ethics and colluded with the most corrupt.
Soon, the façade fell of and the people, who were looking for an alternative to the five-decade long rule of the Congress party, realized they were being led up the garden path by a poor copy cat of the very same party they were planning to boot out for good. If corruption and compromise are the hallmarks, then why not the original, they asked and voted back the Congress for a second consecutive term.
From the Tehelka tapes to the cash for questions and MPLAD scam, BJP leaders and MPs ruled the roost and established new benchmarks in political debasement - from a national President taking Rs One Lakh on camera to an MP being sold for Rs 5,000/- for a parliament question. The compromise with the Reddy brothers will add another inglorious chapter to the party’s long list of unpardonable compromises for the sake of sticking on to power. After all, wasn’t this the party which aligned with Jayalalithaa after organizing nation-wide protests against the arrest of the Shankaracharya of Kanchi by her Government? If BJP intends to restore its credibility and regain the confidence of the Indian people, it will have to live up to its ‘PROMISES’ and end once for all, the tendency to ‘COMPROMISE’.
While the emergence of the Reddys, mining barons who have wreaked havoc with their mining activities on the Andhra-Karnataka border, as political heavy weights influencing the fate of democratically elected Governments is a matter of serious concern for one and all, the development should also open the eyes of political parties like the BJP, which swear by morality and ethics, to the follies of aligning with such elements in their blind pursuit of power.
All said and done, it was the Reddy brothers, who facilitated the formation of the first saffron Government south of Vindhyas, by luring away legislators from the opposition Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) and it was but natural that they would extract their pound of flesh. The days of freebies and free lunches are over, so are convictions and ideological commitments in politics. Politics has become a marriage of convenience and power has become an end in itself and no more a means to serve the masses.
In Indian mythology, we have the story of Bhasmasura, the demon who obtained from Lord Siva the power to turn anyone into ashes by just keeping his hand over them and then turned against the same divinity to try his hand out, literally. In the West, we have the famous story of Frankenstein.
But then grooming monsters are not new to us in Indian politics. Wasn’t it the Congress party which groomed Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale with the vested interest of belittling the Akalis. The Sikh militancy, the Operation Bluestar, the assassination of Indira Gandhi and the unfortunate riots that followed it are too deep scars etched in our national memory. So is the case with the LTTE, which ultimately devoured a promising national leader.
Examples galore both domestically and internationally. The US is paying the price to date for raising the Mujahideen in Afghanistan while Pakistan is today at the receiving end of Taliban, the Islamic student militia, which it sustained and nourished for decades.
The decline of the BJP has little to do with either Hindutva or Jinnah. They are at best excuses. For a party that projected itself as ‘different’, the nemesis has its origins in the umpteen compromises it made for the sake of power. In its pursuit of power, the party threw to the winds all norms of propriety and ethics and colluded with the most corrupt.
Soon, the façade fell of and the people, who were looking for an alternative to the five-decade long rule of the Congress party, realized they were being led up the garden path by a poor copy cat of the very same party they were planning to boot out for good. If corruption and compromise are the hallmarks, then why not the original, they asked and voted back the Congress for a second consecutive term.
From the Tehelka tapes to the cash for questions and MPLAD scam, BJP leaders and MPs ruled the roost and established new benchmarks in political debasement - from a national President taking Rs One Lakh on camera to an MP being sold for Rs 5,000/- for a parliament question. The compromise with the Reddy brothers will add another inglorious chapter to the party’s long list of unpardonable compromises for the sake of sticking on to power. After all, wasn’t this the party which aligned with Jayalalithaa after organizing nation-wide protests against the arrest of the Shankaracharya of Kanchi by her Government? If BJP intends to restore its credibility and regain the confidence of the Indian people, it will have to live up to its ‘PROMISES’ and end once for all, the tendency to ‘COMPROMISE’.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
On Odisha and Odiya
Shakespeare had once famously remarked that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Yet, naming roads and buildings after their favourite leaders and renaming cities and towns or de-anglicizing them continues to be a fashion among our ruling class. After Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai and Uttarakhand now comes Odisha. Even the language has been renamed Odia.
Undoubtedly, referring to one’s state and language in one’s own style does give a sense of pride, even if it happens to be tongue twister like Thiruvananthapuram as against the speaker friendly Trivandrum. Yet, it has to be ensured that this pride does not lead to linguistic fanaticism and quest for purity which has robbed languages such as Hindi and Urdu of its richness and beauty. The zealots failed to realize that a loud robust ‘Hoshiar’ is far more potent to keep the jawan alert rather than a timid ‘satark’ and a ‘Pradhan Mantri’ evokes much more respect than a ‘Wazir-E-Azam’, which sounds more akin to Sharbat-e-Azam.
Moreover, it is the development and inclusive growth and progress of the people of Odisha that should make one really proud than just the way the state’s name is pronounced.
Linguistic Purity
Former Minister Shahnawaz Hussein, who was recently in news for being denied and later granted visa by the United States, once recalled how as Minister for Food Processing (in the NDA Government), he was referred to by an Urdu purist at a conference as Wazir-E-Riyasat-Band Dabba.
Undoubtedly, referring to one’s state and language in one’s own style does give a sense of pride, even if it happens to be tongue twister like Thiruvananthapuram as against the speaker friendly Trivandrum. Yet, it has to be ensured that this pride does not lead to linguistic fanaticism and quest for purity which has robbed languages such as Hindi and Urdu of its richness and beauty. The zealots failed to realize that a loud robust ‘Hoshiar’ is far more potent to keep the jawan alert rather than a timid ‘satark’ and a ‘Pradhan Mantri’ evokes much more respect than a ‘Wazir-E-Azam’, which sounds more akin to Sharbat-e-Azam.
Moreover, it is the development and inclusive growth and progress of the people of Odisha that should make one really proud than just the way the state’s name is pronounced.
Linguistic Purity
Former Minister Shahnawaz Hussein, who was recently in news for being denied and later granted visa by the United States, once recalled how as Minister for Food Processing (in the NDA Government), he was referred to by an Urdu purist at a conference as Wazir-E-Riyasat-Band Dabba.
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