26
Since time immemorial, mankind has been confronted with conflicts and disputes and history is replete with instances of efforts to resolve them through dialogue and mediation. The practice of sending ‘Dootas’ or emissaries to resolve outstanding issue between warring princely states were in vogue in India for ages. One remembers how Lord Hanuman, Prince Angad and even Vibhishana were sent as envoys to Demon King Ravana to prevent a war with Lord Rama and how the Divine Cowherd Lord Krishna made a serious bid to broker peace between the Pandava and Kaurava cousins.
If Buddhism was Emperor Asoka’s way to atone for the sins of the Kalinga war, in modern times, it was the League of Nations and its successor, the United Nations, which sought to lend the healing touch to a wounded humanity in the aftermath of the First and Second World Wars.
In today’s information and communication era, when both children and adults alike spent more time with the internet, television, mobile phone and other interactive gizmos, than with their loved ones, the messenger, whether be of peace or conflict, is the media.
It was CNN International which brought war to drawing rooms across the world during the Gulf War. In India, it was the Kargil Conflict. Never before was the man on the street so intimately involved with the war. The live telecast from the war zone motivated an entire nation, with all its ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversities, into united action. Of course, there were aberrations too, such as the one where a celebrated woman reporter with a prominent English news channel (whose name also figures prominently in the recent Spectrum Scam) caused casualties among the armed forces personnel by her irresponsible actions. But from the overall perspective, the media played a constructive role and stirred up patriotic sentiments, which enabled the nation to overcome all the odds.
Another Litmus Test for the media was the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. Undoubtedly, media shook everyone including the security and intelligence apparatus out of their deep slumber but in their zest for doing so, virtually created death traps for our brave hearts who were fighting it out against the Jehadi terrorists. The live coverage of the operations not only helped in achieving the objectives of the perpetrators of the act – to instil a sense of terror among the Indians – but also enabled the terrorists to get real time information on the activities of the security personnel. Even the then Navy Chief was unsparing in his criticism of the media’s role in the entire episode. Instead of squarely and unequivocally condemning the terror strike, words such as ‘daring’ were used ad nauseum to describe the despicable act of the Pakistani mercenaries. Suggestions were also made to the effect that it could be a retaliation to the post-Godhra violence in Gujarat and the activities of the so-called ‘Saffron Terrorists’. It was even suggested (and endorsed by a Union Minister A R Antulay) that some ‘Hindu’ groups could be behind the killing of police officer Hemant Karkare, who happened to investigate the Malegaon blast case.
There could not have been anything more shameful and irresponsible in such a scenario.
Despite all round condemnation and umpteen debates on the role of media, most of the media players don’t seem to have learnt any lesson, if recent experiences in coverage of conflict situations, specifically Kashmir and Ayodhya, are taken into account.
As unruly mobs went on the rampage pelting stones at security forces personnel and seriously injuring them in the process, a sizeable section of the electronic media, went overboard, shouting from the rooftops as to how ‘innocent’ youth were being ‘killed’ by ‘trigger-happy’ police and para-military personnel. It did not matter to them that the police men at the receiving end of the stage-managed, Pakistan-backed protests were also youth, who too had parents, sibling, spouses and children back home and they were fighting the nation’s war.
But then, what one saw were channels competing with one another to show how a few stone-pelting protested could cause ‘Kashmir in turmoil’, ‘Kashmir on the Edge’, ‘Kashmir on the Boil’ and ‘Kashmir on Fire’, scenarios which even Pakistan’s own state-run channels would think twice before going on air. But then we show nothing but the truth (Kyonki Sach Dikhate Hain Hum), even if it means not going deep into the matter, not asking stone-pelters how much they were paid and who paid them and what were they protesting against, answers to which would have exposed the hollowness of the entire separatist movement. In the process, we handed out fodder to Islamabad to whip us with in the international fora.
As the separatist leadership ranted on the television channels about the human rights violations, nobody questioned them about the human rights of lakhs of Kashmiri Pandits who were forced out of their home and hearth.
Again, when the all party parliamentary delegation visited the state and made efforts to reach out to all sections of the society, including the separatists, some leading news channels lamented how the delegation confined itself to hotel rooms and did not interact with the ‘man on the street’, the ‘injured in the hospitals’, the women who were leading the protests etc. Pray, in which political peace process do you have delegations meeting the ‘aam aadmi’ during their short stay, rather than focusing on the leadership or people claiming to represent the voice of dissidence. Would meeting a woman protester in downtown Srinagar solve the vexed issue?. It was the height of the naivety of this section of the media.
As for learning lessons, the outcome was disappointing. As Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani spewed venom on the nation in the presence of known anti-Establishment voices such as novelist Arundhati Roy in the national capital and scores of Kashmiri Pandit youths stormed the venue and protested, the latter stood condemned on these channels and invoked were freedom of speech and expression and India’s democratic system, values never cherished by the likes of Geelani & Co. No channel talked about the ‘anger’ of the Kashmiri Pandit youth, no channel recalled their role in defending the freedom of speech and expression of Salman Rushdie, Taslima Nasreen or Prof Thomas of Kerala fame.
The stand of a section of English media on the Ayodhya dispute was yet another manifestation of their rank double-standards. To be honest, most were expecting a verdict from the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on the title suit in favour of the Waqf Board and all the appeals for peace were aimed at preventing any communal backlash against the minorities in the wake of a judgement against the status quo.
Not that the verdict does not suffer from flaws but it was apparent from the wordings of the judges including those whose views were divided, that their overriding concern was peace and a peaceful resolution of the issue not a water tight technical judgement, which would have far serious ramifications for the society and the polity.
Having fallen into their trap of creating a peaceful atmosphere, this ‘progressive’ section of the media found it hard to wriggle out on the first day but focused on the how the judges differed on whether the Mosque was built after destroying the temple or on its ruins centuries later.
But once the Left-leaning intelligentsia slept over it and introspected on the alleged political benefits the verdict might accrue to the right-wing, the entire perspective changed. The day after witnessed a barrage of questions ranging from the authority of courts to adjudicate on the basis of faith to the hurt sentiments of the minority community.
But what was childish and outrageous to the sentiments of both the communities were the suggestions to build toilets, hospitals, community centres and educational institutions at the disputed site. I wish to see the day when American Press would suggest construction of a huge toilet at Ground Zero as it would help people from all communities to ease themselves in complete unanimity and thus establish global harmony.
The response of a section of the media to the Ayodhya verdict was thus irresponsible at best and reprehensible at worst.
As they harangued on how India has “moved beyond” and how only bread and butter issues are relevant to the burgeoning population of young Indians, this section of the media forgot or ignored hard hitting facts including the ever growing number of pilgrims, the ever increasing following of spiritual Gurus, the massive expansion of spiritual and faith channels, the super success of children’s films based on mythological themes such as Ganesha, Hanuman and Luv-Kush et al.
It is apparent that this section of media has come to a misconstrued conclusion that an acknowledgement of India’s religiosity, which is integral to the existence of a sizeable chunk of its populace, tantamount to an endorsement of right-wing ideology and its advocates. While these ideological proponents may derive some benefits from this resurgence of religious sentiments, the fact remains that these beliefs and sentiments have a history dating centuries before the creation of these ideological platforms and as such are eternal and life sustaining.
Again, the comparison between the recent verdict and the demolition of the disputed structure in 1992 was meaningless. In the past too, there have been rare instances of violent reactions to court verdicts, including the one on Shah Bano.
As the fourth estate, the conscience keepers of the nation, the media ought to have played a far more conciliatory role to bring about the much-needed rapproachment between the two estranged communities. The media would have played a commendable role if it had projected the views of a Maulana Wahiduddin Khan as against a Salauddin Owaisi, an Arif Mohd Khan instead of a Syed Shahabuddin, a Maulana Mahmood Madani vis a vis a Shahi Imam of Delhi’s Jumma Masjid – voices of peace, reason and reconciliation.
The media is the modern day messenger and its message should bring about peace and harmony and not aggravate disputes and conflicts.
(*K G Suresh is a Delhi-based Senior Journalist and Editor of Media Critique)
Monday, November 8, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Cash or Kind, I don't Mind
A brilliant product of a prestigious media school in the capital who got his first job with a leading English daily was asked to put in his papers within days of his joining the media house. His crime was neither indiscipline nor insubordination but a keenness to expose a prominent builder who had defaulted on delivery to hundreds of middle class investors. The boy belonging to an academic family background and possessing a dash of idealism returned to his hometown promising never to look back. Such instances galore in our media circles. From freebies such as watches and home appliances to complimentary foreign junkets, business journalism has come a long way. With the advent of paid news, media houses themselves have institutionalized the incentive or bribe and the poor journo’s gift voucher has been replaced with demands for advertisement support and even stock options for promoting a particular company or its products.
This is not to say that the journalist has become irrelevant. While the ‘hafta’ of the ordinary journo remains unchanged, the high profile ones have graduated to lobbying, with the names of some figuring prominently in the recent Spectrum Scam. It is an open secret that mega corporates such as the Ambanis, who institutionalized corruption, have journalists across the board on their payroll. So what if the petrol prices go up? One can always blame the Government or the international prices. No need to mention who benefits the most. The ‘A’ word is taboo, nay a blasphemy.
If politics dominated the news arena till the late 80s, it is business that continues to dominate since the early 90s when India opened up to globalization and liberalization. The significance is borne out of the very fact that the man credited with ushering in those twin processes in his capacity as the Finance Minister in the early 90s is now heading the nation for a second term.
This is not to brush the entire profession with the same brush or to say that only the business journalists are into business and the political or even crime beat correspondents are holy cows. Many among the latter category too make big bucks as middlemen for politicos and through transfers and postings.
There are many business journalists who refuse to accept gifts even on festive occasions such as Diwali or New Year. They are contented with their take home salaries. There are also some who gladly accept gifts (Cash or Kind, I don’t mind) since it would be a ‘discourtesy’ not to do so but write what they want, yet the fact remains that gifts have come to be accepted as an integral part and parcel of business journalism (there are also reports of journos putting a minimum price on their head, or is it their soul, say not less than Rs 1,000/- gift voucher).
However, what is more disconcerting is the institutionalization of the process with business channels and pink newspapers vying with each other to recommend investment options to the readers and viewers, of course for a price.
Gone are the days when Gurumurthys and Arun Shouries exposed the misdeeds of the big corporates and were lionized and idolized by journos. The ‘Guru’ of the Abhishek Bachchan variety has arrived.
Yet, we do see a flicker of hope when a P Sainath bats for the poor farmers in their battle against marauding mining, land and retail mafia. May the tribe of such socially conscious journalists increase and may the enlightened readers of our mature democracy reject such biased and superfluous reportage.
This is not to say that the journalist has become irrelevant. While the ‘hafta’ of the ordinary journo remains unchanged, the high profile ones have graduated to lobbying, with the names of some figuring prominently in the recent Spectrum Scam. It is an open secret that mega corporates such as the Ambanis, who institutionalized corruption, have journalists across the board on their payroll. So what if the petrol prices go up? One can always blame the Government or the international prices. No need to mention who benefits the most. The ‘A’ word is taboo, nay a blasphemy.
If politics dominated the news arena till the late 80s, it is business that continues to dominate since the early 90s when India opened up to globalization and liberalization. The significance is borne out of the very fact that the man credited with ushering in those twin processes in his capacity as the Finance Minister in the early 90s is now heading the nation for a second term.
This is not to brush the entire profession with the same brush or to say that only the business journalists are into business and the political or even crime beat correspondents are holy cows. Many among the latter category too make big bucks as middlemen for politicos and through transfers and postings.
There are many business journalists who refuse to accept gifts even on festive occasions such as Diwali or New Year. They are contented with their take home salaries. There are also some who gladly accept gifts (Cash or Kind, I don’t mind) since it would be a ‘discourtesy’ not to do so but write what they want, yet the fact remains that gifts have come to be accepted as an integral part and parcel of business journalism (there are also reports of journos putting a minimum price on their head, or is it their soul, say not less than Rs 1,000/- gift voucher).
However, what is more disconcerting is the institutionalization of the process with business channels and pink newspapers vying with each other to recommend investment options to the readers and viewers, of course for a price.
Gone are the days when Gurumurthys and Arun Shouries exposed the misdeeds of the big corporates and were lionized and idolized by journos. The ‘Guru’ of the Abhishek Bachchan variety has arrived.
Yet, we do see a flicker of hope when a P Sainath bats for the poor farmers in their battle against marauding mining, land and retail mafia. May the tribe of such socially conscious journalists increase and may the enlightened readers of our mature democracy reject such biased and superfluous reportage.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
My Presentation on Paid News at Bhopal IMC Seminar
The issue of Paid news has been dwelt at length across the length and breadth of the country ad nauseum. So, I do not wish to get into the history, incidents or methods of the phenomemon or how it is a threat to democracy itself as several organizations such as Editors’ Guild, journalist unions and eminent individuals have spoken volumes about it. I would like to focus on certain aspects hitherto unaddressed or less attended to.
To simply put it, Paid news is publishing/broadcasting advertisements masquerading as news.
Though Lifafa journalism wherein reporters were paid cash or gift vouchers along with the press release by politicians and business houses has been in vogue for a long time now, feeble voices against publication of news in return for money were heard during the General elections of 2004.
While taking gift vouchers from corporates and some obligations from politicians such as telephone, gas connections, school and college admissions and even jobs were widely prevalent, what has now grabbed the attention is its being institutionalized not by poverty stricken reporters but the publishers themselves, for whom media has increasingly become a commodity like the toilet soap. At this juncture, I do not wish to extend this analogy to another thing used in the toilet.
Now the deception and fraud that such paid news entails is not confined to the reader of the publication or the viewer of the television programme who is deceived into believing that what is essentially an advertisement is in fact an independently produced news content.
Secondly, the candidate concerned violates the Conduct of election rules, which are expected to be enforced by the Election Commission under the Representation of People Act, by not declaring officially the expenditure involved in planting “paid news”.
And last but not the least, the publishing house or television channel violates the provisions of the Companies Act as also the Income Tax Act by not accounting for the money received from the candidates. Thus, all the three are guilty.
But if you have noticed, apart from the right thinking people in the media who are genuinely concerned about the fate of media and the consequence of such trends, a lot of noise is being made by politicians, who have touched the Nadir in corruption.
Yet, they seem to be most concerned about it. Always at the receiving end of the media outburst, they have found a golden opportunity to hit back and put the media in the dock.
So, they have now started shouting from the rooftops at every seminar and workshop and even raised the issue on the floor of the Parliament, demanding that the media be reined in. They have suddenly found the Press Council to be an old toothless tiger having all along ignored the pleas of trade unions and other media organizations to grant more powers to it.
Their concern is understandable. So far, they had cultivated a loyal group of media persons or one or two news papers, who were obliged with often small change, some foreign trips, some committee membership, some transfer postings, some costly Diwali gifts, some awards and once in a blue moon, a Rajya Sabha nomination. But with the institutionalization of lifafa journalism, things have changed. The new media management does not want either Rajya Sabha membership or any award or transfers. They want hard cash, and that too not in thousands or lakhs but in crores and if you don’t pay, they will dig the coffin of your political fortunes.
Politicians fear that they will be edged out of the race if paid news becomes a trend. Since richer candidates have a greater spending power, they can be lavish with their budgets and hence dominate news. They do not even have to account for this expense to the Election Commission, since this transaction is always in cash.
Politicians also feel that they come under pressure from media houses, because if they don’t pay a particular publication, forget the prospects of black out, there is every possibility of them being run down by a negative campaign.
Money has become a great leveler. Ideologies have taken a back seat so have personal loyalties. Coverage goes to the highest bidder.
Hence, this outcry from politicians. The louder their voice, identify them as the worst victims of the phenomenon. For once, the politician is finding himself cornered by a Frankenstein, a Bhasmasur, he himself gave birth to.
Now, coming to the role of the Election Commission which has expressed righteous indignation over the phenomemon and is now being projected by the political class as the saviour who can rescue them from the clutches of paid news.
I firmly believe that the so-called Electoral Reforms which banished cheaper modes of election communication between the candidates and the voters such as pamphlets, posters, handbills, wall writings, badges and even loud speakers on auto rickshaws have forced many a politician to resort to such methods to reach out to the people. Elections earlier were a festival of sorts, a festival of democracy where party and independent candidates would jostle for space on street corners, walls with their posters and pamphlets.
Yes, the walls would get defaced and would have to be painted or whitewashed again. We can always bill it to the candidate concerned and even if the civic agency pays for it, it would be much cheaper than the price we now have to pay to save our democracy from this phenomenon.
We have read reports of how independent candidates shelled out their life’s savings not to campaign but to at least let the world know that they too were in the fray. They had to pay upwards of Rs 50,000/- for a single mention in a newspaper whereas with Rs 5,000, they could have painted the town red with their posters. Even a couple of bill boards in small towns would have been much cheaper. There is a popular book in Kerala ‘Ningalenne Communist aaki” (You made me a Communist). I would tell the EC ‘You created Paid News’.
Not that the media is a holy cow. More than anything else, it is the introduction of the contract system in the newspaper industry that has undermined the independence of the journalist and the primacy of the editor. We have credible reports of how selected journalists were targeted by media managements for not implementing such malpractices.
I am not getting into the details of private treaties and other obnoxious practices such as Medianet being practiced by certain media houses. They deserve condemnation of the highest order.
But a very interesting trend in paid news is the domination of the regional media vis-à-vis their English counterparts. Not that the English wallahs are a morally superior lot.
The English papers are far ahead of their regional counterparts when it comes to corporate clout as they cater more to the English speaking investor.
So we have dime a dozen advisors and experts on business channels who give free advice to viewers on which share to buy and which to sell. Even media critics on these channels rubbish films that do not pay. I have heard Editors Guild member, CNN-IBN’s Rajdeep Sardesai admitting on record that they promote films for money.
Thus, a great film like ‘A Wednesday’ is dismissed without much of a mention and a mediocre movie like ‘My Name is Khan’ is projected in Oscar proportions.
But the Hindi or other regional publications beat their English counterparts hollow when it comes to political clout due to their wide circulation in the rural areas and among the voting public and certainly this matters most in our number game democracy. The regional media perceives elections as a God-send opportunity to get even with their English counterparts in terms of revenue generation.
Not that English media does not play the political game. A recent discussion on youth in politics on CNN-IBN showed only endless footages of Rahul Gandhi as if no other young politicians are around in a nation of one billion plus.
I can go on and on. Problems galore and we have discussed them at length. But what are the solutions. I dare to suggest a few.
1. Put an end to contract system in newspapers and television so that the journalists can work fearlessly and say no to unethical practices of the management.
2. We can give a pay hike to crorepati MPs but not strictly enforce Wage Board recommendations in all newspapers. Why? Give the journalist a decent salary to lead a comfortable life and I can assure you he will make other’s life miserable.
3. Bring back the festival atmosphere in elections. Let there be hoardings, pamphlets, posters and handbills all over. Let even the poorest candidate have the means to reach out to his electorate. Don’t force him to look for surreptitious methods to make his presence felt.
4. Give real powers to an expanded Media Council and bring the Registrar of Newspapers/Licencing authority of television channels and the DAVP under its legal jurisdiction and equip it with the power to cancel the title/license of erring newspapers and withhold Government advertisements to erring publications and channels. The decisions of the Council can be challenged only in the Supreme Court.
5. Clear cut rules and guidelines should be laid down to ensure that media, both print and electronic, draws clear distinction between advertisement and independent editorial content. As in the case with adult content, warnings in regional languages mentioning the paid nature of the content should be aired before the telecast of the programme.
6. The politicians have united to oppose the ‘Paid News’ phenomenon. Let them show the same solidarity in saying a firm ‘no’ when such publishers or broadcasters approach them in future and let them inform each other, inform the election commission and even hold a press conference to state that they have been approached with a coverage package. May I also suggest that they too conduct a sting operation on such journalists and expose them. Let a handful of politician do it and it will serve as a deterrent on such unscrupulous media persons and organizations.
7. Even among hardened criminals, the rapists and paedophiles are looked down upon with contempt. Let our media organizations and institutions shame such unscrupulous fellows through our websites and show their worth to the world. For how many rupees they were bought. The IAS officers in UP have done that. We too can. Let us ostracise and if possible boycott such journalists.
Let us not forget that media is an integral part of the society. The conscientious among the lot will have to take the initiative and rid the profession of this disease, which is now taking epidemic proportions. If we don’t eliminate and exterminate this menace, it will finish us, our credibility as the voice of the voiceless at a critical juncture in the nation’s life when all other institutions have fallen apart.
To simply put it, Paid news is publishing/broadcasting advertisements masquerading as news.
Though Lifafa journalism wherein reporters were paid cash or gift vouchers along with the press release by politicians and business houses has been in vogue for a long time now, feeble voices against publication of news in return for money were heard during the General elections of 2004.
While taking gift vouchers from corporates and some obligations from politicians such as telephone, gas connections, school and college admissions and even jobs were widely prevalent, what has now grabbed the attention is its being institutionalized not by poverty stricken reporters but the publishers themselves, for whom media has increasingly become a commodity like the toilet soap. At this juncture, I do not wish to extend this analogy to another thing used in the toilet.
Now the deception and fraud that such paid news entails is not confined to the reader of the publication or the viewer of the television programme who is deceived into believing that what is essentially an advertisement is in fact an independently produced news content.
Secondly, the candidate concerned violates the Conduct of election rules, which are expected to be enforced by the Election Commission under the Representation of People Act, by not declaring officially the expenditure involved in planting “paid news”.
And last but not the least, the publishing house or television channel violates the provisions of the Companies Act as also the Income Tax Act by not accounting for the money received from the candidates. Thus, all the three are guilty.
But if you have noticed, apart from the right thinking people in the media who are genuinely concerned about the fate of media and the consequence of such trends, a lot of noise is being made by politicians, who have touched the Nadir in corruption.
Yet, they seem to be most concerned about it. Always at the receiving end of the media outburst, they have found a golden opportunity to hit back and put the media in the dock.
So, they have now started shouting from the rooftops at every seminar and workshop and even raised the issue on the floor of the Parliament, demanding that the media be reined in. They have suddenly found the Press Council to be an old toothless tiger having all along ignored the pleas of trade unions and other media organizations to grant more powers to it.
Their concern is understandable. So far, they had cultivated a loyal group of media persons or one or two news papers, who were obliged with often small change, some foreign trips, some committee membership, some transfer postings, some costly Diwali gifts, some awards and once in a blue moon, a Rajya Sabha nomination. But with the institutionalization of lifafa journalism, things have changed. The new media management does not want either Rajya Sabha membership or any award or transfers. They want hard cash, and that too not in thousands or lakhs but in crores and if you don’t pay, they will dig the coffin of your political fortunes.
Politicians fear that they will be edged out of the race if paid news becomes a trend. Since richer candidates have a greater spending power, they can be lavish with their budgets and hence dominate news. They do not even have to account for this expense to the Election Commission, since this transaction is always in cash.
Politicians also feel that they come under pressure from media houses, because if they don’t pay a particular publication, forget the prospects of black out, there is every possibility of them being run down by a negative campaign.
Money has become a great leveler. Ideologies have taken a back seat so have personal loyalties. Coverage goes to the highest bidder.
Hence, this outcry from politicians. The louder their voice, identify them as the worst victims of the phenomenon. For once, the politician is finding himself cornered by a Frankenstein, a Bhasmasur, he himself gave birth to.
Now, coming to the role of the Election Commission which has expressed righteous indignation over the phenomemon and is now being projected by the political class as the saviour who can rescue them from the clutches of paid news.
I firmly believe that the so-called Electoral Reforms which banished cheaper modes of election communication between the candidates and the voters such as pamphlets, posters, handbills, wall writings, badges and even loud speakers on auto rickshaws have forced many a politician to resort to such methods to reach out to the people. Elections earlier were a festival of sorts, a festival of democracy where party and independent candidates would jostle for space on street corners, walls with their posters and pamphlets.
Yes, the walls would get defaced and would have to be painted or whitewashed again. We can always bill it to the candidate concerned and even if the civic agency pays for it, it would be much cheaper than the price we now have to pay to save our democracy from this phenomenon.
We have read reports of how independent candidates shelled out their life’s savings not to campaign but to at least let the world know that they too were in the fray. They had to pay upwards of Rs 50,000/- for a single mention in a newspaper whereas with Rs 5,000, they could have painted the town red with their posters. Even a couple of bill boards in small towns would have been much cheaper. There is a popular book in Kerala ‘Ningalenne Communist aaki” (You made me a Communist). I would tell the EC ‘You created Paid News’.
Not that the media is a holy cow. More than anything else, it is the introduction of the contract system in the newspaper industry that has undermined the independence of the journalist and the primacy of the editor. We have credible reports of how selected journalists were targeted by media managements for not implementing such malpractices.
I am not getting into the details of private treaties and other obnoxious practices such as Medianet being practiced by certain media houses. They deserve condemnation of the highest order.
But a very interesting trend in paid news is the domination of the regional media vis-à-vis their English counterparts. Not that the English wallahs are a morally superior lot.
The English papers are far ahead of their regional counterparts when it comes to corporate clout as they cater more to the English speaking investor.
So we have dime a dozen advisors and experts on business channels who give free advice to viewers on which share to buy and which to sell. Even media critics on these channels rubbish films that do not pay. I have heard Editors Guild member, CNN-IBN’s Rajdeep Sardesai admitting on record that they promote films for money.
Thus, a great film like ‘A Wednesday’ is dismissed without much of a mention and a mediocre movie like ‘My Name is Khan’ is projected in Oscar proportions.
But the Hindi or other regional publications beat their English counterparts hollow when it comes to political clout due to their wide circulation in the rural areas and among the voting public and certainly this matters most in our number game democracy. The regional media perceives elections as a God-send opportunity to get even with their English counterparts in terms of revenue generation.
Not that English media does not play the political game. A recent discussion on youth in politics on CNN-IBN showed only endless footages of Rahul Gandhi as if no other young politicians are around in a nation of one billion plus.
I can go on and on. Problems galore and we have discussed them at length. But what are the solutions. I dare to suggest a few.
1. Put an end to contract system in newspapers and television so that the journalists can work fearlessly and say no to unethical practices of the management.
2. We can give a pay hike to crorepati MPs but not strictly enforce Wage Board recommendations in all newspapers. Why? Give the journalist a decent salary to lead a comfortable life and I can assure you he will make other’s life miserable.
3. Bring back the festival atmosphere in elections. Let there be hoardings, pamphlets, posters and handbills all over. Let even the poorest candidate have the means to reach out to his electorate. Don’t force him to look for surreptitious methods to make his presence felt.
4. Give real powers to an expanded Media Council and bring the Registrar of Newspapers/Licencing authority of television channels and the DAVP under its legal jurisdiction and equip it with the power to cancel the title/license of erring newspapers and withhold Government advertisements to erring publications and channels. The decisions of the Council can be challenged only in the Supreme Court.
5. Clear cut rules and guidelines should be laid down to ensure that media, both print and electronic, draws clear distinction between advertisement and independent editorial content. As in the case with adult content, warnings in regional languages mentioning the paid nature of the content should be aired before the telecast of the programme.
6. The politicians have united to oppose the ‘Paid News’ phenomenon. Let them show the same solidarity in saying a firm ‘no’ when such publishers or broadcasters approach them in future and let them inform each other, inform the election commission and even hold a press conference to state that they have been approached with a coverage package. May I also suggest that they too conduct a sting operation on such journalists and expose them. Let a handful of politician do it and it will serve as a deterrent on such unscrupulous media persons and organizations.
7. Even among hardened criminals, the rapists and paedophiles are looked down upon with contempt. Let our media organizations and institutions shame such unscrupulous fellows through our websites and show their worth to the world. For how many rupees they were bought. The IAS officers in UP have done that. We too can. Let us ostracise and if possible boycott such journalists.
Let us not forget that media is an integral part of the society. The conscientious among the lot will have to take the initiative and rid the profession of this disease, which is now taking epidemic proportions. If we don’t eliminate and exterminate this menace, it will finish us, our credibility as the voice of the voiceless at a critical juncture in the nation’s life when all other institutions have fallen apart.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
The Low of the Land
A wave of unrest is sweeping across Western Uttar Pradesh over the land acquired for the Yamuna Expressway project. Two people were killed in police action and the protests have found an echo in Parliament, whose proceedings were disrupted by agitated Members. The developments could lead to a new phase of political mobilisation in the state against the Mayawati-led BSP government and could eventually stall the controversial infrastructure project.
The state government tried to silence the protests by hiking the compensation but it found only a few takers for the sop. What has complicated the issue is that land was being acquired not just for the road project but also for townships to be built by the private party in charge of constructing the expressway.
This leads one to the larger question of land acquisitions and the scope of the government in developing infrastructure projects. While there is a logic for the government to acquire land to construct roads, the million dollar question is whether it should also facilitate development of townships alongside by private builders.
As a commentator rightly put it, “a skewed understanding of what constitutes public purpose and private interests is at the heart of the problem. Clearly, the state government ought to have focussed on building the road and allowed market forces to transform villages alongside the road into urban centres in an organic manner.”
Recently, a Supreme Court Bench of Justices Aftab Alam and B.S. Chauhan, in a judgment said: “the whole issue of development appears to be so simple, logical and commonsensical. And yet, to millions of Indians, development is a dreadful and hateful word that is aimed at denying them even the source of their sustenance.”
The Bench said “the resistance with which the state's well meaning efforts at development and economic growth are met makes one to think about the reasons for such opposition to the state's endeavours for development. Why is the state's perception and vision of development at such great odds with the people it purports to develop? And why are their rights so dispensable?
Justice Alam said the fears expressed by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar in the Constituent Assembly had been confirmed. “A blinkered vision of development, complete apathy towards those who are highly adversely affected by the development process and a cynical unconcern for the enforcement of the laws lead to a situation where the rights and benefits promised and guaranteed under the Constitution hardly ever reach the most marginalised citizens.”
“This is not to say that the relevant laws are perfect and very sympathetic towards the dispossessed. There are various studies that detail the impact of dispossession from their lands on tribal people. On many occasions laws are implemented only partially. The scheme of land acquisition often comes with assurances of schools, hospitals, roads, and employment. The initial promises, however, mostly remain illusory”, the apex court observed.
Way back in April 2007, the Karnataka High Court had stated that the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board was “indiscriminately” acquiring agricultural land in and around Bangalore and Bangalore urban and rural districts and Board officials had thrown all norms to the winds and in some cases, acquired entire villages.
Indeed, according to credible report, the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor project has become an instrument of land grab in collusion with Government officials, who have even allegedly misled the Supreme Court, suppressed vital records and documents to favour the developer and reportedly submitted forged records to the Supreme Court.
Instead of 20,000 acres as originally conceived, 30,000 acres were notified and the project company Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises Ltd (NICEL) has allegedly registered several hundred acres of notified land around Bangalore through benami transactions in the name of its employees and business associates and the Board has permitted the same.
Instead of about 70% of land coming back to Government under BOOT (Build, own, operate, transfer), records have allegedly been forged to sell more than half the land. Whereas only a fraction of land was required in and around Bangalore for road construction alone, now half the acquisition is in Bangalore itself and the company has been permitted by forged records to sell land it was supposed to return to Government. This includes patta lands given to Dalits and weaker sections and burial grounds of minority communities.
While the courts approved acquisition of only dry and waste land for the project, records were allegedly forged to acquire even agricultural and forest lands.
When the affected farmers protested against the injustice meted out to them, the police brutally caned them. The muscle men of the company also allegedly tortured them.
In its factsheet on SEZs and land acquisitions, the Delhi-based Citizens’ Research Collective makes a comparative study of the Indian and Chinese experiences vis-a-vis SEZs and points out that while mostly coastal wasteland has been given for SEZs in China, in India, it has been mostly fertile cultivated land.
Unlike in China, where the ownership of such zones rests with the state, in India, it lies with the private corporations and yes, despite the highly successful experience of Shenzhen, the Chinese have gone only for seven SEZs so far whereas in India, where SEZs have been largely unsuccessful and faced bloody, bitter resistance, we are going for 400-500 zones, more than the total number in the world.
There are enough reasons to believe that the skewed land acquisition policy has contributed to the growth of the Naxalite movement in the country, which the Forbes magazine recently described as India’s Dirty War.
I wish to conclude by quoting from a document prepared by Mr Vidya Bhushan Rawat, Convenor of the National Land Alliance. He asks, “one does not understand why the Government wants to give thousands of hectares of land which is agricultural land, for non-agricultural purposes. Where are farmers in the entire structure? Where are the Dalits and tribals in the entire structure of SEZ? In fact, shamelessly, the Government documents do not talk of their participation. It talks of job growth but it does not talk of how many thousands of people are uprooted from their homes and culture. If these were easy questions to answer, there would not have been any problems.”
The experiences in Singur, Nandigram, Chhatisgarh,Orissa and Bangalore highlight the need for a progressive land acquisition law that clarifies the role and responsibility of the state, the private sector and the stakeholders, in the matter of land acquisitions. We can afford to ignore this festering wound only at our peril.
The state government tried to silence the protests by hiking the compensation but it found only a few takers for the sop. What has complicated the issue is that land was being acquired not just for the road project but also for townships to be built by the private party in charge of constructing the expressway.
This leads one to the larger question of land acquisitions and the scope of the government in developing infrastructure projects. While there is a logic for the government to acquire land to construct roads, the million dollar question is whether it should also facilitate development of townships alongside by private builders.
As a commentator rightly put it, “a skewed understanding of what constitutes public purpose and private interests is at the heart of the problem. Clearly, the state government ought to have focussed on building the road and allowed market forces to transform villages alongside the road into urban centres in an organic manner.”
Recently, a Supreme Court Bench of Justices Aftab Alam and B.S. Chauhan, in a judgment said: “the whole issue of development appears to be so simple, logical and commonsensical. And yet, to millions of Indians, development is a dreadful and hateful word that is aimed at denying them even the source of their sustenance.”
The Bench said “the resistance with which the state's well meaning efforts at development and economic growth are met makes one to think about the reasons for such opposition to the state's endeavours for development. Why is the state's perception and vision of development at such great odds with the people it purports to develop? And why are their rights so dispensable?
Justice Alam said the fears expressed by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar in the Constituent Assembly had been confirmed. “A blinkered vision of development, complete apathy towards those who are highly adversely affected by the development process and a cynical unconcern for the enforcement of the laws lead to a situation where the rights and benefits promised and guaranteed under the Constitution hardly ever reach the most marginalised citizens.”
“This is not to say that the relevant laws are perfect and very sympathetic towards the dispossessed. There are various studies that detail the impact of dispossession from their lands on tribal people. On many occasions laws are implemented only partially. The scheme of land acquisition often comes with assurances of schools, hospitals, roads, and employment. The initial promises, however, mostly remain illusory”, the apex court observed.
Way back in April 2007, the Karnataka High Court had stated that the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board was “indiscriminately” acquiring agricultural land in and around Bangalore and Bangalore urban and rural districts and Board officials had thrown all norms to the winds and in some cases, acquired entire villages.
Indeed, according to credible report, the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor project has become an instrument of land grab in collusion with Government officials, who have even allegedly misled the Supreme Court, suppressed vital records and documents to favour the developer and reportedly submitted forged records to the Supreme Court.
Instead of 20,000 acres as originally conceived, 30,000 acres were notified and the project company Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises Ltd (NICEL) has allegedly registered several hundred acres of notified land around Bangalore through benami transactions in the name of its employees and business associates and the Board has permitted the same.
Instead of about 70% of land coming back to Government under BOOT (Build, own, operate, transfer), records have allegedly been forged to sell more than half the land. Whereas only a fraction of land was required in and around Bangalore for road construction alone, now half the acquisition is in Bangalore itself and the company has been permitted by forged records to sell land it was supposed to return to Government. This includes patta lands given to Dalits and weaker sections and burial grounds of minority communities.
While the courts approved acquisition of only dry and waste land for the project, records were allegedly forged to acquire even agricultural and forest lands.
When the affected farmers protested against the injustice meted out to them, the police brutally caned them. The muscle men of the company also allegedly tortured them.
In its factsheet on SEZs and land acquisitions, the Delhi-based Citizens’ Research Collective makes a comparative study of the Indian and Chinese experiences vis-a-vis SEZs and points out that while mostly coastal wasteland has been given for SEZs in China, in India, it has been mostly fertile cultivated land.
Unlike in China, where the ownership of such zones rests with the state, in India, it lies with the private corporations and yes, despite the highly successful experience of Shenzhen, the Chinese have gone only for seven SEZs so far whereas in India, where SEZs have been largely unsuccessful and faced bloody, bitter resistance, we are going for 400-500 zones, more than the total number in the world.
There are enough reasons to believe that the skewed land acquisition policy has contributed to the growth of the Naxalite movement in the country, which the Forbes magazine recently described as India’s Dirty War.
I wish to conclude by quoting from a document prepared by Mr Vidya Bhushan Rawat, Convenor of the National Land Alliance. He asks, “one does not understand why the Government wants to give thousands of hectares of land which is agricultural land, for non-agricultural purposes. Where are farmers in the entire structure? Where are the Dalits and tribals in the entire structure of SEZ? In fact, shamelessly, the Government documents do not talk of their participation. It talks of job growth but it does not talk of how many thousands of people are uprooted from their homes and culture. If these were easy questions to answer, there would not have been any problems.”
The experiences in Singur, Nandigram, Chhatisgarh,Orissa and Bangalore highlight the need for a progressive land acquisition law that clarifies the role and responsibility of the state, the private sector and the stakeholders, in the matter of land acquisitions. We can afford to ignore this festering wound only at our peril.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Independence Day Musings
After decades of humiliating existence as a tenant (often treated worse than animals), I finally bought a house of my own. To call it a house would be an overstatement as it only had three box like rooms surrounded by four halls, a small courtyard, a dirty toilet and a dilapidated bathroom and of course, a small chamber where the earlier owners used to cook food, which they lovingly called kitchen. The plaster had come out at most places. There were no cupboards, no proper electric wiring and even the sewerage system was in a mess.
Though I paid a premium to even buy this ‘hot’ property in East Delhi, I knew right from day one that I had to spend a good fortune renovating it. Well, renovation would be an understatement as the house in question virtually required to be rebuilt except that the basic structure would not be pulled down as there were three other similarly fragile flats resting on its tender shoulders.
Thus began a long journey, which not only taught me the nitty-gritties of building a house but also of building a nation and life itself. To begin with the local contractor promised me everything under the sun much like our khadi-clad politicians and with every passing day, he made a sharp u-turn on all of those promises.
Then came the architect and engineer to supervise the work as it progressed much like our Vigilance officials or Chief Election Commissioners and much of the guidelines laid down by them were flouted with impunity the way the model code is violated and yes, there were excuses galore with the maximum blame falling at the doorstep of the ‘mistry’ or the mason under whom the labourers work, much akin to the manner in which the bureaucrats are blamed for the acts of commission and omission on the part of the politicians.
But the labourers too were not the poor and innocent ones like those projected in movies such as ‘Do Bigha Zameen’. They have become worldly wise. Like Sarkari babus, they take an hour or more for lunch followed by a light nap. Prod them as much but they have already made up their mind on the quantum of work they had planned for the day. What’s more, they also want their pound of ‘chai-paani’, not to bestow any favour on us but to do their work properly. “Hamara Khyal rakhiye to hum aapka khyal rakhenge” – this after paying whatever the contractor had asked for.
But once you loosen your purse strings, don’t think the job has become easier. Go for a second visit to the site and one will find them not doing the work they were told to do and there is a stock answer, “thekedaar ne bataya nahin” (the contractor has not instructed us). Then, there is a flurry of calls between the Engineer and the contractor and the ‘mistry’ (or is it mystery?). One feels like a pensioner running from pillar to post for his monthly sustenance. But no hearts melt here. You are the milch cow, the Kamadhenu, on whom depends the prosperity of one and all.
Yes, the officials of the Municipal Corporation, the Development Authority, the local police station who have no time to attend to water logged roads, unauthorised constructions and incidents of rampant chain snatching and eve-teasing in your neighbourhood, have all the time at their disposal to get their ‘baksheesh’ for the new home, much like the fixers who try to cut corners in every Government project.
We also have the Pakistans and Chinas in our neighbourhood, who are less concerned about the unrest in their provinces, such as the leaky taps and broken walls but are more bothered about how many windows the new house has, how deep is the column and how would my children play if the courtyard is covered. They are so concerned that they even threaten to call the police.
Again, you are mistaken if you think you have given the money (vote) to the contractor (ruling class) and your worries are over. On the contrary, you have to face the whims and fancies of multiple agencies including plumber, electrician, carpenter, grill maker et al (panchayat, municipality, PWD, state Government).
What’s more, they don’t have qualms even in attempting to grease the palms of the Election Commission or the Vigilance Commission. The architect and engineer are promised a handsome cut for passing the substandard material, much in the manner the Anti Corruption department or the CBI officials are taken care of. Sometimes, even your own employee whom you had entrusted to supervise takes the bait and tries to strike when the iron is hot. Eternal vigilance, indeed, is the price of liberty, as the fence itself is lured to eat the crop. If this ruse fails, then the work on your dream house is delayed endlessly, much like the bridge in your village, the dispensary in your locality. He keeps promising, you keep waiting and mind you, this is private enterprise.
What we lack as a nation is character, honesty and integrity. Let us face it. Ignoring this and indulging in self adulation as an upcoming super power would only be at our own peril. Let us not have delusions and illusions. We have all become the worshippers of mammon. We have become a nation of shirkers who want to make a fast buck somehow, by hook or crook. Let us not hoodwink ourselves by blaming the politicians alone. We all need to introspect.
I am not sure when my house, my dream home, would finally see the light of the day, but I am sure, my dream nation would take a long time to take shape, if we continue on the same path.
Happy Independence Day!
Though I paid a premium to even buy this ‘hot’ property in East Delhi, I knew right from day one that I had to spend a good fortune renovating it. Well, renovation would be an understatement as the house in question virtually required to be rebuilt except that the basic structure would not be pulled down as there were three other similarly fragile flats resting on its tender shoulders.
Thus began a long journey, which not only taught me the nitty-gritties of building a house but also of building a nation and life itself. To begin with the local contractor promised me everything under the sun much like our khadi-clad politicians and with every passing day, he made a sharp u-turn on all of those promises.
Then came the architect and engineer to supervise the work as it progressed much like our Vigilance officials or Chief Election Commissioners and much of the guidelines laid down by them were flouted with impunity the way the model code is violated and yes, there were excuses galore with the maximum blame falling at the doorstep of the ‘mistry’ or the mason under whom the labourers work, much akin to the manner in which the bureaucrats are blamed for the acts of commission and omission on the part of the politicians.
But the labourers too were not the poor and innocent ones like those projected in movies such as ‘Do Bigha Zameen’. They have become worldly wise. Like Sarkari babus, they take an hour or more for lunch followed by a light nap. Prod them as much but they have already made up their mind on the quantum of work they had planned for the day. What’s more, they also want their pound of ‘chai-paani’, not to bestow any favour on us but to do their work properly. “Hamara Khyal rakhiye to hum aapka khyal rakhenge” – this after paying whatever the contractor had asked for.
But once you loosen your purse strings, don’t think the job has become easier. Go for a second visit to the site and one will find them not doing the work they were told to do and there is a stock answer, “thekedaar ne bataya nahin” (the contractor has not instructed us). Then, there is a flurry of calls between the Engineer and the contractor and the ‘mistry’ (or is it mystery?). One feels like a pensioner running from pillar to post for his monthly sustenance. But no hearts melt here. You are the milch cow, the Kamadhenu, on whom depends the prosperity of one and all.
Yes, the officials of the Municipal Corporation, the Development Authority, the local police station who have no time to attend to water logged roads, unauthorised constructions and incidents of rampant chain snatching and eve-teasing in your neighbourhood, have all the time at their disposal to get their ‘baksheesh’ for the new home, much like the fixers who try to cut corners in every Government project.
We also have the Pakistans and Chinas in our neighbourhood, who are less concerned about the unrest in their provinces, such as the leaky taps and broken walls but are more bothered about how many windows the new house has, how deep is the column and how would my children play if the courtyard is covered. They are so concerned that they even threaten to call the police.
Again, you are mistaken if you think you have given the money (vote) to the contractor (ruling class) and your worries are over. On the contrary, you have to face the whims and fancies of multiple agencies including plumber, electrician, carpenter, grill maker et al (panchayat, municipality, PWD, state Government).
What’s more, they don’t have qualms even in attempting to grease the palms of the Election Commission or the Vigilance Commission. The architect and engineer are promised a handsome cut for passing the substandard material, much in the manner the Anti Corruption department or the CBI officials are taken care of. Sometimes, even your own employee whom you had entrusted to supervise takes the bait and tries to strike when the iron is hot. Eternal vigilance, indeed, is the price of liberty, as the fence itself is lured to eat the crop. If this ruse fails, then the work on your dream house is delayed endlessly, much like the bridge in your village, the dispensary in your locality. He keeps promising, you keep waiting and mind you, this is private enterprise.
What we lack as a nation is character, honesty and integrity. Let us face it. Ignoring this and indulging in self adulation as an upcoming super power would only be at our own peril. Let us not have delusions and illusions. We have all become the worshippers of mammon. We have become a nation of shirkers who want to make a fast buck somehow, by hook or crook. Let us not hoodwink ourselves by blaming the politicians alone. We all need to introspect.
I am not sure when my house, my dream home, would finally see the light of the day, but I am sure, my dream nation would take a long time to take shape, if we continue on the same path.
Happy Independence Day!
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Wizard of Needles
Imagine a visually challenged person perfecting the art and science of inserting needles to heal others! Unbelievable but Anil Kumar has proved the skeptics wrong and established his credentials as a wizard of needles – a story which has been beautifully brought before the world by journalist Deepak Parvatiyar in his debut documentary, which was released at the India International Centre recently before a discerning and distinguished audience and the saving grace was that there were no politicians around.
The Wizard of Needles is an inspiring story of how physical disabilities cannot be a deterrent to one's achievements and ambition to serve mankind. “This is a story that can motivate others. Here all characters are real,” said Parvatiyar.
Anil was a five-year-old child when he lost his eyesight due to meningitis. He was hospitalized for two years and his optical nerves had to be removed to save his life. He braved all odds to become an acupuncturist. In 2003, the President of India presented Anil the National Award for his achievements. The Wizard of Needles documents the true story of this indomitable human spirit to achieve the impossible.
“I was inspired to make this documentary as I was swayed by Anil’s zest for life. His life story is very inspiring and I am sure the documentary will inspire people never to lose hope and faith,” Parvatiyar, a journalist with an experience of over 20 years in print and electronic media, said. The Wizard of Needles is Parvatiyar’s maiden directorial venture. In the documentary, he has used his narrative skills blended with excellent Indian classical music that conjures up morning freshness and invokes hope and eternal optimism. His novel use of quotations to underline the importance of a scene is quite innovative. Anil's deep faith in God adds a new dimension to the film that is all about hope and faith. The film has been shot over a period of about two years in Delhi, Kolkata and Bijnor.
May Anil’s life and struggles inspire not only the differently abled but also the so-called normal individuals who are too scared to face the challenges of life and resorts to short cuts including drugs and suicides.
May the tribe of journalists like Deepak Parvatiyar, who are moved by such human interest stories and not craving for sensationalism and instant fame, increase.
Both the Government and the private sector should encourage such noble and innovative endeavours.
The Wizard of Needles is an inspiring story of how physical disabilities cannot be a deterrent to one's achievements and ambition to serve mankind. “This is a story that can motivate others. Here all characters are real,” said Parvatiyar.
Anil was a five-year-old child when he lost his eyesight due to meningitis. He was hospitalized for two years and his optical nerves had to be removed to save his life. He braved all odds to become an acupuncturist. In 2003, the President of India presented Anil the National Award for his achievements. The Wizard of Needles documents the true story of this indomitable human spirit to achieve the impossible.
“I was inspired to make this documentary as I was swayed by Anil’s zest for life. His life story is very inspiring and I am sure the documentary will inspire people never to lose hope and faith,” Parvatiyar, a journalist with an experience of over 20 years in print and electronic media, said. The Wizard of Needles is Parvatiyar’s maiden directorial venture. In the documentary, he has used his narrative skills blended with excellent Indian classical music that conjures up morning freshness and invokes hope and eternal optimism. His novel use of quotations to underline the importance of a scene is quite innovative. Anil's deep faith in God adds a new dimension to the film that is all about hope and faith. The film has been shot over a period of about two years in Delhi, Kolkata and Bijnor.
May Anil’s life and struggles inspire not only the differently abled but also the so-called normal individuals who are too scared to face the challenges of life and resorts to short cuts including drugs and suicides.
May the tribe of journalists like Deepak Parvatiyar, who are moved by such human interest stories and not craving for sensationalism and instant fame, increase.
Both the Government and the private sector should encourage such noble and innovative endeavours.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Mani Speaks, Money Sings
The Commonwealth Games has once again hogged the headlines for the wrong reasons. This time, former Sports Minister Mani Shankar Iyer has expressed doubts over the success of the games, leveled bribery charges, raised concerns over the escalating costs and maintained that the funds could have been better utilized for developing sports in the country as also developmental activities. On expected lines, the Organising Committee and the Congress party have defended the games. The spat has once again sparked off a fresh round of debate whether a poor country like India can afford to spend so much money on just building sports infrastructure.
Reports of thousands of tonnes of wheat rotting in a nation where millions find it hard to arrange two square meals a day only substantiates this argument. Moreover, except in cricket and in some individual games such as snooker, badminton, chess etc, we are yet to arrive on the world stage as a major sporting nation. China hosted the Olympics after becoming a sports power to reckon with internationally.
Yes, we need more warehouses to store grain in this country than stadia, which are more often used to organize music concerts and mango festivals. Delhi can do with more planning and less flyovers and subways. The upgradation of the airport and the expansion of the Metro need not be linked to the Games. But yes, we can certainly do without demolishing the existing tiled footpaths and laying new ones in their place. There is certainly more to the expenses than meets the eye. Many new billionaires have been created, courtesy the sticky fingers on the games funds.
Yet, isn’t it too late now to call the bluff? We are only two months away from the games and most certainly, this is not the time to hang the boots. All the advantages and disadvantages of hosting the event should have been thought about before making the bid in the first place. For the time being, let us put our acts together and make the Games a resounding success, an event that the World will remember for a long, long time like the Beijing Olympics and the recent soccer World Cup in South Africa.
As I mentioned in my last piece, let the Commonwealth Games be the catalyst for turning into a global sports power. Let these new stadia and sports complexes serve as the foundations to nurture our budding talents across the country.
As for the corruption involved, we can always have a Joint Parliamentary Committee or a CBI probe once the games are over. Investigations into corruption, after all, has itself become a national sport and entertainment over the years with the ‘Common Man’ ending up as the jest or the joker. Why ‘Commonwealth’ should be an exception?
Reports of thousands of tonnes of wheat rotting in a nation where millions find it hard to arrange two square meals a day only substantiates this argument. Moreover, except in cricket and in some individual games such as snooker, badminton, chess etc, we are yet to arrive on the world stage as a major sporting nation. China hosted the Olympics after becoming a sports power to reckon with internationally.
Yes, we need more warehouses to store grain in this country than stadia, which are more often used to organize music concerts and mango festivals. Delhi can do with more planning and less flyovers and subways. The upgradation of the airport and the expansion of the Metro need not be linked to the Games. But yes, we can certainly do without demolishing the existing tiled footpaths and laying new ones in their place. There is certainly more to the expenses than meets the eye. Many new billionaires have been created, courtesy the sticky fingers on the games funds.
Yet, isn’t it too late now to call the bluff? We are only two months away from the games and most certainly, this is not the time to hang the boots. All the advantages and disadvantages of hosting the event should have been thought about before making the bid in the first place. For the time being, let us put our acts together and make the Games a resounding success, an event that the World will remember for a long, long time like the Beijing Olympics and the recent soccer World Cup in South Africa.
As I mentioned in my last piece, let the Commonwealth Games be the catalyst for turning into a global sports power. Let these new stadia and sports complexes serve as the foundations to nurture our budding talents across the country.
As for the corruption involved, we can always have a Joint Parliamentary Committee or a CBI probe once the games are over. Investigations into corruption, after all, has itself become a national sport and entertainment over the years with the ‘Common Man’ ending up as the jest or the joker. Why ‘Commonwealth’ should be an exception?
Monday, July 12, 2010
India as world soccer champs
The tremendous interest the recent soccer World Cup generated in India once again proved wrong the propaganda that cricket is religion for all Indians. Football always had great fan following in many parts of the country including West Bengal, Goa, Kerala and the North-East but thanks to the heavy financial stakes, advertisement revenue and television rights involved in cricket, all other sports remained marginalized and cricket grew at the expense of other disciplines.
Soccer clubs have thrived in these states and in states such as West Bengal, more than the Gotra so obsessively followed in some northern parts of the country, it is the loyalty to the football club (East Bengal, Mohun Bagan etc) which is a major criteria in matrimonial matters. In fact, there are even specific fish menus to mark the victory or defeat of these teams.
Not that there was or is any dearth of talent in other sports disciplines. Hockey, India’s own national game, notwithstanding its steady decline over the years, continues to get honours for the country including the recent Azlan Shah trophy. In individual events too, whether it be chess, snooker, boxing, shooting (India’s first Olympic Gold medalist Abhinav Bindra), athletics (P T Usha etc), weightlifting etc, Indians have proved that they are second to none in the world.
Badminton is another arena where Indians have proved their excellence time and again, from the days of Prakash Padukone to the recent victories of Saina Nehwal, Jwala Gutta, Chetan Anand et al. In tennis, Leander Paes along with Kara Black once again made history recently in the mixed doubles event. Even in motor car racing, we have world class drivers such as Chandihoke and Narain Karthikeyan. We have registered impressive victories in South Asian, Asian and Commonwealth Games.
One can go on and on. Yet, the fact remains that other sports received scant attention as against cricket. Cricketers remain our national icons even as they laugh their way into the banks. The recent IPL controversy and oft-repeated charges of match fixing have proved that cricket is not just about sports. There is huge money involved and even big names in the world of business and politics such as Vijay Mallya and Sharad Pawar have great stakes in them.
For a change, it was a sheer delight to see boys playing football in the neighbourhood parks and playing grounds. Here was team spirit and work at play. In South Africa too, one did not see players working for individual glory and new records. They were all playing to see their country win. And back home, it was depressing to see not one player protesting against the cash-rich BCCI’s decision not to participate in the upcoming Asian Games, where cricket is being introduced for the first time. The match fee has become more attractive for our advertisement driven player-turned-models than glory for the country. Certainly, they have become too upmarket to even contemplate staying in a games village.
Of course, one doesn’t hold a brief against cricket. All said and done, cricket has brought glory to the nation as also to individuals. We are proud that India has produced world class players such as Sachin Tendulkar, who are revered all over cricketdom. The only point is that a nation of a billion plus just cannot confine itself to a game played by eleven players. We have talents across the sporting spectrum and they need to be honed and harnessed for the greater glory of the nation.
When so many corporates are supporting and sponsoring cricket, let there be a Government directive to all PSUs including those belonging to the state Governments, to back disciplines other than cricket. The Indian media did a great job in highlighting the soccer World Cup but the euphoria shouldn’t die down. Let the fever continue. Let this interval not be once in a blue moon but once every 24 hours. Let schools promote sports other than cricket. Let there be a Mohun Bagan and East Bengal in every state. Let Paul the Octopus predict a victory for India in the next World Cup. Ambitious? What’s life without dreams? Let the Commonwealth Games be the catalyst.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
National Integration, Literally
‘Mile sur mera tumhara’ a popular song aired on Doordarshan during the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure symbolized the unity in diversity of this great nation of ours. We have had jugalbandis between Hindustani and Carnatic vocalists and instrumentalists dwelling on the theme of national unity and integration. We have food courts under one roof such as the Dilli Haat in Delhi where the rich cuisine from different parts of the country are showcased, not to talk of variety cultural programmes involving troupes from different regions.
We have also seen organizations such as the National Book Trust translating major classical works from different languages into English, Hindi and regional languages for the benefit of the common reader and to bring home to him the rich literary legacy we have inherited over the ages. Among the first things that I discussed with my Oriya wife at our first meeting was the novel written by my novelist neighbour and Jnanpeeth award winner Thakazhi Shiva Shankara Pillai, which she had read in Oriya. That gave her the first impressions of my home state Kerala, which later became her home too.
But all these efforts, by and large, were state sponsored, directly or indirectly, somehow giving the impression that except rhetoric by leaders and such symbolic ‘stage-managed’ initiatives, we Indians remain parochial and linguistic fanatics. The regular protests and outbursts by our friends in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and other states only serve to reaffirm this theory.
However, two recent individual efforts, sans any media hype or publicity, caught my attention. I thought I would share these original, spontaneous yet unconscious attempts at national integration with our readers.
After excelling in fine arts (Shovana Narayan and others) and literature (Upamanyu Chatterjee et al), bureaucrats are making a mark for themselves even in the difficult and sensitive literary art of translation and Umesh Kumar Chauhan, who was till recently Managing Director with NAFED, chose a Dravidian language to prove this point.
He learnt Malayalam as part of his job but the Kerala language left such a deep impression on him that this IAS officer from Uttar Pradesh got attracted to its literature.
Falling in love with Malayalam literature, Chauhan, a 1986 batch officer of Kerala cadre, translated 21 poems of Akitham Achutan Namboodiri, the well known Malayalam poet and a recipient of Kabir Samman and Kendra Sahitya Academy award.
"As I was posted with Kerala cadre, I had to learn Malayalam. It was part of my job. I had an interest in literature and I started reading newspapers and books,” he said.
In ‘Selected Poems of Akitham’ published by Bharatiya Jnanpeeth, Delhi, Chauhan, who already has to his credit two volumes of Hindi poetry, has translated 21 poems including the Malayalam poet's famous 'Irupatham Noottandinte Itihasam' (The History of 20th Century) which is often compared to T S Eliot's monumental 'Waste Land'.
In the words of Dr Aarsu, Head of Hindi Department at the University of Calicut, “To read popular poems of Akkitham in Hindi would be a rare experience for poetry lovers. Umesh has successfully transfilled the emotions and charm of poetry of Akkitham into his translation, besides doing apt linguistic conversion of lyrical Malayalam verses into free Hindi verses, which gives a pleasure similar to reading original Malayalam poems of Akkitham, while reading these poems translated into Hindi. This translation of Akkitham’s poems by Chauhan is a significant contribution made by him towards bringing Malayalam and Hindi literature closer to each other. He has been continuously doing the job of literary exchange between the two languages.”
The book also carries an article written on Akkitham by the renowned Malayalam Writer and Jnanpith Awardee M.T. Vasudevan Nair and a write-up titled ‘Mera Kavya Sansar’ written by Akkitham himself on his poetry.
Chauhan’s lyrical collection in Hindi ‘Ganth Mein Loon Bandh Thodi Chandni’ was published in 2001 and the poetry collection ‘Dana Chugte Murge’ in 2004. His several poems have been published from time to time in various Malayalam magazines also.
The officer is now back in God’s Own Country and has promised nothing short of a literary ‘Sadhya’ (traditional Kerala feast).
ITISHESH
An equally significant work, not a translation but an original piece, has come out from another retired Government official,
‘Itishesh’ is an autobiographical work written in Hindi by Neelakantan Namboodiri, a retired officer with the Commission for Scientific and technical terminology under the Ministry of Human Resource Developement. His main job was evolving Technical Terminology and compiling Dictionaries of Mathematics in Hindi and other Indian languages.
The book is divided into four parts. The first part describes the social background into which the author was born. This part elaborates the complexities of the parallel existence of matriarchal and patriarchal systems of inheritance prevalent in Kerala in the early parts of 20th Century. The miseries meted out to low caste Hindus and Brahmin women and the fight against these evils are also described. Although the part played by orthodox Namboodiris in perpetrating these social maladies are condemned in the book, their simplicity of life, straightforwardness in dealings and contributions to art and literature are also highlighted.
The second part describes the education of the author which remained informal for a long period of his childhood causing delay in starting formal schooling. His school and college life are vividly recollected up to his emergence as a post-graduate in Mathematics. His initiation to the study of Hindi is claimed as a turning point in his life.
The next section describes his service story where he retrospects his work under great scientists and linguists. He claims that he worked to the satisfaction of his seniors and to the affection of co-workers.
Namboodiri concludes the book with a portrayal of his retired life and evaluates the gains and losses. He feels that his closing balance (Itishesh) is on the positive side.
While Namboodiri is the best judge on his closing balance, he has done a commendable job by writing an original work in Hindi and thus contributing to literature and the cause of national integration.
India needs many more Umesh Chauhans and Neelakantan Namboodiris.
We have also seen organizations such as the National Book Trust translating major classical works from different languages into English, Hindi and regional languages for the benefit of the common reader and to bring home to him the rich literary legacy we have inherited over the ages. Among the first things that I discussed with my Oriya wife at our first meeting was the novel written by my novelist neighbour and Jnanpeeth award winner Thakazhi Shiva Shankara Pillai, which she had read in Oriya. That gave her the first impressions of my home state Kerala, which later became her home too.
But all these efforts, by and large, were state sponsored, directly or indirectly, somehow giving the impression that except rhetoric by leaders and such symbolic ‘stage-managed’ initiatives, we Indians remain parochial and linguistic fanatics. The regular protests and outbursts by our friends in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and other states only serve to reaffirm this theory.
However, two recent individual efforts, sans any media hype or publicity, caught my attention. I thought I would share these original, spontaneous yet unconscious attempts at national integration with our readers.
After excelling in fine arts (Shovana Narayan and others) and literature (Upamanyu Chatterjee et al), bureaucrats are making a mark for themselves even in the difficult and sensitive literary art of translation and Umesh Kumar Chauhan, who was till recently Managing Director with NAFED, chose a Dravidian language to prove this point.
He learnt Malayalam as part of his job but the Kerala language left such a deep impression on him that this IAS officer from Uttar Pradesh got attracted to its literature.
Falling in love with Malayalam literature, Chauhan, a 1986 batch officer of Kerala cadre, translated 21 poems of Akitham Achutan Namboodiri, the well known Malayalam poet and a recipient of Kabir Samman and Kendra Sahitya Academy award.
"As I was posted with Kerala cadre, I had to learn Malayalam. It was part of my job. I had an interest in literature and I started reading newspapers and books,” he said.
In ‘Selected Poems of Akitham’ published by Bharatiya Jnanpeeth, Delhi, Chauhan, who already has to his credit two volumes of Hindi poetry, has translated 21 poems including the Malayalam poet's famous 'Irupatham Noottandinte Itihasam' (The History of 20th Century) which is often compared to T S Eliot's monumental 'Waste Land'.
In the words of Dr Aarsu, Head of Hindi Department at the University of Calicut, “To read popular poems of Akkitham in Hindi would be a rare experience for poetry lovers. Umesh has successfully transfilled the emotions and charm of poetry of Akkitham into his translation, besides doing apt linguistic conversion of lyrical Malayalam verses into free Hindi verses, which gives a pleasure similar to reading original Malayalam poems of Akkitham, while reading these poems translated into Hindi. This translation of Akkitham’s poems by Chauhan is a significant contribution made by him towards bringing Malayalam and Hindi literature closer to each other. He has been continuously doing the job of literary exchange between the two languages.”
The book also carries an article written on Akkitham by the renowned Malayalam Writer and Jnanpith Awardee M.T. Vasudevan Nair and a write-up titled ‘Mera Kavya Sansar’ written by Akkitham himself on his poetry.
Chauhan’s lyrical collection in Hindi ‘Ganth Mein Loon Bandh Thodi Chandni’ was published in 2001 and the poetry collection ‘Dana Chugte Murge’ in 2004. His several poems have been published from time to time in various Malayalam magazines also.
The officer is now back in God’s Own Country and has promised nothing short of a literary ‘Sadhya’ (traditional Kerala feast).
ITISHESH
An equally significant work, not a translation but an original piece, has come out from another retired Government official,
‘Itishesh’ is an autobiographical work written in Hindi by Neelakantan Namboodiri, a retired officer with the Commission for Scientific and technical terminology under the Ministry of Human Resource Developement. His main job was evolving Technical Terminology and compiling Dictionaries of Mathematics in Hindi and other Indian languages.
The book is divided into four parts. The first part describes the social background into which the author was born. This part elaborates the complexities of the parallel existence of matriarchal and patriarchal systems of inheritance prevalent in Kerala in the early parts of 20th Century. The miseries meted out to low caste Hindus and Brahmin women and the fight against these evils are also described. Although the part played by orthodox Namboodiris in perpetrating these social maladies are condemned in the book, their simplicity of life, straightforwardness in dealings and contributions to art and literature are also highlighted.
The second part describes the education of the author which remained informal for a long period of his childhood causing delay in starting formal schooling. His school and college life are vividly recollected up to his emergence as a post-graduate in Mathematics. His initiation to the study of Hindi is claimed as a turning point in his life.
The next section describes his service story where he retrospects his work under great scientists and linguists. He claims that he worked to the satisfaction of his seniors and to the affection of co-workers.
Namboodiri concludes the book with a portrayal of his retired life and evaluates the gains and losses. He feels that his closing balance (Itishesh) is on the positive side.
While Namboodiri is the best judge on his closing balance, he has done a commendable job by writing an original work in Hindi and thus contributing to literature and the cause of national integration.
India needs many more Umesh Chauhans and Neelakantan Namboodiris.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Corporate Conscience in Action
No donations, no state funding, no international involvement, no business opportunities and no commercial interests whatsoever. Vegetarianism is the Mantra and healthy and harmonious living the motto. Utopia? No. Welcome to Ahimsa Gram, a cluster of a hundred odd houses in the small town of Ratlam in Madhya Pradesh, which is today being perceived as a revolutionary model for poverty alleviation and rehabilitation of the poor and homeless across the country.
Set up by veteran social worker and industrialist Chetanya Kasyap on a private land of 55000 sq feet, the cluster comprises 100 houses each with two rooms (10X5 ft each), kitchen, a five feet verandah, bath and WC. The pilot project built by the Chetanya Kasyap Foundation under its ‘Lokashray’ development concept aims at eradicating poverty by providing free homes for the poor and opportunities for livelihood besides inculcating values for better quality of life.
Apart from roads, water tank, drainage, sanitation and market facilities, Ahimsa Gram also has a 30 ftX50 ft community hall for vocational and value (Sanskaar) training besides a 7000 feet garden and a primary health center.
Yes to vegetarianism and two child norm and No to alcohol are some of the guiding principles of the village which together celebrates major festivals of all religions.
The village was formally inaugurated on February 3, 2005 by the then Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Sh Babulal Gour and has since been visited by several political, religious and social leaders including present Chief Minister Sh Shivraj Singh Chauhan and the then Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sh L K Advani.
Kasyap, who has a 60 per cent of market share of the sorbitol production in India, always wanted to do something different, something innovative instead of just making liberal donations to charities like his rich forefathers. He firmly believes that homelessness along with alcoholism, non-vegetarianism and absence of a peaceful environment conducive for personal growth contributed in no small way to the perpetuation of poverty, illiteracy, ignorance and resultant violence in society.
“I was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence. If a person is assured of a roof over his head free of cost in a peaceful environment for a period of ten years with opportunities for earning additional family income through vocational training and inculcation of values for a better quality of life, it would certainly encourage and inspire them to come out of the vortex of poverty”, says Kasyap, who is the Chairman and Managing Director of Kasyap Sweetners Ltd. The 50-year old says industrialists like him who have benefited from the society should contribute their mite (if not might) towards its development by empowering people to become self-reliant and not enslaving them through unaccountable charity.
Indeed, at Ahimsa Gram, there are no freebies, except the houses, tuition for children, Yoga classes and vocational training for women – all serving as mere facilitators for self-growth. Every family offers ‘Shram Daan’ (Voluntary labour) to keep their streets neat and clean. The Foundation has entered into a tie-up with a nearby private school for providing concessional education to the children of Ahimsa Gram.
The ‘Ahimsa Gram’ brand papads, namkeen, Masala and bags produced by the women (with the option of working either from home or the community centre) are selling like hot cakes both within and outside the state. The women are also well-trained and well-equipped to produce high quality note books.
The residents celebrate all festivals with the Foundation organizing a special lecture to explain the significance of each event and distributing sweets. The Yoga classes along with a vegetarian, non-alcoholic lifestyle has ushered in mental peace and financial stability among the residents.
While the residents of Ahimsa Gram hope to generate income enough to build their own dream homes and pave the way for other underprivileged brethren to move in to Ahimsa Gram, Kasyap is willing to give the dwellings to them for good if they are unable to achieve the target.
Kasyap, who has stridently refused to take any donation or Government grant for the project built with a Rs one crore funding by his family, is now planning to encourage setting up of more projects with a personal grant of Rs 10 lakh each for ten villages to begin with.
Kasyap attributes the increase in crime and violence to poverty and views ‘Ahimsa Gram’ as an antidote. He firmly believes that successful people should do their bit in dealing with the curse of poverty. He has many more plans not only for the rest of Madhya Pradesh but also the entire nation. He has shown the way and it is now for each one of us to follow. May his tribe increase.
Set up by veteran social worker and industrialist Chetanya Kasyap on a private land of 55000 sq feet, the cluster comprises 100 houses each with two rooms (10X5 ft each), kitchen, a five feet verandah, bath and WC. The pilot project built by the Chetanya Kasyap Foundation under its ‘Lokashray’ development concept aims at eradicating poverty by providing free homes for the poor and opportunities for livelihood besides inculcating values for better quality of life.
Apart from roads, water tank, drainage, sanitation and market facilities, Ahimsa Gram also has a 30 ftX50 ft community hall for vocational and value (Sanskaar) training besides a 7000 feet garden and a primary health center.
Yes to vegetarianism and two child norm and No to alcohol are some of the guiding principles of the village which together celebrates major festivals of all religions.
The village was formally inaugurated on February 3, 2005 by the then Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Sh Babulal Gour and has since been visited by several political, religious and social leaders including present Chief Minister Sh Shivraj Singh Chauhan and the then Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sh L K Advani.
Kasyap, who has a 60 per cent of market share of the sorbitol production in India, always wanted to do something different, something innovative instead of just making liberal donations to charities like his rich forefathers. He firmly believes that homelessness along with alcoholism, non-vegetarianism and absence of a peaceful environment conducive for personal growth contributed in no small way to the perpetuation of poverty, illiteracy, ignorance and resultant violence in society.
“I was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence. If a person is assured of a roof over his head free of cost in a peaceful environment for a period of ten years with opportunities for earning additional family income through vocational training and inculcation of values for a better quality of life, it would certainly encourage and inspire them to come out of the vortex of poverty”, says Kasyap, who is the Chairman and Managing Director of Kasyap Sweetners Ltd. The 50-year old says industrialists like him who have benefited from the society should contribute their mite (if not might) towards its development by empowering people to become self-reliant and not enslaving them through unaccountable charity.
Indeed, at Ahimsa Gram, there are no freebies, except the houses, tuition for children, Yoga classes and vocational training for women – all serving as mere facilitators for self-growth. Every family offers ‘Shram Daan’ (Voluntary labour) to keep their streets neat and clean. The Foundation has entered into a tie-up with a nearby private school for providing concessional education to the children of Ahimsa Gram.
The ‘Ahimsa Gram’ brand papads, namkeen, Masala and bags produced by the women (with the option of working either from home or the community centre) are selling like hot cakes both within and outside the state. The women are also well-trained and well-equipped to produce high quality note books.
The residents celebrate all festivals with the Foundation organizing a special lecture to explain the significance of each event and distributing sweets. The Yoga classes along with a vegetarian, non-alcoholic lifestyle has ushered in mental peace and financial stability among the residents.
While the residents of Ahimsa Gram hope to generate income enough to build their own dream homes and pave the way for other underprivileged brethren to move in to Ahimsa Gram, Kasyap is willing to give the dwellings to them for good if they are unable to achieve the target.
Kasyap, who has stridently refused to take any donation or Government grant for the project built with a Rs one crore funding by his family, is now planning to encourage setting up of more projects with a personal grant of Rs 10 lakh each for ten villages to begin with.
Kasyap attributes the increase in crime and violence to poverty and views ‘Ahimsa Gram’ as an antidote. He firmly believes that successful people should do their bit in dealing with the curse of poverty. He has many more plans not only for the rest of Madhya Pradesh but also the entire nation. He has shown the way and it is now for each one of us to follow. May his tribe increase.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Of Magicians and Godmen
One need not sit nor sleep under the apple tree like Newton did to understand the law of gravity nor does one need to run naked out of water screaming Eureka like Archimedes to understand the great truths. In my over four decades of life, I have had the opportunity to learn some of the guiding principles of my life not from the preachings of any new age Guru or the profound thoughts published in some inspirational literature. These ‘lessons of life’, if one may call them so, came from mundane experiences, from very ordinary individuals. I would like to narrate few here.
It was during a bus ride from the college back to home that I asked the driver of the Delhi Transport Corporation Bus whether the bus would stop at a particular stand, where not all buses used to stop. His response was very spontaneous unlike the great sermons delivered by some Godmen, punctuated with pregnant pauses and deep breaths. ‘Rukwaoge to Rukegi’ (if you ask me to stop, the bus will halt at the stand). Nothing profound, nothing philosophical, yet they gave me an altogether different meaning. To me, it meant if you want to get anything, you have to work for it. You can’t leave life to assumptions and presumptions.
Second was my very bad habit of giving loans, small amounts (of course, without interest) to all friends and acquaintances. This also included my personal collection of books. However, not many bothered to return them and even if they did, it was in instalments and months or even years later. I had a dear friend who came from a business community and was pursuing business administration and I shared with him my dilemma. His response, like that of our DTC driver, too was spontaneous. “It is not in your culture to ask and it is not in their culture to return without being asked’.
The third one was when I entered working life. I found that there were camps and groups in all offices and despite my earnest efforts to keep everyone in good humour, I found many arraigned against me. I was deeply upset when a friendly counsel came from a colleague, again something that kept me in good stead all along. “You can’t make every one happy all the time. Some will be happy and some angry. You do what you think is best”.
Then came a professional advice, when I was pursuing my journalism course. “Write not to impress, but to express”. This was from late Shailendra Sahi of Hindi Hindustan, who was teaching Reporting. I not only scrupulously followed it throughout my career but also have religiously passed on the same to my students all over.
Again, during my official life, when I found the atmosphere to be exploitative, I told a friend and he asked me then why was I continuing there. My response was typical – for my daily bread. He laughed and asked when ants, spiders and lizards can fend for themselves without a salary or job, why can’t you, a human being, the ultimate creation of nature?
Since then, I have resigned from five jobs and I have absolutely no regrets and yes, I am doing better.
I can go on giving more such examples because, as the then President R Venkataraman told me once “I have no advice worth to give except that keep your eyes and ears open and take life as it comes”, I have tried to learn all my life from the ordinary and mundane. And the latest was from a magic show.
O P Sharma’s Magic
Last week, I had taken by little daughter to a simple, ordinary auditorium at NOIDA, on the outskirts of the national capital, to show her a full-fledged magic show for the first time, since she had only seen some on television. Everything was on expected lines as the magician O P Sharma Junior, who claimed to have the highest record of magic shows by any performer anywhere in the world, took out everything from his hat – cat, rabbit and even a dog; cut bikini clad women into pieces and stuck them back, poured water endlessly out of a jug and even raised himself and another girl from the audience mid-air without any support whatsoever. And yes, he also dressed up as a sage and produced ash from his bare palm and gave it to his artists dressed up as devotees.
But he did not claim to be a God Man, blessed with divine powers. On the contrary, after this show, he took off his saffron robes and said his magic shows had only three objectives: to provide clean and healthy entertainment, to promote magic as a pure science and to expose Godmen, who used these simple tricks to fool people under the guise of spirituality.
O P Sharma could have actually put on saffron robes for good. He could have turned his simple magic trick into a divine experience. He could have claimed to be an avatar of God and could have had a huge following across the globe. He could have set up Ashrams, exploited women devotees and sold Ayurvedic products. He could have shared stage with the high and mighty. Politicians would have made a beeline to his ashram to pay obeisance. He would have had a garage full of limousines and private jets.
But instead he chose to organize magic shows in schools and colleges, sell tickets ranging from Rs 75 to Rs 300, perform continuously for six hours a day changing his attire at least a dozen times, sell small magic box to children for Rs 200/- and even appeal to the audience to recommend his show to friends if they liked it.
Sharma is only doing his job. He is a showman who has mastered a science and is earning his livelihood the hard way, like I do out of writing and the Editor of this magazine does by publishing – doing what one knows best but he is neither cheating nor claiming to be God.
In an era when some of these so-called Godmen are caught indulging in flesh trade and even with their pants down and others are venturing into cleansing ‘politics’, Sharma stands out as a model and a role model for that. May we have more of O P Sharmas rather than fraudulent Godmen, who bring a bad name both to the saffron robes they wear and the religion they represent.
It was during a bus ride from the college back to home that I asked the driver of the Delhi Transport Corporation Bus whether the bus would stop at a particular stand, where not all buses used to stop. His response was very spontaneous unlike the great sermons delivered by some Godmen, punctuated with pregnant pauses and deep breaths. ‘Rukwaoge to Rukegi’ (if you ask me to stop, the bus will halt at the stand). Nothing profound, nothing philosophical, yet they gave me an altogether different meaning. To me, it meant if you want to get anything, you have to work for it. You can’t leave life to assumptions and presumptions.
Second was my very bad habit of giving loans, small amounts (of course, without interest) to all friends and acquaintances. This also included my personal collection of books. However, not many bothered to return them and even if they did, it was in instalments and months or even years later. I had a dear friend who came from a business community and was pursuing business administration and I shared with him my dilemma. His response, like that of our DTC driver, too was spontaneous. “It is not in your culture to ask and it is not in their culture to return without being asked’.
The third one was when I entered working life. I found that there were camps and groups in all offices and despite my earnest efforts to keep everyone in good humour, I found many arraigned against me. I was deeply upset when a friendly counsel came from a colleague, again something that kept me in good stead all along. “You can’t make every one happy all the time. Some will be happy and some angry. You do what you think is best”.
Then came a professional advice, when I was pursuing my journalism course. “Write not to impress, but to express”. This was from late Shailendra Sahi of Hindi Hindustan, who was teaching Reporting. I not only scrupulously followed it throughout my career but also have religiously passed on the same to my students all over.
Again, during my official life, when I found the atmosphere to be exploitative, I told a friend and he asked me then why was I continuing there. My response was typical – for my daily bread. He laughed and asked when ants, spiders and lizards can fend for themselves without a salary or job, why can’t you, a human being, the ultimate creation of nature?
Since then, I have resigned from five jobs and I have absolutely no regrets and yes, I am doing better.
I can go on giving more such examples because, as the then President R Venkataraman told me once “I have no advice worth to give except that keep your eyes and ears open and take life as it comes”, I have tried to learn all my life from the ordinary and mundane. And the latest was from a magic show.
O P Sharma’s Magic
Last week, I had taken by little daughter to a simple, ordinary auditorium at NOIDA, on the outskirts of the national capital, to show her a full-fledged magic show for the first time, since she had only seen some on television. Everything was on expected lines as the magician O P Sharma Junior, who claimed to have the highest record of magic shows by any performer anywhere in the world, took out everything from his hat – cat, rabbit and even a dog; cut bikini clad women into pieces and stuck them back, poured water endlessly out of a jug and even raised himself and another girl from the audience mid-air without any support whatsoever. And yes, he also dressed up as a sage and produced ash from his bare palm and gave it to his artists dressed up as devotees.
But he did not claim to be a God Man, blessed with divine powers. On the contrary, after this show, he took off his saffron robes and said his magic shows had only three objectives: to provide clean and healthy entertainment, to promote magic as a pure science and to expose Godmen, who used these simple tricks to fool people under the guise of spirituality.
O P Sharma could have actually put on saffron robes for good. He could have turned his simple magic trick into a divine experience. He could have claimed to be an avatar of God and could have had a huge following across the globe. He could have set up Ashrams, exploited women devotees and sold Ayurvedic products. He could have shared stage with the high and mighty. Politicians would have made a beeline to his ashram to pay obeisance. He would have had a garage full of limousines and private jets.
But instead he chose to organize magic shows in schools and colleges, sell tickets ranging from Rs 75 to Rs 300, perform continuously for six hours a day changing his attire at least a dozen times, sell small magic box to children for Rs 200/- and even appeal to the audience to recommend his show to friends if they liked it.
Sharma is only doing his job. He is a showman who has mastered a science and is earning his livelihood the hard way, like I do out of writing and the Editor of this magazine does by publishing – doing what one knows best but he is neither cheating nor claiming to be God.
In an era when some of these so-called Godmen are caught indulging in flesh trade and even with their pants down and others are venturing into cleansing ‘politics’, Sharma stands out as a model and a role model for that. May we have more of O P Sharmas rather than fraudulent Godmen, who bring a bad name both to the saffron robes they wear and the religion they represent.
Monday, March 8, 2010
If Danish Cartoonist and Rushdie were Wrong, So is Husain
Well-known Indian artist Maqbool Fida. Husain, who has been on a self-imposed exile, living outside the country for four years after his controversial paintings of Hindu goddesses led to widespread protests, was recently conferred Qatari nationality which he gladly accepted but the ‘secular fundamentalists’ (like Mani Shankar Aiyer, who describes himself as such) are up in arms demanding that the Indian Government fall at his feet, seek apology and facilitate his return.
Undoubtedly, Hussain brought glory to the country, notwithstanding his eccentricities such as the fad for Madhuri Dikshit but so did K P S Gill, former Director General of Punjab Police, who was a one-man army which demolished the very foundations of militancy in Punjab. And certainly his contribution was much more than that of Hussain. Now one may wonder, why the comparison between the two?
While Gill was the supercop who fought and eliminated the Pak-sponsored militancy, putting his own life to grave risk, his indecent pass on fellow civil servant Rupan Deol Bajaj was most uncalled for, so was his undemocratic style of functioning as the chief of Hockey India.
Now, just because Gill did a good job in Punjab, one cannot overlook his other indiscretions.
The same holds true for Husain. Notwithstanding his ‘greatness’ as a painter (he made tons of money but has not made any worthwhile contribution either for the cause of promoting art or any other social cause), Husain did err in painting nude portraits of Hindu Goddesses. Let us accept it and not just overlook it just because he happens to be from the minority community who is “under attack from Hindu fundamentalists”.
India was the first country in the world (even before Islamic countries) to ban Salman Rushdie because he dared to describe the Prophet of Islam in uncharitable terms. If Rushdie’s case does not come under freedom of speech and expression, how can protests against Husain be termed as an assault on freedom of speech and expression?
Iran had pronounced a death sentence on Rushdie and several crores of rupees were put on the head of a Danish cartoonist who dared to draw a caricature of the Prophet. While as a liberal, democratic society, one may not agree with the extreme reactions of some of the faithful, one cannot but agree that in a pluralistic, multi-ethnic, multi-racial and multi-religious society such as ours, freedom of expression cannot include freedom to offend anyone’s religious sensibilities.
Take the case of exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen, who in her book ‘Lajja’ (shame) dwelt at length on the atrocities perpetrated on the Hindu minority in the neighbouring country, particularly on the women folk. Yet, she was abused and attacked within India by groups claiming that she had offended the sentiments of Muslims. Rightly or wrongly, event the then BJP Government in Rajasthan expressed inability to provide her protection and the author has now been granted a non-extendable visa for one year now, despite her repeated requests for Indian citizenship.
Fair enough. Even if she has exposed the plight of minorities in her country, if she has in the process insulted any religion, don’t give her sanctuary in this country. But why cry foul when there are protests against Husain? Is it that Hindu deities can be insulted in the name of freedom of speech and expression and any criticism of other religions is unacceptable?
Unfortunately that seems to be the case. Interestingly, even Muslim organisations and intellectuals have not shown any sympathy for Husain’s cause but our professional secularists don’t think so. It is the attitude of such people which have given birth and legitimacy to the likes of Pragya Thakur and Praveen Togadiya in an extremely tolerant and liberal society such as Hinduism.
This country has bestowed honours on Husain no end. The Government has repeatedly offered to provide him all possible security. And last but not the least, except for some protests, so-called Hindu extremists groups unlike their Jehadi counterparts do not have the wherewithal to physically harm him. At worst, he may face some protests and that is quite legitimate in a democratic country. Now even the so-called liberal champions of freedom of expression cannot demand that there should not be any protests at all to ensure that the great painter returns to his homeland. That would be curtailing the freedom of speech and expression of some citizens.
Moreover, the intelligentsia in this country has all along supported Husain yet if he quitely accepted the citizenship of Qatar over some protests back home, fingers should be pointed at him not us as Indians. It is not India that failed him. He failed India. Several countries have offered citizenship to many of our leading artists but they continue to be proud Indian passport holders though they may be spending more time in those countries.
Husain’s acceptance of Qatari citizenship is not just a commentary on his patriotic credentials but also his opportunistic persona. There are credible reports that the Qatar Government has offered him a 60 million dollar project for a museum. Now that was too attractive a proposition for the maverick artist. One is reminded of the recent statements of Shah Rukh Khan, a Pathan who has been loved to the hilt by Indian fans, purely aimed at promoting his film in Pakistan though he himself did not select a player for his own team from that country.
Our artistic fraternity, which has hardly anything to do with popular sentiments and live in ivory towers of their own, have always practiced double standards. Take the great Anjolie Ela Menon for instance. This lady described Husain’s Qatar escapade as a dark day in India’s history yet when questioned whether the artist was correct in accepting Qatari nationality said without battling an eyelid “You know, artists are like nomads. They don’t believe in the borders or barriers”. If that be the case, why this hullabaloo? If Mr Husain is not bothered about Indian citizenship, why on earth are we bothered about it?
Undoubtedly, Hussain brought glory to the country, notwithstanding his eccentricities such as the fad for Madhuri Dikshit but so did K P S Gill, former Director General of Punjab Police, who was a one-man army which demolished the very foundations of militancy in Punjab. And certainly his contribution was much more than that of Hussain. Now one may wonder, why the comparison between the two?
While Gill was the supercop who fought and eliminated the Pak-sponsored militancy, putting his own life to grave risk, his indecent pass on fellow civil servant Rupan Deol Bajaj was most uncalled for, so was his undemocratic style of functioning as the chief of Hockey India.
Now, just because Gill did a good job in Punjab, one cannot overlook his other indiscretions.
The same holds true for Husain. Notwithstanding his ‘greatness’ as a painter (he made tons of money but has not made any worthwhile contribution either for the cause of promoting art or any other social cause), Husain did err in painting nude portraits of Hindu Goddesses. Let us accept it and not just overlook it just because he happens to be from the minority community who is “under attack from Hindu fundamentalists”.
India was the first country in the world (even before Islamic countries) to ban Salman Rushdie because he dared to describe the Prophet of Islam in uncharitable terms. If Rushdie’s case does not come under freedom of speech and expression, how can protests against Husain be termed as an assault on freedom of speech and expression?
Iran had pronounced a death sentence on Rushdie and several crores of rupees were put on the head of a Danish cartoonist who dared to draw a caricature of the Prophet. While as a liberal, democratic society, one may not agree with the extreme reactions of some of the faithful, one cannot but agree that in a pluralistic, multi-ethnic, multi-racial and multi-religious society such as ours, freedom of expression cannot include freedom to offend anyone’s religious sensibilities.
Take the case of exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen, who in her book ‘Lajja’ (shame) dwelt at length on the atrocities perpetrated on the Hindu minority in the neighbouring country, particularly on the women folk. Yet, she was abused and attacked within India by groups claiming that she had offended the sentiments of Muslims. Rightly or wrongly, event the then BJP Government in Rajasthan expressed inability to provide her protection and the author has now been granted a non-extendable visa for one year now, despite her repeated requests for Indian citizenship.
Fair enough. Even if she has exposed the plight of minorities in her country, if she has in the process insulted any religion, don’t give her sanctuary in this country. But why cry foul when there are protests against Husain? Is it that Hindu deities can be insulted in the name of freedom of speech and expression and any criticism of other religions is unacceptable?
Unfortunately that seems to be the case. Interestingly, even Muslim organisations and intellectuals have not shown any sympathy for Husain’s cause but our professional secularists don’t think so. It is the attitude of such people which have given birth and legitimacy to the likes of Pragya Thakur and Praveen Togadiya in an extremely tolerant and liberal society such as Hinduism.
This country has bestowed honours on Husain no end. The Government has repeatedly offered to provide him all possible security. And last but not the least, except for some protests, so-called Hindu extremists groups unlike their Jehadi counterparts do not have the wherewithal to physically harm him. At worst, he may face some protests and that is quite legitimate in a democratic country. Now even the so-called liberal champions of freedom of expression cannot demand that there should not be any protests at all to ensure that the great painter returns to his homeland. That would be curtailing the freedom of speech and expression of some citizens.
Moreover, the intelligentsia in this country has all along supported Husain yet if he quitely accepted the citizenship of Qatar over some protests back home, fingers should be pointed at him not us as Indians. It is not India that failed him. He failed India. Several countries have offered citizenship to many of our leading artists but they continue to be proud Indian passport holders though they may be spending more time in those countries.
Husain’s acceptance of Qatari citizenship is not just a commentary on his patriotic credentials but also his opportunistic persona. There are credible reports that the Qatar Government has offered him a 60 million dollar project for a museum. Now that was too attractive a proposition for the maverick artist. One is reminded of the recent statements of Shah Rukh Khan, a Pathan who has been loved to the hilt by Indian fans, purely aimed at promoting his film in Pakistan though he himself did not select a player for his own team from that country.
Our artistic fraternity, which has hardly anything to do with popular sentiments and live in ivory towers of their own, have always practiced double standards. Take the great Anjolie Ela Menon for instance. This lady described Husain’s Qatar escapade as a dark day in India’s history yet when questioned whether the artist was correct in accepting Qatari nationality said without battling an eyelid “You know, artists are like nomads. They don’t believe in the borders or barriers”. If that be the case, why this hullabaloo? If Mr Husain is not bothered about Indian citizenship, why on earth are we bothered about it?
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Journalism with a Difference
Ram Gopal Varma’s ‘Rann’ has been run down by the media, particularly electronic, no end. The Amitabh Bachchan starrer has been rubbished as a figment of RGV’s imagination with an exaggerated story line and unreal characters. Yet, the fact also remains that even highly acclaimed movies such as ‘Three Idiots’ suffer from these very shortcomings – a technical person handling a pregnancy with an improvised suction and the new born responding only to a song ‘All is Well’ in a miraculous climax. Or for that matter, the Oscar winning ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ where an excreta enveloped Jamaal shakes hands with the Big B. But the media did not condemn the movies as they did with ‘Rann’ because RGV touched a raw nerve, rubbed where it hurt the most.
In a world where Rakhi Sawant and Raju Shrivastava are prime time and television ratings thrive on ghost stories, where trivia has become mainstream and professional ethics mere lip service, it is but natural that Varma becomes enemy number one for stating the unpalatable truth. The truth is that sensationalism rules the roost and paid news has become a harsh reality. The Indian Media Centre and its publication ‘Media Critique’ were the first to highlight this syndrome, which was later picked up by The Hindu and subsequently the Editors’ Guild of India. Yet, surprisingly, the Guild’s statements have been published extensively by none other than The Hindu.
Once upon a time, newspapers had the courage and conviction to publish even the counter point but today they have become a self-righteous lot. To cite a recent personal experience, the highly over rated The Hindustan Times recently published an article outrightly condemning former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda terming him as the worst Prime Minister India has ever had. Having covered Mr Gowda extensively as Prime Minister, I knew for certain that he may not have been among the best but was certainly not the worst. I have mentioned his contributions already in these columns earlier. I wrote a small piece for The Hindustan Times enumerating the contributions of the former Prime Minister in response to the critique. Forget its publication, they never bothered to even acknowledge its receipt.
It’s not just about self-righteousness but also vengeance of the highest order. CNN-IBN’s orchestrated campaign against Shiv Sena in the party’s spat with King Khan was apparently and evidently a response to the Sainik’s vandalisation of their studios last year. Whither objectivity? Agreed, Bal Thackeray is no paragon of virtue but SRK too is no messiah. He did not take a Pakistani player in his own Kolkata Knight Riders and painted the town red with his rhetoric generosity towards Pakistani players, ensuring in the process the success of My Name is Khan across the border and courtesy a self righteous media, we had the entire Mumbai police who could not prevent 26/11 protecting the commercial interests of Messrs Karan Johar and Khan.
Silver Lining among Dark Clouds
However, all is not dark and dingy. There are honest and committed journalists around who believe that they have to play the role of catalysts in a society where as per Government’s own figures 77 per cent of the population earn less than Rs 20 a day and for all you know that could even be Rs 2 or 5.
What a tragedy that in an agriculture dominated economy, we have only one P Sainath to boast of. Journalism in this country was born in the cradle of freedom struggle. Journalists were more of missionaries and less of mercenaries. While much water has flowed down the Ganga since then, ilsome of those missionaries are still around. Shivnath Jha is one of them.
The newspaper vendor turned senior journalist along with his wife educationist Neena have brought out a first ever compilation ‘Prime Minister of India – Bharat Bhagya Vidhata’. Nothing great except that proceeds from the sale of the coffee table book on the 14 prime ministers, would go to rehabilatate Sultana Begum, last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah's great grand-daughter-in-law who currently ekes out a living selling tea on the streets of Kolkata.
The 444-page hard bound 12x 12 illustrated book enlists the performance of the leaders as well as their achievements and the controverises they survived, starting from Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to Manmohan Singh.
It is the fourth book in the "Andolan Ek Pustak Se" movement, which was launched by the duo in the year 2007 to publish one book per year aiming to honour and help "those who have brought laurels to the country."
"Sultana Begum runs a tea stall in Cowies Ghat slum in Bengal's Howrah district. She lives in dirtiest of conditions and earns a living to support her family. We hope we can help her through the royalty we earn from the book," says Jha.
The "Andolan Ek..." series was begun with a "Monograph on Ustad Bismillah Khan," to draw attention to the plight of the ailing shahnai maestro. Other books in the series include one on the then railway minister Lalu Prasad, "Lalu Prasad: India's Miracle," as well as "India calling -to commemorate India entering 60th year of Independence."
Jha had earlier used the sale proceeds of the book on Bismillah Khan to rehabilitate Vinayak Rao Tope, the great grandson of Tantya Tope, a front line leader of the 1857 uprising.
The book which is priced at Rs 8000, includes writings by eminent personalities including noted historian Bipan Chandra. Your truly too had the privilege of contributing a write-up.
Kudos to Shivnath and Neena for rediscovering that extinct Dodo called journalism with a mission in an era of commodification and commercialization of Media. One sincerely hopes that this modern day classic would inspire the media fraternity to come out of their ivory towers and work for the Sultana Begums and Kalavatis, lost and waiting for redemption in the dusty streets, lanes and bylanes of Hindostan.
In a world where Rakhi Sawant and Raju Shrivastava are prime time and television ratings thrive on ghost stories, where trivia has become mainstream and professional ethics mere lip service, it is but natural that Varma becomes enemy number one for stating the unpalatable truth. The truth is that sensationalism rules the roost and paid news has become a harsh reality. The Indian Media Centre and its publication ‘Media Critique’ were the first to highlight this syndrome, which was later picked up by The Hindu and subsequently the Editors’ Guild of India. Yet, surprisingly, the Guild’s statements have been published extensively by none other than The Hindu.
Once upon a time, newspapers had the courage and conviction to publish even the counter point but today they have become a self-righteous lot. To cite a recent personal experience, the highly over rated The Hindustan Times recently published an article outrightly condemning former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda terming him as the worst Prime Minister India has ever had. Having covered Mr Gowda extensively as Prime Minister, I knew for certain that he may not have been among the best but was certainly not the worst. I have mentioned his contributions already in these columns earlier. I wrote a small piece for The Hindustan Times enumerating the contributions of the former Prime Minister in response to the critique. Forget its publication, they never bothered to even acknowledge its receipt.
It’s not just about self-righteousness but also vengeance of the highest order. CNN-IBN’s orchestrated campaign against Shiv Sena in the party’s spat with King Khan was apparently and evidently a response to the Sainik’s vandalisation of their studios last year. Whither objectivity? Agreed, Bal Thackeray is no paragon of virtue but SRK too is no messiah. He did not take a Pakistani player in his own Kolkata Knight Riders and painted the town red with his rhetoric generosity towards Pakistani players, ensuring in the process the success of My Name is Khan across the border and courtesy a self righteous media, we had the entire Mumbai police who could not prevent 26/11 protecting the commercial interests of Messrs Karan Johar and Khan.
Silver Lining among Dark Clouds
However, all is not dark and dingy. There are honest and committed journalists around who believe that they have to play the role of catalysts in a society where as per Government’s own figures 77 per cent of the population earn less than Rs 20 a day and for all you know that could even be Rs 2 or 5.
What a tragedy that in an agriculture dominated economy, we have only one P Sainath to boast of. Journalism in this country was born in the cradle of freedom struggle. Journalists were more of missionaries and less of mercenaries. While much water has flowed down the Ganga since then, ilsome of those missionaries are still around. Shivnath Jha is one of them.
The newspaper vendor turned senior journalist along with his wife educationist Neena have brought out a first ever compilation ‘Prime Minister of India – Bharat Bhagya Vidhata’. Nothing great except that proceeds from the sale of the coffee table book on the 14 prime ministers, would go to rehabilatate Sultana Begum, last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah's great grand-daughter-in-law who currently ekes out a living selling tea on the streets of Kolkata.
The 444-page hard bound 12x 12 illustrated book enlists the performance of the leaders as well as their achievements and the controverises they survived, starting from Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to Manmohan Singh.
It is the fourth book in the "Andolan Ek Pustak Se" movement, which was launched by the duo in the year 2007 to publish one book per year aiming to honour and help "those who have brought laurels to the country."
"Sultana Begum runs a tea stall in Cowies Ghat slum in Bengal's Howrah district. She lives in dirtiest of conditions and earns a living to support her family. We hope we can help her through the royalty we earn from the book," says Jha.
The "Andolan Ek..." series was begun with a "Monograph on Ustad Bismillah Khan," to draw attention to the plight of the ailing shahnai maestro. Other books in the series include one on the then railway minister Lalu Prasad, "Lalu Prasad: India's Miracle," as well as "India calling -to commemorate India entering 60th year of Independence."
Jha had earlier used the sale proceeds of the book on Bismillah Khan to rehabilitate Vinayak Rao Tope, the great grandson of Tantya Tope, a front line leader of the 1857 uprising.
The book which is priced at Rs 8000, includes writings by eminent personalities including noted historian Bipan Chandra. Your truly too had the privilege of contributing a write-up.
Kudos to Shivnath and Neena for rediscovering that extinct Dodo called journalism with a mission in an era of commodification and commercialization of Media. One sincerely hopes that this modern day classic would inspire the media fraternity to come out of their ivory towers and work for the Sultana Begums and Kalavatis, lost and waiting for redemption in the dusty streets, lanes and bylanes of Hindostan.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
The Other Side of Deve Gowda
Once again the national media is after one its favourite whipping boys: Hardanahalli Doddegowda Deve Gowda. When he was named for Prime Ministership, he was the proverbial dark horse; once he was at the helm of affairs, the urban centric media went out of its way with apparent sadistic pleasure to show a sleeping Gowda. Recently, noted columnist Khushwant Singh described him as a ‘donkey’ or ‘ass’ among Prime Ministers India has had. Ironically, this child of fate, a donkey and sleeping politician is also often projected by the same media as scheming, calculating, shrewd old fox. Certainly, he can’t be both.
One cannot recall in post-independent India a politician who rose to become the Prime Minister and even 10 years later remains as active, if not more. He heads a political party which has considerable influence in Karnataka and is a ruling coalition partner in Kerala. He continues to be elected again and again and often with the highest margin to the Lok Sabha. He is at the forefront of popular agrarian agitations in the state and regularly attends and participates actively not only in Parliament but also in the different committees to which he has been nominated.
At 76, the Civil Engineer turned politician remains as active notwithstanding his diabetes and other health ailments. He is a vegetarian, teetotaler and a total family man. Yet, often he is isolated and targeted by what he himself called the ‘elitist Delhi media’, which only highlighted his rustic ways and background. Except allegations of general nature leveled against all politicians, the fact remains that there has not been a single specific charge of graft against him or the United Front Government that he headed at the Centre, unlike many who are eulogized as messiahs of poor and backwards. Except for the recent unfortunate swear word incident, which is undoubtedly indefensible, Gowda has never been accused of instigating violence or turning a blind eye to pogroms unlike some who are being hailed now as models of governance.
It is indeed sad that a nation has chosen to paint entirely in black an individual who climbed up the ladder the hard way and ignore whatever little contribution he made during his brief 10 month tenure. Even as small states have become a craze in the country now, it was Deve Gowda who as Prime Minister announced from the ramparts of the Red Fort plans to create the state of Uttarakhand.
Television journalist Rajdeep Sardesai had once commented, “That Gowda became PM may rankle those who feel that his ascent to the post devalued the august institution. His choice was pure luck, plucked out of obscurity to the highest post only because the other contenders eliminated each other. And yet, Deve Gowda will go down in history as one of the only two Indian Prime Ministers (Charan Singh being the other) with well-defined rural roots, a consciously non-elite leader, and in his case, the first to perhaps have no connection with the Delhi durbar. In a sense, he was the first genuine regional satrap to become PM, a politian who derived his sense of power and importance, not from his proximity to the national leadership of his party but from his control over a particular state.”
Though 33 per cent reservation for women in Parliament remains a distant dream till date, it was the Deve Gowda Government which introduced the Constitution Amendment Bill to reserve 30 per cent seats in the Lok Sabha for women, as also the Lok Pal Bill to enquire into charges of corruption against public functionaries including the Chief Minister.
It was Gowda who set the peace process in strife-torn Kashmir rolling not only by visiting the state, the first by a Prime Minister in seven years, but also putting in place a popularly elected Government led by Farooq Abdullah after a lapse of nearly eight years and offering an economic package that included construction of 290 km railway line from Udhampur to Baramulla, linking the valley with the rest of India for the first time and completion of the long-pending Dulhasti and Uri Hydro electric projects.
In October 1996, Deve Gowda became the first Prime Minister to visit all the seven states of the North-East and announced s Rs 65,000 crore economic package asserting that “India as a whole cannot progress unless every state including the seven states of the North-Eastern region keep in step with the rest of the country.” He also extended an unconditional invitation to all insurgent groups to meet him saying, “I genuinely wish to understand their points of view and what exactly is troubling them”.
On the External Affairs front, Gowda peacefully resolved the long-pending Ganga water sharing agreement with Bangaldesh and the Mahakali Treaty with Nepal. He played a key role in resumption of stalled talks between India and Pakistan. Gowda set aside protocol and received Chinese President Jiang Zemin and the two sides agreed for Confidence Building Measures along the Line of Actual Control.
Gowda gave a free hand to his Foreign Minister I K Gujral to pursue his ‘Gujral Doctrine’ and to his Finance Minister P Chidambaram to implement his liberalization programes. It was Gowda’s determination to tap the “vast unaccounted money” for development purposes that led to the launching of the revolutionary Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme (VDIS). The Mumbai sea link project and Delhi’s Metro too got their approval during his tenure.
Former Cabinet Secretary T S R Subramaniam has narrated the following anecdote in his classic ‘Journey Through Babudom and Netaland: Governance in India’
“I called on Deve Gowda on the day I took over charge as Cabinet Secretary. He was busy that day, and asked me to see him the following evening at his residence, where he spent half an hour alone with me, discussing the things he wanted to accomplish as asking me to help him execute his plans. What he then said impressed me greatly and I am quoting as well as I can remember. "I have spent many years in state politics, seen a lot of things. I have enough money for my lifetime. God has given me the opportunity, unexpectedly, to serve the country as the prime minister. I will be completely honest, straightforward and will keep all politics out when national interest is involved. I want you and Satish Chandran to help me with my plans. My sons and my relatives will want to exploit my present position to their pecuniary advantage. They will use their proximity to me, through open and subtle ways, to influence you, and to put pressure on you. I want you to be completely fair and impartial and not oblige them. Sometimes, they may speak to you in my presence, giving the impression of my full agreement. I may not at that time be in a position to contradict them, because of my close relationship. Even then you should ignore them totally. If i need anything from you, i will ask you privately - but that will be very rare." Deve Gowda was true to his words. He never asked me to go out of the way in any matter, except on one trivial instance, when he explained the reason why he wanted me to stretch a point.”
We are taught to give even the devil its due. Certainly, Deve Gowda deserves better.
One cannot recall in post-independent India a politician who rose to become the Prime Minister and even 10 years later remains as active, if not more. He heads a political party which has considerable influence in Karnataka and is a ruling coalition partner in Kerala. He continues to be elected again and again and often with the highest margin to the Lok Sabha. He is at the forefront of popular agrarian agitations in the state and regularly attends and participates actively not only in Parliament but also in the different committees to which he has been nominated.
At 76, the Civil Engineer turned politician remains as active notwithstanding his diabetes and other health ailments. He is a vegetarian, teetotaler and a total family man. Yet, often he is isolated and targeted by what he himself called the ‘elitist Delhi media’, which only highlighted his rustic ways and background. Except allegations of general nature leveled against all politicians, the fact remains that there has not been a single specific charge of graft against him or the United Front Government that he headed at the Centre, unlike many who are eulogized as messiahs of poor and backwards. Except for the recent unfortunate swear word incident, which is undoubtedly indefensible, Gowda has never been accused of instigating violence or turning a blind eye to pogroms unlike some who are being hailed now as models of governance.
It is indeed sad that a nation has chosen to paint entirely in black an individual who climbed up the ladder the hard way and ignore whatever little contribution he made during his brief 10 month tenure. Even as small states have become a craze in the country now, it was Deve Gowda who as Prime Minister announced from the ramparts of the Red Fort plans to create the state of Uttarakhand.
Television journalist Rajdeep Sardesai had once commented, “That Gowda became PM may rankle those who feel that his ascent to the post devalued the august institution. His choice was pure luck, plucked out of obscurity to the highest post only because the other contenders eliminated each other. And yet, Deve Gowda will go down in history as one of the only two Indian Prime Ministers (Charan Singh being the other) with well-defined rural roots, a consciously non-elite leader, and in his case, the first to perhaps have no connection with the Delhi durbar. In a sense, he was the first genuine regional satrap to become PM, a politian who derived his sense of power and importance, not from his proximity to the national leadership of his party but from his control over a particular state.”
Though 33 per cent reservation for women in Parliament remains a distant dream till date, it was the Deve Gowda Government which introduced the Constitution Amendment Bill to reserve 30 per cent seats in the Lok Sabha for women, as also the Lok Pal Bill to enquire into charges of corruption against public functionaries including the Chief Minister.
It was Gowda who set the peace process in strife-torn Kashmir rolling not only by visiting the state, the first by a Prime Minister in seven years, but also putting in place a popularly elected Government led by Farooq Abdullah after a lapse of nearly eight years and offering an economic package that included construction of 290 km railway line from Udhampur to Baramulla, linking the valley with the rest of India for the first time and completion of the long-pending Dulhasti and Uri Hydro electric projects.
In October 1996, Deve Gowda became the first Prime Minister to visit all the seven states of the North-East and announced s Rs 65,000 crore economic package asserting that “India as a whole cannot progress unless every state including the seven states of the North-Eastern region keep in step with the rest of the country.” He also extended an unconditional invitation to all insurgent groups to meet him saying, “I genuinely wish to understand their points of view and what exactly is troubling them”.
On the External Affairs front, Gowda peacefully resolved the long-pending Ganga water sharing agreement with Bangaldesh and the Mahakali Treaty with Nepal. He played a key role in resumption of stalled talks between India and Pakistan. Gowda set aside protocol and received Chinese President Jiang Zemin and the two sides agreed for Confidence Building Measures along the Line of Actual Control.
Gowda gave a free hand to his Foreign Minister I K Gujral to pursue his ‘Gujral Doctrine’ and to his Finance Minister P Chidambaram to implement his liberalization programes. It was Gowda’s determination to tap the “vast unaccounted money” for development purposes that led to the launching of the revolutionary Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme (VDIS). The Mumbai sea link project and Delhi’s Metro too got their approval during his tenure.
Former Cabinet Secretary T S R Subramaniam has narrated the following anecdote in his classic ‘Journey Through Babudom and Netaland: Governance in India’
“I called on Deve Gowda on the day I took over charge as Cabinet Secretary. He was busy that day, and asked me to see him the following evening at his residence, where he spent half an hour alone with me, discussing the things he wanted to accomplish as asking me to help him execute his plans. What he then said impressed me greatly and I am quoting as well as I can remember. "I have spent many years in state politics, seen a lot of things. I have enough money for my lifetime. God has given me the opportunity, unexpectedly, to serve the country as the prime minister. I will be completely honest, straightforward and will keep all politics out when national interest is involved. I want you and Satish Chandran to help me with my plans. My sons and my relatives will want to exploit my present position to their pecuniary advantage. They will use their proximity to me, through open and subtle ways, to influence you, and to put pressure on you. I want you to be completely fair and impartial and not oblige them. Sometimes, they may speak to you in my presence, giving the impression of my full agreement. I may not at that time be in a position to contradict them, because of my close relationship. Even then you should ignore them totally. If i need anything from you, i will ask you privately - but that will be very rare." Deve Gowda was true to his words. He never asked me to go out of the way in any matter, except on one trivial instance, when he explained the reason why he wanted me to stretch a point.”
We are taught to give even the devil its due. Certainly, Deve Gowda deserves better.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Republic day Tableaux Ideas
Every year, different state Governments and Central Government departments and undertakings come up with tableaus on different topics at the Republic Day parade.
Here are some original and contemporary ideas as suggestions:
A Telengana tableaux with a fasting KCR and Osmania University students setting ablaze buses and cars and PC trying to pour water on it.
An IT tableaux with a relaxed Shashi Tharoor tweeting
A UP tableaux with Kum Mayawati as a statue
A Samajwadi Party tableaux with Amar Singh as pied piper walking out with Sanju baba, Jayaprada and Jaya Bachchan.
A BJP tableaux with Nitin Gadkari as Hanuman lifting the mountainous party.
A railway tableaux with Mamta Banerjee in the driver’s seat and Lalu Prasad running after the train.
And of course, an IPL tableaux with Pakistani players beating their chests in mourning as Shilpa, Preity and Nita Ambani engage in a jig.
Here are some original and contemporary ideas as suggestions:
A Telengana tableaux with a fasting KCR and Osmania University students setting ablaze buses and cars and PC trying to pour water on it.
An IT tableaux with a relaxed Shashi Tharoor tweeting
A UP tableaux with Kum Mayawati as a statue
A Samajwadi Party tableaux with Amar Singh as pied piper walking out with Sanju baba, Jayaprada and Jaya Bachchan.
A BJP tableaux with Nitin Gadkari as Hanuman lifting the mountainous party.
A railway tableaux with Mamta Banerjee in the driver’s seat and Lalu Prasad running after the train.
And of course, an IPL tableaux with Pakistani players beating their chests in mourning as Shilpa, Preity and Nita Ambani engage in a jig.
Friday, January 15, 2010
A Resolution for Peace
Like every year, this year too I have made my New Year resolutions, such as getting up early, going to bed early, taking food on time, exercising regularly, maintaining diet, spending more time with family, reading more books, meeting more friends, not getting angry, doing Yoga and meditation, not eating junk food etc etc, resolutions that have been made umpteen times in the past only to be broken within an hour, day, week or a month at the most.
Yet, when we look all around us, the agitation for Telengana, the Maoist violence along the Red Corridor, the insurgency in North East, the militancy in Kashmir, terrorists acts in different parts of the country and the world, only one desire comes to the fore – Peace.
But can peace be achieved merely by preaching? All religions have preached peace since time immemorial. Lord Buddha’s sermon was all about Ahimsa or non-violence yet in the past year, there couldn’t have been anything more violent and brutal than what the predominantly Buddhist Sinhalese Sri Lankan Army perpetrated on the innocent Tamilian population in the island nation during the war against LTTE. Latest television footages of Lankan soldiers blindfolding the victims and shooting them at point blank range has only confirmed the open secret.
Most terror activities in India, USA, Israel, Pakistan and Afghanistan are being carried out by fundamentalist elements under the garb of Islam which itself means ‘Peace’. Certainly, such acts including against Mosques and Muslims themselves were never endorsed by the Prophet.
Jesus of Nazareth too taught the world to show the other cheek when slapped on one. Yet, neither the activities of pre-dominantly Christian insurgent groups in North-East India or the racist attack on Indian students in Australia conform to the peace and non-violence enunciated and espoused in the Holy Bible.
The irony of the times is that US President Barack Obama in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech justified both war and violence, of course, to establish peace.
Since time immemorial, there have been efforts to establish peace and harmony. From the World Parliament of Religions, where Swami Vivekananda made history, to the creation of League of Nations and the United Nations, history has been witnesses to umpteen such sincere and honest efforts to resolve conflicts. Yet, disharmony rules the roost, violence continues unabated.
With the conflict resolution models failing to succeed, the time has come to evolve conflict avoidance models. Resolution comes after the conflict take place whereas conflict avoidance is a preventive as against a curative step.
The need of the hour is paradigm shift in thinking from the now prevailing notion of tolerance of other faiths as the ideal to the ideal of acceptance of all faiths as valid and sacred to achieve peace and harmony based on mutual accommodation.
In fact, a silent revolution has been taking place. Religious leaders from the world over signed the historic inter-faith document, ‘The Faith Human Rights Statement’, on December 10, 2008. While emphasizing the importance of the freedom of expression, the leaders resolved to deplore the portrayals of objects of religious veneration which fail to be properly respectful to the sensibilities of believers (supporters of the Danish cartoonist and M F Hussein, please note). They also agreed the freedom to have, to retain and to adopt a religion or belief of one’s choice, without coercion or inducement to be an undeniable right. This declaration addressed a principal apprehension of faiths like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism (in the Indian context) and Confucianism about the Abrahamic faiths. Interestingly, conversion has been a major bone of contention between Hindu and Christian groups in the country and both leaders of Abrahamic religions and Head of the Hindu Acharya Sabha Swami Dayananda Saraswathi were signatories to this agreement at Amsterdam.
The Swami also traveled to Israel and held a comprehensive dialogue with top Jewish leaders which helped remove theological misunderstanding that existed between the two faiths over the centuries, rather millennia. In a joint declaration after the dialogue, the Jewish leaders were convinced that the different idols and Gods in Hinduism were merely the form, but in substance, the Hindus accepted only one reality. This was a path breaking and illustrative endeavour to remove a basic and fundamental misconception about Hinduism in the oldest of the Abrahamic faiths.
This opens the gates for similar consensus with the other Abrahamic faiths, Islam and Christianity, which is particularly crucial, nay critical, in the Indian context.
In this regard, the Global Foundation for Civilizational Harmony (India), which was founded exactly two years back in the presence of a galaxy of spiritual leaders from all faiths in the presence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and former President Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, has been doing a pioneering work. Deviating from the popular and conventional models of seeking harmony among faiths and civilizations, the organization is engaged in the difficult path of persuading different faiths and civilizations to undergo an endogenous transformation and thereby bring about changes in the longstanding perceptions about them within and outside as an essential part of the process to bring about lasting harmony among faiths and civilizations.
In fact, GFCH India supported and worked with the Darul Uloom Deoband to hold rallies of Muslims against terrorism in different parts of India with a view to dispel the perception identifying terror with Islam. The Foundation felt that unless some visible initiative was taken from within the community and by a reputed and respected Islamic theological school to dispel this perception, it was bound to persist and even deepen.
Of late, GFCH organized a Hindu Spiritual and Service Fair in Chennai, in which about 100 Hindu spiritual organizations such as Ramakrishna Mission, Art of Living foundation, Patanjali Yogapeeth, Kanchi and Sringeri Mutts, Mata Amritanandamayi Math participated, with the objective of dispelling a long held perception that Hindu spiritual organizations were not socially conscious and they do not have a deep impulse for public service. Apart from the younger generation within the community, this perception had also greatly prejudiced the respect for Hindu faith in the minds of the followers of other faiths, as a socially insensitive faith. Needless to metion here that the fair, inaugurated by Tamil Nadu Governor S S Barnala, was a grand success with over 1.25 lakh visitors.
Next on the cards for the Foundation is an ‘Islam in the Service of Mother India’ fair, probably in Delhi, with the twin objectives of showcasing the service aspect of Islam as also the community’s unquestionable commitment to the motherland, unmindful over the controversy over Vande Mataram etc.
I am sure, there are other organizations doing equally good work. Let us strengthen such efforts, for at stake is global peace and harmony, which is crucial for progress and prosperity. Let our resolution this year be for creating a peaceful and harmonious universe. Amen, Inshallah, Tathastu!
Yet, when we look all around us, the agitation for Telengana, the Maoist violence along the Red Corridor, the insurgency in North East, the militancy in Kashmir, terrorists acts in different parts of the country and the world, only one desire comes to the fore – Peace.
But can peace be achieved merely by preaching? All religions have preached peace since time immemorial. Lord Buddha’s sermon was all about Ahimsa or non-violence yet in the past year, there couldn’t have been anything more violent and brutal than what the predominantly Buddhist Sinhalese Sri Lankan Army perpetrated on the innocent Tamilian population in the island nation during the war against LTTE. Latest television footages of Lankan soldiers blindfolding the victims and shooting them at point blank range has only confirmed the open secret.
Most terror activities in India, USA, Israel, Pakistan and Afghanistan are being carried out by fundamentalist elements under the garb of Islam which itself means ‘Peace’. Certainly, such acts including against Mosques and Muslims themselves were never endorsed by the Prophet.
Jesus of Nazareth too taught the world to show the other cheek when slapped on one. Yet, neither the activities of pre-dominantly Christian insurgent groups in North-East India or the racist attack on Indian students in Australia conform to the peace and non-violence enunciated and espoused in the Holy Bible.
The irony of the times is that US President Barack Obama in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech justified both war and violence, of course, to establish peace.
Since time immemorial, there have been efforts to establish peace and harmony. From the World Parliament of Religions, where Swami Vivekananda made history, to the creation of League of Nations and the United Nations, history has been witnesses to umpteen such sincere and honest efforts to resolve conflicts. Yet, disharmony rules the roost, violence continues unabated.
With the conflict resolution models failing to succeed, the time has come to evolve conflict avoidance models. Resolution comes after the conflict take place whereas conflict avoidance is a preventive as against a curative step.
The need of the hour is paradigm shift in thinking from the now prevailing notion of tolerance of other faiths as the ideal to the ideal of acceptance of all faiths as valid and sacred to achieve peace and harmony based on mutual accommodation.
In fact, a silent revolution has been taking place. Religious leaders from the world over signed the historic inter-faith document, ‘The Faith Human Rights Statement’, on December 10, 2008. While emphasizing the importance of the freedom of expression, the leaders resolved to deplore the portrayals of objects of religious veneration which fail to be properly respectful to the sensibilities of believers (supporters of the Danish cartoonist and M F Hussein, please note). They also agreed the freedom to have, to retain and to adopt a religion or belief of one’s choice, without coercion or inducement to be an undeniable right. This declaration addressed a principal apprehension of faiths like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism (in the Indian context) and Confucianism about the Abrahamic faiths. Interestingly, conversion has been a major bone of contention between Hindu and Christian groups in the country and both leaders of Abrahamic religions and Head of the Hindu Acharya Sabha Swami Dayananda Saraswathi were signatories to this agreement at Amsterdam.
The Swami also traveled to Israel and held a comprehensive dialogue with top Jewish leaders which helped remove theological misunderstanding that existed between the two faiths over the centuries, rather millennia. In a joint declaration after the dialogue, the Jewish leaders were convinced that the different idols and Gods in Hinduism were merely the form, but in substance, the Hindus accepted only one reality. This was a path breaking and illustrative endeavour to remove a basic and fundamental misconception about Hinduism in the oldest of the Abrahamic faiths.
This opens the gates for similar consensus with the other Abrahamic faiths, Islam and Christianity, which is particularly crucial, nay critical, in the Indian context.
In this regard, the Global Foundation for Civilizational Harmony (India), which was founded exactly two years back in the presence of a galaxy of spiritual leaders from all faiths in the presence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and former President Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, has been doing a pioneering work. Deviating from the popular and conventional models of seeking harmony among faiths and civilizations, the organization is engaged in the difficult path of persuading different faiths and civilizations to undergo an endogenous transformation and thereby bring about changes in the longstanding perceptions about them within and outside as an essential part of the process to bring about lasting harmony among faiths and civilizations.
In fact, GFCH India supported and worked with the Darul Uloom Deoband to hold rallies of Muslims against terrorism in different parts of India with a view to dispel the perception identifying terror with Islam. The Foundation felt that unless some visible initiative was taken from within the community and by a reputed and respected Islamic theological school to dispel this perception, it was bound to persist and even deepen.
Of late, GFCH organized a Hindu Spiritual and Service Fair in Chennai, in which about 100 Hindu spiritual organizations such as Ramakrishna Mission, Art of Living foundation, Patanjali Yogapeeth, Kanchi and Sringeri Mutts, Mata Amritanandamayi Math participated, with the objective of dispelling a long held perception that Hindu spiritual organizations were not socially conscious and they do not have a deep impulse for public service. Apart from the younger generation within the community, this perception had also greatly prejudiced the respect for Hindu faith in the minds of the followers of other faiths, as a socially insensitive faith. Needless to metion here that the fair, inaugurated by Tamil Nadu Governor S S Barnala, was a grand success with over 1.25 lakh visitors.
Next on the cards for the Foundation is an ‘Islam in the Service of Mother India’ fair, probably in Delhi, with the twin objectives of showcasing the service aspect of Islam as also the community’s unquestionable commitment to the motherland, unmindful over the controversy over Vande Mataram etc.
I am sure, there are other organizations doing equally good work. Let us strengthen such efforts, for at stake is global peace and harmony, which is crucial for progress and prosperity. Let our resolution this year be for creating a peaceful and harmonious universe. Amen, Inshallah, Tathastu!
Saturday, January 2, 2010
After Telengana, Why Not Mayur Vihar?
Mayur Vihar in East Delhi is a peaceful middle class locality. It has a mixed population, with a sizeable chunk coming from South India. But that peace is going to be shattered soon, for a section of the populace has taken a decision to seek a separate state. While apparently this may sound unreasonable, ridiculous and even outrageous, the proponents of the ‘Greater Mayur Vihar’ state have their own logic. One, being part of East Delhi, they are a neglected lot compared to their upmarket cousins in say, Greater Kailash, Golf Links, Vasant Vihar etc in South Delhi, not to talk of the denizens of Lutyen’s New Delhi. That’s a discrimination at par with the one faced by the Gorkhas in Darjeeling and Siliguri and worse than the citizens of Telengana. At least, they have a Hyderabad to boast of. Secondly, under a ‘deep-rooted’ conspiracy, Mayur Vihar has been split into three phases, I, II and III, each leagues away from each other. Now, if the Nagas can ask for parts of Manipur and other North-Eastern states for a Greater Nagaland, why not a Greater Mayur Vihar?
Thus, we are underdeveloped vis-à-vis the rest of the city, we have been ‘discriminated’ against and we have been split into three and therefore, the demand for Mayur Vihar as an independent state is fully justified. We will have the comparatively developed Phase-II as the capital city, since it is encircled by the Sanjay lake, possessed with wildlife in the form of monkeys, peacocks and snakes, equipped with its own telephone exchange, a couple of hospitals and banks and of course a bar-cum-restaurant, the symbol of any vibrant city with an active night life. And the protests are also going to be a smooth affair. Since, the sleek modern low-floor buses introduced in the national capital ahead of the Commonwealth Games 2010 are catching fire on their own, we don’t even need to set them ablaze. And since many people in the peripheral areas of Mayur Vihar, such as Kalyanpuri, Trilokpuri et al, find it difficult to get two square meals a day, sitting on fast too is not going to be a great problem. They need not escape from the hospital to have a binge and resume their ‘fast unto death’.
And of course, the Union Home Minister being a highly obliging and ‘sensitive’ person, within a day or two of the protest, we are expecting a midnight declaration to the effect that the process for the creation of Greater Mayur Vihar or Mayuranchal with Mayurabad as the capital as the 30th state of the Union of India, after the establishment of Telengana as the 29th state of the Union, if and when that happens, would soon get underway.
Figment of imagination or flight of fancy or an element of lunacy? But it’s for real. Look at the demands gathering momentum. Television shots of a Sikh gentleman and his supporters blocking railway traffic in support of Vidarbha, demands for Maru Pradesh, Vidarbha, Kodagu, Saurashtra, Poorvanchal, Bundelkhand, Harit Pradesh, the list seems endless.
Is statehood the panacea for underdevelopment or regional imbalance? If today the argument is that large states are unmanageable and hence need to be broken up, tomorrow the same yardstick would apply to large countries too, including India.
So, are we heading for Balkanization, implementing ourselves what a Chinese think tank had contemplated few months back? Are we going back to the days of the principalities and provinces, for whose merger with the Indian Union, the Iron Man of India so assiduously worked. It’s an irony that the modern ‘Lauh Purush’, who claims to be an ardent devotee of the Sardar and even got his bosom pal Jaswant Singh expelled from the party for criticisng the icon, advocates the creation of small states.
Jharkhand and Uttarakhand are examples of how bad an idea small states could be. The recent fractured verdict in Jharkhand and the influential role of small but dubious political parties indicate how fragile and vulnerable their polity is. Except tourism, does small states like Goa and Kerala have anything else to boast of, except for Kerala, the highest liquor consumption, divorce rate etc. Look at the condition of women in small states such as Haryana and Punjab where male-female ratio is among the lowest in the country. Uttarakhand is totally dependent on central funds for its very survival and what is the guarantee that tomorrow the people of Kumaon and Garhwal, the two distinct regions of the state, do not feel discriminated against and demand separate statehood?
In Uttarakhand, every second MLA was given the status of a Minister with a beacon light and hooter in tow. Are not marginalized political leaders such as Chandrasekhar Rao and Ajit Singh behind such demands? Aren’t certain influential castes going to dominate the polity of these states at the cost of others? With her vote bank equally distributed across the state, Mayawati obviously wants her influence to span across three states, to realize her Prime Ministerial ambitions, since her attempts to expand the party beyond Uttar Pradesh has failed to take off so far.
Secondly, is statehood the only solution to under development and regional imbalance? No. There are other constitutional mechanisms such as creation of Autonomous Development Councils and Regions within different states. But the counter argument is that such council have failed, whether it be in Karbi Anglog in Assam or Ladakh or Darjeeling. But that’s not because the mechanism is wrong, but the mechanics. Both the Centre and the respective states gave these regions and districts only autonomy on paper. Rest was tokenism. No real financial or administrative powers. And the result naturally is continued under development and neglect.
So, what’s the solution? To begin with, the very concept of linguistic states was wrong. Had language been a unifying factor, there was no reason why the Telugu speaking people of Telengana should seek separation from their brethren in Rayalseema and Coastal Andhra. There is very little in common between the Tamils in Tamil Nadu and the ones in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore and South Africa. Even the language they speak have a distinct flavour. The same holds true for Bengalis. The ‘Bhadralok’ from Kolkata used to dismiss the residents of Chittaranjan Park in South Delhi as ‘EDPD’ (East Pakistan Displaced Persons) and till sometime back, even marriage among them was taboo. The people in North Kerala hold the people in south in contempt and vice-versa.
The solution lies in decentralization and devolution of powers from the Centre to the states and the states to the regions, districts and right upto the Panchayats. The solution lies in strengthening and empowering Panchayati Raj institutions. The late Rajiv Gandhi had famously stated once that out of the every rupee sent from the Centre, only 15 paise reaches the target. And the reason for this is rampant corruption, absence of transparency, lack of powers of the local bodies, insincere monitoring and implementation and above all absence of sincere intentions.
Instead of spending crores and crores of rupees in setting up another huge administrative machinery for a state Government, the money could be effectively utilized to educate and employ lakhs of people, provide them a roof over their head and two square meals a day.
As for the growing demands for separate states, instead of rushing in where fools fear to tread, the Union Government should announce creation of another state reorganization committee, which like other commissions of its kind such as the Liberhan Commission, should take at least two decades to finalise its report, to be followed by a leak to a leading newspaper ahead of a parliament session to ensure an uproar and a quick burial, to be subsequently followed by another Commission to study the demands afresh to be followed by….
Thus, we are underdeveloped vis-à-vis the rest of the city, we have been ‘discriminated’ against and we have been split into three and therefore, the demand for Mayur Vihar as an independent state is fully justified. We will have the comparatively developed Phase-II as the capital city, since it is encircled by the Sanjay lake, possessed with wildlife in the form of monkeys, peacocks and snakes, equipped with its own telephone exchange, a couple of hospitals and banks and of course a bar-cum-restaurant, the symbol of any vibrant city with an active night life. And the protests are also going to be a smooth affair. Since, the sleek modern low-floor buses introduced in the national capital ahead of the Commonwealth Games 2010 are catching fire on their own, we don’t even need to set them ablaze. And since many people in the peripheral areas of Mayur Vihar, such as Kalyanpuri, Trilokpuri et al, find it difficult to get two square meals a day, sitting on fast too is not going to be a great problem. They need not escape from the hospital to have a binge and resume their ‘fast unto death’.
And of course, the Union Home Minister being a highly obliging and ‘sensitive’ person, within a day or two of the protest, we are expecting a midnight declaration to the effect that the process for the creation of Greater Mayur Vihar or Mayuranchal with Mayurabad as the capital as the 30th state of the Union of India, after the establishment of Telengana as the 29th state of the Union, if and when that happens, would soon get underway.
Figment of imagination or flight of fancy or an element of lunacy? But it’s for real. Look at the demands gathering momentum. Television shots of a Sikh gentleman and his supporters blocking railway traffic in support of Vidarbha, demands for Maru Pradesh, Vidarbha, Kodagu, Saurashtra, Poorvanchal, Bundelkhand, Harit Pradesh, the list seems endless.
Is statehood the panacea for underdevelopment or regional imbalance? If today the argument is that large states are unmanageable and hence need to be broken up, tomorrow the same yardstick would apply to large countries too, including India.
So, are we heading for Balkanization, implementing ourselves what a Chinese think tank had contemplated few months back? Are we going back to the days of the principalities and provinces, for whose merger with the Indian Union, the Iron Man of India so assiduously worked. It’s an irony that the modern ‘Lauh Purush’, who claims to be an ardent devotee of the Sardar and even got his bosom pal Jaswant Singh expelled from the party for criticisng the icon, advocates the creation of small states.
Jharkhand and Uttarakhand are examples of how bad an idea small states could be. The recent fractured verdict in Jharkhand and the influential role of small but dubious political parties indicate how fragile and vulnerable their polity is. Except tourism, does small states like Goa and Kerala have anything else to boast of, except for Kerala, the highest liquor consumption, divorce rate etc. Look at the condition of women in small states such as Haryana and Punjab where male-female ratio is among the lowest in the country. Uttarakhand is totally dependent on central funds for its very survival and what is the guarantee that tomorrow the people of Kumaon and Garhwal, the two distinct regions of the state, do not feel discriminated against and demand separate statehood?
In Uttarakhand, every second MLA was given the status of a Minister with a beacon light and hooter in tow. Are not marginalized political leaders such as Chandrasekhar Rao and Ajit Singh behind such demands? Aren’t certain influential castes going to dominate the polity of these states at the cost of others? With her vote bank equally distributed across the state, Mayawati obviously wants her influence to span across three states, to realize her Prime Ministerial ambitions, since her attempts to expand the party beyond Uttar Pradesh has failed to take off so far.
Secondly, is statehood the only solution to under development and regional imbalance? No. There are other constitutional mechanisms such as creation of Autonomous Development Councils and Regions within different states. But the counter argument is that such council have failed, whether it be in Karbi Anglog in Assam or Ladakh or Darjeeling. But that’s not because the mechanism is wrong, but the mechanics. Both the Centre and the respective states gave these regions and districts only autonomy on paper. Rest was tokenism. No real financial or administrative powers. And the result naturally is continued under development and neglect.
So, what’s the solution? To begin with, the very concept of linguistic states was wrong. Had language been a unifying factor, there was no reason why the Telugu speaking people of Telengana should seek separation from their brethren in Rayalseema and Coastal Andhra. There is very little in common between the Tamils in Tamil Nadu and the ones in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore and South Africa. Even the language they speak have a distinct flavour. The same holds true for Bengalis. The ‘Bhadralok’ from Kolkata used to dismiss the residents of Chittaranjan Park in South Delhi as ‘EDPD’ (East Pakistan Displaced Persons) and till sometime back, even marriage among them was taboo. The people in North Kerala hold the people in south in contempt and vice-versa.
The solution lies in decentralization and devolution of powers from the Centre to the states and the states to the regions, districts and right upto the Panchayats. The solution lies in strengthening and empowering Panchayati Raj institutions. The late Rajiv Gandhi had famously stated once that out of the every rupee sent from the Centre, only 15 paise reaches the target. And the reason for this is rampant corruption, absence of transparency, lack of powers of the local bodies, insincere monitoring and implementation and above all absence of sincere intentions.
Instead of spending crores and crores of rupees in setting up another huge administrative machinery for a state Government, the money could be effectively utilized to educate and employ lakhs of people, provide them a roof over their head and two square meals a day.
As for the growing demands for separate states, instead of rushing in where fools fear to tread, the Union Government should announce creation of another state reorganization committee, which like other commissions of its kind such as the Liberhan Commission, should take at least two decades to finalise its report, to be followed by a leak to a leading newspaper ahead of a parliament session to ensure an uproar and a quick burial, to be subsequently followed by another Commission to study the demands afresh to be followed by….
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