News on India

The Politics of Fear
MV KamathWhen will India stop living in fear and wake up to the fact that it is on its way to be a great power in its own right? We are afraid to defend our own rights. We show lack of self-confidence. We allow ourselves to be exploited by all and sundry unprotestingly. We go out of our way to please — some would say pamper — the minorities. We hesitate to hang a terrorist responsible for a murderous attack on our Parliament because he is a Muslim. We are unwilling to take on the Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) because our intelligence services have not enough evidence to ban it. Indeed, politicians like Lalu Prasad and Mulayam Singh Yadav have gone to the extent of defending SIMI as a harmless organization. Recently columnist Tavleen Singh wanted to know why Kashmiri Muslims are allowed to commit treason to take out a procession flying Pakistani colours, in addition to demanding secession. The government has no answer. One of the world’s richest evangelical outfits, World Vision India, is allowed freely to operate in Khandhamal, Orissa and carry on conversion with impunity, on the grounds that no force is used. The evangelists hurl the Constitution in the face of the government and get away with their well-planned intentions. We — the Hindus among us — are ashamed to declare ourselves as Hindus lest we are mocked at as communalists. In a recent issue of Dialogue Quarterly (January-March 2008), Francois Gautier, a distinguished French journalist staying in India, noted that while as a young student in France he was taught in his school about the “greatness of France, greatness of Christianity”. Let any school in India start teaching about the “greatness of Hinduism” and the secularists would shout murder. In Indonesia which is a predominantly Muslim country, Lord Ganesha is held in high reverence to the point that his image is etched in currency notes. Let India do it and there will be hell to pay. Out secularists will take strong umbrage. We have to satisfy ourselves with a portrait of Gandhi and one has to thank God for small mercies. We are afraid of China, when we should be telling it off in no uncertain terms. India’s envoy to Beijing, Nirupama Roy, was woken up from her sleep well past midnight to be handed over some protest. It was a beastly act showing utter indifference to diplomatic norms. We did not take action. “Why is it that New Delhi is so sensitive about stepping on Beijing’s toes when China has no compunction about stepping on Indian toes and with hobnailed boots at that?” columnist Jug Suriaya wants to know. According to him, China makes us apologetic and ashamed of what is, and ought to be, our most prized advantage over that Middle Kingdom: our democracy. “Our democracy,” according to Suriaya, “ought to be our biggest pride.” But democracy does not — and should not — mean that anybody can do what the Thackerays do in Mumbai, terrorize shopkeepers into putting up signboards in Marathi, when there is no such thing as a Marathi script — there is only a Devnagari script — or insist that everyone living in Mumbai should be conversant and converse only in Marathi. India is a multilingual country and so are most major cities: multilingual. The Thackerays should have been called to account by the Congress government but it is obviously scared of losing the lower middle class parochial vote in the elections. Mumbai may be the capital of Maharashtra but there is no reason why Marathi should be inflicted on everyone who has made it his home, any more than every citizen of Bangalore, no matter what his mother tongue is, should be conversant in Kannada and every citizen of Chennai, irrespective of his linguistic origin, should address meetings only in Tamil. One can be loyal both to one’s own mother tongue as well as the language the locals speak whether in Kolkata, Manipur or Chandigarh. The Navnirman Sena has no right to impose Marathi on Mumbai’s rainbow citizens who hail whether from Uttar Pradesh or Rajasthan or anywhere else. Mumbai reflects India’s heterogeneity. It is everybody’s city. In all these 60 years of independence the governments at Delhi have been scared of taking decisive steps whether at the international level or at state levels out of sheer fear of the unknown. It comes as a shock that China should protest at the visit of Dr Manmohan Singh to Arunachal Pradesh. That is some cheek. China had even dared to refuse visas to two Indian officials hailing from Arunachal Pradesh who were part of a larger group, saying that since the region is part of China its inhabitants do not need visas. India has kept quiet over China’s continued operation of Aksai Chin region by force since the 1962 war. China has virtually annexed the territory. Then there is the question of the United States refusing a visa to Narendra Modi who is an elected Chief Minister of a State. If, in the future, Modi becomes the Prime Minister or even Home Minister of India, will the US continue to refuse a visa to him? He is charged with contriving killing of Muslims during the Godhra riots. Can we charge Henry Kissinger with wholesale killings of millions in Vietnam and on that basis refuse him a visa? Can a similar charge be made against George Bush for the killings still going on in Iraq? America’s record in that country is hardly a glorious one. The trouble with India is that it is not assertive enough. It literally invites a slap on its face. Aliens use our Constitution to our own disadvantage. We must disabuse ourselves of the self-denigrating attitude that to be gracious to our enemies or recalcitrant friends is according to the highest standards of behaviour set by Mahatma Gandhi. This only betrays our lack of self-respect and is reflective of cowardice. We must learn to take on anyone whether it is China, the United States, Raj Thackeray or Project Joshua, the last being the largest, most pervasive global evangelical network ever to exist, which is playing havoc in India’s tribal areas. It may be smartness to make a sophisticated distinction between ‘propagation’ and ‘conversion’, but for India not to be aware of what is going on can only be described as pusillanimous. The evangelists are taking the government for a ride. Evangelists must be banned and Delhi must have the courage to do so. In this matter it can take a lesson from France and from China. In trying to get a pat on the back from foreigners we have been in the past selling our heritage. Let foreigners say what they will. We need not succumb to their treachery. As president Franklin D Roosevelt said in a classic address, the only thing to fear is fear itself. The world may not love us but it will respect us if we are strong and self-assertive. It is not secularism to succumb to evangelist double-speak or look the other way from minority terrorism and misuse of constitutional niceties. Unless India regains its national manhood it will be regarded as a pushover and an effete nation that lacks the courage of its convictions — if, that is, it has any.

Final Farewell to Birla
With Malice towards One and All..
Khushwant Singh
KK Birla’s three daughters and their progeny organized a keertan as a final ending of the period of mourning for their parents both of whom died recently within a few days of each other. Although I had worked for Birla and met his wife a couple of times, I did not know any of their children or children’s children. There was no point my making an appearance at the keertan. I sensed there would be a large crowd of relations, friends, employees and celebrities who without knowing any of the Birla are conscious of the importance of The Hindustan Times. I had no desire to run into them. Nevertheless, when the time came I asked Kum Kum Chaddha to take me along. I wanted to pay my formal tribute to my one-time employer who I had liked and admired; the keertan would finally put my memories of his to rest.Birla House, next door to the Gandhi Museum, is a five minutes drive from my flat. I got there half-an-hour earlier so I could find a seat from where I could see people coming in without my being noticed. I could not recognize the house I had been to dozens of times. It was done up with white curtains bedecked with flowers. The special lawn at the back of the house had been converted into a large hall, a platform for the singers with huge portraits of KK Birla and his wife, letter ‘OM’ made of marigolds, over a thousand chairs in rows to seat those who came. Shobhana Bhartiya, the youngest of the Birla daughters, came over to thank me for what I had written about her father. I was chocked with emotion and could not utter a word in reply. She left me to receive her guests who came pouring in like an unending stream.I have become familiar with the way people, who think they are a cut above the common run of humanity, behave at public functions. They make straight for the front row without a glance at the aira ghairas seated at the back. Seats in front are their birthright. There was Mulayam Singh, half-a-dozen members of the Cabinet of whom I recognized Shivraj Patil, Lalu Yadav and Saifudding Soze. Among others I spotted Farooq Abdullah, Dr Karan Singh, Ishar Anluwalia. The front row filled up, several MPs and politicians arrived a little later: Sushma Swaraj, Ahluwalia, RK Dhawan, Manvinder Singh, Bhim Singh, Suresh Kalmadi. They went round the hall and being frustrated had to be accommodated with more chairs placed in a noticeable position. There were many ex-colleagues, ex-friends: Naresh Mohan, Agarwal, Sudhir Dar, Mrinal Pande, Savitri Kunadi. I had difficulty in recognizing them: they had balded, put on weight and become flabby. None of them recognized me. Evidently I too had aged beyond recognition.The keertan began on the dot. Most of it were favourite hymns of Bapu Gandhi : Vaishnav Jan to tainey kahaye, Jo peer parayee jaaney ray; Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram, patit pavan Sita Ram. Most appropriate as we were in close proximity to the spot where Bapu died with Hey Ram on his lips.I stepped out before the general exodus began. As I was waiting for Kum Kum’s car to pick me up, arrived Sheila Dikshit. She gave me a warm hug. I ticked her off for coming after the keertan was over. Getting back home was not easy. The entire road was clogged with cars flashing red lights on their roofs. One VIP on the road is enough of a menace; when there are more than a dozen, it is chaotic. We had to take a roundabout route to get to Sujan Singh Park. By the time we passed Lodhi Gardens, it was dark. A full moon had risen on the eastern horizon. It was the last day of Bhadon of the year 2065 of the Vikrami Calendar, corresponding to Monday, September 15, 2008 — poornmashi night of the full moon. I was fagged out but strangely fulfilled having done what I wanted to do.Anita NairAnita Nair is a most attractive young Keralite living in Bangalore with her husband, son, a dog and a variety of reptiles that have made their homes in her garden. She started her career in advertising and spent her spare time doing the rounds of book stores buying successful works of fiction from different parts of the world. Ten years ago she quit advertising to become a full-time writer, globe trotter, a foodie and a columnist. Three of her books Satvr of the Subway, The Better Man, and Ladies Coupe & Mistress made best-sellers and were translated into 26 languages. In addition, she produced a collection of poems, several children books, edited Where the Rain is Born and a work of non-fiction. In short, in ten years from being a non-entity, she has become a celebrity. Goodnight & God Bless (Penguin-Viking) is her latest offering to the readers. As the subtitle indicates, it is on life, literature and a few other things with footnotes, quotes and other such literary diversions. You travel with her to Bogots, Milan, Dusseldorf, Oslo and meet people she met. You savour delicacies prepared by Malayalis, which includes varieties of tamarind (imli); you get an inkling to why only Malayalis understand Kathakali which the likes of me find grotesque; you even spend a couple of days with a moplah Muslim family wearing a burqah like Kerala’s famous poetess Kamla Souraiya Das. All of it reads very well like a glass of warm Horlicks before going to bed for the night. There is power in her unpretentious simplicity because she tells you a lot about life without sounding pompous.
source: sentinel assam editorial 27.09.08