Confused Saboteur

Yesterday, NDTV was talking to a striking Air India pilot.

Anchor: Captain Bhalla, just now we heard that the management is thinking of lock-out. What is your reaction?
Capt. Bhalla: I told you, this new managing director, since he took over he is trying to sabotage the airline so that private airlines may flourish.. (then goes on to elaborate on how the MD is trying to sabotage Air India).
Anchor: Captain Bhalla, Captain Bhalla, just a moment. Now we hear that the Managing Director is saying there would be no lock-out. What is your reaction to this?
Captain Bhalla: See, this managing director is a confused person. He can't make up his mind...

Revolution: 2

In an earlier blog I mentioned Naipaul's Magic Seeds. My reading on Naxalite movement is scanty, or even less than scanty. But Magic Seeds did give me a certain insight. It might be a wrong insight, if Naipaul's own understanding itself is flawed.

Anyways, it seems:

Naxalism has spread in forested areas of central India. Why only these areas? Exploitation in India isn't confined only to these areas. Pockets of poverty are everywhere.

Magic Seeds suggests this: The ideologues of Naxalite/Maoist camp decided that this land, the forests of central India, provided ideal environment for starting revolution. A sort of soft, fertile land for sowing seeds of change.

The areas were suitable, in fact. Their inhabitants -- tribals -- were not a part of mainstream Indian culture. They were not like Dalits. Dalits in villages were oppressed, but they were still part of India Main.

The tribals were like aliens. The land itself was alien to remaining India. Gadchiroli is part of Maharashtra, but it's not a part of it's consciousness, the way Latur or Ratnagiri is.

So Naxalites invaded, without becoming too conspicuous, too annoying, or too threatening for the rest of the country. Forests provided excellent cover. Until recently, government wasn't much interested in pushing into these areas and going after Naxalites.

If this is correct, then I can have no respect for urban-background leaders of Naxalism. Violence as a reaction to oppression is not alwys desirable. Still, one can understand if someone whose land has been taken away forcibly, someone who has been displaced, takes up gun and shoots people. One can understand the pain, the anger.

But apparently the city-born Naxalite leaders did not go to Gadchiroli or Dantewara because they wanted to fight injustice, or wanted to better lives of poor tribals. They went there, mainly, to implement romantic and foolish ideas of Marx and Mao. To start the so-called revolution, where everybody calls everybody comrade. The land and the tribals, as if, were just a laboratory and guinea pigs.

And on the other hand, a certain Dr Prakash Amte goes to Hemalkasa, in Gadchiroli. He has no grand dream. He is a doctor, and he knows that tribals need a doctor. He sets up a hospital. And stays there. May be he hasn't read Mao, but he had read his medical text books. He saves lives, thought you may not call it a revolution.

Jokes And Audience

Twitter-gate of Tharoor's has produced a lot of literature. This article by Manishankar Aiyar stands out. Aiyar makes a simple point: you should know your audience before cracking joke. Or the joke would backfire.

And I can't resist copy-pasting this:

The long-serving Soviet ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Dobrynin, was at an elegant dinner. His neighbour, a leading Washington socialite, gushed to him, “Mr Ambassador, what do you think would have happened if Lee Harvey Oswald had shot Khruschev instead of Kennedy?” Gravely thinking over this profound poser, Dobrynin replied, “Madam, I do not think Onassis would have married Mrs Khruschev!”

Then, Aiyar adds, if this joke is to be retold today, one will have to explain...
... who was Dobrynin, what was the Soviet Union...that just before killing Kennedy, Oswald had been in Moscow; that after the assassination, Kennedy’s widow, Jacqueline, had shocked the world by marrying an obscenely wealthy Greek ship-owner called Aristotle Onassis...

Dear readers, I have added reactions feature to the blog. Find it at the bottom of a post, and react!

Revolution

Ajay Bose, once a naxalite, writes in Mail Today:

Later, as a group of us from St Stephen’s travelled to the villages of Bihar, we made other discoveries about the misguided nature of our quest. I remember travelling to Purnea in a dirty, crowded, unreserved compartment — a novel experience for me and my companions. Despite the stench and shoving, all of us felt a wonderful empathy towards the grimy peasants that packed the compartment. We felt we were finally in touch with the real Indian masses with whom we were to make a revolution. Imagine our mortification when we reached Purnea to be informed by local comrades that the ‘ peasants’ who got out of the train were actually the local landlords we were supposed to annihilate.

A bigger disaster was the plan to organise the landless and poor peasantry to form annihilation squads. We found the poor, despite their vicious exploitation by the landlords, were reluctant to have any harm come to the latter. For, they would immediately be denied their weekly wages and be pushed to the brink of starvation. Instead, a large number of rich peasants who had legal disputes with the bigger landlords were keen to help us get rid of their rivals.

Postscript: While on naxalism, I strongly recommend Naipaul's Magic Seeds; a good read if you want to know a little about the Naxal movement in south-central India. It takes Naipaul to bring out comic and tragic absurdities of the movement. Without belittling idealism of those involved.

This May Pollute Many Minds..

My friend Arun has initiated a debate on Coach Kirsten's `Have Sex Boys' advice on the Reuters India website.

Here are some choice comments:

1. it is not good idea because already our team is facing so many issues. the idea is given by a foreign coach. in india peoples are idealizing their cricketers and they will not like this activity.

2. Please let indian be indian…dont spoil indian culture, as this may pollute many minds in other fields too.
once this will be accepted then in every other field or competition people will get influenced of such things

3. What makes you think these guys arnt DOING IT already. With the kinda money they have am sure thay dont just do it once.

4. I am sure he is not aware of how much they already hv…..

Let Her Go

Nalini Sriharan is on hunger strike. She wants to be released from prison. She is serving a life sentence for her role in Rajiv Gandhi's assassination.

We should release her.

I am not a Gandhian. Ordinarily I wouldn't even oppose awarding of death sentence for such a crime.

But look at it this way. Nalini was a part of a movement -- in which lakhs of Lankan Tamil believed. Their grievance about the raw deal they got from Sri Lankan rulers was real, not imaginary (unlike that of Bhindranwale's followers).

She got brainwashed. So were many others. Most unfortunate thing about LTTE was the leadership it got: Prabhakaran was a heartless megalomaniac. Mostly he was responsible for the blood on LTTE's hands.

I believe in revenge. But is it not time to move on? Most members of LTTE hit squad which planned Rajiv's murder are dead . Prabhakaran is dead. LTTE is finished. Isn't revenge pointless now?

I don't know whether Nalini has had remorse. I don't know what kind of person she is, whether she deserves sympathy.

But she represents Lankan Tamils, who have suffered immensely. It wasn't Indian government's fault. But let's acknowledge that suffering; and let her go. If anybody, Indians can do that.

Mannequins Of Iran

No "curvy mannequins" in shop windows, that's the new diktat in Iran. Why didn't they think of this earlier, I wonder. Those curves, even when covered, may easily lead men astray. Better late than never. Let the virtue prevail.

Seriously, don't these fellas have sense of humour? Poor mannequins. May be soon we will see Facebook-petition for mannequins' rights.

And hey, do the shops in Mangalore put "curvy mannequins" in their windows? Beware. Muthalik Sena may get ideas.

No Kidding

Fewer people, less consumption of resources, less pollution. Isn't that obvious? But you need to go to London School of Economics to make people sit up and read that.

Jaat Pachayat?

Sometime back, someone told me that caste-divisions in Bihar were so entrenched, not even judiciary was immune. When picking a lawyer, you have to first ascertain the judge's caste. If your lawyer isn't the same caste as the judge, you are screwed. I assumed this happened only in lower courts, and only in Lalu's Bihar.

Fali Nariman, on Walk The Talk last week, says: ...today the greatest problem of our High Courts is caste. If you are such and such caste lawyer before such and such caste judge, you will either lose or win depending on your caste.

This is depressing. I hope is Nariman is exaggerating.

En passant, Nariman vindicates me on one point.
Last year, I attended a conference which brought together a few High Court judges, lawyers and journalists at a Lonavala resort. We discussed many things, one of them how to fix the flaws in the current judge-selection-process. This wasn't really on the agenda, still.

At present, a collegium of five seniormost judges of the High Court picks nominees from amongst the practising lawyers. The list is sent to prime minister's office, and then final list goes to the President. Nobody knows why the collegium has picked a certain candidate. In the past, collegium is known to have picked lawyers with bad reputation. They went on to become bad judges.

I suggested that senior lawyers be involved in the selection process: that's a sure way to find out about a candidate's reputation. A senior lawyer who was present at the conference dismissed my suggestion; "the gentleman doesn't know the ground realities", he said.

Well, Nariman, one of the most respected lawyers in this country, endorses me. Read the whole transcript here.

Lama

In an interview with TOI, Karampa Lama, ("only senior Buddhist leader recognised by Tibetans, Beijing and India") was asked why he plays war-games on his playstation.

His reply: he views video games as an "emotional therapy", a decompression, a method for getting rid of negative thoughts.

Shouldn't meditation take care of all this, asked the interviewer.

Lama (24) said: "No, videogames are just a skillfull method."

I liked this guy!

Few Women In Times

Why there are so few photographs of women in The Times? A lady reader recently asked the assistant managing editor of the paper.

The guy responded (on the Times's website) that it's true, such is our world. There are more men in public life then women. But we are trying to correct the situation. Yeah, we have to go a long way yet.

Times? Few photographs of women? Don't faint. We are talking about New York Times here. Not Bombay Times. Ok? Today it's page 3 features 23 pics of women. I counted.

Toilet, Minister & Her Backside

Indian Express today carries a story on how UPA ministers -- who now swear by austerity mantra -- are actually spending lakhs on office renovation. It says:
A minister of state has demanded a new toilet on "the backside of her seat", in keeping with Vaastu.

Hell! Who is this lady-minister? Let me guess...

Lamb In England

Don't know what to say.

On second thoughts, if I were eating meat since the time I started eating solid food, why would I -- as a 6/7/8 years old -- mind sending lamb to slaughter? So what if I have reared the fella from birth?

Borlaug Is Dead, Malthus Lives

We are billion-plus, and yet (if) we don't go hungry, we owe it to Norman Borlaug, who died yesterday. It was the new wheat and rice varieties invented by Borlaug that made the Green Revolution possible.

In the later years Borlaug's techniques were criticised by environmentalists. They alleged that he made farmers more dependent on chemical fertilisers, and paved way for `corporate' farming. Vandana Shiva reportedly said that Borlaug and other American scientists spread ecologically destructive farming practices worldwide.

Borlaug admitted that use of chemicals should be limited. But he defended his reliance on technology, and warned (as per NYT):
If the world population continues to increase at the same rate, we will destroy the species.

Coming from him, I found the statement very revealing. Many people argue that population is not a problem. `Malthus is dead' : it is said. To underline how fears of scarcity and food-riots on account of population explosion are misplaced, they cite the Green Revolution. India was feared to starve in 60s, but new techniques enabled us to feed the growing population, the anti-Malthus brigade says. Implication being that technology will always catch up with needs of growing population.

And yet, Borlaug, the man who made the first green revolution possible, was not so optimistic. Learn, guys.

God On His Side

Thousands of years ago, on the banks of Godavari, a King ruled. His people loved him much.

One day he intended to visit a remotest part of his kingdom. He spoketh: Let the chariot be ready.

His charioteer said: Sire, it may not be wise to venture out now. For, in between there is forest; where live savages. And weather is inclement; rain-God in the heaven is in rage.

King said: Nothing doing. Let's leave. So the chariot set off. And the king was never seen again. It is said that he encountered spirits of the forest on his way, who gobbled him up.

His people grieved for seven days and seven nights. On the eighth day, they asked each other: Who be the next King? For there was the late King's son, and also his Vizier.

Well-wishers asked the King's son: what shall become of thou? For Vizier is stronger than thee.

The son said: "God is on our side. Now even father is up there with him."

Privately, the son said to himself: "God is indeed on my side. I despaired many years thinking I will have to wait for at least fifty years before dear father vacated the throne. But God had other plans!

(Disclaimer: This piece wasn't inspired by the penultimate para of this.)

Encounter

Apropos Ishrat Jahan encounter, Vir Sanghvi says:
But the truth is that the society is hopelessly hypocritical. We want the encounters to continue. But when we are confronted with the reality of the murders committed on our behalf, we turn sanctimonious.

On the face of it, he seems to be spot-on. He isn't. Yes, we are ambivalent towards encounters. But not hypocritical and sanctimonious. Truth is, we can't decide whether encounters should happen or not.

On one hand (we all know), the judicial system can't convict terrorists and gangsters every time. Our system goes by `innocent untill proven otherwise' dictum. (Wisely so.) So the quick-fix solution to insurgencies in Punjab, Naxalbari and later Kashmir was to kill them off. Same strategy worked when Mumbai gangs began expanding their ransom-collection net. One could hire men for Rs ten thousand -- an office peon earns more -- and carry out a "game" of a film producer or a builder who didn't cough up dough. Killers came from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Mumbai police couldn't change the social situations there, which was producing this new breed of killers. People who hired them sat in foreign lands. Mumbai police could only shoot these nouveau-killers whenever they were found. Society and government blessed this policy.

But now and then we have Khwaja Yunus, Ishrat Jahan. Such killings are not palatable. But bad guys should be shot down. How does one ensure only bad guys are shot down everytime?

We are not hypocritical, Vir. We are clueless.

ArT

This is hilarious. Really.

Warsaw: August 1944

Warsaw: July-August 1944

Germans were losing the war. In the east, by the end of July, Soviet army had reached the outskirts of Warsaw, the Polish capital. Within the city, there was a strong underground resistance army. It was raring to open ( the final) attack on German occupiers.

Soviet radio was urging the Polish underground to launch the uprising. On August 1, fighting began inside Warsaw. Poles took on the German soldiers on the streets. The resistance on its own couldn't have matched up to German army. Poles were counting on the Russians to attack from outside.

It didn't happen. Soviet troops didn't stir. They waited, and the German forces finished the Polish resistance. Underground's radio made countless appeals to allies and the Russians, but no help came. Russians didn't budge themselves, nor did they allow American and British planes to fly over the Soviet territory to reach help to Warsaw.

Once Polish resistance was crushed by Germans, the Soviet army moved in, and drove the Nazis out. Why didn't it move earlier?

Stalin wanted the Polish resistance to perish. Because most of them were nationalists, not communists. He used Germans to do the job.

I had read about this many years earlier, I re-read it recently in Guardian. More monstrous excesses were committed -- mainly by the Nazi Germany -- during the second World War. But this beats them. One can come to terms with Nazi extermination of Europe's Jews: anti-semitism had existed since the Christ. One can forget the rape of German women by Soviet army in 1944-45: it can be put down to the male bestiality. Besides, Germans, in the early years of the War, had destroyed large parts of Soviet Russia. Now the shoe was on other foot.

But what Stalin and communists did to the Polish nationalists in breathtaking -- in its sheer devilry. What was that man -- Stalin -- made of?

Bcos It's Drought

I don't quiet understand the brouhaha over two ministers staying in five-star hotels. It allegedly doesn't square with government's austerity policy. And why government want ministers to be -- to look, at least -- austere? Because country is facing a drought.

How does it help farmers? If Messrs Krishna and Tharoor were to check out of luxury hotels, drought-relief measures would get a boost? Both are spending their own money, mind you. On the other hand, there are many in the current cabinet who have reputation of being corrupt. That's okay, it seems. Farmers won't mind that. It's enough that they remain in their bungalows -- at taxpayers' expense -- and show solidarity with the drought-stricken. Humbug.

I have a better suggestion, if government really wants to show its empathy for farmers. Impose a drought-surcharge on declared worth of every corporator, MLA and MP in this country. How's that?

(C)Ouch!

Suchitra Krishnamoorthi narrates her casting couch encounter. Well written, read it.

Apology For A Blogger

A friend in Pune called today.

Actually, first he pinged on gmail. X Y apologized.

X Y (Dr.) taught us at journalism school. We survived it.

What For? I typed back.

The friend, a fellow journalist, gave up G-chatting and instead called me up.

He said: Sometime last month, X Y wrote on his blog about some top people from a top Pune daily quitting. One of them had spoken to X Y. Accordingly, they quit because of humiliation and insults at the hands of the paper's owner. Insults were heaped on them, allegedly, through video-conferencing. Perhaps that hurt the most.

When the dear (ex) professor blogged this, the newspaper's owner called him up. This is a lie, he said, nobody was insulted or humiliated.

Next day, the dear Professor pulled out the post. He also published another post -- in which he aplogised and stated that his information about the reasons of quitting was wrong.

Hmm.

Some questions.

1. Could the information have been completely wrong? Four senior persons working with the paper suddenly quit. That too during the recession. What is the obvious inference? (Of course the one who spoke to X Y might have exaggerated, he being aggrieved.)

2. Did the source retract his version later? If not, what warranted the apology? To be fair to the paper-owner, the blog could have added his side of the story. But apology? -- unless the source did a somersault. .

3. Would allegations of insult and humiliation amount to defamation? Because, these are very subjective terms. Perception matters a lot. For someone in a senior position, even stripping of responsibility would be utter humiliation. So what was the dear Professor afraid of? Surely the paper-owner would not have sued him over this?

4. So, why the apology? Because the paper-owner -- who happens to be politically too well-connected -- was offended? Then why become a blogger, pray? 

And why don't I name the professor and the paper-owner here? Because the blog-post, and the subsequent apology, have vanished into cybperspace. That's why.

YSR, RIP

Before YSR's chopper crashed, and he went to meet his maker, (it seems) he had sent a few others to their maker(s). Though that was many years ago.


 This is a must read. (Came upon it on India Uncut blog.) It's not shocking, actually. Anyone who rises in the politics is generally a born thug. I am talking about those who rise by the dint of their own enterprise. Those who rise because of accidents such as being born into a dynasty can afford not to be thuggish.

Accidentally Anally

LoL! Check this.

We Shall Not Read

Jaswant has challenged the ban on his book, imposed by the Gujarat government. His petition came up before the court yesterday. The division bench -- headed by Justice Altamas Kabir -- posted it for hearing on 8th. Before that, Jaswant's lawyer offerred two copies of the book to the judges. The judges said (according to TOI): "Won't it prejudice us? We would like to
read it after deciding the case."

Prejudice? Give me a break! Isn't the content of the book itself an issue here? How could that be decided without reading it? The fact of the matter is that Gujarat is a BJP ruled state, and Singh had been kicked out from the same party. But court won't be going into the politics of the ban. It would only see whether the book is so nefarious that it should be kept out of public's reach.

And aren't the judges curious to see what the fuss is about?