One Tight Slap!

Long overdue and very well-deserved, the one tight slap that is all over the news today.

It is heartening that despite the general apathy we still have amongst us people who are stirred deeply enough to put themselves at great personal risk and take one bold step that speaks louder and reaches farther than any ‘democratic’ debate.

There are two types of people in India today: those who will turn up their noses and say “undemocratic” when all the evidence of democratic executive failure stares them in the face every morning as they read the news (which I hope they do), and those who see this act as an outpouring of pent-up frustration and anger at the audacity and shamelessness of one minister who has nonchalantly gone about making money and presiding over cricket matches while vast amounts of valuable foodgrain rots under his ministry’s supervision. One minister against whom the most serious allegations vanish from the news in a matter of hours, and who has amassed assets far beyond his legitimate means without a whisper of protest from either the government or the opposition.

While I applaud this revolutionary act of courage, I am also concerned for the long-term safety of the slapper and his family, who will be out of the public eye as soon as the news channels find something else to talk about. He has no godfather to protect him, and the genuine passion for which he is today being idolised will be used against him by his oppressors. For his act of righteous anger he will be called a criminal and punished, while the minister’s high-level crimes will continue unopposed.

What I learned from watching the news tonight

1. Arvind Kejriwal is an honest, astute and capable man who knows that mediapersons will try to armtwist him into a political controversy and is wary of them.

2. There is no dignity left in the visual media. The media will always try to sleaze-ify any issue, no matter how important to the common man. Interviews with Kiran Bedi, Arvind Kejriwal, and Om Puri prove this. The media have tried their damnedest to demean Team Anna and their cause by dragging them to the level of the cheap political controversy.

3. Anna Hazare and his team continue to the have the unquestioning support of the common people of India, despite the aforementioned pathetic attempts by the media to drag them to the cheap levels  that are by now the media’s ‘comfort zone’.

4. Despite point no. 2, news channels like Headlines Today deserve my gratitude for re-telecasting Om Puri’s fiery, straight-from-the-heart speech that drew spontaneous applause from his audience.  The channel treated it like a disciplinary hearing, playing excerpts from his speech and shamelessly asking the accomplished artiste to explain himself on each excerpt. The actor of course was visibly ruffled, but creditably managed to ride the storm of rude questions without losing his cool. It took real guts to say what he said on stage, and it is obvious to everyone that it was a passionate venting of well-intentioned emotions that accurately reflect what the average common man feels about the average politician.

5. Everyone knows that Om Puri’s speech was a deeply emotional outburst – the kind that our politicians only attempt to act out when they’re addressing poor farmers. It was probably this fact that has rankled our MPs enough to move a privilege motion against the hapless actor – how dare an actor encroach on their oratory turf?

6. The fact that Kiran Bedi has also been similarly honoured, shows that our MPs are either extremely sensitive people or, which is more likely, petty revenge-seekers and unsporting losers. I may be insensitive, but I fail to see what our seasoned MPs found objectionable in her speech. MPs have regularly been accused of fraud or some other crime, but rarely have we seen privilege motions being moved in such cases.

7. The media will always try to divert attention away from real issues (yawn) and towards petty political dramas, often of their own creation. We need to focus now on what the government does, and how quickly, to pass the Lokpal Bill in the form that Team Anna have demanded, the people of India have demanded.

Jai ho!

The great Indian middle class has finally awakened. A miracle has been achieved. How many times have we wistfully said (or heard someone else say): “If only the people would unite, great things can be achieved” or “This government would be powerless if the people got together and rose up against injustice”, but did we for once believe that this would actually happen, in today’s apathetic times? And yet, it has. This fact speaks for the power and significance of the cause taken up by Anna Hazare.

He has his detractors, and their concerns may be valid, but no one seems to have any alternative solutions to propose. While we have seen demonstrations and rallies of every hue taken out for all sorts of causes (sometimes even without a cause), those have all too often been politically-sponsored and far removed from the genuine, everyday concerns of the common man. The anti-corruption movement, in contrast, addresses a real cause that touches the lives of people across caste, class and community. It has given people a legitimate avenue to express pent-up anger and frustration at the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the system to which they are bound by law. No wonder they are taking to the streets by the thousands and feeling proud of it.

The online community is equally active. The comments I have read on newspaper websites are imbued with a sincerity and a passion never seen before. Even when communal or class-based divisiveness have been attempted by narrow-minded individuals whose motivations are inexplicable, people of all religions and from all parts of the country have expressed their support in words that could only have come from a sincere heart. It was enough to moisten my eyes today.

Emotions aside, the arguments raised by detractors of the movement have so far only served to increase the strength of its supporters. What alternative do we have really? This movement is not merely another protest – it is strong, affirmative action aimed at a positive result. Corruption is an evil that Indians have more or less learned to live with, like a hapless wife who resigns herself to living with her abusive husband. But the present government has plumbed new depths in corruption, and people seem to realise that they need to make themselves heard now, while they still have enough self-respect left to do so.

The other argument we keep hearing from the detractors and the fence-sitting intellectuals is that Anna’s method is wrong, that he is effectively resorting to blackmail. They seem to forget that in the democracy that is India, this method of making oneself heard is not unprecedented. When people threaten fasts unto death for a separate state, no one cries blackmail. But when one man takes up a genuine cause that receives immediate public support, our intellectuals find it convenient to accuse him of playing to the gallery.

The people who are part of what is known as Team Anna are an exceptionally competent group whose integrity has been above question – the Congress has unwittingly proved this by their misadventure in making ludicrous charges against this group and the way this has backfired on them. All they’ve achieved is to make themselves look like a bunch of desperate, shallow, incompetent fools. Anna’s simplicity, flawless record, and genuine connection with the common man make him the ideal figurehead for a people’s movement towards positive change. Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi, the Bhushans are all competent individuals who have proved themselves in their respective fields and earned their credentials through honest effort.

The Jan Lokpal Bill may not be the panacea for all ills plaguing the country, but it is one step that we need to take. Questions were also raised more than 64 years ago when another old man asked foreigners to leave his country – he was asked how the country will manage its problems without them. Said the old man, we will have problems like any other country does, but they will be our problems, not yours.

We do have a problem now, countrymen, and it is up to us to solve it.

 

 

Delhi ‘Upset’ Belly

Dear Aamir Khan,

I am part of the educated, urban, movie-going demographic that regard your name as a familiar mark of quality in current Hindi cinema. Your Taare Zameen Par established your creative and intellectual credentials beyond doubt, and has made me look forward to each of your ventures since. Peepli Live was intelligent and sensitive without being boring. (I’m among those who’ve forgiven you for Ghajini, I think I see what made you do it)

So when I heard about your foray into the ‘ashleel’ and ‘behuda’  genre, I was intrigued and enthusiastic. I eagerly rushed to see Delhi Belly with sky-high expectations, but what I saw disappointed me.  DB merely looks like an amateurish attempt to do what Guy Ritchie has done with such finesse in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch or even,  closer home, what Sanjay Khanduri has accomplished with 1:40 Ki Last Local.

Which is not to say that the movie is boring or tacky. What it lacks is character. The boldness in the movie is very superficial; it tries so hard to shock and awe the viewer. And while the humour is not bad for the most part, was there a need for over-explicit toilet jokes which are stretched until the viewer is sickened and disgusted? I pitied the poor souls who’d brought popcorn and burgers into the cinema-hall – I wonder how many of them were put off popcorn/burgers for the rest of their lives! The scenes towards the end involving the gangleader and the Russian are half-baked attempts to make the movie look like ‘authentic’ black comedy.

The funniest line that stayed with me was the ‘clothesline vs. clothing line’ dialogue – it was a humourous ‘lightbulb’ moment! Why were there not more of these?

The performances and dialogue were good, but what I think is called characterisation was rather weak – Arup is a caricature just like the cartoons he draws, while Tashi’s motivations are vague and seem flimsy. The music is good and it is used very well – it is in fact one of the saving graces of the movie, along with the slapstick sequences such as those involving the ‘Bhaag’ song.

But the question I asked myself as I left the hall was this: Why must Indian audiences continue to be served a constant dose of slapstick accompanied by an unappetising side-dish of toilet humour? Don’t we deserve better?

Regards,

G

A Real-Life Peepli Live

Classic case of life imitating art in Bhatta-Parsaul – an autocratic Chief Minister wrests from poor farmers their land, and rival party leaders swoop in on the opportunity to create a political drama that benefits everyone but the farmers themselves.

Reports have been flying in thick and fast from Bhatta-Parsaul, debating whether Rahul Gandhi is right or wrong, whether Sachin Pilot should have been arrested, whether the women of the village were raped or not, etcetera.

But no one is asking the important questions. Was injustice done to the farmers? Why is Mayawati busy arresting politicians and making martyrs of them instead of stating the facts and clarifying her position – if she has a leg to stand on? Why is our entire political leadership focussed solely on dramatizing the issue instead of proposing pragmatic solutions?

While politicians shout and bicker and play to the gallery, and mediapersons interrogate and debate endlessly, the poor villagers themselves seem to be confused and distracted. They are now doubly victimized – first they lose their land to their own “lower caste -friendly” government, and now they are losing  their heads amid all the high drama surrounding them. Mayawati, meanwhile, continues to live her imperialist fantasies, doing as she likes and arresting those who (with whatever motive) question her.

The ironies are too stark to ignore. Is the Chief Minister of the most populous state in the world’s largest democracy accountable to no one? Is the victimization of the poor nothing more than a political circus in allegedly ‘socialist’ India?

My only hope is that some conscientious section of the media (if such a thing exists) might take the trouble of investigating the real issues and asking pertinent questions of the right people. The drama is too distracting, but when the credits roll, someone might want to be mentioned as the real hero.

Har har Mahadev!

“Breathes there the man with soul so dead

Who never to himself hath said

This is my own, my native land?”

I was reminded of Sir Walter Scott’s stirring lines, as a friend and I drove down the familiar scenic route from Pune to Mumbai, and felt anew the admiration that the beautiful Western Ghats never fail to inspire in me.

The monsoon brings out all the magic and majesty of the rolling ghats as they don a royal green cloak and a crown of grey-white rainclouds, while a retinue of white mist and fog swirls around them. Gazing at this ethereal sight, it is hard not to empathise with Pune’s environmentalists who are fighting to save the hills from the destructive designs  of the city’s construction companies.

They may not be as grand or as celebrated as the Himalayas, but the Western Ghats, known as the Sahyadris in Maharashtra, are to me a silent reminder of the state’s heritage and history. I’ve always been a history nut, and Shivaji Maharaj my favourite historical figure since I was maybe eight (nothing to do with the various political parties that stake claim to his legacy).

A recent trip to the Pavankhind valley was a soul-stirring experience. Situated in the hilly portion of Kolhapur district, the route to the valley from Ambagaon offers several panoramic views of the Sahyadri range. I was part of a large noisy group but almost wished I were alone to contemplate the peaceful majesty of the mountains – it’s enough to turn one into a sage or a nationalist.

Pavankhind, originally known as Ghodkhind, is a narrow gorge that was part of the escape route used by Shivaji to get from the besieged Panhala fort to nearby Vishalgad so as to better fight the forces of Adil Shah. This was the spot where Baji Prabhu Deshpande, Shivaji’s loyal general, went down fighting the Adilshahi forces in a hopelessly one-sided but bravely fought battle, and earned the place it’s name, Pavankhind, or Sacred Pass.  The story of that battle is well-known – it is taught to schoolchildren – and yet, seeing the place for myself made the story more awe-inspiringly real.

It helped that our guides stopped us at various significant spots to describe where Adil Shah’s forces were stationed, what route Shivaji’s Maratha and Mavala soldiers took and so forth, so that by the time we reached the gorge, I could hear in my head 17^th-century sounds of horses’ hooves, swords clanging, men shouting, all mingled with the noise of incessant rain. As I took the steps that guide the casual tourist down the gorge, my mind pictured again the Maratha general and his brave band of three hundred Mavalas using all their mountaineering skills and guerilla warfare tactics to repulse thousands of enemy soldiers that descended upon them. Such loyalty and courage had to be rooted in a fiercely passionate love of the land to withstand such a tough test, a love that is unthinkable in these times of cynical indifference and fence-sitting pragmatism.

On the way back as I cast eyes once again on the majestic Sahyadris, they seemed to be mourning in dignified silence the passionate nationalism and the principled fearlessness that once held them worthy of great sacrifices, but now belong to a long-gone past.

Mamma MEA!

India has always been divided along cultural, religious and political lines. The diversity that makes India unique has also been the biggest barrier to real national unity. Political parties have never been short of issues to use as divisive measures to consolidate their respective vote banks.

Yet, one thing that always bound us all together, even the ideologically-zero political parties, was the idea of a common adversary, namely Pakistan. Everyone seemed to be sure that when it came to facing up to Pakistan, all internal barriers melted away and we all stood united.

Last week’s unfortunate happenings have cast a big shadow of doubt over that certainty. SM Krishna, a politician whom I earlier credited with having more sense and dignity than most of his peers, has let us down very badly. A certain amount of nervousness is bound to come with the responsibility that he holds as M of EA, but a person of his experience ought to be able to handle that more gracefully.

His childish whining about the timing of G K Pillai’s forthright revelations (it’s really a joke to call them ‘revelations’ when they were merely a confirmation of what everyone knew anyway) has made India look even weaker than earlier in the eyes of the international community who would back us if we showed some real assertiveness. He should have had the astuteness to use Pillai’s comments to bolster his case, instead of complaining.

Pakistan continues to be increasingly audacious in its dealings with India – ”chori, oopar se seenazori” is the phrase that comes to mind – and what do we have to offer in return? A consistent, assertive stand based on our righteous and above-board policy? No; instead we have a whining external affairs minister who attacks his own government’s home ministry at a time when he should be addressing his far larger mandate – foreign policy in the light of national security. There is no need for India to go into ‘appeasement’ mode with a non-cooperative Pakistan.

What’s worse is that the Congress party which lost no time in getting the forthright Tharoor to resign, sees no controversy in this fiasco that can have ramifications for India’s very sovereignty. Maybe they’re just using the technical difference between ‘controversy’ and ‘blunder’! While Tharoor’s extensive vocabulary got him into needless trouble, the Congress is using its improved vocabulary to defend the indefensible! When Krishna’s not-in-my-backyard attitude is creating schisms within the government and his diplomatic blunders are costing India its credibility, why should he not be asked to resign?

Our government needs to get its priorities right. This is a high-stakes game, and it had better get its act together.

From ILU to IPL

The IPL-Tharoor-Sunanda triangle is worthy of a good filmmaker’s creative attention. Shashi Tharoor, former UN official and current MoS, who brings a rare intellectual and personal polish to our political scene, is entangled in such a typical third-class, local-neta-esque imbroglio that I’m compelled to believe that things are not what they seem. In a bout of romance-induced blindness, it is possible Tharoor may have done something dumb, which is definitely disappointing; but I don’t believe he can have done something corrupt or tried to bend the law.

The issue-hungry Opposition is simply aiming for the low-hanging fruit, they know that this issue has all the necessary keywords – big money, ‘partner’, free equity, surreptitious phone-calls – what more do you need to create a good solid ruckus in the Lok Sabha? To make things even easier, Tharoor has already created a fertile background of so-called controversies with his un-neta-like but entirely logical comments on various occasions. They may not understand his English, but they know a good issue when they see one!

It is ironical that Tharoor should have to present his clarification to a two-member committee of whom one is Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, who himself cannot boast of the cleanest track record. However, it does look like the Congress is doing all it can for Tharoor without losing political points. But our system of media-influenced, issue-based politics makes the task a lot tougher than it should be.

In any case, the story is at an interesting stage at this point – the hero is fighting to save his job as MoS, the heroine can help matters greatly by surrendering the free equity that is at the root of all of the hero’s problems. Can he, can’t he? Will she, won’t she? Scriptwriters, get cracking!

Shahid Azmi and the Fallacy of Blind Secularism

While it is obvious that the murder of Shahid Azmi was a crime, I do not understand the rush to confer instant martyrdom on him, and the insistence on labelling him a hero. Everyone is anxious to express pious shock at the murder of a ‘man who was just doing his job’, but have these people really tried to understand his agenda?

Azmi’s murder brings to the surface several curious and dangerous issues. The reports I have read in the newspapers and on the Web indicate to me plainly that Azmi was not a believer in the ‘secularism’ that his mourners seem to be bleeding for. Here’s an interview, where the lawyer makes some unlawyerlike statements accusing government agencies such as the IB of actually perpetrating blasts! A Supreme Court lawyer making such an outrageous statement to the media and getting away with it is blasphemy!

Azmi makes very vague statements throughout the interview, as if he were trying to subdue some very strong sentiments, sentiments that may not exactly have been democratic or nationalistic. He even attempts to make a case for educated Muslims taking to violence. If that were justified, minority communities the world over would either have forcibly taken control of their parent nations or be eliminated as potential threats.

And here’s what I have gleaned about Azmi’s background : He was jailed as a 14-year-old for harbouring terrorists from the Hizbul Mujahideen, J&K’s largest terror outfit . At Tihar jail, he shared his cell with such dangerous people as Maulana Masood Azhar and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, for whose release the Indian plane IC814 was hijacked and held at Kandahar in 1999. He was apparently a favourite of these two gents – Zargar even shed tears when he was released, at being separated from young Azmi!

It is anyone’s guess what effect these two fanatic masterminds would have had on the impressionable youngster through 4 long years of cohabitation; how deeply they would have indoctrinated him in their own extremist and anti-India beliefs. In this light, many of the statements that Azmi makes in his interview seem to have an ominous anti-nationalistic ring.

Azmi does not seem to appreciate the fact that despite being accused of terrorist activity several times in his life, this land gave him the opportunity to obtain quality education (he studied law at Mumbai’s KC College) and argue before the nation’s highest seat of justice, the Supreme Court. How many majority-community Indians would manage to achieve that much in such circumstances? Azmi managed to obtain stay orders in several blast cases, which are still hanging in status quo. Is this justice? Ask the victims of those blasts.

To me, Azmi is a symptom of an alarming disease spreading fast in India, of minority fanatics wanting to seize complete power rather than be content with ‘mere’ equality and opportunity, of a ‘minority complex’ that causes people to cry foul at everything.

The Hindi film industry is already making plans to cash in on this event. One Mr. Hansal Mehta  is planning a movie that “tells the story of the slain lawyer Azmi”. Does anyone remember a certain police officer called Mohan Chand Sharma? He was killed in 2008 in the encounter at Batla House. Despite the police force losing one of their best officers, they were accused of having staged this ‘fake’ encounter. Why doesn’t anyone want to tell the story of this officer, and of others like him, who were also just doing their job?

********Updated to add:**********

Today, I came across news snippets about some intelligent and insightful questions that Shahid Azmi raised during his examination of witnesses in the Kasab trial.  It does seem that there is more here than meets the eye, and I would be grateful for any detail on the work done by this lawyer and what he was all about.

While I agree that the murder of Shahid Azmi was undemocratic, I do not understand the rush to

confer instant martyrdom on him, and the insistence on labelling him a hero. Everyone is anxious to

express pious shock at the murder of a ‘man who was just doing his job’, but have these people really

tried to understand his agenda?
I do not claim to understand it fully either, but the reports I have read in the newspapers and on the

Web indicate to me plainly that he was not a believer in the ‘secularism’ that his mourners seem to be

bleeding for. Here’s an interview, wherein the lawyer makes some unlawyerlike statements accusing

government agencies such as the IB of actually perpetrating blasts! A Supreme Court lawyer making

such an outrageous statement to the media and getting away with it is blasphemy!
Azmi makes very vague statements throughout the interview, as if he were trying to subdue some very

strong sentiments, sentiments that were not exactly democratic or nationalistic. He even attempts to

make a case for educated Muslims taking to violence. If that were justified, minority communities the

world over would either have forcibly taken control of their parent nations or be eliminated as potential

threats.
And here’s what I have gleaned about Azmi’s background : He was jailed as a 14-year-old for

harbouring terrorists from the Hizbul Mujahideen, J&K’s largest terror outfit . At Tihar jail, he shared his

cell with such eminent minds as Maulana Masood Azhar and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar for whose

release the Indian plane IC814 was hijacked and held at Kandahar in 1999. He was apparently a

favourite of these two gents – Zargar apparently even shed tears when he was released, at being

separated from young Azmi!
It is anyone’s guess what effect these two fanatic masterminds would have had on the impressionable

youngster through 4 long years of cohabitation; how deeply they would have indoctrinated him in their

own extremist and anti-India beliefs. In this light, many of the statements that Azmi makes in his

interview seem to have an ominous anti-nationalistic ring.
Azmi does not seem to appreciate the fact that despite being accused of terrorist activity several times

in his life, this land gave him the opportunity to obtain quality education (he studied law at Mumbai’s

famous KC College) and argue in the nation’s highest seat of justice, the Supreme Court. What’s

more, he even managed to obtain stay orders in several blast cases, which are still hanging in status

quo. Is this justice? Ask the victims of those blasts.
To me, Azmi is a symptom of an alarming disease spreading fast in India, of minority fanatics wanting

to seize complete power rather than be content with ‘mere’ equality and opportunity, of a ‘minority

complex’ that causes people to cry foul at everything.
The Hindi film industry is already making plans to cash in on this event. One Mr. Hansal Mehta

is planning a movie that “tells the story of the slain lawyer Azmi”. Does anyone remember a certain

police officer called Mohan Chand Sharma? He was killed in 2008 in the encounter at Batla House.

Despite the police force losing one of its best officers, they were accused of having staged this

encounter. Why doesn’t anyone want to tell the story of this officer, and of others like him, who were

also just doing their job?

The name is Strategy Khan

And I thought Aamir Khan was the master of movie promotion!

With the release of MNIK (of course you know what that stands for!), Shahrukh Khan has proved beyond doubt his consummate grasp of the business and the factors that influence it. Whereas in normal circumstances, his movie would have been subject to public opinion based on its content, he has played the game such that merely watching the movie has become an easy way of making a political, even ethical, statement.

In a country where college degrees can be bought for money and national awards are sold, is it surprising that dimwit urbanites should find an easy platform for activisty bravado in something as facile as watching a movie?

I watched with concern as youngsters and ‘mature’ people on TV cameras cheered and waved their movie tickets as though they were hard-won prizes, shouting “we are with you, Shahrukh!”. Absolutely. Shahrukh knows that too well.

The Indian public needs heroes (we are programmed that way, it probably has to do with our history of repression) and is attracted to the mere whiff of herogiri, especially if it is the filmi kind. What better way to fan the flames of hero-worship than to transmute a screen Baazigar into real life, however superficially!

And so, effectively, the movie is no longer subject to cinematic critique; it has engineered itself into a semi-cult position merely by ‘working’ the circumstances. It is a strategy that ought to find its way into MBA classrooms as a shockingly shrewd sales & marketing case study. Aamir’s Ghajini campaign, despite its scale and extravagance, looks innocent and straightforward in comparison.