India, Governance, the Railway Budgets and the coming future

The railway budget by Mamta Banerjee was surprising only in its details. We have known in India from the past that Railway Ministers (RM) reward their constituencies(in the case of the railways, it is their respective states). The earlier RM's Laloo Prasad Yadav, Nitish Kumar, Ram Bilas Paswan have done it within my political memory. So it was known that Mamta would provide the goods to Bengal in keeping with trend and this is what has happened in the Railway Budget for 2009.

My home state, Bihar, has been the beneficiary of the earlier RM's (from Bihar) munificence when I was living in Delhi. The rail connectivity to Patna from Delhi was one of the sectors which drastically transformed. The choices in numbers of trains, speed, as well as the services in trains improved considerably. However, since I have left Delhi and moved to the North East, I see the criminal neglect, AC coaches crawling with cockroaches, dirty, the negligent attendant, even in the premium class Rajdhani trains. After nine months in this part of India and many train journeys, it has led one to conclude that this is the norm. If you take the North East Express from NewJalpaiGuri (NJP) to Patna, in the non-AC sleeper coaches, which apart from being filthy are full of military men travelling home for holidays, the passage is lined with steel trunks and movement is a hazard. The journey from NJP to Guwahati in sleeper coaches is equally bad, with a large number of people who do not possess reserved tickets. In the last journey, I can safely assert that those without reservations out numbered us.

The litany of railway complaints is never ending, we all have our share of anecdotes, but the larger point I wish to make, is that in the challenges that India faces in the next couple of years, it would be difficult to improve or maintain the system in this political culture where essential services play the spoils of election victory. Important to note that financial health of the Indian Railways has not even been considered in this analysis, reflective of how the RM's think. There is financial logic, there is social logic and then there is political logic, the Indian system appears to be working only with the political. The current state of affairs will not improve the lives of the majority of Indians and nor will it help in keeping our state owned services in a healthy condition. Not being a blind liberaliser, especially of essential services, nor am I, a dogmatic 'privatisation is hell' believer but yet I am appalled at the details of how this country is run. In order to keep the essential services running without breakdowns, India needs to respect financial and social logic. The political has to take a back seat.

The RM's appointed by the government in New Delhi, are ministers for the entire country and not for any select province. We already have political leaders representing communities, tribes and caste. Are we never going to get the notional 'Indian' in the ministry? China's technocratic governance is a model worth examining. We, in India, should be looking to learn from China then perhaps, we can imagine competing.

The example of Air India and its request to the government for a bail out package, is a good example about the short sightedness of the way government services are abused in the country. If we imagine the railways in the same situation, imagine the crisis, it would result in drastic measures and lending agencies will demand their pound of flesh, they will run it in the basis of financial logic. In short sighted political greed, the political class has lost the larger picture. If after 20 years, Mamta Baneerjee were to become the Railway Minister again and the current trend continues, while importance of the railways will continue, the government may just not find the money to make social decisions, never mind political ones.

One would like to state something, one has been thinking over for sometime now, that central government ministries (to begin with) should be handled by experts. The Railway Ministry should be run by someone from the Railways, the Human Resource and Development Ministry by an educator. And these should not be political appointments rather they should be selected on the basis of merit and their appointment approved by the Parliament. It goes against the grain of the Indian system of representation but these experts could be collectively responsible to the Prime Minister and the Parliament. The Prime Minister can be appointment as it exists but his team of ministers should be 1. experts 2. non-partisan.

Extra-ordinary times need extra-ordinary measures, the challenges that India faces due to its population are not and cannot be handled effectively by generalist bureaucrats or politicians, who merely win elections on the basis of their community support (a norm). The coming challenges need professionals. I will digress to illustrate the point I have in mind. I am at a new university, established in 2007. We are as basic as it comes, with infrastructure even smaller than a primary school at this stage. I have been here for the past nine months. It has been a learning experience at governance and how things work and the importance of individuals towards putting in place, systems which will outlive many a human lives. Any system being instituted or managed is reduced or elevated to the understanding, vision of the individual who mans it. There are systemic checks and balances but the individual space is enough to cripple a system or raise its level, in the discharge of its services. It is at this point where corruption finds its way into the system. Individuals are important and in the sheer rush of numbers, this country and its systems have forgotten the individual, having been reduced, by and to the lowest common denominator due to the numbers. It is going to be an individual's personal world view which will stamp it self on the country and its institutions. It is not merely about setting up structures, once set up, the individual (not the community, tribe, province, caste) is the key to interpret the space. The point is being well documented in how the various processes at my young university are shaping. A lot of it is in good hands but some of it leave much to be desired. But it does provide a convincing argument with regard to the importance of individuals.

The political class in the past few years have offered very few individuals who were above their sectarian or provincial parochialisms. But from the specialists, one can name, numerous individuals, who have excelled and instituted world class organisations while on government appointment. It is time, India turned to these men owing to their proven track record. And unfortunately for the votaries of corporate India, I do not have businessmen in mind. I have in mind people like MS Swaminathan, Verghese Kurian of Operation Flood (Amul), APJ Abdul Kalam for the service in Indian Space Research Organisation(ISRO), E. Sreedharan of Konkan Railway and now Delhi Metro, and many others of who I am not aware. The government sector individuals are used to illustrate the point as they worked within the 'social' world of the country with governmental briefs (a limiting system), at government salaries and yet managed to change their sectors. It is not to suggest that this is a fool proof system and will be perfect but it will definitely bring to better skills, decisions and a more enlightened governance for the nation.

In a similar manner, the various provinces in India could switch over to such a system with the Chief Minister as a political appointment and the team of experts as ministers responsible to the state assembly. It would be akin to the American system where individuals with detailed proposals in their respective areas are able to make it to the government. There remain problems with regard to the basic democratic system envisaged by the constitution but if we start with such an idea, we can improvise and tailor it to achieve the necessary ends, which is to provide good and durable services to all citizens of the country.

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Trees, King Makers, Sikkim and Elections in India

It is election time in India and since am located in Sikkim, I am following the local election scenario. It entails following the local press and understanding the Sikkimese scene, issues and community configuration. The general sort of advice to anyone trying to make sense of elections in India is that they should look to understand the ethnic issues community, clan, caste, tribe, religion, language or race and you will have the larger picture of the contest, like the frame of a painting. In most parts of India, it is one of these factors or a combination of them which determine the ruling coalition. Issues play a certain role but by themselves alone, issues even if developmental, will not win you seats, if you are brazen or modern enough to claim ignorance of the identity of your constituents or if you consider it not relevant. Cynical but this is my understanding of Indian politics and I think of it as the norm. We do have exceptions to this generalization. Biharis would point out that George Fernandes, an outsider and a Christian always won his elections from Muzaffarpur. People from other parts of the country would mention the exceptions (and there are quite a few) from their region. However, the norm remains extremely primordial in the fact that identities decide the winner.

The Department also organized a talk on the issues and players in the Sikkim Elections by a prominent journalist from Gangtok, Joseph Lepcha. Joseph's talk was bare and focussed, on the election arithmetic with percentage of votes and seats. He also briefly looked at the issues in the past, for instance, the de-merger demand of the Sikkim Sangram Parishad (SSP) led by Nar Bahadur Bhandari (now in Congress),the effect of the Mandal Commission report and the Income Tax issues. Personally, for me the talk was so good, with the numbers at the finger tips and the easy flagging of important issues that I was tempted to churn out a piece for some journal on the Sikkim election scene. But I resisted the immoral, self fish call. Since I am on this confessional mode, I ought to admit, that most of the information I have is due to the kind indulgence of two friends, one of who is the editor of the largest selling newspaper in Sikkim, and the other, a bureau chief for a Hindi Daily.

The ruling party is a regional outfit called the Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF). The SDF has been in government for three terms and the last 14 years and in my opinion, it appears likely that they will continue for the next five. But that is not the interesting part of the story, the more exciting part is the Congress Manifesto, but some background first. The Congress is led by a man called Nar Bahadur Bhandari (mentioned earlier), who was the Chief Minister of Sikkim for 14 years before SDF under Pawan Chamling formed the government. When in Darjeeling as a kid, I used to hear suspicious stuff about Bhandari, I do not recollect the details, but the things were not cheerful, it had that smell of bullying. I have faint recollections that the stories were disturbing. Bhandari is/was in the mould of the regional leaders of the Door Darshan-days, leaders who were brazen about power and used it like imagined Hindi film villains. Bhandari has been out of the government structure for a long time.

Sikkim is an organic state and grazing, felling of trees in forest areas are not permitted. The Sikkim State Congress's manifesto actually promises that fertilizers and pesticides will be distributed for free if the Congress is brought to power, it also promises free grazing everywhere and the felling of trees as also the development of saw mills to process the cut trees. I was shocked when I read this, after all this is the age of climate change, saving forests is of prime importance and global warming has also had its effect on Sikkim. On inquiring about the irrational promises, I was told that Bhandari's sole poll agenda is anti-Chamling and so he opposes everything the SDF government has followed and his explanation to the public is that new forests are generated every few years, so there are no problems in cutting them down! There is truth though in the matter that such steps taken by the SDF government did affect interests of the agricultural population but it seems oddly disturbing to actually turn the clock back on such a progressive state of affairs. But in many respects, such morbidity defines Bhandari, similar to perhaps, Mulayam Singh Yadav protesting in favour of students rights to use unfair means during examinations.

Rahul Gandhi was here in Gangtok lending support to Bhandari's campaign. He spoke for about eight minutes and in my view his description of the attributes of the 'North East' people were rather patronizing. Interestingly, Rahul also claimed that he was in Sikkim 18 years ago in the Sonam Gyatso Mountaineering Institute (SGMI) for over a month, for I think a rock/mountain climbing course. I was with Sikkim journalists who were just returning to the office after the public meeting at Paljor Stadium and with Varun Gandhi's (fake degrees from SOAS And LSE) in mind, I asked them to follow up, Gandhi's tryst with SGMI and check if his claims were legitimate.

I will perhaps follow this little introduction of Sikkim politics with another write up some time later about the community issues and the social engineering that keeps the SDF in power. It would suffice to say that, the Newar, Bahun and Chettri (NBC and Non Backward Castes) are the traditional support group behind Bhandari and the Congress while the Nepalese OBC castes are with Chamling and the SDF. In the SDF's kitty and essentially due to its conduct over the past 15 years is the confidence of the Bhutia-Lepcha (BL) group. As to how these and the other factors like money, individuals and the random factors work remains to be seen. I do hope I can do this before the election results in Sikkim are out and I am proven wrong, pre-election analysis, even if wrong, is an indulgence we all need.

But since, I am doing it, I will take it a little further and make some predictions. My hunch on the numbers is that out of the 32 assembly seats, at best, only 3-5 will fall in the Congress kitty, the rest would remain with SDF. I am marking out those seats for the Congress despite the fact that in the last Assembly SDF had the following numbers 31/32. Such numbers was due to the fact that a number of Congress candidates nomination papers were rejected in the 2004 elections. The other important issue to mention is that the SDF with its ticket distribution has effectively managed to blunt the anti-incumbency factor it could be facing. It did not give tickets to 21 of its sitting MLA's out of which 10 were ministers. Earth shaking for any party, anywhere in India but so far we see little or no discontent. This is undoubtedly due to Chamling's dominating leadership and the fact that he remains focussed on governance and the distribution of state benefits to a significantly larger section of the Sikkim population. It should also tell us something about Chamling's reputation and chances in the near future of Sikkim. And since the politician class is a wily lot and is prone to throwing its weight in whichever direction the wind blows, we can safely assume that, the wind is going to blow in the direction of the SDF. At the best of times, people during elections change parties in their search for tickets so my conjecture is that despite dropping 20 MLA's, if none have gone in search for another ticket, the results of the Sikkim elections, just requires intelligent guess work.

Staying with elections, psephologists, analysts and the insufferable TV herd is at it again, making predictions about who will form the next government in Delhi. I think everyone is certain that the Parliament is again heading towards a scenario in which no party will get enough seats to form the government on its own. The situation is even more lucrative for the TV clique, they can churn out millions of 30 second length stories, contradicting each other, about the 'king makers', who as the press continues in the same vein, wish to be Kings!

Mayawati is the flavor of the season. The adulation of Mayawati is centred on the imminence of her political party, the Bahujan Samaj Party(BSP) gaining in the North Indian belt at the expense of Pehalwan Mulayam's Samjwadi Party (SP) and the BJP. Thereby, holding the 'key' to who forms the next government at Delhi. Mukul Kesavan, in, Virago in Diamonds- Who’s afraid of Kumari Mayavati?, writes succinctly about the social attitudes to Mayawati. The Foreign Press also appears to be having a field day with Mayawati, Newsweek calls her India's Anti-Obama and WSJ titles its piece, Whose is afraid of Kumari Mayawati? (I am also wondering about the similar title in the Kesavan piece and the WSJ).

So the scenario is that we might have leaders of the regional parties, with only blinkered domestic agendas and no external experience or outlook, who are to perhaps come to power. Malvika Singh in her column Mala Fide, The Telegraph, 21st April 2009, suggests that the media, Should put them to Test Now, "Maybe the time is right for the anchor-persons to invite Mayavati and ask her how she would handle the havoc in Pakistan, how she plans to deal with the Taliban in the border, how she would work on the next phase of the nuclear deal with Barack Obama. India needs to know what its aspiring leaders are all about. Invite Mulayam Singh, Jayalalithaa, Nitish Kumar et al, get them out of their regional and local issues since they are desperately aspiring for the Dilli gaddi, and let us all hear their expositions on other — national and international — issues that plague the world — from global warming to terror. Parochial mindsets, limited passions, and predictable attitudes do not make national leaders. We have seen the rabblerousing skills on podiums, heard the hysterical rhetoric and hollow promises of a better life from all those who have been out of power. We must now hear them articulate their policy positions, then make our choice."

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twit, tweet, twitter

I wonder how many of you know of Twitter, it is a different sort of a social networking site. One quality I can point out is that it is bare. All that I understand so far is that one can 'share' (catch line is, What are you doing?) in the length of a text message, about 140 words. There are just three technicalities to sieve through; Following, Followers and Updates. Friends/Contacts are 'followers', so you follow me and you get updates (What am I doing?), I make.

It is quiet brainless and redundant. You could check these brilliant videos poking fun at Twitter and twitter-ers, Twouble with Twitters: SuperNews! and this one Twitter Tease.

You could ask me, if that is so, what the hell am I doing on Twitter? A great question in many a fatuous circumstance. My reply would be that having never been on Facebook and after a dear Pakistani brother liberated (hacked into my profile and deleted everything) me from Orkut, I needed some internet affliction to stay contemporary and perhaps relevent. Imagine admitting that i was not a part of any social networking groups. So I permitted Twitter to win me over, with its simplicity. I also used the platform, to show off (smart ass comments and my enlightened reading-shared as a tweet) and to network as convincing reasons to tweet.

On twitter, I follow Brahma Chellaney, an interesting (read hardliner) strategic affairs specialist, Anand Giridharadas, a Indian American writer/journalist, to give an example. Chellaney's updates are in the form of small comments on Indian Foreign and Security issues, as well as the links to his media articles, as are Giridharadas's. US President Barak Hussain Obama is also on twitter as are many news and journal organisations which tweet their link.

But this post is not about such arid thrills. It is prompted by a substantially, greater ethereal experience, a starry one. A couple of nights ago, an email in the inbox appeared with this subject tag, "Shahrukh Khan has requested to follow you on Twitter!"

Yes, and it appears (or I would like to believe) that SRK manages his tweet's himself. I mean or I hope, that, this is the least, our Gods ought to be doing, some menial work, sigh!

But, I bet you are confused as to how (does he know I exist) and why would SRK want to follow me and the little dumb, bored updates that I will make, in my efforts to project a (more??eh) sophisticated and a cool version of myself, which would be mostly determined by my very impulsive motivations. You might even wonder, how did SRK, find me, after all, there are millions of people. But he found me, I mean, Satya, me. The secret, dear friends, is a lot less exciting than I have wanted you to imagine. So cutting to the issue at hand, SRK wishes to follow me (on Twitter) as I am following him. Despite such rationalisations, I am flattered, as I bet all losers would be trying to follow him, I wonder, how many such losers would he follow, separating the grain from the chaff. Now I can keep sniping at Dada (Saurav Ganguly) and hope SRK plays into my hands.

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IPL 2, Cricket, Dravid and Ganguly

Indian Premier League (IPL) Season 2 is on the roll in South Africa. Last time around, I could only get into the IPL fever, after half the tournament was over, it was more of a function of my lack of patience with 'not interactive' mediums, namely Television. Once into the League, I chose my team in with proper care, entirely on my whim. Bihar, not being a cricket centre of any repute (crowd holliganism does not count) nor any metropolitan attributes, does not find it self with a team. The other non-existent teams, I could cheer for might be the Ladakhi Lions. Though, I wonder about what the Patna IPL team might be called, I am certain, it will be along the lines of Patliputra (the ancient name of Patna) or Magadha or maybe it will be Bihari Babus. And in trying to stay away from dumb 'non-interactive' mediums, we will use the comments section in this post, to collate possible funny and exciting non-existent IPL teams and I would also bully you into suggesting some names for my home team (hint, Bihar).

So, Rajasthan Royals, led by Shane Warne, was going to be my team. For their low profile, lack of Bollywood stars, behaving like they were on the sets for a movie shoot at the Super Bowl in the United States. For Shane Warne, the best captain, Australia never had, leading a bunch of second grade domestic Indian cricketers. A class of cricketers, who would not have otherwise made it to the Indian cricket team. That is how obscure, they seemed before, Warney, brought them together, and went on to actually win the first edition of IPL. So this time around, I was keen on watching the champion team's first outing against the Bangalore team.

The point of this post being to register some thoughts on IPL but primarily, the motivation found its origins in Rahul Dravid's performance. So this is a salute to Dravid for quiet dignity, unassuming rectitude, temperance, and patience. In his professional sporting life of 14 years, Dravid has been under attack for his slowness in adapting to limited overs format and in 20-20 format but his grittiness being such, in IPL 2, Dravid with his anchored innings deserves the credit for the win over Rajasthan Royals (66 runs in 48 balls) and consistent performance despite the losses in the next two games, Chennai (20 runs in 18 balls) and their final loss tonight (to Deccan Chargers) where in Dravid ticked 48 in 27 balls.

There will not be press statements on issues that penalise Dravid, bad treatment during his India captaincy, after his resignation, being unceremoniously dropped and constantly being threatened due to his supposed 'slowness'. He even took to wicket keeping to serve the team. But you have never heard him claiming to being victimised. Just a simple man, trying to do his job, taking the adulation and the brick bats with equal élan. The contrast with our spoiled cry baby, Saurav Ganguly, cannot be starker. Reading some of the reporting on him, specifically, The Telegraph sports reporter, Lokendra Pratap Sahi, who is constantly beating the-Ganguly-as-captain drum. The most vociferous are of course that chauvinist group, that prides itself in its enlightened modernity, a section of Bengalis. Some of the reactions to this sacking of Ganguly II is nauseating and unsurprisingly, deja vu. Eloquent phrases are used, 'planned Ganguly's execution as captain in advance', 'rob Ganguly of the captaincy', 'discriminated against Ganguly (who displayed excellent all round capabilities even in the last IPL), 'insulted India's successful skipper' etc. I can go on, but this is so painful. This second round of an aggrieved Ganguly has two villians and one of them happens to be an Australian (predictable by Bengali standards) and the other a Bollywood star (a quote on SRK following the controversy, the least said about SRK the better!).

One can relate to the disappointment of being removed as captain but to actually go on about this cribbing and twice over, is only maniacal. Ganguly of course is not responsible for all of the crying but his toleration or assent, is the reason behind the continuing saga. A gross over estimation of his capabilities and contribution, a self image so vain, it reduces his talents, for which he would have been remembered. Both Dravid and Ganguly began their professional lives together, when one watches the Ganguly saga and his refusal to come to terms with reality and the bitterness, he is going about creating for himself, one can only admire Dravid for his grace. Dravid in an interview once remarked, 'On the off-side, first there is God, then there is Ganguly'. I think I will only remember the eloquence and the grace of the man who made this remark, rather than the brilliance of Ganguly's off side stroke play.

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Take a look at this

Would you believe that this was my horoscope for yesterday 17th April 2009:

Sagitarious[sic]: Be very alert around mid week for accidents. Keep your cell phone handy so you can out it to use when you come across one. Fire of could also happen now as well as gun fights so be aware of your surroundings at all times. Robberies are rampant now so hide your money and valuables.

And the flavour of Indian elections and their vocabulary from The Times of India, 18th April, 2009



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The Mutiny in Bangladesh: An early post-mortem

The mutiny of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), the paramilitary force manning Bangladeshi borders just got more interesting as one scans the assortment of news items from various sources that google links. On February 25th, the soldiers of BDR at the headquarters in Dhaka, killed and wounded officers in a mutiny said to be over pay, work conditions and career advancement. The news trickling in on the first day was sketchy at best with the number of deaths begining at a meagre number and steadily climbing over the next three days, duration of the mutiny and beyond. The events played out thus- the mutiny, the killings, the hurried general amnesty by the Bangladesh Government to handle the crisis, then the withdrawal of the amnesty and the escape of the mutiniers and then the discovery of graves in and around the BDR complex, seemed like one of the many plots from the writings of Mario Vargos Llosa documenting the innumerable coups in the Central and South Americas.

But for us leading more simplistic lives in South Asia, it was a case of simmering anger finding the lost path to expression. The soldier's mutiny over pay and working conditions is not a regular occurance but it was understandable. The other important aspect of the event was that the officers manning the BDR are drawn from the ranks of the regular Bangladeshi Army and they discriminate against the BDR soldiers. So the story goes and since the end of the mutiny, the discovery of graves and more bodies of officers killed and which were badly mutilated are prompting a closer look at the events. Till then it seemed like an institutional problem limited to perhaps to demands of better pay and the discontent in BDR against the army, a regular developing world phenomena.

The story was fascinating for another reason which was the use of the word, mutiny, to describe the events. As mentioned, mutiny's are unheard of in South Asia due to the legacy and tradition inculcated by the British Indian Army, from which the Indian and the Pakistani army was carved out. The event and its reporting also prompted me to think of the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 when a section of the Indian soldiers led by Mangal Pandey turned on their officers. This event has been dubbed as the First War of Independence by the Nationalist historians but it goes by the name of the Sepoy Mutiny in popular parlance. I thought of it in that manner due to this headline carried by The Telegraph, 26th February 2009 where they called it the Sepoy Mutiny in Dhaka.

So there it was, a rather momentous event but simple in its logic and ramifications, of a group of soldiers turning on their discriminatory officers with work conditions grievances. But then a few stories from the Indian media which I happened to come across made it appear deeper and richer than it seemed. The Times of India titled their story, Bangladesh mutineers name tycoon with Pak links, 1st March 2009, which suggested that the mutineers were backed by a Shipping tycoon with links to the Pakistani Military-Intelligence complex and the opposition Bangaldesh Nationalist Party (BNP). The current government is headed by Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League elected a month ago after a two year emergency military rule. The new reports surfaced as the committee headed by Bangladesh Home Minister started a probe into the gruesome revolt by Bangladesh Rifles. There is so far no indication that this was a intended coup. Bangladesh has witnessed many successful and failed coup attempts. Sheikh Hasina's husband was Mujibur Rehman, the man, who with the help of India achieved independence from Pakistan in 1971 and who was killed in a military coup in 1975. Sheikh Hasina is seen as close to India.

The Indian Express, meanwhile, reports, Dhaka rebels reveal plot to provoke Army, topple Govt, 1st March 2009, that mutiny was intended to 'provoke a strong Army reaction. Any such response from the Bangladesh Army would have had serious consequences. The interrogation is said to have revealed that separate plots had been hatched to assassinate Bangladesh Army Chief Gen Moeen U Khan. Already, similar plots against Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina have been uncovered in the past few weeks.

The Bangladesh Army has cooperated with the Hasina Government and has so far shown restraint despite seething anger among its officers and troops. The Bangladesh Army is now baying for blood and wants to avenge the massacre of its officers — most of whom are sons of army officers and civilian bureaucrats. Gen. Khan too has been able to demonstrate control over his forces despite fissures and camps in his Army. Former Bangladesh PM and BNP leader Khaleda Zia too have supported the inquiry launched by the government but has criticized it for wasting time in negotiations. But the political fallout of the inquiry is likely to be murkier.

The Times of India report goes on to add more of the usual ISI-Islamist connections, real or imagined, to the story when it addes that, 'Sources are also pointing to the scale of the brutality of the murders, the mutilations, etc, which they say are tell-tale signs of the Islamist ideologies that have infiltrated the lower cadres of the BDR, thanks to their extensive Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) connections. Behind the mutiny is the war crimes tribunal that Sheikh Hasina promised to set up for the trial of Pakistani collaborators or razakars from the independence war. This had created trouble inside Bangladesh and Pakistan as well. In fact, Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari sent an emissary to Sheikh Hasina, Pervez Ispahani, to persuade her to put off this trial as it could embarrass the Pak army considerably.'

One does not mean to be sceptical of the reporting, a lot of what one has quoted is the reality in Bangaldesh, the cleavge between its Bengali linguistic identity exhibited by its warmer ties with India, the 1971 war for independence and its religious identity going back to the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan. These two tendencies are represented by the two parties, Awami League and the BNP, with the army more with the BNP in this specturm. The party of Khaleda, widow of former army chief General Zia-ur Rehman, has in its ranks a large number of former army officers as leaders.

The fact that Bill Clinton in his South Asia visit in March 2000 visited Bangladesh as it was a 'moderate' Islamic country is a bygone era, the growth and spread of fundamentalism has been an ongoing process and the last government headed by the BNP was in coalition with the Jamat-e-Islami. The mutiny and the conspiracy suggestion can perhaps be seen as a fall out of the 1971 war crime tribunal Sheikh Hasina's government intends to establish and this would implicate sections in Bangaladesh and Pakistan, therefore the need to scuttle the move. The Islamists in the 1971 war were on the Pakistani side of the proverbial fence. The Pakistan government after the independence of Bangladesh appointed a commission under the chairmanship of Hamoodur Rahman to probe the role of the Pakistan army. Hamoodur Rahman commission report revealed many aspects of politics in Pakistan army during the Civil War of 1971. Because of the nature of the findings it was not declassified for decades until an Indian newspaper published the details.

Further, see this story complicates matters as it appears the large number of mutiners are headed towards India and are seeking refuge in India and have also written to their counter-parts in the Indian Border Security Force. The Bangladesh government has requested the Indian government to disarm and hand over the rebels and it is seen to have the tacit American blessings. However, India in the next few days or so will have a tight rope to walk as it does not want to be seen as partisan to any side which has been the bane of Indian policy towards Bangladesh since its inception. The Indian position appears to merely prevent the soldiers from crossing into India, if necessary by force but it will not be aparty to disarming the rebels. The only official reaction so far is here. The Prime Minister of Bangladesh is under pressure from the army ranks to act swiftly against the rebels, the first expression of which was the withdrawal of the amnesty granted to the rebels. The army leadership has expressed their subservience to civilian authorities, the next few days will decide how Sheikh Hasina handles the issue and how the army reaction will impact on the government.

This BBC report would be the latest on the developments in Bangladesh as I publish this post on 1 March 2009, 7.30 pm, local time.

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A Harvest Of Khans by Mukul Kesavan

I liked this piece by Mukul Kesavan. There is this ease with which he translates interesting ideas and hypothesis into great writing. Kesavan is always a delight to read on films, cricket or his comments on popular culture. I will refrain from waxing eloquent about his skills as I doubt it will do justice. This opinion piece which was published in The Telegraph on 19th February 2009 is Kesavan at his best. It is an intelligent look at an institution that has traumatised and entertained a number of our dull lives with its epic inanities.

A HARVEST OF KHANS- Bombay’s superstars are Muslim, but they mostly play Hindus

Recently I fulfilled a long-standing ambition to see a Bombay film in a Bombay theatre. I bought a ticket at the Regal in Colaba for a late-night screening of Luck By Chance, which is the thinking man’s Om Shanti Om with Farhan Akhtar playing Shah Rukh Khan’s role: the struggling actor set on becoming a hero. Like Shah Rukh in OSO, Farhan’s character, Vikram Jai Singh, makes it big; even more creditably, he manages to pull this off without the bother of reincarnation.

Watching Farhan Akhtar in this film (and this was the second film of his I’d seen in quick succession, the other one being the first-rate Rock On!!), it seemed truer than ever that the most successful and interesting male actors in Bombay cinema are Muslims and, the odd Akhtar apart, they’re nearly all called Khan. We have Aamir, Shah Rukh, Salman, Saif, Imraan and Irrfan, and if Farhan Akhtar had re-invented himself as Farhan Khan, he might not have had to wait till his early thirties for stardom. (Even the Khans who don’t make it — Sohail, Arbaaz, Fardeen — get a lot of press by failing in a newsworthy way.)

The importance of being Khan is made in a tongue-in-cheek way within Luck By Chance, via the character played by Hrithik Roshan. The film is full of guest appearances by major stars, including Aamir and Shah Rukh, who play themselves. Ironically, Hrithik plays his real-life role as the established megastar, but he doesn’t play himself: he’s a fictional star who is called…you’ve guessed it, Zaffar Khan!

So how is this significant? Well, you could argue that it proves that if you want to be a star in Hindi cinema, it’s worthwhile investing in a surname that begins with K. A great deal has been written on the way in which all the television serials made by Balaji Films begin with K, from Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu thi to Kkusum, but the fact is that K has been crucial for male stardom for more than half a century. Apart from maverick exceptions like Amitabh Bachchan, being a Kumar, a Kapoor or a Khanna was virtually a necessary condition for being a successful hero. Dilip Kumar took no chances on the K front; a Khan in real life, he covered his bases by being a Kumar on the marquee.

But trivia apart, does this harvest of Khans tell us something about Hindi cinema? A friend of mine claimed, only half-jokingly, that there was a story of Muslim empowerment to be found in the history of Indian cinema from Dilip Kumar to Shah Rukh Khan. First, he argued, you had Yusuf Khan who, starting out in the troubled Forties, used the camouflage of a Hindu name. Then, twenty years later, many years down the road from Partition, came Abbas Khan who started his film career as Sanjay and then reinstated his surname and came to be known as Sanjay Khan. And now the Hindi film industry is home to a whole crop of Khans who are proud to be known by their real names.

This is a plausible thesis but it misses the point. Yusuf Khan didn’t become Dilip Kumar on account of the ill will generated by Partition; he began his career before that traumatic division in 1944. And while there were many Muslims, men and women, who chose non-Muslim screen names like Madhubala, Meena Kumari and Johnny Walker, there were others like Mehmood, Rehman, Talat Mahmood and Nargis who didn’t. No, the real lesson that Khans, past and present, hold for us is that despite the large and powerful presence of great Muslim stars in Hindi cinema, the default identity of the heroes they play is Hindu.

Looking through the characters Dilip Kumar played through his long and distinguished career, I found that while he had been Jagdish, Ramesh, Ram, Mohan, Ashok, Manoj, Vijay, Shankar, Devdas and even Gunga, he had never played a Muslim character except once and that once doesn’t count because Prince Salim in Mughal-E-Azam is a historical character who happens to be Muslim.

This is not to suggest that this is born of bad faith or to imply that the Hindi film industry is, in some subtle way, ‘communal’. On the contrary, no professional world in India has been more open to talent and less concerned with ascriptive origin or identity than Bombay cinema. Anglo-Indians, Jews, Muslims, Parsis, Germans, Americans, people of every sort have come to this world with change in their pockets and have prospered. So it isn’t malevolence or discrimination that’s the issue; rather, a concern that Hindi cinema has become lazy, that it has been content to mine a narrow vein in a terrain that’s bursting with rich and various ores.

It can be reasonably argued that all commercial film cultures produce stock hero personas which reflect dominant cultural types and with which a mass audience can identify. Thus Hollywood was dominated for decades by the WASP hero: regardless of their own ethnic origin, actors like Gregory Peck, Charlton Heston, Rock Hudson and Paul Newman played variations on the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant theme. So if Hindi cinema produced a standardized hero called Raj who was Hindu, generally upper-caste, preferably light-skinned and subtly Punjabi, it was merely doing what all mainstream cinemas do to sell tickets and turn a profit. So if Sanjay Khan, like Dilip Kumar, never played a Muslim character in a long career till he produced and starred in a television serial about a historical figure, Tipu Sultan, it shouldn’t be cause for worry: it’s in the nature of the beast: commercial cinema is like this only.

What this argument neglects is the fact that as time passed, Hollywood became more diverse, not only in its personnel, but in the roles its heroes played. Brando played a Pole in A Streetcar Named Desire, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro played Italian gangsters, Will Smith pulled on a cape to play a black superhero, and a varied bunch of actors played a range of Jewish protagonists in Hollywood films. Paul Newman himself, whose father was a Jew, played the ardent Zionist, Ari Ben Canaan, in Exodus. The Chosen, Marathon Man, Funny Girl, Bugsy, Private Benjamin, The Way We Were and The Jazz Singer were films centred on Jewish characters of every sort: comic, heroic, scary and ordinary.

Contrast this with Bombay cinema where sixty-five years after Yusuf Khan, aka Dilip Kumar, made his debut, his Khan successors are still playing Vicky, Raj, Ajay, Karan and Vijay to the exclusion of any other sort of character; where Shah Rukh Khan plays Raj Mathur, Anil Bhansal, Ajay Sharma, Rahul Mehra and Vijay Agnihotri when he essays everyday Indians and, very occasionally, Amjad Ali Khan and Kabir Khan when a film wants to address communal harmony or discord and where Aamir Khan, after bravely playing a contemporary Muslim in his second film, Raakh, never played a Muslim character again till Fanaa, 17 years later, where he played Rehan Khan, a terrorist.

It can’t be healthy that in a film industry where the A-list of heroes is dominated by Khans and in a country inhabited by a 150 million Muslims, there are barely any films centred on ordinary Muslim characters going about their lives in a matter-of-fact way. Iqbal comes to mind and then…nothing.

But there’s hope yet: Shah Rukh Khan is currently shooting a film that is forthrightly called, My Name is Khan. It’s about “a Muslim man who suffers from Asperger syndrome”. Here’s hoping that by the time this remarkable bunch of Muslim actors are done with their careers, Khans might figure in the storylines of Hindi movies, not just on the marquees.

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