Monday, December 24, 2007

Its Narendra Modi once again

So the psephologists got it wrong, the Congress (I) built castles in the air, while Modi and his multi masked multitude romped home to another win.

There were many cooks to spoil Modi’s broth – there were dissidents, there was the incumbency factor and there was the communal divide. Such was the relief at the outcome that Advani (of the BJP and the Prime Minister in waiting) called it a victory that had repercussions at the national levels, while Kapil Sibal (Minster of Science and Technology ) stated that even fascists come to power.

Political analysts have called Gujarat the laboratory for the right wing. They have been myopic in only calling Gujarat a laboratory – its India that has become a laboratory, it’s the politicians, the judiciary, police, and the common man across who are guinea pigs. The Saffron brigade want to see how far they can go before something happens. Well 5 years have passed and nothing has happened and the party and people under whose rule the genocide took place have retained power.

Which brings me to the question of should these people be actually allowed to vote at all. Yes, yes we are a democracy and all that. But the question is how does one deal with an inefficient democracy and with people who know how to usurp democratic principles for their own benefit. These people have to be re-schooled in the tenets of democracy, of fundamental rights, of respect, of equality and justice.

During the Emergency it was said that the trains ran on time. Media analysts state that Modi retained power because he gave the people of Gujarat a government free of corruption. For the media to repeat this and even agree shows the myopicness of the naiveness of the media. Corruption is not only about transaction of money and monetary profiteering it is also about a government’s high handedness, in this case to get its police to kill people, or to ensure that police do not act during riots, or to provide information and addresses of minority communities to rioters.

The next thing that this election has raised is Modi entering national politics. The BJP and Congress (I) hum and hawed with their answers but the very idea is frightening. Instead of someone belling the cat and stating categorically that this infected person should be quarantined and an antidote found for him, everyone spoke about whether Hindutva would become BJP’s election platform and the Congress (I) happily stated that if the BJP used the Modi model the BJP would loose its allies.

Modi has been called Hitler. This state is like pre-second world war Germany with the Gujarati’s, like the Germans, blinded by the promise of a 1000 year rule and the rest of the country like Chamberlain and others allowing a weed to grow and spread.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Looking back

As the sun slowly sets on 2007, a ritual is followed - time is taken off to complete, end, think back, review, mull and choose memories for the coming year. Much will be written and said (yes this is one of them) about the year and how it could have been improved

One of the things that should be done at the end of each year is to see the choices news papers made in terms of news. There is no doubt that the chicken and egg argument can be made – do newspapers make opinions or reflect the opinions of the masses. The truth is that both feed off each other. Readers can tell off newspapers and newspapers can change mindsets. However, in the end what is printed provides a peep into the nation’s thinking.

For example there were just about three cases of ‘phamous’ Indians who claimed they faced racial abuse in the UK.

  1. Shilpa Shetty with her televised cooking and eating habits on Big Brother was not only able to win the reality series but got an award for her work on AIDS (Richard Gere’s on stage kiss put AIDs back on everyone’s radar), she supped with the Queen and also got a university to award her with a honorary doctorate – and the entire saga was put in print. There were no questions about her actual work on AIDs or what induced the university to present her with a degree. But everyone was happy, proud they believed that India was finally being taken seriously.
  2. Salman Rushdie claimed he was the target of racial slurs in school in the UK. If this made news in Indian papers then the paper employs people who are far removed from reality or worse still they haven’t been to school. But this was reported too – not too many inches.
  3. John Abraham and others who make a living by hamming on the silver screen stated that he and others faced racial slurs while shooting for a movie. The news did not help the movie the box office.

Then there were cases where we proudly made ours what was not ours to have. Sunita Williams is supposed to be an Indian but she was born in Ohio, her colour and name do not make her an Indian, but India proudly adopted her it became worse when she visited Gujarat the BJP and Congress I wooed her as she represented a vibrant Gujarat (click the video) for some and for others an example of an India on the move. The fact that she was not an Indian, but an American, was lost on everyone.

Then a lot of ink was spent on another set of stars that killed or possessed weapons that could kill (yes a car is included). The press trailed them as they went from court house to jail and then home and occasionally traveled in a government car to a shrine in the Himalayas. There were interviews on why the judges should go lenient on them and how these star criminals have transmogrified into better humans. The fact that the courts took years to come to a decision and are still taking time was no where in sight, that time adds a tint of sympathy and forgetfulness was brushed aside.

Later in the year there was the Tehelka Expose about those involved in the riots of Gujarat. The magazine had the murders/rapists and other such people who profess to be the bastions of Hindu morality brag about their conquests. So what were actually confessions was convoluted to a debate on the timing of the expose. Was the expose supposed to hurt BJPs electoral plans in Gujarat or was someone trying to tarnish the image of the Gujarati’s?

The question is everyone and their dog knows what happened in Gujarat so what is the harm if Tehelka used the expose to remove a government (if that was what they were trying to do). Which brings me to the elections in Gujarat and the question whether a people who are blind to a situation in their midst be allowed to vote.

So what we have here is BJP and its Hindutva bandwagon romping all over the place, the Congress I unable to say anything (remember the Sikh riots).

If the Congress I and everyone else really have cojone’s they would hand over those who participated in the Sikh riots to the police, yes it also includes the CPI perpetrators in Nandigram.

Yes there was a lot of talk about the Indo-US nuclear deal.But the actual debate on the false promises and starts of the Indian nuclear industry the need for nuclear energy never made it to papers.

I could just be happy about this deal because it just may ensure that some far away Indian villages in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Meghalaya are saved from the fate that was handed down to the people of Jadugoda. Right, this actually is quite shortsighted because wherever the uranium is going to come from it would have adversely affected some piece of land and people.

I have a surmise - the social value of a story is proportional to the level of response it gets – Shilpa’s and Richard’s effigy got burned, Gujarat was intellectualized and Modi is being touted to become the CM again and what to say about the Indo-US deal? Hmmmm---

Monday, December 10, 2007

These boots were meant for walking---

One of the things that hit me as I walked through the transit at Charles De Gaule airport were the women --- in their boots.

There were all kinds of women in all kinds of boots, long haired blondes in black stiletto boots to brunettes in velvet boots.

Unfortunately I had to catch a plane to Amsterdam.

And in Amsterdam I got the mother load of boots and what goes in them. I tried to capture those moments but the cheap camera I bought could not take the pressure of the assignment. My friend had a handy camera phone that was put to good use.

It’s cold in Amsterdam and the boots offer protection against the cold. However, what would you call a woman who wore these fabulous pair of boots with a micro mini and no other form of protection – BRAVE.

That’s when the camera failed me and taking no chances I trashed it.

We were passing a beauty school and the lovely ladies were outside smoking I had to induce my friend to whip out his camera phone and click the first set of snaps. We had to almost crawl on our knees to get those boot clusters.

I hadn’t yet given up on a camera so I walked into a shop but hurried out to tell my friend to have his camera ready because another spectacular pair of boots were walking out.



















We tried to capture boots on cycles and the closest we came to such a photo was when a pair of boots was unlocking a cycle.

So pretty soon we (my American friends and I) were looking down - as if guilty to check out what the road had to offer. We did not go on the looks of what was in the boots, but focused on the character of the boots. Thus you will notice that there are no faces. we were tempted on occasions but stood fast to our aims. We went to pubs to quench our thirst where the variety beers and boots competed for our attention. And this continued till the lights turned unfriendly.



Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Mumbai

I survived – another visit to Mumbai. I haven’t come to grips with the city, and I don’t want to. The city is a veritable book of synonyms for the word ‘ostentation’ - of poverty, need, tunnel vision, selfishness.

As the plane makes its approach to land it flies over islands of sky-rises surrounded by slums. In weathers other than the monsoon the rooftops of these little hutments are weighed down by a dull brown of dust. In the monsoon these are covered with fresh blue tarpaulins, actually TV shows that herald monsoons with updates on Mumbai Municipality’s ability to cope with the coming showers by their efforts to remove the last year’s sewage could change to a study of the change in colors of roofs.

Seeing it now, just like any other jungle, Mumbai changes colours for each season.

On Saturday I walked round Nariman Point on work, it was lunch time and therefore was hungry, there wasn’t a single roadside eatery in that area. Mumbai’s street food (ex. Vada pav) is its only endearing quality. A literal buffet of cuisines has been shut down in attempt to keep the city clean and healthy.

Those who got the decision were the rich and ex officials of the municipality – people who never eat in such places. Instead of providing garbage collection facilities for these eateries and safe drinking water they chose the easy way out – take away a source of income and food.

I had the opportunity to meet a very interesting person in Mumbai. Ashok Datar is an urban transport specialist who is trying to promote car pooling as a method to solve the growing problems of traffic congestion and resultant pollution. His idea of car pooling uses the internet and the mobile phone to bring people going in the same direction together. He made a brilliant observation about the growing number of cars he said that the poor are subsidizing the car owners. His argument is that the car owners do not have to pay for parking almost everywhere in the city and the space occupied by a car is same that of a small dwelling in a slum. That space occupied used by the car should be given to the poor or the car owners should be made to pay for it.

One of my colleagues went to shop in Mumbai and immediately fell in love with the city. Okay it wasn’t only the shopping, the sea had something to do with it too. But that’s the whole question how many can actually enjoy the sea, how many can actually enjoy the shopping. Mumbai is a city that provides people with goggles that darkens the glaring reality of inequality.