Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Reasons why some Indians love Narendra Modi


 The first time the world heard of Narendra Modi was following a 2002 religious pogrom in Gujarat - he was then, as now, the chief minister of the state. It is alleged that he fanned the flames of hatred by permitting the bodies of brutally slain members of a fundamentalist Hindu group to be paraded, and that he told the police to "let the Hindus vent their anger" on Muslims.

Modi had of course taken an oath to uphold the Indian constitution, which includes the principles of protecting life and property.

The next time Indians heard of Modi was in 2010 when he was called in front of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) looking into the riots. He hummed and hawed for some time before presenting himself to the SIT. His mien was that of someone going on a Sunday picnic, the only people who looked a bit uncomfortable were his highly trained security.

Then there were the annual investors summits which drew in investors promising millions of dollars in investments to the state of Gujarat. The scene at such summits was reminiscent of those in Mumbai dance bars where men throw money on their favorite dance girl. Newspapers would announce the many deals swung in by the Gujarat government while Modi would look on benevolently like an omnipresent god.

In the last few years, Modi gained prominence for the much touted economic performance of Gujarat, and for unhinged attacks on Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the ruling Congress party.

As the man has grown from strength to strength his fan following has followed the same trajectory. Everyone from the top echelons of business to youth are in a state of awe, all hypnotized by his oratory skills which promise a better tomorrow - but make no mention of how. There is no doubt that as an orator he is in a class of his own.
   Tall tales and untruths
But that aside, there is a new aspect to Modi - his ability to tell tall tales. The Pinocchio side to Modi is slowly revealing itself both in the case of his economic policies and also the yarns that he has been spinning. The web of deceit spans the current to the past ie from Gujarat's socio-economic health to India's history.

For a state given as a glowing example of good governance, economic growth and openness to industry a recent Comptroller and Auditor General report stating that one out of every three children in Gujarat is underweight leaves one wondering what lies beneath good governance and economic growth. Even Gujarat's Women and Development Minister has stated that at least 600,000 children in 14 districts are malnourished, while data for the remaining districts were "not available".

Christophe Jaffrelot, professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at King's India Institute, London, recently wrote in an article titled "No Model State" that Gujarat's progress is because of the freebies handed to industry at the cost of the state exchequer. It adds the state's progress is fueled by huge debt which has grown from 45 billion rupees (US$8.39 billion) in 2002 to 1.3 trillion rupees today.

Then there is the case of the recent Modi fib that India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, did not attend the funeral of India's first home minister, Sardar Patel funeral. This was made at a public speech - and there was nary an apology when he was caught out nor was there any public outrage that a prime ministerial candidate could lie so barefacedly.

The man of the hour moved on nonchalantly to his next move. Modi's penchant to emulate Pinocchio does not seem to have affected his credibility because there have been no consequences - the affliction of a longer nose for every lie.

Maybe people know Modi lives in La La land but they don't seem to mind. The fact that he comes up with tales involving living people too which are actually figments of his imagination seems to indicate this - he recently said that he, the chief minister of Bihar - Nitish Kumar and the prime minister were at a meal together where Nitish refused to eat. Nitish clarified that such an event never occurred.

The business of Modi love
This does not seem to bother even the CEOs. One does not quite understand the love the business world has for Modi given the fact that if there was a scandal of the malevolent and Machiavellian proportions of the 2002 riots it is the CEO who would have to step down - because the buck stops at his desk.

There may be an iota of truth when one says that these scions of business wish that this "Modification" in politics trickles into the business world so that they are absolved of the irregularities and scams which form part of their business repertoire. However, it would be highly presumptuous to think that this is potent enough to sully their clear thinking. There must be something deeper that makes them align themselves to Modi.

Maybe they believe that with him in power there will be ease of doing business. However, this ease of business makes other people in his state uneasy. Though compensation for acquisition of agricultural land for industry is high in the state, farmers not willing to sell of their land are forced to sell at a lower price for not accepting the 'Consent Award' which is first offered. This form of land acquisition by the Gujarat government has got certain sections of farmers up in arms - most recently in the case of Maruti.

The CEOs could be besotted with another fact in Gujarat: the average pay is lower than the rest of India. According to the National Sample Survey Organization average daily wages for men and women in Gujarat are 276.48 rupees and 213.10 rupees respectively. The national average is 332.37 rupees for men and 253.02 rupees for women.

This is why business loves Modi - no demands for better compensation and higher wages. There is not a peep for higher wages - one wonders why? Is this what one means by creating a sound business environment which our business leaders hanker for?

One is not even going into the current spate of bloopers that are emanating from Modi - he recently got the name of Mahatma Gandhi wrong; earlier he got the names of past right-wing ideologues mixed up with those of respected and well known thinkers of a more liberal bent. This goes to show that Modi does not do his home work which seems to be a habit and could have major ramifications if he comes to power.

The common Indian's love for the man
Therein lies the issue - we humans are willing to sidestep issues of social morality to safeguard our future and herald a new personal dawn. Business is one side, there is then the individuals who seem to have made up their minds.

Modi symbolizes the freedom from and irrelevance of morality and personal accountability. This is the philosophy that draws the crowds - you may be a bigot and culpable of various crimes but if you are able to keep a section of people happy then nothing else matters.

This is an attractive proposition because it allows people to be two-faced or be a modern version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. They may be vicious rapists or murders or unscrupulous financiers, but if they seemingly maintain a socially accepted facade or observe the law on other small matters, then everything else becomes a non-issue.

Such a social concept is very Bollywoodian in nature - the hero may harass the heroine and even browbeat her but he still remains the hero and she still falls in love with him.

So taken in are the common people by Modi's oratorical skills and bikinied statistics that they transform into frogs of a tiny pond who know nothing of the wider world. Their belief in him does not stem from "there is still good in the man". This fact is easily recognizable because these people don't hold him guilty or even culpable for the Gujarat riots.

They are not concerned about basic socio-economic fundamentals of Gujarat that point to Modi's lies. To them these and the Gujarat pogrom are a non-issue, what is important is what he represents - standing up to authority and thumbing a nose at it; not being accountable even when facts demand otherwise and being able to strip those in positions of authority of all dignity with aplomb.

Worse still, the supporters of this man come up with the specious and wholly indefensible argument that members of other political parties have taken part in riots too; inadvertently giving the game away and pointing to his culpability.

Modi is a personification of what most Indians aspire to - being able to climb out of fetid waters smelling of roses; and having the gumption to mock those in power knowing that they can't reply in kind because of the position they hold.

This is the kind of freedom Indians seem to yearn for after being in servitude of monarchies and colonial powers. Modi represents a kind of freedom that is not guaranteed in the Indian constitution but what some Indians fantasize about - power without responsibility and accountability.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/SOU-02-271113.html

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Darkness rising in Syrian opposition

 
The latest reports on the Syrian tragedy suggest the fundamentalists are gaining the upper hand - not only are they acting like a black hole, drawing in secular rebels, they are also using drugs to fund their war.

There was an earlier time when the saga of the internal strife in Syria was different, as seen in the various email petitions and updates sent to millions of people by the Syrian opposition at the time.

The struggle, now spiraling into uncontrolled violence, was quite
different then. In 2011, an email petition for donations towards Syrian activists was sent which had the following lines: "The Syrian regime is laying siege to whole cities, and is willing to annihilate them to crush the peaceful democracy movement. ... [D]espite this unimaginable terror, the Syrian people refuse to be silenced, and are committed to a non-violent path out of this nightmare."

However, as events worsened on the ground the contents of the petitions and news began to change. These not only reflected the altering scenarios but could also be seen as the changing position, if not hardening stance of the petitioners. These examples from January 2012 appeared on their website:
"Helping incredibly brave Syrians document regime abuses and broadcast their footage to the world media. But now our network of peaceful activists is disappearing. If enough of us urge the EU to enforce tough sanctions and an arms embargo now, we can help fracture the regime, encourage defections in the army and sustain demonstrators risking everything.

"Six hundred and seventy Syrian students currently study in UK higher education institutions. Many have been threatened by their universities with immediate expulsion - some have already been expelled - if either they or their sponsors can no longer pay for their tuition fees, due to the conflict in Syria."

And then, as we come into January 2013: "In two days, donor countries will meet to finalize plans to give $1.5 billion in humanitarian aid to Syrian people suffering inside Syria and to refugees. This would be great news, but all documents show that 500 million of these dollars will be managed by government ministries. It would be an outrage to even consider giving Assad ministries control of this aid package.

"Driven by Assad's terror machine, 2.5 million Syrians have fled their homes, 65,000 have been killed, and everyday we hear stories of rape and child torture."

What we are reading about is the spread in collateral damage. Activists within Syria disappearing, then students studying in the UK sponsored by the Syrian government or by their families finding themselves cut-off from their funding.

The deliberate use of terms like "Assad's terror machine" vilify the government of a nation which was, until recently, recognized by all countries and seen as a progressive state. The message in the petition indicates in no uncertain terms who the bad guy is and thus what needs to be done with him.

The last example which is about aid, begs the question whether those living in government controlled areas are going to be left high and dry when it comes to access to humanitarian aid. Even if it goes through agencies would the government permit these aid agencies to function everywhere?

Do these petitions support something as simplistic as supporting a group of people claiming to fight for democracy against a supposedly authoritarian state? Is a subjective moral compass guiding the petitions which support these groups and helps them in their fight against the state?

In this context, one needs to question the silence of the monarchies of the Arab world and the archaic monarchical systems of the Arab world, where peaceful protest is dealt with a heavy hand. What is astonishing is that though both the autocrat and the monarch use almost similar tools to keep control, one continues to be treated with kid gloves while the other is overthrown.

In Syria, when the petitions began to bolster the efforts of the peaceful activists was there a realization that there would soon be non-peaceful "activists" who would come from other parts of the region and espouse concepts like jihad? Was there an appreciation of the possibility that in the process of trying to get rid of Assad, there would be use of chemical weapons - allegedly by both sides?

Did the impact of petitions during the Arab Spring which is supposed to have helped in deposing entrenched regimes result in a similar tactic being used in the case of Syria? Conventional wisdom suggests that no two situations are the same, no matter how similar the circumstances and the ingredients that go into making it; and, more importantly, no matter how much we wish it to be so.

The following suggestions would seem idiotic but they do serve a purpose: start a petition demanding the fundamentalists get out of the fight. Maybe they won't but the world would realize that there is a real chance that rebels aligning with al-Qaeda could form the next government and it may not be in the best interest of the people and the region. Another petition should be to the Free Syrian Army and others asking them to lay out their plans on how they would protect the rights of the minorities and other citizens, if they win their battle. This petition would start a discussion on respect, rights and equality - which is what this fight is about.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-02-071113.html