Category: Opinions

Here is the one about atomic weapons of the ancient Indian era, much before the world became aware of these:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=dK5qG6bKLCM%3F

This got me thinking: who should actually rule India? Over a period of time I have made a short list of those who shouldn’t. Here goes:

1. Judges. They can’t be ruling India for the reasons given in Justice Kapadia’s speech. Before the British gave us a central legal system based on Indian Penal Code in 1860 and Indian Evidence Act in 1872, India’s justice system was based on laws as given in The Arthashastra dating back to 400 BC and Manusmriti dating back to first century AD. Indeed, the caste or religion based codes of laws, eg, Hindu code of laws and Muslim code of laws were prevalent even after independence. Then there were – what is known as – customary laws. It is taking India a very long time indeed to become a civilized nation whose people respect the rule of the law. Many archaic laws and rules took considerable time in changing with changing times. Amongst other reasons, we have rampant political exploitation of the masses and thus – as came out in the infamous Shah Bano case – even after four and half decades of independence, we are nowhere near a uniform, easily understood civil laws. Everything is left to interpretations, technicalities and the like. Folklore says that it is better to sort out things between the people themselves rather than going to police, judges and lawyers. All these three categories are not averse to taking money from both the parties and prolonging the cases until the grandchildren of the original contenders opt for compromise (to sort out things between themselves). Then there are certain categories of people in India who consider themselves above the law. When a politician is charged with scams worth crores of rupees, he/she initially says it is “political vendetta” but later says, “Iska faisla to ab janata ki adalat hi karegi” (Only people’s court (mob mentality?) can now decide on this. You may feel that it is contempt of the court to even make a statement like that. However, since the politician feels that he is above the law, he has scant respect for the courts or the judiciary except for those who are on his payroll. India faces another problem in that, for a long time in history, the Judiciary, the Executive, and the Legislature were the same person. It is taking us a long time to get out of this. Our people are, by nature lawless, indisciplined, and prone to taking short-cuts.The reason for me to tell you this reality about the justice system in India is that our judges have hands-full (in more ways than one). We have lakhs of cases rotting in the courts for decades. Our people require newer laws every passing day but have scant regard for laws already enacted. In such a scenario, where is the time, energy, inclination etc for judges to rule the nation. If they are able to sort out the judicial mess we are currently in, that itself is too much to hope for.

2. Military. Sorry, we are very clear about this; we don’t want military to govern India. We don’t want to become like Pakistan. From the time of independence when our Prime Minister Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru had this obsessive mania about keeping military far removed from governance to this year’s ‘exposure’ in a reputed Indian daily turning a routine movement of troops from Mathura and Hissar to New Delhi as likely design by Army under General VK Singh to take over governance of the country, our politicians and people at large have this unexplained mortal fear that one day military would take over the country. We ourselves call military to fill up lack of governance in many parts of the country, which we conveniently cover up by a term we have specifically coined for this purpose, viz, “law and order situation”. But, let alone giving the military a modicum of say in matters of governance, we disdainfully question even Armed Forces Special Powers Act in such states where we expect military to thanklessly sort out mess caused by politics and lack of governance. The armed forces chiefs are now 13th in the Order of Precedence in our nation. When Admiral Joshi took over as the 21st Chief of the Indian Navy, The Times of India, used to giving six column ‘news’ for Yuvraj having hit six sixes in an over, gave it as a small news on page 15. Indeed, Delhi Varsity or St. Stephen’s College not promoting Unmukt Chand, the Captain of the Under 19 team winning world cup, making it a bigger news. Our nation is now in a state that our cricket team winning a match is bigger news than the armed forces winning skirmishes, battles and wars against the enemy; many a times losing their lives (“the ‘b——-s’ are paid for it, so what’s the big deal?”) No, Sir, military should never be allowed to rule India.

3. Politicians. They should, if you really ask most people, be actually ruling India provided they are not corrupt or criminal. Regrettably, there is no other variety of this animal found in India. He or she has proved the English saying wrong, which ended with ‘but, you can’t befool all the people all the times’. There are many who have written volumes about how did the Anna Hazare movement ‘India Against Corruption’ fail; and why a strong Jan Lokpal Bill is still not around the horizon. My reason is simple: how can the corrupt be asked to make a Bill that curtails their own powers and take punitive action against themselves? It is like asking the thieves to lay down traps for themselves. Another big reason for the IAC to have failed is because it was wrong to assume that in our country only the politicians and big-wigs are corrupt. India is at an unfortunate period of time in history when people at large are corrupt and opportunistic; there is a race to somehow become richer, more powerful and more influential. In a democracy people not only get the government that they vote for; they get the government that they deserve. We can never expect and trust such politicians elected by such people to rule India.

4. Babus or Bureaucrats. Many people feel that when the British gave independence to India, it wasn’t complete independence as such. They had already created something called a Babu or a Saheb who, they were sure, would keep India from competing with England or rest of the world. As Winston Churchill said, “If the British left, India will fall back quite rapidly through the centuries into the barbarism and privations of the Middle Ages. If India becomes Independent power will go into the hands of rascals, rogues and freebooters. All Indian leaders will be of low caliber and men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and silly hearts. They will fight among themselves for power and India will be lost in political squabbles.” What an accurate prophecy? By endowing India with the scourge of babudom, in one stroke, the British curtailed the power of India by several centuries. The makers of the Constitution of India defined a term called ‘civil-servant’ or ‘public-servant’. I have finished living nearly six decades in this country; I haven’t yet come across a single babu or bureaucrat who regards himself as a ‘servant’ of the people or in ‘service’ of the nation or public. If you, dear reader, have come across these species kindly mention his/her address in the space provided for comments.

5. Police. No, Sir, we don’t want to become a police state. In 1948, after India became independent, the erstwhile Imperial Police was replaced by the Indian Police. If at one time we used to hear horrible stories about the excesses of the Imperial Police, we had no idea of what our police was going to do to us. Over a period of time, the police by itself and through political and bureaucratic interference, became completely corrupt. As an example, after 26/11, one of the recommendations of the Experts Committee was to have 6000 networked cameras installed at important points in the city. The city policemen, used to taking bribes as with the rest of their ilk, are more fearful of the cameras than the potential terrorists. Indeed, the terrorists know that they don’t have to fear being caught red-handed on the cameras because the police and the babus would make sure that the cameras even if installed would never function. The Indian Police is in dire need of reforms but it suits the politician, the bureaucrat, and the police itself, to continue pussy-footing on the reforms. Police have largely garnered powers to themselves and whilst the Director Generals are now equated higher than C-in-C’s of the armed forces, one has lost count of how many DGPs are there in each state. How can such people be trusted to rule India?

6. Industrialists. Even though, after independence, mainly to prove ourselves as a society forever fired by the need and zeal to see upliftment of and empowerment of people, we selected a socialist model of economy for ourselves, we soon realised that it was only making poor poorer. So, Manmohan Singh, the great spin doctor, came up with ‘reforms’ and we resumed being a capitalist society that we always were. Capitalism is an economic system that is based on private ownership of the means of production and the creation of goods or services for profit. Look back in the last few decades and you will see the truth of this statement. Recently, whether it was 2G spectrum allocation, or Coal Mining auctions, or even Common Wealth Games, the common wealth of the people quickly went into the hands of ‘private ownership’. As the infamous Radiia tapes brought out there is now an unholy nexus between the politician, industrialist and the media. When John Kenneth Galbraith said, “Under capitalism, man exploits man; under communism, it is just the opposite”, he wouldn’t have ever known how true would it be for India. Irrespective of the type of the economy, in India, the industrialist, in cahoots with the politician (from whom he has to get crores of rupees even to fight elections), makes sure that the goose of the common man is cooked. Quite a few of them have now come out openly in support of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and some like WIPRO’s Azim Premji have donated crores for welfare projects, but it is still miles to go before we can think of an industrialist in India fired by philanthropic intents rather than profit making plans. In such a scenario, it would be asking too much of them to rule the country.

7. Filmstars, Godmen and Cricketers. carried away by their mass-appeal, some people of these categories dream of or are nominated to enter politics, eg, Dhirendra Brahmachari, Hema Malini and Sachin Tendulkar. Some others such as Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev dream of changing the corrupt system; but, if you ask the corrupt politician he too would tell you that the ‘realities of politics’ made him corrupt whereas earlier he wasn’t. Ruling or governing India is not merely showmanship. These categories of people can pull the masses but what exactly can they promise them other than dance and drama, religious mantras and sixes? No, ladies and gentlemen, these won’t do to rule India.

8. Media Personnel. At first glance they appear to be ideally suited to rule the nation; more so, when on debates on telly and talk-shows, they project themselves as the only people who have any idea of how to rule or govern the nation. However, look a little closer and deeper and you will find that they too have been rendered unfit for the job. Even as respected a figure as Padam Shri Barkha Dutt, as seen in the Radiia Tapes, was not beyond degeneration of soul for earthly gains. Collectively or individually, they haven’t shown great penchant for what is good for India. Being slaves of TRPs and industrialists and foreign powers who control the media, they ain’t expected to be more than watch-dogs and poodles of the people who feed them.

What’s the Choice? We started off with Justice SH Kapadia telling us that judges shouldn’t rule India. But, in the end, we are left with no choice as to who should rule India. We require the following in men and women chosen to rule India:

• He or she (henceforth, when I say ‘he’, it would mean both) should place country above his or her own interests and those of his or her family, friends and cronies.
• He should realise that in our constitution there is a term called ‘Civil Servant’ or ‘Public Servant’ but there is no term called ‘Public Ruler’.
• The only power sharing formula (our politicians are constantly working on these) he works out would be with people.
• He would instil discipline, nationalism, religious tolerance, uprightness and honesty in the people through personal example.
• Every decision taken by him would have people of India as its basic concern.
• He would make India a corruption free, equitable society.

Any takers? Instead of ruling India, how about serving India and Indians? If you have any suggestions of your own, please feel free to pen them down.

Pic courtesy: disturbia.hubpages.com

Then there is the recent case of Anjali, wife of Ajay Singh, a senior officer in Shipping Corporation of India who refused to accompany her husband on posting to Port Blair. She must have been aware that at one time, during our slavery days with the British, the freedom fighters (rebels as the British called them) were deported to Port Blair (Kala Pani or Black Waters) and whilst men used to be sent there, it was no place for women; certainly not the liberated women who live in Delhi, Mumbai, Lucknow etc and think of taking over the reigns of power; women who are advocates and not only know legal wranglings but are adept at the lingo that go with it; women who when they become chief ministers send the central government cowering in fear and pilots to fly planes to go and fetch their sandals; women who ask for a divorce because their husbands talk to their relatives in his language. The divorce court judge, in the case of Anjali and Ajay Singh invoked Ramayana and asked her, “Sita followed Ram, why can’t you?”With this background, lets now turn to Aamir Khan’s Satyamev Jayate on the television. The first episode on female infanticide was so gripping and ably put up that it left people wondering why such an issue had not been discussed with such fervour before. On the television debates many of the champions of women’s rights and causes went viral about their assertions that Aamir Khan was not the first one to air such views. They also disdainfully predicted that nothing would ever change.

I found all this rather strange. It is acceptable to us to have celebrities model for anything from detergents to cars; but, should they use their celebrity status to provoke active debate on issues that really affect us, they are clearly exceeding their brief. Of course, we know all about dwindling female to male ratios; of course we know all about the situation in Haryana where men don’t have enough women to marry, where women work in the fields when men sit on their khaats (cots) and smoke hukkahs and expect their womenfolk to return and cook their meals too; of course we know how in Patiala in a well female foetuses were found discarded (Is There Reason to Celebrate Women’s Day in India?). But, lets ask what’s wrong with a celebrity asking us to look within and find answers before pointing finger at others? Should we leave to Mamata Sharma (even deadlier than the other Mamata) who, as chairperson for National Commission for Women (NCW) said it was alright to call women sexy? (Read: Hi Sexy – ‘Gateway to Future’ For Indian Women)

That’s really what is wrong with our country: we slang ordinary people debating important issues since we assert that these should be left to experts. What experts? An ordinary citizen Anna Hazare starts a people’s movement against corruption and the parliamentarians take him to task that issues such as these should be rightfully tackled by the elected representatives of the people (each one of them represented by an average of not more than 9 percent of the electorate (read: How Proud Should We Be Of The Indian Republic At 62?))

I think Aamir Khan has done right by instigating public debate (and hopefully action) on a very core issue. Today is the Mothers Day; will we have enough women left to become mothers?

As far as Jill the Ripper and Anjalis are concerned, these too are strange aberrations and certainly take the focus away from the real issue. In the northern part of our country, the incidence of reverse dowry (a phenomenon in which the bride and her siblings demand money and favours from the bridegroom failing which they would accuse him and his parents of demanding dowry and expose them to untold hardships and jail) are now becoming more common. Indeed, I wish Aamir Khan’s programme’s research team had brought out how Jill the Ripper, Anjalis, Mayawatis and Mamatas, by their abrasive and sometimes violent actions, spoil the cases of the majority women who have to suffer indignities and injustices on an everyday basis.

Left to myself I would give a lot of marks to Aamir Khan for Satyamev Jayate and the many unsung heroines who came forward to tell the tales of how they were stopped from becoming mothers simply because they would have given birth to female children.

Happy Mothers’ Day.

Indian lawyer: the first to chuck stones for his own cause (pic courtesy: deccanchronicle.com)

The litmus test of the Indian judicial system’s failure is the oft repeated threat between the litigants: “If you don’t behave, I shall take you to the court.” Whilst, on paper, the Indian law stipulates that a person is innocent until proved guilty beyond reasonable doubt, in effect, as soon as your case is filed in any of the Indian courts, your punishment starts. Do you remember Mr. Bumble in Dickens’s Oliver Twist telling us that the law is an ass? What he meant was that the English law was stupid and very stubborn. I wonder what Mr. Bumble would have said after seeing Indian law in action: stubborn, stupid, archaic, chaotic, and suited to disgrace both the complainant and the defendant. Perhaps such an animal doesn’t exist but Indians are known to be beyond impossibility.

If your impression of the atmosphere in and around an Indian courtroom is based on Perry Mason novels or scenes in a Hindi movie, you are in for a shock when you go to an Indian court at the basic level. Even after the computers have been introduced, you would find disinterested court writers sitting everywhere like monkeys on a tree charging exorbitant sums for writing anything for you from an affidavit to a power of attorney. Most of them type with a finger each of the two hands. The reason why these johnnies earn their money is because the legalese in Indian court is kept as difficult as possible. It would remind you of a train arriving at the Chennai Harbour Terminus and stopping a hundred metres away so that people alighting would be forced to use the coolies. Fifteen minutes later, the train then goes right up to the concourse. Similarly, the great Indian judicial system makes it as inconvenient for you as possible until you learn through a painful experience that you could write the whole thing yourself and in better grammar than the court writers.

Indian lawyer is a hungry wolf. He has come far from the ideals of India’s most eminent barrister Mahatma Gandhi who left his office of profit to fight for India’s downtrodden. Nowadays, more often than not the Indian lawyer is hand in gloves with the lawyer of the other litigant so that both can usurp as much money as possible from both the parties. A friend of mine had a tenancy dispute in his house in Chandigarh. After years of paying fees and time dissipated one day he overheard his lawyer telling the wrongful tenant’s lawyer, “I think with a little bit of luck you can take the first floor of the house and I can take the ground floor.”

Eminent Indian Lawyer Mahatma Gandhi; how far has the present Indian lawyer come from his ideals?

Indian lawyers often tell the litigants, especially if they have spent life in a disciplined service like one of the armed forces, that they have no knowledge of the “intricacies” of the Indian legal system. One of the “intricacies” that the litigants learn about is that anything that sounds logical and reasonable is likely to be overruled. Very often, the litigants prepare the entire case, evidence, arguments etc themselves whilst the lawyers collect the fees.

Almost everything that you have to present in the court has to be typed on a stamp paper. This is the means by which the state is supposed to earn its revenue, say, from land deals. There is money for everyone here. It is only once in a while that a Rupees twenty thousand crores scam of counterfeit stamp papers involving one Abdul Karim Telgi is unearthed but, at the smaller level, hoodwinking people through stamp papers is an accepted practice. It is reputed that everyday more than Ten Thousand Crores are added to Indian black-money through under priced land and other deals. Who provides all these shortcuts to the people? The vakeel, who else? But, he/she never gives any shortcuts to his/her fees.

Whilst on the subject of land deals, let me tell you that if you steal some one’s money or other assets you can be jailed. However, in India if you steal some one’s land, you have the total freedom to use it for the next two decades or so until the court decides if it has actually been encroached upon or not. The Indian land-revenue record system, the ass that it is, actually encourages such a situation. Despite the urgent need to computerise land revenue records so as to do away with ambiguities, the land-revenue officials: the Patwari, the Tehsildar, the Kanungo, and the District Revenue Officer (DRO) get great powers and mischief value by keeping these records as flexible as possible. In my home state Himachal until very recently the records were kept on a latha (a thick white cloth) and the exact measurements on the latha to be compared with the scale would be subject to many interpretations.

A ‘demarcation’ in progress

The loopholes in the Indian legal system are the the bread and butter of the Indian lawyers; the more well versed one is in exploiting these to his client’s advantage, the better is his reputation as a successful lawyer. Thus, most of these “successful” lawyers get rid of the unwanted baggage of their scruples and ethics at a very early stage in their career.

That the Indian judicial system does not provide any hope to the law-abiding citizen totally escapes the attention of the law makers, judges, lawyers; indeed all those connected with the Great Indian Judicial System. As it is Indian cities now rank amongst the worst in the world in terms of quality of life. We certainly rank extremely low in our tortoise like judicial system. After a successful sting operation by Tehelaka, for example, it took a decade for BJP President Mr Bangaru Laxman to be convicted of bribery; and this when he was shot on camera taking bribe. The other day, in my hometown Kandaghat in Himachal Pradesh I went to see my lawyer and saw a folder with the title in Urdu. This was the prevalent language in this part of the world before Hiamchal became a state on 25th Jan 1971. At my query the lawyer admitted that indeed the land dispute case of his father’s client was taken over by him and had now become much complicated since both the litigant’s lands had been divided amongst the children, their spouses and grand-children. However, the lawyer assured me, as he must have done to his client, that “soon” there would be a decree in his favour. This, indeed, is the abiding faith of all concerned in the great Indian judicial circus: no matter how undignified it is now for you, no matter how many years of your precious life you have wasted fighting a meaningless case, no matter how much more you have lost than the original cost of your land; the future is still bright.

At one time the Indian judges were considered to be paragons of virtue and ethics. Nowadays, they too fall prey to the lure of quick money. Almost every third day in the papers one can read about some judge or the other facing Inquiry for illegal gratification and for usurping money. Therefore, whilst earlier despite all the delays the quality of Indian justice was somewhat lauded, nowadays, it is as suspect as the quality of any other Indian system.

One of the worst things that can happen to you is if you don’t reside in your hometown but your work has taken you thousands of kilometres away. In such a case, all that the other party has to do to bring you to your heels is to file a private criminal complaint against you. You will now be required to spend lakhs of rupees defending yourself. It would take years and years and finally even if you win the battle you have lost precious years of your life which no one can repay you.

Indian legal system is not just an ass; it is a complete circus of asinine animals.

Vijay means Victory, the sacred adage of the Indian Army. In the history of the Indian Army, there have been three campaigns called Operation Vijay. In the first two, the Indian Army tasted total triumph with its head held high. The first one was the liberation of Goa in 1961 and the second one was Kargil War in 1999. Why is this that the Indian Army, at least those men that can still think straight and independent without recourse to undying sycophancy, has to be apologetic about the still-in-progress Operation Vijay (Kumar Singh)? To answer this question objectively, let me relate a personal experience.

Op Vijay 1961 – Liberation of Goa

In 1996, on promotion to the rank of Captain in the Indian Navy, I was selected to undergo the 25th Higher Command Course with the Army. The next Army Chief, or Army Chief designate, General Bikram Singh, was my course mate in the AHCC. During our first operational tour, we visited the Northern Sector. General KV Krishna Rao (Retd) was the Governor of Jammu & Kashmir. On the first evening of our visit to Srinagar we were invited to At-Home with His Excellency, the Governor. In the entire AHCC, there were just two Indian Navy officers. As soon as the Governor spotted me, he jokingly commented, “It appears to me that the Indian Navy has a strange way to elect a Chief”. The remark was a dig at the quaint way in which Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat’s impending succession as the Naval Chief on First of October 1996 had started a bush-fire of polemics. As Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Western Naval Command, from which post Admiral Bhagwat took over as the Chief, he was at the helm of controversies. Earlier, as Chief of Staff of the same command, he had been accused of phone-tapping of his adversaries. Later, on 30th Dec 1998, he had the dubious distinction of having been sacked by the Government of India.

As I felt somewhat regretful about the Navy chief’s succession being hotly debated in the open, little did I know that 16 years later when Bikram would be at the verge of taking over, the heat of controversies would leave the Vishnu Bhagwat episode cold in comparison.

India is not a country where the people at large are generally knowledgeable about defence matters. The dumbing down of our people caused by the relentless diatribe unleashed by the media may be a recent phenomenon; however, Indians have always liked to indulge more in rabble-rousing jingoism than proud patriotism. The attempts to bring down the armed forces to the low levels achieved by the civil administration are only matched by the arrogant ignorance about achievements of the armed forces in general and army in particular. When I visited J&K and was briefed about the incomparable way Army has conducted itself there, my belief became stronger that we have to be thankful to the Indian Army for not only peace and progress in Kashmir but also for keeping it safe as integral part of the country. Most of our countrymen are not at all au fait with the strategic sense, restraint, calm and exemplary commitment displayed by the Army under trying conditions.

How many people are aware that the Army’s strategic sense in Kashmir includes giving credit to the police and civil administration for jobs that army does for the people; eg, Op Sadhbhavna (Operation Goodwill), and safe conduct of elections.

With such general ignorance and neglect of the Army, every once in a while, someone or the other brings out how the country not only does not have a monument to honour its soldiers but most of our countrymen have no idea of what the Army does, its training, operational readiness, achievements etc.

I would say that about ten percent of the people who read the papers and watch the television are aware of the glorious accomplishments of the Indian Army. Ninety percent either are ignorant or ain’t impressed. For example, the Liberation of Bangladesh in the 1971 Indo-Pak War is being taught in the war colleges abroad as one of the finest examples of a most successful campaigns. However, not many are really aware what it entailed to fight a war in which even the political aims were not defined by the government. Many people have forgotten that in 1947-48, when called upon to do a duty that was suddenly thrust on it, the Army achieved the unsaid aims gloriously and that we are in a mess in Kashmir because the political leadership failed to follow up on Army’s Vijay.

Op Vijay – 1999 Kargil

George Fernandez as Raksha Mantri (Defence Minister) threatened to send the babus (bureaucrats) to Siachin (at an altitude of more than 20,000 feet; where the Indian Army maintains permanent presence in arguably the most inhospitable conditions in the world) to let them have a feel of what is entailed when their babudom procrastinates decisions to be taken for procuring urgently required equipment to survive at those heights.

Volumes have been written about the ever deteriorating civil-military relationship – a relationship between one of the worst in the world and one of the best in the world. Of course, the thankless nation and national leadership would like to keep the Army as a tethered puppy ready to become a mastiff with the external enemy but otherwise ready to lick the feet of the political and bureaucratic bigwigs.

In this scenario, we have the latest Operation Vijay (Kumar Singh). There is an age old precept that bad news and publicity travels much faster than good news. So, whereas in the years of hard work, dedication, commitment and achievements of the Indian Army, very few people are really appreciative of the army (I put the figure at about 10 percent of the media – watching people), now, nearly 90 percent are aware that a Chief, for “purely personal reasons” has attempted to drag the Army into needless wrangling. No one is denying that the matters of corruption and deteriorating civil-military relations need to be tackled. But, exactly how Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat’s infamous attempts to sort out these issues were an afterthought to his initial and much publicised opposition to the appointment of Vice Admiral Harnder Singh as Deputy Chief of Naval Staff; General VK Singh’s belated pursuits to sort out corruption in army procurements and remedy the worsening civil-military relations, would always be seen by his abortive attempts at upsetting the carefully laid out succession plan.

Hence, the adverse offshoots of Operation Vijay (Kumar Singh) are:

• He has made the task of his successor extremely difficult as far as relationship with the government is concerned. Without any fault of General Bikram Singh, the government and the nation would be suspicious of any move by him, if at all, to set right the balance of civil-military relations; for the simple reason that everyone involved would be assessing how the General personally gains by it.
• The good that the Army did is, as it is, known only by a few. Now, with the personal greed of the General VK Singh, what the countrymen would remember of the Indian Army would be unsavoury wranglings for power, avarice, corruption and megalomaniac ambitions.
• The impression that the rot in the Army is deep rooted is strengthened by the vituperation of the camp loyal to General VK Singh against the heretics and vice-versa. In this milieu the all important issue of setting right the balance of civil-military relations has taken – and will take – a back seat. I don’t know why this simple fact has not sunk in with the loyalists.
• Lastly, let us weigh the effect of this, and such controversies in the past, on the junior leadership of the army. The senior hierarchy often talks disparagingly about the ‘decline in values and moral standards of those who join the army nowadays as compared to the good-ol’-days‘. The junior officers and men, therefore, would be excused if now onwards they have a bias that the seniors should first set their own house in order (Read ‘Leadership in the Navy – Past, Present and Future‘) and stop washing army’s dirty linen in public. A few decades back, in the US Naval Institute Proceedings (USNIP) there was an article titled ‘The Fish Rots at the Head’

I am quite sure that after General VK Singh has taken his well-deserved retirement and finished writing his bestseller memoir regarding how there were matters of national security involved in the “purely personal” issue of his date of birth, he would pause and think about the damage his continued belligerent stand has done at various levels. This would, I am afraid, continue for some time to come.

It is easier to throw a stone in the pond; it is harder to let the ripples die down suddenly.

Horse cart winning race over motor bus Photo courtesy: fmetalsreport.com

The son of a rich landlord starts a bus service in a town that doesn’t bode well for the tongawallahs since the intention is to first drive the tongawallahs out and then to make exclusive profits from potential passengers. This is seen as injustice and unfair competition. Dilip Kumar is their hero who, much like the movie Lagaan accepts a challenge to have a race between the motorised buses and the tongas. The farce of a horse-cart beating a  machine kept people on tothe edge of their seats in the ending scenes of the movie; because, on the outcome of the race was dependent whether the tongas would be  eased out or not. In the end, despite all the hardships, the tongawallahs win. Hindi movies, with an eye on their popularity and hence profits, have always let the traditional win our modernity, uncouth win our suave, simple-minded win over the clever.

Courtesy: peta.org

Naya Daur is translated into New Period, Age, Cycle or Round. Regrettably, 55 years after the movie, Naya Dauris still not a reality both in our infrastructure as also in our collective mindset. We have the penchant to live in the past and choose archaic over modernity in the name of nostalgia; in the name of traditions and heritage.

I brought it out in ‘How Proud Should We Be of the Indian Republic at 62’ on the Republic Day last year how the Indian Republic was meant to be “the greatest political venture” in the history of the world, the greatest “social movement” to uplift millions of the poor of the world into prosperity, safety and security; and how, the politicians and bureaucrats in India failed the people completely by being self-serving. At the time of independence we chose our own version of socialism as the answer to the problems of the impoverished. It failed not because Socialism as an ideology is bad and destined to fail. It failed because the netas and babus ensured that people were kept poor and un-empowered so that the rule or misrule of the babus and netas was perpetuated. These unworthy Indians were busy filling their coffers irrespective of the party affiliations.

India needed to rapidly industrialise so as to emerge a great nation and a world power. Here, the politicians’ and bureaucrats failure to usher in rule of equality made them extract their pound of flesh from the industrialists too. Last year, courtesy Radia tapes, the unholy nexus between the politicians, bureaucrats, industrialists and media was exposed. The fall-out of this nexus is that despite economic liberalisation ushered in by Manmohan Singh, rampant corruption and inefficiency have kept the average Indian mired in poverty.

The wily Indian politician, in a bid to exploit the emotional value of the poverty of the people (just as he exploits the emotional quotient of the caste and the religion) coined a phrase called ‘pro-poor policies’. Hence, whilst he has no real palns to get the people out of the morass of extreme indigence, he politicises pro-poor stance to garner votes and vote banks. Hence, he motivates the masses to extract the maximum from the industrialists; painting them as the culprits of keeping people poor whilst he himself is the real villain.

Take the case of West Bengal’s eviction of Tata’s Nano car factory from Singur. Tata’s promised One Lakh Rupees Nano car was to roll out of their factory in Singur, Hoogly District, West Bengal in the year 2008. The state government, even though a communist government, facilitated acquisition and transfer of about 1000 acres of land for the factory. But, the opposition, under Mamata Banerjee (the present Chief Minister) started the “Save Farmland” movement and drove Tatas’ project out of West Bengal and into the state of Gujarat. Surprisingly, whilst Didi, as Mamata is affectionately called by her supporters, did it for political purposes (as soon as she came to power in West Bengal she wanted Tatas to return), there were many Bengali intellectuals (Sens and Mitras) who supported her movement.

One of such activists that the communists in the country has nurtured is Arundhati Roy. She won the 1997 Booker Prize for her novel God of Small Things. She doesn’t mind being anti-national, seditious, and anti-Indian, in speech at least, as long as the fires of her idealism are fanned and bring in crowds and cheap popularity. Not having been satisfied with her strident support to Medha Patkar, another activist who spearheaded Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA for short; a people’s movement against the Sardar Sarovar Dam on the river Narmada in Gujarat), because of which the Indian Supreme Court issued her a Contempt of Court notice; she visualised the shock value of her support for the independence of Kashmir fetching her fame and popularity as an intellectual.

With such movies and intellectual support, the poor in India got convinced that modernisation and industrialisation in the country are tools to subdue them. Upon independence, we had movies and songs on the socialist theme showing all rich people as tyrants and shameless exploiters and manipulators. In the 1962 movie Aarti, Meena Kumari sang thus:

“Bane ho ek khaak se to door kya kareeb kya,
Lahu ka rang ek hai, ameer kya gareeb kya?
Gareeb hai vo isliye ke tum ameer ho gaye,
Ke ek baadshah hua to sau fakeer ho gaye;
Khata hai ye samaaj ki, bhala bura naseeb kya?”
(All are made of same clay, who is far, who is near
Blood of same colour flows in everyone, both rich and poor.
Poor is so because you became rich,
When a king was crowned, hundreds became paupers,
It is a social evil, it is not in destiny to be Good or Evil.)

Such ‘socialism’, pro-poor policies only in name, and political activism have extracted a heavy price from our economy. It has promoted indiscipline to the extent that starting an industry in India is now fraught with not only warming the pockets of the netas and the babus but also to make peace with people, largely supported by the politicians (with their vested interests) extracting as much as they can from the rich industrialists; our own version of Robinhood.

On an offshore rig on the Andhra coast, recently, the fishermen felt that they were deprived of their traditional fishing ground and launched a demonstration to extract the maximum welfare money from the GSPC (Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation) rig. Just how the fish can be restricted to a few hundred square metres of area in the vast Bay of Bengal is not for anyone to guess. They boarded the rig with knives in a bid to extort the desired money. And who do you think spearheaded this lawlessness? The elected representatives in that are; two members of the legislative assembly.

Gujarat CM Narendra Modi during a visit to GSPC Rig (pic courtesy: deshgujarat.com)

The case of Mumbai is a fine case of this unfinished Naya Daur. The slum-dwellers are the vote-banks of the politicians who vie to make them as indisciplined as possible. In every slum-colony, there are large hoardings of the politicians as a reminded to the people that they are pro-poor and hence their guardians in everything that they do; never mind the law, rules and regulations. Therefore, every now and then the encroachments are regularised. Every now and then new promises are made. The poor do not realise that the policies of these rogues are the ones keeping them poor. But, the Indian society – at least the lower strata – has come to accept the doles that are dished out to them before elections rather than enjoying the fruits of a true democracy.

pic courtesy: ibnlive.in.com

How long will the ‘Naya Daur‘ take to materialise under these conditions?

Doesn’t it sound a little incongruous to give the charge of Porn and Morality to the same people? It is like electing a rapist to guard women’s virginity. Hence, less than a week before St Valentine’s Day, these Guardians of Porn And Morality (GPAM, like SPAM), were salivating over some “foreign” porn act whilst simultaneously ensuring that their determination to protect the Indian people against such “vulgar” and “indecent display” of love on the day of a “foreign” saint is as steadfast as their oath to do everything for the good of the people.

Courtesy: Reuter

You can have a motley of opinions. My opinion is that it is probably good for us that they were watching porn. I can illustrate this by the case of a bartender who was offering free drinks to everyone in the bar. When asked as to what was the game, he replied with determination similar to that of GPAM, “I am doing to the bar what the bar owner is doing to my wife upstairs.” I don’t know what the debate in the assembly and what was the bill to be passed; but, such horny MLAs (Members of the Lecherous Assembly) could have actually sc***ed the people if they hadn’t been watching sc***y acts on their phone. If you follow my reasoning, we should demand that watching porn should be made compulsory for Members of Lecherous Assembly and Members of Pornography (MPs). This would keep them from passing laws that sc*** the daylights out of us.

Indeed, now one knows as to why they have been asking for laptops for every member of parliament and assembly. Firstly, the words (and not single word) lap top must be doing wonders to the libido of these not-so-gentle-men. Then, the lap top certainly would provide bigger images with greater clarity of the intricate scenes. You can also understand the flaming hurry to usher in 2G and 3G so that live action can be streamed to them.

Most people, I am sure, have found nothing out of place about three Lechers watching porn in the assembly. With declining standards of our public morality, such things are only to be expected. When a septuagenarian Governor can be found naked with young girls in his official residence, why not young hornies in the assembly? I think what is being rued is not that. What is being rued is the double-standards maintained by the GPAM.

Courtesy: articles.thetimesofindia.indiatimes.com

A few years back I acted in and directed a play called ’30 Days in September’ for a purely Navy audience. When I read Mahesh Dattani’s play, I was taken in by the intensity of the storyline and scenes created by him (he is a really accomplished playwright with a movie ‘Morning Raga’ starring, amongst others, Shabana Azmi and Perizad Zorabian, to his credit.  The play was about incest: my initial reaction was that services audiences more comfortable with humour, comedy, mystery and suspense may not like a play about incest (I played the bad guy Vinay). However, we received a standing ovation. The remarkable thing about the play was the ease with which the playwright brought out the double standards displayed by the bad man both as a maternal uncle and finally – in a shocking denouement – as a brother.

The author as Vinay in ’30 Days in September’

Whilst researching the subject, I found that the incidence of incest in India is very high. The then Minister of Women’s Affairs and Child Welfare, Renuka Chaudhary, gave out the government-researched figures and brought out that about 49 percent children in our country are victims of incest and child abuse. The most appalling fact given in the report was that even young boys are not safe.

We have a recent nauseating judgment in the case of a 10 month old having been raped by her neighbour Ramkishan Harijan and the reason that the Bombay High Court gave him lesser punishment was because of taking cognisance of the Counsel for Defense’s plea that ‘the rapist was poor, father of two, living alone, away from his native place and therefore probably lost control over himself’. Disgusting, to say the least.

Courtesy: examiner.com

Then we had a Minister in Goa Assembly who inferred that “women deserved to be raped because of wearing provocative clothes”. India and especially the national capital is now amongst the unsafest countries for women.

So, to conclude the deception of double standards, do we let the GPAM make laws on morality and do nothing about their own? Do you think that the children wouldn’t have read the news and seen the pics (you can’t ban the children from reading newspapers, can you?). Do we conclude that the foreign culture of celebrating such “depraved” days as St Valentine’s Day is responsible for the wide-spread degradation in our public morality? Haven’t we become a nation that is always in search of some foreign thing or the other for our general rot of values; something similar to Indira Gandhi’s “foreign hand“?

Like in the case of Mary Magdalene, I don’t know who will and should chuck the first stone? Certainly not GPAM.

Lets have some honest soul-searching and opinions.

The Numbers Game is ingrained in our systems. Do you remember the time when we used to put show ‘Stamp Collection’ as a hobby? When you had collected about ten thousand of them you could join the real league irrespective of whether you had any rare ones or not. However, despite the numbers, the rare ones actually mattered; a small minority knew its worth. But, then came the modern times and the Social Media; the Numbers Game became the raison d’etre’ of all of us. A few decades back Prannoy Roy came on the television and proved that a certain small swing of, say, 2.45 percent, made a party, say Congress, come to power (I have already explained what ‘power‘ means). I have explained elsewhere that the government in power enjoys as little as 9 percent of the electorate’s votes (Read my post: How Proud Should We Be Of The Indian Republic at 62?). Hence this swing of 2.45 percent, say, does matter a lot.

Courtesy: Jack Rabbit

On the Social Media, one enjoys power by accumulating larger number of friends, followers, likes, comments, shares. This Numbers Game is some sort of a race. TV channels nowadays routinely Break News (Read my Breaking News – Indian Style); for them TRPs is a pure Numbers Game and they would go to any extent to get those numbers right. My friend Hans Sunny from Atlanta, USA is an unparalleled wit I have discovered. However, he recently complained that in comparison to what he puts up, certain girls have to just put up something inane such as ‘Took a bus ride after a long time today’ and they would be assured of at least five dozens likes and three dozens comments. I hadn’t observed it but when I did I found his observation as true as his wit. What could be the reason? Could it be that women were called weaker sex and not heard of earlier but now, in a generational reversal of roles, anything they say is more intelligent, wittier, classier, more unique and spicier? Don’t believe me? Well, how do you account for a certain Madrasan, Raag Shahana and all that, taking the country by storm with her views on Delhi boys in an open letter (Voyeurism of An Open Letter Versus Sane Thoughts)?

For the bloggers community there is a forum in India called IndiBlogger. All its criteria for judging good writing is based on nothing but numbers; and they claim it is fully automated. A post for this forum is an ‘auto detection’ of a blog’s RSS feed; you could write a stanza of four lines and you can write volumes, both are just one post. There are any number of so called Prolific Writers totally adept at this Numbers Game; whose frequency of posting is ‘Excellent’ or ‘Very Good’. IndiBlogger also tells you that one’s Indiblogger Ranking (In addition to Alexa traffic ranking, Moz rank and incoming links) is also dependent upon a ‘Secret Ingredient’ (or “funky stuff that he would like to keep secret“). It doesn’t require knowledge of Rocket Science to know that the so called ‘Secret Ingredient’ is the RSS feed of comments on one’s post; the more the comments, the better the writing. Indeed, on a sub forum called ‘IndiVine’ one is made to believe that if only seven people have voted for you and about 140 have voted for another, the writing of the latter is 20 times better.

Curiously, many people who vote on other people’s posts, in quid pro quo, either leave the URL of their own post in the comments or brazenly demand of the others to vote for them in return (“You scratch my back after I scratch yours“)

Popularity contests are alright as long as we remember that popularity contests often don’t reflect attributes other than those that appeal to masses. Some great Hindi songs such as ‘Mere Mehboob’ never made it to top of the charts in Binaca Geetmala but we still call them the greatest of the oldies. As Lalu Prasad Yadav said when a prima facie case was established against him in ‘fodder scam’, “Iska faisla to janata ki adalat karegi” (This will now be decided in people’s court), knowing well that people in majority are fickle and can be easily swayed.

Courtesy: Anglo Indian Portal

Until we re-establish ourselves as a society where quality matters, the Numbers Game assures the success of such jamborees as reality shows; the person who gets the most votes is the best singer, most accomplished writer, best actor, best poet and best everything. We blind ourselves to The Pitfalls Of Majority Rule.

India is the world’s second most populous country. Do we win the most medals in Olympics? Do we have the best ideas that change the world? Is our cricket team, a product of the richest (because more people pay to watch matches and ads) cricket council in the world always the topper; quite the reverse.

I wonder what would be the Moz rank and Alexa traffic ranking of Tagore’s writings in comparison to ‘Choli ke peechhe kya hai’.