tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83232102024-03-08T03:33:43.625+05:30M.J. Akbar - The Sunday Guardian M.J. Akbar's Blog :Editorial Director of The Sunday Guardian, published from Delhi, India on Sunday, published from London.M J Akbarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372493873446290094noreply@blogger.comBlogger678125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8323210.post-9221369844473196392013-08-25T11:12:00.002+05:302013-08-25T11:12:52.598+05:30Still caught between cliché and spasm<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 5.25pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 14.7pt;">The Congress formula for Indian
Muslims is rooted in colonial legacy: divide and rule. The BJP approach has
been shaped by rage at partition: avoid and rule. All Muslims want from both
claimants to national power is provide and rule; not because they are Muslims
but because they are largely poor.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 14.7pt; margin: 10.5pt 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Poverty was the prevailing story when India became independent. It
cut across other fault lines: there was a morbid equality of poverty. More than
six decades of uneven growth later, we have the inequality of partial success.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 14.7pt; margin: 10.5pt 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Neither the Congress nor the BJP prescription is sustainable , but
in the short run Congress gains from cynicism have been so spectacular that it
has stopped thinking outside its established clichés . The BJP thinks in
spasms, if it thinks at all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 14.7pt; margin: 10.5pt 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Congress squeezed into space created by the psychological bounce
of a traumatic history. After dramatic initial resistance to British
colonialism, Muslim elites bought into separatism with a vengeance,
particularly when they realized that the tactics of division could perpetuate
their privileges within a slice of geography. Battered by defeat in the battle
for Pakistan, Congress capitulated intellectually and tweaked the slogan, after
1947, from division to isolation. It concluded that the quickest route to the
Muslim vote was through accommodation with the extreme rather than dialogue
with the broad Muslim centre. In the 1940s partition became the fashionable
ideology of the landed gentry and middle class in north India. When they left
for Pakistan the vacancy was filled by suddenly empowered clerics who,
unsurprisingly, stressed faith over economics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 14.7pt; margin: 10.5pt 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">This kept both clerics and community poor, but the atmospherics
were rich in tokenism. A normal relationship with Muslim voters would have kept
the balance of debate along jobs and revival. This bargain with the extreme
suited Congress perfectly. There were not too many jobs on offer in the first
phase of our development. The upper castes got the chunk of the initial bite;
the second surge went to 'Backward Castes' who had mobilized under different
banners but displayed common economic purpose. The Muslims got false promises
and high drama, hyped with high-voltage simulation of a "Hindu
backlash" . Such a backlash never came because it never existed. But fear
was the electoral key: if Muslims could be driven into a polling booth on the
basis of fear, why waste jobs on them?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 14.7pt; margin: 10.5pt 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">In the absence of economic security, Muslims were fobbed off with
security of faith. This was essentially meaningless, as it is the Constitution
which guarantees religious freedom, not any political party. The narrative of
violence was edited as required: Gujarat's riots continue their refrain, but
Assam , where the violence drove hundreds of thousands of Muslims into
near-permanent refugee camps, is excised from attention; and the horrors of
Mumbai in 1993 erased from memory despite the fact that no action has been
taken on the subsequent enquiry committee report.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 14.7pt; margin: 10.5pt 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">BJP and Muslims lived on the same street, but walked on opposite
pavements without a zebra crossing. They did not speak the same language.
Attempts at conciliation, let alone reconciliation, were rare. The BJP had
little to say, and Muslims did not want to hear that little. Even when the
BJP's liberal icon Atal Behari Vajpayee tried to reach out when he contested
from Lucknow, he was spurned. There is little point discussing whether Muslims
will vote for the BJP if Narendra Modi is named its candidate for prime
minister. Will they vote for BJP if he is not?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 14.7pt; margin: 10.5pt 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Every election registers some flicker of change on the barometer.
In the Congress case, the chicken came before the egg and produced a farmful of
votes. With the BJP, the egg must come before the chicken. This egg has to be
fertilized in the mind. In this important therefore that the most significant
statement of the campaign so far was Narendra Modi's remark that the only
religion of a politician must be the Constitution of India. This may be only
the opening line of a chapter yet to be written, but it is already a huge
variant on conventional perception. The themes of that chapter must be
employment, education and political equity, for they are the true antidote to
any community's impoverisation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 14.7pt; margin: 10.5pt 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Onions, like the Constitution of India, have no religion either .
It is bizarre to believe that an impoverished people will continue to support,
en masse, a catastrophic government that has taken food off their plate and
looted the nation with a creativity that should win the highest awards. Over
the last decade, particularly at the state level, Muslim voters have displayed
sophisticated tactical finesse: note the Assembly results in UP, Bihar and
Bengal. They want jobs, and a better life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 14.7pt; margin: 10.5pt 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">The most efficient form of economic growth comes when a country
can maximise development across all its demographic segments. Everyone will not
pull equally, but everyone must pull. Half of India is still underperforming.
Raise its wealth and walk into high double digit growth. Economics is not
complicated once the human being gets more attention than statistics. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
</div>
M J Akbarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372493873446290094noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8323210.post-48374581180939047882013-08-24T13:46:00.000+05:302013-08-24T13:46:01.630+05:30Welcome to the Indian animal farm<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr">
<span lang="EN-GB"> </span>Who says no one listens to Dr Manmohan Singh? The animals do. Ever since the Prime Minister of India ordered Indians to release their animal instincts, the bears have started a carnival on Dalal Street.<br />
<span lang="EN-GB">Maybe the instructions of our first economist-PM got mislaid in translation. He surely wanted bulls to march across Mumbai, conquering every stock exchange in an exhilarating stampede. Instead, horrible little bears arose from long hibernation, and turned into a wrecking crew that has left the economy gasping and government choked. In the meantime, picking up on another variation of the animal theme, the Indian rupee has turned into a truant chimpanzee, sliding down with pathetic glee and jumping up with an occasional wheeze, but quite certain that its destination is downhill.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB">If the great Indian animal farm of 2013 seems out of control, it is because the keepers have lost the map as well as the plot. The economy is only one casualty of self-generated mayhem. The political stability of India is equally a shambles.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-GB">The recent behaviour of the UPA government has been utterly bizarre. Congress might lose the plot, as it has done before, but it has enough experience in its DNA to manage a Parliament session. The current session is an object lesson in suicide. As seasoned a politician as Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath gives the impression of being either a fool or a zombie; and since his track record proves that he is not silly, then he is under clear instructions to act like a robot.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-GB">Preparations for any session of Parliament rest on a basic principle: get your priorities right. The UPA’s declared priority was the Food Security Bill. They had even set a date for full rollout: 20 August, the late Rajiv Gandhi’s birthday. The rest was actually quite simple. All that government had to ensure was that atmospherics were under control when the session opened, so that the bill could go through in the first week. The Opposition was trapped. It could not say no, but was unwilling to say yes, for both fiscal and political reasons. It was the perfect environment for government to sail through, putting some ballast in its wings as it did so.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB">Instead, UPA, led by Mrs Sonia Gandhi and her faithful lieutenant Digvijaya Singh, for reasons that elude the comprehension of common sense, decided to kick up a massive storm over Telangana. Inevitably, dust from this storm blinded the monsoon session. Telangana has been on the anvil for four years; would another four weeks have mattered? In fact, the Prime Minister could have made the announcement on the floor of the House after the passage of food security; and if the rest of the session was washed out at the least this bill would have been home, high and dry.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-GB">Here is a little more to perplex you. Why did government suddenly abandon its opaque tactics of evasion and fudge over the missing coal scam files in the middle of the session? These “missing” files first came to public attention when last May CBI director Ranjit Sinha said publicly that he could not pursue investigations because he had not received them. We all know why. Government is in deep trouble over this colossal corruption. Its star industrialists in Parliament, like Naveen Jindal and Vijay Darda, are involved. There is nothing mysterious about the fact that files pertaining to these two are among those missing. It seems to be a case of theft compounded by abetment. A few more chunks of evasion would not have made absolution easier in the eyes of God, if God has time for Indian corruption anymore.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-GB">Moreover, in terms of purely Parliamentary tactics, if the Prime Minister was going to make a statement on the files, which was the Opposition’s demand, and which he was obliged to do as minister in charge of coal mines at the relevant time, why did he not make this statement on the very first day? Why did he have to wait a week to promise to do so, and thereby erase one-fourth of the session from the agenda? This makes no sense. It is not the Opposition that has delayed the Food Security Bill, however much it may have wanted to, but the government. The reason? Inexplicable. The worst damage is done by incompetence, not evil intent.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB">All careers, they say, end in futility — but only if you do not know when to quit. Dr Singh will understand this analogy, since he likes America and American businessmen. The share price of Microsoft just went up 7% after its chief executive officer, Steve Ballmer, announced he was leaving. Ballmer was once a hero of Micrsoft, and an astonishing videotape shows him bouncing across the stage at a company gathering, making cowboy noises, in the days when he took the job as an untarnished superstar.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-GB">How much will the share price of India rise when the government of Dr Manmohan Singh quits?</span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
M J Akbarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372493873446290094noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8323210.post-24445597553096218552013-08-18T12:09:00.002+05:302013-08-18T12:09:29.666+05:30Reboot or rewind to 1963<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 5.25pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 22.5pt;">Reboot or
rewind to 1963<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 5.25pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 22.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">It is distressing to note
that India, which gave mathematics the noble concept of zero, should have
missed the chance to offer history a perfect numerical symmetry. If a dollar
was worth one rupee in 1947, then 66 years later poetic justice suggests it should
be worth 66 rupees instead of a tawdry variable between 61 or 62. A rupee a
year is a lyrical measure of decline. A few rupees more, and the Indian economy
could have become such a sing-along nursery rhyme.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Satire is the thin
wedge that separates fear from panic. Indian businessmen are not yet
panic-stricken, but they are edging towards the zone of fear. As haemorrhaging
international confidence in India weakens fund inflows, they know we cannot
easily defend a rupee under siege. The statistics are chilling. Debt in the
current fiscal is running at $172 billion. The Reserve Bank has foreign
exchange for just seven months’ imports, which would have been manageable if
the bleed was not moving from drip to gush. There is deep worry that vacuous
governance and an unstable political environment will lead us to the door of
the IMF in Washington, a large begging bowl in hand. Instead of answers, the
UPA government is offering alibis, some of them so lame they seem struck with
polio at birth. India has become the worst story in the BRIC club.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">A robust economy,
which is what India had become, does not wither because it has been suddenly
hit by lightning; it enters a coma, limb by limb. This UPA administration
believed that it could buy time with illusion, or by passing the blame to
external factors or home-grown socialists. Last year, it even tried to
scapegoat former finance minister Pranab Mukherjee after he moved upstairs to
the President’s palace, and P Chidambaram was given the finance portfolio.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">A sudden flurry of
stories appeared— foreign correspondents seemed particularly gullible —
suggesting that Chidambaram would, with a wizard’s touch, strengthen the rupee,
slash the energy bill, reduce the deficit, pump up industrial production and
tame inflation. Tell that to the onions in 2013.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Those at the rough
end of inflation, the poor, are tired of excuses. They look at a nourishing
monsoon and wonder why, as they head to the vegetable market, prices go up when
there is drought, and rise further when there is rain. This is their
translation of a government’s economic record. In 2005 a still buoyant Dr
Manmohan Singh promised the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort that
poverty and ignorance (the term he used was jehalat) would end in 10 years. His
plaintive admission, in this year’s Independence speech, that there was still a
long way to go, is bitter testament to a failed decade.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">The only culprit
that the government can find is gold. Gold is the minor luxury that a confident
economy purchases for its middle class. The cost of gold imports has become a
problem only because the economy has imploded.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Analogy comes
easily in conversation. Those with a reasonable memory have begun to worry
about a return to 1991, when we sent our national gold reserves to London as
collateral for foreign exchange. If we are not careful we might be staring at
1963, when finance minister Morarji Desai imposed gold control to save foreign
exchange. Desai, and a much-weakened prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, could
issue orders and change laws but they could not thwart the Indian’s appetite
for gold, even when he was in a much more abstemious mood half a century ago.
All that happened in the 1960s was that the consumer turned to smugglers. From
this emerged underworld icons like Haji Mastan, Kareem Lala and their heir,
Dawood Ibrahim. India has paid a heavy price, including the whiplash of
terrorism.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">When a nation’s
confidence is undermined, adversaries abroad pounce to take advantage, and
uncertainty within encourages social tensions. In the 1960s we were tested by
both China and Pakistan; today Pakistan ambushes an Indian army patrol, kills
five jawans and passes a resolution in its parliament condemning Indian
aggression. We will not, thank heaven, return to the sixties. India is much
stronger now, and there is only so much harm that an indecisive government can
inflict upon a nation’s ability. All governments in a democracy are temporary.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Equally, the
optimism that we had begun to take for granted, perhaps out of complacency, has
been derailed. The challenge of 2014 is not going to be winning an election,
but restoring the economy to health and vigour. A nation is only as strong as
its economy. There is no magic wand as we enter our 67th year. There was no
wand in 1991 either. We recovered because we needed the shock to come to our
senses. It is time for a radical reboot once again.</span></span></div>
</div>
M J Akbarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372493873446290094noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8323210.post-61938182547037482112013-08-17T13:29:00.003+05:302013-08-17T13:29:48.466+05:30The media menu of a last supper<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The media menu of a last supper</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Newspapers are owned and published by rich
men. Rich men all belong to the same club. Sure, there’s competition — hard,
tough competition for circulation, for newsbeats, for exclusive stories. Just
so long as it doesn’t damage the prestige and privilege and position of the
owners. If it does, down comes the lid.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">This is not from any book of quotations.
But it does suggest that truth finds a better home in fiction than anthology.
The author is Raymond Chandler, an authentic master of modern fiction who
created the shabby and sharp private detective Philip Marlowe. Marlowe — and
Chandler — lived amid the shadows that enveloped wealth and crime in mid-20th
century Los Angeles; they knew that the difference was marginal and the price
was high if you talked too much. Marlowe talked too much. He did something even
more risky. He spoke the truth.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Newspapers in his time made the rich richer
with their explosive mix of political influence and advertising monopoly. A
British Prime Minister of the 1930s famously charged newspapers with enjoying
the privilege of a harlot, exercising power without responsibility. But this
was a self-serving taunt. Media barons can give Prime Ministers advice from a
pillow, but it is Prime Ministers who let them into the bedroom. Be that as it
may, money has always chased power through media, and every democracy has
provided this incestuous opportunity.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Transition destabilises any industry, and
this is happening with newspapers. At least some of the rich are becoming
poorer, thanks to newspapers they own. The most dramatic illustration has been
the sale of the <i>Washington Post</i> by
the Graham family to Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon. This transfer does not
suggest, as many have moaned, that news is going out of business; at worst, it
could suggest that paper is going out of business. Bezos bought the <i>Post</i> with spare change in a forgotten
trouser pocket, but he rose from denim to riches through the information trade.
Newspapers will be reshaped, as they should be from time to time, but this does
not change the fundamental need for an information carrier. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It is a car with two drivers. Owners step
into journalist space through a conundrum called “publisher”. Editors comfort
themselves with the romance of independence, and perhaps there is the
occasional powerful personality who dominates a newsroom at the expense of the
shareholder. But that is the exception. Editorial decisions are a shared
enterprise. The <i>Washington Post</i>
became an indelible chapter in media history when its series of reports,
familiar to us as the Watergate exposé, brought down Richard Nixon just after
he had won a landslide endorsement from the people. But the decision to run the
investigation was made as much by Katherine Graham, the owner, as by Ben
Bradlee, the editor.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Bezos is a wise chap. He has appointed Bob
Woodward, one of the stars of Watergate, as managing editor. The key to media
does not lie in ownership, but in credibility. Without credibility, a newspaper
is just wrapping for fish and chips if not a rag for rubbish. Credibility makes
journalists indispensable to publishers.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Are publishers indispensable to
journalists? Yes. Journalists may be know-alls, but the one thing they do not
know is how to run a business. The newspaper industry is also an industry. It
is not an accident that owners of an old Indian media conglomerate like <i>Times of India</i> and a new one like Zee
have a very healthy respect for profits. They understand what journalists
should acknowledge, that a newspaper or television channel cannot stand up
against any government without a healthy bottom line. They do not have to look
over their shoulder if they want to break stories at the cost of a ruling
family’s displeasure.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">A media house fails when it forgets that
both credibility and cash flow are important. The list of Indian media
companies who have forgotten this basic rule is long and growing. Behind very
thin curtains, big names are crumbling. The cost of plaster being applied to
disguise this collapse is the transfer of shares and control. We will not find
out the full truth till the end arrives, suddenly, and not without a residual
whiff of bitterness, as in the case of the <i>Washington
Post</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">But media will survive, whether in America
or India, even if owners do not. Information is not an aggregate of everything
on the highway. It is a cull of that which is relevant. Of course, there are
interests, as the cynic Raymond Chandler noted, with his usual caustic
flourish. But even the super rich cannot hold on to these laser scalpels called
newspapers if they do not understand that while their personal interests may
occasionally dent the integrity of a product, they should never damage it.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">A good newspaper proprietor feeds the goose
that lays golden eggs. He does not put it on the menu of a last supper.</span></div>
</div>
M J Akbarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372493873446290094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8323210.post-9815015823261819012013-08-11T20:01:00.003+05:302013-08-11T20:01:34.005+05:30After Pak priacy, an Indian conspiracy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">After Pak priacy, an Indian conspiracy</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">There is no reason why defence minister
A.K. Antony should apologise. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">A jury is often asked to distinguish
between a mistake and a crime. The first is unconscious, the second deliberate.
A lapse may be condoned by apology. Crime demands punishment. Antony did not
make a mistake when, on the floor of Parliament, he crafted a loophole through
which the Pakistan army could escape responsibility after having killed, with
the help of around twenty terrorists, five Indian soldiers. Antony consciously
subverted the Indian army’s official account, based on battlefield
evidence, to help the killers. This is a political crime, all the more heinous
for having been committed by a defence minister. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Antony must resign.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">The Opposition has made the wrong
demand in Parliament, and not for the first time either.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Antony was not alone; his statement was
fashioned in the alibi room of the UPA government, drafted in collusion with
the external affairs ministry and in collaboration with the Prime Minister’s
Office. That is how policy towards Pakistan is knitted. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Antony was the voice of an Indian
government conspiracy to exonerate the piracy of the Pakistan army. The cost
will take time to count. First: five dead Indian soldiers, banished into
the oblivion of hypocritical phrases which are this government’s version of a
martyr’s farewell. Second: the morale of Indian troops on this vicious border,
who must be wondering what the value of their lives is. Third: the
humiliation of officers who reported what happened in a war zone. Fourth: the
implications of a government policy that capitulates in the face of fire. The
list can continue.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Questions will not go away merely
because the UPA government is struggling to hide behind a veil. Who are
the bureaucrats and ministers involved in sabotage and deflection of
pinpoint accusation? The Indian army spokesman was unequivocal. He blamed
the Border Action Team of the Pak frontier forces, working in conjunction with
around 20 terrorists. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Antony’s significant variation, in
which Pak soldiers recognised as such by Indian troops at the time of ambush
were turned into the more ambiguous “persons dressed in Pak army uniform”, was
too clever by half. The simplest cross-examination destroys such artifice. If
none of them were Pak soldiers, as Antony implies, why should only some of them
be “dressed in Pak army uniform”? Why not all, or none? </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">In the absence of explanation one can
only surmise that Antony, on behalf of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, was
trying to find wriggle room for his still-fresh Pakistani counterpart Nawaz
Sharif so that nothing vitiates their proposed dialogue in New York this
September. Despite nearly a decade of earnest desire and one-way concessions,
Dr Singh has not been able to achieve a summit meeting in Islamabad but that
has not prevented him from engaging personally with Pakistan leaders wherever
else in the world he can find them. If, in the process, the truth about blood
must be watered, so be it.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">The Pak army is not famous for asking
Nawaz Sharif’s permission whenever it feels the moment is right to murder a few
Indians: even if Delhi is undone by amnesia, surely Sharif remembers Kargil.
But note the difference. Privately, Nawaz Sharif is probably certain that the
Pak army denial is a load of rubbish. But he has supported this denial in
order to protect his army. Antony has subverted Indian forces to protect
Pakistan. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Dr Singh, who continues to overflow
with good intentions, should ask himself why precisely his search for peace
with Pakistan has run aground repeatedly. The two civilian governments he has
dealt with have been led by Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif, men who genuinely
wanted better relations with India. Sharif even put peace in his election
manifesto, so he has the strength of popular endorsement.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">The problem is not the Pakistani state.
The blockade comes from a shadow superstate that has ideological claims over
Pakistan, and seeks permanent war with India as its destiny. The state tried
formal war till 1965, before it was totally trumped in 1971. Since then, parts
of the state have worked in collusion with terrorists who spearhead the warrior
philosophy. Some Pak leaders, elected or not, have played a double game.
Others, and one includes Zardari and Sharif in this category, have been more
sincere. But their good will has not been good enough to sustain even one
legitimate step towards any form of settlement. The more relevant fact is that
when a Sharif does make a gesture, he is publicly warned by a proclaimed
engineer of terrorism like Hafiz Saeed to stop, or face consequences. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Powerful elements of the Pak armed
forces take their salary from the state, but give their loyalty to the superstate.
This alliance talks in gun-bursts, and laughs at appeasement. Since Antony
cannot understand either their language or laughter, he should find another
job.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
M J Akbarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372493873446290094noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8323210.post-91358278558658571552013-08-10T16:51:00.004+05:302013-08-10T16:51:34.610+05:30The evidence of humour<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;">The evidence of
humour</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The fulcrum of a
tipping point in public life is that mortal enemy of a politician: humour. A
joke might not destroy reputation quite as effectively as a corruption scandal,
but it deflates credibility. Through his long career Defence Minister A.K.
Antony has been wise enough never to get tempted by a wisecrack; wit is not his
forte. He might therefore be a little bewildered by the artillery fire of jokes
after his disastrous mismanagement of the border incident in which five Indian
soldiers lost their lives. Such humour has a memory. The voter will remember “Pakistan
has two deadly weapons: AK-47 and A.K. Antony”.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">If it is any
consolation to Antony, jokes about Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Mrs Sonia
Gandhi are far more harsh. As we leap-frog our way towards another general
election, Congress might discover that its biggest problem is ridicule.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It does not matter
now when the next general election is held. We are in the last chapter of a
drama that has gone on too long. The life of this government is over; dreaming
of resurrection on a deathbed is a waste of time. For most of this term, policy
was lost in a swamp. Now, decisions are made to serve as slogans.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">If Congress had
truly believed in Telangana, it would have completed the process three years
ago, used this time to absorb reaction and respond by showcasing the practical
merits of its decision. An announcement now is mercenary: to milk the
environment for what votes it can bring, and postpone ensuing problems. The
timing is determined not by advantage to the people but by thoughts of benefit
to the party.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">But politics is
not a parlour game, even when the parlour is as charming as one in a spacious
Delhi bungalow. All that Telangana has managed to achieve so far is to split
the Congress, spur rage on the Andhra street, and provide more fodder to
separatist banners. The dispute over Telangana has generated a dispute over
Hyderabad. The second can become as chronic as the first. What was intended as
a win-win situation could become a lose-lose scenario.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Likewise, nothing
stopped UPA from passing food security legislation in the first six months of
its second term, rather than the last six months, except fear that
implementation would expose inadequacies of the project. Congress spin-masters
still believe that this will help revive a formula that was brilliantly
effective in a year when most of the present electorate was not born: 1971. Mrs
Indira Gandhi won a tremendous victory that year with a simple proposition: <i>Woh kehte hain Indira hatao, main kehti hoon
garibi hatao</i> [They (meaning those opposed to her) say remove Indira, I say
remove poverty].</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">A promise is only
as good as the worth of its trust. In 1971, Mrs Indira Gandhi was not enveloped
by the odour of corruption, including within her own family. The poor believed
that she would usher in an Indian version of socialism that would end their
misery. No one laughed at Mrs Indira Gandhi, or indeed her defence minister,
except at his own peril. There are other reasons for scepticism. Congress has
been in power for three of the four decades since 1971, in sustained spells
rather than the sporadic bursts of V.P. Singh, Chandrashekhar, Deve Gowda or
Inder Gujral. Indira Gandhi’s promise is still a dream.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Every election is
another gate towards the future, not a backdoor to the past. We must solve
inherited problems, of course, the most important of which is surely poverty.
But this needs an economic programme that takes change forward in quantum
leaps, not throwaway sops. In 2009, UPA won handsome endorsement because voters
believed that if it got five more years, it would create a new India. Five
years have passed. We are staring instead at a very old India, one we imagined
we had shed in the folds of the past, weighed down with cynicism, its middle
class ill with angst rather than alive with the vibrant optimism that was the
story of the first decade of this century.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The dark side of
today’s political satire is the evil of corruption. There is a school within
the ruling establishment selling the theory that corruption as an election
issue has been deflected. This is delusion. The voter is not going to be
finessed by the argument that all politicians are corrupt, and so theft of the
present lot should be condoned. A jury can punish only the person in the dock,
and the present government is on trial in the next electoral court.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Jokes are the
evidence and the argument in this trial; the voter is both lawyer and judge in
the court of the people. But there is some good news for those on trial. The
maximum sentence is just five years in wilderness. The next five years will
pass as quickly as the last five.</span></div>
</div>
M J Akbarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372493873446290094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8323210.post-81330694720803607622013-08-09T12:42:00.003+05:302013-08-09T12:42:46.987+05:30EID MUBARAK<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
WISHING YOU THE BLESSINGS OF RAMZAN AND THE UNIVERSAL JOY OF EID.<br />
EID AAPKO BAHUT MUBARAK HO!</div>
M J Akbarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372493873446290094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8323210.post-70478971573661397882013-08-04T14:25:00.001+05:302013-08-04T14:25:29.934+05:30For every Telangana, a dozen seeds are being fertilized<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 13.25pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 14pt;">For every Telangana, a dozen seeds are
being fertilized<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">The relationship between
change and economic growth is often logical, but can occasionally lapse into
paradox. The history of revolutions suggests that radical change is more likely
to emerge from economic collapse, which is common sense. The Russian Marxist
theorist Leon Trotsky, who had the gift of rephrasing common sense in an
uncommon manner without sacrificing logic to phraseology, noted that people did
not change governments, and consequently their own lives, when they had found
an alternative; they did so when they were fed up. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Nearly a century
after the Russian Revolution, change has expanded its contours. In some parts
of the post-colonial world, a sharp rise in resource wealth and government
spending has not followed conventional wisdom and led to societies fashioned
around the western-liberal-democratic template. Instead, such governments often
use corrosive ideas to incubate deeper levels of conservatism through a
state-financed propaganda narrative. They encourage their people to sink into
identities that seem stagnant and immutable, abetted by a school curriculum
that indoctrinates generations. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">India has had a
radically different experience. One remains uncertain about whether this is due
to the impact of democracy upon India, or India upon democracy. History’s jury
could deliver a verdict either way, and the judgement will be hotly debated.
But one thing is clear. In its search for change India has opted for
insurrection as its primary instrument, rather than revolution. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">A revolution does not
pause once begun, even during its phases of retreat in the course of a long
struggle. An insurrection builds momentum in bursts, and ebbs from the surface
during fallow spells. This can easily mislead an establishment, which quickly
tends to believe that it has either managed to defeat or purchase a passing
upsurge. But such ash is not dead. Its spirit smoulders, waiting for the moment
to resurrect. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Insurrection is
perfectly suited to the practicals of democracy, whose inbuilt valves release
intense pressure — most notably in an election, and also outside the electoral
structure as well. The challenge of an Anna Hazare, therefore, cannot be
banished into the doleful exile of yesterday’s headlines. It will find a place
in the events of tomorrow, not merely in crucial votes picked up by the Aam
Aadmi Party in the tiny enclave called New Delhi, but also in the nationwide
anger against outrageous corruption. Similarly, the demand for Telangana can
burst and wither over six decades, and then suddenly get traction in politics. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">The strength of
democratic insurrection lies not in the commitment of politicians, who can be
easily diverted by the promise of co-option, and its complementary rewards of
hard cash, but in the fact that it is people-driven. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Gandhi, being a
Mahatma, was the only Indian leader who could straddle the chasm between
revolution and insurrection. That was because he kept them on a parallel
course, with different objectives. He offered a revolutionary prescription for
social ills, in particular the malpractice of religion, but understood that the
cure would take time far beyond the limitations of his own life. His politics,
driven by the need to remove foreign rule, was the sum total of three
insurrections, each separated by a decade: non-cooperation between 1920 and
1922; the brief Salt Satyagraha ten years later; and then the final push that
began in 1942, the Quit India movement. He moved forward in quantum leaps, but
realized that the Indian people should be prevented from over-reach, leaving
his followers perplexed and opponents mystified. His politics achieved supreme
success; his revolution demanded supreme sacrifice. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">We have abandoned
ideology, Gandhian or Communist, but political insurrection is the ghost that
will not be interred. Decisions such as the creation of Telangana need the
framework of composite control, or they can degenerate into nihilism. For every
Telangana that emerges, a dozen seeds are being fertilized in the womb of time.
It is not easy to lecture Gorkhas in Darjeeling that they do not deserve what
the old domains of the Nizam of Hyderabad have got. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Troubled spirits in
our tribal regions, led by quasi-Maoists, believe that geography is only
another illusion encouraged by a rapacious ruling class. They want to shatter
the economic needlework of our democratic system. Facile answers do not work,
and even they do not seem to be on offer. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">The greatest irony
of contemporary India is that something did work in Andhra Pradesh. Y S
Rajashekhar Reddy, a Congress chief minister, was able to eliminate the
substantial threat of the country’s oldest Communist insurrection, and where
else but in Telangana itself. In the process, he also marginalized the demand
for a separate state. Within four years of Reddy’s death, appalling administration
has undone Reddy’s finest achievement. He healed wounds that had become
chronic. There was a cure in the clinic of a Dr Reddy. But in the workshop of a
Dr Frankenstein, problems have again begun to magnify in the waiting room.</span></span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
M J Akbarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372493873446290094noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8323210.post-48310576806582072342013-08-03T13:26:00.003+05:302013-08-03T13:26:30.269+05:30And the nominee for Best Hasty Pudding is....<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">And the nominee for
Best Hasty Pudding is....</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;">Every industry
must be permitted the luxury of self-congratulation, particularly if no one
else is too eager to do the honours. The foundations of this modern excess were
laid in the little town of Hollywood, created in the late 19th century by an
eccentric millionaire determined to nurture the ideals of abstinence. Look
where good intentions got us.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">When Hollywood
grew up and rewarded itself with stars, sex and alcohol, it realised the need
for some symbol of recognition for its art form. Ergo, the Oscars. Statues
breed statuettes. There are more categories of awards now than cinema knew
existed when it was born.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It is surprising
that journalism, which is no less creative than Hollywood, has not yet invented
an award for the best news factories, the assembly line of politicians who
become famous by issuing an endless stream of statements. The number of
contenders would be within limits. The major parties have about a dozen each;
the smaller ones two or three. Most of them are official nominees, but there
are an irrepressible few who float in some greater realm, their legitimacy
assured by proximity to higher powers or celebrity status inherited from an
earlier career. To paraphrase the charming P.G. Wodehouse, master of the
English language, the former are gruntled, the latter largely disgruntled.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">We could begin
with just one Spokesbite of the Year award. Later, we could diversify: Best
Example of Law of Unintended Consequences; Finest Double Entendre by Ageing
Celebrity in Search of Rajya Sabha Seat; Best Misunderstanding of Hindi Slang
Lost in Translation into English, to name a few. The possibilities are fertile:
Best Mismatch of English Grammar and Indian Meaning; Worst Distortion of Intent
by Twitter Limitations; Most Acrobatic Fall on Flattery Oil; Finest Self-Goal
in Competition for Minority Vote Bank; or even Most Creative Abuse of Existing
Foe who Might be Tomorrow’s Friend. There should be no shortage of sponsors either,
since this part of the ceremony is bound to be infinitely entertaining.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Sceptics are bound
to wonder whether any politicians will actually come to pick up their awards.
Audiences, inside or outside a theatre, would be bewildered if the recipient was
unable to thank a Supreme Leader, wife, husband, parents, ghost writer,
constituents and that wise-cracking pal who dreamt up the gag in the first
place. Sceptics are vastly mistaken. Politicians are far smarter than them.
They know that 90% of a television audience only remembers that you got an
award, not why you got it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The only
reasonable condition that politicians would impose was that the award be handed
over by a celebrity who is still celebrated, like a film star who remains in
play when high-profile roles are being discussed by the big bosses of popular
movies. If Amitabh Bachchan is unavailable and Katrina Kaif is busy, there are
others. But there is nothing to be gained by receiving an award from anyone
reduced to the art cinema circuit. Even worse would be Raj Babbar smiling at
Shatrughan Sinha and, for the next award, Sinha returning the favour to Babbar.
Nor would anyone care too much for a mutual back-scratch between Digvijay Singh
and Shakeel Ahmad.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Prize of
Prizes should be reserved for a Best Hasty Pudding Prize, offered for verbal
concoctions cooked up within the blink of a sleepy eyelid. This would be a test
of intrinsic individual capability, rather than a paragraph patiently
constructed over a languorous afternoon. Judges would measure worth by the
taste of the pudding; it would be of no concern to them whether it was healthy
or not, since only political parties suffer ill-effects from the instant wit
and wisdom of their preferred chefs. Media’s gratitude emanates from the fact
that journalism is the best restaurant where such pudding can be served.
Nothing sells news more efficiently than politicians bleeding to death from
self-inflicted wounds. The laughter of the audience is both free and
contagious, two virtues that media values above all else.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">These great chefs
of mass consumption slip from their high standards only because the temptation
to produce fast food has become almost irresistible in an age when social media
is as popular as a hamburger. Social media is a term that reveals all with the
stark simplicity of nudity. Any comment longer than 140 characters, or a
slapdash pastry thrown on the face of a screen page, is ipso facto anti-social.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Discourse,
therefore, is about accusation, not comprehension. This is perfect for the latest
version of television dialogue, which bridges brevity with hysteria. Anyone who
seeks any more is dumped into the dustbin of boredom. Do not blame journalists
alone. This is what the viewer wants; this is what the viewer gets.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Obviously there
should be a lifetime achievement award as well, for shortest sentence with
maximum impact. It would be inappropriate to hand out a statue for this. A tweezer
could be a good substitute.</span></div>
</div>
M J Akbarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372493873446290094noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8323210.post-2659662104195644072013-07-28T12:36:00.000+05:302013-07-28T12:43:06.911+05:30<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 17.4pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">An
Indian election, possibly to the dismay of those journalists transfixed by
hype, is not a contest between Lord Rama and Bhagwan Krishna. In the real
world, it is mostly between General Hocus and Admiral Pocus. The voter does not
choose between two paragons of virtue. He takes a punt on what is available,
warts and all.</span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Does
this leave the electorate in serious depression? No. The Indian voter,
having abandoned illusion in the mid-1960s, is now beyond disillusion: feet on
the ground, eyes open and ears tuned to that fine pitch that distinguishes fact
from bombast, he scans politics with a reality-check laser beam. The next
general election will not be decided by the froth of school-playground taunt
and retort that dampens television screens every evening. It will hinge
on a challenge to democracy posed some 2500 years ago.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 32.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Socrates
asked a simple question: who prevails in a trial between a doctor and a
pastry chef before a jury of children? For the Greek philosopher, who placed
the virtue of logic far above the merits of popular will, the answer was a
no-brainer: a landslide for cooks. But if Socrates had been born in 1947 and
observed Indian elections with his rigorous intellectual diligence for over six
decades, he would surely have seen the flaw in his thesis. Politicians may
still offer either prescription or pastry, or indeed cake and more cake, but
the jury has grown up. The voter understands the difference between a sweetmeat
today and bread <span data-term="goog_488076403" style="z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aqj"><span style="z-index: -1;">tomorrow</span></span></span>.
Every election after 1952 has been about delivery, not promise.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 32.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Jawaharlal
Nehru did not win in 1957 by distributing free soft cheese. He was rewarded for
hard decisions. No economic reform has been as important, or as dramatic, as
land reform, the basis of food security. Independence is a bitter joke if
a nation has to beg for food to prevent starvation. The Nehru model extended to
reorganization of states to empower people, industrial cities that
absorbed an emerging working and middle class, emotional and economic succour
to refugees devastated by partition, and a foreign policy that minimised
threats to a nation that had suffered colonized. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 32.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">By the
1960s, things began to fall apart on every aspect of the Nehru thrust - China,
states, famine. In the case of China and Pakistan, friendship failed. The
bigger mistake was fundamental. Congress forgot that every set of ideas demands
the next set of ideas.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 32.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">In 1971
Mrs Indira Gandhi offered a placebo. The balm had very temporary effect. The
following three decades of despair exacted an extremely heavy price. Economic
stagnation bred myriad forms of violence, from Maoist insurrection to communal
and caste explosions. A stable government is possible only in a stable
environment: every Union government between 1977 and 2004 was defeated.
Narasimha Rao and Atal Behari Vajpayee might have survived, for they offered
economic promise, but they were consumed by violence of the 1990s. A fire takes
longer to extinguish than to start.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 32.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Corruption
leapt up from margins to central dominance. There were many
reasons, but among them was the gradual realisation by politicians that job
security was over. They made as much hay as possible during the brief sunshine
in their careers.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 32.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">The
government of Dr Manmohan Singh, Mrs Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi won in 2009
because enough voters were convinced that it would, given another five years,
win India a place at the high table of the world's economy by raising growth
and ensuring that its benefits seeped down to the impoverished base. Hope is
the most dangerous thing you can betray. Growth in welfare was substituted by a
cancerous spread in corruption. Nor could blame be transferred to subsidiary
players. Among the accused was Robert Vadra, which took the story into the home
of the most powerful family in government.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 32.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">People
expected Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to be a tough doctor in the Socratic
mould. Instead, in his second term, he turned out to be another pastry cook.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 32.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">The
Indian voter could be forgiven for turning cynical. He has, fortunately, only
abandoned emotion - not fully, of course, but in sufficient numbers to create a
different pattern. The voter has become an accountant. Minor exceptions
apart, every election now delivers a clear mandate. Opinion polls manage
to indicate a trend, but are far less successful in estimating the extent of
victory, as even a casual look at Tamil Nadu, Bengal, Bihar, Goa, Punjab,
Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal or Karnataka proves. The message is obvious.
No government can take recourse to an alibi for non-performance. Victors swirl
in silk at the time of coronation but are left with a thong when
accountability kicks in. The Indian voter has become cool, which is the perfect
temperature for democracy.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 32.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">There
is no reason yet visible why this pattern should not hold in either the state
polls this year or the general election next year.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 32.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
M J Akbarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372493873446290094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8323210.post-13434842546300111532013-07-27T18:33:00.002+05:302013-07-27T18:33:30.840+05:30The Day of Judgement<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;">The Day of
Judgement</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;">Human nature, when
in a good mood, takes pride in saving a fellow being from impending tragedy. A
good case can now be made for saving a person — including one with an inhuman
record — from continuing farce. It is time we organised a mass petition to end
the presumed trial of Sajjan Kumar for inciting murder and mayhem during the
anti-Sikh riots in Delhi 28 years ago. For nearly three decades he has escaped
justice through one legal feint after another, abetted by authorities. This
happened again last week. Why pretend? Send a simple message to the victims of
1984: Abandon hope, all ye who enter the Indian judicial maze.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">As politics buzzes
towards another general election; as conversation and opinion polls chase each
other along an entertaining circumference; as reasons advance and propositions
retreat; as issues climb on the graph of voter-impact, and reasons get
dissected with a surgeon’s scalpel, one gut cause for popular anger seems to
have eluded the attention of pundits and their hangers on: justice.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The wide spectrum
of justice can breed paradox. Take the tragedy of mid-day meal deaths in Bihar.
The rage of the poor is obviously legitimate. The principal and cohorts who
poisoned impoverished children with insecticide are not mere criminals driven
by greed; they have, at some sub-conscious level, a pathological hatred for the
dispossessed, as if the poor do not deserve more than a dustbin. But at least
one consequence seems bizarre. Bihar’s teachers have gone on strike after the
episode, arguing that serving meals is not part of their duties. They too claim
to be victims of injustice.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Is there a
rational connect between both grievances? Yes, collapse of government. The
Supreme Court orders governments to provide meals in schools. The state
government has neither the infrastructure, nor the will to create one. It makes
no effort to match intention with ability. This is not a question of money. The
cost of a meal is only a small percentage of resources needed to finance
administrations that have bloated across the land.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">No state
government can afford to accept this truth, for that would be political suicide
in a democracy. So it does what it has learnt to do, encourage a practice built
on compromise and theft. A meal scheme for children needs a professional
process that can be held accountable. Instead, government throws some money at
teachers who are allowed to do what they want. There are cuts along the way as
money travels from capital city to district headquarters, and then to the
principal. Everyone is not as brutally dishonest as those in charge of the
Chhapra school, or there would have been such calamities more frequently. But
the system is wont to treat the poor as sub-human. The poor, they believe, eat
dirt in their homes; why should they get any better in school?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">A horrifying
tragedy has exposed death by poisoning. There is a greater horror that has not
hit the headlines: the slow poisoning of hundreds of thousands of children who are
getting rotten food, just short of visible worms and insecticide. Slow death
does not make news.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Injustice is not
new in India. What is new, and long overdue, is demand for redress. Tribals
have been marginalised for centuries, ever since they lost political control
over their natural habitat in the green belt of forests along the midriff of
India. Feudal India had no time for them, except occasionally as security
slaves. Colonial India had no time for anyone except compradors. But even
democratic India was indifferent or exploitative. The tribal demand for justice
is being heard through guns.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Others have not
turned to violence — yet. The poor still have some faith in democracy, and
express their anger in elections. But a ruling class tends to treat time as an
endless resource. Within the folds of time is an ignition box, which must be
defused or it will explode.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Corruption is
another synonym for injustice, for it is robbery of people’s resources.
Corruption is not exchange of wealth between the rich; it is the people’s money
accumulating in limited pockets. The teachers in Bihar were not paying for
meals from their salaries; they were siphoning off money collected from taxes.
Those mobile companies who bought spectrum at deflated prices were also
stealing from the national purse. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Justice is neither
expected nor offered in a dictatorship, which is why it becomes such an intense
demand when a dictator falls. But justice is intrinsic to democracy. An
ordinary crime is punished through law; political culpability meets its fate in
elections. When justice is denied, it lingers in the mind; you can dull its
edges, as in the Sajjan Kumar case, but it will haunt you from some corner of
the national conscience. Every election is a judgement on justice. The verdict
may not be perfect, but it works.</span></div>
</div>
M J Akbarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372493873446290094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8323210.post-63069156257454472412013-07-21T12:20:00.000+05:302013-07-21T12:20:04.249+05:30<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 5.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Mahatma Gandhi was a Hindu nationalist</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">When logic snaps, rational discourse
stumbles. Why is it perfectly acceptable to applaud a Muslim nationalist, but
denigrate a Hindu nationalist? Either both terms are right, or both
wrong.</span><span style="color: #500050; font-size: 5.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Mahatma Gandhi gave "Muslim nationalism" institutional
credibility when, in the fractured decade after the Khilafat movement, Muslims
who believed in him formed the All-India Nationalist Muslim Party on 27 and 28
July 1929, with Dr M.A. Ansari at the helm. Our present vice president, Hamid
Ansari, belongs to this family. </span><span style="color: #500050; font-size: 5.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Gandhi was father of an ideology that
knit the groundwork of modern India. His moral compass was set on a
firm axis: politics without religion was immoral. Among the first to be impressed
by this proposition were the maulvis who later banded under
Jamaat-e-Ulema-e-Hind; their alliance would flower during the non-cooperation
struggle. Hindu and Muslim are birth identities; they do not change,
unless one becomes an atheist. But nationalism, a political concept, can vary.
Gandhi did not. From 1915, the year he entered Indian public life, to 1948,
when he was assassinated, he believed that India must be a land where all
faiths co-existed as equals, guided by</span><span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"> </span><i><span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">sarva dharma sambhav.</span></i><span style="color: #500050; font-size: 5.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Gandhi's nationalism was the
antithesis of communalism. He was distressed to the point of agony by the slow
drift within the Muslim elite towards separatism. This culminated in partition
when Jinnah reduced "Muslim nationalism" to "Muslim nation".
It was a visible reduction, philosophically, intellectually and finally
geographically. Gandhi promised Muslims honour and equality in a nation from
Khyber to Chittagong; Jinnah's prescription eventually reduced Pakistan to a
sliver of land on either side of the Indus, wracked by fundamentalism and
riven by insecurity.</span><span style="color: #500050; font-size: 5.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">The difference between "Hindu
nationalism" and "Hindu nation" is equally uncomplicated. If
anyone wants to be a Hindu nationalist, offer a warm welcome; if the call is
for a Hindu nation, point out that religion is ineffective as a basis for
nationhood. Pakistan is a good example. Indeed, if religion worked as a glue,
why on earth would there be 22 Arab nations? Hindu extremism existed in
Gandhi's time, but it never got much traction beyond the fringe; and it could
not, ipso facto, seek secession.</span><span style="color: #500050; font-size: 5.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Gandhi would have been puzzled by any
suggestion that Hinduism was an obstacle to secularism; his Hinduism was
an inexhaustible well of brotherhood, just as his colleague Maulana Azad
offered Islam as a superb rationale for inter-faith harmony. Both used a
faith-influenced dialectic almost unconsciously. Hindu-majority India is not
secular because Gandhi was secular; Gandhi was secular because India is
secular.</span><span style="color: #500050; font-size: 5.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Gandhi was proud to be a Hindu.
He promised Ram Rajya, not some variation of a fashionable western dictum,
whether Marxist or Fabian. Ram Rajya was a metaphor for prosperity and
equality, not subjugation. Gandhi did not shy away from caste. His tongue
only partly in cheek, he told the Shafi faction of the Muslim League on
22 February 1931: "Brethren, I am a<i>bania</i>, and there is no limit
to my greed. It had always been my dream and my heart's desire to speak
not only for 21 crores but for 30 crores of Indians." He was answering the
charge that he spoke only for Hindus. </span><span style="color: #500050; font-size: 5.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Nor did Gandhi's disciple and heir,
Jawaharlal Nehru, think that the prefix 'Pandit' would stain his status
as a secular icon. Privately, Nehru was more agnostic than believer, but
learnt from Gandhi that he could not sneer at, let alone abandon, his Brahmin
identity. India is a land of the faithful. Those who today feel 'Pandit' might
be an embarrassment have not seen Durga Puja in secular Calcutta.</span><span style="color: #500050; font-size: 5.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Strangely, those Muslim League
stalwarts who were determined to parade every mark of their religious identity
as a fundamental right, spread the canard that Gandhi's Ram Rajya would enslave
Muslims. We see variations all the time, among far lesser beings, as
vocal networks control debate, and stoke a fear psychosis that suits
those who think the Muslim vote is better sought through fear than development.
</span><span style="color: #500050; font-size: 5.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">The insidious power of hysteria sent
Indian Muslims en masse towards the separatist Muslim League in the 1946
elections. Gandhi was reviled and taunted along the way. An important
caveat is necessary, however. The 1946 franchise was restricted; only about 11%
had the right to vote: landowners, rate-payers, graduates; the elite. How
would elections have gone if Gandhi's masses, the poor, who often have better
political judgement than those better off, had voted?</span><span style="color: #500050; font-size: 5.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Faith does not make us communal,
human nature does. A politician has as much right to be a Hindu, Muslim, Sikh
or Christian as any other citizen. Any doubt about an aspirant to power
can be cleared by a simple question: is he committed to<i>sarva dharma sambhav</i></span><i><span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"> </span></i><span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">or not? If the answer is
unclear, vote for someone else.</span><span style="color: #500050; font-size: 5.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #500050; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;">Let those Indians who want to pray,
do so; let those who want to watch television instead, switch on. Faith
is a freedom. Let us celebrate this freedom with a smile, not a snarl.</span><span style="color: #500050; font-size: 5.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-IN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
M J Akbarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372493873446290094noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8323210.post-860744292703249942013-07-20T19:40:00.002+05:302013-07-20T19:40:24.932+05:30Money shouts, conscience merely murmurs<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
Money shouts, conscience merely murmurs</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Would you walk?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Think about it. You have time, which Stuart
Broad did not, when he was batting for England on the third day of the first
Ashes Test in a fierce game which was certain to produce a result, and where,
therefore, every single run counted in double digits. Stuart Broad had to
choose between honesty and expediency in those instinctive seconds between a
vociferous appeal and the umpire’s decision after he nicked a ball to first
slip. He realised what everyone saw, except for the umpire who, being eyeless,
shall be left nameless. Broad knew he was out. Honour demanded voluntary
departure from the crease; he chose to wait for the jury to make a mistake even
when he knew he was guilty.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">For you, lolling on a sofa, or, if a
cricket junkie, watching the match on television, any debate with conscience
may seem merely theoretical. But is it any the less important? For the debate
is about values. Is honesty dispensable? Are survival and success the only
priorities in life?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Cricket, like existence, is not always
black and white. There are situations in which a batsman has every right to
hold his ground against a chorus of theatrical appeals, because he is genuinely
uncertain, most often in a leg-before-wicket decision, or when a catch has not
gone cleanly to hand. Innovations like the technology-driven third umpire have
been created to find light through grey space. But Stuart Broad’s case is worth
mention precisely because there was huge daylight between black and white. He
was out. Everyone on the field, and millions outside, knew the truth.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Honour was once essential to the spirit of
cricket. Bad behaviour, caused by temperament or the pressures of sport, was a
discrepancy. No one has ever wanted to fail through the long history of human
endeavour, and yet cricket looked down upon success without honour. In the
larger field of life, honour bred the honours system, which was society’s way
of recognising merit. You could, of course, occasionally buy your way to a
gong, for money always talks. But money used to speak in a whisper. Today it
shouts. The little murmur of conscience is lost in such noise.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Cricket was always proud to place itself on
a pedestal, even when inconsistencies existed lower down. Till the 1950s, there
was obnoxious class distinction, in which the amateur entered the field through
the club gate, and professionals used a turnstile. A gentleman considered
payment beneath his dignity, largely because he had enough money. The
professional, from the working class, could not afford to take a week off from
his job. But during the game honesty was not divisible by class.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">We claim to live in a more egalitarian age,
but we have turned “professional” into a synonym for amorality. Broad was
exonerated because of his “professional” approach, as if honour is now a
derisory hobby of the parson or a preacher.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">In 1980 India and England played a Test in
Mumbai to commemorate the jubilee of the BCCI. India’s captain was the
courteous, gentlemanly G.R. Viswanath. England was led by the gentlemanly
analyst Mike Brearley. At a turning point in the match, England wicket-keeper
Bob Taylor was given out leg before. Visibly upset, he hung around in obvious
protest. But there was obviously no review system. Viswanath, to everyone’s
surprise, overturned the bemused umpire and asked Taylor to play on. He did,
and helped England win the Test. Was that the holy moment when the world of
cricket saw the light? No. Since then, it is the tough school of thought which
has taken over the game. Some cricketers still at the crease have resisted the
trend. Australian Adam Gilchrist famously walked against Sri Lanka in 2003, and
South African Hashim Amla does not linger if he knows he is out. But both have
an old-fashioned look about them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">So would you walk? The question is larger
than cricket. Ministers, ordinary, extraordinary, chief or prime, do not walk
when exposed as corrupt, or when atrocious administration kills children after
a mid-day meal. Do those on lower rungs of power, whether secretary presiding
over a department, or clerk guarding a file, walk away from a bribe? Do
business executives walk away from offering one? What prevails in the constant
battle between commerce and conscience? If we all walked away from temptation,
wouldn’t the world be a nice little Utopia?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The first commandment of contemporary
religion is unambiguous: Thou shalt win. Everyone, as the saying goes, loves a
winner. There is a second commandment: Thou shalt not be so stupid as to get
caught. There is no third commandment. If Stuart Broad were only a cog in a
game it might not matter, but he is also a role model for millions of young
people. If survival by any means can guarantee heroism, then surely plain old
morality sucks.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Enjoy the delicious fruits of survival. Don’t
walk.</span></div>
</div>
M J Akbarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372493873446290094noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8323210.post-12087581367130682742013-07-14T14:43:00.001+05:302013-07-14T14:43:45.503+05:30The real cost of a bribe<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 5.25pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 22.5pt;">The real cost of a bribe<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">If, in 2002, a traffic cop
in the fairy-tale town of Swat had booked a car speeding through its bazaar,
NATO troops could have left Pakistan by 2003, Iraq might have escaped NATO’s
invasion, Barack Obama would probably be an unknown Senator from Chicago and
George Bush Junior’s presidential library in Texas would certainly have
something to cheer about. But, according to Maryam, her husband Ibrahim
al-Kuwaiti “quickly settled the matter”, and the bribed Swat cop never realized
he had just let Osama bin Laden escape. Maryam was giving evidence before the
Justice Javed Iqbal commission, set up to enquire into the events of 2 May
2011, when US Navy Seals flew three hours into Pak territory, found and killed
Osama. Nothing works on our great subcontinent better than instant cash.
Al-Kuwati, Osama’s most trust aide, knew that. This is the kind of authentic
detail which makes a fabulous story so entirely believable.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Which bit of this
enquiry report, spread over 336 pages, garnered from 201 witnesses, is beyond
doubt, which is useful, and how many witnesses have spun out little gossamer
tales hide truth in a silken web?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Trivia, as
indicated, deserves its place in the footnotes of history. Osama, according to
a wife, wore a cowboy hat to protect himself from aerial surveillance. Well:
where do you buy a 10-gallon Texan hat in Abbottabad? Can’t bring it in the
luggage from a Bora Bora battlefield, either. Perhaps she confused it with a baseball
cap. We also learn that Osama sometimes shaved his signature beard as part of a
disguise. True, this would be perfect deception, but how long would it take to
get that beard back to its original majestic length? Presumably no one in that
band of brothers and wives had the courage to click a mobile picture of Osama
in transition, not even a young consort in a playful mood.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">In 2005, after pit
stops in five Pakistan cities, the Osama entourage settled into this military
garrison town, in a house so visible that no one could see it. The property was
bought with a fake ID; perhaps the traffic cop principle was operational again.
Four electricity and gas meters were installed in that house; no one asked why.
This might have a proper explanation. No one checks electricity meters in
Pakistan, so why make an exception in Abbottabad?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">The high wall
surrounding the house collapsed in the 2005 earthquake, and rubble lay around
for months, but no one bothered to enquire, or even see, who lived inside. If
you want to raise one eyebrow, reserve your second for the next story. An
official survey area listed this home as “be-chiragh” or uninhabited. The Iqbal
commission knows the answer: it acknowledges something “more sinister”. In
2005, Pak intelligence “closed the book” on Osama bin Laden; there was “grave
complicity (at an) undetermined level”.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">That level was
obviously former dictator Pervez Musharraf, for this is how decisions are made
during army rule. There was no incompetence. There was complicity. Take just one
fact: CIA gave ISI certain phone numbers to monitor; it did not. At each turn,
Islamabad manufactured and sold a lie to the world. In the beginning came
Musharraf’s repeated denials, often accompanied by the hearty laugh reminiscent
of retired colonels in the old British army. At the end, when Washington
declared Osama dead, a chorus of spokespeople was paraded before media, not
least Indian television, to nudge-wink the suggestion that Osama’s capture was
a joint US-Pak operation. America had long stopped trusting Pakistan on Osama.
Justice Iqbal and his brave colleagues refused to seal a lie with
interpretative approval, and deserve our unstinted praise. The episode, they
say, indicates not just incompetence or irresponsibility, but something “worse”.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">The commission
touched one significant nerve when it analyzed the complete failure of
Pakistan’s military defences on its western frontier, breached totally by
America on that historic night of May 2. The Pakistan air force apparently
learnt about Operation Neptune Spear only when it saw media reports. “In the
premier intelligence institution,” the report notes, referring to ISI,
“religiosity replaced accountability.” The meaning is not complicated. India is
the only enemy.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Pakistan’s security
regime defines sovereignty in what might be called Indian terms. This is not
new; it claims Kashmir but calmly hands over a part under its control to China.
America does not respect Pakistani sovereignty over its skies, and uses drones
where and when it wants. Protest from Islamabad is token, if not hypocritical.
Accommodation with China or America is justified by realpolitik, but any effort
at adjustment with India, even along the Cease Fire Line, internationally
acknowledged as the acceptable dividing line, is dismissed as “capitulation”.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">The people and most
politicians of Pakistan have inched away from anti-India obsession, but the
military-religious pincer is so strong that even elected governments feel
locked in, helpless. Peace between India and Pakistan is blocked not by ground
reality, but by ghosts in the mind. In the meantime, worry about the cost of a
bribe.</span></span></div>
</div>
M J Akbarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372493873446290094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8323210.post-56762898017340939442013-07-13T17:28:00.002+05:302013-07-13T17:28:41.728+05:30A history of the future<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Byline</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">A history of the future</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Life’s most traumatic cemetery is surely
the memory of pain, for it is buried but not dead. Neither amnesia nor
vengeance is a solution, although the timid find solace in the first and the violent
seek options in the second. Individuals, communities, nations have to find the
spirit that can liberate them from the bonds of past anguish, to discover a
future in a new perspective that is something far more than a distorted
reflection of fear.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It is not often that a Bollywood film can
lay claim to that cleansing experience called catharsis, but <i>Bhaag Milkha Bhaag</i> is a film made by
Indians inspired by a vision of the future from the countless narratives of
that terrible past called partition. They recognise the great dangers in
single-tunnel truth, for it can so easily turn a script into a game of
vindictive flames. But Milkha is not just another Friday release; its bleak
landscape blossoms with many shades of subtlety woven into events and characterisation.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The box office is always tempted by
simplicity. Good and evil must be caricatures. The formula is uncomplicated. Laugh
in the beginning, cry in the middle, find relief at the end, go home happy. But
this is a film about reality, not exaggerations. Nothing is overdrawn, nothing
is underwritten.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Milkha’s childhood is destroyed by the
slaughter of most of his family in the Punjab that went to Pakistan. Out of
this holocaust emerge real people, not saints and sinners. Milkha runs, reaches
a refugee camp in Delhi and finds his way through loneliness, despair and a
lost first love, before discovering that unfathomable elixir of indomitable
spirit that turns a child who might have become hardened criminal into an
international athletic superstar. His best childhood friend, a Hindu boy who
trudged to a Maulvi’s school with him, finds survival through another process,
and who can say that this was less agony? The Hindu lives through 1947 by
converting. The point is made simply, without fuss, without accusation or
praise, as a choice human beings make when torn between life and death. One of
the great tragedies is that nearly seven decades later, the few Hindus left in
Pakistan are still sometimes forced into such an awful debate with their
conscience.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">There is no difference between Indians and
Pakistanis; we are the same people, with the same weaknesses and strengths. If
the two partitioned neighbours have evolved differently, it is because they are
influenced by their root ideology. The ideologues who inflict violence within
Pakistan have not understood a very simple truth: if your mission is to search
for someone to hate, you will continue to find them. Yesterday they were Sikhs
and Hindus, today they might be Shias or Barelvis or whoever interferes with some
fantasy of an artificial purity.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Filmmaker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s
sensitivity and genius is at its nuanced best when, almost surreptitiously, he
depicts violence in all its myriad evil, including the many forms which we
compartmentalize into “lesser” categories. The tight, ringing slap of a husband
across the face of a wife who did not respond to a demand for instant sex in a
refugee camp is also madness mixed with hatred. Milkha’s girlfriend is dragged,
screaming, into an arranged marriage while he is away, trying to prove that he
can succeed in something more than petty crime. When he discovers his loss, his
old friend from the mohalla puts it plainly: you know how we Indians treat
women. Sonam Kapur, in the role of girlfriend, appears briefly, perhaps
spanning fifteen minutes of a film that exceeds 180. Any commercial movie which
stars a missing heroine is blessed with calm self-assurance. I will not mention
the denouement, except to indicate that it will surprise those who enter the
theatre with pre-conceived notions.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Those who believe are all, in a sense,
convicts of their conviction. The ideology of a humane spirit, soaring towards
the unbelievable, is also infectious, and it lifts every aspect of this film.
Farhan Akhtar has put in a performance that is beyond mere awards. The lyrics
of Prasoon Joshi, the music of Ehsan-Loy are transformative. Both might work
better in the film than outside, in cafes or radio, but that is an asset, not a
liability.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Mahatma Gandhi is mentioned once, as a
reason for a holiday. Perhaps this is deliberate, because Gandhi has now become
synonymous with preachy, and no one has time for sermons. But Gandhi left us
with a lesson that saved India in 1947 and the years beyond; and is now
resonating through the world. Violence destroys both perpetrator and victim.
Violence sucks compassion out of our heart, and turns it into a barren desert
enveloped by the mirage of rage. Even violence in the cause of justice, which
is necessary for order and civilization, can devastate beyond its purpose, as
the final metaphor of Mahabharata tells us with unambiguous pain.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Gandhi wrote the history of the future, not
a history of the past.</span></div>
</div>
M J Akbarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372493873446290094noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8323210.post-85219718157566359942013-07-07T11:26:00.002+05:302013-07-07T11:26:35.025+05:30When Chulbul Pandeys shoot first and whistle later<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 5.25pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 22.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">When Chulbul Pandeys shoot first and
whistle later<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">M.J. Akbar</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">My one encounter, if
that is the appropriate word, with a policeman who had washed his hands in cold
blood, was in an empty Amritsar hotel at the height of the Punjab insurrection
in the late 1980s. It is difficult to imagine now what Punjab was like then.
The Golden Temple, wrecked by Operation Bluestar, had become a symbol of the
broken Sikh heart. Terrorism, inspired by the dream of secession, acquired a
raging justification . Amritsar was sullen by day and silent by night; fear
haunted Punjab like a living ghost.<br />
<br />
The IPS officer had come for a chat in the evening; only police vehicles moved
after sunset. There was a look of almost unnatural calm on his face, and it was
only in the middle of a largely onesided conversation that it occurred to me
that this was the visage of narcotic serenity. Perhaps his nerves needed
solace, or possibly his conscience. But when he spoke he did not quiver. He was
on the front lines of a vicious war launched by elements who wanted to
partition India again. It was his duty to destroy them first, he said with a
thin smile that started on his lips but petered out midway. It would be
gratuitous to mention his faith, but those locked in conventional wisdom would
be surprised.<br />
<br />
Much before Punjab this argument was heard in the North East; then repeated in
Kashmir. As terrorism spread its footprint across India through the 1990s and
first decade of the new century, reaching a horrific, televised climax in
Mumbai when gunmen, armed and trained in Pakistani sanctuaries , a dilemma has
ebbed and flowed through the tides of Indian public opinion. Can outlaws be
contained through the binding laws of a liberal democracy ? Should right to
life, a fundamental tenet of our Constitution, be extended to those who kill
innocents , arbitrarily, bomb buildings, hijack aircraft, or target places of
worship in order to inject poison into the demographic veins of India? Theory
has the good fortune of living in a black-and-white textbook . Reality is grey.
Terrorists thrive in shadow wars, protected by a paradox: since they are out of
uniform, they can always claim innocence until the moment they pull a trigger.
We forget the number of alibis that were floated even after something as
self-evident as the 2008 Mumbai attack and some were repeated in Parliament by
a Cabinet minister in the UPA government. Our security forces have to hunt in
such treacherous fog. Their job is to succeed before the trigger is squeezed,
to find Indira Gandhi’s and Rajiv Gandhi’s assassins before they have
succeeded, and to stop a thousand attacks on civilians during a festival or any
other day. The Army has the umbrella of a special act to limit accountability
in case of a mistake. The spirit of democracy argues against such privilege,
but the visceral need for security against covert evil pulls in the other
direction. The trouble with sanction for murder is that it brutalizes and
breeds rogues, particularly in our police, where any moral code has been
weakened by corruption and arrogance. Police have jailed and killed innocents,
coerced money out of helpless victims, confident that politicians, themselves
largely corrupt, will never find the courage to confront them. The worry is
that public opinion often condones “Dirty Harry” methods, in which a bullet
takes precedence over due process. When, in 1993, it became clear that
criminals owing allegiance to Dawood Ibrahim were involved in the horrific
Mumbai blasts, the city’s police were offered freedom of the trigger. Citizens
approved, as did the Congress, Shiv Sena, BJP and voters. Films glorified
‘encounter specialists’ . The syndrome is no longer as gory, but Chulbul Pandey
still shoots first and whistles later. In 2008 Delhi police killed young men at
Batla House. This year, on May 18, a young man in custody, Khalid Mujahid, died
in “mysterious circumstances” while being taken to Barabanki jail by the UP
police; 42 of them, including senior officers , are under investigation. For
years in Hyderabad and Malegaon, “suspects” have been jailed for years without
proof of complicity in any terrorist act. Congress or Samajwadi Party were in
power in these states. And of course BJP ruled Gujarat when 19-year-old Ishrat
Jahan was killed by the police. There is no standard response. Let alone
outrage, there is hardly any rage about Delhi, UP, Andhra or Maharashtra. Most
people have probably chosen their sides over Ishrat Jahan. The CBI’s
chargesheet is enough for those who believe she is guiltless. Others stress the
IB version that David Headley, convicted of terrorism, mentioned her name; or
wonder what she was doing in the company of three men recognized, even by the
CBI, as terrorists.<br />
<br />
Only one thing is clear in this dust storm of fierce argument. We are not
interested in truth. A complex reality has been distilled into campaign fodder
in election season. Politics is the petrol that can turn such a fire into
conflagration.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
M J Akbarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372493873446290094noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8323210.post-56341012735057984862013-07-06T16:18:00.002+05:302013-07-06T16:18:54.065+05:30A bus ride to interesting times<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Byline </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">A bus ride to interesting times</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">M.J. Akbar</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It’s the old London bus principle. Nothing
happens for a long time, then suddenly three turn up at the same time. No
decision is made by government for more than four years, and then a dozen come
along, tripping one another on their way towards public discourse. You have to
wonder why.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Congress has developed an odd habit since
2009: it indicates its mind before it has made up its mind. Telangana was
comatose on a back-burner when, quite out of the blue, Home Minister P.
Chidambaram announced a solution was imminent. When passions advanced,
government retreated. Last year Sushil Shinde switched on a green light, and
turned it to amber in January this year. Now Digvijay Singh, general secretary
in charge of party secrets, has told us a final solution is in plain sight. We
should believe him. A general election is also in plain sight.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">If A.K. Antony is appointed General
Manager, Repairs and Reconsideration, can elections be far away? First priority:
send morality on holiday, and who better to do that than the most moral man in
Cabinet. Jharkhand Mukti Morcha is the property of a family which can, with
some justification, be described as corrupt. Not only do they take money, they
also get caught, which is silly in our liberal corruption environment. But for
ten seats in the state, all sins are forgiven. Joining Congress is a baptism;
it bathes the sinner with salvation. JMM was corrupt and communal as long as it
was scratching for power in the company of BJP. Perhaps this is good politics.
We shall know only after voters have returned a verdict.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Antony has quickly extended a Congress hand
again to DMK in Tamil Nadu, another state where it cannot survive without an
ally. The DMK is in less of a hurry, and may not do so before election dates
are announced. Congress is the only party that knows when, but if it is getting
antsy, there has to be a reason.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">But hurry is dangerous in politics. You can
trip up if you have not planned how to negotiate the various traps that always
lie on a plotted route. You hold one end of a map up, beaming at cameras, and
the other end collapses. Has this happened with the CBI’s charge-sheet in the
Ishrat Jahan case, probably the final effort to derail Narendra Modi after more
than a decade in which every twist of the legal process has been exhausted?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">CBI proclaimed Ishrat Jahan innocent, but
admitted that the three men shot alongside her by Gujarat police were
terrorists. Perhaps CBI and government thought that everyone who mattered,
including media, would treat this as the final word. Then, quite unexpectedly,
things began to go a bit wrong. The Intelligence Bureau, which is headed by
Syed Asif Ibrahim, an officer with a fine reputation, refused to kowtow. A
tussle broke out between IB and CBI over Ishrat Jahan. Facts emerged, which had
so far been kept out of public purview: principally, that David Headley,
convicted for his role in the organisation of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, had
named Ishrat during his interrogation by the premier Indian investigation
agency, NIA. Instead of leading an offensive, the government might be forced to
clean up its own mess.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Hurry has affected the food security
decision as well. This is definitely going to be the main plank of the Congress
re-election campaign. Remarkably, however, the most vociferous opposition to
this decision has come from parties that have always the pro-poor banner: the
left. Prakash Karat, speaking for Communists, Mulayam Singh Yadav, speaking for
himself, and Dinesh Trivedi, on behalf of Mamata Banerjee, dismissed the
decision as nothing but an election gimmick. There is certainly no money in the
current resource base of UPA government to implement this expensive programme.
But Congress is more interested in making this the central promise of its next
manifesto, than implementation. If it wanted implementation, it would have
issued the ordinance in the first six weeks of UPA2, not in the last six.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Are we then looking at a November general
election?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Congress has not taken a final decision,
but it is clearing the way towards that possibility. It does not want to be
subverted by events that may not be fully in its control, including the
behaviour of the extended family that keeps UPA in power without much reward in
return. Its haste is out of necessity, rather than will.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Complicated problems like Telangana however
do not promise easy dividends, even if you take a decision. Nor will all the Band-Aid
eliminate memory of corruption, end inflation, stop the rupee implosion, or
reverse the sag in the economy. The only prediction that can safely be made is
that the next general election, whenever it is held, will be the most
interesting since 2004. Hop on to the bus in any case; the ride will be bumpy
but exhilarating.</span></div>
M J Akbarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372493873446290094noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8323210.post-30504005513356326992013-06-30T12:41:00.001+05:302013-06-30T12:41:30.310+05:30Privacy: time to kiss it goodbye<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 5.25pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 22.5pt;">Privacy: time to kiss it goodbye<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 5.25pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 22.5pt;">M.J. Akbar<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; line-height: 14.7pt; margin-bottom: 10.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 10.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Shakespeare, being a genius, got
most things right. But, being human, he also got a few things wrong. A rose by
any other name does often smell like a weed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 14.7pt; margin: 10.5pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">One dangerous misnomer is this entity called an intelligence
agency. These organisations, a consistent growth industry in every nation
whether times are lean or prosperous, are information accummulators.
Intelligence may or may not be a by-product of their endeavours. Look no
further than the case of the latest American whistleblower, Edward Snowden.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 14.7pt; margin: 10.5pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">America's spymasters lost this plot long before Snowden broke
cover and revealed massive incursions by US and British agencies into private
lives. Their rage reflects the fury of impotence, or perhaps incompetence.
Snowden did not hit and run. His sting took much preparation: he copied data,
and then established contact with Julian Assange's Wikileaks and China, at the
very least. Directly or indirectly, China, Russia and Ecuador knew what he was
going to do before he moved. CIA, NSA and FBI were blindsided. America's
intelligence was shipwrecked in an ocean of information.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 14.7pt; margin: 10.5pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">One would assume, after the Wikileaks fiasco, that there would be
alert mechanisms to track any unauthorized transfer of secret data by an
insider. Wrong. Neither was there any security firewall between Snowden and
either a pest like Wikileaks or a foreign power like China, although both must
be equally high on CIA's watch list. If you imagine Snowden landed in Hong Kong
by flipping a coin, you must be in kindergarten, still reading fairy tales.
Conversely, if you believe China ignored the US demand for extradition because
of a typing error in the application, your sense of humour is almost as nuanced
as the Chinese official who thought up that whopper. The Chinese ran this
operation for precisely as long as they wanted to, or Snowden would never have
left Hong Kong, even if he had managed to enter this semi-liberal enclave of an
authoritarian state. Snowden's story got top play in local media; and he was
accompanied by a Wikileaks executive on his ride to Russia, both impossible
without a silent nod from Beijing. Snowden went to Hong Kong because he was
certain of a Chinese umbrella. And in Moscow, of a Russian shield. Try boarding
a flight a Moscow without a valid visa on your passport. You won't get beyond
check-in. Absolutely do not consider making Moscow airport a temporary
residence, unless you are certain local police won't put you on the next flight
to anywhere. Nor will Ecuador's friendly diplomats drop by to say hello without
Kremlin's permission.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 14.7pt; margin: 10.5pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">At the moment of writing, Snowden is discovering a few facts of
life. Heroes have limited uses when playing cloak and dagger; the dagger can
change direction in the switch of a blade. China, Russia and Ecuador were happy
to use Snowden in the secret wars that continue below the surface of good
relations, but reluctant to damage bilateral business with Washington beyond a
point. Big boys like America carry aces up their sleeve when they sit at any
table.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 14.7pt; margin: 10.5pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">For some time now America has been ratcheting up an international
offensive against China's invasion of cyberspace. This was high on the agenda
of the summit between Barack Obama and Xi Jinping in California earlier this
month. China's President kept an admirable straight face while his
shadow-security infrastructure timed this double-whammy to a nicety, producing
Snowden just when American protests hit a crescendo.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 14.7pt; margin: 10.5pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">While spy fact imitates spy fiction, the world must come to terms
with a difficult truth. Privacy, a cornerstone of individual liberty in a free
society, now belongs to the past tense. America, the world's largest
people-friendly democracy, and China, the world's largest people-friendly dictatorship,
have used war as the excuse and technology as the means to monitor the
language, and through that the thought process, of any individual they want to
target. If other nations, including Russia or India, have not succeeded as
spectacularly, it is not for want of trying.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 14.7pt; margin: 10.5pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Governments know something that idealists are loath to admit: the
argument for liberty does not travel very far with the populace when it is
positioned against terrorism. The progress towards a free society has been led
by a liberal elite that flourishes in the calm of peace, and bends before the
hurricane of conflict. Barack Obama turns into George Bush. Obama knows that
total information is the dream of every totalitarian, but will not intervene.
He is in politics. Politics is about survival first and consequences later. For
every Snowden briefly on the front page, and in limbo for the rest of his life,
there are dozens defeated by helplessness. That is how a state defines victory
over the individual.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 14.7pt; margin: 10.5pt 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">Obama invited Xi Jiang for their summit in California to a place
called Rancho Mirage. What an excellent title for a sequel to George Orwell's
1984.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
M J Akbarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372493873446290094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8323210.post-68283609107361093042013-06-29T17:30:00.000+05:302013-06-29T17:30:04.383+05:30The business of politicians is politics <link href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CADMINI%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CADMINI%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx" rel="themeData"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CADMINI%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml" rel="colorSchemeMapping"></link><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/>
<w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/>
<w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/>
<w:Word11KerningPairs/>
<w:CachedColBalance/>
</w:Compatibility>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="267">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:1;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-format:other;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:0 0 0 0 0 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1073750139 0 0 159 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
text-align:justify;
line-height:12.0pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;
mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;}
.MsoPapDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
text-align:justify;
line-height:12.0pt;}
@page Section1
{size:595.3pt 841.9pt;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;
mso-header-margin:35.4pt;
mso-footer-margin:35.4pt;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
-->
</style><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
text-align:justify;
line-height:12.0pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Byline </span></div>
<br /><div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The business of politicians is politics</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">M.J. Akbar</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Very curious. When Barack Obama suspended
his campaign for re-election to supervise relief for victims of a terrible
hurricane on the East Coast, there was applause even from his opponents.
Republican strategists later suggested that this intervention provided the
momentum that ensured an Obama victory. But when Narendra Modi stepped into
Uttarakhand, very hurriedly followed by Rahul Gandhi, voices rose in protest
and some columnists brandished a long pen to call them ambulance chasers.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Obama wanted votes. So do Modi and Rahul
Gandhi. What is so terribly wrong about persuading voters that you can govern
by proving you can deal with a crisis? What is so venal about politicians
wanting to indulge in politics? There is a very welcome downside to this: if
you leap into the fray without knowing how to jump, the negative backlash will
be ferocious. Accountability is every democracy’s insurance policy against
incompetence. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">A few elements in media, quite unable to
resist pomposity, slipped into stupidity — fortunately they were marginal. The
news website for Hotmail, owned by Microsoft, framed a “Yes or No” poll in
cringe-inducing terms that bashed the whole community of Indian politicians. It
offered a choice between “Yes, it is natural for selfish politicians to take
credit” and “No. Politicians must not stoop to such low levels”.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">May I suggest a similar poll about
Microsoft? “Yes. Microsoft is a multinational which would never dare to
describe an American politician as selfish because he or she tried to help
citizens during a natural calamity”. And: “No. Pompous amateurs like us must
never reduce webspace media into a heckling circus with the IQ level of a
garrulous judge on a reality show”.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">What did we expect those in charge of
governments to do? Go off on holiday while their citizens were in danger? Did some
pundits carp because Modi, always a favourite lightning rod, got the idea
first? Would they have queued up to applaud if some other Chief Minister had
led the way? There is no adequate answer to such questions because the truth is
often hidden in the subconscious.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Rahul Gandhi, to his credit, understood
what some journalists did not, that the people’s view would not be swayed by
media pulpit oratory, but by the quality of relief work in affected areas. He
may have even tested this proposition with a quick opinion poll, which is now
almost obligatory in any serious campaign process. People are not silly. They
do not blame politicians for an act of nature. But neither do they forgive
governments that are unable to respond to the administrative challenge which comes
in the wake of such a tragedy. If the Congress is in trouble in Uttarakhand it
is not because Gujarat or Punjab officials rushed to fill their portion of the
vacuum, but because the state government was missing from action.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">There has always been space for tension in
the wide territory over which the paths of media and politics criss-cross. This
is perfectly normal, and should even be encouraged. What is fascinating is the
constantly evolving dynamic of this relationship.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Politicians have always got upset at honest
journalism: which, primarily, is placing in the public domain information that those
in power would prefer to keep concealed. Exposure hurts their prospects of
re-election. Uttarakhand, like any crisis, offered an opportunity to expose.
The highest circles of UPA, for instance, must have squirmed at the news item
that relief trucks organised by Congress and flagged off by Mrs Sonia Gandhi
and Rahul Gandhi were stranded because drivers were not given sufficient money
for fuel. This is the kind of story that travels well through public chatter.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">In an innovative reversal, journalists are
now beginning to lay down rules on how politicians should do their job. We are
not talking corruption here, but the rather more vague “moral ambience” of
decision-making. Both politicians and journalists once set standards for
themselves; we now seem intent on setting standards for each other. Judgement
is so much easier than introspection.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">We shall see how this plays out,
particularly with an election season underway. Tensions will peak as
politicians seek to rise in the estimate of voters, and journalists try to
puncture them. With so much at stake, it is almost inevitable that “facts” will
sometimes be twisted for partisan ends, and that “truth” will be manipulated to
defame opponents. This is going to be a particularly tough election, because
power is neither gained nor surrendered easily. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Fortunately, the Supreme Court of both
professions is the citizen. Wherever ego might lead a journalist, or an
exaggerated sense of power take a politician, the true measure of worth is
determined by the court of public opinion. There is no journalism without an
audience. There is no political office without a voter. This is the balance
that keeps our system sane.</span></div>
M J Akbarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372493873446290094noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8323210.post-16511832618402541652013-06-27T13:01:00.002+05:302013-06-27T13:01:06.444+05:30Look, there’s a new caste in the cauldron<div style="background: white; margin-bottom: 5.25pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 22.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Look,
there’s a new caste in the cauldron</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 5.25pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 22.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">M.J. Akbar</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 5.25pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt;">Byelections are far more
dangerous for political parties than elections. An election can merely kill
you. A byelection can disorient you. On any rational day, comatose is a better
option than frenzy. There is always a chance that some prophet will turn up one
day to resurrect a corpse, but to restore balance to a destabilised
organization requires many preconditions, including recognition that there is
indeed a problem. Political leaders very rarely admit a mistake. Instead, they
blame circumstance, and justify any downward spiral of error with
self-defeating logic.<br />
<br />
Hence, the last people to recognize change are those who should be leading it.
The immediate is so overpowering that it fogs perspective. What is obvious to
the child is never evident to the emperor. India has changed more in the dozen
odd years of the 21st century than the last quarter of the 20th, but
prescriptions still seem stuck in that age when today’s new voter was not even
both. A dab of lipstick here, or a pinprick of botox there, does not make
politics modern. Traditional categories of sectarian difference are
reassembling into a new dynamic, as far as the young are concerned. Economic
aspiration is crystallizing from the caterpillar of government-serviced caste
and creed to the butterfly of non-denominational upward mobility. You cannot
even sell Mandal’s preferential promise with the vigour that it engendered in
the 1990s.<br />
<br />
There was a very good reason why Indian democracy opted, in the 1950s, for
demographic difference instead of class conflict as the basis for identity
mobilisation. Class conflict would have justified Marxist theory and encouraged
a natural gravitation by the poor towards Communism and its tendencies towards
dictatorship. This trade-off was welcomed by a country that clung to religion
and social inheritance as its distinctive profile. Even our independence
movement favoured the metaphors of faith to slogans against colonization; we
wanted India to remain Indian, and if the British had become Anglo-Indians
instead of insisting on ‘home leave’, British rule might have hung around
longer; or metamorphosed into Indian rule.<br />
<br />
The downside was that economic development in independent India flowed towards
the political bisects or trisects of sectarian democracy, rather than responding
to the gravitational pull of poverty, wherever it might exist. And so vast
deserts of the poor, whether tribal or Dalit or within the principal minority
community, remained arid because they were not able to convert their political
clout into economic reward. Their vote belonged to identity, not poverty. After
more than six decades of such democracy, each section of the dispossessed has
acquired a different history. The Dalits eventually learnt assertion, through
leaders like Kanshi Ram and Mayawati. The tribals, desperate, have sought some
form of an answer in Maoist desperation.<br />
<br />
Muslims have been the most static, although there is evidence emerging that
some groups have begun to recognize that their real problem is the politics of
fear, with prejudice possibly a parallel but subsidiary fact. Fear drove them
repeatedly into the false comfort of the Congress embrace. Congress was
delighted; if fear was sufficient to deliver the vote, there was no reason why
Congress should waste jobs on Muslims. In the last nine years, using the
platform provided by the Sachar commission, Congress has repeatedly promised
Muslims job reservations, once even raising the threshold to a fantastic 18%.
In line with previous experience, not a single per cent has become reality.
Marginal handouts, heavily advertised, are used to bluff the community, while
fear plays on at orchestra strength in the background. Fear, rather than
economic benefit, has become the template of secularism. Instead of doing their
own thinking, some smaller parties have decided to imitate Congress.<br />
<br />
So what is new?<br />
<br />
The skies in which the powerful reside may still be clouded by false illusion,
but ground reality has shifted. The people have, with good reason, lost faith
in the government’s ability to lead economic change or provide the exhilaration
of opportunity. They know that only the private sector can do so. The
successful chief minister is no longer someone who promises to expand the
public sector job base, but one who can open the private sector job
market.<br />
<br />
Bihar’s Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar, rattled by defeat in the Maharajganj
byelection, thanks to a rising mismatch between hope and delivery, has returned
to an antique formula on the assumption that Bihar is still stuck in the 1960s
culture of sectarian competition and notional appeasement. His answer should
have been economic aggression; he chose political regression. Bihar’s economy
may not have evolved as much as we would all wish, but Biharis have. The young
are beginning to abandon the quagmire in Patna and Muzaffarpur as much as
anywhere else in India.</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
M J Akbarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372493873446290094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8323210.post-74922847986215953372013-06-27T13:00:00.002+05:302013-06-27T13:00:45.936+05:30On The Special Joys of Airport Trash<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Byline </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">On The Special
Joys of Airport Trash</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">M.J. Akbar</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The joys of an
airport book may not quite meet the escalating demands of an upwardly liberal
sensibility, but who can deny it is liberating? Environment is the daddy of
content. You won’t get many books at an airport store on the vagaries of civilisation,
but you will discover a hundred ways in which to turn your boss into a
vegetable, and yourself into a sex symbol. But the best trash is not about
changing the world; it is about saving it from dark satanic forces controlled
by a mastermind. Nothing has changed since Superman, except that Superman now
reads Dante instead of the Daily Plonk. Dan Brown is back at the airport with a
thud that can be heard at the cash register.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I discovered Dan
Brown when I joined the long line of suckers who made him a billionaire, and
realised why precisely it was such a long line. <i>The Da Vinci Code</i> was an exotic tale of a power-thirsty Catholic
cult which wanted to destroy something or the other before it was stopped in
the nick of time by Brown’s alter ego, a Harvard professor who, naturally, did
not waste too much of his time on teaching. The hallucinations worked well
through my pliant brain about a decade ago. I am pleased to inform you that both
the Vatican and the world survived Dan Brown’s assault. It is, however, a
tribute to this master chef of potboilers that he did, for a brief while, make
the Vatican wince.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The trick is to
perfume rubbish with a bottle of incense hidden beneath the pile. Brown’s
bottle is artfully shaped, with secret sub-containers for clues and questions
that persuade you to suspend rational judgement. But, contrarily, this would
not work without a writing technique that is so stupid it can only be described
as courageous. The latest Dan Brown, <i>Inferno</i>,
exhausts the reader with some serious heavy breathing in punctuation. There are
more dots separating words with simulated tension than in an optical illusion
graphic. Words appear in bursts within sentences; sentences stutter through
paragraphs as short as summer underwear. Chapters are as flimsy as a negligee.
We are playing peekaboo with destiny, so why not?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">But recognise the
paradox: the tension must be both real and fake, for we know that while
everyone from a slick lone ranger working for a deadly consortium to the whole
of the Italian police is trying to kill the hero from the opening page, the
hero cannot die, for that would effectively end the book. This is therefore
precisely the opposite of crime mystery, where anyone can die. If you think it
is difficult to read such deathless, breathless prose, consider how difficult
it must be to write it. Events must consistently outpace credibility. But
that’s okay. Dan Brown wants readers, not the Nobel Prize. The Nobel fetches far
less money.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The problem may be
that Brown has run out of incense, and is now using the kind of cheap deodorant
advertised on music channels. Our Harvard Hero’s mission this time is to stop a
dead genius from killing one third of the world’s population through some kind
of plague, which is about as original a thought as the Son of King Kong. Most
of the action takes place in Florence, but the dramatic revelations can be
picked up from any good city guide book. Maybe that is why tourists like the
stuff. Why bother to stretch facts when it is so much more lucrative to stretch
the imagination?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The inducement to
buy the book is born of a genetic fascination for the pleasure of prurience
during the idle wasteland of an airplane trip. A holiday gives the body a rest;
Brown gives the mind a rest. Junk is only as good as it is bad. I fear,
however, that Brown may be in some danger of taking himself seriously, which
would be fatal to his craft. Every once in a while, possibly tortured by the
need for self-respect, he introduces some inexplicable word into the text. Do
you know the meaning of “chthonic”? I didn’t. Do you care? I don’t. But just in
case you want to word-drop, the “ch” is silent.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Here is a tip from
a concerned if occasional reader. Brown should never leave London out of his
books. The British Museum is a treasure house of clues from here to eternity.
Take, for instance, the stark Egyptian black slab with a hollowed square at the
centre, with ten lines stretching away like rays from a little child’s sun? It
was probably done by a Pharaoh’s imbecile toddler, but who is to stop a Harvard
professor from calling it the first instance of modern art laden with the deep
warning that neurons would destroy matter ten centuries after the 8000 BC.
Whoa...wait a minute...THAT MEANS NOW!</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Maybe Dan Brown
has reserved this symbol for his next book, Deferno.</span></div>
M J Akbarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372493873446290094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8323210.post-86107860181803382042013-06-16T15:41:00.005+05:302013-06-16T15:41:33.288+05:30Shifting sands make for shifting stands<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 5.25pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 22.5pt;">Shifting sands make for shifting stands<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 5.25pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 22.5pt;">M.J. Akbar<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 5.25pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Margaret Thatcher, who led
Britain’s Conservatives from confusion into the promised land of three election
victories, believed that a political party must serve as a vehicle to capture
power, not limp along as a platform for views. Ideas were a mirage unless
anchored in the oasis of government.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">The BJP is in
search of its Thatcher. Transformative change often needs the gloom of a crisis
. There are two models for revitalisation. In 1969 Mrs Indira Gandhi split
Congress because it had become a hippopotamus, wallowing in its own quagmire.
Thatcher, straddling the same span between collapse and opportunity in 1975,
did not wield an axe because she was confident that her party could accommodate
the past without sacrificing the future. Both Mrs Gandhi and Thatcher were
called divisive, but they understood that they had to be on the positive side
of the dividing line. They had to offer solutions to a despairing electorate.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">It has taken about
a quarter century for a generational challenge within BJP to rise from simmer
to surge. The party became a credible force in 1989, when it won 85 Lok Sabha
seats. Under AB Vajpayee and LK Advani, BJP climbed to 180 MPs and deftly
crafted the NDA to fashion a stable alliance. But questions inevitably arise
during the forlorn years of defeat, when fusion unravels into confusion.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Alliance politics
also has two models, informal and formal. Mrs Gandhi launched coalition culture
in Delhi with a breathtaking swivel in 1969. She grasped the hand of Marxists
who had been imprisoned by her father Jawaharlal Nehru for suspected sedition
just seven years before, during the epochal war with China. But she would not
let them into her Cabinet. Narasimha Rao survived through informal
relationships. Atal Behari Vajpayee preferred formal partners. UPA has managed
a decadelong coalition with both formal and informal allies.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">There is nothing
sentimental about power. Mrs Indira Gandhi kept the Left onside only as long as
she needed them, for either domestic or foreign policy. (The Left was very
helpful in forging her alliance with the Soviet Union before the Bangladesh
war.) Smaller parties have drawn their own lessons. The principal one is
unsurprising. They can maximise their benefits only when a Congress or BJP is
vulnerable enough to listen, but not weak enough to die.</span><br />
<span style="background: white;"> </span><br />
<span style="background: white;">The present impasse
is more complex. Both government and opposition have disappeared, the first
replaced by aggressive paralysis, the second by rampant turmoil. A Congress
that cannot pass an ordinance on food security is a passenger stranded on a
platform long after the train has passed. A BJP torn by internal and external
dissent is a train that has not left the station.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">History is never so
silly as to repeat itself, but there are echoes. We are in a phase similar to
Rao’s last year in office. Both Congress and BJP seem as friendless now as they
did nearly twenty years ago. When circumstances become so fluid, small parties
test how far they can swim, and look for a port only after having measured
their strength. Ambitions rise, for they know coalitions will emerge after
elections, not before. Both NDA and UPA were post-election formations. For
every Deve Gowda waiting for an astrologer’s prediction to come true, there are
three Gowda advisers waiting to become finance minister of India. The pressure
to buy a lottery ticket becomes huge.</span><br />
<span style="background: white;">Politics becomes a
siren. Ideology is tailored to opportunity. The BJP-Janata Dal (U) marriage
developed eczema long before divorce, but convenience camouflaged differences.
Nitish Kumar wed BJP when the Ram temple was at the top of BJP’s agenda, and
remained in Vajpayee’s Cabinet after the Gujarat riots because he needed BJP’s
help to become chief minister of Bihar. And BJP had no problems in Bihar with
what it described as “minority appeasement” elsewhere.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">The casino is being
cleared once again. Old bets are off. But politicians can only come to a new
table with chips loaned by familiar vote banks.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Alas, if you depend
too much on past arithmetic, you could miss emerging algebra. Politics as usual
is insufficient for an India in churn. Old constructs have weakened visibly.
Marxists are no longer principal guardians of “Left-secularism” ; for Nitish
Kumar and Naveen Patnaik, Mamata Banerjee will do very nicely instead. The
Third Front is not what it was in 1996 and 1997, when it could elect a PM. It
is a bargaining instrument to maximise the cash flow to Bengal, Bihar and
Odissa as price of support to the next Union government.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="background: white;">Who will form it?
Simple, again. Position play will surrender to numbers. When Vajpayee got 180
seats, the BJP did not look as saffron as it did when it had only 85 MPs. Which
party will get the MPs? Whichever understands the mood of the moment. As
another successful vote-winner , Bill Clinton, told his opponents on his way to
the White House: It’s the economics, stupid.</span></span></div>
M J Akbarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372493873446290094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8323210.post-69891025694689331312013-06-16T15:41:00.002+05:302013-06-16T15:41:07.960+05:30The calm eye of an expanding storm<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Byline</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The calm eye of an expanding storm</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">M.J. Akbar</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Amman: Jordan is as calm as the eye of a
surrounding storm. As residents smoke shisham in cafes, and tourists trot out
complaints without which no holiday is complete, you would never guess that an
epochal civil war is devastating Syria, an hour’s smooth drive from Amman.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">On the map, Jordan is a geopolitical
fortress, still secure despite declared and undeclared conflict on every side.
To its east is Iraq, the land of ceaseless violence ever since George Bush and
his dark conservatives decided to destroy Al Qaeda in a land where it had never
existed, through a war that Washington and London knew how to begin, but no one
knows how to end. To Jordan’s west is Israel, where war has become a state of
mind; where every citizen is on permanent alert; and history wanders through limbo,
searching for a settlement that may or may not bring peace. To its south is
Saudi Arabia, struggling with itself, unable to come to terms with the display
of a woman’s face, struggling to find some way out of a time warp. Jeans
flourish in Amman, whether worn by men or women, and the only veil you might
see is probably worn by a tourist. To Jordan’s northwest lies Lebanon, which
has given a new meaning to that old term: permanent war.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Conversation, inevitably, drips with the
acid dew in the environment. Syria, claims one voice, is the latest victim of
the oldest faultline in modern history: oil and gas. This must be at the very
least a partial truth. No one was interested in West Asia’s vast deserts before
Europe’s colonists began to sniff oil in remote spots like Masjid-e-Suleimania,
and brought it home to Britain and France at cottage cheese prices to lubricate
their navies and their commerce. I suggest that Army-based secular autocrats like
the Assad family have also passed their sell-by date, but that invites a cynic’s
shrug in a region where dictators are more familiar than democrats. It does not
quite measure up against the fact that the oil and gas discovered in Syria,
Lebanon and Israel could soon make them very rich indeed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">You cannot argue with some facts. Iraq’s
oil tankers do not seem to face a violence problem. Nothing else may function
in Libya but its oil industry is up and about. Did you say there were
international sanctions against Iran? Tell that to the birds, or at least to
the birds who will listen. Its oil flows into Iraq where it becomes, with the scribble
of pen on invoice paper, Iraqi oil.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">In yet another instance of unintended
consequences, sanctions are helping Iran to develop the potential it has, much
in the way that a protected economy enabled Indian industrialists to
manufacture products that India could not import. Iran has ten automobile
factories now. Sanctions do punish; one is not being romantic about them. But
they can also prevent you from bloating on foreign fast food, or teach you to
make your own soap instead of becoming addicted to multinationals. Local
industry can co-exist with multinationals as equals, not as vendors for their
products.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Israel is militarily strong enough to
protect and exploit its natural resources. Other nations are not. There is a
lot of hidden depth to the games afoot in Syria, including the Sunni-Shia
sectarian conflict, tinged with ideological conservatism, that has become a
sub-text of the region. These are games played with real weapons.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">There has to be some reason beyond the urge
to sell arms, or play geopolitics, for Russia to send sophisticated arsenals to
Syria’s establishment, and for America to step in on the rebel side. This war has
escalated with incremental intervention. The United Nations is not even
pretending to show up. If Russia, and China from a discreet distance, cannot
afford Assad’s defeat, then America too cannot afford the collapse of
rebellion.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">There are contradictions on both sides.
Russia does not believe that the Assad family should be part of the long-term
solution. And Washington understands that many rebels are extremists who will
ravage Syria’s minorities and then turn their attention westwards if they ever
come to power in Damascus.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">When you think of minorities, include
women. Some of the support for the rebels is coming from revanchist elements, whose
stockpile of carbon cash keeps searching for ways to destroy a modern social
order.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The ideal is not in formal dispute: Syria
should have what it deserves, a secular democracy. This is the promise that
made the Baathist party guardian of Syria’s destiny. Baathists veered away from
democracy through an unsustainable alibi, and in the process have endangered
the society they once nourished.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The present status quo is as unacceptable
as the dangerous fringe in the alternative. But if war expands, it will blow
out of control. Cease fire and talk, before there is no one left to talk to.
There will be no calm left either.</span></div>
M J Akbarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372493873446290094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8323210.post-78273146690326687302013-05-13T13:07:00.003+05:302013-05-13T13:07:37.279+05:30The price of ‘corrugance’<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<link href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CADMINI%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CADMINI%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx" rel="themeData"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CADMINI%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml" rel="colorSchemeMapping"></link><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/>
<w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/>
<w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/>
<w:Word11KerningPairs/>
<w:CachedColBalance/>
</w:Compatibility>
<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="267">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:1;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-format:other;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:0 0 0 0 0 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1073750139 0 0 159 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Georgia;
panose-1:2 4 5 2 5 4 5 2 3 3;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin-top:0in;
margin-right:0in;
margin-bottom:10.0pt;
margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
span.apple-converted-space
{mso-style-name:apple-converted-space;
mso-style-unhide:no;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
.MsoPapDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
margin-bottom:10.0pt;
line-height:115%;}
@page Section1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
-->
</style><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 5.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 22.5pt;">The price of ‘corrugance’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 5.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 22.5pt;">M.J. Akbar<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 5.25pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%; color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;">Someone described BJP’s
drubbing in Karnataka as an innings defeat. This is true as far as it goes, but
it doesn’t go far enough. The game has changed.An election used to be a test
match. It is now a protest match.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><br style="word-spacing: 0px;" />
<br style="word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; word-spacing: 0px;">The fulcrum of this anger is corruption. All else pales. Shed
a tear then for poor Suraj Singh Thakur, Mumbai president of the Congress
student organization NSUI, who was suspended merely for dancing drunk and naked
late into the night, encouraged by the throb of a DJ’s beat at the end of a strenuous
three-day conference on ways and means to save the nation. All that Thakur did
was dance, albeit drunk and nude in equal proportions. Alcohol is no longer a
hanging offence in Congress. For many future stars rotating in the highest
orbits, Congress is now a party that begins at sunset.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><br style="word-spacing: 0px;" />
<br style="word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; word-spacing: 0px;">Thakur must be bewildered at the Congress definition of crime
and punishment. He sees half the Congress Cabinet caught with its pants down,
exposed by CAG, CBI, a vigilant Haryana bureaucrat, or indeed the Italian police
chasing bribes to Indian politicians in a helicopter deal with more zeal than
any Indian policemen has displayed, and sees evasion to protect the mighty. Law
minister Ashwani Kumar, who perverted the CBI investigation into the coal mines
scam and subverted evidence submitted to the Supreme Court, is forced to resign
with the greatest reluctance. Kumar was trying to erase the trail to the Prime
Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, the very summit of government, and the government
is still in place. It is not until tapes surface of railway minister Pawan
Bansal incriminating himself with astonishing abandon that he is forced to
quit. Poor Thakur must be wondering, in his few sober moments, whether there is
any justice in politics.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><br style="word-spacing: 0px;" />
<br style="word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; word-spacing: 0px;">Actually, there isn’t. But there is justice in an election.
Statutory warning to all ministers, prime or lower down: voters do not punish
young men drunk on student spirits. Voters punish older men drunk with power.
The story from Karnataka is of a Congress victory. The moral of this story lies
in BJP’s defeat. The humiliation of the party’s former peacock, the chief
minister who triggered a selfdestructive avalanche, B.S. Yeddyurappa, is
particularly instructive. He imagined he was going to become CM again. He has
many years of contemplation ahead.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><br style="word-spacing: 0px;" />
<br style="word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; word-spacing: 0px;">He was trapped in a suicidal pincer of corruption and
arrogance. The syndrome is so widespread, across party lines, that we might
need a word for it: “corrugance” would do. More names keep getting added to a
long list: Bansal and Kumar are only the newest. Corruption kills; arrogance
insures a long burial. This was fatal to BJP in Karnataka; it will be deadly
for UPA across India when a general election comes. The voter is especially
unforgiving when governments permit theft of natural resources, the people’s
wealth, by cronies. The BJP’s collapse began with the rape of mines in Bellary.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><br style="word-spacing: 0px;" />
<br style="word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; word-spacing: 0px;">It was an early scandal of the BJP’s tenure, but people did
not forget, just as voters will remember a long UPA litany . UPA sanctioned
loot of resources on an unprecedented scale: in spectrum, mines, or
agricultural land gobbled up through shady private deals. The BJP lost the
confidence of Karnataka long before it was whittled into a minority in the
legislature. Ditto, UPA in Delhi. His personal credibility is shattered, his
government’s reputation is an embarrassment, his party has become a national
joke, but Dr Singh continues, primly, in office, hoping for a chance reversal
of fortune through a spin of cosmic lottery. But there are no miracles left in
God’s cupboard for the corrupt.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><br style="word-spacing: 0px;" />
<br style="word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; word-spacing: 0px;">The Indian voter has more patience than the Indian
temperament would suggest. Even a fog at the top will not deter the voter from
locating his destination. The Congress did not have a candidate for Chief
Minister in Karnataka during the campaign. It did not matter beyond a point. It
will not matter beyond the same point when India votes. The Congress vote in
Karnataka did not rise by much; the BJP vote collapsed.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><br style="word-spacing: 0px;" />
<br style="word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; word-spacing: 0px;">Across the country, the BJP is rising only marginally, but
Congress is falling with a thud. Mrs Sonia Gandhi and Dr Singh have an
additional problem. In Karnataka BJP operated from ground level, full of the
usual slosh and pitfalls. Dr Singh and Mrs Gandhi opted for the moral high
ground of saints. A fall from such heights is that much more shattering. Dr
Singh, after claiming honesty as a first principle, permitted corruption in
order to sit in the PM’s chair. This is betrayal, too. His ebbing admirers want
him to resign. He believes he can squeeze out a few more months of power
through sustained indifference.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><br style="word-spacing: 0px;" />
<br style="word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; word-spacing: 0px;">The Congress is lost in the debris of a vote factory built on
sand. UPA is dead. India needs another government, born through the labour of
an election, immediately.</span></span></span></div>
</div>
M J Akbarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372493873446290094noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8323210.post-37739929122295742662013-05-13T13:05:00.001+05:302013-05-13T13:05:24.222+05:30 No country for confusion<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<link href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CADMINI%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CADMINI%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx" rel="themeData"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CADMINI%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml" rel="colorSchemeMapping"></link><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/>
<w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/>
<w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/>
<w:Word11KerningPairs/>
<w:CachedColBalance/>
</w:Compatibility>
<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="267">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:"Cambria Math";
panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:1;
mso-generic-font-family:roman;
mso-font-format:other;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:0 0 0 0 0 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;
mso-font-charset:0;
mso-generic-font-family:swiss;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1073750139 0 0 159 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-unhide:no;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
margin-top:0in;
margin-right:0in;
margin-bottom:10.0pt;
margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
span.il
{mso-style-name:il;
mso-style-unhide:no;}
span.apple-converted-space
{mso-style-name:apple-converted-space;
mso-style-unhide:no;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
mso-default-props:yes;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
.MsoPapDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
margin-bottom:10.0pt;
line-height:115%;}
@page Section1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;
mso-header-margin:.5in;
mso-footer-margin:.5in;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
-->
</style><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="il"><span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: rgb(255, 255, 204) none repeat scroll 0% 0%; color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">No country for confusion</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">M.J. Akbar</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">The results of the Pakistan elections should be
far less important</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">than the fact that elections are taking place.
There will always be</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">theorists who find comparisons between the past
and present</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">irresistible. It is possible, for instance, to see
faint ghosts of</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">1970 and 1971, albeit in a reverse mirror image: a
new West and East</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">Pakistan emerging, with Sindh, Balochistan and
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">gravitating towards dissension and bulwark Punjab
holding up central</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">space. In this scenario the Pakistan of 1947,
halved in 1971, is being</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">reduced to a mere Punjab in the teens of the 21st
century.</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">Elections can trigger, or accentuate, seismic
faults if sectarian</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">passions find a correlation with geography. The
decisive phase of the</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">Bangladesh liberation movement began with a
general election that</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">confirmed that East and West Pakistan were
politically split. Zulfiqar</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistan People’s
Party, argued forcefully</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">after the verdict that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s
Awami League had no</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">moral right to rule the West because its mandate
had come solely from</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">the East. Awami League had an arithmetical
majority in the national</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">legislature, not a political one.</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">Bhutto was right. By the same token, his PPP had
no claim over what is</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">now Bangladesh since his party was not even in the
contest in the</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">East. Of course Bhutto could never extend,
publicly, the logic of his</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">assertion.</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">But two contemporary realities make disintegration
virtually</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">impossible. Pakistan has a strong nationalist
institution in the armed</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">forces. Even in 1971, Bangladesh could not have
been born without the</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">defeat and humiliation of the Pak armed forces in
a war against India.</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">East and West would have had to find a different
solution, but that is</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">another story.</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">Second, Tehrik-e-Taliban and its allies do not
represent a threat to</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">the geography of Pakistan. They are challenging
what they believe is a</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">wishy-washy compromise that currently passes as
the ideology of the</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">state. They want a hardline Islamic Pakistan, not
a divided Pakistan.</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">They believe a Sharia-driven Sunni Islam can check
sub-nationalism.</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">They do not want to drive the Baloch or the Pathan
away; if anything,</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">their dreams are expansionist, seeking ideological
territory in</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">Afghanistan and then an alliance with compatible
Sunni movements and</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">militias further west. If they have an enemy
within the folds of</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">believers, it is the Shia, who they condemn as
heretics.</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">The Taliban has begun military operations against
two sectarian</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">parties: the MQM, the front of North Indian
refugees, and ANP [Awami</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">National Party] of the Frontier. The third enemy
is PPP, which is</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">likely to become a Sindh party after this poll.
The Taliban is not</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">talking about merely defeating them in elections.
It is seeking to</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">eliminate them physically. Over a hundred died,
and more than 300 were</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">wounded, during April alone, when campaign season
began. At its end,</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">former PPP Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani’s son, Ali
Haider Gilani, was</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">kidnapped in Multan. As Ahmad Rashid, the renowned
author and</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">journalist, put it, the “polarisation, murder and
mayhem” are</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">unprecedented.</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">In a land where peace is news, a large island of
calm will inevitably</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">invite questions. Strangely, or perhaps logically,
there is little</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">violence in Punjab. Most observers attribute this
to an implicit</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">understanding between the principal adversaries
for power in Punjab,</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League and Imran
Khan’s</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">Tehreek-e-Insaf. Even if this were true, this is
only a very small</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">part of the story.</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">The Taliban and its friends are wiser than we
imagine. This is so</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">obviously a tactical decision, not a strategic
one. Taliban and</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">Company believe they can seize the surround,
providing them with a</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">larger operating base for the final phase in their
war for the control</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">of Pakistan, which will take place in Punjab.
Neither Imran nor Nawaz</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">is a Taliban ally. For this election, the
democrats [Nawaz and Imran],</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">and Taliban are using each other as a cat’s paw.
Their turn will come</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">after the elections.</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">The extremists have also sharpened their appeal by
exploiting a</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">fundamental weakness of Pakistan’s democratic
parties, their</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">collective capitulation to feudalism. Pakistan has
never had genuine</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">land reform. Bhutto, who flirted with socialism,
tried, failed and</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">abandoned the thought. Islam plus land is a
powerful slogan for the</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">peasant. The New York Times quotes Maulana Abdul
Khaliq Rehmani, a</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">candidate of the Ahle-Sunnat wal-Jamaat, a legal
offshoot of</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, telling a rural rally:
“Feudalism has</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">paralyzed Pakistan.” He also adds, for good
measure, that “Islamabad</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">is a colony of America.” The Jamaat has put up 130
candidates, and</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">less than ten might win; but they are sowing seeds
for conflicts</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">within the near future.</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">The most ominous result for Pakistan would be a
confused legislature.</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">It would encourage the worst instincts of the army
and inspire hopes</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">among extremists that their gun-stoked theocracy
is the only option</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">that can bring order to the country. This is what
makes results more</span></span><br style="text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;" />
<span style="-moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; background: white none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="float: none; text-align: start; word-spacing: 0px;">important than the polls. Whoever wins, should win
big.</span></span></span></div>
</div>
M J Akbarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14372493873446290094noreply@blogger.com0