Bookies and Bathwater
By M J Akbar
In Third Eye - Byword
April 8, 2011
Would you be outraged if someone whispered that Mahendra Singh Dhoni had wagered Rs 1 crore on an Indian victory in the World Cup? The sententious answer is yes; the honest answer is no. Dhoni would have bet on India's side; he would have put money where his heart was, just as millions of other Indians did-in fact, those who bet on form must be kicking themselves now. We do not object to betting, even if it is illegal. We object to the unethical.
Betting and cheating do not share an umbilical cord. The silly moaning about bookies is as ludicrous a bit of humbug as any devised in the long and often hypocritical history of commerce. Cheats are dishonest because they are cheats, not because they are gamblers. The best solution to illegal gambling is to legalise it. India, instead, is double-faced. Why should horse racing be permitted as a gambling sport, but not cricket? Has any government prevented anyone from gambling during Diwali? It is perfectly legal to bet on the outcome of any aspect of a cricket Test in England: has that corrupted English cricketers? No. In fact, it may be more valid to say that illegal gambling induces corruption since those in charge of the business have to, perforce, either belong to or work with the underworld.
You might get a bizarre incident or two, but no systematic crime. The most famous case in my memory is that of an Australian fast bowler (still alive, honourably retired, but shall remain nameless in this column) during what has come to be known as the Botham series, thanks to the incredible feats Ian Botham engineered with both bat and ball. In one Test, England were in such a hopeless position that the odds on their victory climbed to 50-1. Our Australian pacer thought that they were too good to ignore, and placed a modest sum on Australia losing. Then Botham arrived and led England to a fairy tale win. The Australian collected from his bookie. Some eyebrows were raised, and a moustache or two possibly quivered, but no one accused the bowler of selling out.
Money and sport are natural partners, even though Victorian and post-Victorian England sponsored the classy fiction that honour was more, well, honourable, than cash. Cricket was unlawful in England till after the accession of Queen Victoria since the despotic Henry VIII banned all sport through an Act of Parliament in order to protect archery. The game survived because no law can ban anything which the people consider legitimate. Gambling was part of the fun, except when it reached ruinous proportions, or when it was hijacked by syndicates. The splendidly named and decorated Englishman, R. S. Rait Kerr CBE, DSO, MC, notes in The Laws of Cricket: Their History and Growth that stakes and gambling were "an essential factor in the development of cricket", and that the highest royalty offered rewards as high as 1,000 guineas for an important match long before 1750.
Where there is money, there will always arrive a pompous journalist, particularly if he can't get his hands on any. The Chelmsford Chronicle intoned in 1774: "This sport has too long been perverted from diversion and innocent pastime to excessive gaming and public dissipation. Cricket matches are now degenerated into business of importance. The increasing evil our magistracy ought to suppress in the Artillery Ground. It is confidently said that a set of idle fellows, or more properly, a gang of dextrous gamblers, are hired and maintained by a most noble lord, at so little expense as 1,000 pounds a year."
Noble lord, of course. Professional bookmakers did try and steal matches, then as now, but instead of sending them underground British legislators did the necessary spadework overground. In 1774, laws were introduced to regulate and clean up betting. The British refused to throw the baby out with the bathwater. MCC removed bookmakers from Lord's in 1820, and gradually both the sport and the flutter surrounding it found its true, and acceptable, levels.
Our present legislators, across party lines, believe that if they close their eyes, there will be no bathwater. It is the sort of bogus moral pose that pretends that prohibition is necessary in Gujarat because Mahatma Gandhi was born there. Every Gandhian value is abandoned, but we cultivate his most irrelevant dictum. If Gandhi were alive, the present state of corruption would probably have turned him into a despairing alcoholic.
Gandhi succeeded in mixing idealism and pragmatism in equal proportions. I daresay he would have approved legalised betting in 2011, with the provision that all its tax revenues be kept for poverty alleviation programmes. They could always be called the Mahendra Dhoni Garibi Hatao Yojana.
Saturday, April 09, 2011
A fast unto life
Byline by M J Akbar: A fast unto life
Mahatma Gandhi flagellated himself with 17 fasts. They were not all fasts unto the death; they could be time-specific. This did not reduce the risk to his life, for 21 days without any nourishment or medical intervention could drag a frail man with an average weight of some 110 pounds to death’s door.
Gandhi was a visionary, but not one ever trapped by illusion. He did not believe that a fast would persuade the British to pack up and leave the most lucrative part of their far-flung empire, the jewel of their crown, just because one obstinate, half-clad, toothless native had decided to stop drinking goat’s milk for a few days. The British establishment always treated Gandhi with contempt (exceptions like Lord Irwin apart); and as defeat loomed in the 1940s this evolved into unmitigated loathing, not least because an extraordinary arsenal of non-violence, moral momentum, and an unprecedented national awakening had driven history’s mightiest empire into limp impotence. When Gandhi started his liberation movement, the ranking Indian within the establishment, Lord Sinha, confidently averred that the British Raj would last for four hundred years. Thirty years later, the last Viceroy with any authority Lord Wavell [Mountbatten was a mere midwife, and left the motherland bleeding] had this to say in his diary on 26 September 1946: “The more I see of that old man [Gandhi] the more I regard him as an unscrupulous old hypocrite; he would shrink from no violence or bloodletting to achieve his ends…he is an exceeding to achieve his ends…he is an exceedingly shrewd, obstinate, domineering, double-tongued, single-minded politician”. You have to hate someone with unbelievable intensity to stitch together such a farrago of lies. Wavell wrote this just after his beloved British Raj had killed some four million Bengalis through another man-made famine.
Paradoxically, many of the British on the second rung admired the man who had made it his life’s work to destroy their empire. They understood that if they had been born Indian they would have been with Gandhi. On 11 January 1924, the superintendent of Pune jail, where Gandhi was interned, rushed the Mahatma to Sassoon hospital for an emergency appendicitis operation. The electricity went off when Colonel Maddock, the surgeon-general, was operating on the night of 12 January, with the help of a British nurse; he completed his duty with torchlight. Gandhi thanked them for saving his life, and they were proud to do so.
The British constituted only half the challenge before Gandhi; the other, and bitter, half were fellow Indians. Gandhi knew that unless he could exorcise, or at least contain, the evil of communal violence between Hindus and Muslims, even success could become ash in his mouth. He had no instrument of coercion to use against fellow Indians, but he had a secret weapon: moral blackmail. He could hold his own life hostage through a fast while Indians sorted out between themselves whether the ransom, Gandhi’s life, was worth paying. Over and over again, India paid up, for no Indian, Hindu or Muslim, wanted the sin of a Mahatma’s death on his head. It was in 1924, the same year as his appendicitis, that Gandhi went on a 21-day fast after the Kohat riots. Very deliberately, he chose to fast at the home of the great leader of the Khilafat movement, Maulana Mohammad Ali, in Delhi. By the time he sipped some orange juice on 8 October, the fever of violence had passed, at least for the moment.
The instinctive reaction of governments to any such fast is cynicism. A government might be, in fact, as weak as a terminal patient in cancer ward, but will delude itself, till its dying breath, that to surrender before a man ready to sacrifice his life will make future governance impossible. The Congress, which had wept through Gandhi’s fasts, refused to compromise when a Gandhian went on a fast unto death to demand the creation of Andhra Pradesh in 1950. The Gandhian died, and Andhra was born. The Akali Sants put fasts to effective public use during their movement for a Sikh-majority Punjab. The Marxists laughed about Mamata Banerjee’s weight when she went on a fast in Calcutta to protest against their land policy; on 13 May, when the Assembly election results are out, Mamata will have the last laugh.
A fast succeeds not because it bends a government to its will, but because it is the yeast that foments the rise of a populace. Anna Hazare’s fast in Delhi is not meant to bring down a government, its solitary purpose is, or should be, to resurrect an India that had become so supine that it slept indolently while the wealth of this nation was being looted by a handful of politicians and their acolytes. Anna Hazare is not waiting to see how many corrupt, hypocritical ministers come to his side; he wants to know how many Anna Hazares have emulated him on a street corner in front of their homes. He has asked just one question: do you, fellow Indians, have a conscience?
If the answer is yes, then rise and save your nation from the death-grip of corruption. This is a fast for India’s life.
Mahatma Gandhi flagellated himself with 17 fasts. They were not all fasts unto the death; they could be time-specific. This did not reduce the risk to his life, for 21 days without any nourishment or medical intervention could drag a frail man with an average weight of some 110 pounds to death’s door.
Gandhi was a visionary, but not one ever trapped by illusion. He did not believe that a fast would persuade the British to pack up and leave the most lucrative part of their far-flung empire, the jewel of their crown, just because one obstinate, half-clad, toothless native had decided to stop drinking goat’s milk for a few days. The British establishment always treated Gandhi with contempt (exceptions like Lord Irwin apart); and as defeat loomed in the 1940s this evolved into unmitigated loathing, not least because an extraordinary arsenal of non-violence, moral momentum, and an unprecedented national awakening had driven history’s mightiest empire into limp impotence. When Gandhi started his liberation movement, the ranking Indian within the establishment, Lord Sinha, confidently averred that the British Raj would last for four hundred years. Thirty years later, the last Viceroy with any authority Lord Wavell [Mountbatten was a mere midwife, and left the motherland bleeding] had this to say in his diary on 26 September 1946: “The more I see of that old man [Gandhi] the more I regard him as an unscrupulous old hypocrite; he would shrink from no violence or bloodletting to achieve his ends…he is an exceeding to achieve his ends…he is an exceedingly shrewd, obstinate, domineering, double-tongued, single-minded politician”. You have to hate someone with unbelievable intensity to stitch together such a farrago of lies. Wavell wrote this just after his beloved British Raj had killed some four million Bengalis through another man-made famine.
Paradoxically, many of the British on the second rung admired the man who had made it his life’s work to destroy their empire. They understood that if they had been born Indian they would have been with Gandhi. On 11 January 1924, the superintendent of Pune jail, where Gandhi was interned, rushed the Mahatma to Sassoon hospital for an emergency appendicitis operation. The electricity went off when Colonel Maddock, the surgeon-general, was operating on the night of 12 January, with the help of a British nurse; he completed his duty with torchlight. Gandhi thanked them for saving his life, and they were proud to do so.
The British constituted only half the challenge before Gandhi; the other, and bitter, half were fellow Indians. Gandhi knew that unless he could exorcise, or at least contain, the evil of communal violence between Hindus and Muslims, even success could become ash in his mouth. He had no instrument of coercion to use against fellow Indians, but he had a secret weapon: moral blackmail. He could hold his own life hostage through a fast while Indians sorted out between themselves whether the ransom, Gandhi’s life, was worth paying. Over and over again, India paid up, for no Indian, Hindu or Muslim, wanted the sin of a Mahatma’s death on his head. It was in 1924, the same year as his appendicitis, that Gandhi went on a 21-day fast after the Kohat riots. Very deliberately, he chose to fast at the home of the great leader of the Khilafat movement, Maulana Mohammad Ali, in Delhi. By the time he sipped some orange juice on 8 October, the fever of violence had passed, at least for the moment.
The instinctive reaction of governments to any such fast is cynicism. A government might be, in fact, as weak as a terminal patient in cancer ward, but will delude itself, till its dying breath, that to surrender before a man ready to sacrifice his life will make future governance impossible. The Congress, which had wept through Gandhi’s fasts, refused to compromise when a Gandhian went on a fast unto death to demand the creation of Andhra Pradesh in 1950. The Gandhian died, and Andhra was born. The Akali Sants put fasts to effective public use during their movement for a Sikh-majority Punjab. The Marxists laughed about Mamata Banerjee’s weight when she went on a fast in Calcutta to protest against their land policy; on 13 May, when the Assembly election results are out, Mamata will have the last laugh.
A fast succeeds not because it bends a government to its will, but because it is the yeast that foments the rise of a populace. Anna Hazare’s fast in Delhi is not meant to bring down a government, its solitary purpose is, or should be, to resurrect an India that had become so supine that it slept indolently while the wealth of this nation was being looted by a handful of politicians and their acolytes. Anna Hazare is not waiting to see how many corrupt, hypocritical ministers come to his side; he wants to know how many Anna Hazares have emulated him on a street corner in front of their homes. He has asked just one question: do you, fellow Indians, have a conscience?
If the answer is yes, then rise and save your nation from the death-grip of corruption. This is a fast for India’s life.
Saturday, April 02, 2011
Of Gods and Men
Of Gods and Men By M J Akbar Byword - India Today April 1, 2011 The first hint that divinity was involved in the battle of Mohali came when India won the toss. Till then, there were two opinions on the outcome. The rational analysis (which means, of course, only the British commentators) suggested that things seemed even: India can't bowl, Pakistan can't bat, and both can't field, so clearly a great match was in prospect. The sentimental view backed India. The true connoisseurs of cricket, the bookies, agreed: bookies earn international respect because they are the only ones who put their money where their mouth is. The players were professional enough to internalise their tensions as the ultimate test of nerves began; the stiffest upper lips at 2.30 p.m. were those of Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Yusuf Geelani. Within less than an hour of play, during the 11th over to be precise, there came conclusive evidence that a story circulating through the SMS sprawl was in fact true. Apparently, when Pakistan began to plan for the Mohali encounter with India, their captain Shahid Afridi sent up a fervent prayer to god for divine help against India. God was sympathetic, but pointed out that this was impossible, since he, after all, was opening the batting for India. Maybe Afridi does not know India enough to understand the extent to which Sachin Tendulkar is treated as a god in India. Anyone human would have certainly been out in the 11th over: the finger went up for an LBW the first time, only to be reversed by the camera; and when, immediately after, Pakistan celebrated a stumping, the Great Camera in the Sky proved that a thin part of a Sachin toe, invisible to human eye, was on turf. Then, as if to confirm that destiny can be a tease, Pakistan dropped Sachin twice. Even the experienced and beady-eyed Yunus Khan dropped a dolly. By the time he reached 82, Sachin had been dropped four times, one chance easier than the other. I stopped counting after Pakistan dropped its sixth catch of the day. There is no earthly explanation for such phenomena; this was the handiwork of He Who Controls the Stars. Pakistan's brilliant bowlers, led by a superb Wahab Riaz, had our much-vaunted batsmen in turmoil:each time they took a wicket, there was national silence in India and doubtless a roar in Pakistan that shook Afghanistan awake. But Riaz had to deal not only with Indian opponents but also a powerful fifth column within his side. If Pakistan had been informed by their coach that cricket is a game in which you also have to take catches and stop the ball from reaching the boundary, India could have been out for around a 100 runs, the match over before sunset, and the Singh-Geelani summit held in the calm after the storm. But Sachin survived to score onethird of the total, even though on this day this god seemed to have lost faith in himself. A hundredth century was technically, only 15 runs away; and yet Sachin never seemed as distant from a century. Perhaps he got out because somewhere deep inside he felt that he did not deserve one on Wednesday. Never has Sachin scored so many runs in such misery. Misery is infectious. The great Indian batting stars looked far happier in the ads that challenged cricket on television screens than on the field. My lasting memory of Mohali will not be that of victory or defeat. In any case there will be controversy: why, for instance, did Afridi not take the powerplay when he was batting. I wanted India to win, and desperately: let me confess that I could not bear to turn up the volume of the TV in my office until Pakistan were four wickets down. When Shahid Afridi holed out trying to send Harbhajan to Lahore, the volume went up sharply. The abiding memory, however, will be the rediscovery of a god who was, on the day it mattered, only human; of a genius who played and missed, who changed his bat but could not improve his timing, and yet displayed in flashes the incomparable strokeplay that makes us bow before the immortal. This does not reduce my admiration for Sachin; if anything, it increases the awe, for you can get blase about the perfection of a god. It is only when a god slips that you recognise how difficult it has been to reach that pinnacle, and then to glory in it for two decades. The ascent of man is, after all, so much more fascinating than the descent of a god.
No genius plays only for himself
Byline by M J Akbar: No genius plays only for himself .
The difference between the Indian team that won the World Cup in 1983 and the one in 2011 is an uncomplicated one: the economy. The 1983 victory was a consequence of talent, extraordinary self-belief and some luck. In 2011 the Indian cricket team is by far the richest eleven in the game, sucking the oxygen out of other sports, a template for ambition in homes across the small cities that will become the Delhis and Mumbais of tomorrow, a magnet for middle class and rural India which understands that the distance from obscurity to superstardom is a game that bypasses the educational demands of conventional professional upward mobility, and fetches rewards quite outside the zone of merit and salary. Cricket has become a supreme totem pole of the Indian economy both on an individual as well as a collective level, a classic instance of the virtuous cycle in which money breeds success and success generates greater profits. India begins with a substantial advantage over the other cricket teams of South Asia. Victory and defeat are determined of course by the human element, otherwise sport would be too dull to bother about; but the institutional spread offers both a massive pool of talent as well as the motivation that only an exploding bank account can bring. Yusuf Pathan cannot find a place in the final eleven, but is nearly Rs 10 crores richer out of the IPL which will follow the World Cup. He was born in circumstances where such a figure was beyond imagination.
How much better, therefore, would the brilliant players of Pakistan and Sri Lanka have been had they had the good fortune of such an economy to hone and add lustre to their superb capabilities? The tragedy of a negative environment is profound: when Pakistan players make a mistake (and they made too many in the semi finals against India to be forgiven) cruel whispers of match-fixing swirl around. The post-match talk is all about whether the Pak interior minister had been briefed by his intelligence agencies when he publicly warned the team about throwing the game away against India. The logic is mathematical, rather than moral. There is immediate and continuing monetary reward for an Indian player which makes the risk involved in a fix a stupid option. A crook might be able to continue playing cricket, but no crook is going to get paid to appear on an advertising billboard. But if a player is in the unenviable situation where cash from illegal betting is higher than legitimate earnings, temptation will always hover inside the dressing room. It hardly helps that some Pakistani players were recently caught making deals with bookies, despite high levels of vigilance imposed by ICC. In Mohali, the Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi won millions of Indian hearts when he accepted the adversity of defeat amid a cloud of inevitable suspicion, with the grace of a great champion: how much more would his genius have flowered if he had lived in a more stable age of Pakistan's history!
The tortured internal conflicts within Muralitharan's soul can barely be imagined: a Tamil who got an impossible 800 Test match wickets playing for Sri Lanka during decades shredded by a civil war between a Sinhala-majority government and the Tamil Tigers. Did the ferocity in his eyes belong to inner demons? If they did, he is a man of great character, for he silenced them through a display of commitment to his team and flag that has made him a hero of his nation. No genius plays only for himself: talent might belong solely to the self, but withers when it becomes selfish. Murali, or Sachin Tendulkar have achieved much more than their ability warranted because they also surrendered their genius to a higher, national cause. Neither needed to be captain to prove they were superior; the responsibilities of captaincy diminished Sachin. Those of us who delight in cricket should consider ourselves blessed because we will see, on Saturday, the finest batsman in history compete with the greatest spinner ever born in a match of wits that could define which side will take the cup. This is obviously written before the result, but the result is only going to be a statistic. A statistic has no place in an epic. We shall see the last, dazzling burst of meteors that have enflamed our firmament.
So far, Sri Lanka have been the best team in the tournament. They have been so good with the bat that we do not know how good, or indeed how fragile, they are down the line. The partisan within me admits this reluctantly, but the past is, in such an event, irrelevant to the present. Murali will bowl his last ball in a World Cup, and Sachin stroke his final off-drive through a motionless field. Those are memories that will mature into magic as we weave our own way to our last days.
The difference between the Indian team that won the World Cup in 1983 and the one in 2011 is an uncomplicated one: the economy. The 1983 victory was a consequence of talent, extraordinary self-belief and some luck. In 2011 the Indian cricket team is by far the richest eleven in the game, sucking the oxygen out of other sports, a template for ambition in homes across the small cities that will become the Delhis and Mumbais of tomorrow, a magnet for middle class and rural India which understands that the distance from obscurity to superstardom is a game that bypasses the educational demands of conventional professional upward mobility, and fetches rewards quite outside the zone of merit and salary. Cricket has become a supreme totem pole of the Indian economy both on an individual as well as a collective level, a classic instance of the virtuous cycle in which money breeds success and success generates greater profits. India begins with a substantial advantage over the other cricket teams of South Asia. Victory and defeat are determined of course by the human element, otherwise sport would be too dull to bother about; but the institutional spread offers both a massive pool of talent as well as the motivation that only an exploding bank account can bring. Yusuf Pathan cannot find a place in the final eleven, but is nearly Rs 10 crores richer out of the IPL which will follow the World Cup. He was born in circumstances where such a figure was beyond imagination.
How much better, therefore, would the brilliant players of Pakistan and Sri Lanka have been had they had the good fortune of such an economy to hone and add lustre to their superb capabilities? The tragedy of a negative environment is profound: when Pakistan players make a mistake (and they made too many in the semi finals against India to be forgiven) cruel whispers of match-fixing swirl around. The post-match talk is all about whether the Pak interior minister had been briefed by his intelligence agencies when he publicly warned the team about throwing the game away against India. The logic is mathematical, rather than moral. There is immediate and continuing monetary reward for an Indian player which makes the risk involved in a fix a stupid option. A crook might be able to continue playing cricket, but no crook is going to get paid to appear on an advertising billboard. But if a player is in the unenviable situation where cash from illegal betting is higher than legitimate earnings, temptation will always hover inside the dressing room. It hardly helps that some Pakistani players were recently caught making deals with bookies, despite high levels of vigilance imposed by ICC. In Mohali, the Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi won millions of Indian hearts when he accepted the adversity of defeat amid a cloud of inevitable suspicion, with the grace of a great champion: how much more would his genius have flowered if he had lived in a more stable age of Pakistan's history!
The tortured internal conflicts within Muralitharan's soul can barely be imagined: a Tamil who got an impossible 800 Test match wickets playing for Sri Lanka during decades shredded by a civil war between a Sinhala-majority government and the Tamil Tigers. Did the ferocity in his eyes belong to inner demons? If they did, he is a man of great character, for he silenced them through a display of commitment to his team and flag that has made him a hero of his nation. No genius plays only for himself: talent might belong solely to the self, but withers when it becomes selfish. Murali, or Sachin Tendulkar have achieved much more than their ability warranted because they also surrendered their genius to a higher, national cause. Neither needed to be captain to prove they were superior; the responsibilities of captaincy diminished Sachin. Those of us who delight in cricket should consider ourselves blessed because we will see, on Saturday, the finest batsman in history compete with the greatest spinner ever born in a match of wits that could define which side will take the cup. This is obviously written before the result, but the result is only going to be a statistic. A statistic has no place in an epic. We shall see the last, dazzling burst of meteors that have enflamed our firmament.
So far, Sri Lanka have been the best team in the tournament. They have been so good with the bat that we do not know how good, or indeed how fragile, they are down the line. The partisan within me admits this reluctantly, but the past is, in such an event, irrelevant to the present. Murali will bowl his last ball in a World Cup, and Sachin stroke his final off-drive through a motionless field. Those are memories that will mature into magic as we weave our own way to our last days.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Two and Only
Two and Only
By M J Akbar
By word : In India Today
March 25, 2011
Bob Hope, that great, late Hollywood philosopher, once described diplomacy as the art of describing Jane Russell without moving your hands. Such wisdom cannot be fully appreciated without a fond knowledge of Jane Russell's vital statistics, and Bob Hope had plenty of that. Jane was an actress who could, to put it mildly, stretch a blouse, and turned picking up unnecessary items from the floor into a tour de force: camera and cleavage had an excellent working relationship. Bob Hope used to introduce Jane Russell as the "two and only".
The art of India-Pakistan diplomacy is in quite the opposite mode: all hands and no Jane Russell.
India and Pakistan do not talk to each other; they talk at each other. Foreign secretary Nirupama Rao and her Pakistani counterpart Salman Basheer will confirm this truth when they meet again in a few days. The great secret of Indo-Pak talks is that there is nothing left to talk about.
Both countries are fully conscious of basic realities: that war is not an option for conflict resolution between nuclear powers. They also know that a frozen stalemate breeds seismic trigger points that can quickly go out of control, and escalation could suddenly take a quantum leap toward bristling missiles. They realise, even if they will not publicly admit it, that the geography of the Kashmir map cannot be changed and all rhetoric is designed for domestic sentiment, not international hard talk. This is more relevant to Pakistan than India, since India is content with the status quo and will accept it as the basis of an agreement. Pakistan cannot, officially, do so, but the much-whispered "Musharraf formula" recognised, in effect, that the only solution is dissolution of claims and institutionalisation of ground reality, perhaps by tweaking a phrase or two in any pact. Six decades of declared and undeclared war have not changed the boundary by six inches; and six more decades will not either. We do not have a signed piece of paper between India and Pakistan yet because the boringly obvious, that peace is the shortest route to muchneeded prosperity, is insufficient as a means of persuasion.
It would be a good idea, therefore, if Rao and Basheer stopped wasting time on bilateral issues. They could use the opportunity for social pleasantries, and there is always a decent government budget for interesting menus; the crisis that damaged, beyond repair, the Agra summit between Pervez Musharraf and Atal Bihari Vajpayee began over a breakfast that included eggs with a French name I can't pronounce. But since foreign secretaries meet for more than a gourmand's breakfast, here is an unsolicited suggestion.
They might have something useful, tangible and doable for their political masters if they set an agenda for an adjacent objective: how to convert SAARC into an antipoverty mechanism, and a fulcrum of ideas that establish dynamic economic relations through flexible, if not free, trade in goods, services and finance. India and Pakistan have trapped the SAARC nations in the vicious circle they have created through their partisan conflicts. As the old sufi saying goes, when you are caged by a vicious circle, draw a larger circle. SAARC is the larger circle through which the theme of the next decade can become a priority: the economic uplift of the hundreds of more than half a billion people crushed below the poverty line.
A second thought, worth considering over eggs and toast. There is a nuclear crescent arcing through the whole of Asia. Israel, Iran, Pakistan, India, China, Japan and Russia are nuclear powers. Japan does not possess nuclear weapons, but bombs are not the only danger, as should be obvious now. Radiation has no boundaries. Surely the moment has come for a summit on nuclear safety, and why should such a proposal not emanate through India-Pakistan collaboration? If these two antagonists make common cause, they will help create conditions for a new environment over far larger space than their own territories.
Existing disputes, however visceral, however old or new, do not have to become obstacles to cooperation where this is possible. India and Pakistan do not have to agree on an old sore like Kashmir, or a fresh spat like Afghanistan in order to eradicate poverty or protect the environment. All this, alas, is day-dreaming. The establishments of Delhi and Islamabad retreat into the comfort zone of the predictable at the first sign of a new idea. An open mind comes laden with risk, but risk can be minimised with thought and preparation.
As Bob Hope might have said while introducing this subcontinent to the world, India and Pakistan are the "two and only".
By M J Akbar
By word : In India Today
March 25, 2011
Bob Hope, that great, late Hollywood philosopher, once described diplomacy as the art of describing Jane Russell without moving your hands. Such wisdom cannot be fully appreciated without a fond knowledge of Jane Russell's vital statistics, and Bob Hope had plenty of that. Jane was an actress who could, to put it mildly, stretch a blouse, and turned picking up unnecessary items from the floor into a tour de force: camera and cleavage had an excellent working relationship. Bob Hope used to introduce Jane Russell as the "two and only".
The art of India-Pakistan diplomacy is in quite the opposite mode: all hands and no Jane Russell.
India and Pakistan do not talk to each other; they talk at each other. Foreign secretary Nirupama Rao and her Pakistani counterpart Salman Basheer will confirm this truth when they meet again in a few days. The great secret of Indo-Pak talks is that there is nothing left to talk about.
Both countries are fully conscious of basic realities: that war is not an option for conflict resolution between nuclear powers. They also know that a frozen stalemate breeds seismic trigger points that can quickly go out of control, and escalation could suddenly take a quantum leap toward bristling missiles. They realise, even if they will not publicly admit it, that the geography of the Kashmir map cannot be changed and all rhetoric is designed for domestic sentiment, not international hard talk. This is more relevant to Pakistan than India, since India is content with the status quo and will accept it as the basis of an agreement. Pakistan cannot, officially, do so, but the much-whispered "Musharraf formula" recognised, in effect, that the only solution is dissolution of claims and institutionalisation of ground reality, perhaps by tweaking a phrase or two in any pact. Six decades of declared and undeclared war have not changed the boundary by six inches; and six more decades will not either. We do not have a signed piece of paper between India and Pakistan yet because the boringly obvious, that peace is the shortest route to muchneeded prosperity, is insufficient as a means of persuasion.
It would be a good idea, therefore, if Rao and Basheer stopped wasting time on bilateral issues. They could use the opportunity for social pleasantries, and there is always a decent government budget for interesting menus; the crisis that damaged, beyond repair, the Agra summit between Pervez Musharraf and Atal Bihari Vajpayee began over a breakfast that included eggs with a French name I can't pronounce. But since foreign secretaries meet for more than a gourmand's breakfast, here is an unsolicited suggestion.
They might have something useful, tangible and doable for their political masters if they set an agenda for an adjacent objective: how to convert SAARC into an antipoverty mechanism, and a fulcrum of ideas that establish dynamic economic relations through flexible, if not free, trade in goods, services and finance. India and Pakistan have trapped the SAARC nations in the vicious circle they have created through their partisan conflicts. As the old sufi saying goes, when you are caged by a vicious circle, draw a larger circle. SAARC is the larger circle through which the theme of the next decade can become a priority: the economic uplift of the hundreds of more than half a billion people crushed below the poverty line.
A second thought, worth considering over eggs and toast. There is a nuclear crescent arcing through the whole of Asia. Israel, Iran, Pakistan, India, China, Japan and Russia are nuclear powers. Japan does not possess nuclear weapons, but bombs are not the only danger, as should be obvious now. Radiation has no boundaries. Surely the moment has come for a summit on nuclear safety, and why should such a proposal not emanate through India-Pakistan collaboration? If these two antagonists make common cause, they will help create conditions for a new environment over far larger space than their own territories.
Existing disputes, however visceral, however old or new, do not have to become obstacles to cooperation where this is possible. India and Pakistan do not have to agree on an old sore like Kashmir, or a fresh spat like Afghanistan in order to eradicate poverty or protect the environment. All this, alas, is day-dreaming. The establishments of Delhi and Islamabad retreat into the comfort zone of the predictable at the first sign of a new idea. An open mind comes laden with risk, but risk can be minimised with thought and preparation.
As Bob Hope might have said while introducing this subcontinent to the world, India and Pakistan are the "two and only".
Cool Domestic Happiness
Byline by M J Akbar: Cool Domestic Happiness
The British existed in India for over two centuries. They should have co-existed. They would not have needed a Prime Minister in 2011, David Cameron, to fiddle around with ideas like Gross Domestic Happiness, his latest barometer to gauge the welfare of society. Indians have long preferred GDS to GDP: Gross Domestic Self-satisfaction. A 19th century Cameron would have caught on to the fact that life is something more than a mere industrial revolution.
GDS cannot be either measured or implemented by governments, whose only obsession is to boss around or pocket paybacks whenever possible. Indians do like a bit of authority, but, alas, only in areas where they don't get any, like municipal services. When it comes to pleasure, they don't hang around waiting for permission.
On Thursday 24 March, when India defeated Australia in the quarter finals of the World Cup, an estimated fifty per cent of the country's cricket fans took a half-holiday. This estimate is mine, based on empirical evidence collected from morning traffic in Delhi. There was no snarl on the roads, just a grudging smile. On Wednesday 30 March, when India plays Pakistan in the semi finals, the roads will be beaming with joy, since 90% of the fans will stay at home. Most of them will begin their half-holiday at 10 am, arguing, quite correctly, that it is anti-national to waste as precious a national resource as petrol at post-Libya prices just to show your face for a few minutes in the office. I can proudly lay claim to the proposition that the half-holiday is an Indian invention, particularly one that begins at 10 am. A full holiday to watch cricket on TV is for wimps. Strong men stick to half-holidays.
Prayers will be offered, and emotions invested in victory, because we Indians take our cricket-nationalism very seriously indeed. But that is not the only spirit that will consume fans, or many fans will consume, on Wednesday. The moment the last ball is bowled, there will be a frenzy of conversation since India is a nation of analysts. Emotional Pakistan will be elated or depressed, but India will analyze whatever the result, whether over tea or something more sensational.
The good news, however, is that India and Pakistan no longer treat cricket as an existential conflict. One of the most moving moments of my life came in Lahore in 2004, when the joy of an Indian victory in a one-dayer soared at the sight of young Pakistani fans waving the Indian flag as a gesture of friendship. May God ensure that on Wednesday Pakistan succumb for less than a hundred runs, and Sachin Tendulkar alone scores that many to win and get his 100th 100 simultaneously, but just in case God is in a different mood, I hope Mohali and Chandigarh will display the sportsman's spirit that turned Lahore into a magic city in 2004. It would be too depressing if the culture of our subcontinent became hostage to political conflict.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has seized the moment by inviting Asif Zardari and his technical counterpart Yousaf Raza Gilani to Mohali. "Cricket diplomacy" is a bit of a misnomer since nothing actually moves on the diplomatic front as a consequence. Rajiv Gandhi invited General Zia ul Haq to Jaipur in 1987; and Dr Singh was host to General Pervez Musharraf in 2005. Later, Dr Singh declined a reciprocal gesture. The first did not lead to a breakthrough, and the second did instigate collapse. But governments are only one part of the India-Pakistan equation. Friendship between the people is far more important than friendship between two governments. Cricket builds relations at the broad, popular base, even if the apex of the pyramid is withering.
Cricket-chemistry is such alchemy on the subcontinent precisely because India and Pakistan have equal tubs of talent. Their individual and collective behaviour is visibly different. India is a professionally inter-woven unit; while Pakistan gives the impression of being a collection of temperamental mavericks. But environment, and opportunity, could make Pakistan's seeming weakness into an asset; when such talent is watered by passion, it can blossom. You can never tell on which day who will become the genie in the Pakistan bottle.
India, on the other hand, revolves around four batsmen and one bowler: Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh and Zaheer Khan. Yuvraj is on song, but the defining difference is Sachin, who, after two decades at the crease, has become the coolest, most disciplined genius in the history of the game. We will not be privileged to see his like again. Sachin Tendulkar has nothing left to prove, but he does have something left to say: that when the history of the game is written victory at Mohali on 30 March 2011 will be among his laurels.
That would be the ultimate in Cool Domestic Satisfaction.
The British existed in India for over two centuries. They should have co-existed. They would not have needed a Prime Minister in 2011, David Cameron, to fiddle around with ideas like Gross Domestic Happiness, his latest barometer to gauge the welfare of society. Indians have long preferred GDS to GDP: Gross Domestic Self-satisfaction. A 19th century Cameron would have caught on to the fact that life is something more than a mere industrial revolution.
GDS cannot be either measured or implemented by governments, whose only obsession is to boss around or pocket paybacks whenever possible. Indians do like a bit of authority, but, alas, only in areas where they don't get any, like municipal services. When it comes to pleasure, they don't hang around waiting for permission.
On Thursday 24 March, when India defeated Australia in the quarter finals of the World Cup, an estimated fifty per cent of the country's cricket fans took a half-holiday. This estimate is mine, based on empirical evidence collected from morning traffic in Delhi. There was no snarl on the roads, just a grudging smile. On Wednesday 30 March, when India plays Pakistan in the semi finals, the roads will be beaming with joy, since 90% of the fans will stay at home. Most of them will begin their half-holiday at 10 am, arguing, quite correctly, that it is anti-national to waste as precious a national resource as petrol at post-Libya prices just to show your face for a few minutes in the office. I can proudly lay claim to the proposition that the half-holiday is an Indian invention, particularly one that begins at 10 am. A full holiday to watch cricket on TV is for wimps. Strong men stick to half-holidays.
Prayers will be offered, and emotions invested in victory, because we Indians take our cricket-nationalism very seriously indeed. But that is not the only spirit that will consume fans, or many fans will consume, on Wednesday. The moment the last ball is bowled, there will be a frenzy of conversation since India is a nation of analysts. Emotional Pakistan will be elated or depressed, but India will analyze whatever the result, whether over tea or something more sensational.
The good news, however, is that India and Pakistan no longer treat cricket as an existential conflict. One of the most moving moments of my life came in Lahore in 2004, when the joy of an Indian victory in a one-dayer soared at the sight of young Pakistani fans waving the Indian flag as a gesture of friendship. May God ensure that on Wednesday Pakistan succumb for less than a hundred runs, and Sachin Tendulkar alone scores that many to win and get his 100th 100 simultaneously, but just in case God is in a different mood, I hope Mohali and Chandigarh will display the sportsman's spirit that turned Lahore into a magic city in 2004. It would be too depressing if the culture of our subcontinent became hostage to political conflict.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has seized the moment by inviting Asif Zardari and his technical counterpart Yousaf Raza Gilani to Mohali. "Cricket diplomacy" is a bit of a misnomer since nothing actually moves on the diplomatic front as a consequence. Rajiv Gandhi invited General Zia ul Haq to Jaipur in 1987; and Dr Singh was host to General Pervez Musharraf in 2005. Later, Dr Singh declined a reciprocal gesture. The first did not lead to a breakthrough, and the second did instigate collapse. But governments are only one part of the India-Pakistan equation. Friendship between the people is far more important than friendship between two governments. Cricket builds relations at the broad, popular base, even if the apex of the pyramid is withering.
Cricket-chemistry is such alchemy on the subcontinent precisely because India and Pakistan have equal tubs of talent. Their individual and collective behaviour is visibly different. India is a professionally inter-woven unit; while Pakistan gives the impression of being a collection of temperamental mavericks. But environment, and opportunity, could make Pakistan's seeming weakness into an asset; when such talent is watered by passion, it can blossom. You can never tell on which day who will become the genie in the Pakistan bottle.
India, on the other hand, revolves around four batsmen and one bowler: Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh and Zaheer Khan. Yuvraj is on song, but the defining difference is Sachin, who, after two decades at the crease, has become the coolest, most disciplined genius in the history of the game. We will not be privileged to see his like again. Sachin Tendulkar has nothing left to prove, but he does have something left to say: that when the history of the game is written victory at Mohali on 30 March 2011 will be among his laurels.
That would be the ultimate in Cool Domestic Satisfaction.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Le Carré & His Music of English English
Byline by M J Akbar: Le Carré & His Music of English English
When John le Carré writes, the intelligent reader listens. His prose is a chamber of echoes, its crosscurrents eerie despite being leavened with wit: the laughter is touched by the menace of threat, a demon in on a private joke. Sometimes the joke is a little obvious, but only if you haven't missed it; paradox is routine in le Carré's English English. Peregrine Makepiece, do we have here? Surely an all-round amateur athlete of distinction and until recently tutor at Oxford who does Most Serious climbs for recreation, with a sparky long-standing girlfriend Gail, should be the more traditional Makepeace. The author dangles the joke a bit, noting that Peregrine, a worthy upper class moniker, actually derives from a Methodist rabble-rousing prelate, thus establishing class, a vital component of the le Carré cast system. No explanations are deemed necessary for the surname. You can decide, and then change your mind through the narrative, into how many pieces Peregrine will split before it all ends in the nebulous zone of moral ambiguity and hazy non-closure in which the le Carré population has wandered ever since The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.
This was actually le Carré's third novel, but the first for most of us who became fans in college and are heading towards our own twilight withthe author still as company. Nothing ends in le Carré. The last sentence is a door ajar for the next book. The final pronouncement in Our Kind of Traitor is a gem of the ouvre: "No group has claimed responsibility". Someone will, but perhaps through a seemingly unlinked echo in the 23rd book.
Le Carré does treachery well. Born in 1931, he was in his teens when Stalin switched from foe to friend during the Second World War, a conflict that would have destroyed, had it gone wrong, all the good that Britain stood for, values and civilisation, while preserving the injustice of brutal colonisation; and then became Evil Incarnate in the Cold War that followed. The romance of shadows edged him into the British Intelligence services, where he picked up a basic lesson: loyalty has little to do with virtue. Treachery could even be a higher firm of virtue, if one were to believe the Cambridge lot of spies, the most persuasive of them being the extraordinary Kim Philby, a mole who rose to head the anti-Soviet division of British intelligence and became the inspiration of both brilliant and awful spy fiction. As Philby pointed out to my friend Phillip Knightley, the star of British investigative reporting in an era when the Sunday Times still believed in the genre, you did not sell out for something as shoddy as money. There was, in any case, more money in a capitalist homeland than in Soviet Russia, whose moveable pleasures ran a short distance through a dacha, a wife, some vodka and a remorseless bureaucracy.
Le Carré begs to differ from Philby, but being an Englishman, not by much: duty is the more honourable virtue. Once you join a side, you stick to it. This is war. The best soldiers are schoolboys. The finest boy is The Honourable Schoolboy.
Le Carré hit a poor [I can't get myself to use 'bad'] patch when the certain uncertainties of the Cold War were destroyed by the defeat of the Soviet Union. The Soviets were a worthy enemy, deserving of legitimate and illegitimate confrontation. Soldiers play to win. Spies play to continue. Victory ends this game, and soldiers retire to rest and recuperate. Spies are lost without a chessboard of knights with guns and bishops with poison and kings with double faces.
It is not easy to find a second enemy in one lifetime, even in a life as long as le Carré's. He is too astute to take comfort in black and white lines, even when he deals with arms smugglers or terrorists. A Most Wanted Man, perhaps his finest portrait of terrorism, was also A Most Tortured Man, brutalised by his base before being launched into the unknown.
The central genius of le Carré's superb imagination is of course George Smiley, a child who slipped into seniority without quite negotiating the passage of youth. Smiley's torture was viscerally internal as well as public knowledge, the adultery of his beautiful, aristocratic wife Ann with a man who may or may not have been the most dangerous mole in British history. Persistence, not deception, is the armour of the quality spy, and who can blame Ann for periodically abandoning a social-misfit-bumblebee for the suave self-confidence of a traitor? Smiley is the tinker whose diligence at the sparking machine saves the day, even if he loses the night in the process. The last torture of Smiley is that he can never be sure if his victory was personal revenge or national service.
E.M. Forster, another Cambridge fixture, famously said that if he had ever to choose between betraying his friend and his country he wished he would have the courage to betray the latter. But that sounds like a literary conceit. One way out might be to toss a coin: after all, as many mistakes have been made in the name of patriotism as in the cause of evil. George the Plod is a natural hero in a plot where no medals are on offer, and the price of failure is either death or, worse, hopeless obscurity. Smiley lives long after Smiley's People, an omnipresent shadow hovering through the culture of every le Carré book, a constant reprimand to those whose thrills are shaped by thesis and antithesis. The difference between Our Kind of Traitor and Our Kind of Hero is only a matter of luck, isn't it?
There is music on every page of Traitor, in rhythm and deflation of phrase and cadence, in both the tiny conflicts of an oxymoron and the mighty decisions that sieve the difference between success and failure in life. Gail's "father, a sweetly useless actor, had died prematurely of alcohol, sixty cigarettes a day and a misplaced passion for his wayward wife. Her mother, an actress but less sweet, had vanished from the family home when Gail was thirteen, and was reputed to be living the simple life on the Costa Brava with a second cameraman". Not the first, naturally. Such details have little to do with the nudge of the narrative. But this is literature, not a screenplay; irrelevant to the story but essential to the atmosphere. This is the sphere in which le Carré excels. From here, thoughts vaguely masquerading as questions loom: did the West win the Cold War because it was ruthlessly amoral, or did the Soviet Union lose because it was ruthlessly ideological?
The tension of dilemma between character and belief is always fascinating, since both are inconstant, which is what The Constant Gardener discovered. That however might be the one war, located in Africa, between Pious Crusader and Evil Drug Cartel, in which le Carré came dangerously close to taking sides. Even elsewhere, le Carré is not averse to cliche in characterisation. And so the heavy in Our Kind of Traitor is muscular, erect [in a non-sexual way], bald and flaunts a diamond-gold-Rolex. But he also ties his grey tracksuit with a bow at the midriff, so we have been saved from inanity at the last minute. The Big Baddie, Mr Dima, Old Russia manners and New Russia wealth, has probably been designed for the movie that will inevitably be made from this book.
Richard Burton was the Spy who Came in from the Cold, and established a line that was perfected by Alec Guinness as Smiley in the BBC series: grey men who walked across the lonely landscape of white. Until there came a spurt of red, and the protagonist was dead, killed by his own mistake. The destiny of the spy is anonymity, but save John le Carré for literary immortality.
When John le Carré writes, the intelligent reader listens. His prose is a chamber of echoes, its crosscurrents eerie despite being leavened with wit: the laughter is touched by the menace of threat, a demon in on a private joke. Sometimes the joke is a little obvious, but only if you haven't missed it; paradox is routine in le Carré's English English. Peregrine Makepiece, do we have here? Surely an all-round amateur athlete of distinction and until recently tutor at Oxford who does Most Serious climbs for recreation, with a sparky long-standing girlfriend Gail, should be the more traditional Makepeace. The author dangles the joke a bit, noting that Peregrine, a worthy upper class moniker, actually derives from a Methodist rabble-rousing prelate, thus establishing class, a vital component of the le Carré cast system. No explanations are deemed necessary for the surname. You can decide, and then change your mind through the narrative, into how many pieces Peregrine will split before it all ends in the nebulous zone of moral ambiguity and hazy non-closure in which the le Carré population has wandered ever since The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.
This was actually le Carré's third novel, but the first for most of us who became fans in college and are heading towards our own twilight withthe author still as company. Nothing ends in le Carré. The last sentence is a door ajar for the next book. The final pronouncement in Our Kind of Traitor is a gem of the ouvre: "No group has claimed responsibility". Someone will, but perhaps through a seemingly unlinked echo in the 23rd book.
Le Carré does treachery well. Born in 1931, he was in his teens when Stalin switched from foe to friend during the Second World War, a conflict that would have destroyed, had it gone wrong, all the good that Britain stood for, values and civilisation, while preserving the injustice of brutal colonisation; and then became Evil Incarnate in the Cold War that followed. The romance of shadows edged him into the British Intelligence services, where he picked up a basic lesson: loyalty has little to do with virtue. Treachery could even be a higher firm of virtue, if one were to believe the Cambridge lot of spies, the most persuasive of them being the extraordinary Kim Philby, a mole who rose to head the anti-Soviet division of British intelligence and became the inspiration of both brilliant and awful spy fiction. As Philby pointed out to my friend Phillip Knightley, the star of British investigative reporting in an era when the Sunday Times still believed in the genre, you did not sell out for something as shoddy as money. There was, in any case, more money in a capitalist homeland than in Soviet Russia, whose moveable pleasures ran a short distance through a dacha, a wife, some vodka and a remorseless bureaucracy.
Le Carré begs to differ from Philby, but being an Englishman, not by much: duty is the more honourable virtue. Once you join a side, you stick to it. This is war. The best soldiers are schoolboys. The finest boy is The Honourable Schoolboy.
Le Carré hit a poor [I can't get myself to use 'bad'] patch when the certain uncertainties of the Cold War were destroyed by the defeat of the Soviet Union. The Soviets were a worthy enemy, deserving of legitimate and illegitimate confrontation. Soldiers play to win. Spies play to continue. Victory ends this game, and soldiers retire to rest and recuperate. Spies are lost without a chessboard of knights with guns and bishops with poison and kings with double faces.
It is not easy to find a second enemy in one lifetime, even in a life as long as le Carré's. He is too astute to take comfort in black and white lines, even when he deals with arms smugglers or terrorists. A Most Wanted Man, perhaps his finest portrait of terrorism, was also A Most Tortured Man, brutalised by his base before being launched into the unknown.
The central genius of le Carré's superb imagination is of course George Smiley, a child who slipped into seniority without quite negotiating the passage of youth. Smiley's torture was viscerally internal as well as public knowledge, the adultery of his beautiful, aristocratic wife Ann with a man who may or may not have been the most dangerous mole in British history. Persistence, not deception, is the armour of the quality spy, and who can blame Ann for periodically abandoning a social-misfit-bumblebee for the suave self-confidence of a traitor? Smiley is the tinker whose diligence at the sparking machine saves the day, even if he loses the night in the process. The last torture of Smiley is that he can never be sure if his victory was personal revenge or national service.
E.M. Forster, another Cambridge fixture, famously said that if he had ever to choose between betraying his friend and his country he wished he would have the courage to betray the latter. But that sounds like a literary conceit. One way out might be to toss a coin: after all, as many mistakes have been made in the name of patriotism as in the cause of evil. George the Plod is a natural hero in a plot where no medals are on offer, and the price of failure is either death or, worse, hopeless obscurity. Smiley lives long after Smiley's People, an omnipresent shadow hovering through the culture of every le Carré book, a constant reprimand to those whose thrills are shaped by thesis and antithesis. The difference between Our Kind of Traitor and Our Kind of Hero is only a matter of luck, isn't it?
There is music on every page of Traitor, in rhythm and deflation of phrase and cadence, in both the tiny conflicts of an oxymoron and the mighty decisions that sieve the difference between success and failure in life. Gail's "father, a sweetly useless actor, had died prematurely of alcohol, sixty cigarettes a day and a misplaced passion for his wayward wife. Her mother, an actress but less sweet, had vanished from the family home when Gail was thirteen, and was reputed to be living the simple life on the Costa Brava with a second cameraman". Not the first, naturally. Such details have little to do with the nudge of the narrative. But this is literature, not a screenplay; irrelevant to the story but essential to the atmosphere. This is the sphere in which le Carré excels. From here, thoughts vaguely masquerading as questions loom: did the West win the Cold War because it was ruthlessly amoral, or did the Soviet Union lose because it was ruthlessly ideological?
The tension of dilemma between character and belief is always fascinating, since both are inconstant, which is what The Constant Gardener discovered. That however might be the one war, located in Africa, between Pious Crusader and Evil Drug Cartel, in which le Carré came dangerously close to taking sides. Even elsewhere, le Carré is not averse to cliche in characterisation. And so the heavy in Our Kind of Traitor is muscular, erect [in a non-sexual way], bald and flaunts a diamond-gold-Rolex. But he also ties his grey tracksuit with a bow at the midriff, so we have been saved from inanity at the last minute. The Big Baddie, Mr Dima, Old Russia manners and New Russia wealth, has probably been designed for the movie that will inevitably be made from this book.
Richard Burton was the Spy who Came in from the Cold, and established a line that was perfected by Alec Guinness as Smiley in the BBC series: grey men who walked across the lonely landscape of white. Until there came a spurt of red, and the protagonist was dead, killed by his own mistake. The destiny of the spy is anonymity, but save John le Carré for literary immortality.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
The terminal patient needs a doctor
Byline by M J Akbar: The terminal patient needs a doctor
The habitat of a government may have relocated from a palace to a hospital, but don’t start the funeral prayers too soon. The fate of Dr Manmohan Singh’s coalition will not be determined by the number of wounds on its body, or indeed on the body politic, nor by the toxicity of the environment, but by the circumstances of a moment which has not yet arrived.
The medical report of UPA2 would, in normal circumstances, demand emergency health bulletins. One of its legs, DMK, has gangrene. The only solution to gangrene is amputation, but the Congress has chosen to put band aid instead. The suicide of Satchik Batcha, the pauper-to-prince bagman who became conduit and beneficiary of A. Raja’s stolen goods, has added a sinister and fatal dimension to the sores oozing out of DMK’s bone marrow. Gangrene will spread as the system works its way through the suicide.
Congress, bathing in antiseptic to prevent that contagion, has been diagnosed with tubercolosis in its lungs by Dr Wikileaks. All the familiar ingredients of this historic malady have been found in the reports sent by the American embassy in Delhi to the State Department in Washington, and revealed to the world through internet. Names become almost irrelevant when the pattern is so set: a central figure whose principal contribution to the party has been as a cash reservoir for political transactions, an all-purpose middleman who could not resist flaunting his treasure chests to US intelligence officials, and then lazy denials without even the strength of a whimper.
As if all this were not hopeless enough, an obstinate sister from Bengal has chosen just this time to do her little bit: instead of bringing fruit and flowers to the patient, Mamata Banerjee has inserted a little knife into a vulnerable tendon. She has decided that the Grand Old Party is worth just 64 candidates out of 292 in the Bengal Assembly elections, take it or leave it. In order to swallow your pride, you must have some pride left, and Mamata Banerjee has drained the pride out of the Bengal Congress. Her calculation is self-serving, which is the only logic that works in politics. She does not want to be dependent on the Congress to form a future government. The Congress will win between 30 to 40 seats in any case; in an alliance it might get a bit more in such an equation. There is not much going for it. An alliance only benefits Mamata, for its places her victory beyond doubt.
I have no idea whether the Prime Minister believes in astrology or not, but no conjugation of planets and demons could have inflicted more misery upon him. For some months now, news has become a four-letter word for the Congress. But such is the paradoxical behavior of the planets that the very stars which are destroying the Congress image are preserving the life of this government. Dr Manmohan Singh’s government will survive this and even worse because there is no alternative alliance possible in this Parliament, and no MP wants a general election so soon.
Precisely because the crisis is premature, Dr Singh has an opportunity to fight his way out of it. When you have nothing more to lose, the only serious option left is going for the gain. It is too late now to reverse the alliance with the DMK, but another crossroads will come after the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections, which the DMK is almost certain to lose. This gives the Congress a reasonable opt-out: rejection by the voter will confirm the immorality of the alliance. Any threat by the DMK to take revenge by bringing down the government is meaningless, since it cannot do so until a widely disparate Opposition finds a common reason for doing so. Narasimha Rao, aided by a similar House, survived for three years with a minority without a jitter.
But survival must mean something more than bobbing about on a raft in the middle of a clueless sea. Dr Singh has to use this year, and there may not be much more time than that, to fill the gap in governance that has developed, and convince India that he is not paying mere lip service to probity in public life. The first is easier than the second, since elements within his own party and alliance are corrupt. But if he does not act against them, whatever be the price, his injured credibility will suffer beyond repair. Governance needs a resurgence of ideas, and the will to reform that has been strangely absent from his agenda after his re-election. Why this has happened is a mystery beyond the comprehension of this columnist.
Dr Manmohan Singh has a doctorate in economics rather than politics, but this is precisely what he needs. Politics has brought the government to hospital. Only economics can get it out of there.
The habitat of a government may have relocated from a palace to a hospital, but don’t start the funeral prayers too soon. The fate of Dr Manmohan Singh’s coalition will not be determined by the number of wounds on its body, or indeed on the body politic, nor by the toxicity of the environment, but by the circumstances of a moment which has not yet arrived.
The medical report of UPA2 would, in normal circumstances, demand emergency health bulletins. One of its legs, DMK, has gangrene. The only solution to gangrene is amputation, but the Congress has chosen to put band aid instead. The suicide of Satchik Batcha, the pauper-to-prince bagman who became conduit and beneficiary of A. Raja’s stolen goods, has added a sinister and fatal dimension to the sores oozing out of DMK’s bone marrow. Gangrene will spread as the system works its way through the suicide.
Congress, bathing in antiseptic to prevent that contagion, has been diagnosed with tubercolosis in its lungs by Dr Wikileaks. All the familiar ingredients of this historic malady have been found in the reports sent by the American embassy in Delhi to the State Department in Washington, and revealed to the world through internet. Names become almost irrelevant when the pattern is so set: a central figure whose principal contribution to the party has been as a cash reservoir for political transactions, an all-purpose middleman who could not resist flaunting his treasure chests to US intelligence officials, and then lazy denials without even the strength of a whimper.
As if all this were not hopeless enough, an obstinate sister from Bengal has chosen just this time to do her little bit: instead of bringing fruit and flowers to the patient, Mamata Banerjee has inserted a little knife into a vulnerable tendon. She has decided that the Grand Old Party is worth just 64 candidates out of 292 in the Bengal Assembly elections, take it or leave it. In order to swallow your pride, you must have some pride left, and Mamata Banerjee has drained the pride out of the Bengal Congress. Her calculation is self-serving, which is the only logic that works in politics. She does not want to be dependent on the Congress to form a future government. The Congress will win between 30 to 40 seats in any case; in an alliance it might get a bit more in such an equation. There is not much going for it. An alliance only benefits Mamata, for its places her victory beyond doubt.
I have no idea whether the Prime Minister believes in astrology or not, but no conjugation of planets and demons could have inflicted more misery upon him. For some months now, news has become a four-letter word for the Congress. But such is the paradoxical behavior of the planets that the very stars which are destroying the Congress image are preserving the life of this government. Dr Manmohan Singh’s government will survive this and even worse because there is no alternative alliance possible in this Parliament, and no MP wants a general election so soon.
Precisely because the crisis is premature, Dr Singh has an opportunity to fight his way out of it. When you have nothing more to lose, the only serious option left is going for the gain. It is too late now to reverse the alliance with the DMK, but another crossroads will come after the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections, which the DMK is almost certain to lose. This gives the Congress a reasonable opt-out: rejection by the voter will confirm the immorality of the alliance. Any threat by the DMK to take revenge by bringing down the government is meaningless, since it cannot do so until a widely disparate Opposition finds a common reason for doing so. Narasimha Rao, aided by a similar House, survived for three years with a minority without a jitter.
But survival must mean something more than bobbing about on a raft in the middle of a clueless sea. Dr Singh has to use this year, and there may not be much more time than that, to fill the gap in governance that has developed, and convince India that he is not paying mere lip service to probity in public life. The first is easier than the second, since elements within his own party and alliance are corrupt. But if he does not act against them, whatever be the price, his injured credibility will suffer beyond repair. Governance needs a resurgence of ideas, and the will to reform that has been strangely absent from his agenda after his re-election. Why this has happened is a mystery beyond the comprehension of this columnist.
Dr Manmohan Singh has a doctorate in economics rather than politics, but this is precisely what he needs. Politics has brought the government to hospital. Only economics can get it out of there.
An appointment with death
An appointment with death
By M J Akbar
Byword - India Today
March 18, 2011
It is facetious to attribute Hiroshima to human nature and Fukushima to nature. Nature was the trigger, not the gun. Nuclear power was devised by man. It was a wartime invention, a consequence of the Manhattan Project in which British and American scientists collaborated to fashion the ultimate weapon of mass destruction during a conflict that had already sunk to unprecedented levels of degradation and slaughter. Nuclear power was not created for the electrification of France, Japan or Jaitapur. It was designed to kill, and continues to do so with periodic ruthlessness.
We fall in love with the monsters we create. There is always a flaccid excuse on display: Dr Frankenstein is ever advertising his monster as a robot which will look after babies in peacetime-until the monster fulfils its destiny by destroying its creator.
Many fictions were needed to foster the image of nuclear energy as a peacetime boon, for the good reason that its true potential lay in destruction. The mushroom cloud was and is a symbol of magnetic horror. The task before the nuclear industry's publicity machine was a familiar one: to sell the notion that this man-eating tiger could be controlled. There was money in the deception, for an industry was being fashioned out of opportunity. Big suits appeared with generous budgets. We expect profit to be amoral. The tipping point comes when profit slips into the irrational. If there is profit in danger, we exploit danger; but laws are enacted precisely because profiteers rarely know when to draw the line against their own pockets. The biggest fraud was to sell nuclear plants as benign energy, when the atomic source had the elemental power of havoc. The image of this industry was described through details of the cage, not the tiger.
There remained the problem of an accident; the evidence of Three Mile Island in America and Chernobyl in the Soviet Union reiterated the fear. Accidents were dismissed as too rare to worry about, and those who protested were caricatured as leftists with a regressive agenda, or pseudo-academics, or perennial trouble-makers. The rare person who broke ranks within this mammoth industry to tell the truth was sacked. Dangerous facts were submerged within a mess of detail, an expertise that corporates excel at. Japan's power companies cheated on their own people. Japan sits on four tectonic zones; and tsunami is a Japanese word. Reactors are built along the coast so that seawater can be used to cool them. Experts have repeatedly warned that nuclear plants in Japan are akin to a kamikaze terrorist waiting to explode. Even the dark memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not prevent Japan's power companies from taking a self-destructive risk.
True, there is risk in any endeavour. No one wants an accident, least of all owners of nuclear plants, but it is necessary to work out the calculus of a mistake. A dam might be risky, but its collapse can do only so much damage. In a nuclear crisis we shift to a different dictionary. Nations have long known that a nuclear war will wreck victor and vanquished almost equally, and poison the world, which is why the prospect of a holocaust established the paradox of hostile peace between America and the Soviet Union and gave us the acronym, MAD [Mutually Assured Destruction]. In a miracle of manipulation, the nuclear industry has managed to sell "peaceful nuclear energy" as something different from the energy of weapons. It is the same energy, being put to different use; radiation is no less devastating because it has come from Fukushima instead of Hiroshima.
The nuclear industry has successfully minimised, in the public consciousness, the consequences of an accident. Radiation became just another whiff of smoke, possibly hazardous in the estimate of the clean-airwallahs, but nothing to distract us from the television serials we shall see with more electricity. The majority of Indians remain indifferent to the prospect of a nuclear plant at Jaitapur, or the fact that seawater seeped into Kalpakkam, near Chennai, during the last tsunami. Do we need a Japan 2011 to wake us up? This chain reaction of explosions in Japan has already imperiled tourism, aviation, agriculture… you could reach the end of this column simply by listing broken businesses. I have absolutely no doubt that when corporate honchos and their friends in government decided to build nuclear plants in Japan, they sold it as the cheapest, safest panacea. No one mentions seismic tremors in the promotion literature, even if Jaitapur has been hit by an earthquake recently.
China has suspended all new nuclear facilities pending a fresh look at safety regulations. Perhaps the industry is too large to be killed, and must only be sent to hospital for recuperation. We learnt nothing from Japan in 1945; we are unlikely to learn anything in 2011.
By M J Akbar
Byword - India Today
March 18, 2011
It is facetious to attribute Hiroshima to human nature and Fukushima to nature. Nature was the trigger, not the gun. Nuclear power was devised by man. It was a wartime invention, a consequence of the Manhattan Project in which British and American scientists collaborated to fashion the ultimate weapon of mass destruction during a conflict that had already sunk to unprecedented levels of degradation and slaughter. Nuclear power was not created for the electrification of France, Japan or Jaitapur. It was designed to kill, and continues to do so with periodic ruthlessness.
We fall in love with the monsters we create. There is always a flaccid excuse on display: Dr Frankenstein is ever advertising his monster as a robot which will look after babies in peacetime-until the monster fulfils its destiny by destroying its creator.
Many fictions were needed to foster the image of nuclear energy as a peacetime boon, for the good reason that its true potential lay in destruction. The mushroom cloud was and is a symbol of magnetic horror. The task before the nuclear industry's publicity machine was a familiar one: to sell the notion that this man-eating tiger could be controlled. There was money in the deception, for an industry was being fashioned out of opportunity. Big suits appeared with generous budgets. We expect profit to be amoral. The tipping point comes when profit slips into the irrational. If there is profit in danger, we exploit danger; but laws are enacted precisely because profiteers rarely know when to draw the line against their own pockets. The biggest fraud was to sell nuclear plants as benign energy, when the atomic source had the elemental power of havoc. The image of this industry was described through details of the cage, not the tiger.
There remained the problem of an accident; the evidence of Three Mile Island in America and Chernobyl in the Soviet Union reiterated the fear. Accidents were dismissed as too rare to worry about, and those who protested were caricatured as leftists with a regressive agenda, or pseudo-academics, or perennial trouble-makers. The rare person who broke ranks within this mammoth industry to tell the truth was sacked. Dangerous facts were submerged within a mess of detail, an expertise that corporates excel at. Japan's power companies cheated on their own people. Japan sits on four tectonic zones; and tsunami is a Japanese word. Reactors are built along the coast so that seawater can be used to cool them. Experts have repeatedly warned that nuclear plants in Japan are akin to a kamikaze terrorist waiting to explode. Even the dark memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not prevent Japan's power companies from taking a self-destructive risk.
True, there is risk in any endeavour. No one wants an accident, least of all owners of nuclear plants, but it is necessary to work out the calculus of a mistake. A dam might be risky, but its collapse can do only so much damage. In a nuclear crisis we shift to a different dictionary. Nations have long known that a nuclear war will wreck victor and vanquished almost equally, and poison the world, which is why the prospect of a holocaust established the paradox of hostile peace between America and the Soviet Union and gave us the acronym, MAD [Mutually Assured Destruction]. In a miracle of manipulation, the nuclear industry has managed to sell "peaceful nuclear energy" as something different from the energy of weapons. It is the same energy, being put to different use; radiation is no less devastating because it has come from Fukushima instead of Hiroshima.
The nuclear industry has successfully minimised, in the public consciousness, the consequences of an accident. Radiation became just another whiff of smoke, possibly hazardous in the estimate of the clean-airwallahs, but nothing to distract us from the television serials we shall see with more electricity. The majority of Indians remain indifferent to the prospect of a nuclear plant at Jaitapur, or the fact that seawater seeped into Kalpakkam, near Chennai, during the last tsunami. Do we need a Japan 2011 to wake us up? This chain reaction of explosions in Japan has already imperiled tourism, aviation, agriculture… you could reach the end of this column simply by listing broken businesses. I have absolutely no doubt that when corporate honchos and their friends in government decided to build nuclear plants in Japan, they sold it as the cheapest, safest panacea. No one mentions seismic tremors in the promotion literature, even if Jaitapur has been hit by an earthquake recently.
China has suspended all new nuclear facilities pending a fresh look at safety regulations. Perhaps the industry is too large to be killed, and must only be sent to hospital for recuperation. We learnt nothing from Japan in 1945; we are unlikely to learn anything in 2011.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Congress needs Prozac
Congress needs Prozac
By M J Akbar
Byword - In India Today
March 11, 2011
It seems reasonable to suggest that any political organisation with both Stalin and Napoleon on its frontlines, as DMK can boast, should make short shrift of a party with a mere Gandhi at its head. But the Karunanidhi vs Sonia Gandhi sideshow within the larger drama of the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections was always a no-contest. Bluster is hopeless against cool. And when Mrs Sonia Gandhi decides to be cool, polar icecaps break into envious applause. Karunanidhi did not melt because Congress generated extra levels of warmth; he froze when Delhi lowered the temperature. Sonia Gandhi doesn't mind exaggeration, which is after all a normal ploy in the competition for political space. She drew the line at blackmail. She also knew the answer to two questions: Who had more to gain? Who had less to lose?
The DMK's implied threat, to withdraw from the UPA, was always pointless because no party wants another General Election so soon, which is the only possible consequence of destabilising Dr Manmohan Singh. An alternative government within this Parliament is impossible, for the very reason that has created distance between the Congress and the DMK: corruption. The BJP can hardly hug the DMK after targeting A. Raja and the Karunanidhi family as the epitome of evil. There is no support for a no-confidence motion. The Government's majority will be tested, if at all, in 2012. Nor can DMK fight an Assembly election alone. Such adventurism could drag it down to single digits.
Karunanidhi had nowhere to go except back to Congress. Partners understand the occasional tantrum. The art of politics is tested in the management of a tantrum; you need to punish the prodigal, but not humiliate him too much. Mrs Gandhi measured her response carefully, stepping between indifference and accommodation. The political pirouette was played out with finesse, with a cameo role allotted for the official Congress counsellor for marital disputes, Pranab Mukherjee.
The bad news is that while the alliance might survive, the relationship is over. DMK and Congress are now travelling in opposite directions, dexterously evading a collision. There is nothing sentimental about the rupture, although Karunanidhi's grievance is personal.
He believes that he brought Congress to power in 2004, and that debt can be repaid only with a blank cheque. Congress did compensate with delay after Raja looted the treasury, but the Supreme Court ended such generous back-scratching. Perhaps Karunanidhi thinks that a clever government ought to evade a court's orders. The prime minister does not know how to, and the Congress does not want to. Sops offered to calm nerves, perhaps in the form of a deal over CBI's pursuit of the Karunanidhi family, will not survive the scrutiny of Parliament or the Supreme Court. Moreover, this spat, coming on top of 2G corruption, has ravaged this alliance's credibility. If DMK-Congress lose in Tamil Nadu, the equation alters. The Congress will need DMK in Delhi, but not be able to reciprocate in Chennai. How long can you walk on a one-way street?
It is ironic that Mrs Sonia Gandhi, who can play the macro game well enough, should flounder at the micro level. At times she seems to understand her allies better than her party. Power is normally an aphrodisiac for a party; in the case of Congress, it has become a depressant. Once the Queen of the Gangetic Belt, the Congress is sagging again in Uttar Pradesh, close to negative territory in Bihar and at the whim of its own byproduct, Mamata Banerjee, in Bengal. The Brahmaputra is kinder to Congress fortunes, but that is fringe comfort. After all the huff and puff in Tamil Nadu, Congress will contest only 63 seats out of 234 in Tamil Nadu. Its allies are bargaining for a greater chunk within the UDF in Kerala. Omit Assam, and a startling fact emerges: the Congress is contesting less than 30 per cent of the seats in states that send over 100 seats to the Lok Sabha. This is not a statistic that will encourage the Congress to contest the next elections alone. If the party cannot do this after a decade in power, it will not be able to do so in the foreseeable future.
Its only strategy is dubious. Build no edifice of your own, and wait for others to collapse. The flaw is obvious. There are other players. Laloo Yadav was replaced by Nitish Kumar in Bihar, and the Left is being upstaged by Mamata Banerjee in Bengal. The BJP is on the move in Orissa, and inching back to visibility in Uttar Pradesh. Jagan Reddy is the flavour of the moment in Andhra Pradesh. The Congress clearly has two problems: one with its foes, and the other with its friends. If it does not create some distance from its friends, it could be outdistanced by its foes.
By M J Akbar
Byword - In India Today
March 11, 2011
It seems reasonable to suggest that any political organisation with both Stalin and Napoleon on its frontlines, as DMK can boast, should make short shrift of a party with a mere Gandhi at its head. But the Karunanidhi vs Sonia Gandhi sideshow within the larger drama of the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections was always a no-contest. Bluster is hopeless against cool. And when Mrs Sonia Gandhi decides to be cool, polar icecaps break into envious applause. Karunanidhi did not melt because Congress generated extra levels of warmth; he froze when Delhi lowered the temperature. Sonia Gandhi doesn't mind exaggeration, which is after all a normal ploy in the competition for political space. She drew the line at blackmail. She also knew the answer to two questions: Who had more to gain? Who had less to lose?
The DMK's implied threat, to withdraw from the UPA, was always pointless because no party wants another General Election so soon, which is the only possible consequence of destabilising Dr Manmohan Singh. An alternative government within this Parliament is impossible, for the very reason that has created distance between the Congress and the DMK: corruption. The BJP can hardly hug the DMK after targeting A. Raja and the Karunanidhi family as the epitome of evil. There is no support for a no-confidence motion. The Government's majority will be tested, if at all, in 2012. Nor can DMK fight an Assembly election alone. Such adventurism could drag it down to single digits.
Karunanidhi had nowhere to go except back to Congress. Partners understand the occasional tantrum. The art of politics is tested in the management of a tantrum; you need to punish the prodigal, but not humiliate him too much. Mrs Gandhi measured her response carefully, stepping between indifference and accommodation. The political pirouette was played out with finesse, with a cameo role allotted for the official Congress counsellor for marital disputes, Pranab Mukherjee.
The bad news is that while the alliance might survive, the relationship is over. DMK and Congress are now travelling in opposite directions, dexterously evading a collision. There is nothing sentimental about the rupture, although Karunanidhi's grievance is personal.
He believes that he brought Congress to power in 2004, and that debt can be repaid only with a blank cheque. Congress did compensate with delay after Raja looted the treasury, but the Supreme Court ended such generous back-scratching. Perhaps Karunanidhi thinks that a clever government ought to evade a court's orders. The prime minister does not know how to, and the Congress does not want to. Sops offered to calm nerves, perhaps in the form of a deal over CBI's pursuit of the Karunanidhi family, will not survive the scrutiny of Parliament or the Supreme Court. Moreover, this spat, coming on top of 2G corruption, has ravaged this alliance's credibility. If DMK-Congress lose in Tamil Nadu, the equation alters. The Congress will need DMK in Delhi, but not be able to reciprocate in Chennai. How long can you walk on a one-way street?
It is ironic that Mrs Sonia Gandhi, who can play the macro game well enough, should flounder at the micro level. At times she seems to understand her allies better than her party. Power is normally an aphrodisiac for a party; in the case of Congress, it has become a depressant. Once the Queen of the Gangetic Belt, the Congress is sagging again in Uttar Pradesh, close to negative territory in Bihar and at the whim of its own byproduct, Mamata Banerjee, in Bengal. The Brahmaputra is kinder to Congress fortunes, but that is fringe comfort. After all the huff and puff in Tamil Nadu, Congress will contest only 63 seats out of 234 in Tamil Nadu. Its allies are bargaining for a greater chunk within the UDF in Kerala. Omit Assam, and a startling fact emerges: the Congress is contesting less than 30 per cent of the seats in states that send over 100 seats to the Lok Sabha. This is not a statistic that will encourage the Congress to contest the next elections alone. If the party cannot do this after a decade in power, it will not be able to do so in the foreseeable future.
Its only strategy is dubious. Build no edifice of your own, and wait for others to collapse. The flaw is obvious. There are other players. Laloo Yadav was replaced by Nitish Kumar in Bihar, and the Left is being upstaged by Mamata Banerjee in Bengal. The BJP is on the move in Orissa, and inching back to visibility in Uttar Pradesh. Jagan Reddy is the flavour of the moment in Andhra Pradesh. The Congress clearly has two problems: one with its foes, and the other with its friends. If it does not create some distance from its friends, it could be outdistanced by its foes.
Stars and Style
Byline by M J Akbar: Stars and Style
Style is the yeast of leadership. The league rounds of this World Cup Cricket are not designed to offer much by way of excitement since it would require too much stupidity on the part of the Biggies not to qualify for the knockout stage, which is when the mercury will start rising. England, possibly in honour of its long sporting tradition, is trying very hard to fail, but I suspect that it might very well fail to fail. I hope Bangladesh marches into the quarter-finals, precisely because it is the very opposite of England: its spirit is greater than its ability, unlike England, which brought along quality to the Cup but mislaid its spirit somewhere on the flight to the subcontinent.
The one fascinating aspect of this tournament so far is the difference in the management style of its captains. The test of a captain lies, obviously, in adversity, and Bangladesh’s Shakib al Hasan is blessed with the courage of self-belief. He could have fallen into that worst of all traps, sulking self-pity, when angry fans broke his windowpanes after his team’s pathetic loss to the West Indies. Instead, he picked himself and the team up, and led them to a famous victory against England. It does not actually matter now whether he goes into the next round. He has restored his nation’s pride. Bengali fans are right. They do not expect Bangladesh to win the Cup, but they will not tolerate a team that betrays its honour.
The surprise is Shahid Afridi, who could easily join Pakistan’s Foreign Service after this swansong. The man who has tweaked a ball or two in his time, has flowered into a diplomat. He soothed ruffled feathers after defeat against New Zealand through a brilliant strategic pincer movement: he invited the huge Pakistani media contingent for dinner with the players. Mollifying the messenger is the best treatment for the ache of bad news. Afridi is clearly aware that contemporary Pakistan has only two powerful institutions, the Army and the media. The Army has only cursory interest in cricket during wartime, so an alliance with the media is sufficient for crisis control. Pakistan remains the contrarian’s favourite; and if Afridi can handle his temperamental eleven with the kind of aplomb he has shown off the field, then watch out for the Greens. Predictably Pakistan’s erratic, slippery-fingers wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal has induced the best joke so far: “What is Akmal’s favourite pick-up line? Can I drop you anywhere?”
In contrast, Mahendra Dhoni is so laidback he could have been training in a sauna. Dhoni is proponent of the Yawn School of Business. When asked why India had made such heavy weather of defeating less-than-ordinary sides like Holland, he replied with a verbal shrug. India was winning, wasn’t it, and that was good enough for him. Well, he might lose when there is no second chance left. It may not be much of a problem for him personally, since the advertisement deals are done, cheques are in the bank, and he probably thinks that the Great Indian Public is fickle in its affections anyway. Somebody should tell him that the symbol of India is the elephant, and while the elephant treads with a light step, it also has a long memory.
The captain who really knew how to lie on his back was the incomparable Viv Richards, but he had a few advantages over Dhoni. He was a genius with the bat. He was fearless [he disdained a helmet, trusting his eye and instinct instead]. And he had a set of bowlers who could break your hand when you were looking and crack your head when you took your eye off the ball. Dhoni has fashioned half a team for this tournament, just a set of brilliant batsmen, on the assumption that opponents will get themselves out. We shall see what we shall see.
The finest gentleman ever to captain England was surely Colin Cowdrey. In his last match as captain Cowdrey walked to the pitch for the toss, dressed in immaculate whites. And waited. Richards sauntered up twenty minutes late, wearing a T shirt and bandana in more colours than a rainbow would dare to advertise. The coin was tossed. Richards won. Richards looked at the prim and proper Cowdrey and asked the Englishman what he wanted to do, rather than exercising his right of decision. Once Cowdrey had recovered, he said England would like to bat. Okay maan, said Richards, you bat.
The West Indies won that Test match by ten wickets. That is why it was Cowdrey’s last match. And that is why few lovers of cricket can remember Cowdrey, and no one has forgotten Vivian Richards.
Style is an art, particularly if it can be complemented with swagger. But style is not a substitute for substance.
Style is the yeast of leadership. The league rounds of this World Cup Cricket are not designed to offer much by way of excitement since it would require too much stupidity on the part of the Biggies not to qualify for the knockout stage, which is when the mercury will start rising. England, possibly in honour of its long sporting tradition, is trying very hard to fail, but I suspect that it might very well fail to fail. I hope Bangladesh marches into the quarter-finals, precisely because it is the very opposite of England: its spirit is greater than its ability, unlike England, which brought along quality to the Cup but mislaid its spirit somewhere on the flight to the subcontinent.
The one fascinating aspect of this tournament so far is the difference in the management style of its captains. The test of a captain lies, obviously, in adversity, and Bangladesh’s Shakib al Hasan is blessed with the courage of self-belief. He could have fallen into that worst of all traps, sulking self-pity, when angry fans broke his windowpanes after his team’s pathetic loss to the West Indies. Instead, he picked himself and the team up, and led them to a famous victory against England. It does not actually matter now whether he goes into the next round. He has restored his nation’s pride. Bengali fans are right. They do not expect Bangladesh to win the Cup, but they will not tolerate a team that betrays its honour.
The surprise is Shahid Afridi, who could easily join Pakistan’s Foreign Service after this swansong. The man who has tweaked a ball or two in his time, has flowered into a diplomat. He soothed ruffled feathers after defeat against New Zealand through a brilliant strategic pincer movement: he invited the huge Pakistani media contingent for dinner with the players. Mollifying the messenger is the best treatment for the ache of bad news. Afridi is clearly aware that contemporary Pakistan has only two powerful institutions, the Army and the media. The Army has only cursory interest in cricket during wartime, so an alliance with the media is sufficient for crisis control. Pakistan remains the contrarian’s favourite; and if Afridi can handle his temperamental eleven with the kind of aplomb he has shown off the field, then watch out for the Greens. Predictably Pakistan’s erratic, slippery-fingers wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal has induced the best joke so far: “What is Akmal’s favourite pick-up line? Can I drop you anywhere?”
In contrast, Mahendra Dhoni is so laidback he could have been training in a sauna. Dhoni is proponent of the Yawn School of Business. When asked why India had made such heavy weather of defeating less-than-ordinary sides like Holland, he replied with a verbal shrug. India was winning, wasn’t it, and that was good enough for him. Well, he might lose when there is no second chance left. It may not be much of a problem for him personally, since the advertisement deals are done, cheques are in the bank, and he probably thinks that the Great Indian Public is fickle in its affections anyway. Somebody should tell him that the symbol of India is the elephant, and while the elephant treads with a light step, it also has a long memory.
The captain who really knew how to lie on his back was the incomparable Viv Richards, but he had a few advantages over Dhoni. He was a genius with the bat. He was fearless [he disdained a helmet, trusting his eye and instinct instead]. And he had a set of bowlers who could break your hand when you were looking and crack your head when you took your eye off the ball. Dhoni has fashioned half a team for this tournament, just a set of brilliant batsmen, on the assumption that opponents will get themselves out. We shall see what we shall see.
The finest gentleman ever to captain England was surely Colin Cowdrey. In his last match as captain Cowdrey walked to the pitch for the toss, dressed in immaculate whites. And waited. Richards sauntered up twenty minutes late, wearing a T shirt and bandana in more colours than a rainbow would dare to advertise. The coin was tossed. Richards won. Richards looked at the prim and proper Cowdrey and asked the Englishman what he wanted to do, rather than exercising his right of decision. Once Cowdrey had recovered, he said England would like to bat. Okay maan, said Richards, you bat.
The West Indies won that Test match by ten wickets. That is why it was Cowdrey’s last match. And that is why few lovers of cricket can remember Cowdrey, and no one has forgotten Vivian Richards.
Style is an art, particularly if it can be complemented with swagger. But style is not a substitute for substance.
Sunday, March 06, 2011
Mercury Rising
Mercury Rising
By M J Akbar
Byword - In India Today
March 4, 2011
When you buy tickets to a circus you expect to see a few clowns. A clown is not a fool. It is far more difficult to make people laugh than to annoy them. A good clown must silence his ego, for he has to reduce himself to the lowest common denominator to maximise the laughs. He is a professional. But he is also, inherently, a character, or he would be just another diligent accountant, trapped within the limitations of safety-first. It is this characteristic that impels him to leap into the unexpected.
Sports, it was drilled into me at boarding school, builds character. Judging by the opening bouts of the cricket World Cup, sports builds characters. Perhaps it is the panorama, the scale on which a game that began on a village green, with the pub as the sole source of entertainment, is being played. A cricket star now lives in a universe second only to the football idol, with money to match. Money has this curious propensity to travel in two directions simultaneously: it goes to your head at a much faster pace than it travels to your bank. This heady feeling is even more seductive when you are young. Talent is best nurtured in incremental steps; the happiest god is one who has reached divinity through stages. The sudden transition from obscurity to hero-worship can easily breed illusions when you are in your early twenties. You lose the difference between a tantrum and an honest expression of emotion within the hothouse of intense competition. Stardom can be contagious. Even a starlet like Billy Bowden, the pesky umpire from New Zealand, gets affected, searching for the bizarre within the fine print of cricket legislation.
I was quite determined to be sceptical about the 2011 World Cup. The geopolitics of the tournament, spread across the realm of the British Raj, seemed more interesting than the game itself. You could see, for instance, how far the two wings of the Pakistan of 1947 had flown apart. Bangladesh has the worse team and the better environment. The playing fields of Pakistan are lost to those for whom war is sport, rather than the other way around; Pakistan has become, by common consent, too dangerous for recreation. The ruling planet of Pakistan is now obviously Mercury; mercury has entered the bloodstream of its players. Shoaib Akhtar might have been Shoaib Akhtar irrespective of which country he played for, but a Kamran Akmal is either above or beyond the law. I never fully understood the meaning of the phrase 'on a wing and a prayer' until I saw Shahid Afridi praying with soundless lips at a crucial moment during the match with Sri Lanka. Divine intervention worked that day, but the Lord surely cannot be biased, no matter how fervent the appeals to Him.
It is predictable to report that the hook returned to my cricket-hungry soul during the brilliant tie between India and England. But that was a game that exposed the weakness of two self-appointed triumphalists: neither have bowlers who can survive much daylight, and there is a lot of sunshine coming. Tidbits during commentary were amusing, but not entrancing. I was pleased to learn that Imran Khan banned hamburgers and never forgave anyone who got out to Kapil Dev. But that was not worth a wait.
Epiphany came during a match whose tickets were safe even from the gluttony of the BCCI and its multiple parasites. Ireland is not going to win this World Cup, but Kevin O'Brien's innings against England had the majesty of a rebellion against centuries of colonisation. It was the Easter Uprising all over again as Ireland resurrected from 111 for 5 to 293 for 6 by the 45th over. Ireland believed in themselves, which is always the true starting point of a sporting miracle. When they touched 300 for 6, the World Cup became a holy grail. If W.B. Yeats were alive he would have written an ode to O'Brien. When the unknown John Mooney backed away and smashed a four through cover, English captain Andrew Strauss's stiff upper lip crumbled. Story over, although we still had to wait for Mooney to hit the winning four in the last over and raise a triumphant yell. The magic of sport lies in the triumph of the unexpected.
Stiff upper lips are not quite the fashion in cricket anymore, although the game remains a preserve of the Commonwealth. There is more than cricketing skill on display, of national purpose. A post-war bounce is on parade in Sri Lanka, as it places its newest city on the world stage. Bangladesh is determined to prove that 40 years after independence, it is one of the big boys. Multi-ethnic Canada is visibly as colourful as the Commonwealth. The clowns are pickle at the feast; the main meal is wonderful cuisine. Time to share the joy.
By M J Akbar
Byword - In India Today
March 4, 2011
When you buy tickets to a circus you expect to see a few clowns. A clown is not a fool. It is far more difficult to make people laugh than to annoy them. A good clown must silence his ego, for he has to reduce himself to the lowest common denominator to maximise the laughs. He is a professional. But he is also, inherently, a character, or he would be just another diligent accountant, trapped within the limitations of safety-first. It is this characteristic that impels him to leap into the unexpected.
Sports, it was drilled into me at boarding school, builds character. Judging by the opening bouts of the cricket World Cup, sports builds characters. Perhaps it is the panorama, the scale on which a game that began on a village green, with the pub as the sole source of entertainment, is being played. A cricket star now lives in a universe second only to the football idol, with money to match. Money has this curious propensity to travel in two directions simultaneously: it goes to your head at a much faster pace than it travels to your bank. This heady feeling is even more seductive when you are young. Talent is best nurtured in incremental steps; the happiest god is one who has reached divinity through stages. The sudden transition from obscurity to hero-worship can easily breed illusions when you are in your early twenties. You lose the difference between a tantrum and an honest expression of emotion within the hothouse of intense competition. Stardom can be contagious. Even a starlet like Billy Bowden, the pesky umpire from New Zealand, gets affected, searching for the bizarre within the fine print of cricket legislation.
I was quite determined to be sceptical about the 2011 World Cup. The geopolitics of the tournament, spread across the realm of the British Raj, seemed more interesting than the game itself. You could see, for instance, how far the two wings of the Pakistan of 1947 had flown apart. Bangladesh has the worse team and the better environment. The playing fields of Pakistan are lost to those for whom war is sport, rather than the other way around; Pakistan has become, by common consent, too dangerous for recreation. The ruling planet of Pakistan is now obviously Mercury; mercury has entered the bloodstream of its players. Shoaib Akhtar might have been Shoaib Akhtar irrespective of which country he played for, but a Kamran Akmal is either above or beyond the law. I never fully understood the meaning of the phrase 'on a wing and a prayer' until I saw Shahid Afridi praying with soundless lips at a crucial moment during the match with Sri Lanka. Divine intervention worked that day, but the Lord surely cannot be biased, no matter how fervent the appeals to Him.
It is predictable to report that the hook returned to my cricket-hungry soul during the brilliant tie between India and England. But that was a game that exposed the weakness of two self-appointed triumphalists: neither have bowlers who can survive much daylight, and there is a lot of sunshine coming. Tidbits during commentary were amusing, but not entrancing. I was pleased to learn that Imran Khan banned hamburgers and never forgave anyone who got out to Kapil Dev. But that was not worth a wait.
Epiphany came during a match whose tickets were safe even from the gluttony of the BCCI and its multiple parasites. Ireland is not going to win this World Cup, but Kevin O'Brien's innings against England had the majesty of a rebellion against centuries of colonisation. It was the Easter Uprising all over again as Ireland resurrected from 111 for 5 to 293 for 6 by the 45th over. Ireland believed in themselves, which is always the true starting point of a sporting miracle. When they touched 300 for 6, the World Cup became a holy grail. If W.B. Yeats were alive he would have written an ode to O'Brien. When the unknown John Mooney backed away and smashed a four through cover, English captain Andrew Strauss's stiff upper lip crumbled. Story over, although we still had to wait for Mooney to hit the winning four in the last over and raise a triumphant yell. The magic of sport lies in the triumph of the unexpected.
Stiff upper lips are not quite the fashion in cricket anymore, although the game remains a preserve of the Commonwealth. There is more than cricketing skill on display, of national purpose. A post-war bounce is on parade in Sri Lanka, as it places its newest city on the world stage. Bangladesh is determined to prove that 40 years after independence, it is one of the big boys. Multi-ethnic Canada is visibly as colourful as the Commonwealth. The clowns are pickle at the feast; the main meal is wonderful cuisine. Time to share the joy.
Saturday, March 05, 2011
I regret to inform you...
Byline by M J Akbar: I regret to inform you...
Friday the Fourth of March should be declared the International Day of Regret by the United Nations. Regrets flooded Saturday's newspapers, in stories from east to west; it came in many forms, from eyes-lowered-acknowledgment to muted-murmured-sorry to the antithetical no-regret accompanied by a brash to-hell-with-you.
The most creative instance was surely that of Bangladesh cricket fans: they did not quite rue stoning the West Indies team bus after their side was hammered into oblivion; they merely regretted the fact that they had got the wrong bus. What they wanted was to throw some accurately-aimed stones at their own players. They atoned for their mistake by breaking window panes of their captain Shakib al Hasan's home. That should put Hasan in a good frame of mind for the next match. To be fair, Bengalis don't mind defeat; they just can't take humiliation, whether in Dhaka or at Kolkata's Eden Gardens.
The most ingenious example was from the London School of Economics, which had, in its infinite wisdom, awarded a doctorate to surely the most intellectual thug of the 21st century, Saif al-Islam, the second son of Muammar Gaddafi, in 2008. Saif's supervisors detected neither irony nor plagiarism in the Saif thesis on "The role of civil society in the democratisation of global governance institutions: from 'soft power' to collective decision-making?" Don't miss the deliciously academic question mark at the end. The director of LSE, Howard Davies, has resigned, but can probably expect to head the Saif Conglomerate of Universities for Economics and Mercenary Operations just as soon as Saif has reconquered Libya. It was, but naturally, a complete accident that LSE got a 1.5 million pound donation from Saif's dad soon after the doctorate, since British institutions can never be accused of corruption. London must be full of people nostalgic for the old days: this was exactly how it happened during those good old days of the Raj, when the British gave a gong to natives and took the jewels in return. The natives, however, have got cleverer. Saif actually gave only 300,000 pounds of the promised 1.5 million. He must have learnt something about economics at LSE. Regret, though, is not in his DNA; his father Muammar has at various times imagined himself as either the Queen of England or the Prime Minister of India, but is really a French Bourbons who, famously, learnt nothing and forgot nothing.
But the real market for regrets has surely opened in India. There is explicit or implicit regret wherever you look. The disgraced Chief Vigilance Commissioner P.J. Thomas must be seething with them; if he had quit in the first week of December he would have lost his job but not his grace. That is not a bad trade-off. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh still has the quality to dignify regret, which is why his acknowledgement of responsibility for Thomas' appointment received such a civil response from the BJP leader of the Lok Sabha Opposition, Ms Sushma Swaraj. But Dr Singh has not revealed what he truly regrets: that his leadership is under question today because he has been misled by his own side. He signed off on the decision, but the choice was not his. He would not have dismissed Ms Swaraj's objections as politics if his own civil servants had briefed him better.
Two points arise. First, is regret sufficient? In the case of Thomas, yes, since the CVC has not done anything to besmirch the CVC's office. The real problem before the Prime Minister is that the list of things he should regret during the tenure of the UPA2 government is slicing off its credibility, day by day, both in sequence and consequence. What he should truly regret is that a man like Hasan Ali Khan, fingered by Indian police for stashing away 8 billion dollars in Swiss and other banks on behalf of an elite bunch of crooks, is still breathing free air. Khan has the mysterious ability to fall ill whenever the police want to question him; and the police have the even more mysterious desire to accept Khan's word for it. Khan used this excuse again about an hour of his latest meeting with the Enforcement Directorate, and the very solicitous police officers agreed. There is something deeply rotten in the system.
The saddest non-regret is surely from those leaders of Pakistan who have chosen silence as their response to the assassination of Shahbaz Bhatti, the only Christian minister in the Cabinet, killed for his views on the blasphemy laws. According to Ahmed Rashid, the doyen of Pakistani commentators, army chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani refused to condemn the killing of Salmaan Taseer, former governor of Punjab, for similar reasons, because there were too many soldiers under his command who sympathised with the assassins.
That is the transition of regret to fear; how long before fear mutates into dread?
Friday the Fourth of March should be declared the International Day of Regret by the United Nations. Regrets flooded Saturday's newspapers, in stories from east to west; it came in many forms, from eyes-lowered-acknowledgment to muted-murmured-sorry to the antithetical no-regret accompanied by a brash to-hell-with-you.
The most creative instance was surely that of Bangladesh cricket fans: they did not quite rue stoning the West Indies team bus after their side was hammered into oblivion; they merely regretted the fact that they had got the wrong bus. What they wanted was to throw some accurately-aimed stones at their own players. They atoned for their mistake by breaking window panes of their captain Shakib al Hasan's home. That should put Hasan in a good frame of mind for the next match. To be fair, Bengalis don't mind defeat; they just can't take humiliation, whether in Dhaka or at Kolkata's Eden Gardens.
The most ingenious example was from the London School of Economics, which had, in its infinite wisdom, awarded a doctorate to surely the most intellectual thug of the 21st century, Saif al-Islam, the second son of Muammar Gaddafi, in 2008. Saif's supervisors detected neither irony nor plagiarism in the Saif thesis on "The role of civil society in the democratisation of global governance institutions: from 'soft power' to collective decision-making?" Don't miss the deliciously academic question mark at the end. The director of LSE, Howard Davies, has resigned, but can probably expect to head the Saif Conglomerate of Universities for Economics and Mercenary Operations just as soon as Saif has reconquered Libya. It was, but naturally, a complete accident that LSE got a 1.5 million pound donation from Saif's dad soon after the doctorate, since British institutions can never be accused of corruption. London must be full of people nostalgic for the old days: this was exactly how it happened during those good old days of the Raj, when the British gave a gong to natives and took the jewels in return. The natives, however, have got cleverer. Saif actually gave only 300,000 pounds of the promised 1.5 million. He must have learnt something about economics at LSE. Regret, though, is not in his DNA; his father Muammar has at various times imagined himself as either the Queen of England or the Prime Minister of India, but is really a French Bourbons who, famously, learnt nothing and forgot nothing.
But the real market for regrets has surely opened in India. There is explicit or implicit regret wherever you look. The disgraced Chief Vigilance Commissioner P.J. Thomas must be seething with them; if he had quit in the first week of December he would have lost his job but not his grace. That is not a bad trade-off. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh still has the quality to dignify regret, which is why his acknowledgement of responsibility for Thomas' appointment received such a civil response from the BJP leader of the Lok Sabha Opposition, Ms Sushma Swaraj. But Dr Singh has not revealed what he truly regrets: that his leadership is under question today because he has been misled by his own side. He signed off on the decision, but the choice was not his. He would not have dismissed Ms Swaraj's objections as politics if his own civil servants had briefed him better.
Two points arise. First, is regret sufficient? In the case of Thomas, yes, since the CVC has not done anything to besmirch the CVC's office. The real problem before the Prime Minister is that the list of things he should regret during the tenure of the UPA2 government is slicing off its credibility, day by day, both in sequence and consequence. What he should truly regret is that a man like Hasan Ali Khan, fingered by Indian police for stashing away 8 billion dollars in Swiss and other banks on behalf of an elite bunch of crooks, is still breathing free air. Khan has the mysterious ability to fall ill whenever the police want to question him; and the police have the even more mysterious desire to accept Khan's word for it. Khan used this excuse again about an hour of his latest meeting with the Enforcement Directorate, and the very solicitous police officers agreed. There is something deeply rotten in the system.
The saddest non-regret is surely from those leaders of Pakistan who have chosen silence as their response to the assassination of Shahbaz Bhatti, the only Christian minister in the Cabinet, killed for his views on the blasphemy laws. According to Ahmed Rashid, the doyen of Pakistani commentators, army chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani refused to condemn the killing of Salmaan Taseer, former governor of Punjab, for similar reasons, because there were too many soldiers under his command who sympathised with the assassins.
That is the transition of regret to fear; how long before fear mutates into dread?
Saturday, February 26, 2011
The next horizon
Byline by M J Akbar: The next horizon
If I had to shortlist the best journals of the English-speaking universe, the Economist would certainly be at the top of a short and thin pyramid. Insight, interpretation, information and the quality of writing make it a perfect companion; even the British tendency to surrender before the pun “‘The buys from Brazil”, “The Middle Blingdom”...] is more endearing than irritating. But even the most thoughtful commentators of the present can find the future beyond their vision. The 19 February issue of the magazine has a cover story on the Arab awakening. On page 71 is a house-ad for the Democracy Index prepared by its Economist Intelligence Unit for 2010. It concludes that democracy is in worldwide retreat. Even the most perceptive observers can miss a tsunami. After all, the great wave travels under the surface.
It is not entirely foolish to suggest that 2010 is separated from 2011 by a decade or more. Time does not always travel at the same pace. The anger that has lit the Arab streets has been burning below the skin and inside the mind for at least a decade and in many cases far longer. In fact the length of the fuse is evidence of the time that the despots had to take corrective action, but did nothing since they were lost in their own greed, conceit and that ultimate sin of madmen, a sense of indispensability. Muammar Gaddafi sounds genuinely hurt at the thought that Libyans want him and the lurid pests that constitute his family out of their lives. The rest of us did not know whether to laugh or cry when Gaddafi compared himself to Queen Elizabeth, but he was genuinely puzzled. He was no longer a 28-year-old army officer who had rid Libya of a monarchy; he had become the founder of a dynasty for which every Libyan had to be eternally grateful. His mirror told him that he was on his way to martyrdom; he could not recognise the hell he had created for his people. He must believe, therefore, that his murderous mercenaries are fighting some sort of holy war in his defence. He always lived a few steps outside reality. He has now stepped into the comfort zone of lunacy. Neither his region nor the world can afford his survival in office.
An interesting pattern has emerged in the Arab turmoil. Monarchs are proving more durable than dictators. This cannot be only a consequence of personality; nor is blue-blood impervious to the temptation of venality. Kings are rediscovering the power of tradition; unlike a Hosni Mubarak or a Ben Ali or a Gaddafi, they represent something much older than themselves. It is possible for a king to reconcile himself to the republican spirit; and if Arab dynasts understand that they have the option of peaceful transition to popular rule, they can still squeeze some shelf life out of the demands of historical change. Europe is flush with royalty in designer clothes because both princes and their people have learnt to appreciate the value of a constitutional monarchy. A sensible monarch understands the tactile strength of soft hands. Royals, exceptions apart, take far more care about popular sensibilities than civilian dictators; they have had power for so long that they know that the easiest way to lose it is by letting it go to their heads. The price of such folly is, of course, losing your royal head.
It was ever thus. Britain welcomed the coup by Oliver Cromwell, and the fall of Charles II’s head. But when Cromwell decided that his son could become his successor, he learnt that there were limits to British tolerance. Britain cheered the restoration of royalty, but rejected the imposition of a false line on a virtual throne. The rage on the street should persuade Arab monarchs to understand both their peril and their opportunity. There is one serious potential obstacle, however; the advice of a too-clever-by-half courtier who will suggest that the palace can buy time by throwing meaningless tidbits to the people. That option is over. The people have changed, many far beyond their wildest expectations. Armies and bureaucracies have changed. The Arab world has changed. The past is dead. Its memory can be included in the mosaic that is being constructed, step by step, to fashion a new future; but it cannot be revived. The palace can still co-exist with Parliament, but its primacy has been smashed. It can cooperate in nation-building but cannot control it. Its word can serve as suggestion; it cannot be law. The law must shift to the legislature, as in any system that is of the people, by the people and for the people.
All of us missed the horizon last year. That horizon is now amidst us. We must open our eyes to the next horizon, taking shape before us.
If I had to shortlist the best journals of the English-speaking universe, the Economist would certainly be at the top of a short and thin pyramid. Insight, interpretation, information and the quality of writing make it a perfect companion; even the British tendency to surrender before the pun “‘The buys from Brazil”, “The Middle Blingdom”...] is more endearing than irritating. But even the most thoughtful commentators of the present can find the future beyond their vision. The 19 February issue of the magazine has a cover story on the Arab awakening. On page 71 is a house-ad for the Democracy Index prepared by its Economist Intelligence Unit for 2010. It concludes that democracy is in worldwide retreat. Even the most perceptive observers can miss a tsunami. After all, the great wave travels under the surface.
It is not entirely foolish to suggest that 2010 is separated from 2011 by a decade or more. Time does not always travel at the same pace. The anger that has lit the Arab streets has been burning below the skin and inside the mind for at least a decade and in many cases far longer. In fact the length of the fuse is evidence of the time that the despots had to take corrective action, but did nothing since they were lost in their own greed, conceit and that ultimate sin of madmen, a sense of indispensability. Muammar Gaddafi sounds genuinely hurt at the thought that Libyans want him and the lurid pests that constitute his family out of their lives. The rest of us did not know whether to laugh or cry when Gaddafi compared himself to Queen Elizabeth, but he was genuinely puzzled. He was no longer a 28-year-old army officer who had rid Libya of a monarchy; he had become the founder of a dynasty for which every Libyan had to be eternally grateful. His mirror told him that he was on his way to martyrdom; he could not recognise the hell he had created for his people. He must believe, therefore, that his murderous mercenaries are fighting some sort of holy war in his defence. He always lived a few steps outside reality. He has now stepped into the comfort zone of lunacy. Neither his region nor the world can afford his survival in office.
An interesting pattern has emerged in the Arab turmoil. Monarchs are proving more durable than dictators. This cannot be only a consequence of personality; nor is blue-blood impervious to the temptation of venality. Kings are rediscovering the power of tradition; unlike a Hosni Mubarak or a Ben Ali or a Gaddafi, they represent something much older than themselves. It is possible for a king to reconcile himself to the republican spirit; and if Arab dynasts understand that they have the option of peaceful transition to popular rule, they can still squeeze some shelf life out of the demands of historical change. Europe is flush with royalty in designer clothes because both princes and their people have learnt to appreciate the value of a constitutional monarchy. A sensible monarch understands the tactile strength of soft hands. Royals, exceptions apart, take far more care about popular sensibilities than civilian dictators; they have had power for so long that they know that the easiest way to lose it is by letting it go to their heads. The price of such folly is, of course, losing your royal head.
It was ever thus. Britain welcomed the coup by Oliver Cromwell, and the fall of Charles II’s head. But when Cromwell decided that his son could become his successor, he learnt that there were limits to British tolerance. Britain cheered the restoration of royalty, but rejected the imposition of a false line on a virtual throne. The rage on the street should persuade Arab monarchs to understand both their peril and their opportunity. There is one serious potential obstacle, however; the advice of a too-clever-by-half courtier who will suggest that the palace can buy time by throwing meaningless tidbits to the people. That option is over. The people have changed, many far beyond their wildest expectations. Armies and bureaucracies have changed. The Arab world has changed. The past is dead. Its memory can be included in the mosaic that is being constructed, step by step, to fashion a new future; but it cannot be revived. The palace can still co-exist with Parliament, but its primacy has been smashed. It can cooperate in nation-building but cannot control it. Its word can serve as suggestion; it cannot be law. The law must shift to the legislature, as in any system that is of the people, by the people and for the people.
All of us missed the horizon last year. That horizon is now amidst us. We must open our eyes to the next horizon, taking shape before us.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
The valet knows it all
Byline by M J Akbar: The valet knows it all
No man, it is well known, is a hero to his valet. Nor is he much good before his dentist. You become vulnerable, in other words, when you either reveal too much or too little. The valet sees you waddle and slop out of the bath, bellowing for attention; and it doesn't matter if you plug on a cigar, step into office and turn into a Winston Churchill. The dentist sees only one dimension, the wince and aborted shriek at the plunge of pain. A dentophobic patient could well become a battlefield hero when a higher calling makes pain irrelevant.
A press conference can become, at its worst, a root canal drilling by a posse. Most press conferences emerge out of compulsion, not desire. The big question has to be answered, however, by the patient rather than a dentist: what do you do about the decayed tooth? The easy answer is to dull the pain with palliatives and carry on.
Dr Manmohan Singh is no longer a Prime Minister led by his party. The switch came in his first term, when he forced his hesitant party to follow him on the Indo-US nuclear deal. He was ahead of the Congress even on Pakistan policy. This was confirmed in the general election when he got equal space on the hoardings. Obviously he consults his party president Mrs Sonia Gandhi on crucial issues, but their relationship is far more equal than it was when she named him the surprise Prime Minister of the decade.
But there is one political arena in which he has to bow before the party's decisions: survival of his government. It is the party which decides how far to strain the nerves that hold a disparate coalition together. The slightest disarray would unravel the government. The party cannot afford a midterm general election just in order to preserve Dr Singh's image of financial integrity.
Dr Singh understands politics, but cannot get himself to indulge in the political language needed to roll around a crisis caused by blatant and possibly unprecedented levels of corruption. His nature drags him perilously close to the epicentre, and facts can be injurious to the health of a Prime Minister since he has, of course, been forced to compromise. He used the term "coalition compulsions" but those compulsions are not about the individual who has been thrown into jail because of the telecom scandal, A. Raja.
Raja is the front office boy; the problem is the DMK. The DMK made telecom its private property long before Raja became Cabinet minister with the help of corporate honchos awaiting extraordinary pay-offs for their deals with him. The DMK has milked telecom with a consistency that must generate tears of envy from middlemen. Raja, at best, kept a percentage of the loot; most of the money was taken by the party and members of the Karunanidhi family. Raja is the sacrifice thrown by the patriarch to the mob. His allotted destiny is to be the fall guy and keep his mouth shut, mafia-style, or there will be consequences. The problem is not Raja the individual, but DMK the institution. That is the tension that will test Dr Manmohan Singh. Karunanidhi is being economical with the truth when he claims that he cannot remember receiving a handwritten letter from Ratan Tata praising Raja as the finest thing to happen to telecom since Alexandar Graham Bell. Nor are any disbursements made to the extended family without his permission.
The Congress has sent Raja to prison, ordered a CBI raid on Kalaignar TV [owned by the Karunanidhi clan] and hinted that Karunanidhi's daughter Kanimozhi could be summoned for interrogation. It has also announced that it will ally with the DMK in the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections. That does not seem like a powerful denunciation of corruption. But it is explicable in terms of political survival. If the Congress fought the elections alone it would end up in desolate territory akin to its Bihar results. The trade-off is flexibility in the campaign against corruption, but the Prime Minister used his press conference to suggest that he would be as hard as the law permitted. The CBI moved at his direction.
Key questions: how far can the CBI rush around without toppling the applecart? Those apples are high value. The CBI will hear names from those it is interrogating. It will act against the private sector with much display, but what about the politicians who live too close to the bone?
Is the answer to this paradox another paradox? The Congress would obviously like to repeat its alliance victory in Tamil Nadu, but could the way out lie in defeat? A re-elected DMK would blackmail the coalition at the Centre; a defeated DMK would be more compliant in Chennai and more obedient in Delhi.
Being a hero is not easy, particularly when your valet is on the take.
No man, it is well known, is a hero to his valet. Nor is he much good before his dentist. You become vulnerable, in other words, when you either reveal too much or too little. The valet sees you waddle and slop out of the bath, bellowing for attention; and it doesn't matter if you plug on a cigar, step into office and turn into a Winston Churchill. The dentist sees only one dimension, the wince and aborted shriek at the plunge of pain. A dentophobic patient could well become a battlefield hero when a higher calling makes pain irrelevant.
A press conference can become, at its worst, a root canal drilling by a posse. Most press conferences emerge out of compulsion, not desire. The big question has to be answered, however, by the patient rather than a dentist: what do you do about the decayed tooth? The easy answer is to dull the pain with palliatives and carry on.
Dr Manmohan Singh is no longer a Prime Minister led by his party. The switch came in his first term, when he forced his hesitant party to follow him on the Indo-US nuclear deal. He was ahead of the Congress even on Pakistan policy. This was confirmed in the general election when he got equal space on the hoardings. Obviously he consults his party president Mrs Sonia Gandhi on crucial issues, but their relationship is far more equal than it was when she named him the surprise Prime Minister of the decade.
But there is one political arena in which he has to bow before the party's decisions: survival of his government. It is the party which decides how far to strain the nerves that hold a disparate coalition together. The slightest disarray would unravel the government. The party cannot afford a midterm general election just in order to preserve Dr Singh's image of financial integrity.
Dr Singh understands politics, but cannot get himself to indulge in the political language needed to roll around a crisis caused by blatant and possibly unprecedented levels of corruption. His nature drags him perilously close to the epicentre, and facts can be injurious to the health of a Prime Minister since he has, of course, been forced to compromise. He used the term "coalition compulsions" but those compulsions are not about the individual who has been thrown into jail because of the telecom scandal, A. Raja.
Raja is the front office boy; the problem is the DMK. The DMK made telecom its private property long before Raja became Cabinet minister with the help of corporate honchos awaiting extraordinary pay-offs for their deals with him. The DMK has milked telecom with a consistency that must generate tears of envy from middlemen. Raja, at best, kept a percentage of the loot; most of the money was taken by the party and members of the Karunanidhi family. Raja is the sacrifice thrown by the patriarch to the mob. His allotted destiny is to be the fall guy and keep his mouth shut, mafia-style, or there will be consequences. The problem is not Raja the individual, but DMK the institution. That is the tension that will test Dr Manmohan Singh. Karunanidhi is being economical with the truth when he claims that he cannot remember receiving a handwritten letter from Ratan Tata praising Raja as the finest thing to happen to telecom since Alexandar Graham Bell. Nor are any disbursements made to the extended family without his permission.
The Congress has sent Raja to prison, ordered a CBI raid on Kalaignar TV [owned by the Karunanidhi clan] and hinted that Karunanidhi's daughter Kanimozhi could be summoned for interrogation. It has also announced that it will ally with the DMK in the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections. That does not seem like a powerful denunciation of corruption. But it is explicable in terms of political survival. If the Congress fought the elections alone it would end up in desolate territory akin to its Bihar results. The trade-off is flexibility in the campaign against corruption, but the Prime Minister used his press conference to suggest that he would be as hard as the law permitted. The CBI moved at his direction.
Key questions: how far can the CBI rush around without toppling the applecart? Those apples are high value. The CBI will hear names from those it is interrogating. It will act against the private sector with much display, but what about the politicians who live too close to the bone?
Is the answer to this paradox another paradox? The Congress would obviously like to repeat its alliance victory in Tamil Nadu, but could the way out lie in defeat? A re-elected DMK would blackmail the coalition at the Centre; a defeated DMK would be more compliant in Chennai and more obedient in Delhi.
Being a hero is not easy, particularly when your valet is on the take.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Talk of the Town
Talk of the Town
By M J Akbar
ByWord in India Today
February 18, 2011
There is one commodity that is inflation-proof even in India's most expensive city, Delhi. Talk is cheap in the capital, available at every cafe and inside every drawing room. But excess of supply should not beguile us into the belief that it is useless. Talk is the barometer of the next political season. Seasons change, at least twice a year. This winter has been cold for the Government; and there was talk that summer might become a bit too warm.
A prime minister does not invite media over for a chat because his principal secretary has told him that he has nothing scheduled that morning. He must have a specific message to convey, particularly when the show is being televised. Dr Manmohan Singh summoned television heads-one or two noticeably burdened by the weight of national responsibility-to ask questions because he wanted one answer to be heard. This primary message was, in essence, simple: he was still in charge; he was still interested in his job; and he was not going anywhere till the next general election in 2014. In his opening remarks he laughed off, or perhaps shrugged off (there is sometimes little to choose between the two with Dr Singh), the suggestion that he was a "lame-duck" prime minister.
But who made this suggestion that the prime minister felt bound to refute? In his first five years, when he was technically more vulnerable, Dr Singh was pretty much the swan on the lake, rather than a hobbled duck. Within 18 months of a re-election which should have energised him with new resolve, Dr Singh was forced to tell the country: "I have to complete this term". Did corrosion begin when in an earlier, similarly publicised press conference, Dr Singh diffidently offered to make way for Rahul Gandhi if asked to do so by his party. A prime minister becomes lame the moment he suggests that he might not be able to walk all the way to the next election. He is instantly a creature of the past, and power splits between him and the representative of the future.
In the last 12 months, Dr Singh has seemed, inexplicably, a prisoner of eddies rather than master of the tide. A viral and vicious undercurrent of corruption has complemented the high storm of inflation. He has been patently helpless about both, unable to act against venality when it was discovered by media under his nose, and making excuses about rising prices rather than finding a solution.
There is no third option in power: either you control events, or events control you. The first threat to a weak prime minister is not the Opposition but the ring of colleagues who circle and wait, wait and circle, timing their moment for the kill. A rump of fairly senior, and therefore ambitious, Congress leaders, including those who are considered, or consider themselves, close to the heir apparent Rahul Gandhi began to orchestrate loud whispers that the prime minister would not survive summer. The discretion implicit in anonymity soon begins to melt as the temperature of ambition begins to rise. As senior a minister as P. Chidambaram recently told an American newspaper that the Manmohan Singh Government was suffering from an ethical and governance deficit. The newspaper obligingly headlined its story "India Ruling Party Ponders Leadership" and told its readers that Chidambaram was "waiting in the wings".
On February 16, Dr Manmohan Singh told Chidambaram to stop waiting. Rahul Gandhi has always been wise enough never to push his claim, but his loyalists surely got the hint: no change before 2014.
There was clarity in the prime minister's message to the Congress; but such clarity began to haze when he spoke to India. The machinations of Delhi are of peripheral interest to a citizen livid at corruption and enraged at inflation. It was inevitable that at least a few of the media persons would question the prime minister's complacency on corruption. It was easy to fudge through a question on 2G since follow-ups were not permitted under house rules. But those who created such rules forgot that the country was tired of fudge. When one guest inevitably pushed for a follow-up, an imperious courtier instructed him not to insult the majesty of the prime minister's position. Such sycophancy by a minion does a disservice to a prime minister whose temperament is averse to confrontation.
Indians are not supine by nature; but they do not waste their strength by putting it on constant display. Every general election is a tribute to their collective muscle. Governments which take Indians for granted, or confuse Delhi with India, are inviting a volcano to erupt. When Delhi talks there is fissure and turbulence. When India talks there will be an explosion.
By M J Akbar
ByWord in India Today
February 18, 2011
There is one commodity that is inflation-proof even in India's most expensive city, Delhi. Talk is cheap in the capital, available at every cafe and inside every drawing room. But excess of supply should not beguile us into the belief that it is useless. Talk is the barometer of the next political season. Seasons change, at least twice a year. This winter has been cold for the Government; and there was talk that summer might become a bit too warm.
A prime minister does not invite media over for a chat because his principal secretary has told him that he has nothing scheduled that morning. He must have a specific message to convey, particularly when the show is being televised. Dr Manmohan Singh summoned television heads-one or two noticeably burdened by the weight of national responsibility-to ask questions because he wanted one answer to be heard. This primary message was, in essence, simple: he was still in charge; he was still interested in his job; and he was not going anywhere till the next general election in 2014. In his opening remarks he laughed off, or perhaps shrugged off (there is sometimes little to choose between the two with Dr Singh), the suggestion that he was a "lame-duck" prime minister.
But who made this suggestion that the prime minister felt bound to refute? In his first five years, when he was technically more vulnerable, Dr Singh was pretty much the swan on the lake, rather than a hobbled duck. Within 18 months of a re-election which should have energised him with new resolve, Dr Singh was forced to tell the country: "I have to complete this term". Did corrosion begin when in an earlier, similarly publicised press conference, Dr Singh diffidently offered to make way for Rahul Gandhi if asked to do so by his party. A prime minister becomes lame the moment he suggests that he might not be able to walk all the way to the next election. He is instantly a creature of the past, and power splits between him and the representative of the future.
In the last 12 months, Dr Singh has seemed, inexplicably, a prisoner of eddies rather than master of the tide. A viral and vicious undercurrent of corruption has complemented the high storm of inflation. He has been patently helpless about both, unable to act against venality when it was discovered by media under his nose, and making excuses about rising prices rather than finding a solution.
There is no third option in power: either you control events, or events control you. The first threat to a weak prime minister is not the Opposition but the ring of colleagues who circle and wait, wait and circle, timing their moment for the kill. A rump of fairly senior, and therefore ambitious, Congress leaders, including those who are considered, or consider themselves, close to the heir apparent Rahul Gandhi began to orchestrate loud whispers that the prime minister would not survive summer. The discretion implicit in anonymity soon begins to melt as the temperature of ambition begins to rise. As senior a minister as P. Chidambaram recently told an American newspaper that the Manmohan Singh Government was suffering from an ethical and governance deficit. The newspaper obligingly headlined its story "India Ruling Party Ponders Leadership" and told its readers that Chidambaram was "waiting in the wings".
On February 16, Dr Manmohan Singh told Chidambaram to stop waiting. Rahul Gandhi has always been wise enough never to push his claim, but his loyalists surely got the hint: no change before 2014.
There was clarity in the prime minister's message to the Congress; but such clarity began to haze when he spoke to India. The machinations of Delhi are of peripheral interest to a citizen livid at corruption and enraged at inflation. It was inevitable that at least a few of the media persons would question the prime minister's complacency on corruption. It was easy to fudge through a question on 2G since follow-ups were not permitted under house rules. But those who created such rules forgot that the country was tired of fudge. When one guest inevitably pushed for a follow-up, an imperious courtier instructed him not to insult the majesty of the prime minister's position. Such sycophancy by a minion does a disservice to a prime minister whose temperament is averse to confrontation.
Indians are not supine by nature; but they do not waste their strength by putting it on constant display. Every general election is a tribute to their collective muscle. Governments which take Indians for granted, or confuse Delhi with India, are inviting a volcano to erupt. When Delhi talks there is fissure and turbulence. When India talks there will be an explosion.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
The Kuch Nahi Sarkar
By M J Akbar
Byword (In India Today)
February 11,2011
Which was the swivel moment when the Indian-born British citizen shook off his psychological shackles and came into his own? There will probably be as many answers as there are success stories. My personal favourite is the year in which an enterprising Sikh businessman bought out a distillery producing the most sustained, and possibly sustaining, export of the British peoples, Scotch whisky. The breakthrough was not in the financial transaction. Money is the easy part. The revolutionary switch in the balance of power was made when this NRI entrepreneur renamed the Scotch and called it "Kuch Nahi".
You read that correctly. I have neither the imagination nor the gall to make up such a story. I met this enterprising businessman once, nearly a decade ago. When I asked him how he proposed to sell a Scotch with a Hindi appellation meaning "Nothing", he replied with a persuasive, calm conviction that it was the perfect label for his target market of fellow Hindi-speaking Indians. It provided an infallible alibi for anyone snorkelling "Kuch Nahi" at a pub. When the imbiber reached home and his wife asked what he had been up to, he could say with a perfectly straight face, "Kuch Nahi". He could never be accused of telling a lie.
"Kuch Nahi" should be nominated the official drink of the present Union Government. Each time anyone in the "Kuch Nahi Sarkar" is asked what he has been up to, you get the same innocent answer: "Kuch Nahi". Never was a more implausible response offered with such a plausible face.
The Hindu and Business Line exposed the fact that ISRO had made 90 per cent of the spectrum capacity of two satellites, worth an estimated Rs 2 lakh crore, freely available to a private company in January 2005, and top ISRO officials turned up to explain that nothing had actually happened. The Prime Minister's Office piled in to add that since no decision had been taken to allocate this space segment, the question of any revenue loss did not arise. Then they announced that they had cancelled the contract concluded between the ISRO and Devas Multimedia Private Limited on January 28, 2005. Since ordinary mortals like you and I would not be able to distinguish a SBand spectrum from its first cousin in Z-band, or its granduncle in Aband, all we can ask are some simple housewifely questions: If nothing untoward had happened why cancel the contract? Second, what was Devas doing during the six years between the signing of the contract and its cancellation? Surely private sector companies do not sign such huge financial deals in order to lose money, or dawdle.
Contract cancellation is the equivalent of washing your mouth after a heavy night to substantiate that you drank "Kuch Nahi".
Maybe the Maharashtra chief minister's office is jinxed. Sit there for a bit and a corruption charge or two begins to bang heavily on the door. Witness Vilasrao Deshmukh and Ashok Chavan. Prithviraj Chauhan had a perfectly blameless reputation for the five-plus years he was minister of state for space under the prime minister in Delhi. The moment he went to Mumbai, up came ISRO: Chavan was the point man for such decisions.
The foremost "Kuch Nahi" minister of this government is surely former-and-future lawyer Kapil Sibal. Months after India had become convinced that there was "Kuch Hai" in the original Raja spectrum scam (amounting to a mere Rs 1.76 lakh crore, according to CAG, as distinct from circa Rs 2 lakh crore in the ISRO deal), Sibal tried to change the national perception with one dramatic press conference. He took an hour or more to say there was "Absolutely Kuch Nahi" in the Raja case. While the voter cowered under massive legal artillery bombardment, the Government cheered with so much enthusiasm it must have brought a smile on the depressed visage of Raja and elated the heart of his mentor, K. Karunanidhi.
The next thing we know, Sibal's government arrested "Kuch Nahi" Raja on corruption charges and permitted the CBI to take him into custody for interrogation. A corporate honcho who jumped from millionaire to billionaire on the spectrum canvas soon followed him inside. That's a heavy price to pay for "Kuch Nahi". It isn't the usual problem of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing in this Government; the right hand does not know what the right hand is doing, as one acute observer remarked.
Humour within public discourse can be bright, torrid or laboured; the sheer scale and depth of contemporary corruption has given it a bitter, corrosive, dangerous edge. "Kuch Nahi" is no longer a pleasant palliative in a pub. It is black humour, perfectly suited to the age of black money.
By M J Akbar
Byword (In India Today)
February 11,2011
Which was the swivel moment when the Indian-born British citizen shook off his psychological shackles and came into his own? There will probably be as many answers as there are success stories. My personal favourite is the year in which an enterprising Sikh businessman bought out a distillery producing the most sustained, and possibly sustaining, export of the British peoples, Scotch whisky. The breakthrough was not in the financial transaction. Money is the easy part. The revolutionary switch in the balance of power was made when this NRI entrepreneur renamed the Scotch and called it "Kuch Nahi".
You read that correctly. I have neither the imagination nor the gall to make up such a story. I met this enterprising businessman once, nearly a decade ago. When I asked him how he proposed to sell a Scotch with a Hindi appellation meaning "Nothing", he replied with a persuasive, calm conviction that it was the perfect label for his target market of fellow Hindi-speaking Indians. It provided an infallible alibi for anyone snorkelling "Kuch Nahi" at a pub. When the imbiber reached home and his wife asked what he had been up to, he could say with a perfectly straight face, "Kuch Nahi". He could never be accused of telling a lie.
"Kuch Nahi" should be nominated the official drink of the present Union Government. Each time anyone in the "Kuch Nahi Sarkar" is asked what he has been up to, you get the same innocent answer: "Kuch Nahi". Never was a more implausible response offered with such a plausible face.
The Hindu and Business Line exposed the fact that ISRO had made 90 per cent of the spectrum capacity of two satellites, worth an estimated Rs 2 lakh crore, freely available to a private company in January 2005, and top ISRO officials turned up to explain that nothing had actually happened. The Prime Minister's Office piled in to add that since no decision had been taken to allocate this space segment, the question of any revenue loss did not arise. Then they announced that they had cancelled the contract concluded between the ISRO and Devas Multimedia Private Limited on January 28, 2005. Since ordinary mortals like you and I would not be able to distinguish a SBand spectrum from its first cousin in Z-band, or its granduncle in Aband, all we can ask are some simple housewifely questions: If nothing untoward had happened why cancel the contract? Second, what was Devas doing during the six years between the signing of the contract and its cancellation? Surely private sector companies do not sign such huge financial deals in order to lose money, or dawdle.
Contract cancellation is the equivalent of washing your mouth after a heavy night to substantiate that you drank "Kuch Nahi".
Maybe the Maharashtra chief minister's office is jinxed. Sit there for a bit and a corruption charge or two begins to bang heavily on the door. Witness Vilasrao Deshmukh and Ashok Chavan. Prithviraj Chauhan had a perfectly blameless reputation for the five-plus years he was minister of state for space under the prime minister in Delhi. The moment he went to Mumbai, up came ISRO: Chavan was the point man for such decisions.
The foremost "Kuch Nahi" minister of this government is surely former-and-future lawyer Kapil Sibal. Months after India had become convinced that there was "Kuch Hai" in the original Raja spectrum scam (amounting to a mere Rs 1.76 lakh crore, according to CAG, as distinct from circa Rs 2 lakh crore in the ISRO deal), Sibal tried to change the national perception with one dramatic press conference. He took an hour or more to say there was "Absolutely Kuch Nahi" in the Raja case. While the voter cowered under massive legal artillery bombardment, the Government cheered with so much enthusiasm it must have brought a smile on the depressed visage of Raja and elated the heart of his mentor, K. Karunanidhi.
The next thing we know, Sibal's government arrested "Kuch Nahi" Raja on corruption charges and permitted the CBI to take him into custody for interrogation. A corporate honcho who jumped from millionaire to billionaire on the spectrum canvas soon followed him inside. That's a heavy price to pay for "Kuch Nahi". It isn't the usual problem of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing in this Government; the right hand does not know what the right hand is doing, as one acute observer remarked.
Humour within public discourse can be bright, torrid or laboured; the sheer scale and depth of contemporary corruption has given it a bitter, corrosive, dangerous edge. "Kuch Nahi" is no longer a pleasant palliative in a pub. It is black humour, perfectly suited to the age of black money.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Egypt finds its destiny
Byline by M J Akbar: Egypt finds its destiny
Salahuddin Ayyubi, more familiar as Saladin, would have understood what was happening in Cairo 2011 perfectly. When, eight centuries ago, he set out from Damascus to recapture Jerusalem, he headed not towards any Crusader state dotted across the map of Arab Asia, but marched instead to Cairo to destroy the rotting regime that had infected Egypt with smug impotence. Saladin knew, and said, that an Arab victory was impossible without the mobilisation of the heart of the Arab world. The epicentre had shifted from Baghdad with the decay of the Abbasids, and there it lies still. When Europe began its colonisation project, Napoleon headed for Alexandria, for he knew that the strategic route to both Ottoman Constantinople and British India lay through Egypt. When the British decided it was time to intervene, they sent Lord Cromer to Cairo.
When a dictator falls in Cairo, every other Humpty Dumpty gets a nervous breakdown. All the various kings’ horses, and all the many despots’ men, cannot put them together again. It is now a matter of time, and time has shifted its loyalty from dictators to democrats. It is a trifle awkward to quote from one’s own book, but one of the themes of The Shade of Swords [published in 2002] was that most of the Arab world was between 10 to 15 years away from its French revolution. There are, fortunately, no guillotines, because the 21st century has rediscovered the power of Gandhian non-violence as the ultimate mass weapon against the might of the state. There is no blood on the Nile, there is no stain on the Sphinx, and the people are in power in Cairo.
True, transition is still a work in progress. It would be illusory to declare a premature victory. The dust is still rising in Tunisia, where the ancien régime is fighting a rearguard battle to protect what it has seized from the people over so many decades. Such temptations will doubtless be visible in Egypt as well. But if the elites deny Egypt its liberation, then the anger of today will turn into the rage of tomorrow.
For six decades the consistent strain in the Western discourse has been praise for Israel’s democracy, and castigation of the moribund, when not monstrous, dictatorships of the Arabs. This was a valid, if not fully adequate, explanation for the limited economic and social progress among Arabs. Why then is Tel Aviv on the edge, and the West apprehensive at the prospect of this democratic revolution?
Because democracy does not travel alone. It is always accompanied by nationalism. You can have nationalism without democracy, but you cannot have democracy without nationalism. The West does not really fear the rise of a Muslim Brotherhood as an alternative to dictators, since that is a socio-political movement that can be contained in a crunch. It is worried about an explosion of governments that place the people’s interest above that of sectional regimes at home and their mentors abroad. It was this worry that prevented the West from intervening even when dictators looted their own nations. We do not yet know how much Hosni Mubarak salted away in Swiss and other banks, but rumour puts the figure at a staggering high. Details of Tunisia’s Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali’s family are public knowledge. The mass of companies owned by his family is evidence of the power of patronage. Most interestingly, his family controlled the banking system. His brother-in-law Belhassan Trabelsi owned the Bank of Tunisia; his daughter Nesrine had Zitouna Bank and Al Tijari Bank; his second daughter Cyrine owned the Arab International Bank of Tunisia, and his third daughter Ghazoua the Mediobanca. Why go to Switzerland when you have your own bank?
The difference between a dictatorship and a democracy is not very complicated. Governments are vulnerable in the former, but the country is free and stable. Despots seem permanent but under them the nation seethes in below-the-surface turmoil. How long can you keep the lava boiling inside the volcano?
The point may be stretched but is still worth making: is there anything in common between contemporary Cairo and Calcutta? In both cities, one on the knee of the Nile and the other at the foot of the Ganges, the citizen wants the government out after three decades in power. After this the differences begin. The Communists of Bengal have ruled in a democracy, while the Army-backed regime in Cairo has thrived through a cocktail of fear, fraud and ferocity. Cairo’s young cannot trust those who have cheated them for so long, and want change now. Calcutta’s young have no problem whatsoever in waiting for the hour appointed by the Election Commission. There is no need for a jasmine uprising. A democracy is a continuous peaceful political revolution.
Egypt has found its destiny and its destiny will change the world around it.
Salahuddin Ayyubi, more familiar as Saladin, would have understood what was happening in Cairo 2011 perfectly. When, eight centuries ago, he set out from Damascus to recapture Jerusalem, he headed not towards any Crusader state dotted across the map of Arab Asia, but marched instead to Cairo to destroy the rotting regime that had infected Egypt with smug impotence. Saladin knew, and said, that an Arab victory was impossible without the mobilisation of the heart of the Arab world. The epicentre had shifted from Baghdad with the decay of the Abbasids, and there it lies still. When Europe began its colonisation project, Napoleon headed for Alexandria, for he knew that the strategic route to both Ottoman Constantinople and British India lay through Egypt. When the British decided it was time to intervene, they sent Lord Cromer to Cairo.
When a dictator falls in Cairo, every other Humpty Dumpty gets a nervous breakdown. All the various kings’ horses, and all the many despots’ men, cannot put them together again. It is now a matter of time, and time has shifted its loyalty from dictators to democrats. It is a trifle awkward to quote from one’s own book, but one of the themes of The Shade of Swords [published in 2002] was that most of the Arab world was between 10 to 15 years away from its French revolution. There are, fortunately, no guillotines, because the 21st century has rediscovered the power of Gandhian non-violence as the ultimate mass weapon against the might of the state. There is no blood on the Nile, there is no stain on the Sphinx, and the people are in power in Cairo.
True, transition is still a work in progress. It would be illusory to declare a premature victory. The dust is still rising in Tunisia, where the ancien régime is fighting a rearguard battle to protect what it has seized from the people over so many decades. Such temptations will doubtless be visible in Egypt as well. But if the elites deny Egypt its liberation, then the anger of today will turn into the rage of tomorrow.
For six decades the consistent strain in the Western discourse has been praise for Israel’s democracy, and castigation of the moribund, when not monstrous, dictatorships of the Arabs. This was a valid, if not fully adequate, explanation for the limited economic and social progress among Arabs. Why then is Tel Aviv on the edge, and the West apprehensive at the prospect of this democratic revolution?
Because democracy does not travel alone. It is always accompanied by nationalism. You can have nationalism without democracy, but you cannot have democracy without nationalism. The West does not really fear the rise of a Muslim Brotherhood as an alternative to dictators, since that is a socio-political movement that can be contained in a crunch. It is worried about an explosion of governments that place the people’s interest above that of sectional regimes at home and their mentors abroad. It was this worry that prevented the West from intervening even when dictators looted their own nations. We do not yet know how much Hosni Mubarak salted away in Swiss and other banks, but rumour puts the figure at a staggering high. Details of Tunisia’s Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali’s family are public knowledge. The mass of companies owned by his family is evidence of the power of patronage. Most interestingly, his family controlled the banking system. His brother-in-law Belhassan Trabelsi owned the Bank of Tunisia; his daughter Nesrine had Zitouna Bank and Al Tijari Bank; his second daughter Cyrine owned the Arab International Bank of Tunisia, and his third daughter Ghazoua the Mediobanca. Why go to Switzerland when you have your own bank?
The difference between a dictatorship and a democracy is not very complicated. Governments are vulnerable in the former, but the country is free and stable. Despots seem permanent but under them the nation seethes in below-the-surface turmoil. How long can you keep the lava boiling inside the volcano?
The point may be stretched but is still worth making: is there anything in common between contemporary Cairo and Calcutta? In both cities, one on the knee of the Nile and the other at the foot of the Ganges, the citizen wants the government out after three decades in power. After this the differences begin. The Communists of Bengal have ruled in a democracy, while the Army-backed regime in Cairo has thrived through a cocktail of fear, fraud and ferocity. Cairo’s young cannot trust those who have cheated them for so long, and want change now. Calcutta’s young have no problem whatsoever in waiting for the hour appointed by the Election Commission. There is no need for a jasmine uprising. A democracy is a continuous peaceful political revolution.
Egypt has found its destiny and its destiny will change the world around it.
Saturday, February 05, 2011
The collapse of a lie
Byline by M J Akbar: The collapse of a lie
Nothing, goes the maxim, clears the head faster than the sight of a noose. This is true for ordinary mortals like you and me. Despots intoxicated by the hallucination of indispensability are either puzzled or terrified by the notion that power is finite. Their cronies have always told them otherwise. Their palaces have insulated them from the street. The international order did business without the whisper of a question. Why bother?
Dictatorships are arrangements between elites. They begin, as in Hosni Mubarak’s case, as a lottery windfall. He would have retired into obscurity as a nondescript general with a few silly gongs on his breast if Anwar Sadat had not been assassinated by a soldier at a parade. [Since then, parading units do not carry live ammunition; which saved Rajiv Gandhi’s life during his visit to Colombo when all the man in uniform at the airport could do was attack India’s Prime Minister with a rifle butt.] Mubarak began his rule with a lie, promising democracy while he rearranged the instruments and institutions that would keep him in power for three decades. He is trying to hold on with yet another lie, the promise to go quietly in September.
The Army has provided the operative muscle to Mubarak, but from some distance, since it is a conscription force and does not want to lose its connect with the citizen. The bureaucracy pushed the files and picked up benefits. Media read from the Mubarak script and fawned over intermediaries of the palace. Foreigners swam in the Sharm el Sheikh and gasped at the treasures of King Tut.
It was a different story for the people. Fear was the toxic smog over Mubarak’s Egypt. It was not the menacing black that darkened Saddam Hussein’s Iraq from horizon to horizon. Mubarak was too Egyptian to be that crass. But an unmistakeable haze of threat overshadowed you the moment you stepped outside proscribed limits. The proscribed lines were not cultural. You cannot have tourism as your principal wage-earner and ban bikinis or bars. Limits applied to the engagement between citizen and authority.
Deviants, particularly anyone asking for human or political rights, were punished by prison. Democracy was dismissed as an invitation to chaos. The first alibi of Mubarak remains the last alibi of Mubarak. He is still trotting out this nonsense to the pitiful few who will listen. Perhaps he has actually begun to believe this rubbish. It is axiomatic that a despot must have contempt for his own people since he cannot trust them with collective common sense. Dissidents who became insistent, or those who dared to organise secular opposition, were picked by the dreaded Mukhabarat, the intelligence service, uninhibited by a compromised judicial service. The purpose was not merely to annihilate the victim but also send a chilling message to anyone foolish enough to believe in change. In the last decade, it was not only Mubarak who loomed over the nation, but his son Gamaal, whose sole qualification lay in his genes.
It suited Mubarak to tolerate the Muslim Brotherhood (within parameters of course) as the only Opposition. He could point to them as the alternative and ask the West to choose. America and Europe convinced themselves that the emasculation of the Egyptian people was a price worth paying for Israel’s security. Once Egypt’s ruling class had been neutralized Palestine’s dream of an independent state remained just that, a dream. The US-sponsored Cairo-Tel Aviv deal maintained the status quo between existing nation states, and their dynastic regimes, but eroded Palestinian space tree by tree, orchard by orchard, yard by yard, settlement by settlement, year after year. It was the perfect trap.
That trap has been sprung open. Mubarak could not do two things, the first of which was arguably less dangerous for him than the second. He could not ban the Muslim congregational prayer every Friday. This became the public meeting of thousands of communities, united in reverence to God, but increasingly sceptical of the man who had imposed his authoritarian regime in Cairo. It is not an accident that the namaaz has become a recurring symbol of protest at Tahrir Square in Cairo.
Nor could Mubarak censor Egyptian humour. The joke became a potent weapon of resistance. The Mukhabarat was helpless. A joke has no author. How do you send Mr Anonymous to jail? Laughter ripped apart Mubarak’s credibility during the long fallow years, until one sudden day it evolved into mass anger.
A state has many advantages in a confrontation with the people. It can twist the law under the pretext of maintaining order, even when it is the principal cause of disorder. A despot has even more advantages, because he is not in the least bothered by legitimacy: after all, a coup is an illegitimate birth. He can provoke violence and then cite violence as the predicted symptom of chaos. This is the final throw of Mubarak’s loaded dice.
A dictator has many routes back to square one. The people have only one road towards their horizon of democracy. They need heroes for the struggle is uneven. Egypt is trembling. If the people fail, the nation will fall into a dangerous abyss.
Nothing, goes the maxim, clears the head faster than the sight of a noose. This is true for ordinary mortals like you and me. Despots intoxicated by the hallucination of indispensability are either puzzled or terrified by the notion that power is finite. Their cronies have always told them otherwise. Their palaces have insulated them from the street. The international order did business without the whisper of a question. Why bother?
Dictatorships are arrangements between elites. They begin, as in Hosni Mubarak’s case, as a lottery windfall. He would have retired into obscurity as a nondescript general with a few silly gongs on his breast if Anwar Sadat had not been assassinated by a soldier at a parade. [Since then, parading units do not carry live ammunition; which saved Rajiv Gandhi’s life during his visit to Colombo when all the man in uniform at the airport could do was attack India’s Prime Minister with a rifle butt.] Mubarak began his rule with a lie, promising democracy while he rearranged the instruments and institutions that would keep him in power for three decades. He is trying to hold on with yet another lie, the promise to go quietly in September.
The Army has provided the operative muscle to Mubarak, but from some distance, since it is a conscription force and does not want to lose its connect with the citizen. The bureaucracy pushed the files and picked up benefits. Media read from the Mubarak script and fawned over intermediaries of the palace. Foreigners swam in the Sharm el Sheikh and gasped at the treasures of King Tut.
It was a different story for the people. Fear was the toxic smog over Mubarak’s Egypt. It was not the menacing black that darkened Saddam Hussein’s Iraq from horizon to horizon. Mubarak was too Egyptian to be that crass. But an unmistakeable haze of threat overshadowed you the moment you stepped outside proscribed limits. The proscribed lines were not cultural. You cannot have tourism as your principal wage-earner and ban bikinis or bars. Limits applied to the engagement between citizen and authority.
Deviants, particularly anyone asking for human or political rights, were punished by prison. Democracy was dismissed as an invitation to chaos. The first alibi of Mubarak remains the last alibi of Mubarak. He is still trotting out this nonsense to the pitiful few who will listen. Perhaps he has actually begun to believe this rubbish. It is axiomatic that a despot must have contempt for his own people since he cannot trust them with collective common sense. Dissidents who became insistent, or those who dared to organise secular opposition, were picked by the dreaded Mukhabarat, the intelligence service, uninhibited by a compromised judicial service. The purpose was not merely to annihilate the victim but also send a chilling message to anyone foolish enough to believe in change. In the last decade, it was not only Mubarak who loomed over the nation, but his son Gamaal, whose sole qualification lay in his genes.
It suited Mubarak to tolerate the Muslim Brotherhood (within parameters of course) as the only Opposition. He could point to them as the alternative and ask the West to choose. America and Europe convinced themselves that the emasculation of the Egyptian people was a price worth paying for Israel’s security. Once Egypt’s ruling class had been neutralized Palestine’s dream of an independent state remained just that, a dream. The US-sponsored Cairo-Tel Aviv deal maintained the status quo between existing nation states, and their dynastic regimes, but eroded Palestinian space tree by tree, orchard by orchard, yard by yard, settlement by settlement, year after year. It was the perfect trap.
That trap has been sprung open. Mubarak could not do two things, the first of which was arguably less dangerous for him than the second. He could not ban the Muslim congregational prayer every Friday. This became the public meeting of thousands of communities, united in reverence to God, but increasingly sceptical of the man who had imposed his authoritarian regime in Cairo. It is not an accident that the namaaz has become a recurring symbol of protest at Tahrir Square in Cairo.
Nor could Mubarak censor Egyptian humour. The joke became a potent weapon of resistance. The Mukhabarat was helpless. A joke has no author. How do you send Mr Anonymous to jail? Laughter ripped apart Mubarak’s credibility during the long fallow years, until one sudden day it evolved into mass anger.
A state has many advantages in a confrontation with the people. It can twist the law under the pretext of maintaining order, even when it is the principal cause of disorder. A despot has even more advantages, because he is not in the least bothered by legitimacy: after all, a coup is an illegitimate birth. He can provoke violence and then cite violence as the predicted symptom of chaos. This is the final throw of Mubarak’s loaded dice.
A dictator has many routes back to square one. The people have only one road towards their horizon of democracy. They need heroes for the struggle is uneven. Egypt is trembling. If the people fail, the nation will fall into a dangerous abyss.
The Sphinx and the Mahatma
The Sphinx and the Mahatma
By M J Akbar
Byword (Third Eye)in India Today
February 5, 2011
This is yet another Gandhian moment in world history, with implications nearly as momentous as the collapse of the British Raj at the Gateway of India. Egypt has rediscovered itself through the alchemy of non-violence, once dismissed as limp romanticism in the muscular age of colonial empires. Non-violence detached the mightiest empire ever known from its central mooring, India, initiating a process that liberated Afro-Asia from European colonisation in the 20th century. The irresistible power of courageous commitment and peaceful mobilisation is wresting destiny from the vicious grip of neo-colonisation in the 21st century; Egypt is the key. Hosni Mubarak, sustained in office by a collusion between a local military establishment and foreign powers long after he had become a figure of ridicule, knows what to do about bombs and bullets. But he is impotent before the calm conviction of his own people. Gandhi, in that sense, has become the philosophical mentor of freedom from both the emperor and dictator in the arc between the Nile and the Ganges.
Jawaharlal Nehru once said that Gandhi's greatest contribution was not the liberation of India from the British but the liberation of Indians from fear. The second had to precede the first. Fear of the Raj disappeared, Nehru said, during the great Non-Cooperation, or Khilafat, Movement between 1919 and February 1922. Fear finally began to retreat in Egypt when a 26-year-old woman, Asmaa Mahfouz, posted a video of herself on the Net with a simple message: "Do not be afraid."
Mahfouz was not born when Mubarak came to power 30 years ago. And, judging by the talk in the Cairo establishment, she could have become an old woman before Mubarak's designated successor, his son Gamal, passed on. This and similar pockets of resistance culminated in the January 25 mass demonstration in Tahrir Square that shifted the balance of power in Egypt and the whole of the Arab world. The era of corruption, dynasty, misgovernment, and the conversion of national wealth into private property in the name of stability is ebbing. The day the Egyptian army announced that it would not fire a single bullet upon its own people, power switched sides, even if the coming days indicate aberrations.
Those who are looking for answers miss the point: the questions have changed. The Sphinx at the foot of the Giza pyramid is in Liberation Square with a smile on its face, telling anyone in need of clarity: It is not whether Mubarak will go, but when. A man trapped in his palace because there is an image of a noose at the door cannot rule a country.
Deceit and delusion are the natural characteristics of dictators. Mubarak forgot that he belonged to Egypt; he slipped into the hallucination that Egypt belonged to him. Having been slapped awake, he has begged for time; but the street remembers that he promised democracy three decades ago and destroyed any hope of its arrival.
The silly notion that there is no one in the Opposition to replace Mubarak is another tired excuse. How can there be an Opposition leader when Egypt has never had democracy? The first item on the agenda of despots is generally the annihilation, through prison or death, of any opposition. They tend to congratulate themselves when they register 98 per cent of the vote in a rigged election. They forget a decisive law of public life: when there is no opposition party, the people become the opposition. Both position and opposition will begin when Mubarak vacates space.
The last alibi of dynasts-after me, the deluge!-has been heard before and will prove equally futile this time around. Thanks to the intervention of Europe's great powers, the Bourbons survived the French Revolution, but the revolution had achieved its purpose. It changed France. The guillotine has-thank you, Gandhi-disappeared. But the passion has not. Egypt rose on January 25 from a deep and poisonous swamp that had sucked its vitality; to drive it back under a hail of bullets would destroy the central bastion of the Arab world.
Despots survive because they are servile to their masters abroad and contemptuous of their own people at home. They deny democracy because they are convinced that their citizen is incapable of self-rule and needs a patriarch armed with a secret service that can brutalise the dissident and instruments of state that can lure the people into a zone of false comfort. It is utterly preposterous and humiliating to suggest that Arabs with their proud history, culture and sophistication, do not deserve democracy. The confrontation in Egypt could yet turn ugly, because the establishment has too much to lose. The countdown might take its time, but it has begun.
By M J Akbar
Byword (Third Eye)in India Today
February 5, 2011
This is yet another Gandhian moment in world history, with implications nearly as momentous as the collapse of the British Raj at the Gateway of India. Egypt has rediscovered itself through the alchemy of non-violence, once dismissed as limp romanticism in the muscular age of colonial empires. Non-violence detached the mightiest empire ever known from its central mooring, India, initiating a process that liberated Afro-Asia from European colonisation in the 20th century. The irresistible power of courageous commitment and peaceful mobilisation is wresting destiny from the vicious grip of neo-colonisation in the 21st century; Egypt is the key. Hosni Mubarak, sustained in office by a collusion between a local military establishment and foreign powers long after he had become a figure of ridicule, knows what to do about bombs and bullets. But he is impotent before the calm conviction of his own people. Gandhi, in that sense, has become the philosophical mentor of freedom from both the emperor and dictator in the arc between the Nile and the Ganges.
Jawaharlal Nehru once said that Gandhi's greatest contribution was not the liberation of India from the British but the liberation of Indians from fear. The second had to precede the first. Fear of the Raj disappeared, Nehru said, during the great Non-Cooperation, or Khilafat, Movement between 1919 and February 1922. Fear finally began to retreat in Egypt when a 26-year-old woman, Asmaa Mahfouz, posted a video of herself on the Net with a simple message: "Do not be afraid."
Mahfouz was not born when Mubarak came to power 30 years ago. And, judging by the talk in the Cairo establishment, she could have become an old woman before Mubarak's designated successor, his son Gamal, passed on. This and similar pockets of resistance culminated in the January 25 mass demonstration in Tahrir Square that shifted the balance of power in Egypt and the whole of the Arab world. The era of corruption, dynasty, misgovernment, and the conversion of national wealth into private property in the name of stability is ebbing. The day the Egyptian army announced that it would not fire a single bullet upon its own people, power switched sides, even if the coming days indicate aberrations.
Those who are looking for answers miss the point: the questions have changed. The Sphinx at the foot of the Giza pyramid is in Liberation Square with a smile on its face, telling anyone in need of clarity: It is not whether Mubarak will go, but when. A man trapped in his palace because there is an image of a noose at the door cannot rule a country.
Deceit and delusion are the natural characteristics of dictators. Mubarak forgot that he belonged to Egypt; he slipped into the hallucination that Egypt belonged to him. Having been slapped awake, he has begged for time; but the street remembers that he promised democracy three decades ago and destroyed any hope of its arrival.
The silly notion that there is no one in the Opposition to replace Mubarak is another tired excuse. How can there be an Opposition leader when Egypt has never had democracy? The first item on the agenda of despots is generally the annihilation, through prison or death, of any opposition. They tend to congratulate themselves when they register 98 per cent of the vote in a rigged election. They forget a decisive law of public life: when there is no opposition party, the people become the opposition. Both position and opposition will begin when Mubarak vacates space.
The last alibi of dynasts-after me, the deluge!-has been heard before and will prove equally futile this time around. Thanks to the intervention of Europe's great powers, the Bourbons survived the French Revolution, but the revolution had achieved its purpose. It changed France. The guillotine has-thank you, Gandhi-disappeared. But the passion has not. Egypt rose on January 25 from a deep and poisonous swamp that had sucked its vitality; to drive it back under a hail of bullets would destroy the central bastion of the Arab world.
Despots survive because they are servile to their masters abroad and contemptuous of their own people at home. They deny democracy because they are convinced that their citizen is incapable of self-rule and needs a patriarch armed with a secret service that can brutalise the dissident and instruments of state that can lure the people into a zone of false comfort. It is utterly preposterous and humiliating to suggest that Arabs with their proud history, culture and sophistication, do not deserve democracy. The confrontation in Egypt could yet turn ugly, because the establishment has too much to lose. The countdown might take its time, but it has begun.
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