UTI forfeits its trust
THE largest concentration of individuals pathologically prone to panic is to be found within the noisy precincts of the stock market.
What a goof-up!
IN terms of social and political waves that it generated, the explosion caused by the checking of the antecedents of Air Chief Marshal S.K. Sareen in connection with the commanders' conference beginning on October 26 in Delhi measured at least 7 on the Richter Scale.
Caste violence in TN
TAMIL NADU was perhaps the first state in post-Independence India to launch a focused political movement against the caste system in the region.

Use and abuse of
Article 356
by S. Sahay
IN the heart of hearts, the Bharatiya Janata Party is seething with frustration and anger over Mr K.R. Narayanan’s return for reconsideration by the Council of Ministers its advice to impose President’s rule in Bihar.

The President sets
a precedent
by Ashwani Kumar
THE President’s decision to return the Union Cabinet’s recommendation on Bihar is faulted on the ground that it has made Article 356 of the Constitution redundant and a “dead letter”.

Mummyjee knows best by M.L. Raina SCENE: An Iranian restaurant on a June day when Iran played its round-robin match against America in World Cup series. Sampling their biryani and kabab, I look at the tense faces of the gathered Iranian fans as the game zigzags through various stages. All at once the gathering erupts into an uproar. Iran wins the match against the “great satan”. Youngsters around the TV set in the restaurant kneel in prayer and then-cut to the Iranian television in Teheran which shows huge crowds chanting victory slogans in the streets. “Dwarfed by a dog” by J. L. Gupta I AM not a racist. I have no colour prejudices. Skin arouses no crazy sentiments in me. The qualities of head and heart are not governed by the pigment inside. Biological coloration is generally genetic. No one can control it by himself. Yet unconsciously, I have found myself admiring the black. It started, many years back, with a pet — a labrador. It was black. It was beautiful.

75 Years Ago

Maharaja of Nabha’s message
WHILE we have no right and no desire to discount the value of the message sent by the Maharaja of Nabha to the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, we may perhaps be pardoned if this incident reminds us of another.

UTI forfeits its trust

THE largest concentration of individuals pathologically prone to panic is to be found within the noisy precincts of the stock market. Expose them to sustained sluggishness and occasional volatility in prices, economic recession, political uncertainty and an international climate of plunging share values. And then deploy the big daddy of investors, UTI, and its all-powerful chairman to unveil a dismaying balance- sheet and to make a thoughtless but nerve-wrenching statement. What do you have? A perfect script for a stock market equivalent of an earthquake measuring 8 on the Richter scale. That is what happened on Monday. Prices, including those of blue chip companies, tumbled by around 7 per cent, the sensex slid to 2878 points and investors collectively lost over Rs 22,000 crore. Everyone was so jittery that they all turned sellers, exerting pressure all at once and thus triggering the circuit breaker — that is, automatically shutting out further deals. Rarely does this happen in such counters as those of ONGC, Indian Oil, SBI, Bharat Earth Movers, Shipping Corporation, ICICI, IDBI, SAIL and, holy of holies, Hindustan Lever, Reliance, ITC and Bajaj. Much of the blame goes to UTI, the most dominant player in stock markets, holding equity worth more than Rs 60,000 crore. With this kind of clout, reinforced by its daily average trading in shares of Rs 150 crore, it is the most powerful influence. Often it enters the trading floor to steady the market. This time though, UTI used its financial muscle to send shock waves across the country. Its balancesheet for the past financial year showed a sharp drop in its reserve fund (set apart to meet any emergency) and it transpired that UTI had drawn down the fund to pay the assured 20 per cent dividend. That means US64 was not making money on investments and had to dip into reserves to meet its obligation. This was because the sensex had fallen by 21 per cent during May and June, the crucial final months of the accounting year, which in turn implied that the real value (NAV, the net asset value) of the shares it held had also suffered a major erosion. US64, the symbol of UTI pride, was thus worth just Rs 10, although the Trust continued to buy it at Rs 14.25 and sell at Rs 14.45 (the July special price). This stealthy revelation, not directly made by UTI itself, set off wild conjectures. Leading companies holding in all about 30 per cent of US64, are about to redeem (sell back to UTI) the units to avoid further loss, one rumour had it. That would spell the end of the US64 spell.

In the midst of this bedlam, UTI chief P.S.Subramaniam dropped a bombshell. He announced that the Trust would reduce its equity holding from the present 64 per cent to 60 per cent, implying that it was about to unload a huge volume of shares in the market. That very prospect alarmed the investors, since it would cause a crash in prices and inflict an enormous loss on both individual investors and companies. It was Mr Subramaniam’s speech (and his earlier failure to explain the shrinkage of the US64 value) that convulsed the market. A charitable view is that it was a careless action of an unthinking man; a critic would view it as a deliberate act to show his predecessor in bad light. His energetic talk of plans to finetune UTI-corporate relations adds strength to the suspicion that he desires to project himself as a better manager of the country’s biggest mutual fund. Frankly, UTI’s position, or that of US64, is open to an easy solution. If sensex touches 3700 points, the value of US64 units would bounce back to a healthy level, and if the economy picks up, dividend flow into the Trust will increase and make the current experience a bad dream. All this Mr Subramaniam willing!

What a goof-up!

IN terms of social and political waves that it generated, the explosion caused by the checking of the antecedents of Air Chief Marshal S.K. Sareen in connection with the commanders' conference beginning on October 26 in Delhi measured at least 7 on the Richter Scale. It is sheer good luck that the faux pas has been traced back to none other than the office of the Director-General of Military Intelligence and that too before the reverberations did irreparable damage. One shudders to think what would have happened if the goof-up was a result of the bungling by the police or even the Prime Minister' Office. Like it or not, there is a lot of resentment among the armed forced over real or perceived humiliations heaped on them by civilian officials and even by the government. In such a surcharged atmosphere, this latest "slight" would very well have acted as oil on fire. Ironically, one day before The Tribune front-paged the story bringing out the role of the DGMI in the ugly episode, certain retired senior defence officials addressed a Press conference in Chandigarh demanding an apology by the Prime Minister and an enquiry by a serving Judge of the Supreme Court. The three Service Chiefs were even trying to meet the Prime Minister to express their displeasure. One hopes that the report would help smoothen the ruffled feathers and make the defence officials see the episode as typical bureaucratic bungling rather than calculated insult.

Whatever the reasons might have been and wherever it originated, the episode was a display of unbelievable immaturity and a poor reflection on the working of the official machinery. The process of the forwarding of the name of Air Chief Marshal Sareen along with the names of several other senior officers for obtaining clearance for special security passes for the commanders' conference went through many hands, none of which found anything wrong with it. If the letter had the approval of even the Vice-Chief of Army Staff, the junior police official who rang the bell at the Dehra Dun house of the parents of the Air Chief can hardly be faulted for this unusual check. The anger of the usually unflappable Prime Minister in this regard is fully justified. While it is necessary that those who perpetrated the blunder are dealt with strictly, those who have felt bad about it must realise that it was not a sign of civil apathy towards defence people. Nor should it be blown out of proportion as if senior defence officials are being kept under police surveillance. Instead, the unsavoury episode should spur us to have a close look at the working of military intelligence as well as its coordination with civilian authorities.

Caste violence in TN

TAMIL NADU was perhaps the first state in post-Independence India to launch a focused political movement against the caste system in the region. Periyar, the father of the DK, sought to give primacy to the Dravidian identity of the people over the factors which divided them on caste lines, Annadurai and MGR represented the golden period of the movement for caste equality. However, the Ramanathapuram incident of caste violence suggests that the inheritors of the glorious political legacy have been too busy fighting their personal battles to have noticed the revival of the demon of casteism. Although Ms Jayalalitha has launched a virulent attack against Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi for the incident in which nine lives were lost —most of them in police firing — she too, when in power, allowed the canker to grow. Looking at the problem in a larger context the recurrence of caste violence in Tamil Nadu represents the failure of Periyar’s dream. In most such incidents it is usually the members of the lower castes who are at the receiving end of the ire of the members of the upper castes. Although the administration has claimed the return of normalcy in the district certain developments in Ramanathapuram indicate that the situation is still explosive. The shoot-at-sight orders in the entire district confirm this suspicion. The coming together of certain Muslim outfits and a Dalit party “to teach the upper castes a lesson” is an ominous development. The eruption of caste violence also points to the failure of the state’s intelligence agencies in alerting the administration about the increasing tension between rival caste groups.

That the police force was caught unawares is also evident from the fact that when a 300-strong Dalit group attacked houses and shops belonging to the Thevars in Triupullani village it had to seek the assistance of the commando force to control the situation. The Chief Minister cannot take the plea that caste tension in the southern districts is a recent phenomenon to explain the inability of the administration to take timely preventive action. Clashes between the Dalits and the Thevars in the southern part of Tamil Nadu have become regular features. Last year over 150 lives were lost in similar attacks and counter-attacks. The developments over the past few days in Tamil Nadu should not be seen in isolation because of the role of the ISI in instigating local Muslims to indulge in anti-national activities and the LTTE factor in the state. Union Home Minister L.K. Advani should study the demand for sending a team of Central observers for an objective study of the situation in Tamil Nadu. Of course, the recurrence of caste violence has provided yet another opportunity to Ms Jayalalitha to revive her demand for the dismissal of the Karunanidhi government. The Centre should not reject the demand because it has been made by the political foe of Mr Karunanidhi. This time she may have a much stronger case than she has ever had for raising the demand for imposition of President’s rule in Tamil Nadu. If the Centre is convinced that the latest incident of caste violence is likely to be exploited by the anti-national elements in Tamil Nadu to promote their agenda, it should act against Mr Karunanidhi not because Ms Jayalalitha says so but because it may be in the national interest.

USE AND ABUSE OF ART 356
Those in power never learn
by S. Sahay

IN the heart of hearts, the Bharatiya Janata Party is seething with frustration and anger over Mr K.R. Narayanan’s return for reconsideration by the Council of Ministers its advice to impose President’s rule in Bihar. The Prime Minister has told journalists that the last has not been heard on the subject. He is of the view that mafia raj does prevail in the state.

Mr L.K. Advani’s mood has shown fluctuations. The first impulse was to await Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee’s return in order to determine what attitude to adopt on the President’s rebuff to the ministry. The Prime Minister preferred an immediate response and communicated it to Mr Advani, who later presided over the Cabinet meeting that decided not to send back its advice to the President, in which case the latter would have had to sign on the dotted line. But then the Union Home Minister made it clear that he was talking in the present tense (“for present”) and that is the theme that he has been harping on since then. He met the President and that led to speculation in the Press of what transpired between the two. Subsequently, Mr Advani clarified that the government had no intention to resubmit its advice to the President.

However, Mr Advani keeps insisting that there is a clear case for the imposition of President’s rule in Bihar. He is entitled to his conviction, as the President is to his doubts. Once the decision was taken to show respect to the President’s views, the naturally corollary should have been not to take up the issue at the government level.

Party reaction is a different matter. It might be conceded that any decision to impose President’s rule in a state is essentially political in nature, though clothed in the constitutional garb. That is why the Supreme Court judges who decided the Bommai and other allied cases, cogitated over how far they could go in examining the constitutional validity of the decision. Some of them felt that there could not be a judicially manageable standard of judging a political decision and hence the court could examine only the question of mala fide and non-existence of evidence (though not the sufficiency of it).

However, it must be noted that it is the Supreme Court that has the authority to interpret the Constitution, not the party bosses. And most of them appear to look even vague familiarity with it.

No doubt, Bihar is a poorly governed state. It has mafia rule, it has a spate of murders, but is it unique in this respect? Is UP any different? Or Delhi, where there are more crimes, more wheeling and deal and more influence peddling?

It may be true that Mr Laloo Yadav is ruling Bihar by proxy, which is not a happy state of affairs. But what about Bal Thackeray in Maharashtra? It needs to be remembered that unlettered or otherwise, Mrs Rabri Devi is at least the elected Chief Minister, elected by the legislators, which cannot be said about Mr Bal Thackeray. And did not that extra-constitutional authority, Sanjay Gandhi, rule the Centre? He laid down the policy, he passed certain files, and officers and politicians danced attendance on him. Usually, he did not extend them the courtesy of asking them to sit down.

True, there is no provision for President’s rule at the Centre, but that is because the Constitution-makers simply could not have imagined the Sanjay phenomenon, the bank scam (dismissed as constitutional failure) or the existing criminal-politician-bureaucrat nexus.

Enough has been said about the legal interpretation of Article 356 and these need not be repeated, except to point out that the experts are by and large agreed that the President was well within his rights in returning the Cabinet’s advice for the imposition of President’s rule in Bihar.

A further point needs to be stressed. So far as the emergency provisions of the Constitution are concerned, the President’s satisfaction cannot mean the satisfaction of the Council of Ministers alone. The President has to be personally satisfied. This point has been very ably argued by a member of the Law Commission, Mr Ghatok.

This has grave implications for the use of Article 356. Let us assume that the Cabinet, at a future date, renders the same advice backed by more evidence. If the President still remains dissatisfied, and the matter is referred to the Supreme Court, can the court throw it out?

In any case, what evidence can the government produce about the other possible steps taken under the Constitution in order to warn the state government that it was not running the show in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution? It has none.

The BJP’s demand for a White Paper on the use of Article 356 is politically motivated. The aim appears to be to show that the Article was wantonly misused by the Congress. That may be true, but no party or alliance that has ruled the Centre has shown any aversion for it, and that now includes the BJP.

The Article has been debated long enough, before the Sarkaria Commission before the Supreme Court and before the Inter-State Council. The consensus is that we do need the Article (for use in the rarest of rare cases), but how to prevent its misuse is the question.

The President and the Supreme Court have shown by their conduct or ruling that the Centre cannot get away with the blatant misuse of Article 356. What is required now is suitable amendment in the Article itself, and on this score there is room for debate.

The last question is the manner in which the Governor, Mr S.S. Bhandari, is being treated in Bihar. No sane person can approve of the calling of names or derogatory remarks. But then it must be remembered that this is a country where the burning of the Constitution (it used to be initially burnt by the DMK) and the tearing off of Bills to show displeasure are not unknown.

What is required is a new constitutional culture, and senior political leaders and national parties showing the way.

Thanks to the use of TV in Parliament and state legislatures there is a public revulsion, especially among children, towards the deeds of politicians. Let us hope that, in course of time, they will be shamed enough to change their ways.

“Dwarfed by a dog”
by J. L. Gupta

I AM not a racist. I have no colour prejudices. Skin arouses no crazy sentiments in me. The qualities of head and heart are not governed by the pigment inside. Biological coloration is generally genetic. No one can control it by himself. Yet unconsciously, I have found myself admiring the black. It started, many years back, with a pet — a labrador. It was black. It was beautiful.

Historically, man and dog have been in association “for at least 10,000 years”. Man initially depended on the “dog to warn him of approaching threat.” As if in turn, the dog “grew to depend on man for food and shelter.” Gradually, the “bonds of benefit” developed and “the domesticated dog became man’s creation”. From a “wolflike hunter” to a totally lovable pet is a part of the process of evolution. And today, the dog excels man in senses of smell and hearing. More than that, in faithfulness, gratitude and sincerity.

Back to the pet. Years ago a kennel had advertised highly pedigreed pups. I chose a black labrador. It was just four weeks old. Initially its activity was confined to a little feed and long hours of sleep. Slowly, it began to “socialise”. To respond to a call. Even to a command. It appreciated a reward which gave it an incentive to obey. Gradually, it even began to demand. Rarely, it had to be snubbed. Or punished. It was not stubborn. Any mistake and it would acknowledge with a sheepish look. The pup was now a good pupil. We called it Raja. A little training to this mute “pupil” did a lot of good. It was learning by the day.

Soon it grew up. It had its set of permanent teeth. The incisors, the canines, the premolars and molars. Fortytwo in all. Against 30 or 32 of man. In spite of a stronger jaw, its demand for food was limited. It accepted what was given. No fuss. No problem. But a wonderful return. A lot of selfless love. Pure affection. Even sensitivity. It was there for anyone to see.

By its first birthday Raja was a fully grown adult. It was tall, dark and handsome. Its coat had a lustre. A distinct shine. It was playful. Full of life. Running around the place. Intelligent. Yet, it was obedient. For a moment, it would rest its paws on you. But if you gave a look of disapproval, in a moment, it would snuggle around your feet. It could always sense your command. You did not have to utter a word.

Raja gave pleasure. It provided a good company. It was virtually a companion. It always gave a hearty welcome. Very often, it would really make you feel wanted. It wagged its tail to thank you even for a little pat. This pupil made me proud.

A pet can give you so much. It cuddles around you like a baby. It gives love and affection. It never hurts. Gives no pain. Sometimes it appears to be better than a human being. Is it not so?

Man, today, stands at the pinnacle of his glory. He has walked on the moon. He has reached the Mars. He has acquired so much power that he can destroy half the world with the tip of his little finger. But what would he share with a fellow human being? A “communicable disease”? Jealousy? Hatred? Ingratitude?

Man, the demi-god, has polluted the earth. Trying to conquer the Mars, he has become a slave to materialism. Today, money is man’s master. Gold is his God. Self-interest is the idol. Self-promotion is the goal.

True, all are not equal. In fact, it takes all kinds of people to make this world. Even the five fingers of one hand are not alike. Necessarily, the good has to coexist with the bad. Vice has to live with virtue. Yet, the civilised man today appears to be more selfish and less sincere than his own creation — the domesticated animal.

Alas! I lost Raja. I could not find him again despite a protracted search. But before leaving, he had taught me the truth of what I had once read, “Do not insult a dog by calling man a dog.”

Has not the domesticated dog dwarfed today’s demi-god — the man?

The President sets a precedent
by Ashwani Kumar

THE President’s decision to return the Union Cabinet’s recommendation on Bihar is faulted on the ground that it has made Article 356 of the Constitution redundant and a “dead letter”. Notwithstanding a political decision to let the matter rest, the ruling BJP and some of its allies have called for a national debate on Article 356, and continue to insist that they do not share the President’s perception on the subject. This piece represents a view supportive of the President’s action in the hope that it would find broad acceptance among those familiar with constitutional jurisprudence.

The Union Cabinet’s recommendation for President’s rule in Bihar was based essentially on the Governor’s report which listed a series of acts of omission and commission on the part of the state government as constituting a breakdown of constitutional machinery — a sine qua non for the exercise of power under Article 356 (1). The justification advanced for dismissing an elected government enjoying majority support as demonstrated on the floor of the House included the worsening of the law and order situation in the state, the failure of the Chief Minister to communicate with the Governor regarding the affairs of the state, the pendency of a large number of contempt cases against government officials in courts and the mismanagement of Bihar’s finances, etc.

Having considered the Governor’s report and the Union Cabinet’s recommendation, the President in his wisdom decided to return the recommendation for reconsideration by the Cabinet. In a departure from past practice, the President outlined his reasons in a note to the Prime Minister. In essence, the President concluded that the acts mentioned did not constitute a breakdown of the constitutional machinery of the state so as to justify the use of his extraordinary powers under Article 356.

The validity of this decision falls to be tested on the touchstone of the apex court’s interpretation of the President’s power under Article 356 (1) in the celebrated Bommai case.

K. Ramaswamy J. (as he then was), speaking for the court, outlined the parameters of this power thus:

“The exercise of the power under Art. 356 is an extraordinary one and need to be used sparingly when the situation contemplated by Art. 356 warrants to maintain democratic form of government and to prevent paralysing of the political process. Single or individual act or acts of violation of the Constitution for good, bad or indifferent administration does not necessarily constitute failure of the constitutional machinery or characterises that a situation has arisen in which the government of the state cannot be carried on in accordance with the Constitution. The exercise of power under Art. 356 should under no circumstance be for a political gain to the party in power in the Union Government. It should be used sparingly and with circumspection that the government of the state functions with responsibility in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution”.

The apex court further held that before exercising the power of dismissing a state government under Article 356 (1) the President ought to be convinced on the basis of relevant material that the constitutional machinery in the state has broken down. The Bommai verdict is also an authority for the proposition that the power to dismiss a state government under Article 356 (1) is a constitutional power, the exercise of which is not immune to judicial review which, however, is limited to determining whether the material relied upon was relevant to the exercise of high constitutional power. The court went on to elaborate the constitutional requirement of having the decision ratified by both Houses of Parliament within the period specified without which the President’s proclamation must lapse.

Applying the aforesaid tests to the reported facts, the decision of the President is constitutionally unexceptionable. In making a difference between a bad government and the breakdown of constitutional machinery he has followed the letter and substance of the Bommai judgement. The President appears to have given due consideration to the relevant observations made in the report of the Sarkaria Commission as also to the intention of the framers of the Constitution as expressed in the debates of the Constituent Assembly, and adverted to in the Bommai judgement. The President would have doubtless considered the fact that the Rabri Devi government had demonstrated its majority on the floor of the House. Additionally, the impossibility of having the proclamation ratified by Parliament within the stipulated time, given the extent of political opposition to the move, is a material circumstance that the President would have considered and correctly so. Finally, the decision of the government not to refer the matter again to the President is an admission of the weakness of its case, constitutionally speaking.

Thus, in less than a year, President K.R. Narayanan has scoffed twice at the suggested use of Article 356 (1) for dismissing state governments enjoying majority support. In so deciding he has nourished the democratic principle that sustains our republic. He has signalled to the nation that high constitutional power shall be sparingly exercised so as to strengthen the federal structure. The President has set a sound precedent which is unlikely to be departed from in future.

The writer is a senior advocate practising at the Supreme Court.

Mummyjee knows best
by M.L. Raina

SCENE: An Iranian restaurant on a June day when Iran played its round-robin match against America in World Cup series. Sampling their biryani and kabab, I look at the tense faces of the gathered Iranian fans as the game zigzags through various stages. All at once the gathering erupts into an uproar. Iran wins the match against the “great satan”. Youngsters around the TV set in the restaurant kneel in prayer and then-cut to the Iranian television in Teheran which shows huge crowds chanting victory slogans in the streets.

Scene: A Brazillian bistro on West 46th Street in Manhattan on the day Brazil qualified for the World Cup final. At the end of the game the owner, a young sweaty Latino, offers free drinks to the gathered customers. As I leave, the waitress, most probably a Portuguese au pair, grins and says in broken English: “see you in Parris for finals”.

Scene: Balaji temple in Bridgewater, New Jersey, on Shrawan Purnamasi day. A respectable congregation of devotees in their mundus sit down to a ritual meal, their holy threads snaking over their bare coppery bodies. On the upper floor the deity is bathed and prepared for the darshan. A knot of devotees recite shlokas with a concentration that puts the agnostic in me to shame. Among them is an engineer. “MIT educated,” says my pharmacist brother, “but look how well he chants the scripture in Sanskrit”.

Scene: Hershey Park resort in Pennsylvania. North American Sikhs hold a camp to instil scriptural consciousness among their younger children. Next day the New York Times reported great enthusiasm among the young for the Sikh faith. Again at Hershey Park my own clansmen arrive to celebrate 4th of July. They reminisce about the balmy spring in Kashmir, sing songs (Daler Mehndi is a favourite) and cap it all with a scrumptious lunch of rice, rogan josh, yakhni and the inevitable hak (real collard greens, not your ersatz Burssel sprouts).

All these are realities that no amount of sophistical theorisation can wish away: every ethnic group in America is a world unto itself, even to the point of having their own code of mixing with others. They don’t admit it at first, but scratch them and they will reveal their inner dualities, their hemi-demi-semi existences caught between a bright-morning confidence in their proven professional skills and an atavistic craving for things native, particularly their regional and religious loyalties. In July the New York Times does a series of reports on immigrant communities in the New York area.

A Mexican maid claims she herself has employed a maid in her home village to look after her parents. An Indian professional, Vineet Sethi, flies home to Jaipur to marry and takes a photograph with his bride at a baseball game in Yankee Stadium. A cabby from Islamabad says he wants to send dollars home so that siblings could go to good schools there. Fresh from India, the Sethi wife (she wore jeans and matching tops to the game) says, “Mummyjee knows best”, as she arranges the pallu of her saree in the presence of her in-laws, their neighbours in the apartment bloc, who insist on their daughter-in-law observing the native mores.

This reality hits you wherever you go and whichever group you mix with. I begin to wonder whatever happened to the melting-pot theory of Moynihan and Glazer which foresaw America as a big-barrelled receptacle of the world’s diversity of races and cultures. True, the big cities are full of ethnic restaurants. True, the Patels have cornered the motel business and the Bangladeshis the eateries. Gourmets wax crazy over the fare on offer.

In England what started as humble Punjabi “balti” eateries have now graduated to the status of “bawlti” restaurants. Promoters of the Western way of life cite these as evidence of the cosmopolitanism of the West, never mind the blight of inner-city neighbourhoods, tellingly portrayed in movies such as Jungle Fever and Boys in the Wuz. What intrigues me most is the fact that the born-again multi-culturists, mostly Third World academics who made it good in their professions by appropriating the system to their needs, write monographs to proclaim the resurgence of “subaltern” groups.

Frankly, I find no resurgence of any kind except perhaps in in-house confabulations on college campuses. Indeed, I suspect there is a danger that each group would become a ghetto, a cavern where old practices would continue unchanged. Take Indians, for example.

There is a clear gap between their professional life and their non-professional one. At work they excel in all fields, sometimes scoring over the native Anglo-Saxons. At home generally antediluvian attitudes prevail. Is it the result of professional pressures which breed insecurity? Or are modernity and obscurantism necessary components of the immigrant experience? R. Radhakrishnan, author of Diasporic Mediations (a slim volume whose elegant get-up covers a gumbo of unreadable prose and specious argument), is at pains to explain to his son the intricacies of some South Indian ceremony. A young doctor who earned his spurs at the medical school joins his family’s conspiracy to harass his sister-in-law for dowry (this case was reported in the Indian media). Numerous instances of Indian parents wanting their children to marry within their own castes and communities are to be found in matrimonial ads of community magazines. Instances of young professionals not wanting to marry their westernised community members because of doubts about the girls’ virginity are too common to need elaboration.

This, then, is multi-ethnic America, too complex to fit into simplistic generalisations, like the one made by Radhakrishnan, to the effect that immigrant realities are “marked by a post-structuralist difference”.

Meanwhile, resident novelists of Indian origin with their know-it-all pretentiousness, create characters who are mostly like themselves. They place them in an artificially manufactured East-West cleft and extract the last drop of psychological pathos from their dilemmas (there are exceptions, of course, like Rohintan Mistry who has a firm grasp of his material). These high-pedestalled chroniclers are cut off from the grinding realities of the immigrant experience, such as harassment by employers — mostly their own countrymen — racial discrimination and cultural alienation to which even the best succumb. They make good copy, create an exotic ambience and rake in hefty moolah for the authors. The impress of a metropolitan publishing house brings the much needed boost to these “spokesmen” of the immigrant experience.

There are occasional resolutions, as when Ganesh Ramsummair in the Naipaul novel becomes a G. Ramsay Muir, or Jyoti is reincarnated as Jasmine in Bharati Mukherjee. But, by and large, you sense a strange masochism in the manner in which diasporic writers create fabricated hiatuses that gloss over the real fissures of immigrant living, what with the proliferation of sub-ethnic identities among communities. Die-hard post-modernists hail these identities as the empowerment of the hitherto marginalised.

In actual fact these identities are fragmentary and create more alienation. Elite multiculturists tout hybridity as essential to the immigrant experience, but fail to discriminate between obligatory assimilation, political cooptation and cultural mimicry. From their privileged perches in the power structure, they cast the first stone at racial domination, but don’t look out of their glass-houses.

At the level of popular culture, however, there are fake assimilations, parodied in the British film “Baji on the Beach”. A picnic party of assorted Indians decide to “translate” the well-known song. “We are all going on a summer holiday to make our dreams come true”. On the bus ride to Blackpool they sing “Assi Sare ja rahe han summer holiday sapne such karan”.

It makes for some hilarity and even soothes some worried souls who know the truth of race relations all too well. But the hilarity is lost as soon as it is discovered that Madhu, a young picnicker, is pregnant by her African boyfriend. Hell breaks loose and the visiting aunt (Baji of the title played by the veteran Zohra Sehgal) comes down with all sort of racialist rashes. Her discomfiture is exacerbated in a “full monty” male show in a Blackpool bar.

Lauded by feminist critic for wrong reasons, Baji on the Beach uncovers the spuriousness of multiculturalist beliefs. Only Meera Nair’s film Missisipi Masala is grimmer in its delineation of the violence lurking in the crevices of racial and ethnic divides in the deep American South, civil rights campaigns notwithstanding.

Festering prejudice hiding beneath the loquacity of egalitarian claims, that is the stark reality of ethnicity in the West. An elderly Punjabi woman, whose sons struck gold in real estate business in Bronx summed it all up as she responded to the Clinton escapades: “Praji, innan kol sub kuchh hai, par sabhita nahin”. There is anguish in these remark. As well as crass deceit. For lack of morals among Americans does not prevent this woman from bringing two generations of her kin into the country, a giant mobile suspended between your pre-lapsarian fantasy and post-lapsarian fact.

(Concluded)

75 YEARS AGO
Maharaja of Nabha’s message

WHILE we have no right and no desire to discount the value of the message sent by the Maharaja of Nabha to the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, we may perhaps be pardoned if this incident reminds us of another.

Every reader of Burke’s speeches in the impeachment of Warren Hastings knows the story, but it is not entirely out of place to recount it in the words of the brilliant essayist: — “It was said that at Banaras the very place at which the acts set forth in the very first article of impeachment had been committed, the natives had erected a temple to Hastings, and this story excited a strong sensation in England.”

Burke’s observation on the apotheosis was admirable. He saw no reason for astonishment, he said, in the incident which had been represented as so striking. He knew something of the mythology of the Brahmins. He knew that as they worshipped some gods from love, so they worshipped others from fear.

He knew that they erected shrines not only to the benignant deities of light and plenty, but to those who presided over smallpox and cholera.

It is not necessary to take Burke as an authority on the interpretation of Hindu mythology, but the reply is striking and of value for all time.