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Opposition rides Anna wave
Durban deal
Cartooning is dying |
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UP’s division a matter of time
Birds of different feathers
Sense and sensibility
Much ado about….
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Opposition rides Anna wave
THE opposition parties as diverse as the BJP and the Left have rallied behind anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare to exploit his mass appeal in the electoral battle ahead. The BJP that had earned the public ire by making Parliament almost non-functional much of the time is now trying to ride on Anna’s anti-corruption wave. The Congress seems to have misread or underplayed public disenchantment with everyday corruption. No one disputes that Parliament is supreme and the right place to debate national issues and pass laws. But the Congress has to go beyond homilies and come out with a strong law against corruption to capture public imagination. Wednesday’s all-party meeting is a good opportunity to regain the lost ground. At Sunday’s rally in Delhi there was almost a consensus on bringing the Prime Minister, the lower bureaucracy and the CBI under the proposed Lokpal. For Anna Hazare it was a shot in the arm getting the Opposition on board. Once again, Team Anna was able to whip up anti-corruption sentiment. An emboldened Anna Hazare does not just stick to the issue of corruption or Lokpal now. After his recent “just-one-slap” comment, he took on Home Minister P. Chidambaram and Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Sunday. To the Opposition’s advantage, he is dabbling in politics. The timing of the rally was impeccable. Two days earlier Parliament’s standing committee preparing the draft Lokpal Bill had submitted its report, excluding the Group-C employees from the Lokpal’s ambit and leaving it to Parliament to decide on the issue of Prime Minister. Differences are evident among opposition parties. CPI general secretary A.B Bardhan was quite forthright in asking Team Anna to be flexible as “you are not the repository of all wisdom”. CPM Politburo member Brinda Karat’s suggestion that MPs should also be brought under the Lokpal had few takers. After cornering the UPA government on the issue of FDI in retail trade and making a common cause with Anna Hazare, will the opposition parties reach an agreement with the Congress at Wednesday’s meeting? The Congress, meanwhile, faces a tough challenge in getting the Lokpal Bill passed in this session of Parliament.
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Durban deal
The goal of cutting down greenhouse-gas emissions achieved a substantial boost as negotiators at the UN talks in Durban, South Africa, after a marathon session, decided to extend the 1997 Kyoto Protocol for five more years. They thus gave themselves more time to negotiate a global accord. Till now, the Kyoto pact is the only agreement involving all nations which enforces carbon cuts. There was a logjam during the negotiations, and the Indian side did well by eventually agreeing with the emerging consensus, even as it ensured that the country’s position was given its due. Everyone agrees on the need for cutting down greenhouse-gas emissions so long as they don’t have to pay for it. And thus it was always clear that consensus on this issue would be elusive, as the failure of the Copenhagen meeting in 2009 showed. Since then, there has been progress, notably at Cancun, but the developed world and the developing nations have differing perceptions about their role in containing climate change. While the US has kept itself out of the ambit of such pacts, India, China and Brazil have been asking for equitable access to the resources for sustainable development. Under the new pact, both India and China have agreed to a legally binding commitment to cut down greenhouse-gas emissions. The US, too, will now be bound by the agreement, a change that bodes well for the environment since these three nations together account for nearly half of the world’s carbon emission. The new formula also brings in, for the first time, a roadmap for a pact on legally binding cuts on greenhouse-gas emissions. It will take more time for the pact to be finalised, and till then there will continue to be many negotiations, even as the world finds ways to balance the imperatives of economic growth with social responsibility towards the environment. |
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Cartooning is dying
Renowned cartoonist Mario Miranda (85) died in sleep in his village in Goa. Many characters that came to life through his sketches to tickle the common sense of his readers had begun to fade long before Mario breathed his last on December 11. Miss Fonseca with her cleverly curvaceous figure, the adorable character called Miss Nimbupani, the office clerk known as Godbole or the typical corrupt politician in Bundaldass — all hid behind the overriding propriety of the times we live in now. If Mario had to begin his career in cartooning today, he would think twice before creating a Miss Fonseca or Mr Godbole, afraid of hurting the sensitivities of some caste, race or region. The era that produced cartoonists like Shankar, R. K. Laxman, Sudhir Dar and Abu Abraham — who used the art of cartooning to make subtle political statements every morning on the front pages of the dailies — may never come to life again. The era of sophisticated politicians who felt amused by the intelligently exaggerated lines of a cartoon, and the cartoonists who used subtleties of observation to make sharp statements on the contemporary issues is now over. Everyone is politically correct and everyone takes this correctness seriously. We do not want to be bamboozled by the uneven lines of a cartoon; we want straight statements to be delivered in the correct syntax. Preferably, through a PR agency. This leaves no room for humour, for imagination, for the ability to laugh at oneself, and the land of idiosyncrasies we live in called India. Our heightened intolerance has killed our sense of humour. A decent dissent is not welcome even in the so-called creative genres. In films, in literature and even in popular film songs, the subtlety of statement is dying. In the name of humour what we do is to hurt or humiliate others. This new device violates all the parameters of decency. Cartooning is an evolved tool of communication which uses lines and very few words. Sadly, this art is gasping for breath under the din of slapstick of communication. |
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Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. — George Bernard Shaw
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UP’s division a matter of time
THE
proposed division of Uttar Pradesh (UP) into four states has been described by some commentators as Chief Minister Mayawati’s cleverly crafted pre-election strategy. The resolution to this effect that has been passed by the UP Assembly will now be sent to the Central government for further processing. According to Article 3 of the Constitution, Parliament will consider the Assembly resolution on the recommendation of the President, which means the recommendation of the Union government. Whatever be the motive of the UP Chief Minister, no one can deny that there is a strong case for the division of this unwieldy state. The proposed states will be called Bundelkhand, Poorvanchal, Awadh Pradesh and Paschim Pradesh. The need for reorganising or dividing UP was first pointed out by the States Reorganisation Commission of 1955, headed by Justice Fazl Ali, with H.N. Kunzru and K.M. Panicker as members. This commission was appointed in the aftermath of the creation of the state of Andhra Pradesh in 1953. Andhra state itself came into being after widespread riots in the Telugu-speaking districts of Madras Presidency in 1950-52, demanding a separate state. The Fazl Ali Commission had recommended the bifurcation of UP for improving the administrative efficiency of the state. The recommendation was for a separate state to be called the state of Agra consisting of Meerut, Agra and the districts in Rohilkhand and Jhansi divisions. The recommendation was not complete as proved by the events later on. It is most likely that the latest proposal for the division of UP into four states will go through Parliament in due course. It can be stalled only if the UPA government announces the formation of a Second States Reorganisation Commission, which can also go into the proposed division of UP. However, the division of UP is only a matter of time whether the Mayawati government’s resolution is approved by Parliament now or later. To revert back to the First States Reorganisation Commission headed by Justice Fazl Ali, the commission had specifically recommended the formation of the states of Telangana and Vidarbha. This important recommendation was ignored. As a consequence, the Telangana demand persists with a long-running agitation in the Telangana districts of Andhra Pradesh. The states of Chhattisgarh, Uttaranchal and Jharkhand came into being subsequently in the late 1990s. It was an ad hoc decision by the Government of India. Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh are primarily tribal areas while Uttaranchal, now known as Uttarakhand, consists of the Kumaon and Garhwal regions. The need for creating these three states was not clear and there was also no noticeable agitation by the people of the regions concerned for the purpose. The proposal for the creation of the four states out of the present UP has now clearly emphasised the need for seriously considering the constitution of a new States Reorganisation Commission. On the Telangana demand, the Government of India appointed Justice Srikrishna for a composite examination of all the issues involved before making an appropriate recommendation. Justice Srikrishna in his report gave several options but did not recommend a separate Telangana state unless there was a consensus among all the stakeholders of the various regions. The sentiment for Telangana is very strong among the people of the Telangana districts represented by 17 MPs. The MPs and MLAs threatened to resign which would have led to a political crisis in the state. After much persuasion, they withdrew their resignation letters. It is obvious, however, that without supporting the Telangana demand, no one can hope to get elected as an MP or MLA from the region. It is possible to have an amicable resolution of the issue by conceding the states of Telangana, Rayalaseema and Coastal Andhra. Meanwhile, the agitation for Telangana continues, leading to considerable disruption of the economy and administration. The Second State Reorganisation Commission may ideally go into the demand for various states. The Fazl Ali Commission had recommended that Assam should remain a single unified state and that the state of Tripura should be merged in Assam. It also recommended that the state of Manipur should be made into a Union Territory, but it got merged in Assam in due course. The reason for the recommendation that Assam should remain a composite state was that the Fazl Ali Commission felt that the border region should remain under strong administrative control and should not be divided into smaller units. However, Nagaland was separated from Assam with full-fledged statehood in 1963. This was followed by the creation of the states of Mizoram, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh. There were prolonged agitations in Mizoram and Meghalaya marked by periodic violence before the demands were conceded. Lal Denga, the protagonist of Mizoram, had been under detention for a long time. In Meghalaya, Williamson Sangma was carrying on an agitation though it remained largely peaceful. Also the states of Tripura and Manipur witnessed stray incidents of violence with the agitators falling back on Bangladesh for their safety and shelter. The states of Meghalaya and Mizoram came into being by and large peacefully. In West Bengal, Darjeeling district has been witness to a continuous agitation by the Gorkhas in some form. Recently, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal entered into an agreement with the Gorkhaland agitators and an autonomous region was tentatively agreed upon. Subhash Gheising, who has been on the forefront of the agitation, had earlier put forth a claim that the Gorkhas from the Nepal region had come into the Darjeeling area with their own land. The reference was to the Treaty of Sugauli between the British and Nepal whereby the territories in the Darjeeling region were conceded by Nepal to the British. Gheising’s case, which is now being propagated by the Gorkhaland agitators, is that they have brought their own land and merged it with Darjeeling and that they should, therefore, be given the state of Gorkhaland. All these demands need a careful examination by a full-fledged States Reorganisation Commission. The central government may consider the demand for appropriate action at an early
opportunity.
The writer is a former Governor of UP and West Bengal.
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Birds of different feathers
Birds of a feather flock together, but birds of different feathers eating together is a sight we often enjoy in the back-lawn of our residence. In Delhi, people throw grains at roundabouts and in some parks. Pigeons in hundreds descend on these spots to have their fill. How they swoop down to these eateries and fly away in huge flocks is a sight most pleasing. In the Lodhi Gardens, ducks come cackling and go back to the fountain pool after their breakfast or mid-day meal. They rarely fly, but how they sail majestically and dip their necks into the water to catch a fish or a toad is a characteristic unique to this flock. We witness a rare sight of coexistence of birds of different hues. Crows, parrots, pigeons, mynahs, house-sparrows and peacocks come in different numbers when my wife gives them bread pieces laced with cheese, sauce or jam — a tempting menu for anyone. The members of this motley crowd jostle with each other for food. Some of them fly to their safe perches or nests on the trees after collecting their mouthfuls. The peacock comes with an air of non-challance, walks slowly to the crowd and stands there like a Gulliver among the Lilliputians. It selects its food carefully and then waits for its lady. When both are satisfied, the male spreads its colourful wings and dances in front of its fiancée or spouse. This regalia is a spectacular sight but the birds — busy in gathering food — take no note of the peacock’s vainglorious flamboyance. The squirrels, though not birds, of course, distinguished by stripes on their backs and fluffy tails, do their job with utter concentration. Picking up the bread pieces, they adopt a sitting posture with a slight stoop and nibble at food with utmost skill and speed. They are the only ones who climb the trees at the slightest threat from others. But if you woo them with patience they can even dine with you on your palms. The mynahs are the most gentle of them all. Walking slowly and unperturbed, they never approach the food layout with a look of greed. Satisfied with whatever they can grab, they fly away, leaving the field open to the crows. Even the doves are a gentle lot. Never joining the fray — they wait for the unlawful assembly to disperse and have whatever is left behind. The crows are most audacious and jealous of birds. Their fellow feeling is at their best when diving for food. They come in hoards, quite intolerant of others. Once a parrot attempted to fly away with a piece of bread, the crow caught its feather in its beak and succeeded in grounding it. Occasionally, an eagle drops in as an oddity in this gathering not for grains but just to quench its thirst from the water pot shared by other birds. It is almost a daily happening, especially in winter when this diversity presents a rare sight of
unity.
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Sense and sensibility Then Karishma Kapoor could not be introduced as sexy because that would obviously pollute the mind of susceptible babes. So all that was needed was for the offending word “sexy” to be expunged and replaced with the unobjectionable “baby” for the song to be happily integrated with the brigade of skimpily clad gyrating women who unfussily glide by in Bollywood extravaganzas. Once, the bar against what women could not show seemed to be set pretty high. Now, a decade and a half down the line, things have changed dramatically in the world of entertainment via television and social networking sites. Some of our Victorian prudery has also wilted under the tropical sun. We had our very own Indian female celebrity streaker in Protima Bedi, a long time ago. Women wear revealing clothes in the visual media and are more comfortable with their sexuality and their own skin. One woman from Gen Next offered to strip if we won the world cup for cricket. How then do we respond to the kolaveri over Sunny Leone’s entry into Big Boss? The youth wing leader who has expressed outrage at the dangers impressionable children face due to the induction of a porn star on a mediocre reality show in one of our mediocre channels, has in fact woken up our recently stupefied slumbering demons. His anxiety stems from the great Indian tradition of monitoring women and imposing checks on them while keeping our fabled Indian sensibilities in sharp focus. Monitoring, incidentally, is now poised to become very serious business. In fact, this has been reiterated and endorsed by none other than Telecommunications Minister Kapil Sibal (an unlikely Daniel to the judgement) who is laying down the law and wielding the whip over Facebook, Google and Twitter about requisite codes of conduct and the urgent need for them. High time the testosterone challenged stepped in to analyse and understand what the brouhaha is all about. Sunny Leone with her enhanced booty caters to the world of adult entertainment and has been successfully wowing audiences in the West for a decade or so. She is clearly breaking new ground in India and has hit big time ever since she accepted the role she was offered in Jism2. How is it that Pamela Anderson, she of the dramatic nips and tucks and predominantly undersized beachwear, breezed in and out of the Big Boss last season, leaving youth wing leaders wordless in entirety? Arguably, hers was a short visit, or maybe her continued appearance on news rags the world over all of the time has considerably diminished her potential as stimulating testosteronic material. Has Sunny Leone become the proverbial red rag for raging right wing chauvinists, who have in turn been egged on by Dhanush’s racist and misogynist framing of women within the parameters of White Skin Girlu Girlu , Girlu Heart Blacku? This possibly is only the tip of the iceberg. Actually, white skinned Sunny Leone is also saddi kudi, just like our Karishma Kapoor. She may have been raised in Canada, have a dual citizenship with the US and freely wear her bisexual preference on her sleeve but she answers to the name of Karen Malhotra. This is the reason we must appropriate her as an Indian, just as we tried to appropriate the unwilling Chemistry Nobel laureate of Indian origin, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, in an earlier Nobel season. Since we insist that Sunny Leone is one of us, we must ensure that she is wholly pure and refrains from exposing her blacku Heart and other body parts. It is this laudable attempt to dignify national pride and desexualise female bodies thereof in public view that is at the heart of all the protests. Clearly, history moves in a circular fashion and we have now reverted to that period of Indian nationalism wherein women were accorded iconic status, in keeping with the dignity that is prescribed for them which rarely percolates into practice. Sunny Leone, however, is no pushover. Nor is she your ordinary Bollywood bimbette in a skimpy skirt. Over the past ten years, as Wikipedia usefully continues to inform us, she has slowly built herself up as a conglomerate. She is a successful and much feted porn star, who features in coffee table books, web awards and mainstream magazines. She dabbles in fitness and sport, has tried her hand at baking, and began training as a paediatric nurse apart from daringly divesting herself of her pubic hair in public to protest against George Bush’s presidency. She acts in and produces her own films and has several successful interactive DVDs. Notably, she has signed a public service announcement on behalf of the ASACP (Adult Sites against Child Pornography) reminding adult webmasters to protect their sites from children by having RTA (Restricted to Adults) labels on their sites. All this leaves us to infer that she is working within the laws of the land and doing reasonably well for herself. So, if she and the makers of Big Boss have set up an arrangement that both parties find workable, we don’t really need the moral police, do we? It is malafide to use Sunny’s colourful history to malign her and accuse her incorrectly of inducting porn on the Indian small screen. We need to reiterate that impressionable children are hardy enough to handle the exposure to the Sawants, Leones and Malliks of the world. What should be up for debate is whether India needs reality shows at all. Reality shows draw their life blood from harnessing all those repugnant, aggressive, violent and self-centred patterns of behaviour that remain a throwback to earlier periods of human evolution. We need to voice our grave concern over the greater harm posed to impressionable minds when graphic representation of blood, gore, crime and violence bombards our children as aspects of everyday living in virtual reality. The moribund soaps in most Indian languages and the vacuous, whacky and irreverent shows that run on English channels also need to be revisited. Maybe, just maybe, such intervention could prove to be a valuable turning point, since in our mofussil towns and chic metropolis, access to the visual media has increased exponentially in recent years. A discussion along these lines might be something our ministers and leaders could initiate nationwide instead of rushing to intimidate and penalise small individuals and minor distribution channels and social networks for what is sponsored collective crime.
The writer is associate professor, English at Sri Venkateswara College, Delhi University
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Much ado about…. The pornographic industry has a life of its own. I would say it’s the appetite of people for such sites that has brought in technological inventions to facilitate its availability. Actually, compared to what the World Wide Web has to offer, our mainstream media is tame, pale and insipid. Of course, the Colors channel has pulled out a marketing coup.The channel could not have been naïve enough not to know the kind of interest and attention Sunny Leone would generate. But you can’t make that an albatross around its neck. Or Leone’s for that matter. For you can’t hold a person’s background against her. She comes from a country where what she does to make a living is well within the norms of that society and there is space for people like her. Now coming to our society the moot question is what is the programme content about. What is she doing on the show? And here no one can fault her or the channel. For the content is well within the limits of decency. There is nothing objectionable in it. Rather compared to the previous seasons of Bigg Boss this one is a watered-down version. No, I don’t think as a society we are becoming more intolerant—-we only have bursts of intolerance. I have no problems with those raising questions about Sunny Leone or with Kapil Sibal for his views. The minister is raising a significant question in the public space. But you can’t impose regulations on the media. I have firmly believed in the concept of self-regulation. Nothing works better and nothing will work better than this. Though we all are in the business of grabbing attention it must be remembered that ultimately all media seeks acceptance. There are enough people at the helm of affairs in the media, including the Colors channel, who are responsible enough to pay heed to the moral compass within us. Undeniably the same set of rules that apply to the Net or movies can’t hold true for television, since television comes to your home. Yet we must understand that in the second decade of 21st century, in the age of surrogate mothers, sperm donations, we can’t hark back to 18th century models of sexuality and morality. I hope the hullabaloo in which Sunny Leone has become a talking point will lead to a serious and meaningful debate. Only we must learn to respect dissenting views and I think we are getting there where all of us with markedly different opinions can co-exist. As told to Nonika Singh |
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IF
we were to rewind the spool of time and pause at the year 1993 we get a clear view of the hornet’s nest stirred up by the Neena Gupta and Madhuri Dixit number, Choli ke Peechay Kya Hai in the film Khalnayak. Thanks to the hard work done by Bollywood’s cameras there has been little doubt about what lies beneath the choli, yet this song and dance generated outrage and much fulmination, and the lyrics attained notoriety overnight. The next year was 1994. The movie Khuddar had a song Sexy Sexy Sexy Mujhe Log Bolein, choreographed with a prancing Karishma Kapoor. The marauding moral brigade objected to the lyrics, the censor board issued a writ and subsequently Karishma pranced to Alisha Chinai’s re-recorded crooning of Baby, Baby, Baby, Mujhe Log Bolein. 
I
fail to understand the outrage being expressed over Sunny Leone’s presence on Bigg Boss Season 5. In fact, to say that she and the channel are provoking youngsters and others to surf pornographic sites is totally ludicrous, rather comic. How can people even fall for this line?