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Inquilab
Zindabad! India on Myanmar |
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On the rise
Exercising sovereignty
Chosen ones
The Rebellion, warts and all The ah, well, um…of speaking Climate conference or
greenwash?
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Inquilab Zindabad! THIS
is an age that worries that its longing for heroes is matched only by rampant trivialisation of both man and cause, where the quest for the people’s good, for just change and the fruits of progress, not to mention a higher purpose and a greater meaning to life, are reduced to a meaningless jumble of slogans and acts of cynical desperation. Bhagat Singh’s birth centenary, therefore, is an occasion to recall the life of a true hero. A revolutionary in the best sense of the term, he characterised inquilab as fundamentally a “longing for a change for the better.” While he chose the path of violence in contrast to Mahatma Gandhi’s ideal of non-violent resistance, he was not a bloodthirsty militant. He believed there was no alternative if freedom were to be attained, and in his writings is the agony of a sensitive soul, roused to extremist acts by evil oppressors. Though he was involved in the killing of the policeman Saunders, there is enough evidence to suggest that the bomb he threw in the Assembly was designed with more sound than fury and was, in fact, tossed away from the area where it could have caused maximum damage. He and his friends did not run away, but waited to be arrested. In the end, the police could not prove the murder charge against him. He was sent to the gallows for the loftier “waging war against the British empire”. There is no doubt that even as he willingly embraced death for a cause he believed in, he loved life and was full of it. This was no maniacal seeker of martyrdom. He enjoyed music and reading and was inspired by the ideals of socialism and an egalitarian society where the “exploitation of man by man is rendered impossible”. The mind, he believed, should be “harmonised not to achieve salvation hereafter, but to make the best use of it here below; and not to realise truth, beauty and good only in contemplation, but also in the actual experience of daily life.” That, after all, is the revolutionary quest that every human being should engage in. Long live the revolution! |
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India on Myanmar INDIA’S
official reaction to the most serious challenge to the military rule in Myanmar after the failed 1988 uprising appears too restrained in view of the developing situation there. Simply saying that “it is our hope that all sides will resolve their issues peacefully and through dialogue” or that “India has always believed that Myanmar’s process of political reform and national reconciliation should be more inclusive and broad-based” is not enough. India, perhaps, finds itself in a dilemma. If it condemns the regime for its highhandedness in dealing with the crusaders for democracy and human rights in Myanmar, it endangers its interests in that natural resource-rich country in case the military junta succeeds in quelling the protests inspired by monasteries. If India does not take a clear stand, it cannot escape criticism for favouring the status quo. It has already been accused of having invested heavily in Myanmar when the ruling military junta has been ruthlessly dealing with the movement for democracy led by Aung San Suu Kyi. It is really a challenging situation for India. Myanmar formed a major component of its Look-East policy. It has been engaged in talks with the military junta to use the land routes passing through Myanmar for foreign trade purposes. This is to help India’s Northeastern states to improve their economic condition. Myanmar has also been cooperating with India in fighting the insurgency in the Northeast. Besides this, India is involved in oil and gas exploration projects in Myanmar and has contributed considerably to infrastructure development there. Yet, Myanmar’s relations with China are closer than its ties with India. It is not without reason that China has refused to cooperate with the rest of the world in imposing punitive sanctions on the military regime. Being the world’s largest democracy in Myanmar’s neighbourhood, India’s responsibilities are different. When almost all the democracies in the world are condemning the military regime for suppressing people’s democratic urges, India cannot afford to be seen neither here nor there. It can at least ask the military junta to have a dialogue with the pro-democracy forces in the interest of peace and stability in South Asia.
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On the rise THE
BSE Sensex gaining 1,000 points in just five trading sessions to cross the 17,000-milestone adds to the general feel-good mood in the country created by the successive victories in football, hockey and cricket. The latest rally has been propelled by a massive inflow of foreign investment. Foreign institutional investors have invested a record $11 billion in Indian stocks so far this year. The US sub-prime worries have eased for the moment and it is believed the surge in liquidity prompted by the US Federal Reserve’s decision to cut the interest rates by 0.5 per cent will take care of the housing crisis. The global economic scenario, however, is far from rosy. There are fears of a recession in the US. Although India’s exposure to the US market is limited, the exporters, already bled by a strengthening rupee, could feel the heat. The Left-UPA standoff over the nuclear deal could resurface resulting in mid-term polls. That could trigger a selling spree and halt fresh investment. Oil continues to be on the boil and a hike in the domestic petroleum rates could push up inflation. All this calls for a check on the current irrational exuberance. Individual investors should be cautious. Foreign investment is welcome but it has to be channelled in the right direction. The UPA has held up all reforms, partly due to the Leftist opposition and partly to protect its own political interests. Investment can be diverted to retail, insurance, aviation, telecom, power and ports through favourable policies. By limiting the size of special economic zones and bungling on land acquisitions, the government has delayed an industrial takeoff. Doing business in India is a lot better than before, as has been indicated by a World Bank survey, but still red tape, corruption, inadequate infrastructure, dilatory litigation and rigid labour laws come in the way of investors.
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Hypocrisy is a tribute which vice pays to virtue. —Duc de la Rochefoucauld
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Exercising sovereignty
The
debate on the nuclear deal in the country throws light on how poorly certain sections of the Indian elite have developed a sense of national sovereignty during the last 60 years of Independence. Even those who are worried about possible dimunition of sovereignty on account of India entering into international deals leading to the lifting of the technology embargo are not able to cite any past instance of India compromising on national sovereignty. Not that such criticism had not been levelled in the past. Jawaharlal Nehru was called a running dog of imperialists and their lackey. Others denounced his decision to keep India as a republic in the Commonwealth. He was derided when he appealed for arms aid to the international community following the Chinese attack. There were criticisms of the Indo-Soviet Treaty of peace and friendship in 1971 and there were predictions that India was being made a Soviet satellite. Suspicions were voiced about a secret clause in the Indo-Soviet Treaty which made our nonalignment “not genuine” according to these critics. There was “righteous indignation” in some quarters about India recognising the Heng Samrin regime in Cambodia, done by Morarji Desai and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and it was denounced as having been done under Soviet pressure. The Indian stand on the Soviet entry into Afghanistan was also denounced as siding with the Soviets. While such criticisms were voiced at the time of the happenings in retrospect, even the critics talk nostalgically about traditional independent foreign policy during the last 60 years and express fears that it will be compromised if the proposed Indo-US deal goes through. Therefore, what the critics seem to worry about is that future Indian governments will not be as strong as the past Indian governments in asserting Indian sovereignty. They cite US legislation, the Hyde Act, to substantiate their argument that some of its provisions violate Indian sovereignty. It is not the intention here to go into the arguments whether the 123 Agreement when it is approved by the US Congress finally will supersede the Hyde Act or not, as many constitutional experts argue. That argument is not likely to be settled one way or the other since the probability of its being put to test is virtually zero. Here we discuss how nations exercise their sovereignty and what are the resultant consequences. India obtained the CIRUS reactor from Canada pledging its peaceful use. Bothered by a number of declarations in the Indian Parliament that India may conduct a “peaceful nuclear test”, Prime Minister Trudeau asked for assurances from Indira Gandhi that the plutonium from CIRUS would not be used for “peaceful explosions” since Canada did not recognise the concept of “peaceful explosion”. Mrs Gandhi ignored his plea and went ahead and carried out the test. The consequences of that action are being felt by India even today. I was not and am not against the nuclear tests. It is, however, to be pointed out that a sovereign nation, when faced with a conflict between its perceived national interests and its contractual obligation or pledged word exercises its sovereignty to sustain its national security interests and accepts its consequences in the international system. This is what India did during the Bangladesh war when it ignored the UN resolution passed by 110 nations — mostly our non-aligned friends — asking India to stop the war. India defied the entire international community when it stood alone in the UN General Assembly and declared that it would not sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. That was done while a United Front coalition government under Inder Kumar Gujral was in office. The nuclear tests of May 11, 1998, too were exercises in assertion of our sovereignty when India defied almost the entire international community and conducted the nuclear tests. The US abrogated the anti-ballistic missile treaty when it considered that it no longer suited its interests. Russia suspends the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty on the ground that NATO had not fulfilled its obligations. North Korea walks out of the Nonproliferation Treaty and scraps the Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency when it considers that its vital national interest requires it. Iran is threatening to do the same. It is not the argument here that India should behave like those powers. But it should not be overlooked that the international system is still essentially anarchic and nations exercise their sovereignty if necessary in contravention of their treaty and contractual obligations depending on their perception of the requirements for fulfilling their vital national interests. Let us also look at what nations do when their partners break their pledge or contractual obligations. Pakistan violated all the US laws on nonproliferation enacted by the Congress in the eighties. The US Administration did not enforce the laws since it considered the advantages of Pakistani support for waging the Mujahideen war in Afghanistan out-weighed the negative consequences of China-Pakistan nuclear proliferation. The US Presidents deliberately lied to the US Congress and deliberately shielded Pakistan. The same thing happened in the case of China violating the US laws. For six years the US Administration fudged about the receipt of Chinese missiles in Pakistan and thereafter only slapped some nominal sanction on China. In the case of Indian nuclear test, the consequences were limited to subjecting India to technology apartheid since commercial, financial and investment interactions with India at that time (1974) were not considered valuable enough to let India go free. Ultimately, the relationships among nations, particularly major nations among which India is one today, are governed by their mutuality of interests. If India keeps its relations with major nations in good repair its manoeuvrability in international politics will be high. This does not mean that India has to agree with any nation, however powerful it may be, on every issue. What will determine Indian actions is its perception of national interest at the time of the decision, not partnership with any nation, especially in a world of six balancers of power. That is what sovereignty is about.n
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Chosen ones
WHO
doesn’t want to be rich and famous? And who won’t like to pool all the resources at one’s command to be in the hall of fame? Since all of us cannot make it to that status, do we not seek identification to impress the world about our acquired level of superiority? But destiny is somewhere there, playing its quiet role. Lady Luck doesn’t smile on everyone. You have to be a “chosen one” to have that divine favour; boon or benediction. Hitting a jackpot, winning a lottery, being the millionth buyer of a car and getting it free, or stumbling on a hidden treasure, are all in the hands of God. Or providence, if you prefer that word. There may be other parameters to judge one’s being lucky or unlucky. Being fortunate and being successful are two different things. Fortune favours while success succeeds. One may wait for Lady Luck to smile but one has to really be in a hurry and strive to be successful. Skills, of course, do make a difference in shaping one’s destiny. Also if you are possessed with the ability to bend your bones or pull a truck by your eyelashes, it does make a difference. Epics, sagas, tales, episodes, incidents, instances are mostly made up of stuff that providence provides and protagonists possess. Yet a fair or unfair distribution of what is perceived as booty makes one lucky or otherwise. Indian films provide enough material on divine allocation of resources. If a starving hero saves the life of a rich man, or still better, his daughter, then he mostly has the best of both worlds. Remember Ifteqar in “Amar Akbar Anthony”, who places his bet on a shoe-shine boy who grows up to become Big-B, saying, “Ye lambee race ka ghora hai (He will go a long way in life).” While in the first case, it is being lucky, and in the second, successful. There may be many ways to be rich and famous. Some people do name-dropping and proclaim and clamour about their relationship with the already rich and famous. For example, you can always find characters who brag about, saying, “I have direct access to 10 Janpath!” or “Madam recognises me in a crowd!” Those who are not able to make it to Bollywood in any recognisable way can be seen dropping names like “Ramu is dependable!” or “Vidhu is just like a younger brother!” By way of a reverse argument, if you at least verbally take on the might of a biggie and pose a challenge to his authority, you become one of the debated ones. Heard of that couplet from Zafar Gorakhpuri, “Kitni aasani se mashhoor kiya hai khud ko; Maine apne se bade shakhs ko galee dee!” (How easily have I made myself popular by simply abusing someone really great.) You can think of various ways to be in the news at least, if not rich enough. Come in the way of a wealthy man’s car but do please avoid Salman Khans. Also if you are able to survive an air-crash, train accident or a boat capsizing, when all about you are gone, you definitely make the stuff when curious journalists could be seen interviewing you, almost gagging your mouth with that instrument which they call an ID, “How are you feeling now?” or “How really do you feel now, when the entire world knows you?” True, some are born great while others strive and gyrate. Sorry, Mr
Shakespeare! |
The Rebellion, warts and all
WHEN my grandfather, a priest of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church, passed away while he was in his forties, the burden of supporting his mother, two brothers and an unmarried sister suddenly fell on my father’s slender shoulders. As no call centre jobs were available those days, he decided to join the Army, which utilised his services in the Burmese sector during the Second World War. There was nothing special about what my father did as similar reasons compelled hundreds of thousands of Indians to enroll in the British Army and serve in all the theatres of war. Today, 60 years after Independence, it seems there are some people who think it was improper to work for the British Raj. What prompted the thought is the success the cultural police in Lucknow achieved in thwarting the attempt of a group of 19 British tourists, historians, cemetery enthusiasts and descendants of British officers to visit the Lucknow Residency. Theirs was a tour to all the major centres of the “Rebellion”, organised by an enterprising tour operator to cash in on its 150th anniversary The ferocity of the protest was such that the mortally scared group preferred to skip the Residency, where many of the British officers were buried. For the UP government, their decision was a blessing in disguise as it averted the need to provide protection to the group from the hotheads, who expended their “shaurya” by destroying a few British graves. Amazingly, all this was done in the name of nationalism and by a group, which supposedly believes in atithi devobhava (guest is god), one of the loftiest tenets of the Indian ethos. Instead of protesting against the visit, they should have invited all the descendants of those who served in British India to come and see what their forefathers had done to this country. At least, the tourism industry would have benefited. At the root of it all are many misconceptions about the 1857 uprising, described by the British as “Sepoy Mutiny” and by Veer Savarkar as “the First War of Independence”. In recent days, it required the courage of the Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Mr Charanjit Singh Atwal, to question the wisdom of describing 1857 as the “First War”. He wanted to use that term to the war Punjab under Maharaja Ranjit Singh fought against the British in 1854. However, historically, it was Tipu Sultan (1750-1799), who fought the British the first time. Also, 1857 was preceded by several mutinies, the most famous being at Vellore where the Indian soldiers revolted and liberated a fort from the British control. This happened 50 years before 1857. The Vellore revolt threatened the foundations of the East India Company. Of course, the Rebellion in 1857 represented the greatest of all challenges as it was spread over a vast area and it even dislodged the British from power in Delhi for a while. Alas, freedom was not the main objective of those who joined the Rebellion. They were guided by rumour-mongers. The British decided to “introduce the Enfield rifle into the native service. This involves the use of greased cartridges, the ends of which must be bitten off by the soldier.” Word spread that the grease contained beef and pork tallow. Hindu and Muslim soldiers were told that using the cartridge would reduce them to the status of the low castes. So they revolted. Jawaharlal Nehru describes in his book that the landed gentry, who felt threatened by the British strengthening their own system of administration, supported the revolt. The feudal lords could no longer collect taxes. They, therefore, supported the Rebellion. While reading up on the 1857 records, I came up with a fascinating document where one of the rulers involved in the Rebellion wonders why the British were building roads, bridges and canals, instead of providing employment to the people. There are extant records to show that on their way to Delhi from Meerut on May 10, 1857, the mutinous soldiers looted and plundered. After all, they had no idealism to guide them. Nor did they have any nationalist feelings either. They were guided by the desire to protect their religion and seek vengeance. And when they reached Delhi, they did not have any leader to put on the throne to give constructive leadership to the country. So they turned to Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Moghul. Bholanauth Chunder in The Travels of a Hindoo describes the Moghul: “He was then past his eightieth year - it matters little whether of solar or lunar months. His physical condition may well be imagined when we know that he had become decrepit, and weak, and quivering… But age and infirmities had not quenched his thirst for power, so sobered his views with the conviction of the futileness of human greatness and when a charge over the spirit of his dream, and there glowed a bright kingdom in his vision, he identified himself with the cause of the rebellious Sepoys.” Most commentators have praised the Hindu-Muslim unity witnessed during the time. But allowance has to be made for the fact that the low caste Hindus and the educated were not among the mutinous lot. They did not spare any Europeans they saw on the way. Nor did they spare even the Christians of Indian origin. Dr Chaman Lal, who taught in Delhi, was shot, “because some good people of the city took the mutineers to his house and told them that he was a Christian”. In the name of Emperor Bahadur Shah, they issued a declaration. It shows that one of the complaints against the British was that they were giving freedom and equality before the law to every Indian. This freedom was unacceptable to the mindset of the leaders of the Rebellion as these lines from the declaration bring home: “The people of Hindostan, both Hindoos and Mohammedans, are being ruined under the tyranny and oppression of the infidel and treacherous English… the British Government in making zamindary settlements have imposed exorbitant jumas, and have disgraced and ruined several zamindars, by putting up their estates to public auction for arrears of rent, in so much, that on the institution of a suit by a common Ryot, a maid servant, or a slave, the respectable zamindars are summoned into court, arrested, put in gaol and disgraced…” In other words, the Rebellion was not for the benefit of the common man. Small wonder that it did not have mass support. In many places, the intelligentsia of the period organised prayer meetings in support of the British. They saw in the Rebellion the return of the old feudal system. A majority of the soldiers also remained loyal to the British. In addition, a majority of the Indian Maharajas supported the Company Raj with men and money at a moment when their own independence seemed within sight. Among the sepoys themselves a great proportion remained loyal to the Raj. Delhi was retaken by 1700 British and 3200 Indian soldiers! “The task force that blew up the Kashmere Gate in Delhi, facilitating British victory at great personal risk, consisted of only six British officers and 24 Indian soldiers (10 from Punjab and 14 from Agra and Oudh)”. These facts contradict the modern assumption that all the Indians who actually experienced colonial rule saw it as inherently exploitative at least at that time. In any case, modern standards cannot be applied to the events of the past. It is also not proper to gloss over the imperfections of the Rebellion in our enthusiasm to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the “First War of Independence”. |
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The ah, well, um…of speaking Language
isn’t just meaning. Conversely, not all non-verbal communications are bodily; some come from the mouth, too. An interesting piece of academic research from Scotland has focussed on those much-despised elements of speech, “ums” and “ers”. Technically known as “fillers”, they are strongly criticised by all teachers of public discourse as promoting an image of uncertainty and vagueness. The researchers, however, suggest that these fillers might serve a useful purpose, as sirens on the ambulances of significance The research invited volunteers to listen to a series of spoken sentences. Some were interrupted by non-verbal fillers such as “er” and “um”; others were spoken without hesitation. The results were interesting. The inarticulate speaker registered much more powerfully in the minds of the listeners. An hour after listening, the volunteers got 62 per cent of the words correct in the stumbled-over sentence, compared to 55 per cent of those in the strictly enunciated and articulate performance. Research into non-verbal fillers has expanded a great deal recently, since they present a significant problem to automatic transcription machines. In this case, researchers are trying to explain this odd psychological effect. It seems as if the listener, alerted by stumbling to a speaker’s struggling with a difficult concept, automatically pays more attention. They might want to help out; they might simply be alerted to complexities. Either way, it does seem as if the connection between slickness of presentation and superficiality, between inarticulacy and profundity is to some degree hardwired in our brains. That comes as a great relief to someone like me who can’t bring out a sentence without stumbling over a word or two. The researchers might, however, want to add to their researches questions of “hedging” phrases as well as fillers n as well as inarticulate noises, there are those “sort of,” “kind of”, “I mean”, “you know what I mean” phrases which drive educated people wild with fury. My personal impression is that when someone, like, starts like using these like words that mean like nothing 10 times in a sentence, the effect is quite opposite to the one observed with fillers. It tends to lull the listener into a sense that nothing much is being said here, and he can switch off until it is time for his own, like, contribution. Certainly when transcribed, proper unguarded speech looks absolutely atrocious. Compare the average, cleaned-up version of Hansard with a literal stretch of someone talking in parliament. This, remember, is more formal than the average venture into speech. “I think it is a matter of speculation but I think he either would have had to answer or failure to answer would perhaps have attracted more public er comment and judgment than it necessarily did er without it it being televised but the I think I think I’ve given away I’ve given way quite a number of times and I want I’ve given away a number of times and I would like to move on to some of the reservations which er we do have er Madam er Madam Deputy Speaker.” Politicians and public speakers of all varieties are warned against ums and ahs, against fillers and hedgers. The instruction, which you can hear weighing heavily on all manner of public speakers, is to say only three words at a time, and then pause. I don’t know. People who really talk like that tend to sound rather like barristers let loose from their customary setting. They tend to sound very much like people reading from an autocue, and not thinking as they speak n an impression not at all far from the reality. It’s worth thinking of the different ways in which Tony Blair and Gordon Brown speak spontaneously, as opposed to their slick and scripted performances. One’s impression was that both have a large number of “fillers”; but Blair had, in addition, a surprisingly high proportion of “hedgers”, of “y’knows” and “I mean”s for an educated person. The two factors seemed to pull in different directions, both alerting our attention and dissipating it. Brown’s ah-ing and um-ing is more Henry James-like, and does not diminish his sense of authority. What the research does not explore is the degree to which this tendency to um and ah is a cultural one and not universal. I wonder whether it might not be an Anglophone one, if not specifically a British habit. Researchers into the field are quick to tell us that other languages have similar devices. Speakers of Mandarin say “zhege”, Japanese use “ano” or “eto”, the French have a well-known “euh” noise. Obviously these are untranslatable, but the habit of hesitancy seems to me more deeply rooted in English speech than in many others. The research should be of the highest interest to politicians. There is much more to the projection of competency than learning how to speak without stumbling, and speaking without stumbling may actually be counter-productive. The researchers have clearly stumbled across something which we might call the Higher Inarticulacy. By arrangement with
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Climate conference or
greenwash? For
the first time in 16 years, a major environmental conference opens in Washington, hosted by the US Bush administration. But no concrete results are expected, and that – say European participants – is the point of this high level meeting. Far from representing a Damascene conversion on climate change by President Bush, the two-day gathering of the world’s biggest polluting nations is aimed at undermining the UN’s efforts to tackle global warming say European sources. “The conference was called at very short notice,” said one participant. “It’s a cynical exercise in destabilising the UN process.” The gathering brings together foreign ministers as well as junior ministers and economic planners. It will be chaired by the President’s chief environment advisor James Connaughton who has a reputation equal only to that of the former advisor Karl Rove in the environment movement. And when Mr Bush addresses the conference tomorrow, it will be to persuade the ever-growing number of Americans dismayed by the Bush policy of climate change denial. His motive, participants say, is to blunt attempts by Democratic presidential candidates to attack the White House for blocking climate change initiatives. He also wants to head off the gathering momentum in Congress to impose the first ever mandatory limitations on emissions for US companies. With 154 coal-fired power stations set to be built in the US over the next 25 years there is an increasing sense of urgency among US environmental policy makers. The omens are not inspiring. On his very first day in office, 20 January 2001, President Bush took up a defiantly ostrich-like stance on the issue of climate change. He ripped up dozens of environmental regulations including rules for less arsenic in drinking water, a ban on snowmobiles in national parks, controls for raw sewage overflow, energy-efficiency standards, and protections against commercial logging, mining, and drilling on national lands including the Arctic Circle. A month later, he was urged by the Treasury Secretary Paul O’ Neill “to become the first President to confirm publicly the linkage between such [greenhouse] gases and global climate change” and to limit emissions. Instead, Bush reversed a campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, saying in a private letter that doing so would be too costly. He flounced out of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, triggering international contempt that would only be eclipsed by the disaster of his war in Iraq. Now a little over a year before leaving office Mr Bush has called a short-notice meeting of the 17 largest emitters of greenhouse gases. The aim is to bring developing nations such as China, Indonesia, India and Brazil together with industrialised countries. White House officials say the goal is to come up with a plan for deciding how, and how much, to cut emissions. “Those are not issues you discuss and resolve in two days,” said Dan Price, a deputy national security advisor. By arrangement with
The Independent |
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