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Riots in Jalandhar
jail Games Maya plays |
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Saving a series ICC has taken the right action With the ICC withdrawing umpire Steve Bucknor from the Perth Test and allowing Harbhajan Singh to play till the appeal against his ban is heard, cricket and its fans can feel relieved that the crisis that was looming over the Australian tour has blown over.
TV channels opt for
the trivial
Beginning of a new
life
Sarkozy reinvents
France for bling era The handicap of
being Hillary Clinton ‘Treasures’
lost in Malana fire
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Games Maya plays UTTAR PRADESH Chief Minister Mayawati tends to be hyperbolic and rhetorical. For sheer recklessness, her statement that the Congress is conspiring to kill her will take the cake. It does not bother her that it will affect her credibility. It is by far the most serious charge she has made against the ruling party at the Centre. Conspiracy to murder is a charge only Mayawati can make in so flippant a manner. As a responsible political leader, she should have shown greater restraint. If she is convinced about the conspiracy and has the necessary evidence, she has the whole police department in the state to bring the conspirators to book. And if the accused are outside her police’s reach, she should take it up with the Centre, instead of tongue-lashing the Congress at a luncheon meeting. The Chief Minister is on a stronger wicket when she complains that despite the state transferring the cases against Samajwadi Party MP Atiq Ahmad to the CBI, the central agency has done precious little to bring him before the law-enforcement agencies. She accuses the MP of trying to eliminate her through a terrorist attack. It is the failure of the CBI to take action in the cases transferred to it that has encouraged the Chief Minister to make such an allegation. Whatever be the truth about the MP, there is little doubt that the Bahujan Samaj Party is getting disenchanted with the Congress. By making demands the UPA government is unlikely to meet, she seems to be preparing the ground for breaking its ties with the Congress. It is all part of Ms Mayawati’s preparations for the next Lok Sabha elections which cannot be later than 2009. It was political compulsion that forced her to give support to the Manmohan Singh government. That there is no love lost between her party and the Congress is borne out by the fact that wherever elections were held, be it in Gujarat or Himachal Pradesh, she only played the role of a spoiler for the Congress. Yet, all through she has been using her political clout to wriggle out of the Taj Corridor and disproportionate assets cases. Demands like SPG protection and Rs 80,000 crore are only a ruse for Ms Mayawati to withdraw support to the government at a time of her choice. Or, is she raising her price for striking a new bargain with the Congress Party? |
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Saving a series With the ICC withdrawing umpire Steve Bucknor from the Perth Test and allowing Harbhajan Singh to play till the appeal against his ban is heard, cricket and its fans can feel relieved that the crisis that was looming over the Australian tour has blown over. The row Down Under was getting dirtier by the day, and this was the only decision the ICC could take without making matters worse. Of course, there are many outside the subcontinent who would see this as yielding to “India’s demands,” citing BCCI muscle, forgetting that India had been done the wrong and justice was on its side. There is no doubt at all about the incompetent umpiring and the boorish, needlessly aggressive and unsporting behaviour of Ricky Ponting and his men on the field. Such crises are not new to cricket, and there is no doubt that the race issue is very much alive. While the treatment of Symonds by Indian crowds at Ahmedabad was horrendous, Australia’s cheap attempt at getting their own back is unacceptable. Their strident targeting of Harbhajhan and their general on-field behaviour would have strained the best of relations between the teams. It is clear that it is such sledging – which had been discovered by the Australians – that needs to be banned. Their stand that they play “hard but fair” is sheer nonsense, as cricket is not the business of mind games, under which pretext the hosts can do whatever they want. They can play any game they want as long as it is cricket, and the ICC should seriously consider teaching Australia some manners when in the field. A race divide sometimes comes to the surface in cricket as the Mike Denness affair in South Africa in 2001 and the Darrel Hair row involving Pakistan more recently showed. Denness, as a match referee, banned Virendra Sehwag for “excessive appealing” while handing out suspended bans to many Indians, including Sachin, for ball tampering. India played a Test with Sehwag, which the ICC later derecognised, which is no victory at all. Such a repeat in Australia can only make matters worse, and all parties should work against it happening again. The Australian board has the responsibility to ensure that their players need to earn a better reputation than they do now for playing cricket as gentlemen. |
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For the hand that rocks the cradle/ Is the hand that rules the world.
— William Ross Wallace |
TV channels opt for the trivial
THE champions of the freedom of expression (read media freedom) across the world, who brought about the US First Amendment, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and Article 19 (1) (a) in the Indian Constituent Assembly placing them in an unassailable position, would have hung their head in desperation, had they evidenced the present degeneration in the coverage by the electronic media. “Meeka Toone Puppi kyoun lee” thus runs the story on a news channel for months in a row. A visual of Richard Gere kissing Shilpa Shetty is even today presented as a great public interest issue. One promotional programme of a news channel prods viewers to watch a story, “Dar Gayi Dacoo Haseena -— Dekhiye Aaj Sham char baje”, while another channel brings them a fortune-telling programme. Watch “Mallika-Maliaka Tu Tu main main” becomes a great news item. And TV media leaders claim that they are doing it in public interest (refer to their interviews given to a magazine a few months ago). These media people are not aware of the fact that public interest is not what people are interested in. The media’s role is derived from some fundamental doctrines of democracy and is placed on a very high pedestal so that no one can assail it. There is a difference between entertainment and news dissemination as much as there is a difference between pornography and entertainment. One can jump the format but only at the cost of losing not only their “utility value in a democratic format” but also the attendant recognition and respect that come through public sanction for any conscious and positive activity. News dissemination, no doubt, has remained one such sacrosanct exercise till date. If news channels and their leaders choose to jump the format, a situation will come when a dance director who trains some “item girl” will seek to become the editor of a news channel on the stock logic that if this is news “I am professionally more competent than you to do this as I know what pelvic thrust with what dress will make the shot extremely sensuous and thereby attract maximum eye-balls”. No wonder, the news media will then be run by them and not by journalists. The very first principle for a thriving democracy is discussion. That is why we have institutions like Parliament (through the instrumentalities and processes like question hour and no-confidence and calling attention motions), and elections under a heightened perception about the freedom of expression. We also have institutions like political parties, voluntary organisations and the mass media besides seminars and other public education activities. The reason why the role of the media is placed right as an immediate extension of formal institutions like the legislature is that it is the news media which creates a market place for competing ideas which ultimately leads to getting to the truth, although this truth is time- and-situation-specific. The otherwise “mighty” Central legislature could not face the heat of opprobrium following the “cash-for-question” sting operation by the media. The story created a tacit but frightening groundswell of public discontent. No competing idea was as powerful as this discontent. The most powerful democratic institution could not withstand it and instead summarily expelled a few members. The media’s role was found well acclaimed because it created market place for competing ideas on whether this mighty institution itself needed correction. But when for raising TRP a channel falsely implicated an innocent Union Minister of State for Home claiming in a trumped-up telephonic conversation with a jailed criminal, the same Central legislature validly resolved to make laws to discipline the media. The fabricated case falsely implicating teacher Uma Khurana has brought the reputation of the electronic media to its nadir. A public perception is fast gaining ground that media men are trivialising what used to be a very sacrosanct function. Watch out, if this negative perception further degenerates into contempt and abhorrence, journalists will become a subject of public disdain. The fundamental role of the media is to work in public interest and not for what the people are interested in. Besides, there are needs, wants and desires — social, group and individual. The media broadly caters to social needs and sometimes to group needs if they do not militate against broad social desires. It does not cater to even unqualified social wants or desires as they have an inherent tendency of getting perverted and thereby destabilising social equilibrium, harmony and value system. Nor does it subserve individual want or desire unless such want or desire indicates a shift in the value system or a change or violation of an established fundamental principle. A sartorial change can be a story although it has less shelf value. (Incidentally, Meeka kissing Rakhi Sawant at a function or a semi-nude dance in a “soon-to-come” movie do not fall even in that category. In the name of “entertainment in the news” some of us are trying to dish out vulgarity, calling it public choice. Even if one goes by the libertarian zeal one would not find any justification behind a statement by a TV channel owner saying, “in the global economy the viewers look for titillation in the news which is why we show a lot of cinemas, lots of cricket and plenty of crime”. How many electronic media leaders had briefed the reporters on relevance of the year 1973 (Keshwanand Bharti case that established the doctrine of basic structure) before asking them to give PTC on a recent Supreme Court observation on the separation of powers? In how many news meetings we really discuss the latest human development indicators (HDI) or deprivation indicators or “symbols” of prosperity on the other? If we contrast both, it will be a much more visually rich story than a dance by semi-nude Mallika. In the former, our role as a journalist will be recognised while in the latter people will praise (or denounce?) Mallika and not the editor. It is a case of collective moral turpitude by people with individual ignorance. Henry David Thoreau, the great champion of civil disobedience, was sent to jail for not paying a new tax imposed by the US government. One day his neighbour went to jail to look up another person who was jailed on some other charge. Upon seeing Thoreau behind the bars, this neighbour asked, “Henry, how come you are in the jail?”. “No, that is not the point. The point is how come you are outside the jail?” Thoreau countered coolly. Today, in India, the question is, “Who are these persons leading the electronic media?” Each of them separately admits degeneration, but they do not agree to change the course for fear that they will lose out to their rivals. What they do not understand is that soon they will become redundant. In the present format, only a person from the entertainment world will be needed to play the leadership
role.
The writer is a TV journalist.
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Beginning of a new life The
five-year-old Amanat lost her mother last week who was suffering from malignant cancer. Her father had died two years back in a freak accident when the car rolled down a ravine near Shimla in the dense fog of December. The little girl knew something major had happened in her life but she could not react. Surrounded by a rush of relatives, she was rather confused. Girish, the elder brother of her father, came first with his family. His wife hugged the little girl and started weeping inconsolably. The scene was repeated with the wife of the younger brothers and several others. Wailing visitors and continuous hugging made Amanat uncomfortable. She was very exhausted ever since the night she had called her uncle saying her mother was not responding to her demand for milk. The relatives of Amanat’s father stayed back after the funeral. Reclining on the drawing room’s door on the Sunday evening, two days after the funeral, Girish said: “A lot of my money is stuck up in long overdue payments. My wife is a blood pressure patient. My kids are studying in the hostels.” Naresh, the younger sibling, said: “Brother, mine is a travelling job. Sharmila is a school teacher. My kids are very independent and do not like any interference. Why don’t we ask her maternal uncle to take Amanat?” “He did not even bother to come for the funeral. I think we should put her in a hostel and then take turns at keeping her during her vacation”, Girish said. The younger bounced back immediately: “We cannot do that. Her father did not have any balance to afford her hostel fees.” Sharmila butted in: “We should put her in an orphanage. I heard the Friends Club takes good care.” Girish was furious: “What will people say?” Sharmila replied: “Be cool. Think about it. We cannot afford keeping her.” Girish called an orphanage. “Strange people. Instead of helping us, they are asking why the family was not taking care of her”, he mumbled. This was followed by a round of animated discussions. The arguments suddenly ceased when the couples heard peals of laughter in the lawns. Amanat was laughing loudly, first time ever since the fateful day. Everyone came out in the sunny compound. Amanat was hugging Ramvati, the wife of Ram Bharose, the family gardener who had gone to his native village in Uttar Pradesh two months back. “Why did you go away?” she was repeating. All except Girish had left the next morning when he called Ram Bharose. “It is very heartening to see how much Amanat loves you. I will sell some property and arrange for money. I will come often and will try and take her home soon,” Girish said and gave some money before he walked towards the gate. Amanat was laughing loudly, taking care of her doll along with Bharose’s
daughter.
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Sarkozy reinvents France for bling era
The
republican monarchy invented by Charles de Gaulle – aloof, discreet, solemn, haughty – vanished, as the year drew to a close, somewhere between Cinderella's castle and Space Mountain. Nicolas Sarkozy wants to reinvent France for the 21st century. He has started by reinventing the French presidency for the Age of Celebrity. The President of the Republic has become the host of a permanent chat show; the only contestant in a “Big Brother” house called the Elysée Palace; the star of a soap opera, which – as Le Monde pointed out – started off as Desperate Housewives and now threatens to become The Bold and the Beautiful. The centre-left newspaper Libération describes M. Sarkozy as a “bling-bling president”, a non-stop blur of microphones, photo-opportunities, millionaire's yachts, Rolex watches, dark glasses, mobile phones, jogging shorts and, now, trophy girlfriends. M. Sarkozy, who was divorced two months ago, took the model-turned-singer Carla Bruni to Euro Disney and made sure that the happy news would appear in newspapers and magazines all over the world. The home-loving, slipper-wearing Charles de Gaulle would never, in any circumstances, have dated a beautiful Franco-Italian pop star and ex-model. The elegant, machiavellian François Mitterrand might have done so, in secret, but he would never have mingled with the crowds at Euro Disney. Jacques Chirac doubtless dated scores of Italian pop singers but never encouraged the paparazzi to take their picture. At the end of the week, the twice-divorced President flew off to visit Pope Benedict XVI. The President greeted the Pope cheerfully like an old friend, then, as his official delegation was introduced to His Holiness, rudely checked his mobile phone. The Sarkozy entourage included Jean-Marie Bigard, a devout Catholic and France's most popular, and most foul-mouthed, stand-up comedian. The presidential party also included Carla Bruni's mother. M. Sarkozy had apparently wanted to take Carla to Rome as the official “first girlfriend” but the Vatican thought this was going too far. Mme Bruni, 39, is after all divorced. In a speech after accepting an honorary canonship, M. Sarkozy, who hardly ever attends mass, said: "In this world, obsessed with material comforts, France needs devout Catholics who are not afraid to say what they are and what they believe." He also insisted that France's roots were "essentially Christian". At one level, it was a thoughtful and brave speech, which argued that Christian and secular values need not conflict. On another level, M. Sarkozy shattered the convention that French presidents, as high representatives of a secular French republic, should not defend or promote one religion above others. The French left was incandescent and the President knew that it would be. All of this is classical Sarko. Everything is done with confidence; everything is done rapidly; everything is performed with mirror, or compact video-camera, metaphorically in hand. Genres are confused; values muddled; conventions trampled. The French film director and occasional political commentator Claude Chabrol says that he sees nothing wrong, in principle, with a change of presidential style. The old Mitterrand-Chirac act – I’m all-powerful but not responsible – was wearing thin. But where, he asks, is Sarkozy going? The much trumpeted, mould-breaking economic reforms have been rather modest so far. "Perhaps there is a plan but it seems to be all thought up on the hoof," M. Chabrol said. "[Sarkozy] is an intelligent man but he does not think very deeply." Both Le Monde and Libération have resorted to using the snobbish "V" word vulgarité to describe M. Sarkozy's behaviour. There is something rather vulgar about M. Sarkozy but his vulgarity and his energy are inseparable. He is not part of the traditional French ruling class: effortlessly superior, under-stated, fundamentally unenterprising, sustained by "old money" or the administrative certainties of the Grandes Ecoles. He represents a New France of media and advertising and money: brash, self-promoting and full of energy and ideas, not always good ones. It remains to be seen whether Sarkonomics or the Sarko reform programme amount to much. The Sarko style presages the emergence – for good or ill – of a France which is rather unFrench: less subtle but less hypocritical; vain but not so arrogant; in-your-face but less bound by tradition. This is proving to be a brutal culture shock, not just on the left, but for many people in France who would naturally vote on the right and support a centre-right president. France may never be quite the same again but that is, after all, what Nicolas Sarkozy promised. — By arrangement with The Independent See
also World page |
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The handicap of being Hillary Clinton Sixteen
years ago, winning second place in the New Hampshire primary made Bill Clinton the “comeback kid” and gave him another chance that took him all the way to the White House. Second place in the ballot for his wife today would be quite a different result, presaging the eventual end of her presidential run. At 46, Barack Obama has entranced, perhaps bamboozled, the voters, rekindling the flame of JFK. He reflects back to a new generation of Democrats and the sort of Americans they fancy themselves to be – youthful, committed, enterprising and, above all perhaps, broadminded. They are not the sort of Americans – No, sir! – to be put off by a candidate’s colour. Self-congratulation is already in the air. At long last, it is being said, America is ready for a black President. Almost 150 years after the abolition of slavery, 40 years after the heyday of the civil rights movement, the racial taboo is finally being overcome. This argument is not without its flaws. Obama’s success can be explained in part by the fact that his speech, manners and culture – the products of his mixed white and black Kenyan background – are more “white”, in the American context, than they are “black”. Some American journalists have got into huge trouble for saying this, but the extreme sensitivity of the observation does not make it less true. If we are imprisoned by stereotypes, however, there is another – perhaps less thoroughly optimistic – construction to be placed on the early stages of this presidential race. In a contest that pitches a black man against a white woman, voters are plumping for the man. Despite all the efforts put into affirmative action in recent decades, gender – it seems – remains at least as great a liability as race. Of course, there are many reasons apart from gender why a primary voter might choose Barack over Hillary. Americans like a self-starter, which is how they see Obama. He is a naturally inspiring speaker; he “connects”. He has an interesting life story. He scores higher than she does on the index of instant likeability. In her stiffness of manner and cultivation of hard work, Clinton has something of the stilted earnestness that doomed Al Gore. Add the baggage of the Clinton name, the voters’ sense that perhaps they have been around these tracks before, and you can understand why they might have doubts. Change, after eight years of George Bush, has a powerful pull, and Clinton, for all her transparent competence, belongs to an ancien regime. And how much did she ever really wanted to be President? How far did the impetus for a run came from her, and how far was it thrust upon her by a party hierarchy convinced that her name-recognition and fundraising capacity gave her the best prospect of victory? Even with all these caveats, however, there has surely never been a female candidate as well qualified in every way to be President as Hillary. She has the money and the capacity to raise as much as it would take. She has the connections: Bill Clinton remains the ultimate networker. No one can doubt, either, that she has the intellect and professional expertise. In common with many US politicians, she began her career as a high-flyer in law. And even if you discount her two torrid terms as First Lady, she still has as much political experience in her term-and-a-half as a Senator in New York as George Bush did when he made his run. What Hillary Clinton does not have, however – and almost no American woman politician will have even today – is the unbroken, focused career path that takes young-ish men within touching distance of the presidency. The stock of experience, contacts and exposure to the rough and tumble of the political process that propels them to their political prime in their 40s may for women still be a generation or more away. This is not a question of youth versus gravitas or charm versus competence. It is about how US politics works and the preconceptions that voters of both sexes have about the presidency. If Hillary is not able to overcome these handicaps, there is probably no female politician in the US who could. By arrangement with
The Independent |
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‘Treasures’ lost in Malana fire The
devastating fire that broke out in Malana village on January 5 not only burnt down over 150 houses rendering over 160 families homeless, but it also destroyed Malana’s rare art and artifacts treasured in the age-old temples of Jamlu Devta, the presiding deity of the land. Malana’s quaint old “Kath-Kuni” style of pahari architecture of wooden temples and houses have been consigned to the pages of Malana’s undeciphered history. As many as six temples and temple treasuries were gutted. No one exactly knows what Malana’s age-old temples treasure inside its “Kal-Kothri” – nobody, not even priests and caretakers of the Jamlu Devta, are allowed to see the treasure, said to include gold and silver jewellery dedicated to the Devta since time immemorial. Some wealthy villagers, most of them high-caste Rajputs, run paying guest houses to accommodate tourists in the outer fringe of the village. The tile-roofed houses have come up replacing age-old stone roofed houses. But villagers still stocked fuel and fire wood and haystacks of fodder for winter months in the lower storeys of their houses. A small mistake can ignite a major catastrophe as it happened on Saturday. Some 15 houses were gutted in the village last year as well. But nobody took the preventive steps to make a “fire line” to protect Malana’s unique temples. The Malana people speak a typical local dialect called Kanashi or Rakshi, which is not easily understood by other people in Kullu district. Malana people are indigenous, and worship devis and devtas like others do in the Himalayas. Malana came into limelight in the 1970s and 80s when hippies from across the world discovered Malana’s unique isolation and found it to be an “otherworldly refuge that offers divine kicks in the forms of high-quality cannabis resin, hashish, that today is famed as Malana crème among foreigners who have been visiting Malana in search of hashish and discovering its unique culture ever since. In the 1990s Malana emerged as a hotbed of the hashish trade as droves of foreigners including smugglers descended on the village for the drug, as it fetched hefty prices in national and international markets, including Holland, where Malana hashish is sold without any restriction, revealed police sources. Considering the fast bucks from Malana charas, villagers stopped cultivating traditional barley and mustard and local crops and started growing only one crop: cannabis. Malana people grew cannabis as part of their staple food till they hit the jackpot -- Malana crème. But the drug menace grew manifold in the Kullu valley, luring local youngsters in the contraband trade. The joint Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) under the exemplary efforts of the then NCB’s superintendent OP Sharma and HP police launched anti-drug drives in the village and its surroundings in 2002 onwards and curtailed its mass production to some extent in the private land. It is against the divine “commandments” of Jamlu that Malana villagers disallow strangers to touch their houses, temples leave alone entering them. The visitor even today has to follow the designated village path and is in strict supervision of villagers. Those who dare to do so has to appear before “house of commons” in the village and have to pay fine and sacrifice a lamb to the deity as punishment. Malana people marry within the village, which has family “Tol” system. Marriage from outside is forbidden so is acceptance of the cooked food from strangers, as long as they fall within the jurisdiction of the territory of Jamlu Devta. That token of love and honour along with the arts and artifacts connected with the legend of the Attara Kardu, eighteen deities, lie in the charred heap of ash in the village. Budh Ram, an elderly ward member of Malana panchayat says that they have been ruined as they have not followed the diktat of the Devta. “We have lost everything – our temples, culture. Malana is burning. Life is at stake in world’s oldest surviving democracy”, he bemoans.
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