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Murder most foul |
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Rioting at Kapurthala
Dividing UP a sound idea
Asia-Pacific strategic landscape
Memories of Mother
New patrons of antique art Miniature art is growing beyond museums in foreign lands A marriage that was meant for divorce — Antiquity
Act and miniature art
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Murder most foul
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) appointed by the Gujarat High Court last year needs to be commended for confirming that Ishrat Jahan, a college student from Mumbai, and three others were not killed “at the date, time and place” claimed by the state police in June, 2004. The Gujarat police had then insisted that the deceased were terrorists assigned to assassinate Chief Minister Narendra Modi. After having defended the police action and rewarding the officers involved in the fake encounter, the finding is bound to haunt Mr Modi and his government in the months to come. It may also have cast a cloud on Mr Modi’s ambition to emerge as a national leader. The SIT has not only completed a thankless job rather well, it has also withstood considerable pressure from peers and politicians. To their credit, the team relied upon scientific evidence to call the bluff of the state’s crime branch, the CBI and even the Intelligence Bureau, all of which at one point or the other, supported the stand of the Gujarat police. The report points out that rigor mortis had set in, indicating that the deceased were killed long before the alleged encounter. Partially digested food in the stomach also indicated as much. While the police claimed to have fired 70 rounds in ‘self-defence’ during the encounter, not a single cartridge was recovered from the scene. Bullet wounds on the deceased also suggested they were shot at close range and ‘hand wash tests’ on a slain man indicated he did not fire a gun as alleged. The High Court was left with few options other than ordering a fresh FIR to be instituted against the errant policemen for ‘murder’. The finding has brought the attention back on extra-judicial killings. Trigger-happy policemen can be found in virtually every state, where ‘encounter specialists’ are feted and rewarded. Police needs to learn the art of catching killers and terrorists legally after following due processes, as is being routinely done in many countries. Faith in the ability and impartiality of the police in upholding the law is an essential condition for development. Fake encounters are a blot on the state and deterrent punishment is required to put an end to the practice.
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Rioting at Kapurthala
The
Kapurthala jail clash is too serious an issue to be brushed aside. Some 1,600 jail inmates fought with the security staff for 11 hours on Sunday. The sudden release of the convicts’ pent-up anger indicates something is seriously wrong with the way the jails are run in Punjab. None seemed to have a clue about the situation inside the jail being on the boil and none, perhaps, cared. The denial of timely medical help to a prisoner that reportedly triggered the clash highlighted only one aspect of mismanagement. Prisoners are humans too and cannot be denied their basic rights like medical treatment in case of an emergency as also proper food, clean water and hygienic living conditions. There are, of course, problems of logistics: more people are in jails than can be accommodated. Even though a near bankrupt state government may not have prison improvement on its priority list for spending, new jails are coming up at Faridkot, Nabha and Mansa to cope with the rush. The minister in charge of jails claims that Rs 308 crore is being spent to expand the capacity of some existing jails. Family quarters are also being constructed on some jail premises. Experts believe that to prevent prison assaults and riots it is important to placate prisoners by providing them conjugal visits, access to television, privacy and training in skills. Yoga and meditation too have shown positive results at Tihar jail. The Punjab officials visiting the jail on Monday hinted at lack of access to drugs as a cause of rioting. It is well known that drugs are easily available to prisoners — often with the connivance of their guards. The top brass is aware of the menace but either deliberately looks the other way or is helpless. Prison reforms are often talked about in Punjab but a simple change of police behaviour towards the convicts can make a world of difference. Just be humane in dealing with the prisoners, all of whom may not be hardened criminals.
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Dividing UP a sound idea
The
UP Assembly on Monday created history but few would feel proud of it. The winter session of the House was over in just10 minutes. It was adjourned sine die after the assembly adopted a brief resolution on the division of the country’s most populous state into four states — Paschim Pradesh, Bundelkhand, Awadh Pradesh and Poorvanchal. Chief Minister Mayawati also got the demands for grants for the remaining four months of the current financial year passed. This was essential for the state government as it will need money to run the administration till the Assembly elections are held early next year. But Monday will be remembered as the saddest day in the democratic history of the country as on this day a state Assembly passed an important resolution without holding any discussion on it! Both the government and the Opposition are to blame for this. While the Opposition parties, particularly the Samajwadi Party and the BJP, were determined not to allow the Assembly to pass any resolution on UP’s division, Ms Mayawati had chalked out a clever plan to get the controversial document adopted without any member getting an opportunity to scuttle her idea. She won the battle of wits by presenting the shortest resolution possible on the subject and got it passed by voice vote. The members were taken aback as the resolution was not there on the day’s agenda. UP, no doubt, should not remain as one unwieldy independent administrative unit for the sake of better governance. Therefore, no well-wisher of the people will oppose the presentation of the resolution for the creation of four states. But the way the state government is going about its idea and forcing the Centre to go ahead with it is not fair. Despite Ms Mayawati’s assertion to the contrary, her state division drive is a part of her political strategy. She has nothing to lose as her core support base of the Dalits is evenly spread in all the four regions she wants to get converted into states. But her real challenger, the SP, has its supporters mainly in the central districts of UP. The SP, therefore, will be reduced to a party of Awadh with little presence in the other proposed states. This is not healthy politics by any standards.
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Forgive me my nonsense, as I also forgive the nonsene of those that think they talk sense. — Robert Frost
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Asia-Pacific strategic landscape
The
rapidly changing strategic landscape of the Asia-Pacific has once again been in focus in recent days. Even as Europe struggles to come to terms with its economic decline, major powers in the Asia-Pacific are coming to terms with their region’s rapidly rising economic and political profile. US President Barack Obama was in Asia to underscore America’s commitment to regional stability at a time when he is wrapping up two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As the US Secretary of State has already underlined, “the future of politics will be decided in Asia, not Afghanistan or Iraq, and the United States will be right at the centre of the action.” At a time when talk of American decline and retrenchment from global commitments has become de riguer, the signals coming from Washington are that it has no intention of leaving the Asian strategic landscape. Nor will regional states allow America to lower its profile. After all, the elephant in the room (region) is China’s faster than expected ascent in global inter-state hierarchy. The East Asia Summit was the second gathering in a week that brought American and Chinese officials together for a regional meeting. It followed the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Hawaii where, much to China’s annoyance, the US President suggested that Beijing needed to “play by the rules” in international trade. From there, President Obama moved to Canberra where he secured new basing rights even as eight regional states signed up for the Obama administration’s new Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a free-trade plan. As the threat of a rising China increases, most regional states are eager for greater economic, political and military engagement with the US. Australia made it clear how, despite growing economic linkages with China, regional states continue to hedge their bets by courting American security partnerships. The US announced a permanent military presence in Australia and the move to send 250 Marines to bases there for six-month tours starting next summer, eventually rotating 2,500 troops through the country, is being widely viewed as the start of the administration’s strategic objective of repositioning the US as a leader on economics and security in the fast-developing Asia-Pacific region. Not surprisingly, Beijing was quick to react questioning whether expanding the military alliance “is in line with the common interest” of the countries in the region. China also views the development of the TPP as a political move to create a US-dominated counterweight to a rival trade bloc of Southeast Asian countries plus China, Japan and South Korea, known by the acronym ASEAN Plus Three. Meanwhile, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao demanded that “outside forces” had no excuse to get involved in the complex maritime dispute, a veiled warning to the US and other countries to keep out of the sensitive issue. The issue of South China Sea has disrupted China’s ties with its neighbours. Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei are the other claimants to parts of the South China Sea, a major route for some $5 trillion in trade each year and potentially rich in resources. The US is supporting these states and wants a multilateral approach towards the resolution of the issue. It is in this broader context that India’s emerging role in the region should be assessed. India is emerging as a critical balancer in the Asia-Pacific, and regional states are recognising New Delhi’s growing clout. This was reflected in Australia’s recent decision to reconsider its ban on the sale of uranium to India. That a Labour government, traditionally considered a non-proliferation hawk, should take this decision is reflective of the changing priorities of Canberra. And that this could not have happened without American pressure on the Australian government to change its policies should also alert New Delhi to the important role a so-called declining America continues to play in supporting Indian ambitions in the region and globally. In his meetings with the Chinese Premier and the US President, the Indian Prime Minister did raise a range of issues. Though Mr Singh ruled out any major changes in the nuclear liability law in the near future, despite American misgivings, he urged Mr Obama to commence nuclear trade with India. The US was also informed that India was ready to ratify the Convention on Supplementary Compensation (CSC), another issue that the US wants to be done as part of implementation of the civil nuclear deal. This is an important issue to be clarified on an immediate basis, given a wide-ranging perception that the US-India ties have entered a period of drift. The strategic priorities of New Delhi and Washington are in alignment but it is the tactical issues that have made the two wary of each other. This needs rectification as America’s Asia-Pacific policy will come unhinged without Indian support, and Indian desire to effectively balance China will remain just that, a desire, without American support. With Mr Wen Jiabao, the Indian Prime Minister was refreshingly emphatic in suggesting that India wouldn’t take sides in China’s territorial disputes with its neighbours over the South China Sea, but India did have a right to exploit the sea’s oil and gas commercially. Mr Wen urged India and China to work “hand-in-hand” to ensure that the 21st century belonged to Asia. There are, he said, enough areas where India and China could cooperate with each other. Yet this cannot hide the fact that frictions are increasing with each passing day between the two Asian giants. China must understand that with its rise on the international stage comes increased responsibility, argued Mr Obama. If Beijing does not respect international rules, Mr Obama said, “We will send a clear message to them that we think that they need to be on track in terms of accepting the rules and responsibilities that come with being a world power.” This reflects that American strategic priorities are changing and changing rapidly. Indian diplomacy will have to be equally agile to take advantage of all the opportunities that this new realignment of structural forces presents New Delhi in serving its own interests. The writer teaches at King’s College, London.
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Memories of Mother
When fog descends on treetops in winter evenings, old memories stir up from the wraps of time. One childhood memory specifically wakes up in my case. My mother was relating the Ramayana story to me. She said Ravana was so powerful, he had enslaved the gods to do his household chores – Pawan (the wind god) used to sweep his palace floors and fan him while he was sleeping in his bed, Indra (the rain god) would fill up his water pitchers, and Agni (the fire god) would cook his meals in the kitchen. Thanks to the mind of man which developed science and technology, we the humdrum common people enjoy the services of these mythical gods and other lesser incarnations in our households. We have the goddess electricity fan us while we sleep, rusty municipal water taps fill up our pots and gas cook our meals. In her lifetime my mother was catapulted from our no-electricity small town in Rajasthan to the razzle-dazzle of Jaipur streets when my brother worked there in the Railways, and then to the City Beautiful when I came here on joining the Punjab cadre of the IAS. To her perpetual amazement, she saw the virtual banishment of backbreaking drudgery that used to be the lot of an average Indian housewife. In particular, Mother was charmed by the four-flame gas burner in which a beautiful blue flame, sans smoke, appeared instantly. You could cook four things simultaneously and modulate the flame to the desired intensity. Wow! She reminisced how during the rainy season, she had to kindle fire in her chulha from rain-soaked faggots, blowing her lungs out through the bamboo fookani, her eyes swollen from smoke. “You are living in swarga in your lifetime”, she told my wife, Savitri, who was raised in Shimla and Patiala and could scarce understand her going gaga over such a commonplace thing as a gas cooker. I had returned from a conference in Kolkata and she was asking me how I felt while flying – dar nahin lagta? I told her there was no cause to fear, and you enjoyed sailing over puffy clouds, and indeed I was lucky to see the great Himalayas spread out in the east as the plane flew over Bihar, the snow peaks shining bright in the sun. She was wonderstruck. “Only Lord Vishnu could behold such a sight, perched on his vahana, Garuda. You had done good karma in your previous life, my son.” I arranged a joyride for her in a small trainer aircraft in the Pinjore flying club a few days later. She boarded the plane with great trepidation and looked both euphoric and traumatised on coming out. But when the shock wore off, she said how marvellous it was going up in the air like a giant bird, leaving the earth, and looking down upon ant-like men crawling on ribbon-wide roads, and cars and trucks looking like toys!
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New patrons of antique art It could only be ironic that about fifty people had to fly from India to Zurich, in August this year to see a show of Indian miniature art! In October the traffic of art connoisseurs moved to Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the same show had been installed, with some variations. Most of these fliers spent days savouring the intricate details of these works, thematic as well as stylistic, and wondered, why these shows could not be held in India! At a time when art is growing larger than life, there must be something very endearing about these centuries old minute art works — made on paper, that the world is spending millions to curate, catalogue and research! Before the year comes to a close, two major art centres of the world would have showcased selected works of miniature art, fuelling the global demand for these works among buyers and collectors. Getting home the foreign way
While the domestic art market, promoters, museums and collectors remain passive spectators to this great art activity taking place abroad, it leaves one wondering how much money would have been invested in tracing down the cultural contexts in which these paintings were made by their anonymous painters, who lived between 12th to19th centuries. It is interesting to note that despite a large collection of miniature art available at various Government Museums in India, it was in Venice that a collection of miniature art was first exhibited in 1961. The interest of the international art connoisseurs began to grow not only in the Indian miniature art but also in its artists, who, for the first time were recognised in an exhibition of Pahari paintings held at Museum Rietberg, Zurich, in 1990, conceptualised by the art historian Dr B N Goswami, in collaboration with Dr Eberhard Fischer. This effort also resulted in publishing of an elaborate catalogue by the museum on Pahari Masters ( now available in a book form Pahari Masters : Court Painters of Northern India), enlisting 14 master painters from different schools of Pahari paintings like Kangra, Guler, Basholi, Chamba etc. Perhaps what drew the attention of the world community of connoisseurs to this genre of art was the fact, that unlike the Mughal school of miniature art, which was more dramatic and driven by depiction of heroic events, works of Pahari masters are more meditative, imaginative and effusive — appealing to a larger section of society. One could also witness the painter’s sense of humour in some of the works. These master painters were patronised by the kings of small Rajput riyasats of the hill states, and enjoyed complete freedom and blossoming of their unique styles. At the Zurich exhibition, for the first time an effort was made to give a name to the artists rather than treating the entire body of miniature paintings as one genre. When the names were not traceable, the works were categorised under ‘series’, like Bhagwat Puran, Raagmala series etc. “ We conducted a kind of census of Pahari works and came to realise that these artists could not be treated as a flock, they were individuals, they were thinking men, each one with a strong individual observation and style. But they were anonymous, it was a mystery that had to be solved — breaking their code name!” says Dr Goswami, who worked tirelessly for years to find the missing links. Soon after the exhibition of Pahari works, that lent a name to its master painters was held at Zurich, an extraordinary sale of Indian miniature art from the Bachofen von Echt Collection took place at the Sotheby’s in 1992 and proved that an exhibition based on such extensive research work and planned at such scale can change the fate of an art form. This sale catapulted miniature art into the high league, 37 of the 38 works put on sale were sold for ‘unthinkable’ prices. Fixing a larger frame
Whereas the Zurich show of 1990 showcased works of about 14 Pahari masters, in May- August, 2011, the show titled The Way Of The Masters – The Great Artists of India, 1100–1900, shown once again at Museum Rietberg, Zurich, traced landmarks of 800 years of Indian painting with some 240 masterpieces by more than 40 artists, selected from all major schools of miniature paintings — found across the geography of the sub-continent. Three renowned curators, Milo C. Beach (Smithsonian, Washington), B.N. Goswamy and Eberhard Fischer lent an identity to the most significant painters from over 800 years of history and area that was spread from Esfahan in Iran to Delhi, and the Deccan in India. To make the experience of ‘seeing’ of these works unique and contemporary, for the first time, a film was produced by Eberhard Fisher, directed by Amit Dutta on the life and art of Nainsukh, one of the 18th century Pahari masters from Guler, to help the viewer relate to the life and times of these masters. Eberhard Fischer, who curated both the shows of miniature paintings for Zurich exhibition recounts the challenges involved in showcasing the miniature works,“ These are not Picasso, which will occupy the visual space, the works are small and delicate, a lot of light might damage them, they require intimate viewing in a meditative silence,” which is what was provided in these exhibitions, using a unique display mechanism. It goes without saying, once again, the price fetched by works of miniature art multiplied. One of the rare works of Nainsukh fetched $ 2.25 million at the Christies. Small too can grow big
Dr Fischer is not satisfied with the price tag of a couple of million dollars for the miniature art. It is still low, seeing the international art market, he says. The present figure is nothing, compared to what is anticipated for the Indian miniatures. “ These are period works, they are not going to be multiplied, their numbers are limited and the demand is growing.” In the next ten years, he anticipates, the manner of viewing the miniature art will be transformed by better availability of technologies, which will further magnify the actual colour pigments and their lustre without distorting these amazingly meditative works. But, the high price tag is leading to a situation, which, at best could be termed ironic. Private foreign collectors, who held the maximum number of these works (carried as souvenirs by the British, Portuguese and French colonisers) now find these works out of their reach to add to their collection. And Indians are wary of touching them, thanks to the Antiquity Act. Only museums are left as patrons of this art, that too, in foreign lands. And, they buy miniature paintings only from foreign based dealers.
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Miniature art is growing beyond museums in foreign lands
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A marriage that was meant for divorce — Antiquity Act and miniature art In
the last two decades millions of people in India have run into large money and are buying contemporary art at great value to enhance their social status. Why aren’t they buying the priceless miniature paintings? The answer lies in the Indian Antiquity Act’s provisions, enacted by the government in 1972. A laudable effort though to check growing smuggling market, those who drafted the act had no idea what it would lead to. Particularly in terms of the antiquity of miniature paintings, which, unlike sculptures and coins are not excavated. These objects are often heirlooms or gifts passed through generations, hence the cumbersome process of registration keeps both buyers and sellers away from the art market. Under the Act, anything more than a 100 years old is required to be registered, apart from giving details such as the name of the sellers, provenance, value and so on. There are only 10 to 15 registered dealers in the country, so it is quite a task to find well documented antiquities. One can buy from unregistered dealers but the perils involved are the lack of information on the origin — which could devalue it — and the possibility of fakes. Even if one moves the object to a different location, one needs to inform the ASI officer in the area. It is public knowledge that even Archeological Survey of India has not been able to document millions of monuments dotting the country, to expect trillions of objects that fall under the category of antiquity, and have them identified, registered and photographed, seem like an impossible task to carry. The worst affected of these antiquities are miniature paintings — Indian collectors refuse to buy them, and foreign museums — the biggest buyers of this art buy them only through foreign dealers, fearing the long and tangled arms of antiquity legislation in India. Abhishek Poddar, an art collector from Bengaluru, who went to see the miniature shows at Venice and Zurich says, “ Once you dive into this world you realise it’s an ocean, you don’t know which direction to go. I forgot to eat and drink. I wish it comes to India, we need to show to our own people, what happened here, in this country, centuries back.” Despite his great admiration for this art, he is hesitant to buy, “ Antiquity Act is like an elephant in the room that constraints the market, it is a wall that needs to be demolished, ” he adds. Museum Rietberg, Zurich, which has one of the most impressive collections of Indian miniature art, has not procured a single work from India, asserts Eberhard Fischer, who remained director of the museum for over thirty years.
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