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Thoughtless curbs Ties with Palestinians |
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Can’t just flush it
away
Nonalignment, Iranian
style
Saving a life
Not the heroine of
her narrative
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Ties with Palestinians By
pledging a fresh aid of $10 million to the poverty-stricken Palestinians, India has provided proof once again that it remains steadfast in its commitment to the humanitarian cause of Palestine. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and visiting Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas also signed three memorandums of understanding (MoUs) for cooperation between the two sides in information and communication technology, vocational training and education. That the two leaders had unanimity of views when they discussed different regional issues, mainly concerning West Asia, showed that together they can play a major role in resolving the problems plaguing the volatile Arab world. In the case of the Palestine issue, India has always been of the view that it can be settled through dialogue and diplomacy provided the parties involved had the will to compromise to achieve the desired objective. As pointed out by the Prime Minister, “the support for the Palestinian cause has been the cornerstone” of India’s foreign policy and will continue to remain so. The Palestinians are, perhaps, the only people who have been deprived of their homeland for no fault of theirs. The Palestinian Authority areas where they have their own administration have got divided into two parts. The Palestinian President has full control over the territories in the West Bank region. The administration in the Gaza Strip is run by the Hamas, an extremist organisation having the backing of Iran and certain other regional powers. But the internal problems of the Palestinians are temporary in nature and can be handled successfully once the issue of the Palestinian areas, including East Jerusalem, under the occupation of Israel is settled. President Barack Obama during the initial days of his tenure showed some interest in getting the Palestinian-Israeli dispute resolved, but then he got involved in domestic economic issues and fine-tuning his strategy for getting the US out of the war threatres in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then the Arab world saw the emergence of the people’s resistance movement called the Arab Spring resulting in the toppling of some powerful regimes. This threw the Palestinian cause into the background. But now it is coming into focus again. India can play a role in reviving the efforts for full statehood to the Palestinian Authority with the return of East Jerusalem to the Palestinians.
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Can’t just flush it away Even
to take up this issue to study and write would evoke revulsion among most people. Imagine the plight of those who actually do it. Manual scavenging — euphemism for picking up human excreta by hand — was supposed to have been banned in 1993 by law. That never happened. The first reason was that the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act itself provided so many loopholes that it remained meaningless. A state government can choose which areas to notify the Act in, and can’t notify unless “adequate facilities for the use of water-seal latrines in that area exist”. This immediately negates the possibility of enforcing the Act in the vast expanse that is rural India, as well as a major part of the urban and semi-urban areas where there is no water supply or sewerage. Another lacuna in the Act is now sought to be corrected by the government through a proposed Bill — it will include people cleaning sewers and septic tanks, who were not covered under the 1993 law. This was essential as a lot of manual scavenging has now shifted from latrines to septic tanks, especially in areas that have piped water supply but not sewerage. None of this, however, is going to wipe out the demeaning practice till every home has water and a disposal system, which is a long way off in a country where more than half of the city population also does not have piped water or sewerage systems. Manual scavenging is not pleasant work and dry latrines are not convenient. But both exist for want or alternatives. A lot that can be done even under the circumstances is also not being done. Manual scavenging continues at government facilities, and those run by civic bodies or panchayats. Workers are not provided even elementary equipment like gloves and boots. In a state like Punjab, where many villages also have piped water, septic tanks are common, but these are all cleared manually, mostly late at night to escape attention. The technology to do this with machines exists, but the will does not. Perhaps the age of caste system has something to do with that.
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A good laugh is sunshine in the house. — William Makepeace Thackeray
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Nonalignment, Iranian style The
idea of “nonalignment” as a “mantra” for dealing with world affairs in countries emerging from the shackles of colonial rule was conceptualised in the Bandung Afro-Asian Conference hosted by Indonesian President Sukarno in 1955. The Bandung Conference formulated the basis for newly independent Afro-Asian countries to unite in order to craft foreign and domestic policies suited to the needs of their peoples in an ideologically polarised, bipolar world order. China’s Chou en Lai was the star attraction in Bandung, though China was then a “socialist” ally of the Soviet Union. Chou is believed to have even then been offended by what he felt was Jawaharlal Nehru’s patronising approach to him. Nehru had his own reservations about the newly emerging countries constituting themselves into yet another bloc, during the Cold War. He, however, went along with the views of leaders like Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Sukarno of Indonesia and Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia, in forming the Nonaligned Movement (NAM) during the first summit in Belgrade in 1961. Given their shared experience of the inequities of colonial rule, NAM inevitably assumed a leftist and anti-Western orientation. India had itself adopted such a posture earlier, when it condemned the Anglo-French invasion of Egypt, but remained silent when the Soviet Union militarily crushed an anti-Communist revolt in Hungary in 1956. The Soviet Union had steadfastly backed India in the UN on the Kashmir issue while the Americans had forged a military alliance with Pakistan. The founding members of the NAM, however, lived to see their dreams shattered. One year after the Belgrade Summit, India was invaded by China. It found that none of its “nonaligned” friends were willing to back it. Nehru died a deeply disillusioned man in 1964, after having been forced to appeal to Washington for military assistance. Sukarno’s flirtations with the Communist Party of Indonesia led to a military coup and his overthrow. Kwame Nkrumah was also deposed by a military coup in 1966 while on a visit to Vietnam and China. He died in exile. Gamal Abdel Nasser, who regarded himself as the leader of a resurgent Arab world, escalated rhetoric against Israel and undertook large-scale deployments and military manoeuvres on the Egypt-Israeli border. This provoked a pre-emptive Israeli attack, inflicting a humiliating defeat on the Egyptians. Nasser’s early death in 1970 heralded the emergence of a new regime under President Sadat, which made peace with Israel. Egypt thereafter became America’s most loyal ally in the Arab world. Tito’s Yugoslavia disintegrated after his death. Despite these developments, membership of NAM increased primarily because newly independent states saw substantial benefits in joining the grouping. NAM was a forum where they could take cover behind numbers, while backing policies that irritated the western world. They forged a united front on issues like climate change, global economic inequities and nuclear disarmament. The credibility of NAM suffered when Cuba assumed its Presidency in 1979 and labelled the Soviet Union as a “natural ally” of the movement. A measure of balance was restored when India assumed NAM leadership at the New Delhi Summit in 1983. NAM did not die a natural death as many expected, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, as issues of development, environment and nuclear disarmament remained the focus of attention. Moreover, the threat of intervention and invasion by western powers evoked worldwide concern. Interestingly, with the emergence of doctrines like the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P), the western powers have now developed a growing appetite for “regime change” to get rid of governments they find unresponsive to their policies, while selectively using alleged human rights violations or possession of weapons of mass destruction as a fig leaf for military intervention. The NAM Summit in Tehran drew attention to two major issues. The first was the growing confrontation between Iran on the one hand and the US, its European partners and Israel on the other. More importantly, the summit highlighted the growing sectarian Shia-Sunni tensions within the Islamic world. Iran’s Sunni Gulf Arab neighbours came well prepared for the summit, with only one of them, Qatar, which has strongly backed the call for regime change in Shia-dominated Syria, attending at the level of Head of State. Other Arab countries sent their Foreign Ministers to the summit, and Saudi Arabia pointedly lowered its participation to the level of Deputy Foreign Minister. The Iranians were in for a shock when Egypt’s new President, Mohammed Morsi, who is distancing himself from President Mubarak’s close embrace of the Americans, lashed out at the Syrian regime, labelling it as “oppressive” and calling for support for the Sunni-dominated Syrian opposition. Moreover, Iranian attempts to undermine the authority of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas by inviting the Hamas Prime Minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, to the summit were thwarted. The fissures in the Islamic world are set to widen. Thanks to American military intervention, Iraq now has entered an era of Shia majority rule. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, who attended the Tehran Summit, is now providing over-flight facilities for Iranian arms shipments to the embattled Bashar al-Asad regime in Syria. With Turkey now becoming the epicentre of the Syrian resistance, Iranian-Turkish relations are strained as are Turkey’s ties with Iraq. And in Pakistan, targeted killings of Shias by Wahabi groups continue unabated. Moreover, there are also recent reports of Shia-Sunni violence even in Malaysia and Indonesia. India has manoeuvred well in keeping out of the sectarian rivalries of the Islamic world. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was graciously received in Tehran by Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ahmedinejad. While western banking and insurance sanctions are going to make oil purchases from Iran increasingly difficult, New Delhi should consult more closely with China on the measures it has taken to continue Iranian oil imports. Iran will have to be persuaded to import more from India and expand cooperation on projects like the development of the Chabahar port. Iran remains an important partner for India’s access to Afghanistan, Central Asia and the Caspian ports of Russia. Moreover, Iraq has a vast untapped potential of oil for export and for opportunities for oil exploration. But all this cannot be undertaken at the cost of our relations with the Arab Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, where over 5 million Indians reside. Iran will have to be left in no doubt that its rhetoric on “wiping out Israel” is only escalating regional tensions and that it will have to credibly satisfy the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about is nuclear
ambitions.
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Saving a life Last
week, I saved a life. But sadly couldn’t save another little one’s. In the dead of night, I had heard the muffled calls of an animal outside my balcony. It sounded like the cries of a creature in distress. I tried to locate the source but couldn’t, as it was dark. As dawn broke, I noticed a brownish lump right in front of me hanging from a jumble of kite strings. I ignored it. Suddenly it jerked. It was a bat, the size of a human palm, caught in the strings and struggling to get out. On closer look, I noticed two heads. There was a mother bat and a baby bat, the size of a thumb, clinging on to its mother and probably stuck too. The mother’s claws seemed to be entangled in the strings. The two were writhing in pain, the mother trying to bite the strings, flapping its wings in a vain attempt to break free. It was heart wrenching. “You better do something about them before I come back from school,” my son gave me an ultimatum and left. I had to do something. I just couldn’t leave them to die. At least, I had to try. I tried to hook the string with a walking stick. The stick was too short. The string was about 10 feet away. I couldn’t get a longer one. Anyway, I would not have been able to free the bats from the strings. I needed expert help. I tried to contact a few non-governmental organisations working towards this cause. But some of them, unfortunately the well-known ones, are no better than a government department. Either nobody answered the phone or excused themselves by saying that it didn’t come under their “area”. I was
exasperated. I had other mundane-but-important-to-me things to do around the house. Before giving up, I made one last call. An “angel” answered the call. He listened to me with concern. He instructed me to somehow cut the string and put the animals in a shoebox to lessen their trauma while he sent his team. I tried again unsuccessfully. Now, all I could do was to wait. Time was ticking by and it might get too late for the duo. The rescue team, though, came promptly within an hour, but sans any equipment. “We don’t have the resources, we depend on private donations,” they explained. Anyway, they somehow got the bats off the strings. The baby was dead. The mother’s claws were all bloodied and the string had encircled around its neck too. She seemed angry — angry with us humans for killing its offspring and causing it hurt. I hope she survives the ordeal and forgives us for our
follies.
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Not the heroine of her narrative
Since 1913, the socio- economic landscape of cinema viewing has undergone tremendous change. More women are consumers of cinema than ever before. It is intriguing why their representation in cinema has remained nondescript
In
1913 when the first film was made in India, women characters were played by men. Things have not changed much since then. Women have more visibility on screen - more skin than their character, tailored according to the demands of the market. And these demands have varied over the last century – from a sati savitri clad in six yards of saree, perpetually crying over her misfortunes to the seductress in a wet saree, to skimpily clad hot babe riding hotter motorbikes-- women are given many roles to play, but these roles often do not translate into memorable characters. Changes appear only in terms of costumes. Women have not been the protagonists of their on- screen narratives. Bollywood cinema has flourished, in India alone about 4 billion movie tickets are sold annually, while Hollywood movies are watched by 3 billion people, worldwide. Still, the industry does not pay its heroines on par with its male counterparts. Bollywood heroines have shorter shelf life- while heroes come of age at 40, heroines retire at the same age. If you look at the woman centric films of the last 100 years, invariably the protagonist will turn out to be either a courtesan, bandit or, a policewoman. An ordinary woman and her tribulations in a man’s world rarely offer a subject- compelling enough to be explored. The primary role of a woman in Hindi cinema is to fulfil the basic ingredient of sex appeal, or, strengthen family values through her sacrifice. In doing so, women have lost strong characterisation and thus a meaningful presence on screen over the years.
Apart from ‘Mother India,’ it is hard to find a woman centric film that turned out to be a cult. Somewhere on the mid-way of this century long journey, ‘Abhimaan’ (1973) was made by Hrishikesh Mukherjee. The film summed up the status of women in our cinema. A small town girl marries a successful Bollywood singer whose talent does not match up to hers. He patronises her initially, but as recognition and adulation comes her way, it makes him angry and insecure. Her social status is manipulated-- emotionally and finally the man is able to reclaim his space in the world. She is relegated to a weak position where she once again needs his support. The role of women in Hindi cinema is limited to four types, like four blood groups. Hum dil de chuke sanam Love is the most potent commodity of Hindi cinema, if women of the 50s and 60s were bold in making choices in the matters of heart, their later counterparts were portrayed as mere puppets in the hands of the family. One could see women of the early 20the century emerge strong in a conflict situation, and their characterisation did justice to the theme of love in films like ‘Chhoti Chhoti Batein’ (played by Nadira, in a live-in relationship with Motilal) Bimal Roy’s ‘Bandini’ and Amiya Chakraborty’s ‘Seema’, which were also successful on the box-office. The women in these films made unconventional choices —in ‘Bandini’ (1960), Kalyani (Nutan) decides to go with Ashok Kumar, a man much older and dying of tuberculosis rather than living with a young handsome doctor. In ‘Seema’(1955) the love of the orphaned girl for the caretaker of the orphanage, who is a heart patient and old, breaks the stereotypical mould. Strangely, as society progressed- in terms of material acquisitions, women’s choices were squeezed to fit in a mould that sought sanction of the small- town family viewing. Karwa Chauth became central and wedding oriented films like ‘Hum Aapke Hain Kaun’ became success models of love, where a selfless woman would undergo any amount of suffering to withhold family’s reputation. This woman gave social sanction and validation to any kind of injustice meted out to women, which we saw culminate into hundreds of honour killings in later years.
Main tulsi tere aangan ki The other prototype, good- for- screen- business has been a self- sacrificing woman, who reinforces patriarchal values. She never asserts her rights. Strangely, when films were introduced in India, actresses like Nadia played tom-boyish roles in ‘Hunterwali’, ‘Diamond Queen’ and did all sorts of stunts on her own. Devika Rani, an actress of the 30s, did the longest ever kissing scene on screen and helped her first husband produce unconventional films like ‘Achhoot Kanya,’ about a Brahmin boy’s relationship with an untouchable girl and no one burnt cinema halls. Or, films like ‘Durgesh Nandini’, V Shantaram’s ‘Dahej’ showed women with a mind of their own in times when we assume society was ‘backward.’ Then came the tragedy queen Meena Kumari’s era, but script writers still gave some dignity to these characters, perhaps due to the influence of Bengali literature on the scripts. In Abrar Alvi’s ‘Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam’ Meena Kumari is a zamindar’s wife, she breaks all conventions of her times to take to drinking in her attempt to be a companion to her husband. As we move to later decades we find this woman loses her spine. She is mocked at for being rustic, less educated, for being too modern and educated, she is mocked at for just being herself. Scores of films from the 70s and 80s starring Jeetendra, Anil kapoor, Shridevi and Jayaprada have dealt with ‘taming of the Shrew theme’, where a haughty woman is shown her place through a series of humiliations. A woman with a mind of her own still does not find enough space in Hindi cinema, hence her acceptability by the audience remains unexplored. She is always contextualised in her relationship with men.
Tejaswini Then, she is dressed up, literally, in manly virtues and attire to gain acceptance for her aggression as a policewoman, a firebrand politician, a bandit or a sportsperson in a recent entry, thanks to ‘Chak De India.’ These films are modelled after Kiran Bedi or Jhansi Ki Rani prototypes, remodelling the male macho under a female garb. In a man’s world a woman who acts and looks like a man has greater acceptance than a feminist. She is feared, for she can be foul- mouthed and ill-tempered, but, for a cause. ‘Tejaswini,’ ‘Andha Kanoon,’ ‘Vijayshanti’ and even the ‘Naagin’ series of films fit a different typecast where the self- suffering woman is transformed into the role of Durga to become a ‘Chingari’ or ‘Damini,’ once again evoking a mythical mould.
Ye kahan aa gaye hum As films on organised crimes, terrorism, violence and corruption become potent vehicles for commercial success, and the hero with six pack abs acquires larger than life stature, women’s roles and their clothes are reduced to irreverence on screen. The narrative of the tawaif is substituted by a 5 minute raunchy item number girl. The vamp and dancer all are rolled into one body, a biological object, not a woman, not a person. The heroine and her primary role in the film is confined to be an eye-candy. Around the 80s, there came a time when some renowned women directors brought women centric films-- Vijaya Mehta, Sai Paranjape, Arpana Sen, and Kalpana Lajmi made some meaningful cinematic studies of women characters. Also, some directors from the parallel cinema movement offered sensitive portrayals of women protagonists. ‘Bhumika’, ‘Umrao Jaan’,’Maya Memsaab’, ‘Arth’, ‘Paroma’, ‘36 Chowranghee Lane’, ‘Bandit Queen’, ‘Chandni Bar’, ‘Rudaali’ and ‘Fire’ are some of the films that explored a woman’s world to offer her perspective on life. ‘Paroma’ and ‘36 Chowranghee Lane’ were exceptional films for the subject matter they handled. Some of these films earned critical acclaim but none became a blockbuster. Which proves, in the last one century the audience has not been prepared by our filmmakers to appreciate woman centric themes. No wonder, we do not have a single film based on female bonding. Women are undergoing tremendous pressure; their role is redefined by their financial emancipation and breaking up of family structure. Yet, the concerns and issues related to their lives have escaped our mainstream cinema. There are no women comedians, it is assumed women lack sense of humour and going by their screen version, women can’t be intelligent or witty. The largest film industry of the world does not fund a single project to study gender based cinema viewers. FICCI sponsors an annual study of entertainment industry, but their study remains confined to the economics of it all. Bollywood enjoys tremendous influence on the Indian society. Its refusal to record women’s role in the changing social order results in re-assertion of the regressive. Films like ‘Cocktail’, and ‘Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi’, made by so –called progressive directors who want the small town woman to remain locked in her self- negating existence by portraying on screen supremacy of Meera( over Varonica) in ‘Cocktail’ and Taani Gupta’s decision to opt for a husband she does not love over a lover she
adores (for the sake of juvenile morality, both turn out to be the same
man!) in ‘Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi,’ says it all.
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