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Uncomfortable spotlight Unrest in uniform |
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Punjab Chiefs’ Association party to Lieutenant-Governor
Pakistan apprised of LoC concerns
Changes in school education
Brit-Asian cinema documenting flux
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Uncomfortable spotlight Britain’s
Prime Minister David Cameron has stolen the spotlight from the Commonwealth summit by visiting Jaffna. Not only is this the first visit by a foreign Head of Government to the Tamil-dominated area since Sri Lanka became independent, it also highlighted the human rights issues that the Sri Lankan government would rather sweep under the carpet. Indeed, Sri Lankan Tamils, holding pictures of their relatives surrounding Cameron’s car, became a poignant reminder of the deaths of thousands of civilians in Jaffna, especially in the last days of the bitter war between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan army. According to the UN estimates, over 40,000 civilians were killed. Both Sinhalese and Tamils dispute the figure, and both sides committed atrocities. However, the overwhelmingly Sinhalese army is widely blamed for the vast majority of deaths and disappearances. Prime Minister Cameron also visited the office of a Tamil newspaper which has lost its staff members and has suffered from arson at its printing presses and met the new Chief Minister of Jaffna. Naturally, the British Premier’s visit to Jaffna has caused much discomfort to his host, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who has swept into the highest office in Sri Lanka on the strength of his victory over the LTTE. Rajapaksa had hoped to focus on the economic development of the country which has picked up in recent years, and on other projects it plans for the future rather than its past. However, it is the past that has cast a shadow on the normally placid Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) meet. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Chandra Ramgoolam and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have all kept away from the summit, and other countries have raised the issue of human rights violations not only in the past, but also at present. Prime Minister Cameron met his Sri Lankan host after the Jaffna visit, and both had “frank” discussions. He has announced that he will push for a UN-led investigation into allegations of war crimes and human rights abuses, committed during the 2009 war and after unless Sri Lanka institutes an independent inquiry by March next year. Rajapaksa must realise that the past will continue to affect the future till those who committed atrocities are not brought to book.
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Unrest in uniform A
strike threat by policemen is unusual, dangerous and worrisome, even if it is not the way civil employees go about it. Haryana policemen have conveyed their resentment to the government by going on fast and observing a “black
Diwali” without being absent from duty. They cannot act like Haryana Roadways employees, who went on strike for two days, causing a loss to the exchequer and inconvenience to the travelling public, thus forcing a weak-kneed government to bend and put on hold the transport policy they opposed for being pro-private sector. The police is supposed to be a disciplined force and it cannot resort to such steps. Yet the political leadership should not be indifferent to the simmering discontent within the force. It seems Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s advisers did not do their home work properly since employees are rejecting the supposedly please-all announcements made at the Gohana rally. Instead of addressing the Haryana policemen’s demand for pay parity with their counterparts in Punjab, Chandigarh and Himachal Pradesh, the officials concerned wrongly calculated that an interim relief of Rs 2,000 and a risk allowance of Rs 5,000 would settle the issue. The policemen have rejected this. Even the salary of Rs 28,000 paid to a constable in Punjab compared to Rs 15,000 in Haryana is not commensurate with the demands made on him and the tough work culture he operates in. The absence of fixed duty hours and holidays denies a policeman a normal family life, an emotional support system. The VIP he guards often ill-treats him, forcing him to do menial jobs. There is usually no provision of basic amenities like drinking water and toilets at places he is posted. Being usually under-staffed, policemen are overworked and denied proper rest and sleep, which tells on their physical and mental health. No wonder a policeman tends to be rude in his dealings with people. It is imperative to improve the lot of the policemen at the lower level and treat them with the respect they deserve.
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The duties and responsibilities of Indian Civil Servants are, indeed, to be looked at from a somewhat altered standpoint at the present day. There is one thing on which the majority of Indian Civil Servicemen also lay stress, that is, that their duties and responsibilities have become more onerous and they require greater support and more indulgent treatment. What is required of them at the present time is greater adaptation to the changed conditions.
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Punjab Chiefs’ Association party to Lieutenant-Governor A highly interesting and picturesque function came off on the afternoon of Saturday, the 15th November, when the Punjab Chief’s Association gave a Garden Party at the Chief’s College grounds to meet His Honour Sir Michael Francis O’Dwyer,
F.C.S.I., I.C.S, Lieutenant-Governor and Lady O’Dwyer. His Honour was presented with the following Address. During the 20 years of Your Honour’s absence from the Punjab time has worked great changes in its social, economic and political conditions which could have escaped Your Honour’s observation. Despite all these changes, Your Honour will be pleased to find that we have steadfastly followed in the footsteps of our forefathers in unswerving loyalty to the Government and devotion to our benign sovereign. In his felicitous reply to the Address, His Honour went on to observe: One thing, however, I am sure, has not changed viz., the devotion of the people of the Punjab and their natural leaders to the Crown and their loyalty to the British Government. The Punjab has rightly been called the spear-head of the Indian Empire.
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Pakistan apprised of LoC concerns
Pakistan
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Foreign Affairs Adviser, Sartaj Aziz, arrived in Delhi on November 10 to participate in the 11th Asia-Europe Meeting of Foreign Ministers. External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid met the Pakistani envoy on November 12 and expressed Delhi’s disappointment with the manner in which Pakistan had conducting itself on various crucial issues. For starters, Khurshid made it very clear to Sartaj Aziz that peace and tranquility on the Line of Control was one of the most important confidence-building measures which had been regrettably ignored by the Pakistan Government and its armed forces. Starting in mid-January 2013 the border incidents had been described as the worst bout of fighting in the region in nearly 10 years. Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said that a total of 136 ceasefire violations had been reported in 2013 alone, the highest in the past eight years. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had two brief meetings with his Pakistani counterpart on October 5 and 11 in New York when these border violations were specifically mentioned by Dr. Manmohan Singh and requested Nawaz Sharif to rein in the Pakistani forces and ensure peace on the Line of Control. Regrettably, there has been no progress in the matter. The attitude of Nawaz Sharf towards the border violations has come in for serious doubt. While returning from his visit to Russia and China, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told media persons on his special aircraft that he was disappointed with the Pakistan Prime Minister since it was specifically agreed at the New York meetings that peace and tranquility should be maintained on the border. Sartaj Aziz briefly met Dr. Manmohan Singh on November 13 as a matter of courtesy. Manmohan Singh did not say anything else to Sartaj Aziz since Salman Khurshid had already made it clear that for meaningful talks with India, Pakistan should demonstrate its good faith and behaviour on the Line of Control. Sartaj Aziz had another agenda since he met as many as four delegations of Kashmiri secessionist leaders at the Pakistan High Commission on November 10. The two factions of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Syed Ali Shah Geelani took part in the discussions held at the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi. Pakistan’s attitude towards India on basic issues has not undergone any change. In respect of India as well as America Pakistan’s attitude has been inscrutable. The case of the death of the Pakistan Taliban chief, Hakimullah Mehsud, in a drone attack carried out by America is a clear example. Mehsud was an agent of al-Qaida and was responsible not only for the attacks on the NATO troops but also the audacious bombing at New York’s Time Square. Pakistan summoned the American Ambassador and gave him a dressing down over the drone attack and killing of Hakumullah Mehsud. A Western diplomat commented that any normal country would be celebrating the drone attack but Pakistan remained confused. Pakistan depends on America for financial support, while resenting the American strategy in the region, notably over Afghanistan and over America’s warm tie-up with India. Intriguingly, the Pakistani Army issued a condemnation of the drone attack on Hakumullah Mehsud. It was revealed that when Nawaz Sharif visited Washington soon after he became the Prime Minister last year, he quietly agreed to the continuance of drone strikes in the lawless Waziristan area. The Pakistan Army Chief, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, is nearing the end of his term and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has the onerous task of finding his successor. In the interim period, he does not feel confident enough to go in for any initiatives towards peace with India. Shyam Saran, former Foreign Secretary during the time of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, recently disclosed that Nawaz Sharif had sent a messenger to Rao conveying that India would see a qualitative change in the situation on the ground. This was with a particular reference to cross-border terrorism then afflicting Kashmir and the continuing violence along the Line of Control. Fast track to July 2013 and Shahryar Khan came to Delhi, again as the Pakistan Prime Minister’s special envoy. And now Sartaj Aziz has come, bearing more or less the same message. The sequence of events is different but the constant factor of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif being the same all speaks of one thing that nothing has changed in Pakistan and there is no indication of anything happening in the foreseeable future. In this context, the recent revelations of Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s special envoy to the US, are an eye-opener. According to Haqqani, President Barack Obama secretly told Pakistan in 2009 that he would nudge India towards negotiations on Kashmir in lieu of it ending support to terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba and Taliban but Islamabad rejected the offer. The secret letter was written by Obama to the then President, Asif Ali Zardari, and the letter was hand delivered by his then National Security Adviser, Gen (retd) James Jones. Obama wrote in the letter that America was willing to consider Pakistan as its long-term strategic partner. Obama told Zardari that fighting India through proxy groups like Lshkar-e-Toiba was not sustainable any more. Haqqani had written much more about the futile efforts of As Salman Khurshid pointed out to Sartaj Aziz, Pakistan has to demonstrate its bona fides by putting an end to the large number of incidents on the LoC. It is known that these incidents are meant to provide cover for the infiltration of terrorists from Pakistan and occupied Kashmir into Jammu and Kashmir. Nawaz Sharif in coordination with Parvez Kayani has to stop this on the Line of Control. Till then, India has to be on guard as usual on the Line of Control and elsewhere.
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Changes in school education The
winds of change are sweeping through the corridors of the school education system. But amidst this plethora of wonderful changes, there is one that rings alarm bells. Students are completely isolated from the social reality that exists around them. There is now a lack of compassion and concern among the more privileged children for those less fortunate. Years ago, in the school where I was teaching, the biggest annual event was the Diwali eve dinner and social. Children of the two senior classes would dress up in exquisite clothes, arrange a spectacular meal and exchange expensive presents. One year, just before the event, six of the mess employees were killed in a jeep accident. Without a moment’s hesitation, the Headboy and the Headgirl went up to the Headmaster and asked for the dinner and social to be cancelled. They also asked for permission to set up a benefit fund for the victims’ families. Recently, in another school, an elaborate fashion pageant had become the most eagerly awaited annual event. A day before the event in this particular year, a terrible natural disaster struck the nation. When the Senior Managment Team met to take a decision regarding the pageant, the Headboy opposed its cancellation on the ground that the children had spent upwards of fifty thousand rupees each on their outfits. The Headgirl’s argument was equally cynical. “We didn’t know any of the victims. Why should we go into mourning for them?” Where did we go wrong? Is it the curriculum which makes no provision for the teaching of any moral and ethical values or is it the lack of sensitivity on the part of our teachers? In 1987 a young teacher in my school gave each of her children a terracota piggy bank. She gave me one and kept one for herself. The understanding was that we would each give up something during the week, and put the money into their piggy banks. Just before Diwali these were broken open and the money served to bring some additional cheer into the lives of the subordinate staff. Years later, the teacher received a letter from a
former student: “I do not have a piggy bank. But I have just received my first salary. Will you add this to your Diwali fund?” There was a cheque for a hundred dollars. Could something be done in our curriculum or our teachers’ training programmes to bring such sensitivity back into school education? But perhaps I am barking up the wrong tree. Perhaps compassion and concern, like decency and humility, are now obsolete words and do not have any place in our lives.
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Brit-Asian cinema documenting flux No
other medium has narrated the British Asian’s struggle for survival in the UK more precisely than the British-Asian cinema. Asian-themed films have vigorously voiced the Brit-Asian community’s feelings, sufferings and the issues they have been facing in their daily lives — socio-political segregation, racism, identity crisis, sexism, male dominance, women’s issues, generation and cultural clash, and arranged and forced marriages. The Asian themed films, rather low on budget, have not only been commercially successful, but have also gained critical acclaim. They have succeeded, in an inadvertent manner, underlining similarities between the loud Punjabi and the British, with their proverbial stiff upper lip. Britain boasts of being one of the finest multicultural countries in the world, where the migrated, coloured people like South-Asians have been living with a sense of freedom and equality. The reality could be quite the opposite of this claim. The communities, mostly Punjabis( Indian and Pakistani) and Gujaratis, who migrated from the region in the 1950s and 60s, had to experience a very segregated social structure — they faced racism on the basis of skin colour, religion, cultural symbols and attire —like the turban of the Sikh men and salwar kameez of the Punjabi women. Then, there was a cultural clash within the family with western influences entering Asian homes and the resistance to maintain the village culture they had left behind in the 50s and 60s. It was towards the mid 80s that, for the first time the Asian community began to look at the peculiarity of their social strife through their own cinema, offering a pungent mix of freakishness of the Asian family that was both tragic and comic.
Racism, gender and homosexuality The Oscar nominated “My Beautiful Launderette”(1985) illustrates the British reality of the 80s, during Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government. The film represents the time, when the idea of jingoistic nationalism and patriotism was getting rekindled. Written by well-known mixed-race British author Hanif Kureishi and directed by Stephen Frears, the film diligently explores the problems of classism and racism in the UK. The middle-class business people including Brit-Pakistani and British white own the very similar interests and issues; thus, they often remain engaged in parties and meetings without any discrimination against each other. However, blue-collared British working-class feels envious and has ill-will towards the Brit-Asian’s rise to the middle class. They are begun to be seen as racist thugs. The film addresses the gender prejudice, which isn’t so uncommon among the South-Asians. On the other hand, interracial homosexual relationship, which is forbidden by both British and Asian societies, is also captured very explicitly. Both Omar and Johnny are engaged in an intimate relationship that challenges their respective orthodox cultures. Nasser’s brother Hussain insists that he leave UK to go back home, in Pakistan. However Naseer privileges the Britishness, he says, “...that country (Pakistan) has been... by religion...it’s a little heaven here.” That was perhaps the reason, many Asians who went to UK to earn money, never returned home. All about Punjabi women
Gurinder Chadha introduced the Punjabi family to the international audience with her multiple theme narratives with great verve. Her critically acclaimed, “Bhaji on the Beach “(1992) invokes Birmingham based Asian women’s problems rather comically. The film, co-written by renowned screen-writer and actress, Meera Syal, explores the cultural conflict and racism, at the same time it examines almost all the spheres of Brit-Asian women’s lives. Most of the leading characters in the film are either fed-up or frustrated with their monotonous family and working lives. The young woman Harshida, at the receiving end of racial bias, is paranoid about getting pregnant with a black guy. “Couldn’t she find men in our own community? It’s not about colour. It’s about culture,” reflects compulsions of hypocrisy within the community. While it captures the brutal reality of racist Britain at a service station where some white youngsters abuse them and spit at the back of Simi, the sensitive issue of matrimonial disputes and domestic violence are balanced against the larger social issues. Ginder is looking for some respite from her traumatic married life, a victim of an abusive husband. The kind of tedious and medieval lifestyle Asian women have been carrying-on in the UK is contrasted by a woman visiting them from Bombay, who finds their attire old-fashioned, keeping India of the 60s alive in the UK. When these women see white people enjoying on the beach, it stirs many questions in their minds. Love-cum arranged marriage
The hilarious narrative of “Bend it Like Beckham“(2002), another of Gurinder Chadha’s films, offers a panoramic view of the traditions of a Punjabi Sikh family, living in west London. The conservative Brit-Sikh value system— arranged marriage, family above all and the honour of family, is in danger of collapse by their younger daughter, Jess (Jasminder Bharma), who falls in love with soccer. She is inspired by David Beckham and has his posters and jersey decorating her bedroom walls. She wants to emulate his prowess in the game, but is kicked for not being domesticated and feminine by her family. The film focuses on the Brit-Asian parents’ desperations who expect their children to repeat the lives they had lived. Jess’s parents, particularly her mother, wants her to be a well-cultured girl and cook “aloo-gobhi and round round chapattis.” The way Asian diaspora celebrate their marriage rituals is presented realistically through the marriage ceremonies of Pinky, the older sister. Similarities are drawn with the white families, Jules’ mother insists that she stop playing football and find herself a boyfriend. Intercultural communication and cultural shocks are the additional aspects. It astounds all of Jesse’s co-players from different ethnicities in a dressing room when she explains who she could marry as per her parents’ instruction, only an Indian boy not a white, black and not under any circumstances a Muslim, which defines Asian stereotyping. The film depicts a popular way of getting married among the Asians, which is love-cum-arranged marriage as Pinky, finally gets married to a person she loves, with the consent of her parents. Cultural clash and identity crisis Ayub Khan-Din’s semi-autobiographical “East is East” (1999) portrays generation and cultural conflict within a mixed-race family living in a north England town, Salford, in the early 70s.
George (Zahir) Khan, played brilliantly by Om Puri is a hypocrite, feudal, Asian father, who himself has been re-married to a British with an Irish Catholic background, Ella Khan, yet he wants his mixed race offspring to follow a proper Pakistani and Islamic identity, for instance speaking Urdu at home, going to the Mosque and reciting holy Quran. Above all he forces his boys to marry only Pakistani Muslim girls. But his children want British- style independent lives. They see themselves more British than Pakistani. A significant topic of repatriation of immigrants is taken into a brief consideration with one of George’s neighbors, who is a hardcore follower of Conservative politician Enoch Powell, who delivered the anti-immigration speech in 1968, which became known as the ‘river of blood’ speech. The sequel “West is West” (2011), came more than a decade later, the narrative begins some five years after “East is East” ended. It was based on a real trip Ayub Khan-Din took to Pakistan when he was a boy. In the film George took his youngest unruly son to Pakistan to help him understand his roots. The film becomes memorable by the meeting of George’s abandoned wife of thirty years who stands for traditional values and notions of self-sacrifice, patience, and commitment towards family, despite her bitterness, and that of George’s English wife. Both learn to accept each other by forgiving the man they both loved. Sarah Gavron’s directorial debut “Brick Lane”(2007) is poetic in exploring the stifled desires and pent-up feelings of a Muslim woman, Nazneen, who migrated to England from Bangladesh as a teenager after getting arranged married to a man, Chanu, almost double her age. The film was adopted from Monika Ali’s controversial novel of the same name.
Reverse migration Adapted from Hanif Kureishi’s short story, the film “My Son the fanatic “(1997) directed by Udayan Prasad gives an insight into Brit-Muslim’s second generation’s anti-western stance and their urge to resurrect Islamic fundamentalism among the Brit-Muslims. The narrative deals with a conflict between a liberal father, Parvez, who is satisfied with the idea of Britain and his son Farid, who sees Britain full of immorality, corruption and sins. Farid ends his engagement with British white girl Madeleine because he believes she doesn’t fit into the Islamic culture. ‘‘They live in pornography and filth and tell us how backward we are’’, he turns downs the English community. But, the most humanising tale of the Asians living in holes like frightened pigeons comes from “Brothers in Trouble”, ( 1995) a brilliantly realistic film on the plight of smuggled, illegal workers brought to England in the 60s, who struggle to save some money to send back home while living under constant fear of being caught and deported. Their tale of inhuman exploitation and humanising association with a white girl makes this film grow beyond the bracket of a Brit-Asian cinema. The struggle of its three-dimensional characters is universal.
Changing identities The Brit-Asian films made in the initial phase were issue-based, like the Oscar nominated “My Beautiful Launderette”(1985), written by Hanif Kureishi. This was followed by Ayub Khan Din’s screenplay for “East is East”(1999) and “West is West,”(2011). The portrayal of the Asian migrant family in these films was dark. Gurinder Chadha’s films, co –authored with Mira Syal, offer an all-embracing warm and affectionate tone of the cultural strife experienced by the Punjabi migrant community. Post 9/11 the Brit-Asian community has fragmented along religious lines, between Muslims and non-Muslims. The second and third-generation British-Asian film makers, from non-Muslim backgrounds, are inclined to make genre films. But, writers and film-makers from Muslim backgrounds find their personal stories are of ever-greater interest.
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There are the official changes in the form of the RTE, which promise to bring in free and compulsory education for the underprivileged. There are the changes like computer-aided education which have made classroom learning far more interesting. There are changes in the curriculum which provide for less of rote learning and more of understanding and application of concepts. It is an exciting time for both teachers and students.
